The Lord of Dreams stalked the silent streets of Respite. It was not a true dreaming, or even a true nightmare, were it so he’d have been able to unravel it with little more than a thought. But the human psyche was still a playground he knew well. It was just a matter of changing the right thing and doing it delicately enough that it wouldn’t radically change his subject.
Of course, this time it was more complicated, he’d expected, coming in, for the dryad’s mind and trauma to be in dominance of her mortal host, even with Alec’s rather large latent magical potential a being of pure magic like Holly should have suborned him entirely, foisting her own brand of horrors upon him.
That hadn’t happened, the two were apparently too alike, in trauma at least, and so he was having to handle two separate dreams, one of which he couldn’t directly access. He knew what he had to look for, a commonality, something shared between the two that would resolve for both at once. Which was doubly a problem because he knew next to nothing about them beyond a brief conversation with the thrice-cursed necromancer.
He suspected he knew where the answers lay, in the locked bedroom in Alec’s erstwhile home, but with the barrier on the door, he was loathe to go for the direct route. Sure the necromancer had agreed to his price success or failure but there was pride at stake here, and more than just a little bit of it.
It had been so terribly long since he’d had a chance to do what he was good at; the idea of failing was grotesque, not just the loss of face but a significant blow to identity as well.
So for now, he lurked through the streets, well-worn cobbles that were almost frictionless if one weren’t careful, or a superlative being like himself, hoping for some hint or sign that would help him figure this out.
Respite was an old enough village; he’d at least been aware of it, and had remained a small village for that entire time. Old bargains lay thick on the ground here, and even in memory, there was the potential for mishap, made all the more deadly because he didn’t know the details of this Bargain. And it was a Bargain, ancient if not terrible, a pact betwixt man and monster worthy of the capital letter.
What Pheus did know was the broad strokes, that a village would be permitted within the borders of the forest and that it would go unmolested by malevolent flora and ravenous fauna; the residents would be permitted to retrieve deadwood from the forest but could not take an axe to a living tree without reprisals, but the finer details had eluded him, and there had to be finer details. Little else would explain why, after so long, the village had stayed so small or how it had consistently been able to survive on little more than hunting and expensive food imports.
Not that the wood it exported was cheap, Von Mori’s trees were a breed apart, tougher, harder to burn and inheriting a small fraction of their matron’s resistance to magic and null alike, they were a beloved purchase of both paladin, the village’s backer in the modern era, and magician, on the rare occasion they could get their hands on some. Artificers, in particular, were obsessed with the wood, its mutual resistance to null and magic meant it was hard to make it take a spell, but when it did, the spell stuck and stuck hard, working in null-heavy environments and able to stand up to magical assault, a real favourite in defensive objects. A Mori-oak shield properly enchanted was better in almost every way than its steel equivalent, and rumours had even reached Seruatis that the Necropolis was stockpiling Mori-yew battle staves for the next Paladin-Necromancer war.
But whilst Respite’s food situation could be explained by expensive exports by a generous viewer, its population could not. The village’s lack of growth reeked of magical compulsion, but the how of it eluded Pheus, and the how was important; such details were the tripwires of a Bargain.
The old god (not Old God, that was a different class of being entirely, albeit one that had gone extinct long before even Pheus’ time when deities had slung the primordial forces of creation around as if it were so much soil, not that there had been soil back then) needed those details to be entirely safe, though he doubted he could trip over them. Von Mori was not careless in her dealings with mortals, and for a Bargain to last this long it was probably airtight. Still it was possible that, even in durance vile, a violation of it would allow the dryad of the forest to lash out and Pheus had no illusions that Von Mori liked him enough to stay her hand, or at all in fact.
So caution before all else, he’d checked the bakery, there was no mill, so the flour must also be an import. A windmill would have been almost out of the question, there was no elevation to make use of the wind so they’d have had to build up pretty high to get past the windbreak the forest provided. A waterwheel was also out of the picture, the nearest river was many miles away, Respite’s water coming from a single well that had mysteriously never run out of water in all its many years, much like Seruatis. He’d also searched what appeared to be a carpenter’s, a cobbler’s, a small tavern and all the various other tradecrafts that kept a village alive.
They were the most likely to give hints as to what ailed Alec’s mind, the god presuming his patient had expressed at least some interest in a trade. Afterall everyone wanted to do something with their life and whilst searching the forest for deadwood was lucrative, it was hardly interesting. Hunting certainly held excitement, a bit dangerous in the Forest Von Mori where the wildlife tended to hunt back and Alec hadn’t had the array of scars he’d associate with such a person. But there was nothing out of place there either.
Pheus rubbed at his eyes, massaging away the tiredness. It was looking more and more like he’d have to force the door and just hope his patient would be able to feed himself afterwards.
Still, there was one place to yet go over with a fine toothcomb, one place he knew for a fact Alec had spent time and had perhaps left impressions of himself.
The monk’s residence was on the very outskirts of the village, and it was… not shabby, but lacked the solidity of the dignified ageing stonework of the rest of the village. There was a roughness to the stone, and the mortar was already beginning to show signs of flaking.
