smashed, poisoned, blasted with fire and magic. He had defeated four of the mightiest daemons ever to blight creation. His army was all but dead. His friends were dead. And still the spell was not complete.
They had rolled the dice and they had lost. The last gamble of the elves was over and all that remained was to pay the price of failure. He threw back his head and laughed.
They had tried and there would be none left to witness their failure. He considered throwing himself into the still half-formed Vortex and offering himself up as a sacrifice as he had once done before the Flame of Asuryan but he knew that this time it would not work. There was nothing left to be done, except to return to the fray and slay what he could until he was pulled down into death.
Yes, whispered the voices. Go! Kill until the world itself ends.
A moment of awful silence came. The Vortex spun and danced before him, about to fall like a child’s top that had run out of energy. Aenarion watched fascinated and horrified as it began to collapse. Then the fading image of Caledor stabilised. The ghost turned to the Vortex and continued its spell. Shimmering figures appeared around him as if summoned by his will. Aenarion recognised them as the ghosts of the dead archmages. Somehow, something of them still survived in this place. Even in death something now bound them to it.
The spirits of the other archmages joined in the ritual, walking one by one into the Vortex and vanishing. Aenarion peered at them through fast dimming eyes. He could see them becoming frozen, trapped in the awful centre of the spell as they continued the ritual. Something within him told him what was happening, that the ghosts were giving themselves up for all eternity to hold together the spell they had woven.
No! The voices in his head shrieked. He felt the chorus of mad hatred build up in his head, threatening to overpower his will. Destroy it! Destroy them all! Destroy the world!
The chant was seductive. He wanted to obey it. Why should anyone else live when he was dying? What did he care whether the world went on, if he could not be in it, ruling it?
He walked slowly towards the centre of the Vortex. The ghost of Caledor stood before him and made a gesture for him to stop. The archmage shook his head, and pointed at the blade. It howled within Aenarion’s grasp, urging him to cut down Caledor and then leap into the Vortex, slashing all around him. By doing so, he would undo everything, slay the entire world by unleashing all the pent up magic the mages had struggled so long and so hard to control.
He was tempted. He could end everything, kill everyone, and the blade could feast upon the death of an entire planet. Part of him wanted to do it, to end all life even as his own life ended. If he was to die, why not take everything else with him?
He stood there, gazing at the ghost of the elf who had once been his friend. Caledor’s spirit sensed the struggle within him but there was nothing it could do to either aid or hinder. The decision was Aenarion’s own, or it was the Sword’s.
That thought at last made Aenarion stir. He was his own master. He had always gone his own way. He had not bowed to his people, to Chaos, to the gods of the elves. In the end he would not bow to the Sword. It howled in frustration as if it sensed his decision and fought against it.
Caledor smiled and waved farewell, and turned and walked into the place where he would be trapped for all that remained of eternity.
Slowly, Aenarion turned his back on Caledor and the Vortex and walked away. The Sword fought him every step of the way.
Outside, all was howling madness. Lightning lashed down from the sky. Time flowed strangely within the range of the Vortex’s influence. The daemons were vanishing, turning back into the stuff of Chaos that had formed them. Their worshippers aged before his eyes, years passing in seconds, putrefying flesh falling away from corpses even as they fell. Piles of bones formed everywhere.
Aenarion stood and watched. Even the elves caught within the range of the newborn Vortex were ageing. He gestured for the survivors to flee and they obeyed.