The Transcendent One

I moved forward across the roof of the fortress, which was shaped like a cross. I had appeared at the end of one arm. As I neared the center of the cross, I suddenly cried out.

“Annah!” As I approached, I saw that the bodies of all my friends were neatly laid out about the center of the cross, like macabre trophies. Annah, Fall-From-Grace, Morte, Dak'kon, Nordom, they were all there. If my enemy had thought to weaken my resolve it was a fool’s gambit. The only way I could justify my companions’ sacrifice was if I completed my mission, either recombining with my mortality or seeing it destroyed.

Suddenly, a barbed, armored figure appeared in front of me. The figure spoke.

so you have come. then you shall die again. you are unwelcome here, broken one.

“What have you done to my friends?”

are they dead? yes. unlike you, they have but one life, and they wasted it for your sake. they died for you as they always have. such is the way of all mortal things. it is the fate of all that follow you, broken one. you have forgotten much.

“Why did you do it?”

they tried to harm me. here, of all places. i defended myself. in so doing, mortality claimed them. their deaths were by their own hand.

i gave them the opportunity to depart this place, but they seemed determined to help you, despite the cost to themselves.

“So you killed them.”

the tiefling girl was especially fierce in your defense. her feelings for you burned brighter than elysium’s fires.

and the tanar’ri… she was quite strong. her tolerance for pain would have shamed the baatezu themselves.

i took no pleasure in their deaths.

“Then why did you do it?”

it was not my will. it was not i that brought them here. all of them had a choice. and they chose to die for you.

it has always been the way of all that follow you. for they are tormented souls, seeking a release. but they know not why.

you have forgotten this. and you shall again.

“I know you for what you are — you are my mortality. Your armor — it is twisted like tree branches. Such things speak of Ravel’s magicks.”

i am that which was split from you by the hag’s power, freed from the prison of your flesh.

i am that which walks with all life. my voice is a death rattle, a last breath in the throat, the whisper of a dying man.

“Freed from me?”

the moment i was split from your cancerous shell, i knew life. i knew freedom. i shall not surrender it to you.

“We were not meant to be separated. And the Planes have suffered because of our separation.”

you know nothing of meaning and separation. before your memory dies again, know that we were never meant to be as one. this shall be the last time you and i speak, broken one.

I needed to question my mortality, to seek for a weakness. I also, even now, was still curious, still interested in knowing more about the creature before me.

“Then there is something I would know, spirit — I have traveled far, and there are many questions you can answer.”

i will indulge you this one last time. then this fortress shall be silent again. ask your questions. but know you shall never remember the answers.

“You have done everything you can to prevent us meeting from face to face. Why?”

do you think i fear to face you, broken one? i do not.

“An iron golem, forged from the weapons of war, told me this once: When one kills from a distance and does not show himself, it speaks of weakness. It is how a coward fights.”

my energies are needed to sustain this place, broken one, else it would be my hand on your throat with each of your deaths. i may not travel beyond these fortress walls for long.

“Yet, even when I was within the Fortress walls, you sent Ignus to try and stop me, when you could have stopped me yourself.”

the sorceror was… convenient. his rage for you runs deep. i thought it fitting he be allowed vengeance upon you. if the planes cannot teach you mercy, perhaps pain can.

“He wanted revenge? For my teaching him the way of the Art and making him suffer?”

yes. as pain taught him, i thought pain might teach you. but the sorceror was weaker than i thought, and now you are here. soon, there shall be ending of things between us, broken one.

“So you sent Ignus to try and stop me… but when he failed, then you still didn’t confront me, even when you could have — instead, you put that crystal in my path to imprison me.”

yes, the crystal is a prison, perhaps one of the greatest ever devised. i used it, for i tire of tracking you across the planes, nameless one. you are… difficult to find.

“Why am I difficult to find?”

just as there is power in names, there is power in not having a name. the eyes of the planes slide off such a one. one such as you — and one such as i.

i prefer you be kept close, where i may watch you. the crystal is such a place where you may be kept. i would know how you freed yourself from the crystal.