The inside was modest, no true bed, just a well-padded mattress, straw rather than the more expensive stuffings. A very small lap-jointed writing desk and bookshelf took up most of the rest of the space alongside a small travel pack in the opposite corner, the wood used would cost a fortune anywhere else in the world. Still it was easy enough to get pieces large enough; it was only once one graduated from furniture to architecture that appropriately sized timber grew scarce. They’d have been better off importing the wood than hoping something of sufficient size passed away in the forest.
He checked the desk for hidden compartments; for all it seemed too small for it. He didn’t really expect to find anything, this was built from Alec’s memory afterall, and he highly doubted Erebus would have left anything significant that could be discovered by inquisitive teens, or at least anything he didn’t want them to find, but he checked anyway, just in case.
Next, he perused the bookshelf, the poor thing full to creaking with texts that he’d flick through just in case; many of the books blank except for the title, showing that Alec had never read them, and again no hollowed-out books or bewildering cyphers.
“You could just ask you know,” Erebus said from behind him.
Pheus whirled around in something close to panic, one hand raised to throw power at the necromancer before he stopped himself, “I didn’t notice you approach.”
“That was rather the idea,” The magician pointed out. “So any progress?”
“Very little,” Pheus admitted glacially. “I’ve seldom encountered a mind so… uncluttered. And no that’s not an insult, there’s just surprisingly little of himself here, unless I’m missing something truly obvious he could use a lot of encouragement, I’ve seen larger egos in automata.”
“Automata?”
“Before your time. And after your time too I suppose, if things develop at their current pace.” The god looked a touch amused at the prospect, “A pity really, it’s always fun to watch how a society copes with artificial sapients. So many wonderful ways it can go wrong.”
“Delightful. So what will you do now?”
“Well first I’m going to ask what in the hells you’re doing here, I thought we had a plan.”
“I was able to spare a bit of my attention,” Erebus said as if it explained everything. “I thought you might need the help, and clearly you do.” He leaned against the wall only to stumble as part of it seemed to collapse into splinters and dust at his weight. “Okay, that definitely cannot be good.”
Pheus scowled darkly, “It isn’t. It means the boy’s mind is starting to decay, probably, I mean it could be an aspect of the nightmare representing the preference of memory compared to real life and childhood’s end, but if so I just don’t understand it. Do you know how many nightmares I’ve spectated? How many I’ve crafted? This place makes no damned sense, it’s a hideous hodgepodge of half-ideas. There’s no unifying theme that would translate to the dryad.”
“Holly,” Erebus said helpfully.
Pheus didn’t rise to the bait, “My point is that I know what the solution should be, I just can’t find it.”
“Keep going…”
“Desolate streets usually means some kind of monster giving chase, something that represents all the boy’s problems, but besides us there’s just nothing here. By now something should have tried to grab me, stab me, drag me screaming into the shadows, something, but there’s just nothing. The door he’s protecting, I should have been jumped just reaching for it if this were that kind of nightmare.”
The necromancer nodded along, “So when is a door not a door?”
“When it’s a jar,” Pheus replied deadpan. “That joke wasn’t funny when it was first invented, it’s not funny now, and its continued survival is a blight on comedy everywhere, though I do take the point.” The old god began to mutter to himself, “Edge cases… edge cases…”
Erebus watched from the increasingly crumbling wall, keeping his own counsel to let the expert work. Unusual in Pheus’ eyes given the antagonism, but he clearly cared for Holly and Alec, or at the very least felt a responsibility for them.
Inspiration struck. “Holly and Alec,” He said aloud. “That’s the key. It’s not two similar nightmares, it’s one nightmare shared between them.”
“Which means we’re in the wrong place… I presume the boy spent some time in the forest, if not very far in?”
“One would presume so.” Erebus nodded.
“And the dryad would never have entered the village, nothing’s happening here because nothing can happen here. It’s not a shared perspective, one monster, one nightmare, it would have to be something they’re both afraid of… smart money is on your paladin, probably three feet taller than in real life and with glowing red eyes.”
“So we head to the forest?”
“We head to the forest. Carefully.”
There was little more to be said on the subject, not that either would have felt much like talking in the oppressive gloom of the perpetual twilight Respite was frozen in. Normally Pheus would have a suite of supernatural senses to puncture the darkness, but Alec didn’t know such things existed, and so here they didn’t, he had to despair for the state of education, sure the very existence of gods was one of the most deeply held secrets on the planet but right now it was inconveniencing him, and thus he despaired.
The line between forest and village was old, it had been a wall once, a collection of stones stacked together probably about waist high but that had been a very long time ago. Now it was a verge overgrown first with moss and now with grass, the original stones buried somewhere near the centre. Just beyond it, the first trees loomed, and they did loom, ancient imposing and pillars of wood. This late in the year the boughs were barren of leaves, looking more like talons aimed at the heavens than branches. Every single one was an oak, the guardian dryads absent from the dreamscape — Alec had never known they were there — though whether they were there to protect village from forest or forest from village Pheus doubted anyone other than Von Mori knew.
