Lightbringer: The Waystone Saga: Book Three

By H. Shane Alford

Tattered Threads...
The Weaver, the Lady of the Loom—she who wove the Tapestry of Creation from the dreams of the gods...
The Destroyer, the dragon—whose fury set fire to the world and turned those dreams into nightmares...
War had come to the Bright World. Shadows had fallen. The Dark World had ascended. Such was inevitable; such was the Balance. But, the dawn of the Fourth Age would not be like any other before. The game had changed. The fulcrum had shifted.

Even as angels and demons battled, a greater horror stalked from beyond the stars. A new lord was rising from the storm, and the gods rightly trembled.

Soon their sins would be revealed. Soon, the brokenness of the heavens would be laid bare. Truth would be shown false, and lies would shine as virtue. Nothing would ever be the same.

Still, there are seeds of hope—if they can grow in time. What they need are the waters of faith. What they need is a Lightbringer!

• Language: English
• Publisher: H. Shane Alford
• Release date: Nov 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780989073080

H. Shane Alford

Born in 1967 in the quaint, southern town of Social Circle, Georgia, Shane Alford spent his childhood embarking on one imaginary adventure after another. A graduate of LaGrange College, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion. Currently, Shane resides with his wife, Cheri, and their two children: Brendan and Kara, in Columbia, South Carolina. He has two daughters, Chelsea and Alexandra, from a previous marriage. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18590712.H_Shane_Alford

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LIGHTBRINGER

The Waystone Saga: Book Three

Copyright 2018 H. Shane Alford

Published by H. Shane Alford at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

D E D I C A T I O N

This book is dedicated to Dee Hayden, whose boundless enthusiasm and love for the characters of Narianna has inspired my imagination and helped the Bright World grow. Every author should be so lucky as to have such a fan. Thank you for remembering what I do not and for always seeking to discover more. For that, I am forever grateful.

A U T H O R ’ S N O T E

Twenty years…

It’s hard to believe that this novel was born so long ago. Of course, back then, I had no idea that it was lurking in those nooks and crannies I call a brain. In those earliest days, storytelling was just part – albeit a seminal part – of my experience as a D&D game master. Little did I realize then that all those fanciful characters and whacky plots were serving as my wading pool as I learned to swim. That some of the personae that I scratched out on notebook paper would end up within the pages of this novel still astonishes me. But, here they are. Of course, since their conception back in my personal dark ages, they have changed; or, more accurately, they have evolved. Like the Weave in the stories, the loom of my imagination has spun uncounted threads. Each has entwined with the others to produce the Tapestry that is Narianna. Truthfully, I have always felt more like the conduit for rather than the creator of this fantasy realm. I’m not sure that this is the deep end of the pool yet. Probably not. But at least I’m doggy paddling.

So, here I sit on this rather crisp October morning in my study pondering it all with a couple of thoughts resounding louder than the rest.

The first is how grateful I am for the gift of creativity. More so than anything else that I can think of, the ability to dream worlds to life humbles me. It is, I believe, a spark of the divine that lives within us all. I confess that I am not an overly religious person, but I do believe it is a blessing.

The second is how satisfying it is to share those dreams with others. It has been a privilege to be a tale spinner. It is my heartfelt hope that the stories spun will give threads upon which readers and aspiring writers alike may climb to whatever heights their own imaginations may carry them.

Now, the proverbial question dawns: What’s next? Only one answer exists, at least for me. It’s time to tell more stories. I will always cherish these, my first born, but I can hardly wait to give voice to the characters that come next. I can already hear them scheming in my head. Soon enough, they will wiggle their ways to my fingertips and into this laptop. I’m sure they will be just as unruly and wonderful as the ones before. Until then, I give over into your good keeping the stories of these within the pages herein. May you enjoy your time together. I know I have.

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Chapter 1: Defiance

Chapter 2: Unweaving

Chapter 3: Giants and Men

Chapter 4: The Blood of Dragons

Chapter 5: Awakening

Chapter 6: Journeys

Chapter 7: Arrivals

Chapter 8: Might and Main

Chapter 9: Ascension

Chapter 10: Revelations

Chapter 11: Battlefronts

Chapter 12: Carnage

Chapter 13: Nexus Prime

Chapter 14: Winds of War

Chapter 15: A War of Gods

Chapter 16: Ice

Chapter 17: Winds of Heaven

Chapter 18: Dragon Fire

Chapter 19: Paths

Chapter 20: Beginnings and Endings

Chapter 21: Into the Light

Chapter 22: Into the Darkness

Chapter 23: Beyond the Horizon

Chapter 24: Dark Threads

Chapter 25: The Hallowed Dark

Chapter 26: Immortal Dreams

Chapter 27: Awakening Nightmares

Chapter 28: Weaving Worlds

Chapter 29: Screams of Dragons

Chapter 30: The Destroyer

Afterword

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER WORKS

Chapter 1: Defiance

Lyri stared down at the ruins of the city as they spread out below her and gauged the destruction. She did not measure the suffering or wonder at the lives lost. In truth, she gave no thought or reflection to the toll the devastation had exacted upon the people. Her appraisal was far more sober than somber; practical and pragmatic. What she was assessing was the power that had been unleashed. Buildings that had been shattered. The earth itself had been upheaved. Indeed, the carnage was quite impressive. As the range and scope of it settled into her mind, she took notes, composing her review into a thorough account of all she beheld. The world had been shaken – not just this wasteland of rubble, but the whole of Narianna itself. Such was the extent of it all.

To most, it was terrifying, but Lyri regarded the brokenness without emotion. Hers was a simple survey: a defining of the apocalyptic scene. Not to be awestruck or aghast by what she saw, but to set the first point, to hammer into her consciousness the control against which all else would be compared. As she studied Baraden’s wreckage, she readied herself to face whatever images the future held. This panorama would set the mark for those that followed.

Ironically, she knew, no demon had wrought this catastrophe. It had been unleashed by an elemental force born, not of Morthalin, but of this world. Such terrible power would be needed in the age that had just begun. Her assessment, then, was shrewdly taken and factored into the calculations she was making.

The Shadowfall had begun.

Against Morthalin’s power, Lyri measured Narianna’s resolve. Her question was fundamental. Was there defiance enough displayed in what she beheld before her to match the terrifying savagery the Dark World’s minions would unleash? Looking at the broken city, knowing that the devastation stretched far beyond its toppled walls, she adjudged The Balance between the two contentious worlds. The irony grew as she reflected on the celestial scales. In this destruction, she saw hope. The Bright World had great power of its own.

