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The early morning rains had given away to a thick fog that filled the
valley of the Order of the Blood. Lya stared ahead of herself as she
walked swiftly to the Ivory Tower. The two guards at her sides marveled
at how the mist parted before her. She didn't bother to tell them that
she was using her planeswalker powers to push it apart so she could see
where she was going. What they didn't know in the end would not hurt
them.
Out of the mist she saw the entrance to the Ivory Tower, and proceeded
quickly inside. The rumor had come to her moments before that the Jade
Statue had disappeared. With its disappearance, war was upon them. As
the Illuminated Mistress, it was her duty to learn what she could of the
coming threat so she could prepare an accurate defense. The mist boded
ill, for it would hide any approaching army until it was too late.
The caretaker of the Tower, Dratay, hurried forth from the entrance
once he caught sight of Lya. He strode purposely forward, urgently
rushing himself so he could inform the Illuminated Mistress of the news.
"Illuminated Mistress. I am glad to see you took time from your busy
schedule to see me," he said to her, overjoyed that he was actually
given attention by an authority figure of any type. She dashed what few
hopes he had.
"Dispense with the formalities please. I need to know just a few
things. What is the Jade Statue, why was I never told of it, and when
will the attack come?" She did not voice that she already knew what the
attackers were and that she had ordered the attack. "Dratay, your help
will be invaluable. Speak."
Lya's voice was so cruel and heartless. Her demeanor cold and
uncaring. She stared at Dratay for a minute, and saw him shivering in
his damp cloak. She had no pity for him. Her thoughts were already
streaming ahead, wondering how much time she had to build defenses, to
mobilize the army. In her heart, she already knew that preparations
would come too late.
Dratay was taken aback by her manner of speaking and bearing. He
wondered why the Illuminated Mistress would be so upset at him, when
they had never before met. At least, she hadn't been the Illuminated
Mistress when he had met Lya.
"The Jade Statue was an old artifact we dug up long ago. We kept it
deep within the Tower and let none know of it. When it was found, it
bore an inscription that warned that its disappearance meant the doom of
the Tower. It has been under lock, key, and guard for over five hundred
years." He let out a sigh. His eyes met Lya's. "Today, the guard was
found slaughtered and the Jade Statue was gone. No one saw a thing
except perhaps the dead guards, and I'm of the impression that they were
killed before they knew anything was wrong. Their swords hadn't yet
been drawn."
Lya took this information in impassively. Dratay had answered her
first question. From his speech, all she knew of the Ivory Tower was
called into question. How did this Jade Statue come to be under it?
Did the Tower itself predate the Order of the Blood? What significance
does the destruction of the Ivory Tower have? With each answer Dratay
gave, it opened up a flood of new ones. She revoiced her most pressing
concern.
"When will the attack come?"
Dratay glanced up slyly and looked her in the eyes again. He reached
up and grabbed her hand and pulled her close. He whispered in her ear.
"The attack has already come." His grip tightened. His eyes flashed a
strange purple. "Indeed! The attack has already come. None of you
will survive this day," he yelled out loud. He drew forth a dagger from
his cloak, and plunged it towards Lya. She sensed it coming with her
magic, and pulled herself as far from him as she could. The dagger
flared into her right arm, cutting from just outside the shoulder and
paring its way down to the elbow. Muscle was sheared away and her
piercing cry flooded the room.
The guards leapt to action, the two swarming Dratay in an attempt to
bear him away from Lya. Dratay was a man possessed. He grabbed the two
and flung them away, but Lya was freed for a moment from his grip. The
air about her crackled, and Dratay dropped dead. She closed her eyes
and slumped to the floor. The two guards returned to her, and were
dismayed. Her skin grew cold as blood pumped itself free of her body.
It was nearing noon when Czeron woke from his cold slumber. His eyes
snapped open when his door received two sharp knocks. He heard Saet
rise from his side and answer it. Czeron's mind was still in a daze.
The mindrippers and nightstalkers had not plagued him during his slumber
for once. Neither did he have any visions of the future. His stomach
rumbled. He realized that he was hungry.
He heard Saet's muffled exclamation, "What!?"from his position on his
bed. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe. His body was so weak that he
found it difficult to do any of that anyway, but somehow he managed to
turn on his side to see who Saet was talking to.
Czeron's vision was excruciatingly blurry, he couldn't tell Saet apart
from the visitor at his door. He blinked his eyes several times, hoping
to clear them, but nothing helped. He was forced to listen to the
conversation without comprehending what was said.
