1: Ten Thousand Whispers

Ten thousand whispers filled the halls of the citadel, each one an echo of a voice long since dead to the merciless pace of time and death.  More easily audible were the voices of those still alive within the ancient halls.  Some spoke in hushed tones, plotting plots that would never see the light of day, and some laughed boisterously at the latest and greatest dirty joke to make its way to the bastion.  Life for the citizens of the gargantuan structure continued as normal in nearly every hall and room.  But, down in the deepest depths of the nearly impenetrable citadel, lay a room filled with ten sorcerers, and a man lying somewhere betwen life and death.  Still, even so far removed from all other life, the distant sounds reached them, and layered beneath the voices came the chilling sounds of water endlessly making its way between the cut stones of the fortress, crawling with gravity to the huge lake beneath the foundations.

A drop of water, filled with bacteria, had actually taken nearly fourteen thousand years to pass through the full height of the keep.  It’d landed atop the fortress just a week after the final capstone had been put in place, and it’s journey was mere minutes from its end.  But not a being in the room cast a glance at the ceiling of the room, and none bore witness to the emergence of the single drop of water, and, even if they had, not a one of them could put any level of significance to it.  The ten standing people had their attention focused on the prone figure shackled firmly atop the large slab of intricately carved marble.

“Kill him now, and be done with it all, Gil.  He’s not the man we knew.  Not anymore.”  All eyes turned to regard the figure who had spoken.  She didn’t falter beneath their scrutiny.  “He may have been unwilling, at first, but none could fail to see what he did in the latter half of the war.”

“Eidra, you forget who he is, clearly.  No spell we can weave, no blade crafted of this earth can kill him.”  Gil remained silent, and motioned for the stout figure to continue.  “Not even you, and your elven spell casters, were able to withstand his assaulting forces when he didn’t want you to.”

“Be that as it may, Dulniosh-Gra, but we can’t just let him remain.  Even you dwarves weren’t safe within your mountain cities.  How many did he sack, simply to prove a point?”

“Be silent, Indarn.  We all suffered equally.”  All eyes turned towards the figure at the head of the slab.  “You all seem to forget, though, that we have had him in this place three times, already, and each time he managed to survive our best efforts, and come back stronger than before.”  The sorcerer laid his hands down on the slab, leaning on them as he looked at each of them in turn.  “It’s by the purest luck that we managed to incapacitate him long enough to give him those shackles, and slip the bindings about his neck and ankles.  But, even with those, the forces within his body seek freedom, and our end.”

“So, clearly, the best solution is to kill him.  Not in the classical sense, but to encase him in molten lead, and leave him here to stew.  No wizard can undo the work of another, after all, and with each of us adding to the binding, there’s nothing he can do about it.”

“Eidra, please, unless you can come up with something feasible, remain silent.  I’ve already come up with a solution.  One that came at a cost far greater than anything I’d like to admit.  One that cost not only myself, or the humans of the realm, but all races and peoples of the world.”  Gil placed upon the marble slab several candles he had within his robe.  “These six candles each contains the single part of a spell the likes of which I cannot fathom.  Even glancing at them with my second sight blinded me to the flow of th’aum for nearly a month.”

“By the gods, Gil, what have you done?”  Pav’n stepped closer to Gil as he looked towards the candles, his hand seeming to ripple across some invisible surface as he reached to touch them.

“I made a deal with the gods.  One that solves this problem for eternity.”  He placed each candle an equal distance from the center, each one standing in a small depression in the stone.  I didn’t help in any of the past three battles since I was not present mentally, but in a heated debate with several of the greater powers.”  As he placed the final candle in its spot, they all burst to life, each one burning a different color.  “It’s entirely true that we can’t kill him.  No force on this planet, save for unfiltered th’aum, can truly do him harm.  And that won’t work because of his beast blood.  We may have slain the creator, but it is the creation we should’ve feared.”

Despite the roaring flame above each candle the wax neither melted nor deformed.  Each of the sorcerers moved to their intended place, guided by the words of Gil.  The figure on the slab moved a bit more vigorously as he came to awareness, and he tried to sit upright, nothing but the will of the ten other beings keeping him down.

