"Has it been another year?" he asked, raising his head, eyes closed. "So soon."
The answer came, part pity, part hatred, "Indeed. And how has this last year fared you, dear brother? Have the voices finally stopped?"
"No, in fact they've gotten louder…and my vision is failing. Do me a turn and take this sword from my belly, would you? It really itches." Each word took effort, but he could not help himself the humor. He so rarely got to speak to a real being.
The laughter was sincere. "In time perhaps," the voice replied, coming closer. "I must say, you've held out much longer than I thought possible, out here, in the elements, with nothing to feed you but revenge. I do so enjoy our brief visits. They have always provided me with a full year's worth of amusement. I shall truly miss them when you finally expire. But as for your request, tell me, if I did take the sword, what would keep you from killing me?"
"Surely my limbs tell me what my eyes cannot and I am still bound to this cross, hand and foot. And the years have not been so kind as to leave me my strength. You saw to that." He lowered his head again meekly as if to acknowledge defeat.
"Yes, but my eyes work just fine and though I see nothing but a desperate coward and a weakling," he stepped even closer, lifting his prey's head with a long, sharp finger, "I know how deadly you once were and I'll not risk my neck on your pathetic whine." He let the head fall again and turned away. "Have a good year, brother; I shall see you on the next anniversary. I wonder what new ailment time will allow you."
Hearing past the constant voices ringing in his ears, he could hear his captor, his brother walking away, leaving him to the sunlight, the pain of the unhealing wound in his side, and the never ending, torturous hunger. Opening his eyelids, the blurry vision in the center of the dancing spots told him that this was his last chance. He'd not last another damn year. He summoned all the strength he'd salvaged over the long, silent decades and let out a roar of finality.
"You leave me here to die a coward's death when you know it is you who fears!" The hazy figure stopped and turned. "You, with your weak machinations and hallucinated grandeur. You think I covet what you have? It is fetid and stagnates to this day. You bind me and inflict me, hoping to drain that which you never had. If you leave here now, know I will not be here when you return and that you walked from me, the very coward you proclaim me to be! Stand and face me, weakling!"
Exhausted, he tried in vain to focus and although he didn't see it, his brother paused, a delicious, evil smile splayed across his lips.
"Ah, after all these years, dear Vorador, you grow a spine. This is the best visit ever." Faster than Vorador would have been able to register even if he was well, his brother rushed in and held his head in a vice grip, faces an inch apart. He whispered venomously, "Face you, you ask? You plead? Very well, I do so. And just what are you going to do? Hiss at me?"
"Mortis," Vorador snarled.
Vorador struggled against his bonds, chains forged a hundred years past in fires that sputtered out like dying memories lifetimes ago. Though his strength had faded, the chains had not. They resisted the call of time, the ravages of rust and laughed at his vain attempts even now, clinking in mockery. They, like the cross he was affixed to, had been his only partners for a century.
Since the day of his capture, Vorador could not piece together the reasons why Mortis would wish to impose insanity upon his own blood. He could see no source for hate, no single thing for which Mortis would be envious as they shared equal power. The more he'd turned it over in his mind, the more Vorador could not understand until solitude, pain, and hunger muddled his thoughts. Eventually, he stopped caring to learn the reasons why and merely began to hate his brother.
The visits were annual and usually so brief that Vorador could never get any hints from Mortis. Mortis would simply approach, check on the progress of Vorador's delusions and see if new ones had been born. Some years, he would verbally spar with Vorador, but would leave just before exposing even a piece of the secret. He'd made the visits on the anniversary of impaling Vorador and imprisoning him as if to add just a dash more salt upon the wound.
In between enigmatic visits, Vorador would stare from his cross in a clearing of Termagant Forest. He would stare, watching the animals avoid him as the stench of death never leaves the undead. He would stare at the blazing, burning sun and bake in slow agony. His skin peeling like burnt paper only to heal again overnight. He would stare at the seasons passing, the world living and dying and all the while, he was never allowed to move. If only the chains would break.
"Look at you. Despondent, impotent, you are a poor excuse for one of us," Mortis hissed back. Something had snapped in him, rage plain on his face. "The only reason I let you even live is because Janos would never forgive me if I killed his precious son. But I wonder, if you are so precious, why does he cower in his tired aerie? Why does father do nothing to save you? He told me once you would save Nosgoth from the brink of destruction." He paused, the rage growing strong enough to cause him to shake. "Very well, brother, if you are to be my savior and I am to be nothing but the 'son that couldn't' I suppose can at least take this from you to keep it a challenge!"
Mortis grabbed the sword still hanging in Vorador, lodged in his side since before he was bound to the cross, and tore it violently free. Vorador screamed both in pain and relief. The pain was akin to the blinding light of faith being poured directly into his soul. The relief was from the dying screams of the countless unearthly voices of his dementia. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Vorador realized that the sword was more than it appeared to be. No mortal blade would have caused such injury, to shatter mind as it splintered body. His last thoughts before fading into sweet oblivion were of how he would love to get that blade in his hands for just a brief moment.
Vorador was being shaken, he knew. He must have survived. Then he remembered what Janos Audron had said to him a millennia ago, "Once dead, one cannot truly die." He shook his head, the voices were gone. Fading back into the reality of the moment, he opened his eyes and saw clearly before him a holy man dressed in a plain, cloud grey robe, the hood pulled back. Thunder heralded the coming storm and the trees bent in homage to the wind.
"My child, I heard your screams from far away," the priest said, concern and confusion plain upon his leathery face. "Tell me, are you in pain? Can I help you, my poor child?"
