Never Die Twice

Ragnarok had been prevented.

As he sat on his throne, in the golden halls of Valhalla, Odin didn’t know how to feel about this. His body ached in pain from Surtr’s flames, half his body forever burned, his skinless flesh festering with wounds. The words of Princess Gwenhyfar had hurt his pride, woken up the old warrior long overcome by his fear of death. The lord of the Aesir had gone into battle expecting to die, in a futile but glorious attempt to escape his fated demise. He thought he would fall that day, either to Surtr’s sword or Hel’s retaliation.

Yet, in the end, he survived. Surtr had been banished back to Muspelheim, Nidhogg had defeated Hel and Gwenhyfar…

The princess, the human who inspired him to take arms against destiny, had paid the ultimate price. Another victim of Nidhogg’s oath-breaking. Treachery, murder, and lies were the serpent’s ways.

Yet, even if born of evil, today was a victory. Ragnarok had been averted, at least for a time. Hel would no longer steer destiny towards the Nine Realms’ destruction. The future should have seemed bright and hopeful.

Yet why did it all feel so ominous?

“Lord Odin,” Fair Freya, Vanir goddess of war and magic, bowed before him in alarm. “The dead are rising. With Hel’s demise, the gates of Helheim are open.”

Because it wasn’t Odin’s victory.

The Allfather could sense it. All across the Nine Realms, corpses rose on their own, animated by Nidhogg’s vile magic. The frontier between life and death, embodied by Hel, was gone. Loki would soon break his shackles, and torment Asgard again. While Ragnarok had been prevented or at least delayed, the new age ahead would be one of blood and darkness.

The royal line of Avalon, who he had heavily invested in, had been broken; its knights consumed by Nidhogg’s ritual alongside the Calamities’ forces. Gwenhyfar and Arthur, the only humans Odin felt some kind of fondness for, were gone, trapped in Lyonesse’s ruins for all of eternity.

No, Odin thought. Now was not the time for lamentation, but action. Surtr may have been repelled and Hel sealed, but the Calamities yet lived, Nidhogg among them. So long as they existed, Asgard’s place in the universe would never be secure. The war would continue.

The Allfather contacted his priests hidden in the north, to prepare the counterattack on Midgard.

You attempted to contact your priest…

But [Nidhogg] answered.

Prayer negated by [Nidhogg]'s [Godslayer].

Fear gnawing at his heart like the vile serpent at the root of Yggdrasil, Odin attempted to contact his followers all over Midgard. Always, he received the same answer. A glance at his fellow gods told him he wasn’t alone in that regard.

Nidhogg had all but banished the Aesir and Vanir from Midgard, seizing the world of mortals for his own use.

Worse, the secret of their godhood was out, alongside that of immortality. It was only a matter of time before foolish mortals gained power too great for them to wield, and looked upon Asgard with greed and envy.

His son Thor hit the ground with his thunderous hammer, his crimson hair turning white with lightning. “What do we do, Father?”

Odin sank further in his throne.

The records which prophesied his demise had been proven wrong… but instead of giving way to a clear and bright path ahead, the future seemed shrouded in darkness. Destiny was no longer written, and so, everything was up to chance.

“I don’t know.”

Once, he thought he would say these words with joy and relief.

But now…

They terrified him.

He had won.

After so much suffering, so much work, he had triumphed. His plan, carefully plotted with multiple contingencies, had prevailed; even Odin’s unexpected interference had played out in his favor. The Great Work had been completed, in the most literal way possible.

Walter Tye had killed Death.

Once the ritual finished and certain that that brute of a goddess was gone, Tye decided to return to the physical world. As the master of undeath, his soul only had to find a corpse, any corpse, to inhabit. Forgotten bones buried near Annie’s location did the trick, his Calamity spirit nesting within them.

Walter emerged from the dirt and snow, flesh covering the bones as his necromantic magic reshaped the corpse in the image of his human body. He summoned a cloak of darkness and spirits to cover his nakedness, like an ancient lich rising from his slumber.

The power… it was nothing like before. Limitless. The crystallized city magnified his Perks and powers on a worldwide scale.

The whole of Midgard had become his new Nastrond.

“Annie,” he said, having risen like a vampire from his coffin. “Are you alright?”

His apprentice rose up, the box and the [Necromancer’s Stone] still at her feet. Her skin had turned pale from the shock, her hands shivering from the cold. The snow was falling on both of them, Surtr’s flames extinguished.

Then she collapsed into his arms, crying, without a word. All the stress of the battle, of surviving the world's end came crashing down, destroying her composure.

Unsure how to react, Tye slowly put his arms around her shoulders and hugged her. She felt so warm and fragile as if he might break her in an instant. A precious creature he had to protect.

