When light and dark stand so stark and so clear.

In the time of choosing and consumed by fear.

Two shall stand, but one shall fall upon the spear.

Which will it be?

Tell me, dear?

The Cleric?

Or the Seer?

Last Prophecy of Denera Matir

Hurled apart after coming together yet again, the embodiments of light and dark, newly risen cleric and fallen angel, stared at one another in anticipation of their next confrontation. The berth given by all others at the mountain was now twice as large as before. None from the throngs surrounding them dared intervene in this contest. Even the undead, once so eager to assail the cleric, remained at a distance and found other prey.

Legs wobbling beneath them, both Daphney and Noranda reeled in the aftermath of the latest conflagration—an explosive detonation that tore a gash in the stone of the mountain between them. Trying not to show weakness, each trembled in the wake of strength unleashed from diametric ends of the cosmic spectrum.

Lady Noranda flexed the fingers on her scarred hand, tingling with pins and needles from the brunt of the last attack. Her grotesque face bearing the unhealed burns of their previous encounter now laid bare under the darkened sky.

Daphney stretched out a painful ache in her spine. One earned from a previous bad landing during the ongoing and contentious feud between good and evil.

Undaunted by what both women saw as minor inconveniences, each sought to impose their will on one another again. And again, as they came together, they canceled each other out just as before. Once more pushing each other back as their convergence exploded upon meeting head on.

Both women took a knee after skidding to a halt, but neither stayed down for long. Despite scrapes and scratches formed from the friction of skin on stone, sheer force of will demanded they continue in battle. No matter how many times it ended in a stalemate. To anyone else, what they did probably seemed like the very definition of insanity. Over and over, hurling themselves at one another with the same unyielding results.

And, yet again, their next joint assault ended exactly in the same manner. Each combatant weaker, but more determined than ever.

"You'll never win," Daphney vowed, her lungs burning with painful heaves. "Not as long as I draw breath."

"Which won't be much longer," Lady Noranda snarled. Like a phoenix, flames engulfed the once loyal servant of Earoni, transforming the fallen angel into a living weapon of fire.

Daphney, her divine weapon up and protecting her, held the punishing assault of devilish heat from the Red Wich at bay. Although she felt the sweat on her skin after being drawn from her pores, there was no physical damage.

When the two women separated once more, as before, neither had gained any advantage.

It seemed destined to go on like this forever.

At least, until Daphney faltered during their next round of strikes. It was only the slightest of missteps, but an error none-the-less. A blessing delayed a mere fraction of a second too long, gave Noranda an opening to exploit.

The fallen angel used forces she commanded to slip slashing whips of darkness through the cleric's defenses. They struck Daphney with a force that should have severed in two. And such would have been the outcome, had the cleric been a second slower in erecting her wall of light. The brunt of the deadly blow was mostly absorbed at the last possible moment, but the cleric was not entirely spared.

Daphney screamed, clutching at her side as the severed whips dissipated. Under her robes, blood seeped from a laceration that had been opened—deep into the muscle and nearly to bone. The wound, while not fatal, stung like fire and stained her white robes in a streak of the same color as those the fallen angel wore.

Noranda smiled, having landed the first substantial blow between either of them. But while she reveled in her feat, a wall of light slammed into her and sent her ass over head backwards. Landing, her fingers dug into the rocks and tore them up with inhuman strength as she ground herself to a halt. The loss of a fingernail in the process didn't even faze her.

Something warm and wet pooled on the fallen angel's face. Touching her lip, she pulled away fingers stained with blood.

Coiling the darkness inside her like a snake ready to strike, Lady Noranda prepared to enter the fray once more with renewed determination. She saw Daphney slump following the attack and knew it was her chance to end this once and for all.

Daphney, in the midst of preparing a defense against what she knew was coming, instead felt her jaw go slack. Settling over the fallen angel like a cloak of eventide was a man exuding wickedness. His powerful fingers constricted around Lady Noranda's neck and halted her adversary's advance with a wrenching suddenness. From behind her, he had appeared out of nowhere—a dominating presence that would not be denied.

The Red Witch had no time to comprehend what was happening as panic planted itself on her face. She could not turn to see who had ensnared her. Only knowing that whoever it was, was very powerful and she could not break free of them.