Hunger driving the words behind his voice, Vorador replied, "If you would only step a little closer, kind soul, and help me unbind these chains…"
The answer came, part pity, part hatred, "Indeed. And how has this last year fared you, dear brother? Have the voices finally stopped?"
"No, in fact they've gotten louder…and my vision is failing. Do me a turn and take this sword from my belly, would you? It really itches." Each word took effort, but he could not help himself the humor. He so rarely got to speak to a real being.
The laughter was sincere. "In time perhaps," the voice replied, coming closer. "I must say, you've held out much longer than I thought possible, out here, in the elements, with nothing to feed you but revenge. I do so enjoy our brief visits. They have always provided me with a full year's worth of amusement. I shall truly miss them when you finally expire. But as for your request, tell me, if I did take the sword, what would keep you from killing me?"
"Surely my limbs tell me what my eyes cannot and I am still bound to this cross, hand and foot. And the years have not been so kind as to leave me my strength. You saw to that." He lowered his head again meekly as if to acknowledge defeat.
"Yes, but my eyes work just fine and though I see nothing but a desperate coward and a weakling," he stepped even closer, lifting his prey's head with a long, sharp finger, "I know how deadly you once were and I'll not risk my neck on your pathetic whine." He let the head fall again and turned away. "Have a good year, brother; I shall see you on the next anniversary. I wonder what new ailment time will allow you."
Hearing past the constant voices ringing in his ears, he could hear his captor, his brother walking away, leaving him to the sunlight, the pain of the unhealing wound in his side, and the never ending, torturous hunger. Opening his eyelids, the blurry vision in the center of the dancing spots told him that this was his last chance. He'd not last another damn year. He summoned all the strength he'd salvaged over the long, silent decades and let out a roar of finality.
"You leave me here to die a coward's death when you know it is you who fears!" The hazy figure stopped and turned. "You, with your weak machinations and hallucinated grandeur. You think I covet what you have? It is fetid and stagnates to this day. You bind me and inflict me, hoping to drain that which you never had. If you leave here now, know I will not be here when you return and that you walked from me, the very coward you proclaim me to be! Stand and face me, weakling!"
Exhausted, he tried in vain to focus and although he didn't see it, his brother paused, a delicious, evil smile splayed across his lips.
"Ah, after all these years, dear Vorador, you grow a spine. This is the best visit ever." Faster than Vorador would have been able to register even if he was well, his brother rushed in and held his head in a vice grip, faces an inch apart. He whispered venomously, "Face you, you ask? You plead? Very well, I do so. And just what are you going to do? Hiss at me?"
"Mortis," Vorador snarled.
Vorador struggled against his bonds, chains forged a hundred years past in fires that sputtered out like dying memories lifetimes ago. Though his strength had faded, the chains had not. They resisted the call of time, the ravages of rust and laughed at his vain attempts even now, clinking in mockery. They, like the cross he was affixed to, had been his only partners for a century.
Since the day of his capture, Vorador could not piece together the reasons why Mortis would wish to impose insanity upon his own blood. He could see no source for hate, no single thing for which Mortis would be envious as they shared equal power. The more he'd turned it over in his mind, the more Vorador could not understand until solitude, pain, and hunger muddled his thoughts. Eventually, he stopped caring to learn the reasons why and merely began to hate his brother.
The visits were annual and usually so brief that Vorador could never get any hints from Mortis. Mortis would simply approach, check on the progress of Vorador's delusions and see if new ones had been born. Some years, he would verbally spar with Vorador, but would leave just before exposing even a piece of the secret. He'd made the visits on the anniversary of impaling Vorador and imprisoning him as if to add just a dash more salt upon the wound.
In between enigmatic visits, Vorador would stare from his cross in a clearing of Termagant Forest. He would stare, watching the animals avoid him as the stench of death never leaves the undead. He would stare at the blazing, burning sun and bake in slow agony. His skin peeling like burnt paper only to heal again overnight. He would stare at the seasons passing, the world living and dying and all the while, he was never allowed to move. If only the chains would break.
"Look at you. Despondent, impotent, you are a poor excuse for one of us," Mortis hissed back. Something had snapped in him, rage plain on his face. "The only reason I let you even live is because Janos would never forgive me if I killed his precious son. But I wonder, if you are so precious, why does he cower in his tired aerie? Why does father do nothing to save you? He told me once you would save Nosgoth from the brink of destruction." He paused, the rage growing strong enough to cause him to shake. "Very well, brother, if you are to be my savior and I am to be nothing but the 'son that couldn't' I suppose can at least take this from you to keep it a challenge!"
Mortis grabbed the sword still hanging in Vorador, lodged in his side since before he was bound to the cross, and tore it violently free. Vorador screamed both in pain and relief. The pain was akin to the blinding light of faith being poured directly into his soul. The relief was from the dying screams of the countless unearthly voices of his dementia. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Vorador realized that the sword was more than it appeared to be. No mortal blade would have caused such injury, to shatter mind as it splintered body. His last thoughts before fading into sweet oblivion were of how he would love to get that blade in his hands for just a brief moment.
Vorador was being shaken, he knew. He must have survived. Then he remembered what Janos Audron had said to him a millennia ago, "Once dead, one cannot truly die." He shook his head, the voices were gone. Fading back into the reality of the moment, he opened his eyes and saw clearly before him a holy man dressed in a plain, cloud grey robe, the hood pulled back. Thunder heralded the coming storm and the trees bent in homage to the wind.
"My child, I heard your screams from far away," the priest said, concern and confusion plain upon his leathery face. "Tell me, are you in pain? Can I help you, my poor child?"
Hunger driving the words behind his voice, Vorador replied, "If you would only step a little closer, kind soul, and help me unbind these chains…"