Yggdrasil Quest: Vígríðr, Field of Ragnarok, succeeded! All bonus objectives completed!

You earned 209,920,000 exp + 9,999,999 bonus exp.

You earned twenty-two levels to assig-

Tye didn’t bother to read the rest. Instead, he glanced at the crystallized city, his monument to undeath. A lesser man would have chuckled, or let out a dark laugh of triumph at the sight. But Walter thought himself above such things.

Instead, he simply looked on with a satisfied smirk.

All his enemies were gone. Hel, Gwenhyfar, Medraut, even the gods… The world was quiet and peaceful, at long last. The sun was slowly rising, pushing the darkness of Medraut’s eclipse away. But it wasn’t the only light in the skies. Countless shining souls and specters fell from the heavens, hungering for life.

Annie stopped crying, her head against his chest, but he felt her hands tighten behind his back.

“You knew this would happen,” she said. “You planned it.”

Tye narrowed his head as she raised her own, facing her angry eyes. “Of course I did.”

It had been his true desire from the start.

“You knew I would warn them if you told me the truth,” Annie said. “You betrayed her. She fought with you and you betrayed her still.”

“I didn’t betray my dream,” Tye replied, unrepentant. “She would have gone after me, Annie. It wasn’t betrayal, simply… a preemptive measure. I did for the same reason when we couldn’t reach an agreement: no matter what, no matter who is up against me… I will never die again.”

The necromancer felt a bit sad about tricking the princess, for he respected her resolve, but as he told her, victory needed complete dedication. He would rather break his word for tangible gain, than risk everything for an abstract principle. In the end, Walter Tye believed in pragmatism, first and foremost.

All those who stood in his way would know nothing but despair.

“I saved the Nine Realms from destruction, Annie,” Tye defended his plan, as he still felt her doubts. “I killed death. If it hadn’t been for my plan, Ragnarok would have happened. Now, no one will be able to access the root, not even the Calamities. Was it not worth a few sacrifices?”

“You didn’t have to make these sacrifices,” Annie said, saddened, tears falling down her cheeks. “You did it for yourself.”

“For us.”

“For you,” she said. “I didn’t want this.”

“Yes, you did,” Tye replied. “You stayed with me because you know I am the better option. Hel, Medraut, and their like are gone from this world. With my stone intact, and the elixir in your veins, we can make Midgard a paradise.”

“But not for everyone,” Annie said, breaking the embrace and taking a few steps back.

“Immortality is a right,” the necromancer said softly, surprised by her reaction. “Surely, when someone tries to take away your right to property and invade your home, they should be stopped, no?”

“So everyone who disagrees with you has to go?” She glared at the city behind them. “You couldn’t even be bothered to save those who followed you back there.”

“Sacrifices were needed, or the spell would have failed,” Tye replied. If he could have avoided the slaughter, he would have, but the amount of souls needed to capture Hel herself… “You disagreed with me plenty of times, and yet I still saved you. Because I care for you.”

“Tye.” Annie wiped away her tears, but her eyes remained red with sorrow. “Answer me truthfully. Did you plan for my survival because you cared for me, or because of the elixir in my veins?”

Tye observed her, unsure of how to respond. He considered his words carefully, and with a thought, he telekinetically brought the Necromancer’s Stone to his hand.

“I wanted you to live forever at my side, Annie,” Tye said, showing her the stone. “I trusted you with my soul.”

Instead of smoothing things out, it only made her face harden. “You didn’t give it to me because you trusted me,” she lamented. “You gave it to me because I trusted you.”

“I don’t see a difference.”

“You don’t really care about what I want,” Annie said, her voice breaking. “You only pretend you do. You tempt me to your side by saying things you think I want to hear, provide knowledge that you want to share through me, ask me to trust you unconditionally when it hurts my friends, but when I ask something that will cost you… you don’t lift a finger until I force you to. In the end, it’s all about what you want.”

Tye started to lose patience. “Is this about Gwenhyfar? Annie, she was a deluded, self-righteous egotist who impeded the march of progress. What will it take for you to see that?”

“No, it’s about us. You weren’t teaching me, you… you were molding me like clay in your image. Exploiting my feelings, my naivete to…” She bit her lower lip in frustration and disappointment. “If you had trusted me, you would have told me your plans. But you didn’t. Because you weren’t sure I would go along with it if I did. This isn’t trust, this is manipulation.”

“Annie—”

“You said it yourself Tye,” she interrupted him. “You will never die again. Even with the universe hanging in the balance, instead of risking yourself, you sacrificed everyone else and used me to hide. You didn’t kill death, you cowered in face of it!”

