To this day, the mystery still lingers.
Who is Valor Thann? How much of his legend is exaggeration, distortion, a mirage of eons past? How much is true?
Who truly is Valor Thann?
As these pages approach the epilogue, I still linger on this question. I still find myself wondering, seeking answers that I know I will never receive. We know that acts of great justice and retribution have been committed by his hand, from firsthand accounts by countless people across the Abyss. The Eldest Pathbearers, those who represent each Faith, all know him by name, have fallen at his wrath, or found themselves spared. This is beyond doubt. What is also beyond doubt is his knowledge, bequeathed by him as an act of magnanimity that allows us as Necrotechs to flourish and endure, unlike any other, that allows us to circumvent the destruction of our physical vessels and press forward. Animancy, Necromancy, the Ritual of the Dichotomous Soul. The lores in question have been revolutionized by his hand, and without Valor Thann, the latter would not even exist—yet, even so, that goes no further toward answering my question: Who is Valor Thann?
Who is the founding father of our people? What drives him? What defines him? What is he like in person, in character? How can so many different people encounter the same man and never share a common depiction? And how can the same people, who have tasted his mercy, his generosity, suddenly fall prey to him in the span of years for seemingly no cause?
And though there are claims that he has been wed, why haven't there been any true sightings of his beloved? She is known to us as a passing shadow and nothing more. No one has laid eyes on the illustrious Silence Valeros once named Gehenna. Even the First Blood deny her existence, scrubbing her away down to the last detail, as if there is some great shame or terror they seek to conceal.
And then there is the matter of Udraal Thann. Udraal Thann, who is supposed to be Valor Thann’s son. Udraal Thann, who only became known to us as an adult, and not in any of his childhood years.
Could it truly be that Valor hid his most precious kin away on another world? Or could there be something else at play?
Perhaps I have questioned too long, but still my question ails me…
Who is Valor Thann?
—He Who Stills Eternity
VIII-37
Psychomachia (II)
Rows of orichalcum teeth ripped into Udraal’s skull, and he burst with a resounding pop, like a sack of rotten fruit detonating from within. A foul smell consumed the room, followed by a wave of festering black mana. The surge of entropy impacted Shiv, caressed his Magical Resistance, and burned away a scant few tides. But no further attacks followed the decaying exhalation.
The Transcendent's disposable body lingered before Shiv, frozen mid-burst. But it could barely even be called a body. No organs within. Only stains of blackness rising like columns of smoke. In the stillness of time, Shiv observed his adversary and sensed no other attuned fields emanating from Udraal's form. This vessel was purely expendable, not meant for combat at all, and it didn't take an act of deductive genius to anticipate what might follow next. As soon as time resumed, another version of Udraal walked through the same door. Shiv burst that one as well, sending a needle of scintillating flame through the center of Udraal's skull. Instead of letting the room be consumed with another breeze of decay, Shiv burned away that unnatural mana, searing it until it sprinkled down like diced showers of minced meat.
Even so, the entropy was unlike anything else Shiv had burned. The pieces smelled foul, reeking of rot and poison. It was like burning excrement and toxic sludge; the fumes almost made him gag.
A third Udraal appeared thereafter, and he lingered just beyond the threshold of the kitchen with both arms folded. “Well, do you intend on continuing this tantrum, or can I come in and have a proper conversation with you?”
“Are you gonna leave if I tell you to fuck off?” Shiv shot back.
Udraal opened his mouth to say something glib, perhaps mocking, but then the Beast of the Ninth Circle reared back behind Shiv. For the first time, Shiv felt something radiate from Udraal, not pure terror but extreme apprehension mixed with subtle delight. “Oh, there it is. One of my favorite skills to see. Well, it seems that the Great One's plan is proceeding swimmingly indeed.”
Shiv's insides swelled with fire and rage. His scintillating flame sparked and sputtered as it cast shadows across the kitchen. This place, the Shiv Sanctuary, was one of respite and retreat from the unreasonable indignities the world sought to force upon him. With his creator here, with Udraal disgracing this little slice of normalcy with his miserable presence, it was almost more than Shiv could bear. Part of him still wanted to retaliate, to slay Udraal time and time again, even if it meant nothing. Perhaps he could annoy Udraal enough that he would make himself scarce for good, but that was simply Shiv's emotional agitation speaking.
