The Summons, The Return of Ajax

[Ajax]

In a bright sunlit plane on an empty section of Daeleos once used by Elves for rituals unknown to men, three figures now stood around a ring of large blue mushrooms. One of them was a priest of Guere, one was a Priestess of Foret, and one was an old and venerable wizard. They gazed into the ring, hands held out, muttering words in ancient tongues that no longer had meaning to them. The supplications were not meant for mortal ears, and they had been memorized by word of mouth, passed down through the generations of those who had come before.

It was time for the return of the Lord Paladin of Guere, or so the Priest of Guere had told the other three. The prophecies and signs all pointed to this. For too long the Gods had remained absent from this cursed land, and for too long the Dark Lord Nangros had festered unopposed in his stronghold of Dwalkin. A desert raptor had pointed the way to this place, and a broken arrow had been dropped from the sky to land here amongst the ashes of what had once been an Elven temple. Mushrooms had grown in a ring around it. The Priest of Guere had sought long for the terminus of his vision, and he had found it here in Daeleos of all places. He had not expected it to be here where the breath of Tor flowed so strongly. This was not where he would have expected Guere to push his hand back to this realm, but it was not his place to question the will of his God, or to even understand it.

For two days they had been here chanting. For two days the sun had come and set and come again, and the moons of Viedre had watched on. Jhalla's eye had burned them with its fire, leaving all three parched and sunburned. Was there no hope? But the Priest of Guere would not give up, and neither would the Priestess of Foret. Their will was strong. The Wizard, on the other hand, wasn't so patient, and was beginning to tire of this. At last, he dropped his arms and shook his head.

"Enough, Parsis," he grumbled. "You were wrong. The signs were wrong, or you misinterpreted them. Guere is not granting you your champion this day."

"Something is happening," insisted Parsis. "I can feel it Shadar."

Elipsis, the Priestess of Foret, looked calmly upon Shadar and said, "I can feel it too. Something is trying to force its way into our world. But there are two forces there, not merely one. One of the forces answers our summons and tries to come, but the other resists and struggles to remain uncalled. We must redouble our efforts. The veil between our world and theirs is very thin now. It has been weakened here in this very place. We are close. Do not give up now."

"Very well," grumbled Shadar, wiping the sweat from his brow and then running a hand through his long beard. "We shall continue until sunset, and then no more."

Returning to their chanting, the three continued their efforts. More time passed, perhaps several hours, and then the mushrooms started to glow more intensely. Their blue light changed to an amber hue, blazing as if with a fire. In the center, the ground became darker and darker, until it grew completely black - a hole with depth that seemed infinite. Somewhere down there, a distant shrieking sounded, a horrible cry of a beast that was not natural to this world. It evoked terror in them, but the Priests and the Mage did not falter. Witness to the effects of their labor, they knew they were close. They were actually doing it, and now they would never stop.

Then it burst forth from the pit, a monstrosity of unimaginable disgust. Huge troll-like hands reached out of the darkness and grabbed the sides, pulling out its horrible body. A twisted face popped out, jaw canted to one side, huge dark bulbous eyes and pale scaly skin. Broken wings jutted from its back, and wounds leaked crimson ichor from its torso. It was in torment, and wounded from something. As it came forth, a man appeared clinging to the beasts leg. He wore silver plate mail and carries a shiny blade. This was the source of the creature's agony.

It tried to escape, the beast, but the warrior clinging to it would not let it. He held on, and slashed its legs, cutting deeply into its hamstrings. Rolling on the ground, the monster gurgled and spat and cursed. "You idiots," the warrior screamed as he continued his attack. "This thing cannot be allowed here! Could you not feel me resisting you?" And then he fell upon the thing in a flurry of blows, severing a leg, and then a wing.

The monstrous thing tried to crawl away now, heading toward the water of Daeleos that was not far away. Leaping after it, the warrior jumped upon its back, severing the remaining wing, and then attacking the head in furious blows. One, two, three slashes to the neck, and finally it came free. But the warrior still did not rest. He grabbed the broken body and the head and hauled them back to he pit. "Hurry now, before the portal closes!" he screamed at them. "Help me get it in!"

