Opalina (prime)/The Lich Bargain
The Lich Bargain
Title: The Lich Bargain
Author: Opalina Jalcon
From the journals of Opalina Jalcon- 2002
The smell of sulfur lingered long after the smoke released me.
It clung to my clothes, to my skin, to the corners of my thoughts.
I stood alone beneath the chandelier in Zephyr Hall, yet I had never felt less alone. It had wrapped itself around my mind like a patient spider, speaking with calm certainty while black tendrils coiled around my legs as though I had already been claimed.
Retrieve the staff.
Those words echoed louder than any shout.
Everyone wanted the staff.
Elendr.
Iscikella.
The others bound to those terrible souls.
Now... me.
I kept asking the same question in different ways because none of their answers ever made sense.
"Why me?"
If they possessed such unimaginable power, why couldn't they simply take it themselves?
Instead they hunted mortals like hunters driving frightened deer toward a cliff, caring little which one finally stumbled into success. We were not champions to them.
We were wagers.
The soul-lich spoke differently than the others. Softer. More patient. It promised things the others never had. It spoke of mercy. Of sparing a few lives. Of protecting those I loved if only I obeyed.
It even left my life force untouched.
Was that kindness?
Or simply a sharper knife?
Every promise carried another threat.
Retrieve the staff... or everyone you love dies.
How does one bargain with words like that?
You don't.
You simply keep talking because silence feels too much like surrender.
I realized something dreadful as I questioned it.
It wasn't trying to convince me the staff was important.
It was trying to convince me that my love was its greatest weapon.
Every answer circled back to the same place.
My family.
My friends.
My home.
Not once did it threaten me.
It knew I would willingly suffer if it meant protecting someone else.
That frightened me more than the smoke.
It even suggested I kill Elendr if he stood in my way.
As though lives were pieces on a game board.
As though friendship could be discarded the moment it became inconvenient.
No.
Whatever darkness whispered inside that creature, I refused to become like it.
Yet...
What if it was telling the truth?
What if refusing meant innocent people died because of my stubbornness?
What if agreeing meant delivering the weapon that doomed everyone instead?
There was no path that didn't end in blood.
Only different roads leading there.
When I jokingly called it "my dear soul-lich," I heard my own voice and almost laughed.
Humor.
Even then.
Especially then.
Sometimes a smile is the only shield left when terror has stripped everything else away.
It claimed it would seek me again.
I believe it.
Creatures like that never finish with a single conversation.
As the smoke faded and the pressure inside my mind finally lifted, I remained standing in the empty room, rubbing my arms against a chill no fire could warm.
The hall was silent.
The paintings watched.
The chandelier glittered as though nothing had happened.
But I knew better.
A battle had been fought there.
Not with steel.
With doubt.
And I feared doubt was a far deadlier weapon.
I left Zephyr Hall carrying no staff.
Only a heavier heart.
And the terrible knowledge that evil rarely begins by demanding your soul.
It begins by asking you to save the people you love.