Let me tell you of how Seri, greatest apprentice to Aza, died.
The tip of the spear was forged from shining silver, pure and strong. It was a thing of beauty when in the light and a thing of terror when in the dark. It began, as all things do, in the tender hands of a parent. This specific spear, as so many others, was forged in the mighty forge of Agrivar the Old. With tongs and hammer he extracted the essence of the metal and purified it, perfection incarnate. This was a weapon burdened with purpose. This was a weapon with that trapped fate itself. This was a weapon that craved blood.
The material was chosen with careful intention. Silver is bane to creatures of magic and spears were tools for bringing down great beasts. Function follows form and function defines intent. This was a weapon for slaying dragons. This was a weapon for killing abominations. This was not a weapon of valour or heroism. This was a weapon of fear.
At every step of the process, Agrivar the Old worshipped the metal. With strong hands, he poured the silver, shaping it carefully to form a tip. The halls of war rung loud with his hammer blows as he forced it into shape, flattening the blade until it was sharp enough to cut the very fabric of fate. With strength and tenderness, he took his child, this perfect implement of death, and threw it in a barrel with the hundreds of others. Before the sun set, he would have made hundreds more. Agrivar the Old cared not for the acts of weapons. There was no artistry left in his craft. Nothing but the ring of the hammer as he made yet another, the monotony of edges blurring together.
The Withered King had decreed that his soldiers would be equipped with spears, and this was indeed cunning and clever. Despite the mighty forgehalls below his throne, despite his countless smiths, the war had been long and their resources were few. One sword could be a dozen spears, and while a sword was a weapon for equals, a spear was a weapon for disrespect. A shell bristling with spiked rods was a tool of the coward, and to be the coward was to be the victor. Function follows form. The Withered King understood this intimately. It was why his royal artists applied make-up to his desiccated flesh, why he held council in halls of marble, why he donned the finest silks and steels as his people fell to pieces in the streets. He looked like a king and so he was. A spear was a weapon for tactics, for brutality. And the final battle would be no duel. No, it would be brutal. It would be a slaughter. He was sure of it.
His seers whispered such to him, when they bent his ear. They told him his path led to a darker place still, that it was not too late to avert. The Withered King cared not. His centuries hung on him, caressing his frail cheeks and bolstering old bones. He ordered for spears and so spears they would have. He was the king and his word was law.
And the barrel of spears left the halls of the metalmasters, the ringing of their hammers playing it out, matching the marching footsteps of the small things that carried it. Flesh woven with dark power was capable of much, except for intelligence. They dragged the barrel down foul halls, past the dark chambers where the armies of the Withered King arose for a second time. The only thing more respected than metalcraft here was that foul art, that dread necromancy. The spearheads were dragged down the halls until they reached the great store chambers, to await their shafts and appointed wielders. Their moment was coming. They could almost feel it, hungry for blood as all weapons are.
The spearheads were left waiting, some fated for terrible purposes and others fated to rot, unused, lost in mud and blood. The barrel joined with others, forming a pile, a mound of dedication to death. Oh, how it stunk of death. The rats swarmed to the mountain, little shadows that crawled between the borders of life and death and devoured ghosts. They ran over it, basking in the scent of death to come. The wizards of the king could feel it too, feel it empowered their bloody work. They could feel the energy of the spears. They could feel their fate.
But the speartips only worked as long as they were fated for violence, violence of the most impressive sort. Their power came from the blood they would drink. The armies of the Withered King were mostly the dead, returned through his foul will. This was because function followed form, and their function was to die. The Withered King was fated to lose this war, said the king's seers. There was a prophecy. There was a wanderer from a far land whose service had been earned by the king's enemies. His armies were fated to die and so they began in death, graveyards turned upsidedown and poured out, rotting flesh and blackened bones in the semblance of man. It was a draft of the long dead, crypts emptied and dressed in whatever was available. It was a massing for war. It was a last stand of madness and the mood in the air was sombre.
