*As the evening sky darkens, a tall gray-cloaked figure glimmers out of the rising mist and stands silently watching the sky with eyes as black as starless night. Neither his long raven hair nor the folds of his cloak stir in the forest breeze*
He is tormented by his incorporeality. Unable to touch or be touched by anything, unable to leave the place where he died five hundred years ago, long he kept watch over his wilderness home alone through the lengthening nights.
Once he was a swordsman of high renown among the wild Northern Elves. Once he was the last warrior of a Clan destroyed by relentless foes, and fell, slain by an arrow, in this very place... his blood flowing red over the golden Autumn leaves, the anguished faces of his womenfolk the last sight he saw before his eyes closed. Once he took his place among countless others in the vast, torch-lit Hall of Slain Warriors, in the Citadel of Dust, and forgot his life in a dreamless dream of silence.
A song woke him... a call... drifing faintly through the shadowy corridors. He rose up and followed it to the iron gate, where a soulless warrior of the death-realms sought to bar his passage. He did battle with that black-armored foe and was victorious, yet in the instant of his victory, something went awry. His being was merged with that of his opponent... his soul was torn in half... and two stood on the threshold of the opening gate. One stepped out into the blowing dust of the Borderlands and was gone; the other remained behind in the Black Keep... for a time.
When the living spirit of his Kinswoman was drawn into the death-realms, he was able to return to the land of mortals, and sought there his foe, the other half of his soul... intending to do battle with that one for possession of the body he thought to be rightfully his own. Yet when the two met, they discovered the bond between them to be one of love rather than hate.
At Duath's bidding, Elen Spirit Singer played again the spellsong that had called her Kinsman back from the shadowlands. The two became one being once again - Eternal Knight - but the strain of the magick was too great; the Singer's harp shattered in a blaze of lightning, and she fell dead in the Autumn leaves.
Grieving bitterly for her, Eternal Knight did battle with V'soul, who, blaming him for Elen's death, had come to avenge her. He was defeated and nearly slain, but at the urging of principE de la Sombra, V'soul broke off his attack and instead took Elen's lifeless body back to his Castle of Platinum. Eternal Knight followed V'soul into the plane of Limbo, but the chaos-forces there split him again into two beings... Edge, unconscious and badly wounded; Duath, incorporeal once more.
With the aid of the dragon Black Crystal Nova, Duath managed to return to his forest home with Edge. The healer Lhiannan, sensing his desperate mental call, journeyed into the Northern forest and tended Edge's grievous wounds, thus saving his life. Filled with concern for his silent, injured "brother", Duath remained with Edge in Elen's treehouse, waiting for another attack from the black-scaled Khaasta/Sis'Thik bounty hunter, whom he believed to be a demon who had ensorcelled and slain his last Kinswoman... helpless in the knowledge that if and when that attack came, he could do nothing to withstand it.
Elen, restored to life by the weavers' magick, returned to her house and there healed Edge of the fever that almost killed him. Duath was comforted by her presence, and by the warm closeness of his bond with Edge, through which he became able to achieve a slight physical manifestation at times. When the soul of his friend principE de la Sombra was in peril, Duath came to stand by him, and so discovered his ability to travel through the shadow-corridors that link all places. Called by the princesa de la Sombra when she was almost slain by the vampire Frango, he learned of another ability he possessed: the Dark Touch, the deadly chill and pain he can unleash upon an enemy at need.
No longer trapped at Echad Morn Sigil, still he preferred to stay near to Edge, whose bodily wounds mended slowly, but whose mind remained locked shut. His responsibility as head of his small Clan weighed heavily on him, for in his wraith-form he could do little to help and protect the ones he loves, but he was no longer alone in darkness, and his torn spirit found a fragile peace for a time.
That peace was not to last. Restless, haunted by the memories he could not grasp, Edge took to wandering far afield by night, returning home only when Duath came through shadows to find him - until the night he could not be found at all. The woodsman Shaanan Steel discovered his unconscious body in the snow, carried him to warmth and safety, and sent word to Taur i Morn Sigil that he had been found. Elen and Duath came with all haste, only to find his spirit fled, his body dying even as they watched.
In desperation, over Duath's objections, when all other magick failed to revive him, Elen sang again the spellsong... the empty body rose and merged with Duath's incorporeal form, becoming Eternal Knight once again... but the half-soul that is Edge did not return. Trapped within the black mail of the death-realms, unable to resume his former state without Edge, Duath contends alone against the soulless slayer that shares his being, while the living part of the body he wears slowly grows weaker for want of food and sleep.
*The moon passes to the West; the leaves flutter down on the dawn wind; the morning forest begins to grow light... the Shadow-Lord of Morn Sigil sighs softly, and is gone.*
The Morn Sigil Saga