Nemo felt like the walls were closing in on him, breath tight in his chest, ribs stiff. His lungs weren’t working, refusing to expand, refusing to move at all. The air was just sitting dead and still where it rested within him. Only the pounding of blood in his ears forced him, finally, to take a breath, and he half-hoped that doing so would break whatever sick illusion had replaced the world.
But it didn’t, because there was no illusion to be broken. What he saw was how things were. A waking nightmare, everywhere he went and everywhere he might go.
“You have returned.” Said the man beside the pit, towering so tall Nemo’s eyes almost skirted over him on instinct, as if they were perceiving a piece of furniture. His clothing writhed and moaned as he spoke, animated in perhaps the most disturbing way he’d ever seen, and his eyes were terrible in the exactly opposite way. Lifeless, empty. Dead things that ought to be alive, affixed to the face of a man who wore a living thing which ought to be dead.
“I have, my Lord.” The Princess replied, bowing deeply. Nemo could see her face tight and hands clenched, finding himself suddenly less sure of everything for the sight.
“And you have succeeded.” The man continued, glancing, now, at Nemo. For one terrible moment the caster’s stare was all he felt, then Xekanis’ warming presence touched the back of Nemo’s mind and calmed him. He felt his breath steady, finally managing to exhale.
“I have.” The Princess nodded again, still keeping her eyes low. The man smiled, surprisingly. The expression was no warmer than his cool glare had been, no warmer at all.
“Excellent.”
With a single gesture, the squirming thing held over the pit was plucked aside. Nemo watched it land hard beside the opening, then the caster was touching it gently. In moments it transformed, changing to a naked, trembling man of wrinkled, pale flesh and unkempt hair.
“Rochtai!”
Instantly the Princess was on her knees beside him, hands delicately coming down on the old man’s shoulders as he sat up, trembles only growing. Nemo saw tears streaming down his face as he began softly murmuring to the woman, and turned around before he further invaded the privacy of what was clearly a reunion long in the waiting.
“Your reward for your service and success.” The man explained, as if what he was seeing was of no consequence. “Had you failed, I would instead have made it a punishment.”
The Princess stiffened, finally raising her eyes from the old man and looking up at the caster. Nemo held his breath as she spoke, without defiance.
“Thank you my Lord.” The woman replied, swallowing, pausing, then continuing. “Might I please request that I be dismissed, if you have nothing more to ask of me for the moment? I would like to…Reunite with my teacher.”
“Of course.” The man waved a hand, clearly seeing no great import in the request. “Do as you will.”
She was out of the room quickly enough, taking her teacher with her and helping to cover him with one of the many redundant articles of clothing adorning her body. With her gone, and the mean bowman absent from the room to begin with, Nemo was left with no company at all but the man named Silenos Shaiagrazni.
He wasted no time in turning back to him, speaking as if the events transpiring mere moments ago were of no consequence at all.
“Prince Nemo.” He nodded, face turning, somehow, to a new whisper of considering…Respect.
“Uh, hello sir.” Nemo replied, unsure what else would be best to say. If nothing else, his choice of response did not seem to anger the man.
“Sir.” He echoed, thoughtfully. “Do you make a habit of deferring?”
Nemo didn’t meet his eye.
“I’m just trying to be polite.”
“I see.” The man paused a second before continuing. “You are the most remarkably gifted Esotericist I have ever met.”
The compliment was marred, of course, by Nemo having no clue at all what an Esotericist actually was. Fortunately the man seemed more than eager to explain.
“Your people, as I understand, have a different word for the practice. Demonology, done by Demonologists.”
Of course, it all made sense within an instant. Nemo swallowed, not meeting the man’s eye, suddenly less comfortable than ever knowing what he was being praised for.
“Thank you.” Nemo murmured.
It really wasn’t much to be given credit for, just something Nemo had picked up as a child. Hours alone, in the library, kept carefully away from politics and the dangers of approximating succession had left him with few pleasures but books. And of those books, only the ones detailing forbidden magic had any emotional weight to him.
Those were the ones he’d always read with Al, when they were younger. Before the world had given his brother duties, and Nemo loneliness. At the thought of his elder, tears threatened to wet his eyes. Nemo suddenly felt the sting of his loss as sharply as if it had occurred just seconds ago, resisting a tremble.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“You must rule.” The man told him, abruptly. Nemo looked up at that, stunned.
“I…Rule?”
“Yes.” He repeated, calmly. “Your brother is dead, your uncle an ambitious, murderous fool. You must rule or your people will suffer. You are, after all, the next in line. And unlike Prince Dazarick you are neither a fratricider, nor an idiot. Your innate mastery of magic demonstrates the latter, and the terms of your sole sibling’s death the former.”
Nemo felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Not that he actually knew how that felt, of course, he’d only ever read about it happening to others, but from what he could imagine of the experience it felt very much like what was happening to him now. And the man just kept on talking.
