The Unity of Chaos and Order

Land of the Dead

There was no color in the Land of the Dead.

Even my own appearance had been drained of its usual saturation, becoming a muddled and indistinct disgrace to our nature. Drawing from the power of the Twins, I muttered a curse and channeled the energy through my body and clothing in what had now become an almost instantaneous transformation, straining the Chaos and Order from each other.

When that had finished, I looked up at the black metal gates in front of me. They had never been welcoming, designed to hold out the population of the dead from the grand palace. But now that one had been torn asunder, and the guards formerly flanking it now lay collapsed on the ground, colorless black blood wetting the stones, the smell of collapsed Order was so strong that none would dare to enter, and the smell was only thicker inside.

So of course I entered.

I stepped around the twisted iron, where more glistening black corpses greeted me on the ground. These had been soldiers of the highest quality, heroes in their time, gifted with new life by His Lord Death to protect this most ancient of Orders. Unbeatable. Even with my sword drawn I would struggle to unleash the flippant carnage decorating the inner courtyard. But of course, Death was not my domain.

In the center of the courtyard was a bone white tree, stretching out its clean white branches to the sky, the only remaining unmarred symbol of Order in this place, though a pile of corpses oozed their dark blood in one communal puddle at the base over its roots. It was good Unity.

 The doors to the palace had burnt down, leaving nothing but charcoal hanging from hinges. Massive stone columns lit with bright white torches marked the path down the throne room, but unlike the tree outside, many of the columns had been cracked or shattered, and for every crack there was another corpse lying on the once beautiful tile floor.

Each step stuck slightly to the floor, a deafening squish in an otherwise silent room. Slowly, my eyes followed the path of the room to its end, where the throne itself stood tall and proud, though no longer. For this was the source of the smell, the oldest Order of life, shattered in one moment and brought to the silent Order of nature.

The throne was over twenty feet tall, grown from the same kind of tree as in the courtyard for one of the Great Majority, Death. Death who, ironically, sat in his throne, slumped back, a pool of monochrome blood running from his chest onto the seat and down to the floor, his own sword impaled in his chest and through the throne from which he once ruled.

Standing beside the throne was a young woman, still living, dressed in all black, a scarf tied over her mouth, a hood covering her head, and a simple ceramic mask tied to her belt. She had been watching me the entire time.

"You carry the Twins?" She said.

I reached up over my shoulder and pulled the sword from my back. At my touch it awakened, no longer a simple piece of metal but a living beast, its duel nature reaching out and feeding on the combined carnage and structure of our environment, as well as my own internal conflict and resolve.

"We have much to talk about."