Fleetingly, Lyri glanced to the north. The sun still rose in the east, of course; but there, beyond the serrated peaks, the red glow of Ardra’s fire painted the sky with an unending predawn. Yes, there were mighty princes of evil in the Dark World, but powers no less fearsome existed in this realm as well. The rage burning beyond the jagged summits gave her reassurance. Dragon’s fire matched any hellfire demons would bring.

Below and before her perch atop the crumbled, southern tower of Barad-Mal, Ranslizar’s once citadel, Lyri watched the tendrils of smoke rolling across the city. Below and behind her, the strange coterie of souls with whom she traveled was completing its preparations for this new day as well. They were a motley crew, she thought, wildly diverse in their origins, forms, and fashions. She appraised each one keenly, reading their hearts with eyes that pierced to their deepest cores. Shadows darkened their inner essences just as they did with all seasoned mortals, but there was great light in even the darkest of them as well. Its sublime glow unified their purpose and aligned their destinies. She wondered if such bonds would be strong enough to see them fulfilled. As ever, she had her doubts about Fate. But, that was in her nature. She did not trust easily nor submit to whims of fancy. Life never worked out quite the way she hoped anyway. She had almost given up on it – hope that is. Fighting for life, though, was a different story. She never stopped fighting. That, also, was in her nature. It was what sustained her: the unending struggle to survive.

A new day had awakened; and, though shadows had filled its dreams, its light had been brought to this world out of the claws of nightmares.

Lyri sighed.

The Lightbringer had been taken by Ranslizar along with her mother, Ahlandra. They were the focus of this quest once again. Finding them and freeing them was all that mattered.

To that end, regardless the depth of the darkness that lie ahead, Lyri was committed. She knew its fullest, blackest measure better than any other could. She was the Child of Shadows, after all. Though, admittedly, what that enigmatic title truly meant still evaded her imagination. Her mind was overfilled already, leaving little room for its consideration.

Her past was a strange assemblage of horrific memories that compiled and conspired to define her origin, her tortured beginning, her protracted struggle, and her current predicament. Each baleful scene wove itself into the dark fiber of her soul and created the tapestry she had become: a young girl enmeshed in utter darkness. Each hellish thread assembled her, entwined her, and bound her. Her childish innocence was long lost, devoured by rapacious beasts that still haunted her. Dauntlessly, she had endured every nightmare and conquered them all, yet they remained within her, subdued but lurking. It was their shadowy wickedness that she burned like fuel, transforming raw evil into the pure defiance that gave her strength and resolve. It was in that way that she defined the name. It was who she was: a child forged from shadows.

Lyri studied her varied companions in the courtyard below.

Their leader was Draven Mord, a Turanian prince and a skillful warrior. His features were dark with skin the searing southern sun had bronzed for many years. His hair was black; his piercing eyes, almost so. He reminded her of the Baradeshi that were even now creeping about in the city’s ruins as the day began, reclaiming their lives one fragment of rubble at a time. Their features were similar, she thought, although, the people of Baraden were somewhat smaller of build with a more olive complexion.

Draven, of course, was from a land far removed from this. Alli-Turan, as his people called Lyri’s homeland of Einhervaldheim, was more temperate than this tropical realm. Lyri doubted that snow ever fell here. The wind was too hot and too humid. It blew up from the southern seas and crossed the inland plains, bringing with it the scents of the coastal jungles.

As she watched, the brisk breeze swept through the foothills atop which the city stood and stirred the ash and dust. Twirling wisps spun across the collapsed rooftops and tossed the debris that littered the Malchyreidé, the artery through which trade, Baraden’s life-blood, had once flowed. The five concentric wards of the city the road connected were all in disarray. The cataclysm that had been unleashed before the sorcerer’s tower had left nothing untouched. Palaces and hovels alike had been leveled.

Beside Draven was an odd trio: a Thromnyr, a Rhakashi, and a Morok.

Tran Hammerhand, the dwarf, was surrounded by a strange nimbus to Lyri’s transcendent eyes. The earth’s spirit surged through his boots, filling him with its elemental energies. He was an extension of the world itself, it seemed, a cornerstone of sorts, resolute and stolid. In battle, his ax work had been redoubtable. Narianna herself leant her strength to him in many ways and he championed her. He was a guardian, true and sure.

Lyri had known many Thromnyr in her short life. In one chapter of it, she had called them her family and learned their tongue. Memories of those goodly days panged her now. Like so much else, they had been lost to this damnable war. Her hand rested upon the pommel of her sword – Wind-Song it was named – as she drifted through those remembrances. The weapon was all that remained as a legacy from that brief time of joy. Listening to Tran barking at his comrades as they broke camp twisted a smirk on her lip as a fond moment rose from her heart and revisited her mind. Melancholy overcame her as the happy images faded, consumed by visions of shadowy dragon’s fire, cruel death, and merciless anguish.

Lyri forced the pain aside and refocused. Her foster parents, Berz and Beryl Orebender, were dead along with most of the dwarves of Blackrock Crag. The Skyran had killed them. Nothing now could undo that.

Her attention shifted to the Rhakashi, Rasha Khan. The leonine warrior combined fantastic speed and strength. His prowess and ferocity had proven a match for all the otherworldly foes they had faced thus far. He was undeniably lethal. But there was much more to the Feylin than his bestial aspects. In him, she saw a noble spirit that shown brightly with courage and wisdom. Rasha had known great suffering. He, too, had been a slave, one of the sayyidari, a gladiator in the blood sports that enthralled these southern lands. In his eyes, she could see herself: a predator, defiant and deadly. He, like her, was fury barely restrained. In that, they were kindred. In that, she understood him well.