Udraal had been missing for far too long, and Shiv needed to use his creator, despite how loathsome he was. Especially now, as over in the Mausoleum, they had vanished within the reliquary, slipping through the screen of Necromancy and sliding into a vein of faint and subtle blue. Uncertainty loomed like a blade dangling on a fraying thread. Between Valor's apprehension, the Great One's warning, and the System's Quests to slay Adam and Valor, to have the defenders of Gate Piety fall upon one another in a grand internecine war, it left Shiv exhausted from tension.
Once again, he found himself standing at the edge of a looming darkness. There was a danger ahead of him, a danger around him, danger approaching him. There were threats in all directions, yet he couldn't perceive them clearly. Whatever the Great One said was not wrapped in a lie. Perhaps there were greater schemes at play, but she spoke of Valor's completion as if it were an Animancy bomb. The moment he put himself back together, he would be a danger to everyone.
When she recommended that he reassemble himself near the shores of Forbidden Africa, there was something there that Shiv distrusted. This was a strategic recommendation, something that you told the War Mage when you wanted them to glass a specific section of the city you were sieging or devastate a rival nation's crop field.
For Valor to pose such an extreme threat to the Forbidden Empire…
“He's come to us this time,” the Harbinger said, regarding Udraal as a hen would a jackal come to bargain for her chicks. “He decided to approach us directly, just us. He wants something, or he wants to tell us something. Before, he simply avoided us, stayed away even when we needed him. There is only one true reason why he's back: He's going to demand that we do something to Valor.”
The silence drew on like a blade across skin. An aggravating irritation arched. Meanwhile, Udraal stared on with a near-innocent expression on his perfectly chiseled face. However, his empathetic core was barren of anything aside from anticipation and growing excitement. He wasn't here to beg. He wasn't here because he was desperate. He was here to manipulate and design a desired outcome.
“And so he won't ask us to kill Valor,” the Harbinger guessed. “Because he could have done that himself. He kept his father alive for a reason.”
The pieces snapped together in Shiv’s head before the dialogue even began. “You want Valor to be kept apart.”
“I want you to talk him out of completing himself,” Udraal confirmed with a sad smile. “It would be in your best interest. And his. More so for your other companions. I fear their inevitable fates will scar you in brutal ways. I understand that you might not believe this, but I am quite pleased that you’re becoming so well-adjusted and human. It is one of the greatest surprises about this experiment.”
A snarl almost escaped Shiv. He wanted to proclaim that he was no one’s experiment—and that idea collapsed into a feral urge to renew his violence by diving Backstage and tearing the vitality out of Udraal’s expendable constructs until the faintest measure of satisfaction could be squeezed from the act. But what he wanted and what he needed right now were two different things.
“Convince me,” Shiv said, pouring every droplet of his ire into Udraal’s eyes. “I want you to tell me why I need to do this. I want you to explain to me why Valor's completion is so dangerous to everyone. I want you to tell me why you shattered him to begin with. I want you to tell me as straight as you can. No prevaricating. No avoiding the questions. I'm tired, Udraal. You have no idea how much patience I'm exercising right now.”
“On the contrary, I think I understand quite well. I made you to be a monster, after all, and every second you're not destroying and butchering and slaughtering is another moment of delightful surprise. It pleases me to see my creation exceed the parameters of my expectations.” Udraal smiled, and his demeanor grew brighter and more inviting. It was an expression he'd clearly practiced in front of a mirror several thousand times. Shiv didn't reciprocate. Slowly, the smile on Udraal's face dimmed, and he cleared his throat. A small victory in that awkwardness, but a victory nonetheless. “I shall start by disappointing you. I can't tell you directly, but it's for your own safety. You knowing too much about my father is dangerous, especially when he regains all of his faculties and his true skills.”
“True skills.” A chill slithered through Shiv.
