Hubris - 23. The Lights of Metropolis

He shouldered the door open, stumbling into the dim recesses of the house. Even though night had fallen by the time Crowe made it back from the cave, Petras had drawn the curtains. These days he'd taken to pulling them closed, smacking the younger practitioner's hand when he tried to open them.

Crowe felt his hip slam into something - a chair or table, something heavy and made of wood - but he was too tired, too numb, too done to truly take notice of the pain. Petras' lean black-clad form rested in the armchair before the fire with his head slumped forward in deep sleep. The practitioner lurched to a stop before the old man. His eyes burned white in the gloom. Burned white with rage, burned white with hate. He glared intently at his tutor, willing the older sorcerer to awaken and face his wrath.

Crowe had paid a heavy price for striking out against his master - he'd only paid for it twice - and tonight he would gladly pay for his digressions. As long as the old bastard knows how I feel about him.

His tutor must have sensed his rage for he stirred, yawning, stretching, raising his arms high above his head. He blinked at Crowe. “You're back,” he croaked in a voice that said he could care less.

Crowe did not reply. Not at first. He simply couldn't. Just when he thought he had the words shaped in his mind, the pent up rage he'd stored over the years for his tutor swung in and obliterated it. Later, when the anger cleared, he would feel a deep and intense shame that would leave him curled on the floor and hating himself, but for now he wanted nothing more than to obliterate the man before him.

He stood with his feet rooted to the spot, his shoulders tense, his hands clenched into fists. He shook so hard it was impossible not to hear his teeth knocking together even with the house rattling all around them. The shadow coalesced around him, forming a cloak. White-hot fire threatened to explode out of him and wreak havoc. He’d felt its sting before many days after the past several days. A heavy silence - correction, a silence that was heavier than usual - had formed between them, filling the young practitioner with a dread that would not settle. It was a familiar dread and yet it always left him feeling as if he was standing on uneven ground with a divide that split it down the middle. He tried to recall a time when the older practitioner had ever expressed warmth or love to him. He tried to think of a time when Petras had done anything more than teach him, make him kneel down and pray, or strike him. In the whirlwind of his growing fury it was impossible to think straight.

“You bastard!” he seethed. He wanted to say worse but it was the word that came out. “You just left me out there! I fell out of the tree…I could have snapped my neck…and when I looked up you were gone!”

The old man said nothing. He merely watched Crowe, his expression utterly remote, his eyes like glaciers. The young sorcerer knew he should shut up, knew he should back away before he said anything Petras would make him regret…Petras was unpredictable. He was calm now, but at any moment, if triggered by the right word, he would jump to his feet in a flash and strike the practitioner. Or do something worse. He was far stronger than his narrow frame suggested. But now that he’d erupted like a volcano, there was no stopping.

He turned, sweeping his arm over the top of a table, scattering several stacks of thick leather bound volumes on the floor - all from Petras from where he set them on the table and forgotten about them; Crowe had long since given up trying to put them back on the shelf. Something made of glass shattered. He thrust his hands into Petras’ face. Hands swollen and darkened purple with frostbite. “Look at my hands! I could have died…I could have frozen to death. Do you even care?”

“But you didn’t.” The old man’s lip twitched in the barest hint of a smile. “You never do…no matter how much I might want you to…no matter how much better I think it would be for us all…if you just died.” This time his lips widened into an unmistakable grin, as if the thought of Crowe’s death could bring him no greater peace.

Petras' words froze the practitioner to the core. It stilled his rage, piercing it, knocking his resolve to the ground. If how one felt could change appearances, Crowe would have turned into a small boy huddled on the floor. The flame in his eyes died. “So why not just kill me then?” His voice cracked and wavered with despair. “Why keep me around for seventeen years when you could have disposed of me, left me out in the cold as a babe?”

Petras scoffed as if the young sorcerer was an idiot who had missed the point entirely; perhaps he was. “Because it is not the way of the cycle. If I am to change things once and for all, I must do what must be done. That means keeping you around. That means teaching you how to become a man, how to survive, how to make tough decisions…even when it pains you to make them.”

