He thought, therefore he was.

Even with his body blown to smithereens, even after the smallest of his cells had been vaporized, even after the cosmic Light blasted his essence, Valdemar kept thinking.

He was everywhere and nowhere at all. He saw through two billion eyes and breathed through half as many mouths. He was the chittering rats hiding in the smallest tunnels and the dragons in the greatest caverns. He was the heat-force of the mitochondria and the quivering will of the eukaryotes.

He was the Blood incarnate. Crétail had split his power in half, but with his brother sealed, Valdemar Verney's Stranger half was no longer suppressed. Only now did he truly understand Lord Och’s words. That he would never die.

As long as the Blood flowed, the Red Grail of immortality would endure.

Ialdabaoth had stopped stirring in its sleep with Crétail’s capture. The Father of All’s prophet had fallen back into the darkness from which he came. The world’s awakening had been delayed, the day was won.

Ialdabaoth would not sleep forever. Its slumber would last for decades, perhaps centuries, but the Stranger would stir again. Its dreams would call to the madmen and the weak-willed to begin the cycle anew. One day, Ialdabaoth would return.

And the Father of All would find its rebel son opposing it once again.

The Blood breathed life into Valdemar once again. His atoms gathered. His cells multiplied. His flesh drew nourishment from all life in Underland until he recovered from complete annihilation.

His eyes opened to the sight of Paraplex’s stone ceiling. More than four layers of stone had separated Lord Och’s vault from the top of his fortress not too long ago. All of them had collapsed. A mighty fist had punched through all of them on its way to the Institute’s basement.

Skin covered Valdemar’s raw flesh, rebuilding his ears, his lips, and eyelids. His legs carried him atop a pile of rocks and shattered stones. Only rubble remained of the ancient ruins buried underneath the Institute. The vault had collapsed atop the annihilated portal, laying the Pleromian’s sinister legacy to rest.

“Ktulu.”

Ktulu hopped on Valdemar’s back and held onto his shoulders. Though the wounds the familiar had taken from Lord Och hadn’t yet healed, it had somehow been spared from the annihilation that befell the fortress.

The Painted World had survived too. The eldritch painting was half-buried in stones near Valdemar, but intact. The Silent King’s ritual had made it near indestructible to the point that even a fellow Stranger couldn’t destroy it.

Valdemar let out a breath of relief. His brother and Hermann’s legacy would survive.

“Ktulu pflalayal gna,” the tiny Stranger declared with a hint of pride.

My dad is stronger than yours, Valdemar translated. The bond between summoner and familiar had grown stronger and deeper with each ordeal. With trust came understanding.

Ktulu’s father was nowhere to be seen. The deity’s divine fist had struck Underland hard enough to shake it to the core and left just as swiftly. The stars needed to make way for its arrival; a true, proper summoning would have had apocalyptic consequences. Where did this entity come from? What was its purpose?

Even after I learned so much, Valdemar thought, there are still so many mysteries to uncover.

“What is happening…”

Valdemar turned at the voice’s source and faced his teacher one last time.

Lord Och had crawled out of the rubble too, but didn’t recover from the portal’s destruction like his student. His steel bones rusted in the equivalent of years in mere seconds. His legs had partly crumbled and forced him to kneel.

“My soul… cries out…” Lord Och rasped. One of his ribs fell and turned to dust before hitting the ground. “My mind… slipping away… my contingencies… can’t sense…”

“A god of immense power struck the seat of your soul, Lord Och,” Valdemar said. All the lich’s contingency plans couldn’t cover such an extreme scenario. “I can’t even feel it anymore.”

Valdemar couldn’t save the lich’s unlife, even if he wanted to. The force animating his old bones was no more than a psychic echo left after the phylactery’s destruction. It would fade away within minutes.

Death had caught up to Och, Dark Lord of Paraplex and archwizard extraordinaire.

In spite of all the lich had done, to watch his agony filled Valdemar with sorrow. More than a Dark Lord, Och was the heir of the old world, one of the last witnesses of a time when light shone on Underland. How many memories would fade away with him? How much knowledge would be lost?

Lord Och’s demise felt akin to the destruction of his portal. In spite of the evil legacy it carried, the monument’s absence would diminish the world. Men would never see anything like this again.

“Am I… dying… at last? This is frightening… the dark…” The fires in Lord Och’s eyes flickered like candles threatening to die out. “Where… will I go, Valdemar?”