The most respected in the halls of the Withered King was not the necromancers or the metalcrafters, but those who dared to combine the two to truly profane against life. The world whispered of the Withered King's metal men, whispered legends of their raw might and power. To prepare for the final battle, he ordered the forging of three dozen of the finest ever crafted. Each was the pinacle of perverse alchemy. The viscera of some eight-score innocent men went into each, their impotent rage becoming the fire that lit its eyes. They were monsters through and through, flesh woven with metal, liquid brass for blood, dark magic running through their brains and dripping out of their eyes. They skin would turn swords and their fists would crumple dragonscale. They were abominations, costly in morality.
And as they forged their beasts, the screams of the damned echoing through deep halls. Young necromancer Salivac threw a barrel of speartips into the vat on a whim. The silver bubbled and hissed as it melted. He stirred it into the cold iron and black steel, the liquid flowing into a sludgy mass, congealing around the added blood. The heat from the forge grew and grew, fire licking at the walls. Salivac laughed as the fire consumed him too, consumed the workers who stoked the furnace, consumed entire halls of the palace. The speartips dripped with the promise of death, of the fate they had yet to materialize. They brought that curse into the metal itself and the soul of Salivac mixed with that foul alloy and solidified, a new and terrifying compound. These metal men, these behemoths, these great dreadnaughts would be far more dangerous than any other. They were death itself, fate made manifest.
The first to emerge from the vats fell to its knees, screaming with pain. One of the makers placed her hand upon its shoulder, to check it. Its hand, a great spiked glove found her face and with a sickening crack, it ripped the very soul from her body. "More," it screamed. "More!"
And the king's seers saw this years before. They saw the rise of the metal men, all three dozen standing atop mounds of bodies. They saw the fabric of the universe laid asunder and they screamed. They screamed as their crystal balls dripped with blood. They screamed as their eyes rolled of their heads and bruises blossomed on pale skin. They screamed as their bodies twisted. They screamed as they died and they kept screaming even in death, for this was an abomination of the highest order. Death itself was polluted by this act, the very cosmos rebelling at the force of what had been wrought. Fate could be averted by acts such as these. Fate could be averted through pain sufficient. A weapon could sever fate or a weapon could become it.
The seers of the Withered King screamed as their frail bodies were dragged to the pits. They screamed as they rose again, forced back into shape. They screamed as they were dressed in armour. They screamed as they were dragged to the source of the madness, their helpless fingers finishing their spears, binding silver to bone. Oh, how they screamed. They screamed for weeks and weeks, standing atop the walls of the castle, waiting for the last battle. They screamed as they led the march, the many legions of the king at their back. The seers of the Withered King, once the most powerful seers in all the lands, screamed. Oh, how they screamed. They screamed because they saw what was to come. They saw what they would bring at the behest of their master and oh, how they hated it.
And the threefold alliance were gathered there, upon that plain. Long and hard they had fought, this campaign of pain and death. There was no glory in this. No glory, but the pursuit of eventual peace. But it was time. They could see the forces of the Withered King massing, standing in rows 40 men deep, waiting. It was time for the final battle.
The two armies stared at each other, the rising sun failing to break through the dark clouds. It hadn't rained yet, but surely it would. The screaming reached across the wind. The troops made of magic itself were immune, who wrapped themselves in flesh as a shield from hard reality. But the humans amongst them shivered, for there was fear in that scream. There was something dark and evil. It promised a tragedy unimaginable.
The threefold alliance faced them bravely, their tens of thousands of troops clutching swords and shields, bows and arrows. Their mages held back, whispering words of fire and death, preparing to unleash the greatest of violence. Rashaez Vorgaez, great general for the Withered King, approached the coalition astride his steed, a great dragon slain some centuries ago.
"Hail and hark," he cried.
"Hail general," spoke Madam Ostilia Boneweaver calmly. Her skull was polished white, lit from the inside with blue fire.
"No closer," added General Akim Lanault, lifting a massive hammer as a warning.
Marissa Coi smiled warmly, fangs hidden behind pal lips. "Come friends! Can we not break bones peaceably?"
"No," curtly replied Madam Ostilia. "We have a message for your king!"
The outsider stood nearby. He said nothing, though he was watching carefully. He could feel the weight of inevitability. Whatever was to occur next, it was important.
