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The right of Sean McKeown to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of these documents may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, scanning and recording, for any purpose, without the express written consent of Sean McKeown.
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Teferi stands like glass against my strikes, unable to deal with
my dual existence. In this same circle I sense myself again, feel my strikes
upon his soul shake his resolution and hold upon the ball of flame. I twist
his mind again, to break his hold upon the flame. Arom-Shaleb shows me how to
remaster the flame as I feel my other self touch his soul. The fire
licks at my face when I grab for it again, using red mana in an elemental force
I control the flame now and dissipate it before it can strike
me. My walk in time reverses, beginning its end. I summon the full strength of
my darkness, and I touch Teferi's soul to begin the connection anew. With
the bond strong, I release my energies into him to flay his soul.
The walk through time ends, my control over the blue arts fades.
Real time begins again, and I feel the bond between Teferi and myself. My
vision tunnels into his soul and I see blackness again, his soul a blinding
light that I must dull.
With the recall of lore possessed only by the Ancients he
recovers from
my mind twists. Again he breaks my link to his soul, but I have wounded
him this time. The battle begins anew.
First blooded, I ravage into him with brute force and hatred.
His
shields falter upon my attack, for I refuse to be repulsed. Unrelenting
I drain him of his life force once again, this time burning his soul with
fire of the mind. I fall to the marble floors, and Teferi does likewise.
I rise to my knees from the chill floor, and watch my opponent as
I send
my energies in for the kill. The sword at my side burns with my need
for
his life, the need to take that which is not mine but is no longer his.
In
this, I kill not for gain in lands or personal vendetta, not even for
the
challenge of besting an opponent so strong. I kill for the need to
kill, an animal
hunger inside of me that tells me instinctively to take what is not
mine, feed
off of others that which I do not, cannot possess.
As I kiss his soul gently, beginning to cull it from his limp
form, I
feel the spark within him jump. I briefly sense a place's name, and
then
the boy walks.
Teferi is indeed more powerful than I had imagined possible,
possibly
more powerful than myself. A true planeswalker, like myself, but
powerful
enough to walk the ways of the blue arts in which I merely dabble.
I would search this whelp down now, if there were not other
matters to
attend to. No sooner do I think this than my vision returns to normal,
and I am again in the Chamber of the Circles. The inhabitants of the
Keep are
around me, and I am their dominator. What was theirs is now mine.
I have been fulfilled, for a time.
"Your Keep of Visith Amoth is mine," I proclaim, "by the Arts of
War. Disobedience shall be met with death in my Keep."
And one day, I shall visit this Jamuraa...but all in its due
time. All
shall fear the name Kaervek, soon enough...
I am lead to the Tower of the Keep, formerly the antechambers of
Arom-Shaleb, and of her lineage back until the dawn of magic. The
servants who lead me are useless cattle, I do not need their services
with the
knowledge I have absorbed. Their life energies served as sustenance for
my rage,
which has been simmering bitterly at the escape of Teferi. The dark
void beckons,
and I attempt to fill that unfillable void with more meaningless deaths,
although no death is ever truly meaningless.
The bodies of two strong young men desiccating at my feet in the
antechambers, I prepare myself to enact the ritual of the
world-enchantment that will link me with Aku, my palace-capitol in
G'nra'I, and link the realm of
the living with that of the recent dead. Summoning artifacts from my
own
anterooms with a wave of the hand and a touch of mana, I call to me
several magical
instruments through the barrier between my lands and all others, the
very
barrier that had forced me to travel by steed in this damned world of
the
living. When I extinguish the sparks of life in this land, my ability
to
planeswalk shall return, as the realm will be mine and like enough to
Aku to
serve my powers.
A dark altar and a sarcophagus appear from the shadows, mending
from
darkness to matter powerful artifacts from times most ancient and
forgotten, as old as the Brothers themselves. The altar belonged once
to Ashnod, in the
time of the Brothers, and is infused with the death-mana I shall need to
complete the transitions between this world and the next. The
sarcophagus holds dry
wrappings and old, dusty bones, but was taken from a Cyclopean tomb and
has the ability to corrupt the lands in which it stays. It once fit the
purpose
of the dead Necromancer Lords of legend, and now it shall be used to fit
mine.
Resting my head upon the altar, I suffuse myself with mana and
wrap
myself in a cloak of darkness, a patch of void to surround me and remove
me from the lands I shall render desolate and dead. Unchained to this
world, I may
change it as I see fit. I draw upon the form of the pillar tombs at
Aku,
and begin the ritual which will snuff the candles of life from this
land.
I become darkness, and with a thought Time ceases to matter. The
ritual
may proceed.
My soul, dark and terrible, shall enact a powerful tax on these
mortals.
Somewhere, I cry bitter tears that I have begun my way upon the
winding
road of magic at last.
I feel no more of my body, as I leave my mind alone to complete
this
monumental task. I search this land I have taken, and the magic of the
lands allow me to claim dominance upon them. The mana lines mingle
freely with my
own, as I begin the process of conversion. The steppes, plateaus,
mountains, and rolling plains of Tekeb-Harai cede their strength to me,
and I use their
very energies to transform them to meet my will. Strip-mine pits,
scarring the landscape and filled with water, slowly shift and form into
deep, murky
bogs. I blast them with the strength of Darkness I control through Aku,
and they
soon fill with a ghastly stench as they become Lakes of the Dead.
The shield barrier, invisible energies between G'nra'I and
Tekeb-H
arai that prevent magic-wielders and magic beings from passing, become
tainted
at my touch. I turn their energies away from their purpose, and use it
to prevent
those living within the land to flee and escape my fury. I lay an
enchantment of pestilence upon all of Tekeb-Harai, and send earthquakes
throughout the
land, powerful enough to crack the mountains and level the plateaus.
Next...I suppose it might even be days since I started the
ritual...I
summon creatures of plague to overrun the land. Mosquitoes bearing
disease,
rats of many sorts that carry the Plague; serpents with venomous bites.
The
suffusing glow of the green mana of life dulls and fades, as the
creatures
of the land that create that mana sicken and die. In my mind's eye, I
see these
normals, ever the sheep, die horribly at my touch. I collect the
death-mana of rended souls, and with a touch of blue mana pulled from
distant islands,
and the rivers and seas underground, beneath the palace that is Aku, I
call the
skies to rain and the land to flood.
A torrent of water carries the dead of the land, while killing
those yet
alive. With my careful touch, I settle the water evenly upon the land,
so
that I can speed the creation of a vast swampland, a tribute to the
power of
Death.
I look out upon the land as the ritual begins its conclusion, and see
upon the remnants of Henneth Ammuth a bright, vibrant flame of life.
The air there glows with the fading majesty of the plains mana.
The mages of Visith Amoth, council of Arom-Shaleb, have gathered
to
oppose me there. A masterly spell names the Mountain of Freedom as a
greater
realm of Preservation, preventing me from harming those who stand within
the
circle of its protection.
I begin the ritual anew, and I set into motion a world-spell that
cannot
be undone by these mages. The land becomes a forsaken waste, and I
dissolve the cocoon of Abyss and Void around me to exit into the Keep of
Visith Amoth.
The strewn rubble of the Keep lies about my feet as I re-enter
the
planes of Dominia. I look to the mountain of Henneth Ammuth, the
Mountain
of Freedom, and I see the crackling glow of the mages' wards against my
terrible power.
These mages shall lose their lives this day, and I shall drink
deeply
upon their life-forces.