TR: 22

Chapter Twenty-Two: Rebirth

The old man sat in a high-backed chair in the center of the room, stoking the dwindling fire in the hearth before him. There was a sickly gasp behind him as a soldier collapsed in the doorway, causing both guards standing akimbo on either side of the entrance to nearly jump. The soldier’s skin was so emaciated that it clung to the bone like desiccated seaweed to a log, the colour more like sandpaper than flesh. Out of his hand rolled a glinting shard of metal with a single, cracked gemstone in the pommel. Archbishop Semanus Alturius the seventh jumped to his feet, as fast as a nearly two-hundred year old man could, and cautiously approached the fallen soldier.

“Report.” He said, callously.

“My…my lord.” The man gasped, struggling to take in air. His armour clung so loosely to him that it was a wonder it had managed to stay on at all.

“My men…gone. All…thirty-five of them. Formed…a chain. From the dock houses to here. Not but…a minute each, then…gone. Just…wasted away, before the next…and then…the dagger, it…enchanted. Draining away…all life, that…touches…I…was to be the last to…del…deliver it…deliver it to you, m’lord.”

Ever so cautiously, Semanus bent over and waved a hand across the length of the object, hovering but pinches above it.

“Not enchanted, general; merely compromised.”

The archbishop picked up the dagger and held it between them, turning it over as he examined it, shrewdly.

The general’s eyes widened at the sight of the archbishop, unharmed by the thing.

“You…can ward…this?”

The archbishop scowled down at the pitiful general. “Of course I can. Did you doubt my powers, general? What did you think I was doing all these decades; learning how to flow-craft beer and pretzels so your men could drink and fart until they passed out in the mess?”

The general’s eyes burned with the look of a man come face to face with madness, incredulous at the thought that his master could have saved the lives of thirty-five men, had he just retrieved the object himself. The general collapsed, dying as he let out a final, defeated sigh.

Thirty-six men.

The archbishop gave the corpse one last, noncommittal look at turned his attention back to the piece in his hand.

“Dispose of the bodies before they attract any vermin.”

One of the guards leaned his head out, peeking down the length of the hall. Not so far down, he could make out the remains of another visibly wasted corpse, face-down on the floor. The guards exchanged concerned looks then quickly retrieved the fallen general, dragging him out of the room by the arms.

The archbishop carried the shard over to a display case atop a cabinet, cradling it between two hands as if it were a fragile newborn. He opened the case and the shattered fragment of a white blade lay cushioned in red velour padding. Ever so gently, Semanus laid the other piece down beside the blade and nudged it over with the palm of his hand until the shattered edges lined up. Despite not being fully reformed, seeing the ancient weapon visibly whole once more, after thousands of years of self-estrangement, brought a proud smile to his face and a tear to his eye.

A soft sound behind him gave him pause but he knew that energy signature all too well for it to raise concern. The augur approached, sidling up beside the archbishop, hands buried in voluminous sleeves of his robe. The augur studied the archbishop’s face for a moment, unemotional and nearly scientific, before he followed his master’s gaze down to the sword in waiting. Standing close, the archbishop remarked mentally on how the elf’s skin was damn-near as white as the blade before them.

”Isn’t a marvel, Jarra-Fayel?”

”Indeed it is, sire.”

The elf studied the sword passively for but a moment more before turning his attention on the archbishop who met the augur’s gaze.

”Am I to assume that it has begun, then?”

The archbishop nodded solemnly. “The time of Ensupralatus is upon us. Summon the clergy and direct them to their positions; they will know what to do. Take whatever extra hands you can find and fortify the perimeter of the courtyard. General Commanth and his men are…”

The archbishop coughed several times into his sleeve, fighting back a mucosal attack.

”…inconveniently unavailable.”

”So I have heard.”

The archbishop wasted no time elaborating.

“I will trust the security detail to you then, my old friend. And make sure that word gets out; Ensupralatus is a time of celebration—a heralding of a new age. Something like this…”

More coughing.

”…only comes around once in a thousand years.”

”Or perhaps, three thousand, sire?”

”What? Ah, yes, of course. Nonetheless, I want anybody who is anybody out in that courtyard when I perform the ritual. Our dark lord must have his proper welcome, after all.”

”I have no doubt it will be such, sire.”

”I am unsure if your confidence is inspiring or unsettling, augur. How can you be so sure word will reach all the cantons in such short order?”

The augur smiled. “Your faith in me is not misplaced, master. Word has already been sent to the kingdoms. They are filtering in as we speak.”

The archbishop staggered back a step.

”They are here already? How is that possible?”

”Sire, lest you forget that my very position is that of the seer. It is only natural that I may relate what I see. A vision is merely a preconception of a time yet to come, and this particular vision involved many. Thus, I relayed it to the many, such that the vision would be manifest. This is the way of the sight.”

”Shrewd. I should never have doubted you, not for a moment, Jarra-Fayel.”

The archbishop placed a withered hand on the elf’s shoulder.

”Tell me, just how many people were in this vision? How many acolytes should I prepare to amaze and astound on this momentous evening?”

Jarra-Fayel’s eye twinkled with delight.

”Why sire, all of them.”

***

The archbishop’s hands shook as he struggled to put on his black collar. Once it was in place, he lowered his arms at his side and admired his cassock in the mirror, embellished with metal ornamentation about the collar and chest area. He glared defiantly at the reflection of a dying face of a once benevolent young man, the regalia looking so out of place that, at first glance, one may have thought he had stolen it. Once, he had been an intimidating, poignantly assertive man, with a cold heart of steel and skin as thick as a Scorrsian’s boot sole. He had been a leader among leaders, admired for over a century as an esteemed scholar and doyen of the dark arts among his peers. Now, he could barely speak a sentence without stammering or running out of breath and his jaundiced and liver-spotted skin hung from his bones as if it were trying to escape his very being. Though he had been able to preserve his passion throughout his eight-score and fifteen years, it, too, along with the rest of him, was slowly rotting away. He knew that his time as the revered archbishop was coming to an end; that was the true fear pulling at his heart–that he should lose his hard-earned position among the Oblitari–not the threat that terminal age posed on his life.

