A/N: For anyone unfamiliar with Narcissus, he's a character in a Greek myth who, being incredibly attractive, falls in love with his own reflection and stares at it so long he eventually dies. Although its phrased much more poetically than that...enjoy!
Killing Narcissus
"While he is drinking he beholds himself reflected in the mirrored pool—and loves; loves an imagined body which contains no substance, for he deems the mirrored shade a thing of life to love."
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 3
Step 1: Find the Reflection
He comes to himself.
It is not the slow agony of waking; it is an instantaneous moment of clarity, an eruption of consciousness. He knows exactly where he is, why he is. He has slept here for years, consuming the explorers and tomb robbers that find him, regaining his strength and waiting.
He is not strong, but he is strong enough. He has had enough of sleeping. Even without the Pharaoh, there are tasks to attend to. He was too careless last time. He will not be again.
His host is tired. Injured. This thief was not clever enough to make it past the many traps that guarded the tomb. It is no matter. The aches are a delight: a reminder that he still has some power in this world, that humans are still weak, that he can still cause pain.
The Ring had been hidden in a small cavity behind the burial chamber. The other treasures are gone; there are only the remains of his past victims. There are no signs of the other Items, but he doesn't look for them. The ones who hid the Ring would have known not to keep them together. The sarcophagus sits askew beside him, guarding the Ring's hiding place. He doesn't recognize the image engraved on the lid, nor the name written in hieroglyphics just below it.
The magician's apprentice, the Ring whispers, and he reaches up to touch it where it lies against his chest. Not in a gesture of recognition, but as an admonition. It is not the time for reminiscing. The future is here.
He finds the entrance to the chamber and proceeds. The traps pose no threat to him; he knows the mechanics of all of them and most have already been tripped. There is only one that gives him pause; he stops to study it. It's newer than the others, and consists of a series of ropes and wheels that once worked rather ingeniously to raise a gate in front of the entrance. He looks and finds the pressure plate that activates the trap. Someone had used sand to jam it, and then unhooked several of the ropes, preventing the trap from being triggered again. He spends several minutes cleaning out the pressure plate, then he resets the trap and he leaves the tomb.
There is a horse tethered outside, presumably his host's. The sun is already setting, but he can still make out the distant shape of a city on the horizon. Thebes, perhaps. He may be wrong; the surrounding landscape is unfamiliar, and he is unsure how many years have passed, just that they are many.
He looks toward the stars to get an idea of the time of year—the chill in the air is not uncharacteristic of either season—but the few stars he can see puzzle him. They seem slightly out of place, as if the entire earth had shifted underneath him while he slept.
A voice calls out: a woman's. When he turns toward the source, he sees a small, thin creature wrapped in an shabby robe. He hadn't seen her when he exited the tomb; she must have been sitting behind the tomb. He presumes the word she is yelling is a name, but she has a strange accent and her words sound garbled enough that he can't tell what her meaning is. He finds his host's mind and searches it briefly. Yes, the word was a name. His host's name, and the shouting woman is his host's woman.
He begins questioning her. The name of the current pharaoh. The name of the city on the horizon. The balance of power in the world. She only raises her voice and talks so hysterically he finds it difficult to understand anything she says. She keeps gesturing toward the Ring and saying a word he doesn't understand.
When it becomes clear that she will not answer his questions, he turns away from her and toward the horse. It is an ancient, wretched creature, but it will get him to the city. He mounts and guides it out of the necropolis.
The woman grabs at him as he rides away, and the horse drags her for several feet before he finally strikes her in the face. She falls. He doesn't wait to see if she's alive.
As he rides, he examines his host's mind. It is pitifully ignorant of anything that might be useful; it's mostly filled with memories of crude poverty and hunger. Desperation, not ambition, drove his host to rob this tomb. Pathetic.
You know what desperation is.
No. The wind whips past his face as he hisses in irritation and pulls open the folds of his robe. The barbs of the Millennium Ring swarm into his chest, and he revels in the thunderous agony, in the slick warmth of the blood that streams to the surface of his skin and trickles crimson down his host's gaunt chest.
