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From Life to Death

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By Draconicon

Thenyr had come to the Mountains of Shadow to face the strongest threats to his god that he could find. The Thoradon had thought that he could handle them, as he had become one of the strongest clerics to his sun god that had ever been seen. He had fought hard, valiantly so, to get to that point, and had rid the central lands of the worshipers of death and their great monsters and supporters. He had thought that he stood a good chance of striking the death blow to their demi-gods, as well.

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

The avian cleric fought to the best of his ability on the rocky ledges against the forces of Vecna, his spear flashing in the lightning storm that had been summoned around him, and the golden disk of his god's church slapping against his chest. The zombies fell left and right around him, some falling to the ground and twitching, others incinerated in the holy power that he summoned against them. There was always more, always more coming to face him.

He narrowed his eyes at the robed figure that stood at the edge of the plateau, looking down from the mountain onto the world below. Vecna, the powerful lich that had become a god in his own right...

He must fall, he thought, spinning his spear and blocking the blunt-force blow of one zombie and spinning him into another one. The Thoradon pressed forward, vaulting over one group of zombies and flinging his hand back with a turning spell, incinerating them the way that so many of their brethren already had been.

"Vecna!"

His shout cut through the storm, and the robed figure turned. One-eyed and without one of his hands, the ancient lich still presented a powerful figure in the lightning storm. He didn't speak, but only smiled beneath the hood, a flashing dagger in his hand.

"I challenge you! Let me face you, one on one!"

It was meant as a show of bravado, nothing more, but the zombies stopped. Suddenly, they turned, stepping to the side and forming a corridor between him and the necromancer at the far side. He paused, his eyes narrowed.

Vecna chuckled, flicking his dagger a few times.

"You call out a challenge to a god, mortal. That is something that none can ignore."

"You take it up, then?"

"But of course. I fear no man."

"I carry not the might of man, but the might of my lord and protector!"

Thenyr lifted his amulet in one taloned hand, letting it glint in the lightning. It made some of the zombies pull back, but not many, and not Vecna.

The great lich chuckled, stepping forward slowly and tossing his blade from hand to hand. Knowing that he had one chance, Thenyr set himself, and waited.

And waited.

The lich didn't charge, as he had expected, but rather stood in place about twenty feet back. The cleric narrowed his eyes, suspecting a trick, but Vecna just didn't move. There was no move to attack, no attempt to cast a spell. Merely the occasional shift of the dagger from one hand to the other, the blade getting more and more slippery looking, more and more shiny in the falling rain.

Can't attack. He has barriers, and more traps, more than likely, he thought. I have to let him come to me. I have to outlast him.

Yet, the test of will continued, getting longer and longer with each passing second when neither of them bothered to move. He waited, his hands clenching tighter and tighter on his spear as he begged the god to come for him, to strike, but nothing happened.

If anything, Vecna seemed slightly bored, tossing the dagger back and forth more often. Every time, Thenyr was worried that it was going to be thrown at him, and his eyes were drawn to it, but it never happened. It was just another glint of light, nothing more threatening than that.

"Do you know what the worst thing about your church is, little bird?"

Vecna's question caught him off-guard, and he blinked.

"No..."

"It is the fact that you stand in sunlight, and become blind. It isn't enlightening to you, but stifling. Blinding. It takes from you any chance to see the world as it is, and only allows you to see it the way that they do."

"It is the proper way."

"It is the 'proper' way, for them. Not the right way."

The blade kept flashing, and he realized that he something was going wrong. He couldn't move, couldn't look away from it. His eyes were trapped as it flicked back and forth, no longer thrown, but just swaying as the god of death spoke.

"You see...you are already blind. You came to me, in my stronghold, and fought your way here. You shone light everywhere, burning bodies, killing monsters. And for everything that you did, for every creature that you slayed, you thought you were purging the world of dangers, leaving the threats in their graves, weakening me for the final confrontation.

"You know nothing."

The one-eyed god turned to him, and his eyes were finally drawn from the dagger to the single orb in Vecna's face. The god of death walked towards him, smiling, and Thenyr realized that he could no longer move. His body was rooted to the spot, unable to shift, unable to do anything but stare ahead.

No, stare into thatose eyes. His body was locked in place, and his attention was glued to that one eye-ball, which seemed to glow and shimmer.

"Every monster you killed fed me a soul. Every priest, every soldier, every zombie, fed me its soul when you finished it off. I took them, and each soul, little bird, has given me greater power. I grew stronger with everything that you killed. Do you understand me? You have not weakened me, or saved anyone. You have hastened the end of any that wish to oppose me."

He shook his head, trying to deny it, but even that was denied to him.

"Deny it if you like, but there is no denying facts. You have been an idiot from the start to the end. Your source of knowledge, your way of seeing the world was flawed, and now, you have come to the end of the road."

Vecna stood no more than a few feet in front of him, easily within spear range. He could stab forward, at least do something, but...but...

His head was fuzzy. There...there was something wrong in his mind. Something about staring into that eye, something about the things that the great god was saying. He...what was he doing? What...

"If you are going to strengthen me, little bird, you might as well be my servant."

Servant?

"You would give me souls, strengthen me by killing monsters."

But...but I...I'm not...

He groaned, trying to think, trying to look away so that he could have something besides that burning light in his eyes, scouring away his thoughts before they could form. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. He needed -

"It's no different from what you're already doing. The only difference will be that you'll be killing a different sort of monster. Not mine, but others. Wee Jas, perhaps, or the great beasts of Gruumsh and Lolth. You may kill them again, in my name, and feed me the souls that come from them."

Monsters...dying...

That, well, that was what he was supposed to do, but...

Thenyr could feel the wrongness there, could feel that he was slipping, but the holy cleric's thoughts would not form against the deep lights of Vecna's eye. He couldn't think, couldn't marshall a defense against the argument presented to him. All he could do was stare ahead, listening as he was told what he needed to do.

And the more that Vecna spoke, the more sense it made. He had failed to hurt this god, had only empowered him. He had...he had...

What was he supposed to do?

"Serve me, bird."

"Serve..."

"Serve me. As you have been serving me for years, though you didn't know it."

What resistance he had faded fast, and the burning eye took it further. He felt heat in his spear, and dropped it. It hit the ground, rolling down the incline as the Thoradon fell to his knees, talons scraping the rock as he fell further to all fours. He shivered and shook, lifting his eyes for some sort of answer.

The eye gave it to him, and so did the dagger.

It plunged into his back, cutting through armor and his heart, and severed him from life. It didn't hurt, but rather felt like an odd sense of relief as it cut through his body, and then twisted apart. His skin cracked, skeletal plates piercing through his skin and passing over his feathers and flesh as it ran down his body. Leather armor was replaced by bony plates, and his eyes faded, hollowing out in their sockets and turning into nothing more than a burning light.

"Yes...you will be my knight of shadows. My cleric of death."

Cleric of death.

The title sounded good to him. Thenyr slowly pulled himself back to his feet, feeling the blade slipping from his back. There was no blood. There was no heartbeat to pump it out. His mind was gone, given to the fires of the death god's eye, and replaced with the orders and secrets that were the great god's domains.

As the bones covered his chest, he felt an odd burning. He reached down, blue fire streaming out from the forming armor, and he held a strange disk in his hand. Thenyr looked at it for a moment, feeling it burn against his hand with pain and power, and then threw it away. It mattered not to him anymore.

As Vecna held his dagger before him, the bird reached out and laid his hand around the blade. He squeezed tight, and began to recite his oath.

"I pledge myself to the true Lord of Death and Secrets..."

The End