The journey through the rift was as brutal as Tyron recalled. Freezing cold temperatures, a seemingly permanent hail of ice and snow, along with the endless roaming packs of kin, savaging the remnants of their fallen world.

It was difficult not to consider what that place might have been, before the rifts had overcome it. A thought that naturally led to another: what would his own world be like, when naught but monsters were left to inhabit it? Such a day appeared closer than ever, given how little the administration that held up the empire seemed to care about preventing it.

A rift break was a permanent increase in the amount of magick flowing into the realm, yet the magisters had allowed one to occur with such callous ease. The lives lost in the tragedy were one thing, but the permanent risk to the stability of their world was another.

Tyron was forced to consider the possibility that he had less time than he might have assumed to enact his revenge. A part of him had wondered if he might focus his attention on becoming a lich, freeing himself from a human lifespan and spending a hundred years quietly mustering his strength. Now, he dismissed the idea. Given how incompetent they were, a real chance existed that the Western Province would fall to ruin within that span of time.

Through the ice, he travelled, until he came upon the point he had originally emerged from the Abyss. With enormous difficulty, he conducted the ritual once more, piercing the veil and creating a bridge into that void realm.

Whispers teased and taunted him, prying at the edges of his sanity every second he remained in that place, and Tyron was visibly shaking when he finally emerged. The remote building remained just as he had left it, and the hundreds of skeletons filed through the opening suspended across his ritual circle without incident. When every minion and all supplies had been accounted for, he allowed himself, at last, to relax. The journey was done, he had succeeded in his aims.

It was night on the Ortan estate, something he was grateful for. Under cover of darkness he marched along with his horde of undead back to the main building, before he was forced to leave them by the fence, which he had to climb, to knock on the door and ask for someone to open the cellar. He was received with all the grace he might have expected.

“Back again, are you?” Rita Ortan sniffed, looking him up and down.

Tyron stared back flatly.

“You’d rather I’d died?” he asked.

“Didn’t say that, did I?” the old woman muttered, though she certainly didn’t deny it.

“You seem to blame me for your gods’ interest in my fate,” he observed, “though I suppose you can’t really blame them, even if you should.”

She scowled at him.

“That disrespect is exactly why I don’t like you,” she snapped. “Some things are sacred.”

“Not to me. I need to open the cellar.”

“Fine.”

Filled with ire, she turned to fetch the key before throwing it at him through the open door. He caught it, barely, before nodding his thanks.

“If you’re hungry you can have whatever is left in the pot,” she called after him. “I won’t be bothering the staff this late.”

It took a little time to store his skeletons and revenants away, they needed to be packed fairly tight in order to fit. Only after he’d closed and locked the door did he stop to wonder how Rufus, Laurel and the others must feel, being shut away in the darkness, unable to control their own limbs without his permission. Perhaps he was growing callous, to not even think of it.

He wouldn’t go so far as to say they deserved their fate, perhaps nobody deserved to live as an undead, but he did not waste time lamenting it either.

The stew was still warm, wonder of wonders, and he gladly drank it down before finding a cot in a spare room. After he woke, feeling refreshed for the first time in what felt like weeks, he stepped out of his room, still half asleep, trying to head outside to relieve his bladder.

Once he’d found his relief and woken up a little, he realised what the strange looks he’d been given on the way out meant. He hadn’t been disguising his face. The realisation struck so hard he stopped dead in his tracks, a hand rising to obscure his features. After just a month without it, he’d grown so lax? A disturbing thought. He’d worn it more or less constantly, for years, and now he walked around showing his features openly, so close to Kenmor?

Cursing himself as foolish, he immediately formed it again, the false mask bringing with it a sense of comfort and control. When he found Rita Ortan in her office, she blinked, taking a moment to process who he was now his face had changed.

“And here I thought you may have made a permanent switch,” she said, pushing her paperwork to one side.

“I’m half-surprised you recognised me last night. How long has it been since you saw my real face?”

“I do my best to remember the people I’ve met. It’s a courtesy,” she emphasised the latter part more than was necessary. “Perhaps you could seek to emulate this sort of behaviour.”

