|
|
| |
|
| ||
|
|
|
|
Walking quietly back to the village from the ancient battlefield,
Darmon gives complete control to the thoughts and images flashing
through his previously virgin mind. Pictures of people and places and
waves of ideas block out his senses. Now, even the forest itself offers
nothing that is not cast down as insignificant by these new sensations.
His mind drifts in their attractive waters...
Purity... Life... Decay... Mind... Chaos... The very forces that
bind the multiverse together. Now, Darmon feels them. There had been a
time in the recent past during which he could barely grasp the power
that each promised the dedicated sorcerer. A time when the immediate
future was as unimportant as the distant past. A time when the tendrils
of possibility withered beneath his thoughtless gaze. That time has
passed.
The land of Dominaria is nearly as old as time itself. In its
mountains and rivers are the guiding words of creation... echoing in and
out of existence as quickly as those few who are capable of hearing
them. The words speak of all manner of things, from histories of
ancient battles to the answers to the very questions of life itself.
They are the final message from the mouth of creation.
And now Darmon can hear them. He can understand their mumbled
teachings, disguised as the babbling of a brook or the rustle of leaves
in the wind. He can make out the ancient lore told by the falling
rocks; he can grasp the advice given by the rich soil of the
grasslands. He can hear all these things... confident that nature does
not lie.
He has come full circle. No longer does his destiny stand just out of
sight, hidden by the obscure mists of possibility. For once in his life
he realizes what he was, what he is, and what he must become. The call
of fate beckons him... a siren's lure that cannot be ignored.
His mind recalls the past events...
The cabin... Garem had been totally unprepared for the sudden
attack. He learned of the threat but an instant before the fires
consumed him. He'd had just enough time to protect Darmon from the
blaze... Or had he? How is it that a mage of Garem's status could do
nothing to protect himself, yet was easily able to protect his
apprentice? Why could he not have saved them both???
The tavern... He'd killed that man out of pure fury. The entire
building had erupted in the fires of his anger. Thousand pound beams
had been dissolved to splinters and incinerated in the heat and force of
the explosion. But Darmon had escaped, being the farthest from the
offending patron sitting in the corner. In fact... he hadn't suffered
even a scratch in the incident.
The forest... Both he and Siltran had been the victims of Tar-Rael's
wrath, chosen as his messengers to the rest of the world. On that
occasion, the tongues of flame had devoured the forest around them,
carving out a circle seventy-five meters in diameter. But they had
survived... skin and hair slightly burnt but their lives nevertheless
still intact.
His luck over the past few days is obvious. On the brink of death time
and again, yet always keeping his balance... always preventing that
final fall. But was it luck, or is there some part to the puzzle that
still eludes him? Can chance alone explain the mystery of these recent
events? There is more... much more.
Tar-Rael... The demon who has possessed his life. The mysterious
phoenix responsible for the sudden change in Darmon's piece of mind. He
killed Garem... he was responsible for the death of so many people in
Deersbrooke... He is coming for the elves...
But where is he??? Why has this entity, so absorbed by the power of
chaos, remained hidden? His strength is undeniable, the ease in which
he slew Garem is proof of that. The forest would also agree, losing
many a tree in his wrath. His mere presence sent the townspeople of
Deersbrooke screaming into the depths of insanity... So where is
he???
Darmon nearly jumps.
The cabin... the town... the attack in the forest... he was there...
he survived... many others died... he destroyed the tavern out of sheer
rage...
The thoughts begin to explode into incoherence as they registered with his unconscious mind...
Tar-Rael... Lure of Death... "In death is new life"...
His mind races onward...
Cabin... town... attack... Tar-Rael..... Darmon.
He picks up his pace on the journey back to the village. A new light
begins to grow in his eyes, seeming to steal it's energy from the forest
around him. The land begins to darken, first one shade, then two and
three and four. Mid-afternoon becomes nightfall in the blink of an
eye. With the sudden coming of night Darmon brings himself to a run,
rushing back to the village. He reaches his goal minutes later.
The elves are all outside of their hidden homes, assembled together in
an unexpected meeting. The elder, flanked by Siltran and a young female
elf Darmon doesn't know, yells out orders as much as his dying voice
will allow.
"Pick up your arms! Assemble your courage! The time is nigh!!!"
The elves rush back to their homes, coming out moments later clad in
fine elven mail and armed with thin longswords of a make Darmon has
never before seen. Long bows lie slung over their strong backs. A
quiver of sheaf arrows hangs upon each shoulder, their straps forming an
x across the chest of each warrior.
