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Short Story / fiction / fantasty / mythological
The Knight and the Sea of Death
by Chloe Catarina
The forest groaned like the whispers of mourners as the Knight crossed its edge, his armor clanking with every slumped step. Each footfall rang like a funeral bell, steel on stone, steady and mournful, the march of a man with nothing left to lose. Somewhere in the shadows, he hoped the angel of death lurked to await him with the answers he fiercely sought after.
For days, he had marched beneath the twisted canopy, the sun long lost behind the tangled branches, revealing itself only to dance across the gold filigree that embedded itself into his black armor. The metal sang a low, steady dirge, his chainmail hissing, plates clinking softly with each step, as if the forest itself were listening. Blood-stained and hollow-eyed, he never broke pace, never looked back. His eyes, dry and sharp, stayed fixed ahead just beneath the dark hollowed slits in his royal helmet. Somewhere in the heart of this cursed wood, the angel of death was growing nearer, and the Knight would make sure he was heard.
Even in the polished posture of a Knight forged by years of discipline, a hollowness grew inside him to depths he had never known, disturbing the precision in his spine. In moments of interruption, the sweet smell of blackberries and jasmine would come to him, her face flashing in his mind, as if the forest was taunting him. At times, the Knight turned to face the ghostly apparition of his lost love, though she was nowhere to be found.
The Knight stopped in his tracks and looked to the branches above, drawing in a sharp breath. Air hissed from between his teeth, visible even through steel, fogging like a warhorse in the frost. Golden mist clung to the trees, but the wind smelled different now, briny, alive with the nearness of the sea. In the distance, the roar of the waterfall called to him. He was close now.
Onward he marched as he felt time’s imminent flee, like smoke in his hands, until his feet reached the edge of the current. Steadying his gaze, he looked across the falls, his hand grasping at his sword's handle. Beneath the rageful veil of falling water, the river moved quietly, carrying its burden downstream in a glassy ribbon. Had he made a mistake in believing the fables of battle-weary soldiers, their minds warped by the torment of war? Or could this really be where death resides, where his lost love could be found, where his end of suffering rested?
The Knight removed his hand’s armor, revealing his war-torn, calloused palm. He unsheathed his sword, its steel gleaming with fearless valor, and pressed it to his skin until the flesh broke. The crimson sap clung to the blade until the Knight rested his sword onto the river's surface. He watched as the blood veined across the water, stretching out to oblivion. He let the water crawl onto his palm and into his wound, feeling its cool silk soothe the fire within. As they touched, there was an unspoken vow, a soft communion, and shared understanding that said, let us be one.
As the Knight waited, a silence grew that seemed to prolong the time known to man. The gentle current remained as if not to notice such a menial sacrifice. The Knight felt a defeat begin to fester inside him. His throat grew a swell, his jaw clenched tightly, and a burn crept in his nose. His odyssey had been for nothing. The thought of a life forever doomed to this tormented state of mind and heart of weighted rot felt like a punishment from the heavens, an envious plot carried out by angels jealous of a love found that was so divine, so pure. The Knight surged to his feet, his fist clenched tight as he unleashed a roar of fury that rippled through the forest’s depths, reverberating in the cold steel that bound him. His breath faltered, heavy with exhaustion, and his head dropped low in the aftermath. To believe it would have been so easy, stung humility within him, widening the chasm of emptiness that persisted with each passing moment.
As he steadied his breath, he peered through his helmet and saw the wildflowers growing at his feet as if they had crawled from the forest to meet the river’s edge, too. He crouched to meet them, his black armored hand meeting their delicate petals of red and white. Their contrast so reminiscent of him and his love, he felt a smile threaten the corners of his mouth. How many times had he felt she looked so soft, so sweet, and how many times she proved herself fierce and strong-willed. Beneath his helmet, a silent tear traced down his cheek and jaw like the caress her hands once knew; soft, certain, yet gone. In his heart, he knew her phantom was looking for him too, flooding him with determination.
As a tear fell to meet the red petals, a black serpent slithered between his feet like the snake of Eden. The Knight, startled, stepped back and watched as the snake, unbothered, entered into the river. Beneath the water’s surface, the snake’s trail interrupted the river’s flowing current until it reached its center. A deafness shrouded the forest, its birds and haunting whispers seemingly halted. The Knight steadied his stance and braced as the ground rumbled.
The current buckled and burst as if to scream back at the Knight, echoing the violence that threatened to surge from his aching chest. As the chaotic crashing of waves settled, a figure emerged from its depths. With a practiced motion, the Knight restored his armor to his exposed hand and stood with his sword poised in readiness. Though to his surprise, the figure that stood before him defied his expectations. This was no demonic figure shrouded in darkness that reeked of death. The figure carried a whisper of familiarity, yet its presence was jarring, still, yet unnerving, calm, yet steeped in something otherworldly. Perhaps it was more terrifying than all the visions the Knight had conjured.
