Chapter 6: The Abomination and the Isle of Faces
A Sanctuary Forged (Circa 8,900 BC)
The title, "Master of Fate," resonated with every pulse of aether through my veins, a constant reminder of the burden now placed upon me. After the profound communion with the Old Gods, I didn't return to my solitary vigil. Instead, I followed the silent guidance of Leaf, the elder Child, and her kin. They led me away from the sacred, ancient grove, deeper into the untouched wilderness, eventually arriving at the shores of a vast freshwater lake.
"The heart trees sing of this place," Leaf whispered, her voice like the rustling of leaves. "It is where the pact was made. Where we spoke with the First Men. It is… sacred."
She pointed across the shimmering expanse of water to a solitary island, shrouded in a perpetual, ethereal mist. Even from afar, I could feel the immense, concentrated aetheric presence emanating from it. This wasn't just an island; it was a sanctuary, a nexus, a massive collection of weirwood trees, their carved faces watching the world with ancient, unblinking eyes.
"The Isle of Faces," I murmured, the name coming to me not from prior knowledge, but from the deep, resonating memory of the Old Gods within my Djinn heritage. This was it. This was where I would make my stand.
With a focused burst of aetheric gravity, I lifted myself high above the water, my Asuran form shimmering in the twilight. The Children gasped, their dark eyes wide with awe, as I flew effortlessly across the lake, landing softly on the misty shore of the island. It was even more saturated with the world's primal magic than I'd anticipated. Everywhere I looked, weirwood faces peered out from the ancient trees, countless eyes carved into their pale bark.
I spent weeks, then months, weaving my Aether into the very fabric of the island. I didn't destroy or displace; I refined and fortified. With aetheric shaping, I created hidden, defensible caverns within the island's core, accessible only by aetheric key. I subtly enhanced the natural resilience of the weirwood trees, making their wood harder than steel, their connection to the Old Gods even more profound. I drew on the elemental deviant of ice, crafting intricate, shimmering barriers that were invisible to the mundane eye, yet lethal to any with ill intent. The island became a living fortress, a hidden bastion infused with my will and the ancient magic of the Old Gods.
The Children eventually joined me, ferrying across the lake on rafts crafted from woven reeds. They established their own small, hidden dwellings amongst the trees, their presence blending seamlessly with the natural world. This was to be our home, our stronghold, our last line of defense.
The Abomination's Genesis
One cold, wind-whipped night, gathered around a small, smokeless fire deep within one of the island's most ancient groves, Leaf began to speak, her voice trembling slightly, burdened by a history she knew too well. The other Children huddled close, their obsidian eyes reflecting the dancing aether-fire I'd conjured.
"Master of Fate," Leaf began, her gaze fixed on the crimson-weeping heart tree before us. "The Old Gods have chosen you to face the Great Other. But to truly understand, you must know how it came to be. The burden is ours, for it was our hands that made this… abomination."
A chill, colder than any winter wind, traced its way down my spine. Abomination? The Old Gods had only shown me the Others as a creeping blight, a cosmic imbalance. They hadn't revealed their origin.
"Before the First Men came," Leaf continued, her voice heavy with ancient sorrow, "this land was ours alone. We lived in harmony with the song of the earth. But then, they came. The First Men. With their bronze axes, felling our trees, scarring our lands, driving us from our sacred places."
Her voice hardened. "We sought to fight back. We sang to the weirwoods, we spoke with the earth, but their numbers were too great. We were being pushed to extinction."
She paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "In our desperation… we tried to create a weapon. A force that would drive them back, that would defend our sacred places. We captured one of the First Men. We took him to the furthest north, to a place where the magic of the earth was coldest, most ancient."
The images began to form in my mind, sent directly from the Old Gods, raw and agonizing. I saw a group of Children, their faces desperate, their hands raised in an ancient, desperate ritual. I saw a bound First Man, terrified and defiant. I saw obsidian daggers, not merely stabbing, but inserting into his chest, into his heart. And then… the freezing. The twisting. The horrific transformation.
"We plunged a shard of dragonglass into his heart," Leaf whispered, her eyes brimming with ancient tears. "We hoped to give him strength, a connection to the very cold of the earth. To make him a guardian, a weapon. But we… we twisted the song. We created something beyond our understanding."
The vision intensified. The once-human form contorted, skin paling, eyes turning to ice, muscles hardening into something impossibly cold. The shard of obsidian in his chest pulsed with a chilling, unnatural light. And then, he rose. Not as a weapon, but as a being of pure, destructive cold. The very first Other.
"He became the Night King," Leaf concluded, her voice barely a whisper. "He was our weapon, but he turned on us. He raised others like him from the dead. He sought to silence all life, to bring the stillness to the entire world. The magic we used… it was powerful, but untamed. It broke the balance. It was an abomination."
The truth settled in my gut, a cold, hard knot. The Others weren't a natural cosmic anomaly. They were a failed magical experiment, a desperate act by the Children that had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong. They were born of fear and desperation, a Frankenstein's monster of immense, destructive power.
"We made the pact with the First Men then," Leaf said, pulling me from my grim thoughts. "We knew we could not defeat them alone. We needed unity. We knew the Long Night would come. And we have been preparing, for millennia. But we are too few, too weak. You, Master of Fate, you are our only hope. Your aether… it is the only true counter to the stillness we unleashed."
I closed my eyes, absorbing the chilling revelation. My task was not just to fight a natural disaster; it was to clean up a cosmic mess, a magical plague unleashed by a desperate people. The irony was suffocating. I had been a Godkiller, only to find myself facing an abomination born of well-intentioned but catastrophic magic. The weight of the world, and now its terrible history, settled heavy on my shoulders.