Crowe shook his head with barely contained frustration. “You're mad, old man!”

Petras cackled. The sound was dry and throaty, reminding him of stories of horrid stories of old Crones who lived in the woods; they lived off the flesh of lost children. “You might think I'm mad…living with me might have come close to driving you mad…but deep down inside you also know I'm not a raving lunatic. It's why you haven't suffocated me in my sleep more than a time or two. Trust me, I know…”

There was something deep in his eyes, eyes the same shade of dark blue as Crowe's own that said he did know. A knowing that made the young practitioner feel naked and small, as if he had once stood where Crowe had stood, the roles reversed. It was an eerie feeling that frightened Crowe in a way he could not say. My life is not my own. It belongs to someone else. It was an odd thought to have but it was the one that ran through his mind over and over again.

“You don't understand yet, but you will,” the old man told him with the assurance of prophecy. For a moment his face softened, shifting into something like pity. “Believe me there will come a day where you will wish you were as ignorant as you are now, for there is a price to knowing the ‘why’ of things. A war sweeps past our doorstep, destroying everything in it's path. The only reason why we have not been discovered yet is because the cycle wills it so…”

The old man talked on and on, droning in and out of coherence. Crowe knew he should walk away while the bastard was distracted, but he could never walk away from Petras no matter how angry he grew at him. A mercy the old man did not deserve.

Petras was right when he said he wasn't entirely insane. When he said he knew what was going to happen the practitioner always believed him because he’d always been right before. It was the no explanation that drove at him like a blade sinking into unyielding flesh. It was the proof of effect without cause; the expectation that he was to follow blindly with no clue as to what end. You’ve told me nothing of yourself or where I’ve come from and yet you expect absolute faith.

“A mistake,” the old man muttered. He looked at Crowe with utter disgust, his lip curling. “You are a mistake…”

Crowe could hold back his fury no longer. He drew in a long whistling breath before unleashing all the words he’d choked down for the past days, weeks, months, years. Cruel, acidic words he would never be able and didn't want to take back. “I hate you! I fucking hate you so much! I wish you would have just killed me because it would be better than this…” He cursed the old man. He told him he wished he was dead. “When you die I hope your soul, what little of one you have left, goes straight to the Black City! I hope you choke on the ashes of Inferno…”

Petras struck him hard enough to turn his head. Crowe wasn’t expecting it. He never did no matter how much he prepared for it. Petras was old and he was going insane as many practitioners did as they aged, but he was still quick and strong. He jumped out of his chair before the young sorcerer could back away. His hand snapped through the hair lightning quick, stinging one side of the practitioner’s face and then the other. He kicked him, stomping the heels of his boots into Crowe’s aching feet. He did not scream, he barely seem to breathe, his face set in a mask of hate, lips peeled back from bared teeth, eyes blazing with white fury.

Somehow Crowe managed to rise to his full height in between blows. He stood nose to nose with the old man. The younger practitioner drew his fist back to land a blow of his own. Before he could take his retribution, the old man’s bony knuckles grazed the side of his head. The blow sent the boy flying back until he slammed into a bookshelf. The bookshelf rocked and groaned. Books tumbled on top of him, pelting him with their thick covers.

Something wet trickled down his face. Dazed, alarms ringing in his buzzing ears, he raised a finger to see what it was; it came back red with blood. He looked up at the old man, stunned, frightened.

Though they were of the same height and build (how can he not be my father or grandfather? how can we not be related in some fashion? any time I ask about where I come from he only answers me with a stony stare and silence) Petras towered above him, the shadows distorting his true height. He looked at Crowe not time not with hate but that same knowing look that always made the young sorcerer feel as though he were made of glass. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you were doing. Don’t think I don’t know who you were with.” The old man spat out the word as if it tasted of acid. “You were in the cave with that boy, Bennett. No matter how many times I tell you to stay away from him, for your own good I might add, you always run back to him.”

“You don’t know anything about him!” the practitioner shouted in defiance. “You just dislike him because I LOVE him. And just when you wait…When you die, once I am free of you, I will leave this place…I will burn to the ground right after I bury you, and I will run away with him and I will never look back…”

This time when Petras struck him, it split his bottom lip.