His position was his greatest achievement—it had always been. The role of Archbishop extended back, he was taught, to the very beginning. To Crimson Eve itself. At first a response to those who believed they had been denied salvation at the hands of the True savior, the handful of devotees who had managed to survive the great inquisition which followed in the wake of that rueful day over three thousand years hence, evolved to become something much more. Knowing that their master had not abandoned them as they were led to believe, this valiant lot, though scattered and fleeing for their very lives, eventually reassembled and formed what was known as the Ex Oblitari—“those who do not forget”. A secret society of which only the most vetted and devout individuals belonged, it was said that no one ‘joined’ the Oblitari: the Oblitari found them. They had eyes everywhere; in the highest social and political circles, right down to the common Cren. There was even a period—cherished in memory by the Oblitari—known as the Rerighting, from about 1876 CE – 1932 CE when the Oblitari almost regained their secular foothold that they once had. It was thus that Rynn was, in their eyes at least, nearly “righted” again—to how things were before their great lord had fallen. It was this very recollection to which their name was owed: the Oblitari “never forgot”—never forgot how close their master had come to delivering them.

Thus, when the 107^th Archbisop of the Grand Enesian diocese looked at his haggard complexion in the mirror, he couldn’t help but feel terror at the thought of losing such a precious commodity as had been bestowed upon him, let alone if it were to fall into another’s hands. The latter thought gave him even greater pause; if he were unable to choose his successor then he would risk fragmenting his bloodline, which would be lost and his families’ reign would be a scab in time. The problem therein was that he had no surviving siblings and no progeny. He couldn’t procreate anymore, nor had he ever desired to back in his virile years. This remained somewhat of a contentious thought in the old bishop’s mind as the mortality of his role now confronted him; he loathed women as much as he loathed men and could never bring himself to such a vile act as making a child. Yet, it was this very denial of the flesh that had gotten him into his current position—one of immense compunction: genetic dereliction.

A guard stepped into the old man’s chamber.

“My lord, all the men have gathered and the clergy is ready. They are restless in this wake.”

The Archbishop picked up a medallion bound to a silver chain and put it around his neck. The strange insignia on it glinted in the light, the Archbishop’s eyes drawn to its millennia-old allure. He pulled his black hood over his bald head and turned to the guard.

“Then let us begin this rite.”

***

The archbishop stepped up to the heavy curtains, staring blankly at the large white Oblitari insignia finely woven into their fabric. Beyond, he could hear the barely-muted chanting and pandemonium of countless onlookers, restless to begin. He straightened up as much as his failing spine would allow and took a deep breath. He nodded at his augur and Jarra-Fayel pulled back one side of the curtains, exposing the torch-lit balcony beyond. The archbishop took a deep breath and stepped out onto the balcony, the din washing over him like a violent tide.

He gasped, bracing himself on the marble baluster as he stared down at the veritable sea of people that filled the courtyard twenty blades below. Spilled was a more accurate term, perhaps; the courtyard was designed and large enough for an army of twenty thousand men, held rank-and-file, but the number that had accumulated there was easily five times that. While the Archbishop couldn’t be certain of the exact numbers before him, as crowds of that size were too diffuse to get an accurate head count, he could certainly feel the immense signature of the lot of them, and this gave him somewhat of an average guestimate as to their number. The feeling was intense–almost overwhelming–like a panic attack waiting to rise to the surface but held down at the brink by sheer willpower. He observed the scene before him: everyone stood cheek-to-jowl, and those that could not fit into the yard were backed up in burgeoning crowds which extended past the three massive entrance arches and out into the perimeter woods. That did not stop others from trying to pile into the yard; pyramids of individuals had formed sporadically around the perimeter walls, forming stacking piles of bodies which allowed the climbing up onto the battlements of the retaining walls, which themselves were overcrowded with onlookers hoping to get a closer look at the rite.

To his immediate left, about a quarter-bout away, his clergy–the top twenty highest-ranking members of the Oblitari from around the world, and his closest and most powerful allies–sat in an adjacent cloistered terrace, jutting out over the courtyard. All dressed in the same identical regalia, they sat hands clasped on laps, watching intently out at their reception below.  He gazed incredulously over the mass of bodies below him, taking in the screaming, chanting and celebrating that had accumulated.  Though his hearing wasn’t what it once was, he could make out eerie music wafting in from somewhere outside the fortress grounds. Massive bonfires could be seen spotting the landscape like brilliant, glowing abscesses. He was surprised to find an enormous diversity among them; aside from at least three species of Yan, he could see several variants of merfolk, a smattering of orcs with their token goblins held at bay at the end of a chain, and jovial sprites flitting about, teasing the air above the heads of the audience. In one corner he could see a cordon formed by several huge earth trolls which stood as a barrier between the throng and those who had collected in a small circle, including a band of minotaurii percussionists, accompanied by fire-spinning sprites, swaying and twirling to their rhythmic pounding. The Achbishop felt as if he had stepped into some kind of festival. Perhaps that is what it all was to these ‘new-agers’—those claiming to be of the ilk. The Archbishop knew better though: what these diluted-down imposters expounded as scruples were embarrassing excuses to live as they wished; ritual had become pantomime, dogma merely household rules. And as much as it enraged the Archbishop to see the youth of his generation succumb to such deplorable laziness and disregard for the Truth, they were the only ones that he had left. And despite the quality of them, the sheer quantity that had gathered there that day–the hundred thousand or more from around the globe that had come all that way to usher back the Old and True ways–brought a tear to his eye. Blinking past the water in his eyes, he tilted his head up to the clear, star-spattered sky, the two moons full and bright, looking down at him like questioning eyes.

“Lord Aeros, give me strength on this eve.”

The old man raised a hand above his head.

“Let us begin this rite.”

The raucous continued unabated. It seemed that no one had heard him.

The Archbishop grit his teeth. While he didn’t have high hopes for these pretenders, this kind of behaviour was beyond childish, and he wouldn’t stand for it. Summoning up a Ydra flow around him, he channeled it up to his face and tethered his voice to its intricate workings.

“Enough!” He yelled.

