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This article or section contains information original to the novel Fable: Jack of Blades, which is a licensed Fable work, but does not necessarily conform to Lionhead's Fable canon.
Fable: Jack of Blades

Fable: Jack of Blades is the second of three e-book short stories from bestselling author Peter David based on the Fable series of games. It was released on 22 May 2012 on all major e-reading platforms.

Synopsis[]

Finally, the people of Albion are safe. Jack of Blades, the supernatural terror, has been slain or at least, that's what they've been told. But the residents of Oddwood know that Jack is alive and well.

Leading a small force of mercenaries, Jack has enslaved the townsfolk and is enjoying a life of luxury - until an unassuming young man arrives on the scene, inadvertently thwarting Jack at every step.

Living up to his merciless reputation, Jack of Blades decides upon a suitable punishment: throwing the newcomer into a cage with a flesh-eating balverine. Little does Jack realise that he's dealing with a wild card—and a shocking twist to the Fable saga.

Plot[]

The story starts with a collection of thoughts and prayers of the superstitious townsfolk of Oddwood, a small town deep in the countryside of Albion. The people of the town pray to the god Avo asking him why such suffering has been cast upon them and why did they do to deserve such torments, these being the presence of a figure of pure evil that legend said to be dead but whom showed up in the town and started to torment its inhabitants.

The novel is then narrated in third person focusing on the main character, Xiro.

Xiro, travelling through the many roads of Albion as a pilgrim, finds himself wandering on the main road that leads to the village of Oddwood and notices how untidy the road is, something he finds odd as Oddwood was said to be a prospering town which should attract many travelers and comerciants, which should imply in good-quality roads leading to it.

As he progress through the muddy road dodging the debris scattered on it, he notices many signs warning strangers and travelers not to proceed and enter the town, but Xiro dismiss the plaques as himself notice that there are too many of them, which he concludes someone was trying too hard to keep people out of the town.

As Xiro enters the seemingly deserted town he is quickly surrounded by children who asks him for money. When Xiro asks what they want money for, they relutanctly tells him that they must get money to pay the infamous and powerful Jack of Blades, who have appeared weeks before and completely enslaved the town. Xiro says that he has never heard of such figure before, much to the shock of the children who ask if he was a hero who came to save the town, which Xiro denies, saying he is only a travelling teacher and philosopher.

Xiro then decides to leave the town the as he wants no trouble for himself, but the children beg him not to do so as everyone who tried to leave Oddwood were killed by Jack, but before Xiro could reach the city gates his path was blocked by a tall armored man, one of Jack’s henchmen who forced him back in the town.

Realizing he had no option but to stay, Xiro departed in search of food, arriving at the town’s marked where he seemingly befriended a beautiful young woman, Beatrice, daughter of a candlemaker. However, Beatrice beauty and talkative persona catches the attention of two of Jack’s henchmen that were in the market.

The wider one of the two men, Red Richard (due to his red hair and beard), rudely harass Beatrice, and grabs her in order to drag her somewhere he can violate her, much to Beatrice and her father horror. Xiro tries to intervene even though he claims not to be a hero. As Xiro struggles to hold his small sword out of his fear, Red Richard toss Beatrice to the other henchman and parts to kill Xiro. However in a turn of events, Red Richard stumbles in the unkempt road and falls forward on Xiro’s blade, which kills him instantly.

Everyone in the market watches in utter shock as the other henchman charges towards Xiro in order to avenge Red Richards, but Xiro, who was struggling to get his sword out of Richard’s chest accidently pulls it too hard and the sword is sent flying in the henchman direction, cutting his head in half, killing him.

The town erupts into cheers and Xiro is quicly surrounded by the townsfolk between cheers and screams that that he is the hero who will save and free Oddwood from Jack of Blades. Much to Xiro’s dismay, no one acknowledges his claims that he is no hero and had no idea what he just have done.

The town then is shut into terror as Jack of Blades himself appears in the end of the marked surrounded by three of his henchmen on horses. Xiro takes chance in the situation to run away and hide as the townsfolk keeps themselves paralyzed with fear. Jack’s voice cuts through the silence asking who were the responsible for his men deaths and notices that Beatrice nervously watches the barn where Xiro had just hidden inside. Jack questions where the hero that caused such mess were hidden and she cowardly gives Xiro position away.

Jack sends his henchmen to kill Xiro inside the barn and proceeds to terrorize the townsfolk threatening everyone in it. However, everyone’s attention is suddenly taken away as the barn erupts in flames and is quickly destroyed by the fire. While the people panic due to the fire could spread and destroy the whole town, only one figure is seen running out of the collapsing barn, Xiro.

Xiro claims to have accidentally knocked over a lantern which set the barn on fire, killing Jack’s men iside. An enraged Jack takes opportunity in Xiro’s weakened state after surviving the fire and promptly announces him to be a fraud, someone posing as a hero in order to get the town’s hopes up only for Jack to bring his anger and doom over them. The townsfolk them, including the children who Xiro encountered and Beatrice’s father, proceed to beat Xiro up, accusing him of being a traitor, a maleficent man who only wanted to harm them all. Xiro shouts why the people allows Jack to control them as he demonstrates no power but his words whatsoever and that the people clearly outnumber him, and Jack takes the chance to again tell Xiro out of his “mass suicide” plan of getting the people to turn against him only to be killed. Beatrice watches in horror as her hero, which she betrayed was getting killed by her friends and family, and tries to stop the lynching.

