A lapse of faith

The old man walked through the dark garden.

Black ivy clung to black trees lining the stone lane and hedges of grey flowers hung lazily down from their obsidian pots, slowly filling the air with dust-like spores. Geryon Yeed was thankful for his aged senses, so cloying was the sickly sweet perfume, and so ghastly the sight of skinless crows and crawling things. There was no sunlight here, and for all mortal consideration, no sky. Just a featureless ceiling of grey, with no points of reference and thus no sense of distance. The necromancer shuddered. He had seen much horror in his time, yet still this place phased him. He could sense the moment he had left the plane which Arcana inhabited, his spirit vanishing through the timeless, spaceless aether to a place beyond such limitations. He tried not to think of his prone body lying there in its soiled state.

All a sudden, he now felt that this place was real, and its familiarity eased him slightly. He hurried his pace through the garden of black roses where two skeletal lovers continued their dance macabre, pretentiously twirling and enjoying eternity, never tiring. And by the dark river the zombified children still played, desperately clinging on to their innocence and hiding from the wardens who sought them. Tragic creatures.

Pushing through a gate of dead thorns, Yeed came out from the maze and stood before a black castle. It seemed larger than he had remembered (or had he grown smaller?) He pulled his heavy cloak over his back and passed through the archway, ascending the winding staircase. The old man leant on his staff and hacked furiously, spitting on the floor and heaving. Losing a measure of time, he pushed onwards, upwards. When he reached the top, he paused for breath.

A cadaver stood facing him, perfectly upright in the dim light. She was clearly not human, towering twice the height over the Necromancer and sporting many unusually placed bones (and two noses). Not a shred of skin concealed the remains of her brown-yellow body, which slowly pulsed to the rhythm of her open heart. Her intelligent eyes turned to the old man and she smiled eerily. Yeed could barely bring himself to meet her glance, for such a creature he had never seen on Arcana.

'She has been expecting you.' crooned the giant, in a low voice. .

Geryon Yeed bowed, hoisting his weary bones upright with his black staff. 'I am honoured,

Mistress'.

She shrugged slightly. 'Come. We have much to discuss.'

The old man walked through the decorated hall, its passages lined with silent skeletal guards (who were also gigantic) stood like statues with their vast blades held to attention. A few hunched servants scuttled between the rooms, carrying mountains of scrolls in their arms or strapped to their backs. In one room a group of monks circled with great calm, shrouded in dark robes. Above, high above, a blackwing cawed in its nest and dark feathers fell to the ground below. Sounds of mirth echoed out from a ghoulish feast-trough. Then the halls became silent, but for a gentle wind.

The cadaver led the Necromancer into an obsidian chamber, which blocked all light. It was pitch black.. Yeed had the feeling that there was more to this place than it first seemed, and held a hand to his head. Suddenly, the dome-like roof peeled away to reveal the full vastness of the cosmos, and star-light flowed in. The cadaver smiled, every articulation of her face exposed.

'It is a magnificent sight, is it not?'

The old man nodded, 'It is. Yet I do not feel She invited me here to admire the spiralling suns.'

'They are part of the reason, yes. An introduction if you will. Do they not remind you of the sheer scale of the cosmos; the sum total of all pain and suffering, Master Yeed?'

He nodded his head, 'Often. I live with it, as I live with Her presence in my heart.'

'You will die with it too I imagine' the cadaver smirked again, 'And the other side of the hand – flourishing. Do you ever think of the sum total of all the joy out there; experienced by all of the races, on all of the planes, upon all of the worlds, by all of the individuals?'

'I do, Mistress. Though I feel little of the good in my dotage, and find it a distraction to my duties.'

'It is She who controls the balance of such things. She decides who will live, and how. She decides

who will die, and when. There is little room for mortal will in Her dooms.'

'You do good to remind me of Her power and my own impotence, Mistress.'

'Yet in light of these things you continue to fail Her.'

Geryon Yeed gazed at the black flagstones in shame. The silence was broken only by the thumping of the giant's heart. Catching his breath, the old Necromancer spoke.

'I do all that I can to serve yet...I feel shame. I am old, and my time is almost up. I fear I will die

with my task undone. What more could I have done to deliver Her way?'

'You doubt yourself. This disappoints me. Be grateful Her eye is poised elsewhere, for this

gives you a chance to explain yourself to me.'

'What might I explain, Mistress?' asked Yeed, now coming to question whether this giantess was some form of lesser god.

The cadaver picked an intrusive fly from between her exposed biceps and continued: 'In our first

meeting you proclaimed that total rule of Arcana was near, that it was ready to be absorbed wholly into Her realm once and for all. As you know, our reach in that plane is rather powerful, with few other major Gods to contend with. Yet when you called us nine centuries later from the black altar of Blackmire you proclaimed that your grip upon Arcana has weakened, that your little outpost was weak and that Her enemies had grown ever stronger, and more numerous.'

'Aye. We underestimated the unnatural ones, the Elydrim. They came through the gate and dominated Arcana three centuries after we first called you. Their hegemony lasted not long, and they fought among themselves in short order. Their kin-strife resulted in a vast explosion of magical force, a catastrophe which threw the balance out of all proportion. We thought that we might take them to task and redeem ourselves. Yet their forces were too strong; and allied with the Dragons (curse their name), and their immortal generals guided them with great resolution. We have not the Lore nor the power to subjugate them now, and our allies are few.'

'I do not underestimate the Elydrim for a moment. They plague many planes, and have no need to worship deities, such is their power. Yet they have not the Truth; Her truth, and thus they are gnats upon the cosmic hide. Has this poisoned you? Have you lost faith in Her way?'

'No I...yes. Perhaps I have. In which case, aid me Mistress!'

'Very well, but this shall be the last time ere I lose my patience and grant you true death,' she paused, and peered down at the small old man. 'I sense that you still enjoy the star-warmth upon your hide and the nourishment of fruit and mead, for you are still thinking through mortal blinkers. Your experience is very much subjective, and limits your ability to serve. Yet She is greater a being than any of us can fathom – she is objective. There is no warmth or nourishment for Her, nor is their pain or suffering; there is no Good and no Evil; there is no perspective from whence She sees, for She has no form; She has no will and ponders no choices, for all that She does is perfectly aligned with Her destiny. There is only Her task, and it begets no explanation: Her task is Her task, and She performs it for it is Her, and She is it. She is the balance between life and death, and all of the cosmos must move at Her whim. I believe you have lost faith Necromancer, I believe that you have become so involved in petty mortal affairs that you have forgotten how the metaphysical entwines with the physical. Release your hold on yourself, on your childish notions of morality, and allow Her to infuse all of your actions, and to fill the very breath in your lungs, to forget and give yourself utterly. Then, when She next comes to exalt or sacrifice you, it shall be without the slightest hesitation. My powers as a seer are limited, for I am a warrior at heart, yet I feel that you have already overstayed your welcome, and missed your first opportunity to give yourself wholly to Her; wholly to the cosmic balance of life and death itself!'

Geryon Yeed smiled and bowed low, prying himself back up with the force of his black staff, 'You

speak wisely mistress. Rest assured, when I return, the drums of war shall beat and the dead return

to life. This time I shall not fail Her. This time I shall give everything, my husk and my soul. We will sweep our foes away by the force of Her truth and restore the balance.'

'And Arcana shall be Hers, and I will assist you myself. And you, beautiful Master Yeed,' the cadaver gazed down at the gnarled old man with a sultry wink, 'shall be mine.'