"Lya was attacked at the Ivory Tower a few minutes ago. I left Rayn
with her and came for help. If Lya dies, Czeron becomes our leader, so
I chose to come here first." It was one of Lya's two bodyguards
speaking.
"Who attacked her? Certainly you were able to subdue him?"
The guard looked sheepishly at Saet. "Actually, Lya killed him. Rayn
and I couldn't budge him, he was like a man possessed. There was purple
in his eyes."
Czeron perked up at the mention of purple. His eyes flashed back to an
old vision he had had. It was more clear than ever before. Two people
walking from the Ivory Tower as it collapsed behind them. One with
purple eyes, the other with orange eyes. The girl with the orange eyes
bled freely from her right arm, but the man with the purple eyes did
nothing to stop it. The girl was in obvious agony.
"Go back to her, now! She can't be left alone. The man with the
purple eyes is still a threat. Please, trust me, Saet, go with that man
and see to Lya," he spoke at last. Saet turned to him.
"Czer, don't worry. Don't move either, for that matter. I don't know
how hurt you are."
"I'm fine friend, but Lya is in danger." Czeron rose feebly from his
bed. Saet tried to get him to sit down, but Czeron waved him back.
"I'll get help, just go."
Saet's face flooded with concern. Torn between duties to both the
Illuminated Mistress and the Crimson Master, he chose to help the one in
greater danger and left the room with the guard. Czeron watched as
Saet's armor of thorns left the doorway. He stood numbly at the foot of
his bed for a few minutes, gathering energy to move.
He didn't know how long he stood there. Soon, he heard a scratching,
like the dragging of stone across stone, approach his room. He crept to
his door and looked out. Glancing left, he saw nothing, but when he
turned right, even his blurred vision could make out the form of a large
green...something. A golem of some sort perhaps. It had a vaguely
human shape, and just pondered on its way slowly.
Ceron was still weak, and the thought of this large, unidentifiable
mass moving inexorably towards him when he had no energy to fight or
even to run frightened him. He shook his head, hoping to clear his
mind, to think of what to do. He was on the verge of panicking when the
green object stopped. A rough voice, like stone grating on stone,
reached his ears.
"I've found you at last, Master Czeron."
Lya still remained somewhat coherent, despite losing a large amount of
blood. She gripped her right arm tightly. Her mind was screaming with
pain inside. Rayn had done what he could to bandage her arm, but the
bandage soaked through immediately. She found it hard to focus, to call
forth her innate planeswalker powers of healing.
How was she going to save herself? Her dress was soaked through with
blood all along her right side now, and she was sitting in a puddle of
her own blood. Her dress was beginning to absorb the blood. She stood
up, but the sensation of dizziness nearly pulled her back down again.
Rayn grabbed her left arm to hold her up.
He didn't know what to do. There was no material to rebandage her arm
with, Mott had gone for help, and here was his patient threatening to
walk off under her own power. He looked over at the dead body of
Dratay, and wondered if that would be his fate for interfering with the
Illuminated Mistress. Nearby, other tenders of the Ivory collection of
the Tower milled about as well, in a state of shock over the attack on
the Illuminated Mistress.
Lya began to walk to the nearest tender, dragging a thin trail of blood
behind her with her robes and leaving another trail where blood dripped
from her arm. A plan was beginning to form in her mind.
"Take me to the Cathedral of Blood." Her voice was commanding, even
through the weakness she felt. Her voice echoed into the silence. Only
the periodic dripping of her blood broke the silence. Her vision was
starting to blur from the loss of blood, and she found it increasingly
difficult to remain standing. The tenders stood there in wonder at this
woman who was now tempting death to take her.
Seeing that the tenders were not moving, she turned and walked as fast
as she could towards the stairs leading up. She had no clue how she
would make it up the stairs, but she'd never make it to the Cathedral by
herself. Maybe the Ivory collection itself would provide some means of
travel? Few knew the full potential of the idols, but it was her last
resort. From her peripheral vision she saw that no one had moved yet.
It caught her attention at last. Not even wind breathed its chill
touch in the Ivory Tower. People stood stone still, locked in their
last positions. Even Rayn was motionless. The inane splattering of her
blood on the floor called her to reality again. She was dying. Her
resolve to live hardened as her body weakened, moment by agonizing
moment.
She went up the stairs one at a time, doing her best to keep pace with
the dripping of her blood. Soon she would be too weak to go further,
and then what? Die in a lonely, timeless place, it seemed. She reached
the first landing, and her legs gave out. A warm glow pulsed from down
the hall to her left. Lya weighed her options. She could not go up, to
the ivory collection, but she could find the warm glow.