Tye saw red. “You have never died!”

As he snarled, he briefly lost control over his shapeshifting, his eyes shining red, his mouth turning into a black abyss. His apprentice flinched a bit at the sight.

“You have never died, Annie,” Tye replied more softly, reasserting control and returning to his human form. “Everyone says death is peaceful, painless. But they’re wrong. They’re lying to themselves and others. Death is the worst thing anyone can ever experience.”

Tye knew that better than anyone. He had been on the other side.

“When you die… at a certain moment, between life and afterlife… it all goes dark. For a brief instant, your consciousness ceases to be. All your memories, all your feelings, all your thoughts, all that make you you… they vanish. After that, the torments of Helheim—tortures you can’t even fathom—are almost a relief, because you still exist. And when I returned to the world of the living as an undead, I woke next to a tombstone. Do you know what was written on it?”

The necromancer clenched his teeth.

“May his soul rest in peace.”

Annie said nothing, but her face grew wearier.

“This world, our entire civilization, was built on lies and suffering,” Tye continued, the floodgate opened. “But people didn’t know. They didn’t care. They seemed happy to die. They told their children that there was no greater honor than dying for the Aesir, that those who didn’t go to Valhalla deserved it. The dead were suffering in abject agony, and the living rejoiced. This world was insane, and someone had to do something. Anyone, no matter the cost! But no one else would end this madness. No one but me.”

He was the heir to an ancient legacy of necromancers spanning eons, but while Medraut set people on fire, Tye alone had focused on creating his elixir of life.

“I did not cower in the face of death, Annie,” the necromancer said, “Everyone else did. They paid Hel’s sick tribute, submitted rather than fighting back. And in the end, I defeated Death. Who else but me could have done it, Annie? Who else could have saved the Nine Realms from complete annihilation? Gwenhyfar? The Earthlanders?”

“If Odin hadn’t helped against Surtr—”

“If Odin had had even an ounce of humanity, none of this would have happened in the first place!” Tye cut her off harshly. “I have the power to abolish disease, hunger, mortality itself! Today, I saved more lives than anyone else ever will! I gave you a body that will never age, never grow sick, never get through the same terrors I did! I worked for decades, suffered every indignity, faced every setback, and I never lost hope! After all I did for you, for everyone, don’t I deserve happiness too?”

She didn’t say anything, her face unreadable. “If you think death is so terrible, and that nothing is worse,” Annie said, “Why do you keep killing? Why did you sacrifice people loyal to you, but didn't risk yourself?”

The necromancer tried to skim her thoughts to-

“Don’t you dare read my mind, Tye,” Annie said with a frown, “I can see it in your eyes.”

“Annie,” The necromancer extended his hand to her. “Stay at my side. I can teach you the secrets of magic. Things you cannot even imagine. Together… together, we can do so much.”

Instead of taking his hand, Annie looked at it, her face conflicted. Eventually, though, she turned her head away. “I won’t be one of them, Tye,” she said with sorrow. “I won’t be one of the sacrifices.”

“Annie, Annie!” Tye shouted, his apprentice turning his back on him and walking away. “You will leave me, after everything I did for you?”

“I thank you for your gift and knowledge,” she said. “I repaid my debt today, and I don’t owe you anything anymore Tye. You will never change.”

“Annie! Annie!” By now, he was screaming. “ANNIE!”

But she was already out of earshot, vanishing into the receding night.

Tye didn’t know how long he stood there in the snow, the howling wind for only company, but it seemed to stretch on forever. A moment of absolute loneliness, brought on by too many lies.

He sensed another presence approach, glancing at Lady Yseult and a pack of white vampire rats, hiding in her shadow; the sight alone filled him with immense relief. The priestess was casting spells on herself to cure burns, flames having consumed her skin and clothes both. Yet she somehow kept her dignity.

“Milady.” She seemed so vulnerable with her nakedness exposed, that Tye instantly summoned a cloak of darkness to protect her modesty. Black fit her far better than white. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

Tye expected judgment, but instead, the priestess offered him warmth and compassion. She took him in her arms, and they hugged. She didn’t say any words; she didn’t need to.

“Milady,” Tye spoke up, noticing someone’s absence. “Where is Hagen?”

Lady Yseult only tightened the hug, and without a word, Tye understood. Neither did he see Ghostring, the strange ghost who had served him for so long.

“Hagen you fool…” Tye muttered. “Why didn’t you run? You were supposed to run and survive this…”

“I am sorry, Walter,” Lady Yseult said, her voice soft and compassionate.

