A DREAM AT THE END, OR WAS IT THE BEGINNING?
The darkness rises above me as a tidal wave, rank upon rank of the blighted enemy: a motley, malformed army of nightmares beyond count: ceaseless, ruthless, unstoppable. The terror I feel before their unholy violence threatens to choke me, to stop my heart dead in its beat. Against all sense and reason, my arm rises time and again, my mace heavy in my numb, stinging hand…all my mortal will is spent just holding my grip upon it in the face of such horror. I dare not let myself rest, a surcease in this moment could only result in my death. And she needs me….she needs my will, she needs my steel. Fatigued, wounded, covered in, and near blinded by the stinging black blood of the enemy, with my nostrils full of the unbearable stench, I turn my gaze to her, hoping to refill my vessel with faith and hope…and it works. It always works.
She is beautiful, in much the same way as a raging fire is beautiful, or a lightning storm, or a volcano. She inspires awe rampant in me…beyond the love, and the infatuation. We are all infatuated with her. She is our creator, our saviour….our salvation. But what is remarkable is how easy it is to forget just what she is….in times of quiet and peace, she appears to the eye to be nothing but a young girl: of no more than 18 years; with a willowy, slight build; long, straight, white-blonde hair, a comely, winsome aspect and blue eyes full of love, wisdom and compassion. But here, on this field of battle, the FINAL battle, you see what she truly is: she is power, and grace eternal…she is The Avatar of the Light. She is Apocalypse: Revelation in the ancient tongues. Wreathed in cleansing white flame, so hot and bright that it threatens to burn the faithless to ash just to look upon her. Fighting with her spear Dawnbringer in one hand and a benediction in her other: praising her holy soldiers to steel their hearts against the profanity of the Halls of the Endless, she knows neither fatigue nor surrender, and her bond is to her children. ALL of her children. She is oathbound to provide the time that the last four of her Archons, including my mistress Phanaia, need to complete their sacrifice and become the shield that guards the walls of reality. The Empress does not expect to survive….but how could we ever live without her?
The thought raises a new fear in me: that even though the fear radiating from the monstrous horde before me threatens to take my heart, the fear of losing her is even more painful. And so my arm rises again, smashing the skull of a horrid shadow with the face of an infant and tentacles of fathomless black. Formless aeons of infinite sadness envelop me, and I scream a fervent prayer to my Empress, light arcing along the line of my comrades, slicing the shadows with blades of pure holy light. I feel claws wrap around my ankle, halting my move forward along the line, and I see St. Michael slash the hand free, red mane and trim beard matted with gore and ichor. We rally together, with St. Yeshuel, against a wall of sentient blood. We barely break stride to cut down the horrid Shedim with holy flame so we can rush in vain to rescue St. Caicanar, his inhumanly muscled chest heaving in a mortal grapple with the terrible demon lord Jhaharadin. I feel the scream leap from my mouth as one of the demon’s many arms slides the Blade called Gluttony into Caicanar’s noble heart, drinking his soul. In the split moment of drunkenness whilst Caicanar’s mighty soul flowed from the cursed knife into Jhaharadin, we rush him and cut him down in a flurry of steel and ire. But Yeshuel is lost….brave Yeshuel, who never bowed to fear and always raised a shield to defend the weak. St. Michael, glorious commander, turns to face Gothriel’s consort Urmakastikorrianiss, who is called Leviathan, Mother of Horrors, great Queen of the Deepest Waters, just as our Empress locks blades with Azakariel, The Grand Marshal of the Army of Endless Edges. His visage fills me with dread….is he 20 feet tall? Or 20 times 20 feet? The air and light warps around him as he savages the field. Pits of nothingness lie in his spoor, each step of his cloven black feet rending reality and leaving only death behind him. The fallen of our number wake as mindless dead behind him, their eternal rest stolen away from them by his fell power. I freeze in terror as I behold his face….he is endless darkness within and without, and he reminds me of what I am: naught but a weak, fleshy worm…a maggot, feasting and trying to grow fat on his leavings. I am nothing before him…how could I have thought to face this? The only option is to turn and run. Or to throw down my weapons and beg for death.
