Full Circle

[Eidolon]

 
Kasimir & Chakai

He’d been putting off this moment for weeks. Had even considered avoiding it all together. Whenever the idea crossed his mind, anger roiled in his gut black as the Dark One’s pit and froze any last vestiges of compassion; of trying to understand. Or worse, trying to forgive. On those days he found solace in drink, in women, and in bloody duels. The coin flew steady, and his scars were few. Already he had carved a name for himself, and men sought him out to slap down their money and test their merit. Most times Kas won. When he did not, there were always his other two vices to fall back on.

Still, that heavy thought hung like a blade, always above his head. His father’s door opened and closed from time to time; his mother, Zara, the healer. Never the new servant, Mila; Chakai would not stomach a stranger seeing him in such an ill state. And never Kasimir, either. Though his eyes seemed ever drawn to that solid portentous door. He fancied death waited beyond, mostly when he was drunk. Shadows and mist and sweet-sick death to choke him of his freewill. His mother never broached the subject of visitation, but he often saw her gaze flick away when he had been staring too-long at that bloody door.

Time crept forward to a tense routine; a dragging march, and endless. The habitual became a cage that itched his bones even in content moments, and Zara’s question haunted his thoughts when they were idle. Invaded dreams. What he wanted had coalesced into something distant and adventurous; hazy, unformed, epic. What he knew he didn’t want lay in every corner of this house. In every young man who came courting his sister. In every banal evening he spent with Kat and her family. And every night he took out his frustrations on Ebou Dar’s underbelly. Slipping a little more recklessly each and every time.

Until something snapped. Or frayed. Or resolved.

Heat travelled his arm as he turned the door-handle, like some light-forsaken beast dwelled within. Which was not so far from the truth of Kas’s mind. Inside it was dark but for a few candles, and stifling like the air permeated the fever of dying. His father lay in the bed, nothing but bundled shadow. Light, was he sleeping? Had he finally forced himself to pass such a dreaded threshold, only to have to leave because the old man slept? The blankets rose and fell steady but faint, like the breath in those lungs had utterly diminished from the man Kas remembered as his father. There was no strength here. Just age; and even that slipping like it neared finale.

Kasimir frowned, pushed back his dark hair, scrubbed his chin. I tried. I bloody tried. The door was not so far; he could steal away and be gone before his father even stirred. Even knew he had ever tried.

“Boy?”

His heart sank. He cleared his throat, fortified himself for battle. “Father.”

One step closer, two. Hands clasped behind his back, expression serious as the grave. How apt.

“Boy? Boy? Is it you?” Words ended in coughing, then shuffling as his father tried to sit up. Like he could not bear for his son to see him prone. A little too late to worry about that. “My stick. I need my stick.”

“You’re sick, father,” he mumbled, wondering belatedly if the man was even lucid. Perhaps it was just stubborn pride. Or something even more innate; those father-son bonds that had always held them at a staunch and formal distance. Seeing the man in bed was strangely and discomfortingly intimate. He was so thin, so weak, under those coverlets. So far removed from the man Kas remembered. And he was still struggling to sit up. Was he expecting aid from his only son? If so, Kas felt no sympathy. His gut twisted satisfaction, but it dissolved to sickness at his own coldness. This man – this shell that had once been his formidable father – was too frail to hate.

Silence stretched. He could never think of anything he wanted to say. Nothing he wanted to share, to reveal of himself. Even the purpose that had driven him here dried on his tongue. Chakai had stopped struggling, wilted, pressed the heel of his hand into his eyes. Frustration roiled off him in waves. When his hand fell, he stared up at the ceiling. “The blade, boy. Bring it here to me now.”

Blade? Black eyes traversed the shadows until they fell upon the dark planes making up his father’s armour.

“I will bequeath it to you. A man needs a sword, and a father- -”

“I don’t want it.”

“Bring it to me, boy.”

“I’m Altaran, father. Not Seanchan. I can’t even use it.”

A long painful wheeze issued from the man’s lips, like a silent scream, and Kas almost regretted rebuffing the kindness. Almost. It was too late, far too late, for such meaningless offerings. Ominous footsteps brought him closer, until he was kneeling by his father’s bed. Seething. “And do you even think to wonder why? How many times did I beg you teach me, father? How many times did I sit at your knee – imploring your attention? You gave me nothing.”