She meekly dragged her body down the hall for what seemed like an
eternity. Perhaps it was. Time seemed to have stopped for everyone but
herself. She was walking, crawling rather, through borrowed time. At
last, her mangled body reached the door frame and she peeked around into
the room.
The Ivory collection! She couldn't comprehend how, or why it was here,
but it was. With the glow on her skin, Lya could feel life returning to
her battered limbs. The drip of blood mercifully stopped as her arm
began to knit itself back together. She stood up from her prone
position on the ground, and her head cleared. She felt as good as new
after a few moments.
She walked forward, and ran her fingers along the figurine of an angel.
Blood trailed its way where her fingers had been. The angel flared
extremely bright, and she was surrounded by darkness.
"I knew you'd return, Anais. It is time to finish my job."
The crashing roar of steel met Czeron's confused ears. An attack had
begun. Shaking his startled head, he ran from the green object to his
window, and looked out. He saw nothing but grey, the horrid mist had
not burned off in the sunlight. What he could not see, he heard. Men
screaming, steel clashing, rock grating on rock. A cold green hand
placed itself on his shoulder.
"It has begun, Master. You hear the screams? Your people are dying."
He knew the truth of that. Other visions returned to him. He saw the
aftermath of war, people lay broken and dying everywhere. Casualties
were going to be quite high. Why hadn't he prepared for this? He'd
only had the position of Crimson Master a day, not enough time to
prepare for anything.
Saet had gone out into that fray. He would be in his element. The man
was gifted at warfare, and defense was his forte. Czeron could only
hope that Saet would remember his duty and get to Lya before she died.
The raspy voice continued behind him.
"They make for the Cathedral of Blood. Their master awaits them
there."
"Who is their master? Who called for them? Damn this mist," Czeron
said exasperatedly.
"The woman you love, Czeron. Anais."
"What?" Czeron spun to face the Jade Statue. "What do you mean,
Anais? She died weeks ago. Don't dare assume to tell me she still
lives, I saw her body myself." Indeed, he had seen more than her body.
It had been cremated and mixed into a paste he had consumed. He choked
back a sob at the memory.
"You were correct in your observation. Anais' body died, but not her
spirit. She lives on in Lya. She called this army to do the bidding of
Ceros Draio, and now he has all but won. Flee, Master. There is
nothing for you here."
Czeron's mind was numb. Anais was Lya? How did that happen? "I can't
believe this. I'm talking to a large green rock. Go away."
"You can't fight your destiny, Czeron."
Vision clearing, he stared up at the Jade Statue behind him. He
laughed.
"Destiny! What do you know about my destiny? My life has been forfeit
since I joined this accursed cult!" The air filled with growing din.
The battle was flooding into the building that was his home. Saet
appeared in his doorway.
"Saet! What are you doing here? Did you see to Lya?" Saet was a
pitiful sight. His thorny armor was broken in many places. Blood ran
in rivulets down his armor, and for the first time Czeron noticed that
the other guard was not with Saet. "My word..."
"We were close to the Ivory Tower when a bunch of thugs ambushed us.
Mott put up a good fight, but he went down. I managed to bag the
remainder and I retreated around back. I saw peasants and warriors
rushing into the Tower and decided it was a lost cause. I'm sorry,
Czeron. I hurried back here as swiftly as I could, but already they
attack this house. We must go immediately."
The three moved as one, filing through the door in an orderly but
hurried fashion. The Jade Statue managed surprisingly to keep up. Saet
led them out a rear exit, and instructed the guards there to hold off
any pursuit as long as possible. They took one look at the Crimson
Master and knew their lives were no longer theirs. They stared into the
mist for moments only, before entering the home to give defense to their
leader.
The emaciated visage of Arsea peered from the gloom at Lya. The red
dots of his eyes had grown to a dark purple. She trembled in fear and
shrank back from her master, Ceros Draio, who inhabited Arsea's body.
The memories of Dratay's attack and Ceros' violation of her were still
fresh in her mind.
"So you found your way to me at last." Ceros leered at her. "Today,
all our plans come together, and I thank you for helping me." He laid a
shriveled hand on her head. She pulled back from it.
"No! I don't serve you anymore. I will stop you."
"Ha! Such an impetuous lass. Who are you now, Lya, Anais, who? I
guess Lya. Am I correct? Let's assume for a minute that I am. You
couldn't stop me with that mind, or that body. And if I'm wrong? Anais
hasn't the control of your planeswalker powers yet. Whatever way you
choose to look at it, you are powerless to stop me.
