I brought a pair of lights to follow me to the edge of the throne’s dias. The torches were enough to see by, but it would be treating the orcneas as retainers if I relied on them.

I knelt in front of the statue. To either side of me crouched a pair of mummified corpses. I did my best to emulate their pose. I tried not to think to hard about how they had ended up as mummified corpses.

The moment I bowed my head there was a crack and a scraping rustle, as though someone was suddenly tromping through a patch of dead leaves.

My eyes shot open and I turned toward the sound. Then I turned toward the sound again. It was on either side of me.

The corpses were moving.

Unlike the chained men they did not move as if alive. They instead flowed from position to position, each pose a rigor of death. It felt rather like being swarmed by a number of statues.

I leapt to my feet. My spellbook was ready. It was only the lack of reaction from the orcneas which kept me from casting. They’d been expecting this.

“The king bids you welcome, Oswic of Blackbridge.”

It was not the first voice I’d have attributed to the dead. If I imagined a corpse speaking they would speak like, well, like the orcneas obviously. Dry and scratchy, perhaps a touch sinister.

The corpse in front of the king (or King as their intonation seemed to suggest) spoke instead with the voice of a crowd. Not a synchronized chant. Not the choir of a thousand souls bound to a single tongue. That would have made sense in a morbid sort of way. This was the babble of laughter heard at a party, the murmured greetings at the early morning market, the throat clearing, coughing, crying, singing, hum of humanity. And somehow it formed words.

“It has been some time since one of the living came to pay their respects,” continued the crowd, “What do you offer?”

I’d only been to the court of a single king, but I’d received instruction there which I hoped could be extended to other monarchs. The offer was not a true price or bribe. It was a token, gift, or blessing. Typically one which could be associated with the gift giver. I could offer the king my wishes of good health, an old spell page, or give him a sprig of a tree from my homeland. That sort of thing.

I returned to my bowed position, “I offer peace, Your Majesty”

The crowd muttered and hemmed and hawed, a number even booed, “The king has peace already,” the mouth of the—the vizier I suppose—the mouth of the vizier jumped and flowed into a grin at the same time his head tilted, the crowd hooted and hollered, jeered and chuckled, “he is dead, you see.”

“Then I offer you freedom.”

Few truly wanted freedom, but few would indicate otherwise. The undead vizier, and by extension, his king, were the exception, it seemed.

“Better, better,” the crowd murmured in appreciation this time, with a handful of approving grunts thrown in for good measure, “but the king has no need for freedom. Death is the unbreakable law, and it is under this law the king rules.”

The Slayer of Mutnofret. Darkswallower of Bleakfort. The orcneas may not be true servants of the king, either not being truly dead or not truly undead, but it was clear what those denizens of the dungeon who didn’t serve the warlocks wanted. Skarde had set me up.

“I offer you revenge. I am the Darkswallower of Bleakfort, Slayer of Neferhi the Shadowmaster, and those warlocks whom stand in my way are my enemy.”

The sun rose. I knew not to take such signs lightly. Coincidences, when payed proper heed, were confirmations of a life well lived, of a path well taken.

The crowd began to cheer. The vizier’s voice rode the jubilation and laughter, was formed of it. He did not speak over or through the crowd, but with the crowd as his voice. One could not be separated from the other, for they were one and the same, “The king welcomes you twice over to his court, Oswic the Darkswallower. You may rise, that the king may bestow upon you his blessing.”

I stood at the same time as another of the corpses. It jittered and flowed over to the king’s side. Dry fingers wrapped about the haft of the spear set in the king’s leg. Between one blink’s opening and closing, the spear was free, its bearer in front of me.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I couldn’t suppress the flinch. This was not a speed which could be matched, no matter how fast I ran. This was something else. The unforgiving suddenness of death.

The spear bearer had arranged itself such that the spear was balanced on its palms, parallel to myself.

“Take this lancegay as a token of the king’s esteem,” said the vizier, the cheering had left his voice but the crowd still held a joyous mood. Words were loud and unfettered; the start of festivities, “May it serve you will, until that day when you come to serve him.”