However, Jack is the one who stops Xiro’s public execution claiming that he had killed his men and so deserved a worse death than just being beaten by mere people. Beatrice watches in tears as the mauled but still alive Xiro is dragged by two men towards the mansion Jack was using as his personal lair within the town after killing its wealthy owner.

Inside the house the beaten Xiro is tossed by Jack’s henchman inside a small and dark room where he is expected to recover for a while in order to withstand for the slow violent death Jack has planned for him. Xiro gets them mocked for being “Xiro the no hero” by Virgil, one of Jack’s man and Xiro mocks both the men and Jack back. Xiro is then locked inside the dark room and, in a sinister and strange act, smiles.

Hours later Xiro is awakened and dragged inside the mansion to a much larger room, where Jack and all of his men were expecting him. In the center of the room is a big cage and within it laid a big and hungry balverine. Xiro the not hero is then tossed inside the cage with his sword to suffer a not heroic death, but instead of trying to dodge the balverine attacks, Xiro stays still.

The balverine charges to kill Xiro but it suddenly gets paralyzed with terror after properly looking at Shiro’s eyes and urinates itself out of fear. Much to the despair of the men in the room the balverine charges towards the cage door in order to escape whatever he had seen in Xiro and the impact is enough to break the cage apart. The balverine then proceeds on a rampage in the room killing some of Jack’s man, but gets eventually killed by the remaining henchmen who managed to get on top of it with its head being cut off by Virgil.

Suddenly the candle chandelier that illuminated the room falls from the ceiling crashing on all the henchmen who just happened to kill the balverine right below it. All the men but Xiro and Jack die in this moment, either by being crushed under the chandelier weight or burning alive with its fire.

Jack desperately sees that it was Xiro who had loose the chandelier chain from it support during the balverine rampage, and then charges at him resolved to kill him and avenge his men. However Xiro easily bocks all of Jack’s blow with no effort whatsoever prompting the latter to call Xiro a hero again. Once again Xiro denies it but this time with anger and knocks Jack’s sword out of his hand.

Cornered, Jack demands to know who Xiro really is as no one ever have defeated himself in battle. Xiro responds by looking deep inside Jack’s eyes behind his mask what prompts Jack to have a vision of pure terror.

Completely taken over by fear, Jack retreated until he hit the walls of the room with his back, screaming that Xiro couldn’t be who he demonstrated to be but soon realizes that Xiro was just a persona, a facete created with glamour spells to hide his true identity, one that was so powerful and terrifying that the balverine, also a sobrenatural creature, was able to discern and get afraid of. Jack also realizes that Xiro was never even hurt or in danger during all his fights and beatings, but instead only acted out of it.

As the room is getting gulped on fire from the fallen chandelier, Xiro then demands to know who Jack really is, as he clearly can’t truly be Jack of Blades himself. “Jack” then takes off his mask and hood revealing that he is no more than a no-one called Fred. Disgusted with the blasphemy in the true Jack of Blades name, Xiro demands to know why Fred impersonated him to what Fred responds that he was always fascinated by the figure of Jack since childhood, and after being abandoned by his alcoholic father, he refused to beg, cause Jack himself wouldn’t. Despising human kind and drawing strength, power, and even name from the figure he worshipped, Fred became a formidable sell-sword, eventually earning enough of a reputation to create an entire army of bandits. But unfortunately this caught the eye of the Albion Guard which then pursued and killed most of his men.

Now a wanted man, Fred threw himself into the persona of the one he worshipped, one whose reputation alone would keep entire villages in line in such way he could rule a whole town without being afraid of getting once again noticed by the guard. This village happened to be Oddwood. With a small army of his fellow surviving bandits, Fred imposed martial law on the small rural town, claiming whatever he wanted and executing any who either dared to stand in his way or exposed his deeds to the outside world. It was his ultimate desire to be not only wealthy, but to be worshipped by the very people that he so hated.

As Fred starts to beg for his life, Xiro claims to understand Fred’s motivations and hatred for human kind, as he himself had just suffered the public lynching on the hands of the people of the town he just had arrived. Xiro than states that Fred was, more than anyone, a philosophical brother for Jack of Blades ideals. As Fred starts to cry thanking Xiro for his understanding, he gets ultimately stabbed on the heart by a expressionless Xiro, who then claims that he understood Fred actions but not forgave them.

Xiro then leaves the mansion which is now completely ablaze, leaving all the corpses of the bandits and Fred to burn inside of it. Xiro heads for the town where everyone stays away with fear and shame for having turn against him. Beatrice is the only one to get close and desperately asks what had happened for what Xiro angrily shouts to the cowed town the truth that Jack of Blades were never the one responsible for their suffering and that Fred was an impostor and that all those men were dead.

Xiro departs to leave the town never to come back, but Beatrice follows him, wanting to be taken by Xiro in his adventures and becoming the woman of a true hero. Xiro then harshly urges her not to follow, as her destiny was to live a unimportant and useless life in the village with her father, who Xiro claimed would soon die due to a blackness within his lungs, and she would eventually be forgotten by history as she was nobody. Beatrice gets alarmed by such rude words and says that Xiro is only acting like it because he truly loves her and wishes her to be safe out of the dangers of his adventures as a hero. Xiro then turns to face her and for the last time he shouts that he is not a hero, and as Beatrice looks inside his eyes she sees his true nature and starts to scream.

External Links[]

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