Ceros gripped Lya's right arm, and the wound reopened, bleeding with
renewed vigor on the floor. Lya screamed in pain. Letting go, Ceros
licked some of the blood from his fingers.
"You see, you cannot stop me. Now yield yourself to me. It will be
much less painful if your mind wants to leave the body than if I were to
force it out. Which way will you take it?"
Lya stared at her arm, dripping with blood. She felt her life energy
seep away. She would deny him everything, if she stood there long
enough. That's what she resolved to do. Lya spat at Ceros in defiance.
He smacked her hard, spinning her around. The sudden motion of her arm
made her wince more than the smack itself had, and she screamed again.
"It seems you don't want to come peacefully. It doesn't matter to me,
it's your pain, not mine. When you're dying," he bent close, "remember
that you brought this on yourself."
Leaving her to bleed where she stood, he walked over to a small chest
he had sitting beside his solitary throne and opened it. Lya watched in
pain as he drew forth a large, ivory idol. It was of exquisite detail,
she had never seen an idol so intricately carved in the Ivory
collection. Ceros caught her staring.
"Where did you get that," she asked.
"You like? I've had it for a while now. It is so marvelously
easy to get past those simpleton guards in the Tower. You didn't
seriously think I confined myself in here for a few weeks, did you?"
"It's been modified, of course," he continued. "Live for thousands of
years and spend another in limbo, and you pick up a few skills." He
turned the idol around in his hands. What had once been an angel had
been recarved into a demonic figure. "Right now, my army, our
army, is clearing away whatever opposition remains above ground. Surely
you'd like to see the carnage?"
He looked so frail, she noticed. Bones were clearly visible through
his skin. The hair had fallen away. The skin was dry and quite
wrinkled. She surmised that he could not last much longer in his
current condition.
"This idol will take me straight to the Ivory Tower, to rooms of power
you've never seen before. That none have ever seen before. And I know
them all, because I built them with my own hand for the day that I
returned."
He let out a gasp of his chill breath, and the idol turned black. It
flared bright orange briefly, and she was back in the idol room in the
Ivory Tower with Ceros.
The Jade Statue took the lead, and guided Saet and Czeron to the
Cathedral of Blood. Standing in front of the grand walls, Czeron was
humbled by his own responsibility to his people. People he had passed
in the streets, struggling to survive against the horde that raged about
them. The Cathedral alone remained unmolested.
The statue began to glow a soft green as they passed into the walls.
It went unerringly, knowing where it was going. It led them down
hallways long unused, into stairwells that similarly hadn't been used.
As the three passed deeper into the most unknown confines of the
Cathedral, the Jade Statue glowed ever brighter.
It led them to a dead end. A small niche was carved into the wall
before them, but neither Czeron nor Saet could determine its purpose.
The Jade Statue began to shrink. Saet and Czeron marveled as the statue
became a cold idol again, just big enough to fit into the niche. Czeron
picked it up and put it in the wall, and it flared bright orange.
Czeron and Saet covered their eyes at the brightness in the unaccustomed
dark.
The wall dissolved into a black patch illuminated by soft green glow,
reminiscent of the Jade Statue's glow. The floor was clean of
obstruction, no dust was stirred by their passing. Czeron and Saet
moved swiftly down the straight corridor.
After a journey of about five minutes, the glow winked out and was
gone. Behind them was again the Jade Statue and its niche. It began to
glow yet again, soft at first, growing with intensity until a huge room
was completely illuminated. Czeron and Saet heard again its grating
voice.
"This is Ceros Draio's inner sanctum. From here his seat of power
extends its tendrils. Also from here, he can be slain." The statue
grew cold and it stopped glowing, but the room itself remained
illuminated. Czeron saw the black throne in the center of the room,
while Saet's attention was drawn to the large pool of blood in front of
it. Czeron found another puddle not far from the first, days old.
"Czer, this blood is fresh, it isn't even cold yet. If your statue was
right, then Lya was here not more than five minutes ago."
Czeron was lost in his own thoughts. He bent to the pool he had found.
It wasn't dried completely, but was a thick, congealed mass. When he
pulled his hand up, long strands of hair tangled about his fingers.
"This must be Lya's," He said. Saet looked over and nodded in
agreement.