As leaves crunched underfoot, Pheus and Erebus gazed around with the furtive caution of the hunted. In the real world, almost nothing corporeal would be able to walk through the leaf-littered ground in silence. Still the rules of reality didn’t apply here, and in a nightmare the monster could jump out from anywhere, possibly somewhere they’d just checked… especially somewhere they’d just checked in fact.
No phantom paladin was in evidence and after ten minutes Pheus was starting to get really frustrated. “Don’t tell me that we have to go into the heart of the forest? The boy would never have gone so far surely‽”
Erebus merely shrugged, “If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.”
The god of dreams’ eyes narrowed at the necromancer as he mused aloud. “No. It has to be a shared location, a shared fear. That’s the only way any of this makes sense! So if not the paladin… Von Mori? She’s certainly a nightmare when she wants to be and she has the metaphysical weight that her death could… affect things…”
“Want me to try calling her?” the necromancer volunteered. “She seemed to respect me.”
“I’m not sure it would help,” Pheus said. “Though there is one more person the two have in common…”
“Which is?”
The only reply was a beam of fire so hot as to be moving from blue to white aimed squarely at Erebus’ chest, the torrent of fire splashing ineffectively against the mage’s barrier of will.
“Ah. Me.” A slow smile spread across the mage’s face. “I did wonder how long I could keep this going.”
Pheus cursed, the real Erebus would have been carved in half by that beam, or at least he would have against a mere mental shield. That was both good and bad, the real necromancer, weighing in at nearly two centuries of putting down major magical threats and who knew how much tutelage in a demonic realm had a nearly bottomless bag of magical tricks. Against the real mage, he could have expected anything from a precognitive counterspell to a point-to-point teleport or a full arcane barrier to stop the flames. On the bright side, the boy and the dryad didn’t know any of that really existed, or if they did, how it was actually used in a fight.
The bad news was that the boy’s impression of what Erebus could do was quite a bit stronger than the real thing, and worse, the dryad would have a decent grasp of magic and very little idea of how mages actually thought so he could look forwards to a lot of…
As the thought occurred, the god leapt high into the air, using a circle of compressed air to stand on when outright levitation failed as the earth turned liquid at a gesture from Erebus.
…a lot of terrain control, he finished the thought.
So blasts of elemental force way stronger than the mage could actually manage, ditto for spell shields and probably superlative hand to hand fighting combined with masterful control of the environment, because of course he’d taken so long to figure it out that he’d been drawn into the forest. Lovely. And to top it all off, he was fighting with a restriction to start with.
He couldn’t use any magic that Holly or Alec couldn’t understand, well, he could, but he’d have to force it and making his patients bleed from the eyes and ears probably counted as a failure.
That was a problem in its own right; when dealing with an experienced enemy magician, the first thing anyone went for were their esoteric magics; gravity, magnetism, entropy, time, stranger things if they knew them. Things that were hard to conceptualise and even harder to block.
“So what gave me away?” Erebus asked, the slight shimmer of his shield dropping.
“The real Erebus knows Von Mori isn’t dead… that and a bunch of other things. But that one clinched it.”
“You say the real Erebus, but I’d argue I’m just as real. I’m Erebus as seen through the eyes of those who were lucky enough to survive him.”
Just what Pheus needed, a mental construct with self-awareness. Still, he gave the best answer he could; a series of sharp, resounding cracks as he lifted a bunch of pebbles from the floor and accelerated them past the sound barrier to leave slowly spreading concentric circles of light on the necromancer’s shield. Sure enough, it covered all directions, including down and up, but it had been important to check.
“Except when the actual Erebus was here you weren’t. Too afraid to confront yourself?”
Pheus dived behind a tree as the counterattack carved through the trunk, a blade of air that no shield he could muster would have stopped, the invisible scythe passing inches above his head as it carried on deeper into the forest and only a frantic piece of telekinesis kept the tree from falling on him as well.
“It’s how I work, isn’t it? Only stepping in after the danger is past?” The voice came from behind him; Pheus whirled and let loose with an actinic flash of lightning, following up with a burst of decay and rot, but it was no use, the shield blocked both.
It blocks everything, he realised belatedly, the child never once saw it fail. He could hammer on that barrier of will until he ran out of breath, and it wouldn’t shake, bend or break. It was immutable in here, inviolable.
But there were ways to kill the unkillable. There had been a lot more gods once upon a time.
If he couldn’t go through the shield or around it, he’d simply have to bypass it entirely, attack the person maintaining it.
“Danger’s still here. Dryad’s dying. Kid’s dying,” he said, backing away as he fielded a few rocks on his shield. They were slower than his own shots but much larger, solid stones rather than the handful of pebbles he’d sent. He didn’t even bother trying to stop them outright, deflecting them with just enough telekinetic force to send them past him. “The real Erebus cared about them.”
By his grandmother’s pitch black soul, but that stung, to say something complimentary about a necromancer, still as long as the actual Erebus never heard about it, he could cope.
