Twilightfall

by Viktor Zólyomi

  How in the Hell was he able to do this without even waving his hand?

  `Fury, Flora... Fury!' he exclaims, and the whirlwind and the shards begin to close in on us, and they begin to cut into our skin...

  Our weapons are still locked together, and he just stares at me with a fierce smile. Even as the shards begin to cut into our skin, he does not cease to smile. He somehow ignores the pain.

  As do I. I won't let him distract me! I won't let him force me to pull the sword back!

  The shards get closer and closer, and start cutting into us more and more often. A few moments later, the whirlwind picks us both up from the ground, and drags us along with it...

  We are lifted high above, caught in the whirlwind, and we are being tossed about like rag-dolls. The shards cut into us where they can. Zack just laughs, and after a while, he waves his hand and he disappears. He reappears on the ground, at the edge of the chamber, away from the whirlwind. He sheathes his weapons, and looks up, smiling. The scars on his skin begin to seal up, and a few moments later he stands there uninjured. While I am still stuck in the whirlwind...

  I try to change into mist shape, but it somehow doesn't work. He must be stopping me from shapechanging. The son of a bitch!

  He just smiles as the whirlwind speeds up, and the shards cut more and more into me. My entire body is covered with blood now, and I am slowly starting to feel weak. This maelstrom of glass shards just won't stop, and suddenly, the sword slips out of my hand...

  The sword flies out of the whirlwind and flies towards Zack. He reaches out his hand, and the sword lands in his palm. He looks at it with a satisfied smile, then lets it go. The sword turns into a puff of black smoke, and vanishes into his body.

  The whirlwind abruptly stops, and I start to fall. I try to shapechange, but it still doesn't work. A few moments later I impact into the stone floor. It cracks beneath me as I fall down, and a sudden feeling of weakness overwhelms me as all the air is forced out of my lungs. I lay there motionless on my back for many long moments, as he approaches me.

  Slowly I turn my head towards him. He crouches over me, and looks at me smiling.

  `Hey, Flora! Guess what? You lose! Again!'

  He laughs out loud, and then he adds:

  `Am I good at this shit, or am I fucking good at this shit?'

  I slowly raise my head, and smile at him. And start to laugh.

  He begins to laugh with me, but slowly the smile fades off his face as he realizes why I am laughing. As he realizes, that during our duel, he left the Shadestone uncared for.

  He turns his head towards it, and sees that it is rotating fast and glowing faintly.

  `Oh... fuck!' he screams, and he jumps up and moves towards the stone.

  Twilightfall

  On the battlefield in front of Keehmor Keep, present day (5 minutes before Twilightfall)

  This is not going well...

  The battle has been raging for quite a while now, and we have not yet progressed far. We took out four of the golems, and suffered hundreds of losses. Zack's undead servants brought them all back as undead creatures, and they are now fighting for us, but it seems to me like it makes little difference. The golems are ignoring the undead, but the undead don't seem to be able to do any real harm to the golems.

  I don't like this...

  Suddenly, one of my battlemages comes towards me.

  `My Queen!' he says, bowing his head.

  `What is it?'

  `Come quickly! There may be trouble!'

  I follow him, and he leads me to the back where all my mages are gathered up.

  `What's wrong?' I ask them.

  `Up there, in that tower!' says one of them pointing towards the tallest tower of the Keep.

  `What of it?' I ask.

  `Something is happening in there. It's been going on like that for several minutes now.'

  `What's happening?'

  `Take a look!' he says, and he touches my forehead. A moment later, my vision changes, and I see a strong bright light beyond the walls of the tower, and two much fainter lights. The bright light is just a small spot, but the faint ones have humanoid shape, and one of them seems to be brighter than the other.

  `What am I seeing?'

  `The concentration of magical energy in the tower. One of the two figures is a black magician.'

  `What?!'

  Zack! That son of a bitch is inside!

  `Yes, my Queen, but that's not the problem. Watch the bright spot!'

  `It seems to be growing...'

