Aedmorn sat alone in the heart of the shadowed place, the heart of the neverending mists and whispers, alone with but the strange sword for company. The disappearance of the thing, the shadow creature did not concern him overly, for though it had the endlessness to hide within, it could not truly run. There was nowhere to run to, and all the shadows were as one place.

The sword, now, that was the thing, real in a place that was not so.

He held it up, watching the colours wavering across the blade, flowing from one to the next. It was an oddity in place that should not have been. There had to have been a reason for it, yet he feared to touch upon it with his mind again, for he did not relish the prospect of a repeat of the vision that had come by it. Nor did he wish to lose track of the surrounds ether. He expected that the beast would return, and wished to stay alert to it. He had all the time to wait, for time was meaningless and here was the place that the beast desired, for whatever reason.

So there he sat, studying the sword he held while staying alert to all that went on around. Even so, he was all but caught unaware by the beast as it silently folded back into existence behind him and only by the flashes of light on the sword that reflected the darkness behind did he become aware, to throw himself aside as a slashing ribbon of darkness and smoke came at him.

Swift he rolled to his feet and the sword flashed out, cleaving the shadow ribbon. It separated and faded away into the nothingness, while the beast hissed, shifting from one form to the other, flowing from one to the next, forms too terrible to behold, forms that rent at the senses for they could not possibly exist in the world beyond, that went beyond reality.

Sword met darkness, flashing with bursts of light and the beast once more folded itself away into the void, to disappear, to be not for a time.

Aedmorn knew then that was how the game would be played, the constant ambush, the test of resolve and perception, fading in and out to strike and begone, until at last it got that one blow that it needed. An age it could take but it would, in time be successful.

There is another way.

The voice came stark and strong and out of nowhere and out of everywhere. It was not the beast that spoke, but another, unknown, unknowable.

He looked about, trying to see where the voice had come from, to locate the speaker.

Something appeared to be within the darkness and shadows, a shape both familiar and never seen before, an echo forward and back through the expanse of time. He could not quite place it and yet it nagged at him that he should know it.

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There is another way.

Once more the voice came.

“How, then?” he asked, speaking into the nothing.

Seek that which lies within. Remember that which will be.

Aedmorn frowned, spinning slowly about, trying to keep a watchful eye out in case of ambush once more, even as he pondered the words. What lay within? To what did the voice refer? The sword? If so he had no desire to touch that again, not after the last time. Within himself? There were no secrets there to reveal, no hidden powers that could aid him.

The beast slithered back into the unreality of the place and once more the sword sparked with colour as it drove it off again, leaving Aedmorn to the cryptic words, the words that made no sense.

No more hints were forthcoming, no more messages that may spur him on.

The sword, the sword, that was the heart of the matter. Whence had it come, for what purpose, and what was the life that it held, a link to the place that could not be. Life, a link. That might be it. Life lay beyond this place. Without life, he was powerless, for it was the source and soul of all that he did, all that he could be. What then, if he could reach through the link, to touch the life beyond, wherever that was, without the attempt to contact it as he had done previously. Could not, then, he draw the essence of life into the shadowed void, to utilise as he needed?

He had naught else to lose, not in that place of lingering existence, when all he had to look forward to was the never-ending flow of ambush, of cat and mouse with the benighted beast that lurked within the shadows, an existence that would into rend the mind with madness.

He reached out, with a tentative thought, stretching forth his senses, towards the touch of life, towards the beyond where it lay, through that part of the play wherein it was trapped.

And then it hit him, a sense of life o’erwhelming, verdant and abundant, blooming and blossoming. Not just life as it was in the world, but the raw essence of life, wild and free and primal.

He was but a gnat beside it, a speck, minuscule and unnoticed. Here, then, was the source of life in its purest form, a place unmarred by the touch of man or mortal. It washed across him, his body trembling with it, mind reeling from the experience. With it, he could do anything, be anything. Nothing was beyond his ability. This was power as the gods themselves perceived it, unrestrained, unchained.

It spilt forth from him and the void and shadows recoiled at it. Like waves rippling across the seas, greenery rolled outwards, grass vivid beyond description, flowers bursting forth, laden with perfumes that stood stark in the soulless void, their colours almost eyewatering in their brightest.

Aedmorn laughed. It was impossible to be, but it was. There, in the heart of the nothing, beyond all time and reality, a garden of purest life had formed.

The creature of nothing could not ignore that challenge.