Zarzok.

***

“I don’t see the problem. And if you’re me, you shouldn’t see the problem either.”

The burning eyes rolled in frustration before his verbal response came. “I am the hidden you, Zarzok. Your subconscious and your opposite. But I also hold whatever knowledge Amun sends me.”

“Sends you?” I intriguingly tapped at my chin.

“We can commune with his Doppelganger,” my clone simply said with a gesture to both himself and the many unseen clones within the tower. "And so, we can commune with him. In a way that's much more efficient than talking, I might add."

“If that’s the case, ask him for permission if it hurts you that much!” I hopped from my balcony with a laugh. But still, my clone followed. He fell after me, shouting nothing until I raked my claws into the stone to slow my fall.

“What is your reasoning?” He shouted his apparent last words to his doom.

“I’m undoubtedly an Executioner already.” I chortled after coming to a halt on the floating ring at the base of the Tower. “Even then, two weeks of near-constant fighting makes things boring. So, I figure a little cross-training wouldn’t hurt.”

“You aren’t trained as a Knight.”

“It’s never too late to start!” I smugly grinned, then brushed past him. I knew he wouldn’t ask Amun and he knew I wouldn’t yield. This was an inner struggle. One of my minds. Fought between curiosity and the irrational fear of losing what was mine already. “Just like everyone else,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m certain our newfound loyalties have unlocked some new paths. Ones never-before-seen. That, in no way, will prevent us from claiming a title we already own.”

“If you say so.” Came his begrudged reply.

“Oho, I do.” I took a moment to straighten my clothes before pushing the doors to the stables open wide. As the name implied, it was but a portion of the floating ring at the base of the tower filled with empty barns and an oval riding field in which the Paladins trained. All humans, they were. Unsurprisingly, save the lesser vampire, Elijah. “Well.” I stopped at the entrance to the field, turning my wide, incredulous eyes over the lot of lazy bums. “This is certainly not what I was expecting.”

“And what were you expecting, Zarzok?” The wise but aloof Toril asked. Although he was strong and knowledgeable of many things, Toril always seemed as if his mind was high in the clouds. Something that served as an enigma to me, until I learned he was Amun’s knight.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Plate armor. Shouting. Ground-shattering displays of might.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Lucia giggled. She was another strange one. Powerful and possessing interesting magic. And silent until moments such as these made their way around. Like a mocking ghost lingering in the shadows. Or rather, a heckling angel hiding within the clouds.

“We're discussing oaths.” One of the other humans said. Issac Galliard, his name was. A somewhat brutish man. Of good build and with good magic to boot. But that was all I knew of him. “Or.” He sighed. “We were.”

“Oh, don’t let me distract you!” I quickly chortled. “Do, pray tell, about these oaths. Are they to a God? To Amun?”

“To ourselves.” Toril quickly corrected. “It is power through conviction.”

“Interesting.” I tapped at my chin. “So then, what are your convictions?”

I felt a fire, a sweet, sweet fire bloom from the direction of Issac before he spoke. Like nectar in cloud form, it flowed around my flesh to flow into my fiendish pores. Enriching them with the potency of Pride.

“I come from a long line of Knights and Paladins.” Issac passionately thumped his fist into his chest. “Like my father and his mother before him, my Oath is to the Bulwark!”

“Fascinating.” I slowly nodded while my eyes ran over the rest of them. But one by one, they gave helpless shrugs or meek suggestions of their ignorance. “But not what I expected at all.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“There is something.” Elijah stepped forward to say. “Something that Amun… offered to me. To be a Blackguard.”

“Now that is a surprise.” I laughed in disbelief. Both sides of myself did.

“You know what they are?” He asked, and all eyes turned to me.

“I’m surprised you don’t.” I scoffed. “But yes. They’re often knights turned to the ways of cruelty or paladins who became evil, I assume by breaking their oath. Many of them serve powerful devils as soldiers in the Infernal War; not always, but in most cases. In all cases, however, they are the antithesis of what most people think of paladins. They're cruel, unholy warriors. Warlocks in the guise of paladins, essentially. And leaders of undead or lesser devils.”

“Yeah.” Elijah signed in resignation. “I’m unsure if that’s what I want to be. And, though I was given the choice, I don’t want to tell Amun until I know what I want to do.”

