with unease. “What happened?”
“Can you not guess? The Shen-Xin. It corrupts everything it touches. Turns it to black. They knew this, and they did not tell me. Not until...” the voice trailed off. “It was your kind's fault,” it said finally. “You took the heart, and almost destroyed yourselves with it. So we had to hide it from you. From everyone. We used it to create this place, the Hae’Darak as you would call it, to contain it forever. There is nothing here that it can destroy, corrupt or pervert with its maliciousness. No life, no light. Nothing.
“Nothing except me. Illociah and the others can come and go as they wish, but not me. I am trapped here, as much as a prisoner as the Shen-Xin. You see that was the greatest trick of them all. No one could risk leaving the Shen-Xin in its physical form, so that it could sit here for the aeons and lure others with its power. So they destroyed it, and bound its essence... into me.” The face looked close to tears. “Into my soul. It is my heart. My lungs. Filling me with its vile depravity. And its power.” It grinned. “Do not think for a second that I cannot feel its energy, filling me with vigour and eternal life. Flowing out of me and into this place, giving it form and function. All that power, so close, and yet I cannot touch it! The others... somehow they do not let me...” Altian’s face in the dark cloud laughed. “But I suppose that is all right in the end. The power would probably be too much, even for one such as me. It would only corrupt me in the end. It always does. It would take a will far more powerful than mine to control the Shen-Xin. Do you think that you could control it?”
“I have no wish to,” Altian repeated. “I would rather it stayed here, forever and ever, until the universe itself decayed.”
“Hmmfff,” the voice breathed sulkily. “Alas, I cannot wait that long. I tire of this place. Surely you can understand. You’ve seen the world outside. Who would be master of this horrible, little world? None would want it. Let it fall. Let it disappear with Shen-Xin’s final breath.”
“What do you mean?”
“This whole world is only made real by the Shen-Xin. If you were to take it away, back to your world, it would disappear. And good riddance, I say. Of course, therein lies the problem. You see, the Shen-Xin is no longer a physical object you could just snatch up and flee with. It is... metaphysical. It is everywhere at once, and nowhere. You see? It is in me. It is me, as I am it.”
“Then... you can give it to me,” Altian said hopefully. “Give it to me, and you will be rid of it.”
“Oh, that I would. But have you not been listening? I cannot simply hand it to you. It is in my soul. You must take it.” The Guardian’s borrowed face looked grim. “With your own immortal soul.”
Altian let his sword drop. He regarded the black cloud with pity. The divine creature had given its own life and soul to contain the Shen-Xin, and look what had happened to it. Twisted and broken beyond reason. He felt sorry for it, and had he thought it possible he would have ended its suffering then and there. But how was it possible to destroy something empowered by the Shen-Xin? If this half mad Guardian was to be believed, Altian would have to destroy his own soul in the process. That thought came to Altian, and he realised coldly that it no longer mattered what happened to his soul.
“How do I take it?” he asked.
The Guardian looked surprised. “This is not something to be taken lightly, especially for someone who claims not to want the Shen-Xin to begin with. What would you do with it, if it were yours?”
“Return home, with the rest of the Lok’Chang.”
“And then? Once you had returned back to your world with the Shen-Xin within you and its power at your disposal, what would you do? Give it to someone else? Use it for yourself?”
“What do you care? It would no longer be your concern.”
The face faltered. It seemed to be divided by some internal struggle. It wanted to be rid of the Shen-Xin, separated from it forever and perhaps by that separation, given the peace of death it so richly desired and deserved. But part of it, perhaps the remnant of its angelic self, had no deep wish to allow such an evil power to be taken from its prison and let loose in the hands of the easily corrupted.
“Tell me,” the Guardian said. “Why are you so eager to take this thing within you?”
“I am not eager,” Altian replied. “I simply have nothing to lose. That is why I am here. I have already lost everything that meant anything to me.”
The Guardian looked interested. To Altian, it seemed to twist his copied features into a somewhat cruel look.
“Would you tell me your tale?” it implored. “After all, I told you mine.”
“No.”