The elder now raises his voice above the clamber of weapons.
"Long have we known this moment would come! We prayed for a savior to
protect us from this great evil! But he has not come... So now we
shall fight alone to defend what is ours!!! The world will long
remember our spirit! It shall never forget the battle that is to be
waged here tonight! In that manner we have been saved, for this young
human has promised us that much!"
With that, all attention becomes focused on Darmon, just stepping out
of the thick forest. The elven men and women rise up in a great cheer,
seemingly unworried by the fate that awaits them. But the cheer does
not last long. For a moment, no one can understand the new sensation
they feel... cannot begin to comprehend the terror that has suddenly
entered their hearts. They look again at Darmon... and realize that
they are staring into the eyes of their greatest enemy, Tar- Rael. The
elder loses the last shades of color in his face.
"Noooo!!! It was you!!! It was always you!!!" he screams in a
frightened blend of fury and frustration. The boy formerly known as
Darmon breaks out into a deep, insane laughter.
"Hahahaha!!! You've grown so weak since our last encounter! Where is
your champion? Where stands your staunch defender??? Hahahaha!!! Your
time has come, elf! You now look upon the face of your destruction!!!"
"You will die for this! You can kill us, but our spirit shall drive
you to back to the nether realms from which you came!!!"
"Then I'll see you there old man!"
With that, small wisps of flame begin to form upon the fingertips of
Tar-Rael. His hair dissolves, replaced by a raging inferno upon his
scalp. His body falls apart, then reconstructs in the form of a warped,
raging efreet. His very being becomes that of flame, charred claws
suspended in the form of fingers and toes within his depths. As he
speaks again, his whole body shakes and writhes with each breath.
"The time has come!"
And so it begins. With a great cry, the elven soldiers pull their
longbows into deadly position, string them, and let fly. From all
around, dozens of such missiles are pulled from their quivers and sent
on their way to the target of their fury. From right and left the sharp
cloud forms, flying surely towards the flickering figure of Tar-Rael.
But it is of no worry to the bright phoenix. As each barb comes near
enough to strike, it explodes in unholy flame and it blown off as ash by
the afternoon breeze. Not one hits its mark.
Screaming out battle cries of old, they unstring their bows. Each
snaps taught, morphing from bow to staff. Bearing their solid poles in
one hand and their longswords in the other, the entire village rises up
into a frenzied charge. Tar-Rael simply stands firm as the elven wave
comes washing towards him, threatening certain annihilation.
As the bloody mob surrounds him in assault, Tar-Rael laughs once
again. Before their very eyes, his flames melt into molten liquid and
form a pool on the village ground. The entire line stops, unsure of how
to attack a foe without solid substance. The pool simply lies unmoving.
Siltran steps out of the crowd and advances upon the puddle of liquid
fire. He cautiously circles it, looking for any signs of life or
intent. But the liquid fire does not react... does not move, shake, or
quiver. Unable to discern any motive from the silent pool, Siltran
raises his sword high above his head. Slashing it down wickedly upon
the fire, the rest of the crowd takes a step forward.
But as the blade flashes downward it is met with nothing but the hard
ground of the village. The puddle spreads away from the blades mark,
forming two of equal size and denying Siltran a hit. As he swings yet
again, the entire ground groans in agony. The puddles divide infinitely
many times, each sub-pool shooting outward from the point of the blade.
A spiderweb of fire is formed upon the village floor as each erupts in a
show of life. And the elves are the flies...
Now surrounded in laces of flame, the temperature grows from cool to
hot to a deep boil. Unable to withstand it, the elves ignite one by
one, becoming screaming candles and melting into sad parodies of their
living selves. As the flames eat away at his flesh, Siltran prays for
the safety of the elder and of Xalia. Unfortunately, they are currently
disintegrating a few meters to his rear. The village is all but ash
within an hour...
Tar-Rael stands erect upon the unidentifiable bodies around him. The world has changed much since his last visit. So much that he was unable to first recognize himself... But now he remembers... Everything begins to flood back to him as he takes in the sights and smells of the recent carnage. The elves... the unfortunate loss to Garemto Sachelle. At last he remembers his birth... his first death. The time has come for him to again punish the elves for their crimes, and to profit from their demise! All will answer his call! The call of power! The call of conquest! The call of the wild!!!
End of Call of the Wild
But fear not... The saga of Tar-Rael shall continue in
Bitter Destiny