Listen.
The king waited. He had carved out pieces of his soul to create creatures of death and destruction, and still he waited. His castle had been reduced to ruin, and still he waited. His people, once so trustworthy and loyal, were bones ground to dust under the feet of monsters, and still he waited.
On the shores of the ocean of death, he waited.
When he had tried to return his wife from those lands, the ocean was merely a river. But as the death toll rose, the traveling souls crowded the waters, stretching the distance between the king and his love to infinity.
There was no boat that could cross the water, save one.
The boatman was as old as death itself. His hands were old and gnarled as trees, but he moved the boat effortlessly across the still water. His lidless empty eye sockets never wavered from straight ahead. There was only a single passenger in the boat, which paused at the shoreline for just long enough to see him depart.
Death stepped onto the shore beside the king. The king simply waited.
There was no gradual change in depth to the water. To step off the shore was to be submerged, sinking forever into the infinite depths.
The king had tried. He thought perhaps drowning would end his eternal life. He could reach the shoreline, but he could not take another step.
Death watched him like an old friend, or a new enemy.
"You have upset the balance," whispered the darkness that was death. "You have brought the end of the world."
The king waited.
"The kingdom of death cannot host this destruction." The outline of death, so shapeless and blurred, seemed to solidify briefly with certainty.
When he was mortal, the king could not have stood to look upon death's face. But now, soulless and immortal, he stared into something no human could survive. The color of his eyes burned away as he watched, always waiting.
"Collect the fragments of your soul from the abominations you created. When you have all of yourself, I will allow you to die." The formless death returned to the boat, and the boatman began to glide away.
The king turned his back on the ocean without a word, seeking the sunlight above. He had no desires, no wants, only the one sense of his own mission.
They say he collected the only magics left to him, fire and sunlight, things that burned without a soul to wield them.
They say he strapped his great sword to his hip, and stepped out into the world overrun by monsters.
They say he was the first Guardian.
YOU ARE READING
Sanctuary
FantasyI'm not an idiot. I know how the world works. People are born, they live, they die. But the problem is, if you believe the stories, sometimes they don't stay dead. Like me, for example. I made a deal with some supernatural beings to save the life of...
