As you all must have noticed, Khalazdad did come out of the Tunnel yet none decided to speak of his adventure. Thus I, his daugher Peace, will tell you of his story there. The story of the birth of a King.
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Khalazdad can see the future and the past with equal clarity. This is his curse, part of the price he paid... but another story.
He saw in the future a man, the Destroyer. He could defeat Khalazdad, his most potent defense, with his weakest force. He could shatter an alliance at a thought, even those whose loyalty scores numbered in the tens of thousands.
He saw two ways to stop him, also. The first, a fiery death - he would grapple with the Destroyer, a losing fight given that he was so strong, but he could not resist the chance to fight Khalazdad. And, while he held him in place, fire would rain down on them both...
Death. Mutually assured destruction. A price Khalazdad was willing to pay.
The second way... I cannot speak of it.
He went, thus, into Necrovion to seek the means to make the first come to pass.
He got as far as the Tunnel of War. Do not ask how he came to be there. I will not tell you the way. Before him lay an arroyo - a box canyon, the end blocked by a fall of rocks. Before him there were two guards, facing away.
Whether they were stone or flesh he could not say. He knew he could not move past them, however, nor was there any purpose. He was overcome with stillness. he stood vigil there, meditating, seeking the will to step forward.
In the Outside world, people began to gather and to send him their good wishes and hopes, their recollections. A vigil of many gathered in peace and unity of purpose. It was an astonishing outpouring of love, and Khalazdad felt it. It... changed him...
On the third day of his contemplation, the scales fell from his eyes, and he acquired a will.
He saw two new destinies. he saw - he heard - his own voice. In the world, teaching in a new way. And he saw a circle, a ring, a thing of metal. It might mean nothing... or everything.
And suddenly the blank wall of the canyon seemed to be an illusion. The rockfall was artfully placed to conceal a passage.
Khalazdad decided he would push past the guards there. They faced away, as if to stop exit from necrovion but not entry to it. He would pass them or surpass them, and step into the dark.
But the stone guards turned and spoke to him.
"We are the silent guardians. We are called Left and Right. Left is Yin and I am Yang. I am organization and Right is entropy. Left is riot and entropy and I am the past. I am care and gentleness and Right is bold arrogance. Left reads your mind and I hear your words. I will allow you to pass. What will Right do?"
"Why, Right will let me pass," he said.
Left raised his eyebrows. "You speak quickly, small one."
"The answer is clear, Stone Soldier," Khalazdad said. "If he will bar my passage, then my vigil here has all be for nought. Thus I will not answer that - it is a useless answer. Rather, I will have meaning in the suffering and privation. He will let me pass."
Right and Left both turned away. He walked between them unmolested.
The back of the arroyo was indeed an optical illusion. A narrow passage, a defile, hidden in shadow, lead off to the right. To the Deathmarrow.
He darted down that passage, quickly moving into the heart of the place, where a huge towering thing grew out of shattered earth, the air ringing with the sound of wailing and moaning, as though the huge root were Sheol itself.
A blasted, empty place, a place paved over, a ruin.
He looked around, suddenly at a loss as to where to go next, what to do next. So long the object of his dreams this place, that now he had attained it he was immobile.
"Ahem."
He looked around for the source of the sound. There, at the base of the... the plant... two beings. A thin man with a purple silk hat and a monacle. And the Shade Sentinel. The Sentinel fondled a gold crown, very much unlike the one Khalazdad already owned.
"Is he the one?" asked Top Hat.
"He is," said the Sentinel.
"Not very impressive."
"I disagree," said the Sentinel. "Remember he is only flesh and dreams. He will serve. Perhaps even join us one day."
Khalazdad stood like a slave at market, under the stares of dead eyes. Straightening his back, steeling his resolve, he said, "I have come for..."
"We know what you come for," said the Sentinel. "And you shall not have it. Not today. Nevertheless, you shall not leave with nothing."
"Stop your obfuscations and give him the damned crown," said Top Hat. "If he is the one, do it and get him out of here. I cannot abide the smell of their blood."
Before he really knew what was happening, Khalazdad found himself back behind those guards, no real memory of how he came to be there. His head was heavy with a massive, ornamented thing of gold and gems - worth much more than his head, he thought.
What does it mean? How could bear it?
But there with him stood a man - an old, beared fellow, full of sadness and rage. And something else.
SimplyZero was his name. Many know him and of him - but the young forget. When Khalazdad was just a few days old in this place, his story rang out as my Father's does now. A tale of riving.
He went into Necrovion, you see, and came upon the Deathmarrow with vengeance and fury. And for his anger he was split into two. For the shades he slew he was made to give part of his life over as a Shade, connected forever to the underworld.
In his story, Khalazdad learned what he needed to do when Wodin came, when the Shades offered alliance, when he needed to go into Necrovion himself. Had there never been SimplyZero, there would never have been Khalazdad.
He was, as Khalazdad saw, the wellsping from which he flowed.
And Khalazdad went out of that place and into the Desert again where he makes his home to embrace his family, his friends, and those who oppose him.
There ends the tale and begins a new tale...