by Rex Jameson
Ashton stopped at a strange sound mixed within the drizzle. A small, tinkling laugh rudely interrupted his melancholy.
“Oh, this is wonderful,” she said. “They’ve actually done it.”
“Done what?” Ashton asked.
“They’ve stopped him in his tracks,” she said, turning to him. “Just a handful of them have stalled a demon lord. Oh, he’s so angry. Imagine how powerful they’ll be when you join them!”
“Who?” he asked.
“The paladins,” she said, smiling widely. “Mankind’s only weapon against the worst of the horde.”
“Do you mean that they’re fighting Demogorgon?”
She hissed and waved him off. She shook her head. “Don’t ruin this moment for me. I’ve worked too hard… sacrificed too much… Speaking his name will only agitate him—possibly start his march beneath the world again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, completely unaware that this mythical demon lord could hear through solid earth. “I thought you said Demogorgon was the worst of them.”
He thought of all the lessons his mother had instilled in him—politeness, kindness, duty, and manners. He looked up, expecting to see her face in the ominous clouds above him. He knew she’d be disappointed in him—maybe not as disappointed as she had been with his father Karl. Ashton promised to make it up to her memory somehow. Something good had to come from this.
The ground shook slightly, and Mekadesh’s eyes grew wide.
“What was that?” Ashton asked in panic. “Is that him? Did he hear me?”
“Stop speaking of him,” she ordered.
“You’ve been going on and on about this other demon lord,” he said. “How am I not supposed to be worried about him? You’ve said he turns enemy armies to him. You said I’ll be the only hope we have against him. Right? That Orcus is the lesser of two evils coming for us.”
“Orcus is still a powerful evil,” she said. “Let me worry about the trials of the future. You focus your attention on the demon lord we’re already fighting.”
The ground shook again. She looked toward the south.
“Not now,” she said. “Not when we’re so close!”
“Close to what?”
“The paladins,” she said. “They need you. They are powerful with the Eye under our control, but they cannot fight forever. They’re only human; they have to sleep. But Orcus does not slumber, and neither do the undead.”
“Where are they?” Ashton asked.
“South of Godun,” she said.
“Then shouldn’t we be going the other way?”
“Just the three of us through the undead armies and the demon lord, you mean?” she asked. “Too risky. No, we’ll work our way around the mountain and then head south.”
“There are no passes to the east,” Ashton said. “There are just cliffs and then Crayton Lake.”
“In the mountain, there are caves—”
The earth shook so violently that a small chasm opened up near a vein of the mountain.
“You old fool!” she screamed. “If he finds you, you’re done for!”
“If he finds who?” Ashton asked.
“I have to go,” she said, still not acknowledging the Necromancer and instead looking at the mountain. “Keep heading east until you hit Edinsbro and wait for me there. I’ll order the paladins to retreat northward toward us. They won’t be able to fight their way backward through the mountains. It’s too dangerous. Orcus and his general will not give them quarter…”
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go take care of something,” she said, looking at him and then Frederick. “Protect him or I’ll make sure you fall through the Abyss permanently this time.”
She vanished, leaving a small, black scorch mark on the ground. Ashton kicked at it.
“Where’d she go?” he asked Frederick.
The creature growled low and menacing, before shaking its head. It moved to the south side of the road and folded its arms. It seemed to be about as happy with the mission as he was.
He shivered there in the cool rain for a moment. He had no interest in going east or obeying her orders. He didn’t care to find some mysterious mountain caves on the freezing steppes of Mount Godun. He fidgeted at the pouch hanging from his neck, and the warmth surprised him against his chest and hands.
He took out the yellow stone, and it pulsated with something more than heat. It felt like interest and maybe even obedience—like a strong eagerness to please. He thought of Mekadesh’s old general Maddox, who had grafted the gem into his eye socket. He didn’t know what it was capable of, but if his predecessor had found it useful enough to carve out his own orb and replace it, then maybe it was worth further investigation.
