Author: Tower Curator

 

“You don’t look like you’re all that happy, Mags. Wasn’t this what you wanted?”

The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows over the rolling hills and the sprawling encampments of the two armies. The air was thick with the scent of earth and sweat, mingling with the distant clamor of soldiers preparing for the day’s drills. Joanne along with other former members of the Claymores led groups around a marked-out track, Lyssa the werecat was in charge of a small subset of Arkk’s command-oriented forces who were learning tactics and strategy from the guest army, Al-Mir’s engineers poured over traditional siege weaponry that Cedric’s army had brought. Cedric’s army outnumbered Arkk’s by more than ten to one, leaving most of the guest army to fend for themselves. Some lifted large stones and rocks to train themselves, others were arranging into large shield walls, scattering, and then reforming in repeated drills, and cavalry soldiers were working with their horses.

Arkk stood at the edge of the makeshift training ground, his eyes scanning the rows of soldiers as they spared and practiced formations. Mags, the ostensible leader of Cedric’s army, leaned against a small wooden railing beside him. Cedric’s adjutant sighed as he looked out over the soldiers.

“You ever get an idea in your head?” Mags asked, lightly drumming his fingers against the railing. “That little spark of finally, I’ve figured out what I need to do?”

“I… suppose so?”

“So you get the idea, right?” Mags tapped his finger to his head. He moved his hands out in front of him, wiggling his fingers in the air as if he were directing people around. “And you start figuring out how to bring that idea to reality. You need to get some equipment, talk to some people, maneuver things around. It takes weeks, maybe longer. Day in and day out, working on little things here and there. And you start doing all that and it is a lot of work but you keep up the effort because you know the payoff is going to be worth it in the end.”

Arkk jolted as Mags brought his hands together, making a loud thunderclap. A few of the nearby training soldiers even paused to look in their direction.

“Then something happens. Something outside your control. And it all falls to pieces.” Mags let his arms drop to his sides as he slumped against the railing once more. “All that effort gone to waste. That’s about what I’m feeling right now.”

“Ah… Well, I’m sorry your boss ruined your plans to stage an uprising,” Arkk said, his tone flat.

“Oh, no need to apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Right,” Arkk said, shaking his head.

He wondered if Cedric knew that his chief adjutant had been the one egging on the soldiers dissatisfied with being sidelined. When Arkk had first told Mags of his meeting with Cedric, the adjutant had gone on an angry rant about Cedric always dragging him down and keeping him from his fun. He wanted to be the one in charge. When he first arrived, he even wanted the fortress handed over to him. Now, he was just depressed.

Arkk had sent a missive to the Prince informing him of that fact. He could only hope that the Prince would see to removing the man from his position.

“Maybe next time?” Arkk offered.

“Maybe. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing right now,” Mags said in a dejected tone of voice. He looked up at Arkk, then shifted his eyes to look over Arkk’s shoulder. A grin slowly spread across his face. “If there is anything to cheer me up, it’ll be that,” he said.

Turning, Arkk spotted a full three squads of orcs, fully armored in the shadow gear. They carried long scythes, these ones made of wood for training purposes. The real ones were too deadly.

Taking his eyes off the Black Knights, Arkk noted a certain air falling over the training grounds. It was like a ripple spreading out from those closest, who spotted the orcs first. Everyone stopped what they were doing, setting down weights and slowing their jogs. It didn’t surprise Arkk. Word had spread of Dakka’s unarmed victory over four of the army’s best. Everyone would obviously love to get a look at the shadow-armored knights that boasted such strength.

“Looking forward to your own men getting beat down again?” Arkk asked. The group training would begin shortly. This time, rather than unarmed and alone, the Black Knights would be fighting as a team against a team of opponents with wooden training weapons.

Finding out just how many soldiers the average Black Knight could handle at once would be another good reason to have done this.

“You have no idea,” Mags said, practically squirming with glee. “There are few things I love more than watching cocky men get their pride beaten out of them.”

“Even if they’re your men?”

“No matter who wins, someone’s pride is going home in tatters. Whose doesn’t matter.”

Arkk hummed, frowning at the rotund man. The adjutant, Arkk was swiftly coming to understand, was not a pleasant person by any stretch of the word. He didn’t know what Prince Cedric saw in the man to make him worth keeping around. Perhaps he had a brilliant tactical mind or just had been a childhood friend of some kind.

Arkk found him creepy. If it were up to him, Mags would have been on the first carriage back to Cliff. As it was, he didn’t have much choice but to put up with the man.

“You think your men have come up with any strategies to beat mine?”

“I’m sure those who faced your orc the first time around went around telling exaggerated tales to try to save face,” Mags said. His words made him sound as if he wasn’t quite sure but his tone was confident. He probably knew exactly what the men who fought Dakka had told everyone else. “Maybe they’ll be overly prepared, taking those exaggerations in mind.”

Arkk hummed again, a simple note of acknowledgment if not agreement. He was not quite so sure of the outcome. The Black Knight armor made them exceedingly resistant to any threats that might crop up in regular combat. At the same time, they would be outnumbered and were lacking their usual weapons. Armor alone wasn’t enough to win a battle.

But this was just training. Winning wasn’t the objective. Learning was.

However it ended up, Arkk figured he would hear about it later. Whether that be through complaints or cheers. For now, he pushed off the railing.

“You aren’t sticking around to watch?” Mags asked. He sounded disappointed.

“There is far too much to do. I only stopped by to make sure no real fights had broken out. I’ll check in a few more times throughout the day.” Turning, he started walking, giving Mags a lazy wave over his shoulder before teleporting straight to the base of the Elmshadow tower once he was out of sight.

Given that nobody wanted to traverse a million stairs every day, the tower was mostly deserted. With the reconstruction effort inside Elmshadow’s walls, there was room for everyone in his employ around the city proper, though they were mostly concentrated at the site of the former keep and garrison since that was closest to the tower. It was all claimed territory under his control, allowing him free actions within, but he had been avoiding using his abilities too openly outside the tower if only to provide some semblance of privacy to his employees.

Priscilla stood stooped, glaring downward with her iced-over eyes. Hale stood opposite, giving the dragonoid an equally fierce glare. Leda floated between them, palms out while frantically looking around for any sign of help. Unfortunately, even the base of the tower was mostly deserted today with those drills going on.

The few people walking around took one look at an angry dragonoid and decided that being anywhere else was by far the healthiest action they could take.

Arkk stayed back for a moment, watching with a frown as he wondered just what Hale and Priscilla might be arguing over.

It had been a few weeks since Hale requested relocation to Leda’s tower, temporarily, to try to heal some lingering injuries Priscilla had suffered at the hands of the avatar during the battle of Elmshadow.

The formerly little girl had certainly had a growth spurt in that time. She was still small, but no longer childlike. Priscilla was a bit shorter than Arkk—not including her wings—and Hale was now almost the same height. As Arkk stared, he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something else off about Hale. He couldn’t quite place what that something was. It didn’t help that she wore a thick long coat made from dark green scales that concealed her whole body. Matching gloves hid her hands. Only her face was visible.

If not for her hair still being pulled off into the twin side-tails, Arkk might not have recognized her on sight.

Hale shouted something at Priscilla and the dragonoid snapped back. Arkk sighed and decided to intervene before his best healer turned Priscilla into a molten blob of flesh.

“—didn’t tell me it would be constantly cold. Why is it constantly cold? I thought the ice was just a you thing.”

“You should feel blessed, you ungrateful little human—”

“Alright now,” Arkk said, teleporting each of them an extra step away from each other. “Is there a problem?”

Priscilla turned a snarl toward Arkk. Being fairly used to that, he didn’t even blink. She wasn’t seriously threatening him anyway. The link didn’t even come close to straining.

Hale looked away, almost like she was embarrassed. With a shiver, she pulled her coat tighter around herself. “It’s nothing. I’ll figure out how to fix it.”

“Fix? Fix what?”

“Nothing,” Hale said again, turning even further away.

Arkk raised an eyebrow. When Hale refused to speak any further, he turned to the other two.

Leda’s eyes, blazing red much like Arkk’s own, shifted back and forth as she averted her gaze. The little fairy looked from Hale to Priscilla and back again before the tension in her shoulders dropped. Her hover dipped down, making her appear even shorter than she was.

Priscilla just gave a derisive snort. Having spent whatever anger she had, she returned to the dismissive air she so often kept up. The dragonoid’s icy eyes stared off at nothing in particular.

Frowning to himself, Arkk wondered how hard he should press. None of the three were injured or otherwise hurt. He could tell that much. With everything going on here, he hadn’t paid all that much attention to what had been going on out at Leda’s tower.

Although both of them agreed to Hale heading out there to heal Priscilla, it was clear things hadn’t gone as perfectly as they had hoped. As long as both were in one piece, he supposed he didn’t need to press too hard if nobody wanted to talk about it. It would probably be best if they were separated for the time being.

“Hale. You’re going to be stationed here in Elmshadow for the foreseeable future. We’re likely to need your skills. Any issue with that?”

“Oh thank goodness…”

Arkk switched which of his eyebrows were raised, glancing back over the trio, before continuing. “I have a small group of casters that I would like you to train on the Flesh Weaving spell. Two of them might be skeletons.”

That got Hale’s attention. While Priscilla had stopped by Fortress Al-Mir every now and again, including after they connected the portal to the Necropolis, Hale was completely out of the loop. She stared up at him, eyes wide. Not frightened. Curious.

That was a good sign. “Denizens of the Necropolis,” Arkk said. “They aren’t here to fight with us but a few did agree to help heal. I think they only agreed because they thought it would be funny for skeletons to learn Flesh Weaving,” he added as a mumbled aside. “So, you’re going to teach it to them. And then…”

Arkk trailed off, staring at Hale. He narrowed his eyes as he looked directly at her eyes. They were a piercing, almost luminous blue-white. “You… used to have green eyes.”

Hale’s blue eyes widened further, this time in fear. She quickly turned her head away from him. Not quick enough. Her pupils, rounded but not quite circular, slid together to form thin slits.

“Hale,” Arkk said. “What have you done?”

The young woman balled her gloved hands. After a brief hesitation, she looked back and glared, this time in defiance. “I improved myself. Any issue with that?” she spat out. Her arms were trembling now. Despite her aggressive tone, Arkk knew Hale well enough to see the worry that aggression hid.

Arkk stepped back, raising his arms in a peaceful gesture. He wondered if it reflected poorly on him that his first thoughts were about how much Ilya was going to murder him and not whether or not Hale was alright.

He looked over her again, taking note of her increased height and more powerful stance. With her lips slightly parted, he could see teeth sharpened and elongated. Not enough to cause problems with speech or closing her mouth. It was like a lesser version of Priscilla’s teeth.

Turning, he found Priscilla grinning like a madwoman, like she had been waiting for this moment for a while now.

“Don’t look at me,” Priscilla said without losing a sliver of that grin. “She came to me for help. This was all her idea.”

“I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I can almost arm wrestle Priscilla—”

“Almost? You wish.” Priscilla jumped at Hale, arms out to tackle her to the ground. Arkk just teleported both of them away from each other before they could connect.

“Hale,” Arkk said, ignoring the dragonoid. “I honestly don’t know how to react to this. I’ll probably need to think it over. But I need to know, are you actually okay?”

Hale drew herself up, which only served to make her even a little taller than Arkk thought she was. Roughly equal with Priscilla. “I’m good,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “A bit cold, admittedly. I didn’t expect that. But I think I can get rid of it.”

“Ungrateful—”

“You,” Arkk said, tone far less kind as he pointed a finger at Priscilla, “I’ll have some words for later. I expect impulsive, brash, and stupid decisions from a child—”

“Hey!”

“—but I expect better from you.”

“Really?” Priscilla sneered. “You expect me to care if some human wants to chop her body to pieces and put it all back together?”

Arkk turned a questioning glance back at Hale.

“It wasn’t like that,” she quickly said.

Priscilla snorted. “You wanted me to cut off your arms and legs.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Hale repeated with a bit more desperation in her tone.

Arkk sighed. Closing his eyes, he teleported both of them away. Priscilla went down to the dungeons for a little time-out. Hale got sent to the top of the tower in one of the private quarters.

He would deal with them later.

Arms crossed, he looked at the fretting fairy.

“I…” She squeaked, paused, and tried to collect herself. “I didn’t know until I walked in on them working. I almost threw up,” she admitted, looking a little ill.

Arkk sighed again. “Believe it or not, I called you here to inform you of a little change in plans. Our good Prince has some ambitions, you see, and I’d like to help him fulfill his dreams. You’re going to help me help him.”

“The demon summoning Prince? That Prince?”

“That Prince.”

“But—”

“The Prince is utilizing Hawkwood in his efforts, so that is who we’ll assist the most. Nothing to worry about, Leda. Come,” Arkk said, leaving no room for argument.

 

 

“Prince Cedric,” Arkk said.

The private meeting room within the former Duke’s manor possessed the same air of opulence and finery that it had under the Duke’s rule. Heavy velvet drapes, a deep shade of burgundy, were drawn tightly over tall, arched windows. Slivers of moonlight slipped through the gaps only to be washed out by the bright glowstone lamps hanging from the ceiling.

It was far too fancy of a place for either Katja or the Prince, which probably meant that nobody had bothered redecorating since the Duke’s death.

A long, polished oak table sat directly beneath the central chandelier. On one side of the table, Arkk took a chair, trying not to fiddle with the lapel of one of his nicer suits. Both Kia and Claire stood just behind him, flanking either side of the chair. He certainly had not been about to meet the Prince without their backup. Although Zullie had a few other possible responses to a demon, the dark elves who had undergone Project Liminal remained the best bet. All they had to do was touch the demon and it should be shunted out of this plane.

Opposite Arkk, the current Lord of the Land sat with an air of authority. Although clad in a much nicer suit than Arkk’s, it was a subtle garment. Nobody would have mistaken the Duke with all those gold and silver rings, colorful and flamboyant suits, and the slicked-back hair that had become the preferred style among the wealthy of Mystakeen under the Duke’s rule. Prince Cedric was dressed well, but without any of the gaudiness.

Lady Katja, dressed up somewhere between the former Duke and the current Prince, sat on one side of the long table.

Arkk found himself somewhat cross with Katja for outing Edvin like that. His job of spying on both her and the Prince was going to be much more difficult now that the Prince knew he worked for Arkk. Perhaps it was time to reassign him elsewhere.

“I can’t say I expected a meeting with you,” Arkk said honestly. When Edvin tugged on the link, Arkk feared something unfortunate had happened. Perhaps a demon summoning or another attack from Eternal Empire warships.

“You are most adept at dodging attempts at meeting with you,” Prince Cedric said.

“There’s a war going on. It has kept me rather busy.”

“How many engagements have your forces had since retaking Elmshadow?”

“Open battles? None,” Arkk said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve been resting upon my laurels. There is much to be done.”

“Such as rejecting an army.”

Arkk dipped his head.

Between them, a decanter of aged wine and a small array of crystal goblets stood as a silent offering of hospitality. Nobody had touched their drinks yet.

Prince Cedric pulled his hands together, resting them on the table in front of him. “Help me understand you, Arkk of Al-Mir. What is it you hope to gain from the current situation?”

“Gain? Some semblance of peace, I hope,” Arkk said, taking one of the crystal goblets. “An end to this war.”

“Do you intend to end it in favor of Evestani?”

It took a force of willpower to keep from spewing the wine across the table. “Certainly not. After all the troubles I’ve caused them, you think I could flip sides and keep my head?”

“Then the soldiers you rejected—”

“Absolutely won’t help,” Arkk said with a sigh. “I hate to be the one to inform you, Prince Cedric, but this war will not end through any level of conventional warfare. I doubt this war will ever end unless we kill the Heart of Gold’s avatar.”

“An entity your reports claim you have defeated on multiple occasions.”

“Defeat in this case does not mean kill. He possesses children—my researchers indicate a child is more easily manipulated than an adult. No matter how many times we defeat him, he’ll keep coming back.”

Prince Cedric didn’t look surprised at the news. It probably wasn’t news to him, even though Arkk hadn’t exactly gone around telling people the full story. Better to flaunt what victories they had than let people know they were up against a nigh-unkillable implacable man possessing the bodies of innocent children.

“You have a plan, I presume?” Prince Cedric asked.

“I do.”

“Care to enlighten me?”

Arkk carefully set the goblet of wine on the table as he shook his head. “It is the kind of plan where the less it gets out, the more likely it is to succeed. My researchers have reason to believe that our enemy has ways of divining certain events or futures, or at least scrying upon meetings such as this one. My fortress has protections against a variety of divination.” He hoped those protections were working. “Better to avoid saying anything at all here, unfortunately. If you wish to join me at Elmshadow…”

Arkk knew he said the wrong thing before he finished speaking. The Prince’s eyes flashed. Not in the way that Arkk’s might. There was no glow. No sign that he had made a contract with an otherworldly artifact of power. Just the mundane anger of someone unused to being denied.

It only lasted an instant. Prince Cedric quickly covered his expression with a simple frown. Running his finger along the rim of his goblet, the Prince moved to his feet. Both Kia and Claire tensed. They didn’t move, but Arkk could still feel their sudden wariness through the link. It was a similar feeling to when someone was in pain or danger.

It wasn’t a feeling he got often. At least not outside combat. Concerned, Arkk looked back at them through the link, keeping his actual eyes on the Prince. There didn’t appear to be any cause for concern. Arkk couldn’t see any threats to them, supernatural or otherwise.

Were they just being wary?

“I am at a crossroads, Arkk of Al-Mir. My father, the King of Chernlock, charged me with restoring stability to this land. He tasked me with doing whatever is necessary to achieve that end. I’ve tried diplomacy—”

“Really?”

“It went over about as well as you might expect. One of the early responses contained a coded plea for help. Unfortunately, I was never able to follow up on it. Messengers after that point began returning decapitated.”

Arkk grimaced, nodding his head. He suddenly felt uneasily aware of his neck.

He hadn’t had any diplomatic interactions with Evestani since exchanging prisoners for gold. Given that they had turned around almost immediately and started marching back, Arkk hadn’t been too interested in pursuing further relations with backstabbers and traitors of their ilk.

With the precautions he had taken, both in having the gold retrieved by undead and, after, having Agnete melt it down, he did wonder whether or not it had been trapped. Did Evestani think they caused him some inconvenience? Had they expected him to die? Did they think they got the better end of the deal? From Arkk’s perspective, the gold had been worth a whole lot more than a few thousand mouths to feed.

The Evestani got their soldiers back, but they had paid for about half of Leda’s tower. An excellent trade, in Arkk’s opinion.

“I have deployed elite units to secure tactically advantageous positions throughout Mystakeen,” Prince Cedric continued. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed a rolled-up scroll onto the table in front of Arkk.

Unfurling it, Arkk stared down at a map of Mystakeen. A fairly oblong stretch of land. He could see the border of Evestani, Moonshine Burg, and a long trailing route that indicated Evestani’s path into the former Duchy. Rather than a wave washing through the country, Evestani had been pushed down into a thin, narrow corridor. The same route Arkk had harassed them upon. He could even see the odd turns his various efforts had forced them to take.

Following the map back to the Evestani border, Arkk leaned forward, narrowing his eyes at the notations written down.

“This is…”

“Did you think I sent you everything I had available to me? Were you disappointed at only being spared a little less than ten thousand soldiers?”

“You’re poised to—”

“Ah. As you said, you never know who might be listening in.”

