Odrem's Gift

The ground shook, and dust fell on Odrem's shoulders like snowfall. The sun outside roared, fire from Pel's maw engulfing a lesser deity. Odrem glanced down at the spidery tattoos covering his dark brown skin, along his left arm the glittering gold of light, and along his right the shimmering obsidian of darkness. He knew the same tattoos crawled up his long elvish neck and laced themselves across his forehead. He could feel their heat and their coolness, feel them burning the skin into which they were printed, etching deeper and deeper as the gods outside clashed. Another rumble, and a shard of the massive mosaic ceiling above him collapsed inwards, falling to smash into a thousand iridescent pieces just feet from him.

Odrem stumbled backwards, and regained his footing, clutching the hilt of the oily black blade at his side. His left scabbard was empty, that blade was safe. Yet the second remained. As Pel roared again, Odrem could feel the heat even from the inside of the great citadel. It was eerily empty, uncharacteristically so, for this had once been one of the centers of the greatest civilization in this, or any age. This age was at an end, it seemed, and the gods warred, and the Ruby Dragons had gone mad and were tearing glittering cities apart, and from beyond the darkness beastial marauders were descending upon the known systems. For the Elves, the servants of the balance, servants of the Dragonlords, there was little to do but weep for the passing of the age.

Odrem had his task, though. Dodging another chunk of ceiling, he picked his way through the collapsing citadel towards its center. There was another sound, an eerie droning pulsation, that answered the roars of Pel, and the blade at his side chirped as if in salutation. So the Darkness had come to meet Pel's challenge. The ground shook again, and more ceiling fell, and Odrem felt as if the whole world was being torn apart like a loaf of warm bread between thumbs.

Reaching the small console near the center of the massive chamber, Odrem's fingers flicked a passcode signal and a flickering projected screen appeared silhouetted in blue light. Odrem entered a series of commands, and felt a slight breeze as the console scanned his tattoos to confirm his identity. His voice was hoarse as he spoke, projecting the thought-as-command to the console,

"al'Vareria Sendarm Shaytara, send me the fastest mag-lift bound for these coordinates."

He punched the coordinates in manually, wanting as little of his passage here recorded as possible. He sent a swift command with his handsigns to delete the records of his presence in this place. Another crack, and he jumped away from the console as a mosaic covered slab exploded in front of him. He threw up his hands, too late, and shards of polished glass and stone pierced his left eye, slicing across his lip and face. He screamed, barely noticing the projected screen flicker and then disappear. The console was crushed. Pressing a weaving to his eye, he urged the flows of magic to knit the damage back together. His tattoos burned as he worked, and he almost collapsed from the pain, shaking. His vision was foggy, and his depth perception skewed. He was not a skilled healer, and he had not fully repaired his eye, but it was functional.

Odrem staggered to his feet as the maglift shot up from a hole in the floor a few feet to his left, the stone rearranging itself to produce the small warmly lit tube, with three seats facing each other in a small semi-circle. He staggered into the lift, and it promptly disappeared him down, down far below the citadel's ground floor. Another shake left the maglift creaking, and he saw broken and breaking rooms and caverns and bunkers flash by as he passed deeper and deeper below the city.

Eventually, the maglift slowed, and the stone parted slower, until the lift emerged from the roof of a large, slimy cavern dimly lit by thousands of tiny glowing worms that clung to the rock. Their teal light banished the worst of the darkness, but Odrem's sword hummed happily as he stepped away from the light of the maglift, which disappeared up and away, leaving the elf stranded in this strange, dim cave.

A pool of inky black water, stretching as far as his elf eyes could see, lay in front of him.

"Aboleth! I know you are here! I have something for you!"

Another minute of violent rumbling, not distant even here, for the ground itself was being shaken, set Odrem again to stumble to his knees. Loose stones split from the ceiling of the cave, and in the darkness Odrem could not so easily dodge them. A wet smack, and the elf collapsed for a time into complete darkness. For a time he slumbered, slack jawed, the power of his strange tattoos sustaining his ragged breathing. He awoke, not knowing how much time had passed.

The dark water before him vibrated, even as the earthquake had stilled, and was being disturbed as a massive form that stirred under the surface.

Only three tentacles and the beast’s worm-like mouth, filled with rows of glistening white teeth, surfaced, but Odrem recognized the creature. One of the last of the Aboleth, the dreaded deep sea-beasts that had ruled a psychic empire millions of years old, long before the existence of dry land on Arnendor.

The Aboleth's throat rasped, and a hundred glittering eyes dotted the sides of its pale white and green skin, thick with mucus. Odrem heard a foreboding voice in the back of his mind speak,

Hunter. Balance-keeper. Your kind may have imprisoned me here, but you will still address me by my title. I am the Deepest One, The First King Of Arnendor, The Lover. So it has been dreamt.

"First King, I come bearing a gift," Odrem replied, his throat dry and hoarse from the dust of the demolition far above, and the blood from his cracked teeth.

You have failed, Balance-keeper. Already you grow mortal. The Sundering will take everything from your people. It has been dreamt.

"If that is to be so, would you not do this favor for me, in exchange for your freedom, First King?"

My freedom? What freedom is there on a stone without true oceans? I will be forever confined to these caves, Hunter. You sealed my fate long ago. It has been dreamt.

"There are still oceans—"

FOOL! EVEN WITH DRAGONBLOOD PAINTED ON YOUR SKIN YOU CANNOT FEEL THE SOUL OF THE WATER, THE WHIM OF THE AIR, THE SONGS OF THE STONE. YOU DO NOT KNOW THIS WORLD AS I DO. NO MATTER WHAT THOSE WYRMS RAISED YOU TO BE, NO MATTER THE POWER AND PURPOSE THEY GAVE YOU, THEY STILL CAME AFTER ME! I HAVE DREAMT IT AND IT IS SO: ARNENDOR IS BROKEN!

Odrem swallowed, feeling the dry and flaking blood at the back of his head, the tenderness of the flesh there. How long had he been asleep? The twin Nexus Blade still hummed at his belt.

"Aye, that may be so, First King. Still, I will release you from the confines of this meager cave, and perhaps the other flooded caves here will satisfy you for a time. I only ask that you keep this," the sound of the blade being drawn was like that of a knife through paper, "safe for me, safe from other mortals and from the gods especially."

The aboleth was silent in his mind, but Odrem could swear he felt like laughing, or maybe in the back of his mind the First King was laughing.

I had not dreamt this, Hunter. Indeed this is quite the gamble.

A tentacle lifted lazily from the water, towards the proffered sword and scabbard.

"In a time of great need, another might come to you for this. I ask that you return it to my line then. Exact whatever toll you would from them, but return it still. It may yet return the balance to our world."

You are a sentimental fool. Such is the hallmark of elves. Aye, I accept your gift-that-is-not. Now release me from this pond before I feed you to my Chuul. I have dreamt that many times.

Releasing the sword — it seemed to whine as it was taken from him — Odrem found the command console in the large cavern as another earthquake shook the stone around him. The blue projected screen flickered and was slow to respond, but Odrem unlocked the adamantine gates far below the aboleth's pool and limped towards the maglift that was now descending into the cavern.

A distant roar caused the tattoos along his body to flare in heat and he cried out, slumping into the seat of the lift. He rose, watching the cavern disappear as rock melded back into place below him. He leaned back, aching but at peace. He sighed before hardening his nerves for what was to come. The lift's pace grew faster and faster, as Odrem went to face the apocalypse.