Hagen, Duke, Ghostring, Spook… even Asclepius in a fashion. All the undead lieutenants that stood at his side had perished. He alone had made it through, the Forever Serpent that transcended death. It made him feel sad and alone.

…

No.

He couldn’t afford to think that way. He would bring Hagen, Duke, all his loyal soldiers back. Even if Earthlanders had killed them, even if their souls had become trapped in his giant [Necromancer’s Stone]. Tye would find a way; he who could do anything, and who had all the time needed to figure out a solution.

Walter Tye had made a promise to Hagen. That in the end, they would both live through everything. And the necromancer would fulfill it, no matter the cost.

As long as there was life, there was hope.

“Why are you still here, milady?” Tye asked, glancing at the spot where Annie used to stand.

“Because no matter your reasons, you saved the world,” she said. “And you saved me.”

Yes. The world had almost ended, and countless had perished, but they had made it through. The prophecies said only two humans would survive Ragnarok, and they had been proven wrong.

Why did victory leave a bitter aftertaste then?

“I believe there is more good than evil in you, my friend,” the priestess continued, lightly breaking off the embrace and facing him with a smile. “One doesn’t wipe away the other. There is greater strength to be found in forgiveness than condemnation, and I still have faith in you.”

She was too pure for this world.

Maybe that was why he always did his best to protect her, even if they had stood on opposite sides.

“Do you feel better, my friend?” Yseult asked, looking at him in the eyes.

“Not much,” he admitted, “But I appreciate the gesture.”

She didn’t push the subject; unlike Annie, she wouldn’t give up on him. “What now, Walter? We have won, but what now? Certainly, you thought of the aftermath.”

Yes, he did, at great length.

“With Hel sealed and the Great Work that is this black city, the frontier between the afterlife and Midgard is no more,” Tye explained, glancing at the skies and the streams of souls coming from above. “All the souls trapped in Helheim will rise again as undead. People may still die, but they will not stay dead. And once we have recreated and distributed the elixir, the standards of living will keep improving. The transition will be… difficult… but worthwhile. Then, we will move to other realms.”

Everywhere, zombies, vampires, ghouls, and Dullahans rose from their crypts; old skeletons gained sentience; fresh corpses opened their eyes, having died days ago, stronger than they had ever been alive. Everyone who had ever died would wake up again, outnumbering the living by ten to one. All indebted to Tye, personally, as the master of undeath.

Under his command, they would crush the last bastions of the Aesir, Vanir, and Calamities on Midgard. All resistance would be annihilated. Eventually, peace would come, and the living would accept the presence of the undead among them; much like the Black Citadel, over the years, they would learn to coexist.

“Other realms?” the priestess asked.

“The gods and Calamities are our true enemies,” Tye explained. “They will never let us enjoy eternity in peace, and so they have to go. If Medraut was right, then with immortality on its side, mankind may one day level up enough to rival them.”

He expected the priestess to protest, but instead, Lady Yseult glanced at the skies thoughtfully, considering his words. “Before such a war, we must rebuild,” she said, more down to earth. “The people will need order and guidance, Walter.”

“I have no desire to rule anyone,” Tye replied, although he knew that he had become the most powerful entity in the realm. “To explore the abyss of knowledge, and push the boundaries of magic and science further… these are my only desire. I would rather have a shop than temples.”

Ruling the world seemed so unappealing. A mere vanity project, without substance nor vision.

“You will have to take charge if you want your dream realized, my friend. There is still much to do.”

For a brief instant, as he thought of the future, and all the work still ahead of him, Tye considered Annie’s parting words. He thought about all the sacrifices he made to reach this point, all the blood he spilled, the people he slew, the lies he said. Even if it had been done for the greater good, he did trick Annie to ensure the Great Work’s success; the destruction of their relationship was a heavy cost, albeit one he had been ready to pay for victory.

Tye wondered if it had been worth it… if it would all be worth it in the end.

In the end, it was a stupid question.

Of course, it had been worth it. If it wasn’t, then all the sacrifices he made, everything would have been for nothing. He had been ready to sacrifice everything to succeed on his quest, and now that he had achieved his goal, he couldn’t lament the cost he paid on the way.

Remorse was for those who don’t know what they want.

And yet…

Tye’s eyes trailed towards the World Tree Yggdrasil, and felt a strange sense of déjà vu; as if he had stood there, on this exact spot, to watch the death and rebirth of everything. This cosmic tree had witnessed countless cycles; it had been there when the cosmos began, and it would remain until its final hour. Much like Tye himself.

He couldn’t explain why, but the sight filled him, the Forever Serpent, with a strange sense of melancholy.

“Walter?” Lady Yseult asked, sensing his worry.

“Forever is such a long time.”

THE END