Epilogue, Version 3: The Sensei

The Swordsman is finally dead, and I can now begin my task in earnest. It has been ten years since the Infiltrator and the Swordsman slew Rokuchiangkamphan. Ten years of my time. A hundred years of theirs.

The beginning was difficult. I had to disappear in such a way that none of those who knew me, or more importantly, none of those who knew Sensei, would suspect that I still existed. The Source helped me accomplish this. As the Archer dove into the Source, my Arcane Sight allowed me to see deeper than the others. I was nearly blinded, but I observed some of what was happening. The Archer fell towards it, shrinking rapidly as if falling a very great distance, even though in reality, it was only a few feet. Then, in the center, there was an almost invisible flash, and he was gone. He had been wrong about the Source. Whether or not it contained the secrets of the universe, no man could survive in its center.

However, I knew something more. A moment of insight told me that while the Source of all creation would suppress magic, the area immediately surrounding it would only hinder it. This was how I would disappear. Yelling that no one should have such power as the Archer sought, I followed him, diving in, while the others stared after me in shock.

It had taken the archer nearly a minute to disappear completely; I needed only a few seconds. First, I tied a silk blindfold over my eyes, reducing the intense glare. I could still see through it, so bright was the Source's light. Then I transformed. This was such a natural action that I didn't even stop to think that I had not cast a spell. I simply became a being of air, and in this form, I could slow my progress downward. Then I took out a scroll I had planned to use for the enemy, and read it. It was a spell of Imprisonment, much like the magic that trapped the Enemy in his mountain for four thousand years. However, the magic was hindered, as I had suspected. Instead of being forced into an oblivion from which only a magic of equal power could free me, I was pulled into something. I myself don't understand exactly where I was. I could hear what was going on in the room, and at the same time I could see the source before me, but I was no longer plummeting downward, and I was no longer blinded by the light. This was what I had hoped for.

The others stared after me for some time. The Infiltrator remarked on my suicidal foolishness, while others complimented my bravery. Thinking both myself and the Archer dead, they discussed what they would do next. The others, the non-Talons, would naturally return to the World of Man and continue their lives. The dwarf would take the Lodestone back to his people's caves. The Brute wanted to wait to see if I emerged. The Infiltrator and the Swordsman wanted to return to the World of Man. The Empty Hand, disheartened after his failure to strike the Enemy and torn as to what he should do, finally decided to leave. I hoped the Brute would follow his brothers once he was outnumbered, but he did not. He said he would wait, supporting his needs through magic, and keep a vigil. After a time, the others left, and the Brute was alone. “A year and a day,” he said, sitting down resolutely, hammer across his lap.

This soon became a mantra for him. “A year and a day,” he would say whenever he became restless, which was often. He spent his time swinging his hammer, that dangerous weapon created by the Sensei and his ancient allies, and talking to it. He prayed to his god often, asking every time where his brothers had gone and whether they were alive, but getting no answer. He also used this god of his to find out what was happening in the world. “Justice!” he would often shout, when he heard about something that was not to his liking. After some months, he began to make plans aloud. “There will be a New New New Suderham,” he would say once or twice a day. “Suderham is destroyed under a volcano, and we left New Suderham so the Archer could make an army, and New New Suderham is a burial ground for those who have met Justice (I soon realized that he meant the Monastery and the Sensei – the Sensei killed himself when he learned that we had succeeded, rather than face his students), but New New New Suderham will be the source of all that is Just, much like the Source is the source of all that is alive, except that the Source is more powerful and keeps the gods out, which New New New Suderham will not, and the Source is blindingly bright with light, while New New New Suderham will be blindingly bright with the Bright Hand of Justice!”

As for me, I fear my sanity did not hold up as well as the Brute's. There were long periods when I was fine, studying spells and watching their effects as I cast them in this strange region inside the Source yet outside of it. I thought over my adventures, and planned for the future, I developed a new meditative dance that was possible in the confined space and in my altered form, but these were not enough to keep me occupied for so long. “A year and a day,” the Brute kept saying, retaining his own sanity through that simple phrase. The sound began to infuriate me. How long was a year and a day for someone who had no way of perceiving time? Sometimes I tried to destroy my cell with magic, an action which surely would have destroyed me as well had it succeeded. Sometimes I came close – very close – to freeing myself and appearing before the Brute, but then the Brute would commune with his god, and say something like, “yes, my brothers have spent the last three months and seventeen days well,” or “Justice will be met out! In six months and eleven days, of course, for I must wait here for a year and a day, in case my brothers return.”

Finally, the period expired. The Brute asked his god, to be sure, how much time had passed since he started his vigil. The duration confirmed, he said, “brother Arcanist and brother Archer, the world has not been destroyed, so either the Arcanist has slain the Archer, or the Archer has slain the Arcanist and decided not to destroy the world, or both were destroyed a year and a day ago when they jumped into the Source. I must end my vigil now, and create New New New Suderham, and teach the world to see Justice, even though Tyr is Just but can't see, because he is blind. Goodbye, brothers.” With that, the Brute left. Now the moment I feared had come. Would I be able to free myself, or would I forever be doomed to this prison? I hesitated, telling myself that it was because the Brute might still be there, but knowing it was because of my fear.

