Birth of the Emissary

*I am haunted by a sensation, something I have not found the word for, or rather, cannot see. In the shadows I perceive wonderous things, and let them flow through me like some sort of ecstatic fluid. Music, thought and light harmonious and undivided, fuel this drive. It begins in my spine, and crawls up like a rising tide. It fills my lungs with the fire of the sun and invigorates my muscles. At my shoulders it itches, like something trying to breach the skin, but when it reaches my head it loosens my tongue, unlike a wine, the words that come are of the highest order and the most ponderous of wisdoms; instinct and logic; passion and patience. Even in the egg, the eagle dreams of flight. Is this the same for me?*
Reginald Holmes felt the wind. He felt it cut through is torn cloak and opened his weary eyes. Light. Dawn had come at last. He moved his limbs carefully, the tight muscles sliding tensely over aching bones. He wanted to scream, but was too tired to do that. A dry cough escaped his chest and blood splattered on the stone he was curled up on. He gazed at the small fire he had lit the night before, it was ash now, only that and nothing else.
*It died. Soon I will too.*
He stretched out his hand and clawed through the dust, but no coal stung, let alone warmth stirred. A truly dead thing. For a moment he let his hand rest in the withered hearth a little while. Ashes to ashes. Then he willed himself to move and bit back the agony it caused. He rolled onto his knees and crawled to the entrance of the small cave he had stayed in.
Outside, the sun had not yet risen. Dawn's light illuminated the skies above but the cave sat in the shadow of the mountain. Reginald gazed out onto the rolling foothills and saw the faint glimmer of his hometown in the distance. *Miles away. My lifetime away, such as it is.* The morning sunlight would soon reach the town proper, he could see the golden glow on the plains beyond and saw the silhouette of the mountains pulling back like a dark curtain across the land. He pulled himself to a shaky stand and looked up the mountain, *my mountain*¸ he thought to himself. *But I won’t reach the top. No more sunrises for me.* He began to climb.
As he climbed his mind began to wander. It helped with the pain for his mind and body to distance themselves. *Always sickly. Mother tried so hard to make me well.* Wandering doctors, scamming merchants and damned dentists. They each were permitted food and board at her house so long as they would try with lil’ Reggie. At least the Elf healer had been up front about it. *‘In the bone. He will ne’er be whole. The ailment is in his bone.’ She wouldn’t listen. I didn’t ask to be born.* He choked on a cough and his eyes watered as he hauled his body up onto a ledge. *I was the poverty that struck them. All the rest could work and harvest. I could barely walk.*
He looked up the ledge and saw that it wound around the face and out of sight. I wonder where that leads. He carefully crab-walked up and around the ledge. Around the corner, he saw that it was a decent path to a small landing of a meadow from which a cleft in the rock called to him from the back of the meadow. He could not see into it from where he stood. *I will go there. Perhaps no further.*
Slowly he made his way to the meadow. When he got to the more level ground he found that though it was smooth and seemed almost maintained, it did not ease his passage. Each step felt more wearing then the last. at last he came to the cleft and peered in. It was dark, but he could make out a large space therein. Here. This is it. He staggered in, and stopped. There were steps down onto the floor, hewn from the rock itself. *Did someone build this for me?*
“I built it.” A soft voice spoke in the darkness. Reginald stiffened and felt blood return to his limbs in panic. The voice continued, “I built it for us. Come in.”
Reginald swallowed to wet his dry throat. Slowly he made his way down into gloom and walked into the shadow. As his eyes adjusted he saw a small dark form propped up against an upright marble slab. He moved his lips but words did not come. He tried again and a whisper came out, “For us?”
The figure moved its head and a pair of glowing orange eyes which gleamed like dying coals gazed up at him. “Yes. In my dying act, I built this meeting place for us. In your dying act you came here. Such is my will.”
Reginald’s legs were sore and he had no strength to be wary. He sat down in front of the strange figure and gazed back. “So, we die here together? I, a sickly man and you, a what?”
“A maimed god.”
Reginald shook his head. “You fail to inspire my faith.”
“I don’t need to. You came as I willed it. I do not value the strong, nor the gifted. I invested in power, and that is how I was felled. Today, I begin to build with broken tools. I begin with you.”
“Today I die.” Reginald retorted, “In a tomb built by a god for me.”
“Hear me. I can give you a new life. Not a whole one but a half. Enough to keep you going for as long as you and I wish.”
“How?”
“When I pass, I will carry a piece of your soul with me into the limbo that I am doomed to go to. I in turn will give you the essence of what I am here and now. Combined, you will go on living indefinitely, and work as my emissary. I will remain attached to your other half, anchored against the forces that would seek to overcome me. One day, when my strength has returned, when we have found the means to build a new form for me to assume, I will return and give you back what we have shared.”
Reginald closed his eyes and lay back on the floor. “How long?”
The creature spoke softer. “As long as it takes.”
“Why me?”
“You lived a life without purpose. A weak seventh child, born to another seventh child. Heir to nothing, with an ailment in your very bones. No woman would wed you, your own mother would work to sustain you till she too would fail. You fled that life, knowing it led to death. Now you are here, and I offer you a new life. Let us see what awaits us around the bend. Will you accept my gift?”
Reginald breathed heavily, his mind racing as his chest began to tighten. *Is this a demon, some piece of the darkness long hidden? Will I regret this? What will I become?* Pain began to stab in his chest and he knew he had moments to choose. *I don’t want to die.*
“I… I’ll…” He choked on his words as spasms wracked his frame. The figure leaned closer and Reginald saw that its face was twisted flesh and knotted veins. A cramp to end all cramps clenched in his chest. As the air left his lungs he used his last strength to release his words. “Do it.”
As his vision faded he saw the thing reach out and touch him, though the sensation seamed distant. Suddenly he was pulled into another body and saw his own body in front of him. something touched him and he whipped around. The burning eyes gleamed out of an impossibly black flame. “Watch and behold the hands of your god. Witness the will of Ser-Naggoth”
Where the hand touched, light bloomed and traced along the veins and arteries of Reginald’s body. It convulsed violently and began to thrash beneath the touch of the corrupted Keeper. Reginald was pulled apart within the mind of Ser-Naggoth, saw himself in the gleaming eyes of the blight. He found himself flung back into the body on the floor. His eyes opened.
The pain was flaring throughout himself, as though fire was burning in his very soul. He breathed in and the fire was there too, but the hurt no longer held sway over him. He was beyond the pain.
The maimed thing toppled over and went still. The Emissary didn’t need to look to know that it was gone. He pulled himself to his knees and unfastened his cloak. Carefully, he wrapped up the small corpse where it lay and lifted it carefully. Then the Emissary left, never to return to that place. It was not his tomb.