Light in the Darkness - Karavakos II
Every hellish day that passes in this place brings more fragments of memory, more hints at what I once was, at how I came to be here. As the blood of both my foes and my allies spatters the walls around me, it all comes back.
I am not a king. I never was. This I have only realised now, as the old feelings come back, as I have a soldier who bends to my will and jumps to my orders. I was not the regent, only the sharp end of the true lord's sceptre. I was the tool, the general who cut a swathe of blood at my master's command. The crown was merely the promise, the lure that drew me into the dark, the dream that swallowed me in nightmare.
Harkill is a born follower. I call a word and he acts, with sweeping scythe and billowing flame and blinding light. Were he on the opposite side of a battlefield, I would turn all my powers to his destruction before he slashed and burned my minions to bloody ash. As an extension of my will he is the perfect, living weapon. How long he will continue to follow my orders without question I do not know, for he seems too wise to put himself in such great peril for at the orders of another. For the moment, however, I will exploit his glibness and his misplaced concept of nobility in this most ignoble place for as long as he continues to cede to my instructions.
Vondal is another story. With every step, it seems that he grows more hostile. I sometimes suspect it is only his desire to preserve the fleshy coffin of his departed friend Akmenos that prevents him from turning his axe on me. It was necessary to remind him that I have the power to make his life a misery of blood and scorched flesh, should I so choose. But more on that later.
We entered a part of the labyrinth that was more like a giant throat than a corridor, and were set upon by beasts of claw and tentacle. As they fell around us, the walls suddenly closed in and the air turned to acid. Through a haze of agony we fought through to the secret lair of the bizarre creature that had come to inhabit these halls, the being which was trying to digest us alive. It was during this battle that I perceived Harkill's usefulness. While Vondal in his cowardice called a retreat, the others pressed on at my command to uncover the source of the destructive gases, and between us we destroyed the pumping heart of the twisted creature. Covered in gore, we pushed on.
I remembered then how it used to be, the ranks of soldiers pushing forward at my command, blades high, the blood pumping in my ears. I remember the hand of my master at my back, the feel of his power. And I remembered her eyes. The way she would try not to look at me. I knew the taste, once more, of treachery, though the memory of her true betrayal eluded me. I recalled all the lies, and the desolation of being cast aside. I remembered why I had to find Karavakos, why I had to destroy him. And why she had to die with him.
And then we saw him.
A shimmering image, his face, that face. The face of my master. The face of my betrayer. The one who promised me a world, a crown, and cast me into eternal blackness.
I rushed at him, only to stagger through the phantasm as he taunted us and vanished. Howling winds swirled past and we realised we were not alone in the chamber, for a mighty abomination of limbs and heads stood in the centre of the vortex, and screamed. Every face, the face of my betrayer. Every howl, the voice of my nemesis. I rushed into the battle even as Enna met the beast face to face ahead of me. Rage suffused me, filled my every pore. This abomination was Karavakos, but more than Karavakos. It was his every aspect; the greed, the madness, the horror. As the winds tore at us and the monster's limbs smashed and hurled us about, I could only see through a haze of bloody vengeance. For a moment I lost my usual calm and threw myself into the battle without care for this borrowed body, for its frail limbs, its evanescent clutch on mortality.
Pain returned me to my senses as the beast's power threw me across the floor, and I remembered my true role. I am the general, the commander, the lucid eye, the voice of reason. I retreated to the fringes, watching my soldiers stumble and fall one by one in the middle of the battle. They were expendable. Nothing mattered except killing Karavakos, even if this was only a twisted reflection of what remained of him.
I rained fire and lightning down on the battle. Vondal's cries of anger and pain mingled with the screams of the abomination - Karavakos's voice, raised in a screeching chorus as it twisted under the arcing brilliance of my power, the power of Orcus, the power that the man himself had awoken me to so very long ago. How the tables shall turn.
Even through his pain, Vondal dealt the killing blow. He is, after all, my Executioner. It matters not that he may have died, nor that Harkill lay in a pool of blood, near death. No price is too much to pay so that the great betrayer shall fall. Of this, I will make certain. Vondal must remember this. If he does not then he will also fall, when the time comes.
