Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

Chapter Sixty-Four

In the penetrating silence that followed, Mortanius thought he heard a sound out in the darkness. He glanced down at Anarcrothe’s body and stepped away from the pooling blood.

“I didn’t want it to end like that,” he said softly.

There was a whisper on the wind, muffled by the thick mist, the faint laughter of Ariel watching the scene unfold. Maybe she found grim humor in the fact that Anarcrothe had unknowingly followed in her own footsteps as the second Guardian to die at the Pillars by Mortanius’s hand. But this time was not like before. This time Mortanius knew full well what he was doing.

He glanced up as another sound came from the darkness, a sound followed by a figure that emerged from the mist like a shadow. A man in dark armor contrasted by his deathly pale skin. A sword was in his hand. The sound Mortanius heard earlier was the sound of that sword being drawn.

Kain stepped up onto the platform and Mortanius got his first good look at the savior of Nosgoth since his resurrection. The man standing before him did not look much like a savior, that was true. Vampirism had changed his appearance drastically in a short time, and he no longer looked like a man at all. His skin was as white as an albino’s, his formerly-brown hair also bleached white, and his eyes a peculiar yellow color. His armor was dark, dingy gray, the padding underneath bloody maroon.

He carried a familiar sword in his hand. Mortanius stared at it, uncomprehending, as Kain stepped forward. It had a long, serpentine blade and a skull embedded in the hilt. There was little light, but the sword seemed to glint as if reflecting the light of a bonfire.

“Necromancer,” Kain intoned, his voice deep as a grave. “I have returned here, as requested.”

“Yes,” Mortanius said distantly, not taking his eyes off the sword. “To complete your quest.”

Kain looked down at Anarcrothe’s body and sniffed in disapproval. “This one escaped me in Dark Eden. I see you’ve gotten your own hands bloody.”

“My hands are bloodier than you know.”

“Perhaps not. Answer me this, necromancer. Are you the one who hired the brigands who ambushed me at the bridge?”

“Yes. I hired them.”

“I should kill you for that alone.”

“You should.”

“I am tempted. But it seems I have other, more pressing reasons to end your life. I overheard you arguing just as I arrived. He named you Mortanius. I’ve heard that name before.”

“Yes.”

Kain raised the sword and pointed it at him. His eyes seemed to glint with bloodlust, and as he spoke, his fangs were visible. “That makes you the final Guardian of the Circle. It looks like you’re the final name on my list, necromancer.”

“Yes,” Mortanius said again.

“Defend yourself.”

Mortanius had waited for this moment for weeks, even since he first learned Kain’s identity. He knew it would always come down to this, he planned for it, he prepared for it. Everything he had done culminated in this final act. To cure the corrupted Pillars, to restore the binding magic which held the hylden at bay, to heal Nosgoth itself, Mortanius knew that he must die along with the rest of of the Circle. He had come to meet Kain at the Pillars to accomplish exactly this goal. He life, having lasted far too long, must come to an end.

But the instinct to live is strong. When Kain came at him, Mortanius’s body seemed to move of its own volition. He jumped backwards, magic flowing around him, and cast a magical shield to deflect the oncoming blow.

Kain moved faster than any mortal human ever could. Mortanius marveled at his supernatural speed and inhuman power as he battled his way through layer after layer of magical defenses. The giant curved sword seemed alive in his hands.

The sword. Even as Mortanius fought for his life, he could not take his eyes off it. He faced a vampire assassin with white skin, wielding a sword identical to the one taken from Janos. Identical to the one Moebius had gifted to William of Winterheim. How was it possible? What did it mean?

Mortanius desperately wished to know how Kain had acquired the sword, but there was no time. There was only time to fight, only time to live another few moments, to look back on a lifetime spanning millennia and wonder where it all went wrong.

Kain’s soul glowed as bright as the sun. It was like a beacon, focusing the attention of the entire world. Mortanius reached out for it, but it burned his hand. Kain was more than just a vampire, more than just a Guardian, he was more than Mortanius could ever imagine. It was as if all of history had converged to give Kain life, and Mortanius was merely a bit player in the grand scheme of the universe.

He retreated back again and again, firing bolts of lightning, summoning ghostly black hands from the spirit world, wrapping himself in deadly magic. But none of it mattered. Kain fought through it all like an unstoppable force. The champion of the vampires would not be denied.

With a cry of victory, Kain surged forward and thrust the serpentine blade straight through Mortanius’s chest. The blade slipped through without a hint of resistance, as if the blade itself was a spectral weapon, incorporeal and intangible, the mysterious vampire blade of prophecy. Mortanius looked down dumbly at the hilt as it pressed against his chest, and then raised his eyes to look upon the assassin he had created, his own undead son.

With a sigh, Mortanius fell to his knees. He was the Guardian of Death, and yet despite all of his experiments, all of his research, all of his years of experience, he had never truly learned its most basic truth. What did it feel like? What did it feel like to die?

Kain looked down at him, his expression unreadable. “And now it’s done,” he said simply. “The Guardians are no more. I’m finished with this.”

“... No …,” Mortanius gasped. “There is … still … one more … for you … to face ...”

He wanted to tell Kain everything, to warn him about the hylden and their champion, to ask him where he obtained the sword, to ask for forgiveness for everything he had done. But he didn’t have the strength. In his final moments, he wished he had more time. Kain had achieved the impossible, he’d slain the corrupted Guardians and ended the corruption of the Pillars, and yet there was so much he didn’t know about his destiny. He would have to discover the truth on his own.

Mortanius looked into the spirit world. His own soul seemed to hover outside of his body. He felt it slip away, freeing him from the prison of life, and somehow pull forward into the sword that still impaled him through the chest. He did not understand what was happening or how he could ever experience such a thing, but the moment seemed to last forever, and he watched it as if from a distance. Did his powers as Death Guardian give him this ability, to objectively study his own death?

He watched as his soul departed from his body. But it did not fly away. Instead, his glowing soul disappeared into the sword, as if the magical blade had absorbed it. Kain pulled the sword free and Mortanius slumped backward onto the Pillar platform.

But it was okay. He was at peace and felt no pain. The Pillars were restored, and that was all that mattered. Kain would do what needed to be done. The very last thought that went through Mortanius’s mind was that Nosgoth would be saved.

The End

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