Tyron didn’t care to argue with her.

“I need a carriage back to the city. The sooner the better.”

“The Venerable wishes to speak with you.”

The Necromancer’s brow twitched with irritation.

“Why?”

“I ask that same question.”

Why did that old man want to waste his time now? There were better things to be doing than conversing with a fossil. Hadn’t he done enough to please those gods lately? Were they punishing him somehow?

“Where is he?” Tyron growled. “I don’t have time to waste.”

“Speaking with the Venerable is never a waste of your time,” Mrs Ortan said, eyes blazing. “He is holy, and I’ve no idea why he deigns to speak to you at all, but he does. Show him some respect.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

With effort, Tyron took hold of his irritation. There was no benefit in going out of his way to be obstinate. His parents were buried on this family’s lands.

He offered a short bow.

“I will show due deference,” he promised. “Where may I speak with the Venerable?”

Though she looked entirely sceptical of his change in attitude, Mrs Ortan, mistress of the estate, directed him to a gazebo near the hill, the east facing side of which housed the vineyard. There he found the Venerable, impossibly ancient looking man that he was, wrapped in a blanket, warming himself with the rising sun.

“Heard your trip went well,” he wheezed in his thin voice.

“A divine messenger then? I only just got back,” Tyron replied, sitting opposite across from a low, round table.

“Oh, the gods rarely speak to anyone directly,” the old man chuckled. “I wonder what it’s like to be them, sometimes. Are they like us, looking down on ants? Are they even able to tell us apart, from that great height?”

“I think they can, but are unlikely to be bothered,” Tyron replied after considering for a moment.

In his experience, the Dark Gods could achieve many things, but seldom exerted the effort. It was almost their defining feature.

“You may be right,” the Venerable mused, rubbing at his chin with one gnarled hand. “How often do you spend time trying to name the ants you see? You either step on them, or step over them, as you go about your day. Imagine how strange it must have been, when five of these ants get big, bigger than any ant has ever been before, and they crawl up to these three humans and demand they be human too.”

He shook his head.

“The Three must have laughed like they never had before.”

“I’m not certain they’re laughing now,” Tyron said. “Considering the effort they’re having to exert marshalling their ‘ants’ to oust the gods they created.”

“I’ve no doubt this is another game to them, a diversion, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t to our benefit.”

The Venerable leaned forward, staring into Tyron’s eyes.

“Do you ever wonder why, when the entire empire is gripped in the hands of the divines, why things are still so shit? The realm is shrinking, not growing, incursions of magick get stronger every year. It’s been five millennia since the divines were raised to their post. The empire they forged is holding together, barely, and their descendants still rule the roost, but our world is dying.”

After speaking with such intensity, the old man ran out of breath and slumped back in his cheer, wheezing. Tyron gave him a minute to collect himself.

“Our world had a name, once. Do you know it? I almost never hear it spoken anymore,” the Venerable sighed.

Tyron blinked.

“No,” he said, “no, I don’t believe I do.”

How could that be? All the time he’d spent reading, learning history. History of the empire, he realised, the empire and its neighbours. To Tyron, there had never been any world beyond that.

“They try very hard to make sure people don’t realise what they’ve lost,” the Venerable nodded shrewdly. “The circle grows smaller every year. Granin fell and now the west is blocked by the ‘Barrier mountains’, as if we never used to cross them. As if there wasn’t trade and exchange for centuries, millennia! To the south is an ocean we haven’t crossed in a thousand years. To the north? Two thousand since we ventured beyond the barren wilds. We don’t have a world anymore, we have an empire. One by one, the outer provinces will fall, until only the centre remains.”

Brow furrowed, the Venerable glared out across the fields as if they personally had offended him.

“I believe the Old Gods are taking steps for one simple reason. The fate of this world was always supposed to be in the hands of those who live here, but that power has been stolen from us. The divines have crippled us and set us on a path of slow decline. When they are overthrown, the people will be able to fight, to really fight. Then we might be able to save something after all.”

