by Brian Murray
Death reeled backwards and screamed in pain, clamping his hands onto his temples. His red eyes locked onto the woman’s pale green eyes and he held Her gaze.
“What have you done to me, witch?” roared Death, slapping the woman, sending Her sprawling across the damp dungeon floor.
“Remember,” She whimpered, blood trickling from the corner of Her mouth.
“I am Death. I am. I . . . ” The warrior stammered and fell to his knees, holding his head that pounded with immense pain. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?” he roared.
“Xefth, can you hear me?” asked the Divine One, Her voice pleading.
“I am De . . . ” The warrior looked into the woman’s eyes. A cruel smile slowly grew on his face. “I am Slayer,” he announced. He remembered everything.
The warrior reached down and lifted the woman from the damp floor. He wrapped the Divine One in his crimson cloak and carried Her out of the dungeon and away from the Black Palace. He crossed the black stone bridge that spanned the bubbling lava moat. The warrior reached the portal and walked through, still carrying the broken woman in his arms. He walked for leagues in the realm of the mortals until he reached the green slopes of the Kingdom. He placed the woman on the virgin ground and watched Her heal as She soaked up the land’s natural magic. She looked up at him and smiled.
“You know what to do, Xefth,” she whispered, Her voice again musical and sweet like the scent of roses.
“Aye, but I am not Xefth. Never call me that. My name is Slayer and I know what needs to be done.” The warrior strolled off to the battle.
His presence turned the fighting in favour of the people. Men, regardless of their race or skin colour, rallied together and fought side-by-side with renewed vim and purpose. They had a silver warrior on their side, killing the dark creatures with amazing ease. The army of men pushed the Dark One’s army to Rhamagabora so the Dread had their back to the sea. The creatures could not enter the source of all life. To do so would mean instant death—the sea their only weakness. Here the warrior known as Death stepped forward to face his brethren and the Dark One. He fought, defeated, and sent Malice and Fury back to the realm of Yallaz’oom with ease. Then he faced Chaos.
The two warriors fought in a flurry of cuts, stabs, and hacks. Their dance of death was fought at a bewildering speed. Each man attacked and defended himself with pure grace and calmness. But Slayer, the superior warrior, started to press his dominance. He sliced, hacked, and flicked his black blades, and all Chaos could do was parry and block. Slayer slashed high backhanded, and Chaos ducked under the blade. The silver-clad warrior instantly realised his mistake. With his other weapon, Slayer hacked upward. Chaos lifted and turned his head to the left. He was a fraction too slow. Slayer’s blade cut through Chaos’s chinstrap and clunked against the base of his helm. As the silver helm lifted from Chaos’s head, Slayer’s blade slashed through Chaos’s skin. The helm was knocked free and clanged on the ground. Chaos spun in the air and landed in a heap, clutching his face. Slayer loomed over him, looking down, his weapons ready. A wound on Chaos’s face ran from his forehead down to his jaw, oozing dark, almost black blood, seeping through his armoured fingers.
Slayer spoke, his voice chillingly cold. “You are not ready to face me. Go before I end you now. Become windborne or die.” Slayer turned his back and strolled away from the fight.
Chaos did not see what happened next. He disappeared from the realm of the mortals, broken and defeated without receiving a death stroke.
Slayer walked up to the Dark One, who had been watching the duel with pride.
“She has corrupted you!” yelled the Dark One in rage. “You are mine! My champion!”
“No, I am no longer your champion, no longer the beast, Death. I am Slayer, the man.”
“You are not a man! I created you. You are mine, you are Death!” bellowed the Dark One. “MINE!”
“Enough talk!” roared Slayer, stepping in close to the Dark One. “You have resurrected a man who hates himself more than life itself. I deserved to be dead and never to live again. And you, you whoreson, have given me immortality. I hate everything you stand for! At one time in my life I would have willingly stood at your side, so much did I hate everyone. But now I truly hate you. Let us dance the dance.”