With a flick of the reigns, the great wyrm slowed to a stop. Rashaez removed his helmet, revealing his rotting face. "Pray tell, little one. What would your family have to say to my liege?"
It was General Akim who replied, however. "We come for vengeance. We come to take back our lands. If he surrenders, we will need not harm his people."
Marissa frowned. "Surely, we need not harm his people at all."
Madam Ostilia scoffed. "They are but slaves to his will, fool. We shall grind them into dust." She stared at Rashaez, her eyes glowing furiously. "You hear that? I'll bite your king's throat!"
Rashaez bowed his head. "Your destruction will please my king immensely."
The outsider stepped forwards. His hood fell to his neck, revealing his scarred neck and toothless smile. He spoke but a single word, the sheer force of it captivating all present. "Life," said Seri, former and greatest apprentice to Aza.
The assembled beings gazed back at him, that motley collection of foul creatures. He was not of them. This was not his world.
"This is beyond your domain, wizard," snapped General Akim, grinding his hooves against the soil.
"Life?" asked Marissa Coi.
"Meaningless," replied Madam Ostilia.
"Agreed. Do not speak in riddles, stranger," spoke General Rashaez.
Seri drew a pattern in the air, lights dancing from his fingertips as he spoke. "Life is but a river, flowing from start to finish. Your war is a drop in the storm, a fragment of something lesser than the sum of its parts. There is no purpose here. This is not life. This is merely death. Your corruption of life is of no interest to me."
The great dragon roared, acid dripping from its jaws.
"You promised service, wizard," said Madam Ostilia. "You took a vow."
"Yes," said Seri. "Yes, I suppose I did." He glanced at the sky, raindrops beginning to pour. "Very well. Let violence begat violence. Come!" He floated into the air, his staff materializing, runes of power floating around him. "Come then! Bring forth your abominations such that I may destroy them. Let all witness the power of Seri, Aza's greatest apprentice!"
Rashaez moved to signal the charge. But a flick of Seri's hand brought the skies open, lightning crackling down and scorching the earth, cutting a jagged hole through the centre of the great dragon. Rashaez, great general to the Withered King was no more. And so the horns sounded. And so the rain poured. And so the armies charged, the battle joined.
The seers of the withered king screamed as they charged, screamed as their spears sank into the front flank of their enemies, screaming as they claimed the blood they were promised. Fate is a tricky thing, a snake eating its own tail. The spears resonated with the blood from this battle, and that rendered them impossibly powerful implements of death. Their kiss shredded through armour and tore asunder the greatest of warriors. They claimed death. They claimed it viciously and brutally. They claimed it because they had been promised it and they had been promised it because they claimed it. There was a paradox here and that was why the seers screamed.
But armies are not made of single troops or single spears or single moments. And the battlemages and archers descended, letting the scent of fire and poison roll over the fields, great choking clouds of burning flesh roiling to life. The souls of the damned spread and flew, set loose by quick strikes and the clash of metal on metal. The screams of the seers were joined by those of the mortal men and the wounded and the dead. Neither side had thought to bring medics. Neither side thought they would help.
The Withered King's armies were powerful indeed, despite being few in number. They devastating the numerous armies of the threefold coalition, reaving a bloody swipe through the core of their soldiers. They took far better than they got. And as they fell, as the bodies of their soldiers were mangled and broken and stomped into the mud, the wizards of the king laughed. For they were high on death, devouring the spirits that fled from the battlefield. Trapped in great bottles, they dragged them back down, enemy and friend alike. They forced them back into flesh, bodies rising to die again, only to be brought straight back. Their forms decayed further as the day wore on, as bones were rent in twain and flesh resembled humanity less and less. And they returned the same, sometimes as men and sometimes as howling spirits, and sometimes as great serpents with teeth of bone and scales of skin. And the servants of the Withered King laughed as their armies surged forth, resisting the fire and magma and death.
Above it all, Seri drifted, watching. This was not right. He could feel the weight of the impending tragedy hanging heavy over him. It would be so easy, oh so easy under the cover of rain. On birds wings he could slip between world again, leaving this long dead rock far behind him. He never had to return. He almost did, a possible future stretching out before him like a branch from a tree. The faintest thread coiled around his talon as he snuck out. It tugged him back as he felt his way through the blackness between. It was almost solid. It was death itself because one cannot escape their fate.
