We had a little celebration the next morning. Leto, Esmelda, and Gastard had returned safely, and the mountain was at least temporarily peaceful, it was something worth having cake about. I felt queasy and only ate as much as I thought it would take so that Ogness wouldn’t be offended. Our maid had been up baking before dawn, and she was hovering over the table with a painfully earnest look on her aged face.
“It’s wonderful,” Esmelda told her, lifting a piece on her fork. “Thank you, Ogness.”
“I’m happy my lady is pleased,” The woman said, giving a slight bow.
I examined my half-eaten slice. It really was a good cake. The body was spongy and soft, and the icing reminded me of lemon meringue. But I felt like if I ate any more I was going to have to take a trip to the water closet. Leto, in the chair beside mine, was paying more attention to me than the food.
“Are you bigger?” He asked, squinting.
Esmelda gave a soft chuckle. “We didn’t think to mention it on the return trip. It was so much of a difference before, but I’m noticing it more now. I hope you stop growing soon. If you become as tall as Orobas was, I don’t think this is going to work out.”
She was teasing me, but I felt the same way. Esmelda was tiny to begin with, and if this continued, my growth spurt could become exceedingly awkward for our relationship. I’d only gained a few inches in height, Gastard was still a bit taller, but I’d become broader as well, like I was being scaled up by degrees, and I had no interest in being a giant.
Thankfully, my growth seemed to have stalled. My limbs weren’t tingling anymore, and my joints had stopped aching. Only the nausea remained.
“A bit bigger,” I said to Leto. “How do you feel about the horns?”
“They’re pointier,” he said. “That’s good. You could headbutt a troll.”
Gastard nearly choked.
My first chore of the day was brewing healing potions for anyone with serious injuries. Zareth had arranged for the population of Mount Doom to assemble in the throne room by late morning, and I wanted to be sure Garron was back to himself by then, as well as take care of any zombie bites before they had a chance to significantly worsen. As each batch finished, I handed them off to a runner stationed at the entrance to the forge.
It was the same kid that had taken our horses when we arrived at Mount Doom. The scar on his cheek made him easy to recognize. He was wiry, maybe a few years older than Leto. As I brought him the first batch, I was briefly overcome by a wave of dizziness, and I almost dropped the bottles.
He rushed over to me, his eyes wide with concern, and the nausea that had been plaguing me all morning suddenly vanished, replaced by a ravenous hunger. There wasn’t a boy standing in front of me anymore, he was meat, bones, and marrow. My eyes focused on his throat, and I thought I could detect the faint pulse of blood beneath his skin.
“My lord,” he said, “may I?”
He held out his hands for the potions, and I gave them to him. The feeling, the change in perception, whatever it had been, was gone as quickly as it had come. He was a kid again, one of my subjects. A person with value, someone I needed to protect.
“Thank you,” I said and watched him hustle away. Turning back to the brewing stand, I applied the ingredients for the next batch and tried to calm down.
What the hell was that?
I’d always wondered how Bedlam’s corruption could turn heroes into something else. Having horns didn’t make me a different person, neither did claws or fangs. The changes had always been skin-deep. This was something new, and it was terrifying.
Feeling sick was a nuisance, having a dizzy spell at the wrong moment was potentially disastrous, but the possibility wasn’t something I would lose sleep over. Could being tainted change the way I saw people the way Kevin’s eye had changed him?
It could. Finding a way to restore my full humanity had gone from something we needed to figure out at some point to an urgent priority. It wasn’t like I had attacked the kid, and as he continued to pick up and deliver the bottles, the dizziness didn’t return. But what would I do if it lasted longer next time? If my condition worsened, would I end up going around having to resist the urge to eat people all day?
My mood at the assembly was not as bright as it could have been. Hundreds of people lined the hall, and more were gathered outside the doors. My family stood beside the throne, and Zareth had taken up a position on the steps leading up to the dais. I glanced at the obsidian edifice that made me the lord of this realm. Its high, spined back loomed over all of us like a monstrous tree, a reminder of what Dargoth had been since Kevin became its master.
When people swore fealty to me, they were swearing on that throne. I wanted to break it, a sign of how I intended to break with Dargoth’s past, but worried that doing so would weaken my position. How much of their loyalty was a quirk of the Sheltered Achievement? Would destroying a symbol even change anything? If nothing else, the demons that were still oathbound to me, Berith and Asmodeus, might be freed by the act. We needed to delay their realization of what had happened here as long as possible.
Everyone was looking at me. Zareth had already made an introduction I’d only half-listened to, and I’d been standing in silence ever since.
