Last last time. I promise.
 
 
Deathless
 
By 
 
Jeremy Harper
 
Note – The Astonishing X-Men are the property of Marvel Comics, 
and are  used without permission. 
 
For OldPrydeFan, though she knows me not. 
 
Prologue One – The Sorcerer Contemplates His Creation
 

In his hall deep beneath Mother Damp Earth the sorcerer  
leaned back in his malachite throne and with cold, agate eyes 
considered  the force arrayed in darkling glory before him. His gaze 
quickly passed over  the bandit-troubadour clad in crimson and gold, 
the great apotheosis of all  bears, and the scintillating Chaos Demon 
before settling on the last of his  assembled champions. The sorcerer's 
thin, black lips peeled back, revealing  rotting fangs barred in the 
mockery of a smile. Fierce, greedy pride welled  in his hollow breast 
as he looked at his son, armed and armored for his  first foray into the 
mortal world. His son, brought to him by fortuitous  circumstance, re-
forged by his ancient, matchless craft, his penultimate  achievement, 
who would deliver to him his ultimate triumph. 
 
    His son stood tall – far taller than an ordinary man,  his 
shoulders broad and his limbs heroic in proportion. A deep-blue great  
coat wrapped about his body, embroidered with rearing golden 
dragons,  trimmed with sable. Golden serpents on black cloth coiled 
up his legs. He  wore knee-high, hard leather boots, and leather 
gauntlets encased his large  hands. A hood and steel skullcap covered 
his head and a golden mask, wrought  like the face of a beautiful 
youth, lips curved upwards with a mocking  devil's smile, concealed 
his face. A broad belt, etched with gold and  buckled with silver, 
wound around his hips. A broadsword hung at his left  hip, a great 
knife rested on his right thigh. He stared back at his father  with 
shining, pupil-less, golden eyes, fierce fires burning in their  
fathomless depths. The sorcerer smiled and nodded at his son. With 
his  son's awesome might, dominion would be theirs. 
 
 Behind the sorcerer's champions, the zahlozhniy – the 
unhallowed  dead – stood in neat, precise rows. Clad in filthy tatters, 
sabers, muskets  and axes gripped in their bony fingers, ready to fight, 
to reave, to slay,  they were his army and their numbers were 
inexhaustible.
 
 The sorcerer rose, lifted his arms in benediction, and spoke, 
his  thin, hissing voice echoing through the silence of the hall. "I have 
waited  five hundred years, and now our time has come. The spheres 
are aligned, the  stars are right, the key calls to me. It is time to begin. 
I will swallow my  doom and set myself beyond all woe." He gestured 
at his son. "My beautiful  creation, my darling childe, you are my eyes 
and my fist. In the New World,  in the city of New York, the first 
segment of the key awaits, concealed from  my sight. Go there, find it, 
retrieve it. Sweep aside all who oppose  you."
 
 His son placed a clenched fist over his heart and bowed his 
head.  His voice was a whisper of thunder. "As you will it, so it shall 
be done." 
 
 The sorcerer settled back down on his malachite throne and  
prepared to wrench open the gate, his death's head grin gleaming in 
the  faint light.     




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