-[Chapter 011]-

“Loyalty is not the same as honesty, my child. To have complete faith in your minions is not the same as to trust them unconditionally. Everyone lies, especially when they have the best of intentions in mind, and you will find that the traitors usually wear the widest smiles.”

—AUTHOR REDACTED by the executive order of the Guild of Chaos, TABULA RASA protocol.

***

With many of Basil’s minions taking part in the assault on the capital city, this morning the Doom Mansion was a little more quiet than usual. Still, it was far from empty as the custodial staff went about their daily routine of cleaning, fixing and restocking the numerous facilities and workshops that were housed within the pocket dimension. The smell of freshly baked bread made its rounds through the halls and the night shift workers spent the early morning hours relaxing in the communal spaces before retiring to sleep.

Basil had left the curtains in his study closed when he departed, so the room was shrouded in dusk. Bookshelves lined the walls. They housed heavy tomes, rolled up maps and quite the collection of artifacts and trophies. Dwarven contraptions slumbered in the shelves next to exquisite elven craftwork. A collection of tribalistic figurines, carved in the shapes of strange, primal gods were neatly arranged on top of the mantelpiece. Above the fireplace hung a painting that depicted a pantheon of more eloquent gods and goddesses bowing before an altar dedicated to the worship of the sun. The brass plaque at the corner of the frame held an inscription that read as such: ‘from the personal collection of the High Priestess, Malory of Sinebrum; the last ruler of Faredun — 2874 Anno Inferni.’ The date was probably not referencing the year of the painting’s commission, but, rather, the fall of the civilization that had originally created it.

All in all, it was a quiet morning in Basil’s private chambers. A single lazy ray of light pierced the curtains and landed on the dark and glossy surface of his desk. The occasional mote of dust crossed its path on a journey across the room. The tiny particles danced with the shifting breeze as it snuck into the room through the gaps in the window frames.

Suddenly there was a loud snap and the fabric of the curtains froze in place. The dust particles, which had been dancing chaotically across the room just a moment ago, now seemed to hang in place, as if time itself had been stopped.

Chronos rubbed his fingers together as he examined the frozen scene. From his position, standing in the middle of the room, the old butler surveyed every book, nook and cranny around him in search of anything that might seem out of place in his master’s chambers. His sightless gaze eventually focused in on the desk at the very back of the chamber. The stone expression of Basil’s father—the only witness to this strange intrusion—glared at the old butler from the corner of the room as he made his way towards the dungeon keeper’s desk.

Having arrived at his master’s workstation, Chronos took a moment to explore its surface. He ran his fingers across the desk and examined the white fabric of his glove. The old butler noted the black and grey flakes of ash now clinging to it.

Chronos reached out his right hand over the desk and snapped his fingers. With the flow of time now restored the dust particles—which had been suspended in the lone beam of light—now carried on with their journey as if nothing had happened.

The old butler leaned in close to the edge of the desk and exhaled sharply. The fine ash particles rose up, seeking to scatter throughout the room. But, as Chronos once more snapped his fingers, the gray specks of dust froze midair. He then proceeded to rewind their motions. The ash particles settled back down upon the desk, but, as he wound them further back in time, they eventually began to clump together and change consistency. Once he was done working his magic, about two thirds of the yellow parchment had been reconstituted, albeit with many holes and pieces missing—accounting for what had been swept or carried away.

Chronos carefully picked up the incomplete letter and explored its contents for the briefest of moments, before snapping his fingers one last time. The butler disappeared from the room, taking the shredded message along with him—surely, to be studied in detail at a more secluded location.

***

Sometime later a band of four gathered in secret, deep below the Mansion of Doom. An old crone and a sharply dressed man of her age holding hands; a crimson warrior in her prime and her opposite number, dark and brooding, conveniently hidden from each other’s sight by the corner of a dungeon wall.

“Get on with it,” Schwartz said with a tinge of irritation in his voice. “Speak quickly, so that I don’t have to suffer her presence for a moment longer than I need to.”

“Then go already,” Scarlet said. “You didn’t need to answer the summons. We don’t need you here anyhow. Or, better yet, take the whole lot of your craven goons and leave the Mansion—make my dream come true.”

“Heartless creatures don’t dream,” Schwartz replied. “If I left the Mansion in the hands of your pampered bloodsuckers, they wouldn’t know what to do with it. No doubt, having learned from your example…”

Scarlet growled, but left the Dark Ranger’s insult unanswered.