Afar, stood a woman made entirely of water and light. Her skin glistened even in her stillness as her hair floated around her in a haunting dance, matching the river’s current. Her form dripped around her as she seemed to sprout from the water beneath her. Slowly, she outstretched her arm toward the Knight. Between them, a path like a still water bridge emerged.
The Knight moved slowly to the water’s edge, his ragged breath uncertain. As he looked into the motionless water, his trails of blood outstretched like red wine, beckoning him beneath the glassy surface. He raised his eyes to the woman of water, her hand still calling to him. His fear would not bind him from his lost love, his fate. He would go to the end of all worlds, and so, he stepped forth. As he reached the woman, she lowered her hand and pierced her golden eyes into the Knight, his helmet no protection from her gaze.
The Knight gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, driving its blade into the water’s rigid skin before lowering himself behind it like a prayer. There was no longer any doubt. The figure before him echoed with the weight of ancient wisdom. A being who was born before the beginning, had walked the world before its first breath, who knew its truths and tales, and had watched the folly of men unfold across countless ages. The being who outlived the stars, Gods, and Kings. This was the Angel of Death.
“Cassius,” she murmured, the name drifting like mist through the trees.
The Knight trembled as he sought aid in his balanced sword.
"Knight of sorrowed soul," she whispered, her voice scarcely more than a breeze, “how is it that thou hast crossed the veil and stood before me, where memory and shadow meet?”
Beneath his helmet, the Knight’s mouth fell agape, but no sound escaped.
“Cassius, knight of men,” she spoke softly as she placed her gentle hand of water and light atop his helmet.
A warmth seeped through his iron shell and scars of war upon his flesh. Death’s touch, gentle and strange, echoed like the embrace of his lost beloved, her smile and laughter that was now buried within him, and the memory of her face in his hands. The tremble in his breath faded, the storm within stilled. Slowly, he rose and met the angel’s gaze once more.
“Angel of Death,” he began, his voice now strong, “I have wandered far across shadowed lands, seeking thee in thy silent repose. I am a knight in the service of King Aelle the Bold, whose kingdom now lies in ruin. I come before thee, in search of a soul in your grasp.”
The Angel of Death stood fiercely, with her gaze never wandering from the Knight.
“You are loyal, Knight Cassius, but I will not give thee the soul of a King.”
He took a step closer to her.
“It is not the soul of a King I am after,” he whispered.
Her eyes squinted, her chin rising ever so slightly.
“Speak, Knight Cassius,” she intoned, her voice a whisper of forgotten ages, “which soul doth thou seek to draw from the abyss of death?”
“The woman who is keeper of my heart.”
The Angel of Death stood still for a moment as if to read his soul for truth.
“The hour has come,” she declared with solemn grace, “and though your heart may be heavy with grief, the deed is done. She has crossed to the sea of souls, where she shall remain for eternity. Your quest is now at an end.”
She turned from the Knight and began to walk away.
“Through the turning of countless ages have I loved this woman!” he spoke fiercely as he removed his helmet, “Bound are our souls by threads the fates themselves dare not sever!”
The Angel of Death turned to him, their gazes a mere breath apart, the burning wrath in his eyes now unmistakable.
“Though the world crumble and the stars fall dim,” he breathed, “I shall wander the ends of the earth to find her once more.”
The Angel of Death glanced downward, her gaze falling upon the Knight’s sword pressed against her neck, water dripping from its edge. Her eyes snapped back to his, and a sinister grin spread across her lips. In an instant, a torrent of water surged from the river, and the Angel of Death rose, a storm incarnate, towering above the Knight as if the very waters obeyed her will. The thin blue veil of the current turned a thickening crimson, the blood of thousands of men who had wished their loved ones free of death’s grasp.
"Foolish mortal!" she bellowed, her voice cracking like thunder, "Dost thou truly believe thy wretched steel can command death? I am the end of all things! No blade forged by the hands of men can halt me!”
The Knight braced his stance, slicing his sword at the waves crashing toward him.
“Thy sword is but a whisper, Knight, a fleeting sound drowned by the storm that is I! Think ye thy blade can sever eternity itself?” Her voice rumbled through to his bones, “The River of Time flows with my will, and no sword shall dare to stay my course! Do you dare to believe that a mortal’s wrath can turn the tide of fate?”
With a roar torn from the depths of his soul, the Knight bellowed into the crashing crimson waves, his voice lost in the fury of the storm. He swung with wild, relentless force, striking at all that surged before him, as if his rage alone might part the sea.