“Are you alright?” Esmelda asked, stepping close. She was out of her armor, wearing a dress fit for the Lady of Dargoth, and I had no idea where she’d gotten it. Bright red, with long sleeves and a trailing hem, her hair unbound, framing her lovely, heart-shaped face.
It was hard to say when I had started loving her. We’d been thrown together by circumstance, married for convenience. There were, of course, other women in the world, and it wasn’t as if I’d shopped around, but that didn’t matter to me. Soulmates don’t exist. You find someone you care about and make it work. Looking at her made me feel fortunate enough to almost believe that Mizu had intended for us to find each other.
If the corruption deepened, how would she look to me then?
“I’m okay,” I said. “There’s something we need to talk about, but it can wait until after this.”
I faced the crowd. Most of the faces were unfamiliar to me, others were covered by visors. Garron was near the front, and it looked like the potion had done its job. The older man was hale again, standing proudly at attention.
“Hello,” I said, lamely. The people in the back weren’t going to hear me, so I raised my voice and started again. I’d thought about what I needed to say, I just needed to say it.
“Citizens of Dargoth! My name is William, and I am the lord of this mountain, but I am not the same man who sat on this throne in years past.”
Confusion, murmurs, but no interruptions.
“That man, and his ways, are gone.” Not a complete truth, but close enough. “The skies of Dargoth will clear, and the aychar will no longer be a part of my rule. Conflict lies ahead of us, as there are still demons who will seek to restore the old order. I am asking you to help me stand against them, but you are not my slaves. For now, much of Dargoth remains in the hands of demons, and the road to purging them from this land may be a long one, but that is the path that we are on. I hope to soon make Dargoth green and forge peace with the other kingdoms. You are free to leave and live your lives as you see fit. If you choose to remain, then you are accepting me as your lord, and you must swear fealty again, now, in this hall.”
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I could only imagine what they were thinking. There had to be a million questions, but no one asked them. After my brief speech, the hall fell into silence and remained that way for long moments.
As he had been once before, Garron was the first to kneel. Others followed his example, and the crowd dropped in a wave. Maybe they were afraid. After all, the Dark Lord, or the guy who had replaced him, might say you were free to leave, but that didn’t mean you were. Maybe some would slip away quietly when they weren’t in a public spotlight, or come to Zareth with concerns in lieu of openly questioning the man who had overthrown a functional god-king. Presumably, Zareth and his wife had already talked to others about the thinning clouds.
My vizier led the crowd in a new oath of service, one that did not mention the throne. It wasn’t clear to me if including the throne or not would stop my Achievement bonus from influencing people’s minds, but I would prefer to have subjects who followed me without magical reinforcement of their positive opinion.
Esmelda held my hand, the echo of their words washing over us. It felt strange to have been out of my armor for so long, but also good. I looked forward to a world where walking around in battle gear wasn’t necessary.
“Your remarks were fitting,” Gastard said, coming across the dais. “Succinct. I approve.”
“Thanks, I wasn’t sure if it would be enough, but I guess I got the point across.”
“It was quite formal,” Esmelda said, “you sounded more like a king than I expected.” Kind of a backhanded compliment, but I would take it.
“Will it be green here?” Leto asked, looking doubtfully toward the open doors and the fortress beyond.
“I think it could be once the sun comes out.” It would call for a lot of planting, and I might have to put down a layer of topsoil at first, but it was possible. The greening of Dargoth, however, was more of a long-term concern. I looked at my son, who was watching the crowd disperse.
“Leto, could you see if Ogness needs any help with lunch?”
“Cooking is boring,” he kicked his heel, “I’d rather go to the training yard.”
We needed to find more productive things for him to do if Mount Doom was going to be a permanent home. There were no schools, and most of the children his age were already apprentices of some kind. I planned on asking Zareth about friend options for him. An entirely normal life wouldn’t be possible, but more normal than it had been so far would be a start.
“You can do that this afternoon,” I squeezed his shoulder.
“Do as your father asks,” Esmelda said, and after heaving a dramatic sigh, Leto set off for our private rooms.
When he was gone, we walked behind the throne, and I told them both about what I’d experienced in the forge. Gastard listened gravely, and Esmelda with growing alarm as I inadequately described the change that had so briefly come over me.
“It’s not that I wanted to eat him,” I finished, “but he looked extremely edible.”
“It is written that the taint of Bedlam affects no two men in the same way,” one of his hands rose to feel the antler nubs developing on his own temples, partially hidden by his blonde hair. “In the coming days, you must allow me to strike the killing blow on whichever demons we face. I will bear that burden.”