The Old Crone raised her finger—withered and scrawny, like the branch of a tree in late autumn—and wagged it towards the two impatient commanders. “Patience, young ones,” Gaia said. “Put aside your personal issues for a moment and listen closely. My dear Chronos has gathered you here for a good reason: he has uncovered a worrying new development that concerns the future of the whole House.”

“Well, spit it out!” Scarlet said. “My girls are fighting in the capital city right now and I need to be on hand, should they call upon my guidance.”

Schwartz scoffed in response to her claim. “You just can’t stand the idea of trusting people to do their work by themselves…” he remarked.

The old butler let go of Gaia’s hand and stepped forward. “Our old friend, Drum, has managed to complicate things once again,” Chronos said. He showed them the partially restored parchment, taken in secret from Basil’s chambers. “This message was passed onto the Young Master through his hands. Thank you, Schwartz, for letting me know about the true nature of their encounter.”

Schwartz nodded.

“Who is it from?” Scarlet asked.

“It is a blood-bound letter from Razazil,” Chronos answered. “From what I was able to gather, he has invited Lord Doom to visit him in the Nine Hells at his earliest convenience.”

Chronos let his words sink in before continuing. “I reckon we are about to embark on a rather dangerous quest, once Empire Solar is done and dusted. Apparently the old Sea Dragon’s search has finally turned up something worthwhile.”

“It was only a matter of time before Basil got something out of that bargain,” Schwartz said. “Took the Admiral long enough to find it, but, then again, we always knew that it was impossible to erase the trail completely.”

“Oh, I’m sure you and your rangers did your best,” Scarlet remarked. “You obviously failed, but, hey, at least you tried.”

“Yeah, well we actually have some useful skills to offer the House,” Schwartz replied. “Unlike you and your painted cows, we don’t just stand around all day looking pretty, praying for the opportunity to bash something with a stick.”

“Oh, you called me pretty!” Scarlet noted. “How sweet of you…”

“Keeping to the point of our meeting,” Chronos continued, “Basil is sure to make our next visit to the Nine Hells a priority now. It was not made clear in the letter, but whatever the Admiral has found must be substantial enough to warrant haste. Otherwise he would not have invited the Master over for a visit on such a short notice. Some of the other topics that he touched upon have given me grounds for concerns as well…”

“How soon are we set to depart this world?” Scarlet asked.

“The Young Master has not yet ordered me to start collecting the necessary reagents for it,” Gaia said, “but I would expect him to gather his minions for a ritual of binding within the week. That means we have a few days in which to travel to the Nine and back. I reckon he will take that opportunity.”

“Well, what do we do about this?” Schwartz asked.

“What can we do?” Scarlet asked. “As far as the Young Master is concerned, we don’t know about his dealings with Razazil and neither should we care that much about them if we did. Surely, he does not suspect our intentions.”

“We don’t yet know what Basil is planning or what Razazil has uncovered,” Chronos pointed out. “Let’s not be too hasty. We should let the encounter play out naturally and adapt to the situation as it develops. Whatever we do, Basil should not suspect our interference. That would spell a disaster for the House.”

“This deception has gone on too long as it is,” Schwartz declared. “Maybe we should just let him do as he pleases.”

“What are you suggesting, exactly?” Chronos asked.

Schwartz shrugged. “We should just do our job and let Basil figure things out himself. The way I see it, he no longer needs our guidance—only our advice.”

“Of course he needs our guidance!” Scarlet declared. “With the kind of power he has, Basil needs to be kept on the right path when deciding matters that concern the fate of the House. It is not just his own legacy that is at stake here, but the great work that was done by his father that we must protect!”

“Basil is not his father,” Schwartz pointed out.

Scarlet nodded in agreement, implying a preference for the old master over the new.

“—but that doesn’t mean we should persist in our futile attempts at molding him into that position indefinitely,” Schwartz continued. “I think that enough time has passed that we can say with certainty that he will not become his equal. For all of his abilities and wisdom, there is no passion underlying his work; no drive to conquer! Maybe we went too far in our attempts at restraining the more brutal aspects of his demonic nature…”

Scarlet’s face flushed red with indignation in response to the dark ranger’s statement. “You saw what he had become! You were there when we found him! The monster that we pulled from that accursed place had no right to become the next master of our great House!”

