The crypt was so deep in the bowels of the palace. Three turns around the winding staircase, down into the darkness, Izik hated the exercise. The dampness of the walls and the clammy air that never changed, never freshened, hung in his nose. His footsteps echoed in the stone enclosure, sand grinding under his feet as he descended. The torch flickered in the movement of his haste.

Curse the winds for these surreptitious rendezvous, he thought and moved to descend faster.

At the bottom he sighed in relief. A long, wide hallway, built of massive blocks, expanded outward, the end disappearing into the pitch darkness. He raised his torch and peered to see if anything had been disturbed. It had not. Dust collected in the corners. Nothing moved, nothing appeared. He walked forward.

As early as ten paces before the imposing bronze door, he’d used to hear voices coming from inside. It was said to be a rare gift to speak to the dead. True enough, Izik did not possess this gift, but down here, one was closer to a magic that thinned the veil between his world and the Undead. Even more so than the Bough forest thousands of miles away. Or so he’d been told.  

On this day, the voices were absent. Deafening silence surrounded him save the guttural noise of his torch burning away. It sounded choked, suffering, gasping for air in the tombs. Frowning at it, but seeing no other way to encourage it than to push on, he looked back to the intricate door.

Cast bronze and polished to a glorious and lustrous shine, Izik thought it a crime that no one would ever witness it down here. The Tombs of the Emperors were off limits to any but the royal line themselves.

Izik smiled to himself. He was no royal, but he undoubtedly was invited.

Casting his eyes across the surface, he watched the intricate designs of long forgotten stories of adventure, bravery and conquest, dance across the surface in his weak, flickering light.

Depicted at the far left, a proud family of seafarers who once travelled the Diamond Sea. Images of settlement on the tropical and wild island they would call Rogun appeared. As his eyes crossed right, generations of these settlers were shown growing prosperous on her fertile and giving land. Images of lush jungles, plantations, fish harbours and a vast fleet of ships in a primitive harbour; whales and dolphins jumping in the waves. The everlasting horizon stretched across the background. The sun, in her glorious setting display, blasted tendrils of light the entire width of the door.

He traced one of the sunbeams with a finger. The door was cold to touch.

Izik.

He stiffened. 

The voice called to him in a raspy whisper and from no obvious source. 

Dropping his hand from the metal surface he rolled his shoulders and carefully calmed his mind. 

Izik.

With scraping noise, the door swung open; sand scrunching below the bottom as it dragged inward and away from him. Beyond was total blackness.

Izik moved ahead and knew ten paces forward from the door would find him in the middle of the crypt. It was the exact core of the larger vault and also the eminence of what resided inside.

Izik.

The voice called to him again but he stood now, where he always did, in the centre. Behind him, the door slowly swung closed. He tipped his face to his shoulder, but didn’t bother to look back. It always closed before they would speak to him.

At the booming conclusion of the door shutting him in, his torch extinguished itself. Alone and in complete darkness, five stories below ground where no soul would ever think to look if something were to happen, Izik waited.

The cold air began swirling around his ankles and then up his legs and knees. Izik remained still and worked to control his breathing. When it reached his midsection, he gulped a breath to fill his lungs, but refused to let the shaking take over. A droplet of sweat trickled down his temple. He clenched his hands into the fabric of his pants to keep control over the growing fear in his mind.

“I have done as you have asked, Highness,” he said clearly to the darkness. “Preparations are complete, and with your sleeping chemical, we should find little resistance to acquiring your prize. I have my best men to accompany me. We will be back to you before the solstice.”

The cold had reached his shoulders and he shivered, but wasn’t sure if it was the fear or the cold that shook his body now. He hated this part. He didn’t fear anything, he reminded himself; he was the monster.

Monster. The voice rasped, claiming the word from his mind. Izik smirked but remained still. Figures the dirty Dark would have sinister gifts like mind-reading too.

“If you have further instructions, I am ready,” he went on. The cold swirled and now, unlike any time before, it seeped through his clothing and skin. Born on a tropical island, Izik had never experienced anything close to freezing. He'd been mildly cool when visiting the northern island of Kitska in the summer. He shivered constantly now.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Suddenly the cold convulsed and like a python, slithered around his body and pulled tight. He gasped and tried to move his arms, but to no effect.

“I will not fail you,” he huffed. “I know what I have to do!”

A light blinked in front of him, hovering inexplicably in the middle of the vault. It was orange, the colour of fire but there was no flame. He peered at it. It looked like a miniature star. Unable to focus, he looked away, his mind working to ignore the discomfort of the frozen grip that had him trapped and unable to move.

When nothing happened with the ball, he blinked and refocused his eyes away from the glow of light. Faces now stood along the walls and in the shadow.

Izik startled and moved his head side to side to try and see more. This was new, it had never happened like this before; not the binding, not the light nor the faces.

“Who are you?” he shouted and moved harder to free his body from the invisible, icy grip. His breath puffed out of his mouth and hung in the air.