‘There are too many of them,” Esmelda’s face fell. “All three of us could lose our minds before the last is slain.”
“Kevin says the runes my class offers can slow the corruption, even reverse some of it.”
“He cannot be trusted,” Gastard scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. “Anything he gave you would be poison.”
“His story was coherent,” I’d shared some of what he’d told me with them that morning. “And I feel like there has to be some inbuilt method of dealing with corruption, otherwise none of this hero stuff would work.”
Esmelda became thoughtful. “When Fladnag spoke about this, he implied that whether or not a hero succumbed had to do with their beliefs, their heart.”
“Another deceiver,” Gastard said, “if there were secrets to be had, he did not want us to possess them. The Templars of old had hearts as pure as any man, and many of them fell to the shadow when the burden became too heavy.”
“Supposedly,” I told Gastard, “the other classes have their ways of managing corruption, though I think some of them are better at it than others. Does your FAQ have any information about it?”
“Not that I have read,” he shook his head, “the fak provides me with the barest knowledge that I need to use my skills. No more. If we reach the stage of judgment, as you have, perhaps it will reveal what we require.”
“If you both clear out the mobs in the pens, you’ll be closer to that goal, but it won’t be enough on its own. I still think Kevin is the best hope we have for a solution.”
“Will you free him?” Gastard’s gaze locked onto mine, his blue eyes hard.
“I don’t know what to do. We could try making him swear an oath, but I don’t think we can rely on the blades. The weakening curse is too slow to stop him from betraying us, and he’s temperamental enough to risk it. Does your Oathsworn skill give us any better options?”
“I would be loath to bind myself to him,” Gastard said, “and I would need to develop the power before we attempt to use it on someone so dangerous.”
How long would it take to grind a skill like that? It was something to look into, but still not sufficient to make Kevin trustworthy. No matter what we made him promise, his impulsivity could compel him to act against his own interests out of spite.
“There may be another way,” Esmelda’s jaw firmed, her eyes narrowing in anger, “how long would he keep his secrets in the face of torture.”
My mouth dropped. The idea itself wasn’t shocking, but the fact that Esmelda was the one to suggest it threw me for a loop. “He’s already in a bad spot, I’m really not sure.” It was hard to say if Kevin was strong-willed, but stubborn certainly applied. The other risk with torture was being fed false information, at best a waste of time, and depending on how runes worked, potentially disastrous. What if there was a rune that made corruption worse, or had other negative effects?
“Do you want me to try?”
She looked at me, her gaze softening. “No,” she sighed, “even knowing everything he has done, that is not who I want us to be.”
“In this case,” Gastard said, “I would not be opposed to torture. It is a distasteful practice, but sometimes necessary, and it is no less than he inflicted on others.”
“Let’s table it for now,” I was uncomfortable enough with indefinite imprisonment, adding deliberate torture to an already torturous situation would not make me feel like I was making progress toward being less of a potential monster.
“I don’t know how long the rune stuff is going to take to figure out, but I need to go to Nargul as soon as possible. Berith has to be taken care of before he finds out about my revised attitude toward demonkind.”
“Alone?” Esmelda asked. “Shouldn’t we try summoning him first?”
“I will accompany you,” Gastard said, “and we will make quick work of it.”
“I need you both here,” I gripped his upper arm, “to keep Leto safe, keep Kevin in jail, and watch out for any demons quick enough on the uptake to attack us while we’re still figuring things out. And you both need to grind your skills as much as you can. Not just Woodcraft, not just Weapon Mastery.” I’d neglected Artisan, and I knew that my crafting was limited by the oversight. Let alone what I might have been able to do with Tamer. Not having any ranks in Inscription wasn’t entirely my fault, but I’d seen runes, and I could have at least tried to imitate them instead of putting it off at every turn.
He nodded. “I suppose that is duty enough for one man.”
“What about your armor?” Esmelda put her hand over her chest as if she was trying to remember where her chainmail had gone. “You had to take it off. Can you alter it to fit?”
“It’s a new problem,” I said, “but I have a couple of ideas about how to make it work. I’m not going to run off to kill a demon naked.” I could feel the throne at my back. It had an aetheric presence, concentrated essence, almost like a demon itself. I had no idea how Kevin had crafted it, one of the many aspects of my class that were still a mystery. There were tests I should have run, experiments I should have tried, a list at the back of my head running into the dozens. I couldn’t make up for all the mistakes I’d made in one day, but I could at least get my armor situation sorted out.
I kissed the top of Esmelda’s head and headed for the forge.