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Ooooh, I likey! Lovely, just lovely. XD I love how it's told via story-telling, especially to the children. Nice tale of love, loss, and revenge. Great little twist at the end when it's revealed to the reader, subtley, who Mr. Twain really is.

Great job, well written. I love it.

The Deepest Darkness Is One Man's Soul

The children rushed into the yard of the old man yelling at the home. Each of the ten little boys and girls called out for the old man to continue his tale of old.
“Mister!! Mister!!” they cried. “Mister! Mister! Please come out! We want to hear more of your story!” So pleased was the old man to hear that they wanted to listen to him once more, he barely realized that he was not even fully clothed. He nearly opened the door without even his afternoon pants. After finishing his preparations for the decent society, he came out and sat on his front porch and beckoned the children to come and sit with him.

“Sooo children, come to listen to more of my great story of Darian?”
“Yes! Yes sir! We want to know what happened to the mayor and...”
Then a little girl interrupted the little boy beside her, “And about the shade that helps Darian. What is he?”
Then all the children busted into a raving blur of noise as they all said what they wanted to know about the story. Finally the old man jumped in with a short shout.
“Children! Children! Now listen…none of you will get your answers if I cannot even start from where we left off. As you know, the sands of time for me reach the bottom of the hour glass and my days are not so numerous as they once were.” At that time, the children settled down and sat attentive to the old man as he began anew.

The mayor ordered the town guard to patrol his home exclusively whilst the rest of the town remained utterly unprotected as only two guards were left to be stationed at the guard tower to look over the countryside and watch over the rest of the town. As the other thirty guards watched over the mayor's home, the town warehouse was unguarded to misfortune. No one knew that Darian was now lurking in darkness.
During the night of the winter’s peak and snow blanketed the lands, Darian made his move in the darkness of night to the warehouse as he silently spoke to the shade within.
“What do you think of this Darian? You can simply slay the praetor and be done with it all....your revenge would be complete! Isn't that better?”
“NO DEMON! I wish for him…..I wish for them all to suffer. All those who stopped me will pay with their misery and despair. The warehouse will be first in this. Eliminating all that extra produce should be sufficient for now.” With magical flames as his torch, he set the entire warehouse ablaze from the inside, so by the time anyone saw what had happened, it was too late. All of the produce inside was set aflame in a single instant.
In that next morning, Darian sat upon a nearby house to listen to the mayor's speech to the people regarding the surplus food burning.
“My wonderful people! If we can overcome the evil hordes of the Nefilium, can we not overcome the loss of SURPLUS food? So long as we use only what we need and the fields produce as well as they have in the past, what must we worry about? We can collect surplus like every other year before. We just need to ration the food more efficiently.”
And on that day, the food was rationed more...”efficiently.” All of the residents in the town received less food than before and Praetor Heg lost nothing. The people grew complacent but not so much to rebel. Then Darian released an onslaught of locusts to slay the plants that would have provided the bounty of food that the people would need.
Because of this, within months, the people set about to eat the animals, then the dead. Only Heg had enough food stores to last that time with his guards protecting him. The people collectively heard a voice in the darkness as the shadows silently crept into their hearts as well.
“Why must you go hungry?” the voice asked. “Why must YOU starve when that swine of a praetor, Heg, sits with his guards, fat and happy? GO! Go claim what is your's!” The people gathered torches and farming tools. They gathered scythes and hammers and stormed the Heg's residency and laid waste to everything in sight there, including their own fathers, the guards.

Before the people could reach Praetor Heg, he received a vision in a dream. A man in a black hooded cloak appeared before him, and, with a powerful and bestial voice, spoke to him. “Sir Praetor Heg. You betray your people and do not share. You prevented the rescue of a fair maiden because you feared for your own life as a coward. I so enjoy the darkness in your heart. I’ll give you a chance to be at my side. Escape now with what you can. Flee to the mountains. The people will be content with your food….but do NOT tell your family. They are helping the people rise against your tyranny, and thus, they will be safe. NOW RUN!” He woke with a cold sweat on his brow and set about to collecting what he could in the night, and escaped through a passage in the cellar that lead directly to a forgotten cove where he could continue up and into the mountains.

What the mayor did not know was that his family was crucified upon the gates outside his home, then roasted alive along with the rest of the manor. The shadowy man was right in one regard, the people did not pursue him for they only thought that he was hiding in the manor and would either try to run outside and face their wrath or be burned alive....more or less, they thought he was hiding from them somewhere in the manor...yet he lived and only two knew of that.

Once Heg ran as much as he could, he collapsed inside a cave and laid himself to rest in the darkness. Darian walked up next to the great Praetor and sat next to him, speaking to the shade once more. “Well my glorious darkness, did you enjoy that? Did you like your role in the play?”
“Indeed I did, however, I wonder why you did not let the people exact justice upon him.”
“That is too simple. It is not their right to serve him the justice that is owed to him by me. They exacted punishment enough by slaying the rest of the family after all.”
The shade within laughed a bit and smiled, “Ah true. So what of him though?”
“You shall see….”, said Dariain as he rose and backed away into the shadows as he laughed out loud.

Heg awoke as if shocked by lightning as he cried out into the pitch dark.
“WHO'S THERE!?!?! SHOW YOURSELF!!”
Darian stepped out bearing a torch and two heads in his hands as he threw them out to Heg.
“Hehehe! HAHAHA! How does it feel to hold the heads of your family in your lap again oh great Praetor Heg? Sablir did such a wonderful job convincing you to come out here thinking your family would be safe. No, they suffered as my wife did you b*****d. Your daughter and wife were crucified upon the gates of your home thinking you were just saving your own skin. As they both cried for mercy from the people, with those sames lips did they curse your name as well. How does it feel? Hmmm? They burned to an elegant crisp at least… my wife was eaten alive…far worse fate was my wife’s I believe.”

