After he asked the question, I looked over at Martin, then Croyd, then back to Martin again. I nodded and continued walking, my ruined village at my back.
"I've been to the Dark Citadel before, yes. Years ago, during the first year of my adulthood in these, the night-cloaked Horizon Lands. As the Flame Prince I was destined to travel there and challenge the tyrrany of the Black Lord Vetrigon."
Martin looked interested enough, so I kept talking.
"I remember it clearly. The village wished me luck as a whole, and my mother's dark eyes were bright and wet with worry. I grinned at her, kissed her russet hair, and travelled into the south, where lies the Fortres of Night.
"It was not an easy trip. Lord Vetrigon knew one day someone would come for him -- he'd read the tales too -- and as such all manner of foulness greeted me during my journey."
I could feel my face grow fierce with remembered battles. I was in the past, living the moments of it, and my audience became secondary, inconsequential.
"First there were the aching trees. To walk under their branches meant pain, fear, imagined losses -- I saw those I cared for killed time and time again, my limbs weak, helpless to prevent it -- but I had been warned of their magic, and knew what I saw was only illusion. After seeing my mother cry out to me in terror twelve times -- I was through. Lord Vetrigon would not slow me with vapours.
"The swamp I faced next held many creatures, though too few were capable of troubling my progress. Of exception, of course, were the five bog warriors. I broke the necks of the first two; drowned the third; nearly fell to the greatsword of the fourth before I pried off arms with my own blade; and drove the fifth back into the abyss of flames that surrounded the citadel.
"The Dark Lord had thought the abyss of flames would stop me, that its spirits of elemental fire would burn me to ashes -- but no: my father was the blazing one, the fire with the eyes of ice, and as his son they daren't touch me. I crossed the thin bridge of rock and stood at the citadel's base."
A sound came behind me then, and I turned sharply, hand dropping to my sword. Croyd's metallic mouth clanked shut from his yawn, and he grinned apologetically. "Sorry about that."
I nodded, glad that it had only been him, and went on.
"The Fortress of Night looked as though it were made of the heavens themselves. Polished and black, the stars danced in its walls, somehow grown sinister in their fall from the truer sky. Its three spires -- you'll see them well before we reached it -- soared to impossible heights.
"It had been written that those three spires were what Vetrigon had used to steal the daylight and, 'pon seeing them, I no longer doubted the tale."
I paused in my walking and turned to face them both. "Suddenly, the front of the citadel opened like a wound of flames. All manner of demon surged forth, and soon I was awash in their ichor. Still they came, and still I slew, until only the citadel's master was left. He strode out, the citadel's gate a red corona around him, and finally, I knew true fear."
"It was as they'd said. His body was made of shadow, eyes red coals, and in his hand he held the daylight sword, the Trinity Blade." I gestured toward the sword at my side. "The first cut earned me the scar I still have upon my right leg today -- but I grasped his wrist, discovered that the darkness was merely another kind of flesh, and broke his arm."
"His own fist met my jaw then, and I fell with my blood filling my mouth; but the sword of suns fell too, and soon my fingers closed around its hilt. He dropped towards me, snarling, and all I could see was the darkness, and the two red eyes. I swung blindly and felt power and steel jolt in my grasp as the light pieced his chest.
"I could not move. I watched the fire of the heavens burst from his eyes, and I was-- entranced. The first few seconds of flame washed over me, pain strangely absent, and then all I knew was sleep."
I shook my head. "When I woke I took the blade and left the corpses and architecture to rot. I haven't been there since."
Fixing Martin with the blue of my eyes, I said, "My father's enemy holds my mother in those walls for ransom, Martin. I've told you I'll help you and I *will*. But my mother's safety comes first. If you get in the way of that I'll send you into the fire along with Vetrigon and all the other demons, and I will laugh as the fire spirits eat your bones."
I didn't wait for him to respond, and turned back around. I walked on.