Last Will & Testament

The tarnished spires of Nimen Palace shot up into the lifeless sky, reaching greedily for the blood-red orb far above. Long, solemn shadows crept across the crumbling ruins of Idnitia, seeking any last life to snuff out as they fled from the crimson moon. Black and red now dominated what was once a vibrant, lush landscape.

Idnitia had been a world of magic, and progress, once. It had been a world of constant beginnings. Testament could practically taste the irony, that such a world should meet such a sudden—and devastating—end. Testament, however, had no time to savor it, no matter how badly they desired to. They had a quest on this pathetic rock, after all.

Testament elongated their limbs, the interlocking plates of their full-body armor spreading apart from their siblings. With vastly improved dexterity, they stretched across treacherous gaps between the shattered buildings. Stretching this way exposed the vulnerable red slime of their body, but Testament cared not. No predators lived on this planet—not anymore, at least. The only lifeforms on Idnitia at that very moment were Testament and their quarry.

Testament’s lens, a large camera at the center of their metal faceplates, focused on some movement in the distance. A cloud of dust shifted near the palace, growing into the thin atmosphere. As the dust spread to nothingness, the grind of rock on stone rumbled through the ground. Testament’s quarry had to be there, they were getting close… and they were running out of time.

Testament leapt from ruin to ruin, each hop punctuated with a series of tinny clinks as their body contracted and brought their armor together once more. They grunted as the shadows stretched even longer, bathing the buildings in black. Testament didn’t want to use magic here, in the aftermath of the Soulspeaker, but it was quickly becoming inevitable.

---

Will struggled under the weight of rock and stone. Large chunks of rubble pinned his arms down. A rod of rebar protruded from his side, contorting almost impossibly around his vital organs. Blood trickled from his injuries, slow streams of liquid life leaking from scrape, gash, and hole alike.

His body trembled as he took tentative breaths, then convulsed more violently as he coughed up concrete dust. Dust. Crumbling dust all around him. Motes alighted on his wounds and mingled with his blood, lackadaisical in the face of Willacrom’s certain doom.

Was anyone else still alive? He fought back tears as he thought of his friends and family, as he thought of his loyal and devout subjects. He thought of the beauty of Idnitia, of Nimen Palace, all reduced to nothing. And he thought of God, or whatever in End’s Beginning ruined it all.

He thought of the impossible; he thought of the four-armed, faceless devourer. He thought of wisps of energy—the very souls of the people he once loved—being drawn to the pocket of death that stretched down its torso. He thought of the color draining from the world, sucked voraciously by the rigid, winding spikes drilled into the planet’s crust. And he thought of God’s crooked smile, breaking up its once-void face, as it sneered down toward Will.

The death of all was natural, it was inevitable. But leaving Will alive was an act of unadulterated malice. How dare he make Will live? Willacrom of Provocation, sole survivor of Idnitia, clenched his jaw and thought of only one thing: Fuck. God.

Will’s chest heaved upward as he drew a deep breath, dusty dead air hissing between his teeth and filling his lungs. His fingers twitched as he brought one last thought to his mind: This is not the end. This is just a new beginning.

“Reconstruct,” Will gasped. Dust flowed out from his lungs and up from his blood, and streamed towards the blocks of rubble. The entire room crunched and shifted as broken marble pillars became whole once more. Will yelled out as the rebar in his side forcibly twisted itself loose and rocketed into place among the walls.

Arms free—but weak—Will sat up in the now open room. The Hall of Beginnings was cavernous and long, stretching back into the recesses of the palace. The entire hall had been torn asunder during God’s visit. The pillars had cracked obediently under its ruinous gaze, and the roof had then prostrated before its killer. Now they stood strong and tall, no sign of their earlier frailty. The statues of Will’s predecessors once more lined the walls. Where once they had glared at him in disappointment, now they seemed to smile in approval.

As far as Will could tell, he had completely rebuilt the Hall of Beginnings. And only the Hall of Beginnings. Some more detritus sat expectantly around the hall, as if to say: “Hello, Willacrom, are you going to put us back too?” Willacrom, in fact, could not. Reconstructing the hall, an act which he’d previously thought impossible, had taken more than enough energy out of him… and he had gaping wounds and bleeding gashes to focus on first.

He stood up slowly, clutching his side to try to stop the bleeding. He had no idea how he was going to survive after all this, but he’d find a way. He had to.

---

Testament frowned—as much as one can frown without lips—as they looked down upon a distinctly intact Hall of Beginnings. Surely Idnitian architecture wasn’t strong enough to withstand the assault of the Soulspeaker. If it was, perhaps a few more buildings would have survived. But no, Testament’s quarry had used magic. Which meant…

Testament trembled as the shimmering outline of the Soulspeaker disgraced the dying husk of Idnitia. The body in Its true state was nothing more than a starfield, vaguely outlined by shimmering lines of red, purple, orange, and blue. The stars weren’t those of the local cluster, but rather the stars and planets It had already consumed. One mark for each kill—if each kill stood for billions more. This was the ultimate predator of the cosmos. And now It was looking right at Testament.

It had started with a toothy grin, flashing its jagged hemisphere-shredders at the minuscule slime crawling across Its carrion. Then, upon recognizing Testament, It frowned. It crossed its four arms and merely watched events unfold. The scent of ripe, visceral, delicious magic had alerted It, but Testament was off-limits.