We were never desperate, he tells the Ring. We were Kings. We were Lords of Darkness. And we shall be again.
The Ring is silent, and satisfied, he closes his coat. The host's body is weak. Injuries and starvation already made it difficult for the body to move freely, and the abuse he has laid on it has only made it weaker. He doesn't care. He forces the body on until he cannot control it anymore, and, feeling it collapse under him, he retreats into the Ring. The body dies sometime during the night.
He isn't worried. He is close enough to the city that a corpse won't stay untouched for long. Some enlightened scavenger will find the Ring, and the cycle will begin again. While he waits, he busies himself with self-examination. The Ring is an amalgam of souls; a patchwork of his victims, the muddled mess of Kul Elna, and of course the fragment of the Dark Lord that drives him on, drives him to reunite the Items and to complete himself.
He finds the soul he is searching for. He recognizes it instantly as the thief that summoned him. His is the soul giving voice to the Ring; its strength and ferocity stand well out from the others. But not for long. It's too dangerous to have anything less than total obedience from the Ring. Therefore he devotes his energies to bending the thief to his will; to aligning their desires toward the resurrection of the Dark Lord. Everything else is secondary, he reminds the thief. Even revenge.
Twisting the thief's soul into his without diminishing their strength is a delicate process. It takes enormous patience to bend a rod without breaking it. But he is more than equal to the task. If there's anything he understands, it's the value of delayed gratification.
Step 2: Worship the Reflection
He wastes the years tearing through host after host, irritated, preoccupied, bored. This world of the future has changed, but not enough. He bides his time, gains his strength, searches for the Millennium Items. He can't do anything until the Pharaoh gains a host, but he can't find a host without the Puzzle. So he searches, and he kills, and he survives.
He continues like this for many years, more years than he can count. Sometimes he waits, sleeps for a year, or ten, but he will always tire of waiting eventually and call out for a new host. One always comes.
Oftentimes, when he finds himself in a new place, the first thing he does is seek out the home of the dead.
He's always been more comfortable around graves—no matter how much the world changes, death has never changed. Bodies still decompose the same way, even a thousand years later. What has changed is the manner of their burial. He began robbing tombs because that's where the treasure was. In this country, in this age, people cannot bring their possessions with them when they die; they hand them off to their descendants instead. Good for the relatives of the deceased, bad for the tomb robbers.
His host's mind calls this particular gravesite a necropolis, but it is hardly worthy of the name; the tombs are nothing more than a few limestone blocks pushed together. There are bases nearby that might have once held statues, but they've long since been destroyed. The clearing is neglected. Here at night, it certainly possesses the dark silence of death, but it is sparse. Dirty. Overgrown. Gaining access was easy, and now he sees why. There's nothing to take.
He takes a step toward a tomb and something crunches underfoot. He looks down and grimaces. Beetles. Dead ones: hundreds of dried-out husks so fragile a breeze would tear off their legs. They crowd near the smell of death and then starve once winter comes.
He examines the tomb: runs his fingers over the top slab, finds the seam, pushes. It moves only a few inches, but it's enough for the thick smell of death and decay to fill the air. The host's body is overcome with nausea, but it's easily ignored. He pushes again and this time the stone moves substantially farther, enough for him to see the corpse inside. The stone has kept it well preserved; he can tell at once that it is the body of a young man.
There are some vases beside the body, but he checks the clothes first. He finds no jewelry, but he does find a small clay flask tied to the man's wrist. He unties it and sits on the edge of the stone as he unbottles it. Aromatic oil. Not worth all that much, but he's not leaving here without some prize.
Idly, he tips the flask and runs some of the oil over his fingers.
