Within three seconds, portals were coalescing in a ring about the bed. Ninety-nine warriors of Lord Suffering’s own personal guard appeared, tomb-wardens of the Cracked Throne. The Ministry of Mortiforn embraced all comers: zombie or wight, skeleton or deathknight, wraith or spectre… Yet their ghostlight blades identified them, white-glowing weapons with points thinner than the gap between planes, terrifying edges crafted expressly to slice through any form of substance: steel, stone, soul.
The swords were in their hands, ninety-nine of them. Those creations could never be sheathed, fit only for such restless, ever-vigilant minds as theirs.
“An infidel has been acknowledged,” Madam Tinphelios, their leader, spoke in her cold voice. She was a tall banshee and she hovered off the ground; grey of flesh and cloak, her sole decoration was a silvery halo floating about her head, above the streaming colourless hair.
She lifted her weapon, pointing its gleaming tip at the figure atop the bed. “This is your final warning. Renounce the Prince of Chains and the Daughter of the Void, else be annihilated.”
“We so challenge ye.”
Ninety-eight voices spoke in her wake, a haunting chorus, and their swords were also raised.
“Well,” Lyferin said, obvious discomfort on his face, “am I outnumbered?”
The question hung in the air for a moment or two, and Mr. Owl alone knew of this man’s temerity – the elder vampire was the only one to suspect his meaning.
The sorcerer might have ten times as many blades pointed back at us right now, he realised. Oh, Lyferin, you fool… You have no eldritches.
Head this off, he said to himself, before defeat sours him completely.
“Madam Tinphelios – if thou wouldst permit my momentary interjection?”
The vampire looked at the banshee, and she slowly turned, accepting his request with a swift nod of her monochrome head.
He nodded back in gratitude, then returned his attention to the arch-lich.
“We hath in excess of one million such souls at our immediate disposal,” Mr. Owl said. “And, as thou must now surely realise, thou mayest not bind a single one. Believe me when I say unto thee: in this thou treadst the border-line. I warn thee not to teeter, for a fall from such heights might end not in lordship but scrutiny, and an eternity is longer than thy mind has yet perspective to conceive.” He managed to smile congenially at the sorcerer – there was over a hundred feet between them, but Mr. Owl knew his fangs could be spotted at this distance even by an ordinary mortal. This man was far from that now, even without other eldritches inside him. “Come – wouldst thou not rather direct such forces? Wouldst thou not –“
“Save it, vampire,” Lyferin called, sounding bored. The lich appeared to be examining his nails in close-up – he was only just realising that his flesh had changed. “I have much to do, now that I’m here… Now that I’m like this, I mean. But your offers – you’re just wasting my time, I’m afraid, and you really don’t understand it, do you? You might be able to call on a million soldiers…”
A million elite soldiers, Mr. Owl thought gratingly, at my immediate disposal…
“… but you don’t command – and neither do you.” Lyferin flashed his purple eyes at the banshee warrior. “You both just do as you’re told. Following orders… it’s really not my thing, old chum. You ought to pay some attention to Nentheleme, get out from under the thumb from time to time. Oh, wait – can I say that? Nentheleme? Or is the Horse-Whore a banned topic too?”
Madam Tinphelios cast her stare at Mr. Owl, silently requesting his approval for her to resume her task.
Situations like this were awkward. Mr. Owl technically outranked her, but that really was a technicality, and in times of conflict her decisions superseded his, especially where her duty, where the very disposition of her own troops was concerned.
He was tempted to just let her loose. The lich’s ongoing feud with himself, refusing to grow up, refusing to do his duty… it was tiring, even to a creature of near-bottomless patience like Mr. Owl. If he continued to offer such insult, would it be such a bad thing to let him be destroyed? It could be achieved in such a way that the spirit wouldn’t return for millennia, and when it did it would be a crude, quivering thing, slow to inhabit its previous shape.
Lyferin was grinning, and belaboured a sigh. “It has been lovely talking, though. I shall have to call again, when I have more friends. Vaahn willing.”
Crimson flames burned in the air where the lich gestured –
And died again.
“We cannot permit thee to depart, Lord Othelroe.” The vampire regarded him critically. “As thou sayest best – we do as we are told.”
Lyferin’s smile faded, and Mr. Owl stepped towards him again.
“I kindly suggest that thou seekst out that one last shard of thy soul which still possesses sense, and a faculty for scale, and renounce those blasphemous names thou didst invoke.”
He halted, thirty feet from the lich, and saw the thinning lips curled back in a sneer.
“Very well… Very well indeed.”
There was none of the tightness, the anger in his voice Mr. Owl had anticipated with this surrender. Only the cold slipperiness.
“I will renounce the Prince of Chains and the Daughter of the Void,” the lich said heavily.
“This is insufficient,” the banshee declared. “You must denounce them in Chraunator and Kultemeren, under the sigil of Glaif, an oath undying; and then swear yourself to the service of our Lord Suffering. Aught less is punishable.”
“Hold!” Mr. Owl barked, and she glared at him severely. “It is insufficient, yet an everlasting repudiation shall be forthcoming. Please, might I entreat patience, Madam? Thou knowest well I ask not for much, and that little not lightly.”