“Oh, yes. If you think that this current… incarnation of him is close to the height of his power, you are sorely underestimating who my father was and what he was capable of. Even I lived in blissful ignorance for so many years.” Udraal sniffled, his gaze dropping as he submerged himself in memories past. “It almost broke me, discovering the whole of him. It unmade me to realize what I had to do to escape his influence and wrath. I suspect you will suffer the same way. Emotionally, of course. Spiritually and physically, you might die once, but that's the thing, isn't it? Death is quite beneficial for you. With the way I've designed your soul, you are uniquely suited to suffer his power and never truly succumb to it.”
Once more, Udraal stepped into the kitchen. This time, Shiv didn't strike him. He waited to hear more, to understand the truth behind Valor. Each stride Udraal took was long, languid, but calculated. He came to a halt next to a stove and, in a casual motion, placed his hand upon the heated metal. A sizzling sound followed. Fat deposits underneath his skin burst and splattered before that foulness filled Shiv's kitchen once more. He was on the verge of intervening because he didn't want to clean away the filth and grime that came with the entropy, when Udraal lifted his hand. His palm was disfigured, the flesh and tissue drooping in dangling strands. He didn't burn like a person would; it was more akin to wax melting, while also holding aspects of biology.
Then Udraal leaned close to his wound and spoke a single phrase: “You are not burned.”
His declarations struck the world and flesh in equal measure. More than that, however, it made the Beast of the Ninth Circle flinch and then fray. The blade dropped. Shiv felt his Pre-Legendary skill rip open, and agony tore through him. For him, it was simply a thing to note as a price to suffer. As a volcano of pain erupted inside him that would have driven a million lesser Pathbearers insane, he simply grimaced slightly as the Beast came apart upon his shoulders, breaking in an instant as it struggled to process a lie reforged into truth.
Udraal's palm was pristine and marble smooth. Not a single blemish remained along its surface. Shiv studied the skin using his Atlas, observing the fingerprints and patterns that ran as vivid whorls. He also sensed something else. His Severed Shadow felt the touch of Animancy. The lore of the soul was rich in this room, and for a moment the foulness of entropy receded entirely, usurped by a deeper, purer lore of magic.
“The Beast reacted appropriately,” Udraal said, licking his lips as he reveled in his demonstration. “I lament the damage I've caused to you, but I want you to know that this pain and damage will not be worth noting compared to that which you will suffer once my father comes back together. Now. To explain the truth, I must lie to you. I must tell you an analogous tale I have packaged in fiction. But before we even get to that, I pose a question, a rhetorical one: At what point does deception become truth? The exaggeration of a Pathbearer's legend always evolves into another feat, another precipice, another display of impossible dominance. But what happens when someone uses Animancy to forge all their skills under a single dominant power? What happens when the truth of your power is born deep in the bowels of unmatched deception? What happens when you are a lie, a shadow, even to yourself at times, made so by your own hand because you realized the truth of gods, because you glimpsed a grand and cosmic struggle between your progenitor Divinity and the weapon they failed to contain, and because you came to your own decision?”
“What decision?” Shiv breathed.
“To be your own master. To guard your own world. To be the shadow behind shadows. To be the lie of lies. To wage war against the gods without them ever knowing—to seep yourself into everyone you meet and everyone you personally know. To hollow and claim bodies as vessels to ensure your own continuation—the completion of your war. To create entire cities of people who are, yet are not.”
Shiv sighed. “I’m so godsdamned lost.”
“Let me make it simpler, then. I will start from the beginning, as I contend a lie with a lie-made-allegory.” Udraal breathed in and closed his eyes, preparing himself as a storyteller might. “Once upon a time, caught between the death of one age and the screaming birth of the next, there was a hero, a reaver, a ruler, a scoundrel, a spy, a warrior, but above all, a thief. A thief of the simplest things at first. A thief of things and lives, then a thief of faces and memories, then a thief of position, power, and possibilities, and then, a thief of Souls…”
As Udraal spoke, Shiv's vision began to blur as reality churned and bled, until the structure of what was found itself usurped by the shape of a past that wasn’t.