He brought the gem to his eye and looked at his knight companion. The demon’s swirls were green, black and purple. He felt the anger come through the Eye. Desperation. Self-loathing. The creature looked at him, and Ashton saw the famous knight’s face through the plate armor and heard a nickname whispered through the lines in the Eye. It was a suggestion, almost like the Eye was telling him “Try this. Maybe it will help the creature bond with you.”
“There you are, Freddie,” Ashton said as he held the Eye to his own.
The creature turned and walked away. Ashton felt the self-loathing increase.
He looked at the ground where the small scorch mark was. Another small tremor vibrated his feet as he looked at the black spot, but it wasn’t dark anymore. It was bright yellow, and it went down and farther still, deep within the earth. The Eye was leading him somewhere.
“She went down,” he said. He looked up to see if Freddie might come back, but the demon crossed its arms and stared toward the east. “What is she doing down there?”
He watched another tremor shake the yellow line. He felt like he could follow it down, through the ground as she had done, but he didn’t know how.
Freddie grabbed him by the hand and pulled him eastward. Ashton fought against the creature’s strong grip. Then he remembered what the demon was capable of—how it had attacked the guards in the throne room and the old man in the hallway. He sighed in relief as he realized the creature’s hands were back in their plate gloves, but there was something else at work here. Looking at his own hands through the Eye, they shone with a soft brown luminescence that fought against the darkness in the creature.
“What has she done to me?” he asked.
The creature continued to pull him. He resisted.
“Wait!” Ashton commanded. “Stop!”
The creature halted and raised its visor. Freddie looked at Ashton queerly and curiously.
“Take your glove off.”
The creature seemed confused. It shook its head.
Ashton grabbed the creature’s glove and pulled hard. The knight held onto the glove and yanked free. It didn’t realize its own strength though and ended up ripping its plated gauntlet off anyway.
As it reached down to pick it up, Ashton grabbed it by the armor on its wrist, his skin inches from the creature’s skin. The creature recoiled as its skin hissed at Ashton’s near touch, but he held onto the struggling thing by its plate—just to validate. His own skin appeared to be a weapon against this thing now. The demon in Freddie stopped fighting against him, despite obvious pain, and marveled at the Necromancer.
It nodded at him and smiled for the first time.
“You like that, huh?” Ashton asked, bemused.
The creature shook its head. Then it spoke with that same strange voice and tone that the demon he raised at Mallory Keep did. “Just… unexpected. Unlike the Void…”
“You speak?”
But the demon didn’t resume its conversation. It pulled itself from Ashton’s grip and walked east.
“Fine,” Ashton said in spite, “don’t speak! You just remind me of the terrible destruction I’ve wrought on Surdel, anyway.”
The creature grumbled. Its grumpy demeanor brought remembrances of his friend Clayt
on but with a better, functioning jaw and clearer voice.
After a time on the road, they came across a man and his wife huddled beneath a makeshift tent at a crossroads. The couple were merchants, but from the looks of them, not particularly successful ones. Their tent wasn’t big enough to protect their full cart. So, they pressed against a wooden wheel, holding each other to stop themselves from shivering. The man let go of his wife as the salesman inside of him came alive.
“Greetings to you!” the husband said cheerfully. “A fine day we’ve been blessed with here.”
“Praise Sven!” his wife said.
“Praise Sven!” Ashton said. “You get caught in the rain? Where are you headed?”
“As far from the capital as we can,” the man said. “They say the undead are pounding at the gates.”
“Save us, Jarl Sven!” she said, a touch of hysteria lingering in her voice.
“Calm down, dear,” the man said soothingly, patting her on the shoulder.
“I thought Sven was a southern thing,” Ashton said.
“Aye,” the man said. “My wife and I are from the south. Near Corinth.”
“He sleeps beneath the dark fields,” she said. “One day, when the world needs him again, he will rise! And Olga will be beside him…”
“Olga?” Ashton asked. “Is that your name?”