His voice rippled across the crowd like a wave and echoed into the mountains beyond the fortress perimeter. After a round of gasps and hollers, followed by latent mumbling, the sounds died down, until the last thing that could be heard was the fading beating of a drum, somewhere far off beyond the walls, until it too was consumed by the silence of the night. As his gaze panned across the sea of bodies below, he realized that he had never spoken to this many people before, not by a long shot. Any kind of delegation that had required his direct presence was usually some kind of summit or conference, the largest of which was comprised of maybe several hundred attendees. This was so much more. But should that matter? Perhaps it should be easier, he thought, considering the larger the number the more impersonal the effect. But he knew in his heart of hearts that that was not why he was truly nervous; it was because this event meant everything to him. It was the culmination of his life’s work. More—it was the culmination of his entire lineage’s work.  Thus, as he met every man, woman and other creatures’ gaze as they stared up at him with prying eyes, he felt that his ancestors too were down there watching, waiting for him to deliver their legacy.  He cleared his throat and began.

“My friends,” he started, his voice dry and crackly. “Tonight is a night of all nights. Tonight is the night that you and I have been dreaming of for many, many years. Tonight, I strongly believe that those dreams will be fulfilled.”

“It has been too long that we have lived in oppression from the ignorant man; too long that we have had to walk their streets and abide by their contrived laws. Each and every one of us has had to live under their watch and has had to listen for their call. But this bondage ends tonight. No more will we do as we are told; no more will be ostracized for having visions that are higher than the layman’s comprehension; and no more will we wear these shackles that have been cast upon our wrists and ankles for generations.”

The Archbishop reached down inside of his robe and pulled out a large, black book bound with some kind of peeling skin. On the front, the book bore the same insignia as was on the pendant he wore around his neck. He opened it and flipped through until he came to a page.

“I would like to read you an excerpt from the Book of Relegation, if you would care to indulge in an old man’s words.”

The Archbishop looked over to a stool several blades away, to where a flagon of water had been placed for him. He reached out a hand and summoned the flagon to him, which gently flew into his grasp. He took a drink and replaced it on the stool in the same fashion. He cleared his throat into his shoulder and began his recitation.

“And as did the blade penetrate his body, it penetrated his soul, sealing him; confining him to a condemned life of hell forged in metal and bone. Until the day of reckoning, he can never be free. Only a kiss from the lips of the prison’s creator can bind the seal, and thus break it in turn, unleashing the power of his universe into our own and bringing man to order once and for all.”

The archbishop stared at the words for a moment, letting them absorb into his mind, and then he closed the book.

“As you all know, the passage I just incited refers to our lord’s final stand against the heretics and his subsequent fall. You would know that the passage speaks of that fated final battle on Crimson Eve, some three-thousand years past—the very same battle where he was defiled on the end of a blade of a most wretched foe. It is this very blade—a weapon of sheer irony—that our lord was confined to spend the rest of his days in; ‘condemned’, as the passage states, ‘for an eternal life in hell, until the kiss of its creator can free him’.”

There were footsteps in the halls outside the balcony and the guard drew aside the curtain, allowing the initiate on to the platform. The messenger approached the bishop and knelt down on one knee, offering up an object covered in a velvet cloth, resting on a small tray. The bishop took the tray and the man left the platform. The Archbishop turned back to his audience.

“Through much deciphering and study of the dark texts, we have concluded that the ‘kiss’ that the passage refers to can be traced back to the creator of the sword—the very man whose blind audacity led him to found the ‘revolution’ against our lord’s plans at liberating our precious planet. The man, the soul master, the defiler…known as Mazlat.”

The crowd began to boo and hiss at the name as they stirred in anger. The archbishop held up the tray into the air with the round object underneath the cloth.

“After many decades of searching, we had discovered what we believed to be the actual site of the event—the site where the great battle of Crimson Eve had taken place. Yet, although our lord was to be forever indebted to the depths of the sea, in his last moments of brilliance, he brought along with him another. And it was there, down deep at the bottom of the ocean, where they shared in each others’ eternal torment, that we found the answer—we found the kiss. Behold, the lips of Mazlat!”

The archbishop pulled the cloth off the object and a cracked and dirty brown skull grinned out at the audience. The audience went into uproar, cheering and hollering at the site of the remains of the fallen master. The archbishop nodded in agreement and lifted his hand for silence. The crowd died down and went back to listening.

“Perfectly preserved for three thousand years, and hidden for just as many, the skull of the Soul Master was finally uncovered by a team of diligent devotees. Utilizing our sophisticated biotechnology, we have run countless tests and confirmed with the utmost confidence that these remains are authentic. Now, as great an accomplishment as this seemed at the time, we still had a dilemma: for the seal to be broken, we needed the kiss of the prison’s creator, yes, but we also needed the prison itself. And for many years we did have it.”

The archbishop paused and a palpable weight of anticipation settled on to the crowd.

“Half of it, at least. During its time at the bottom of the ocean, the sword must have been exposed to extremely harsh conditions and the blade was snapped. How this is possible, I cannot say, but it did, and thus we could only recover a fragment. For years we searched and searched for the other half but could uncover nothing. Until now. Now, we have found the missing piece, and in the most superlative interplay of artistry and irony, our great lord’s prison is ready to be restored, such that it may finally be broken. We will see a new light of day, finally, and for every new day to come!”

The crowd burst into a huge uproar, fists pumping and voices roaring, bellowing and chanting victoriously. The Archbishop nodded at the lot and left the balcony.

“Well, I’d say that went well.” Jarra-Fayel said to the Archbishop, as he closed the curtain behind them.

“The night is still young. There is much yet to do.”

The two proceeded through the fortress, heading down to the lower levels. As the augur helped the Archbishop down a large, winding staircase, Semanus Alturius paused mid-step. He turned to the augur and grasped him by the arm, a look of dire unction in his expression.

“What if it doesn’t work, Jarra-Fayel?”

In a rare moment, Jarra-Fayel seemed taken aback. “Sire?”

“The ritual. What if it doesn’t work? What if we…” Coughing. “What if we got it all wrong? What would we tell them?”

The elf shook his head. “It will not be so. I have seen it. I…”

The old man waved a hand deprecatorily. “Yes, yes, your visions. I know. But what if they too are not true. Or misleading?”

“Misleading? How so, sire?”

“What if…we interpreted them wrong. What if what you saw…was not this, but something else?”

Jarra-Fayel smiled. “As much as I would love to philosophize with you, sire, a vision is simply that: a vision. It would not be so if it were not true.”

The Archbishop frowned off in the darkness, nodding his head somewhat unconvincingly. “This is a valid point. Then let us hope you were correct. For all of their sake, and subsequently–yours.”

