The bickering Dark Lords had fallen silent, their eyes all focusing on Valdemar.

The sorcerer himself ignored the tense atmosphere as he held his master’s gaze. The lich delighted in his apprentice’s reaction, his skull grinning as a dark chuckle came out of his rotting teeth.

“Why the surprise?” Lord Och asked Valdemar. “Surely you must have suspected it. Two of your predecessors joined this brotherhood, did they not? Did you think I would resist the opportunity to make you the third in a row?”

Having recovered his shock, Lord Ophiel laughed. “Is that your master plan, old man? To replace our entire assembly with your students one at a time?”

“I agree this council would benefit from some new blood,” Lady Phul said with a wide smile. “But I can hardly see anyone else in your chair, Lord Och.”

“I won’t stand for it!” Lord Phaleg rose from his seat, pointing an accusing finger at Lord Och. “What is your plan?”

“My plan?” Lord Och put a hand on his chest, as if he had been struck in his heart. Of course, he no longer had one and the gesture didn’t fool anyone. “Your distrust wounds me deeply, apprentice.”

“I am no longer your apprentice,” Lord Phaleg hissed angrily, the eyes on his artificial arm all glaring at the lich. “Nor blind to your ploys.”

“Are you jealous of your replacement?” Lord Och mocked his rival. “My poor, poor first apprentice… condemned to rule over a barren desert and living in the shadow of his successors.”

Phaleg didn’t take the bait. “This is a trick of some kind. I know it.”

Valdemar himself struggled to understand Lord Och’s motivation. He strongly suspected that the lich no longer needed his Domain because he intended to leave Underland for another plane of existence, but why choose his apprentice to take over? Valdemar knew he was no match for the weakest of the Dark Lords. It would take him years to approach their power.

“Quiet, Lord Phaleg.” Empress Aratra’s imperious voice silenced Phaleg’s outrage. The weaker Dark Lord obeyed, unwilling to interrupt his more powerful colleague. “Lord Och… you have found a way to open the path, have you not?”

Lord Och answered with a long silence and a telling look. Empress Aratra took it as confirmation.

“This is madness, my old friend,” she said with a soft voice, sounding almost sympathetic. “Better to rule the abyss than serve the light above. If there is anything left of you to serve in the first place.”

“I agree that if these were my only two options, I would have chosen to rot in the dark with you dear Aratra,” Lord Och replied. “But as my third apprentice proved, sometimes it is better to create a third way.”

The Empress squinted in skepticism. “A third way?”

Lord Och nodded at Valdemar, who had listened to the exchange without a word. “This is all up to him.”

And as the empress’s curious gaze fell back upon him, Valdemar clenched his fists in silent rage. This is a plot to confuse the other Dark Lords, he realized. He’s trying to distract them.

“The path to what?” Ophiel the Mad asked, his laughter turning malicious. “What are you hiding from us, Lord Och?”

The path to the Light, Valdemar thought.

“The path to our destruction,” Lord Phaleg declared with anger. His eyes moved from his former master to Valdemar himself. His paranoia was plain for all to see. “I knew you would prove a threat to us all. Do you even understand what he intends to use you for?”

Valdemar ignored the Dark Lords and instead exchanged a glance with Marianne. His companion’s jaw clenched, and she gave him a nod of support.

Valdemar didn’t need telepathy to understand what she was thinking.

“I refuse,” he said.

They were done playing the lich’s games.

His answer surprised the Dark Lords, though Lord Och’s expression remained undecipherable. “You refuse?” the lich asked, insisting on each syllable.

“I refuse,” Valdemar repeated through his clenched teeth. “I don’t want any of your handouts.”

“Handouts?” There was no joy in Lord Och’s dark laugh. “You would call my throne in this brotherhood, the Pleroma Institute, my entire Domain of Paraplex as a handout? How spoiled can you be, my foolish disciple?”

“We both know they are poisoned gifts,” Valdemar argued as he waved his hand at the Dark Lords. “You want this assembly to watch my every move instead of yours so they won’t disturb you.”

“Of course I do not want to be disturbed, I am retiring,” Lord Och replied. “That is the entire point.”

“But you already have an army of far more capable Masters to replace you. People perhaps as old as your colleagues. Wouldn’t it be better for the Empire to put one of them in charge?”

As Valdemar had hoped, his words struck true with some of the Dark Lords. Phaleg the Binder already suspected Och of foul play, and the likes of Ophiel and Phul gazed at the lich with distrust. The Dark Lords’ alliance was built on fear and might rather than respect. Valdemar needed to redirect their paranoia towards the lich rather than have them focus on him.

“Or perhaps,” Lord Och said calmly, “I simply do not care.”

Which was unfortunately very plausible.

“Whatever the case, I never wanted to rule,” Valdemar pointed out. “I only ever agreed to serve you in the service of one goal: to open the path to a better world. Unless you have forgotten, my teacher?”

“I have not.” Lord Och stroked his bony chin, his eyes two baleful stars of malice. “But, and stop me if I misremember… didn’t we already debate about how opening a path to another world, while possible, wouldn’t solve our realm’s problems but merely displace them? You have criticized our government many times.”

