Challenge #03317-I029: Blessing? You Mispronounced 'Curse'
Do you really want to fight and kill to gain immortality? Did you really just barge into my home demanding I remove your mortality and make you as immortal as I? Well, you're in luck, I'm feeling particularly generous today. No I'm not going to make you immortal, idiot, put away your blade. I AM going to let you look into the mirror that will show you your entire life, from your birth, to your future as an immortal. And, if you think you can handle ALL that you will face, I will grant your wish. If not, you will leave your bloody blade here, and go back and apologize to all you have harmed for this, and make amends. No don't look at me like that, this mirror holds YOUR life, I cannot see what it will show because it doesn't work like that. It would only show me MY life. This is the Window of Fate. Do you think you can handle the Fate you will face as an immortal? Ask it true, and see its answer. -- Anon Guest
"That's it?" said Gurg the Unstoppable. Ze still had a firm grip on hir sword. "I watch what a mirror tells me an' then I get immortal?"
"More or less," Shalidan the Ageless wheeled out an ovoid covered in fine cloth. He stepped away from it as if it might explode. "When you are ready, take down the cloth and see what kind of life you will have as an immortal. IF you can stand seeing it play all the way through, I pass my immortality to you. That is the way it works, and the only way it will work."
Gurg checked for traps, for guile, for a trick... there wasn't any. Nevertheless, ze remained cautious as ze approached. Ze hadn't got this far by being a reckless maniac, after all.
The cloth was light, and easily pulled aside. Underneath was a seemingly plain oval mirror. Full length. Its stand was on castor wheels. It was plain that others had updated its resting place over the centuries. It was not silvered glass. It was some strange, silvery crystal, and it seemed to contain swirling mists.
Gurg, still wary, said, "What is my life as an immortal?"
The mirror showed a vision, beginning with hir walking away from the mirror, Shalidan a dried-out husk at hir feet. Then... more battles. Enormous battles. Gurg living up to hir name. Pierced with a thousand arrows, run through with hundreds of blades... ze could not die. Ze laid entire nations to waste.
Ze left a trail of blood miles wide in hir wake. It looked glorious. The few ze left surviving tried and failed to defeat hir in combat. Ze faced dragons alone and won. Ze met every stranger with a bloodied blade.
And yet... with every kill, with every slaughter, Gurg's future self seemed less happy about it. Ze had mountains of treasure. Dragon hoards' worth. But when ze went anywhere to spend it, the people fled.
Ze couldn't even buy a new sword when hir old one finally fell to nothing. Ze had to go questing for legendary weapons. Some of them were particular about who might wield them. Fighting everything with hir fists or a big stick was tiresome. Every conquest took too long and the odds were in favour of the legendary weapon declaring hir unworthy.
The weapon ze did find radiated evil and demanded blood sacrifices. Gurg in the vision was eager to comply.
With every slaughter, Gurg became more monstrous. Became a god of bloodshed. Became ever more alone. Finally, ze had scoured clean an entire continent of intelligent life. No boat would take hir aboard, but there was nothing that could kill hir either.
The sword demanded blood.
Gurg walked into the ocean, and the terrors of the deep. In those crushing depths, the god of bloodshed finally met hir match.
Even in its stomach, unkillable and unstoppable, Gurg still could not die. The blood-hungry sword was left sucking its sacrifices from the beast and Gurg was forced to seek hir exit out the other end of the creature.
The sword clattered out of Gurg's grip. Through all of that, ze still needed to eat... and that which was on offer turned hir stomach.
"Still want to be immortal?" said Shalidan the Ageless.
"No!" Gurg backed away, still witnessing even deeper horrors. "Never!"
"Run," said Shalidan, picking up the cloth. He caught the barest glimpse of his own future in the silver fog. Shuddering at the sight.
"Twenty more," he whispered to nobody. "Only twenty more."
[AN: Enormous thanks to DaniAndShali who gave me some good moneys on Ko-Fi yesterday. I really should get into the habit of checking before I stream. They have now become Shalidan in this story. Bless]
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / ElaKwasniewski]
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