022 – Lord

***

We found a different inn to stay in while waiting for the Obelisk to arrive in port. This room also had a view of the docks, so Malisent could stand at the window and watch the ensigns of ships coming and going. She also kept an eye out for her two colleagues, Veylien and Gritha, who must have been waiting somewhere nearby in Port Dovestone.

I, however, sat in silent meditation. Malisent didn’t waste an opportunity to force further lessons upon her unwitting disciple. As punishment for disobeying orders and showing general irreverence, she had me cycling mana nonstop.

“You have to learn to quiet your flame, disciple. You’re wasting mana and drawing too much attention to yourself.”

“Is that why people keep mistaking me for someone competent?”

“Partly. Your blazing fire leads people think you’re getting ready for a fight. But then they speak to you and find that you’re acting a fool. It’s confusing.”

“I have a strong fire. Does that mean I’m exceptionally talented?”

“You have a bit of a head start on other newly enkindled magi. But those who learn early don’t necessarily become the best later on. Don’t think you can skip hard work. And don’t let it go to your head.”

“No worries there, teach. I’ve always been exceptionally talented—although never at sports.” My talents had been in academics. Strythe had been nearly illiterate but had a knack for athletics. Together we made quite the single person.

I also possessed a good ability to focus on tasks and study without being distracted. But that was focusing on something. Now Malisent asked me to concentrate on nothingness, to clear my mind of extraneous thoughts and feel the energy swirling within me. This proved to be a completely different skill. As soon as my mind calmed, the outside world became noisy. Bell buoys rang in the harbor. Birds chirped outside the windows, domesticated wolves barked at passing strangers, and drivers cracked whips at tamed aurochs forced to haul wagons down the streets. Humans shouted at each other in a medley of different languages. The sounds of this strange city lured my mind away.

“On your feet, minion. We’ve got work to do,” Malisent said from her perch in the window sill.

“Is the ship here?” I hopped up and grabbed my cloak, happy to escape my exercises.

“No. But I see two rudderless trash barges drifting into port. Let’s go. And don’t forget your sword.”

My sword went in the scabbard at my waist, and my skull mask went into a pocket. We rushed out of the room and the front door of the inn. Malisent shoved aside townsfolk, none of whom had the courage to object to a swordsman’s rude behavior. We cut through an intersection past teams of horses and rolling carriages. In the metropolis, we had streets for pedestrians and underground lines for trains and vehicles, but in Dovestone, people, carts, and mounted riders all shared the same narrow lanes.

Rounding a corner, we came upon the two witches, Gritha and Veylien, out for a stroll, along with a third person I didn’t know. Veylien was unmistakable in an immaculate white dress decorated with clear glass beads and silver wire shaped into elaborate filigree. No sane person would come out on these filthy streets dressed like that. Gritha had parted with her mail armor. She wore a tight leather pants, a girdle studded with iron, and a silken shirt dyed with orange and red stripes. To me, the two looked like circus performers that should be doing the flying trapeze or walking on a tight rope.

Their unreserved mode of dress advertised their status as magical swordsmen to the common townsfolk, who hurried down other streets, stopped their ox carts, or dismounted their horses and waited for the witches to pass by. The two women signaled danger the way brightly colored animals warned of their poison.

“You misbegotten whores!” Malisent shouted. Her inner fire flared up. “I should slice the pair of you from crotch to gullet and send your thrice cursed souls to eternal hellfire.”

If the people on the street had been cautious before, now they flat out panicked. No one wanted to be close to a fight between magical swordsmen. They fled the street, ran inside buildings, slammed shutters, and bolted doors. A confused ox turned its head side to side to see where its human had disappeared to.

“Oh. Malisent. There you are.” Grifa had a muted reaction to her colleague’s reappearance. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

“You rotten hags left me for dead surrounded by a tribe of trolls! I won’t forget your treachery.”

“Pfft. Don’t overreact. We knew you’d be fine. Anyway, the mission always comes first. We couldn’t risk all three of us being late for the meeting and failing to report our findings.”

“You’re just in time, Malisent,” the third person said. He was a man in multicolored robes so dark they almost looked black. His high collar concealed the bottom half of his face, and I couldn’t help but wonder if—like the troll’s idol of the giant baby—his head simply rolled unattached on top his shoulders. The man carried a slim, curved sword in a fringed sheath. He glanced around to see if anyone might overhear the conversation, but the street had been deserted. “I’ve just received a courier bird from our employer. The Obelisk sails around Cape Cloudburst. She will arrive in port by sunset.”

Veylien could have tipped Malisent’s boiling anger to violence, but the witch in white said nothing at all, and looked away as if bored. Malisent clenched her fists. “Good. I have a lot to report, Luniquial. I’m sure the boss will love to hear all about it.”

The man called Luniquial turned to me and said, “Strythe. You’re alive. They told me the three sparks died on the mission.”

“Oh. Yeah. Alive. There were a couple close calls, but I’m more or less in one piece.”

