That One Time I Went on a Quest

Shadow of the Apex

Watching the scene unfold is like being audience to some obscure and nonsensical play about dragons and heroes; none of it seems real.

The bearded dragon towers over the field, its head a battering ram of bronze scales and ash-encrusted teeth. A yellow-tinged cloud, thick with the stink of sulphur, blows out of its nostrils with every breath.

The voice of Rutherford, a guttural drawl thick with cackling ember, is that of thousands of voices speaking at once.

'Long have I waited.'

'Long have I dreamt of the silence and craved it.'

'I see you, herald of fire, and behold a body of ash, crumbling, reeking of anger.'

Kathanhiel walks forward and, empathically, comically – even though it doesn't look funny at all – levels a punch at the dragon's flank. A dull thunk.

'I've not come to listen to your rambling.'

A phlegmy choking sound escapes the dragon's lips. Laughter.

'The Dark has tainted your heart, you who is meant to break it.'

'Yet it matters not, for our fates are hewn in stone: to madness shall this mind succumb, as it has countless times before, and by fire the herald shall set it free.'

A sudden jet of flame bursts from Kaishen's tip and engulfs a nearby corpse, setting it alight. Flashes of white run up the blade like glares in a mirror, fast and blinding.

Kathanhiel raises it to her face. 'Soon,' she whispers, 'one last effort for your girl, what do you say?'

The sword calms, if such a thing is even possible, and as its glow simmers down to a gentle red the flashes fade into obscurity. They are not gone, only blending seamlessly into the metal, pretending to be reflections.

Again the dragon laughs, booming and eerily lustful.

'The sword of Ush'Ra grows restless...it knows what must be done.'

'It knows nothing because it is a weapon,' says Kathanhiel with bitter mockery. 'You're going to give me your head, and that's going to be the end of it. That's what we both want.'

The dragon shakes from the tip of its tail to the tendons on its jaws.

'What sorrowful denial. Strike me down, for vengeance, fate, or for naught – all are meaningless, for ere the rise of the new sun I will return, and the cycle will begin anew. There shall be no end.'

'But the sweet respite of that brief twilight – silent, serene, filled with light unending – that is to die for!'

Rutherford pauses.

'Alas, such meagre salvation means nothing, for I am eternal, immortal, freed of the blessing of death and cursed to roam the skies forever. The heralds come, they strike me down, the heralds come, they strike me down...yet The Dark remains, and with it the gnawing madness.'

'Dim are the days of Elisaad, of Allarissa before him, of Tiranus before her, of the world that was drowned in fire, then swallowed in ice. The face of dear Ush'Ra is but a mask of grey, featureless, impenetrable.'

'Memories, fear, anger, love...the winds of the mountains have carried them away, never to return. In their place there is only The Dark.'

'Deny your fate, pitiful Kathanhiel; struggle, for that is your wont. I have seen your heart, and it is empty.'