He knelt in the grass, utterly still and relaxed without -- but a maelstrom of hate, fury, fear, and chaos within. Sweat began to bead on the meditating man's skin despite the cool of the night air. Behind his closed eyes played reflections of the past.
A vengeful pursuit in a dark cave. Two men in a garda uniform. A whispered proclamation and the deafening blast of the death-filled explosion that followed. There was a woman, too. A rat. A guide. An usurper of Fate, who set him on the path that he now walks. She was dead now, cut short and hardly a soul to know where her remains rest.
His fists tightened at the memory, the creak of carefully maintained leather inaudible against the thoughts that played within his mind.
"Path of tenacity, He joins the play,
Ascending the mountain of those He’s slain..."
New images filled his mind. This time, two identical shapes. One of light, one of shadow. Both small and wielding two wickedly curved blades. Both figures howled in an endless, manic laughter that he could find no peace from. He watched a mirror image of himself reach out and attempt to strike one of them. The other struck him in the back as the figure he focused on bled away to nothingness. The process repeated over and over. The laughter growing louder. The mirror image's form growing weaker. Fatigue finally overcame him and he dropped to a knee. The figures stopped laughing, and offered him a hand in unison. But still a wide, wicked smile remained on their faces.
The muscles in his whole body had begun to tense and his breath switched from a deep, relaxed passage to a short, troubled hiss.
Assassin, peerless, He’ll hunt you today,
Ascending the mountain of those He’s slain...
Again his meditations shifted. He stood face to face with a dog-like fiend at the center of a magic circle. There was a flash of fire and a hateful shout from the fiend, and they joined in combat. The man emerged bloodied, scarred, and scorched, but victorious over the bloody form of the fiend -- only to find himself standing in a hallway, before the same fiend who was very much alive. They fought again, and again he was victorious. The spirit of a woman watched on mournfully from the background, peering at him with an accusing gaze. He reached out for her, to find himself suddenly in the darkness of the Drain. The two shadows from before were at his side, but this time their laughter was muted as if coming from a place far away. The fiend appeared again, and again they all fought. When it drew to an end, only the man stood alive in the ashes of the chaos that had ensued. Yet he felt only fatigue. There was no victory. The world around him shifted at last to a lush green field. An array of people stood in a grand circle around him. The fiend again before his face. The Laughing Shadow howled again, filling his ears with her song. The man flipped a coin and saw not what it landed on. The fiend knelt and his spirit paled. The mournful spirit from before was restored to life. But still, he felt only fatigue.
The air around the meditating man had grown warm and sweat now trickled down his skin. His breath was short. His body was tensed. A restless chaos threatened to draw him from his thoughts.
Roses thrown, He catches the mauve bouquet,
Ascending the mountain of those He’s slain...
A final series of images passed before his mind's eye. A human woman. Pale, beautiful, and peaceful. A chance meeting in a crypt, under the watchful gaze of Death. Where others had stepped aside to make way for his passing, she stood her ground and peered up at him. She reached out a hand, and her lips moved to speak kind words. But he could not hear them. For all that filled his ears was the harsh, indistinct shouting of a great battle contained within stone walls. The rapid beating of his heart. The crackling of a funeral pyre. He stood at the end of a long, dark hall and he watched a shadowy man with a sweeping tail draw a knife and loom over her. He turned away before the final strike could me made, and the world faded from around him until he was surrounded by nothing but an utterly empty void. The ground gave way beneath his feet, and he fell into the inky blackness. He fell, and fell, and fell. This existence without form, his new prison. No single light to herald the end of his fall. No indicator for when the descent may finally come to a close. He closed his eyes and surrendered to it. For it was madness -- and the shadow had been right all along. This is who he was. This darkness, his prison. His throne. His tomb.
Shadow and Death are His mantles to display,
Ascending the mountain of those He’s slain...
He stirred from his meditations on all fours in a battered, exhausted position. His muscles were tensed. His breath was quick and shallow. His spirit bled. His body ached. There was a deep, insatiable hunger in his gut that demanded to be satisfied. He could hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing but Red. He drew in a breath and then forced it from his lungs in a long, guttural shout to the empty darkness of the night. His voice tore through the silence like a knife -- a feral mix of anguish and rage that persisted until there was not a single bit of breath left within him. He drew in breath again and once more forced it out in a twisted, mournful call. A third and final time, he called out. And a third time, there was none to hear or answer.
Suddenly his gaze lifted to the horizon, fiercely predatory and wholly hateful. From this moment of utter defeat he lifted himself upright, finding new strength within the suffering that he had come to know. From this baptism of loss, something new had been born. Something ashen and soot-stained from the fires that had brought it forth. There was not love, nor mercy. Not hesitation or regret left within him. It was a cold and icy darkness that provided perfect balance to the fires of hate within him.
He had become like Death at last. The Gravesinger had sacrificed all to guide him to his prize.