Seri watched from above. The threefold coalition was sure to win. Their casualties were heavy, but their soldiers were stout and brave. He watched as the day wore on and the battle grew bloodier and bloodier.
It may have been fate. It may have been inevitability. Or at least, it was. It was until the dreadnaughts entered the fray.
Each was the size of any ten men. Each was seemingly carved from a solid block of steel, painted with runes in blood. Each glowed with the heat of the sun. Swords and arrows broke upon their backs. Spells faltered against their will. Three dozen of them strode into the battlefield then, scattering the coalition before them. Seri could feel the stink of them radiating upwards. He could feel time tearing itself asunder. These were the last resort of a madman, of one unconcerned with anything but victory. They were abominations true in a way he had never before seen.
Words of protection on his lips, he dropped out of the sky as a thunderbolt, a crater erupting where he landed. "Hold," he cried, facing the monsters.
The monsters did not care. One jumped into the crater to obliterate him.
Seri yelled, his magic hurling itself against the monster to fling it away. His spell broke upon its chest and his body broke upon its fist, flying into the air. He caught himself there, his flesh knitting itself back together into the form of a mighty dragon. He descended, breathing fire upon the beast, wrapping it in his coils. His claws scraped its flesh, blood pouring from the cracks. The dreadnaught grabbed his head in one hand and his tail in the other and pulled, splitting him in two.
But such was not fatal to a master of forms, and he found himself once again standing before the beast. The words came thick and fast, the magic of storms, the oldest magic there was, flowing through him now. He yelled words so old they had never been written and the storm itself bent against this inhumanity. With a mighty crash, the lightning of a thousand hurricanes descended, a bolt of purest energy from the sky, a pillar of raw starlight crushing the beast. It fell to its knees from the impact, bracing against the ground with its hands. Seri raised his hands, increasing the force with which he struck. Death was woven into the beast but water was the magic of life, the essence of the storm pouring into the caged souls. It was anathema to the dark steel and the dreadnaught began to melt under the impact.
The light from the strike was so bright the battle itself stopped. All turned to watch the wizard fight the abomination. The dreadnaught screamed because pain was all it had known. It was carved from pain and to pain it shall return. It was a cycle, a pattern, and Seri invoked this to destroy it as it had been made, a tool of death breaking it open. Dozens of leagues away, the Withered King sat upon his throne and laughed, his shadow cast behind him as a great devouring monster. This was his victory. This was his triumph. The dreadnaught's head cracked open, baring the anger within, and for just a moment Seri stared into it and prepared to pluck out the tortured souls.
It would have worked, had a second dreadnaught not struck him from behind.
And then there was darkness, the sun itself spent with that attack. And in the darkness there was chaos and there was blood, for the only light was that of the abominations, the fire that shone from their evil eyes. And their pain, impossibly vast as it was, ceased momentarily when they spread it, and so spread it they did. Their fists crushed soldiers as twigs, with all the care of a raging child. And blood mixed with mud and fire burned without heat or light and death became the only truly real concept.
And in that darkest moment, in the losing chaos, Seri struggled to stand. His legs were broken, his bones smashed into splinters that carved his flesh in twain as he twitched. He considered the battle, the mud on his back, the blood in the air, the rot that suffused the essence of the world. This was an ugly thing. It was a scar that would weigh heavily upon the universe for thousands of years to come. Seri considered it for what it was.
He stood, shakily, leaning upon his staff. No matter what, he still had his staff. He still had his magic and his wits. He saw the dreadnaughts for what they were. The truth of the universe was that everything could die, even that which was already dead. The universe was like poetry. It moved in patterns. To kill something that had been made, simply make it again. He raised his staff above his head and began to chant, working his spirit into the shape he needed.
Let us talk again about the spear.