It was possible. The Old Gods were consistent in their belief that people help themselves, after all. It was supposed to be within each individual's power to fix their circumstances. Of course, that wasn’t always true, sometimes it wasn’t within a person’s power, and the Old Gods loved to tip that balance back the other way. In this case, they themselves had tipped the scales, against every living thing in the realm, though perhaps they hadn’t realised it at the time.

Now, perhaps they were finally moved to correct their mistake.

“I heard there was quite the gathering of followers over in Cragwhistle,” the Venerable said. “I suppose I’ll have to head over there and show my face.”

He grinned, his leathery skin pulling back into a thousand wrinkles.

“Don’t tell Mrs Ortan it was my idea, she’ll murder me in my sleep.”

“Would I do a thing like that?” the old man chuckled, a twinkle in his eye.

~~~

Two days by carriage and truthfully, Tyron slept most of the way. Should he have been theorising, writing and scheming? Probably, yes. But there would be plenty of time for that once he returned to his shop. If anything, a little rest would fortify him for the time to come, and so, he allowed himself to eat, drink and doze the days away until he was startled from his rest one day and found the great walls of Kenmor rising in the distance.

After settling accounts with the coach driver, he made his way into Shadetown, and soon enough, he walked through the door of Almsfield Enchantments. For a moment, he felt a strong sense of cognitive dissonance, as if the store he stood in belonged to a stranger, as well as himself.

Tyron recognised the sensation for what it was. After finally throwing off the identity of Lukas Almsfield, it was slower to come back than he’d expected. How much had he secretly yearned to be Tyron Steelarm again? To be open and honest about the rage and hate that bubbled away in the core of him?

When Cerry jumped around the counter and bounced up to him, a broad smile on her face, the feeling began to fade, and the persona of Lukas slipped around him like a cloak.

“Master Almsfield! Welcome back!” she cheered, loud enough to draw Flynn from the backroom.

The apprentice poked his nose around the corner, looking equal parts relieved and nervous as he saw his employer had returned.

“It’s nice to be back,” he said, and somehow, he honestly meant it. This was a good place. Flynn and Cerry were good people. Somehow, it almost didn’t feel real. In the store, things like rifts, rebellions, slayers and monsters seemed so far away.

“Master Almsfield. I h-hope you’ll find everything has been done to your satisfaction while you were away,” Flynn stammered, twisting his hands together.

Tyron wiped the scowl off his face before the young man could realise it was there.

“Relax, Flynn. I only just got back. I’ll take a day or two to inspect the books and go through the inventory. I’m sure you’ve done an excellent job.”

He could practically feel magick leaking from less than flawless conduits in the enchanted goods around him.

Don’t let it bother you. He did the best he could.

For a few hours, he busied himself with the matters of the shop. He and Cerry went through the accounts line by line, and there were pleasingly few errors in the calculations. Business had continued to be strong, the appetite for his cheap but effective enchantments had grown, if anything.

“Well done, Cerry,” he congratulated her, and she grinned.

Following that, he and a still-nervous Flynn went through the inventory, item by item, as he inspected the engraving on each and every one. All in all, his apprentice had done better than he’d expected. Clearly, there had been a breakthrough in his Skills for such an improvement to be evident. It was a cause for celebration.

“You’ve come a long way, Flynn,” Tyron didn’t hesitate to praise the young man. “You’ll be receiving a bonus for your work this past month.”

“Master Almsfield, that’s… not necessary.”

Practically glowing with pride, Flynn tried to refuse but Tyron insisted. Good work deserved reward. By the end of the day, everything was in order and he retired to his chambers, throwing himself, finally, into his own, comfortable bed. He didn’t even need to cast the spell; sleep rose to take him of its own volition for once, the incessant buzzing of his mind not strong enough to resist its pull.

In the morning, it would start again. The study in the cellar needed his attention. He had learned so much, tested his ideas, gained a great deal of knowledge and uncovered new avenues of enquiry. It was also time for the status ritual to be performed once more. Time to tally up the full account of what he had gained.