Valdemar bit his lower lip. He wanted to comfort the Dark Lord in his last moments, but he also respected him too much to lie. “I do not know, my teacher.”

Neither to Ialdabaoth nor the Light, he suspected. Lord Och’s soul would wander into the darkness beyond the veil of death. No Stranger would welcome him. The cold gaze Ktulu sent to the lich told Valdemar as much.

Lord Och would die as he lived: alone.

The same thought seemed to cross the lich’s mind in his final moments. “You cruel child… we could have ascended to the Light… and now you condemned us both to eternal darkness…”

“It wasn’t worth the price.”

"You will live to regret your choice..." Lord Och's mouth coughed out dust. “Human greed is… eternal. Mortals will disappoint you in time… all of them.”

Valdemar sensed something moist running down his cheek.

The lich looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Are you… crying?”

“Yes, for you!” Valdemar wiped away his tears, his voice brimming with anger. “The Light be damned, you had so much knowledge, so much wisdom! We could have reached Earth together, saved mankind! You had everything and you threw it all away!”

Valdemar’s fists clenched in rage. In spite of the Dark Lord’s sins and cruelty, his apprentice had truly admired him. His demise felt like a personal loss for himself and all of humankind.

The lich listened in silence before laughing at his apprentice’s face. “I am a Dark Lord, my foolish disciple… beyond regrets, beyond sorrow… if you do not understand yet… then you learned nothing…”

“You taught me well. You taught me to stand up for my beliefs.”

“Then… mayhaps you will succeed in a few more centuries… once you walk the same road I did…” Lord Och let out a cough of dust. “Remember what awaits you… at the threshold…”

The lich’s left shoulder gave out and he threatened to fall on his face. Valdemar moved to catch him without thinking and held him in his arms. The Dark Lord was so brittle that some of his bones cracked when his fingers touched them.

Valdemar used his psychic sight to examine the lich. He looked for any fragment of his soul he could catch and safeguard within him, but all he found were dying embers beyond saving.

“Are you still worrying for my immortal soul…” The light in Lord Och’s right eye died out, leaving only one. “After all I’ve done… to you?”

“Someone has to,” Valdemar replied softly. “You can’t become a better person if you’re dead.”

“You would give a chance… even to the likes of me? Even after I slew Hermann… and that woman?”

Valdemar’s teeth gritted together. “I cannot forgive your cruelty... but when I offered you a chance to turn back before our battle, you hesitated; and when we fought I felt the restraint in your spells. Even on the threshold of the Light, a part of you doubted and held back. You were not lost forever.”

Something Valdemar couldn’t say from the likes of Blutgang and Shelley.

“If I was willing to offer you another chance back then, in front of the portal, why wouldn’t I give you one now?” Valdemar asked. “As long as a small star shines in the night, it must be preserved and nurtured. Or else there will only be darkness left.”

Valdemar expected his master to spit in his face and mock his naïveté one last time. To his surprise, his words seemed to strike a chord with the Dark Lord. He had no more bitter jabs to offer, no rebuke about the inherent cruelty of humankind.

“Maybe you won’t become… like me…” Lord Och rasped. “After all...”

If anything, he looked strangely serene.

"We made quite the pair... you and I… two fools fumbling in the dark...” A mirthless chuckle came out of Lord Och’s mouth as the last of his bones fell apart. “I looked for the light everywhere… except within myself.”

Such were Lord Och’s last words as he crumbled to dust in his student’s arms.

Time caught up to the lich with accrued interests. His skull turned to sand as it hit the stones. The magic that had animated Lord Och for centuries ground him back into raw atoms and then nothing.

“Farewell, my teacher,” Valdemar whispered.

Death’s silence answered his words.

I can’t hear the battle, Valdemar thought as he looked up at the ceiling. It must be over.

No way the Dark Lords hadn’t noticed the destruction. Valdemar would have some explaining to do soon.

“Ktulu,” his familiar hissed. “Maryannu!”

Valdemar’s blood froze in his veins. Marianne.

Her corpse had been left to rot in the open.

Briefly forgetting the Painted World and his own nakedness, Valdemar extended his arms all the way to the Institute’s ground floor and lifted himself up. It didn’t take him long to find Marianne’s remains in the courtyard, right next to Hermann’s corpse.

Lord Och hadn’t even bothered to cover his tracks.

I will bury you both, Valdemar swore to the corpses. He knelt next to Marianne’s remains first; her pale skin had taken on a pallid shade as rigor mortis set in. Lord Och had at least the decency to close her eyes before leaving her behind.