It was a perfect implement of death, alike every other on that field. It had begun in the same forge as any of the others. In no way was it special, but for chance. It had been carried into this battle by Rokia Caln, one of the many seers who lost their lives at the sight of the abominations. It had been lost to the ground when Rokia was slain. But another spirit had infested Rokia's corpse and found itself standing, clutching the spear in shaking fingers. It was not a very clever spirit. In fact, it understood little more than killing. In this way, it was akin to the spear, a simple tool of death. Both were constructed for a single purpose and both would have that purpose satisfied. For just a moment, it saw a single figure through the flickering darkness. That was enough. It raised its arm and threw.
The spear left its grip, arm swinging downwards to finish the motion. The stench of death was on the spear, not for crimes of bulk, but crimes of specificity. For there is but one certainty in life and that is death. And that which kills a legend surely becomes a legend of its own.
The spear hung in the air for a long moment, flying straight and true. Seri did not see it, for it came from behind him. He first noticed it as it entered the base of his skull, the pure silver rushing straight through bone as though it was paper. It some ways, it was beautiful. It was poetic.
Seri did not have time to appreciate this because it killed him instantly.
Like that, it was over, the victorious spear clattering to the ground, the body of the wizard falling to the ground useless. So died Seri, greatest apprentice to Aza. So died Seri, riddle-solver, shadow-weaver, shape-master, he-without-teeth. So died Seri. Alone and forgotten, with none watching. So died Seri.
And as though it wept for him, the skies opened and poured with rain. The spears relaxed, their purpose met. And the dreadnaughts laughed, for they could feel it in their bones. They had won. Was it a twist or was it merely the higher truth? The Withered King was laughing because his victory was certain. And the threefold coalition fell, sure as anything. Their armies were crushed before the hoard. Fate had been averted. And so died the greatest wizard to walk this world and with him died any scant hope of averting the apocalypse.
When he was a boy, on his first day as Aza's apprentice, she took him to a graveyard. They sat there together, letting days and nights pass them by until he finally learned to see the dead. "Seeing magic," she said, "is like seeing the dead. You have to let it in."
And Seri nodded, because his master was wise and he was not.
"Watch it carefully. See how it flows around you. The world rhymes, Seri. That which will happen already has happened. See how it guides you. Relax into it."
And Seri nodded, because his master knew these things and he did not.
"Do you feel that?" she asked.
And Seri nodded, because his master was right and could feel it.
"That is fate," said Aza, smiling softly. "It drips off you. They feel it too." She gestured to the ghosts that swarmed around him. "Always look, Seri. Whenever in doubt. Simply look."
And Seri nodded, because his master was looking and this was useful advice.
Seri looked slowly. He could see the patterns of the world and he could see the dead and he saw now how he fit into both. He was the way his soul released from his body, flowing upwards, casting off his flesh. He saw thousands of others doing the same, the way the ghosts all mingled together as they fled from the battle. He watched as the necromancers plucked some and pushed them back into flesh. Seri felt for his own flesh, his discarded body lying still on the battlefield. It would not take him anymore. It rejected his touch, shrinking away from it. It was too broken to function, too broken to hold him. Function follows form, and the form of that body was to be broken. Madness would follow filling out that flesh.
And Seri stretched out luxuriously, far bigger than he'd ever been before. Idly, he wondered what came next.
A necromancer saw Seri's soul. The poor small thing didn't understand what it was looking at. It merely saw power and sought to tap it, to drag it to his back and call. But a rope pulls two ways and laughing, Seri pulled back, yanking the wizard out of his own body. Seri considered the wizard for a moment, how tiny it was compared to him. His soul responded to the motion, to the influence. With fingers of pure magic, Seri rifled through the wizard's head, baring his secrets. A life well lived, long days in darkened halls, the darkest secrets from the darkest books. It was all ripe for the taking and once the spirit was plucked dry, Seri threw it back to the atmosphere to go to the next place. The manipulation of souls, that forbidden and darkest of art.
What would Aza say now?
Because really, that was the question. Seri had long possessed mastery over both flesh and spirit, but the two together was what confounded him. His meditations on lonely rocks under strange stars had thus far failed to lay bare the secrets of the universe. For all his claims of understanding of the balance, he was but a boat fighting the ocean. Function follows form. To become a fish, one merely had to dive in. What would it take to become something more? He felt the trace of his body, a pattern of reality imprinted onto the spirit world. His spirit was already decaying, trying to shed pieces, let him fade back into the cycle of the world. But his will was strong and he pulled himself back together. Of course. The reason was the flesh. It was why immortality came with the bones, with the cities. It was positional, places of power becoming sources thereof. But was that necessary?