Heg sobbed and cried as his anger was building higher and higher, boiling over and spilling out as he drew a dagger and charged Darian. Darian stepped to the side, caught the praetor's wrist and twisted his arm to his back as he whispered in Heg's ear.
“Oooh my dear and mighty Praetor Heg. I told you that you would die a painful death for this, didn’t I? If only you would have been more merciful and let me save her…it shouldn’t have came to this you fool.” He then broke Heg’s wrist. Heg let out a shrill and painful cry that would even assault a saint’s greatest dreams and sanity. Darian then pushed him away and let him trip over a stone as Darian’s form began to change to a more appropriate form. He changed into a black winged demon with the head of a falcon, the chest and arms of a powerful man, and the legs of a wolf. In one hand he carried the Tome of Unyielding Darkness and, in the other hand, the Scythe of Blind Justice. “This is the shape of terror. This is the form of Sablir the Dark Omen, the demon of vengeance and darkness. The price of his service are two things: strife and souls.” As Darian, or rather Sablir, approached, the praetor could only beg and beg for forgiveness.
“I'm sorry for the wrongs I did Darian! I'm begging you! Please don't kill me!! I did it for the people!!! Have mercy where I did not!”
Darian, now simply enraged, appeared next to Heg, dropped the scythe that he carried and lifted heg by the neck and slamming his body against the stone wall as he spoke to Sablir.
“SABLIR! The Tome....what does it say for him?”
“Well Darian, he is to suffer the same fate as your dear beloved. He is to be nailed to a surface and be eaten alive by the demons who ravaged your wife….those horrid Nefilium.
“Well, I did say head upon a pike and heart served to the Nefilium didn't I? Well, you heard it Praetor Heg, that be your sentence. See you in the Void!” Darian screamed as he began to drive nails into Heg as Heg wailed in pain. Darian stepped back and allowed Sablir to take over from there as Sablir began a ritual. Finally after the final symbol was drawn and blood dripped upon the ground, a crack broke open and the Nefilium poured forth and devoured and waded in Heg's blood. Darian reached forth and snatched the skull after the demons had returned to the Nether Reaches. Darian placed the skull upon a pike and immediately returned to the town to place the pike between the burnt corpses of Heg's wife and daughter.
“Well done Darian, our bargain is now complete. I believe I will take my soul now…your’s that is.”
“WRONG SABLIR! You said souls, but not whose souls. Take the souls of Heg and his family and begone! The wife’s and daughter’s soul should still be hanging around after all. You can do that after all, right? They heard your voice and succumbed to your darkness as well when they tried to escape when they heard you talking to Heg.” Darian was correct and Sablir could do nothing about that.
“Well a bargain is a bargain, and though I wanted your blackened soul, two pure ones and one of ashes will do just as well though....we could have been so much together you know....I will now take my leave.”
Darian collapsed and the demon forth into the growing light of the day.
“Just remember Darian, I am you....I will always be in the darkest reaches of your heart, waiting for you to whisper my name again....goodbye, but not. I'll still be here for you. Hahahaha!”
With that, Sablir the Dark Omen was gone, but not so much as Darian’s heart went as cold and heavy as a stone from a mountain stream in winter.

It is said that, in the winter nights, people can see a man standing next to a demon upon the great tower in the fortress above the village and that screams can be heard from the Caverns of Suffering and the Gibet Tree of Cross. Both named for the tragedies associated with them. It is also said that Darian never rests in the night for he fears that Sablir may take over his body in the night. Whatever is the case, all that remains completely true in this tale of old is that Darian Cross was never heard from again.

“Well children…what did you think of that story?”
Some of the children were confused and some cried with glee.
One asked Mr. Tain, “Umm, sir....if why did Sablir want Darian?”
Mr. Tain sighed and replied, “Because a man of honor and goodness fell so far into darkness that Sablir could have used Darian as a servant in dealings during the day. To save himself, Darian reminded Sablir that the deal never stated whose soul would be exchanged. To make the deal even better, he gave the dark soul of Heg and the pure souls of Heg’s wife and daughter as well.

“That is sooo mean Mr. Tain!”
“Indeed it was young lass,” Mr. Tain said sadly. “Yes, it was quite awful.”
Another child asked Mr. Tain, “Sir, may I ask you something? Do you not always have a candle lit in your room during the night?”
Mr. Tain, in surprise, said, “Why yes I do young lad. Do you think I am afraid of Sablir? Well, I am going to say it now…I am deathly afraid of him. Helped cause my fall after all.”

That day, the children and Mr. Tain were gone. When the basement of Mr. Tain's household was searched, the walls were painted red and the bodies of ten children were hung from the rafters like meat at the market, for the hunger of even a demon of vengeance and darkness was just that.....dark and vengeful. For such a long time did Darian avoid the thirst for the people in his new home of Haln that he almost forgot that Sablir was still hiding, waiting for Darian to lose himself in the night.

“Poor Darian…I’m a demon of darkness, true, but I am infinite and can exist in the light as well for the hearts of mortals are darker than the most pitch black of nights. You should know that fact considering the events of four hundred years ago, for you are the darkest I have seen in such a long time. I told you that we would make a great couple! HAHAHAHAHA!”