“I had help. The woman I brought here long ago, Deionarra, freed me.”

ah… the love-torn spirit. there are times i have felt her echo in the halls of this fortress. she shall not free you again. there is nothing in your shell of a mind that is of consequence, broken one.

“Except that — from what the Pillar of Skulls told me, there were three that knew where you could be found and how to reach you — one is Trias, one’s you, and the other is me. If you kill Trias and I, they'll be no one who knows who you are and how to find you.”

yes, the angel that shields itself with golden lies. you led me to him at last. like you, the betrayer was difficult to find. he will die the final death.

“So you used me to find him? You wanted me to kill him, didn’t you, so his knowledge would die — then you tried to kill me, so I would forget where to find you.”

i see time’s blade has not bled your mind of all reason. my purpose was always such: to make you forget.

“But why? Why do—”

because i never again wish to suffer your presence, broken one. you are an irritation, a reminder of what life once was, and i detest such reminders. i wish to be left in peace in my fortress. as you have forgotten me, i wish to forget you. forever. you lie. you have always forgotten. and i have always remembered. it was always such.

“ ‘Always’ doesn’t mean what it once did. I have died, time and again, and my memories have returned to me.”

your deceptions will not shield you here, broken one.

“It is the truth. Killing me won’t stop me — because killing me doesn’t make me forget anymore. I'll know you always, I'll remember everything you've done, how to reach here, and eventually, how to destroy you.”

then i shall imprison you, nameless one. if you will not forget, then i shall not allow you to be free.

“But I already escaped from ‘the greatest prison ever devised.’ You can’t kill me, you can’t hold me, and you can’t make me forget myself any longer.”

yes… but it was not your doing. the love-torn spirit freed you. she shall not do it again. once i crush the bones from your body, i will take your limp shell and seal it within the crystal. you shall never walk the planes again.

“She won’t need to. Why did you send shadows to kill me rather than trying to defeat me yourself?”

I send shadows because their reach is long. yet it is my eyes that guide them.

“So the shadows can travel distances you cannot.”

there is nothing i cannot do.

“Yet you never traveled beyond these walls to fight me… only sent shadows. I think you’re afraid to confront me… or else you are lying to me, and there is another reason you remain here…”

you know nothing.

“Why is sustaining this place so important for you? If you are truly as powerful as you say, why would you want to remain here? There is nothing here.”

it is my fortress. it is my home.

“And what a home it is, too. Mortared from my regrets, with nothing but the shades of those we've murdered filling its halls, abandoned relics of the past languishing beneath dust, and the life-draining energies of the Negative Material Plane to feast the eyes on. There are words for places like that — they’re called prisons.”

every word betrays your ignorance, broken one. the fortress is silent. all that comes here dies before intruding into my presence. and the shadows are quiet creatures.

“I think you have to remain here, along with the shadows and the ghosts, because that’s what you've become. I don’t think you sustain this place at all. I think it sustains you.”

i remain here by choice.

“Really? So when you said you can’t journey beyond this Fortress for long, you were lying? And how is it possible that a Fortress built from my regrets needs you to sustain it?”

i will see you die a thousand deaths for your insolence, broken one. you are an intruder within these halls, and i shall see to it you never return.

“I may be immortal, but Ravel told me the ritual was flawed: Whenever I die, I lose a fraction of my mind. In time, after many deaths, I shall lose the ability to even think for myself.”

it is of no matter. you cannot die. your mind may be lost, but your flesh will live on. that is all that is needed.

“ ‘Needed?’ Why?”

we share a link, you and i, however small. i do not wish you destroyed, only far from me.

“Consider this: you say we are linked. So when I suffer, you must suffer as well. Perhaps you are trapped here because you suffer, but differently than I do.”

the weak suffer. i endure.

“Is it possible that as I die the death of the mind with each of my deaths, you die the death of the body? As I lose spirit, you lose substance. That’s why you find it harder and harder to leave this Fortress and travel beyond this plane. This Fortress is not only your prison, it’s going to become your tomb.”

impossible.

“Is it? You said we were linked. Surely, you've felt your body wane over the past century — you even carry the branchings of Ravels’ frame over yourself, and you detest her — but you need the frame over your spectral form to prevent yourself from decaying faster.”

even if there were truth in your words, there is nothing to be done. i would sooner die the death of the body here in this fortress than suffer existence with you.

