Araxes woke slowly. Which was really the first sign that something was very amiss.

Bloody hell, not again. The thought seemed to echo strangely within his mind, as though the thoughts were coming from a very. But this was the second time this bloody month that he’d somehow managed to be knocked unconscious despite his build very clearly bloody stating that as a lich he was immune to all magical and mundane sleep effects.

“Somebody get me the manager,” he mumbled under his breath. “He and I are going to have words.”

He waited for the blackness that always seemed to accompany these periods to fade away, inevitably to be replaced by the real world and whatever annoyances might be waiting for him back in the realm of the conscious.

And then he waited some more.

And then some more.

“Oh this is just ridiculous,” he muttered, and blinked when he heard his own words echo back to him strangely, almost the same way his thoughts had felt. He frowned, thinking, and then very deliberately tried to blink.

The texture of the darkness altered slightly when he let his eyelights fade out and fade back in. Which was… Troubling. It meant, among other things, that his eyes were theoretically functioning as they should, and that the blackness he saw was not the strange absence of input from his ocular functions but what he was actually seeing.

Which meant either he had been buried beneath the mountain again, or he was someplace… Else.

But even if he was someplace else, he should still bloody well be able to see. These flames for eyes weren’t merely fashionable, after all. They were intended to both provide light and to grant himself ability to see through all manner of darkness whether mundane or magical. So if he was seeing nothing but blackness around him, that meant either he had been ensconced in a magical obscuration of such high level that his eyes could not pierce it, or…

Or there was literally nothing to see.

“Alright, enough of this.” Araxes grumbled and started moving. He could feel his extremities respond to his commands, was able to draw his hands close and pat down his body and yes it all seemed to still be there. His robes were in place, as was his favorite crown. He was even able to feel the gem in his pelvic cradle where it sat humming with quiet energy. He hadn’t had a chance to check it yet since the battle, but he was quite sure he’d gotten enough kills during that little fracas to at least power it up to a significant extent.

Which meant he was not without armaments in this place, wherever it might be. Which in turn would come in handy if it came down to some kind of battle… Which, thinking about it, these kinds of scenarios often seemed to, in his experience.

“Whoever has brought me to this place,” Araxes called out to the darkness, raising his voice and projecting it just like his speech tutor had taught him, “show yourself! I’ve no time for games, nor any inclination to play them!”

Games? Games. I remember games. This is a new game, isn’t it.

The voice was brittle as crystal and hissed like sand over silk. It came from all around Araxes, and then seemed to come from within him all at the same time.

“Ack!” he squawked and knocked the heel of one hand against the side of his skull, trying to dislodge the unpleasant tingling that came with that sensation. “That is the third most annoying method of communication I have ever encounterd. Stop that this instant!”

*Can’t stop. Won’t stop. Never stopp. Stopping means loss, means win, means defeat means success means end beginning another round and round we go where we stop no one knows because knowing is half the battle and you will not break me nEvER BREAK ME!

Had Araxes any hairs left on his body, he was quite sure they would now be standing on end as the voice turned from a breathy whisper into a high-pitched sing-song shriek. He had been alive long enough to recognize that tone, thank you very much. Whoever was in here with him, wherever here was, whoever they were, they were absolutely mad.

“Who are you?” he called into the void, not truly expecting any kind of useable answer.

Who are you that asks?

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

That was peculiar. In that one sentence, the madness disappeared. Replaced instead by an almost shark-like kind of focus. For a second he considered glibness as a response, but some instinct deep inside his blackened soul suggested to him that perhaps frankness was called for in this instance.

“I am…”

Araxes paused. Not even a month ago, he would have reeled off a half-dozen of the titles he had won and claimed for himself over the years. Lord of the Fire Wastes, Conqueror of the Hidden Reaches, Tamer Of The Six-thousand-table Buffet, Last Man Standing on Digery Dan’s Impromptu Death Game.

But now, after learning what he had learned about the nature of this world, after knowing what he now knew about his own nature, they all seemed rather hollow.

“I am Araxes,” he said instead, and felt that was truth enough for the moment.

You’re new. Never tried this one before. Never tried a lich. Always honey and glass and fire and ghosts and bread and isn’t it a lovely night the stars shine bright as birds in the air where there nowhere stare hair in the end we’re all dead men and nothing changes except a dollar for a phone call to your mother may I?