A year and two days after the battle, I finally read my second scroll, the one magic capable of reversing the imprisonment, and I was free. I did not have to struggle against the Source. I was not even within sight of it. I had been sent completely out of the enormous lattice structure which housed the Source of Creation, and the portal was sealed against my return.

Now it was time to begin. A third scroll brought me directly to a secluded corner of the Monastery. I knew I could not stay long lest I be found, but this was the only place I could go for now. The land was dark and cold. With my ability to see in the dark, I was able to perceive a land almost entirely dead. There was no wind. Trees were leafless and still. There were no sounds of animal life. No stars shone in the sky, and no clouds blocked the view of emptiness. I floated around, forgetting to use my legs but no longer needing to due to the transformation I underwent in the Source. Near the stream where Sensei used to meditate, I saw a single post hammered into the ground. An inscription in the Infiltrator's hand revealed what it was. This was Sensei's grave.

I wished to see my master, so I cast a spell and transformed into a creature of the earth. In this form, I could travel downward without disturbing the ground. Three feet below the surface, I found the Sensei. He had reverted to his natural form, that of a golden dragon. This made sense, and explained why, with all his knowledge and power, he had not destroyed the Enemy himself. About to leave, I noticed that his right forepaw was clenched into a fist. I opened his fist and saw a tiny glowing bulb. I instinctively knew what this was.

I spent hours searching the monastery before I found what I was looking for – a semblance of a door in the back of a closet. I had seen this before, and thought it merely decorative. Now I knew its purpose. I approached it, holding the bulb, and passed through the wall. The small room behind the wall had exactly what I had hoped to find – Sensei's own little dragon's hoard. It was here he had stored the weapons we'd used to destroy the Enemy, and it was here he still stored his own spellbooks. Despite the danger of being found, this would be my base of operations for a time, at least until I could understand some of the complex writings of these books.

Now I had to watch my brothers, and to do this, I had to stay close. Anyone who heard their story had to be silenced, or at the very least, those things I did not want them to remember had to be removed from their memory. This was a difficult task, and took much of my time and magical ability. And I could not kill my brothers, lest the Enemy find some way to return.

I had other tasks to perform as well during this period. First, I tracked down the Enemy's Champion and his master. I would not have bothered, except that they knew too much about me and thus could be a threat. The battles were easier than I expected. Coming fully prepared, and catching them independently and by surprise, each was taken down with very little harm to myself. The Infiltrator had sought them out before me, but to no avail. I believe he wondered until his death what happened to them.

The lich, who the Brute, until his own death, referred to as “the Pony,” was another task. His great sources of lore seemed to exist for the sole purpose of falling into the wrong hands. It was through him that the Enemy learned of the Lodestone, and because of him that the Archer betrayed us and the Brute almost killed Sensei. Some day there will be another Archer, and another Brute, and this can not be allowed to happen again. Fortunately, the Swordsman stepped in. At first I was worried, but everything worked out well in the end. Leading a party of hand-picked adventurers, including, interestingly, the priest with whom we began our adventures in the World of Man, he sought out and slew the lich and his vampiric minions, and then destroyed the Lich's phylactery. Besides a crystal ball, the ring of spell storing we traded to the lich, and a few hand-picked books on psionics, the Swordsman took nothing significant. He left with his party, and rested for a few days before coming back, but by the he returned, the crystal balls were smashed and the books burnt and worm-eaten beyond recognition. This was, of course, a deception on my part. I now have the books, the crystal balls and four or five powerful items I did not expect to find. What the Swordsman found was broken glass and the contents of an ancient ruined library. The lich's collection contained several more of those powerful books he had used to barter with us. I have since read some of them, and I save the rest for when I need them.

The books made my task considerably easier. I was now able to understand many more pages of Sensei's spellbooks. I could create the Talon Tattoo, and, using one of my master's fingers as a focus, I could observe the Talons to some extent wherever they happened to be. It was this that allowed me to catch them at inopportune times and take the legendary weapons, and it was this that allowed me to hide the weapons from all detection. The Swordsman spent three years of his life attempting to recover his sword, before he gave up and settled for a less powerful replacement. The master's finger is now part of me. In my human form, it is a magical talon-shaped tattoo which passes between my eyes, and stretches from the top of my nose to my forehead, and the tip of the finger is now a golden nub where my right eye used to be. When I transform into a creature of air, the talon floats in three dimentions where my forehead would be.