  `Yes. It is magical energy being released from some kind of magical item. The rate at which it is being released is accelerating. It looks like it's about to explode!'

  `Explode?'

  `Yes. Judging by the amount of magical energy... It will destroy the entire Keep!'

  I turn towards him.

  `Are you certain?!'

  `Yes, my Queen! We should prepare for it, take shelter, or construct...'

  `No! We retreat! Now!'

  `But...'

  `You heard me! Order my dragons to flee! Now!'

  `What of the lessers?'

  `No time! We retreat, now!'

  I spread my arms and begin to shapeshift. A few moments later, I stand there in dragon form. I open my jaws and cry out loud!

  `My kin! Retreat! Now!'

  I fly up, and head towards the citadel as fast as I can.

  *

  A minute passes, maybe two, and I hear a gigantic explosion from behind me. I glance behind as I am flying. What I see almost makes me stop flapping my wings...

  The entire Keep is enveloped in a gigantic fireball, and it is only growing!

  `Faster!' I cry out, and I use my magic to increase my velocity and fly faster. I glance behind again, and I see the fireball growing and growing. It's got to be at least a mile wide by now. It's getting closer...

  `Faster!' I cry out, but it's pointless. The explosion just simply advances on us too fast. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind strikes me in the back, and tosses me forward. Some kind of shockwave, which came along with the fireball of the explosion. It knocks me away, and I completely lose my balance. It drags me along for a long distance, and then I begin to fall. I try to flap my wings, but it's useless. I fall and fall, and suddenly I hit the ground. Slowly, darkness falls upon me...

  *

  I awake. Slowly I stand up. It seems I still live, but I feel weak. I slowly turn back into human form, and then look around. I see several dragons lying on the ground, scattered around me. Some of them seem to have been killed by the fall, others live.

  `Damn you, Zack... What did you do?'

  Then I look towards the Keep. I don't see anything... How far can it be? Hard to say. We couldn't have been more than three miles from the Keep when the shockwave struck us. But how far did that drag us?

  I am too weak to take dragon form, but I think I can still grow half-dragon wings. I close my eyes and focus on it, and a moment later the half-dragon wings grow out of my back. I fly above with them. As I look around, I suddenly notice something.

  The sky has changed. It's like at times of twilight, but somehow different. It looks like it is at dusk or dawn, with no sign of the sun or moon, or even stars, but something does seem to be sparkling up in the sky. Something similar to stars, and crimson in color.

  `What the Hell is this?'

  Then I turn towards the Keep and try to make it out. I fly closer, and after a few minutes, I start to see something.

  There is a gigantic crater far ahead, with absolutely nothing within. Seems like it's at least a mile in diameter, if not two. I can't see as far as the center of it, but I can't imagine anything survived in there. The Keep must have been completely destroyed, along with everyone who stayed on the battlefield.

  I slowly fly down and land, and close my eyes. I take a deep breath, then look towards the crater.

  `Zack... You ignorant, lowdown son of a bitch... You'd better be dead, because if you survived this, I will kill y
ou myself!'

  Epilogue

  Keehmor Crater

  Somewhere in Draconia, present day (5 hours after Twilightfall)

  She slowly awakens, and stands up. She shakes her head, and looks around. She beholds the wicked twilight that has fallen on the land, and sees that there is nothing but a barren wasteland all around.

  `So surreal...' she says to herself, as she watches the twilight sky.

  `Yes. But it's kinda beautiful, isn't it?'

  She startles and turns towards me, and sees me sitting on a big rock. I conjured the rock here earlier, so I'd have something to sit on while waiting for her to awaken.

  `I must have done something horrible in life, to be punished with your company in the Afterlife...' she says with a frown.

  `Haha! We are not dead, Flora!' I tell her, laughing.

  `What do you mean we're not dead?'

  `I mean, we're alive. Well, I'm alive, and you are still undead.'

  `How is that possible? And where are we?'

  `Well, I would say we are roughly where we were when the stone blew up. Everything around us was destroyed. Keehmor Keep is gone. There's only a big fucking crater left. It's fucking big, we're right in the middle of it and we can't see the edge of it from here. You know what, we could call it Keehmor Crater after Danny Boy's former home.'