“And yet, we made him our Master anyway,” Gaia interjected. “A monster we took under our guidance and into a better monster we raised him. Basil is the last surviving heir to this House and we all agreed to serve him. It is precisely because of us that he became what he is now. Few, if any, dungeon keepers alive today can claim to be his equals.” Her wizened eyes examined the dark ranger and her brow sank in recognition of his point. “But maybe we did make some mistakes along the way… maybe he would have done better without our meddling.”

Scarlet dismissed Gaia’s words with a sharp gesture of her hand. “Of course he would have done well for himself,” she said, “but he was not left with a blank page to contend with—he was not born from nothing. We all know who he inherited his position from! We all know what secrets lay buried beneath the foundations of this great House! And we all agreed that he did not need to—or, dare I say, should—be informed about all that his father did. It’s a damned miracle that he turned out so levelheaded after what he went through in that horror show of a dungeon. He was little better than a beast when we found him!”

“Watch your tongue, Scarlet,” the Dark Ranger hissed. “He is our Master and I will not let you speak of him in such a tone.”

“I would die for him!” Scarlet declared. “But I won’t deny the horror of his existence or the twisted legacy of his father!”

“Enough!” Chronos said. The old butler cleared his throat before continuing. “I trust that we don’t need to go over our covenant again? We all agreed to this conspiracy and I should hope that none of you have begun to waver in your dedication to our cause. The House must survive; the Master must survive and we will take their secrets to the grave.”

“Whenever that will be…” Schwartz said. “And for how much longer are we supposed to keep the truth from him?”

“I share this concern as well,” Gaia noted. “He has been asking too many difficult questions as of late. I fear that he is seriously contemplating following down the trail of his father, if for no better reason than to find where it leads to.”

“But why now?” Chronos asked. “Maybe it is because I have been bound to the Mansion for so long that I can no longer see it, but what exactly has changed?”

“Basil has changed,” Schwartz said. “Not in his interactions with us, but with the outside world.” The Dark Ranger ran his fingers across the stone foundations of the Mansion. “This place has stayed the same for a century now and a thousand years before that… We are old and can no longer tell the difference, as our lives have grown intertwined with these ancient walls, but the Young Master has only recently begun to fully comprehend his place in life; his place among us. And, in spite of our best efforts, he does not seem content with it.

“Maybe that is why he yearns to explore his legacy,” Schwartz pondered. “Maybe we should have revealed more to him, while there was still time to ask for his mercy and forgiveness…”

“No, that would only have made him act out on his doubts all the sooner,” Scarlet declared. “We did what we had to do to keep him from ruining this place. It is not just his legacy that we are protecting!”

Schwartz pushed himself away from the wall and turned the corner. He was now facing Scarlet, to her great displeasure. “Did you really think that you could keep secrets from him forever? If he truly is our old Master’s progeny, then he will grow to outshine us all. He will find out the truth eventually.”

“The Young Master has always had his suspicions,” Scarlet admitted. “Do you think he is now bound to act on them?”

“Don’t be so obtuse, Scarlet,” Schwartz said. “Lord Doom understands the consequences that our House will suffer, should he challenge the Guild’s verdict on the fate of his father. He will not dare to explore that path without hiding his own trail.” The Dark Ranger looked to Gaia. “I believe you are right in your assessment—he will swear us to secrecy and order us to follow him down the path to ruin. But can we really blame him for it when our very existence invites questions?”

“Maybe he will end up satisfied with the Admiral’s report?” Chronos suggested. “There is no reason we should suspect that Razazil has actually found any damning evidence. Maybe things will go right back to how they were before the letter arrived?”

“But should they?” Schwartz asked.

“That’s a stupid question to ask,” Scarlet said. “Of course we should guide him back onto the right path!”

Schwartz grimaced. “But is it really the right path for him?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Gaia asked.

“Have you not seen him grow more distant?” Schwartz asked. “Have you not noticed that this life brings him no joy?” For how much longer do you expect him to persist on his sense of duty alone? There is no passion in his eyes and there won’t be any for as long as he remains here.”

“This is his place,” Gaia reasoned. “This is where he belongs. He is the Master of House Doom. Is that not enough?”

“No it isn’t! We made him the Master,” Schwartz said. “His father might have bred him for the position, but Basil seems hell-bent on living outside the boundaries that we have sought to impose on him. I, for one, am eager to find out what he can actually accomplish, absent our interference.”

“Maybe it wasn’t the isolation,” Scarlet suggested. “Maybe he really was too different from his father to begin with. He might not be able to measure up to his legacy.”