This man knew Strythe, but I didn’t know him at all. He stepped forward and looked me in the eye. He grabbed me by the face like a grandma pinching the cheeks of a chubby toddler.

“Who is this person?” he said, trying to pull the skin off my skull.

“Ow. Hey! Watch it.”

Malisent said, “That’s really Strythe. He had an accident with an Ancient relic. The trauma enkindled his fire but muddled his wits. He can’t remember much of anything.”

“Hmm. He was dumb as an ox before. I can’t imagine it being any worse.”

“Hey. Now that I know what an ox is, that’s very offensive.” I rubbed my bruised face.

“I brought him back for further training. We’re in need of new disciples, so it would have been a waste to let the trolls eat him.” She gave me a critical once-over and then yanked the the old oar from my hands. “Why do you still have this damned stick? I thought I told you to get rid of it?”

“No. You told me I could get rid of it. So I kept it. Some situations call for a bonk more than a stab, y’know?”

She tossed it in the street. “You’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”

Standing next to these lunatics made me look like drab wallpaper. I couldn’t be less conspicuous. No one would look at this group and shout out, ‘Wow! Check out the guy with the stick.’

Luniquial said, “You three witches are drawing too much attention, as always. We don’t want to rouse anyone’s suspicion right before the Obelisk gets here. Let’s split up for now and meet at the docks at sunset.”

Gritha and Veylien split off and went their own ways. Luniquial disappeared down a narrow alleyway. Malisent stood alone in the street with unresolved anger issues. This time, she was the one who needed to calm her inner fire, not me.

“Who was that guy?” I asked.

“That’s our spymaster, Luniquial. His agents gather information for us. He deals mainly with assassinations and blackmail, not direct conflict.”

Malisent had told me not to reveal my ghostly origin to the others. Yet the cult’s spymaster immediately picked up on the fact that I was not the original Strythe. No one could guess the actual truth, since it was too bizarre to believe, but they might sense my nervous dishonesty. I wasn’t a particularly good liar.

***

A dark frigate bore the name Obelisk. She glided across the harbor to the mouth of Doveblood river, whose waters turned black in the violet moonlight. The rolling mists cleared away as she approached the docks. Few ships came into port at nighttime, so the docks were nearly empty but for a small group of cloaked figures waiting at the end of one pier.

The Obelisk came to a stop beside the dock. Her great anchor lowered into the water from the cathead. The sailors swung down to the pier on heavy cables and affixed them to the bollards. All of this was accomplished in an eerie silence, without the usual whistles, bells, shouts, songs, and profanities. It was as if a crew of ghosts moored the ship.

The spymaster and witches shuffled up a gangplank to the deck of the ship. I followed behind them and, once embarked on the Obelisk, donned my skull mask. Several other masked minions moved hastily across the deck of the ship. Everyone onboard belonged to the Void Phantoms. Malisent had not exaggerated the resources of the cult. This ship was many times larger than the Fleuron and carried hundreds of people.

Luniquial the spymaster went ahead while the three witches waited amidship. Sailors climbed through the rigging above us and reefed the sails. Unlike the Fleuron, the Obelisk had a raised quarterdeck and forecastledeck. The bow of the ship served as the restroom, the head, because the incoming seawater would wash away the filth. It was also leaky. Thus the regular crew were assigned the unpleasant living quarters in the forecastle. The officers and important passengers had better accommodations in the sterncastle. The ship’s master stood on the quarterdeck observing the sailors work.

Luniquial, as the spymaster, had his own reports to deliver to the dark lord in private. His job required a great deal of subtlety and planning. The witches, on the other hand, received more straightforward missions that involved chopping people to bits. I imagined most of their reports were simply presenting the severed heads of whoever they tracked down and killed.

The spymaster returned and ushered us to the stern of the ship near the large rudder wheel. The leader of the Void Phantoms, their dark lord, emerged from the shadows and strode unto the quarter deck. Malisent pulled back the hood of her cloak. She had a dozen or more hair clips to control her wild hair, but a few unruly locks managed to break free.

The three witches knelt down before him. They placed their right knee on the deck along with their left fist in a ritual salute. They kept their heads bowed as they greeted him.

“My lord,” they said in unison.

Malisent reached up to grab me by the shirt. She yanked me down to the deck with her. Apparently I was supposed to do that kneeling thing too. A little forewarning would have been nice there.

“My lord,” I mumbled.

The dark lord stood a head taller than me. He had a stony, expressionless face and a left eye that was completely white. From his flowing black robes, the pommel and grip of a large sword stuck out. He wore a black helmet with two curling ram horns. I couldn’t tell if the horns were part of the helmet or actually coming out of his head. The dark lord could have been some type of monster man. Asking someone if they were a monster was probably considered rude, and I had been expressly forbidden from asking questions, so I bit my tongue.

“What have you to report, Phantoms?”