The sword fight finished as soon as it started. The Dark One, the Prince of Darkness’ servant, was no match for his former champion. He sliced off one of the horns protruding on the helm, dented it several times, then Slayer hacked off the Dark One’s helm with bewildering speed. Slayer smiled. He battered the once-man onto his knees, into submission. The Dark One lifted his sword in defence. Slayer hacked down. But at the last moment, Slayer twisted his wrist and scythed the Dark One’s right hand off at the wrist. The Dark One’s hand and the Blade of Yallas fell at Slayer’s feet.
“You made one error, beast. I am not yours to command. People have tried to own and rule me before, but I am my own man and I set my own destiny.” Slayer used the power of the Blade of Yallas to slice a tear, a new portal, between the realms. “Be gone from this place . . . NOW!” he roared.
The Dark One looked up at his new nemesis. “This is not the end,” he hissed with the intention of striking fear.
“It is for now. Now be gone,” bellowed Slayer, holding aloft the Blade of Yallas. The sword absorbed the light around it and the Black Crystal in the hilt started to pulsate. A breeze began to blow as air was sucked into the portal. The Black Crystal pulsed stronger. The wind picked up, pulling dust and stones into the portal. The wind intensified. Around Slayer, beasts and men were knocked from their feet. The howling wind reached a peak. The first Talon Hunter was sucked through, leaving deep gouges with its claws in the lush earth. More and more beasts were dragged back to their own realm of darkness. When all of the beasts finally disappeared, the Dark One screamed like a frightened child as he was pulled through. Slayer lowered the Blade of Yallas and the howling wind eased. He gazed down and nonchalantly kicked the Dark One’s helm through the portal. He picked up the Dark One’s gauntlet and his severed hand fell out and thudded against the ground. Instantly, the skin started to wither and turned into grey dust. Slayer tossed the metal glove through the portal and using all of his strength, Slayer snapped the Black Crystal clear from the hilt on the Blade of Yallas. With a roar of victory, he threw the sword through and watched the portal close in a blinding flash.
The warrior then turned to the leaders who walked towards him. He lifted the Dark One’s hand that had changed to bones, losing all of its skin and flesh. He commanded them to hide the pieces in places where they would be never found. He ordered them never to write down their location but keep them a secret. Then the man known as Slayer, once Death, walked from the battlefield and disappeared into the mists of time. The Dark Wars had ended.
***
Slayer stopped far from Rhamagabora and made a fire. He sat brooding, hatred and sorrow dominating his mind.
“Thank you, Xefth,” said the Divine One, appearing opposite the warrior.
“Slayer,” he hissed without looking up.
“I am sorry, thank you . . . Slayer. That is another time you have come to my aid.”
Slayer looked towards the Divine One. “Why do I get the feeling this is not the last of this little saga?”
“It is not.”
“Have I done enough?”
“No,” said the woman sadly.
The warrior rose and turned his back on the woman. His voice became icy cold. “Leave me.” He knew without turning that the woman had gone. He decided not to stay in his camp and wandered away into the night.
***
In the Realm of Yallaz’oom, the Dark One sat alone on his throne for a long time, his hatred smouldering. He knew his plans would eventually succeed. He had seen it on the Paths of Time. However, when he travelled the Paths of Time, he had not seen the betrayal and the thought of his champion’s disloyalty stabbed him in the heart like a thorn. He did not have all of his po
wer because he had lost his Black Crystal. However, he had the power to possess a man in the realm of the mortals. Timing would have to be right and he would have to find the right person. If he chose the right man he could control the future and . . .
The Dark One spent thousands of years biding his time, waiting to find the right man. He possessed an old man and started the Temple of the Path during a time of plague. After he achieved his goal, the Dark One disposed of the old man and waited again. Several times he walked the Paths of Time and finally found the birth of the man he searched for. The Dark One knew he would be the one, and the time would be right. He ventured through the Mines of Moranton and walked the Grey Paths. The Dark One sat on the path and concentrated deeply. He found a weak soul in the realm of the mortals—a soul devoid of love who did not believe in the presence of the Divine One. The man would be perfect. Possessing the old man’s body, the Dark One guided him to the Grey Castle. There, he recovered the parchments and his journals he had left several hundreds of mortal years earlier. Using the old man, the Dark One founded a new religion, preaching that the Divine One left man to suffer on their own. It was a time of change for mortals and they had short memories. Many did not remember who had come to their aid during the Dark Wars all those years earlier.