“So if I were to die, that link would be broken…”

you cannot die.

“Well, if I cannot die, then you can’t exist. You’re my mortality.”

perhaps once. no longer. i have changed. i have transcended and become something greater.

I had had enough of my arrogant mortality. It was time to end this. But first, I wished to see if anything could be done for my friends, for though they were dead, their spirits might still be nearby, and could be reunited with their flesh.

“My friends… I want their lives returned to them, and I want them to have free passage from this place.”

no. they are dead. dead they shall remain.

“Why? Can’t you save them? Don’t you have the power?”

do not question my power here, in this place. there is nothing i cannot do, now that i am free of you. but it is not my will that they be saved. they challenged me in my home, and their deaths shall be reminders to all that challenge me.

“I don’t think you have a choice. I don’t think you can resurrect them.”

broken one, in the span of your forgotten lifetimes, i have observed, learned, and gathered power within the vaults of my body.

when you fought in the black decade war, all your military knowledge was carved in my mind. when you danced sorceries with lum the mad, i learned with you. all you have forgotten, i have not. the power over life and death is but a minor display of my power.

“So that link we share… it allows you to experience what I experience, learn what I learn…”

it is a small thing, of no consequence.

“Deionarra told me that I could reverse death only when the victim had died close to me. But what she awakened in me — are you saying that was only a fraction of my power over life and death?”

your mind is a broken stone, its edges dull from misuse and neglect. even if you knew power, you would not know how to harness it.

“If you claim you have the power, then I must have the power, too — even if I wasn’t there at the moment of death.”

you do not have the years needed to learn the arts of life and death. you will fall before me.

I felt a stirring in my mind, and I suddenly realized I did possess the years needed to learn — for I knew it all once, across multiple incarnations. But the process would take time, and I knew my mortality would not allow me the time I needed, unless I made it. I had found a record stone from my practical incarnation, speculating on the purpose of the entry hall I had found myself in. I poured all the conviction from my lifetimes of experience into my next utterance.

“You know, as I made my way here, I opened that inner vault. Those greater shadows are running free in the Fortress — they’re no longer locked in that chamber.”

you lie.

“Then see for yourself, if you don’t believe me — I'm not going anywhere.”

i shall return and then take your measure, broken one. if you have freed the shadows, i shall feed you to them.

“Very well… I'll be here. if you make it back.”

i will take your measure shortly.

My mortality vanished. Immediately, I ran to Morte’s corpse, to use my power. As I reached out, Morte suddenly spoke.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up, chief. Uh… there’s a few things I need to tell you.”

“Morte…?! You’re not dead!”

“Well, yeah — when you've been dead as long as I have, you learn to fake it really well. I've been kind of listening to your whole conversation. Use that power you got on someone else — I don’t need it.”

“So you were going to lie there while I got my ass handed to me?”

“Well, yeah, chief. It’s not like you'd die. I mean, if you failed, you'd need someone to remember for you. Plus, you know how worthless I am in a fight — well, when I'm not taunting some mage or another…”

As my power touched him, Dak'kon took a staggered breath, then looked up weakly. It looked like he was barely clinging to life.

“Once, Dak'kon, you made the Pronouncement of Two Deaths as One. It is that time.”

As I spoke the words, Dak'kon’s eyes closed — for a moment, I thought he couldn’t hold on to life any longer — then they opened, and his eyes were no longer the dead black I remembered. Instead, they carried the metal texture of his blade, and I knew that Dak'kon had become something else — something far more powerful. Dak'kon took a breath, then steadied himself, his blade sharpening as I watched.

“This blade is yours.”

I reached out with my power, there was a rush of air, and Annah stirred — she raised her head slowly, then shook it, confused.

“I found my mortality, Annah — and it turns out it doesn’t like me much. I need your help.”

Annah eyes took on a steely glint, then she nodded.

“I'm gonna stand by yeh.”

As my power touched Fall-From-Grace, she rose dizzily to her feet — even disoriented, she somehow managed to maintain her composure.