“We have returned from the scouting mission, my lord,” Gritha announced. “We followed your map of the leylines and discovered an Ancient structure at the nexus, just as you predicted…”

Leylines? I hadn’t heard about this before. They might have been talking about the metropolis’s power network. The power stations’ collectors no longer pumped mana from the planet’s core, but some welled up naturally from those sites. Trace amounts of energy might still flow into the net. If so, someone could follow the streams of mana from one defunct station to another. Not being able to ask questions was killing me.

“…A great citadel stands at the peak of mountain above a broad river valley. Its mighty towers stand whole and unharmed. Beneath the citadel, an underground labyrinth spirals through the heart of the mountain. The mana flows rich through the entire site and nurtures many types of monsters.”

The dark lord asked her, “What beasts dwell therein?”

“An Ancient guardian of stone and iron walks the labyrinth. On the highest towers, devil-birds make their nests. A tribe of trolls inhabit the halls of the Citadel, led by a great chieftain and daemonic idol. The trolls venture out to make raids on the human outposts and hunt in the plains to the north.”

“And can these monsters be conquered or slain?”

“Korkso and his Goadsmen could train the devil-birds. The flying monsters would make for excellent scouts and messengers. He could also enslave the tribe of trolls and whip their raiders into disciplined soldiers. First we would have to eliminate their daemonic chieftain and remove their idol–”

“My lord,” Malisent interrupted. “It is already done. After the other two left, I chose to stay behind and secure the area. I then slayed the chieftain in single combat, tore down their idol, and banished their local god, Grulchomon. Through my efforts, the tribe of trolls has become a disorganized mob waiting to be enslaved for your armies.”

The skull mask concealed my smile. Malisent really put some spin on that little story. She forgot to mention my help or that she defeated the chief by dropping a load of spare change on his head.

“Very good, Malisent. You are ambitious as always. But what of this Ancient guardian?”

Gritha said, “The monster’s stone body makes it impervious to normal attacks, and its powerful spirit wards off magic. It killed our henchmen and drove back the three of us with ease. However, it refused to leave the underground labyrinth. While there is no obvious way to defeat such a powerful relic, we may be able to seal off part of the dungeon to keep it imprisoned.”

“My lord, if I may?” Malisent said. “I believe the guardian can be neutralized and controlled. The Ancients constructed this ‘golem,’ so its true purpose must be to serve mankind. Should we banish the corrupt daemon and restore the relic to its original state, we would gain a mighty weapon of war that would make even the paladins tremble.”

The two other witches cast angry looks toward Malisent. She was making a bold claim and talking about something far outside her normal area of expertise. Her plan was clear to me. Malisent expected me, the Ancient daemonics expert, to fix up the station’s old golem. Then she would take all the credit and get a big promotion from her cult boss. She dragged me all the way here just for this. But to the others, what she said sounded like total madness.

“An intriguing thought, Malisent.” The dark lord spoke with deep, monotone voice with no hint of emotion. He did not let on what he really thought of her grandiose proposal. “What of the domains surrounding the Ancient citadel?”

Gritha said, “My lord. The mountains enclose a broad river valley. The devil-birds have consumed the larger creatures, leaving the valley relatively tranquil. It would provide ample space for fortified farms and encampments. The river feeds into a sheltered harbor where a human settlement was long ago abandoned. Reclaiming that lost settlement would give a staging point for our barges. A legitimate outpost on the coast would also provide cover for our activities further inland at the citadel. We could build our power in secret, unsuspected by others in the gulf.”

“Excellent, Gritha. But tell me. Why was this settlement abandoned?”

“A dark curse fell upon the town. Now gaunts and specters haunt the mossy ruins,” she said with a smirk.

“Yes. I think that will do.” For the first time, the dark lord smiled. He let out a dry, hollow laugh. “The Obelisk will set sail at morning light for this new stronghold. Luniquial, send your courier bird to the flotilla. Instruct them to sail for Dovestone.”

“It will be as you command, my lord,” Luniqual said with a slight bow.

“Malisent? Who have you brought before me?”

“My lord. On our scouting mission two of the novices perished. Strythe here was the third. He came into contact with an ancient relic which addled his brain and almost killed him. The trauma, however, also enkindled his inner fire. I brought him back to join the disciples.”

“And how serious is his wound?”

“He will need additional training to relearn anything he might have lost. But he should recover in time.”

“Strythe. Only a rare few novices enkindle their inner fires. Be proud of your achievement. From this day forth, you are a disciple of the Void Phantoms. I look forward to the day that you shed your mask as a Faceless and graduate to a higher office within the cult.”

“Thank you, my, um, lordfulness.”

I did it! I got through the meeting without asking any questions. Nobody called me out for being a secret ghost. Nobody stabbed me with a sword or other sharp object. Everything went great. It was a relief.

The dark lord raised his arms as he addressed us. “Rejoice, my Phantoms! Our long journey now comes to an end. We shall seize control of this Ancient citadel and make it our own. In this new stronghold, we will rebuild everything we lost at the hands of the Holy Paladins, and from thence, our monstrous armies will conquer the Kingdom of Sandgrave!” The dark lord clenched his fist and raised it to the moon. He let out a peal of maniacal laughter.

Oh. I didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.