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[Darrien Church]

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Talon Skyfire, King of Sanctus, had for weeks now pursued his arch-nemesis, The Lich Lord Darrien Church. The Lich and the King stood as the last two known “living” Generals of a war that had been waged in Sosaria for countless centuries. It was a war that had cost these two men, like those before them anything they truly valued, sometimes by each other’s hands, by their own, by allies, by enemies or by divinities.

The King had in his years come to know the Order of the Ebon Skull and it’s masters well. Darrien Church was different, he was a mocking reminder to Talon and to those old enough to remember how powerful Oblivion truly was.

Darrien Church…never truly what Talon would have considered a “good” man, but he was once a man, free-willed, flesh and bone, he laughed, he smiled, he showed some compassion. They fought in the same united army in the Battle of Britain against The Skull once. Darrien stood, albeit indignantly at Talon’s wedding (never fully approving of The Queen of Stormhaven marrying a rather crass Stormguard) and then alongside two of the Governor-Regents as a confidant and advisor for their terms of office. Darrien’s book, “In Defense of the Virtues” and his professorship at the Moonglow Lycuem, all cruel nostalgic reflections of Oblivion’s corruptive and seductive powers.

So much blood on Darrien’s hands…the blood of M’reals, of Skyfires, Thorimers, Nazduins, Ne’sveti, Oryans and countless others by his own hands or by his orders maimed and tortured in rituals, murders and genocides.

This is why Talon Skyfire, King of Sanctus, squire to St. Aleph the Holy had made it his personal quest to see the last of Oblivion’s anointed on this plane destroyed in his lifetime.

Suddenly amid his thoughts the dark and dank icy cavern he stood in was suddenly flooded in bright and sacred light from the Paladin’s legendary sword “Ice”. The chamber faded away, Talon was falling yet entirely stationary…

And then…it was his family…his wife and his daughter smiling brightly to him from across the room illuminated like angels by the glow of his sword. Silhouettes manifested behind them, Aleph and Azriele, Elizabeth M’real the accursed Lich’s dead wife, James M’real, Dayel, Kronos and Malacite…they were all here.

Saidhe smiled warmly before moving gently toward the King and kissing him gently on the lips…he closed his eyes losing sight of her sparkling hazel eyes only to open them again and find two hauntingly bright green eyes who’s gaze he knew too well staring back at him.

Horror sized him as he pushed Darrien away from him. Hitting a cavern wall with some force, Darrien making a grunt of feighed indignation stood up briskly, pressing his slender gloved hands over the collar of his long velvet top-coat. His figure still morphing, his slender, almost feminine features and lavish clothing came into focus…this form like an overly perfect porcelain doll, not a day over twenty.

Talon drew his sword.

”You grow old and foolish Talon…do not presume I would come to you so vulnerable. Any sort of an attack on my person at this point would be rather ill-advised.’ Darrien, most amused, whispered through pursed lips.

The Lich Lord flicked his right wrist at Talon with the sort of exaggerated flamboyance that eclipsed Darrien’s mannerisms forty or so years ago. The King was paralyzed, frozen.

”You are far from home Majesty, here, in this place, I am god…” Darrien spat, his eyes flashing with entropic energy.

The scene suddenly shifted, a grand hall, the Citadel of Stormhaven as it was then, in their youth. Darrien sat legs crossed in the throne that had been Talon’s, his small figure dwarfed by it’s grandeur.


Talon stood suspended six feet or so off the ground…the hallucinations of his former friends, loved ones and mentors stood frozen their eyes filled with an inky blackness around the pair chanting methodically:

I am the thorn in the foot, I am the blur in the sight…
I am the worm at the root, I am the thief in the night…
I am the rat in the wall, the leper leering at the gate…
I am the ghost in the hall, herald of horror and hate…
I am the rust on the corn, I am the smut on the wheat,..
Working man's labor to scorn, weaving a web for his feet…
I am canker and mildew and blight, danger and death and decay…
The rot of the rain by night, the blast of the sun by day…
I warp and wither with drought, I work in the swamp's foul yeast…
I bring the plague from the south, and leprosy from the east…
I am the shrill cold spirit that chills the darkness…
I am the chaos that tears the stars apart…
You cannot escape me…
You cannot defeat me…
You can only embrace me…

The Lich Lord and the King of Sanctus’ eyes met and Darrien uttered a single word..

"Etheng."

To be continued...