Prologue: Death

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What comes after death?

He had often pondered the question, but the answer always eluded him. Only the dead would know, and what kind of fool seeks death? “Ah, but I am a fool…” he thought with a chuckle. The sudden humorous thought was quickly overshadowed by the overwhelming pain that spread throughout his body.

Coughing up some blood, he managed to use the last vestiges of his strength to prop himself up against something. He looked around, but was unable to see clearly with his blurred vision. However, he knew what surrounded him. He had not lost his sense of hearing and smell yet, and the moans and groans of the dying, as well as the strong, metallic smell of blood reminded him of what had happened. “How did it come to this?” he asked, his mind flashing back to recent events.

He had been a hero to his people, a battlemage of the highest order, skilled in both magic and close combat. An existence since the birth of his race, the Ely (pronounced Ee-Lie), he was their immortal protector, always there in their times of need. No one knew the secret to his immortality, not even him. Perhaps their Creator had blessed him, some thought. Others who thought lesser of him theorised that he had practised forbidden magicks to achieve it. He thought they were petty and envious of his power, and paid them no mind.

Then they came. He had been at the far edges of the country when a dimensional rift was torn open in the middle of the capitol city. Horned demons marched out in huge numbers, slaughtering millions of innocents and defiling their bodies. The dead were piled up and burnt, and vile chants of magic caused the survivors’ hearts to tremble as they waited for death. Apparently it was a ritual of the worst kind, in an attempt to summon their god.

They failed of course, since he had managed to make it back in time to interrupt the ritual before it could be completed, though three cities had been lost to the warmongering monsters in the time it took for him to rush back. He slew the demons, singing a song of hope to combat their vile chants and rouse his people from their fear. As the bodies of the demons burnt, he stood guard over the rift while his kin rebuilt themselves, so that no more demons could come through to terrorise them.

As his kin wept for the deaths of their loved ones, he wept with them. Rage followed grief, and his race demanded justice, retribution and revenge. Their rage moved him into action, and he led the charge through the dimensional rift, whereupon his wrathful kin unleashed their fury. Only the last city in the demons’ world was left when his kin had calmed down enough to hear the other side of the story, and it shocked them.

The demons – or Gar’nash as they called themselves – that had invaded their world were basically cultists and renegades, spurred on by the teachings of their god, Shaitan the Damned One, whose worship was forbidden in Gar’nashian society. The cities that his people had burnt, and the lives they had cut down in the name of revenge were civilian, innocent lives. They were no better than the cultists that had invaded them.

The truth was harsh, and many refused to believe that they were murderers. They refused to blame themselves for their actions, and so they looked for another to push the blame onto. “Who else but him?” they thought. It didn’t help that those who disliked him raised their voices in agreement, swinging public opinion against him. Their immortal hero and protector, who had not so long ago defended them from the jaws of death, was now regarded as the scum of the Elyians.

He went along willingly when his people came to capture him, and didn’t resist when they chained him like a common criminal. He listened to their cries of “Murderer!”, “Villain!”, “Monster!” and similar curses to his name, and he remained silent. He saw their looks of disdain and lowered his eyes. They raised their fists against him, striking him to the dirt, and he simply pushed himself to his feet without any retaliation. He didn’t understand why his kin were doing this to him. All his life he had done his duty without rest, and now his own people were turning against him.

It wasn’t until the day of his execution that he snapped. Hundreds of thousands of Elyians had come to witness the fall of their hero, and it was hardly silent as the priest read him his last rites, with many in the crowd still cursing his name loudly. As the executioner raised the axe, he felt his rage and indignation overtake him. He had done everything for them, but what had they done for him?

With a loud bellow of anger, he pulled the chains holding him down out from their attachments (not that they were capable of restraining him anyway). Swinging the chains around, he decapitated the executioner and sent the priest flying, the latter certainly as dead as the former when the body landed meters away. Jumping down from the platform, he swung the chains around him without mercy, killing those in the crowd unfortunate enough to be near him in droves. Blood splattered onto him as the chains tore people in two, and his silence only added to his terrifying visage.

“If they want a monster, I’ll give them a monster!” he roared in his mind as he continued the massacre.

The slaughter only stopped when he laid eyes upon a child. He knew the child; he had rescued the child’s parents during the invasion. It slowly dawned on him that the child’s parents might have been in the crowd, and he was right. He had killed them during his rampage, and their broken bodies now lay beside the poor kid. The child, who before had looked upon him in adoration and admiration, now only looked at him in fear and terror.

“What have I done?” he whispered in disbelief as he fell to his knees. There he remained as his kin streamed past him, running from him with terror in their eyes, and there he remained when the royal guard fell upon him with their blades and smote him with their magic, before leaving him for dead, as was befitting for a traitor like him.

As the light in his eyes dimmed, he realised that he had been propping himself up against a body the whole time. “Maybe you can tell me what happens next…” he mused weakly to the corpse, taking his last breath and closing his eyes for the final time.

What comes after death?

His last thoughts asked a familiar question he had no answer to. Yet now, the answer was so very close.

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“So ends the tale of Elias of Ely, hero and immortal protector of the Elyians, and ultimately, traitor to all he held dear. May he suffer for all eternity for his treachery.”

- History of Ely, on the Year of Massacre

“The Cult of Shaitan invaded their world and killed their kin to try and summon the Damned One. It is fortunate that the ritual failed, but what they brought upon us could be said to be comparable in scale. Their actions called upon us the fury of the White Death, who razed our towns and slaughtered our people. May his soul ever burn in the Halls of the Damned One for the suffering he wrought on our kin.”

- Autobiography of Shi’va, 25th Queen of Gar’nash