If the map was accurate, Prince Cedric had several sets of roughly nine thousand soldiers lined up along the border. They were positioned carefully so that they weren’t likely to be spotted. They weren’t just guards maintaining the border. It was an invasion force.

Arkk looked up, eyebrows raised. He hadn’t the slightest clue that the Prince had managed to maneuver several armies around like this. Granted, he hadn’t been searching for it. The scrying teams focused on immediate threats and certain key areas of observation. Mostly wherever Evestani’s army was and anywhere surrounding his territories. The border was far off from both.

Katja, who was peering over the map while trying to look like she wasn’t all that interested, looked just as surprised as Arkk was. After a moment, she met Arkk’s eyes. The corners of her lips twitched downward and she slowly shook her head. Arkk didn’t expect her to know everything the Prince got up to but she was supposed to keep an eye on him. For something like this to have gone unnoticed meant he must have been playing with his hand very close to his chest.

“Why haven’t you pushed forward?” Arkk asked slowly, looking at the Prince.

Cedric put on a faint smile. It might as well have been the biggest, smuggest grin for all that it implied he had gotten one over on Arkk. Still, he managed to maintain some level of decorum. “The answer should be obvious, no?”

“The avatar,” Arkk said, looking back down at the map.

With the numbers he had, Prince Cedric could have crushed Evestani’s army at any point along their route into Mystakeen. At least, if they were a conventional army. But they weren’t. Even if one didn’t know about the avatar and his near-immortality, anyone could look at their army and spot the numerous esoteric magics to which there were few, if any, answers.

“Among other reasons, yes. The avatar has been spotted in numerous locations distant from one another yet close enough temporally that he must have access to teleportation—”

“Possession,” Arkk said, shaking his head. Ignoring that his own movements had likely been tracked in some manner, he motioned to the top of his head. “Evestani shaves people and tattoos magical runes on their heads. Some, mostly those from Evestani, are likely willing. They are not above tattooing them on innocents from Mystakeen. Unfortunately, my researchers haven’t been able to study the exact mechanics of the system. Anyone with those tattoos is at threat of becoming the avatar without warning. Don’t really want a golden beam blasting through my researchers, now do I?” he said with a wan smile.

“Whatever the means, this avatar has a method of effectively appearing in multiple locations at once.”

Arkk looked down at the map, noting the movements of the troops across Mystakeen. The paths each group followed were annotated with dates, giving Arkk a rough picture of where everyone had been at any given time.

“I think I see,” Arkk said. Cedric wanted Evestani focused on him and Elmshadow, not looking at their borders.

“It is more than that. Unless there has been some severe…” Prince Cedric waved his hand vaguely as if grasping for the right word. “Miscommunication,” he settled on. “Barring miscommunication with my father, the force we sent to you should be the only other major force in all of Mystakeen. I am certain Evestani is aware of them, but if they don’t see that force with you…”

His trailing off left Arkk filling in the rest of the sentence. It seemed like the Prince was doing so as a countermeasure to potential observers, but he still said too much. Anyone with half a brain could figure out that he was worried Evestani might feel something amiss and wouldn’t focus entirely on Elmshadow. Of course, depending on Evestani’s true abilities in gathering information, it might not matter.

For Arkk, a map on the table was far more valuable in his crystal balls than a word in a meeting. Crystal balls communicated visually, not audibly. His earlier rejection of the Prince’s question had been more of an excuse than anything else. Did the Prince know something more about their abilities?

Something to ponder.

Regarding the Prince’s actual words, Arkk wasn’t sure he agreed that Evestani would spread their focus away from him.

Evestani didn’t like him for more reasons than just getting in the way of their invasion. He had little doubt they would focus on him. But he could still see where the Prince might disagree.

Arkk took a moment before nodding slowly, indicating he understood.

“I’m still not sure what exactly you want from me,” Arkk said. “Like you, I’m sure Evestani is aware that your army is present in Elmshadow. If you insist, I can put them on the frontlines, but they will almost certainly die.”

Prince Cedric pursed his lips, letting out a short hum. “My objective will succeed regardless of your input. The crossroads I find myself standing upon regard whether or not you survive the coming conflict.”

This time, both Kia and Clare tensed. Arkk saw them move, their afterimages positioning themselves closer to Arkk, providing a barrier between him and the Prince. Their actual selves caught up to their afterimages a moment later.

Katja tensed as well, though only after seeing the two dark elves move. With the way Prince Cedric had moved around the room, she was now at his back. The fingers of her left hand gripped the edge of the table. Her right hand slipped somewhere below the table. Just from the way the muscles in her wrist tensed, it looked as if she had grabbed hold of something.

A blade?

Did she intend to use that against the Prince? Or Arkk?

“Excuse me?” Arkk said, keeping his calm. He even offered a polite smile, looking first to Katja to maybe calm her before his eyes refocused on Cedric. The Prince said his survival in the coming conflict was in question, not his survival for the evening. There was no need to panic just yet.

The Prince’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. He barely glanced at Kia and Claire, dismissing their unusual manner of movement as if it wasn’t anything more threatening than an old man hobbling on a cane. Was he that confident in his abilities? Had he finally summoned a demon that he knew would protect him? Or did he just expect that Arkk wouldn’t order Kia and Claire to do anything before he had given him an actual reason to do so?

If the latter was the case, he had a whole lot more faith in Kia and Claire’s willingness to remain constrained by Arkk’s orders than Arkk had.

If Arkk were Cedric, he would be especially wary about making any sudden movements. Or saying anything that could be construed as a threat. Or breathing too heavily.

“I am something of an overachiever,” Cedric said, making Arkk blink at the apparent change in subject. “When I was a boy, my mother asked me to watch my younger sister and ensure she stayed safe. She meant for the afternoon, but a year later, I poisoned my uncle after I discovered unreasonable levels of abuse perpetrated against my sister. When I was a teen, I was given the duty of overseeing a small vineyard in Chernlock to demonstrate my skills in management.

“It is now the largest supplier of fine wines throughout all four of the Kingdom’s states,” he said, gesturing toward the decanter on the table. “Of course, my most infamous contribution to the Kingdom of Chernlock was the resolution of a… ruling dispute within Vaales. I’m sure you’ve heard of that one, at least.”

“I have,” Arkk said, narrowing his eyes. “I suppose you’re going to say that mere stability in Mystakeen isn’t enough for you?”

Prince Cedric smiled, chuckling lightly. “I’m glad we understand each other. Yes. Stability is far from enough. Evestani and the Yzanstani Empire they replaced have engaged in numerous wars with Chernlock over the centuries. If there wasn’t some conflict, large or small, at least once every fifty years, I would be shocked.

“So tell me what good is stability now if a new war is going to break out in another twenty years? In my eyes, peace is an impossibility as long as Evestani exists as an autonomous power. The solution is, therefore, simple.” Prince Cedric spread his arms, palms facing upward. “They cannot continue to exist as an autonomous power.”

Arkk couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, both in surprise at Cedric’s ambition as well as his blatant speech despite the suspicion that they might be spied upon. Not that he said anything beyond a vague plan to destroy the enemy country. Bringing that vision to reality was another matter entirely.

But it sounded… good to Arkk, if he were being honest. Arkk could use the Prince’s ambitions against him. Let him have Evestani. He would be off fighting a war, acting as a barrier between Arkk and anyone else who wanted his head. Arkk might even consider supporting that effort. Leda’s tower was already positioned to perform a similar task. Arkk hadn’t been planning on conquering the entire country but…

If the Prince was in Evestani, he would likely leave Katja in charge here—he surely wouldn’t have kept her alive thus far without plans to use her for something. That would let Arkk get back to what he needed to do. Which, at the moment, was researching the other realms and bringing down the Calamity.

There was just one problem.

“You don’t believe it is possible?” Cedric asked, reading Arkk’s expression.

Arkk thought a moment and slowly shook his head. “Not while the avatar exists.”

“Yes,” Cedric said with a small sigh. “If even half the reports are accurate, the avatar must be dealt with. Thus, I am forced to act to your benefit.

“It has come to my attention that a large portion of the army, currently housed inside one of the Elm mountains, has developed a… shall we say dissatisfaction with your leadership in Elmshadow.” Prince Cedric paused, giving a pointed look to Arkk. “They are a prideful people who don’t take kindly to being sequestered away.”

“Dissatisfaction. On the level of rising up against me just to die to Evestani?”

“You have powerful subordinates,” Cedric said, waving a hand at Kia and Claire. “That much is clear. But Hawkwood’s reports of your numbers suggest you don’t have all that many personnel in the grand scheme of things. You believe you can handle Evestani and their Eternal Empire allies—something I am uncertain about but willing to overlook for the sake of this argument. But can you handle that front while also dealing with an uprising at your rear?”

Arkk closed his eyes, sighing loudly. “I’m trying to keep them safe,” he said, only half lying. Keeping them as witnesses to Al-Mir’s might was another reason to keep them away.

“I am aware. But the force sent to you is primarily young and hotblooded men eager to prove themselves.” Prince Cedric adopted a rather cruel grin. “They won’t realize how good of a deal you offered them until they’re standing in the mud and muck, watching the enemy charge toward them. Only when they wet themselves with blood will they wish they had taken you up on your offer.”

With a groan, Arkk leaned back, closing his eyes. “You try to do a nice thing for somebody and they stab you in the back…”

Cedric chuckled again. “A common hazard among those who find themselves in positions such as ours.” He turned partially, not quite looking toward Katja while still flicking his eyes in her direction. She wouldn’t have been able to see it.

Arkk definitely could.

Maybe he wasn’t keeping her around to groom her into the new Duchess.

“Speak with my adjutant with the army,” Cedric said. “Let Mags know of our discussion and that I would be exceedingly displeased were something unfortunate to happen to either of our forces at this particular time. As for the army? Put them on the front lines. I would request you try to keep them as far away from the avatar and other such threats as possible, but if Hawkwood’s opinion of you is half the truth of reality, you’ll try to keep them safe without my input.”

He said to put them on the front lines. Plenty would die from that alone. But they were soldiers. Arkk didn’t know if they had been conscripted or if they signed up for it. But then, he went and essentially asked for them to be placed up against things soldiers should handle, rather than the things Arkk had to handle.

Arkk drew in a breath, looking over the Prince. For all he had heard of the man, Arkk would have expected a callous disregard. Yet here he was, maneuvering around to try to protect them. Knowing what he now knew of the grand scheme of things, Arkk would have figured that they would be even less valuable for anything but a distraction for the rest of the soldiers on the Evestani border.

“I’ll have my soldiers start running drills with them,” Arkk said, formulating a few plans of his own in the back of his mind. “Tell them they’re going to fight to keep them happy then beat them down with my specialists to show them just how outclassed they are.”

“A lot of effort to keep them alive,” Cedric commented in a neutral tone.

Arkk shrugged. “That’s just how I am.”

Besides that, perhaps he could sway a few into joining him on a more permanent basis.

With Edvin no longer able to act around Cliff as he had been, perhaps he could start sowing a few seeds of doubt among their allies.

Arkk stood, somewhat surprised that the meeting had been productive and not a series of stealth insults, assassination attempts, or other subterfuge.

He had a path forward now. A proper one. Defeating the avatar had always been the plan, but it had been more of a symptom to deal with, leaving Evestani as a whole and possibly the Eternal Empire. Now, that same symptom being removed was the cure. Kill the avatar. Enable Prince Cedric’s ambitions and get him out of Mystakeen. Arkk would show off that he was a force not to be messed with and get all his problems out of his hair in one fell swoop.

A perfect plan if ever there was one.

 

 

“Emissaries of the Laughing Prince are not to be trusted,” Vezta said through pursed lips.

“You don’t like undead either?” Ilya asked.

Watching the skeletons move about gave Ilya a deeply unsettling feeling inside her chest. The undead of the Necropolis weren’t like the skeletons Arkk had raised. Arkk created puppets using bones as a base. The denizens of the Necropolis were people, able to think and act on their own. Not only did Ilya find herself uneasy in their presence, but she felt bad about it because they otherwise seemed normal. If she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t even know she was talking to an animated skeleton.

But to hear that Vezta didn’t like them either surprised her. Vezta always struck her as someone with a sense of morals that didn’t quite align with anyone else. In all their time together, Ilya really only knew two things that Vezta desired; The protection of Fortress Al-Mir—and Arkk by extension—and carrying out her former master’s final directive of reversing the Calamity. She didn’t want food, she didn’t want fun, she didn’t want to socialize much at all. Oh, she could be polite and smile at the right times, but if an action didn’t drive her toward either of her goals, it was like she didn’t care.

To hear her express discontent with something actively aiding them in one of those two goals came as a shock.

Ilya wondered if Vezta was just more open with her. Had they… Ilya frowned to herself, watching Vezta as the slime-like monster seemed to ooze back into her seat, losing part of her defined form in the process. Had they somehow grown closer than she figured was possible?

Coworkers, yes. But Vezta had a lot of coworkers that she would never relax in front of.

“I don’t care if they’re undead or sapient lumps of sewer muck,” Vezta said after a long moment of silence. “The problem is their target of worship.”

Ilya slumped back herself, somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t found someone else uneasy about the undead. She supposed it made sense. As far as she could tell, Vezta didn’t have bones. The sight of a skeleton walking around was likely no different to Vezta than a werecat or orc walking around.

“The Laughing Prince,” Ilya said, trying to keep on track. “That isn’t one of the traitor gods though, unless you were wrong about the Calamity. Why wouldn’t we ally with them?”

“The Laughing Prince is the god of festivals, children, and extreme joy. He—”

“And undeath.”

“Yes,” Vezta said. “And undeath. But I’ve already mentioned that I don’t care about that aspect. Nor do I care about festivals and children. The former are a waste of time except when a morale boost is needed, the latter are generally useless with few exceptions.

“It is the subject of the joy that disturbs me most.”

“Having fun?” Ilya asked, confused. Vezta was an ancient being who could only communicate with the people of today using her connection to Arkk. Otherwise, she spoke in that language that felt like every word was slamming a book into someone’s brain. So perhaps there were some word communication issues, but Ilya didn’t see a problem with a little elation.

It just meant the Laughing Prince was a god of happiness and fun, didn’t it?

“I believe I’ve said it before,” Vezta said, peeling herself off the chair as she leaned forward. “Perhaps not to you, I don’t recall, but some of the Laughing Prince’s few words to the people are that ‘Life is a joke,’ a phrase that can be taken many ways. Some say, ‘Life is a joke so enjoy every laugh.’ Others say, ‘Life is a joke, and not a good one.’”

“Ah. You’re worried they might be part of the latter faction. What are they doing? Biding their time before they betray us?”

Vezta slowly shook her head with a humorless chuckle. “No, Ilya. The latter group are by far the more predictable. Nihilists who want to end everything aren’t very subtle. I don’t believe our guests subscribe to that philosophy. If they did, the Necropolis would surely be devoid of both life and undeath.

“It is the former believers that disturb me the most. They tend to be far more in tune with their god than most and what a god finds amusing is often not what you or I might find amusing.” Vezta stood up, forming full legs as she started pacing back and forth. “One of them might do something just because they feel whatever their current task is isn’t fun enough. Perhaps we start a battle only to find our bombardment magic has been subtly altered to rain down confetti rather than destruction. Or our soldiers might find their armor enchanted to dance a hornpipe when worn. The prisoners might be set free simply to cause a bit of chaos.

“Or they might do nothing at all!” Vezta barked out, slamming her palms against the armrests of Ilya’s chair, bringing her face far too close. “They’ll just enjoy watching us squirm.”

Vezta stared a moment longer before dropping her head with a great sigh. She slowly pushed herself back, straightening herself. She ran her hands down her sides, smoothing out the oily slime that made up her body.

“I apologize,” Vezta said, “for venting just now. But there are few I feel I can express my frustrations toward without negatively impacting operations.”

“That’s alright,” Ilya said slowly. “I don’t care that much.”

“Which is why I came to you.”

“More importantly, if you feel they are such a threat, did you talk to Arkk? Tell him all this?”

“No.”

“But, if they’re such a threat—”

“They are useful,” Vezta said with a deep frown. “I cannot deny that. Already, that Lord Yoho has brought over rings of power, enchanted masks and cloaks, and researchers who have all studied the Calamity far longer than us. I wouldn’t dare speak my mind to Arkk for fear that he ends up souring a useful relationship because of my words.”

That was a good point. If Vezta said to be wary of them and it ended up putting them off…

“Then it is up to us,” Ilya said. This was something she could do. Support Arkk from the shadows. “We’ll keep an eye out for any subterfuge. They already know I’m wary of them just from how I acted while visiting the Necropolis. A bit more suspicion won’t be unusual. Dakka as well. She could keep another eye on things.”

“Three people isn’t many…”

“There aren’t many of them. Arkk did bring up the possibility of undead volunteers joining him. Apparently, beyond Yoho and the researchers who aren’t actually with us, only about a dozen agreed. Those seemingly disillusioned with the endless festivities of the Necropolis. Arkk wants to give them command of some of the undead soldiers he has been creating…”

“If they truly contracted with Arkk, deliberately betraying him would be difficult without him noticing,” Vezta mused to herself, resuming her pacing. “That said, followers of the Laughing Prince can be sly if they think they’ll enjoy the outcome more than the drudgery of their task can wear them down.”

“Which is why Dakka should help. Perhaps with a few others who are in a position to keep watch over things.” Ilya paused a moment, mentally running down a list of everyone in Company Al-Mir. She snapped her fingers as a clear choice popped into the forefront of her mind. “I bet Richter’s abbess would be overjoyed to spy on the undead. We’ll probably want some spellcasters too, since none of us know anything about rituals or magic.”

“Not Zullie or Savren,” Vezta said, vetoing them before Ilya could even suggest it. “They have to work closely with the researchers. Causing suspicion between the groups would hinder that.”

“For all her faults, Zullie is rather meticulous. I don’t doubt that she would notice sabotage in her rituals. But that other problem? Bombardment being replaced with confetti? That is something to keep an eye on.”

“Perhaps Zullie’s two assistants? We inform them to keep watch over any magics the undead might come into contact with.”

“They work closely with Zullie but increased scrutiny from either of them wouldn’t be out of place. Especially Morvin. He is a bit more cowardly—Don’t tell him I said that.”

Vezta nodded her head in agreement with Ilya’s proposition. “That would work, yes. Assuming he can keep his mouth shut and not give away our suspicions to Zullie, Savren, Arkk, or the undead researchers.”

“He isn’t that bad. He just gets nervous in stressful situations.”

Vezta raised an eyebrow. “Like the one we intend to place him in?”

“Well… yes. Like that.”

“Better than nothing, I suppose,” Vezta said. She let a rare smile cross her face. “I’m glad I came to you. I feel much less frustrated.”

“Any time, I suppose,” Ilya said, wondering if they had become friends at some point. “I’ll speak with Morvin and Abbess Hannah—I feel like those two will be more receptive to me than you—if you want to inform Dakka of our worries.”

“It’s a plan.”

“Dismissed. Rejected. Publicly humiliated.”

Cedric Valorian Lafoar let out a long, withering sigh. He set his pen down, adjusting it slightly so that it was aligned with the edge of the desk. Reaching up, he pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed again, and finally said, “Mags. Thought you were in Elmshadow.”

“I am.” A slovenly woman sat draped over a day couch, dangling an arm off one side. A mane of curly black hair was tossed up and over her head, hiding her face from view. She managed to affect a perfect picture of a depressed and drab young lady.

Affect being the key word.

Mags had no true emotions. Cedric was well aware.

“Comfort me?”

“No.”

The woman seemed to slump into the couch even further.

