Broken Faith
It ended where it began.
In the dying light, his victory was at hand.
Yet when the moment came, nothing changed.
Atop the summit, the Chosen One threw his weapon aside having slain the mighty serpent, Rhovion the Dread. The obsidian blade clanged on the jagged rock face beside his feet.
Navin, Ebris’ champion, had vanquished his foe.
The Great Leviathan’s corpse settled across the craggy peak of J’orkur. The quake of Rhovion’s fearsome body toppling over almost crippled the mountain range. Its elongated trunk coiled around the peak, stretching endlessly for miles beneath the ashen mists, down to the root of the mountain. His foe loosened its grip, no longer having a stranglehold over the accursed land.
He heard the Great Leviathan wheeze out its final breath - a gust of wind propelled from Rhovion’s snout and knocked Navin onto his back.
He gazed into the vanquished light leaving the serpent’s emerald eyes as he stood upon the brink of peace. Navin awaited for the rays of hope to conquer the despair clinging to this tarnished realm.
Yet, a moment passed and the winds of change never shifted course.
The raging storms of chaos continued unabated high above, long after the duel between Navin and Rhovion had subsided. Not even dawn could breach the gloomy tempest overhanging the region.
Clouds of ash, stardust and fire reigned supreme towering over his head. Thunder rumbled relentlessly high above as lightning pierced the bleak horizon. The sky remained torn asunder into two, cleaved where the veil between worlds shattered.
Navin, the Chosen One, cried out to the heavens in dismay:
‘I’ve done everything that was asked… I’ve fulfilled the prophecy. Will this not purge evil from our lands? Will this not mend the broken seal between our worlds?’
He anticipated divine intervention from his God, the Lord of Dawn and Dusk. Yet no epithet of Ebris came to answer his call.
The endless anguish of the Celestial Shattering remained. It still tainted the foul air Navin breathed. A sky ravaged by suns and moons of colliding worlds, plaguing the realm in opulent chaos.
Sheathed in his foe’s blood, mourning overcame Navin’s senses.
Despair dismantled his mind and he fell to his knees. Exhaustion subjugated his body and he sprawled out across the summit.
On that day he became faithless.
Many years later, Navin returned to the sight of his dauntless victory. Clambering up the range of J’orkur, he witnessed the majestic wonder that many travelled far and wide to see. A monastery that was erected atop the summit in his honour, despite his objections.
Draped in his cowl, he walked among the row of pilgrims paying their respects to the heroic deeds of Navin, and the remnants of Rhovion The Dread: the Great Leviathan’s bones fossilised, forever coiled around the jagged mountain. Moss and lichen thrived across the etched serpent’s remains. Navin stared into the unblinking eyes of his vanquished foe, considering how there may always be thousands more serpents to slay in the name of Ebris.
Yet, the Celestial Shattering never mended. The sky forever breached. The stars all crumbled into dust. The suns and moons remained in battle amidst the strife.
Blind faith has yielded no solace for him since then.
What was it all for?, he reflected as he gazed at the monument of himself erected inside the monastery’s refectory. Amidst those who dined at the long tables, Navin regarded his eerie likeness. He beheld the reverence shown to this sculpted figure, a mighty hero chosen to banish evil, his obsidian blade, Ebris’s forged sword drawn as he stared down the mighty serpent slithering face to face with him atop the peak.
Among the din of pilgrims, he heard the hushed voices surrounding his presence. Murmurs that shrieked at the fringes of his thoughts. Heretic. Faithless. Ebris’ Forsaken One.
Peeling his hood down over his face, he briskly walked out of sight. The whispers followed him as he roamed down corridors and passed by doorways. Echoes of his return surfaced between the monks of the monastery.
Hurry nowi Navin urged himself back to the task at hand.
Outside the walls of the monastery, he searched for the Serpent’s Tongue plant rumoured to be growing near the Great Leviathan’s coiled corpse at the summit. Plucking out the two-pronged flowers from the surrounding wildgrass, Navin stowed them away discreetly. He scanned around, ensuring that no eyes were upon him as he stalked through the shrubbery.
Before his departure, he entered the chapel and stole one final look at the God that had forsaken him long ago. Staring in abject fascination at the nine-headed wonder of Ebris - each face a different epithet, each one a mask of deceit and treachery.
He whispered under his breath: ‘Another deity bound to the whims of mortal frailty. Another God claimed to have dominion over many laws of nature, but who has never known power here. Yet, all still blindly follow you. Their devotion is a foolish endeavour. I will prove it to them.’
Clasping the Serpent’s Tongue in his pouch, he glares at Ebris’s accursed form. A thought rang resoundly through his mind: If Rhovion’s legacy runs through this plant, then let the Great Leviathan’s poison be your downfall. I shall summon you onto our plane and I’ll end your glorified reign once and for all.
The heretic retreated from view, fleeing from the shadows of the monastery - never to be seen by the devoted pilgrims of Ebris ever again.
Not everything goes according to plan all the time, even for Chosen Ones…