“Oh yes,” Araxes muttered to himself. “Clearly this is going to be a massively useful conversation.”

Useful is as useful does, doesn’t it? Not gonna stop never gonna stop have to keep going you’ll never break me NeVeR BReaK Me.

NEVER BREAK ME

The words hit Araxes like a physical force and nudged his consciousness in… some direction, anyway.

Which, after a moment’s thought, he realized was an interesting factoid. He was in a place, apparently with directions and the ability to be ambulated towards or away from those directions.

And if this was a place, then logic dictated that it must have a border. Oh, true, there were those demi-planes that could do the whole ‘functionally infinite’ thing, but those were dreadfully difficult to maintain and required regular upkeep.

This place… was not well maintained. The ether tasted of dust and neglect, and the insanity in the words of the occupant suggested a period of isolation lasting a very very long time indeed.

“Lovely as this is,” Araxes said, sending his senses out, questing for that border, “I fear I must cut it short. I’ve places to be and things to do, you know.”

I know.

Araxes paused. Again, for just the briefest instant, the insanity faded from the occupant’s voice.

“Do you?” he asked the darkness. “Or are you merely attempting to sound wise and mysterious to befuddle the newcomer to your realm, namely me? No judgement, of course. I’ve pulled the same trick myself more than once. Although,” he added, “not recently.”

One had little need for such trickery when one had the power to crush small nations with a wave of one’s hand, after all.

Oh yes. Little lich. Little not-man. Used to be man. Liked power. Wanted power. More and more and moreandmoreandmoreandmore. Never satisfied. Never enough. Too much always enough. Absolute Power Is Absolutely Neat. I know

Araxes peered fruitlessly into the probably-not-infinite blackness.

“Well, what the devil do you know, then?” he asked, exasperated.

Death awaits when you surface. Salvation comes as a corpse. You have been re-killed, little corpse. Your kingdom awaits you. Never let them see you sweat never let them see you bleed neverletthemseeyoucryneverletthemseeyoubReAk!

Madness and wisdom intermingled within the silk and sand, rising in tone until the sand became boulders and the silk became jagged steel. Araxes winced as the hiss turned into a roar, emanating from every point and no point at all. In the distance, or perhaps so close he could reach out and touch them, a twin pinpricks of burning light winked into existence. Golden eyes limned with fire and ice swiveled to look at him, and he felt himself laid bare and naked under that insane gaze.

See you, little corpse.

He who had been Lich King Araxesendenak felt his throat constrict and his mouth go dry–well, drier than it had, anyway. Undead, you know. Whoever, or whatever those eyes belonged to, they possessed power beyond even his understanding. He could feel it sweep over him, like waves over a sandcastle, threatening to break him down utterly and wash him away.

“Who are you?” he breathed the question to the mad voice once again.

The pinpricks of light grew wide, shrank, widened again, and then winked out. The intent Araxes had felt so clearly just moments before pulled away and seemed to vanish, leaving him once more alone in this strange void. And for a second he thought the insane presence had decided to leave him alone. Perhaps he had breached some strange dimensional protocol. Should he have bloody served the thing tea first before inquiring after its name?

It was always so deucedly hard figuring out what other-dimensional entities wanted from him. Some day he was going to write a monograph on his experiences and see if he couldn’t–

I am.

The voice came back, once more a silken hiss.

“Well that’s informative,” Araxes grumbled. Clearly this was going nowhere. He cast out with his senses again. Maybe if he looked hard enough he could find the bloody exit from this place…

I am not. Mother, father, sister, brother. Betrayer. Betrayed. Lost. Found. All. Nothing. First. Last. Prisoner. Free. Enemy. Friend. General. Slave. All of these none of these bound together broken apart wise fool miss you miss everything lost the war won the war surrenderfightwinbrokenNO!neverbreakcan’tbreakalwaysfightneverbreakmeneverbReAKmeEneverbreaknneverbreEAkNEVERBREAK!

The words slammed into Araxes like the fist of an angry god, and suddenly he felt himself hurled backwards end over end. He swore and flailed his limbs, searching for some kind of purchase, something to grab hold of… And yet even as he flew away he also felt himself approaching something. The voice continued to scream incoherent gibberish at him, but it felt like it was getting further away, like it was fading into the distance.

never break, little corpse

And with that last breathy whisper in his mind, Araxes the lich Awoke.