It didn’t last long. Her skin, hair, and even the couch itself took on a glisten. Her delicate fingers elongated and thickened, the soft curves of her body rippled like water disturbed by an unseen force. Her curly hair retracted, lightening to a salt-and-pepper gray in a trim, militaristic cut. The silk dress flowing around her dissolved, leaving behind the rigid lines of a military uniform. Her face contorted, features hardening and sharpening while a stubble sprouted across her chin.

The once reclining figure now sat bolt upright in a high-backed chair, exuding an aura of command and discipline.

“You read my report?”

“I did,” Cedric said, not reacting to the change. A reaction was just what Mags wanted. “Four of my best men, trounced by a single orc? Are you certain they were my best?”

Mags shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. Hard to tell. All you humans are the same to me. That said, they certainly didn’t look their best. The orc didn’t even use weapons.”

“Yes, you mentioned that,” Cedric said, his eyes drifting to the report on his desk. A single, unarmed though not unarmored orc managed to lay waste to four men at the same time. Orcs were hardier than the average human, it was true, but not to such an extent as that. The victory condition for his team was merely scratching the orc whereas the orc had to render his men incapable or unwilling to continue.

“Arkk didn’t use magic to strengthen or hasten his champion?”

“The armor itself was enchanted,” Mags said. “I didn’t recognize it, but it was shadowy and translucent. Took sword strikes and spears without even a mark. Beyond that, there was no magic involved in the fight.”

Cedric sighed once more. When he had first heard of this Arkk, he hadn’t sounded all that different from the usual mercenary company. Company Al-Mir wasn’t even particularly large, employing under a thousand men. But it seemed like every time he heard Arkk’s name mentioned, the man had some new trick up his sleeve. From illegal magics to that walking tower of his. Now impenetrable armor?

“Then he sent the army away,” Cedric said, frowning.

“Not away. Just off to the side. I think he wants them to watch. Bit of an exhibitionist, I think.”

Cedric didn’t rise to Mags’ words. He tapped his finger lightly against the letter on the desk. “I was just penning a letter to Arkk asking what could possibly be going through his mind. Rejecting the aid of my army after having been the one to request it…” He shook his head.

“Isn’t it fun?” Mags said, his smile wide. “I haven’t the slightest clue what he is thinking! A Keeper like that turning down a whole army offered on a silver platter? Unheard of!”

“I take it things didn’t go according to your plans.”

“I didn’t even get to start my plans!” The general in the armchair shook his head, completely exasperated. “Rejecting the army… Who would have planned for that? But, to be honest, this is still working out well.

“He is housing the army in a series of corridors and chambers built into the mountainside,” Mags said, a sly grin slowly seeping across his face as he propped an elbow on the chair’s arm. “He has made an enemy of most of them. He doesn’t even know it. The discontent, the insults, the anger. Some of the older soldiers are more relieved than not but most of the army is made up of younger, hot-blooded idiots who would rather die for their pride than live to see—”

“Mags,” Cedric cut in, his voice harsh and commanding. “You are not to get my men killed.”

The chief adjutant parted his lips, showing off razor-sharp teeth. “Afraid that might not be up to me any longer. You see, I rolled over and accepted Arkk’s rejection with hardly any defense,” he said in a glee-filled tone. “I’m not exactly very popular at the moment. Combined with a few whispers that have made their way through the army, claiming tricks, sabotage, heresy, and all manner of unfortunate rumors about Arkk… Let’s just say that I might not be the one in charge much longer and those who will replace me might be keen on showing off the might of Chernlock’s Armed Forces.”

“What have you done?” Cedric asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Surprisingly little. A whisper in an ear here. A nudge there. But overall, you’ve got your hot-blooded toy soldiers to thank for anything that might happen.” Shaking his head with a wan smile, he shrugged his shoulders. “The depths a human will sink to when their pride has been insulted…”

“Mags—”

“Ah! Got to go. I think rumors of me taking bribes from Arkk have reached a boiling point.”

“Mags!”

Cedric stood, slamming his palms against the desk. But it was too late. The room was, once again, empty. Grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, Cedric glared down at the half-written letter to Arkk. Shaking his head, he stalked around his desk, out the door, and into the manor at large. A few of his personal guards, who had been waiting right outside his door, started following after him. He waved them off.

Downstairs on the ground floor, he stopped in front of Lady Katja’s quarters. She normally had her own guards posted, not trusting his, but the hallway was clear today. Hoping that didn’t mean she was out, Cedric thumped his fist against her door.

Having heard Mags report on the woman’s nightly activities, he half expected the door to open to a sweaty and nude woman with her companions standing awkwardly in the background. Instead, a fully clothed young boy opened the door with fingers marred with fresh ink. It was the pudgy page-like boy that Katja kept on retainer who bore a suspicious resemblance to the late Duke Woldair.

Upon seeing who was at the door, the pageboy threw open the door fully and dropped down to his knees. “My liege,” he cried out, only to squawk in pain as the door rebounded off the wall and struck his shoulder, knocking him aside.

Cedric paid him little mind, pushing the door fully open and taking in the room.

Lady Katja, formerly sitting on a short couch by a bookcase, was both standing up and offering her usual archaic bow. A somewhat scruffy man sat at a desk not far away, adjacent to the desk’s main chair. He dipped into a bow of his own with an expression on his face that said he would much rather be anywhere else but here.

“My Lord,” Lady Katja said, still in her bow.

Stepping inside, Cedric glimpsed the contents of the papers on the desk. It seemed like learning materials. The man must have been some kind of tutor brought in to teach the pageboy how to read or write.

Cedric decided both were completely ignorable. He turned to Katja as the woman stood properly, hands tightly clasped together. “You have a method of contacting Arkk in an emergency. Illegal magic.”

He knew that they often met, thanks to Mags, so such a method was only logical.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what—”

“I don’t care about your usage of illegal magic. I just need to speak with Arkk before something unfortunate occurs to my men. Don’t waste my time, Lady Katja,” he said, employing all the verbal and bodily imposition he had learned over his years.

It worked. She swallowed audibly before casting a glance at the tutor. “Do it,” she hissed.

Cedric cocked an eyebrow, turning to regard the scruffy man with a little more scrutiny.

“I…” The man started, looking up with the expression of a man who knew he should have stayed in bed this morning. He swallowed, smiled a fearful smile, and cleared his throat. “My mother always said never to disagree with someone who can put your head on a pike.”

 

 

Priscilla stalked back and forth inside Fortress Al-Mir’s temple chamber, shooting the occasional glare at one of the statues despite her lack of proper sight.

Arkk tried to ignore it. He wasn’t sure what she was upset about or even why she had come back to the fortress from Leda’s tower. She must have heard about the statue’s appearance and wanted to see it for herself, but she hadn’t said anything. Was she upset? The glares made it seem so but it was hard to tell with the ice covering part of her face. Her pacing, however, made her look more nervous than angry.

“Marvelous!” Yoho shouted into the room, performing a slow pirouette that made the bells dangling from his collar jingle.

Arkk turned away from the confusing dragonoid to meet the glowing red eyes of his skeletal guest. Priscilla wasn’t someone Arkk could focus on at the moment. Yoho wanted a tour of this side of the portal, so Arkk figured the temple was a good place as any to take him. They could head out above ground afterward.

“A temple thou hast dedicated to the full Pantheon? I haven’t seen such sights since I scrubbed the last sinew from my old bones,” Yoho said with such elation in his voice. Arkk could hardly imagine being that excited about a simple room, even if it was some magical gateway to the realm of the gods. “Thou art missing a few spots,” he said, stopping in front of one of the empty pedestals. “But thine earnest dedication nonetheless pierces my heart.”

“I have a theory that filling the empty pedestals will resolve the Calamity—or at least be one of the steps toward fixing it,” Arkk said slowly. “It is one of my long-term projects. Based on recent experience, it seems that I need either something of significant relation to a god or to connect to their realm via the portal. But I probably won’t do any more until my researchers finish their analysis of the Calamity and its effects on both this world and others.

“The magical toxicity of the Necropolis and the Underworld is something that cannot happen here,” Arkk finished.

“No. I concur,” Yoho said with a solemn nod of his head. “Such a diverse pool of life would be a tragedy to lose. Necrovale houses few warriors, but we doth possess vast knowledge. Shall I provide researchers who may be useful in thine task?”

Given what had happened to the Necropolis—all its living population had inevitably perished because of the overabundance of magic—Arkk wasn’t quite sure how useful those researchers would be. Still, he wasn’t in much of a position to decline. “That would be most welcome—”

“Oi,” Priscilla grunted. “Bonebag. You—”

Arkk teleported Priscilla out of the temple in an instant. He tossed her into a random corner of the fortress, somewhere deep and labyrinthine. Without teleportation of her own, she could very well take weeks to walk back into a populated section of Fortress Al-Mir. “I am so sorry for her,” he said, considering leaving her there for every one of those weeks as punishment.

“Thou hast such lively subjects,” Yoho said with a good-natured chuckle. He didn’t show even the mildest surprise at Priscilla’s sudden disappearance. “I take no offense. Allow thine lady to speak her question.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Arkk mumbled to himself. He wasn’t sure if Priscilla had an actual question or if she just wanted to insult someone. Priscilla didn’t exactly get along with anyone, even if she had taken Leda under her wing.

But, it was a request from his guest. Mentally preparing himself for whatever apologies he might have to give, Arkk teleported the now definitely angry Priscilla back into the temple room.

She promptly snarled, lunging toward Arkk. He didn’t even flinch. A second teleport put her back a few steps. A third teleport put her back a few steps more when she lunged a second time.

Warning bells from the [HEART] went off in the back of his mind. The sudden alarm made him tense. It was something he hadn’t felt very often. Only once or twice. Someone straining against the link. It wasn’t breaking. Probably only because Priscilla had her own experience with minions and contracts. She was deliberately pushing on it without breaking it.

“Can’t teleport me if I cut our bond,” she snarled.

A dozen of the shadowy scythes vanished from the armory. Arkk teleported them straight into the temple, burrowing them into the ground to keep them in place. They were positioned around Priscilla so that if she moved more than a hair in any direction, she would start losing limbs.

“No,” he said. “But if you want to fight me, probably best to do it outside my territory.”

The warning bells in the back of Arkk’s mind went silent as Priscilla showed off the sharp teeth in her mouth. It wasn’t quite a smile, but close enough.

“Sometimes,” she said, losing the tension in her arms, “you almost make me like you. Then I smell the human stench that hangs around you like a poisonous cloud.”

Arkk sighed, teleporting the scythes back to their places. “Have you cooled down now?”

“Funny,” she snapped.

Yoho certainly thought so. He clapped his bony hands together as he laughed. “Wonderful. Thine performance is truly a blessing from my Prince.”

“Huh?” Priscilla grunted, curling one side of her lip up as she turned her head to Arkk.

Arkk returned her confused look with a shrug that she probably couldn’t see.

“Perhaps Necrovale ought to bring back one of the old gladiatorial festivals…” Yoho mused to himself. “Though violence is detestable, a good sport isn’t.”

“Right,” Arkk said slowly, turning to Priscilla. “The First and Last Primeval Lord,” he strained the title, trying to hammer its importance into the obstinate dragonoid, “asked that you be allowed to speak the question you had before I threw you out of the temple.”

“Just Yoho, please,” the skeleton said in good nature.

“Yeah, whatever. You worship the Laughing Prince, right?” Priscilla said before jerking her thumb to the Prince’s statue. “Is that what he looks like?”

Yoho turned to the statue. A tall, thin man in a fine suit. The statue had a fleshy, humanoid face but his smile stretched from ear to ear, showing off far, far too many teeth. Looking at it almost hurt the eyes. Or the mind. There were more teeth than could possibly fit in the mouth.

“It is recognizable,” Yoho said after a long minute of staring. “But unfamiliar. The statues honoring the Skeletal Lord in the Necropolis tend to be more… skeletal. But who can say they know with any accuracy the true form of any god? Or, should a god wish it, why can they not alter their form on a whim and whimsy? And the Master of Ceremonies is a most whimsical god indeed.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. Less at Yoho. What the skeleton said made sense enough. He was more confused with Priscilla. “Why do you ask?”

Priscilla gave him a glower. She couldn’t help but frown at that. It seemed she was still upset. Still, she looked to the draconic statue of the Permafrost, pointed a sharp claw in its direction, and said, “This is not the Permafrost.”

“What? How is it not?”

“The Permafrost isn’t just a big dragon,” Priscilla snarled. “The Permafrost is a blustering storm. THEY are a frozen cap on a tall mountain. THEY are the chill down your spine when you realize the futility of your actions. THEY are the silence of a snow-covered forest, where every sound is swallowed by the icy stillness. The Permafrost is the relentless march of time, freezing moments into eternity. THEY are the embodiment of inevitability, the cold truth that no matter how much we struggle, some things are beyond our control.”

Arkk shivered, feeling some unnatural cool seeping into the room. He might have thought it was coming from Priscilla had he not been staring directly at her. She wasn’t the source of it.

His eyes slowly drifted over the statue. The icy sculpture was staring at him. Its cool blue eyes almost looked searching, like it expected something from him.

“That’s all well and good, Lady Dragon,” Yoho said with a tinge of amusement in the back of his throat. Not that he had a throat. “But how doth thou fashion a statue to embody a shiver down thy spine? I have beheld more spines than thou may care to imagine and yet remain unable to conjure an image of a statue of a chill.”

Just like that, whatever spell the statue had was broken. With one last breath of frost in the air, the room temperature felt normal. The statue instantly transitioned from staring at Arkk to staring at some vague point in the center of the room. Neither of his two companions seemed to notice the change. Or, if they did, they didn’t mention it.

Priscilla ground her teeth together, glowering at the skeleton for a long moment before snapping her head to Arkk. “You did something. You did this.”

Arkk let out one last breath, making sure that there wasn’t any frost misting in the air. “While I appreciate your opinion of my artistic capabilities, I can’t take credit. It did it itself.”

“Pray, tell me,” Yoho said, stepping closer to the draconic statue. “Were thy thoughts upon the young lady when the statue did manifest?”

“Young?” Priscilla said with a note of aggression in her tone. She opened her mouth. Arkk could hear the complaint before she actually said it. But, with a click of her tongue, she decided to remain silent, huffing slightly as she looked aside.

Perhaps she realized that the First and Last Primeval Lord might just be a little bit older than she was.

For his part, Arkk scratched at the back of his head, not quite sure how to answer. “Maybe. I don’t think it was deliberate, but Priscilla is my closest connection to the Permafrost.”

“Though hast the notion… Our inward preconceptions of the gods can alter our perception of them.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. “Because I thought it might look like a dragon, it became a dragon?” He didn’t believe for a minute that he had that much power over a god.

“Well, no,” Yoho said with a small chuckle. “As I said, the gods manifest how they will. As for the Permafrost, it mayhap hearkened to thy desires and conformed to meet thy expectations. Why? To remove ambiguity? For the fun of it? Who can truly say their hearts know the intentions of higher beings?”

Based on everything he had heard about the Permafrost, Arkk doubted that fun was the reason. The Laughing Prince, maybe. The Fickle Wheel, maybe. But not the Permafrost.

A low growl interrupted his musings. He turned to find Priscilla hunched over low enough that she was practically on all fours. Her claws dug into the tiles.

“So it was you,” she said, turning her iced-over eyes to Arkk. Priscilla unfurled her wings like she was about to leap at him again, only to pause before Arkk could teleport her off into one of the dungeon cells.

Priscilla slowly stood upright, relaxing her claws and her wings, and looked at the draconic statue. As a dragonoid and one heavily attuned to ice magic at that, Priscilla wasn’t one to shiver.

So, when a terrible tremble wracked her body, Arkk grew imminently concerned.

He didn’t feel anything himself. That unnatural chill in the air from earlier had vanished entirely. The draconic statue was still sitting in its neutral pose, the same as it had been when it first appeared. It wasn’t even looking at Priscilla. Yet she stared directly at it.

Priscilla stumbled backward with a flinch like someone had struck her square in the face. One foot went back, but not so much to catch her. It was more of a reflex than anything. The momentum made her take another step, then another. She wasn’t even trying to fight it, not with the draconic might Arkk knew she possessed nor with her wings.

Another step and she would fall into the silvery pool of the temple. Already, her tail skimmed just above its surface. Seeing that snapped Arkk out of his confusion. He teleported her, picking her up and dropping her just behind him, making sure that he was between her and the draconic statue.

He couldn’t just teleport them all away. Yoho wasn’t his employee or prisoner and thus would be left alone and defenseless. The skeleton didn’t seem perturbed by the goings on. Yoho simply looked around, watching with that grin that he couldn’t get rid of.

Without moving through the intermediate space, the statue faced him. A rush of cold billowed out from it, sapping the warmth from his fingers, arms, and nose.

Arkk held his ground. A bright red light flooded over the temple, touching everything he could see.

“Leave her alone,” Arkk said, focusing all his ire on the statue. “She is my employee. I won’t take kindly to anyone trying to harm her or… take her back,” he said with a flick of his eyes to the silvery pool that connected to the realm of the gods. “Not even one of the Pantheon.”

“I’m not yours,” Priscilla whispered from behind him.

“My employee,” Arkk repeated.

Priscilla let out a growl, but she didn’t protest again. Nor did she try to move out from behind him. He could feel her, hovering close to his shoulder. But he didn’t feel her blind gaze on him. A quick check through the employee link showed her head fully turned toward the statue once again. He saw her nod her head.

The cold stopped. The statue stared off into the distance. The temple switched from imposing and unnatural to business as usual in the blink of an eye.

Priscilla dropped to her knees, panting and… sweating? Arkk hadn’t known that dragonoids could sweat.

Or was that condensation that hadn’t yet frozen on her icy scales?

“Are you okay?” he asked, kneeling down at her side and gently resting a hand on her shoulder.

He quickly pulled back when she turned a glare at him. She didn’t bite or snap at him.

She let out a long, sorry sigh. “The Heart I once held belonged to the Permafrost, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. THEY aren’t happy that I broke it. I have some amends to make, it seems.”

“Amends?”

Priscilla’s claws gripped the tiles of the temple floor, not doing quite as much damage as she would have done were it not for the magical reinforcement of the fortress. Shallow scars still marred the tile when she moved her hands away. Arkk was going to have to get one of the lesser servants in here to repair all the damage she had caused today. Not that it was a big deal. It was just a few gold coins worth of scars.

He waited, letting her speak at her own pace. If she even wanted to at all.

Her wings spread wide. The clawed ends dug into the tiles as she used them to push herself upright. He stared at the newest marks on the floor, wondering if he should actually start charging her.

“Amends,” she repeated, drawing Arkk’s eyes up to the ice over her face. “I’ll need your help. But later. If you would relocate me to my room, it might give me a higher opinion of you.”

“Alright. Whenever you’re ready, feel free to come to me,” he said. He waited another moment, just in case she had something else to say, and finally teleported her off to her quarters when she didn’t.

Arkk turned back to the draconic statue, glaring at it for a moment.

It sat there, staring without movement or change in temperature.

Letting out a short breath as he scanned the rest of the temple—it would be just his luck for something else to have changed—Arkk ended with a wan smile to Yoho. “Sorry about that,” he said, earning a hearty chuckle from the skeleton.

“Verily, what a lively temple this is,” Yoho said, clasping his hands together. “I have not beheld aught of its like since ere I did resurrect myself. Though art most blessed, art thou not, Mister Arkk?”

“Blessed? Hah. Or cursed?”

