Memories of a Stranger

The darkness within him was total. It was everything there is or ever was and ever would be. It filled him to the point of breaking with the seductive promise of power, and vengeance, and the guarantee of due recognition of his greatness. Like a wineskin overfilled, he struggled to hold it all in – to take on more and more of the dark energy until it felt like he might come apart at the seams; like he might crumble to pieces under its weight. And it was glorious.

His brother had broken under its celestial dark might; it had burned him to ash from within, leaving naught but an empty husk and powdered embers of wasted potential behind. But he was not his brother, and he breathed in more and more of the power that the dagger gifted to him until his very soul groaned and strained under the flood. The dancing serpent’s eyes at the edge of his vision narrowed to impressed slits at his effort, for They knew that They had finally found the proper receptacle for Their divine greatness. He was Their chosen and with Their gifts he would make Tiamat Herself tremble in fear.

And then, suddenly, it was gone.

It had started as a tiny mote of stubborn and disgustingly pure divine light in the midst of the darkness that roiled within him; a glowing orb that suddenly blossomed and grew and burned the blackness away until only stubborn sticky tendrils remained amidst the blinding light. A few dark fingers still clung frantically to the image of his brother’s corpse and those serpentine eyes, and the memory of that raw power, trying desperately to maintain some hold upon him. But it was no use, as the light in his mind grew white-hot and washed away those remaining strands of darkness in a storm of holy fire, taking with it the whispered promises they had made and leaving only ashen memories behind.

In a rage, Vashir turned his attention to his side and saw Arnia standing there with her hand on his leg and a mask of jealousy and greed fitted securely of her face. He countered her glare with one of pure rage as he drew back the dark dagger intent on ramming it into one of her hate-filled eyes; but the blade, which once screamed with unbridled power now felt cold, and still, and so very heavy in his hands. He spared a glance down at it and hardly recognized it, a slab of dull, lifeless metal. He hardly noticed when his fingers opened and the blade clattered to the ground at his feet where it lay like a weathered and worn monument to a long forgotten king; a bygone relic of the power wielded and lost and ultimately faded into obscurity.

His rage slipped from him like a shadow exposed to light, and in its place came foreign sensations of embarrassment and guilt. He looked back at Arnia and her visage had changed from jealousy and greed to a look of satisfaction and relief. Vashir searched about in his mind for the words to express this new place he found himself and at last settled upon, “Thank you. And I’m sorry.” The words felt thick and heavy on his tongue, as if his mouth had never made such sounds before and fought him in doing so now in an effort to preserve their perfect record.

“Welcome back, old friend,” Oni said from behind him. Vashir grunted in affirmation, grateful that his friends hadn’t turned from him when he was under the sway of that dark power, though he bristled slightly at the word ‘old’; not because it was a slur of any sort, but because it was how he felt in that moment: sickly, weak, and frail. It was almost as though that darkness had taken any sense of youth and vitality with it when it fled.

He wandered through the rest of the Dusk Mother’s crypt, dimly aware of the puzzles and traps that she had laid for them. They solved each with ease, clearly a testament to their chosen status. Vashir did not become aware of his surroundings again until he found himself in a cold, dark cave whose walls glittered with sparkling, shiny ice.

He looked around and saw that he was surrounded by strangers, yet somehow he felt he knew them still. A dwarf – with a beard nonetheless – bedecked in armor worth a king’s ransom with the strange owl, identical in every way to the one that had adopted Ixen months before in Raam, settled comfortably upon his shoulder. There was a plate clad woman who moved with surprising similarity to Arnia who bravely lead the way through the frozen catacombs, while a dashing scoundrel with David’s dark eyes moved silently by her side.

A rumble to his left announced the presence of a fourth companion, a monstrous beast more dragon than man, who scanned their surroundings with his cold, reptilian eyes. Vashir found his breath caught in his throat as he recognized this creature from that fateful day in the tomb; the day which brought the death of Selise and the birth of the White Rider; the monster in the tomb that had claimed Sora and Naga; the day that had birthed the Day of the Two Dawns. This was Rach. Not a desiccated undead monstrosity, but the creature himself in the flesh. The guardian of the black gem. What in the Hells is going on here?

As if in answer to his unspoken question, Rach turned to him and rumbled, “keep your head about you old man, lest you lose it like a leaf trying to stay afloat in a mighty river.” Then he smiled at him, a toothy grin full of razor-sharp teeth.

Old man? He did feel even older than he had earlier and he looked down at his hands and gasped. They were crooked and wrinkled, spotted skin burned and swollen by the sun, each finger adorned with a crown of dirty thick, yellow nails. He brought his gnarled hands up to his face and found a long white beard growing there and he felt the deep wrinkled lines on his face. A stranger’s face. What in Tiamat’s rage is happening?

He reached around in his mind for answers and found another’s memories there waiting for him. Recollections of love and loss; of madness and despair; of a solitary existence in a strange and watery world. There were other memories there too, closer to the front of his mind. Ones of a mission to save the world and maintain order, of heroes living and dead, and of a quest to prevent the reign of the Dragon Queen from coming to fruition. Their goal was all important, and it was suicide, doomed to failure. Vashir knew it in this moment, for his world had bore the brunt of their failure. But this man knew it too. Deep down, he knew their mission was folly but there was no choice but to try, and so they trudged on against impossible odds.

A deep, low, and guttural growl from ahead snapped him out of his reverie as a large white serpentine head snaked its way around a dark corner in front of them. Before them stood Nuatuhl Herself, in the scaly flesh – or at least one of her disciples – its mouth opened in a cruel smile that revealed rows of savage teeth as its cold eyes settled upon its quarry.

As the group fanned out to do battle with this creature of legend, Vashir marveled at their bravery and skill. In his time, they had run every time they had seen one of these creatures from a distance, but this group of heroes stood up to the challenge. Whether it was bravery or foolishness or a lack of any other choice, they suffered and fought because they knew the penalty for failure. Vashir watched from behind a stranger’s eyes with intent interest, soaking in the battle like a spectator with the best seat in the house, for he knew they would eventually need to face creatures such as these and he too knew the penalty for failure.