The subject of Tran’s goading, as usual, was the Morok, Aras Azzar. Lyri found it hard to look at him. Whenever she did, he was watching her as well, or so it seemed. And, ever so, his attention was far more than curiosity. In his jaundiced, yellow eyes, she saw intense, abiding suspicion. The black orc could see far deeper into her soul than she wished. It was as if he knew just how abyssal the darkness was that abided inside of her. In part, she reasoned, that was because he had been there when her mortal life had ended and the purgatory of her immortality began. After all, it was he that had plunged a rogue’s dagger into her chest and intercepted her fall into wickedness, denying the progenitor of her accursed bloodline his claim to her. Perhaps, she should have been grateful. Aras claimed that he had spared her from Darkyr’s clutches by that murderous act. It had been quick, without malice, and, if he was to be believed, necessary. Nonetheless, the coldness with which he had killed her still chilled her. She hated him for it and, despite the assured shrewdness of the act, blamed him, at least partially, for her eternal damnation. She had never wanted to be a monster, an undying revenant drowning in a sea of shadowy demons, but that is what she was. It was done. Nothing could change that either. Still, the black fire that burned contemptuously inside of her flared as she glared at him.

The assassin watched her impassively, unflinching and unmoved.

Nearby, almost unnoticed, was Sarmyr, the Thaedran sorceress. Lyri had almost forgotten about her. Tempered by the unholy fire of Malchydar’s Pit, the young woman had served at Ranslizar’s feet for many years and had been taught many magical arts. These, however, were not what cloaked her and diverted Lyri’s clairvoyant sight. Instead, there was something innate within Sarmyr herself that deflected Lyri’s gaze and caused her attention to pass over her, at least, initially. An eldritch sheen covered her soul and magic skidded across it as if it were slick ice. Lyri squinted to perceive her – not her physical form, but her obfuscated soul. What she apprehended surprised her. Despite the darkness of Barad-Mal, Sarmyr’s goodness had somehow endured. Purity was revealed therein. For that, Lyri envied her.

Lastly, there was Fhaed Chael. The Armadeshi demon-hunter had departed the encampment shortly before the first light of day, attending to some errand he had not disclosed. Still jangled from the events of the night, Lyri had failed to ask what that might have been. She rebuked herself now for that lapse.

As her thoughts slipped to Fhaed, an entirely different series of emotions stirred. He was her mentor, her teacher, and, secretly, in the unrequited longings of her girlish heart, he was something much, much more. She cared for him more than she dared admit even to herself. At the moment, she worried deeply as well. Undoubtedly, whatever errand he had undertaken was daring and dangerous.

As a demon-hunter, Fhaed was endowed with a legion of shadows that suffused his essence. Diabolic sorcery had been invested in him by his dark masters, the Morarmadin. In fact, it was Mithcran’s priests that had made him, forging and fashioning him to be an amusement, a quarry to chase in an evil game for their sinister delight and training. Into his swarthy flesh, runes of power had been scrawled, transforming him from a man into a fiend. They had hunted him, reveling in his torment as they hounded him across the infernal landscape around the Unholy See of Armadar. But, they had made their devil-fox far too well. In the end, he had denied them their triumph, escaped their hunt, and became something far more than that for which they had bargained. Now, it was he that stalked them and their entire demonic ilk. He harvested their malevolent power and turned it against them.

In that regard, Fhaed and she shared a great deal. She, too, feasted upon shadows. It was because of that terrible, shared affinity that they had been first united.

In the darkness of Morgaradar, a wizened, Khazdyri priest, Adi’Davdrek, had entwined their destinies as teacher and apprentice. It had been his fervent hope that Fhaed’s experience would allow him to help her master her rage and that he would teach her to wield her power just as he had learned to do with his own. Woefully, though, Fhaed’s lessons had gone far astray soon after their auspicious beginning. Her fiery darkness was well beyond even Adi’Davdrek’s learned conception and it far exceeded Fhaed’s ability to guide. The priest misjudged the extent of the power within her blood. It totally eclipsed Fhaed’s own. They realized too late that, in truth, her rage defied even the gods.

In the end, Fhaed had died trying to save her from herself. Actually, lost in her fury, she had killed him viciously.

Lyri’s mind recoiled from the image of Fhaed’s stricken face as he fell dead before her in the sewers below Morgaradar’s Grand Bazaar. The sullen remorse she had felt in that moment overwhelmed her once more. Her guts twisted tightly around the black memory.

Fhaed, of course, had been resurrected. But it had taken a deal with a devil, Azramadd, to accomplish that. Through a fiendish bargain, the Deathdemon was freed from its prison below the Black Tower of Morgaradar and, in exchange, Fhaed had been released from its clutches, his life restored. Lyri had rejoiced then. However, the agony of losing him remained, branded upon her soul. She would never forget that pain. The recollection frightened her; and, as always, her fear made her that much angrier and defiant. She rebuked herself sharply for her weakness.

She hoped Fhaed would return soon. She was anxious for their quest to continue. Staying still with her rabid thoughts was maddening. Reflecting upon all that had happened, even more so.

From a realm of nightmares, she and these with her had emerged. By their hands, Ahlandra Maurel and her child had been freed from that horrific place. Together, they had escaped Assybah, the Queen of Tir’Naenor, and her monstrous minions, the Vaderghasts. Through an army of insane fanatics, the Skreelings, they had fought as well.

She remembered allies also. They had aided them in their cause. What had become of them? Of Lycinder, Dyraskar, Skimbli, Wyn Alyss, and the others? She could only guess. But any conjecture she dared venture only added to her brimming terror. She held only one certainty: Ranslizar’s sorcery was behind all of this.

Silently, Lyri prayed her friends were well.

Back into Narianna, she and her companions had come, riding a ribbon of light, a ley line rewoven. The Lightbringer – Draven and Ahlandra’s child – was born in that moment. Through her, through that tiny baby, salvation for the Bright World was promised. That promise must be fulfilled.

Lyri marveled at what had transpired.

Into her, divine glory had been poured: some of light – the Weaver’s Weal; some of darkness – the Destroyer’s Woe. But, in the end, even that dual empowerment had not been enough to keep the reborn goddess safe for long. Her protectors were but pawns in a great game, and the grandmasters held the upper hands. So it was that the Lightbringer and her mother were lost, stolen during the very afterglow of the child’s birth by deception, sorcery, and cunning wile. Ahlandra and her baby were taken by Ranslizar, realizing his schemes to the dismay of Lyri and her helpless allies.

So, to these ensorcelled ruins they had come in search of some faint clue that would lead them to the mother and the babe once more. Nothing of value, though, had been found. Instead, the Skyran had come. With her, she brought cryptic words that taunted them but gave no clear direction. The Lord of the Winds might tell them the Archmage’s whereabouts, she had teased. That told them nothing. That the sorcerer had returned to the unwelcoming lands of his birth offered scant little either. None among the coterie knew from what black hole Ranslizar had first slithered. The Skyran had come, but all she brought was contumely.