The Lodestone was more difficult to retrieve than the weapons. While I certainly outmatched the dwarf in my mastery over magic, his combat abilities could prove dangerous. Instead of going myself, therefore, I gathered together some of the Archer's forces from the plane of order. Convincing them that the Lodestone could restore them to power was not difficult, and soon I had a force of my own marching on the dwarf's cave. Many of the dwarves, including Storn Faultmender, were killed in that battle, along with most of the creatures I sent down. I suppose Storn would have been happy with the circumstances of his death. He died defending his homeland, and took out at least a hundred of my creatures with his magic, and another ten or twenty with his axe. Afterwards, the Swordsman and the Brute helped the dwarves take their revenge, and destroyed the Archer's fortress on the plane of order, but the Lodestone, like so many relics used by my ancestors, was “lost to time.” It is easy to take something from someone who trusts you. Trust is a dangerous thing.

I did not place the Lodestone in the increasingly dead monastery. By now, I knew enough to create my own monastery, much like the first, and I brought all I had found and taken with me, along with the Sensei's books. I used the Lodestone to protect the new monastery while I was there, and I took it with me when I left. This required some work, since I could hardly carry that massive bag and still act, so I spent more than a year of my accelerated time creating a third Mark of Storage. The elaborate tattoo covers my entire midsection and allows me to carry the Lodestone inside myself without hindering my movement. In the center of the tattoo is drawn a trunk with two parallel branches. This is the tuning fork, which I will only remove when it is necessary for another to carry the Lodestone.

There was one more thing that had to be removed from the World of Man to ensure its safety, and that was the spells of imprisonment and freedom, and all other magics which might allow the Enemy to return if I worded my wish poorly. Appearing to them in infinitely varied forms, I sent parties of young adventurers to buy or steal scrolls and spellbooks. I kept a network of people, none of whom knew about each other or my true identity, to watch for anyone casting the spells. Many members of the Conclave of Wizards had pages removed from their spellbooks, but despite their efforts, they could not find me. It was their lack of organization that saved me. After the catastrophe of world destruction had been averted, they fell to their usual bickering, and none would admit that someone had managed to steal a page out of their own spellbooks. Even now, I continue to search for these scrolls, though it is becoming more and more difficult to find them as they become fewer in number.

The other talons spent their lives in the World of Man. The Brute did indeed found his “New New New Suderham,” though his tens of thousands of followers merely called it “Suderham.” He led a holy war against everything he perceived as unjust, conquering nations with ease. In this I did not interfere. He was dangerous, as were all the talons, but a conqueror with limited lifespan is not to be feared. The Infiltrator and the Empty Hand, however, would not stand for it. In a battle which I witnessed through my connection, the Brute and the Infiltrator were both killed, and the Empty Hand laid the final blow against the Brute, a look of profound sadness on his face as he did it. I sometimes think it strange the Infiltrator, such a fervent defender of law and such a close friend of the Infiltrator, was the one who insisted on the battle, but I suppose it makes sense. The Brute put himself above law by assuming control over it, and perhaps it was that which struck the Infiltrator as wrong. Or perhaps the Infiltrator developed a soft heart, and felt bad for all the people who were being killed.

The Swordsman lived his life to its natural span, though not without incident. Throughout our adventures and through the rest of his life, he maintained a list in his head, of those specific people who should not be allowed to live because they had wronged him or some ally of his. The lich was one of them, as was the white-robed wizard who had refused to accept that my knowledge of the Enemy would be a key part of his search for lore. The invisible imp who had stolen his sword, and worse, the crowbar he had forged himself in the monastery, was another. These and many others met their deaths at his hands. He also started his “Hammer and Anchor Trading Company,” though the Brute was too busy to invest much energy in it. The Infiltrator worked with him for a time, before he grew tired of it and returned to the quest for self- improvement that had distracted him even during our mission. The company was quite successful, and expanded to include a merchant fleet, and, though its association with the company was known to very few, a pirate fleet as well. The Swordsman had many independent adventures, leaving his fleets to the control of underlings for periods of years at a time. He died a wealthy man, with an apparent age of a hundred and twenty years.

The Empty Hand also lived out his life in full. Disheartened by his inability to harm the Enemy in the final battle, he secluded himself in a monastery where he sought enlightenment. Shortly after his battle with the Brute, he started his own monastery, situated half way up the side of the tallest mountain in the world, where Rokuchiangkamphan was imprisoned for four thousand years. He taught a lifestyle of non- violence and inner strength, and people sought him out as a source of enlightenment from all over the world. From him alone did I not have to worry about secrets spreading.

The Brute had a son, who was worshipped almost as a deity until he mysteriously disappeared. The Swordsman had two sons, only one of whom still lives but both of whom are presumed dead. Even the Infiltrator broke his vow of celibacy and fathered a son and a daughter, neither of whose bodies were found among the ashes of their village. The Healer's children are too numerous to count, but they knew nothing of their father, so they lived out their lives as people do on the World of Man… all but one. I have taken the Dreamer's daughter to my monastery with the others and suspended her perception of time. She will make a good Arcanist.

I now appear to be thirty years old in my natural form, though my true age is beyond four millennia. Soon, I will discover the secret of immortality, or of very long life, or at least a way to accelerate time even more in the monastery. Then I will keep a vigil, much like that of the Brute, watching the world for the next great Enemy.