(I) FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER

[Omen Prince 391]

 

SEVEN walked in the night that freshly fell upon the lands that span between the Druids and the Sutican state. When they came upon a pillar of a questionable glow, they did not come to tamper with it like scholars; they came because they heard the call of challenge from this place, and so they came, with steel. The Fae had touched the ground there, and by some conviction of theirs, they could not allow this to come to pass.

 

 

When they arrived, the depths of night had already made before them - the darkness was deep around this structure they surrounded, blanketing even the dunes which seemed as though it constantly threatened to pour upon the fertile life that struggled to rise from the dry earth there. No sound bar the shift of metal plate and readied weapons disturbed tense air, until across the way and in the shadow they witnessed-- eyes.

 

 

Black as the night that clutched the world, a massive beetle-thing pulled itself from the churning dunes to meet them; chittering lowly as it hungered after them for the enormous fill required to drive it to life, just as they hungered for the symbolism in its bloodshed - the meaning of its defeat. There was no fear among them in the dark; the fear passed through and over them.

 

 

The killing began swiftly. In an alarming display of the band of seven’s strategic prowess and adaptation against the supernatural, they fell upon it in a calculated fury. As their sole horseman did his work in its luring and distraction, the others readied their sacred weapons - azhl, alchemical deployments, among them being blast potions and tanglefoot. Dawn was still hours away as the Fae was dominated in the darkness, upon earth ruled chiefly by men; and when it was cracked and wounded and anchored to stable earth, kept so cruelly away from its means to escape to safety, the most vital weapon was employed: the edge of thanhium.

 

 

Azhl soot and the death-chill of thanhic poison soon coursed through the Fae, subjecting it to pains that debilitated it in ways that no steel could ever replicate. Laid low, it could only bring himself to collapse upon one of their own in its downfall, crushing them within their armor completely. But six still stood, and they knew their lost seventh would not be gone for long - at all. No loss was suffered in their victory. Where the fear had gone, there was nothing; and only they remained.

 

The beast was stripped of what kept its inside protected and balanced, reduced to practically nothing by both the grim victors and the dunes which would soon wear it away until the beetle joined the sands in its mortal rot. But the head of it - the chitinous crown was wrenched and torn from the body, set upon a wooden cart, and led by one of the victorious seven toward a distant grotto…

 

The massive, withered head of the beetle was soon revealed before the entrance to the Druidic Grove by the dawning of sunlight, and upon its broken and marred horns was place a heavy stone tablet. Upon its face was carved this omen:

 

 

I MUST NOT FEAR - FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER

FEAR IS THE LITTLE DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION
I WILL FACE MY FEAR; I WILL PERMIT IT TO PASS OVER ME AND THROUGH ME

AND WHEN IT HAS GONE PAST, I WILL TURN THE INNER-EYE TO SEE ITS PATH

WHERE THE FEAR HAS GONE, THERE WILL BE NOTHING

ONLY I WILL REMAIN

 

 

[The Media Wizard 2954]

Amaesil the Oak Druid hears tale of the hunters and nods. He looks across the Hinterland's horizon to the beacon in the far distance — to his own approaching test.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by The Media Wizard