My hand stopped halfway to the spear’s haft, “I’ve plans of rejoining my fellows in Elysium.”

The vizier’s head flowed into inclination, “Death serves my lord in of itself, just as my lord serves Death. This token is given freely with no recompense taken. The king makes no claim upon your death which he did not already have. Consider him the lord not of the doorway, nor those whom pass through, but of the act of passing. He shall not alter your course and your spirit, soul, body, and afterlife are your own.”

It was a lot of words to say he wouldn’t trick me or stab me in the back, but they were appreciated. Immediate experience had shown how easily it was to be bound by your promises. Otherwise I’d be seeking a path to the sixth floor rather than the fourth.

I took the proffered spear. It was old, as old as the king it had impaled. The haft had been bleached white with time. The blade was broken, the tip was missing. Something had snapped it off. What remained was brown with rust. The whole thing reeked of blood. Fresh blood, despite having being impaled in a corpse.

It felt far heavier than its weight alone. There was a promise embedded in the haft, worked into the blade. A terrible evil like warlock’s dark whispers. Power and potential. A shining hope like the first rays of dawn. Restoration and recompense.

The vizier nodded as if I had spoken. I wished the supernatural creatures would stop doing that, “The lancegay is what you make it. Take care in what you choose.”

I bowed, once to the vizier, once to the king, “I am honoured. I shall do my best to be worthy of your gift.”

What else could I do or say?

“Before you leave,” the babbling of a courtyard chamber, “You may seek a boon of the king.”

Black mold.

The danger of a royal boon was both in asking too much or not enough. The first was offensive because it was presumptive. The second was offensive because either I didn’t believe the king capable of granting basic favours, or because I was clearly not asking for a real boon in an attempt not to offend.

Attempting not to offend is offensive? I’d been flabbergast when my mentor had explained it to me. “One of the most offensive things you can do,” he’d replied, “This is the first lesson of art. And courtship, both the royal kind and that of desire, is an art.”

Fortunately the thing I wanted most (escape) could be broken down into several steps.

“I seek both the stairs to the floor above this one and the stairs to the floor below. Simple directions would suffice.”

It wasn’t much, but to be fair, I’d also broken down the king’s door.

The vizier juttered into a contemplative cast, then flowed outward with a gesture to another of the corpses.

“We know something of the Magi. The king grants you two answers to your boon. First, the direction: Both stairs lie directly south-west of this chamber,” said the vizier.

The instant he finished speaking the corpse he’d gestured to did that ‘appear-out-of-nowhere-and-nearly-cause-my-heart-to-stop’ thing. I managed to avoid flinching this time. My heart felt like it was going to explode and my right eye was twitching, but lids remained open.

The corpse had ended with its hand outstretched, a small disc proffered toward me.

“Second, you may borrow the king’s compass for the next hour and a day. It is a rare privilege to hold this treasure. Few compasses work in the warrens of Bleakfort. Even one of this quality will not function properly save for a few chambers.”

The gift of the compass meant I’d asked for too little. The king, or more likely, the vizier, had redressed the imbalance with its lending. Praise be to courtly graces as blessed as the spring rains. I’d heard stories of kings who’d take the slightest slight as an excuse to strip someone of their belongings or even execute them. Such kings—and their kingdoms—didn’t tend to last long, but it was little comfort to those robbed or beheaded.

“Head through the door there,” the vizier pointed to the exit by which I hadn’t entered, “then through the wall at the halls end, and straight across the chamber there encountered. This will take you to a small antechamber. Pass through the portal to your left in the chamber. It is there the compass will be shielded enough to function.”

I played the instructions back again through my mind. Down, straight, up—more or less. The hour and a day was a Mage’s gift. Enough time to copy the workings of his compass.

Of course, I could record far more often than that. Not that I was about to reveal my secret advantages. Even trustworthy people had untrusted tongues.

I bowed to the king once more, “Your benevolence knows no bounds. I request to take my leave that I may secure the compass among my spells.”

The vizier’s hand snapped upward in dismissal, “Go in peace, Darkswallower. Go in vengeance.”