The
Virtual
Realm

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Last Man Standing

 

 

Hank walked through the evening well into the night, concentrating on where he was going, and thinking about what to say. He was only going back this one time, just to tell the end of the story; and that he had been right.

 

The path to the Valley was almost overgrown, few people ever ventured there, and Hank was alone. Of the Six, he was the only one left walking the Realm. Four had gone home and the other… he hadn’t been able to help.

 

Ironic, really, after saving so many people, he couldn’t save everyone. Ironic as well, considering what had happened after the girls, and Presto and Bobby had left.

 

If he ever had the chance to tell them, they would not have believed it. But that was a mater for the past as he would never go back now. It was over. It was too late to return home, time had passed and the four who had returned would have their own lives. Besides, he didn’t want to go back, not now; not now they’d won.

 

The Army of Darkness was destroyed at long last.

 

Every last Orc had been crushed out of existence, every last Lizardman, and Bullywug, and Frost Giant and Goblin destroyed.

 

Down in the city, his wife was waiting for him, and the Army of Light was already celebrating without their Leader and even though he was desperate to stay with them, there was something he was compelled to do.

 

It was doubtful the one he sought would be willing to speak, after what Hank had done to him, but Hank felt he had to try, at least. He felt the Cavalier was owed that much, in spite of what he had done.

 

He had walked for hours to the Valley of Spirits, the urge to see his former friend once more growing with every step.

 

It was pitch black, and the three moons had not yet risen above the tall mountains that flanked the rift. The torch he held only cast light for a few feet around him, a small pool of pale yellow that made the stones beneath his feet glow. He didn’t stop at any of the tombs or cenotaphs, but carried on further, right to the back, right to the very end cliff and to the solitary Statue that stood there.

 

The Statue hadn’t chanced over the years, it was still the pristine white marble it had always been. The arms held up to the sky as if pleading for release, the Shield still on the right arm. But the head was tilted down to face the ground in shame.

 

And it looked at him, watching him. The Statue may be still, but the spirit inside lived on. Though unable to move for the stone, the eyes still glared at him from their prison, the spirit was still inside, where it had been for the past three years.

 

He faced it for the first time in those years. There was no need for a greeting, but Hank was unable to stop a smile.

 

‘We won,’ he said, lifting his head to look the Statue in the eye. ‘It’s all finished and we won.’

 

‘And is Dungeonmaster pleased?’ The replying voice was cold, and laced with the sarcastic edge it had had in life.

 

Hank laughed.

 

‘I’m pleased! I did what I said I would. We won.’

 

‘So have you come to gloat?’

 

He hadn’t thought of it as gloating. He had come to tell the former Cavalier that it was over, that was all. It was over, Hank had won.

 

‘I didn’t think you liked to gloat,’ said the Cavalier. ‘I thought it was beneath you!’

 

Hank knew that Eric was just trying to annoy him, so he let the sarcasm and the barbed comment pass with a shrug.

 

‘You weren’t always like this,’ said the Cavalier. ‘You changed.’

 

‘You changed more!’

 

Though it was difficult to be sure, the spirit trapped within the Statue seemed to laugh.

 

‘You never listened, and you never cared about what I had to say!’

 

It had been like this the last time he’d been here.

 

‘I still don’t!’ snapped Hank. ‘You were wrong!’

 

Suddenly in his mind was the Question he had always wanted to ask, but never had.

 

He opened his mouth, but paused. He should just turn around and leave. He’d done what he wanted, he had told Eric that he had won, and that was that. There was no reason to linger, and no reason to return. He should go, leave this behind once and for all. He wanted to; but for that Question.

 

‘Why did you stay?’

 

The spirit took a long time to answer.

 

‘I had to, Hank,’ the Cavalier told him eventually. ‘The moment I knew you were going to stay, I had to stay as well.’

 

‘You knew? You knew about my plan?’

 

‘I’m not stupid,’ said the Cavalier haughtily. ‘I know you.’

 

‘But you didn’t tell the others?’

 

‘I tried to stop you from staying.’

 

Hank snorted.

 

‘You should have gone home when you had the chance.’

 

‘But I had to stay,’ replied Hank, the passion in his voice rising. ‘I had to stay to help Dungeonmaster. He needed me.’

 

‘I’m sure he did.’

 

The tone was bitter, and Hank fancied that he heard a note of jealousy in the voice. It didn’t matter now. He had his answer. With a light laugh, he turned as if to leave.

