A Step-Mother's Tale

It is oft forgotten, in the legends and epics,

that the Herald of Carnage is commanded and

directed by more than just the whims of those who

rule over him. That even those who are his masters

must follow the instructions of the Gods and Destiny.

If you feel hampered and hemmed by your parents

wishes and commands remember that even the

Eternal Elba, the Living Lich King herself, must follow

the commands of those more powerful than her.

-Saint Kalimia, Church of the Crimson Waters of Life

The throne room was deathly silent as the large doors, made of heavy red oak inlaid with precious metals and gems, slowly and noiselessly swung open. Every eye in the room turned from the king to the entrance. Sweat freely ran down faces, ruining carefully applied expensive makeup, and eyes bulged with fear as the occupants of the courtroom stared at the just opened doors.

Every eye was locked on the figure that was revealed, on the small figure dressed in light gray shimmersilk, her long black hair piled into a vast mass on top of her head and woven into a braid that was pulled over her left shoulder to hang freely. The court was silent except for the clicking of her hard heels, many of the nobles unconsciously holding their breaths. The hem of her skirt swept behind her, the train held aloft by twinkling sparks, her hands tucked into the large voluminous sleeves, and a simple golden braid at her waist. Her ceramic mask looked severe, covering her entire face, a long crack running down one side that had either red paint or fresh blood in the depths and brown paint or dried blood at the edges. The mask was carefully molded into the features of a beautiful woman, completely white with the exception of bright red lips and eyes edged in black, the irises like chips of sunset; these swept over the assembled nobles as if they were living eyes and not expertly painted ceramic.

As she swept into the huge room, the nobility that lined the walls dropped to their knees, then leaned forward to press their faces to the floor, their makeup smudging on both the tile and their faces. More than a few were sobbing, and several befouled themselves as she swept by in cold majesty.

The woman came to a stop in the center of the throne room, directly in front of the king and queen of the City State of Blue Roses. The king and queen both rose and prostrated themselves before the woman, whose lip curled slightly. She nodded once, slightly, in recognition of their devotion to her and the powers she served.

"Rise." The word was as cold as ice and the nobility, king and queen all hurled themselves to their feet. Sweating visibly, the king and queen stared at her, dreading what was to come. The Herald of Change was feared far and wide by the wise.

"I bring you commandments." The woman's voice was clear, without mercy or compassion, the words uttered from ceramic lips that moved as if they were alive.

"We live to hear your word and serve," the king replied. Despite the calm in his words, he wanted to throw his crown to the ground and run screaming rather than listen to her.

"From this day forth, all nobility and royalty shall follow these commands," the woman continued, and the nobility held their breath. "The men shall wear petticoats and dresses, while the women shall wear trousers and greatcoats." Her lip curled again as she watched the king.

"It shall be as the great and powerful IV commands," he intoned solemnly, dropping to one knee.

The woman seemed to draw herself up further and take a deep breath. "Additionally, within the nobility all the men shall refer to themselves as Mary in speech, and the women shall refer to themselves as George."

"As IV commands, I, Mary, shall command all within my kingdom to obey," the king answered, bending his head, almost weeping in gratitude that it was merely a bizarre commandment rather than that every third male would be slain or that everyone would abandon the city and move into the woods to wear skins.

The woman stared for a long moment, then turned and swept out in silence.

* * * * *

Electulu of the Brass Flute, Wraithkiller, the Bladed Poet and the Diva of a Thousand Voices, watched her Step-Mother the Eternal Elba walk out of the city gate, leaving behind the carriage she had ridden in to the royal palace. Walk wasn't precisely the right word, Electulu realized. Perhaps stalk. Or stomp. Definitely stomp.

"May the Gods damn it all." Electulu's sharp hearing picked out the woman's words, the tone a frustrated growl.

The diminutive woman came up the massive oak cart pulled by a quartet of gray horses, stopped, and shook her dress slightly. "Shoo, little ones," she said, her voice warm, if edged with irritation. From beneath her skirt over a dozen small raptor-like lizards fled to the cart, climbing quickly up the ropes, and vanished beneath the tarp that covered a large rectangle that stood nearly twelve feet high and six feet to a side.

"They bought it, Step-Mother?" Electulu asked as the other woman clapped her hands. There was a flare of light, then the hugely ornate dress rippled and pulled tight to her body, the shimmersilk changing to inlaid and bead embroidered leather that was obviously worn and comfortable. An orcish razor-sword appeared across her back, brought out of hiding from the mystical space she kept it when she dressed in finery, and a pair of daggers appeared in the tops of her well worn marching boots.

"Yes, Droxx damn them," the woman snarled, calling upon one of the gods of death, reaching back to set the cruel blade more comfortably on her back.

