It was time.
He had been waiting for ages. For a period of time, that held against the infinite backdrop of the cosmos, might have seemed like the faintest prick upon the curtain of the cosmos. But for him, it had seemed like an eternity. An eternity spent waiting; watching. A stretch of lifeless malaise, its drudgery broken up only by the one, incontrovertible facet of personality that demanded consistency and devotion. Duty. The one trait, immeasurable, that all the true Sons of August could fall back upon, for in that sacred duty, there lurked the will of Ancelon. The resolve unconquerable that had propelled a civilization to the absolute heights of power and prestige.
Uli Kathandros was more than a Son of August.
He was August.
Years ago, during the time his people called The Cataclysm, he had taken that mantle. Ushered out its previous holder, the man who was both simultaneously his father and his brother: August Comnenus. Known as the founder of the mighty Comnenic Empire, and oft called the son of Sheune; the offspring of the divine fountainhead that had brought the divinity of Ancelon unto the fields of Seloria.
Yet, all of that was long past. The macabre apotheosis that had first acquainted Uli Kathandros with the byzantine halls of the Alltime and An Saelor, and of the cold, desolate plains of Avernivus had passed more than three decades ago. For thirty years, had Uli Kathandros served his people, his land and his God as the most despicable creature that could be imagined. He had reaped the souls of the dying, shepherded the departed into either the sublime, eternal summer of An Saelor, or condemned them to the carcerian pit of his own Avernivus.
All of that was about to change.
Uli Kathandros had plotted for decades. He had spent countless hours pondering the elaborate trap of his existence. Dancing to the tune of fate and playing the fool's fiddle of determinism. And in that meditation, he had finally returned to the one place that had always provided elucidation. That had burned him to ashes before, only to forge him anew, steeped in the divine powers of creation.
The Sacred Inferno was a mystery to him. He did not know how he had arrived, nor did he know exactly where this place existed. If it existed at all, and was not just a construct of his own mind. Columns of flame roared all around him, stretching across an obsidian floor and framing the abyssal blackness that stretched infinitely high above. Sparks crackled here and there, and the dancing tongues of immolation shot forth from the incendiary walls, trying futiley to singe and start his clothing, but always falling scant inches short, leaving him to feel that phantom heat upon his exposed forearms.
Standing there, in the center of that holocaust, Uli found his peace. It was not a peace that would come quickly, and it was not to be bloodless. But it would be a peace. For the time Uli Kathandros had spent playing the masterful game of creation, pitted both against his erstwhile relatives and on their side, had not been one misspent. He realized that there was a balance to be preserved, and he realized his own place in that cosmic balance. For all the hate he heaped upon himself, and for all the self-loathing that tormented him, Uli knew that it was a necessary evil.
And despite all of that, he had checkmated fate at long last.
"Yes," the mocking voice split the maelstrom of crackling sparks and dancing fire. The saccharine promise that awaited him was within his grasp. All that was needed was now to reach out, to take it, and then stride boldly forwards into the future that awaited. "It is time," Uli crooned to no one in particular, standing as he stood amidst the roaring inferno. His left hand, glad as always in its black glove, rose, and his fingertips reached out to caress the fire. Despite the perceived illusory nature of those flames, they still burned, and Uli snatched his hand back with a brief flicker of blue sparks, then threw his head back and laughed. Again, he extended his hand, and reached for the fire. But he did not shy away -- his fingers slowly pierced the burning column, defying the boundary that had once promised only immolation.
"Come to me," Uli hissed. His hand plunged further into the fire, and he arched his back, closing his eyes. Thousands of whispers coursed through his skull at once, and yet he could isolate each individual thought, perceiving a thousand souls individually; instantaneously. "Come to me, you damned souls." His lips pursed, and he bit down on his tongue hard enough to cause a spurt of crimson to pool at the corner of his lips.
For just a moment, he glanced at his hand. And then he pulled off his glove.
The rune branded onto his palm, the same rugged design of cruelly burned skin that had caused that very appendage to become gaunt, desiccated and the skin upon his fingers the color of rust, reacted with that fire. The flames danced about his barren skin, swirling and coalescing like a thousand serpents. They gathered themselves into a ball that swept into his palm, and then swirled up around the edges of his hand to flare into twin tails, swirling wide up on high until the shape of a diamond, framed at two sides by T-shaped protrusions.
And in that moment, the brand on his palm, the exact same as the one now seared into the air, simply disappeared. It faded away, little obsidian specks flying through the air like dust swept away on a breeze.
"Come," Uli hissed again, his voice a bare whisper. "Come, tormented souls. Come, ye damned ones. Come to me; those I seek and those who despair. I shall make you whole once more."
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