As Lyri stared into the bleak remnants of Baraden, she was certain no clear direction was to be found in the Harbinger’s words. The wind blew from all directions as it saw fit. Finding an elusive desert djinn or a specific nest for a viper like Ranslizar within a realm filled with such serpents would prove all but impossible.

Tran and Rasha offered what they could to solve the riddle shortly after the wyvern-rider winged away. They recounted their encounter with Nyrgûl, the Lord of the Winds.

Apparently, while crossing the obsidian sands of Lirr-Arden aboard an Ayleshi airship, they had crossed paths with the elemental prince. It had not been a congenial meeting and neither was optimistic that, even should they discover the T’Ethranir again, he would be helpful. As their tale told it, Arasil, the elven prince whose spirit now dwelled within the great bow Aras carried, had used that self-same weapon to send an arrow into the djinn’s heart when last they met. The Lord of the Winds, then, was unlikely to receive them kindly given that.

Being pierced through the heart did not endear one to the impaler, Lyri had readily affirmed.

Further, to the other clue proffered, though Sarmyr had been tutored by the Lord of Barad-Mal for many years, she knew no hint as to his birthplace. Ranslizar had resided within his tower for centuries, sustained by his magic. From whence he had originally come was unknown. So, again, what the Skyran had said only served to mock and frustrate them.

Where in the vastness of the world Ahlandra and her child had been taken seemed utterly unknowable. Lyri could but wonder why the Harbinger had vexed them with her words at all. What sadistic game was she playing? Why she had not simply unleashed her dragon’s fire upon them was equally perplexing. She served Armadar and owed them nothing except its vengeance. After all, they had cut a swath through the Morarmadin of the Unholy See as they escaped the catacombs beneath the great pyramid, Amith’Zar. If anything, Tyvervexius, the Shade Prince, should have sent a host of demons against them by now. Instead, only the Skyran came and she brought only a spur to impel them forward, albeit in an uncertain direction. For whatever reason, the Lord High Priest still valued them in his game with Ranslizar, it seemed. That alone might explain why they yet lived. Little else made sense to Lyri. If correct, though, she feared that the Vexian had woefully overestimated their chances of finding the Archmage, much less, of defeating him without aid. Personally, however, she was eager to try – Armadar’s help or not.

One thing more distressed Lyri in the aftermath of the Skyran’s visit and it did so far more than the dark herald’s derision. During the encounter, some insidious bond had been woven between her and the Harbinger’s mount. It was a primal force and it sought to dissolve her consciousness into the black essence of the dragon. Lyri felt her senses merge with those of the beast. It was as though she and the skyryx became one creature. Through its eyes, she saw the world; through its ears, she heard it. Somehow, she had been cast into the chaos of the monster’s mind. She had almost lost herself within it, drowning in its rage and its dark soul. It had taken every fiber of her being to battle for her sanity, to remain herself rather than to submerge into the wyvern’s heart and be forever damned. She still trembled and found her blood racing as she relived those moments.

Lyri knew that something had changed within her during her time in Assybah’s phantasmagoric realm. The taint that covered her soul had grown indelibly darker in the process. The shadow-fire within her had been inflamed all the blacker. She was of Darkyr’s blood and the Death-knight was infused with Dyerbazog’s fire. Inside of her, Lyri felt Morthalin’s power, the Destroyer’s rage. Too, she felt Auril’s Palescial auspice burning. The two opposed forces converged. She was their nexus and the locus of their conjoined energies.

Since the moment of her rebirth within the Silverwood with Aras Azzar staring at her across his campfire, she had experienced the world with a terrifying intensity that defied explanation. She could perceive everything around her down to the finest minutia. She could read the souls of men and know what shadows dwelled therein. Her dark, inner fire inflamed their wickedness, compelling the evil impulses within them, drawing them to the surface. Her very presence caused the flickers of darkness within them to explode into conflagrations that engulfed their wills. It was upon those storming shadows that she fed. The demons in men’s souls were her prey.

Now, that shadow-fire had exerted itself in a horrifying new way. Her will and that of the dragon had swirled together. Lyri was unsure if hers had been the more dominant during that brief engagement. Regardless, the presence of the skyryx had shaken her badly. Something had awakened within the pit of her darkest nightmares. She swallowed deeply to restrain the heaving within her guts as she subdued the frightful emotions that had been stirred. The southern wind felt unnaturally cold to her suddenly.

Though Auril’s light swirled within her now also, mated with her soul’s draconic darkness, Lyri struggled to find harmony or balance within herself. Too much pain still roiled to accomplish that feat easily. Regret and rage surfaced far quicker than did peace and calm.

Focusing hard, calling upon techniques taught to her by one of her former teachers, Rork Stormbeard, a dwarven paladin, she forced herself to steady at least. Her eyes affixed upon the flapping pennants of the Dar Sacres, the great colosseum of Baraden. Despite the calamity that had befallen the city, the House of Blood remained. Its thick walls had withstood even divine wrath. Such was an ominous testament to cruelty’s endurance. Gradually, as Rork’s mantra worked its way through the chords of her spirit, her breathing settled and her heartbeat slowed.

Glancing down, it seemed that all eyes were upon her. Lyri shuddered and looked away, back into the shattered city, her mind reeling. The echo of her heartbeat still pounded in her ears. She shut her eyes.

Enough, she hissed to herself.

When she opened her eyes again, the waves of terror had passed. She looked back below. In truth, only Aras was watching her with his inhuman eyes. She wondered what he was thinking of her now, this monster that he had helped to create.

* * *

What do you make of the girl? Draven whispered aside to Tran.

The Arngard paused a moment before cinching the last strap on his pack tightly. He regarded through his bushy brows the silhouetted form of the child atop the tower ruins. Somehow the bloody sky that offset her figure looked troublingly appropriate.

Can’t say, Tran admitted hushedly. Me boots know the weight of them what’s they stands by. If’n a soul be heavy in this world, they tells me so. He paused, contemplatively. That one be somethin’ else, somethin’ new.

What do you mean?

Tran puzzled then added, She has no weight at all ‘n yet the world caves in ‘round her. Where she walks, the world ‘n she be likin’ to one thin’ – one ‘n the same – everythin’ ‘n nothin’ all at once. Itches me toes. ‘Tis the damnedest thin’. ’Tis like she’s not there at all but everywhere all at the same time. I’s can’t explain it.