Secretly, using black necromancy, the old man healed the sick when a plague ravaged people who lived just north of the Great Mountains in the Rafftonia. In the Great Mountains, he founded the Temple of the Path and the cult started to spread. Then it was time. The possessed old man hid the parchments and journal in a single-story stone house hidden among tall gnarled trees and dense, thorny bracken and went searching for a man in the Rafftonia. He found the town, then the road and, finally, the tavern he sought. He waited, his hooded robe pulled tight around his slim frame.
On a stormy night, the old man entered a tavern and looked at the patrons seated around the dingy common room. He spotted whom he sought and sat down opposite a blond-haired young man.
“If I wanted company I would pay for a whore,” barked the young man.
“Yet pay-maidens are quite expensive, young man. I, on the other hand would just like some company.”
“Go away!” snapped the young man.
“Not until you talk to me, young Naats.”
The flaxen-haired teenager looked up from his drink to stare at the old hooded man. “Do you know me?”
“What do you want?”
“Who are you?”
“What do you want?” repeated the hooded man softly.
“I want power,” hissed the Naats.
“What do you want it for?”
“To defeat my brother.”
“What will you do to achieve that?”
“Anything,” he answered, sipping his ale.
“Anything?” asked the hooded man.
“Yes, anything.”
“Take this and you will start on the road of achieving great power.”
The hooded figure handed the young man a small black crystal. The young man took the crystal. He looked at it indifferently, then slowly popped it into his mouth and looked into the man’s hood, unable to see the man’s eyes. He sucked on the black crystal, releasing the intoxicating properties of the balamine plant. The young man looked around the tavern, suddenly seeing it in a different light. A dancing kaleidoscope of colours swam before his eyes. The other patrons had different coloured hues surrounding their bodies: reds, blues, a few tinged gold, and one black. The young man achieved the spell that had caused him problems earlier in the abbey—he could see people’s auras. After several minutes, the young man looked at the old man. Instead of an old hooded figure sitting before him, now sat the image of a warrior with a bald, scarred head and piercing, glowing red eyes.
The man smiled at him. “If you want more, I will be outside tomorrow night. If you wish, I will teach you true magic, give you true power, power you could only dream of.”
The next day the young man’s thoughts were about the old hooded man and the sensational pleasures he had acquired from the black crystal. When studies ended, he raced to the tavern and waited outside. He looked down the street and saw the hooded man shuffle towards him.
“So, you want to learn?” hissed the man.
“Yes, I want power,” replied the younger man eagerly.
“I will give you power. All I ask in exchange is your loyalty.”
“You give me power and I will follow you,” answered Naats, and again saw the older man’s red eyes glow deep inside his hood.
“Come with me.”
The young man followed his new teacher to a temple. Over the next couple of years, the young man learnt all about dark magic—necromancy. Only then did the Dark One identify himself to the young man. The Dark One promised the man eternal life and immense power if he helped him. Naats Flureic agreed. He was directed to the hidden parchments in the stone house. After passing on the information, the possessed man withered and died. Naats travelled south through the Rafftonia for several months, finally finding a single-storey stone house. For the next several millennia, Naats studied and his dark powers grew, the corruption changing the man’s once athletic build to a skeletal shell. He read all of the Dark One’s notes and travelled the Paths of Times. When he left the stone house, the man knew what needed to be done. He no longer called himself by his birth name, Naats Flureic; he renamed himself the Darklord. The Darklord travelled south to the Grey Castle that had become a Temple of the Path. Here, he began his preparations and here he started teaching the false prophecy and the false rite of resurrection. The Darklord paved the way for the Dark One’s return, using the instructions written down by Frazellon thousands of years earlier.