“Nonsense. Activity in the Pantheon. What an age to be undead,” Yoho said with a shake of his head. “Praise the Laughter.”

Arkk looked at the thin figure of the Laughing Prince. “He ever talk to you?” Arkk asked.

“Talk? No. Not since granting the final gift of undeath to those who recently departed His realm oh so many years ago now. Yet I still feel the honor of His Smile upon all our festivities.”

“I see,” Arkk said, not sure that he saw at all.

Certainly, the Abbey preached that the rays of the sun were the Light itself shining down on them. But, even including that, he wasn’t sure that he had ever felt the presence of any god. Outside the obvious interactions, that was. His encounter with Xel’atriss, the gift from the Laughing Prince, and the letter from the statue of the Holy Light were interactions. It was the distant observations that the Abbey preached of that he had never really experienced.

With his intentions toward filling the remaining empty pedestals and connecting to other realms, he had a sinking feeling that these more lively—as Yoho had put it—encounters were only going to increase.

“I think that was enough fun with the Pantheon for one day,” Arkk said, turning his back on the temple as he swept a gesture toward the open door. “You wanted to see the surface, did you not?”

“I am most eager.”

 

 

“I know what I just said,” Ilya hissed into Arkk’s ear. Both her hands gripped Arkk’s arm, making him feel a little numb in the fingers. Every so often, her sharp eyes would flick to movement and move toward her bow, only to stop herself and return her hands to Arkk’s arm. “But isn’t this a bit much?”

Arkk tried not to look like he was at all bothered.

In truth, he wasn’t exactly at ease either.

The Necropolis was populated.

From the large cathedral-like building that housed the portal, Matar the grave keeper led them out to a wide road made from thick black bricks. Tall rectangular buildings lined the road, each pressed right up against the next. Occasional gaps between the buildings opened into more roads, all of which were angled seemingly at random. That led to some buildings being a mere thin blade while others were wide enough to stretch on for a thousand paces.

Every resident seemed able to afford glass in their windows. The green-tinged sky reflected off the glass, making it difficult to see inside any of them. He could, however, see movement.

There was nothing living here. Which meant whatever moved inside the buildings was likely undead.

Arkk did not shudder.

Ilya did, perhaps thinking the same things.

“Children,” she whispered.

Arkk followed her gaze to find someone else outside the buildings. Another skeleton. This one looked a bit less human and a bit more beastman, but it wasn’t possible to tell what kind of beastman. Only that its skull had a more pronounced snout-like shape to it. Three smaller, child-sized skeletons stood at its side. All stopped to watch the procession carry on.

“If Matar is right, they’re probably older than both of us combined.” The last living resident of the Necropolis became undead hundreds of years ago. Although they might look like children, they certainly weren’t any longer. “Maybe even older than your mother.”

Ilya shuddered again, forcing her gaze forward.

Zullie was ahead of them, chatting with Matar like it was the most usual thing in the world. Dakka and a quintet of orcs followed along, silent except for the noise of their boots on the tiles. Everyone else was back at Fortress Al-Mir or Elmshadow, keeping a watch on things. Yet, Arkk was starting to regret not taking everyone with him. As they continued through the city, more and more skeletons started appearing outside.

All just staring.

“My experiments have shown that magic in bones tends to go stale,” Zullie said, speaking quite loudly. “I first raised a horse and, while it used to work perfectly, it has been a bit stiff lately and it is only a few months old. Does the ambient magic here help with your animation or is your advanced age with little reduction in mobility a product of more advanced necromancy?”

“A quandary I haven’t given much thought toward,” Matar answered back in his surprisingly smooth voice. “I know of what effect thy means. When one grows restless in their crypt and wishes to walk once more, they often suffer from rigor. But that tends to fade after moving about for a few weeks.”

Zullie hummed, rubbing at her chin with her thumb and forefinger. “Is simple movement a way to reduce—”

“The graveyards I’m used to are either pits in the ground with small markers denoting the… resident or large mounds serving as mass graves, generally for a single-family or lineage,” Arkk cut in as Zullie started mumbling to herself. “Are graveyards different here? I haven’t seen anything that looks like the place you said you take care of.”

Matar’s skull swiveled backward, making eye contact with Arkk.

Arkk didn’t shudder.

Ilya did.

“The resting are honored here. Each resident of the crypt hath a vault to call their own. A wide and grandiose plot of land, though far lower to the ground than the buildings around us, maintained by myself and a small… skeleton crew.” Matar paused to chuckle before continuing. “But our path now carries us in the opposite direction.”

Arkk glanced back, wondering if he could see it, but realized he couldn’t even see that grand cathedral anymore. The smaller buildings blocked it completely.

They had left the remainder of Dakka’s squad guarding the portal on this side—he didn’t want to come back to find that the locals had disabled the portal, trapping him here like Agnete was trapped in the Anvil—so he could still use the employee links to both see it and tell where it was in relation to him. There was little chance of getting lost here, even if the streets did cross at random.

Though, perhaps it would have been wise to recall Priscilla to keep watch of them from above. Or Nora, since she had functioning eyes without needing someone riding on her back. But the harpy would be in far more danger on her own than a dragonoid. Either way, too late now.

“How far is… King Yoho?”

“King?” Matar shook his head, making a slight grinding noise in his bones as he moved. “No. Necropolis has no king. The First and Last Primeval Lord, Yoho. The Eternal Sovereign of the Risen Dead. The Chief Bone-Juggler. The Indomitable Necromancer. Yoho, the Undying Blight.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, nodding slightly. All those titles sounded like fancier ways of saying King, but who was he to disagree?

“Bone-Juggler?” Ilya asked with a confused frown on her face.

“Laughing Prince,” Arkk whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Verily!” Matar said, turning his skeletal grin on Ilya. She immediately flinched back, her fingers once again starting toward her bow before stopping abruptly. “Lord Yoho is a masterful virtuoso in all manner of merriment, from capering a lively jig to warbling a delicate tune.”

“He can dance and sing,” Arkk said in a flat tone.

“And juggle,” Ilya whispered.

Arkk slowly looked around at the silent undead watching them walk through the city. Enough had gathered that they lined the sides of the road with practically no gaps. It seemed as if word had spread through the entire city in a flash. Nobody had yet to approach them, however. There was a clear barrier that none of the undead were willing to cross.

“The Sable Citadel,” Matar said, sweeping an arm in a grandiose gesture as they turned down a new street.

Towering spires wrought from obsidian, adorned with intricate skeletal gargoyles, surrounded a truly massive building. The walls of the citadel were a labyrinth of arches and buttresses. The green-stained windows depicted revelry and fanciful dance in the way they were patterned while the iron gates looked far more macabre with their reliefs of skeletal figures guarding the entrance.

Ancient trees that looked more like stone than wood dotted a wide courtyard, the center of which held a tall fountain of glowing green liquid. The cobblestones underfoot had been worn smooth by the passage of countless undead feet, far more than any of the rest of the streets Arkk had crossed to reach this place.

At the center of the citadel, one tall spire stretched high enough to pierce the clouds. A swirling mist cascaded down the obsidian stone, spreading out over the roof of the building in long, curling streams.

“Arkk,” Ilya whispered, her voice sounding tense.

Arkk just patted her hand, not taking his eyes off the tall structure. “For a person with such modest titles, he certainly lives in a grandiose home.”

“Home?” Matar said. Arkk could imagine the skeleton cocking an eyebrow with the way he tilted his head. “No, no. Thou art mistaken. The Sable Citadel is merely the festival court! Lord Yoho doth reside just over yonder.”

Following the bony finger of the skeleton, Arkk found himself looking at a small cottage just outside the citadel’s walls. Practically no bigger than the home Arkk had lived in back in Langleey Village. It had a small stone garden with smooth lines drawn in fine gravel and a fence gate low enough that even the most unathletic noble could have hopped over.

“I see,” Arkk said as he and his companions stepped up to the Sable Citadel’s courtyard gate.

The blackened metal gates swung open of their own accord as soon as Matar stepped close enough. The hinges groaned like a dying beast, making Ilya wince and rub at her ears, only to stop with a heavy thud as they fully opened.

Following the thud, a brief moment of silence descended upon the group.

Across the courtyard, beyond the fountain, the tall doors of the citadel swung open. Music flowed forth, some kind of reed instrument played in a merry jig as a tall skeleton practically leaped from the citadel’s entrance. He was dressed in robes of deep purple and gold, adorned with ribbons and bells that jingled with every movement. A dozen more skeletons pranced out, weaving their ribbons in the air around them as they flooded into the courtyard.

The lead skeleton, eyes aglow with red light that didn’t do any favors for the permanent grin of his skeletal face, jumped high into the air, and landed into a tumbling cartwheel, before coming to a stop on the near side of the fountain. With a flourish, he extended his arms, as if beckoning old friends to a grand celebration.

“Welcome! Visitors!” he bellowed into the air.

The sounds of horns and flutes and drums filled the air along with a dozen other instruments that Arkk couldn’t pick out individually. Loud bangs that sounded like the Cliff defensive cannons blasted off sparkling balls of flames high into the skies. They exploded, raining down thin bits of colored papers all around the assembled skeletons as they began a macabre dance.

More and more skeletons were flooding into the courtyard, moving around Arkk and his company from the rest of the city. They seamlessly merged with the others already present, joining in on the dance.

One broke away in a lavish orange dress, waving around a long staff with a cloth sheet trailing after it. The sheet momentarily blocked Arkk’s view of the skeleton. By the time it passed, the skeleton was wearing a smaller yellow dress. With a wide sweeping motion, the skeleton hid behind the sheet once again only to emerge with a blue dress, then a green, then a red.

A quartet of skeletons stood atop tall poles made from the same petrified wood as the tree in the center, standing twice as tall as any orc. Ruffled clothes shimmered and swayed as they balanced on the poles, hopping from one to another. All four were in the air at the same time and all four landed on the next pillar at the same time. If even one was a second too slow, they would have crashed into each other.

High overhead, a long rope shot out from one side of the courtyard to the other. Far more limber skeletons rushed out, hopping and skipping as they scampered across the taut rope.

A pair of skeletons held smaller rods. One in each hand and another balanced on their foreheads. Spinning plates precariously balanced at the tops of the rods. Now and again, the skeletons would jolt their rods, sending the plates up into the air. Sometimes the same skeleton would catch their plate, sometimes they swapped, catching each other’s plates.

Throughout it all, Arkk, Ilya, Dakka, and even Zullie just stared. Arkk had no words for the sudden revelry. Judging by the silence around him, no one else did either. The only skeleton in his line of sight who wasn’t dancing and performing was Matar, and even he clapped his hands together completely out of timing with the rest of the music.

Arkk didn’t count how long the dancing went on. The skeletons never seemed to tire. Which, he supposed, was expected of them. None of the undead he had raised ever tired either. At some point, a few of his guards got drawn in by some of the skeletons. It was a bit strange seeing fully armored orcs trying to dance. Not that the skeletons seemed to care about the awkwardness. They just laughed and cheered.

“Not enjoying thyself?”

Arkk yelped, half barreling over Ilya as he jolted away from the sudden voice in his ear.

The central figure of the festival, the one Arkk presumed was Yoho, stood with a wide grin. Not that he could make any other expression without lips. For a skeleton covered in flamboyant clothing and jingling bells, he had certainly managed to sneak up on Arkk without any difficulty.

Arkk quickly composed himself. “It isn’t that I’m not enjoying myself,” he said, not wanting to offend the First and Last Primeval Lord. “I just wasn’t expecting… this.”

“And what, pray tell, fell within thine expectations?”

“A meeting of some kind? Honestly, not sure.”

“It was a bit sudden,” Zullie said, frowning. “We only opened the portal an hour ago. How did you manage to prepare all this?”

“Prepare?” Yoho slid to the side, wrapping a skeletal arm around Zullie’s shoulders as he spun her to face the courtyard once again. He ended up in front of her, down on one knee with her hand pressed to his bare teeth as if he were kissing her knuckles. “My lady, this realm is the land of festivities! We are always prepared!”

Zullie slowly pulled her hand back to herself. Arkk wasn’t sure what, if anything, she could see. He could see the irritation welling in her face. She turned her head toward him.

“I have confirmed the safety of this realm, environmentally and magically speaking,” Zullie said with a terse tone in her voice. “If you’ve got nothing better to do than this, I’ll be returning now. Perhaps research into possible access to the Permafrost’s domain will be more interesting. The new statue in the temple must mean something, right? I wonder… If I scrape off…”

Zullie continued muttering to herself even as she turned and wandered off, heading back the way they had come. Even with the crowd of skeletons behind them, both observing the courtyard and dancing themselves, Zullie managed to weave between them without any issue.

The skeleton’s jaw clicked shut. Despite being unable to change his expression, Yoho managed to look disappointed. “I suppose a quieter meeting will have to suffice for now,” he finally said.

“I apologize for her behavior,” Arkk said, still not wanting to offend their hosts. “She has something of a one-track mind. If it isn’t related to exploring new magics, she isn’t interested.”

“Ah, but thine interest in the festivities wanes as well, does it not?”

Arkk took a quick look around. The skeletal festival was continuing in full swing. It didn’t seem as if anyone had noticed their guests or their king weren’t participating. Or, if they had noticed, they didn’t care.

“I suppose a calmer setting is in order then,” Yoho said with a small sigh. As he stood from his one knee, some magic shimmered over his attire. Rather than looking like a rejected jester, he almost looked dignified in a long, flowing robe of black and green. However, it still had jingling bells hanging from its collar. “Come, follow me,” he said.

Instead of heading toward the Sable Citadel, he instead started walking toward the small cottage just outside the walls. The crowd around parted, flowing more like water than bones, allowing him and Arkk access.

“Do not worry about troubling the performance,” Yoho said, gesturing toward the courtyard. “Now that is hath commenced, the festivities will continue for weeks should joining be on thy mind.”

“I’ll… remember that.” Though he didn’t want to offend, he didn’t have much desire to dance around. Zullie was right. There was a lot of work to be done.

The cottage, although it couldn’t keep out all the noises of the festival, did manage to at least muffle it. There wasn’t much to its insides. No bed or kitchen. Just a small sitting room. Skeletons probably didn’t need much sleep or food. Yoho dragged out a few chairs for Arkk, Ilya, and Dakka. He didn’t take one for himself, choosing to stand.

“Visitors,” Yoho said. “To what do I owe the honor of such a meeting?”

“Well,” Arkk said, looking from Ilya to Dakka and back. “A war, I suppose.”

“War?” The skeleton’s countenance took on a darker look as the red in his eyes started to brighten. “Necropolis hasn’t seen war in my reign.”

“Perhaps I should start at the beginning… Several months ago, I discovered a fortress Heart belonging to Xel’atriss, Lock and Key…”

“I understand. Quite the dire situation.”

Arkk nodded his head.

“And you wish to drag the good people of Necrovale into your affairs?”

Arkk snapped his head up. “No. Not at all. Truth be told, we didn’t expect to find people here. None of the other realms we visited had… many living beings. As I said, the Underworld suffered a similar fate to your world, except without undeath allowing them to continue. The Silence was… silent, as far as we could tell during our short visit. And the Anvil… is locked away for the time being. When the Laughing Prince bestowed the boon of a portal keystone to me, all I hoped for were perhaps some magical artifacts, books of ancient magic, or, hopefully, more fortress hearts. Especially for walking fortresses.”

Also, potentially, hordes of undead able to utterly bury his enemies. But he hadn’t counted on intelligent undead, just mindless beings like what he had raised in the past.

“Mine people are a happy, peaceful people,” Yoho said. Though he lacked eyelids, the light in his sockets dimmed like he was closing his eyes. “I will not sacrifice them in the name of a distant war.”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t expect that of anyone.”

“But if the object of thine search is knowledge, artifacts, or wealth… Necrovale has little need of such material possessions. There is a vault deep within the Citadel. I might be willing to part with such possessions.”

“Might?”

Yoho clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing between the chairs. “Once, life and undeath flourished as one. Now, however, life in the Necropolis has ceased to be.”

“Matar mentioned something about that on our way over from the portal. Magic in the air poisoned the crops, or something?”

“Matar spoke true. My people have stagnated. No new life, no new undeath, no new ideas or options. Certainly, my people are not the slothful sort. They engage and learn and grow on their own. But that has its limits. Without new minds, growth is slow.”

“So you want people? Living people?”

“And supplies,” Yoho said, dipping his head in a confirming nod. “For their survival. A long-term solution for the magic problem would be welcome, though I know not if such lies within thine power.”

“It is something Zullie has been working on, but no results just yet. Supplies are doable as well—” Especially if Yoho had a vast wealth he was willing to part with. Arkk could turn a portion of that into crops and livestock. “But people could pose a problem.”

“People are the most important part.”

“I know,” Arkk said. “It’s just that necromancy has a poor reputation where I’m from.” He gave a small nod toward Ilya. “She’s normally much more talkative than this. Dakka as well. And I imagine anyone with me is going to be much more accepting of… unusual occurrences than a general population.”

Yoho turned his red eyes from Dakka, who shifted in her seat, to Ilya, who didn’t move at all. As if coming to a realization, he looked up at the ceiling. He stared at the petrified wooden roof for a short moment before coming to a decision. “Speak with the old and the infirm. Those who fear the swift approach of the Eternal Silence. They who might be open to alternatives. Unless they convince their families to join, they won’t sustain anything, but they will be a start to welcoming others into our realm. Speak also with the young who have no others they can rely upon; the Laughing Prince has always been a friend to the innocent.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Arkk noted Ilya stiffen ever so slightly. Her thoughts probably drifted toward Nyala, Yavin, and several other refugees who were in or had been in the fortress as refugees from the war. “I won’t force anyone,” he said quickly. “I’ll ask for volunteers. But just as you won’t force your people into a war, I’m not going to force anyone uncomfortable with it to come here.”

Yoho must have expected that. He dipped his head without hesitation. “Acceptable. Perhaps I, and some of my fellows, might act as envoys…”

Arkk winced. “I don’t have any problems bringing you over to my world, but anyone you speak with is more likely to try to kill an animated skeleton rather than engage in a conversation.”

“A problem to be worked out later. As a gesture of goodwill, if thy taketh myself through the portal to see the other realm for myself, I will bequeath upon you some small amount of items from the vault in advance. That should assist with thine immediate problems, should it not?”

Arkk put on a bright smile. “I’d be more than happy to.”

 

 

As had become standard when opening a portal to a new locale, Arkk performed all the usual tests. Guards stood around the portal, ready to fend off any hostile beings that might come through. Lesser servants went in and out. Some even carried Zullie-developed measuring devices to check ambient magic levels, air quality, and various other things necessary to survival.

The Underworld was the closest plane to Arkk’s world. It was oversaturated with magic to the point where ritual circles would spontaneously activate. The Silence was somewhat distant, according to Vezta, and lacked a significantly increased level of ambient magic. They had unfortunately not been able to take readings of the Anvil before the portal closed on Agnete, but based on a few minor experiments that Arkk had the lesser servant perform, it had elevated magic but something was constantly draining it out of the atmosphere.

Zullie posited that whatever those mechanical beings were, they either required moderate amounts of magic to function or massive amounts to create.

The Necropolis was, again according to Vezta, the next step away from the Underworld. Magic levels within were high enough to, once again, activate ritual circles spontaneously. So they would have to be cautious regarding that.

But other than that, there wasn’t anything apparently hostile. Not in the environment, nor more tangible threats. No hordes of undead had stormed through the portal and overwhelmed the defenders. No skeletal dragons dive-bombed the portal. Not even a little undead rat.

