Work Text:
When the war was over, I went into hiding. Not out of cowardice, whatever Mizzarch said, but out of the knowledge that I was one of the few who could ever hope to bring about His return.
I knew I could not rely on others. A Zarosian settlement, no matter how small or insignificant, would have quickly drawn the wrath of the Zamorakians and the Saradominists alike. An army or a church, no matter how well hidden, would have existed only until the first traitor gave it away. An organisation of any kind would have always been too fragile, too vulnerable. If anyone was to keep the faith alive, it would be lone agents—lone, hidden agents from the long-lived races, each biding his time alone and out of sight.
Whatever I wanted done, I knew I would have to do alone. So, once I had done what I could for the remaining faithful, I left them to their own devices, and I took to living as a man.
It proved a good choice of strategy. Not only did it allow me to live in human society, where I could keep up with the changes of the world, it convinced my fellow Mahjarrat that I had renounced all aspirations to power. As far as they were concerned, I was a mad hermit. A mad hermit and perhaps a contrite one, a defeated general who had taken to a life of scholarship. And that is what I was, wasn’t it? But I alone knew that wasn’t all I was.
I stayed in hiding. I stayed out of politics. I never renounced my allegiance to Zaros explicitly, but I made it out that I was indifferent to anything beyond my own survival. Each time the Ritual approached, I did my best to turn the Zamorakians against each other, and a few times I succeeded. In between I tried to coax my fellow loyalists into disavowing their god to save their lives, and each time I failed. They all died proud Zarosians, and their deaths advanced their cause not a whit.
I hid. I lied. I survived.
How long has it been now? How many lives have I lived like this? For thirty, forty, fifty years I stay in one place, under one name, living one life. Then I move; I disappear; I pick up a new name and a new face, wearing a new disguise and telling a new version of the same old lie. And what made it tolerable, what made the waiting and the hiding and the lying tolerable, was the knowledge that it was a temporary measure. The knowledge that I was making a momentary sacrifice. The knowledge that our day would come.
And it did come, did it not? My Lord walks on this world once more. He walks among us, and His faithful have been called to serve Him. As it turns out, however, I am not in their number.
All this time! All the long years of war—all I sacrificed—and not once has He called on me. From what I can tell and what I have learned from you, I have been deemed unneeded.
Unneeded.
So, what now? I am immortal to all practical purposes. I have an eternity to spend, and no cause, no people, no duty to give it meaning. And thanks to the likes of Zemouregal and Hazeel, there is nowhere in the world where one of my kind can live undisguised among others. Thus, is this what it is to be? Wandering? Wandering as I have, nameless, homeless, aimless, wearing down the long coil of eternity, with no hope of an end or a purpose? Is this what it is to be?
Excuse me. Now, did I tell you about my trip north? I visited Azzanadra in Al-Kharid a while ago. He would not tell me what he’s looking for there—I am not permitted the particulars of the plan—but he did give me a tour of the ruins. Very professional, his “dig site” indeed. He seems to be having a jolly old time of it—the good doctor has developed quite a personality.