She looked asleep at first glance, but when Valdemar held her in his arms, he couldn’t deny the truth. His partner, his sword, felt cold as ice to the touch.

Did you suffer? Valdemar thought grimly. Did you die in despair thinking Lord Och would kill me next? Or did you believe I would prevail to the bitter end?

What he would have given up to hear her voice answer him…

No, Valdemar, focus, the summoner touched as his hand moved to Marianne’s neck. You can’t give up yet. Even if Lord Och smashed her soulstone, perhaps you can salvage something out of it.

He had recreated an echo of his grandfather from a journal. With the fragment of a soulstone, he could do the same with Marianne. It wouldn’t be her, not truly, but at least he would keep a memento from his lover.

Valdemar’s eyes widened. His fingers had closed on a black stone whose surface felt as warm as Marianne’s skin was cold.

The soulstone was intact.

Valdemar’s eyes widened in shock as he realized that Lord Och had lied. He hadn’t destroyed Marianne’s soulstone, perhaps out of neglect… or maybe out of respect.

“That cold-hearted bastard…” Valdemar whispered. “Toying with my feelings even after death…”

His despair turned to hope as he seized the soulstone. Marianne’s vibrant spirit remained alive within it, awaiting a new vessel in which she would take root again.

“Soon,” Valdemar promised as he put a hand on her corpse’s forehead. Marianne’s muscles had started to stiffen, but most of her cells were intact. The rot hadn’t set in. “Soon.”

Valdemar applied the soulstone to Marianne’s neck and went to work.

Death felt like a dream.

Pale colors, incomplete images, and indistinct sounds littered Marianne’s mind. She walked alone through the wasteland of her past. Pictures rose from a sea of darkness at random. Her family’s mansion crumbled under its own weight. Indistinct shadows walked past her while wearing her parents’ clothes. A flock of bats shifted into the shape of Bertrand. A rusted needle oozed blood as Lord Bethor’s grim visage watched on from above. A portrait reflected a blurred vision of Valdemar’s face, his smile turning into a bloody grin when Marianne approached it.

Was this place her afterlife? A desolate museum of stillborn thoughts?

Marianne had heard that souls kept in an individual soulstone slept quietly, whereas those sharing a common Reliquary melted together in a sea of knowledge and memories. Lord Och might have snuffed her life out before the soulstone could catch her, but this place didn’t look like the Outer Darkness. Marianne didn’t suffer and the memories didn’t torment her. No Qlippoth haunted her steps.

She would find neither joy nor sorrow here.

Marianne’s steps carried her to one last ghastly vision; that of a steel spike impaling a well-dressed corpse through the throat. A layer of pale white skin covered the victim’s eyes and mouth, hiding their visage. As for the spike, it looked suspiciously like her rapier’s tip.

Marianne gathered her breath, although no air came in or out of her lungs. “Is that you, Jérôme?”

The figure’s head slowly turned in her direction. “Do you remember my face?” the faceless man asked with a voice Marianne did not recognize and without a mouth to speak with. “Do you remember the scent of my blood? Or have you forgotten?”

“No, I have not.” Marianne would never forget. “I only wanted to let go.”

The faceless man dangled from the soulsteel spike, pale blood dripping from his wound. Marianne found his silence unbearable.

“Do you hate me?” She asked softly.

“The dead do not feel regrets or anger. The dead do not feel anything at all.” The figure pointed at the darkness surrounding them with a crooked arm. “Death is nothingness.”

A chill went down Marianne’s spine. Her fear turned to confusion as her eyes lingered on other half-formed memories. “Does their presence mean that I still live?”

The faceless man’s head tilted to the side and revealed the festering flesh beneath his wound. “Do you want to?”

“Yes, of course I want to live. Nobody wishes for death.” Marianne ground her jaw when she looked up at her former lover. “Did you? Is that why you didn’t wear your soulstone?”

“Does it matter what I want? What happened, happened.”

“I need an answer. To find closure.”

“You will find none in death. Life is a road that always ends before its destination.”

“You aren’t really here, are you?” Marianne wondered if it was her mind’s way of telling her that she would never find the answers to some questions… and that she would have to make her own. “Do you even exist?”

“I do,” the ghost of her past replied, “so long as you remember me.”

Marianne smiled as light cleared the darkness of her mind. “I can live with that.”

A ray of light forced its way through her eyelids. A sense of numbness overtook her body to the point that she couldn’t sense her own fingers. Something filled her nose and slowed down her heartbeat.