Valdemar sighed. “I have.”

This amused Lord Ophiel. “Will you dare to say it to our face? My Knights still keep your cell in my Spellbane prison furbished, you mongrel bastard.”

“You are young, Valdemar.” Empress Aratra’s motherly tone couldn’t hide the condescension underneath. “When you have reached our age, if you ever do, you will understand that order is needed to maintain stability. Our Empire’s laws were refined over centuries of experience to ensure the safety and the prosperity of the greatest number.”

Lord Bethor snorted. “Your laws only serve this assembly’s prosperity, Aratra.”

The disrespected empress glared back at her rival. “And you forget yourself, Lord Bethor. Your proposal to lift permits on sorcery has already been rejected more times than I can count.”

“Talent alone should be the measure of success, not birth or connections,” Lord Bethor argued. “No mage worth his salt should need a piece of paper to cast spells. Your obsession with removing internal threats has turned our population into passive mushrooms while hungry predators leer at our borders. We need constant innovation to survive, not peaceful stagnation.”

He asked for spellcasting permits to be removed? Valdemar wondered. He couldn’t say it surprised him considering Lord Bethor’s warmongering ways. Valdemar himself had been forced to run from the law because he couldn’t do his research in peace or access the grimoires he needed.

What surprised him was that Lord Bethor’s position wasn’t without support. Lady Phul nodded in agreement. “While I disagree with Lord Bethor’s dream of turning Azlant into a military base, we do need less regulations,” she declared, “especially on magical items and foreign trade. Free commerce and economic integration with the Dokkar enclaves will prevent a war better than tariffs and distrust.”

“I intended to use this Sabbath to discuss the question of further cooperation on the magical research front,” Lord Hagith added. “We have the best biomancers in Horaios, but despite my entreaties to build partnerships, the Pleroma Institute keeps most of its discoveries tightly locked. It would benefit everyone if our development departments could cooperate rather than jealously hoard their successes.”

Empress Aratra dismissed these misgivings with a wave of her hand. “We have not gathered today to discuss these issues.”

“No,” Lord Och agreed. His eyes didn’t leave Valdemar though. “But what about our next Sabbath?”

Valdemar glared at his master. Was this another mind game? Was the lich tempting his apprentice with the possibility of reforming the Empire from the inside, however remote? It would certainly amuse Lord Och to see Valdemar compromise on his dream.

But the lich wouldn’t make such an announcement before all of his peers for the sake of a cruel joke. Lord Och was serious about stepping down, though Valdemar doubted he was truthful about his motives. Was this why the Dark Lord of Paraplex had tried to relentlessly break his student’s optimism? To mold his apprentice into his cynical image, so he would take care of his realm in his master’s absence?

The idea of reforming the empire appealed to Valdemar, but he refused to dance to his teacher’s strings.

“You will find someone else to fill in for you,” the young necromancer insisted.

“How selfish of you,” Lord Och mocked him. “You criticize me all the time, but when I offer you a chance to prove you are better than me, you spit on it. I suppose your high-minded words were but hot air in the end…”

“I still have too much to learn, you very well know that,” Valdemar replied with the same sarcastic tone. “How can I lead when I am but a shadow of your wisdom, my dear teacher?”

“Your apprentice is a naive fool, Och,” said Ophiel the Mad. “Do you wish to mock us by crowning him one of our own? I confess I would find it amusing, but alas now is not the time for peace and laughter. This era calls for an iron hand and a firm grasp on power.”

Lord Hagith nodded. “I must agree with my colleague’s assessment. Lord Och, you are an integral cog in the great machinery of the empire. With the Derros on the move and the Dokkars waiting for their moment to strike us in the back, your departure would be… unfortunate.”

Lord Bethor, who had observed the spat in silence so far, agreed with a nod. “Valdemar has potential, but he is not fit to become one of us yet. He has will and resolve, but he lacks strength.”

Lord Och’s resolve remained unshaken. “He will gain it in time.”

“He will,” Lord Bethor agreed. “But not now. He has barely tapped into his own limitless potential.”

“Limitless?” Empress Aratra let out a snort. “He has power by virtue of his birth, but it takes more than that to rule Underland.”

“W… k… up.”

Valdemar froze, while his familiar looked up at him with worried eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Marianne whispered.

“Did you hear that?” Valdemar asked. “A man’s voice.”

Marianne frowned as the Dark Lords argued between themselves. “My ears are better than yours, Valdemar, and I have heard nothing of the sort.”

But Valdemar could have sworn otherwise. He focused on his surroundings, trying to focus on the source of the sound.

“Wa… up…”

The voice echoed around him. It belonged to a man, but not anyone that Valdemar recognized.

He wasn’t the only one to hear it. Though Marianne remained oblivious, Empress Aratra and Lord Bethor both tensed up at once. The former glanced at the ceiling and the latter at Valdemar himself.

“Wake up.”

And then came the pain.

To Valdemar, it felt as if his own brain exploded inside his head, his eyes boiling in his sockets. The same agony that he had survived at the bottom of Lord Bethor’s tower seized him again. This time the attack didn’t come from the outside but from within.