The man laughed, playfully poking his wife in the shoulder. “Pay her no mind. She’s a bit unsettled by the rumors of the undead. My wife’s not Olga. Olga’s the Raven.”
“A most holy bird,” she insisted. “Her talons burn white hot through the darkness… She reaps the damned like a scythe.”
“You think Sven will save us from the demons?” Ashton said,
“Demons?!” she shrieked. “Are there demons now?”
She buried her head into her husband’s chest.
“Thanks for that, friend,” the husband said sarcastically.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Ashton said, pointing at himself and then at his armored guard. “We head eastward too, away from the undead. Who knows what stories are fact or fiction anymore? If you say Jarl Sven is coming back to smite the ghouls, well, then I say Praise Jarl Sven too! Surdel could use all the help it can get!”
The husband nodded.
“My name is Ashton. Ashton Jeraldson. I’m from Perketh, not too far from Corinth. We’re practically neighbors!”
The man pushed his wife gently away as Ashton approached and reached out a hand in the rain.
“My name is Theodore,” the man said, “and this is my wife Fransa.”
“Fransa’s a beautiful name,” Ashton said, trying to be polite to the agitated woman.
“It’s a common name in Corinth,” the man said, “as is Theodore, but both are a bit odd up here in the north. Of course, we find their names just as strange.”
“Jeraldson isn’t a common name,” Fransa said, “It’s an offensive one. Who’re you to take such a name?”
“Offensive?” Ashton asked.
“Would you stop it?!” Theodore chastised his wife.
“Let these men move along,” she said. “This one has a forbidden name, and the other looks darker than the clouds above us!”
“Woman!” Theodore warned. “Can’t you see he is accompanied by a knight! Surely, he is an important man! Stop trying to run away potential customers! I swear you will be the death of me!”
She grumbled and leaned heavily against the cart as if she might try to push it away.
“Forgive my wife,” Theodore said. “Corinth is a town of oral histories and tall tales. Our childhoods were filled with raven totems outside of every door and legends of Sven coming to punish the kids who didn’t do their chores or obey their parents. She’s speaking nonsense. Please pay her no mind.”
Ashton approached the tent, holding the pouch at his neck. The man licked his lips as he eyed the purse, probably assuming it was filled with coin.
“We have clothing,” the man said. “Some small trinkets. An ivory carving from Nortown…”
The man reached into the cart and produced a small figurine of a tall house made of bone.
“And look at this,” the man grabbed a wooden sculpture of a woman.
Ashton grabbed the offered figurine. It was not a human but an elf with a bow. The detail was so fine that his fingers could feel the freckles on the girl’s nose.
“They say it’s carved from a fae in Felsari,” Theodore said. “Can you believe that? A sacred tree! Must be a famous elf!”
“We’ll sell that one cheap,” Fransa said.
“We will not!” her husband insisted.
“When the gods return,” she said, “when they see what foulness has taken over this world, they’ll purge the cursed and the damned. The fae trees are sacred to the elves. Sacred to Cronos! Anyone who holds that will surely be taken to the underworld. Sven will devour them whole!”
“You are going to be the death of me!” the man accused again. “Don’t listen to her,” he pleaded. “These are good wares.”
“Fine craftsmanship,” Ashton said, empathizing with the man. The sculpture was exquisite. He wondered if an elf had carved it. Perhaps this was what a thousand-year-old craftsman might do.
He continued to play with his pouch as the man removed a waxed tarp to expose more of his goods. There were small bundles of clothing for grown men and women. A few dresses for a small girl. A dull blade and assortment of clubs, and then an assortment of belts and leather strips.
“Perhaps your friend could use a weapon,” the man said, pointing to the blade.
The demon in Freddie’s armor shut his visor and folded his arms.
“Perhaps not,” Theodore said, chuckling idly. “I meant no offense.”