The sinister man bared sharp and pointed fangs, sinking them into the fallen angel's throat while Lady Noranda choked on her scream. One that could have rivaled any of the damned within The Dark in their eternal tortures. That which was Lady Noranda, the dark powers she commanded, visibly flowed out of her and into her captor. Her body twitched feebly and life escaped her in mere instants.

And all while the devilish man smiled and stared at the cleric with eyes glowing red as blood.

Daphney, uncertain of what to do for a moment, remained frozen by the stranger's gaze. As though he were commanding her to wait her turn.

At first the cleric was inclined to believe in the oldest of adages about the rival to one's attacker being an obvious ally. But no—not this man. This man was no friend. He was a fiend, pure and raw in his corruption. Whether he would have been a match for the fallen angel in a straight up fight, would never be known.

As he drained the Lady Noranda of the last of her life, the cleric could feel the hairs on her arms stand up. She knew she could not delay any longer.

Daphney surged forward. She didn't want to defend the Red Witch, but she couldn't allow this man to feed on her and capture the power she wielded. He was like Lord Hedric—a Blood Lord. Whether that realization came to her by divine inspiration or a recognition of the legends, Daphney did not know. But she could tell. Just by the way his eyes pulsed with a desire to feed on the living.

Holy weapon leading the way, Daphney called forth a surge of divine strength.

Before she reached her target, he discarded the now lifeless, once formidable body draped in red robes and awaited the cleric's pending arrival. Attempting to strike the Blood Lord down, Daphney found she'd missed as he vanished before her eyes.

But he was not gone. He'd only avoided her, traveling upon shadows in a way only an unholy abomination that fed on blood could.

Daphney turned, quickly seeking him out. Finding him, she watched while he stood in a swirl of energy growing in strength as he assimilated the life force he had just consumed. Looking down upon the now pale and still body of Lady Noranda at her feet, the cleric was at a loss for words as to what she had just experienced. Two perfectly round circles pierced her neck. And not a drop of blood remained to drip from them.

How could she hope to succeed against an opponent who had defeated a fallen angel so easily when she could not?

"Who are you?" she eventually called above the din of a battle that still ignored them.

The Blood Lord was in the throes of admiring his newfound strength. A strength linked to both the heavens and The Dark, even if the body had been bound to the world. "I am Carmon Dagarth," he said plainly. "And soon you, and all others, shall kneel before me once more."

"I wasn't prepared to kneel before one tyrant today. I won't kneel before you either."

"You won't have to." He smiled at her. "You'll be dead. And you'll—"

In an instant, his words were cut off; arms compressed and bound tight to his side by invisible bindings against which he struggled. Pondering his unseen prison, the Blood Lord did so not with anger but with curiosity. This was not the cleric's doing.

"Less talk," Reane said, stepping between the two. "And maybe you would have succeeded. What is it with villains and their incessant desire to monologue?"

"What is this?" The command roared out of the Blood Lord as he nearly broke free. But the bonds of psychic energy placed about him strengthened and held.

Reane felt the force he brought to bear on her supernatural restraints. The man was strong, making it not easy to maintain his containment. But the fury of the archeon living in her mind fueled her own abilities, just as the blood of the fallen angel fed his. The ancient dragon's power unlocked strength within the seer she had never known was possible. What she now called upon stretched out into the furthest reaches of the universe.

Daphney noticed how the world seemed to trickle to a near halt around her, the seer, and the Blood Lord. "Reane? What have you done?"

"I'm preparing to find out what's going on here," Reane replied. "Oh, and I stopped time." The way she spoke of made it seem like the feat was something minor. Placing herself before the ancient vampire, the seer looked him up and down with an investigative gaze. "I heard you say your name was Carmon Dagarth? I know that name." She gave a glance at the body of the fallen angel, discarded like garbage, and then back to her prisoner. "History says you died when Srabeth fell and Lord Hedric claimed the throne. Before he toppled the Hitithe Empire."

"If truth be told," he said. "I died hundreds of years before that."

"Why are you here?"

"Primarily?" He smiled and paused. "Revenge. Lars—Lord Hedric—and I have some unfinished business." His smile deepened. "If you release me, I will take care of him for you."

Reane chewed on her lip, pondering that tempting offer. "I believe you would."

"Reane? No!" Daphney cried out.