Draven studied Lyri’s shadow against the fiery, dawn sky and wondered. The girl was clearly there. From the moment she swirled into the Vaderghast pack in Tir’Naenor, her presence had been made very, very real. To the howling fiends her small sword had vanquished, he mused, she was an undeniable fact!

The lethal force the girl had displayed was unmatched in Draven’s considerable, martial experience. He, Tran, and Rasha had given a good accounting against Assybah’s daemons, but they had no hope of surviving their onslaught. The fiends were too many; his death and that of his companions was a forgone certainty – until the Child of Shadows blurred into the fray. His sword, Tran’s ax, and Rasha’s claws delivered mortal blows against their foes, but what Lyri brought was an unstoppable wind, a storm of unrelenting, divine wrath. Armies of monsters fell before the lightning flash of her silvery steel. She was terrifying and wondrous to behold.

No, Lyri was undeniably real; but what she was, he could not conceive either. Rage blazed like an inferno within her dark eyes. Her aura, though, chilled him to his core. Beyond her outer fire, he sensed a soul in abject suffering, a forlorn Asgev girl who had known unspeakable torment, a child assailed by an unending host of nightmares. Just who or what she was, though, eluded his imagination completely.

She is Death, Aras Azzar hissed beneath his breath, drawing the narrowed glare of both the Thromnyr and the Turanian.

Aye. Maybe so, Tran replied tersely to the assassin’s abrupt pronouncement, but ‘twere ‘cause of that ‘Death’ that we be livin’.

What do you know of the girl? Draven pressed the Morok.

Aras shook his head slowly, denying familiarity.

Yer sure of that? Tran challenged. I’s seen how yer watchin’ her. Ye know somethin’ yer not tellin’.

Aras’s inhuman eyes settled upon the dwarf’s icily. I know this: She is nothing that she seems to be.

Explain, Draven enjoined sharply.

Rasha and Sarmyr brought their attention to the conversation as well. Aras ignored them. His stare affixed once more upon the mysterious, young girl atop the ruins.

I cannot, Aras growled. All I can say is that I know deception well enough. I served those who had perfected the art of it. Memories thread through my mind, but they cannot be real. A demon or something else has woven them there.

What memories? Sarmyr sued. The Morok’s words had unnerved her enough to ask.

Aras’ glare flicked to the sorceress. His lip snarled, barring his tusks. Enmity radiated from his eyes.

I killed that girl once, he answered coldly. I drove a dagger through her beating heart. Silence froze the tongues of his inquisitors. His bloody gaze relit upon Lyri’s shadow. But, he added chillingly, until the Armadeshi came upon me in the crypts of Armadar, I swear I had no memory of her. I never forget those I kill.

What are you saying? Draven argued. Did the demon-hunter enspell your mind?

Aras smirked. It was a wicked twist to his fanged countenance. No, he replied evilly. He cast no spell over me.

What, then, ye grinnin’ devil? Tran barked. We’s no time fer yer games!

Aras lowered his focus to the fuming dwarf and those gathered around hearkened close. It wasn’t magic. The world itself changed, was all he answered.

The orc’s words did not appease Tran’s irritation in the slightest nor did they ease the itching in his boots. Ye’ll have to do better than that! He huffed. Worlds don’t just change. What’re ye getting’ at?

Aras said no more.

Say it plain! Tran barked.

Lyri’s attention tipped towards the gathering.

Draven marked the girl’s curious glance from afar. Later, he assuaged softly for his companions’ ears. We need to get moving.

To where? Rasha asked calmly.

We need answers carried on the wind, Draven replied, shrugging. Notes of desperation and exasperation intoned in his voice. They underscored how few were the choices at hand. We have friends that know the winds far better than do we. If a desert spirit holds the course we must take, then we’ll seek our allies’ sails; and, perhaps, they can steer us true to Nyrgûl’s court.

So back to the Ayleshi, it is? Tran grumbled.

Yes…until we have another choice. We’ll make for Tur-Sahden near Morgaradar, Draven explained. It’s the nearest port of call for the gnomes. Perhaps Andelfar can help us find Ahlandra – Draven’s heart and his demeanor dimmed – and our child.

We’ll find ‘em, lad, Tran assured. We’ll find ‘em.

* * *

Dawn had come to the shattered city of Baraden. Within its ruins, the shadows receded but did not withdraw far. The harvest of suffering was too bountiful and too compelling for the fiends to abandon it completely. So, just beyond the reach of Xorconum’s rays, the darkness lingered. It waited and it watched. It readied to strike, to claim the emotive essence of life as it spilled forth from those wracked by pain, from the dying, and from those that lived on in the torment of those losses. Like vultures, the demons hunkered in the tenebrous, broken places within the city. They lurked there and bided their time. The light of day brought only a pause to their feasting. When night fell once more, their revelry would resume. For so long as there was sustenance to be had, the shadows would engorge themselves. With so much devastation, so much anguish, no end to their frenzy was near. It had been months since the cataclysm had occurred. Still, the fields of the damned were ripe. For the monsters, it was a time of plenty.

Through the Black City’s carcass, a dark figure moved, purposeful and quick. Through rosy curtains of dust-hazed light, he crossed unhindered. Through the fine detritus suspended in the air, he passed, stirring barely a whisper as he went. Through the voluminous gloom, he slipped, intent upon his chosen task. He was no shadow demon, impeded by the dawn spawned light. He was a demon hunter and did not fear what stalked in the night.

A new day was beginning, but it was not its light that unveiled that which drove Fhaed Chael onward. What he had noted, the darkness of the previous night had revealed.

No others in his company had seen what he had seen. The fault was not theirs, of course. The coterie’s focus was upon Barad-Mal, the sorcerer’s tower. Their hammering hearts were chasing a fugitive hope that they prayed to find therein. The devastated city through which they raced in its frantic pursuit was but a blur, its details lost in the desperation that propelled them. They had not seen what they passed by so quickly in the dead of night. But Fhaed did.

In truth, he thought it for the best that they took no notice. His was solitary work anyway and he would not endanger the others by engaging them in it.