“I’m the reason they’re dying. I roped Holly into this in the first place, I dragged Alec from the ruins of Respite. I let Holly be tortured!”
“Erebus doesn’t believe that. Hells, I’m not sure even the boy believes that,” Pheus said dryly as he braced for the next attack. He’d had air and earth, there wasn’t enough water here for an attack, so he was expecting fire.
He didn’t get it, or at least not yet, as roots began twining around his ankles instead, revealing another weakness. He was rusty. What had it been since he’d last been in a fight, ten thousand years? Twelve thousand? Long enough that a threat he’d known to watch for was bogging him down.
He survived the fire, though barely, leaning back out of the way as the crimson stream went over him, trusting to the very roots holding him in place to keep his balance, at least until a quick gesture, and two blades of air, freed him. The god’s back hitting the floor for just a moment as he rolled away, not staying still long enough for them to pin him to the floor.
He’d flick out more airblades as he got to his feet, cutting down roots, ivy and grasping branches. “What are you getting out of this huh? You’re smart enough to know you’re just an avatar, if they die, you die.”
“If they live I also die,” Erebus pointed out, not yet unleashing another elemental assault. Pheus allowed himself a moment’s hope that he was getting through to the half-baked impression rather than that he was just building up for a really big spell.
“True, true, then why are you here? Why claw for each desperate second of life when it’s so very hopeless?” The god’s voice was sweet to the point of poison, not stopping there. There was enough of the real thing here that defiance was second nature, “When you could do something meaningful with your death I mean. In the end we’re all going there, it drags you down… you think you’re tired… that you’re hopeless… I can tell you it doesn’t get easier. That desire to just give in grows like a cancer, gnawing, consuming, devouring, it never tires, always hungers… so why stay when you’re one of the lucky few who gets a good reason to give in…”
Doubt appeared in the necromancer’s eyes, and Pheus rejoiced, folding his arms behind his back, trying to seem confident and non-threatening. Alec had built a picture of Erebus in his mind, the power, the intelligence, the defiance in the face of a hopeless situation, and maybe, just maybe, the sheer world-weariness.
“I-”, the necromancer began uncertainly, dropping his shield. The god didn’t wait to hear it, one of the hands behind his back curling up to raise a stone behind Fauxebus and then pulled it to him. The necromancer gave out a gasp, the soft sound of surprise out of place in the sudden silence; the stone hadn’t slowed even with him in the way and had taken him in the throat.
He brought his hands up to heal the wound, not panicking, but it did no good; Pheus was already on him, hitting him around the waist a running tackle and bringing him to the floor. Perhaps the real Erebus could have healed it anyway, kept fighting even as his lifeblood poured into his lungs, but this one couldn’t, the muscles in the god’s forearms like adamantine as he strained to keep his wrists pinned whilst the necromancer thrashed, slowly stilling to twitching… something faded in his eyes and a panting Pheus rose slowly from the corpse.
It hadn’t been as satisfying as he’d hoped; sure, it wasn’t the real thing, but he’d expected to feel a thrill at snuffing out a necromancer’s life, a taste of long-sought vengeance after so long, but it wasn’t there. Just a quiet relief he’d survived and the gentle pleasure of a job done… if not well, then at least done.
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*
It was surprisingly loud. That was what Erebus first noticed, raucous voices apparently coming from all directions as feeling returned to his limbs. He carefully didn’t move, de-petrification spells were a roll of the dice at the best of times, and there was a very good chance parts of him were still stone as the spell did its work, obviously nothing immediately vital like the lungs, heart or brain, but having to live without a stomach or a liver would be something of a problem if in a moment of impatience he tore it free of arteries before it could return to normal.
There were too many voices to really make out any words, but he didn’t try to cast anything to isolate some of the sounds, that could have been worse than moving. Still, he held his nerve for a good few minutes before he finally opened his eyes to find himself staring into the unblinking eyes of Holly.
“Oh good, you’re not dead,” she observed dryly, moving back to sit on what had been Alec’s infirmary bed; the teen himself not immediately apparent, which given Alec’s nature meant the necromancer could safely conclude he was somewhere else.
“Fairly sure that should be my line,” he quipped weakly before covering his mouth to cough. Fortunately, no stone dust was there when he pulled his hand away. “How are you feeling?”
“Not in pain. Which is nice I guess. Irritated and wondering where I am though, no one wants to answer me, they keep saying I need to wait for some founder guy to tell me but he’s busy.”
“You’re in Seruatis. Guessing your memory’s a bit spotty, what’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”
“That infernal collar going on, after that, nothing,” she said bitterly, rubbing at the phantom memory of it on her neck. “We made it then… that’s good.”
“For a given value of made it,” Erebus replied bleakly. “You’ve been comatose for best part of a month, Alec for a day, and I’m still recovering from a botched healing. Just be glad dryads don’t get muscular atrophy.”
“I don’t know what that is,” she admitted. “But sure, glad I don’t have it.”
“So where’s your host? And why are we surrounded by people?”
That wasn’t entirely true; since he’d opened his eyes, people had begun leaving, to general grousing and complaint.
