Chapter 4: The shining Light (2)

Mind numbing pain fills the darkness beyond my eyelids in crimson red. My body reacts to it, writhing in agony, but I drift where it cannot touch me.

“She will recover”, the slurring voice says again as a dripping wet cloth is gently placed on my forehead. “She is greatly weakened though”.
Someone is holding me. I struggle to open my eyes and see.

“Light.Will.Protect.You.”

Kelen’s almost desperate protests die somewhere back as I climb down the stairs and into the swarm of undead. It is a sight of nightmare – an endless hall filled with horrible, broken bodies raggedly moving…Their evil seeps into the ground, into the air. I can barely breathe.
“Light, I humbly pray you so to guide and govern me…”
My steps echo hollowly on the paving stones. Soon there will be no return. Fear grips at my throat with a thousand frozen fingers. This is madness.
“…that I may never forget you, in the darkest moments of my life…”
“Sev, come back! Sev!”
I run.
“so I may remember that I am ever walking in your sight…”
The undead stir, aware of my presence. The hall is endless, and all I can see is rotting flesh , hollow eye sockets…
Panic wants to take over. I will have faith.
Light springs around me, shielding my body as I charge into the mass of undead. Awful growls burst from all sides – and a sound of something sizzling and burning away. My senses dim in the rapture of Light and my steps do not falter. I can see it now. It’s a sword, lying in ankle deep water. It sparkles. It glows with the Light as my hands do. I run towards it, splashing and panting. My fingers close in its hilt – it feels heavy when I lift it. Merciless claws tear at the air – tear at me, but they fail to touch even the plate I wear. The undead growl and writhe, their numbers seemingly infinite as they throw themselves at me, feeling their pray might escape.
Light fills me, drowns all sound, all thought. It fills me and courses through the blade, an endless flow, like lightning striking into the undead. They burn. It burns. I hear my voice, coming from far off, beyond consciousness. I think I scream as I climb the stairs, fratically staggering into Kelen’s arms…
Light, it hurts…


I open my eyes to the sun-streaked ceiling of a tent. I lay on my back, a warm blanket covering me to the neck. My body feels light, as if I could fly any moment now.
“Fight with honor. Always. Honor.”

Maeglin smiles down at me. There is some expression in his unreadable elven features.

“Blessed are those that are pure and walk in the way of Light.”

I smile back.