Robert Finch 

Apr 20, 2003 

Mrs. Springer 

Period 1 

Note: This story is connected to the world described in “Last of the Legends.” 

Tales of war often end in glory, but for one man, peace became utterly untouchable. All of us have walked this path, but not as he walked it... 

The thing he had given every ounce of his soul to attain had brought no feeling of satisfaction when he finally held it in his grasp. Enemies had fallen before him, and the one he wanted to destroy a thousand times over had been stilled at last; but not even that brought happiness. The battle still fresh in his mind, he could not help but brood on it. 

He melded with his Blade—knew it, lived it. Moving swiftly across the uneven earth with the smoothness and grace of a lion at hunt, he had carved the bodies of his enemies and left them lying dead on the ground. There they would rot. "That for the better," he thought, "If the earth wants their worthless flesh at all." 

Then he saw Daradin. The man responsible for the death of his wife and son and three of his friends. The one who had caused the deaths of thousands of innocents. Without someone to fight for him, the black clad man had spent his last moments begging for mercy. His sobs and pleading were met with sheer hatred and coldness. The sharpness of the sword had easily parted the thin cloth that covered his body. Even the thickness of the Black Hand leader's neck gave little noticeable resistance as the Blade sliced through it. 

Revenge had been bought. But at what price? 

Blood on his sword and all over his body, his enemies’ and his own, mingling with sweat and dirt. The smell was familiar, the dreadful void within his soul was familiar, but the feeling of uncertainty and regret was not. All he had once believed war taught him was no longer solid in his mind. Now that it was all over, he had nothing left. 

For seven years, the desire for revenge had given him the power he needed to go on. But it was a dangerous power. While it had provided unending motivation and grown stronger the longer it lingered, it also bored deep into his heart. It stayed there, feeding on all ill emotion, until it was a part of his very soul. Its purpose fulfilled and his need for it gone, it had died, leaving the phantom pain of a love unfulfilled. With its death, a hole was created. A void that would pull in anything that could fill it, whatever it found first. 

Not wanting to think of what that could mean, he decided to focus his thoughts upon nothingness, upon darkness. He had found that darkness was the only thing that brought him peace any longer, the only thing that contained nothing for him to hate. 

Body cold and mind blank, he sprawled out upon the ground, exhausted. 

The power of revenge was great, but it called for an equally great price. He had paid that price, and its toll would mean his very life. Inside, he still lashed out against it vainly, but every moment it grew stronger and he weaker. Light surrounded by darkness—darkness that he foolishly welcomed. Though unknown to him, peace from darkness also had a price. One worse than death itself…