The faces were only partially visible in the very low light. Eyes glinted in the reflection, but otherwise appeared black with no whites in the eyeballs. Long faces, indistinct features hovered, silent and foreboding. They looked at him with contempt. Long robes of colourless fabric hung over hands and arms, there were no distinguishable attributes, man or woman, young or old.

Izik glared back, his impatience threatening control of his anger.

“I am your instrument,” he seethed at them, his teeth chattering. “I do your bidding so you can rise from this place. I heard your plan. I support it and you will give me Rogun to rule when you are freed from here. Fair deal. But threatening me doesn’t get the deed done. You need your queen to make your dreams come true, remember? She’s on the green side of the grass now, and I will keep her that way until you are ready, as promised. The time is at hand!”

Dascus.

No mouth moved at the sound and Izik was beyond caring.

“He’s where he always is,” he chattered, wriggling still to get free.

Betrayer.

Izik looked up from his hold and stilled. His eyes darted around the ugly faces. He knew they were dead, had to be. They stood unnaturally still and the light didn’t seem to capture them as they would a corporeal being.

His mind was moving quickly now. The dead body of Emperor Dascus graced his throne room still, as it had since the day he had died over a year ago. By some unnatural force, the body remained beyond normal rates of decomposition, but not for much longer by his reckoning. Soon enough, it would be none of his concern.

“Well that’s your business, isn’t it?” he retorted. “Man’s dead. Whatever he’s doing on your side of the veil is your arena.”

Izik shivered violently. It was mostly the cold, but he would never let his fear show to this evil. Winds knew what they could do with it. He knew torture, he knew pain. He knew authority and his place in this echelon. He was not at its top here, but there was nowhere left to go after he’d made his deal in the Darkness all those years ago. Until his end was delivered, he was theirs to rule.

But to the living world, his world bathed in sun and heat, wealth and his masterfully controlled oppression, Izik, was Chief Commander, head of the Rogun army. Only Vail, Coltair’s only living heir to the throne and Dascus’s step-brother, had any presence near the seat of power. That was Izik’s for the taking-if he could deliver what his true emperor commanded. Coltair was in charge even now, Vail a fool and pretender. Izik was the law, the executioner and he knew how to inflict abuse to get results. Did he fear death? No. Whatever came, Izik felt his life was lived the way it was supposed to. Abandoned as an infant and beaten until he was old enough to grab the switch and beat back, he’d grown to know nothing of love or affection. Instead, his indifference had been the key to his success.

The light in the room switched and now the image of a stone levitated, glowing a deep purple. Izik looked closer. The suspended stone swirled with some sort of living liquid over the surface.

Stones.

Izik sighed loudly, still held in the grip of the invisible cold. “What stones?” he asked, impatiently. The cold squeezed him harder.  

“I should get them, these… stones?” he huffed. The cold eased a small amount from its suffocating pressure in response. “Assuming the queen has them on her person, fine, I’ll get them.”

When he leaned back from eyeing the stone to memorize its image, he noticed the faces were gone. A second later and the image of the stone vanished and he was plunged into pure blackness once more.

He coughed when the cold reached his nostrils. It was filling his lungs, choking and searing his throat. He coughed again and it hurt. His body shivered more violently. He began to lose feeling in his fingers and toes. The icy thread around his body tightened again, squeezing air from his chest.

Choking, his fear now and truly exposed like a coward, Izik could not speak or cry out. A purple, face-like apparition appeared in a flash, inches from his own and he recognized it. The eyes burned in purple flames and he felt the icy breath on his face.

“I will pull you through the veil, alive and screaming, Izik, Son of Shame, Son of Sins,” Coltair hissed at him. “Should you fail me in this one task, I will see that you never again experience the reprieve so gentle as the velvet touch of darkness. I will smother you in the afterlife, a suffocation of unnatural blackness and pain that will consume you the rest of all days. By my side, you will eternally suffer my gifts.”

Suddenly he was released to fall heavily on his knees on the floor. Choking and gasping for breath, the warmth of his blood seeped to reclaim his veins. When he heard the scrapping of the door reopening, he lifted his head from where it hung between his shoulders. No light shone through, but he knew it was there. The clammy, damp air wafted past his face. With effort, he picked himself up to stand and start his blind march toward what he hoped was the exit.

Did he fear death? The question echoed in his mind a second time. Maybe he did after all. The Darkness plucking his mortal fear from his innermost thoughts like before, manifesting it for Coltair to capitalize and speak it out loud, proved that he did.

Standing in the black, with no visuals to guide his reference or perspective, he could take a blind step forward and fall flat on his face. Something could hit him and he’d not know to defend himself. But what did it matter? Coltair’s threat was as real as anything he could hold in his hand. The Undead was a real place. Darkness a real bedfellow. Few knew what he knew, few understood the breadth of what evil was capable of. To Izik, this was an acceptable bargain. It wasn’t all bad when you didn’t know the difference.