“Do you mean the legacy that the Guild erased?” Schwartz asked. “How can you live up to something that is at once perfect and invisible? How is he supposed to replicate something that was unique without any instructions to follow? No, Scarlet, it was a fool’s errand all along. He will never outshine his father.”

“Be as it may, we must continue to guide him forward,” Chronos insisted. “His obsession with his father’s legacy has become too much of a burden, so we must make sure that he does not pull us all down along with him. I am not willing to risk this House and its servants on a flight of fancy. Something must be done to stop it.”

“Are you suggesting that we should sabotage his efforts?” Scarlet asked.

“Perish the thought!” Schwartz said. “You are all too obsessed with keeping the Mansion the way it was in the past. We should be looking forward to the future! Basil should decide our fate, for good or ill—that is what his father had intended, after all.”

“We don’t know what his father’s true plans for Basil were,” Gaia noted. “Basil was broken when we found him. We fixed what we could, but we will never know for sure how deep the scars of his experience go. That is why we must keep a close eye on him. His father has already provided a ready template for a successful dungeon keeper, so I think we should just continue following it.”

“Well, that is what you would say,” Scwhartz noted. “You never were one for experimentation. You wear the same four cloaks year round, my dear Gaia, so don’t pretend to know what real change is. You are incapable of it.”

“Be as it may, we must make sure that Basil does not find out more than he already knows,” Gaia said. “It is for his own good that we kept these secrets…”

“Above all else, remember our covenant,” Chronos said. “Whatever Basil decides to do next, we must do our best to keep him safe from any knowledge that might bring us to ruin. We already lost one Master to wanton discovery—we shan’t loose another!”

“But how do you bind a dungeon keeper?” Scarlet asked.

“Have you tried rope?” Schwartz retorted.

Scarlet wound back her fist and struck the Grim Ranger on the shoulder. While her intentions had been immediately violent, the actual punch—once it landed—made it pretty obvious that she had held back.

The Dark Ranger made no comment or snide remark as he stepped back from Scarlet. Their eyes met for but a moment, but both were quick to look away from one another.

“He was easy enough to control as a child,” Gaia suggested.

Scarlet scoffed. “Yet, a child he is no longer,” she reasoned. “Once the joys of war and glory no longer satisfied him, we turned to duty. We taught him his place in the world and the honor it brought. But what is it all worth now?” she asked.

“We will find a way to contain him,” Chronos asserted. “We will think of something.”

Schwartz shook his head. “I am done with this,” he declared. “I will no longer play any part in this deception. I will accept any blame leveled at me for what we have already inflicted upon him, but nothing more from this point onwards.”

In response to the Dark Ranger’s statement Chronos grew irritated. “Don’t you dare walk away from this! We all agreed to it, remember? The Admiral’s letter changes nothing!”

“I remember,” Schwartz said. “But that was so long ago… You need to learn that people—living people—can change. Monsters can change too. It is only you and your wife that don’t seem to experience the passage of time like we do. You will never understand us.”

“That is nonsense,” Chronos declared. “Nothing has changed. The Mansion is as hale and hearty as ever and so are her residents!”

“I do hear the beating of the heart in my waking dreams, hidden deep below the Mansion,” Schwartz agreed. “I just happen to know that it is an empty, lonely heart, lacking any purpose or meaning. I say, let it seek out something worthwhile. The song of a lonely heart is… ever so cruel to hear.”

Having said his peace the Dark Ranger departed. Neither Chronos nor Gaia tried to stop him.

For her part, Scarlet felt inclined to leave as well. But she would not do so without voicing her opinion on the matter at hand.

“As much as it pains me to partially agree with Schwartz, you need to learn to let go of him,” she told Chronos. “We did our best to guide the Young Master towards what we though was the right path for him. It’s now time for Basil to live out his own life the way he sees fit.”

The old butler shook his head. “We are all bound together in this union under the flag of our House,” Chronos said. “If he dies, we all die!” He gestured at the foundations of the Mansion. “Don’t you care that all of this could end, should he perish on some foolish quest?”

“We all have to embrace death someday,” Scarlet remarked. “If we are lucky, we get to do it standing at the top of the world, surrounded by dear friends and dead enemies.

“Everything must have an end, Chronos, but a creature, such as yourself, cannot fathom it. For you time is cyclical, but for us it is a line; from the cradle to the grave. And it is best experienced by risking it all, charging into the teeth of death, hoping to leave behind a legacy that will be remembered.”