She scowled, and lowered her blade in a swift, scornful motion, the deathly air screaming as she cut it. In unison her company followed suit, though with perhaps a little less vim.
“Very well, Mr. Owl. I will listen. If this one speaks again a single dark name, a single dark syllable, I will nail his hands to my wall.”
“Mine own eternal and undying gratitude, Madam Tinphelios.”
Portals consumed the ninety-nine tomb-wardens, and the room resumed its previous, less-intimidating proportions. Mr. Owl found himself now just a few feet from the foot of Lyferin’s bed.
“Well,” the lich said, “I suppose I owe you my thanks, vampire.” He had less difficulty saying it than Mr. Owl had beforehand suspected he might. “Without your aid, I could’ve been forced to swear off joining…” he paused for effect, daring to grin at his own jest “… the Prince of Chains forever. I have this uncanny feeling that such an oath, in such a place as this, would bind me willing or no. Am I wrong? Now that just wouldn’t be fair, would it?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
For all his exhortations about patience, Mr. Owl found himself tiring of this endless obstinacy. He stared at the sorcerer for a long time.
“Wouldst thou linger awhile?” he asked at last. “Explore our House, and all the varied spaces contained within. Thou mayest lay bare in thy soul those crevasses which hath lain till now buried, beyond sight, at last excavated. When I return, we shall discuss all thine agitations, and discover a smoother discourse in each direction.”
“You’re trying very hard to avoid mentioning that I’m your prisoner.”
Mr. Owl smiled. Expectations were the rule here. Lyferin had just trapped himself.
“Thine own words aright; perhaps from Nentheleme’s agents we would learn much. We hath no qualms regarding bonds in this place. Yet thou art in truth more free in a shadowland-coffin than the master of a ship in Materium. Thou canst travel a thousand realms, and journey a thousand seas, never changing course for a thousand years, and yet never step foot beyond our House’s walls.”
Mr. Owl attempted the congenial smile again, now from a nearer vantage; the sour, displeased expression on the lich’s drawn features didn’t change in the slightest.
“It is not our intent to cause thee anguish. Abide. I shall return anon.”
Mr. Owl turned, and stepped back through his portal, onto the black stone parapets once more.
Lord Moss was still there, overlooking Vaahn’s armies as they crawled closer across the plain.
“Thou art satisfied?” Illodin’s servitor asked.
“Nay – yet I believe I hath spared another soul yon torment.” Mr. Owl pointed down at the sprawling black armies. “One fewer warrior in service of the Lord of Death, even if he should love me not at all for it: and if not a victory, at the least it standeth not a failure.”
“Congratulations, then, Mr. Owl.”
“My thanks, Lord Moss.”
The two of them stood there upon the precipice, as the timeless time receded and the minutes and years flowed by.
O Enduring One, heed me, heal me, the vampire prayed. I am in no less need of thee than the lesser things which crawl about as maggots upon the face of Materium. Keep me upright in my duty. I exist, to be Sacrifice’s offering…
Mr. Owl hissed, spinning on his heel.
“What now, Mr. Bagreldiar?” he demanded of the spectre as it formed upon the air.
“I offered to bear you this message, sir, taking it on in spite of its dire nature –“
“Mr. Bagreldiar!”
“It is Lyferin Othelroe. He has escaped, sir.”
“Escaped! I had thought to let him stew awhile, and…”
Mr. Owl fell into silent contemplation.
I should have made him swear the oath! He knew naught of our ways! How hath he achieved this?
But one couldn’t simply make another swear such a binding oath, and even attempting to do so would’ve irreparably undermined the vampire’s own position. There was no way someone like Lyferin was going to be bullied into eternal servitude.
Still, I need not have reserved torture. I might have reintroduced him to his grandmother. To face her, without owning her…
“Sir,” Mr. Bagreldiar said hesitantly, “before he disappeared he spoke aloud to those whose task it was to listen, bidding them bring you his thanks for showing him the way.”
“Showing him… the way…” Mr. Owl shook his head. “Whither did he fly? Within Nethernum?” Even on a spectre’s featureless face the vampire could read the bitterness, and pre-empted the answer. “Nay… The sorcerer returned to the site of his defeat, did he not?”
The spectre nodded solemnly.
“Commiserations, then, Mr. Owl,” Lord Moss intoned.
“I shall have to make report to my Lord in person,” the vampire said, speaking more to himself than the others, looking down over the edge once more. Then, after a moment’s pause – minutes of travel to Vaahn’s host down there in the white sand – he refocussed his thoughts.
“My gratitude, Mr. Bagreldiar. That will be all.”
“Yes, sir.”
The apparition started to dissipate, but then all of a sudden it halted, spectral eyes staring over Mr. Owl’s shoulder –
The vampire’s very first thought was that Mr. Bagreldiar was going out of his way to outstay his welcome in such august company; then he realised that it could be Lyferin, behind him, returning to the House of Sacrifice to do battle –
Mr. Owl could react to anything: he could dart out of the way of raindrops and emerge dry through the storm; he could slip out of the paths of starlight and moonbeams, going unlit through Materium’s midnight; yet he was paralysed, out of synch with time as was all else around him and below him, while the child spoke jaggedly.