And then I see her again: my Empress. My sole solace. She fights on, expecting to die, her spear flashing with hope. And as I feel my heart lighten, I see him skulk behind her: Saraiel…his very name a curse. The Betrayer. He who broke Panegal. He who opened the gates to the Enemy. And then I’m rushing towards her, screaming a shrill warning in a voice I scarcely recognize. I fell 1, 2, 5, 10 opponents, in as many heartbeats, and I’m running, faster than I ever have before….but every step feels like a step away from her. I bound up a mountain of corpses and fling myself into the air, arm raised to strike, seemingly hanging for an eternity as she bravely faces the monstrosity before her…I see the Betrayer slip behind her, so smooth, so slow, so cowardly, and then her scream. Time freezes. Infinity stretches out before me. I fly through a miasma of Sanguis Sacer Imperatricis and my sadness overwhelms me as she falls. I raise my shield against Azakariel’s killing blow to her and feel his blow shatter my arm, pain beyond pain. I feel my very soul reverberate within me, struggling to break free from my foolish flesh that imperilled it to death eternal. He raises his arm again, and again time freezes: I see around me my dead and dying brethren, those who yet draw breath fighting on, on and on, with hope and faith. They do not falter. St. Michael, that valiant soul, thrusts his long, strong sword into the eye of Mother Leviathan, a gout of the endless abyssal ocean shooting forth, and her agonized roar rattles the foundations of creation as her measureless tentacles and thousand gaping mouths flee back into her black queendom, with Michael’s sword still embedded in her foul gaze. I see sweet St. Anne and radiant St. Alia leading a contingent of Exalted against the Black Prince Gothriel and his army of wraiths, twin beacons of holy light driving back an unstoppable sea of undeath. And I see St. Gaius, St. Vicius and St. Thorne mob Saraiel with tears in their eyes for their fallen mistress, swearing oaths of vengeance against the hated Betrayer, only to fall to Saraiel’s swift blades. Their courage shames the fear I feel in my heart, and I renew my vow with my blood and heart, ‘til my ending.
But most of all, I see him before me, The Architect of Death, The Lord of the Shifting Host, The Grand Marshal of the Army of Endless Edges: Azakariel the Hunger. He who the Eldest appointed to break the Upstart Empress and destroy her Throne. And I know my life is over. I meekly raise my broken shield and arm against an unstoppable force, and prepare for the end, his black, flaming breath stealing the air from me and hungering for my very soul. And then, suddenly, with no warning, all grows silent and still: until the sky bursts forth with blinding light and flame. The very earth shakes and great tidal waves, coupled with blasts of lightning arcing from above, crash into the hordes of the enemy. The endless ranks of the Shedim scream and writhe, burning in the radiance of the new Lighthouse upon the walls of eternity, or falling into the great crevasses that open in the firmament. The final four Archons have succeeded, and sacrificed their very souls in defense life itself. I utter a small, silent prayer of thanks in my heart for all four of them, but foremost for Phanaia, river-maiden, who honoured me by calling me to her service.
Azakariel recoils from the light, and his arm rises to smite my Empress…but though my fear threatens to choke me, I can’t allow it, so I throw myself in the path of his blow and brace for the end. But I feel her beside me, and her slender arm rises one last time. Dawnbringer finds its mark, and Azakariel screams in pain. Saraiel, wounded but still victorious against my comrades, pulls Azakariel screaming back into the shelter of the Endless Night as the shattered remnants of Panegal are cast back into the light of day.
What a cost we have paid…The Empress lies in eternal sleep, the Archons are all destroyed, except the Betrayer, fully half of the Exalted lie dead or worse…and the world is forever broken.
We are the inheritors of a dark destiny. I wake up every night screaming in terror with the memories of those darkest of days. And I light a candle every single morning in honour of those we lost. We will weather it, because we must. We carry the legacy of life in the face of endless death, and we will not falter.