Even now, even like this, enraged and humiliated something kept him from striking out against the old man. Even now there is a part of you that hopes you can still win his affection. Even just a shred of it. It doesn’t matter what you do…you will never earn his love.

“I know everything about him,” Petras snarled. His cold rage pinned Crowe in place. “I know he will hurt you worse in ways I will never be able to do. You know it yourself deep down inside, thought you have not the courage to admit it. He loves you, cares for you in his own way - the only way a man like him can love - but he doesn’t love you in the way you truly want him to.”

“You don’t know a bloody thing you're talking about!” Crowe spat in Petra’s face, splattering blood across his flesh.

He expected Petras to strike him but the old man was lost in his own tirade; he continued, unabated. “He tells you what you want to hear, revs you up like one of those train engines Tannhaus built. Whispers sweet nothings in your ear. Kisses you just enough to make your skin tingle and your resolve soften…”

How? How do you know these things? You weren’t there. I never saw you. I would have sensed you if you had been. Crowe tried to speak but shock sealed his lips shut.

“But I can see no matter how much I try to convince you, you won't learn.” Petras shook a clenched fist in Crowe's face, silently threatening to strike him again. “It matters not. You know how to wield a staff in a melee fight, but you do not yet know how to channel your mana through one. In order to do so you must first carve one yourself as I have done many times. Each staff is different, no one the same, each bound to you with its own special cord. You will have it done before the sun rises in the morning.” Before the young sorcerer could agree or disagree, Petras seized a fistful of his hair. With the strength of three men he dragged Crowe across the floor of the sitting room.

The practitioner screamed, begging for the old man to let him go, begging for him please to not take him down to the cellar. He hated the dank smell of the place, hated how insects pressed their fat bodies to his flesh, clinging to him, seeking to fulfill alien impulses. He knocked aside furniture, kicking with his feet. A smashed vase shattered on the wooden floorboard, spilling wilted flowers and water darkened with decay. He clawed at Petras' hand, digging his nails into the gnarled flesh for all it was. He didn't have much to dig in, since he’d bitten them down to the quick, but fear and desperation lent him strength. Still, when this did not thwart the old man’s efforts to haul him across the house by the roots of his hair, he resorted to fire. He grabbed Petras' arm and pushed all his fury and all his fear into his hand.

Petras' hand fell away with a cry of pain, his flesh sizzling. He lashed out with a snarl, the toe of his boot connecting with the small of Crowe's back. The impact knocked the wind out of him. Before he could draw in a breath, Petras kicked him again and again, driving his toe in as deep as he could. Each strike made Crowe curl in a bit more on himself until he was so winded he couldn't make a sound. With no fight left in him to give, Petras dragged him easily from the living room into the kitchen.

Crowe heard the crash of the door being yanked open. His heart skipped a beat. He opened his eyes. “No,” he managed to moan weakly. “Please…”

“Light burns brightest when it is eclipsed by darkness,” Petras muttered.

You bastard, the practitioner managed to think, and then he was tumbling down the steps, rolling head over heels. By the time he reached the bottom of the steps he could barely cling to consciousness. Every bone in his body felt as if it had been crushed to sand.

Petras stood in a rectangle of light at the end of a dark tunnel. He looked down at the younger practitioner, his face as impassive as stone. “Do not fear the darkness, fear what is inside you, boy!” he croaked, his eyes wide, almost pleading. “The only true hope of salvation lies in the lights of Metropolis. Look into the darkness and search for Metropolis. You will find it and its light will guide your hand.” He tossed something at the practitioner with an underhand: the tree branch from the aether tree Crowe had literally risked life and limb for to acquire. Something else followed after it with a silver glint: a dagger.

With this final bit of advice the door slammed with a thud that made the darkness vibrate, trapping Crowe in the Void.

No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening - not again. Panic closed around him like a black fist. His breath caught in his throat, coming out in wheezing gasps. He hugged the tree branch for the mere fact it gave him something to hold onto. He imagined this is what it felt like to be lost at sea - he’d never been on a ship before. That feeling that the world had grown unsteady, the ground swaying from side to side beneath him; threatening to knock him off balance, pull him under.

