Words of Change

The malice smiled feeling, for what its moldered emotions would allow, something akin to true glee and happiness. It stood with another being, a being as far from it as any could be, on a remote and lonely shore between the waters of the River Styx and a rarely seen and less visited field of the Grey Waste. It licked its dry, dusty and parched lips, in anticipation for at once in all of existence to have its desires satisfied. Slowly, the father of gloom lifted and opened one terrible claw to show the item that brought the other being to this dark place, keeping it clutched tightly in the husk of its withered hand.

The being so enigmatic to the malice began to move once it saw the item. Under the malice's guarded gaze that being began to silently speak words of immense power giving them up to the Waste and allowing their power fill the desolate plane. True words, concepts, beliefs and the stuff that shapes existence filled the place released from the being. The being's presence gave such pain to the malice, but that was a minor pain made more than tolerable by the power that the malice was receiving from that being.

Those eyes of the malice glowed as it played slowly with the item held in its claws, watching the verses of poetry being released and then claimed by the waste sinking into the dusty ground or drifting down into the black waters. Few beings in existence ever encounter a syllable of such words of power, and few even of the malice's brethren ever could comprehend or hold a single such word. The item that the malice held was a worthless, meaningless bauble in comparison. And now, to the malice's delight, the being was yet forced to surrender those great verses because it could not bear to lose that trinket. To the malice this confirmed one thing; it and its kind were ultimately right and would triumph at the end of time.

In a savoring rapture the malice tossed the item towards the being carelessly as it felt the last syllable pass out of the being and sink into the dust. The malice sighed in pleasure as that being mercifully left the Waste relieving the malice of its presence and allowing it to truly savor the moment as the first tremors rippled out from this place to flow through all of existence. The malice knew that it had achieved its goal. A change had begun in existence. A real change had been started and there would be nothing that being could do to stop it now that it was done; nothing could stop it now.

Yet even as the malice's senses jealously drank in the moment it felt still as if something was wrong. A lingering doubt that at first it had put past as part of its own being but one that was slowly growing. It narrowed its gaze and swept that baleful stare from point to point around itself. Everything it took in was exactly as it should be, exactly as it had anticipated and imagined it would be.

The malice nearly fell over as its moment of doubt had distracted him from the changes forming on the plane. With a smile of twisted warmth the malice stood back regaining its poise as another physical tremor shook from deep with in the plane. At this point it could see the fabric of reality folding and unfolding a rift forming and slowly opening in the waste, a chasm that held a seed that now was a new layer of the Waste but in time would bloom into an entirely new plane of existence.

Then as the malice looked out again to take in the entire scene, it stopped startled as its gaze caught something. On the other shore, now divided by the chasm that crossed the river was the spot where the other being had stood, and there was the item that it had used to hold power over that being. Those doubts surged back as its foul mind reeled and burned at the significance that the being had left without even bothering to collect its price.

The malice trembled and sank down into the dust as it felt a horror far beyond what it or its brethren had ever been able to conceive or inspire before as a realization began to form in its mind. It opened its mouth to scream in rage but as it watched even its breath and anger was stolen by that horror and the realization grew; its gaze locked to the black waters pouring into the rift, draining away slowly. It had known that the river was infinite and without end, unconquerable.

There at the end of the Baern's gaze the lay the water's edge of the Styx, and it too had changed.

Comments, critiques, and suggestions welcomed. This is the first rough draft of something that I might eventually submit to the site.