  `How did we survive this... devastation?'

  `I dunno. I was knocked out when the stone blew into my face, and I don't remember anything about how we could have possibly survived. Well, I have a suspicion, actually, but... I've got no idea if that's correct. Time will tell, though.'

  She sighs, and looks back towards the sky.

  `The sky looks so strange...'

  `You're telling me? I've been awake for a lot longer than you.'

  `So?'

  `Looks like twilight, doesn't it?'

  `Isn't it?'

  `Well, it looks great, but I still don't like it. Do you know why I don't like it? Because I have no idea what it is, but it looks like twilight, and it's been like that for at least four hours.'

  `Four hours?'

  `Yeah. Four fucking hours! I came to around four hours ago. The sky's been like this ever since.'

  `How can that be?'

  `I don't know. But it sure is strange. Do you see those crimson stars in the sky?'

  `Yes. Why are they crimson?'

  `I don't know why they're crimson. But the point is, they're not stars. If you know the star signs around here, and I happen to know them thanks to Danny Boy, you know that the stars are in a completely different position than these things up there, no matter which time of the year it is.'

  `If they're not stars, then what are they?'

  `I have no fucking idea.'

  She looks around in silence for a while.

  `Did we do this?' she asks finally.

  `I have no fucking idea about that, either. But by we, I trust you mean you, right?'

  `What's that?' she asks with narrowed eyes.

  `You heard me!' I tell her, as I stand up. `The stone blew up because of you! That fucking explosion was your doing!'

  `I was not the one trying to open a planar Rift that could have doomed Arghard!'

  `You were the one who poked her nose into something that was none of her fucking business! Just why do you care so much about this fucked-up world anyway?'

  `Meliorath was right. Nothing pisses you off more than to be foiled in something you really wanted.'

  `She said that? Yeah, I guess she knows me at least a little. You know... Exploring the Shadowland has been a great dream of mine for a very long time...'

  `Well excuuuse me for breaking your dream...' she says mockingly.

  `Breaking it? No... You didn't break it. You can't. All you can do is delay it. So long as I live, I will keep on trying. Our dreams don't die until we ourselves die. You should know that.'

  `Should I?'

  `Yes. You were there with Jason in the endgame of his game... His dream lived on in him to the end. He fulfilled it, and then he died.'

  `You weren't there, how would you know?'

  `Kurt told me.'

  `How would he know?'

  `He spoke to Jason after his death. Didn't you know? Ah, I forgot. You haven't been to Kh'Tal ever since...'

  `What... what did he say to him?'

  `Ask Kurt. Go to Kh'Tal, and ask him.'

  `Send me there!'

  `Oh, I'd love to. But I can't open a portal anywhere now. Any-fucking-where... I can't even fucking teleport. I've got no fucking idea why. And you know what fucking else? I'm totally fucking pissed off about it!'

  She looks at me surprised, and then glances around.

  `You can't teleport? What will you do now?'

  `I don't know. I gotta make it back to Coldrock somehow. You're gonna help me with that.'

  `I will?' she asks, frowning.

  `Yes. You owe me that much.'

  `Owe you?! You know what? Fuck you! You want to go back to Coldrock? Go on, do it. Without me!' she says, and then she turns around and starts to walk away. To the north, as far as I can tell.

  `Where the fuck are you going? Do you really fucking think that you can just leave me the fuck here? Do you?!'

  She doesn't reply. She doesn't stop. She just keeps walking.

  `You'll be back, just you wait and see!' I shout after her, as she slowly vanishes from my view.

  `Little bitch... After all I did for her!'

  Suddenly, before I could anger myself even more, I hear a voice in my mind.

  `Do not worry about her, Planewalker. Worry about yourself.'

  `Evelyn?'