“Fall-From-Grace — we’re at the Fortress of Regrets, and I found my killer; it’s my own mortality — it’s taken on a life of its own. I really need your help right now.” She nodded, slowly; her strength seemed to return as she heard my words.

“I fear now that we have entered, this place will not easily let us go.”

I reached out with my power, shaping the soul into Nordom’s shape, slowly, until I felt it slipping back into the modron’s body. There was a shudder from Nordom’s frame, and he sprang to his feet.

“Nordom, I really need your help right now… I found my killer, and it’s my mortality.”

“Awaiting Order.”

My mortality suddenly reappeared on the roof.

this will not help you. you all shall die.

I now felt confidant that we could defeat my mortality, but some of my comrades might die again in the process. Besides, my problems arose from the separation of my mortality, which destroying it would not solve. I thought I knew of a way to force my mortality to rejoin me. It would all depend on whether it hated me enough to prefer destruction to the alternative. Best of all, none of my friends need die. I cried out.

“Wait! I have one final question: What can change the nature of a man?”

the question is meaningless.

“Nonetheless, before there is an ending between us, I will hear your answer.”

then this is my answer, and you are the proof. nothing can change the nature of a man.

“If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear — whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can.”

then you learned a false lesson, broken one.

“Have I? I've seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil’s hag heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me.”

your defiance will hurt you more than any wound in this place. belief cannot change the nature of a man.

“I think it can. I think belief could even unmake me, if I believed it enough.”

you do not possess the force of will for such a thing.

“So you admit it’s possible.”

do not try my patience, broken one.

I focused my will inwards, centering myself.

you are a fool to think you can achieve such a thing. you can barely keep your own tattered mind intact. there is nowhere left for you to fall, broken one.

I kept focusing.

stop. you know not what you do.

“I know what I do. You have tormented me enough, and now it ends.”

if you do this thing, we shall be undone. there is no one fate here. you destroy us both.

“As I see it, I have two choices — either I kill us both, or I let you kill me again and again, losing what few pieces of my mind I have left. I think I'd prefer we both die — unless you have a third solution.”

there is no other resolution to this matter.

“I think there is — we can become one again, as we were meant.”

you know not what you do. if we are re-united, then it shall be an ending. there shall be no future for us. we shall go on to further torments.

“It is better that happen than the multiverse continues to suffer because of us.”

if we become one, we shall suffer. there is too much of the nature of the first one in us for us to be saved. we shall be damned. you know not what you do.

“No, I know very well what I do. And I think this is the only answer. Prepare yourself.”

know that i have always hated you, broken one. when we are one, i will continue to hate you. when your shell dies at last, know that i shall take pleasure in your death.

“I can live with that — and so can the planes.”

know that my hatred for you will unmake the planes. prepare yourself. we shall be as one again — until your last moments of life.

“Very well. I am ready to become mortal again.” My mortality surrendered its will. Finally, after so many lifetimes, and deaths, and regrets, we were one again.

farewell

* * *

I turned, and called out Morte’s name. He drifted over to me.

“Uh, chief, what happened to your voice?”

i… am something else now. time runs short, and soon time and fate will catch up with me. i will return you to sigil, morte, if you wish it.

“Wh —? Return me? What about you? Come on, chief, I may be a coward, but there’s no way I'm leaving you in this place.”

many are the crimes that were committed when my mortality and i were split. these crimes carry a… price. you may not go where i will soon be.

“Well, I could go with you anyway, chief, if you wanted me to — I mean, we've been through wors—”

not this time. perhaps one day you and i will meet again, on another plane. but not now. Morte stared at me for a moment, then sighed.

“Not to get all misty-eyed, but, uh, it’s been a pleasure, chief.”

farewell, morte. I turned to Annah.

annah. are you all right? Annah’s eyes widened as I addressed her.

“Wh — what happened ta yeh? Yer voice — it’s like echoes, it is.”

i have changed. i am something else now, and i cannot remain here much longer. i will return you to sigil, if you wish it.

“Wh—” Annah opened her mouth, then paused. “Wh — Where are yeh goin'?”

many are the crimes that were committed when my mortality and i were split. these crimes carry a… price. there is a place reserved for ones such as i on the lower planes. it is… punishment of a sort.