Petras words passed through his mind in a tangled web of riddles and cruel truths. At first glance his jests seemed like the ravings of a mad man, but there was always a core of truth to them. The truth was what hurt the most, was it not?

He prayed to Monad as he would do two years later in a situation that was very similar - sitting naked in a stable, whittling at a tree branch, looking up through the roof into the lights of Metropolis. In the dark of the basement, two years in the past he wasn’t sure how long he prayed before a shimmer of light presented itself. It pulled his eyes upward.

Pools of white celestial light cut through the black, turning the ceiling above his head porous, until it faded completely from view and he could see up into the kitchen, through the kitchen, until he could see the night sky. Until he could see the grand spires of the Eternal City. Its light fell across his skin, warming his skin where he was numb, giving him comfort when there was none to be had. Had he ever once looked up into anything so beautiful? He let the light fill him, let it guide his hand to the dagger, the dagger to the wood. It spoke to him, not so much with a voice, but with the echo of something familiar…a memory? a dream? It was impossible to say. Best not to guess. Best not to wonder.

He began to carve, his movements echoing the actions he would take two years later. (Or is it the other way around, for what are cycles if not a repetition of the past?)

Time, like the ceiling and the dark pocket of a world around him, time became porous. Lost its shape. As long as Metropolis’ light remained fixed on him, as long as it didn’t abandon him as Petras had done so many times - somehow he sensed it wouldn’t until his task was done - Crowe knew he would make it through the night.

He only knew it was morning when the sound of the door crashing against the wall jerked him out of his stupor. All at once Metropolis’ light seeped out of the world, turning the ceiling back into solid wood. Its absence left Crowe feeling bereft. It had not only felt warm, but comforting, like the familiar hand of a loved one on the back of his neck. Had he ever experienced such a touch?

“Crowe? In the name of Monad what has that old bastard done to you!”

The thunder of boots tapping rapidly on the stairs. The feeling of something soft - a blanket or a jacket - being tucked snuggly around his shoulders. Bennett was there, kneeling before him, golden hair glimmering in the dark. Crowe held the tree branch in his hands, his fingers riddled with blisters and splinters from where he’d worked ceaselessly throughout the night, never once stopping. He held up the tree branch, marveling at it, because it was no longer a tree branch. He’d whittled it down to a long thin shaft five feet in length. He’d carved intricate designs…runes and sigils he’d never laid eyes on, never seen in a book or scroll until now…and yet his hands had carved them as if they possessed a memory of their own.

“You’re all bloody. Damn him to the Void!” Bennett growled.

It pleased Crowe to hear the anger in his voice. Real genuine anger. It roughened his voice nicely. “He’s done worse.”

Bennett moved to help him to his feet, hasty to get him out of the cold. The practitioner winced. “Bennett...stop, stop, stop! I need a minute…please!”

Carefully, almost tenderly, the older boy lowered him back on the ground. Slowly he hiked up Crowe’s shirt, exposing his flesh to the chill of the cellar. He cringed visibly at what he saw. “You’re covered in bruises…black bruises. That’s it. We’re taking you to a healer.”

The practitioner shook his head. His forehead was covered in a sheen of cold sweat. “I don’t need to see a healer, I just need to go outside. I’ll be fine in a few days. Can you help me up? I want to go outside.”

“I’ll help you. Hamon’s ash-covered ass, how do you always get yourself in these situations?”

The sorcerer snickered at the use of Hamon’s ash-covered ass. “I’m like a magnet for a disaster. A mistake.”

“Don’t let that old bastard feel your head with lies. You might be a ditz at times, but you are not a mistake.” Bennett planted a particularly wet kiss on his cheek, grinning roguishly. “And if you are a mistake then you’re a mistake I happen to care very much about.”

Last night you told me you loved me. The thought slipped out of Crowe’s mind before he could give it much credence.

