Chapter Twenty-Five - Malevolent Monologue

The limpet knocked on the doorframe before stepping into the bridge. The F.O.S.S.I.L. Head had two bridges. One secure in the depths of the walking fortress, guarded by undead and layers of boney armour, and this second bridge, set upon a tower and surrounded by balconies that allowed those within a grand view of the surroundings.

“Are you well?” I asked.

The limpet walked over to my seat, a rather comfortable bench with a little end-table next to it atop which I had a few books from my to-be-read pile. A jar-full of will-o’-wisps hovered over my shoulder, providing excellent lighting. “Um, are you busy?”

I glanced at my books, then shrugged. “Yes, but not so much so that I can’t listen. Is something the matter?”

The limpet hesitated, then looked out the window at the front of F.O.S.S.I.L. Head. Beyond the buildings set within the fortress’s walls were the rocky cliffs of the land around Yu Xiang. The city itself was quite a ways away and hardly visible from where we were.

The encampment some necrokilometers away, and between us and the city, was just about the only noteworthy thing around. The entire area was a landscape of jutting cliffs and steppes with switch-back roads cutting across them.

“Master,” the limpet began. “We’re supposed to be going around and conquering small cities, right?”

“That was the plan, yes,” I replied.

How long that plan would work was up for debate. After all, the F.O.S.S.I.L. Head was anything, but subtle. Then again, the local’s idea of communication was either word-of-mouth or letters, and I doubted that any initial reports about a walking fortress would be taken seriously by those who mattered.

That, of course, was before we ran into an army. It was one thing to ignore reports from peasants and travellers, it was another to ignore them from the leaders of an army.

“Master, I don’t want to kill all those people,” the limpet said.

I eyed her, then the army. “Presumably you mean that army some necrokilometers over there?”

“Yes. They’re conscripts, just... normal people who were dragged into this by stupid, arrogant cultivators for stupid, arrogant reasons.”

“You are aware that we aren’t entirely sure why the army has gathered?”

She rolled her eyes. “I can guess. Cultivators don’t raise armies like that to go help plant crops.”

I chuckled. “Yes, I suppose that’s a fair point. So, you wish to protect all of these conscripted troops?”

Her expression was complicated for a moment. “Not protect them. I guess it’s more... give them the option not to fight? To let them surrender if they want to. We don’t gain anything from them fighting us directly, do we?”

“More bodies, but little else, no,” I said. “Yes, I suppose there’s no harm in at least showing them the wise thing to do. Have you prepared your speech already?”

The limpet blinked. “My what?”

“Your speech. To be delivered to all the soldiers in order to encourage them to not fight you.”

“Ah, um,” the limpet said. She might have spent too much time underwater, she was certainly imitating a fish more than was practical. “I didn’t know I’d need to give a speech or anything.”

“I’ll have Seventeen move the F.O.S.S.I.L. Head closer, then we can use a few simple tricks with some illusionary magic and cast a large image of yourself in the sky above. Projecting your voice requires barely more than a cantrip.”

“Does it have to be me?” the limpet asked.

“Of course, you’re the one that wants peace. Putting Seventeen on stage would merely encourage him to rant at them. Alex doesn’t have the right temperament, Mem... no, and Rem would call them all stupid then declare that she’d kill them all herself.”

“And you?”

“I’m ill-suited to speech-giving,” I said. It was a fault I was more than happy to admit having.

The limpet sighed. “So, just me, all alone?”

“It wouldn’t be a monologue if you weren’t alone, oh hoho!”

The limpet stared, her lips trembled a bit, then her fists tightened into little balls and she glared out the front of the bridge. “Right. I need to ask Seventeen to prepare a few things. Thanks Master, I’ll do my best!”

She might not have been the wisest young woman around, but she did have a good working attitude. It would carry her far, if she grew a little more clever.

I returned to my reading. It was an enjoyable, quiet afternoon for that kind of thing. The book, one I’d grabbed recently, wasn’t the best, it was downright mediocre, in fact, but it did have a lot of content to it, which somewhat made up for its deficits.

The rocking of the fortress changed a little as it shifted and turned, heading directly towards the encamped army now.

Some time later we came to a slow halt, still a ways away from the army, but when I glanced up between the flip of a page, I could now make out the standards and images painted onto the flags of the force, and I presumed that someone with some patience and good eyes could count the tiny moving forms of the force.

It was about an hour and two books before the limpet returned. “Master,” she said. “Um, I’m ready... sorta ready.”

“Really now?” I asked as I finished my page. I dog-eared the page--it wasn’t a book precious enough to give it any special care--and stood. “Did you prepare a location for your terms to be delivered from?”

“Yes, Seventeen explained the projection spell a little, so I figured I’d need a nice backdrop, or at least one that’s neutral.”