“I am speaking about saving lives, you understand. Every day your people are forced to live without the influence of stable Shaiagrazni rule, more perish from preventable illness, starvation or misguided rebellion. You need not spill any blood at all, yourself, merely accept the throne and take your place beneath me. I will guide your nation, as I already control it, and your uncle will have no choice but to accept it by weight of my overwhelming military superiority. The revolts will halt and all will be well. All will be well, and all will be thanks to your decision, King Nemo.”
No. Not that, never that, it was too much, too quickly. Nemo’s head was spinning, the ground turning to liquid beneath him, his temples pounding and aching. He wanted to go home. He just wanted to go home, to his library, to his books, to his quiet life out of everybody’s way where no one was getting hurt or threatened because of him. He just wanted to see his big brother again, just one last time.
“I can’t do it.” Nemo croaked, at last, hardly even thinking by the time the words left his mouth. Perhaps if he answered quickly and clearly enough, he’d be left alone that much sooner.
Apparently, the tall man had other plans. He grew more insistent, not less, as Nemo gave him his answer.
“Of course you can.” He replied, rather more sternly now. “It requires no exertion on your part at all, simply accept the role and do nothing. You may do whatever you please with your life after the fact, so long as you make the occasional public appearance as King under House Shaiagrazni.”
Nemo shook his head again, feeling that tight, cramped sensation starting all over.
“I’m sorry.” He replied. “I don’t want to, I can’t.”
He couldn’t. Not again, not another life with a bullseye on his back and a horror waiting behind any corner. Not after everything Al had done to get him out of the first.
“You realise what this means.” The man pressed, growing more furious by the second. “You realise that people will die, people will be killed by your negligence. Or are you one of the moral cowards, who has convinced himself that a degree of separation between action and inaction leaves you beyond culpability?”
Nemo kept his eyes on his feet right up until the man started moving forwards, at that point he looked up and took a step back, suddenly more than just scared at the sight of him closing in with rage curtaining his eyes. He didn’t quite reach him before another man dropped down from the ceiling, the one called Collin Baird, and placed a hand firmly down upon his shoulder.
“Enough.” He said, calmly, quietly, but as unyielding as a boulder.
The tall man’s eyes came down on his, now, but Baird didn’t flinch a fingerspan at the intense glare he received.
“Are you defying me?” The caster asked.
“Yes.” The Ranger answered, defiant even as he did. “I’m not your subordinate, I’m your ally, and I don’t think you’re stupid enough to throw one like me away over your own ego. What, we’re gonna fight now? Chuck each other around? Maybe I’ll even draw a drop of blood from you before you kill me, and deprive yourself of the best shot this side of the continent.”
For a moment the tall man said nothing, face twitching. Then his gaze shifted back, terrifyingly, to Nemo.
“Leave, now.” He ordered, with all the barely-hidden vitriol of a man finding himself upon the brink of doing something he knew to be unwise.
Nemo didn’t need telling twice, scurrying out of the room as fast as he could manage.
***
Silenos would have to have the boy watched, he decided. For more reason than just one. He was, of course, a natural flight risk, but the main issue at hand was his magic.
Esotericists were a rare breed in House Shaiagrazni. Any individual could become one, even if they had already dedicated themselves to learning as many varieties of magic as their age and talent would allow. The limiting factor upon it, of course, was the danger. Silenos could testify to that much better than most, it had been how he’d gotten himself trapped in an entirely different universe after all.
He himself had begun learning the art no later than his ninetieth year, calling on all his long decades of practice and experience. Even then, he had been cautious. One always needed to be when one practised Esotericism, for the predatory Entities it involved utilising would punish the slightest lax, and often in a permanent way. As he had damned learned himself.
It was not impossible to hear of a man as young as Prince Nemo utilising it, but to have successfully summoned and bound an Entity- even one as weak as the flame thing he controlled- was a feat. For that Entity to have been bound with only the book learning of a primitive, magic-frightened world to help…
Luck, clearly, had been at play. But a great degree of skill as well. Perhaps as much natural talent as Arion Falls himself possessed.
That sort of innate gift was something House Shaiagrazni had always prided themselves on finding and honing, in those situations where other circumstances did not keep it from use. Silenos could only hope Prince Nemo was not beyond being turned into a true caster. But that was a matter for later. His immediate concerns lay with the Vampire.
Pushing aside the heavy door to her cell, Silenos made his way in. He saw the grotesqueries he’d ordered to guard it within; smaller things, barely the size of rhinoceroses and scarcely able to even withstand the primitive artillery of this world’s people. They did their work well enough, all the same, keeping the undead cornered within its prison and warding off escape.
The Vampire, to its credit, seemed to have fared better in such conditions than most humans would have. Silenos supposed that was one of the benefits it gained from its curious form of undeath. An interesting condition, that. Unliving, but emulating life through the imbibement of living vitae and bio-magics. He would certainly never have pursued it himself as an end, it was in some ways even more primitive than lichdom, but nonetheless…A worthy subject of study, when it was practical.
“What do you want?” The Vampire asked, demonstrating its impudence as proudly as ever. Silenos took his seat without bothering to answer first, careful to secure the most comfortable position, and giving a reply only when that major priority had been seen to.
“I would like to meet your sire.” Silenos informed it. “The creature which made you what you are. To discuss terms of surrender.”