The look the Archbishop gave the augur was all but venomous. Jarra-Fayel merely stared at the old man, expressionless, his face a pure form of perfect complacence, except for a small glint in his eye which told of a distant but dangerously-close fire that burned beneath the surface of it all. After a moment of captured silence, the augur held out an arm.

“After you, sire.”

***

The ritual site was on the ground level in the courtyard, at the fore of the audience. The staging area was a circumspect square of dirt with several rows of stone pews, framing an aisle which led to a small stone dais, upon which the fragments of Kadomus sat. A high metal fence barred the crowd from the staging area, lest anyone get any ideas about attempting to steal the relics; there was no telling what some of the extreme fanatics may try. Guards were posted at intervals along the gate in case anyone tried to climb over. As the archbishop made his way down the stairs to the site, he glanced up at the towering spires and battlements of the east wing of the fortress, known as Bleaklook Manor. The fortress was named so due to the well-known legend that told of the horrible fates that befell those who witnessed the castle at night when the windows were alight from the inside. While the manor was often vacant for the centuries following Mokul’s demise, once the Order had established itself there around 470 CE, many ships and convoys disappeared in the shores just off the Shadow Peninsula. Whether it was coincidence or not not one knew, but the events aligned nonetheless. Those who managed to survive, either castaways or those who had managed to bring their ships far enough in to run aground, were the lucky ones who had managed to live to document such tales. In one famous incident, penned by the renowned explorer Aidris Anselby, pending his crew’s desolation when his ship The Mare ran aground in the Bay of Lost Souls, he wrote:

Ominous lights emanated from the mist; a face without a face casting an utter bleak look, as if in disapproval of our presence. It was an unwholesome time for myself and my men, as if fending off these local beasts was not enough. Add to that the fatigue of despair and physical labour, coupled with the coarse terrain—as unnavigable as its local waters. Ay, nary a moment was spent where we hadn’t considered the fact that we had stumbled into the halls of Endabarron; the plangent wails of the great sea verily the boiling pits spuming liquid rock from the hells o’ the deep, and those austere, glowing windows—the eyes of Aeros himself as he laughed at our struggles from his high perch upon his jagged throne, enjoying every moment of it.

The Archbishop’s memory flitted upon these tales until a flash of lighting jarred him from his reverie, highlighting the shape of the mighty fortress as it was momentarily illuminated against the tenebrous backdrop. In that split-second moment of exposure, the silhouette of a figure appeared, watching over him from the uppermost balcony of the master room–his room.

And then there was no one there.

Semanus Alturius blinked and shook his head, proceeding to the staging area. He and his procession came to a small stone altar with several stairs leading up to it, and atop the altar there was a large circle of earth surrounded by countless candles circumscribing its edge. In the earth there was a symbol etched in the center—the same insignia found on the medallion of the Archbishop, the sign of the Oblitari. His attendants split off into symmetric rows and, with mechanical precision, sat on the stone benches which framed the path leading to the altar while Jarra-Fayel escorted the Archbishop the rest of the way. Jarra-Fayel stopped at the perimeter of the etching and the Archbishop proceeded to a small, nondescript podium upon which he lay his tome and a black sack, from which he withdrew a goblet, a flask of dark liquid, an ornamental knife and the skull of Mazlat. He looked down at the shattered sword resting on the dais just beyond the ritual circle, his eyes transfixed by its majesty for an eternal moment, then he raised his head and acknowledged the thousands of quiet, anticipating faces staring at him. Another peal of lightning above and the white blade reflected the light with near blinding radiance. He took in a deep breath.

“And now the ceremony shall begin.”

The Archbishop opened the tome to an earmarked page and stared solemnly at the words before him.

“And so were the final words spoken as Methustaleth had relayed them to the table he had thus summoned hence, in both body and spirit of their progenitor–their master and savior–as dew-dropped eyes looked upon the sullen one that remained. With heavy heart and heavier hand, he raised them both on his sleeve to proclaim not just his will but the way for he and all his apostles, as the Magani Unim had instilled into him. And they were thus:

“In the absence of my voice, you will speak for me.”

The Archbishop raised his hands to the air and, summoning a flow to amplify his voice, he let out a guttural chant which the clergy and all the other Oblitari attendants augmented with their own. A massive sound wave shook the grounds and rippled out across the sea of onlookers, echoing out into the blackened woods in the night until it faded out of earshot.

“In the absence of my body, you will bleed for me.” 

Semanus Alturius retrieved the vile of dark liquid and popped the stopper, emptying the liquid into the goblet. He picked the knife and dragged it deeply across the palm of his right hand, blood glistening in the ebbing light of the candles. He held up his hand to the audience to bear witness, blood running down his wrist and forearm, and squeezed his fist as he let his blood collect into the goblet. He flicked his hand and summoned a quick-clotting flow to stifle the bleeding.

“And in the absence of my being, you will wait for me. Wait, until the eyes of our Goddess reflect upon those forbidden pools of Crimson betrayal. Only then can the kiss of the Creator, through that ancient vessel, fall upon the blighted prison which has forsaken me.”

The Archbishop raised his head slowly, looking out upon the thousands upon thousands of eyes, glimmering in the night.

“And now, my friends–we wait. Wait for the blood moon–that final decree of our Master, and know that he has heard us on this eve.”

As if on cue, every person in the crowd bowed their heads, many even taking to a knee, if they had the room to do so. The Archbishop looked up at Kort and Lema, nearly eclipsing each other as they silently pivoted about their axes. The astronomical significance of the bi-lunar eclipse was no coincidence; among being astute historians and scholars of the Old Ways, his was an organization firmly entrenched in tradition and that bore a long history of studying the universe. So much so, in fact, that eight of the first ten grand-masters of the Order where highly-esteemed astronomers in their day. This only made sense since the Old Ways were as much a tradition of arcane knowledge of their forebears–those Druidic sages of legend–as they were of observation. In Alturius’s mind, this all the more compounded the fact that this next part had to work, or it was all for nothing.

As he stared up at the sky, his shoulders hunched in guarded apprehension, he couldn’t help but feel his grandiosity giving way to humility giving way to utter embarrassment and failure. He swallowed as the double-moon defiantly beamed ivory white light back at him, clearly showing it couldn’t give a care about his ritual.