Holly’s eyes unfocused a moment as she concentrated, “Alec’s eating, don’t know where. And everyone was here because of you. Some kind of spell you were casting, I saw someone’s leg grow back so that was interesting.”
Erebus rubbed at his eyes, there would probably be consequences to that, but he couldn’t really begrudge Seruatis’ residents taking advantage. High-grade panacea spells were hard to find even here; if he hadn’t been running the spell off borrowed power and a statue to boot, he’d have collapsed in minutes from the strain.
Still, he didn’t say any of that, it wasn’t Holly’s problem, and besides, there were more interesting developments, at least to his mind, “You couldn’t do that when we last spoke.”
The young dryad forced a smile, “It helped he said he was starving before he vanished. We agreed one of us should stay with you to thank you, and I don’t eat or sleep so…” she trailed off awkwardly. “It’s good that he found food though, I was starting to get hungry. Got to say I don’t like it.”
“We agreed, or he agreed?” Erebus pressed gently while mentally signing Alec up for a few more lessons on emotional control.
“We,” she replied firmly. For a moment, he considered pressing further, but he was tired, and his two charges not fighting with each other wasn’t the sort of news he was in the mood to get to the bottom of, just this once sleeping dogs could lie.
“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave as well, might be worth your time tracking down Alec, some people will doubtless want to talk to me, and things might get… heated.” The necromancer stretched a slow, languid motion as he checked that he still had a full range of motion in each limb. Mages certainly weren’t stereotyped as athletic, but battlemages bucked the trend, far more energy-efficient to dive out of the way of a spell rather than shield or deflect it and thus the dryad was treated to the near-paper white face flushing a deep red as he managed, with some effort, to press his forehead to his feet.
She waited a few more moments, but apparently, the conversation was at an end, and so she sidled out of the infirmary with the last few stragglers as they admired the fact they were now sans scars and wrinkles, and in one case sporting a few more fingers than when they’d entered.
Now to find the cafeteria… Holly considered just asking someone but wasn’t sure how to approach them. Her experience with non-dryads (who weren’t openly hostile) so far extended to a grumpy ghost, a distraught teenager and an eccentric mage; for all that she was inexperienced she knew that wasn’t much of a sample when it came to talking to people.
Besides, she’d been raised on horror stories about what humans did to dryads… well, to trees at least, the dryad tended to be something to stab their way past to get to the timber, but either way, it hadn’t exactly endeared mankind to her.
So instead, she fell back on magic; it was, if not easier, then at least more familiar. She quickly hurried out of sight of anyone, not quite breaking into a jog, and then focused inside herself, going a little bit cross-eyed in the process.
The bond had grown a lot during her convalescence, much like a muscle it had grown all the stronger through constant, but not excessively strenuous, use, though the last couple of days had put a strain on it, a few strands of it frayed, but it had held.
In her mind’s eye, it was a blue cable extending from her out into the ether, carrying a veritable cornucopia of information to her from Alec, very little of it that she could make sense of. Holly trees didn’t come with colour vision, or vision at all, nor taste, and though there were analogies to the other senses, they didn’t translate even approximately. It would be a very long time before she could fully understand it. Presumably, Alec, if he was in a receptive state, would get a similar deluge from her.
For now, she took a deep calming breath and got to work narrowing the focus, a tree might not have eyesight, but she did, and she soon identified the strand of the bond sending sight, letting it consume her thoughts as with her eyes closed Alec’s vision easily superimposed over her own. Hopefully, with enough practice, she’d be able to process her host’s vision as well as her own, but before Erebus had de-petrified, she’d given that a try and the resulting headache had forced her to sit down.
He was still in the cafeteria; she didn’t know what a cafeteria was really, but along with the image was the word. And going by the plate of food, now being mopped clean by a rather fluffy white type of food with a brown edge, it was somewhere to eat. Though she’d already figured that out when the hunger pangs that most definitely weren’t hers had stopped.
Still, none of this was particularly helpful when determining location with respect to other buildings.
Out of the corner of Alec’s eye, she could see a set of stairs leading downward and a door, as well as natural light filtering in from windows at the same level, though the windows had metal grills over the top of them for some reason. Underground then? Or a bizarrely fortified second-floor balcony. Both should hopefully be visible from outside.
‘You could just ask you know?’ Alec pointed out with a mental chuckle.
The only reason Holly didn’t scream was that she got a hand to her mouth on the inhale.
“Alec?” she squeaked back. There was no reply.
It took her a few seconds, but she managed to send it across the link as a thought.
‘Who else?’
‘How are you doing this?’ she asked, still incredulous. Just how much had she missed last month?
‘Erebus had me doing meditations for a month, as well as some limited mental contact. Sensed you in my thoughts, thought I’d try to reply. Looks like it worked.’
‘Looks like it did.’ Holly agreed, impressed despite herself.
‘So what were you rummaging around in my head for? I sensed you had a question but not much more than that.’
‘Erebus dismissed me from the infirmary, he thinks there’s going to be an argument, no idea why, but didn’t want me hearing it so probably secret necromancer stuff. I was told to find you, but I don’t know where you are.’