“You don’t need to… come to me. I’m here… Mr. Owl.”
The divine spell released him, and when Mr. Owl whirled it was only to sink into a low bow, bending over his upraised knee so that his head was beneath his Master’s.
“Almighty Suffering,” he murmured.
“My Lord!” Mr. Bagreldiar cried, the phantom-face looking aside, jaw slack in holy awe.
The Chosen of Illodin didn’t speak, but the shimmering shape of Moss’s body somehow prostrated even lower than the vampire without either foot leaving the stones – it was as though his ankles were broken, letting him lean forwards without falling, his nose hovering just off the black rock.
“Please… be at ease.” The four-year-old boy’s voice was tired and he stopped every few seconds to wince. “All of you.”
Mr. Owl slid back into an upright position, but he continued to look at the ground at his feet, trying to ignore what his senses were screaming at him.
The sounds, the smells; these were enough. He’d looked at this avatar before, studied the Living Boy. He had no desire to repeat the experience.
After a moment his circular awareness feedback informed him that Lord Moss was the only one of the three of them willing to stare at the avatar full-on.
Other than his lower lip, the boy seemed rather ordinary. His dark hair was clawed neat, a crude effort at presentability despite the ragged bag he wore for a raiment. His eyes were a cool grey buried inside the agonised squint. But that lower lip alone was enough. It was huge, hanging almost to his navel; the ‘v’-shaped protuberance was like raw minced meat, oozing pus and flies, malformed teeth clustered in the teeming, gum-like folds.
His presence alone stilled all forms of violence that weren’t self-directed.
“Enduring One,” Mr. Owl said softly, “Lyferin Othelroe hath fled thy halls, seeking employ under a darker banner.”
“I know, Mr. Owl.”
The vampire sensed the lower lip trembling, other muscles tensing and relaxing as Mortiforn spoke – he sensed the pain flashing through that tiny body. Yet it was sanctified. An agony of suffering that served as constant purification, leaving his Lord’s mind clear, cleansed like no other in existence.
Will I be punished? Mr. Owl wondered. It’d been a long time since he’d been tortured against his will; it’d been a long time since he’d failed. Whilst he could well-remember the pain of his last punishment, he found himself almost anticipating it.
“Don’t be afraid,” the boy continued, shuddering against the excruciating agonies wracking him. “He’s dangerous, but… not to us. He’ll bring about… many sacrifices, if he lives. His own suffering has… only just begun.”
“But – my Lord – the suffering of the peoples of Materium at his hands…”
He heard the swish of tenebrous dangling flesh, heard the brief gasping wince, and knew that his Master was cocking his head at him.
“You think… him excessive?” The boy sounded surprised.
“Yea, my Lord! If aught can be done –”
“And what would you give?” The god’s voice took on a harder quality suddenly, more like his other avatars, the Fleshed One, the Open Man… “What would you sacrifice… to spare the mortals their own?”
This at least he knew the answer to.
“Everything, Master.”
There was only one answer to such a question, in this place.
“Hold out your arm. The… right arm. Good. It won’t… regenerate this time.”
The boy took him by the hand, tiny soft fingers holding onto Mr. Owl’s steel-hard digits; then the avatar pulled away gently, shearing off the arm and his sleeve at the shoulder. Flesh and fabric made almost the same tearing sound as they ripped.
Mr. Owl collapsed into a crouching position, biting down his howls.
Just… like… I… remember…
He managed to stay on his feet. Despite the vast blood loss, unconsciousness couldn’t claim him – he was in the House of Sacrifice, and he had to know his pain. He only weakened, teetering where he crouched, and after a few moments the bleeding stopped.
The Living Boy threw down the thin severed arm, and it slid inside the black stone where it landed, disappearing entirely, adding the offering to the fortress. Then he continued:
“Okay, Mr. Owl. We’ll do it… your way. If I interfere in Materium… it gives our enemies license to do the same. Luckily, they’ve… been far naughtier than me. Four. Four times can I spend from… that wellspring. Four… agents can… I… send… to hunt him down and put an end… to his ploys.”
“Master!” the vampire choked, his mind awash with agony and love, gratitude and self-confidence. He had forgotten just how much punishment hurt, true sacrifice, and now he was here in the throes of it, he almost enjoyed it, savouring the reality of his terrible wound, the sense of place it afforded him.
He knew where he was. The only place that would have him. The only place he could be human despite all his endowments.
The only place he could truly suffer for his crimes.
“I’ll let you… select them.” The boy turned aside. “I must return more… awareness to the council now. The Chosen of Locus is… about to speak, and we all… know how picky they can be when they feel you aren’t… paying attention. Choose… wisely, Mr. Owl.”
A portal consumed the Living Boy and then Lord Suffering was gone, leaving the three lesser beings there atop the mountain, reeling in hallowed wonder.
Four, Mr. Owl thought. Four times, an envoy of the God of Pain might be sent to waylay Lyferin.
Four chances to bring him home.
Where he belongs.