“But I… I don’t want yeh ta go.”

i will not forget how much you were willing to sacrifice for me, annah.

Annah nodded. She looked like she was about to say something else, but then fell silent — but the unspoken thought remained in her mind, lingering.

i do not need your words to know your heart, annah. farewell.

I turned to Dak'kon.

dak’kon of shra’kt’lor, last wielder of the karach blade. As he heard my words, Dak'kon slowly nodded.

“Your voice… have you at last come to know yourself?”

yes. it was a… difficult thing, and it cost many lifetimes. many suffered so that i might know myself again.

“The knowing of one’s self is a difficult path.”

in knowing it, i know where i shall soon be bound. time and fate come here even as we speak, and i will not be here much longer. i will return you to sigil, dak’kon, if you wish. Dak'kon fell silent for a moment; when he spoke again, his voice was sharp, as if severing a link.

“Know that once I owed you a debt. Know that you saved my life, and know that I followed you to settle that debt. I have paid for your life with mine. The debt is settled.”

very well, dak’kon. our two deaths were as one. you will leave this place with your freedom.

I faced our gentle tanar’ri.

fall-from-grace. Fall-From-Grace looked up, and she held my eyes for a moment, then she smiled — but it was a slight smile, that carried more sadness than anything else.

“So you have found yourself at last?”

yes. the price was… high. the cost was many lifetimes, mine and others.

“The price of such a thing is seldom measured in copper.” Fall-From-Grace studied my features. “Are you still —”

i am still the one you know — but my perspective has… changed. i have not forgotten you, if that is your fear. Fall-From-Grace smiled again, the same sad smile as before.

“No, that was not my fear.”

i cannot remain here for much longer. my punishment calls, and fate and time shall soon be here. i will return you to sigil, if you wish.

“That is not my wish.” Fall-From-Grace reached forward, and her hand lightly touched my arm. There was a slight tingling sensation, barely felt, then she took it away. “I will find you again, no matter where in the Lower Planes you will be — just as you shall be able to find me.”

it may be a long time. where i am bound, time is not measured in years. and the crimes i have committed are stronger than any cage.

“No cage shall separate us, and no Plane shall divide us.” Fall-From-Grace’s face became like stone. “Keep thinking of me, and we shall meet again.”

i shall not forget all you sacrificed for me.

She shook her head. “Just do not forget me.”

time lays waste to all things. but i shall fight it as long as i can.

“Time is not your enemy. Forever is.”

perhaps so. farewell, grace.

I turned to the last of my friends.

nordom.

Nordom blinked, the shutters of his eyes kliking rapidly, then the shutters contracted to points, as if he was squinting at me. “Your voice x-ceeds standard recognized parameters.”

i have become… whole again. i have changed, but i shall not be here much longer. i will return you to sigil, nordom, if you wish.

“Query: Where is your next destination? Nordom will follow and protect you.”

i have committed many crimes across many lifetimes. i go now to a place of punishment. you cannot come with me.

“Branching query: Do you not (require) or do you not (want) presence of Nordom?”

you cannot follow, nordom. it is not my choice. there are other powers that now rule my actions. they always did, but now they know me for what i am, and they come even as we speak. Nordom whrrr-kliked for a moment, then his crossbows begin klikking and twanging in his hands.

“Nordom surrenders gratitudes. You helped Nordom find his identity.”

as you helped me find mine. i give you your freedom, nordom. explore, learn, grow. we may meet again, on another plane, in a time far from now.

“Response: Heard and acknowledged. Nordom now awaiting said day.”

hold on to your logic, nordom. you will find it a greater shield than most of the passions that rule the planes.

“The issue no longer equals total logic.”

farewell, nordom.

* * *

A man, a mortal man, stood on the battlements of a fortress. His friends had been sent to Sigil. The shadows which once roamed the halls beneath him had been set free. The crenellated wall his hands rested upon was no longer sharp-edged, but crumbling, as if the regrets which once sustained it had faded away. The man stared at nothing, thought of nothing, in a rare moment of peace in his lives. Soon, his fate would catch up to him, and he would take his place in the Blood War. But not just yet.