‘In the cafeteria.’
‘I know that,’ which, in sheer frustration, she yelled aloud as well.
‘Where is it?’
‘Oh… uh where are you?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Well can you get back to the infirmary? I can guide you from there.’
That, as it turned out, was something Holly could do. No more than a few minutes later, she found herself opposite her host as he wolfed down an unconscionable amount of fish stew, which raised all sorts of questions that she decided not to ask. She knew her knowledge of the local geography was subpar, but she was fairly certain Seruatis wasn’t coastal, and the river that ran through Von Mori was miles away.
“You’re looking… better,” Alec said carefully, taking a break from inhaling stew.
“Thank you, I think,” Holly replied stiffly.
“You know what I mean, more mobile.”
“It would have been hard to be less mobile.”
“And yet somehow we nearly managed it,” he pointed out, pushing away a now-empty bowl. “So… now what?”
“What do you mean ‘now what?’” she replied, the question too vague by far.
Alec took his time with the answer, “I mean now what should we do? What are our plans going forwards? I know our options are limited unless we can get an escort out of here to civilisation, but you are ultimately a partner in this… I’d value your input.”
Holly gave him a doubtful look, just sitting there staring at him.
“Too stilted?”
“Way too stilted,” she agreed. “Still thanks for saying it. As to plans… I don’t have any, I did this to see the world, and like you said we’re stuck for now.”
“Yeah, as much as I’d like to blame it on circumstance you’ve definitely been handed a raw deal.” The teen sighed, “Still for my part I plan to keep working on my swordsmanship while I’ve still got people willing to teach me, after that who knows.”
Holly smiled, enjoying the quiet moment of agreement with her host. Things were looking up.
*
Erebus would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t nervous. It didn’t show; he’d been trained too well for that; he’d been trained well enough not to even show that he wasn’t letting it show, probably. Unfortunately, some of those present knew him and knew him well.
One didn’t show fear to predators, and as he stared back at the assembly of powerful beings about to decide his fate, it was hard to think of them as anything else.
It was a nice little bit of theatre certainly, a small amphitheatre with elevated seats and him in the middle at the bottom, the sparse candlelight making it suitably gloom-some whilst also massively overplaying their hand — he could see the inactive light crystals on the ceiling.
All the melodrama meant one simple thing, he was going to live; there was no point intimidating a corpse.
There were a few denizens of Seruatis in attendance as well as the Immortals. Dus, naturally, Pheus and his two brothers, alas. Dragonlady Memra and Alamaya the Elder Wraith as well, the two sat together in what he had to presume was some form of political statement so obtuse he couldn’t parse it. And finally, someone lurking at the back, opposite Alamaya and rendered an unrecognisable blob by the weak candlelight. Perhaps fortunately for him, none of them got a vote on Immortal matters, though they were allowed to add their own views to the issues presented.
“Master Erebus, stand for judgement,” The Swordsman ordered with a voice like granite.
That was interesting. The Immortals seldom stood on ceremony when they met and perhaps ironically cared little for titles. Erebus doubted it was for the benefit of the peanut gallery either, so it had to be for him. The only question was, what was the message. Don’t rock the boat perhaps? Be polite?
With these musings running circles in his head, the necromancer rose from his chair slowly; it wasn’t purely for dramatic effect; he was exhausted and frankly in need of sleep. There were spells to transcend such things, but tragically he didn’t trust himself to cast them whilst this tired.
“On the matter of whether you should be classified as immortal, and thus bound by our laws, you should know the Confluence has voted four to three, with one abstention, that you are not in fact immortal.”
Erebus didn’t allow himself to feel relief, but for the Enigma’s staunch refusal to take a stance on anything that could have gone very, very badly. He was too defiant by nature to bend the knee, but he was also under no illusions as to his chances. Even if he were not carrying a major injury and thoroughly exhausted, mentally, magically and physically, he’d only have even odds of being able to take out an Immortal — not kill but cripple or contain — and some of those in the peanut gallery whilst lacking in defence compared to their noble patron had an offence order of magnitude above Erebus’ own.
“I am grateful for the Confluence’s decision,” he replied, keeping his tone level and calm; it wasn’t technically a lie after all. “But would question why I am present given this finding?”
The Huntress answered, taking over, “Other matters were raised. One remains unresolved.”
The Swordsman shot her a look, but his counterpart ignored it blithely. Well, at least from that, he had some idea of how she’d voted.
“However, before we get to that matter, I suppose I should present the other matters for your awareness and consideration. Your recent injuries may have swung the vote on your mortal status, a fact a more suspicious mind might have questions about, they do however raise the question of reprisals to and from the Paladin Protectorate.” She allowed her gaze to flick swiftly from Erebus to the shadow in the back.
“Was there a question there?” the necromancer asked sweetly, trying not to relax too visibly now he knew, or at least thought he knew, his role in this charade.
“Merely enlightening you to the broader context. Now as to the matter of whether you pose a clear and present existential threat to the sapient peoples of this world, we have, after much pleading on your behalf by interested parties”, she gave a quick nod to Dus and then Pheus of all people, “voted five to three against.”