"Can't we just, I don't know, leave him in a ditch somewhere?" Electulu asked, waving at the cart. "He gives me the creeps. I swear he's staring at me under that tarp."

"No. I have been instructed to find someone who offers me insult and leave him in that person's presence so that he will be awoken." The woman growled. "Stupid rules." She pulled herself up into the cart and grabbed the reins.

Electulu, her brown face serious, looked up at her Step-Mother and shook her head.

* * * * *

The Council of Nine were gathered at the behest of the Herald of Change, the Voice of IV, the Living Lich King, the Thorn Lord herself. All of them were nervous, dreading whatever edicts that the Queen of the Worlds had sent her hand-maiden to bring to the Ruby City. When the doors burst open to reveal a small woman wearing a shimmer-silk gown and a cracked ceramic mask, all of them visibly started, and one man felt his bladder let go.

Peepers, the small raptor-like lizards, were following in her footsteps, their bright little eyes watching the sparkles of the sun on the precious metals inlaid on the wood of the council chamber. Two or three would jump forward and grab at the sparks that the woman's heels struck from the floor, tossing the magic from claw to claw and to one another in the few footsteps the sparks lasted.

At last the woman stopped before the gathered council members, her lip curling as the cold red ceramic eyes swept over them. The Peepers all ran beneath the hem of her skirt, vanishing from the eyes of the council members, and the silence was thick and heavy for a long moment. Despite her tiny size and the fact that the Council of Nine sat upon raised tiers, the men and women gathered before her felt as if the small woman towered above them. They shivered as the eyes of the mask, ruby eyes like molten rock, swept over them. The white mask that had covered her face throughout history gave no hint of her intention beyond her obvious disdain.

She cleared her throat and one statesman slumped in his chair, dead. His heart had given out, unable to handle the strain of waiting. Two elderly servants fainted, and a trio of pages ran screaming from the audience hall at the sound.

The lips twitched in what may have been amusement before the woman began speaking.

"For this point on, at sunrise, all nobility and royalty and members of the government shall move about on hands and knees, until the sun rises completely above the horizon." The voice was cold as ice, and the surviving council members shrank back from the tiny woman as she continued. "In addition, those same peoples shall hop on one foot wherever they go from the moment the setting sun touches the horizon until it vanishes completely."

"As IV commands," the council all said at once.

Nobody was close enough to hear the woman's teeth grind.

* * * * *

Elba stomped up to the cart, grinding her teeth as she did so, already dressed in her leathers. Electulu shook her head and smiled at her mother, her long black hair done up in two silken braids.

"Didn't work, huh?" she asked.

"Blasted cowards. They thanked me for sparing their worthless lives, some even kissed my feet, and they offered to sacrifice their oldest children to my mercy," Elba spit, grabbing the reins.

"I'm telling you, we should just drop him in a ditch," Electulu answered. She made a face. "Or maybe down a big hole."

"It won't work. I told you," Elba answered, flicking the reins to get the horses moving.

"Who cares what IV wants done with him? He's dangerous, and a psycho." Electulu looked angry for a moment. "Besides, why did you save him? His people belong back in history when everyone was wearing furs and throwing rocks at each other. Nobody important was around back then."

Elba turned and stared at Electulu, one ceramic eyebrow raising. The assassin looked and suddenly paled, swallowing.

"I mean, except you," she said placatingly. "Seriously, Step-Mother, it took the Stygian Wave almost a century to destroy his people, can't we just cut his throat and leave him in a hole somewhere?"

Elba shook her head. "No. I'm not following your Mother's orders. I'm following other orders."

Electulu looked around nervously, peering off to the east and then the west. "You mean them?" Her voice was full of fear as she referred to the two powerful entities that ensured that things would come to pass.

"Yes, them," Elba said. "The Dawn Strider and the Dusk Walker have given me my commands."

"I still say we should just drop him in a ditch."

* * * * *

The inn was badly lit and smelled of old beer, the sour reek of sweat and bad meat. The reeds on the floor needed to be swept out and replaced, and the rafters were thick with smoke residue and grease. The barman had a bad complexion, a wandering eye and fat lips that were wet with slobber. He was lazily wiping a greasy rag across the top of the bar, his eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether or not the week old mutton would be good enough to put in a stew for the night.

The door opened and a small woman looked into the inn, her pert little nose wrinkling. The bartender stared as she walked toward him. She had pale skin, a pinkish white that he had never seen before, and her eyes were a cool violet color. Her face was heart shaped, youthful, expressive, and beautiful. She had a small pink bow of a mouth, with full lips, slightly tilted eyes with long lashes, with a small tattoo of a ornate egg, no bigger than a robin's egg, under the corner of her right eye. Her long black hair was done up in a braid, and she wore battered leathers with beadwork on the legs and chest.