Bad idea. The pungent scent of the oil is stronger than he expects, and it combines with the sulfuric odor of death and the cold night air, overcoming the host's senses until he nearly vomits. Unwilling to relinquish control, he drops the flask and presses his hands into the stone, leaning forward and willing the body to be still. Out of the corner of his eye he can still see the corpse, the dark skin stretched thin over the bones, and his fingernails tear into the stone and he locks eyes with the skull. It has no eyes—of course it has no eyes—but it grins at him all the same, and he feels the burning pangs of jealousy as he leans forward, into the tomb, the Ring falling out of his shirt and pointing down, straight down, arms stretching toward the loving confines of the stone.
We belong there.
He locks a hand around the Ring and pulls it back, pulls himself back, his oily fingers sliding on the cold metal. Be silent. We are the Master of Death, not his subjects. We will bring back Necrophades and we will destroy the pharaoh, and we may even destroy the world, but we will never die—
We already have.
A dry sob escapes his throat—no, no, it's not his throat, it's his host's. It's not his body, because he doesn't have one. Because he's immortal. We will never die, he tells the Ring again. We will never die.
The Ring doesn't contradict him again, and he straightens, carefully lowering himself to the ground, his knees buried in the grass, his head pressing against the stone. There's a fresco painted on the side: a group of athletes playing. He doesn't know what game. He sits in the silence of the clearing for several minutes.
The smell of oil fades. The smell of death doesn't.
The reason he has no body isn't because he's immortal. It's because he's incomplete. Until he summons The Dark One, all else is meaningless. But there's nothing he can do but wait, because he can't do anything without the Puzzle and he can't find that gods-damned pharaoh anywhere—
He begins to laugh. How ridiculous. He can wait for a thousand years, and he can wait for thousands more, but he'll be damned if he lets himself succumb to weakness. To impatience. To sentiment. So what if the pharaoh sleeps? They have all the time in the world. He knows exactly what he needs to do, and when. Until then, he can occupy himself however he likes.
He catches a glimpse of movement and looks up to see a beetle slowly tramping up over the rim of the tomb. So they weren't all dead. He lifts his hand and brings his index finger down on the insect, crushing it against the stone until it gives way with a wet crunch. Then he rises to his feet and moves around the tomb to push the cover slab back. It's easier work than opening the tomb in the first place, and the stone scrapes quickly into place with a discord of sound that shatters the peace of the necropolis.
Whistling, he slips the flask of oil inside his tunic and turns back toward the city. Leave the dead to their games. He can still toy with the living.
Step 3: Let the Reflection Consume You
A mirror nearly destroys him.
After the incident in the necropolis, he spends less time in the world and more in the Ring. It's more interesting to watch the corruption of a soul from the inside, to watch the host struggle to retain sanity or goodness or peace, to watch them slowly destroy themselves in search of the power he can give.
They never receive it. He consumes them one after the other, taking their strength, and as he grows, he begins to seek out stronger and stronger hosts. When the Ring ends up in the hands of an emperor, he does little more than watch in delight as even this king of men twists his own soul in search of false power.
But eventually even the emperor falls, and the Spirit of the Ring loses interest in human affairs. He withdraws his attention from the world and spends several years exploring the shadow realm. There are plenty of lost souls here for him to torment, and he rather enjoys taming some of the more powerful creatures that lay hidden there.
When even the shadows begin to bore him, he calls for a new host and returns to humanity, where he finds that the world has grown and the stars have yet again shifted their position. There is no indication that the pharaoh has risen, so he occupies himself by exploring his current location.
The homes here are larger and more ornate that anything he's seen before—every single one looks like a palace. He waits until night and breaks into one of the buildings. When he's inside, he's overwhelmed with the sheer amount of things there are to take—this era is far richer than any he's explored so far. There are rugs that cover every square inch of floor space and paintings—stunning in their realism—on every wall. He sees no sign of stone or clay; just metal and ceramics and glass. He'd like to steal every single object he sees, but there would be no point. He doesn't want or need riches; he just enjoys exercising his abilities.
He crouches next to the window, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and listens to the house. He can hear the creak of wood—someone, somewhere, is awake, but so long as he is quiet, his presence will go undetected. He wouldn't mind taking a few lives, but he can't let himself be caught. That ruins the game.