 

‘Is that all?’ asked the Cavalier. ‘After years of waiting, you have nothing else to say? I would have expected another speech!’

 

‘It’s been said before.’ He took one step.

 

‘But did you listen?’

 

Hank turned back

 

‘Did you, Traitor!’

 

The laughter from the Statue cut through him.

 

‘You betrayed first, as I remember!’

 

A small snarled formed on Hank’s top lip, but the Statue remained infuriatingly impassive. Hank hated being reminded about the Cloudbears. But when he next spoke his voice was very quiet.

 

‘I wasn’t the one who opened that Box of Balefire, was I!’

 

The Statue didn’t speak for a long moment, and it was impossible to tell what the spirit inside was going to say. Hank lingered, looking at its still form, the smooth, flawless surface and the fine craftsmanship that had gone into it.

 

It had taken many weeks to recapture the Cavalier after he had escaped, and during that time Hank had arranged for this to be made. He had thought the Cavalier would be killed, either by the angry mob, or by his own hand, but then the Sorcerer had suggested this, and it had seemed a fitting end. He had been a Hero once, after all. A quick death was perhaps a little to easy, as well.

 

‘That was the day it all changed,’ the Cavalier said at last, the voice now wistful. ‘That day.’

 

‘The day you summoned Evil back to the Realm!’ said Hank pointedly.

 

‘I changed as well, on that day. I looked and saw something that day, and what I saw made me sick.’

 

A memory of that terrible day came back to Hank, the group of six young kids huddled around the Dungeonmaster, with the most powerful force of Evil ever to exist in time and space burning behind them: ‘Whatever you do, you must not look apon his face…!’

 

Hank’s breath caught in the back of his throat.

 

‘You looked? You looked at His face?’

 

‘Of course I looked!’ the Cavalier snorted. ‘You know me, I always have to look! And I’m surprised you didn’t think of it before!’

 

‘You looked…’ suddenly everything was starting to make a bit more sense. Eric had seen the face of Evil, Dungeonmaster had warned them against it, it was dangerous, it was Evil; no wonder Eric had eventually turned against him.

 

There was a rumble of thunder from far away, on the other side of the mountains.

 

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said the Cavalier. ‘But you’re wrong.’

 

‘You would say that!’ hissed Hank. ‘You were the one doing the back-stabbing!’

 

‘No. I looked, but I saw something else. I saw us.’

 

‘Really!’

 

‘No! I saw us, what we were, and what we were for!’ the Cavalier’s tone had changed, it was harsh and angry, as if he were spitting the words out like venom, though the Statue’s face was unchanged. ‘We were wrong. We were never supposed to be here.’

 

‘But…’

 

‘We fought on the wrong side,’ said the Cavalier firmly. ‘We were NOT supposed to be here.’

 

Buoyed up by victory, Hank was in no mood to hear what Eric had to say. He had heard this before, he hadn’t listened then either! But he didn’t turn away to leave, even though he wanted to. Maybe it was gloating, but he wanted Eric to admit that he’d been wrong; and admit that Hank was right! That was all he’d ever wanted, when it came down to it.

 

‘We helped people!’ snarled Hank. ‘We did the right thing. Not that you would understand that!’

 

‘No.’

 

‘Those people needed our help! They were oppressed, they were being beaten into submission by Evil! We couldn’t just stand by and let that happen!’

 

‘Some people weren’t supposed to be helped!’

 

Hank couldn’t believe what he was hearing, even from someone like Eric! But he still knew how to hurt Eric. He still knew how to get a reaction.

 

‘Zinn! What about her, your almost-wife! She was evil!’

 

‘And Lawerence wasn’t?’ was the retort. ‘At least with Zinn you knew what you were up against!’

 

Hank snorted.

 

‘Have you been to Zinn recently?’ asked the Cavalier. ‘Did you ever go back to see what happened?’

 

‘Don’t be stupid! I didn’t need to!’

 

'And why didn’t you ever go back, for any of them. Karena, Varla! All of them weren’t supposed to be free! We changed that!'

 

‘They were being terrorised and tortured! Their families, the land, the people! It was evil, we were right to free them! They could live in peace!’

 

‘You just didn’t care! The past successes were not as important as the future ones.’

 

‘I didn’t need to go back! I don’t need to justify myself to you! It was the right thing to do.’

 

‘Why?’

 

The question made him stop. He couldn’t answer, it was obvious.

 

‘W-what? What do you mean why?’

