Is it a dead god, Toren killer of the blood of the great killer Karibash? What do you truly know of matters dark and hidden?
Bang.
Gethsemene. Now. The gate crashes open, and a column of tiny brown riders enters the city.
The largest among them, Godric's height but slight and wiry, looks like a strong child in the saddle of a full-sized warhorse. He pulls an already-lit cigar from behind his ear, takes a deep drag, holds it, at length exhaling a long and luxurious cloud of smoke, and begins to sing. It is not the beginning of the song, but his singing begins thus:
Peo-ple say that, we wild like a ti-i-ger
AND GO WAR-RINGGG like Udorian ri-i-der
Some peo-ple say, we more like, dragon-sticks and spi-ders
Dragon-sticks and spiii-ders, dragon-sticks and spi-de-errrs.
Dragon-sticks and spi-de-errrs, dragon-sticks and spi-i-ders
Kilhorn's hiss is filled with rage and hatred and something else, something hidden even from Godric.
Bang.
Bang.
Like a sharp clap of thunder, and yet different, and Godric is torn away from the son of Jonn at the gates of Gethsemene to another place, another time.
The sun is high and hot in the sky, and the shadows cast by the trees are as soothing to Godric as they are to Kilhorn of the Dark Isle, the Masked One who was born into darkness.
They hunt together amongst the boles of dusky giants, the wet sticky heat pleasant as fresh-spilling blood on Kilhorn's oily skin and along the edge of the weapon that is becoming Godric.
Or is it you who becomes the weapon, killer? The thought in Godric's mind is soft and smooth and mesmerizing, like the eyes of the cobra to the swallow.
And do you think you are the first?
The people of the forest of Kamade are tall and strong and dark like the trees themselves, but they are not prepared for killing.
The Lurian soldiers around them are not prepared for killing either, but this is immaterial to the Hand of Death and the weapon it holds.
Even as the midday sun filters through high and leafy branches, they are darkness against darkness, darker than the dark before dawn, the killer called Kilhorn and the weapon called the Nightblade.
And there is much killing.
One of the Kamadi has a spear in his hand, and with it he fights well, but this too is immaterial. Ruthless, relentless, Kilhorn and his blade will not be denied.
The Kamadi killer's blood is even hotter and stickier than the tropical summer air of the forest, and it beats forth his life in quick and violent bursts, but he dies slow, as was their intent.
Godric and the Nightblade, if they can still be regarded as two separate things, are held tight in Kilhorn's clawed and oily hand as he hovers above the form of the slowly-dying man and begins to whisper to him, whispers of darkness, whispers as yet unheard by any other.
This killer is the first, but he will not be the last. The cobra strikes at its prey, strikes home.
Bang.
Bang.
Bangbangbangbangbangbangbang. The echo of it rolls on like thunder against the mountains, and yet different.
Toren Stronghold. Now. The seeing of it threatens to tear Godric's soul from his body, all the way back there on the high walls of another mighty fortress, all the way back there in another world.
They are close now, though less close than they were before. Through Kilhorn's eyes he sees them, the masked giant and the one who was born dead, the wolf. They march under the same banner, together and yet apart.
The Nightblade thirsts for them both.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. The smith's face is black as black iron, black as charcoal, black as the deepest fire, and it is not the face of a human. It grits its teeth in fierce determination as it beats endlessly at the night-black blade upon the darkiron anvil, and it is hot in this small and cramped and deep place, but no sweat drips from the smith's black and high and haughty brow.
Remnant.
Fa'armora, D'varr'grr, X'ostraximos, Ebonchild. Ancient killer of men and monsters and daimons and elves.
First raisers of the dead ones who walk and kill.
Kilhorn's long, slow hiss is one of deepest and darkest appreciation, and of triumph, and Godric can hear the endless shuffling march of a thousand thousand ragged feet in the beating of the blacksmith's hammer. They trample upon every corner of the earth, and Godric welcomes them.
The Nightblade welcomes them, bids them come.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. As the smith's hammer beats down upon them, they begin to hear the chanting that fills the barrow, and yet does not. It is a chanting from another plane, and yet it is here, all around them and inside them. The forge's flame casts the shadows of figures of all shapes and sizes. They silently and watchfully surround the smith and the object of his labors, and behind these shadows are other shadows, shadows cast by the unseen fire of another world, and it is their voices that fill this place.