Testament waved tentatively at the cosmic entity. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

The Soulspeaker watched apathetically. Testament could feel Its non-eyes boring holes into their soul.

“Yes, great chatting with you too, old friend,” Testament shuddered. They continued along their way, climbing down towards the now-repaired Hall of Beginnings, ever cognizant of cosmic death’s gaze.

---

Will hobbled toward the great doors of the Hall of Beginnings, his kingly silken robes brushing about his ankles as he moved. Droplets of blood fell in his wake, their reds embracing the blues and golds of the long rugs running through the hall. Their product was a distinctly ugly maroon. The doors stood proud ahead, ornate in their design and hefty in their build. Will had once thought them a tad too ostentatious, but now they were a monument to the damned, to his people. He supposed a bit of ostentation was called for, to honor the memory of those he loved.

He slammed his good side against the monumental doors a few times, gritting his teeth with each strike. They swung open on the third, and he fell through. He shrieked.

Above him stood an awfully tall, awfully angular creature. It looked like a weird red goop inhabiting a broken suit of armor. Red shone through a couple of eye slits on its faceplate, and a huge black lens dominated its forehead. And the teeth, oh God the teeth. Haphazard triangles adorned the lower end of its faceplate, and a wicked jawplate complemented it. It spoke in an alien language, the motion of its jaw completely disconnected from the sounds it was producing.

“What in Idnitia’s name are you?” Will demanded. He looked over the being’s shoulder and noticed the shimmering outline of God painted across the sky. Well, shit.

The creature spoke in its language once more, but the words started to meld into something more comprehensible. “My apologies, Willacrom. I am your savior.” It licked its “lips” with a crude approximation of a tongue, formed from the very red slime of its body.

“Get the fuck off my planet,” Will spat, then turned to hobble back into the Hall of Beginnings.

A slimy arm shot forward, stretching far beyond the length it should, and cold metal claws clamped around Will’s shoulder like a vice.

“Now, Willacrom, that’s not how you treat your guests. Though I can’t imagine you have many now.”

Will turned around to face the creature, fury and pain in his eyes. “Let go of me, creature. I won’t deal with God or his monstrous messengers. Not now, not ever.”

“Oh no, you have it all wrong, Willacrom,” the creature jeered, the plates of its jaw curling into a more sinister smile. “The big guy up there—It isn’t really a guy per se, but we’ll go with that, given the rippling pectorals and all—well, It and I don’t exactly get along.”

“Then why hasn’t it killed you? And let go of my arm, damn you!”

“My apologies, I was merely trying to help you, Willacrom. Unless you’d rather bleed out?”

The creature spoke more alien words, and an odd tingling sensation rippled from Will’s shoulder through the rest of his body.

“As I was saying, we don’t get along. It already tried to kill me once, but got burned because of it. I have connections in high places, to say the least.”

As the numb wave passed by Will’s injuries, the flesh started to knit itself back together. It let go.

“I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but thank you,” Will grunted. “Do you have a name, creature?”

“What an absurd question! Of course I do,” it said, smiling.

Will waited for an uncomfortable period of time, before realizing that the creature had given him a complete answer. “God, you’re insufferable.”

“Hm, Insufferable isn’t one of my names yet. But it could be.” The creature’s lens unfocused, and it idly scraped its chin with a loud screech.

“Then what am I to call you, creature?”

“I have gone by many names,” it said. It held up a finger to stop Will’s imminent protestations. “The Exiled Colony, Shadow of the Perceptive, the World-Dusk Watchtower, Greatest Lay of the Supercluster, and many more.”

“Greatest Lay of—you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Yes, of course I am. Or am I?” It grinned.

“Now is not the time for levity, Watchtower,” Will said, gesturing up towards God’s looming shadow. His wounds, already fully healed, tickled slightly as he moved.

“Oh, it’s always the time for levity. But fine, you may call me Testament.”

“Why Testament?”

Testament licked their lips once more. “Because I’m here to bear witness to all that you do. That is my quest.”

“And if I say no?”

“You won’t. Surely I don’t need to remind you that the big guy over there won’t lay a deadly finger upon me,” they said, jabbing their thumb towards God.

“Fine. But you’re going to help me kill him,” Will grunted.

“Gladly,” Testament said. “Now then, follow me. Let’s get off this decrepit orb and away from the big guy. I don’t want to test Its patience. Let’s see… have you ever had Ystrian boar? Me neither.”

Testament’s armor split apart and a rod slid out from between the plates. The staff was made of a metal that shimmered in unusual ways, and a deep blue gem was affixed to the end. Testament spoke yet more alien words, and the gem began to glow. They slammed the staff down against the ground, gem-first, and blue energy shot toward a half-collapsed wall across from the palace doors. A moving circle of foreign runes decorated the wall, and soon a gateway appeared between them.

“After you, my liege,” Testament said, bowing.

Will walked up to the portal and looked back upon Nimen Palace. It had been his home for the last twenty-five years. He’d inherited the throne shortly after his father had died. It was a premature succession, to be sure, and he wasn’t ready for rule. But it was not a king’s duty to wait for the right time, it was a king’s duty to accept the blows that are dealt and respond to them in kind.

Will stepped through the portal. He had failed to save his people. He had failed to lead. But he had loved them. No matter where his road led next, Willacrom of Provocation, Son of Idnitia, final survivor of the Will of the Instigator, would avenge them.