"She always liked your eyes," Sorian sneered. Pain pinned Rivek to the ground, bleeding from the gaping slashes in his left hand and abdomen. "There was no way you could win. I know your every tactic, down to which hand you favor. Your legs, your left arm, your eyes, without them, your agility disappears, and you're helpless as a soldier."
The walls were burning. Rivek's eyes teared from the smoke just as much as from the pain as Sorian dug the knife into their sockets. He tried not to scream. Moving would make it worse. The open wounds oozed blood like burning acid.
His ears rang. His chest tightened. His body cried out for someone else's life force in a feeble attempt to sustain itself. "You're wrong, Sorian. I have something you never will, I still have magic," Rivek muttered. "Vika, be my eyes."
I asked you not to do something so stupid as get yourself killed.
Rivek closed his eyelids over empty sockets. The pain had begun to fade, and his senses heightened as his heartbeat increased: wrath, a dark-mage's last resort for survival. From Vika's perspective, he could see himself, broken on the ground, black-tinted blood pooling as his side. He pulled his left hand through the knife which pinned it down. It felt like a pinprick. With the extra adrenaline, he found an unknown strength to drive the blade across Sorian's right arm, searing his hand off at the wrist. The shocked king drew back, and Rivek let his arm fall back to the ground.
"Argia dena pilio. E leva ei senta ni pienara. Em corvi reduca ta tarri en cinera." Wrath begets Pardon. I depart and feel no pain. My body returns to the earth in ashes.
The flames consumed his body, and his bird plummeted to the earth in a column of fire.
Two, dark, beasts locked in a fight to the death. Much of Mondigan's storyline comes from the dichotomy between two symbolic characters. Rivek and Sorian are parallels, both similar and different to each other. Both men, despite coming from polar opposite backgrounds, are caught up in the same war, with the same woman, with the same desire for peace.
Both have a complex relationship with magic, a power they do not completely understand. Sorian, born in the lap of luxury, will do anything to get it, even at the cost of others' lives. And Rivek, born with it and thus ostricized, would rather be rid of it and maintain his position as a decent person.
In terms of Willow, she is the woman Sorian has who will never love him. And for Rivek, she is the woman he loves but who can never show him true affection.
Given their upbringing, they have strong, conflicting, world views. Both are very religious and prejudiced in their own way: a mix of "modern" thought and old traditions. For Sorian, life is something which must be controlled, and for Rivek, something which must be balanced. Each harbors a deep-seated fear and hate of the other, but upon analysis, it is more a more complicated mix of resentment, jealousy, and respect. In turn, Rivek did know, that if he had actually killed Sorian, there was a very slim chance he would survive from leeching his life-force. Insofar, in terms of development, Sorian runs away and survives, though.
Vika is an entirely different can of worms, haha. Another semi-symbolic relationship. On the surface, Vika is a familiar, who gained a human level of consciousness and picked up his master's personality. If Rivek dies, so will he and vice-versa (thus he has a relatively human lifespan). He is Rivek's foil: how he would be if he were untethered by human politics. He is, in a way, both conscience, private thoughts, and true desires, with a much more humorous take on things. Which is why he is there in the end for his master.
Alisian sounds like Latin. :F They traditionally cremate their dead, hence the ending.
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