Another surprise, the Enigma, one of the younger Immortals, was renowned for abstaining on votes, or at least votes where there were even numbers, guaranteeing there wouldn’t be a tie at any point, for them to have forsaken that stance then Dus and Pheus must have been impassioned indeed.
Erebus shrugged, “Again I would question why I need to be here for this. As delighted as I am not to be summarily murdered it’s something I could happily have found out about in a missive or memo.”
“Don’t push your luck necromancer, still I suppose what remains are lesser matters, we shall embrace brevity and move to the unresolved matter. Ambassador if you please?”
The woman in the shadows stood up, taking a moment to stretch and ease the stiffness from her limbs; Erebus could sympathise, the chairs had far too little in the way of cushions, which was to say none.
Elder beings tended to see comfort as a fleeting distraction, at least those who hadn’t engaged in a full-time embrace of hedonism. It was for this reason the Necropolis had long ruled that the undead were not, under any circumstances, to design anywhere where the living were expected to spend more than five minutes at a time. There were still a few dingy private studies, long lost libraries and if rumour held true, two airless, lightless and possibly even gravity-less alchemy labs deep in the Wraith Vaults that had never been sullied by mortal touch and likely never would.
As she stepped into clearer lighting, which was to say into the small, well-lit circle at the centre, Erebus took in his newest adversary, or at least their newest incarnation.
She was a broad-shouldered woman, despite her scribe’s robes’ best efforts to hide it, and Erebus could well imagine she had once gone so far as burly. A borderline pugnacious jaw and an aquiline nose framed by what was almost a brow ridge, all softened by advancing years and wiry steel hair that still held the occasional hint of copper. What hadn’t softened were the eyes, a deep blue if a touch rheumy and burning with the fiery zeal of a fanatic, whether to the faith of the old order or the byzantine bureaucracy of the new was irrelevant, they’d do their duty as they saw it and damn the consequences.
If it hadn’t been written in her eyes, then it was written all the more clearly upon her robe’s heraldry. Patches from a dozen campaigns, at least twice as many patches for valour, courage and meritorious conduct in the field, all of it not quite hiding or distracting from the bulge of chainmail beneath the robe — old habits died hard.
Erebus knew what this was, an old soldier past their prime and being forced to spend their twilight years behind a desk.
He could scarcely imagine someone more dangerous.
She couldn’t turn him to stone with a glance or move at speeds the eye could barely track. She couldn’t manipulate the very forces of reality against him or shatter his psyche with a telepathic strike. She couldn’t beguile the senses, inflame emotions or numb the body. But if anything, that was what made her very presence terrifying, because she had survived decades in a game where everyone she’d be facing off against could do those things, and she was still here, and they weren’t.
“Janiah Vorthame, ambassador to Circulus Seruatis for the Holy Paladin Order,” she introduced herself, voice even and entirely unintimidated as she took a sheaf of papers out from a satchel bag at her left hip, next to her sword. “I have here a joint warrant from the Holy Paladin Order, the Council of Mages and the Necropolis for the arrest of Daniel Vorthepe on charges of high treason, impersonation of a Paladin officer, impersonation of a Paladin monk, the murder of a Greater Forest Dryad and the indiscriminate slaughter of the village of Mori’s Respite.”
That got something of a confused silence from those gathered.
“The criminal also goes by the name Erebus,” she stated without missing a beat.
Now there was a quiet susurration, nothing so coherent as words, but fragments of conversation muttered lowly.
Erebus permitted himself a frown, “My name is Erebus, fourteenth of that name, I cast aside the other name when I took my vows.”
“The same vows you are being accused of breaking Daniel,” Janiah pointed out. “As I understand the matter the name is a title assumed with the oath, no oath, no title.”
“I forswore nothing.”
“That is not for you to decide.”
“Nor for you,” the necromancer pointed out archly. “Unless I have been tried in absentia, which I doubt given this is the first I have heard of these charges, then officially my vows are unbroken, and my name stands.”
“Good, then you will have no problem submitting to my arrest so the matter can be settled.”
“In a paladin court?” Erebus asked, “or a fair one?”
“I resent the insinuation,” the ambassador replied evenly; though the smile was strained enough it had to be making her jaw ache.
“I wasn’t insinuating anything. I was stating it,” he growled, dropping diplomacy entirely. “Let me be clear, you have more chance of opening a ski resort in the hells than getting me in front of any court where Allister Lutan holds sway.”
“Fortunately that is also not something for you to decide,” Janiah replied, a smile spreading slowly across her face as she turned to address the room. “I ask the Confluence to honour this warrant and release Erebus into my custody.”
“I decline,” The Swordsman declared fast enough for it to count as a reflex.
“I ask the Confluence, eternal one, not you,” she replied, words carefully formal if not quite respectful.
“The Confluence has no power over Seruatis. They will not grant you your request because it is not theirs to grant,” the patron of the Protected Circle pointed out, heat creeping into his voice.
“But they have power over you. You are free only as long as the rest allow it.”
