He had failed.
In the beginning, it had started small. So small that the overseers of The Underworld had barely taken notice. A newly arrived soul mysteriously disappearing here; a small squadron of skeletons appearing to wreak havoc there. Occurrences that, at the time, had posed mild concern, but other larger matters had taken priority. Maintaining the judgment of souls had become increasingly difficult when Grenth's departure from his domain left a portion of his faithful shaken. Paralyzed without the Lord of Death's guiding, frigid hand they had known for over a thousand years.
They had been weak.
Not him.
The necromancer stood frozen, solitary on an icy ridge overlooking the Ice Wastes. Far below him, the River of Souls flowed. The enormous stream weaved around earthen pillars incased in ice, their mountainous shapes impaling the vast ocean of mist before him. Through the veil of thick mist, his eyes, unblinking, followed the myriad of souls as they traveled. The cacophony of the newly dead's cries and screams clamored up to his perch to claw inside his ears, forever a grim reminder of his failure.
Grenth's faithful knew that Dhuum would attempt to free himself. The Emperor of Oblivion's defiance to his confinement was eternal, possessing a wrath so all-consuming that even the Seven Reapers would have no hope of stopping him with their combined might if he were to fully break free.
"Your presence is requested by the Council of Seven."
He said nothing to the wraith that had approached from behind, the Reapers messenger's sickly green luminescence spreading across the ice like a plague; its ghastly voice creeping out from under a hood of night. His eyes remained fixed on the stream of souls, watching their inky white bodies twist further through the misty sea into the dark horizon that cradled no sun. The souls pushed and pulled at each other in a desperate frenzy to escape their destination. It was a useless struggle. The Hall of Judgement awaited them all.
"Your presence is requested by-"
"No one in this realm commands me."
Athis command, nothing remained but the dirge of the damned shortly after the whispered words left his lips. It was here he would linger, a monument to his most grievous sin until oblivion. Alone.
No one would command him.
Not Dhuum. Not the Seven. Not even Desmina.
Only Grenth... and Grenth was gone.
"Self-imposed exile does not suit you."
Desmina raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at his silence. The necromancer made no move to acknowledgment her presence either and an inkling of ire rose in her chest.Child.After all her centuries of existence, patience was the first virtue Desmina had discarded, abhorring the thought of dealing with mortals and their emotions. It was exhausting.
Well, she couldn't call him a mortal... not anymore.
"You cannot ignore the summons of the Reapers for all eternity," Desmina said, her eyebrow descending from underneath dark red bangs, irritation now thick on her tongue. "In fact, we do not have an eternity for you to waste away." She circled around his back as she spoke, amber eyes observing the ice that had crystalized over the man's body. Her prey remained as still and silent as a corpse. Her gaze narrowed; a century's worth of isolation and for what? This? What a waste.
She was in front of him now, blocking his view, but he could still hear the screams echoing between his ears. His gaze slowly met hers, a courtesy he could not deny Desmina of Orr; the first follower and priestess to Grenth. The man's eyes were two swimming orbs of jade, still flickering with dormant magics, but remained lifeless and barren in her presence and it drove her frozen blood to boil. She did not have time for this. Every moment away from her duties more souls were lost to Dhuum that could've been protected.
"Look at you." Desmina hissed, her pale face showing just a hint of the veiled fury that lay beneath. She took one step closer and away from the drop into the River of Souls below. Dark, ancient magic flared about her form and the red tassels that held her stygian Orrian dress tight danced wildly. The once-still mists of the Ice Wastes nearest to them began to swirl and spiral as Desmina's long blood-red crown crackled with power.
He knew she could obliterate the very fabric of his being if she desired. He'd witnessed her raw power before: black and crimson streaks arcing from foe to foe, evaporating their forms effortlessly as it tore across the battlefield. Instead, the first priestess spoke with measured vehemence.
"Youcome into His sacred realm before your time.You pledge yourself in eternal service to Grenth upon the stones of the Hall of Judgement," Desmina took another step forward, coming face to face with the man, her glare alight in an orange glow. Both stood in the eye of her storm, mist and dark sorcery clashing, ripping and biting at each other, the pressure beginning to crack the ice that had accumulated around his form. "He accepts youinto the folds of his embrace for your deeds and how doyourepay the Prince of Winter whenyoufail at your station?"
He could feel her anger, lashing out at him like the storm against the ice and wished at once for the storm to cease and her words to stop. He did not want to remember. To think; to feel. He only wanted silence, so he said nothing.
Desmina did not oblige his silent pleas. "You give up. You abandon your post.You fail Grenth."
Why was she tormenting him so? Yes, he had failed. When Grenth had put his faith in him. Him! How could he have betrayed such a gift? In shame his eyes tore away, unable to bear the truth in hers. Desmina's scowl remained, but with a flick of her wrist reigned in the storm around them, the crackling of magic dimming and the swirling mist slowing. Finally, she was getting somewhere.