“Are you ready?” Zullie looked at him, frowning slightly. “We performed more tests here than ever before. Everything appears safe. We even had your servants construct some minor fortifications just in case. I’m not sure why you’re dallying.”

“You aren’t sure? Did you forget what happened to Agnete?”

“An anomaly,” Zullie dismissed. “No one here is an avatar of this Laughing Prince.”

“While that’s true—”

“Fine. You don’t want to order someone through who might get stuck? I’ll do it myself.”

Zullie turned away, pushing past the line of shadow-armored orcs defending the portal. Arkk reached out, about to stop her, only to pause. For the briefest moment, in the back of his head, he thought it would be better to send someone else through. Someone less valuable. For all her eccentricity, Zullie was one of the most important people in his service. Her magical knowledge was unparalleled, by anyone, even Savren, and whatever happened between her and Xel’atriss only increased that.

Not to mention whatever ritual she had conducted that she now refused to discuss.

But just because she was valuable, did that make it right to order someone else through? She was volunteering, after all…

No. He had other options…

Just as Zullie reached the portal threshold, Arkk teleported her straight back to his side. She stumbled once then slowly looked at him with mild irritation lining her features.

“Are we going to do this all day?” she asked.

Arkk shook his head. “Just a moment,” he said. “Don’t go through. I’ll be right back.”

With that said, Arkk teleported himself out of the portal room and down into the lower levels of Fortress Al-Mir. He stood in the center of a circular room atop an elevated pedestal. The floor below him and the floor above him had been hollowed out, leaving a large, cavernous chamber. Pockets had been dug into the walls at regular intervals, all of which had been fitted with thick metal bars.

“Sir? Is there a problem?”

Arkk turned with a polite smile as his one and only dryad employee stood from her desk. Her bark-like skin was looking much better than it had after Elmshadow’s recapture, but it still bore heavy scars that Hale hadn’t been able to heal. Because of that, she had to be relocated to a safer job while she mended herself.

It even had a small skylight. A narrow tunnel to the surface that allowed some amount of light to fall on her leaves.

“Not at all, Cray. I just need one of the more cooperative prisoners.”

“Cooperative? Hm.” Cray looked around the large chamber before pointing up to the highest level. “4C and… 7A,” she said, dropping her hand to the lower level. She turned around once more, brushing a leaf out of her face in the process, before finally ending on one of the cells in the middle row. “3B. I would say those three have been the most cooperative. They’ve all helped translate commands, directions, and questions for those who don’t know our language.”

Although they weren’t employees, prisoners under his control and within his territory could be teleported just as well as anything else he held ownership over. So, with a bare thought, all three of the indicated prisoners were in front of him on the pedestal. He made sure he stood between them and the narrow bridge leading out—the only real way to access or escape from the dungeon.

All three looked somewhat thinner than soldiers should, but none looked so thin that Arkk thought they were going without meals. It was probably just the environment, the stress of the situation, and perhaps defiance toward their captors.

“I need one of you to assist me with a small task. Accomplish the task, and you will be set free. Company Al-Mir will not track you, recapture you, or harm you afterward. You’ll even be free to return to your homelands if you wish. Though, you’ll have to make your way there on your own.” He clasped his hands together behind his back and smiled at the three. “Well? Any volunteers?”

The three shifted, glancing at each other. The manacles around their wrists jingled lightly in the ensuing silence.

“How do we know you won’t kill us?” the man on the left asked. The other two shot glances at him, almost as if they were upset he had spoken up.

“You don’t,” Arkk said before giving a pointed look at the man’s chains. “But, if I wanted you dead, there isn’t much you could do about it now, is there?”

All three grumbled under their breaths at that.

The center man frowned behind his scraggly beard for a moment before looking up. “The task is dangerous?”

“It probably won’t kill you, if that is what you’re asking. There is a small chance you may end up trapped inside an environment from which you won’t be able to escape.”

“Not much different than now, is it?”

Arkk just shrugged. “I won’t say anything more about the task until one of you has accepted. There is minor danger, but also freedom. Any takers?”

He waited a long moment, making eye contact with each. When his eyes fell on the shortest of the three, the younger man spoke up.

“I… I’ll do it.”

“Very good,” Arkk said. He immediately teleported the other two back to their cells, not allowing them to put any pressure on the young man. “Keep up the good work, Cray.”

With that, he teleported himself and 4C straight back to the portal room, directly in front of the crystalline archway.

4C shirked away, all but screaming when he saw the row of shadow-armored knights.

Arkk paid him little mind, instead gesturing toward the portal. “All you must do is step through there, walk around for about fifteen minutes, then return and report anything you found, felt, or otherwise experienced. If any kind of danger presents itself, you are encouraged to return early.”

With a firm snap of his fingers, Arkk teleported the manacles off the man’s arms. The snap was unnecessary but, when acting intimidating, he felt theatrics were important.

“If you try to escape, well, I won’t stop you. But you might not like what you find out there on your own.” Arkk leaned in, using his height as an intimidating advantage. “Do you understand?”

4C swung his head back to Arkk, only to finally stare out to the portal. “W… What is this place?”

“That is a secret. All you need to know is how to walk around. You can do that, can’t you?” He gave a firm pat on 4C’s back, shoving him lightly toward the portal.

With a hesitant look over his shoulder, 4C took a step forward.

Beyond the portal, all Arkk could see of the Necropolis was the interior of a massive structure. Made from black stone, it looked like a grand cathedral. The ribbed vaults running across the ceiling certainly gave it the air of a skeleton. Green-hued glass windows let in a small bit of light, but not enough to see the full majesty of the cathedral. There was nobody around. Nothing around. No bodies, no undead, no people. Despite that, the cathedral had avoided falling to ruin as much of the Underworld had. Whether that was because of magic preserving the place, stronger construction in general, or that there were some unseen caretakers elsewhere was something Arkk hoped to find out.

The prisoner stepped onto a blackened flagstone floor. He stood there for a long moment, just on the other side. He shivered slightly but, when nothing unfortunate happened, he took a step forward. Then another. Slowly, he made his way to the oversized doors at the far end of the cathedral. With one look back at the portal, he pushed open the door and stepped through.

“You should have told him to remain in view of the portal,” Zullie said, stepping up to Arkk’s side.

Arkk just shrugged. “If he runs off, then I’ll just say we gave him his reward early.”

Zullie scoffed, folding her arms over her chest. “Freedom? In exchange for being a test subject? Using prisoners now, are we?”

“You have a problem with that?”

“Not at all. I’d like to request a few test subjects for some of my projects.”

Arkk just sighed.

Seven minutes later, the prisoner came sprinting back at full speed. Arms flailing about and legs off the ground more than they were on, he looked like a wild animal desperately fleeing from a ferocious predator. He charged straight through the portal, ran past Arkk, and collapsed on the ground in front of the line of knights guarding the room.

“H… H… Help! Undead!”

Arkk would have said that a ripple of tension ran through the assembled guards, but that would have been a lie. Everyone had been fully briefed on the nature of the realm they were opening. Expecting undead in a place under the dominion of a god of undeath that was called the Necropolis was just common sense.

Because of that, nobody was surprised. Nobody except 4C, that was.

“Get ready to shut down the portal,” Arkk said. “But keep it open for the moment.”

He wanted to see. If it was just one or two undead, his guards could handle them easily. If it was a massive horde that would fill the entire interior of the cathedral and beyond, he might have to call the expedition into the Necropolis a failure.

4C, despite his panicked flight back to the portal, had taken the time to push the cathedral doors shut. When the doors didn’t open right away, Arkk wondered if mindless undead could open doors. For a long moment, he considered sending someone else to open them back up. Or at least try to peer through the tinted windows to see how many undead were outside the cathedral.

The door silently glided open before he could give any orders. A bony hand devoid of flesh curled around the door, grasping hold of it. It pushed just a hint more before withdrawing. A moment after, a skull, held in that same hand, appeared from the gap.

Empty eye sockets stared out. Its jaw unhinged ever so slightly, almost like a regular person finding something surprising. The skull disappeared as quickly as it came and, after a brief delay, a full skeleton stepped through into the cathedral, leaning heavily on a tall walking staff. It looked around once before slowly dragging itself toward the portal.

“Shut it down?” Morvin asked.

“Wait,” Arkk said.

It was just one skeleton. No hordes. From the way it had looked around and the way it now approached, using the staff as a proper tool, Arkk had the feeling that it was a bit more intelligent than the undead he had raised. If it could talk…

If it was hostile, hopefully his army could handle a single skeleton.

The skeleton stopped at the portal’s threshold. With no flesh on its face, it was hard to tell what it was thinking, but its body language gave off an air of uncertainty. Arkk stepped forward, keeping well out of striking distance but moving enough to ensure the skeleton focused on him. Now the center of attention, Arkk gave a welcoming beckon to the skeleton.

The skeleton was somewhat wary, poking at the portal with its staff. Finding nothing wrong, it eventually dragged itself through. It stopped just on his side of the rippling portal membrane, sweeping its head around to take in the room.

“Greetings,” Arkk said, hoping he wasn’t being foolish in trying to talk to a skeleton.

His words brought the skeleton’s attention back to him. The jaw opened with a grinding noise.

Arkk wasn’t quite sure what he expected. No sound at all, perhaps, given the skeleton’s lack of a proper mouth and lungs. Maybe a quiet rasp or harsh shriek if it could make noise.

Arkk did not expect the smooth, deep voice.

“Oh? I trow I hathn’t beheld such a plentitude of flesh in… centuries?” it said with a low chuckle. “The portal hath opened once more. Thou are accountable?”

Arkk, taken aback by an actual talking skeleton and one he could mostly understand no less, didn’t give a prompt response. It took Zullie nudging him in the side to finally clear his throat and say, “Yes. Yes, I did. That isn’t a problem, is it?”

“No skin off my hide,” the skeleton said with another chuckle. He paused, looked around at the silent audience, and added, “For I hath no skin.” Although his skeletal features didn’t change in the slightest, Arkk got the impression that he would have been smiling something fierce if he could have managed it.

Arkk didn’t quite know what to say in response to that. He looked to Zullie, then to the cowering 4C, and finally to Gretchen who had her hand firmly pressed to her forehead.

“That is… good,” Arkk eventually said.

“Indeed. Yet I do marvel at how thou hast accomplished it. Our most esteemed scholars did abandon the quandary of the portals long ago. Ah! How rude of me. I am Matar, grave keeper,” the skeleton said, tapping a hand on his ribcage.

“Arkk,” Arkk said, miming the skeleton’s movements in gesturing to himself. “I managed to garner a boon from the Laughing Prince in the form of a portal keystone. That keystone opened this portal. As for how we breached the Calamity,” he said, glancing at Zullie for a brief look. “I think Xel’atriss did something to puncture it, allowing us to visit other realms. Are there… others like you over there?”

“Like I?”

“Undead? Or even living beings?”

“Ah. I am no scholar myself, merely a humble caretaker of the graveyard, yet even I am aware that no living souls have dwelt within the Necropolis for hundreds of years. Shortly after the portals did falter, ambient magic did surge, and whilst most beings remained unscathed, the same could not be said for crops and livestock.” The skeleton looked almost sad for a moment before turning his head back up to Arkk. “But all is not so sorrowful. The Smiling Crown, perceiving the future as it was, did bestow upon all within His realm His divine gift.”

“Gift meaning the Laughing Prince raised everyone from the dead?”

“Then why need a graveyard?” Zullie asked, butting into the conversation.

“A great many hath elected to slumber away the years. They require a place of repose. Mine task is considered a matter of… grave import.”

Somewhere in the background, Gretchen let out a long, withering sigh.

“Why were there living beings in the necropolis at all?” Zullie asked, completely ignoring everything else.

“Undead cannot reproduce,” Matar said. “The living are honored guests until their more permanent state of being comes around.”

“But can the living even… live there? Obviously not anymore with the crop problem but… It is a place for undead, is it not?”

“Hardly. Once upon a time, it was a paradise for all. Imagine seeking the wisdom of thine ancient ancestors in times of trial or strife, visiting with thine departed lover, knowing that pain and fear of death are merely temporary states. The living and the dead are united in the Necropolis. Or they were. No living anymore…” he said with a despondent sigh. “But if the portals are opened once more, perhaps that fate can change?”

Arkk shifted slightly, shaking his head. “We… aren’t really looking for a new place to live at the moment.”

“And there still aren’t any crops,” Zullie cut in. “So that problem hasn’t been solved.”

“We were looking for… well, anything that would help in a war, first of all, and secondly, a way to fix the Calamity—the cause of the portals failing in the first place—more permanently.”

“A war?” Matar physically shied back. “We are a peaceful people. As the saying goes, no guts, no glory,” the skeleton said, looking down at his chest.

“Ah…”

“Huh…”

“Isn’t there anything that might help? Not necessarily your people, but magical tools, equipment? Any walking fortresses that we might borrow their Hearts?”

The old skeleton tapped the bottom of his jaw, eliciting loud clacking noises with each tap. “I am uncertain of such matters. Perchance it would be prudent to confer with the Great Yoho? The supreme authority over all undead.”

“Is this Yoho nearby? Within a day’s walk?” Arkk asked.

“Oh certainly. The portal hath a ceremonious station in Necrovale, a short jaunt from the Sable Citadel.”

“And Yoho will see us on such short notice?”

“Visitors from afar? I am but a humble graveyard keeper, but I envision an event of such import has already reached the Great Yoho’s ears. I would not find myself surprised if a grand banquet were already being prepared.”

“A grand banquet?” Zullie asked, crossing her arms over her chest with a small huff. “Without livestock or crops? What food would be there?”

“Bone broth? Crypt chips?”

Zullie grimaced. “Ehh…”

“We might pass on the food,” Arkk said, “but I can happily agree to a meeting with your leader. First, however,” Arkk half turned and pointed at the prisoner. “Franna, get 4C over to Savren. He isn’t to remember anything about his time with us. After that, give him a sack of food, a coat and shoes, and get him out of my fortress. Morvin, you are in charge of keeping the portal operational. Any problems, tug on the link immediately. Dakka, you’ll be with me and Zullie along with five others of your choice.”

Orders given, the silent room quickly erupted into a flurry of activity. Arkk looked back to the skeleton before him, but paused, flicking his mental image over to Ilya, who was still in her chambers.

He pursed his lips into a frown. “There are a few more preparations we need to make,” he said, ignoring the questioning look from Zullie. “I’d like to offer you some hospitality, but…”

“Quite alright. I shall grin and bear the wait.”

 

 

“Task list,” Arkk said, closing his eyes.

Ilya let out a small sigh. “Enemy army.”

“Securing an outpost west of Elmshadow,” Arkk said, using his clairvoyance to spy over Luthor’s shoulder as the chameleon beastman worked his crystal ball. “No sign of forward movement just yet beyond small scouting detachments. Fog is obscuring our scrying but what we can see implies some larger-scale construction project. Lexa volunteered for scouting, scouting hasn’t taken place yet. Next!”

“Shadow armor production,” Ilya said as she moved her finger down a small tablet of paper.

“Slowed because of the alterations to which portals go where but we should be able to equip every orc in my employ within two weeks.” Arkk scanned through his employees, unable to see outside Fortress Al-Mir or the area around the Walking Fortresses. He wanted to keep the highlands portal staffed with charged glowstones, ready in case Agnete found a way back—though it still wasn’t looking like she was actively trying to return, her focus was on construction projects over in the Anvil. Even still, he was somewhat impressed with their efficiency. “Maybe earlier. Next.”

Ilya hesitated as she stared at the next item on the list. “It says walking armor things?”

That one referred to the walking suits of armor the size of small carriages that Arkk had recovered from the orc homelands in the Underworld. Each was bulky and large with space inside for a single occupant. The shadow scythes could cut through them, but that was about it. Conventional arms and even most magics just dented the metal, if that. Some of the less traditionally capable members of Company Al-Mir volunteered to train inside them, allowing them to contribute to a fight without being dead weight. Or just regular dead.

“Ten have been produced. They require glowstones or capable spellcasters to power them, so more would be a waste. Unfortunately, there is something wrong mechanically with them that results in one leg locking up. Perr’ok is working on it. I do need to think of a better name but that isn’t a priority. Next!”

“The King’s army.”

“Happily sequestered away in the northern Elm mountain,” Arkk said as he skimmed his perspective through the corridors dug into its side. Like the rest of Elmshadow, it was under his control, allowing him to see the soldiers despite them not being under his control. Now two days after their arrival, most soldiers were still enjoying the reprieve from the long march, but even without being able to hear through his observations, he could see discontent among their ranks. Especially those in more elevated positions. “Happily is a loaded word, but they are currently irrelevant. Next.”

“Leda’s tower.”

“In motion,” Arkk said, quickly shifting his perspective to the darkened tower. Her tower was significantly more shadowy than Arkk’s was, presumably because Leda wasn’t directly contracted to Fortress Al-Mir.

Unfortunately, though he could see it moving, he couldn’t tell much of where it was just from a narrow top-down view of the walking building. He would have to use one of the crystal balls to scry on it. However, unless her tower was significantly faster than Arkk’s—or slower—they estimated it would arrive at a staging point south of Moonshine Burg in about nine days.

“Leda still doesn’t seem like she has gotten the hang of using it. She needs Priscilla at her side almost constantly.”

Ilya cocked an eyebrow. “Should we be worried about the dragonoid who hates every other species having excessive influence over the operation of one of our greatest assets?”

“Maybe a little,” Arkk admitted. He shook his head with a small sigh. “Unless I wanted to kill Leda to end her contract—which is not something I would ever want—I don’t have a good solution for that. Priscilla, for better or worse, is experienced in operating these things. It can’t be helped for now. Next?”

“Next is Savren’s proj… Wait. What is this one? Gleeful Burg?”

Arkk opened his eyes, frowning at Ilya. She had a finger pressed against the list, frowning with narrowed eyes. “That wasn’t the next one,” Arkk said, tense. “Savren’s project is—”

“There isn’t anything left of Gleeful Burg,” Ilya interrupted. She planted a hand on her hip as she looked down at Arkk. “What project is going on there? I don’t remember any meeting about it. Not since we destroyed it…”

Arkk stood up from the command chair at the top of the Elmshadow tower. Nothing about Gleeful Burg should have been on this checklist. Yet, as he walked around behind Ilya and leaned over her shoulder, it was right there.

Who put that there? Rekk’ar? Zullie? Vezta? They were about the only three who knew about what Arkk was doing there. At least of the people who would have compiled the list.

“I… I’m not exactly sure how to answer that,” Arkk said slowly. He considered denying it outright. It wouldn’t be hard to claim that Gleeful’s presence on the list must have been a mistake. But…

He wasn’t going to be able to hide it forever.

“You know—”

“And barrows excavation?” Ilya turned, narrowing her silver eyes in suspicion. “What barrows?

“Why is that on the list?” Arkk asked as he scanned down a few items.

“That’s what I’m asking you. Do you not know what’s going on in your organization?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean… I just don’t know why it is on the list…”

“Arkk,” Ilya said in that tone of voice. “Why are you excavating a barrow? Is there some long-lost magical artifact?”

“I wish,” Arkk grumbled to himself as he ran his hand through his hair. It was getting to the point where he needed it trimmed once again. Of course, just thought that was a way for him to try to think of anything else to talk about. Or maybe a way to delay while he tried to think of what to say.

“The barrows I’m excavating are the same ones we collapsed on the orcs way back when. Not some random one.”