The archbishop tightened his fists at his side. “No no no… This can’t be happening. Dark lord, let it be such…”

And then something happened.

It began as a round of gasps among the supplicants, and then everyone was staring upwards at the sky as a rosy hue began to wash over them, dissolving away the white light of the moons. Semanus Alturius watched in astonishment as the face of the fore-moon, Lema, began to slowly become eclipsed by a growing, translucent red front, spreading across her surface, like a colored lens being fit over an eye. The Archbishop watched in stunned silence and, before a minute had ticked by, the moon Lema was red.

Blood moon.

“It worked!” The Archbishop shouted, pumping his hands into the sky.

All eyes turned to him, confused. The archbishop’s smile faded and, ever so ungracefully, he lowered his hands. He turned to Jarra-Fayel.

“It worked!” He said, this time with less of an outside voice.

The elf nodded, the barest hint of a grin on his face, as if saying ‘or course it did’. The Archbishop was too excited to be bothered by the Elf’s superciliousness and pushed himself away from the podium, snatching up the skull. He hobbled over to the dais with the shards of the sword and, with newfound fervor, raised the skull high above his head for all to see.

“Only then can the kiss of the Creator, through that ancient vessel, fall upon the blighted prison which has forsaken me. Behold!”

In what was meant to be a delicate act, the Archbishop, in his haste, nearly slammed the skull down upon the broken blade, grinding the skull’s cracked and worn teeth against the cool white bone. He jerked upright, dropping the skull to the dirt, and raised his hands skyward, his mouth hanging slack-jawed in elation. His body trembled with the spiritual power coursing through him.

“It is done!” he shouted.

He had done it! He had broken the spell and done what over one hundred of his ancestors could not. Salvation was so close he could nearly call it by name! He smiled as triumphant euphoria filled him, closing his eyes in the pure ataraxia that followed. The audience leaned forward, the front row pressed against the fence as tightly as they could be. They waited for a minute in that fashion, the Archbishop splayed out as he proferred himself to the sky. The clergy looked at each other and frowned, shaking their head. The Archbishop opened his eyes and the wrinkly smile left his face. He turned and looked at the clergy who looked as confused as he did. He glanced out at the audience with a nervous expression then down at the skull which continued to grin up at him as if mocking his weak attempt. He could almost hear the long-dead Soul Master then, saying:

“You have no idea what you are doing you old fool.”

“I…perhaps it needs two kisses?” The archbishop said, struggling to keep his voice from wavering.

The old man picked up the skull again and reached to place it against the blade.

“Are you so sure that is necessary?” a voice yelled down on them from above.

The audience gasped and murmurs began as everyone close enough to see looked up to see a hooded man standing on a balcony high above. The master balcony of Bleaklook Manor, in fact. The Archbishop’s room.

He had seen someone up there, after all!

The man had one boot propped up on the railing with an arm resting casually across his knee. Guards ran from their posts into the fortress and the Archbishop stood up and raised a hand above his brow in attempt to shield out some of the glare from the surrounding torches.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my personal chambers?” The Archbishop demanded.

“I think what is more important, your worship, is why you are wasting your time playing with corpses and faery tales. Or have you become too senile to know that either?” The man grinned down at him, taunting him.

The Archbishop looked at the audience who whispered among each other. Many probed with judging eyes and some members of the clergy appeared to be stifling laughter. He could feel his pulse raising at the indignant position this man had placed him in.

“But if you must know, I was looking for that.” The Interloper pointed a gauntleted hand at the shards of the sword, broken and untouched from the efforts of the Archbishop’s sermon.

“I thought, well, hell: maybe the old fart keeps it close to him at night. Would have been a lot easier to take it off you in your sleep than this but…” The man shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?”

Alturius could feel his blood boiling at the gall of this man thinking he could take him on like he was some helpless housewife in her sleep. Yet, exacerbating the situation may deny his guards the opportunity to apprehend the man, so the Archbishop pulled his emotions back into check and decided on stalling the man.

“Entertain an old man, if you will; what possible reason could you want the relic? Do you think you know something that I do not? Semanus Alturius, foremost scholar and Keeper to the largest collection of written records short of a dwarven-bloody-lexodome?”

The man leaned forward on his knee. “Oh? And how is that working out for you?”

The archbishop grit his teeth and took a deep breath.

“Fine. Perhaps you think you can fix it then?”

“Fix it? Why on Rynn would I want to do that? I want to destroy the bloody thing!”

Gasps and shouting erupted all around. The Archbishop frowned, exchanging confused glances with his attendants and the clergy.

“I don’t understand… Are you some kind of…saboteur?”

The Interloper feigned checking his nails. “Something like that, sure.”

“My boy, if there is anything I can assure you of on this evening, other than the fact that you are actively taking your last breaths up on my balcony right there, it is this: you will never get your hands on this sword, so long as it is in the possession of the Order. In my one hundred and seventy eight years on this plane of existence, there is nothing I have ever been more certain of.“

“And in my three thousand years of semi-existence, I can tell you I`ve seen my fair share of blowhards, and you`re no different. That sword will be mine.“

The Archbishop scoffed and waved the man away. “Words from a dead man.“ He turned away and looked up at the balcony where his clergy stood, waiting anxiously for his command.

“The ritual will proceed as planned. Light the beacon.“

As the clergy member carried the torch towards the large stone brazier at the front of the balcony where she and all her colleagues stood watching, the Interloper crossed his arms and smiled.

“I was hoping you`d say that.“ He said to himself.

As the flame touched upon the brazier there was a sudden spark and then a huge explosion erupted, raining fire over a large swathe of the western face of the fortress and completely consuming the balcony, a large portion of which shelved off, collapsing down to the courtyard with deafening force, crushing many unlucky souls who had not the time to clear the area. Shouts and screams of terror erupted from all around and everyone in the courtyard went into a frenzy, pushing and fighting one another in attempt to vacate the courtyard. The Interloper stepped nonchalantly over the edge of the balcony and fell seven stories to the courtyard below, summoning a flow to cushion him at the last moment as he landed on one knee in the staging area. The cloak that he had appropriated from the forgemaster billowed out behind him and he raised his head, meeting the gaze of a terrified Archbishop who had been knocked on to his face in the dirt from the force of the explosion. Semanus Alturius could see his own terrified expression reflecting in the red lenses of the goggles fastened around the hood of the man`s head. The man smiled at him and stood up casually, despite the pandemonium going on around them.