He flitted over the battlefield studying the motions of the dead. The janky motions of the zombies as souls tugged rotting limbs to motions, the precise movements of the mages who animated them. Yes, there were patterns here. How had he not seen it before? Excitedly, he spread over the battlefield, studying it all. Taking it all in. There was a pattern to life, to flesh, to the spirits. There was a connection here. Souls were magic and magic was souls. The difference between the living and the dead was merely a matter of perspective. Of course. It was so simple. He might've laughed if he still had a jaw.
The world was quiet. The world is always quiet after crimes most vicious. The battle was a slaughter, as expected. The spears claimed their bloody toll and were collected, to prepare for the next. Their generals excitedly pulled forth maps to plot their rampage of revenge, their route to the heartland of their enemies. The troops, brought back to their rotting feet, stood calmly at attention. Their bones, mostly broken, jutted from burnt flesh, blackened wounds dripping foul fluids. The army was bigger than when it had started and still growing as the Withered King's wizards worked to capture the remains of the enemies, enslaved to the throne of death. The dreadnaughts stood behind their ranks, towering and menacing. They were stained with blood, mud, and dust. Their rage simmered. They needed to be fed.
And the scattered remains of their enemies curled up tighter, bodies broken. They coughed up blood as they struggled against the sweeping zombies. It didn't help. The sun came back slowly, almost ashamed. It had poured forth all the force it could muster and lost.
Ever so delicately, Seri poked one of the Withered King's dead soldiers.
Ever so delicately, the soldier fell over, the trampled mud absorbing the body and hiding it from the world.
Ever so delicately, the rest turned to look.
Ever so delicately, the Withered King's frail soldiers fell, all crumpling one by one as the strings left their bodies. They fell, the spirits ripped from their flesh and cast free into the sky, and kept falling until only those who had never died remained.
Ever so delicately, the king's wizards, his royal necromancers stood there as one by one, each of the dreadnaughts fell to pieces. It was not the thread or the nail that held them together, but the will of the many and Seri gutted them. The fire leaked from their heads and their souls hissed as they relaxed, free from the pain.
Ever so delicately, Seri plucked each and every one of the necromancers from the world, ripping their souls out of their bodies and into his vast form so he could chew on their knowledges and their histories.
Ever so delicately, the battlefield was silent. No one was left. Not even the grass danced in the breeze.
Ever so delicately, the broken and muddy corpse that was once a wizard called Seri sat upright and laughed.
And above it all, the sun shone on. Because violence begets violence and crimes beget crimes. Because this was a form of vengeance. Because this was redemption.
None ever returned from that campaign. No one would ever know what occurred there. What foul act could smite armies, could split the world open, could cow the very sun? But no one survived and so none shall ever know, for despite the best necromancy, none of the witnesses could be conjured. Their spirits were gone from the very world in a way that had never before been seen.
And the spears lay abandoned on the field. They'd taken their toll twice over. They'd drunk well that day. And there they would remain, from now until the end of time, for they were things so evil that no other would want anything to do with them. All save for one.
For Seri, master-of-death, claimed the weapon that killed him. He held it to the hole in his head and he laughed. There was a power in symbols. By claiming the spear, he claimed mastery over his own mortality. The spear was powerful because it had slain him and it had slain him because it was powerful. What sense did that make? What sense did death make?
Seri didn't worry. He had all the time in the universe to figure it out.
They say that a shadow stalked the halls of the Withered King. They say that it stole the flesh from his back, the sight from his eyes. They say that it lurked behind his throne and laughed. And his monsters went missing one by one. His metal men were freed. His forges were silenced. His orders were undone and works were unmade. And when he could take it no more, the Withered King ended his thousand year reign by walking into the sea.
It brought him no relief. Seri took him anyway. He plunged his spear into the king's head and took his soul.
There was a poetry in that.