Why had they come? What did they want? Did it matter now that they were synonymous with the darkness in which they swarmed over the whole world? All that had once known the warmth of light had fallen into cold darkness. One man alone trudged on.

The first to sue for peace had been awarded their heart’s desire in the form of a forgotten grave beneath many burning battlefields. Darkness does as is good in its own blind eyes. Nobody even knows what the darkness looks like and there may not be anybody else alive to care. It was a war that would end only when death alone walked on the face of the world.

Hope emerged when, early on, the forbidden rumors returned. People spoke of the Mystrain clan of priests who had once lived in the world. To them, it had been prophesied that they would be granted the power to repress evil, giving birth to peace, only at a price. The price was that the evil, repressed, would concentrate until it burst forth and drained the world of blood to feed its own lusts. It was a price that they had accepted and that their future forgot even as it remembered them in hushed whispers.

Arnon did not know that he was of the Mystrein bloodline back then. He had been given the best childhood to be offered in a world that had lost transcendent meaning. The Mystrein children had been taken and given to better parents who did not suffer from the disease of faith. Like all the rest of them, Arnon had been reared with a faith in the state as supreme. Unlike the others, Arnon wanted to find the truth at any cost.

Up the Adoneese mountains, on the Crystal Plateau, still stood the last of the hundred churches. It was so inaccessible that it had been left to stand even in the time of war. The climb was cold and so rough that each step in the journey was a meditation on the way, the truth and the life. By the time Arnon reached the Crystal Plateau, maybe he understood. He thought that he did. In a way, the harsh mountains were an unexpected friend to Arnon. They were the best mentor and teacher that he had ever had.

Something still dwelled in the temple although it had long since been abandoned. It was a bright spirit that Arnon could only see after the growth of his journey. He did not stand alone before the door. Fear no longer endured his company.

The darkness had followed Arnon up the mountain. With no weapon that could be seen, Arnon turned to face the darkness. Darkness hesitated, having never before seen light as burned in Arnon’s eyes. It ended quickly, with a deep slash across Arnon’s stomach.

Arnon fell to his knees, kneeling in his own blood. There he drew the weapon that would have seemed most impotent to all other eyes in his age. He prayed. On his knees and draining of the blood that was his life, Arnon, an unexpected friend to the darkness, forgave the darkness that had done nothing but labor to earn revulsion and contempt. His prayer stilled every weapon in the world and silence reigned for his last moments in the fallen world.

All the world trembled and the sky cracked. Darkness had not come to dominate, but to destroy because it faced as its true and right enemy him who could know no defeat. And, to the end, one had remained loyal with everything the darkness had to distress him. The destruction was then complete; however, so also was the defeat of the darkness.

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