“I am death,” she spoke in a whisper only his ears heard, “The great and final reckoning, and thy defiance shall be but a shadow lost in the winds of my wrath.”
The crimson waves poured down upon him, drenching the Knight in their fury, yet a strange calm settled over him as he half wished for death only to see his love's face once more. Slowly, he loosened his grip on his helmet, glancing about. The storm had vanished, as though it had never been, leaving the waters now blue and serene once more. With a wary breath, he rose to his feet, slipping the helmet back upon his head, for fear the storm’s rage might return in an instant. In his fighting stance, he remained determined, sword drawn at the ready as he looked around for the Angel of Death.
Beneath his feet, the river gathered once more to form the woman of water and light standing before him.
“You have trespassed in my domain with a courage that is not without merit, Knight Cassius. Know this, it is not cruelty that governs me, but duty,” she spoke with a calmness now, her tone shifting, no longer wrapped in the cadence of ages past, “I am the end of all things, this is true, but even death cannot find the end of love.”
The Knight lowered his sword, his eyes growing soft beneath the steel.
“There is a fire within you, a flame that burns with a purity so fierce, even death does not sway you. The love you hold for the one lost is a force. For that, I will help you.”
For the first time since his beloved left this world, the Knight felt there may be an end to his agony yet.
“I offer you the chance to seek what you have lost, though the path will not be easy, and time is already against you. Perhaps in your persistence, I shall learn something I have yet to understand,” she spoke.
The Knight eagerly awaited the Angel of Death’s words, hanging on every moment. Water began to gather around them, this time tracing into the palm of the Angel of Death’s hand, forming a staff of glass.
“I offer you the Oar of Eros, God of Love,” she said.
“What is there to be done with such a thing?” he wondered.
“You will take this oar,” she commanded, “and journey down the river, paddling until you reach the heart of the sea. There, you must dive into its depths and seek the whale of stained glass. Within its very flesh, your beloved lies. Tear the glass from its hide, and return to the surface, so that you may once more be reunited in the light.”
A surge of passion flooded the Knight’s heart, his beloved now so near that her presence seemed to pulse through the very air. With a trembling grip, he lifted the oar high, its weight heavy with purpose. As he raised it, a surge of raw power coursed through him, as if the very essence of his love, his longing, was channeled into the strike.
“I will use the oar of Eros and I will find my beloved!”
“But beware, brave Knight," she said, her voice like a hush upon the tide, "for the deeper you journey into the ocean’s heart, the more of her you shall forget. With every fathom you fall, her memory will slip further from your reach, like water spilling through open hands.”
The Knight looked at the oar with wonder.
“Will it be worth the cost? Will you remember her by the time you reach the depths, or will she fade into the shadows of the sea?” she asked him, “Perhaps it is better to stay here, with her memory, untainted and whole. Is it worth the price of forgetting everything you hold dear?”
The Knight turned the angel’s words over in his mind, his heart heavy with the weight of a sorrow that felt endless. Since her passing, it had felt as though eternity itself had mourned with him, their shared life gone in the blink of a cruel instant. For days, he had wandered through thought alone, imagining the lengths he would go to retrieve her soul.
The wars he would wage, the beasts he would strike down, the oceans he would brave, and the far lands he would cross, no matter how treacherous the path.
“I will go,” he declared, his voice firm as iron, “in this life and every other.”
The Angel of Death inclined her head, as though honoring an oath long awaited.
“So be it,” she murmured, solemn and low, as her fingers brushed the helm from his brow, her eyes flickering gold. “I grant thee the kiss of an angel, the breath of the sea. When thou dost awaken, thy journey shall begin.”
Her lips, cold as the deep, met his, and as she breathed life into him, the sea claimed them both in a surge of crashing arms.
* * *
The Knight drew in a sharp gasp, his eyes flickering open to the constellations above, his body resting in a lone wooden vessel adrift on a silent sea, the world around him swallowed by distance. The glass Oar of Eros rested beside him, the key to ending his agony and finding his lost love once more, though the Angel’s words rang in his head. With every fathom you fall, her memory will slip further from your reach. These threats would not be enough to tempt the Knight into submission. He would find her, as he had promised.
As he reached the center of the sea, the time had finally come. Every second that passed could make it too late, and the Knight wasn’t about to waver in the hauntings of ambivalence when it was certain that his love rested just beneath him at the sea bed. His body radiated with determination now, as he rested the oar beside him, rose from the wooden vessel, and plunged into the sea.