  `Reach out your arm and summon the sword, Planewalker!' she says. I do as she asks. Moments later, a ghastly smoke starts pouring out of the tip of the blade, and it slowly forms a humanoid figure. It is a ghostly figure of a human woman, with long dark hair and a strongly feminine wizard robe. A figure I've seen on occasion before, but always in battle, and never did I have a chance to properly observe her.

  `Evelyn?' I ask, with a voice full of surprise. I've had the sword for a hundred years, but she has never appeared before just for the sake of talking to me. She sometimes leaves the blade in battle and goes runamock amongst my enemies, but at such times she never stops to chat.

  `It is I.' she says, nodding.

  `You never appeared before if you just wanted to talk. Is something wrong?'

  `Yes. I fear I've come to say farewell to you, Planewalker. I hope I will be proven wrong, but... I do not think so.'

  `What are you talking about?' I ask suspiciously.

  `They are coming for you. In a matter of minutes, they will be here, and they will try to kill you. I cannot help you against them. I fear, they will kill you.'

  `They? Who are they?'

  `The ones who died here a few hours ago. In the explosion.'

  `Huh? What the fuck do you mean with that?'

  `I wanted to speak with you before they come, in case I never have the chance to do it again. Many have wielded the Sword of Fury, but none have been as worthy as you. It has been an honor to fight with you.'

  She slowly turns into smoke, and returns to the blade.

  `Evelyn? What the fuck do you mean with that? The ones that died here? How could they possibly come at me? They're fucking dead!'

  `Get ready, Planewalker! They come!' she says in my mind, and then she falls silent.

  Suddenly I sense the presence of many others all around me. As I glance around, they appear.

  Out of nowhere. Humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, trolls. Dozens of them, perhaps even fifty. They seem familiar. They are members of Mel's army. The army which I thought was entirely destroyed in the explosion.

  `What in the fuck...?!' I exclaim, as I observe them. They are all around me, I am completely surrounded. No way out...

  `How the fuck did you guys survive the explosion?' I ask.

  `We died.' says one of them up front. `Now, you will join us.'

  `Are
you fucking kidding with me? You're all fucking dead? Then how the fuck can you be here?!' I ask. They don't answer, but I guess there's no need. It seems obvious enough that they're dead. But how the fuck are they here?

  If they're dead and yet they are here, then they're ghosts. They cannot be zombies, their bodies were destroyed. But ghosts can't just come back from the Afterlife like that. It takes a large amount of magical energy to create a manifestation for the souls of the dead and break their bond to the Afterlife, a process which takes weeks of preparation, and a black magician. No arcane mage could have brought them back. No-one, not even Voi'Shek in his prime had the power to bring back even a single soul from the Afterlife with just arcane magic, let alone dozens of dead souls, and so swiftly. It is simply not possible... What the fuck is going on here?!

  `How the fuck can you fuckers be the fuck here, huh?!' I ask them demandingly. They don't reply. They just begin to approach me.

  `Alright... Screw you! Screw every fucking last one of you, you motherfucking lousy-ass lowlife cumfaced shitsacks! You wanna fuck with me, huh?!' I tell them, and I pull out the SMG 12000. The damn thing is only around half charged up now, and that won't be enough, but I won't lay down for them anyway. If you gotta go, go out fighting, and go out in a spectacular way!

  I turn the weapon into the shape which can harm these ghosts the most. The so-called flamethrower.

  I aim the barrel at the nearest fuckface.

  `Bring it on, motherfuckers!' I exclaim, and I pull the trigger.

  Cast of characters

  Key Players:

  Jason Vogan: half-demon, child of the Demon Lord Th'Mesh

  Flora E'Lyn: elf hunter, former elite member of the most renowned elven hunter Guild of Endarryn, the first elven vampire

  Zack Sands: black humored black magician and professional asshole, boss of Coldrock, Daniel Keehmor's best friend

  Grenshaur: lizardman bounty hunter

  Kayne'algar: ruler of an icy world

  Ghaubel: night elf scryer, ruler of Sil Velies

  Drabangar: ancient powerful magician, guardian of the Amulet of Darkness

  Meliorath: Queen of dragon-kind, leader of the Dragon Hordes