Even as her eyes slowly started to distinguish colors and forms, Marianne struggled not to fall back into sleep. Had someone cast a dizzying spell on her? Her head was resting against something warm and soft, under the shadow of a man.

“Do not move.” It took Marianne a few seconds to recognize Valdemar’s voice. “It will take a few minutes before your heart cleans out the accumulated toxins.”

Toxins? Marianne’s skull felt heavy like a stone. Her head hurt and half her thoughts came to an abrupt end before she could utter them. “Am I…”

“Dead?” Marianne’s vision stabilized until she could see her lover’s smile. Valdemar looked beaten and exhausted, but alive. Wonderfully alive. “You were.”

And he brought her back.

“You are naked,” Marianne noticed. It sounded stupid even to herself, but she struggled to form a better thought.

“I am,” Valdemar said with a chuckle. Marianne felt his fingers close on her left hand. Had his touch ever felt so warm?

“Ktulu,” his small familiar said while peeping over his shoulder. “Ktulhu!”

My head is resting on his lap, Marianne realized. She could have stayed there for hours, but the recent souvenir of Lord Och murdering Hermann brutally brought her back to reality. “Where… where is he? Lord Och?”

“That is a question,” Empress Aratra’s voice cut through the discussion, “I would like to hear the answer too.”

Marianne struggled to raise her head.

The six remaining Dark Lords had formed a circle around her and Valdemar. Lord Bethor rode on his dragon’s back, while Empress Aratra, not to be outdone, stood with dignity atop a tall pile of dead Qlippoths. Lady Phul kept her wings folded over her chest, her expression guarded. Lord Hagith kept his hands behind his back next to the frowning Phaleg. Last but not least, Lord Ophiel examined Valdemar’s naked chest before shaking his head.

“Disappointing,” Marianne heard the androgynous Dark Lord mutter under their breath. “Deeply disappointing.”

Have they always been here? Marianne wondered. Her diminished state prevented her from tapping into her enhanced senses. She struggled to rise up to her feet, to protect Valdemar from them, but her body refused to obey her. Her lover didn’t look in a good enough shape to pick up a fight either. We’re at their mercy…

“The Blood cried out for minutes,” Empress Aratra said with squinting eyes. “Space and time floundered.”

Lord Ophiel scoffed. “All of Underland must have felt it.”

“I told you that the lich was plotting something,” Phaleg the Binder raged as blisters grew on his inhuman arm. “Where is he?”

“He’s gone,” Valdemar replied calmly. “I killed him.”

My hearing hasn’t recovered, Marianne thought. My ears deceive me.

Valdemar’s serious expression made her doubt.

Lord Ophiel laughed in response and Phaleg the Binder scoffed with disdain. But Empress Aratra remained eerily silent, as did Lord Bethor.

He’s not lying, Marianne realized to her shock. Her lover’s hand was firm and untroubled. He destroyed Lord Och.

So foreign was the thought that although Marianne had complete faith in Valdemar, she still struggled to believe him. Lord Och was older than the empire itself, a mage of tremendous power. He had snuffed out Marianne’s life with a snap of his fingers. She knew Valdemar could have prevailed in battle against the lich, but to destroy him?

“How?” Lord Bethor asked Valdemar, a hint of sorrow in the Dark Lord’s voice. The fact he didn’t deny his former teacher’s demise made his colleagues suddenly anxious.

“I couldn't beat him myself, so I summoned a Stranger to destroy his phylactery,” Valdemar replied. His familiar wagged its tentacles on his shoulder.

Lord Bethor pressed for details. “Was it the Nahemoth? Was that your plan from the start?”

Valdemar looked uneasy at revealing this information. “Hermann… Hermann and I succeeded in creating the Painted World.”

“But it wasn’t the Nahemoth that you used,” Lord Bethor guessed. “You called another.”

Valdemar nodded slowly. Lord Bethor’s dragon hunched beneath his silent master, as if echoing his thoughts.

“It was meant to be,” was all Lord Bethor said. He sounded as if he had expected this outcome from the start.

Of all the Dark Lords present, Phaleg the Binder looked to be the most in denial. “You can’t imply—”

“Young Valdemar speaks the truth.” All eyes turned to Empress Aratra. The mistress of Azlant showed no emotion. A stony expression and a monotone voice hid her feelings from her fellow Dark Lords. “I do not feel Och’s presence in the Blood anymore. His soul has departed Underland.”