Because that's how Thrullzon rolls.
I am not a king. I never was. This I have only realised now, as the old feelings come back, as I have a soldier who bends to my will and jumps to my orders. I was not the regent, only the sharp end of the true lord's sceptre. I was the tool, the general who cut a swathe of blood at my master's command. The crown was merely the promise, the lure that drew me into the dark, the dream that swallowed me in nightmare.
Harkill is a born follower. I call a word and he acts, with sweeping scythe and billowing flame and blinding light. Were he on the opposite side of a battlefield, I would turn all my powers to his destruction before he slashed and burned my minions to bloody ash. As an extension of my will he is the perfect, living weapon. How long he will continue to follow my orders without question I do not know, for he seems too wise to put himself in such great peril for at the orders of another. For the moment, however, I will exploit his glibness and his misplaced concept of nobility in this most ignoble place for as long as he continues to cede to my instructions.
Vondal is another story. With every step, it seems that he grows more hostile. I sometimes suspect it is only his desire to preserve the fleshy coffin of his departed friend Akmenos that prevents him from turning his axe on me. It was necessary to remind him that I have the power to make his life a misery of blood and scorched flesh, should I so choose. But more on that later.
We entered a part of the labyrinth that was more like a giant throat than a corridor, and were set upon by beasts of claw and tentacle. As they fell around us, the walls suddenly closed in and the air turned to acid. Through a haze of agony we fought through to the secret lair of the bizarre creature that had come to inhabit these halls, the being which was trying to digest us alive. It was during this battle that I perceived Harkill's usefulness. While Vondal in his cowardice called a retreat, the others pressed on at my command to uncover the source of the destructive gases, and between us we destroyed the pumping heart of the twisted creature. Covered in gore, we pushed on.
I remembered then how it used to be, the ranks of soldiers pushing forward at my command, blades high, the blood pumping in my ears. I remember the hand of my master at my back, the feel of his power. And I remembered her eyes. The way she would try not to look at me. I knew the taste, once more, of treachery, though the memory of her true betrayal eluded me. I recalled all the lies, and the desolation of being cast aside. I remembered why I had to find Karavakos, why I had to destroy him. And why she had to die with him.
And then we saw him.
A shimmering image, his face, that face. The face of my master. The face of my betrayer. The one who promised me a world, a crown, and cast me into eternal blackness.
I rushed at him, only to stagger through the phantasm as he taunted us and vanished. Howling winds swirled past and we realised we were not alone in the chamber, for a mighty abomination of limbs and heads stood in the centre of the vortex, and screamed. Every face, the face of my betrayer. Every howl, the voice of my nemesis. I rushed into the battle even as Enna met the beast face to face ahead of me. Rage suffused me, filled my every pore. This abomination was Karavakos, but more than Karavakos. It was his every aspect; the greed, the madness, the horror. As the winds tore at us and the monster's limbs smashed and hurled us about, I could only see through a haze of bloody vengeance. For a moment I lost my usual calm and threw myself into the battle without care for this borrowed body, for its frail limbs, its evanescent clutch on mortality.
Pain returned me to my senses as the beast's power threw me across the floor, and I remembered my true role. I am the general, the commander, the lucid eye, the voice of reason. I retreated to the fringes, watching my soldiers stumble and fall one by one in the middle of the battle. They were expendable. Nothing mattered except killing Karavakos, even if this was only a twisted reflection of what remained of him.
I rained fire and lightning down on the battle. Vondal's cries of anger and pain mingled with the screams of the abomination - Karavakos's voice, raised in a screeching chorus as it twisted under the arcing brilliance of my power, the power of Orcus, the power that the man himself had awoken me to so very long ago. How the tables shall turn.
Even through his pain, Vondal dealt the killing blow. He is, after all, my Executioner. It matters not that he may have died, nor that Harkill lay in a pool of blood, near death. No price is too much to pay so that the great betrayer shall fall. Of this, I will make certain. Vondal must remember this. If he does not then he will also fall, when the time comes.
Because that's how Thrullzon rolls.