As they chant, a new darkness begins to push against the dark of the deepest of the already-ancient barrows of the forest sometime called Rapael, but known now and far earlier and far longer by other names, long before the coming of the men who would one day be called the First People, the Darkishmen, the Khalkar, in the days when the dark elves who would one day be called the Remnant called themselves by other names as well.
As the new darkness fills it, begins to shine forth from it, the weapon that will be known as the Nightblade nears its completion. Suddenly, the crowd of shadowy and hidden figures surrounding the smith and his labors parts, admits a newly-arrived member to their number. A human, female, young and beautiful by the standards of her kind, but her eyes are already old and cold and sharp.
Fae.
Witch-woman of the Mistwood, Sorceress of the Great Dark One-Eyed One, Raven-Sung.
Grandmother. Ah, she was so young then! And yet already so full of power, already so full of knowledge of things dark and hidden!
Godric's heart threatens to burst from his chest, here and elsewhere, somewhere else...
Bang. Bang. Bang. The hammer continues to beat down upon them as the witch-woman who is and will be called Fae of the Mistwood turns to one of the nearer shadows to demand her prize. The weapon is what she has come for. It is for her and her alone. Her eyes blaze with the fire of the forge and the darkness of the blade and the dark fire of the other world.
“I can see the desire in your black and ancient heart, L'etas Daraghul Sidhei. Deny me not what is mine.”
The shadow beyond blackness she commands, dares to command, draws back, grows tense with indignation and something else, something hidden but seen against the will of its hider.
Kilhorn's hiss is an oath of fealty renewed. Yes, killer, even now he fears you, fears what you will become!
“Deny me not what is mine, what I know will be mine,” the young and beautiful, powerful and wicked woman commands the shadow beyond blackness. “Forget not that I have looked into the deepest spae-pool of the place that will be called the Temple of Zraath, that ancient black temple of the Thousand-Named One that lies beneath the forest they call Athla Azros. Forget not what I saw in its black waters, O ancient King of the Neth Al'afara, O ancient killer of men and monsters and daimons and elves, Old One-Eyed One, First Servant of the Great Dark One-Eyed One who walked the world before them all!”
Fae's eyes blaze with darkest magic, and, as if raised from one of the nether worlds by the witch-woman's recitation of his titles, the shadow beyond blackness that is and will be called L'etas Daraghul Sidhei steps into the bale light of the forge to respond to her call.
Bang. Bang. Bang. The hammer beats down, striking sparks of darkness, forging them into something new and strong and sharp and deadly.
His face is like the smith's face, black and high-browed and haughty, except that there is the slightest of pockmarks where one eye must once have been, the empty socket covered over by smooth and near-unblemished ebony skin, and the rest of his features are even more cunning and twisted and corrupted by the evil of millennia uncounted.
Upon this one's brow sits a crown of darkiron, ancient and brutal and spare in its design. As its wearer draws nearer to the blade that is near complete upon the darkiron anvil, the crown glows with a darkness blacker than the black before dawn, and the darkness of the blade grows in answer to it.
“Say less, prating and demanding one, disrespecting one, and forget not what I saw in the flames of the dark fire of the Temple of Enlod, which these hands built alone,” says the shadow beyond blackness, the ancient King of an ancient people, L'etas Daraghul Sidhei. “And think not that I forget, no, not for one moment, that already in the land that is called and will be called Nbasah, your people prepare a fleet to sail upon my Isle, and if your vision be proved wrong and mine right, your people will be a curse upon mine and the cause of many troubles.
“And you, witch-woman of the men who are called the Tu'adhana, and will one day be called by other names, but one name above all others! You, warning and promising and scheming one! Ambitious, self-serving and crafty one! Think not that I forget that from your accursed womb has already sprung the accursed bloodline that will outlast all others of your people, and that from your sons will come the ones that will bind the ones now called the Tu'adhana, and the sons of Geg who is and are a curse upon my people yet unborn, and the Shadow Clans whose blood, in time, will be mixed with those who are not men nor daimon nor elfkind!
“Yea, from your accursed womb have sprung the ones that will bind them all with fire and steel, bind them into a Brotherhood that will be as a plague upon this Isle and other lands, and upon my people, the Neth Al'afara, and the tribes of men, and monsters, and daimons, and elves!