As he had suspected, no sign of the Suresta or her baby was found in the Archmage’s fallen tower. In fact, the only boon gained therein was not discovered but delivered, brought unexpectedly by a Skyran. The Harbinger had bestowed two clues as to where Ranslizar might be sought. One but mocked their plight and involved chasing the wind. That option did not suit the demon-hunter. The other bore more substance and mentioned the sorcerer’s land of birth, but none among his companions – not even the Thaedran witch that had once been Ranslizar’s apprentice – knew from whence he had come. So, it seemed that the Harbinger’s second clue led only to a dead end.

They needed more information.

As he huddled with Lyri in the darkness, comforting the young girl as she quaked with aftershocks spawned by the Skyran’s visit, he remembered what he had spied earlier in the night.

There were many secrets held within this accursed city. From his experience, Fhaed could guess at who held the preponderance. If anyone – or any thing – knew the Archmage’s origin, it would be the subject of his present endeavor.

Fhaed stood beneath the shadow of the triumphal arch leading to the Dar Sacres and scanned the dark, processional hall that penetrated the towering arena across the way. Blocks of crumbled masonry and other architectural elements littered the wide plaza between where he was and the great colosseum. The statues of thirty gladiators lay toppled from their pedestals along the length of the concourse making a macabre battlefield of the scene. Similarly, about the stadium’s perimeter, stone bodies were heaped as many of the towering figures that had once adorned the niches of the three tiers of the massive structure had plummeted from their lofty perches during the titanic tremblor. The shattered remains of the dead sprawled everywhere along the promenade amidst the rubble.

Staring down at the carnage, a host of gargoyles lined the entablatures. Their grotesque faces were a wild mix of malice and mockery as they greeted visitors. Most of them had retained their roosts, defying the force of the calamity.

Fhaed gave all these sculpted horrors only a cursory review. His attention was drawn into the House of Blood where something much darker now dwelled.

The prior night, hastening along the Malchyreidé en route to Barad-Mal, Fhaed had sensed a confluence of diabolic energy radiating from within the arena. In the black of night, the shadowy conflagration that raged behind its thick walls went unseen by mortal eyes. He, though, did not require any such mundane apprehension. The runes carved into his flesh burned him as he passed by the structure. He knew at once that a Deathdemon had claimed it for its residence. Surrounded by Baraden’s decay, no finer lair could such a fiend desire, Fhaed supposed.

Unlike the baleful shadows that swarmed the city, a Deathdemon was something far more powerful and far more ancient. It was like a great shark swimming through the city while the shadows were but a school of lamprey, draining the life-force from the despondent souls that languished here. Fhaed knew very well the difference. Whereas shadows merely inflamed the evil within men’s hearts and fed upon the corruption that festered, Deathdemons devoured their essences entirely once mortality was realized and the Veil was crossed. Fhaed had no intention of doing that. He had not come here to die, but to learn the monster’s secrets.

Deathdemons were beings that had endured for millennia, some since the time of the Great Shadowfall that had claimed the Second Age. The souls they consumed became part of them. The memories of the damned were retained. Generally, only one such leviathan held a city as its feeding ground. All that had transpired through the centuries within its demesne would be known to it. That knowledge, then, should include the rise of Barad-Mal. If Ranslizar’s origin was to be discovered, within the vaults of this fiend’s aggregated memory the information would likely reside. If any entity would know the Archmage’s origin, it would be this fiend.

Gaining those secrets, though, would prove challenging. Demons were cunning foes and only bartered when the mood suited them and some advantage was to be gained by doing so. Fhaed gambled that this one would be no different. It would want something; demons always did. He would only have to discern what. If success was to be had, it would be his to earn…or his life to lose in the attempt. The others could not aid him in this task and he would not risk their lives in the process. Demons were his forte…and his burden to bear.

Fhaed crossed the plaza swiftly and strode into the wide corridor leading into the Dar Sacres. The elongated tunnel ascended gradually. Intersecting the processional from both sides, a score of halls ramped away into the body of the building. These led to the various seating and viewing areas that encircled the vast amphitheater. Broad stairs and a maze of concourses networked throughout, delivering the eager audience members to their places.

The end of the corridor was dominated by a fantastic sculpture depicting heroic gladiators and terrifying beast entangled in a melee. At the center of the high-relief, a bare-chested demigod clad in a fearsome, visored helm and wielding a broadsword stood triumphantly. In his upraised fist he hefted the freshly severed head of some leonine foe. Around him, a pantheon of warriors was assembled, each glorifying a particular fighting style. Various weapons and armor adorned their manly figures as they battled ferociously within a sea of monsters. An array of small orifices set into the frieze above the sculpture served as spotlights. The sun’s rays were caught outside by the clever designers and mirrored through these small openings, bathing the dominate figures in radiance.

Before reaching this terminus, Fhaed bore left and ascended a stair into the stands. He emerged at a level only a dozen feet or so above the arena floor. The sweeping bowl of the colosseum rose around him. Other than the moaning of the wind, though, the place was eerily quiet. Nothing stirred save the swirling dust. The sayyidari had abandoned the House of Blood. No slaughter had taken place here since the elemental’s wrath had been unleashed, he guessed. In time, the bloodshed would return. The appetite for it had only been subdued by the ever-present carnage, not vanquished.

The screams of the dying and the roar of the crowd still lingered within these walls. Fhaed could hear them echoing in his memory. He, too, had fought here long ago. He remembered that life. He remembered the debauchery and villainy that had filled it. Perhaps, he should have regretted it. Perhaps, in some ways, he did. What he did not regret was surviving those years. His prowess had earned him acclaim. Acclaim prolonged his longevity. But, in the end, that acclaim had also gained him his damnation. The Morarmadin that bought his manacles exchanged them from chains of a different sort. The runes scrawled into his flesh were meant to imprison far more than his body. They were hooked into his soul. Fortunately, those that had held his bonds were now dead – or so he prayed. The sadistic spells that subjugated him had been severed. The last priest to exploit them had been cut down.

His thoughts returned to Lyri as he recalled his supposed liberation. Was he now truly free? He wondered. His life had been woven ineluctably into the threads of her story. She had changed everything.

A cascade of images flowed through his mind. So much had happened. So much of it he could not understand or reconcile. As he looked out across the arena before him, the solidity of his moments here were profound and clear. Armadar and his enslavement there was as well. His flight beyond the reach of his evil masters and his time in Morgaradar also held sharp focus in his mind’s eye. Then Lyri appeared…and everything blurred. Time itself seemed strangely disjoined. How long had she been a part of his life? Years? How could that be?