“I..I..” the words were choking him. This close, in obscure candlelight, Kas could see the sweat-slicked skin, the pinked and hollowed eyes. And he couldn’t quite define the feelings that hit him, except that they were too bloody strong to endure – so that he felt like bracing his fist against that frail, frail body to crumble it to dust for every careless word, every dismissive gesture. Light! Get a grip!

“What happened to you?” Light. He moved back, sat on the floor like a child, legs folded, head in his hands. He shouldn’t have come. No reconciliation to find, no closure, just poker-red pain and a gut-load of regret. He needed air. No, he needed a stiff drink and a forgiving cloud of haze to forget. A year, and Chakai had fallen so far. He was not old enough to die. There was no connection to make between the man Kas had left and the man he had come back to find. Had Malaika done this? Had her presence unravelled everything Chakai had knotted so tight for so long? He guessed he would never know. And that he’d better get used to never knowing.

“I can’t stay here.” A sigh drew through his lips as the admission finally seeped out. He bent forward, elbows pressed into his knees, fingers clasped and resting against his chin. His gaze bore a hole through the floor. “I don’t want a wife. I don’t want children. Or any of that banality. This. Place. Is. Suffocating.”

Croaking came from the bed above. It took him a while to realise it was laughter. Sad, tragic laughter; but laughter all the same. Defensiveness seared fire, but though Kas straightened he also held back his tongue. Grit his teeth. Balled his fists. After a moment he softened, like the anger was too much to sustain. Zara’s words haunted him. Was he really so much like his father? Darkness closed in. He didn’t know. Chakai’s life before was mirrors and smoke, imagination and dreams and supposition, gleamed from impossibly meagre scraps of nothing.

Laughter dissolved to coughing, wheezing, and then hard-won words: “The Wheel Weaves as it Wills and makes a mockery of my life, that it should send me a son like you.” The words burned Kas’s ears, stoked the dull pain of failure. He couldn’t cope with these emotions, couldn’t fathom a way to either release them or beat them off without waves and waves of regret. His first instinct was to run, slam the door for the last time behind him, and let those words chase him to the edges of the world. A son like you. But his body betrayed him. Numbness weighted his legs like lead, and he buried his face in his hands. On the bed above, Chakai ‘s laboured breaths punctuated the silence. “So. Like. Me. And so. Different.”

“We’re nothing alike.” He ran his hands over his head, stared into darkness. For a while there was silence; a horrible, burdensome silence. Even his father’s breathing grew low, and for a morbid moment Kas wondered if he was going to die here and now, with the last things they’d ever said to each other insults. Despite himself, he felt a cold sliver of fear; a desperation that that should not happen. But it would be just like the old man, to leave me with such regrets. His legs slid out, lying flat against the floor; his head rested against the wall.

“I was morat’torm, boy. In Seander. And I would never have come here if they had not broken my leg.”

“The beasts.” He’d heard this story before, a dozen and more times; of how the creatures his father loved and trained had turned on him, and ended his career. How Chakai had then crossed the ocean.

Had met Kas’ mother.

“No.” Chakai sighed, painfully. “Not the torm. Never my beloved torm. The Seanchan, boy. In recompense for my violations. I never would have taken a wife if not for my leg, never had a family. Glory, duty, honour. These were the things that mattered to me.”

Seanchan. Violations. The words swam. “Why did they punish you?”

“Not the point, boy. The point is I understand why you need to leave.”

It was as close to permission, as a blessing, as Kas was likely to get. He should take it and preserve it and move on. But he repeated the question, quieter: “Why did they punish you, father?”

Silence; again. Seconds trickled to minutes, until the brief glimmer of hope was consumed by the darkness.  A sigh whispered past his lips, and he pulled himself to his feet. This conversation was over, and he should take what positives he could from it. His fingers grasped the door handle, twisted; Chakai’s last words whispered from his bed.

“Family, Kasimir. Family undid me. They took Malaika while I away on duty, and I never believed she was what they told me. Damane. It was an unhealthy obsession, and it ruined me in the end. Leave, if you must. But stay away from Tar Valon. Stay away from her.”

Kas closed the door tight behind him.