“The apprentice surpassed the teacher,” Lord Bethor declared. To Marianne’s surprise, she sensed a hint of respect in his voice. The Dark Lord of Sabaoth mourned his fallen master, but he revered his slayer as a fellow exemplar of strength.

Silence ruled among the Dark Lords as they considered the news and its implications. Lord Ophiel was the first to speak up, his mocking nonchalance turned to astonishment. “My, my, I never thought I would live to see the old man kick the bucket for good.”

“This is a trick,” Phaleg the Binder rasped with paranoia. “A ploy. Och is faking death to strike us later when we least expect it. Don't you see? This is a set-up!”

Lord Hagith observed Valdemar and Marianne with a calculating gaze. The noblewoman had caught him gazing at Hermann’s corpse before. No doubt he had drawn his own conclusions from the scene. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “For the sake of vengeance?”

Valdemar shook his head. “I did it to save us all. He would have destroyed this Domain otherwise.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” Lord Ophiel replied with a tone that implied the opposite. “I’m sure it was nothing personal and that you didn’t expect any reward from it.”

“Does it matter why he did it?” Lady Phul asked. “The fact remains that Paraplex is short of a Dark Lord and ripe for the taking.”

“It is not,” Lord Bethor replied sharply.

Does he intend to claim Paraplex for himself? Marianne wondered. She didn’t need her enhanced senses to notice the cautious glances the Dark Lords exchanged or the invisible tension in the air. For a brief moment, Marianne expected a war over Lord Och’s territory to start before her very eyes.

At least, until she noticed the sly smirk forming on Empress Aratra’s lips.

“Very well, Lord Valdemar,” Empress Aratra declared, putting emphasis on the ‘Lord’ part. “I expect you to put your Domain in order before our next meeting. Cleaning Paraplex of Qlippoths should be your first priority.”

Marianne glanced at her lover and watched him blink twice in a row. Valdemar had heard, but he didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry?” he asked.

“Do not be so surprised, Valdemar.” Lord Bethor crossed his arms, fiery sparks dancing in his crimson eyes. “Power shifts quickly in our brotherhood.”

“Ah, I see where this is going.” Lady Phul’s fingers crossed beneath her chin. “Yes, it would neatly solve our problem. We can’t afford a civil war right now.”

“I wouldn’t mind one,” Lord Ophiel said. “But it would taste bland without a few rounds of cloak-and-dagger first. Intrigue is my salt and pepper.”

“I do not understand,” Valdemar said with a tone that implied otherwise.

You do, but you can’t believe it, Marianne thought. She would have scarcely believed it herself a few months ago, before Valdemar had earned her faith.

Lord Hagith seemed to find her lover’s obliviousness amusing. “Lord Och appointed you as his successor, did he not? You should know this famous necromancer proverb: you kill it, you keep it.”

“You want to hand Paraplex to him?" Only Phaleg the Binder seemed to take issue with the situation. "A halfbreed Stranger?”

“That leaves him with a good half,” Lady Phul quipped.

“He destroyed the old bag of bones, which means he’s overqualified,” Lord Ophiel replied. “Unless you want to take him on for the post? Please tell me you will. I welcome a good laugh.”

Lord Phaleg’s anger turned to cold calculation as he examined Valdemar. Marianne’s free hand fumbled to her side until she somehow found her rapier’s handle. Try it, she dared him mentally.

He did not.

When faced with the unknown, Phaleg the Binder opted for caution. “Fine.”

“As expected,” Lord Ophiel replied with a dismissive tone. “You could never defeat your teacher, how can you hope to prevail against his killer?”

Lord Phaleg ignored the jab, his teeth grinding so loudly that Marianne wondered if they would crack. “This is a trick. Och can’t be dead. It’s all a smokescreen of some kind.”

Marianne could tell he would never truly believe in his old master’s demise. Not that it surprised her. Liches were infamous for returning from the dead and Lord Och had tormented his former apprentice for many years. It would be years before Phaleg the Binder would accept the truth; perhaps even centuries.

“Even if Lord Och were to return one day, someone must keep the house in his absence.” Empress Aratra waved her hand dismissively. “Lord Valdemar has proven himself a true friend of mankind and a powerful mage. My decision is irrevocable.”

Lord Bethor nodded in agreement, settling the matter.

Valdemar’s fingers trembled between Marianne’s own. She squeezed his hand tighter to comfort him. Marianne felt her lover relax at her contact and the silent message she had sent him.

No matter what the future held, they would face it together.