From Chapter Thirteen: Arc-Sre

Arc-Sre’s stronghold was a single, vast room, strewn with old dilapidated furniture and various useless items in great disrepair.  In the rafters, colorless, dreary messenger pigeons cooed mournfully.  The master of the house awaited me at a bare table, where he drank wine and offered me a cup.  I sat and stared at him.  He seemed unearthly, as though he would have been formidable and exotic even without the curse or the demon that possessed him.

“So this is how you live,” I said, “dwelling in squalor, massing an army for some unknown purpose, alone and under the spell of an evil weapon.”

“It is as you say,” the master said wearily, “but I am glad for you.  I liked your steel, and know you must be a particularly brave and powerful man.  Tell me of yourself.  Ask questions.  Do not judge me by appearances. It was always my intention to bend this curse to my own will and suffer it to cause less harm to my friends and more to my enemies.”

“Your will?” I retorted, “they say you are possessed by a demon.  Surely you act not of your own will, much less have the power to bend anything to it.”

“This demon does not master me,” said Arc-Sre, “like everything else, I can bend it to my purpose.”

“And your purpose... I can only judge it to be evil.  Do you seek to wrest power from your King?  Corrupt your country?  Take it over? ”

“I have no King in my own lands,” the master said wearily, “but when I set foot outside of this forest, I am his servant.  I am loyal.  I do not seek power.  Rather do I seek to harness this darkness and make my fighting men, already feared for good reason, an even greater force for my King’s enemies to contend with.  Our only weakness is that we can not ever set foot in sunshine.  It will destroy us.  Now tell me of yourself, so that I can understand you.  I know not whether you can understand me, and will not know until I hear your story.”