Fhaed shuddered, shaking away the bleariness of the trammeling memories. A shiver went down his spine as he escaped the bizarre reverie and returned to his senses. His glare narrowed as the runes within his flesh began to smolder once again. The Deathdemon stirred. It knew he was here.

Access to the arena floor was limited. There were only a few stairs and these were hidden, locked behind heavy doors set in a few spot around the battlefield’s perimeter. During events, these would be guarded and barred from within to prevent spectators from entering the stage or gladiators from exiting it. Two such ingresses were located below the patrons’ boxes not far from his vantage point. Quickly, Fhaed made his way there.

The suites of the patrons were luxurious. Behind an array of comfortable chairs, divans, and lounges, set beneath colorful awnings that fanned from the colosseum’s stone structure, these opulent antechambers provided ample room for a large retinue of retainers, slaves, and servants as well as their assembled accoutrements, appointments, and chattel as their masters required. The grandest boxes were furnished with everything from feasting halls to orgy chambers. Anything carnal appetites might desire was built into them.

For some of the aristocrats and royalty, sojourns to the Dar Sacres were affairs that lasted for weeks at a time. No expense was spared to insure that these dalliances were pleasurable.

Fhaed recalled one spectacle that had carried on for nearly two months and culminated in full reenactments of historical battles including the Great Siege of Armadar. A plateau and fortress sporting a scaled down version of the Unholy See – Amith’Zar included – had been erected overnight between performances. As the show began, lava flowed into the arena around the citadel, recreated by a river of burning oil that was channeled in. Towering pillars of fire had even erupted upon the ziggurat amidst a roar of fanfare, completing the scene.

Thousands of slaves and craftsmen worked feverishly to stage such miracles on a regular basis. The ravenous crowds always hungered for more and the calendar of events was stuffed with the cornucopia of drama and death necessary to feed them.

Within the bowels of the stadium, a maze of halls and chambers spread. In fact, there were more stories below ground than there were above. An intricate network of elevators, ramps, trapdoors, and chutes riddled the undercroft granting the game masters the dexterity needed to astound the masses. At any moment, from anywhere, heroes and villains, monsters and marvels could explode onto the scene and engorge the imaginations of the enraptured audience.

The Dar Sacres was far more than a place of simple slaughter. It was the beating heart of the city and its paramount venue. Within its storied walls, the soul of Baraden lived. To see the amphitheater empty like this was utterly surreal to Fhaed Chael. The desolation was chilling.

Fhaed exited below the patrons’ boxes and walked through the swirling dust to the center of the vast arena. Xorconum’s rays showered around him, piercing the smoky sky and bathing him in a golden spotlight. He stood silently, his white hair awash in its aureate sheen and swept by the anxious wind. The frenetic clap of the pennants and canopies were like unto applause as he took the stage. The sound echoed from the hollow stone chambers that yawned above him. Phantasmal spectators looked down from the openings. The stands were filled, but only within his memories.

At the omphalos of the House of Blood, Fhaed Chael stood. The runes on his flesh flared as if inflamed by the breath of this place.

I am Fhaed Chael, he announced into the flattering wind. I have come to speak with you, demon of death.

Before him, Fhaed stroked a wicked glyph with his hand. The arcane symbol blazed and smoked as if seared into the very air. Fire hung there, burning in its twisted shape. But it was not a normal flame – not that fire normally roiled suspended in nothingness, of course. No, it was not normal, for this fire scorched the Tapestry itself. Kindled in darkness and born of black arts, a pungent, otherworldly stench, sulphurous and vile, hissed from the mark and filled the air around the demon-hunter. It encircled him and engulfed him with fiery cinders, dancing in the sunlight. Its power burned through the Veil and reached into the ethereal realm beyond.

I am Fhaed Chael, he repeated, shouting into the rift.

Into the blazing seal, Fhaed stepped and stood within the Cusp at the edge of Twilight. The Dar Sacres wavered around him, as if seen through a curtain of heat. The demon-hunter’s flesh swarmed with hellish symbols, runes of power that guarded him and invested him with terrible vehemence.

I summon you, oh lord of the dead. Attend me!

Something enormous moved within the ether. A wave of force buffeted Fhaed’s fire, but it held and was not extinguished. The morning light became suffused with gloom as if eclipsed by a thunderhead. Energy crackled through the turbulent air as the lands of the dead exhaled into the Bright World through the breach the demon-hunter had opened.

Fhaed Chael, the storm rumbled, bass and cavernous, I know your name.

Do you know as well why I am here?

Because she wills it, the Deathdemon replied; its tone, bemused.

Fhaed’s golden eyes narrowed.

She?

The fiend roared with laughter.

I seek the beginnings of a man, a sorcerer: Ranslizar, Fhaed roared into the thunder. You would know from whence he came. That is my question. Name the place from where he comes. Name the land of his birth.

The Deathdemon’s presence swelled into the rift, enveloping Fhaed’s fire. Raging embers, the monster’s searing eyes, bore down upon him. Fhaed stood his ground.

You would be better served to learn of your own rebirth, demon-hunter, the fiend growled, its mirth gone. The sorcerer’s world and your own are no longer the same. He chases mortal dreams when immortal nightmares hold the only truth. The fate of all you would save is beyond his to reach, though he knows it not. Such is the folly and foolery of little men, no matter how grand their powers may seem.

Speak plainly, Fhaed called back. Tell me what I wish to know. If you have a price for the words, name it!

Again, the demon’s laughter boomed but now with derision.

Return to where your life was unspun and rewoven if you truly seek the truth. I have no price; for, if you fail, this world has no more future than do you, Fhaed Chael.

Dire, menacing words.

If that is so, if doom awaits us all, then tell me what it is that you impart without all this pretense. What danger comes that causes Death itself to shudder so?

Silence.

Speak or be damned then!

The storm trembled with rage. It strained as if against unseen shackles.

No more can I say, the demon replied. Its furor, resigned. So, perhaps, we are all damned. Be gone, Fhaed Chael, and know what you have become. Your answers lie in that.

In an instant, the Deathdemon’s storm shrieked away.

Fhaed’s arcane fires gasped and swooned in the vacuum. Alone, in the House of Blood, he stood bewildered. But he was also sorely unnerved.

She? He repeated as his mind reeled within a tangled skein of rumination.