A man screamed garbled flames, plummeting off the blazing balcony ensconced in flame, where the clergy had sat not moments before. The man struck the flagstones of the courtyard far below and his body lay unmoving, still aflame. The Archbishop could not identify the man but he had been a close friend: they all had.

The old man looked over to the stranger looming over him and struggled to shuffle himself away on weakened arms. “You…how did you…”

“The thing about forge fodder,” the Interloper explained, “is that it has incredible shelf-life, which makes it a good candidate for storage as tempering fuel. But alas, time is a cruel mistress; as it turns out, not even the hardiest of compounds used by those masters of yore can withstand thousands of years of her slow caress.”

The Interloper chuckled, signalling the flaming balcony with a nod of his head. “As it turns out, the degradation product is quite volatile; thousands of times more so, in fact, as you have just witnessed. Apparently, all it takes is the addition of the very minutest amount of heat, say, by the touch of a fool’s torch, and bang! Fireworks. Amazing what a little chemistry can do, no?”

The Archbishop glared steel at the man. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Now that, is complicated. I couldn’t hope for a simpleton like you to understand. But I’ll give you the broad strokes.”

The Interloper summoned a ball of lightning in his palm.

“Oh no you don’t!” The Archbishop spat, and launched a wall of flame straight at the other.

Momentarily caught off guard by the old man’s impressive assault, the Interloper stumbled backwards a step, releasing his spell as it fizzled out into rogue electrons. As the wave of heat rolled at him, he moved his arms in front of him, tracing the arc of a circle. A blackened blur formed like a portal between them and the old man’s spell was siphoned into it, reappearing to their immediate left where it proceeded down the promontory toward a contingent of guards rushing at them. Before they could even scream, the Archbishop’s spell consumed them like matchsticks. After several seconds, the spell dissipated and all that was left were several piles of ash, smoke sizzling from each. The Archbishop gaped at the sight of the remains of his men which he had inadvertently extinguished.

“Is that how you treat all of your members? That can’t be too good for morale.” The Interloper jested.

The Archbishop rounded on him, his eyes reflecting the flames which danced around them.

“You..will..pay for that!”

The Interloper nodded. “All in good time. Speaking of which, I think your’s is up. I hope you don’t wear a pacemaker ’cause this is really going to mess with it.”

Once more, he summoned a ball lightning, and reared back for the pitch. A loud crack behind him as one of the balcony struts gave way, and a large portion of the upper floor caved into the courtyard behind them. Flaming shrapnel scattered over the staging area and the Interloper shielded himself with a simple ward, flaming debris bouncing off the air around him. After the smoke cleared, he saw a figure hoisting themselves up on a slab of stone. The Archbishop stumbled to his feet, apparently having survived the explosion with minor scrapes and cuts. He coughed and slumped against the stone on his elbows, half-propping himself up as he watched with crazed eyes as the Interloper emerged out of the swathes of smoke, red goggles glinting, cape billowing. The Archbishop held out his arm.

“Wait! Perhaps, there is…” Coughing, sputtering. “There is some kind of deal we can come to?”

“I think contracts are more your department than mine. I prefer the…hands on approach, if you catch my meaning.”

“Please, please! Have mercy!” The old man pleaded.

Beyond the wash of smoke, pandemonium continued around them. There was no one watching, no one left to help the old man.

“When you see Aeros, tell him I say…”

A flash of white light exploded from the dais behind the Archbishop, sending him sprawling onto his face. The Interloper shouted in pain, shielding his eyes, which the goggles did little to protect from the luminous onslaught. Peering from behind arm, he watched as a radiant white tunnel of light shot upwards from the dais, rapidly racing towards the upper atmosphere. His eyes tracked downwards to the illuminated shape at its base:

The sword.

Kadomus.

Flaming debris from the explosion had come in contact with the sword.

And it was on fire.

And it was reforged.

“No!” The Interloper shouted.

He rushed at the dais but before he was three steps in, there was a crackling sound like a thunderclap and then an explosion of white light which sent him flying backwards. Landing on his back, he sat up to watch the tail-end of the light channel up and up, where it seemed to disappear into…the moon, Lema. As the light hit the moon’s surface, the red hue which had overtaken it began to dissipate until all that remained was the familiar, pale white luminescence of her glow. The Interloper sat up and saw the glowing white blade, now resting on the earth, surrounded by mounds of shattered marble and flaming debris. He jumped to his feet and ran at the relic. As he ran, he watched as Kadomus began to sink into the earth, as if it were resting on quicksand. As it sank, the earth seemed to reshape around it, as if no object had permeated its structure. He flopped onto his knees and began frantically digging through the earth with his hands in the place where the blade had been.

“No, no, no! This can’t be happening! Not like this!”

The Archbishop, dazed and disoriented, sat up on the stones, rubbing his head. He saw the strange man in black, surrounded by a pile of rocky rubble, clawing at the dirt like a madman.

“What happened?”

The Interloper stopped, jerking his head at the Archbishop, his face a rictus rage.

“What happened? Aside from the magical glowing sword containing the essence of a three thousand year old entity about to be unleashed, you mean? You and your bloody cult happened, that’s what! Do you have any idea what you have brought upon us? Any idea at all, in that feeble, decrepit old mind of yours?”

“The ritual…it…it worked? The Archbishop stammered, incredulous.

“But the skull…Mazlat, it…”

“It’s not about the bloody skull, you idiot! Your interpretation was obviously wrong. Whoever your bookkeeper is, I highly recommend firing them. But we have more pressing matters. We need to get that sword back!”

The Interloper began digging again, with renewed fervor.

The Archbishop stared off in the distance, pondering the error of his ways.

“I don’t understand…” He mumbled to himself. “The scripture was clear, that a kiss from the prison’s creator would break the spell. But the skull…useless. Could it be that it meant… the forgemaster who made it? But we do not have that skull. How then, did this happen? I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense…”

The Archbishop trailed off as he stared ahead at the raging fire surrounding him, the fire that had grown in size and was now threatening to consume a large section of the eastern wing of the courtyard.

Suddenly, the answer donned on the Archbishop in a flood of images and memories, playing out in his mind like a film reel on exteme fast-forward.