“I feel like we disturbed that place enough…”

“Yes, well,” Arkk started, walking a few steps away. He didn’t exactly want to be in punching distance. “I am trying to be careful, but I realized we buried almost two hundred goblins inside…”

“What? What would you want with…”

Arkk carefully watched the expression on Ilya’s face. He could see the confusion at his explanation stop as the moment of realization hit. The surprise turned to an angry set of narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “Are you… dabbling in more necromancy?”

“There are two hundred goblins out there doing nothing but feeding worms,” Arkk said with a small sigh. “They could be standing between an enemy’s sword and my living men.”

“Who put you up to this?” Ilya said through thin lips. “Was it Vezta? Or Zullie? I bet Zullie—”

“Do you want to see our friends and allies die, Ilya? I have a responsibility to nearly a thousand people to do my best to keep them alive. Why shouldn’t I use a bunch of dead goblins to help keep them that way?”

Ilya’s teeth snapped together with an audible clack. “And Gleeful?” she asked. “The only thing I can think of that you might be interested in there is more bodies.”

Arkk slowly nodded his head. “That’s right. There are more bodies to put between the enemy and my men. I can’t think of a reason why I would draw the line at goblins. And, for the record, I also have a team scouring Darkwood Forest for anything useful, whether that be dead bodies, living ghasts, or any other being that might join up with us. I don’t know how much is left after Agnete burned her way through that fortress, but I’ll take everything I can get if it means even one soldier gets to come back.”

Ilya planted her hands on the table, leaning against it for a long moment. She closed her silver eyes and simply breathed through her nose, slowly and steadily. Arkk remained where he was, tense and still, almost afraid to disturb her thoughts even as the minutes ran on.

Slowly, she pushed herself up. She kept her eyes closed for a long moment before she opened them. They were a bit hazy with a moist layer of tears. Without a word, Ilya stepped around the table, approaching Arkk.

He winced back, fully expecting a fist to the face. Yet he didn’t move. He remained where he was. He would accept a beating if it meant keeping his employees alive.

But Ilya didn’t lash out. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him toward her to the point where he had to lean his weight against her chest. Her lithe fingers ran up and down his back, just holding him.

“You must have been so stressed,” she whispered. Her breath tickled his ear.

Of all the things Arkk expected, that was not one of them. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just remained silent as she kept rubbing his back. After a long minute of silence, he eventually responded. “Not as stressed anymore,” he murmured.

Ilya pulled back and gave him a reproachful look. “Arkk…”

“Of course, I’ve thought that there must be better ways,” he said, closing his eyes as he rested his head against her arm. “Of course, I’ve found better ways. All the magical armor, the research Savren and Zullie have been doing, potential gains from other planes… all of it. But why not use those and a few skeletons? How can I forgive myself if I knew someone ended up feeding worms when someone already feeding worms could have protected them.”

“Please don’t say ‘feeding worms’ again,” Ilya said.

Arkk let out a small, sardonic chuckle.

“Can I talk you out of this?”

Arkk shook his head slowly. “I doubt it. You’d have to have something awfully convincing. Something worth several lives.”

Ilya drew in a hesitant, shaky breath. For a moment, Arkk thought she was going to try to say something anyway, but she eventually let that breath back out in a sorry, defeated sigh. “Alright. Then I have to help you use this… crime against life and death in the wisest way possible.”

“Really?” Arkk tried to pull away from Ilya only for her to keep her arms clamped around him. “You’re alright with it?”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Obviously not. But if it has to be done, then I have to be the level-headed one who helps mitigate problems. Problems like Sylvara, first and foremost. Does she know?”

“No.”

“And if you’re going to take everything you can to save lives, why shunt the King’s army off to the side?”

“It’s a numbers game. I hate myself for making this decision since it will probably cause more deaths, but if they do stab us in the back, it will kill a whole lot more. If a full war breaks out with the Kingdom, it will kill a whole lot more. So, I have to keep them away while keeping them observing, letting them see us crush Evestani despite our small numbers so that the thought of fighting against us would be a worse choice than desertion if the King orders them against us.”

Ilya let out another sigh. “I… I need a few minutes. Can you send me to my quarters?”

“Of cour—”

“Without looking at my face.”

Arkk hesitated. There was an almost instinctual reach for his employee link with Ilya. He barely managed to keep himself from looking. “Sure,” he said.

She gave him a slight squeeze and then she was gone.

Arkk stood alone in the tower’s command center. He spent a moment collecting himself. There were things to do. Things to check on. He couldn’t just sit around and think about himself or Ilya for any length of time. He had to walk around to the other side of the table, pick up the paper that Ilya left behind, and scan it over himself.

He wanted someone else present to act as a sounding board for various ideas, the status of projects, and assumptions of what the enemy might be doing. However, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyone else for the time being. So he simply sat down and ran his finger down the list until he got to where they had left off.

Arkk’s eyes ran over the words, but they didn’t quite make it to his mind. His thoughts were preoccupied with Ilya.

She decided to help him, right? That wasn’t his imagination? Arkk expected her to storm out, even up and leave Company Al-Mir altogether. At the very least, he had thought there would be more shouting. She was mad and upset, of that there was no doubt, but…

Closing his eyes, Arkk let out a long sigh. He should have trusted her earlier. Ilya was his closest friend. The one who had been with him since the start. Not just the start of his contract with Fortress Al-Mir, but the start of his life. Some of his earliest memories were of Ilya.

It felt like he had tarnished some of those memories by sneaking around behind her back all this while when he could have come forward.

Arkk dragged his fingers through his hair, sweeping it back over his head. He didn’t have time for this. He had preparations to make and…

And Zullie was calling for him. He could feel the tug over the link. It wasn’t an urgent tug, but it likely meant she had finished her task.

His eyes skipped down to the very last item on the list, Zullie’s keystone reconfiguration efforts.

Well, it was part of the list. If this proved as… useful as he hoped, the rest of the list could very well wait. He might have all the time in the world to go through it. Or it might not be necessary in the first place.

Arkk teleported himself across Fortress Al-Mir, reappearing in the portal chamber, near the back so he didn’t startle the assembled guards. A buzz of activity surrounded the portal frame. Zullie along with her research team and assistants, were swiftly modifying the crystalline structure to fit the keystone Arkk had received from the Laughing Prince.

“Is everyone out of the Underworld?” Arkk asked, already doing a mental scan on all of his employees to ensure nobody had been left behind.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zullie said from her spot perched on the top of the crystal archway. “Perr’ok wanted to stay to keep working on that shadow armor. Said he didn’t care that the portal would be down; said there was enough food and provisions to last until we got it connected again.”

Arkk immediately focused on Perr’ok, half fearing that the orc blacksmith was still in the Underworld, only to find him in one of the adjacent chambers in the fortress, fast asleep in a position that didn’t look particularly comfortable.

“Knocked him out with a spell and dragged him back,” Zullie finished.

“Thanks. I know we’ve disconnected and reconnected it several times but I still don’t want anyone getting trapped over there.” Arkk paused, then added, “Besides, he still has those walkers to fix.”

“Useless waste of time to force everyone back if you ask me. I say let him stay. If it worked ten times, it will work a thousand times.”

“Until the one time it doesn’t work. Then we’re screwed.”

Zullie hummed but, with a flourish of magic from her fingertips, the keystone slid into place and fused to the surrounding crystal. Giving it a firm nudge to ensure it was fully secured, Zullie smiled and nodded. She then stood, muttered an incantation under her breath, and then stepped forward, only to drift down to the floor slowly and safely.

Without even the slightest hesitation, Zullie turned and walked straight toward Arkk. All despite her lack of eyes behind her rectangular glasses. The accuracy with which she stopped in front of him and avoided her assistants made him wonder if she had performed another ritual on herself to better maintain awareness of her surroundings. More than that…

“How long have you been able to do that?” Arkk asked.

“What? The featherlight spell? I think I showed you the ritual version of it a long time ago, so not sure why it is surprising you now.”

“No,” Arkk said. “You used magic up there without an incantation.”

“Pretty sure I spoke the words for the featherlight—”

“Not that, before that. When you were affixing the keystone to the archway.”

Zullie frowned, turning away from Arkk to look up toward the arch. “I used an incantation… didn’t I? I think I did.”

“What were the words?”

“I… Well… Hmm…” She frowned to herself for a moment before shrugging. “The portal is ready to activate.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. “You’re shrugging it off? Just like that? Who are you and where is the inquisitive, magic-obsessed Zullie that I know?” he asked, only half joking.

Zullie looked at him. For a brief instant, he almost imagined a spark of confusion in her eyes. Except… she didn’t have eyes. “Sorry? I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

The mild curiosity Arkk had over the situation shifted to full-on alarm with that response. Which only doubled over as Zullie turned back to the portal and continued talking.

“Since we’re in Fortress Al-Mir instead of the highlands, we won’t be time-limited to only a few minutes. However… like with the Silence, I’m somewhat wary about spending extended periods inside a place called the Necropolis.”

“Zullie,” Arkk said, tone firm. “Did you do something to yourself again? Another Xel’atriss ritual?”

Zullie winced. “Maybe,” she mumbled. “It’s nothing to worry about. We have an avatar to slay and a war to end. Aren’t those more important?”

“More important than my employees being in trouble?”

“I’m not in trouble. I’m feeling better than ever.”

“But—”

Zullie cupped her hands to her mouth. “Activate the portal,” she called out.

Arkk didn’t even get a chance to protest before Morvin and Gretchen planted their hands next to the portal’s frame. A silvery liquid-like surface spread through the empty archway. After a series of rippling, a brand new world shimmered into view.

A world of living dead.

 

 

“So, what exactly is the plan here?”

“We tell the army that their services are no longer required.”

“And forgive me if I’m nagging, but could you remind me once again why we are sending away an army right before a battle in which we’re heavily outnumbered?”

Arkk pressed his lips into a tight frown as he looked at Kia. Despite the dark elf’s unsteady state, her tongue was as sharp as ever. “Is it really that bad of an idea?”

Drawing in a short breath, Kia rubbed at her forehead with several afterimages of her hands. “Let me answer your question with a question of my own. What did your circle of advisors have to say about this plan when you sat them down for one of your regular meetings?”

“I…”

“Didn’t have one of those meetings?” Kia scoffed. “Yeah, I could tell.”

Arkk looked out. He, along with Kia and Claire, stood on the rebuilt eastern wall of Elmshadow, watching the King’s army approach. At this distance, the army was just a meandering mass in the valley. Nothing distinct about any part of them, save for the obvious line of supply carts. About halfway between the army and Elmshadow’s wall, riding right along the river, a small group of far more distinct horses was riding ahead of the main group.

“There isn’t exactly time for a meeting,” Arkk said. “Those riders will be here in twenty minutes. Thirty if they decide to slow their pace. The rest of the army will be here mid-to-late afternoon.”

Kia narrowed her eyes. She lifted a spyglass and peered through it. “And you think one of those riders—or someone else in that army—is a demon? That’s why you want to reject them all?”

“I have Edvin, Katja, Inquisitrix Lui, and a handful of others keeping an eye on the Prince at Cliff. There has been no sign that he has summoned a demon.”

“Then what?”

Arkk shrugged. “I don’t know. I was told to watch my back around this army, that something in its ranks isn’t what it seems, and that they aren’t necessarily here to aid us. Worse, I don’t trust the source of this information.”

“Why not accept them? If the source isn’t trustworthy, aren’t they just trying to weaken us?”

“It is a possibility, but it feels—”

“Why not…” Claire started, speaking up for the first time since arriving at the wall. She trailed off, however, looking uncertain of herself. Slowly, a smile spread across her face. “Let’s just find the one who isn’t what they seem and peel them apart. Then you can use the rest of the army all you want.”

“Good point,” Kia said. “If the problem is only one of them, just kill whoever it is. Easy solution.”

“If we can find that person. And that still doesn’t solve the problem of the army as a whole stabbing us in the back. If the Prince gave them orders to do so, it wouldn’t matter who we take out, whether that be leaders, field commanders, or some individual member of the rank and file. Killing someone well-liked by the rest of the army might only inflame their anger with us.” Arkk let out a breath, closing his eyes. “Which is why I want to go with this plan. Send them off somewhere that they won’t be able to attack us easily but close enough to let them watch what happens to our enemies. As long as we are perceived as a slightly above-average free company, we are an opponent that can be fought. But shift that status to that of an overwhelming force that cannot be stopped…”

“And no army would fight against you,” Kia finished, nodding her head. With a laugh and a small shrug, she looked up to Arkk. “All well and good, if you can pull it off. That fact that you’re entertaining our ideas means you aren’t sure if you can.”

Arkk shifted, moving in mild discomfort. Kia and Claire were two of the very few who knew about the final delay tactic Arkk had implemented against Evestani, so he felt he could tell them some of his plans.

“I currently have a team of servants excavating Gleeful Burg,” he admitted. “Along with a few other sites where battles took place between Evestani and the Duke’s Grand Guard, various free companies, and even a few destroyed villages and towns. The undead were extremely effective against Evestani. A normal necromancer can raise a hundred undead if they’re particularly powerful. Me?” Arkk chuckled. “I can raise them all.

“It isn’t just that. Zullie is working to gain safe access to the Festival, the plane overseen by the god of undeath, the Laughing Prince. I don’t know if it will be in time, or if there will be anything useful there, but the Silence gave us our weapon against the avatar and the Underworld increased our might tenfold, so it stands to reason that another realm might just boost our combat ability even more.

“Then there are all those obstacles we threw at Evestani. A lot of them didn’t work. That was fine. We learned what did and didn’t work. Zullie, Savren, and everyone else involved worked hard to modify their plans and work on better countermeasures.

“I am nervous. I won’t lie. But I think we can destroy Evestani and the Eternal Empire.”

Claire shuddered. The soft-spoken dark elf looked at him with a wide grin. “Talk a little more like that and I might admit envy toward your elf.”

Arkk didn’t even get a chance to say how much that horrified him before an afterimage of Kia’s elbow slammed into Claire’s ribs. Or it would have were it not for a hazy ghost of Claire’s hands blocking the attack. Two more left elbows shimmered through the air at the same time, only for Claire to split her hands into four separate copies, each lifting to block the elbow strikes. A fifth hand split off from the rest, reaching over to poke Kia between her ribs and her hips.

The ghostly manifestations of the two warped back into their bodies. Neither had actually moved. That didn’t stop Kia from clutching her side with a light yelp as Claire put on a victorious smirk.

“I’ve been at this much longer than you, dear,” Claire said, speaking in a sing-song voice. “Remember that before picking a fight.”

“You better remember that you’re mine. All the experience in the worlds isn’t going to save you if you try to ditch me for the commander.”

“Ditch you? Never… But if Arkk keeps sweet-talking me like that, I might invite him along with us—”

Arkk cleared his throat, loudly and obviously. Awkwardly as well. The way they both turned to him with a grin did little to set him at ease. It was almost like they plotted out their little fight specifically to put on a show. Which, given what he knew of the two of them, wasn’t all that far-fetched.

Why, oh why had he not listened to Rekk’ar when the orc said that giving these two more power was a bad idea?

“Talking is well and good,” Arkk said, shifting a step away from the two dark elves, “but why don’t we see if I can pull this off before we start… uh… anything.”

“So you’re saying we should wait until after the war?” Kia asked without a trace of animosity in her voice. “Claire?”

“I think that’s waiting too—”

“Oh look,” Arkk said, pointing vaguely. “The horses must have picked up the pace. They’re almost here. Better go greet them.”

“And kill them?” Kia asked.

Arkk hesitated, then slowly nodded his head. “If we can figure out which isn’t what they seem,” he said, glad to be on the much more comfortable topic of assassination compared to… whatever Kia and Claire wanted with him in private. “Though, preferably, we make it look like an accident. Too soon or too obvious and we’ll end up sieged on both sides of the burg.”

“What’s wrong?” Kia asked. “Can’t handle two sides?”

“This is the kind of talk I expect from Lexa,” Arkk said with a frown, “not the two of you. Are you alright?”

The two looked at each other. Icy blue eyes locked onto dark brown. They both nodded their heads, turned to Arkk, and said in unison, “Fine.” “Fine.”

“Just try to act normal, then.”

“Sure.” “Okay.”

Arkk slowly shook his head, reconsidering whether bringing these two to something akin to a diplomatic meeting was really his best idea.

“Magatherion Goth, at your service,” the portly man said with a shallow bow. “Feel free to call me Mags.”

The man before Arkk looked like someone fresh out of one of the old Duke’s parties. Despite having traveled across half of Mystakeen, he wore an immaculate and extravagant costume, covered in dangling medals, colored strands of braided rope, and a hemming that made his wide figure look almost majestic. The honor guard accompanying him was equally resplendent, with armor that looked freshly painted in the blues and yellows of Chernlock, representing the sun high in a cloudless sky. Two of them carried large and unwieldy banners, holding them high over the rest of the quintet.

Arkk stood along with Kia and Claire. He had considered bringing along several others, meeting the newcomers with a full retinue. However, having seen the small number of individuals in the forward group, Arkk decided to meet with them with a smaller number. Just to make sure they didn’t feel threatened. He didn’t want to spark conflict if he could avoid it.

The two groups met in the rebuilt gatehouse. Much like Fortress Al-Mir and his walking tower, it had been rebuilt with reinforced stone tiles that bore a faint maze-like pattern embedded on their surface. Every so often, violet glowstones dotted the tiles. All the land in and around Elmshadow was under his full control. Buried tunnels, the small size of a compressed lesser servant, wove throughout the burg to ensure that the tower remained in contact with the rest of the land no matter what kind of destruction the surface ended up facing.

“Greetings,” Arkk said slowly, returning his focus to the central figure. “Arkk. Commander of Company Al-Mir. These are two of my aides, Kia and Claire.”

They were doing a remarkable job of holding in their afterimages. It helped that they weren’t moving, even after being introduced, but the faint shimmering glow that surrounded them was barely visible and he knew what to look for. Neither Mags nor his retinue made any show of noticing.

Mags, however, did curl a lip in a slight sneer. “Dark elves,” he said in a tone of voice that Arkk didn’t find agreeable.

“Is there a problem?”

Mags quickly smiled. “Of course not,” he said after a moment of hesitance.

Arkk pursed his lips but refrained from saying anything. Two minutes after meeting the man and Arkk already didn’t like him. “You are the commander of the King’s army, correct?” he asked, holding out a slight hope that this Mags wasn’t in charge.

“I am but a humble seneschal to my lord, the Prince Cedric Valorian Lafoar. My lord has granted me charge of this army to see to the defeat of the barbarians that encroach upon our territory.”

Arkk held in his sigh. “I see,” he said. “I appreciate that you’ve come all this way to aid—”

“Think nothing of it, my lad,” Mags said with a wide smile. “Anything for a fellow countryman. And the country, of course.”

“Of course,” Arkk slowly repeated. “However, the services of you and your men are no longer required.”

The wide smile on the portly man’s face remained in place for a moment too long. It slowly shrank down until his trim beard and mustache obscured his lips entirely. “Excuse me?” he finally said. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

“We have been observing and, in some cases, prodding the Evestani army as they made their way back across the land. In doing so, we have discovered their increased aptitude for destructive magics. Especially those brought by their new allies, the Eternal Empire.” Arkk shook his head slowly. “In light of this, we have reevaluated the situation. A conventional army such as yours will only be a hindrance in a battle. Or, more accurately, your army will be dead within minutes of engaging.

“So you see, your aid is not going to be… well, aid.”

“Then what is your plan? Retreat? Fall back from the greatest bastion we have in this territory outside Cliff itself?” Mags asked. A bit of red color flushed through his cheeks. “You can’t possibly expect Prince Cedric’s men to spend weeks marching here only to march back.”