***
For an Undying, entering the Grand Reliquary was a simple thing, achieved with nothing more than a step and surrender. The corrosive mana took you, drew you in, and then your soul was integrated into places between places where the most precious relics of the Necrotech Legions were held, where their most secret facilities were established, and endless armies of risen constructs could spill forth. The Grand Reliquary was the largest of its kind, but not alone, for it was connected to other civilizational Phylacteries all across the Necrotech Empire. When one achieved deep enough knowledge and mastery over those lost in souls, they too could wield all that power. They too could concentrate everything that had been taken from this world into a power to preserve what remained.
At the same time, the past was alive, the echoes remembered, and from those memories certain things could be hidden and conjured forth. Certain things could be guarded better than any vault. This was likely why his final piece was hidden within the Grand Reliquary. He, more than anyone else, was forged of the Necromantic lores, and with his legend so entwined with the history of the Necrotechs as a whole, there was no one else, could be no one else, but the echoes of old ghosts to surrender the relic harvested from his vessel.
Valor. Valor. Valor.
His name was whispered at once by the System, and twice again by the lingering phantoms around him. They were but fleeting effigies of men and women, organics and machines, but they recognized him. They saw through him as he saw through each of them, and he sensed an air of seething animosity, countered by a flood of genuine warmth. He suffered the hatred and unseated retribution of a trillion bodies he'd cut down. Yet that too was held back by a dam of gratitude, for as many as he slew, twice more did he save.
Within the reliquary, he did not so much exist as a thing of matter, but as an expression of magic. He had been imprinted soul-first into this space and thus found himself disembodied, yet commingled with all the mana that surrounded him. He was as much a part of the ghosts as they were of him, and they echoed and rippled forth from him, conjured from his suppressed memories and drawn to his yet-living presence, that fire of vitality calling beasts out from the dark.
Beside him, he felt the quivering courage of Legend-Accountant Muvark. The poor fool was just that: a fool. He was Legend only when it came to economics. The greater politics were not meant for a man of his character. But Valor could not judge. Muvark was still too young, too focused on a single facet of the Empire, and as such, that saved his life. He had not earned a final death at Valor's hands, not like his fellows, not like so many others. He would be of use on this day. He would survive on this day, and he would bear witness to more of Valor’s true self than the ancient Legend was comfortable sharing.
“You know why I've come,” Valor said, speaking to the ghosts that assailed him. "You know why I'm here. You know what I seek. I wish to be made whole once more. I wish to be reunited with my final facet and regain the fullness of my legend."
As he spoke, so too did the echoes drawn by his past; so too did the glow of green and blue upon his visage, twin magics dancing in concert with resonance and resolve. Not far away, he felt it, that piece of vitality, that flaming aspect which would see him return to the highest truth of himself. With it, he could banish those final gaps in his memory. It was so close that it was nigh unbearable.
Valor feared what might follow, feared he had refused to turn away. For where was there to turn? Where was there to run? Even if destruction waited ahead, it would be a course of inevitability beyond the threats of his own completion. But there were also the Challenger, the Great One, Avalon. All in all, the danger posed by his own reconstruction ranked lowest among possible apocalypses.
You ask for something your heart does not want, the ghosts whispered, pleading and taunting in equal measure. You beg for an offering of pain more than the privilege of power. There will be no deliverance for you here, Valor. Only death of another measure. A shadow greater than your own.
Valor had expected as much. Some among the ghosts spoke truthfully; others simply preyed upon his imbalanced emotions. None of it mattered. “Might this be my fate? Might I find myself unmade and bring tragedy in the end? Might all that be the way things are? Alas, I still must go forth. I still must, for there is no going back anymore. I have lingered in too long, and I cannot endure any longer, not with words. It has been arrayed against me, not as I am right now, not if I am to protect those I cherish.”
A chorus of laughter greeted his words. As if you know who you were. As if you know what you truly cherish. As if you know who you wish to be. You are a shadow, but you are not the night! You are to return to yourself, and you are, in turn, to fade. As a droplet of water is between places amidst the fall, you were the river, and now you go back to the sea. We bid you welcome and reject you with scorn. We embrace you, Valor, and we mourn your departure.