“Fire. A kiss from the creator. Kiss of the flame. The sword was forged in fire. Dragon’s tooth. Kadomus. Fire cultivates the bone. The seed. The life.”

The Archbishop gasped and stood up, his back cracking as he up-righted himself.

Then the ground shook.

Subtle at first, like a nudge or a suggestion. And then the violent tremors began, heaving the courtyard side-to-side as the ground shifted beneath it. Bleaklook manor cracked and groaned in pain, rubble and dust pattering down onto the crowd, one large section of a parapet giving way and crushing a cave troll as if it were an ant. Screams could be heard against the subsonic groaning of the earth and the pandemonium only increased, thousands upon thousands of additional bodies frantically attempting to push out of the bottlenecking arches as natural disaster piled upon natural disaster.

And then the earthquakes stopped.

The Interloper–who had remained in place with a strong ward surrounding him–relinquished his ties to the flow and looked around past the smoke and destruction around them. At least a quarter of the courtyard and its surrounding structures was either destroyed or severely damaged. The crowd had thinned to perhaps half though, despite the terrors that had ensued, many remained behind to bear witness to the event. A groan from behind and the Interloper watched as the Archbishop emerged from behind an upended bench, blood trickling down his forehead. The Interloper turned back to the spot where the sword had been consumed, his eyes wide with fear, mumbling frantically to himself.

“No…no…not like this…no…”

The man turned and ran down the promontory, disappearing into the fortress. The Archbishop watched the mysterious figure in black disappear, confused at what he was seeing. Propping himself against the bench, he turned as he heard a scratching sound coming from somewhere near yet far. He stumbled his way back on to the staging area, falling onto his knees in the circle of rubble. He pressed his ear against the ground and listened, curiously. Frowning, he lifted his head back up and, suddenly, an object shot up out of the dirt, startling the old man. He cried out in surprise, stumbling backwards onto his rear, watching as a skeletal hand with scraps of yellowish, decayed flesh clinging to it, grasped at the air. A round object began to emerge out of the dirt and the Archbishop could make out straggly strands of black clinging to it, looking more like centuries-old roots than hair. The head surfaced, remaining face down as the corpse leveraged itself out against the earth, freeing its shoulder and right side. With a sickly grunt it shifted its weight and heaved its other arm out of the earth, which was accompanied by an oblong, white object. The sword plunked down onto the earth with a dull metallic thud. Even caked in earth, the pearlescent white of the blade shone through like a bleached tooth covered in food. The corpse pulled itself the rest of the way out of the earth and, perhaps a minute later, the ordeal was over and a body–or what was left of one–lay face down, its ribcage slowly rising up and down as the creature drew its first breaths in millennia.

The Archbishop, stunned and terrified by the site, feared that he was witnessing more than the reincarnation of something unspeakable; he was also witnessing the end of his career. The hooded man had been right: he had been an absolute and utter fool. He and his colleagues had entirely missed the mark, missed what wasn’t just between the lines but right on the bloody page, staring them all in the face. In hindsight, it all made so much sense to him now; it was the kiss of the flame which had broken the seal, not a skull. It was a bloody metaphor, not a literal kiss. How the Order had misinterpreted the text, which they had studied, rehearsed, dissected and expounded over the course of thousands of years, he could not say, but it rendered him a complete and utter failure, just the same. What was meant to be the culmination of meticulous hard work and the utmost attention to detail had come to fruition all from a mistake. His legacy was destroyed and everything that his ancestors had strove for was lost.

The creature pushed itself away from the ground and coughed up a slimy mass onto the ground. The remnants of the audience which had remained, pressed their faces up against the gate, both enthralled and slightly horrified by the sight before them. The creature raised its head and stared straight at the Archbishop, its eyes empty sockets hardpacked with dirt, surrounded by vestiges of decayed flesh which clung to the orbital bones. The Archbishop gasped, swearing he was staring into the pit of Endabarron itself in those eyeless holes. The creature cranked its neck around, gazing out upon the sea of onlookers who stood silent, awestruck.

Jarra-Fayel appeared from behind and helped the Archbishop to his feet.

“My lord, you have done it. You have resurrected the Dark Lord, as predicted.”

The Archbishop shoved the elf away and rounded on his attendant furiously.

“Success? Success? You think this is a success? That thing…” The Archbishop thrust a bony finger at the corpselike figure examining the sea of people on the other side of the barrier barring the staging area. “…is an abomination. That is not our lord.”

“Behold.” The Archbishop turned to face his attendees, spreading his hands out, signalling the subhuman organism between them.

“The ritual has been…a failure.”

Gasps and murmurs resounded throughout the courtyard. The crackle and pop of flame in the distance punctuated the heavy silence which underlaid the burgeoning unrest which was stirring.

“As you can see, before us is nothing but a monster: a product of miscalculation, a revenant of rot and times best forgotten.”

The creature turned its head and focused on the Archbishop. As the two met each other’s gaze, the Archbishop could feel something then. It was like a sliver in his mind–the faintest twinge of something familiar yet painful, dull but persistent. He paused for a moment, unsure, then continued.

“W…we are the Oblitari en Achenanden Da, an order built upon millennia of toil and fastidious devotion to our art and craft; we will not let this day be remembered as sacred; nay, it will be relegated to the backs of minds and forever clad for what it was…”

The Archbishop cast a seething eye at the creature.

“…a monumental mistake.”

There were gasps and hushed conversations throughout the crowd as the onlookers tried to make sense of what they were seeing. Ever so slowly, the creature pushed itself up to its feet, stumbling under the weight of its upper body as partially-degraded musculature in its legs struggled against the force. It stood half-slumped over, unable to fully right itself. It raised a finger at the archbishop.

“You talk too much.”

Its voice was like dry leaves with edges as sharp and dangerous as shattered glass.

The archsbishop stood stunned, incredulous that the thing before him was capable of generating speech.