Toril laughed at that. “If that's the case, Amun already knows you don’t want it. He was almost certainly making a suggestion to get you thinking about the possibilities.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Elijah slowly nodded. Then nodded faster and faster with the passing seconds. “I mean, he did make me realize I could stay as a Knight rather than be a Paladin.”

“At any rate, you’d make an outstanding Dreadnought,” I said. “It’s a Fighter Class. One you’re certainly strong enough to become. Or, perhaps with your affinity with Twilight, you could become some type of guardian or something? Perhaps some type of… I dunno, wyvern rider?”

Though one suggestion flew over his head, one of them seemed to give him an idea, as his undead eyes brightened with a light that beguiled his nature. It didn’t take much to figure out which was which and I didn’t feel like taking up my time with something as invasive and unproven as that, so I quickly shuffled aside to the stables to look at nothing in particular and say. “I’m curious about your training. All we do as Fighters is, well, fight. While fun, everyone needs a change of pace every now and again.”

“We practice the skills we learned as Knights and new skills as well.” The final human stated. I knew not his name, but he was another of the plain-looking Maruleans who joined only because their Prince did. “Archery, riding, fighting. We spend time cultivating our strength and…” he paused for a deep sigh. “We learn to care for various mounts.”

“Oh?” I faced about to splay an open hand towards the stables. Still empty.

“Mounts that we don’t have, yes.” Toril snickered.

“Not surprised.” I laughed. “What beast can keep up with Toril O’Connell?”

“None I’ve met thus far.” He snorted. Curiously enough, however, there was no fire- no pride in his words. He was just like his master in that regard.

“But there will be one eventually.”

“And yet another surprise!” I turned towards the devil himself to see him smirking at me.

“I could say the same. I’m doing my rounds. What of you?”

“Cross-training!” I smugly grinned.

“Huh.” He slowly nodded after glancing at my clone. “Didn’t take you for the type.”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises!” I giggled. “As are you, I presume. I’m curious to know of your recent exploits.”

“Well.” He shrugged. “Lana and a few others are still in the Darkworld, hunting for dark metals. Other undead are still building factories and machines underground. As for me.” He shrugged again. “I’ve been splitting my time between meditating, brewing potions, and making things.

“Most recently, however, I killed these.” He suddenly, and rather nastily grinned before releasing a cloud of darkness into the air with a sweep of his hand. And from it appeared several creatures in a heaping pile. Some were sliced neatly or brutishly clubbed while others were mere husks of their former selves, shriveled and sunken as if they'd been dried out.

“Report.”

If it was Amun to mutter that word, his voice was unrecognizable to my ears. Grainy, guttural, grotesque, and followed by a million whispers that trickled down to the corpses. Flowed around them to pool at the ground below them. Darkening their shadows into hauntingly dark pits or portals that allowed claw and hoof alike to breach the Material Plane and pull down the flesh that once was.

When the silent chaos was over, the blood and gore were gone. Arranged neatly before us were upwards of sixty undying beasts of shadow. There were several giant and regular blade-horned stags, all types of Aves, giant lizard things, and of course, horses; along with many more, all made of the same strange shadow flesh as our companions, but with bits and bridles and saddles of varying grays and that alluring vibrant tone of Amun’s arcana.

“Fascinating!" I gasped in amazement at the seamlessness of the process. "But still, I never imagined them to be so weak.”

“Yeah.” Amun dejectedly sighed. “I assume they’ll grow stronger by killing things. But to be honest, I have no idea about the specifics of how they work. My great-grandfather’s supposed to teach me sometime soon, but.” He flicked his gaze to Toril and snorted. “Let’s just say the Necro King is better at some things than he is at others.”

“Soon?” I and several others shook our heads rapidly.

“Apparently, he teaches the summoning course during the second year.” Amun shrugged his hands with the same incredulous tone. Then reached his hand up to scratch at his hairless chin. “That said, I am overdue for communion.” He muttered before snapping his gaze back to me. “I’ll let you know after I speak to Granny Raven. For now, I have an appointment, so… see you.”

A hiss of air and a cloud of dark wisps signaled Amun’s disappearance. Leaving the lot of us standing amongst our undead animals, staring at the space Amun had just been occupying with guffawed expressions. Except for a few of us, of course. Namely, Toril and Lucia, perusing the ranks of undead animals. And me, giggling softly at the absurd cuteness of a name like Granny Raven.