Stunned, but understanding the imperative in the warriors voice, the three moved to obey. There was something about this man, a quality of leadership that could not be denied. When he spoke, there was purity and truth and a strong sense of belief. He knew what his goals were, and he knew how to accomplish them. Just hearing that voice swept away the fear that they had felt.

Shoving the corpse down the hole, they watched it vanish into the darkness. After it was gone, the warrior then attacked the mushroom ring, severing each of the spores at the stem, and throwing them into the pit as well. In seconds, the darkness of the pit vanished, replaced by the ground once more.

"Lord Paladin?" asked the Priest of Guere. "Are you the Lord Paladin of Guere?" He dropped to his knees and bowed.

"Nay," said the warrior. "The Lord Paladin of Guere has perished, and may not return to this realm. I am Ajax, destined to fight in his stead, and to take up his sword and cause. Why have you summoned me from the depths of Hell? The war there has never known such intensity. We stand at Azwol's gates, the legions of the Duke tremble beneath the assault. I have fought beside the angels of the Gods for a hundred years, and never have we been this close to defeating the demon in his own lair. Yet now you chose this time to call me forth and return me to Vola. Why? What evil can possibly exist here to rival that of Hell's Duke?"

"I..." stammered the Priest of Guere. "I don't know where to begin."

"I do," said the Priestess of Foret. "The evil that exists here goes unopposed, and his name is Nangros. Whatever battles you have fought in Hell have undoubtedly served to temper your skills. But this is a land of mortals. Here, death is permanent, and many of been slain to feed Nangros's blood lust. This world will die to feed him if he is not defeated. That is why we have summoned you. The prophecies speak of it in riddles - those prophecies that remain. But one thing has become clear to us, Nangros seeks a way to kill ALL that lives here. What he kills feeds him, and to achieve ultimate power, he seeks to murder the world. THAT is why you have been summoned."

Ajax paused and wiped his blade on the grass. "Aye, well... that does seem a worthy cause." He looked around at the blood that had spilled. "We'll have to burn this place. Every bit of that creatures blood is a poison. We'll need to burn it all."

"I can handle that," said Shadar.

After the mage had lit the field on fire, and the three departed the smoking field, they did not notice that a few drops of the monster's blood had managed to seep into the water. Not much, only three drops. What harm could that do?

"We have much to speak of," Ajax told the three as they walked back toward a town that stood not far away. "Starting with where the hell we are. I've never seen this much water on Vola. Has the water curse ended?"

"Nay," said the Priestess of Foret with a smile. "This is Daeleos. It is a city that floats in the sky."

Ajax raised his eyebrows. "Well now, that's new. I think I shall enjoy seeing it."

[Ajax]

Parsis took Ajax to the Temple of Guere on Daeleos, which was not a large temple. Like most of the buildings on Daeleos, it was of ancient Elven construction, and had been designed with a variety of considerations, one of which was the restricted size of the Daeleos platform. Daeleos was large, but it had once housed many more people than it now did, and it had been built for that purpose. As a result, many of the structures were made to optimize space.

Once at the temple, Ajax was treated with the utmost respect. There was a lot of bowing that he had to put a stop to, and a lot of thanking the Gods that he didn't. These people had no idea who he really was or where he'd come from. They didn't know his history, or what he'd been doing or where he'd really been. There was so much he could tell them, and so much that he wasn't going to tell anyone - ever. The mortals of this world could not imagine how strange things really were beyond their world, or how lucky they were to live on a planet like this, even cursed as it was. Vola was a refuge, and a gem, in comparison to other worlds.

That it was being threatened by a would-be Hell-Lord was no surprise at all. Vola had already weathered two major wars with Hell. Its continued freedom and success would require eternal vigilance. Weeds would grow, and they must be cut. This new threat, this Nangros, was merely another weed. He had battled demons and creatures of the abyss for the last hundred years. How much of a threat could one mortal necromancer pose? But, he reminded himself, underestimating the enemy was not the trait of a true warrior.