"Don't worry. I'm not that big of a fool." And while the temptation to form an alliance was there, Reane fell short of accepting his help. "However, I sense you have other motives as well. I warn you, I am not so easily deceived."

"No. You're not." Eyes locked on to her, the vampiric lord bored into the soul of the blond woman before him. "I sense you in my mind and know who you are. You are a Seer of Denang." Carmon Dagarth gave a shallow laugh while remaining bound. "Here I thought you were all deceased as you believed me to be."

"You want the Tear as well." Reane wouldn't allow herself to be diverted by side banter. The balancing act she maintained to keep her formidable prisoner immobile and time at a near halt was precariously on edge. She couldn't allow other thoughts to distract her.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't."

*You want to walk in the daylight.* Reane linked their minds, piecing together the desires the Blood Lord possessed within his thoughts. *But you also want to keep your power.*

*I do.* The force of the admission in her mind nearly knocked the seer over, staggering her.

Reane knew in that instant he was letting her read his mind. There was not the slightest hint of resistance to her probes. Not like someone who understood what she was doing would be inclined to normally do. It was as though they were playing Bahnar, and he was so confident he would win that he was allowing her to see all his cards.

"Reane, we have to end this." Daphney took a step forward.

"I agree," Carmon Dagarth said.

The psychic energy of the prison Reane had placed him in shattered like glass dropped on stone. Carmon Dagarth's freedom was nearly instantaneous, and wholly against the seer's intentions. He'd been toying with her; letting her believe she had the upper hand when he was in control all along.

The Blood Lord turned the tables on the seer, using the link she'd established to freeze her just long enough that he was able to grab hold of her and make her his prisoner instead. He grabbed her.

It happened all so fast that Reane wasn't even sure how he'd done it. Only that he had. The seer stood there, locked into a trance by those blood-red eyes. A fog settled over Reane's mind, muddling her thoughts.

Daphney halted her approach, the golden glaive ready to act, but unable to find an opening to do so. "Reane?"

The seer heard the cleric call to her, but also the Blood Lord's command in her mind. It overrode every instinct she should have had. *You're mine now, seer.*

*N-No.* Reane struggled to disobey, her resistance pounding in her skull with the pain of thunder. Even the mental roar of the archeon couldn't free her.

*Don't fight it. It hurts less when you don't fight.* It was almost as if he sniffed the blood throbbing in Reane's neck.

*I won't let you win.*

*Who says you have a choice?*

*I do.*

*You don't. Your blood is an unexpected surprise, I admit. One I didn't expect to feast on today, or ever. And after yours?* Even though Reane could not see it, she felt the way he looked at Daphney. *I shall partake of the cleric. And I will be more than unstoppable.*

"Reane?" Daphne's plea came again as the seer stood frozen in the Blood Lord's grasp. "Tell me you're still with me, Reane."

Dried lips needed wetting before Reane could reply. "I'm here," she said, almost as if she really wasn't.

The cleric braced.

Again Carmon Dagarth was in Reane's mind. *Tell me, seer. What do you see of your future?*

With the aid of the archeon's rage, Reane fought to maintain herself. But it was a battle she was quickly losing. *Nothing,* she spoke honestly through their link—a link he now controlled at both ends. *Only blackness.*

*You see your end.*

*Yes.*

Reane was aware of Daphney charging down upon them. The cleric had said something, trying to get Reane to reply that she understood. But the words were all lost to the quickly collapsing darkness as the seer's sight of the future faded.

Only one piece of that vision mattered to Reane just before the nothingness would claim her. She saw Daphney, pinned down, struggling, and failing to fend off the Blood Lord as he was overcoming her while his teeth dripped with the remnants of Reane's own blood.

Reane could not allow what would happen next.

Taking the final bit of defiance she was using to hold back the Blood Lord from claiming her essence, Reane lashed out with it.

Something invisible struck Daphney. The painful force crashed into her chest and hurled the cleric backward and through the limits of the protective shell the seer had created for them. Time slammed forward again as Daphney was no longer confined by the anomaly Reane had summoned. She rose just to see the Blood Lord's fangs sink into Reane's neck.

The seer screamed but did not yield without a fight. She sundered the rock beneath her and tore open the ground through a force of pure rage and will. Churning, the mountain beneath her and the Blood Lord roiled, and the two bored down into the mountain, while the rock reformed solidly above them.