“If you tell me, then I will help you to take the Shen-Xin.”
Altian pursed his lips, and then sighed.
“Start with your name,” the Guardian said with childish excitement. “And go from there.”
Altian looked at the face coldly, and told him.
“My name was Lung Tian Tse. I was a lord of much land, which I had inherited from my father when I was young. I was a warrior, and commanded many men in many successful campaigns. And I was deeply in love with a girl I had known since my childhood. She was the daughter of another lord, a friend of the family, and we were to be married after my next campaign.” He clenched his sword tightly at the memories as he spoke, angered by his own confession. “During the battle, my division was ambushed. Someone had betrayed us and told the enemy our exact position. My men were all slaughtered. I alone survived, though it seems, not through my own skill. They had orders to spare me. Because I was the only survivor the emperor, wise and all knowing as he is,” Altian added sarcastically, “determined that I was the traitor who had given information to the enemy. I was charged with treason, and locked away without trial. My lands were taken by the Emperor and given away, and my betrothed...” He faltered. “She... She was instead married to a member of the Emperor’s council, a man well known for his depravity and brutality. So I have nothing. I am a traitor to my people, without a home, or family. I resigned myself to death when the Emperor began his fruitless search for immortality and sent us here to find the Shen-Xin. And now that I am here... well, I suppose I can in the very least help those with lives get back to their homes. And if I need to give up my soul to do it, then so be it. I no longer need it anyway.”
He glared at the Guardian, at his own face. “Does my tale fascinate you?” he asked in disgust.
“Immensely,” the Guardian smiled. “Despite all that you have said... Do you still feel no urge to take the Shen-Xin as your own? Can you not imagine the wrongs you could right, the peace you could bring to your world of unbridled chaos?”
“Yes,” Altian said truthfully. “But I can also envision the innocent blood that would be spilt by my hand in the name of justice. So no, I will not wield this thing as my own. Ever.”
“Excellent,” it beamed. “You are perfect. Truly the most perfect one to take the Shen-Xin from me. Very well, let us begin.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well,” the Guardian said happily. “I am going to kill you.”
The wind picked up in an instant, and the cloud of black ash swarmed around him. Only it no longer seemed to be ash. It sliced over his skin, and cut open his robe with the keenness of a thousand blades. It was as though he were being attacked by a swarm of thousands of minuscule knives.
Blindly he twisted and fought, thrashing his arms and swinging his sword. Before him the cloud opened, taking the shape of a giant gaping mouth, complete with teeth. Instinctively, he lifted his sword and thrust down into it. The mouth closed over his arm, up to the elbow, and then there was pain.
The particles began to spin in a vortex over his arm, tearing away first the sleeve of his robe, then the leather bracer he wore and the shirt sleeve below, and then finally, its flayed away his flesh.
Altian screamed, and tried to pull away, but something powerful held his arm in its vice-like grip. The buzzing cloud stripped away the skin, then the f
lesh, leaving only bone which was in seconds finally reduced to dust.
With his last ounce of strength, Altian pulled himself free, and collapsed against the wall. There was no longer anything below his right elbow. His sword arm was gone.
“You bastard,” he spat.
“Come now,” the voice said in a hurt tone.
The face appeared once more in the cloud as it hovered malevolently before him. Behind it, Altian saw flashes of metal. His sword was held aloft in the cloud, spinning end over end, faster and faster. The face smiled, and there was more than a hint of insanity in its expression.
“There is no need to be insulting,” the Guardian chided. “If I was going to destroy you outright, you would already be dead.”
The sword was now spinning behind it so fast, it was a blur.
“The last one who came here,” the voice continued thoughtfully, “I flayed alive before he could even raise his staff. He was a wizard of some sort, you know,” it added helpfully.
The sword blade exploded into hundreds of tiny shards. They rained down on Altian, some cutting into him, and some embedding in his robe and armour.
“You are insane,” Altian told the Guardian.
“You would be too,” it replied in irritation. “Stuck in this hell for so long. Nothing to look at but the endless plains of black ash. I am so sick of ash! And that bloody volcano...” the voice fell silent,