They hobbled across the kitchen, into the shadowy recesses of the sitting room. There Petras stood before the door, glaring at them. Glaring at Bennett specifically. He held his staff in hand. The sigils carved into the wood burned with white fire. “You!” he said to Bennett. “How dare you just barge into my house as if you own the place! You are not welcome here!”

“Damn you to the Void!” Bennett’s calloused fingers dug into Crowe’s bruised shoulders hard enough to make the practitioner gasp in displeasure. “Look what you’ve done to him. He’s bloody and bruised all over. He very well could have gotten frostbite thanks to the stunt you pulled last night. He was attacked by wolves…”

Don’t bother, Crowe wanted to tell him. It doesn’t matter what you say, he’ll never listen to you. He’ll never admit he’s wrong. He’s not capable of it.

He couldn’t find the words to speak; not when he needed them the most; not when the halves of his world were circling each other like predators fighting for the prey.

“Say what you want, do want you want, you don’t scare me and it doesn’t matter what you say!” Bennett crossed his arms over his broad chest. He was big enough and tall enough he could look intimidating when he wanted to. “If you think I’m going to leave Crowe in this filthy house with you, then you truly have lost your marbles to the Void.”

The air shifted. The gloom in the house thickened, wrapping around Petras like a black veil. The white core that glimmered deep within his eyes, pulsed and grew until it eclipsed the dark blue of his irises completely. “You might think I’m mad, blacksmith’s apprentice…” The tip of an aether joint bloomed in the dismal confines of the sitting room; Petras took a long drag and blew the smoke at the two boys. “...but I know you. I know everything about you.” A crafty grin split his face in half. “I certainly know you better than that stupid boy you say you so love so much.” His eyes switched to the practitioner long enough to indicate who the “stupid boy you say you love” was. He gave Bennett the same look he’d given the young sorcerer so many times. That look that made Crowe feel as if his flesh were made of water and the bastard could see right through him, his thoughts, his every secret, his soul.

He could see it was starting to affect Bennett.

He glared at Petras, stepping forward until they stood nose to nose. With Bennett here he had the suspicion Petras would not strike him and he was right, for Petras one hand gripped his staff while the other nursed the joint. “You truly are a bastard. I’m not the mistake here, you are. You’re cruel and vile and manipulative and as if that weren’t bad enough you’re fucking insane on top of it. Just you wait. One day I will be free of you and when I am I will know the taste of freedom. And it will not be with fondness or gratefulness that I will feel when I look back and think of you, because you decided not to kill me on behalf of your merciful heart…” He spat out the word merciful with all the disdain he could muster. He turned back to Bennett, pulling at the blacksmith apprentice’s hand. “Let’s go, Bennett.”

Bennett did not move, not even when the practitioner tugged his hand a second time. All the color had drained out of his face. He only had eyes for the wrinkled face of the old man. “What else do you think you know about me?”

“I know you do not love Crowe in the way you think you do,” Petras said. “You don’t even love yourself. How could you, when you hide it from the world? Your father? That stupid girl…what is her name, Delilah?...down in the village…you hide from her too, while also using her to keep up appearances. You use Crowe most of all because you know he is the one person you can be yourself around, without judgment. You like the way he looks at you, with those big blue adoring eyes…” The more Petras spoke the more Bennett seemed to unravel, his lips trembling. Crowe was paralyzed once more by the weight of prophecy. His ears burned with words he didn’t want to hear. Words made worse by the fact they were true.

Petras grinned, revealing white even teeth. He killed the aether joint with a long final drag. He dropped it carelessly to the floor before grinding what was left under the heel of his boot. “Worse yet, Bennett, I know your future. You’ve both talked at length about how you’re going to the great city of Caemyth in the South as soon as I’m gone…”

Bennett and Crowe exchanged wide-eyed looks. How could Petras possibly know this? They’d only discussed these fantasies in private.

The old man pointed a gnarled finger at Bennett. The older boy flinched, taking a step back. His jaw was slack, his mouth open in an O of stupefaction. “Aye, you will see Caemyth and you will fight in the war, but you will also die…In a ditch, your guts leaking out of your belly from cannon shrapnel…”

Crowe had heard enough. He grabbed Bennett’s hand and dug his nails into his flesh until the older boy looked away with a gasp. “Do not listen to him. Come with me.”