“Stay still, Gelregod.  Powers greater than even your own keep you in place.”  Gil’s voice carried a strange tone, as if several other beings were speaking the same words from his mouth at the same time.  “No force defies the will of the gods of this realm and another and lives.  Not even you.”

The prone man felt the silver shackles about his body grow tighter, their edges burning his skin and sending spikes of agony along his body.  A scream of pain ripped from his lips as the forces within his body compelled action against his captors.  In a display of perseverance, he rallied against the demonic forces, bringing his body under his control.  He tried to speak, but he found no words could escape his lips, and he began to cry softly.

“Gelregod, you stand accused of the most heinous crimes we can set against you.  The gods themselves hold you accountable, and through this vessel your punishment shall be carried forth.”  One of Gil’s arms dropped towards the candle before him, and as his hand connected with the flame, it shifted from a yellow hue to a chilling blue before all the other candles followed suit.  As one they began moving towards the figure on the slab, and soon they began weaving an intricate pattern above him, caging him in a field of magical flames.  “Though tainted with the blood of all were-kin, you, Verinax, are innocent of all crimes.  Gelregod used you as his vessel, at his death, and so his crimes are not your own.”

A small tremor ran through the circle at those words, as the other sorcerers faltered upon hearing those words.  The tremor was barely noticeable, yet its presence was there to see.  Gil noticed it before it could exceed the thresholds allowed in the spell, and he quickly corrected the barriers.  “Though innocent in all things, you cannot be permitted to remain here, amongst the people’s of the world.  For too long you have contained within your body the essence of Gelregod and his countless demons and evils.”

Despite the shackles, the figure managed out a single scratchy syllable.  “No.”

“Gods and mortals alike need to make sacrifices, child, and this is yours.”

“Already sacrificed.  Alive three hund...  Hundred years.  Want...  Want die.”

“No, Verinax.  Were you to die within this world Gelregod would simply escape, and resume his campaign against the world.  It is for this reason that you will be giving up this world for another, to spare more death here.  Gelregod will be bound here, to a talisman buried ten thousand rods deep beneath our feet.  Sealed within a sphere of obsidian a league in diameter.  No mortal shall ever be plagued by him or his kind again.”  Gil began closing his hands, the cage surrounding the man shrinking slowly.  “You will be happy, where you are going.  Of this I made sure.  But, alas, there is but one more burden for you to bear, and I fear it is that one that will truly shatter your hopes, long since lost to the vagaries of time.”

Gil’s hands stopped closing when they were barely open, the cage fluttering mere inches above the prone form.  “You will never again be human.  The beast within you cannot be purged, and so it must be melded with.  Your mind, and its, will become one.  Speech, your mind, all your abilities, will be yours.  But the body will be mutable.  Always that of the king lycanthrope, but mutable to your whim.  And, with that body, the curse of longevity.  You will begin aging, child, but you still have countless seasons before you.”

“Not Verinax.”  The figure lifted his head against the weight of the will of the ten most powerful beings on the planet.  “Not anymore.  Someone new.”  His eyes closed as the field around him began closing in once again, the will of Gil faltering in the face of that of the gods.

When the field finally came into contact with his skin, there was a brilliant flash, and all ten were rendered blind for several long hours.  When sight finally returned, each looked to the altar to see that there was sign of neither candles, nor the prone human.  As the ten regained their composure, it was Eidra who finally spoke, shattering the eerie silence that had fallen upon the group, and the entire citadel.  “Gil, what was that cost you mentioned?”

And, unseen by any present, a single drop of water fell a dozen feet and splashed down on the marble slab, bringing, at long last, an end to a journey of just three miles that had taken longer than any recorded history could recall.  But, lo, every magical act has it’s ripples, and the drop of water, once fated to end its days upon a slab of stone, now falls, once again, into a new world, to play a part far greater than any it could be destined for in its home.

The scales are tipped.

Balance once possessed, now is lost.

Even the most determined observer, even the gods themselves.

All overlooked it.

Now, not one, but two, enter.

Equilibrium must Exist