Valdemar immediately strengthened his magical defenses. It was all for naught. Much like Lord Bethor had once bypassed them entirely, a dark power ignored all his protections and seized his heart.

He heard Marianne call his name as he fell. His vision blurred, his last sight being that of Sophia the Wise shivering above his head as the vault trembled. The dark swallowed all.

“Life is a dream,” the voice spoke, old and terrible, “and death is truth.”

The world became cold, cold like the vastness of space. His sight expanded beyond the ceiling of stone above his head, beyond the ice of the surface. He saw the planet he had worked so hard to escape from above, a lifeless cocoon hiding the festering warmth underneath.

“Do you see me?”

He saw, yes.

His eyes pierced the stoneskin of the world and gazed into its warmth depths. To a cavern full of marshes and swamps surrounding a plateau of stone. A city stood proudly on it, its gargantuan streets asleep, its portals locked to prevent the spread of a plague.

But no wall could stop the rats.

They came out of the sewers and the swamps in vast numbers. A horde of scavengers emerged from the shadows of human civilization. They poured into the streets like a tidal wave of fur.

More vermin joined them. Swarms of bats flocked to the city, led by the monster Bertrand had become. Flies and bugs followed in their wake, hungry for human flesh. They flew straight for the lone institute of Pleroma which oversaw the city.

“I have journeyed beyond the veil of death and returned,” the voice declared. “My soul cries out. I see with ten thousand eyes and kill with countless mouths. The moment has come, the time is now.”

As a shield of magic rose to protect the institute, the streets of the city below started to change. The stone buildings of Pleroma overlapped with a fishing hamlet’s houses. Qlippoths walked among the living. A well appeared in the central plaza and the horror at the bottom awakened.

It called out his sibling to join the family gathering.

The corpse of Sarah Verney oversaw this desolation, crucified on a great cross of skulls and bones. Shelley danced around her in glee as maddened cultists gathered around him. They carried enormous, hooded robes made of wererat skin; a ghastly artifact harvested from the remains of a hundred victims. Rats flocked beneath the vile clothing piece and soon filled it. A towering horror formed inside the robes as the mass of rats assembled into a humanoid shape.

“Come, my descendant, our hope.”

Two red lights appeared beneath the robes’ cowl.

“It is time to wake up your father.”

And Valdemar answered.

“Never!”

It took all of his mental strength to escape the vision, but he succeeded. When Valdemar regained his mind, he was on the floor in Marianne’s arms. “Valdemar, are you alright?” she asked him in panic. His familiar was at her side, standing still like a statue. “Valdemar?”

“I’m…” Valdemar gritted his teeth as he tried to ignore the searing pain. Though the visions didn’t overtake him again, his head still hurt. “I’m… fine.”

“You do not look fine, apprentice,” said Lord Och.

The Dark Lords had gathered around Valdemar, some more worried than others. Sophia the Wise wriggled in the ceiling of stone above their heads while the ground trembled. Lady Phul’s ethereal body seemed to phase in and out of existence in the blink of an eye, struggling to maintain her physical form.

“What is happening?” Lord Ophiel asked with a hint of worry.

“It is happening,” Lord Och rasped with eerie serenity. “At last, they make their move.”

“This is all his fault!” Lord Phaleg raised a hand at Valdemar and prepared to kill him on the spot. “Away with him!”

Marianne’s fist immediately grew a layer of bone armor as she prepared to protect Valdemar, but Empress Aratra stepped in. “It will change nothing,” she declared with an imperious voice. “He is not the source of the disturbance.”

“Whatever it is, it affects the Primordial Dream and the Outer Darkness,” Lady Phul declared as she managed to regain some semblance of stability. “I sense them overlapping with our reality.”

Lord Hagith nodded to himself. “This must be a Nahemoth’s doing then.”

And not just any of them.

“He can’t…” Valdemar gritted his teeth as he tried to ignore the searing pain. Though the visions didn’t overtake him again, his head still hurt. “Exist at the same time… as I do…”

“Can’t?” Lord Och shook his head. “No, my apprentice, the correct word is shouldn’t. We do not fully understand how this connection works, so it is possible our foes found a loophole we haven’t considered yet.”

Marianne frowned with Valdemar. “What’s happening?”

“Paraplex.” Valdemar resisted the urge to immediately teleport there. “They’re summoning the phantom Vernburg… inside Pleroma… I think.”

And that thing underneath the cloak of skins… it was the center of it all. The ritual’s catalyst.

“Do you hear that, Och?” Ophiel the Mad asked his colleague. “I knew someone would try to summon a Stranger in your realm one day. A pity it might affect us all.”

“Not for long.” Empress Aratra’s eyes shone with a red glow. “This challenge to my authority must be met with force.”

“For once we agree,” Lord Bethor added as he glanced at Valdemar and Marianne. “It is time.”

Yes indeed.

It was time to save Bertrand, destroy the Verney cult for good, and bury their twisted legacy.

And for Valdemar, it would be his chance to save his unborn brother from himself.