“We are not retreating,” Arkk said, keeping his voice firm and full of conviction. “We will handle Evestani. As for your men, we have procured and converted old mining tunnels in the mountains for lodging. We have enough food and beds for every man. You are welcome to stay until you receive new orders.”

“Latest reports put the Evestani army at ten thousand and then another seven to eight thousand Eternal Empire soldiers with them. Your force, unless the reports were grossly inaccurate, numbered less than a thousand. I don’t care what kind of magic you’ve got, the disparity in manpower alone is enough to lose this battle.”

“That’s where we’ll have to disagree.”

“You—”

“If you truly wish to get your men killed, order them to fall on their own swords. I’m sure it will be a kinder death than what awaits them if they try to fight.”

The red in Mags’ face was swiftly turning to a purple hue, darkening as the man clenched his fists. The slight tremble in his arms stopped abruptly. A smile crossed his face. “It seems my lord was most wise. I have been granted authority to act as I see fit to ensure the security of the Greater Kingdom. I will be taking command of Elmshadow’s defense. You may serve me, you may flee, but interfere and you will be charged with high treason. Turn your tower, your magics, and your men over to me. Immediately.”

Arkk slowly crossed his arms, shaking his head. As he did so, he glanced at Kia and Claire. They both had smiles on. Far too wide of smiles.

He let out a small sigh.

“I urge you to reconsider. For your men’s sake.”

“My men are well and prepared to die for the country’s sake if that is what it takes to see these intruders repelled.”

“Is that true,” Arkk asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over the four soldiers that stood with Mags. “These four are well trained, I presume?”

“The best,” Mags confirmed.

“Really?” Arkk half turned. As he did so, he teleported Dakka into one of the gatehouse’s side rooms. “Dakka,” he called out.

The orc pushed through a door, fully armored. Kia and Claire were here just in case there was something surprising amid this group, but they weren’t the only ones he had prepared. Dakka’s full squad was ready and waiting to be teleported anywhere at a moment’s notice. As were gorgon, battlecasters, and Lexa.

“This is my lead field commander. An orc,” Arkk said, smiling a little as the soldiers fought to keep their footing. In her shadowy black armor and spiked helm, carrying that black scythe, Dakka looked like a monster from old legends. “All four of your best men against her. If you manage to scratch her and draw blood, I’ll believe your army can contribute to this fight.”

Mags seemed to pull over the challenge for a moment, glaring at Dakka. “And if we win?”

“I’ll capitulate. You lead the defense. I’ll follow without complaint and ensure that my men do as well.”

Mags showed off his teeth. It wasn’t exactly a smile. More like the expression a feral animal might use to frighten off a bigger predator. “You won’t cry when we kill the demi.”

Arkk scoffed. “Dakka, you aren’t allowed to kill them. In fact, you can’t hurt them more than what Hale can fix.”

Though her face was hidden behind her helmet, Arkk could sense her amusement in her posture. “What, you want me to hand over my weapon too?”

“Actually? Yes,” Arkk said, holding out his hand. “Might as well give them a sporting chance, huh?”

“Ugh. Me and my big mouth…”

Despite her commentary, Dakka whipped her hand to the side, dropping off the haft in Arkk’s waiting hand. Unlike Dakka, the soldiers of the King’s army wore their visors lifted, letting Arkk see the growing confidence in their faces now that Dakka lacked her scythe.

“Now, shall we take this outside?”

“Don’t forget the terms of this contract,” Mags said, looking absolutely gleeful. He even rubbed his hands together like this was already decided in his favor. “You’ll bow to me when this is over.”

 

 

“They’re here.”

Arkk looked up from the library desk to find Ilya standing at the door. For a long moment, he just stared, smiling softly at the tall elf. Until Ilya cocked an eyebrow in the way she did when mildly irritated.

“Sorry,” Arkk said, clearing his throat. “I’ll head over in a minute. Just finishing things up here.”

Ilya didn’t turn to leave. Hands on her hips, she stepped closer, all but glaring around the room. She narrowed her eyes at Zullie, not that the blind witch could tell, then turned a deep scowl on the other person present. Or, rather, other thing present.

With a grimace, Arkk wrapped an arm around Ilya’s waist and tried to lead her toward the exit. “Actually, let’s head over now. Wouldn’t want to keep the King’s army wai—”

“Arkk,” Ilya said, her voice harsh and firm. Her feet remained firmly planted on the floor despite Arkk’s efforts. “Why is there a skeleton in the library?”

“Uh… That’s… Well, it’s like…”

“My fault,” Zullie said, casual and unbothered. “I required a test subject for an experiment that wasn’t likely survivable. We figured the dead wouldn’t mind.”

Silver eyes glared at Zullie, then glared at Arkk. “The horse was bad enough. And what’s that it has in its hands,” she said, peering down at the orange-yellow crystalline block it held. “Part of the portal archway?”

“A keystone,” Zullie said. “A new one. It will potentially allow us access to the domain of the Laughing Prince—a place Vezta called the Forlorn Festival or the Necropolis—though at the moment, we’re trying to decide on a way to scry on other planes without actually visiting them first. We don’t want a repeat of what happened to Agnete.”

At the mention of the purifier, Ilya’s anger diminished. She looked to Zullie with her lips pressed in a thin line, then to Arkk. Eventually, she looked over at the skeleton. “Fine,” she said, finally turning away from the library. Stopping at the door, she looked back. “That army is closing in. They’ll be here sometime today. Harvey spotted riders breaking away, heading toward Elmshadow. If you want to be there to greet them in person, better get over there soon.”

“I will. I’ll—”

Arkk didn’t get to finish before Ilya stalked out of the library. The doors in Fortress Al-Mir opened and closed automatically for his employees. She still somehow managed to slam it. He cringed at the noise but sighed in relief. She was mad. But not mad mad.

“Good thing she didn’t find out you had a whole army of skeletons.”

“Shush,” Arkk said, shooting a glare at the witch. There was no heat in his eyes, however. “Thanks for taking the blame.”

Zullie shrugged. “I don’t care if she’s upset with me. I work for you, not her.”

“Still,” Arkk said, retaking his seat at the desk. “About the project… Do you think it is feasible?”

“If we had one more portal structure, one we could dismantle for the crystalline material, we might be able to figure out how to make keystones for all the planes based on the examples we have. But we don’t have one. Not unless you’re willing to take apart the highlands portal.”

“No. If we could relocate the entire thing, that would be for the best. But not to use as parts. I want it ready to connect to the Anvil at any moment. Our portal will be used for the Underworld, Silence, Necropolis, or any other plane we gain access to. We can reevaluate which portals go where after Agnete is back. Not before.”

Zullie sighed but nodded her head, knowing Arkk wasn’t going to budge on that. “Is Agnete even… I mean, how is she doing over there?”

“She’s still alive,” Arkk said with a frown. Closing his eyes, he focused on Agnete. “They seem to have put her to work. She’s been building a whole variety of things, every day, all day long.”

“Slave labor?”

“I don’t think so. If anything, I would say that she is quite happy and willing.”

“Does she even want to come back?”

That was a question that Arkk didn’t have the answer to. The only thing he could say was that, “She’s over there because of me, so I’ve got to leave a way back for her no matter what.”

Zullie hummed. “It’s a shame neither of the walking fortresses in the Underworld had archways. Having our portal connected to realms other than the Underworld is causing delays in revitalizing glowstones for siege and ritual magics.”

“I know. If you have a better solution, I’m all ears.”

“Actually… Now that you brought it up…”

Arkk wasn’t exactly sure why, but he felt a sudden weight. Like he had just stepped in a bog. “Is this more Xel’atriss magic?”

“Maybe.”

“You’ve been somewhat hit or miss lately. Mostly miss. Did you finish outfitting the soldiers stationed at Leda’s tower?”

“Ugh. Those were hardly worth the effort. They’re weaker than Kia and Claire, weaker even than the shadow armor. It’s because they can’t see the reality layers like Kia and Claire can. Should have just put Leda’s soldiers through Project Liminal.”

“Not everyone wants to be permanently splintered across infinite versions of reality,” Arkk said, wondering if anyone had ever said something like that before. He doubted it. “Their gear will let them do what they need to do. Once we neutralize the avatar…”

“In any case, yes, I finished,” she said with a begrudging look on her face. Zullie quickly perked up, dragging out a notebook from somewhere else in the library. “And this new project is nothing like those failures we suffered while trying to deal with Evestani’s army. You recall the planar magic in the Duke’s ballroom?”

“He stole the light from—”

“The realm of the Holy Light, I believe.”

“Yes, I recall,” Arkk said, looking down at the open page. He wasn’t quite sure how Zullie found the page with her lack of eyes, but he figured he was looking at the right thing.

Crystalline Infusion Nexus was scrawled across the top of the page. An elegantly drawn device, roughly half the size of a person based on the comparison sketch. At its core, a series of intricate, interlocking crystalline conduits formed a lattice that, according to a descriptive scrawl, would pulse with vibrant colors, drawing raw magic from alternate planes of existence. Mostly the Underworld. Uncharged glowstones would go into the central chamber where they would be bathed in a steady stream of magic.

A way to charge glowstone crystals here, instead of having to cart them back and forth to the Underworld.

There was one small problem. “It says most of the device is made out of the portal structure.”

“Which is why we need to locate another one,” Zullie said. “Maybe shave off some of the crystalline material—I doubt they need to be as thick as they are. Or dismantle one of the ones we have access to. Could I propose sending Priscilla, and perhaps a few other fliers, through to the orc homelands? They’ll then break apart that portal and carry the pieces back through the regular Underworld portal. It’ll even be much faster than the initial expedition because we can send them straight there.”

“Then both Agnete and Priscilla are out of commission. My two best options for actually getting the Binding Agent in contact with the avatar.”

“Bah,” Zullie said, scoffing with a dismissive wave of her hand. “My dark elves are just as good as any dragonoid or purifier. Better, even. If we could get more volunteers for Project Liminal—”

“Stop, stop. We’ve cycled through these discussion points a dozen times. I’ll think about it, but it might not be until after the avatar is dealt with.”

“By then, we probably won’t need the Infusion Nexus.”

Arkk wasn’t so sure about that. Not if what the Holy Light’s avatar had to say had any truth to it. He still didn’t trust a word of it, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t listened.

Standing, Arkk said, “Keep up with your other projects for now. And find out if the Necropolis can actually help us, and whether it is worth visiting. I’ve got an army to meet.”

“Fine, fine,” Zullie said, slumping back in her chair just as Arkk teleported out of the room.

He went straight to the ritual chamber, went through the hops, and emerged at Elmshadow’s currently stationary Walking Fortress. Another teleport and he found himself at the highest point of Al-Lavik. The roof.

He looked out to the east, easily spotting the columns of the approaching army. They weren’t far off at all now.

A certain tension welled in the pit of his stomach. Just seeing them approach like that. If what the Holy Light’s avatar said was true…

And here he was, about to invite them straight to the heart of his secondary base of operations.

Who to trust? Who to believe? Everyone had an angle that they were going for, their own plots and plans. The Holy Light’s avatar said that he was doing her a favor and she simply wanted to repay that debt, but that sounded like a steaming cowpie to Arkk. Not only would she not say what that favor was but the information she had given him wasn’t all that helpful.

Then she said she wanted Agnete back. Arkk was fairly sure she didn’t mean from the Anvil, if she even knew Agnete was there, but back in the chains of the Inquisition.

Prince Cedric was aiming for total subjugation of all factions in Mystakeen. He was being more cautious than during the Vaales rebellion, but that was only because of the relative strengths of his opponents. Namely Arkk and Evestani. Both were factions far beyond the rebelling nobles in Vaales. Behind his serious demeanor and firm handshakes, he was plotting Arkk’s demise.

That was the warning. An… addendum to the prophecy of the oracles that Sylvara and Inquisitrix Lui had delivered.

Arkk narrowed his eyes at the columns of soldiers. They were here as allies today. They weren’t in any kind of battle formation, nor did they haul siege equipment and magics. He had already fully investigated every cart they had through scrying. They weren’t here to fight.

Not today. But tomorrow? The day after?

Rekk’ar’s words drifted through the back of Arkk’s mind. It would be easy to maneuver them into a position where they would suffer great losses against Evestani. With this army out of the way, he could easily lay claim to the entirety of Mystakeen. Possibly Vaales too, if he wanted. Leda’s tower would move and that would free up his Walking Fortress for relocation to wherever it might be needed to ensure his dominion…

All it would take was sending ten thousand soldiers to their deaths.

Arkk closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh.

They were just people. Regular people. They didn’t have the power to slice through reality or bend shadows to their whims. They didn’t have the backing of a god’s avatar nor fanciful flying ships as reinforcements. They had marched and marched and marched. They were exhausted and tired and still had battles to fight. They probably didn’t even know what kind of game they had gotten caught up in.

What then? Should he put some thought into having the Prince assassinated? He would never be left alone if that happened. Not that he would be left alone if he seized the lands for himself, but if he crushed this army to do so, he would buy himself enough time to fully secure his borders while the King cobbled together another fighting force. If he killed the Prince, it might cause some disarray among the army, but they would end up taking orders from the King eventually.

There was another option.

He could reject the King’s army’s help. Keep them at a distance. Close enough that they could watch the battle, but far enough that they couldn’t stab him in the back. He needed to demonstrate sheer overwhelming might. Enough to vanquish any thought of their ability to fight him from the rank-and-file’s minds. Crush their spirit so thoroughly that, no matter who commanded them or what their orders were, they would fear the thought of incurring his wrath so that they might favor the consequences of insubordination or even desertion over facing him.

The question was… could he manage that?

Hands clasped behind his back, Arkk walked around the roof of the tower. Even from the highest point around, not including the peaks of the Elm mountains, he couldn’t see the Evestani staging area. They were too far off. Yet he knew what they looked like. He had studied them, watching as they built up their encampments and bivouacs. They often used that fog to protect from scrying, but they hadn’t used it while on the move. He knew their force, their equipment, their supplies. He knew how they fought thanks to previous encounters. He knew how the avatar acted.

Company Al-Mir numbered approximately one thousand strong. Not all were fighters, however. The actual number was closer to eight hundred. But even if he added in everyone, even the blacksmiths and Larry the Butcher, Evestani outnumbered him by a factor of ten. At least.

There was a reason he hadn’t taken the fight to them. There was a reason he wanted the King’s army.

Yet, with all the advancements Company Al-Mir had made, all the magical equipment, the experimental weaponry, the magical rituals and power granted by the [HEART], the training and the effort everyone had put in… Arkk thought he could, perhaps, fight off Evestani. As long as their countermeasure against the avatar worked, a thousand could beat fifteen thousand without trouble.

The problem was that it wasn’t just Evestani. The Eternal Empire was a problem. They possessed magic and weapons that he didn’t yet know the full breadth of yet. He had poked and prodded them on their journey here to try to learn their capabilities, but he still didn’t have the full picture. They numbered fewer than Evestani did, possessing only about eight thousand soldiers, but even that practically doubled the number of soldiers in the enemy encampment. With those invisible flying ships they possessed, it was hard to tell how many more soldiers they might have hidden out of sight.

And they were starting some kind of construction projects around the Evestani staging area, also hidden from view. More airships? Or something else entirely?

Could Arkk beat Evestani and the Eternal Empire?

That, he was less certain of.

Dakka alone was worth twenty regular soldiers. But he didn’t have a thousand Dakkas. Only a hundred and fifty orcs had been outfitted with the shadow armor and scythes. Not all of them were as good as Dakka was. Even assuming they were, it wasn’t enough.

Gorgon were a force multiplier, able to spew caustic venom and petrify key targets, rapidly changing the state of any battle they participated in. But there were only seven of them. They couldn’t be everywhere at once.

Kia and Claire… Kia was still getting used to the changes that came from Project Liminal. If she recovered in roughly the same time as Claire had, both of them were…

Well, Arkk didn’t exactly know how effective they would be against an army. They might rip through it. They might get killed because of unforeseen complications. The abilities granted to them through Project Liminal were strange and powerful, but not without limit. Claire, even now, couldn’t fight forever without feeling like she was splitting apart, falling outside reality—whatever that meant. So, while they were strong, Arkk had no way of estimating how much damage they could actually do.

Richter’s battlecasters, augmented with the power from the [HEART], were ten times that of regular spellcasters. But they numbered less than fifty. Arkk’s spellcasters, with charged glowstones backing them up, could act as a full army’s worth of bombardment specialists. Unless the avatar was dealt with, Arkk doubted bombardment magic would so much as scar his opponent.

He could march the Walking Fortress to the army, crushing them underfoot. But again, not until he dealt with the avatar. This time, there wasn’t a mountain in the way to take the brunt of the attack.

Agnete and Priscilla each were worth five hundred regular soldiers, at least. But Agnete was gone. Priscilla might be able to freeze over large swaths of the enemy, but he needed her to engage with the avatar.

Vezta and Lexa could slip in, assassinating key individuals. Potentially even spare bodies for the avatar, though Arkk doubted the avatar would be so foolish as to keep them all in one spot a second time. But they couldn’t fight an army on their own.

Arkk walked the perimeter of the tower, cycling from the east side to the west side and back again as he thought. More things kept popping up in the back of his mind. Extra aids in the battle. From the war machines recovered from the orc homelands—currently inoperable due to engineering issues—to potential inquisitor and purifier assistance, from another undead army—the first had proved remarkably effective—to esoteric magics that he had warned Zullie against using.

Could he do it? Could he handle Evestani and the Eternal Empire while keeping an eye on the King’s army?

Not just could he do it.

Could he crush them? It wasn’t enough to limp away with uncountable losses, claiming victory by a frayed thread. He had to win, decisively and completely. Or else he might as well surrender his head to the King right now.

Arkk closed his eyes, scanning over every single employee he had, evaluating every option he had, every possibility.

When he opened his eyes again, a bright red glow suffused throughout everything he could see even despite the bright sun. He took a breath and teleported to one of the lower levels of the tower. The specialist quarters.

Kia sat in bed, eyes closed as she leaned up against one of the walls. Claire sat beside her, hand-in-hand, gently rubbing her thumb against the back of Kia’s hand. When Arkk appeared in the room, Claire stiffened. The dark elf moved to stand, only to pause as Arkk waved her down.

Kia didn’t move, keeping her head against the wall. She opened her eyes barely enough to see him before she squeezed them shut once again.

“Commander,” she murmured.

“Sorry to disturb you while you’re recovering. You can stay here as long as you need. But Claire, I have a job for you.”

The quieter of the two dark elves stared through messy brown locks of hair with her icy eyes. When he had first met her, Arkk thought she was glaring at him. But that was just how she looked at people. A curious lifting of one of her eyebrows was enough to show that she wasn’t angry with him.

“I need you at my side when I meet with the riders approaching from the King’s army. I have it on authority that someone in the King’s army might not be what they seem, so I need you to be ready to act.”

“A demon?” Claire asked, completely calm despite the implications of what she might be fighting.

“Not sure, actually. I don’t think so, but it is something. Something that your unique talents might be optimal for dealing with.”

“Understood,” she said, entirely unbothered. “Now?”

“They should be here within the hour.”

Translucent shades of herself started nodding before her head caught up. She moved to stand again.

This time, Kia moved to follow.

“Stay,” Claire said, planting her hands on Kia’s shoulders.

“Not letting you fight a demon on your own,” Kia said, shoving aside Claire’s hands.

“You can’t even stand.”