"Well it seems your lover wasn't exactly the good girl we thought she
was." Saet continued snooping. "Come look at this, Czer," he said,
motioning to the chest behind Ceros' throne. In the chest were several
more artifacts. Books, rings, trinkets of inestimable value, some that
Czeron recognized from other books, some he did not. His eyes were
drawn to an onyx talisman.
"That's it. The source of Ceros' powers," he said, pointing.
"How can you be sure, Czer? It doesn't look that powerful to me."
"Trust me, I just know." It was the knowledge that being Crimson
Master gave him. He reached in to grab the talisman with his left hand.
A viper materialized where there had been none before, and he realized
he had sprung a booby trap. It latched onto his wrist, and his hand
began to turn black. He watched as the black made its way up his arm.
He realized with a sickening thought that there would be no stopping it.
"Cut it off! Cut my damn arm off!" he screamed at Saet. Saet saw what
was happening, and knew that of all people the Crimson Master knew what
he was ordering. The blackness was inches shy of Czeron's elbow by
then. Czeron stretched his arm out across Ceros Draio's throne, and
turned his head away, eyes closed. Saet took a deep breath, and with
one swing severed Czeron's arm at the elbow.
Blood gushed out all over the throne for a moment before stopping
completely. Both stared in amazement as the blood began to trace out
paths where blood vessels had been, and then began to re-weave the arm.
Being the Crimson Master, Czeron realized, did impart some type of
magic, magic enough to control his body when it was damaged enough.
Within moments, the arm was whole once more. The old arm rotted away on
Ceros' throne, and the viper disappeared completely.
"This time, we won't get so close," Czeron half joked. Taking Saet's
sword, he managed to lever the talisman out of the chest. As he picked
it up, a deep rumble began, surrounding them and engulfing the whole
room. The wall of the Jade Statue vanished once again, and the two knew
it was their only way out. Both ran for it, and ran to freedom as the
Cathedral of Blood collapsed behind them.
"You see, Love, that all these are here for a reason. This one here,"
Ceros grabbed one idol of a donkey, "is to show human folly. If you
were to touch it, lightning from the heavens would take you. And this
one," he grabbed instead an idol of a wave, "would dry up all the oceans
or create all the fresh water you'd ever want. Depending, of course, on
your temperament."
Lya was not amused. Ceros had thrown open all the doors in the Ivory
Tower when they had arrived, and within a short time the army had found
them. With but a few words, Ceros dismissed them, telling them that
everything was under control. Lya continued to look out the high window
she sat near, paying as little attention to Ceros as she could. The
mist of the morning had dissipated.
"Ah." Ceros sounded startled. "I think your friends found my little
sanctuary."
A stricken look came to Lya's eyes. She knew the pitfalls and traps in
Ceros' chambers. She prayed that Czeron would be safe. It was madness.
Just a few days previous, she was hoping he would die, to be out of the
way of Ceros' schemes, but now she hoped he would find a way to help her
stop Ceros.
She was growing weak from all the blood loss. Her arm still oozed
blood. Every once in a while as Ceros passed by her, assembling his
little idols in certain ways only he could comprehend, he would grab her
arm just to hear her scream again. Her eyes were red from crying.
"How does it feel, knowing that you can't escape? Knowing that even by
just sitting there, you're bringing an end to your pitiful world? I've
been trapped here too long, and I'm not looking forward to staying.
There. All done."
He stood back, admiring the placement of the ivory idols. Every one
was in place, ready for him to cast his spell. He began to chant,
uttering foreign, arcane words. First muttering, then chanting, then
humming, speaking the words of a song only he could hear.
The breath left Lya's body. She stood there clutching at her breast,
trying desperately to suck in some air. Numbness crept through her
body. Her mind became sluggish, and she became quite woozy.
A loud concussion filled the air, and she lurched away from Ceros in
time to see the Cathedral of Blood collapsing, and she caught sight of
Czeron and Saet as they made their escape from the doomed building. She
managed a gasp of air, and expelled it by yelling at them to hurry.
Ceros grabbed her short hair and wrenched her back, and began his
chanting again, even louder this time.
Czeron heard Lya's brief scream for help before it was mercilessly cut
off. He stared up in the direction of the Ivory Tower and began to run.
Saet had a hard time keeping up. It was still a long jog, and before
long they were heaving for breath yet running faster still. Of the
invading army, they saw nothing but hundreds of corpses lying
everywhere. Mostly they were bodies of the Order's members, and not the
regimented uniforms or chaotic peasant clothes of the invader.