Like a shadow in the depths, the Knight glided through the water, protected by the Angel's kiss, his movements steady as he descended further into the abyss. The ocean’s dark glow faded behind him, swallowed by the ever-deepening night. With trust in his own strength, he fought against the relentless pull of death’s final embrace, each stroke a battle against the suffocating darkness.
With each stroke, the Knight plunged deeper into the throat of the sea, and with each breath, fleeting memories of his beloved flickered before his eyes, like bolts of lightning tearing through the blackened sky. Memories swept over him, some sweet and tender, others lost to time, and some heavy with regret and pain. Yet there were those that burned with such passion, they drowned all else. Could he bear to lose them? Could he withstand the aching void left by those memories? Would the ocean's depths erase them entirely, leaving him adrift, unable to recall the love that once filled his heart? His pace faltered as these thoughts pressed upon him.
But then, a new thought stirred within him: What is life worth if not to seek the deepest love one can find? Once such a love is discovered, is that not the very meaning of life itself? It is the one thing worth fighting for, the one thing he would never want to live without or, worse, have never known. With that, his mind returned to the Angel’s words: Even death cannot find the end of love. And if love cannot meet its end, then surely these memories, too, would endure, no matter how deep the ocean's grasp.
The Knight’s stroke grew swift, driven by a fierce resolve until a mournful song rose through the deep, rich and resonant, echoing like a distant church bell through the bones of the sea. The sound stirred something ancient within him, urging him onward, his pulse quickening to match its solemn rhythm. Guided by the call, he descended into a kingdom of forgotten ruins, aglow upon the ocean floor like the remnants of a long-drowned world. His armored sabatons touched down upon the sand, his eyes scanning the silence for any mark of what he sought.
Then, from the heart of the ruins, light bloomed.
Hundreds of colors, hues no mortal eye had known, fell around him like jeweled rain, shimmering like diamonds scattered across the sea bed. And above, wreathed in celestial brilliance, the stained glass whale circled in silent reverence, its form both sacred and surreal, casting its kaleidoscopic light upon the Knight below. Had the sea so wished it, the Knight’s tears would have traced his cheeks.
The Knight swam toward the beast’s deep, mournful bellow as it glided in solemn grace through the ruins, its ancient song echoing like a lullaby for the dead. Across the whale’s vast, glass-bound body, stained panels shimmered with the stories of countless lives, souls lost to time, now bound for the sea of souls where eternity awaited.
He drifted alongside it, eyes moving over the luminous images: men, women, and children etched in light and memory, their lives told in silent tableaux. As he searched, something began to slip from him, an ache he could no longer name, a purpose he struggled to hold.
What was he seeking?
The question echoed in his chest. Faces blurred into light. Names dissolved like silt in water. A creeping fog settled in his thoughts.
Did he know these people?
Why had he come to these drowned halls of memory?
As the Knight let his armored hand glide across the glowing mosaic of lives etched into the flesh of the stained glass whale, one image stilled his breath. A woman, her dark hair cascading like nightfall, stood alone in a forest of shimmering green, her glass form dimmer than the rest within the whale. She gathered blackberries and jasmine into a woven basket, unaware of the world watching her, somberness growing on her face.
Then, impossibly, the scent of ripe berries and delicate jasmine swept through the water, sweet, sudden, and achingly familiar. It defied the sea and sense alike, wrapping around him like a memory awakened.
Laughter echoed in his mind, soft and distant. The warmth of love, tender, fierce, and fleeting, rushed through him like the touch of the Angel of Death's hand.
It was her.
The Knight pulled at the stained glass from the whale with a fierceness that ached to not let go of this moment, to not forget. Could he defy the Angel of Death, the sea of souls, and his own mind that threatened to fade the memories of his beloved? Would the fates stop him and his destiny wane?
The Knight broke the surface with a ragged breath, his chest heaving, lungs burning, and limbs trembling beneath the weight of his sodden armor. The sea’s chill clung to him now, sharp and real, as though it meant to remind him he was still alive. His breath came in heavy clouds, fogging the air as he reached for the edge of the wooden vessel and dragged himself upward, the boat tilting beneath his weight.
Then, he felt it.
A gentle hand, cool and familiar, curled softly around his neck.
He froze.
From the rippling surface, a figure rose. A woman, her soaked hair swept to one side by her own hand, her eyes lifting to meet his with a smile that stopped time.
Disbelieving, the Knight pulled off his helmet and let it fall into the boat. His breath caught in his throat. The woman’s blue eyes glistened like moonlight cast upon midnight waters. She reached for him, and he, in turn, brushed the wet strands from her face, his hand trembling as it cupped her cheek.
Her skin, her gaze, her nearness—it was her.
He pulled her close, lips meeting hers in a kiss that held every moment lost to time.
“My beloved,” he whispered.
