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Confrontation | Chapter 7 →
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As I moved through the inky blackness, a sense of growing dread overtook me. I could feel a presence here unlike any I had ever before imagined. Something was living in that deep darkness, living and breathing, and it was seeking me out, seeking to consume me. How I knew this, I did not know, but I sensed it deep in the core of my being. My very soul reviled the thought of its content.
This dread alone should have been enough to send me running with all haste in the opposite direction, and indeed I intended to do much that very thing, yet I was frozen as a sense of growing panic overtook me. The chamber into which I had descended was filled with a haunting keening wail. Some part of me recognized that I was the trigger for that wail, that my coming into this place at this time had unlocked a sort of door. Even as I realized this fact, I was filled with a sense of odd detachment. The wail might have been started by me, but I was not its target.
The wail itself was musical in quality and I was at once terrified and awestruck by its dark beauty. The chamber opened up and for a moment it was as if I could see the sky outside rapidly move from day into night and I had this odd sensation that time was flowing rapidly away.... With this sense of detachment, there was also a sense of motion, and for a moment I found myself standing again among the Vandarian contingent in the city above, but the movement did not cease there and I was cast out and above the city.
Suddenly, I was standing in the middle of a battlefield. Commander Delnar and the Frogzard Knights were standing at the edge of the field and it was easy to tell that the Vandarian force was beating them back. The Vandarians, however, had taken heavy casualties for their efforts and neither side looked as if they would survive the battle much longer.
I watched in the distance and saw a man move from the camp in the armor of the Royal Derenian Guard. I immediately recognized the man as Delnar. He marched toward the front and shouted, "Parley! Parley!" a flag of truce raised, but even then the battle continued around them, the Vandarian contingent offering them no quarter.
Finally, night fell, and the Vandarians began a slow retreat to their camp. Only then did I see Feldar, the head of the Vandarian army, move from his command tent and cross to the front line. "Servants of the tyrant," he yelled dismissively, "we will destroy you! We will give you no parley nor quarter. We have already told you nothing less than surrender...."
Another voice to my side whispered, "Perhaps not even then," and I turned in surprise to see Darin, the man who I knew secretly ruled these forces by machination. I feared that he might see me, he was so close, but he seemed oblivious to my presence
As Feldar made his taunt, I became aware of a contingent moving slowly around the flank. They were fresh and clean and had clearly been spared from the day's fighting. The most obvious conclusion that could be drawn from this movement was that the Vandarians were preparing secretly for a covert attack after dark. Traditional battlefield honor held no interest to the Vandarian people, who were raping and pillaging the countryside and declaring themselves free of all tyranny.
The scene shifted and I was drawn along, following after Darin, who moved even quicker then I. We entered the city and, in surprise or some alarm, I saw him draw into the temple district, following much the same path that I had just moments ago. "Has he discovered me after all?" I wondered with some dread. But as he passed the wall that I had breached, I saw no door. It had not yet occurred to me to feel terror for being trapped in this odd place; I felt instead relieved that he could not reach me.
Still I followed him and watched as he entered the temple itself and then moved through the central courtyard that served all of the gods into the chamber of the Water Lord. He whirled through a series of passages at a dizzying rate, and when I finally felt myself still, we were standing in an odd room with rippling water. Darin was speaking... I could not hear his words, but I sensed them. He was communicating with the god of this chamber, the Water Lord.
He was a communicant of the Water Lord? The Vandarian warrior for freedom from enslavement who railed against the temples was a servitor of an elemental power? Surely Feldar knew nothing of this. I wondered how he would react to the knowledge. I decided it would not be favorably. While Feldar outranked Darin, I had no doubt that the man could use his influence to have Feldar replaced or worse.
Even as the image died, I was left with a sense of deep disgust. The Vandarian hypocrisy was amazing. They forced their ideologies upon all nations, but did not even follow it themselves. They had claimed to be working for equality, but the truth was apparent: the Vandarians had destroyed my nation for their greed....
I stood once again in that dark yet not Dark place and became aware that the keening had died in intensity, the song drawing to a slow and perceptible conclusion and the sound of many muttering voices filling my head.
"I can help you," a voice called, strong and clear, even as I railed against the Vandarian injustice. "Just agree and the Vandarians will be defeated. Let me show you the way...."
I did not know the source, but I was angry... too angry to be afraid, so I simply nodded and, in doing so, sealed my fate....
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