“Men! Short-lived and petty ones! Hasty and overreaching ones! Regretting and retreating ones! You, sacrificing and entreating one! You who would extend your life a paltry few centuries at the cost of many thousands, yea, thousands upon thousands of the lives of your own accursed race! What can you know, you of few years and much lusting for living, what can you know of the weight borne by one who is already ancient now, in a time your race, the forgetting ones, will one day call ancient? Yea, of the weight of a crown, this crown, forged in the very flame that heats the blade you so desire, the First Fire that was lit before this world was born!
“Men! Selfish and short-sighted ones! I curse them, all of them but the fortunate and happy ones willed by the All-Creator, the mighty and merciful one!”
The shadow beyond blackness that is and will be L'etas Daraghul Sidhei seems to catch himself suddenly, and his booming, ancient voice is silenced for the first time since he first began to speak. Kilhorn's hiss is slow and wary and cautious, and Godric feels the nervous tension that suddenly fills the shadow-crowded chamber, even unto the shadows behind shadows, whose chanting stammers and fades for long moments. Even the smith ceases his hammering for a heartbeat before quickly returning to his task, the work of a century or more and nearly, finally, complete.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang, and the chanting of the shadows behind shadows slowly rises back to life.
The King of the Neth Al'afara, after another frozen and crackling second, regains his composure and continues as well. “Men! Feeble and pathetic ones! I curse them with the dimming of the lights of their bloodlines, yea, a weakening, a shrinking, unto a time of ignorance and chaos and darkness! They will fight among themselves for our benefit! They will fight men, and monsters, and daimons, and elves, and more, and we shall direct them from the shadows and laugh, for a time. I curse them even in their graves, yea, those who are already in their graves and those who will be!”
And with a flourish of his ancient and cunning and as-yet-unblemished hand, the King of the Neth Al'afara, L'etas Daraghul Sidhei, ancient killer of men and monsters and daimons and elves, the Old One-Eyed One, reaches out and plucks the weapon that will soon be called the Nightblade from its anvil.
It is, at last, complete, and its edge is already sharp, and the cunning and keen eyes of the shadow beyond blackness, L'etas Daraghul Sidhei, ancient beyond telling, run admiringly along its blade.
Panic. Panic panic panic. He was not supposed to be the first to touch them. He sees us he sees us he sees us he seeeeeeees... but his keen eyes pass over them, and he does not see them, yet, and they are relieved, if there is relief for those who have been given over to darkness, for those who are become darkness itself.
Then, grasping the curved and wickedly graceful hilt in both hands, he raises them toward the ceiling. Above it they can feel the cold dark earth, in this moment already ancient beyond the understanding of men, and yet younger than many men will one day believe, and within it they feel something stir.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. A new sound. Not the blacksmith's hammer this time, not here in the darkness of the deepest barrow beneath the forest that will one day be called Rapael, for that work is already done. But up there, from every direction, up in the cold, dark earth, they hear it, like ragged fists against the insides of a thousand thousand coffin lids.
L'etas Daraghul Sidhei, the ancient one whose hands alone built the Temple of Enlod and lit its dark fire from the First Fire that was lit before the world was born, raises the weapon that will soon be called the Nightblade, the weapon into which was poured the dark wisdom and craft of millennia uncounted, and the darkest magic of the shadows behind shadows who are even more ancient than that.
“I am the King of the Neth Al'afara, ancient killer of men and monsters and daimons and elves, doer of what he wills, and I have had one vision the likes of which you have not,” he declares.
And he begins to chant in the ancient and flowing dark tongue of his people, but all Godric can hear is the shuffling march of a thousand thousand ragged feet, the banging of ragged hands on the insides of a thousand thousand coffin lids.
Bang.
Kilhorn can hear the chanting, and he listens as if enraptured, and what he hears is knowledge that even he, the Masked One, knower of many things dark and hidden, the Hand of Death who is many hands and many eyes, has never known before this moment. His hiss, for the first time but not the last, is one of surprise and of awe.
My Nightblade!
Kilhorn's hiss continues as it becomes one of pride, and of redoubled dark reverence, and of triumph, and it stretches on and on, until it seems endless.
The forge's fire suddenly roars, its wild flames making the shadows dance to rhythms never before heard upon the earth.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang...