The shaking of the mountain knocked Sheala off her feet, sending the former thief tumbling down the few remaining rocky steps to where they reached a bottom. "Ow!" She cried, banging her head off the final two.

Brentai, who had maintained his footing, as had Sayra, reached out to her. "Are you all right?"

She accepted his hand, and with his assistance, stood. "Yeah. What the fuck was that?"

"Don't know." Brentai continued to listen to the rumbling as it felt like someone, or something, was digging through the mountain.

Sheala didn't bother to clean herself off as the blue light of Sayra's fairies illuminated the bottom of the spiral stairs and allowed her to see. The only other thing with them in the dark was a pedestal carved from a portion of the wall. Atop it was a polished dome of stone.

"That it?" Sheala rushed over to the only thing besides them in the place they had come to after their long journey.

"Under it, I believe," Sayra replied.

Reaching out for it, instinct born from years of needing to survive emerged within Sheala, and she halted. "There's got to be a trap, or something, on this."

"I do not believe so."

"Seriously? You mean all I have to do is just lift the lid?" More rumbling from the mountain came as Sheala pondered the statement. As though it were suddenly alive. "That just seems too easy."

"Easy? You call what we've done easy?"

Sheala rolled her eyes. "All right." Both hands firmly on the dome, Sheala hesitated only a brief moment longer, gave in, and raised it. The result was anti-climactic in the thief's eyes. Underneath, not even in a special mount of gold or ornately forged metal, just laying there, was a jagged cylinder of gray rock laced with veins of dull blue crystal.

As she stood there, frozen by the less than impressive sight, it was Brentai's turn to pose the incredulous question of, "That's it?"

"That's it," Sayra confirmed. "The Tear of Earoni."

The stone lid dropped from Sheala's hands and shattered on the floor. "I thought it would be—" She picked it up, turning the unimpressive stone as big as both her fists over and over. "All glowy or at least mystical feeling." She still couldn't quite fathom what she was holding. Not only was it rather boring looking, but was also cold.

"Why does everyone always assume that mystic artifacts have to glow or radiate some intense aura? Perhaps even speak?"

"Well," Sheala admitted, "you kind of just get the feeling that they should."

"I blame fairy tales." Brentai laughed. "Or the great bardic poems of old. They get our hopes up from the time we're wee babies."

"How does it work?" Sheala continued her examination. "Can we use it?"

Sayra approached to examine the object. But she did not even attempt to touch it. The prophecies said the Child of the Storm would return the Tear. Not the elven First Mother. "The fairies say it is—"

"Is what?" Sheala asked as the pause between the words and their not forthcoming conclusion grew too long.

"The elvish word they use is 'delisa'. Which means dead and awaiting afterlife. But because of the context? I think they mean dormant and awaiting rebirth." Sayra shook her head. "There really isn't an elven word for that."

"Well, how do we wake it up then?"

"A Priest of Earoni will know how. Come, let us take it to her and end this war."

"Reane!" Kneeling on the ground, Anthony clawed at the stone. He'd arrived just in time to witness Reane and the ominous, shadowy man with her be swallowed up by the mountain and rushed to the last place where she had stood. It was now, once again, solid stone. "Where did he take her?" He turned to Daphney. "Was that another Blood Lord? I saw him bite her just before the rocks swallowed them up."

The tide of the battle had turned. Without Lady Noranda raising the dead to bolster the Imperial forces, the rebel and elven alliance, along with the archeons had begun a decisive final push against their foes. Where they now stood, and had once been firmly enemy controlled ground, was now behind friendly lines.

"He didn't take her anywhere." Daphney informed him. "She took him."

"What? Why? How?"

"The why, I believe, was to save me. The how I do not understand." Daphney kneeled with him, putting an arm around him to try to console him. "I would assume it had something to do with her telekinetic abilities."

"How's that possible?"

"You told me she once moved an entire ship," Daphney reminded him.

"Yes, a ship. Not mountains. And moving that ship almost killed her."

Daphney shrugged. "Perhaps she had more strength than even she knew?"

"We have to find her." There were uncontrollable tears dropping from both Anthony's good eye as well as from under his leather patch over the one General Nightwing had gored. "We have to."

Daphney looked towards the mouth of the shrine standing open. "I think I know where she has gone."