 

‘Why was it the right thing to do?’

 

‘We couldn’t just leave them at Venger’s mercy.’

 

‘Why?'

 

‘You would have left them? Varla? Lawrence? Karena? Lorne? The Cloudbears? Zandora?’

 

‘We don’t belong in this world! We were never supposed to be here! I’ve tried to explain it, but you didn’t listen.’ The Cavalier gave a long, heartfelt sigh. ‘You never bothered to listen.’

 

Hank knew exactly what Eric meant. This time his memory went back to the day Eric had escaped. The bitter, blazing, vicious argument they’d had. The sting of betrayal was so deep still; he had trusted Eric and the Cavalier had gone behind his back, tricked them into a trap. It was only by luck and no little of his own skill that it hadn’t turned into a massacre. There was another rumble of thunder, from closer by.

 

‘You dare to speak like that! Those people are dead because of what you did!’ said Hank quietly. He remembered each one of them well, two young farmers from Shalderon, and a guard from Kadesh who had held the Orcs off almost single-handed as they had escaped.

 

‘No,’ said the Cavalier firmly. ‘They are dead because of what YOU did! We should never have been there! I tried to explain.’

 

‘Your explanation makes no more sense now as it did then! Even less now! We’ve won!’

 

‘Won? This is no victory! It’s only destruction!’

 

‘There’s no one left to oppose us. We can live in peace. Evil has been destroyed!’

‘Evil! How dare you speak of Evil! I know what Evil is, I saw it. I saw it in US!’

 

Hank opened his mouth to reply, but the spirit didn’t let him.

 

‘We worked for Evil as surely as if we had sold our souls the way Venger had. What right had we to come to this world and change so much while knowing so little.’

 

Hank couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He almost couldn’t speak; he never realised before just how far his former comrade had fallen.

 

‘Helix!’ Hank cried. ‘Helix would have been destroyed but for us!’

 

‘Helix would never have been attacked in the first place if Presto hadn’t become involved!’ While that was true, Hank was not going to admit it! ‘We tipped the balance the wrong way. We should have just gone home, the instant we had the chance. We should never have stayed. We should have left Good and Evil to take care of themselves!’

 

Hank stared at the Statue in shock and revulsion. It took all his willpower not to turn round and leave there and then. His chest grew tight with fear.

 

‘Time means nothing to them! A thousand, a hundred, a million. It doesn’t matter! Good and Evil have fought for eternity with neither getting the upper hand. Until we arrived.’

 

The feeling in his chest grew tighter as the Spirit spoke. Maybe it was something like panic, or fear but Hank didn’t understand why he should feel like that. But Eric continued relentlessly.

 

‘One by one, Venger’s allies have fallen, and one by one Dungeonmaster’s allies have been restored! There is no balance anymore. I know, that’s what I saw that day in the eyes of The Unnamed One. Like this, the Realm will die. It has started already.’

 

As the spirit spoke, the thunder came once more, a deafening crash that made the rocks shudder and a flash that split the sky.

 

‘I’m sorry, Hank,’ said the Cavalier, but there was no emotion in his voice anymore. ‘You shouldn’t have stayed here. I tried to tell you, I tried to get you to leave and destroy you when you wouldn’t. I’m sorry.’

 

‘But there’s still nothing you can do!’ said Hank smugly. ‘Even if you were right, which you’re not, there’s nothing you can do!’

 

‘I’m sorry.’

 

There was a low rumble, one that Hank could feel all the way through his bones, then the ground beneath his feet moved suddenly, as if the Club had struck it. But Hank kept his balance.

 

He turned to run, and get out as quickly as he could, only to find billow dust pouring from the mouths of the tombs nearby. He hesitated.

 

He didn’t see the Statue sway in the turmoil. But it must have, as suddenly there was the unmistakable crunch of crumbling marble. Hank started forward, but he was a fraction too late.

 

The Statue toppled over, right on top of him, its looming, outstretched arms trying to grab him as he fled. He ducked right, but he was too slow.

 

Hank was far too slow.

 

He watched it fall as if there was all the time in the Realm. The arm looped over his shoulder, bringing him to his knees. The weight of the torso and Shield pushed him further still, and the unstoppable momentum of the stone smashed him into the ground below, splintering into pieces as it did.

 

There was only a moment of his life left. As he lay there he felt the world dissolving around him. For the first time he let himself wonder; perhaps Eric had been right.

 

Perhaps he should have just gone home.

 

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