Kia didn’t respond. Like Claire, a series of ghostly afterimages both trailed after her body and moved before she moved. Some wobbled, some even fell. The latter vanished into nothingness. But Kia made it to her feet, standing beside the bed. After waiting a moment, making sure that she wasn’t going to fall over, Kia shot Claire a grin. “Not true.”

“Kia is welcome to join if she can hold herself together,” Arkk said. “Hopefully, nothing more interesting than a casual chat will happen. You two are going to be there just in case.”

Nobody handled rejection well.

 

 

“Lady Shadows,” Arkk said, kneeling in front of the statue of the Cloak of Shadows. “In times past, your followers laid many offerings at your altars.”

Arkk produced a small bowl of fruit. Dried preserves left over from the long winter. It was a strange offering, in his eyes. He expected an obsidian dagger, one of those bolts of shadowy cloth, or even something made in the Shadow Forge. But, after a consultation with the Protector, Arkk had settled on a few more mundane items. Fruit, back in the day, was commonly thought of as the favorite food of the Cloak of Shadows. Those who made proper pious offerings of fresh fruit were often seen experiencing fortune and good luck in their day-to-day lives.

The Cloak of Shadows wasn’t the god of luck. That concept belonged to the Fickle Wheel. Nonetheless, Arkk decided fruit was as good a start as any to his attempts this evening. Even if he wasn’t quite sure how a god would eat a bowl of fruit. Xel’atriss had been so massive that an apple would have been akin to a grain of sand on her tongue.

“Today, I offer you this bowl of fruit.” Because of the recent winter, it wasn’t fresh. Hopefully, that wouldn’t matter. “And I offer my appreciation for allowing me the use of your tools, your Shadow Forge, and the Protector.”

Unlike many of his other planned attempts, Arkk wouldn’t ask anything of the Lady Shadows. He felt like he had gotten enough out of the Underworld. If the Cloak of Shadows wanted to give him more as additional thanks for this offering, he wasn’t going to refuse, but he wasn’t expecting that. He mostly just wanted to see what would happen, if anything.

So far, kneeling in front of the wispy dark cloak wrapped around the vaguely feminine form that was the statue, nothing had happened. And it wasn’t looking like anything would.

Arkk stood, bowl of fruit in hand, and approached the edge of the silvery pool closest to the Cloak of Shadows. He then upended the bowl, dumping it all in. Vezta had said that the pool was a direct connection to the realm of the gods, so hopefully the Cloak of Shadows could pluck them out of the aether and have a nice snack. Or whatever a god did with favored food.

The bits of fruit simply slid underneath the surface. There were no ripples, no disturbances to the liquid. Just like when he threw in that gold coin all those months ago, it made him uneasy. Like some part of the back of his mind knew that this was wrong. It wasn’t how the world worked.

Arkk took a few hasty steps back and waited a moment.

When nothing continued to happen, he nodded his thanks one last time to the Cloak of Shadows before moving on to the next experiment.

Arkk approached the statue of the Eternal Silence with a sense of trepidation. The god of death, stillness, and sleep was not one to be invoked lightly. The statue was a serene, masculine figure, resting in a chair with his head slumped against his shoulder. A polished skull sat on his lap.

Arkk knelt, his knees pressing into the cold tiles of the floor, and placed a small vial of nightshade extract at the base of the statue. From the alchemical books Morford had sold him, along with a few other books he had acquired outside Darkwood Burg, he had seen one plant associated with both sleep and death over and over again. If anything might be an appropriate offering, it would be nightshade.

Either that or the flowery plant he had taken from the Silence. But that felt more like returning something he had stolen.

“Eternal Silence,” Arkk said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I come to you seeking your boon. I don’t know what your followers might have done in your honor. As far as I can tell, your name has effectively been wiped from the surface of this world. Perhaps you prefer it that way… But today, I offer you this vial of nightshade, a symbol of your dominion. In return, all I ask is a fitting response.”

Arkk placed the vial down at the base of the statue and waited, bowing his head.

Unlike the Cloak of Shadows, Arkk waited long minutes for any possible answer. Yet still, nothing happened. Just silence. Silence might have been a positive response, were it not the default for any given moment. He expected the silence to deepen, to deafen with its absence.

Yet it was just regular silence.

Looking up at the statue, noting the unchanged serene face, Arkk sighed and stood. There was no indication of approval or disapproval.

Taking the nightshade, he approached the edge of the pool. This time, he knelt, said the same thing he had just spoken, and dumped the vial into the silvery liquid.

“Hello, Xel’atriss. Remember me?” Arkk knelt at the woman with the outstretched arms.

“Cloak of Shadows. I have another gift for you. A cloak that I made myself using the dark fabric of your dagger…”

“Jailer of the Void, I’d like to start off by apologizing for… uh.. killing your avatar…”

Twelve hours after locking himself inside the temple and Arkk had to wonder how anyone figured out how magic worked.

Arkk paced back and forth in front of a large board pinned with notes. Everything he knew about the gods, both those whose statues stood around the room and those still missing, was listed out on long rolls of vellum. From the way Xel’atriss, Lock and Key communicated by shifting the boundaries of what he knew and didn’t know to every observed magical effect the avatar of the Heart of Gold had demonstrated. From the effects of the Silence to the factory of the Anvil. From the Laughing Prince’s domains over undeath, festivals, and children to the Holy Light’s dominion over light, the sun, and knowledge.

The Holy Light’s segment was a great deal longer than any other. He had paid attention to the Suun sermons. There were entire tomes of holy texts that he didn’t even know about, let alone know the contents of, but what he did know was still more than any of the other gods. Even Xel’atriss, the one he likely knew the second most about.

Unfortunately, the Holy Light was also one of the gods he didn’t want to accidentally contact, if at all possible. Regardless of what that letter said, he was still ill at ease with the idea of consorting with the traitor gods. Vezta would probably be… displeased if she found out, which was also a contributing factor to his reluctance. If all else failed…

The board next to the details of the gods was a listing of everything he knew about the temple room itself. It wasn’t a very long list. He knew that acquiring boons was possible, he knew that human sacrifice was likely a way to do so, though it wasn’t the only way. He knew they had already used a ritual within the temple room to directly entreat with Xel’atriss. That option was off the table, obviously, but he still had it up on the board for completeness.

The final board was a list of everything he had tried so far. Mostly, it consisted of throwing things into the pool, setting things at the bases of the statues, or otherwise asking for assistance and hoping for a response. He had also gone around to each of the statues, asking each in turn for even just a small sign that he was on the right track. None had answered.

Naturally, he avoided the statues of the traitor gods.

In addition to everything he tried, there was also a list of things he suspected or wanted to test, but couldn’t at the moment. For example, did he need to try this at a certain time of day? Or a certain time of year? Did the moon phases matter? What of the constellations in the sky?

This would be easier with Vezta present. But there were two problems with that. The first was that she had never been present during her former master’s rituals. Arkk didn’t know if there was a correlation there but it seemed like changing that now would just add extra possibilities to test for and he didn’t have that much time to work on this. The second problem…

Arkk’s eyes drifted to the statue shrouded in light. The Holy Light and Xel’atriss were the only two to have communicated with him. And the latter only during a complex and powerful ritual.

If any of the statues were going to do anything, Arkk had a feeling it would be the Holy Light. He admitted he was curious about that letter too. It said to simply speak out, asking for an ally, and he would have one.

Arkk kept his mouth firmly shut.

His curiosity wasn’t going to stop him from exhausting every other possibility first.

Turning away from the Holy Light, Arkk approached the grinning statue of the Laughing Prince. Arkk teleported a clattering skeleton directly at his side. One of a very small number that hadn’t fought the Evestani army. This skeleton had been his first test with necromancy, raising it from the dead under Zullie’s instructions. Unlike all the others, it had not come from the dead at Elmshadow.

Arkk had taken it from the graves behind Langleey Village’s church.

His father. Rickkton. A man Arkk barely knew and barely had any memories of. He had died when Arkk was only five years old, far too soon to form any real memories. There might be one or two vague feelings rattling around in the back of Arkk’s mind, but nothing clear.

Arkk had chosen his father for one reason and one reason alone.

If something went wrong and his necromancy went out of control, if there was even a slim scrap of his father left behind, Arkk figured his father would be the least likely person to cause him harm.

Nothing had gone wrong and, now, Arkk was well and truly convinced that there wasn’t anything left of his father. It still seemed a bit too sad to send his own father into a fight with his enemies, lost among a few thousand other bodies. Arkk intended to return his father to his grave, but…

He hadn’t ever gotten around to it.

And now, he had another test that his father could assist with.

“Well, Smiling Prince. You like necromancy enough to show up on your own. So let’s see if I can’t get a few more reactions out of you, hmm?”

Arkk let out a long yawn. He wasn’t able to stop himself. How long had he been in here?

With a shake of his head, Arkk focused. He wasn’t done yet.

Arkk plucked up a dried bit of apple and popped it into his mouth. It wasn’t the best meal but he had forgotten to eat for most of the last day. He could have teleported anything from the kitchens straight to him, but at this hour of the day, there wasn’t much already made and he didn’t want to waste time making something.

“You want some of this?” Arkk asked, leaning back.

He sat up against the pedestal holding the Cloak of Shadows. The wispy, ethereal drape of shadows over the actual figure underneath didn’t move. Neither did the figure. With a small sigh, he looked around the rest of the room.

“How about the rest of you? Dried fruit, anyone?”

Nothing but silence greeted him.

As much as he expected it, the silence still made him shift in discomfort. Once again, he was glad Vezta wasn’t around.

This was a bit embarrassing.

A marble made from the coldest ice hovered just above Arkk’s palm. He walked around the temple room, stopping at each of the empty pedestals.

He closed his eyes, humming lightly as he felt the magic in the room.

“Not this pedestal,” Arkk said before continuing to the next. “Nor this one… Then, it must be…”

As he approached the final unoccupied pedestal, a chill ran down Arkk’s spine. A sudden rush of cold came from the ice marble, but it wasn’t anything he had done. It acted on its own.

Shivering, feeling a little numb, Arkk nonetheless put on a smile. “Now isn’t that interesting?”

Stepping right up to the pedestal, he held out his hand over its smooth surface. Taking a breath and letting out a cloud of icy mist, he pulled his hand back.

The marble dropped through the air. It landed on the stone with the sound of glass shattering. A blast of icy air shot out.

Arkk teleported himself to the opposite side of the room the second he felt that cold. He hadn’t forgotten the last time the marble had fallen to the ground. He ended up frozen to the floor along with the inquisitors and half his team.

The marble bounced after the first hit, landing with another crack of glass. Another wave of cold rippled out, turning the moisture in the air into icy crystals. The entire half of the room started to fill with opaque white fog, making the temperature plummet.

Arkk waited, rubbing his arms with his gloved hands, glad he had thought to fetch a coat from his chambers before trying this out.

The sound of shattering glass that accompanied each bounce of the marble stopped abruptly. It didn’t sound like the energy of the marble had just petered out. Each bounce had a good second between. But it just stopped.

He slowly approached, wafting his hands back and forth as he neared the curtain of fog in an attempt to clear it away. Deciding that wasn’t working, Arkk pulled some hot coals straight from the forge and teleported them around that side of the room. That helped and, soon enough, the fog started to clear away.

The pedestal was no longer empty. A part of Arkk expected nothing more than a random mass of jagged ice.

He had not expected a finely sculpted ice statue. It looked like a dragon. A full dragon, the kind depicted in myths and legends, not the humanoid dragonoid that Priscilla was. It stood, tall and majestic. Four legs, perched like a cat, with its long and scaled tail coiled around the base of the pedestal. Its wings were neatly folded behind its back while its head, with a narrow snout, slit eyes, and curled horns, was poised in a regal, proud posture.

Legends said that real dragons were massive, able to crush an entire village without even noticing what they were stepping upon. A dragon god was probably even larger than that. The statue, however, was scaled to fit upon the pedestal, hardly any larger than the other statues around the room.

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Arkk murmured.

The skeletal figure of his father at his side didn’t respond.

Stepping closer, Arkk gave the statue a closer look. Was it as real as the rest of them? Or would it melt away? It certainly looked as if it were made out of ice. And the ice marble…

Arkk frowned, unable to find it. It wasn’t on the pedestal or anywhere nearby. Even with Fortress Al-Mir and his ability to teleport anything he owned within its walls, he couldn’t feel the marble. It was just… gone.

“I hope I didn’t need that,” he murmured, looking up at the dragon’s snout. If the marble was somewhere inside the statue, he might be able to retrieve it by destroying it… but that seemed like a good way to piss off a dragon god. He really did not wish to make more gods his enemies at the moment.

“I don’t suppose you might be willing to grant me any boons?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

The dragon statue didn’t move.

Of course, it didn’t.

With a sigh, Arkk focused on Priscilla. The dragonoid was currently with Hale. Again. They had been spending a lot of time together as of late. Unfortunately, both were out at Elmshadow. He made a note to ask Priscilla about how the Permafrost’s followers worshipped another time.

For now, he looked around the room. “Ten statues. Six empty spots…”

He frowned. “And no boons.”

Arkk stared, eyes wide and palms sweaty.

The skeleton of Rickkton sat leaned over the pool of silvery liquid. Both arms were below the surface, neither causing ripples. Arkk, mentally connected to the skeleton through his necromancy, could feel something there. Something that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

The skeleton grasped at the something, bony hands wrapped tightly around whatever it was. Large and somewhat angular, it felt like a carved stone. Arkk didn’t dare have the skeleton dip its head below the surface—he couldn’t see through its empty eye sockets anyway—which left hauling the stone up the only option to find out what it was.

But the skeleton was stuck. Arkk couldn’t tell if the stone was too heavy or if the skeleton was too weak. He certainly wasn’t going to reach into the pool himself.

A rope. Would a rope work? The skeleton could feel something like an underside to the stone. Strangely enough, there wasn’t anything beneath the stone. Just empty… whatever.

Holding out his hand, Arkk teleported a rope from elsewhere in the fortress. He passed it to the skeleton, keeping one end up and out of the pool. With some precise mental commands, he directed the skeleton to loop it beneath the stone, making a cross pattern underneath, and then tie it up at the top end. He used a knot he had learned down in the smithy, hoping it would be enough.

He tried hauling it straight up. It budged a little, but he lacked the leverage or general strength required to lift it.

Frowning to himself, he scanned through the currently awake employees in Fortress Al-Mir.

A disoriented Dakka appeared at his side. She opened her mouth, only to freeze upon seeing the state of the room. Her head slowly turned around, looking at all the random items Arkk still had lying about. She finally looked down at the skeleton, cocking an eyebrow in the process.

“Don’t ask,” Arkk said, handing her the rope. “I just need you to lift. Take care not to touch the liquid yourself.”

“Uh… sure,” she said, wrapping the rope around her hand. Bracing herself, she strained a moment before the stone came loose. She hauled it up and out of the liquid with relative ease after that.

It was a crystal. Larger than the keystone Sylvara had brought but made from the same yellow-iridescent material. The rune on its surface was a new one, a vague depiction of a skull.

Arkk glanced first at the skeleton pulling itself out of the pool, then at the statue of the Smiling Prince. Was this a boon? Or had he just found it randomly while searching? Both?

“So…”

“Thank you, Dakka,” Arkk said, looking back to the orc. “I’ll send you back to the kitchens.”

She vanished before she had a chance to respond. Arkk crouched down, frowning at the large keystone.

“Alright.” Arkk stood in front of the Holy Light, frowning up at his heroic visage. “Alright,” he said again. “You gave me a letter that said to ask for help. So here I am, wondering what kind of help you can give.”

The Holy Light didn’t move, didn’t react, and didn’t say a word.

As expected.

Arkk turned away, shaking his head. He had made a mess of the temple. Most of it could be cleared away with a simple wave of his hand, teleporting everything back to where he had gotten it, but the sight of it still wore him down. It was all evidence that he had wasted the past day. He had only one thing to show for the time spent and he still wasn’t sure if it was a result of his actions or if that keystone had always been under the surface of the pool—the skeleton was going around the edges of the temple pool, searching for more, but no luck so far.

“Well, I—”

“Are you finished playing around?”

Arkk teleported immediately, completely vacating the temple. Safely within his private quarters, he peered into the temple.

The statue of the Holy Light had moved once again. This time, it looked frozen mid-laughter. It remained like that for a few moments before, without passing any of the intervening space, it was back in its default heroic pose. Arkk waited another long few minutes.

This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He got a response from one of the statues. Granted, it wasn’t one of the statues he wanted a response from, but it was a response.

Now he had run away from it.

Was it dangerous? If it wanted to kill him, it surely would have just stabbed him in the back, not spoken with him. And it had been the one to send that letter in the first place.

Mustering his courage, Arkk drew a breath and teleported back into the temple. He ended up well away from the statue of the Holy Light.

“Hello?” he called out from across the room. “Are you there?”

A light, flittering laughter cascaded throughout the chamber as the statue shifted back into an open-mouthed laugh. It didn’t move to that position. It just was in that position—had always been in that position. The laughter was full of amusement and, oddly enough for the very masculine statue, it was quite feminine sounding.

Then again, perhaps it wasn’t that odd. Surely a god could do whatever they wanted.

“Hello,” he said again. “I, uh… received your letter.”

The Holy Light shifted again, standing in a more neutral pose as it looked down at Arkk. “I noticed. Good to see that Vrox was right. You did just require a more explicit message.”

Arkk narrowed his eyes, frowning.

Vrox? Why mention Vrox? The only Vrox Arkk knew was Darius Vrox, the inquisitor. Was he speaking with gods these days too?

“Well, Arkk? What are you doing all the way over there?” The statue flickered into a gesturing pose, unmoving yet somehow welcoming. “Come closer, come closer. Don’t be afraid. I can’t attack you like this… or I’m sure you would have died at the hands of my… contemporaries already.”

“Is that really true?” Arkk asked, turning his head and noting the still statues of the Heart of Gold and the Almighty Glory. Neither had moved.

“You think I would lie to you?”

“Yes,” Arkk said. “You sliced off Vezta’s arm.”

“That is that, this is this,” the statue said with a shrug. Notably, it didn’t perform the action of shrugging. One moment, it had always been shrugging, the next, it returned to a neutral position.

“I think I’m good here,” he called back, not wanting his back to any of the statues, though with them at all four sides of the room, he didn’t have much choice. At least Xel’atriss at his back wasn’t likely to turn out poorly.

Probably.

“Suit yourself,” the statue of the Holy Light said, looking eminently disappointed. “But we have a lot to discuss… Best get comfortable.”

Arkk crossed his arms, frowning.

“I’ll skip to the end to get you thinking before returning to the start to explain. The long and short of it is that I wish for direct, physical access to this temple room.”

Arkk looked around slowly, somewhat confused. “Aren’t you… Don’t you already have access to it?” he asked, gesturing toward the statue. “I wasn’t aware that I could stop a god—”

That light, feminine laughter spilled out of the statue once again, though the statue didn’t move this time. “Oh. Oh my. You believe I am The Holy Light. No, no. No. Certainly not. Were I, I imagine things would be far, far different. No, Arkk. I am merely what you call the avatar.”

Arkk blinked. Then blinked again. All of a sudden, he felt the tension in the back of his neck drain away. He was not speaking with another god. That…

Made a lot of sense. Between today and his earlier encounter with Xel’atriss, members of the Pantheon didn’t speak. Especially not so… normally.

The statue laughed again before leaning forward, towering over Arkk with the added height. “Yes, Arkk. Let’s start at the beginning.”