The Swordsman chuckled at that, “Such arrogance, do you truly believe my friends would turn on me just because you asked?”
Janiah’s smile was a terribly cold thing as she fished briefly inside her satchel for one more document, producing it with a flourish, “Because I asked, and because I have here a revocation of Seruatis’ status as neutral ground within Paladin territory, again agreed by both the Paladin Order and the Council of Mages as well as warrants of arrest for all of you. Pending your decision on this matter, naturally.”
“We will not be blackmailed!” Edward wheezed, fury in his eyes as he managed to yell, the sheer effort of it forced him to dissolve into a coughing fit. “We are-” another brief hacking cough, almost reminiscent of a cat bringing up a furball, “eternal. And we will be here long after your precious Order and Council are forgotten tales even historians would question the validity of.”
As the eldest, at least in terms of flesh, of the immortals subsided, mostly because he couldn’t speak further, The Smith would lay a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder in support, “What he said, but louder. Who are you to tell us what we can and cannot do?”
Janiah kept smiling, “The people who actually have to live and die in these lands. And frankly this has been a long time coming, how can we expect people to obey the laws of the land whilst we allow the likes of you to flout those laws merely because you have power?”
Erebus could only sit back in admiration as he saw the ancient personages assembled caught entirely flatfooted. Internally he was agape, though he refused to let it show in front of an enemy, the necromancer finally realising that he was not the real prey Janiah was hunting. And as the logic cascaded down in his mind’s eye, he had to question if he ever had been hunted in the first place. Was it possible that Lutan’s grudge had been a thing of artifice, a careful guise to bring him to this place, in this manner?
Had it all been for this? He knew the Immortals fulfilled a vital role in the defence of the world, but for all he held them in high regard he had to admit they held themselves above those who toiled and died in their tens of millions every generation. The Swordsman, for all he was a paragon of empathy and close personal friend, held himself aloft and aloof even to him, and Erebus was as close to immortal as a man could be without crossing that line irrevocably.
Could it all have been for this moment? To finally bring the strongest amongst them to heel. The immortals were strong (an understatement by any measure), but for all their incredible force at arms, they, when faced with the unified strength of the two greatest powers on the continent, would have little choice but to bend the knee.
The High Paladin, or Gregor as Erebus had the rare privilege to call him, or Greg if he was trying to be annoying, was a good person or at least tried hard to be, but he’d also seen the man when he was deep in his cups, and the Immortals, and other great powers of the world, rankled him. They were a scab he couldn’t stop picking, an itch that couldn’t be scratched and a wound that just wouldn’t heal.
As far as Gregor was concerned, no one person should have that kind of power, and as a holder of that sort of power, if at the lower end, Erebus didn’t disagree, but what could anyone do? When one man could slaughter an army? What option was there but to train and send a similarly dangerous individual against them? Knowing they were beholden only to their word, that should they ever choose to turn that same power against their benefactor, there was nothing that could stop them.
That was the entire reason for the Paladin Order in the first place, as a counter-balance to that kind of power. And they’d come a long way from the days when the best answer mankind had to hostile magic was a good bow-arm and fervent hope, first with defensive rune-work then the discovery of null, but it had never been enough to bring down the truly powerful. Daemon lords, immortals, lost gods, rogue dragons and rampaging elementals had remained the purview of the very mages they were trying to keep in check, and that barely.
To get those whose power placed them outside the law to conform to it, it was in many respects a noble goal, one his friend would be more than prepared to sacrifice one village and a personal friend to achieve. Gregor had always been good at that, dissociating his principles from his personal life.
The cascade of logic continued in his mind’s eye; the play here was Gregor’s, Janiah was his agent. But there was a flaw in the plan. To know the method was to know the man, and to know the man was to know the method and whilst Lutan would as gladly see the Immortals humbled and brought to heel, his was a far more tempestuous mind, no matter how lofty the goal vengeance would always supersede it. And Lutan knew him too, all too well.
Right now, through the slowed time of adrenaline-fueled realisation, he was about to watch the very balance of power on Contemnere, perhaps the entire world of Reath, shift. Possibly for the better, probably for the worst.
More than even the Immortals, Erebus knew what lay out there, beyond the world, beyond its many fragmented parallel planes, beyond the Hells and out in the Silence Beyond.
What waited there, in hunger and in malice. Why demon lords and fairy queens both sought so desperately to get to this one small world when they had the power to rule thousands, and if the Immortals had to bend the knee to mortal kind, to be beholden to mortal laws no matter how noble the sentiment, then they would come, with all their terrible power as they fled that which was most terrible in all the worlds.
He’d never been able to get Gregor to understand that part. For all their might and majesty the Immortals only saw themselves as guards against demonic aggression; none of them had gone further than the near Hells and only then in times of great conflict. Lutan, of all people, had understood, back when they’d still been on speaking terms and not so many mistakes had been made, and he’d used that understanding for this moment. Aided Gregor in his scheme and made it his own because he’d known his foe well, and there was just one thing to be done.
“I submit myself to the justice of the Paladin Order.”