“What did you find?”

“Oh, well, Seventeen said that you could project a moving image? Like, ah, the point of the projection can move?” She gestured, one hand following the other.

“Yes, I can do that,” I said. My curiosity was piqued.

“Well, we were thinking that as the speech went along, I could be in different parts of the fortress. Just the main stage, then the parade ground. Nothing too complicated.”

“Very well then,” I said.

The limpet led me down a few flights of stairs and onto the main deck of the fortress. Undead were lining up on the sides in a tight formation, skeletons and abominations. The skeletons that were present were the bigger, better examples Seventeen had, with matching bone armour and feral grins. The lieutenant was walking down the front row, shaping spikes out of the skeleton’s skulls to make them a little more fearsome in appearance.

At the very end of the deck was a seat upon which the limpet sat. It was far too large for her. A massive throne of bones and skulls, with the skull of some large sea creature atop it. The two mantises, Rem and Mem, came to stand on either side of the limpet.

“This is stupid,” Rem said.

“You just need to stand there and look scary,” the limpet said.

Rem stared at the girl, then halfheartedly raised her scythes and hissed a little.

Mem laughed. “No no, like this.” She raised her arms high, set her legs, then glared ahead. “Rawr!”

“Maybe... no hissing,” the limpet said. “Or... whatever that was.”

The limpet shifted on her throne, smoothed down her skirt, then looked up to me. “Okay, I think I’m ready. Unless I should be wearing something else?”

“No, I always found it best to present yourself as who you are. There’s something that allows some people to detect a certain lack of sincerity.”

She nodded. “I’m ready then.”

I stepped back, then flicked my hand out. The spell I cast wasn’t truly one spell. Rather, it was a combination of a few spells working in tandem to create a singular effect. That effect burst into life above the fortress. An image, three-dimensional and entirely life-like, of the limpet on her throne and the two mantises by her side.

The limpet in the image and in real life glanced up at the same time, then looked at me. I created a small ball of light and shifted it down. “This is what you should look into,” I explained. It will give the army the impression you’re looking down on them. Now I’m going to cast a second spell, to amplify your voice.”

I cast the next spell, then waited. The limpet cleared her throat, and only-just held back a flinch as the sound of it came from above, amplified a thousand-fold.

“G-greetings,” the limpet began. “I... no, who I am doesn’t really matter. It’s enough for you to know that I am one of those aboard the walking fortress you have no doubt noticed walking your way. We are here, not to kill people, but to liberate them. As it stands, you are in our way.”

I nodded along. Not the most inspiring start, but she was doing well enough.

The limpet shifted. “I’m not addressing the cultivators here. They don’t matter. No, that’s not quite right. They do matter, because it’s their fault that all of you are gathered where you are. It’s their fault that you might be marched off to fight some war that you want no part in, that you might die for ideas and people that aren’t yours. I think I know what some of that is like. That’s why I insisted on speaking to you.”

The limpet grabbed the edges of her throne and stood. I made the cone of vision capturing her back away as she moved.

“As it stands, we will be capturing Yu Xiang,” she said as she started to walk. She almost tripped over the edge of the stage, but caught herself with a twitch. “This isn’t something you can do anything about. We plan on taking over the city, removing the current system of governance, and replace it with something grander, something more fair.”

The limpet folded her arms before her. A pose I’d seen some women take in this era. It made her look smaller, a strange contrast to the image projected above.

“If you follow the orders of the cultivators leading you, you will die. We don’t want that, we don’t want to rule over an empty city. We want a fair and equitable society, which will not be possible if the citizens are all dead.”

The limpet moved far enough that the skeletons at parade rest by her side became visible in the image above. They were quite a bit taller than her, though I idly noted that some were standing on boxes to make them seem evenly tall. That wasn’t something that appeared on the image above, fortunately.

“We, I will offer this to all of you who are listening. Leave the army. Go back home. Don’t fight someone else’s war where you will certainly be the loser.”

We began to cross the abominations, and I suspect that Seventeen brought out the most horrid specimens he could find. Large boil-covered mounds of flesh with arms and legs grasping out of them, some with great bulging muscles and hands gripped around cleavers and machetes and bone-axes.

“To the cultivators,” the limpet said. Her voice turned considerably colder, and her brows came together in a frown. “You and your sort have always disgusted me. Certainly, you have power, and that is something I’ve always wished to have more of, but your attitude as a whole, your inability to put yourself in the place of those below you, your disregard for the common folk in pursuit of your own selfish goals. You are the worst thing to happen to a society. Fight us and you will find no mercy.”

The limpet smiled, bright and pretty even as she poked her glasses up her nose.

“I look forward to adding your corpses to my army!”

***