After getting cleaned up and bathing in actual water (WATER!), Ajax felt like he'd been reborn again. Yet, still, even after all this time he could not help but feeling that he was a miscreant posing in the place of the man who should truly be here. Barnabus was the real Lord Paladin of Guere, not Ajax. Ajax was merely a shadow of Barnabus. The real Lord Paladin would have known more, and done more. There was no shaking that fact. The real Lord Paladin would not have been able to take off this armor and walk among men as one of them. That was something only a fake could do, and that was how Ajax looked at it. He was only a replacement.

"Thank you for the water and the food Parsis," Ajax told the priest. "It has been long since I took either. In Hell, I relied on the holy power of the Angelic Host to sustain me. It has been a hundred years since I have either bathed or eaten food."

"I cannot imagine that," replied Parsis, over the table in the dining room. "Tell us of your battles in Hell. Tell us everything."

Ajax stared at the meat on the end of his knife and sighed. "I am sorry to disappoint you, but that is something I cannot do. What I have seen, what I have done, these are things that are not meant for mortals to know. What I can say is that the war in Hell is never ending. Worlds rise and fall. Peoples from all realms are tested. Hell is connected to many places, worlds beyond counting, entire universes are threatened and either sustain themselves or fall. I have helped many of them, and have not always succeeded. Once I was a disbeliever. Did you know that Parsis? It is interesting that I was chosen for this role. The world I came from died under my feet, leaving me to wander for years until Barnabus came and showed me the way. He was your Lord Paladin, an alternate version of myself. On many realms there are duplications. You yourself exist on infinite worlds living different lives in each. Barnabus and I were the same, but I was born on Feldaroon, and Barnabus was born on Vola. We had different paths, until the Gods made them cross. And when Barnabus perished, I took up his mantle and his fight. I am not your Lord Paladin. I belong to another world. A dead world. Perhaps that is why I was chosen by Guere to fight in the eternal conflict."

The priests and monks were stunned by this revelation. Their eyes went wide. Alternate worlds? This was not something their lore included. But the concept was not beyond them to understand. The words of Ajax were simple enough, even if they were nearly beyond belief. If they had been spoken by someone else, they would have been doubted, but from Ajax, they rang with truth. This was not someone who would, or perhaps even could, lie to them.

"But surely you have the power of a Lord Paladin?" asked Parsis. "If you have taken up his mantle, and Guere has chosen you, then all the powers bequeathed to a Lord Paladin must be yours to command?"

Ajax laughed and smiled. "You'd think that wouldn't you? But, no, I am something different. My forging was not done through training in the temples, but rather through experience. My faith in the Gods came not through belief but through example. I have witnessed their power first hand. I have no need for belief, because I have seen with my own eyes what most of you can only read about and determine for yourselves what is true and what is not. That is the difference between faith and realization. You cannot doubt your God when your God surrounds you with angels and orders you to fight against demons. I have no need for faith, unlike you who must believe without knowing."

Silence reigned for a time, and then one of the monks asked, "Can you defeat the Dark Lord?"

Ajax took the sword, sheath and all, from his back and set it on the table. "This is the blade of the Lord Paladin of Guere, forged in the realm of the Gods by Guere himself. It can cut through any substance. He who wields it is immune to evil magic. Most daemonic creatures it can vanquish with but one blow. And it can only be held by a chosen warrior of Guere who speaks no lies and has the fire of righteous combat burning within him. If this blade cannot slay your Dark Lord, then I do not know a power that can. For a century I have wielded this blade in the name of Guere. Countless daemons has it slain. This is all the power I can offer you. That and the strength of my flesh and the armor that covers it."

Parsis nodded. This would be enough. "We must take you to the Queen of Daeleos," he told Ajax. "She can explain the enemy we face, and the threat that he poses better than I. Tomorrow we will request an audience."

Taking another bite of the meat, Ajax savored the long forgotten flavor. "Aye, that would be good. I look forward to meeting her."