FrivYeti/CalinPg30
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“Who’s there?” Amanda’s voice was frightened, but she tried to keep control. The last thing she remembered was passing out, and she should be dying. In fact, if that voice was to be believed… her mind shied away from the thought, and she tried to focus in the darkness.
After a few moments, she felt more than she saw the other presence. She began to realize that she was not simply in darkness. She had no body, she was not speaking. She simply was, as was whomever was with her. The idea was so alien that she spent a few moments just wrestling with it, only to be distracted by the other’s reply.
“You are, Juril Amanda. You are alone, now and forever. You died, you know.” The voice chuckled. But it did not, because to chuckle would require it to speak, and there was no speech here. There was nothing but darkness, pressing in around her. And it. It was as though it simply registered amusement, which became a chuckle in her mind, and she began to feel an ache as she tried to understand something that mortals were not meant to see.
“Such a sad passing. Your beloved Bryce will be simply heartbroken. Figuratively, that is.” There was a pause, and the amusement radiated once more. “At least, figuratively to start. I don’t imagine that he will last long, no. He does not quite have what he needs to win the fight against the man who killed you. No, he will join you soon. Well. That’s not entirely true, either, as, being dead, you will not be in a position to chat with one another.”
“Who are you?” Amanda tried to stay focused on that thought, tried not to think about her friends and family mourning her, dying. She almost succeeded.
“Ah, the eternal question. What dreams may come, when we have shuffled off the mortal coil, must give us pause.” The presence registered mild annoyance when Amanda failed to react. “Bah. Do they not teach the works of Heilmen Spearbreaker anymore? He was a marvelous poet, you know. And a personal friend of mine, once, long ago. But times change, and ages pass. Perhaps I am the only one left who remembers him… just as there will be no one left, soon, to remember you.”
“No! They will beat that monster!” Amanda pushed down her doubts and shouted her thoughts at the creature before her. “They won’t die!”
“Oh, but they will. Do you wish to help them?”
“What? Of course I do, but I…” Amanda trailed off, her thoughts growing small. “I’m dead.”
“Ah, yes, that would appear to be a problem, would it not? But you are in luck. You see, madame Juril, you have attracted my attention, and my interest. You had a destiny, which has been broken off oh-so-forcefully. You were to have been a truly wonderous woman. All gone now. Dead. Lost forever to the Void. Unless…” “Unless?”
“There is another way. You can return to Bryce. Return to the fight. Help save your pathetic little town from the menace of the Wyld.”
“And how would I do that?”
“Through me.” And in that instant, the presence solidified, and the power of its mind was vast, and the darkness shattered and fell apart under the force of the power it wielded. And shards of identity flew past, leaving Amanda with a name.
Eye And Seven Despairs.
“What….?”
“I need you, Juril Amanda, or someone very much like you, and thus I offer you this gift. For ninety years, you will roam, and learn, and grow. And when the time comes, and my empire is prepared for me, you will come back to me. You will be my champion, the greatest of my deathknights, and you will lead my shadows to glory.” Eye And Seven Despairs laughed, and the shadows rippled with the hatred reflected in his joy. “You will gain a mortal lifetime for yourself, in exchange for an eternity with me. And your power will be vast, rivalling even that of your gleaming golden beloved. You can save them, Amanda.”
“NO!” Amanda screamed, trying to push herself away. “I can see what you mean, what you represent. You’re evil! You’re everything that the texts warn us against! You… you are what they think Bryce is… I won’t help you. I would rather die!”
“Would you?” The presence expanded, filling Amanda’s mind, until all that she could sense was the amusement of the Eye. “Your mind may deny me, but your soul has already made its choice, and it has chosen the ways of the Void. Juril Amanda is dead and gone, but the Desolate Masquerading as Faith shall save them, at the cost of everything she once held dear. Go back, my deathknight. Take up the mantle of the Moonshadow and demonstrate to that foolish raksha what horrors even the Wyld has to fear.
Juriakar smiled in his throne room, secure in his victory. He turned to Lysadara. “Get some of the hobgoblins to toss that trash out in an alley, or whatever it is humans do with their dead. We must prepare for the next…”
“you asked me here”
Juriakar froze. He turned, slowly, as the body that had been Amanda slowly staggered to its feet. “What? How?”
“You asked me here, and we spoke. If you harm me again, you will be held responsible.” The darkness shone forth, a black ring around a central circle, and spread from her. The statues of the dragons cracked and shattered, cascading to the ground in stone shards before the eyes of the frightened Artisans, as the Desolate Masquerading As Faith spoke, her voice finding its confidance. “Are you, who call yourself the Law, willing to risk the true fury of the Void?”