"I remember when the newly dead spoke of you in hushed, reverent, whispers." Desmina's words assailed him, ripping apart what was left of his defenses as her storm lashed out with a loudcrackle, red lightning tearing away more and more ice. "When His most faithful of the Ice Wastes, ancient and new alike, had recognized you as a champion of the Dark Prince."
"Stop. Enough." He breathed out, the words leaving his ice-caked lips in a hoarse croak. Words that held no life in them. No meaning. They rang hollow over the screams of the damned destined to feed Dhuum unto freedom.
Desmina did not relent. She began circling him again, a dark siren gleefully driving and twisting her silver-tongued dagger into every exposed scar. "They called you 'Savior', 'Protector'... 'Hero'."
Each title spoke of a life forgotten: discarded.
"Do you know what they would call you now?" Desmina leaned in from behind, hovering close enough for her whispers to lash at his soul.
"Pathetic."
Somewhere deep within himself, he felt ice crack. He grimaced, brow digging into his nose and eyes squeezing shut. A memory bubbled up to the surface before he could force it down and when he opened them again his perch above the River of Souls had disappeared.
He found himself as a child. Nothing but skin, bones, and dried tear stains underneath filthy rags. A scrawny, dirty thing full of cold bitterness; fighting for scraps in the squalor of the back alleyways in Ascalon City. The bitter cold filled his empty, growling stomach like a ball of unmelting ice. He rubbed his eyes to fight back the coming wetness the hunger pains always brought, when the priestess's sultry voice whispered out from the black void beyond his eyelids.
"Weak."
Another crack. The boy opened his eyes and the world had shifted again.
The necromancer was now in his mid-twenties. The bitter ice in his stomach was still there, but now tempered with faith, nestled deep within the clutches of Grenth's unholy embrace. The stench of his rags was gone, replaced with an awful mix of burning wood and scorched flesh. The rancid taste of charred viscera and burnt skin assaulted his tongue. Smoke tore at his throat, squeezing his lungs to crush the life from them.
Coughing violently, he covered his face in the crook of his arm and took in his surroundings, a swirl of long-lost emotions taking hold upon finding the burnt and crushed bodies all around him. Lifeless corpses of men, women, and children littered the streets of Ascalon City as it lay in ruin, destroyed by ancient, crystallized fire. Where once proud cathedrals and cozy homesteads stood, now lay splintered wood aflame. Where once large marketplaces bustled with commerce and merriment, now the dead and dying lay among the chaos and ash. The spreading fires laughed in terrible glee, red and orange hands leaping to shovel more kindling into its greedy, hungry mouth, the growing inferno consuming flesh and wood alike. The screams of the still-living was somehow louder than the hammering of his heartbeat, and even against the smoke stinging his eyes, they were wide as saucers. He was here again; at the beginning. Powerless. Weak. The former hero fought against his stomach's sickening attempts to empty itself when without warning, a BOOM suddenly shook the world. He quickly looked to the skies: another bombardment born from Charr hands hurtled down from the heavens, ending a little girl's innocence forever.
Just before a chunk of the Searing could obliterate both the necromancer and the earth he stood on, Desmina's voice shot him back to the present with a word that twisted her knife, threatening to shatter the icy core of his soul.
"Unfaithful."
A great sundering erupted from the depths of his being, letting loose a soul-shattering shriek upon his lips as countless different cracks all occurred at once. His eyes were alight with green fire and dark necrotic energies coursed through his body, flying wildly out in every direction, scattering what was left of Desmina's storm. Her lips turned up into a satisfied smirk from where she had retreated to.
The remaining ice that had been encasing him had shattered and he collapsed upon the cracked, icy, ledge. He stared down at his fractured reflection. Each of the ghostly-white faces staring back seemed to be that of an utter stranger. Who was he? A savior? A failure? Hero? Coward?
I truly am pathetic... Was my resolve so weak for it to be broken by mere words? The thought made him ill. "Finished?" Desmina called out after some time, scoffing when he did not respond. She did not provoke him further; she was no fool. The once-heralded 'Hero of Tyria' was not one to make an enemy out of lightly.
"I... I have been a fool." He croaked, finally finding his voice. The words trailed out in a raspy whine like creaking old bones reawakening. He willed his muscles to take action and rose to his full height, adorned in ornate robes of emerald and onyx. Desmina simply shook her head, maroon hair swaying in the ghostly light radiating from the River of Souls. "The Seven await. I suggest you do not keep them any longer."
By the Gods, I've been a fool. A fool who believed his journey was over. He thought, staring out from the ridge across Grenth's once grand bastion. It reminded him of a graveyard. Tombstones of ice and rock standing sentinel in silence as damned souls were dragged through an ocean of mist to their final grave. There is nothing left for me here...He turned away from his broken vigil to meet her gaze with a spark of resolve in his eyes not seen in a long,long, while. "I've been a fool... but I willneverbe unfaithful."
For the first time in over a hundred years, the Hero of Tyria moved with purpose.