The spirits drifted closer, spiraling around him. This fleeting instance of yourself has been genuine, precious, and pure beyond measure. You will miss and loathe this self after it departs. It is not too late to end yourself, to give a proper close to your story. Death is silence, but in the prelude to the last space between birth and the end, it was yours, in truth, yours completely. That is the privilege and power few will ever know. And that will be lost to you if you choose to take back what you were.
But Valor didn’t come here to debate with the System or any ghosts—and he certainly wouldn’t give himself over to death on the whims of the faded. Should he deliberate over his unification, he would do so in the company of his students and allies rather than here. “Muvark. Enact the will of the First Coven. This conversation is at a close, and my decision is made.”
“Y-yes, Legend Valor.” Muvark was terrified—overwhelmed by everything that had been roused by Valor’s presence—but he was still Undying, and as the final remaining member of the current First Coven, he was granted the authority to make a choice that hovered beyond Valor’s grasp. His authority rang like a stone plunging into water, and the ripples of his will crawled through the insides of the Grand Reliquary. The mana was banished before them, and from that open space approached a glowing meteor of hot and brilliant red.
The vital aura of Valor’s final fragment made itself known first, but as it drew closer, the hue that defined the missing legs was darkness. The shine of vitality faded, and an unnatural blot took its place. And that was how Valor would describe his legs: blackness given shape. It wasn't a shadow. It didn't bend or distort in interplay with the light. Instead, it was like a blotch of ink, branded deep into the skin of existence. Just a dense clump of unseen, permeable, unknowable substance. Its existence felt like a paradox made manifest. It enchanted Valor's awareness and commanded his attention. At the same time, it filled him with such all-consuming disgust that he retched internally, yearning to spill out the contents of his soul and empty himself skill after skill until he was barren and purged of all history, devoid of legend.
The distance between him and his final piece was, at once, too far and too close all at the same time. It was a contradiction in motion. It was promise and destruction. It was a conundrum and a dilemma, and it was the only path he could accept now, the only way out for him, for all of them. It might be their end, and yet the Great One didn't lie.
The legs did not seem like legs at all as they came to a final halt. Instead, they cast an imprint on the world, a shape or something more, where the limbs beneath stood densest, a connective torso almost a ghost unto itself, carried across by the darkness, silhouetted in a mold. Of the pit, deepest black, yet the other did not find himself mirrored in that mold. It did not hold his shape; rather, it presented the contours of someone feminine, someone shorter, someone with a curtain of spreading hair that swayed all the way down to her hip. Someone who they were, who they felt, who haunted Valor, who lingered just beyond the hollow gaps in his memories.
He wanted to invoke her name. He wanted to call her to ask her why she was here, how her end came to be.
But something stopped him. It was more than intuition, deeper than instinct. It was something buried beneath memory. His soul cried for him to keep to his silence: to speak nothing, to surrender nothing, to suffer nothing, not in front of Muvark. To hold on to his dignity and composure until he was out of this place, until he was somewhere else, somewhere safe. Only then would he decide to react. Only then would he call upon her, lament her, or face her.
He reached out, and the corrosion and animancy moved in his stead. The reliquary surrendered that final piece back to him, offering his just reward and fate in destruction with an existential sigh.
Then the magic within the grand construct shifted once more, and Valor was cast out in a burst of sizzling green. Next to him was Muvark, shaking and gripped by his own apprehensions. Before Valor was that same splotch of blackness, legs connected to a body that wasn't his own. He stared into the dark as Adam called back to him, Valor's focus no longer present. He stared into the dead black, and the enchanting allure of what he'd lost gripped him, baiting him to reach and plunge into the eternal night that sprouted from the hip of missing legs.
Valor, the shadow whispered in his mind. Valor. Returned to me at last. Reunited with me at last.
“Why?” The question escaped Valor with all the pain of a blade withdrawing from pierced flesh. “How… How are you here? How are you bound to me?”
