Makings of a Monster

- "You will do what you want, Sarevok," sighed Winski, an indifferent expression on his downcast face. "You contemplate living a satisfying mortal life with Tamoko, growing old together, joining in the afterlife. And I can't make you change your mind if this is what you decide to pursue. I only know what happened to me, when I wanted something like that. What if someone ends Tamoko's life abruptly, when you have excepted to have decades ahead with her, and one morning, just like that, she is gone? If your chance to make a real difference is gone as well, and all you have ahead is a long, lonely lifetime of misery and regret? If there is vengeance to take, you can take that and get some amount of satisfaction of it, but she will still be just as gone."
- "She doesn't like my plans all that much. She fears that it will lead to our own destruction."

- "My destruction has already happened," said Winski grimly. "In a sense I am already dead in all but one way. There is still the possibility to carve my name into history as one of your closest associates, a mentor, if you will. Thinking of it gives me a certain hollow pleasure, joyless satisfaction, and that is the closest to any purpose I can feel. Any purpose apart from standing by your side as long as you need me, that is." He was quiet for a moment, and Sarevok didn't quite know how to interpret his expression. Pain, certainly, but that had taken permanent residence in the deepening wrinkles of his face since Jelena had died. Something else too. "As for Tamoko... her view has always been different from the view of our natives. Part of her charm, naturally. Her people seem to think that we shouldn't force the world to our will but rather listen to it and tune ourselves to the way things are, regardless of how hard we try to change them. Whereas our way of thinking, and this plan particularly, is a prime example of really molding the very universe, trying to force it to shape by the power of our will. It feels to her not only blasphemous, but impossible."

- "Well perceived," acknowledged Sarevok. "But perhaps she is right. I don't know..."
- "She may be right in her part of world, but here gods have died and arisen," said Winski. "Perhaps she is still too attached to her homeland and its ways to see clearly here. But she is loyal to you, and she will probably come around when she sees all the opportunities."
- "She says that she doesn't need anything more than what we already have," continued Sarevok, torn between the contrasting views.
- "We are back from where we begun. You can lose what you have any day, and without power there is not a damn thing you can do about it."

Sarevok gave up. He knew by now that Winski would never change his mind about the plan. Sometimes it seemed to him as if Winski was really dead, only somehow animated by the idea of completing Sarevok's destiny, and the moment he could be assured that Sarevok became all he ever could, he would collapse and fade away like an animated skeleton warrior collapsing into a heap of disarranged bones. Winski even gave up opportunities to make sarcastic comments aimed to draw dark chuckles from the part of company who appreciated his humor. He just looked ahead, hollow. He didn't care.

It seemed he would have to make his decisions all alone. He left Winski to stare ahead and entered his own chambers as he was suddenly seized by a powerful feeling of wisdom and clarity. It all made perfect sense now. He drifted among clouds and saw below him an endless landscape of rolling hills, rivers, farmlands, taverns, flocks of cattle. Little people scurried here and there, content in their everyday chores. And suddenly a giant, disembodied hand flushed a bucketful of steaming blood all over the landscape, and everything was swept away in the thick flow of it.

EVERY ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE IS YOUR PRECIOUS TAMOKO. EVERY ONE OF THEM IS YOU, SHOULD YOU NOT PURSUE YOUR DESTINY. The voice boomed in the back of Sarevok's head, gripping, hurting. He saw more visions. This time there was a nondescript woman, and a knife stabbed her chest repeatedly, the blood first spurting high and gushing in the rhythm of her fading heartbeats, then flowing slower and slower, puddling by her side, her death rattles dying away. Then Jelena's face frozen in horror, garrote tightly around her neck. Then the same nondescript woman, this time strangled, trying to scream, her eyes bulging, her tongue protruding. Jelena again, this time, trying to croak her desperate plea of help. The nondescript woman again, now drowning, desperately trying to get up from murky water, but hands of a large man keep her down...

LOOK. LOOK WHO THEY ARE. LOOK WHAT YOU ARE.
So many scenes of violent death, repeated, repeated, but this time the woman wasn't nondescript at all! She had the face of Tamoko, every time. And Jelena died before his eyes again and again. The face of the man drowning Tamoko... it was Reiltar. No, it was Sarevok himself! No, Reiltar.
- "A nice piece of ass, Sarevok. A nice piece of ass..." his laughter echoed and he danced mockingly with Tamoko's limp corpse he just had drowned. "We will have a ball tonight, oh yes, my baby nice piece of ass..."
Reiltar kissed Tamoko's cold lips and winked at his son, who was immobile and small, so very small again, trying to rip free, unable to make any difference.

EMBRACE THE DESTINY, SAREVOK. EMBRACE THE DESTINY.