Reunion of the Worldwalkers

The Power of the Gods was in his hands, and now he could finally face his father. He was finally ready to end the cycle, finally ready to pass on to the afterlife he had been taught to look forward to. So long ago. His teachers had probably passed into that place long ago. Irileth realized he should have passed over as well. He was ready to finally rest.

He blinked and heard a loud crack as he stepped into his father’s hidden abode. The house was glamorous, with as many fine silks and jeweled mirrors as Irileth had ever seen. Irileth was standing in the entry hallway, vaulted ceilings almost obscured in fog over the distance between his eyes and the top. No lanterns lit the way, but it was not dark. It was never dark in his father’s home, even growing up in their homeland so many ages before now.

He was suddenly reminded of the D’Shay family home, from what seemed like a millennium ago. The marble pillars, vines covering the ancient home. The portrait room, countless paintings of his ancestors lining the walls. He truly missed running through those halls with his older brother Dratnan.

Damn. Dratnan. He had not thought of that name in… how many years had it been since he had pictured his brother’s face? How many years since he had wistfully remembered their youth?

Too long, he decided. Far too long. He would see his brother again soon. Soon.

He didn’t even realize he had still been walking once he snapped out of his self-induced stupor. He was at the end of the hallway, standing next to an open doorway. He could smell the dust in the room, even from in the hallway outside. His father had not set foot in the room in a long time.

It was clearly a study, or an old abandoned one at the very least. Irileth was tempted to walk in, but the must and stagnant air stopped him. No information this old, dank room would assist him in dealing with his father in any way. He moved on towards a spiraling staircase. He began to climb.

As he moved up the staircase, he heard glass shattering along the floors above him. Another one of the D’Shay patriarch’s famous tantrums. Irileth crested the stairs the find an open, well lit room in utter disaster.

The workstation was clear of any papers or glassware he may have been using before Irileth’s arrival. The shards were on the floor, as were the scattered scraps of studious notes, some leaflets still clinging in between pages of massive ancient tomes. His father in a chair facing the opposing wall, back facing Irileth. Irileth carefully stepped into the room, stepping over trash and broken bits of equipment to kneel next to his father.

“You heard me come in, then?” He asked his father. He knew the answer, based on the state of the room he was now in, yet he still tried to keep up pretenses with the man who had raised him. It was all they had left, after all.

His father simply grunted and nodded, staring at a dying fire in a hearth before the two old D’Shays. They sat in silence together for a time, simply breathing and existing without a word between them. Irileth shifted to sit on the floor after a while, watching the embers burn out slowly, as his relationship with his father and with life soon would.

“Are you ready to go?” Irileth finally broke the silence. The Walker of the World nodded politely. Both arose from their seats and turned to face one another. Finally, his father spoke.

“It will never end, Ir,” he said, shaking his grizzled gray beard as he spoke. Irileth had never known his father to wear so much gray in his beard, especially not for so long a time as this. “We are cursed to dance to this wretched song forever, my boy.” After all these years, countless wars and countless deaths, he still called his son ‘boy’.

“That’s where you are wrong, Father. This time, I intend to do it right.”

The World-Walker shrugged his shoulders, straightening his back as he did so and prepared for his inevitable demise. Irileth felt funny. He has never gone this easy before, he thought with unease.

He began casting the spell, and once it was finished he saw too late why his father was so calm. He barely caught the movement under the notes in the corner of his eyes, still before the spell took effect. He felt his father’s counterspell tug on his gut and saw the smile form on his father’s evil face. He yelled, lunging at the other spellcaster to try and stop his spell from completing.

Then both men were once again gone in a loud CRACK. The movement from under the papers became more violent before it ceased.

The room stagnated over time, the musty smell carrying through the entire home. The papers faded to dust, and the time of ages passed on.