Far, far at the back, once the entrance had long vanished from view, she glimpsed another door. Before it stood one final statue, ten meters tall upon its pedestal. It was vaguely humanoid and grasped a long object that could have been a spear as easily as a staff or sword. It bore a strange resemblance to the statues of the Nameless Clan that Jorfr had shown her.
She circled it, approaching the door before which it stood, knowing that beyond it waited the Revenant King’s throne chamber. The doors opened at her coming, blown open from within by a gust of frigid wind. Their precipice could not be seen through, as if obscured by a wall of white fog. Zel stepped through and was met with a gigantic chamber, rendered entirely in ice, at its other end a throne the size of a building, and upon it a man of the appropriate stature. His skin was pitch-black like a Scorchlander’s, but not naturally so - it looked half burned, half tanned, as if he had stood in the most blazing of sunlight for centuries on end. Upon his boulder-like brow sat a horned helmet, long white hair and an equally long beard cascading out from it, only his nose and eyes properly visible, the lattter of which were closed.
Huge, metal pauldrons adorned his shoulders, glistening with slightly-off colours that betrayed their antediluvian nature, and much the same went for the armor which enclosed his torso. A loincloth of furs from some ancient monster girded his loins, and similarly furry knee-height boots protected his feet, and upon his wrists and fingers she saw many an arcane bangle and ring.
The twitch of a finger. Ancient eyes lazily drifted open, as blue as the ice sheets themselves, blazing with a light of the same colour. He looked down upon Zelsys, and it was as though an arctic wind smashed right through her. Even in this state of utter serenity, barely raising his arm to stroke his beard, the Revenant King’s presence was utterly overwhelming. She could barely stand, and indeed, chose to kneel before him. At that moment, she also realized that his skin wasn’t burned-black; waves of blue light flowed down his arms.
Litanies of strength, of protection, of rebuke against the divine’s influence, the ancient will of their maker still burning so keenly as to surpass language. It dawned on her that this was no charring, but old magic surpassing all others.
When he spoke, the winds of winter carried with each word and the frozen earth below shook, yet no sound came out; his speech reverberated inside her skull, just as easily imparting meaning and intent as the words that blackened his skin.
“YOU, TRUEBORN WARRIOR OF THE MOSAIC SOUL. YOU HEAR IT TOO, DO YOU NOT? THRONES ON THE MOUNTAINS, CALLING YOUR NAME. THUNDERING HAMMERS FORGING YOUR FATE. THE CALL TO CONQUEST. THE HUNGER TO IMPOSE ONESELF UPON THE WORLD. THE SAME HUNGER THAT DROVE ANCIENT MAN TO HUNT THE DIVINE LIKE THE DOGS THEY WERE.”
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Zel could just about muster a three-syllable response: “...So it is.”
“THEN STAND. I WOULD BECKON YOU TO SWEAR THE CONQUEROR’S OATH BEFORE I WOULD HEAR YOU, AND YET… I SEE THAT THERE IS NO NEED. YOU HAVE LIVED ITS TENETS TRUE, EMBODIED ITS PRINCIPLES. STAND, AND SPEAK. WHY IS IT THAT YOU HAVE MADE THE JOURNEY TO MY THRONE?”
“Your highness, I-”
“NO HONORIFICS, PLEASE. I CAN SENSE RESPECT, I HAVE NO NEED FOR VERBAL AFFIRMATION OF THAT WHICH I KNOW TO BE TRUE.”
“-I have accusations to level and requests to make, but first…”
She dug her fingers beneath her protective wrappings, liberating her Tablet and willing it to expel the miniature stone sarcophagus. Slowly, it rose up from the Fog vortex.
“...I render up this token, so that what is held within may be returned to the Borean people, and so that this act lends weight to the demands I intend to make of you.”
The Revenant King raised a hand.
With a twitch of his finger, a gale-force blast of wind yanked Zel’s tablet with the sarcophagus atop it towards him. With another, slightly different hand movement, a miniature tornado lifted up the sarcophagus, with Zel’s tablet being sent careening back towards her.
He looked it over, then turned his gaze to Zelsys once more, within the king’s eyes blazing such an ascendant gratitude that she felt it physically washing over her.
“AH, BUT THIS… AND THE BLOOD-BOND WHICH I SEE WITHIN YOU… KNOW YE, OF THE NAMELESS CLAN? THEY, THE MONUMENTS TO WHOSE DEEDS LITTER THE HIDDEN CORNERS OF MY GREAT CITY, ALL EQUALLY DEFACED.”
Zel nodded.
“THERE WAS NEVER SUCH A CLAN. THEIR CRIME, THEIR PUNISHMENT, THEIR VERY EXISTENCE, A FABRICATION. A LIE WROUGHT TO CONCEAL WHAT COULD NOT BE SEALED IN THIS VERY SARCOPHAGUS,” spake the Revenant King, raising his great hand. He raised his other hand, grasping the lid. He tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“AS I THOUGHT. IT MUST BE BROUGHT TO THE SITE WHERE THIS CRIME WAS PERPETRATED.”
Placing the sarcophagus on the armrest of his throne, the Revenant King leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he gazed down on Zelsys once more.
“SPEAK, TRUEBORN WARRIOR OF THE MOSAIC SOUL. UPON MY THRONE, I SHALL LISTEN AND SEE YOUR WISHES FULFILLED.”
“To start with - why that epithet? I feel as though it means more than the words.”
The Revenant King smiled.
“YOUR KIND IS NEW TO THIS KALPA, BUT NOT TO ME. A SINGULAR WARRIOR BORN FROM THE SACRIFICE OF MANY. AN ARROGANT WIZARD IN A KALPA LONG PAST DEVISED A WRETCHED RITE SEEKING TO IMITATE YOUR KIND; THE SO-CALLED CREATION OF A GREAT MAN RITUAL. A MEANS BY WHICH MANY A WARLORD WERE BORN, IN YET ANOTHER LONG-GONE AGE. BUT YOU… I CAN SEE IT UPON YOUR SOUL, A TRUE MOSAIC.”
Zel felt an itch in the back of her head driving her to ask more questions, to try and extract deeper knowledge on the true nature of the world from the old king.