Duffy had always wondered what it would be like to meet a doppelganger. He wondered what it would be like to look him in the face and ask the question most men wanted to ask themselves, but never could quite pluck up the courage.
Do you like what you see?
He imagined the answer to be ‘why yes actually, I rather do’, but there was always a niggling doubt at the back of his mind that he would not like all the things he had done in the name of survival. If he felt sick at the thought of the many times he had betrayed his friends, his family and his loved ones, he could only fret at what another might think given the knowledge.
Most men would only ever continue to wonder.
“Not me though,” he said confidently, biting his lip and clenching his fists until the leather started to crack and show craters of wear over their well beaten knuckles.
“I am a man of my own destiny.”
The words slipped out through a meek slit of resentment, dry cracked lips parched by many hours of recital, singing and energetic dancing. It had all been a mere rehearsal for the opening act, the conjuring cantor, the moment when Duffy Bracken could finally look himself in the eye and see himself for what he had become.
“It is the right thing to do…” he said not so confidently.
He had been thinking about all his mistakes for so long they practically scrambled at the inside of his skull to break out into the world. They longed to get a foothold on reality, to torment their owner for an eternity of solemn judgements. If he did not confront himself here and now, he would lose himself to the misery.
He stomped both his feet on the rickety floorboards of the stage room and punched out his fists as far wide as they would go. His shoulders jolted with the extension, and his senses came to life as the tension and weight on his back lifted. He had started the fight, but he knew this was just the beginning of a long, perilous, arduous ordeal.
“Let’s see what you’re made of, Duffy Bracken…”
With a roar, Duffy belted out the opening line of a song sung only once before in the many thousands of years of Althanas history. It sparkled, even though the room was dark and lit only by half bothered beams of sunlight. Dust danced idly don from the rafters, lifted by the heat of the midday sun. Unseen, the bard sung his heart out as if the entire world were watching. The First Song crafted strength in his heart even as he felt it slip from his fingertips and fall from his tired bones.
“This covenant sings of solitude, this covenant sings of love, this covenant sings of Tantalus, this covenant calls from above.”
The first verse threw fire from Duffy’s eyes.
Welcome back my child.
The two spirals rolled through the air like dragons dancing in the first light of the last day. It warmed Duffy’s skin, but the sensation was lost in the passion he heard in his words. The Prima Vista almost rocked beneath the swell of The Aria’s power as it burst through its avatar and threw storms and waves across the red carpeted stage.
“We five disciples gather here to sing of fire and flames, we five disciples dance together to hear what god proclaims, we five disciples shall sing together, and through our songs we’ll see-” Duffy stopped, suddenly crushed and defeated.
You look well.
The twin flames spiralled around one another in a swell of conflagration and heat. With a bright flash of energy, a humanoid shape formed in the midst of the firestorm. It took on strength of its own beneath the bard’s awe, and the floorboards started to blacken and steam under the pressure of witnessing life being born.
“Hello?”
Duffy’s jaw dropped. He was staring at himself.
We do not have much time together, William Defoe.
“My name is not Defoe.” He gritted his teeth, a past life flashing before his eyes with painful memories laced between them. “Not anymore.”
You are William Defoe. You are Lysander Brandybuck. You are Duffy Bracken. You are Gavel Ardent.
“I am Duffy Bracken, we are Duffy Bracken!”
The bard of flame slowly turned to flesh. His lava fingers turned into little nimble digits. His head turned into a mop of messy black hair, his crack of fire smile into rosy lips and a malefic demeanour. The real Duffy traced the black cotton top’s stitching and the many buckles which hung loosely about his doppelganger’s waist.
He had conjured an exact replica of himself, different in no way other than the power the creature held in his voice.
I am all of you. I am everything, I am all things, and I am gods and monsters.
Duffy rolled his eyes and let his arms fall to his sides. He took a deep breath to steel his nerves and set his gleaming pupils up to the sun roof, which shone with golden hue from the kiss of the sun. He swayed for a moment, relieved to be free of the burden of conjuring the very essence of the Thayne Tantalus from his crematorium. The taste of iron and scorched red meat lingered in his nostrils.
“I thought…no, I wanted to look at myself and be proud of what we have done together.”
Are you not proud? The creature cocked its head and ruffled his fringe. The bells on his buckles and his shimmering hair, still ensorcelled by fire enticed Duffy to wipe the smirk of its face.
“What is there to be proud of exactly?”
The doppelganger bounced from foot to foot and tucked his elbows back in on themselves, as if he were warming up for a marathon. The likeness was uncanny.
You saved the world so many times you've really forgotten what it means?
“I did not save…” The bard stopped mid-sentence, doubt striking him dumb. He flashed back to the time he had climbed to the top of the tower in Scara Brae, to pluck forth a hero from the ranks of the many to take on a mantel of responsibility. The creature William Arcus had been a sacrifice that Duffy had regretted, but he had done it and the island was saved.
He had sent Ruby to Raiaera to find the answer the entire troupe wanted to hear most of all. She had to hurt and fall from grace so many times to bring the Tantalum together. Lillith had been wounded by one of the Greater Oni, poisoned for eternity and tainted by nightmares just so Akashima could break free of its past.
“Arden too…” he whispered, his thoughts finally plucking up the strength to break free. They smashed through his skull with razor claws and hammering bludgeons. “What was it for?” The shine in his eyes faded, replaced instead by a single tear which rolled like an avalanche of pent up emotion down his right cheek.