“The offense is ours,” Ashton said. “I’m a blacksmith apprentice. If my friend needs a weapon, I can make it for him. So, he’s a bit picky.”
“Of course,” the man said, smiling earnestly. “Of course! It’s been some time since I met a blacksmith. Perhaps we could make a trade.”
Ashton rifled through the clothes and the figurines. Metal and onyx. Basalt and quartz. A dozen wooden trinkets. His fingers stopped on a brown, leather eyepatch. He gripped the pouch around his neck. He looked to the south, remembering Mekadesh’s disappearance and the army that waited for him down there. He had sacrificed a lot to get this gem—this Eye. The thing was precious.
He lifted the patch to his face and held it against his eye.
“It suits you,” the man complimented him.
The wife looked at him queerly. “You’re not blinded. Why would you want something like that?”
“You never know when…” the man said, but he stopped partway through. Implying that Ashton might look like a man who might lose an eye soon probably didn’t figure into Theodore’s concept of salesmanship.
Ashton laughed lightly. “Yeah… you never know.”
“A copper coin?” Theodore asked.
Ashton nodded in agreement. “A copper coin. A fair trade.”
“Two copper will get you a figurine.”
“Any figurine?” Ashton asked.
The wife thrust the statue of the elven archer into Ashton’s hand.
“No!” Theodore said. “Woman!”
“It’s cursed!” The woman insisted.
“Like me,” Ashton said, winking at the man, who sighed in relief that Ashton might be taking this lightly.
“Yes,” the woman said. “Like a Jeraldson.”
She spat on the ground.
Theodore’s shoulders sank, and he looked up at the tent. He leaned against the cart and was surprised by Ashton’s hand. The merchant looked down in bewilderment at the copper in his fingers.
“The eyepatch and the elven archer,” Ashton said firmly.
“The eyepatch and the elven archer,” the man agreed with a warm smile, but Ashton sensed the pain in the man’s face at getting rid of the figurine so cheaply.
Fransa looked at Ashto
n and then at the demon. “We don’t have room in the tent.”
“Fransa,” Theodore said, “the man’s a paying customer. You, however, can stand in the rain for all I care!”
“It’s OK,” Ashton said, motioning down the road. “My friend and I have to leave anyway. We’re on our way east. You two may want to do the same, all things considered.”
Theodore nodded as he pushed his hands into the armpits of his tunic. “Perhaps you’re right.”
Ashton walked into the rain with Freddie. The merchant’s voice carried to them for several hundred yards as he scolded his wife. Ashton turned to look at them a few times. He put on the eyepatch and placed the figurine in a pocket in his cloak. He held his satchel until he felt he was safe. When the man’s voice was no longer audible, he opened the pouch, removed the Eye, and slipped it under the leather flap that hugged his face.
The Eye felt warm against his skin. He squinted against it at first, as he viewed the world around him in a yellow haze that seemed to ignore the leathery patch. Another tremor shook the ground, and he looked down at the veins of shock that extended deep into the earth.
“Can you see them?” Ashton asked, turning toward Freddie and pointing at the lines that the Eye showed him.
The creature had apparently been staring at him. Ashton felt a bit uncomfortable at being the focus of a demon, but the swirls within the creature were different. Less green. More black tones and purple. He felt the creature was more at peace and maybe a bit curious. The green had felt more like envy and despair. These colors felt more like the Abyss. Numb. Endless. Distant.
He could deal with distant. Just so long as the creature didn’t attack another old man, leaving him beside the road in the arms of his son like Freddie had done at the castle. Ashton hoped that he never reached such levels of depravity as this cretin. After seeing demon cruelty at Mallory Keep and Kingarth, Ashton vowed he’d never trust one or command one again. He didn’t know what Mekadesh saw in such creatures. Not that he wanted to understand her. The whole lot of them could burn in the underworld for all he cared. He would tolerate them for as long as they served his purpose—for as long as they helped him save Surdel and Nirendia.