"How much for a room for two, stabling for four horses and space for a cart?" the woman asked, glancing up at the board behind the bartender. "Four Novak ravens or six?" She referred to the standard coin of the great city-state of Novak-Eck, usually accepted across the Six Worlds for trade.

The man's lip curled. He didn't much care for the look of the woman, who seemed too arrogant for his tastes. "Ten gold eagles," he answered. He looked down his nose at her. "Real gold, not any foreign coins, not those barbaric kobold Yumyum coins. I don't trust you or your foreign ways."

The woman raised a delicately plucked eyebrow and stared at him for a long moment, but the bartender just sneered at her and held out his hand. With a sigh the woman dug in her belt pouch and counted out ten Ruby City gold Eagles, each tiny coin shining in the dim light of the inn.

"For that, you can sleep in the stable with animals, foreign bitch," he laughed , pocketing the coins in a swift motion.

For a moment the woman went rigid, her teeth grinding, and then she suddenly relaxed. She flashed the bartender a smile full of even white teeth, and even went so far as to curtsy.

"Thank you, sir," she said, bobbing her head.

"And no whoring in my inn," the man retorted as she turned and walked back out. When she left, he chuckled to himself. That was twenty times what a room was worth, and to top it off he'd put the arrogant wench in her place and let her know that he wasn't putting up with any of her foreign wanton ways.

Outside Elba hurried up to the cart, where Electulu was just climbing down, a large smile on her bare face.

"What's so funny?" Electulu asked, turning and facing her Step-Mother.

"Nothing." She waved at the large shape concealed by the tarp. "Get the tarp off of there, and hurry up."

"Uh, okay," Electulu answered, climbing back into the cart. She undid the ropes and whipped the tarp off of the massive object, revealing a huge cage made of wrist thick iron bars. Inside a man filled the cage, his arms chained to the bars, his ankles bound by manacles attached to large bolts sunk into the oak of the cart, and a chain around both his neck and his waist. Those two chains were each attached to four chains that were attached to a side of the massive cage.

"I'm telling you, he's staring at me," Electulu said, backing away nervously.

The man in the cage was massive. At least half again the size of a normal man, his legs as thick as other men's waists, his arms as wide as a fat woman's leg. He was slumped slightly in the chains, which held him up, his clothing rough but serviceable. He had a massive axe attached to the belt at his waist, and his shaggy hair fell down his brow over closed eyes.

"He's still asleep," Elba replied, climbing up into the cart. She reached out and with her index finger, touched each chain. When she did, it fell from the massive man, until he was merely swaying in place, only the rise and fall of his broad chest betraying the fact he was still living.

Elba turned around and stared at the inn. Electulu saw the flickering gold and blue fire fill the scars that created a fine tracery all over her body, the ornate scrollwork of a mage at work burning beneath her skin. The fire of arcane magic filled her, the same fires that had burnt away her melanin and bleached her skin a freakish white. She whispered a few words and flicked her hand at the inn. The fire beneath her skin surged, then suddenly vanished as she released the spell she had done on the fly that would have required an hour long ritual from another caster.

"That'll hold them for a few moments," Elba said, then turned to the man and made a few more motions, the fire in her skin flaring up again for a moment. The massive figure lifted up slightly, and Elba opened the door to the cage, reaching in and tugging the man forward.

Electulu watched and followed as Elba pulled the floating man into the inn and placed him on a bench in a darkened corner. At Elba's urging, she grabbed several dirty and greasy beer mugs and placed them, with a little bit of ale in the bottom of each one, at the table in front of the giant figure. She still felt uneasy being that close to him, but did her Step-Mother's bidding quickly to get away from him if nothing else.

Finally, Elba leaned forward, a handful of black dust in her hand. She pursed her lips and blew gently, the dust puffing into the giant's face.

"What's that?" Electulu asked.

"That's the dust from when I scraped his name off the Tablets of Fate," Elba answered, standing up. "Come on, we need to hurry."

Electulu followed her out and into the cart. Elba flicked the reins and the horses quit nibbling at the grass and turned back toward the road at Elba's direction.

"I thought this was supposed to be some big thing," Electulu said, looking back at the inn. "I thought it took something major to wake him up since he became the Herald of Carnage."

"So did I. We were wrong." Elba laughed. "I was told to leave him where he could bring carnage to he who insults me."

In the inn, the bartender noticed with a start that a drunk was slumped in the corner of the inn. He cursed. First those women, then a caravan had come through, and he'd missed the drunk passed out in the corner that must have come in with the caravan. Still, there were a few silver on the table, which he quickly moved over and reached out to grab.

A massive hand grabbed his arm and squeezed tightly.

Fraker's bloodshot eyes glared at the bartender.

"Did you just call my Step-Mother a whore?" rumbled from the giant.