“I…”

Suddenly, the archbishop gasped, keeling over as he clutched at his chest. Struggling for air, his eyes wild with panic and pain. He pulled on Jarra-Fayel’s robes but fell to his knees, struggling against the wracking spasms which jarred him. High above, the Interloper stuck his head out from behind a wall, watching the scene below from the security of an obscure balcony. The archbishop babbled incoherently, gasping for air which refused to enter his body. In one last weak attempt, he forced himself back up to his feet, his elven aid holding his master’s arm but looking as unsure as the thousands of other eyes on them. The Archbishop let out a final wailing scream and then combusted in a gory mess, spraying blood and entrails in every direction. Blood splashed across the fence and into the faces of the front row and any unfortunate enough to be near to the altar. Jarra-Fayel stood  stupefied, drenched in blood and guts. In a weak parody of calm, he slowly wiped his faces off with the back of his sleeve, which was hardly less soiled than the rest of him. One of the guards, who had become entangled in a lengthy piece of intestine that had wrapped itself around his neck like a feather boa, ripped it off hastily, along with his helmet and then began to vomit over the rail of the stage. Everywhere around them in a three-blade radius was littered with gore; there were even some spatters on the fortress wall from stray pieces which had managed to make it that far. Somehow, the creature had remained unblemished by the implosion; that was, as far as it was already mostly rotten away. It turned its attention onto Jarra-Fayel.

“I had expected fireworks for my return, but this will have to do. An explosive personality, that one.”

A sound like a rusty gear attempting to turn over. It sounded like the creature was chuckling to itself.

The Interloper breathed heavily, grasping the stone wall with such force that it crumbled into rubble in his hand. Such power–to make a man explode by just thinking it! And in his current state, no less. What kind of things was Mokul capable of at full potential? Just the thought stymied him. If he had any chance at redeeming himself, he would need to take the wizard down unawares. He didn’t stand a chance otherwise. The Interloper cursed and disappeared into the shadows.

The corpse made a move to step forward but stumbled onto its knees, still grasping the sword vehemently. It looked up to Jarra-Fayel who, bloodstained face a portrait of perfect complacence, stared down at the strange creature quizzically.

“Did respect die along with me? Somebody give me a bloody hand!”

The corpse looked over to find a dismembered arm lying nearby.

“Preferrably one still attached to its body.” He added.

Jarra-Fayel and two nearby guards ran over to the creature and helped it to its feet. The elf bowed before the creature as the guards helped it back to its feet.

“Master Mokul. We apologize for this…unconventional welcoming. If we had known it was to happen like this then…”

The corpse shoved one of the guards away.

“Retrieve me some proper garments. This bloody courtyard hasn’t gotten any warmer.” The corpse ordered.

The guard nodded and quickly hurried away, disappearing into the fortress. The corpse raised his face to the night sky and breathed in through his nostrils, a sickly whistling sound as the air passed through the cracks in its skull.

“Ahhh. It’s been forever and a day since I have smelled fresh air.”

It turned to the remaining guard holding it up, the guard leaning away from it apprehensively.

“Tell me, where are we right now?  My vision is not exactly what it used to be.”

The guard struggled to speak as he tried to hold back his gorge from the awful smell.

“We’re outside, in the courtyard of…” The guard coughed, fighting back the urge to vomit. “…Kla’then Diar.”

The corpse looked up at the dark fortress looming above them. The lightning blazed high above, the many windows of the fortress reflecting the electric flashes.

The corpse sighed. “Alas, my fortress stood longer than I.”

It sounded slightly nostalgic. It paused for a long moment then looked to Jarra-Fayel.

“What year is it?”

“The year three thousand and thirty-four, my lord.  That’s, um…three thousand years after Crimson Eve, that is.”

The corpse began to convulse. It pushed the guard away with surprising force, given its frail condition, and collapsed onto its knees. It set its forehead against the earth and balled its bony hands into fists.

“Three…three thousand years have gone by while I was in that wretched sword? Three thousand years?!” The corpse screamed at the dirt.

It lifted its face and screamed at the night sky, its voice echoing far and wide. The audience gasped, covering their ears as they all cringed at the sound.

The corpse jerked its gaze back to Jarra-Fayel and the other Oblitari who had gathered around the staging area.

“Who are you people and what the fa’el have you been doing this whole time?” The corpse snapped.

Jarra-Fayel cleared his throat. “We are the Oblitari, my lord: a global sect of devout followers of…well, yourself. We have devoted our lives to the continuance of the dark arts, carrying on the traditions that you have begun. Central to our purpose, however, was your resurrection. We are…”

“A cult?” The corpse interrupted. “You are a cult?”

The corpse seemed to grow angrier but it slowly shifted as its back began to rise in fall, becoming laughter. The laughter turned into sobs as the corpse let out a howling wail.

“So, if I am to understand this correctly, I was stuck in the most utterly wretched place unimaginable, for three thousand years, all because the only ones with their heads slightly out of their asses are religious fanatics?”

The corpse screamed at the sky again and began to pant profusely, hunkered over and distraught.

Jarra-Fayel exchanged worried looks with his cohorts.

“There has to be something we can do to help, master.”

The corpse focused on the group of doe-eyed initiates and adepts, looking as if they would run at any moment.

“What do you people do?”

“We are…were part of a chapter—one of many around Rynn–designated to oversee the operations of our organization. The Archbishop…” Jarra-Fayel glanced down at what appeared to be a liver on a nearby bench, frowning slightly. “…was the last in a long line of progenitors of the Oblitari. He was our guide in the spiritual matters of the guild and our voice in counsel.”

The corpse just stared at the elf in silence for a long moment, as if the words had passed right through the holes in its head.

“I have no need for a clergy. I am no priest.” It said firmly.

It glanced around it, taking in all of the eyes on it.

“I am, however, in need of an army. I can…feel that there are many of you here today. You will serve my purpose. No?”

The corpse jerked its gaze back out to the audience, as if to challenge any naysayers. The audience members exchanged nervous glances with each other then, slowly, each one began to take knee until thousands upon thousands were down, heads low, in offering. The corpse refocused its attention on the Oblitari. They, too, quickly realized their place and took to knee. The corpse nodded.

“Good. Then let us begin a new saga—a saga forged in numbers, bound by the unbreakable seal of the Aether.  We shall become unconquerable; we will not fall this time. We will learn from past mistakes, becoming impermeable to error. We shall take back what is rightfully ours—what once had been for generations. Let us resume our reign on this dismal little heap of mud. But first…”

The corpse turned back to Jarra-Fayel, standing idly behind it, hands clasped.

“…There is just one thing I must know before we are to begin.”

“Anything, my lord.”

The corpse drew in a deep breath, visibly attempting to stifle a building rage.

“Where the fa’el are my clothes?!”