Saet and Czeron stared up finally at the imposing Ivory Tower. As they
approached the steps, he heard a loud explosion, and the ground began to
shake. The white marble walls cracked and chipped, pieces falling to
the ground. The tower began to collapse from the top in a shower of
dust and rock chips. They watched in fear as two figures walked from
the haze. The man was shriveled an bony, with purple eyes, and with him
walked Lya.
"You see my new wife? Isn't she magnificent?" Ceros crowed as he
glanced at Lya. Her orange eyes, once so full of life, were once again
void as they had been when Czeron had first met her. "Really, I'm
amazed you survived. Granted, you aren't exactly the smartest people
around, but I figured I'd give you credit somewhere."
Czeron saw a desperation in Lya's eyes. She hadn't been totally
subverted by Ceros' evil ways.
"She's not your wife yet, Ceros. I can see it in her eyes, and yours."
"Oh, yes, yes, quite right. She's not. But she will be. Very soon.
Actually, it would benefit me more if you would marry her."
Czeron saw his chance. He was destined to marry her. Marry Anais.
But Anais was dead, and in her place was Lya. To fulfil his vision, he
must take the opportunity.
"Very well, Ceros."
"Oh goody. I was hoping you'd say that. Come over here." Lya was
shaking her head, warning Czeron to stay back. He either didn't see or
was ignoring her. Ceros gripped Lya's right hand hard, wrenching up her
bloody palm. Her dress had long ago soaked through with her blood.
Ceros drew out a dagger and handed it to Czeron. "Drag it across your
palm, and give me the dagger again."
Czeron gripped the dagger's blade, tight enough to cut bone, with his
left hand, and wrenched the handle with his right. Czeron handed the
dagger back, and pressed his left palm to Lya's right.
"Your blood is mixed now. Consider yourself man and wife, for all the
good it does you."
As Ceros spoke, Czeron felt the fire spreading through his body. He
was connected now to Ceros the same as Lya was. He felt her pain, her
suffering, her confusion. He saw with his gift of vision that Anais was
trapped within as well. Czeron put both his hands to the sides of her
head, and kissed her. As he drew back, his eyes filled with tears, and
he twisted her head swiftly. The snap of her neck echoed through the
silent valley.
Ceros screamed at him in anger as Lya's body fell to the dusty ground.
Czeron's body ached now as the fire pulsed within him. The planeswalker
spark that Lya had kept hidden from all but Ceros was now within him.
It was consuming him swiftly. Ceros came at him with the dagger raised.
His plan had been foiled. He didn't know.
The dagger plunged into Czeron's chest. He took the brunt of Ceros'
attack and fell to the ground next to Lya. He was frantically searching
through his knowledge, testing and prodding, trying to learn how to use
this power that was briefly his. Blood spread out beneath him. Saet
began to struggle with Ceros, buying him precious few minutes of time.
He saw in his minds eye the dead scattered throughout the valley. The
Cathedral of Blood was gone, the Ivory Tower as well. He clutched to
his chest the onyx talisman, and uttered one word.
Disenchant.
Power flooded through his body, its searing touch burning him from the
inside out. He screamed in agony. In his hands, the onyx talisman
exploded, sending fragments of it into his chest. Czeron's scream was
quickly overtaken by the mighty volume of Ceros Draio.
Saet broke free from Ceros and ran off away from him. This was a fight
he would never win. Blood trickled freely from every part of Ceros as
he screamed ever louder. Blood dripped from his eyes as he turned their
hatred toward Czeron.
Czeron looked with his last breaths at Ceros.
"I'll see you in hell."
A lone figure crouched at the shore's edge as the cold rays of dawn
spread their wistful fingers across the world. Fingers, a single hand,
reached out from the ever protective cloak. Armor of thorns protruded
from the exposed arm. The fingers dipped into the crisp water, savoring
the tingling sensation the near-frozen water elicited from shocked
nerves. The fingers lingered, drawing lazy circles in the watery
ripples from first contact.
Saet peered intently into the water, now muttering, now chanting, now
humming, the words and notes of a song only he could hear. A funeral
dirge, dedicated to the lost Order of the Blood. In his mind were
memories of things only he survived, messages he'd given, destruction he
had seen. As he had run away from the Valley, he had seen the light
overwhelm it and take it from the world. Nothing remained in that
valley of the glory of the Order of the Blood.
His deep purple eyes gleamed brilliantly in the growing sunlight. The
time was almost ripe. He stood and walked heedlessly down the shore.
*Authors note: Due to clerical error, the previous part was mistakenly labeled part four, when in fact it was part five. Feel free to shoot the author on sight for such an egregious foul-up.*