* * *

To Morgaradar, Draven echoed the Armadeshi’s words and affirmed them with a reticent nod. We had settled on the same course in your absence. Tur-Sahden, in fact, was where I bid us go. The Ayleshi may know best how to find the djinn, Nyrgûl. If Ranslizar breathes the air of this world, the Lord of the Winds will surely know it.

How came ye to choose that same mark? Tran inquired.

Fhaed gave the Thromnyr lord a chary smile. The Archmage’s footsteps have resounded within this city for longer than memories can recall. But there are those here that heard them at their first coming.

Who? Sarmyr queried, her voice rising with intrigue. She knew many folk within this city but could think of none that might possess such arcane lore. She had puzzled hard over this very conundrum, seeking some way to discover the sorcerer’s origin. But those efforts had come to naught. Who could know such a thing? She wondered.

A demon, an irritated, impatient voice from the shadows replied. All glanced to the speaker. The glare of the young girl standing within the dark recesses of the wall’s ruins affixed to the demon-hunter hotly. The stench of the thing rides his soul, she growled. You are a fool!

Fhaed winked at her, narrowing her burning stare that much more. I asked politely, he replied disarmingly.

You risk too much, Lyri rebuffed.

Fhaed shrugged.

Draven let the moment pass between the odd pair. That they shared some strange love for each other, he already knew. To him, though, the eldritch girl and warrior were new companions and brimmed with mystery. Lyri had exploded into his life – saved it, in fact. Without her intervention, they would all be dead, Ahlandra and his child included. So, despite her eeriness and dreadful mien, his loyalty was sworn to her ardently. She had given her oath to their cause and it was irreproachable. He accepted that.

Fhaed Chael, however, was an entirely different matter to him. Beyond Lyri’s apparent faith in the man, despite her ire at the moment, he had very little by which to judge him. Aras had offered some small validation as to his trustworthiness also, but the offhanded vouching the Morok gave in accepting the Armadeshi provided him no real assurance. Still, his instincts were his failsafe guide and he trusted them even if his read of Fhaed’s motives was imperfect. Thus far, then, he was assuaged and accepted his value and unspoken pledge to their cause. He would trust him until that trust was broken.

A demon, huh? Tran scoffed. Had me fill of ‘em bastards fer a while.

We should get moving, Draven said to all. The Skyran may have passed over us, but Armadar’s soldiers are still looking. I doubt they will share in her humor.

To Morgaradar, then, Tran pronounced.

Fhaed cast Lyri a furtive glance. She was no longer burning him with her stare. Instead, her dark eyes had turned inward, brooding over memories that he only shared in pieces.

Morgaradar was not a destination she welcomed; he knew that. Within the shadows of the city’s sewers, he had lost her to her inner darkness once before. She had become a demon then, more fearsome than any he had known before or since. She had killed him, in fact, punctuating his failure as her mentor and protector. His death, though, he did not regret. It was a sacrifice he accepted for through it a chance for her redemption had been won.

Ironically, he, too, had been reborn as a result. The Deathdemon at the Dar Sacres had pointed his thoughts to that event, emphasizing that the answers he sought lay in those pivotal moments. Still, he remained perplexed as to the fiend’s rationale.

What had the monster meant?

He searched his mind, riffling through the details he could remember, but discovered nothing in the story of his and Lyri’s shared time together that brought any clarity. The Deathdemon’s proffer had only compounded the mystery. The allusive epiphany remained elusive.

Fhaed retraced the shadows of his past in search of clues and context.

Happenstance rather than design or intent had brought him to Morgaradar. In the years that followed his flight from slavery in Armadar, he had survived by employing his formidable skill at arms. He had become a marauder, plundering the wealthy caravans that crisscrossed the valleys below the Kalavra Spar and into the Dyrdrak Shards. In besetting those hailing from the Unholy See, of course, he took especial delight.

It was during this vengeful chapter of his life that he discovered the full measure of the dark powers invested within him.

His Morarmadin makers had intended that their malefic magic should create a quarry worthy of their greatest hunters. So, into him they had poured demons and bound their defiant fury through the runes carved into his flesh. He endured it: the indescribable agony of his creation. That torment, however, neither culminated nor abated thereafter. It continued every time he employed the wicked puissance seared into his flesh and branded upon his soul. The evils they had visited on him should have destroyed him eventually. Instead, he learned to channel the pain and to use it to survive.

In many respects, he was not unlike another of Armadar’s hellish creations: the blood-wraith. As was the case with those fiends, endowments of physical strength, speed, and endurance were his to command. As well, his senses were preternaturally enhanced. Unlike them, though, he was intended to be the hunted, not a hunter. As such, whereas blood-wraiths were created for a single purpose: to kill a specific target, one marked with a soul-brand that guaranteed his or her doom, he was not so narrowly designed. His makers had left his will essentially unfettered, allowing him to employ his cunning to its fullest. That allowance made for a much better chase.

He was conceived as the ultimate prey. In that regard, he had proven to be most disappointing to his masters in the end. Their ultimate prey had become a supreme predator instead.

Admittedly, he enjoyed the turnabout.

Over time, he learned how to employ the runes within his flesh as an asset. It was a dangerous game, of course. Theirs was a ravenous hunger that had to be fed. Doing so proved to be a simple enough matter. All that was required was the vanquishing of demons.

Simple!

Fhaed smirked to himself at the thought. Obviously, demons were not very accommodating as meals. They tended to resent the notion rather vehemently.

Sure, it’s simple, he mused sarcastically. Demons practically beg me to destroy them…when they aren’t trying to shred me body and soul, that is.

For many years, he reveled in his new occupation. Slaying demons became an obsession. The surge of power that filled him with each kill was instantly addictive.

Most fiends were draped in human flesh and guises; so, to the people of Morgaradar, he became renowned simply as an assassin, albeit one of exceptional skill and lethality. They could not see the monsters hidden within the men he slew.

It was also during this period of his life that he earned his Lashani moniker Zha’Chael, the Shadowman. He enjoyed the celebrity.

Unfortunately, during this exalted time, much of his humanity was abandoned as well. He became – just as Lyri had become – the very thing that he warred against. For all intents and purposes, he was a demon hunting demons, unable to free himself from the crapulence that poisoned his soul. To kill and to be lauded for doing so was what drove him. He had become one of the damned among the damned most assuredly.

His redemption, when at last it came, arose