Bennett followed dumbly behind him, skirting around the old man as if the mere act of touching him would make his flesh fall off. The practitioner didn’t blame him. Petras had that effect on people. He led Bennett towards the woods. The older boy followed without question. He knew where they were going, where they always went to hold their private council. The pallets were still where they’d left them. Crowe set down the wood they’d gathered on the way in the man made fire pit.

Memories of the other night rose up in his mind, still all too fresh and welcome. He shoved them down, shooting the older boy a look, his mouth downturned in a frown. Bennett sat facing the mouth of the cave, his back turned to him. No matter how hard he tried to ignore them, Petra’s words rang through his head unbidden. How was it the old man knew everything about him - the intimate parts of his life he’d strived so hard to keep private - while he still knew nothing about his tutor?

“Bennett,” he said in a sharper voice than he’d meant to.

“Aye?” came the reply after a long, dreadful minute of silence in which Crowe stood waiting, his heart racing. He knew Bennett needed space to process things…he’d been there himself more than a few times…but he also needed an answer. A deep, ringing panic filled his guts. What he was afraid of he dare not give it name.

“You can’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about…” he started, even as he knew deep in his gut that the words of reassurance were a lie.

“He knew,” Bennett said. His voice sounded deep, hurt. Angry. “Did you tell him anything?”

Crowe flinched as if the older boy had struck him. He fought to keep the hurt out of his voice. “You know I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Everything you have ever said to me, I’ve kept between us.” What he didn’t say was, How could you think that of me? How could you think so low of me?

Petras said nothing.

The practitioner could stand the silence no longer.

“One thing he’s right about for sure is that you are the biggest fucking idiot,” he said with all the vehemence he could inject into his voice. “You always let them come between us, Petras and your father.” It must have worked, for now it was Bennett’s turn to flinch. Crowe didn’t care. The cave was spinning around like a top with him a poor ant trapped inside; his chest felt tight. His eyes stung with tears of pain and rage. Was there nowhere in this world he could go where it didn’t feel like there was a bootheel pressed against his back, pushing him out the door? Once more, Petras’ words echoed in his mind, ringing with the inevitable truth of prophecy.

“Crowe, wait, I’m sorry…” Bennett grabbed the hood of his cloak, pulling him back. “I just don’t know…I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how you live with that raving lunatic.”

“I don’t exactly have a choice,” the practitioner replied bitterly. “He’s the closest thing I’ve ever known to family. Apparently the people of Anneville weren’t lining up to adopt me.”

Bennett scoffed. “You don’t have to stay. Leave.”

”And go where? Petras isn’t entirely insane. He’s right about the war. Right now as we speak torchcoats are probably rounding up practitioners…those they don’t kill they conscript to build Drajen’s bloody railroad track. Is that what you want to happen to me?” It was an ugly, hurtful thing to say, but he was hurting and Bennett not Petras was the cause of it. I wish I could stop loving you. I wish I could walk away…it would make things so much easier.

“I wish the world could see you the way I do,” Bennett said huskily.

He reached up with a beefy arm, brushing aside a stray lock of the practitioner’s hair.

The expression on his face was naked. Vulnerable. The truth of how he felt shining through like the rays of a sun…so why did he always hide it behind a storm of clouds except when they were alone? Crowe wanted to turn away from it but even now he could feel himself being drawn in towards Bennett. He smelled of whiskey and sawdust and smoke. The practitioner’s heart sped up in spite of himself. “How do you see me?”

“Nuthin’ bad, that’s for sure.” Bennett’s breath felt warm on his face. “You’re kind, forgiving. You can be a bit of a ditz sometimes, but you’re also the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

Crowe smirked. “That’s not a high standard to beat around here.”

Bennett laughed. “No, I suppose not. But I do mean it, y’know? I’d be utterly lost without you.” He leaned in, and kissed Crowe on the lips tenderly. “Come back to the cave tomorrow night if you’re feeling better. Let me show you just how beautiful I think you are.”