He left the temple for a while to complete several missions. His first mission would bring the Darklord great pleasure, however his joy remained muted. He had to neutralise the Rhaurn magickers. The Darklord decided that he needed to lure the magickers to him. He travelled to a place north of the small outpost south of the Great Mountains and caused a disruption in the land’s magic. Using a spell from Frazellon’s notes, he scorched the land of all its purity, destroying a large circle around him including trees, killing animals, and searing the grass. The land looked devastated, as though a fire had burnt everything. But although fire would destroy, life would follow; the Darklord’s necromancy would not allow life to be born.
Unbeknown to the Darklord, a row in Teldor raged deciding whether the magickers should be sent. The king overruled the magic-master and sent most of this magickers to defeat the threat. The Darklord was pleased when the thirty senior magickers arrived, but saddened, as the magic-master was not among them. It was a stormy day with angry clouds dumping their load on the land, drenching everything. The Rhaurn magickers, wearing earthy brown robes, formed a semicircle before the black-robed man. The lead magicker stepped forward and said something to the Darklord. He was not listening. Instead, he recalled a spell and held it, allowing power to build inside him. The magicker said something else. For the first time, the Darklord looked at the man. Inside his shadowy hood, his eyes glowed red and the air around him fizzed. Slowly, the Darklord raised his hands and muttered a word of power. The magickers did not have time to prepare a defence.
Black streaks of mystical energy leapt from his fingers and slammed into a magicker. The man was thrown back, screaming in pain. While in the air, the magicker’s robes burst into flames. He landed on the ground with a thud, the sodden soil hissing. The magicker’s scream, like him, died with a pitiful gargle. All that remained, under rising steam, was a contorted blackened skeleton.
The other magickers looked at their dead comrade, then at the black-robed man. Before they could raise any defence, the Darklord pushed out with his hands. More streaks of foul energy leapt from his fingers. One moment twenty-nine men and women stood before him, the next, only one woman remained. The Darklord changed the spell and whispered a word of power. More black streaks leapt from his fingers, but this time they encase
d and danced around the woman. The Darklord motioned with his fingers. The woman was lifted into the air, turned, and brought closer. She stopped a stride away from the black-robed man, her face twisted in pain. The Darklord spoke, his voice cold and menacing. “I want you to cure the land,” he commanded.
“But . . . ”
The Darklord slowly closed his fist and the black streaks around the woman tightened like a vice. She screamed. “I will repeat myself only once. I want you to cure the land. Your power is no match for me, so do not try and challenge me.”
In her pain the woman managed to nod. The Darklord lowered the woman to the ground and released the spell. The magicker slumped to the wet ground, clutching her breast with tears mixing with the rain.
“Do it!” shouted the Darklord.
The woman nodded and gingerly rose to her feet. She was a tall woman, standing a head taller than the Darklord, with long dark hair and sad blue eyes. She recalled a spell of healing and regenerated the land. The spell took several minutes to complete and when done, the magicker fell to her knees, exhausted. The grass grew and trees flourished. Only the blackened skeletons remained to show the act of wanton evil that had occurred.
“You have done well,” sneered the Darklord, when the woman turned to face him. He took a step forward, closing the gap between them. “But now you must die.” Swiftly, the Darklord raised one hand and pointed at the woman’s face with two fingers. Two energy bolts leapt from his fingers and slammed into the woman’s eyes. Her eyes hissed and popped, releasing steam, and sizzling blackened matter exploded from her skull. She slumped to the ground, her head totally destroyed. Looking around, the Darklord smiled. The land had been healed. As far as anyone would be concerned, the magickers had achieved their goal but gave up their lives in doing so. He wondered if it would have been so easy if his twin brother had been present. He hoped not—the Darklord wanted to enjoy torturing his brother. Without a backwards glance, the Darklord turned and headed north, back to the Great Mountains.