He puts a hand down, digging his fingers into the carpet, taking in the sheer luxury of the home. A house this rich is bound to have some kind of priceless treasure. He rises, stalks softly down the corridor, turns, and promptly comes face to face with a stranger.
Silently, he hurdles backwards, one hand outstretched behind him to soften his imminent collision with the wall, the other rising to the Ring, which glows briefly and just as quickly fades again. Nothing. It's only his reflection.
Not his reflection: his host's, a middle aged, balding, rat-faced man, a collector of eccentricities and artifacts, who grimaces and approaches him slowly as he steps forward to examine the mirror. He's seen mirrors before, but none this clear, and none this large. Just to be sure, he touches the glass, runs his fingers over the face he sees there. Not his face. Not his body.
Slowly, his hand closes into a fist as a quiet rage stalks through his chest. The Ring trembles. It knows. It knows that no matter how long he stares at this reflection, it will never show anything but a stranger's face.
When his fist connects with the glass, it doesn't shatter like he wants it to. It simply sends a spiderweb of cracks all along the surface of the mirror and cuts red streaks into his fingers. He grinds his fist further into the glass before rearing back, taking the mirror in both hands, lifting it off the wall and throwing it onto the lavish carpet.
It doesn't shatter this time either, and he falls to his knees and smashes his fist into the glass again and again and again, and the Ring burns against his skin and buries its points into his chest, but he barely notices the blood or the searing heat, and why would he notice something so human as pain?
Don't be so foolish. We aren't—
It's not me, he tells the Ring. I'm not this pathetic. I'm a King. I'm alive. I'm here and this isn't me, this isn't me, this is just some worthless human skin—
What did you expect?
His hands are slick with blood, and he stares at the fragmented shards of glass that, no matter what he does, still reflect the same image, and he bows his head and howls his frustration to the stranger in the mirror. You don't understand, he tells the Ring. You can wait all you want, but it won't matter—even if the Dark Lord comes, you'll never be whole—
There are shouts, the flickering light of candles down the hall, and the Ring pulls him out of the host's body. Together they consume the host's soul, watch him fall dead to the floor.
You're pathetic.
I'm you! He screams. I'm everything!
The Ring doesn't reply. It doesn't matter. He can feel the beast inside of him slowly unfurling, tearing itself free, loosening the fabric of his soul until he's a chaotic mess of wills. And above them all, uniting them, is the strongest soul. It might be his own, all he knows is that they all want the same thing: the return of the Dark One. But he isn't sure what that means, or if that's what he really wants, and the uncertainty is worse than even the endless waiting.
He will come. And we will be ourselves again.
He has to believe it. It's all he has to hope for.
Step 4: Metamorphosis
There's not much time left.
When he senses the pharaoh beginning to stir, he knows that the end is near, and he devotes all his efforts to finding the perfect host, one as close to the pharaoh as possible. His efforts take him to a distant country, one he's never seen.
The host he finds is only a child, one he almost passes over, but the Ring (or is it his own soul telling him this?) draws him back, says yes, this is the one, and he watches the child run his fingers over the artifact that has carried him through so many years, and he feels some line of tension break, some piece of himself go crumbling away.
This is the one, he tells himself. This is the last host.
Nothing replies, but he feels a mass of relief welling up inside him nonetheless. The last host. The next body he inhabits will be his own.
Deep within the Ring, he can hear the laughter of the beast. Yes, he says. You too. We will be one at last.
And if we fail?
We won't fail. We've spent three thousand years preparing for this.
The pharaoh is only missing a name. We are missing so much more.
We're fine, he says. It's not ideal, but it's enough. We will survive. I will survive.
The thief says nothing. The beast only laughs. The spirit strengthens his resolve.
It will be enough.
End
It's a bit drier than my usual stuff, but I rather enjoyed writing it. If you enjoy reading people ramble about their own writings, I ramble plenty over on my LJ: http:/ oxeyed . livejournal . com/9355 . html
As usual, reviews are appreciated!