When you read the Phoenix & the Bard Duffy, you will finally realise.
“When I r…don’t you dare belittle me, don’t belittle us!” He clapped his hands together, and the Tinder Gear’s flint ignited a thunder clap to augment his anger. “I know we’re just servants of a fucking Thayne, I know we were created from the words on a page written centuries ago!”
You knew?
The question floated up into the rafters, before it settled down onto the red carpet and added to the years of grime, crime and uncleanliness. Duffy dropped his head to the floorboards, and the flame kin took a brave step closed.
All this time you knew what you are? All this time, you knew what the troupe was?
Duffy had known since the first day Lucian had re-emerged from the catacombs of Scara Brae. He had known how the tale of the Tantalum Troupe would end from the very first day Wainwright Jones had conjured them all from the lines of his magnum opus – The Phoenix & The Bard.
“I’ve been running away from the fact for so long, it became a game, a fantasy, something to masque to survive.”
Duffy did not want to admit that he was not real.
You fought your confinement by holding out your hands for the manacles? The flame kin furrowed its brow, folded his arms over his still smouldering chest and tapped his booted foot on the mahogany.
“There was no other way.”
There is always a way, Duffy.
“How would you have done it differently?”
The question lingered in the air longer than the flames that had given birth to Duffy’s other self-did. The orange and ochre and vermilion shades of his other self's being shimmered over his pale skin. It took the real Duffy a long time to realise that he was not asking someone else. He was asking himself, and only he knew the answer to that possibility. Would he have done it differently? If he were given the chance to turn back the times would he have been stronger for them all?
I would not. You did everything you were ever meant to do. You know what you must do next, so why do you fear it so?
Duffy unsheathed Tooth & Nail from the sheaths about his waist and twirled them feebly. He was a master with his most trusted weapons, unmatched and unrivalled on the streets of his home. No-one dared look at him funny anymore, not in bars, dark alleys or the underworld he loved to be part of so much. The only place that someone longed for his blood was on the stage, and they usually only had plot devices to wield against his steel.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? The immortal children of the gods fear nothing except the one thing that can never befall them.”
You can die, Duffy.
“I can die, by all means. I come back, though, as we do every time. We are as flowing and ever changing as the run of ink from a quill’s nib. We craft new lives and new possibilities from the tragedy of death.”
The flame kin smiled.
There is your answer.
Duffy blinked.
“What?”
That is the answer to your question. The doppelganger smiled with the sort of cheek Duffy would have killed to have without feeling foolish.
“You’re telling me all this hardship, struggle, pain…it’s so we can experience death over and over again?” The great Duffy Bracken lost his nerve, and with a swell of emotion a stream of tears joined its half dried cousin. “Who are you, who the fuck do you think you are to trivialise all of this?” He waved his arms frantically, as if he were weighing up the possibility of driving his daggers through the creature’s heart or resisting the temptation.
All of this hardship is so you experience life.
The profound nature of his own words drove he anger back at Duffy with the force of a hurricane. He felt the words and tears ripped from his eyes and lungs, replaced with a humble frown that came only with defeat.
How else do the immortals of the world know what life is worth, if they never lose it, never have to fight for it?
“I…I never thought of it like that.” He whimpered.
I’d say it’s because you were stubborn. However, that would be insulting to us. You never think of it like that because you are pure of heart.
“Do I really have to do this?”
ThePrima Vista groaned under the weight of the events which brewed on the horizon. In a few seconds, it would shake its very foundations in mourning. The rafters creaked, the glass shuddered, the curtains and rows of dusty costumes fluttered like the wings of leathery bats.
If you wish to experience life again Duffy, if you wish to see things from a fresh perspective now that you have found the answers you’ve all been looking for then yes. The flame kin held out a welcoming hand, and as Duffy stepped forwards to claim it with his own, the creature erupted into fire and burnt into nothing.
Live through death. Die through living.
As the embers of his doppelganger rose in the thermals of their master’s death and fell back to the floorboards, Duffy fell to his knees.
Minutes turned into an hour of sobbing very quickly. The bard, left bereft by the disappearance of his one opportunity to find peace had found only more pain. He had been right, though; there was only one way to find out if his life had been worth living.
Slowly but surely he levelled the hilts of his weapons at his heart, their points marking to spots on the long gallery mirror which the troupe danced in front of and gave themselves pep talks.
“I guess I’m right. The only way for any of us to feel alive is to keep dying, to keep fighting, to keep the flames of our past alive.”
He tossed them nimbly and without hesitation, drove them both with ease through the feeble defence his tight shirt offered. Whilst adequate to keep away the chill in the cold sea air of the windy city, it split apart and fell away like a cowering dog as the tips of the daggers slipped carefully between his ribs and piercing the aorta and outer wall of his primary organ.
He did not cry, or let any sign of pain grow on his face.
The Prima Vista burst into life, the reliquary along with it and rattled and shook as if it were being blown away by a maelstrom of flame, wind and devastation. It tried to grieve for its master, who slipped swiftly into death with a peaceful smile on his lips. He withdrew his blades as he fell forwards. He was fortunate enough to escape the pain the thud of his forehead onto the wood would have left him if he had been conscious. Blood circled out in a perfect sphere from his wounds, his daggers clenched tightly in his splayed hands, loyal to their master until the last.
Duffy Bracken, Tantalum and avatar of the Thayne Tantalus passed from Althanas and into death.
In death, the Greatest Bard to walk the world would find a new life. With it he would discover all the possibilities of living.
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