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@j-a-penrose

Great job everyone! My total is 53,086. My favorite snippet is: 

My laugh was bitter. “That one? He has spent nearly his whole life locked in a dark room. Is there truly no one else among us who would be better than that one?” I looked about. “There, that one is a prince of some sort. That one is a governor. I would at least hear a claim from them!”

The Undying shook his head. “It’s not about deserving, or about anything the individual can bring. It never was. It is Timothy’s time, and so he must take the throne.”

“I would rather die than give myself to a veritable child!” I growled. “And besides, that one is too gentle. It does not understand the balance between my siblings and myself. Timothy is weak.”

The Undying looked up at the Sun for a while. Then it nodded to Timothy, who followed the Undying to its throne, and stood beside the chair as the Undying sat once more upon it.

The ancient child spoke again. “You are indeed unique among us, Artorius, Prince of the Lords and Ladies of Order. You were indeed chosen, in that your form and essence was the natural result of another’s choice. Do you remember the manner of your creation?”

I opened my mouth, for of course… No. I could remember the invocation of each of my brothers and sisters over the nearly infinite spiral of years of our existence and rule, but of my own? I could remember no beginning. If I was the first, who had called me as I had called the others?

The Undying barked a laugh, as though it could survey my thoughts clearly. “Oh, you’re not God. Don’t worry about that. You certainly had a beginning. Only, in the nature of these things, you necessarily cannot see it.” It creaked forward in its throne, eyes going hard. “There was once a time in a mortal world where a young child lay in bed, unable to sleep. That child felt doom upon it that night, for there was a tempest in the unseen world and that child was caught in its storm.

“But all of a sudden the child felt peace, having come to that storm’s quiet center. And the child heard a voice, and the voice called him by name, and demanded the child’s service. The voice demanded the child die and be born again, and serve the living world for all eternity.” The Undying closed its eyes, and spoke three whispering, thundering words. “Here. I. Am.”

A chill wind seemed to blow through the chamber. The hundreds on their thrones shivered at the simple words, and I with them. There was an anguished weight to them.

The child opened its eyes. “In that moment, I ceased be, and was instead through you. You were born of my choice, Artorius, and so were chosen. You are unique in that you never made the choice all of us did.” The Undying stood, and all the hundreds of usurpers who had, in turn, stolen my body and walked about for a few years or many: each of these strode toward me, their tools of office in hand, looking reverent or blissful or frightened or determined in turn.

They pressed close about me, and I had to approach the Undying and Timothy or be pressed there by force. My body was not paralyzed, but I felt still compelled to move.

The Undying seemed as tall as me in that moment. It turned Zenith in its hand, proffering the blade by its grip. “With one exception, every mind in this place has chosen, Artorius, Prince of Order. Each has given of themselves in the service of another. You are that exception, chosen one. You alone have seen the world as a tool in your hand, a thing with which to exert your will.

“As the child each of you necessarily were, I have seen centuries come and go. I have felt the wonder and grandeur of innocence fade as each man faced a choice, whether to allow evil and Chaos to take hold of the world, after one fashion or another, or to oppose it as best I could.”

I gritted my teeth. “Damn you if I haven’t done the same!”

“No. You fight Chaos for the sake of the ideal, but not for the sake of its effect. Why must Order reign?”

“It is the pure form of the world. Unholiness must be eradicated by any means necessary. We must restore the world to stasis.”

“And yet in your time you sent tens of thousands of mortals to die pointlessly, simply to secure a more efficient victory.”

“It is my right!” I roared.

The Undying stopped, and lowered the blade in his hand. “And that is the basest form of evil,” it said. “I say to you now: So long as one man or woman, Lord or Lady or mortal, is willing to put aside their right for the sake of righteousness, then Order will stand. No matter how many turn to Chaos or twist the world away from perfect Order, one man will be sufficient.”

“And if you strike me down,” I said, “there will be no one remaining to so stand. I am the only hope of the world.” Whom among my siblings could I count on? No other Lord or Lady remained who had rejected Chaos entirely. Only I was deserving of trust.

The others pressed closer, but I drew upon my power with every fraction of my will. I burst through the barriers the hundreds sought to erect, and seized control of myself once more. A staggering, mental blow sent me reeling to the floor of my own throne room in the corporeal world, but I shook my head to clear it and rose to my feet.

Hundreds of minds scrabbled at me, but I had overcome them. I laughed in joy, reveling in the power that was my right, and raised Zenith to point at the ceiling. Then I flashed out of my ivory tower, shattering the barrier about it, and slammed myself as a lightning bolt into the field where my siblings and accursed enemy stood. A mammoth claw of pitch and steel swung toward me, and I smote it from its body.

“I am come,” I said, and held Zenith above my head. It shone like the Sun in the darkening twilight sky.