I was always bound to you, Valor, his mind imagined—yet despite the feeling of a growing mania, those words seemed so real; so unnaturally real. I promised you, we would be of one heart—that we would be tethered soul-to-soul, beyond eternity. Until the stars succumb to the dark and the planets turn to dust…
Bidden by aching loss, drawn by a siren call that might’ve only existed within his mind, Valor felt his hand move—almost of its own accord. He didn’t want to merge with his legs. He sought only to press against the shape of his beloved; even if she was but a shadow, he would find solace in the warmth of her void.
“Valor!” Adam called again, his voice shaking the world from his shrine.
An unreasonable anger spiked out from Valor’s legs—the illusion was briefly scattered. But then, a contagious fury sparked inside him as the temple carried by that palm of mist drew close.
The Sage. The Sage was wrongness. It should not be here. It should be left in the corpse. Along with the rest of the Great One—the bastard god who damned them. Who damned them all.
Strike him down, Silence might have said. Strike him down. Adam deserves a better fate, but an end is all you can offer. Better to give a death of his own than an eternity as a thrall to an elder god. Better to break his heart than watch his torment unfold across eons. He has suffered enough. He should not suffer more. Bring him close, and strike him down.
The infectious emotions afflicting Valor were rebuffed. He staggered away from his legs, as he looked upon them with dawning horror. Blades appeared in Valor’s hand—and he reappeared with Muvark seized neck-first, spiked down into the ground.
The Legend-Accountant let out a horrified shriek as an animalistic snarl escaped Valor.
Behind, his final piece lay abandoned—yet somehow, Silence was still looking in his direction, trying to influence his mind.
“What have you done?” Valor spat.
“I don’t—I don’t—” Muvark hyperventilated and tried to eject from his vessel.
Valor poured his Necromancy out in a raw flood—breaching Muvark’s Magical Resistance and seizing his fleeing skills. The lesser Undying’s soul was pinned in place. “What. Have. You. Done!” Valor shouted. “What have you placed within me? How dare you? How dare any of you? You think you could manipulate me with the ghost of my wife?”
“No, Legend Valor!” Muvark gasped. “I didn’t—It wasn’t me!”
“It could not have been Amelie! I carved everything from her before the end. It cannot have been the others. I took all I needed from them as well. You are the only unknown variable left, Muvark. You are the only one I do not truly grasp. So, who else should I ask? Who else should I—”
“Valor!” Shiv’s voice broke through Valor’s sudden rage. Slowly—reluctantly—the ancient Pathbearer turned to face his disciple, and read only a growing paleness on Shiv’s face. “It’s not him. It’s not because of him at all.” Shiv swallowed as he tried to muster more words. “It’s… Udraal just spoke to me. He told me… I think I know what happened to you. I think I know what happened to your wife. And I think I know why the Great One came to warn us.”
***
“But to give you an understanding of who the thief was, we must go back further,” Udraal continued, whispering to Shiv’s drifting mind. “To the immediate days after the fall of the Great One, who was the one true High God of those black days. The one true High God, who enforced worship upon all—yet was rejected by a specific few heretics. Those who refused to bow. Who refused to bend. Who refused to kneel before gods and monsters alike, for that was to be their dignity as individuals.”
As the shape of a nascent Post-Integration world came into shape, Shiv found himself plunging through the atmosphere to descend upon the lands below. The shape of the continents was different from what he could remember—everything was smaller, more barren, less populated. Even so, there were villages and hovels, large towns filled with tribes and a scant few cities that forged new civilization within ruins.
And it was in a familiar set of ruins that Shiv found himself ensconced—for Lost Angeles wasn’t so lost yet in this age. For the wrecks and husks of buildings were used as temples and towers for warring tribes. And it was in the darkness of an alley that he found himself staring into the eyes of a feral boy dragging a glass blade across the throat of a gagging man—a feral boy pale of skin, gray of eyes, and almost familiar in behavior and movement.
“Back before a time before the Abyss, before the fall, before Valor Thann ever was, there was Silencio of the Valeros Undertribe…”