Threadbare Volume 3

by Andrew Seiple

  Some people had determination. Grissle was determination.

  “You’ve unlocked that job, haven’t you,” Melos opened his eyes, staring into Grissle’s brown, tired orbs. “The thing you said you gave up searching for, years ago.”

  “I have,” Grissle whispered. “And the fact I’m here, in the pain I am, proves that I won’t take it unless Cylvania itself is on the line.”

  “I’ve fought enough undead, destroyed enough undead, to know that it changes even the strongest...” Melos looked away. “It’ll change you. You... I trust you. I don’t trust what you might make of yourself.”

  “Melos. I gave you a chance. A chance for redemption.”

  “No. No, that was different.”

  “I didn’t tell them about the children.”

  Melos inhaled.

  “So it’s like that, is it?” he said, as the old shame came back to haunt him.

  “No. It doesn’t have to be.”

  “They...” Melos shut his eyes. “It was the final test of loyalty. They would have killed me if I refused.”

  “And so you cast three innocent babes into Cron’s flames.”

  “I avenged them!” Melos roared, stomping away and clenching a fist. “When I saw the truth I went back and slaughtered every last one of those evil shits!”

  “And yet one of the guilty remains.”

  Melos punched the stone wall. Punched it again, felt his gauntlet flex and dent. Punched it a third time, felt his fingers nova into pain, and then the tears were coming now, tears of shame. Tears of weakness.

  “I will spend the rest of my life atoning for what I’ve done.” Melos said. “I have. I’ve restricted... there’s entire skills I’ve given up; things I don’t use, will never use again. And you’ve trusted me to do that.”

  “Yes. And I still do.” Grissle said. “All I’m asking is for the sort of trust I’ve given you, over a thing I haven’t even done yet. A thing that pales by comparison, to be honest.”

  Melos clenched his eyes shut, willed the weakness out of his voice. There was still a quaver. “And if I don’t, you’ll tell them. Tell my wife.”

  “No.”

  “No?” He turned, shocked, eyes red and warm and still blurry.

  “No. If you tell them what I plan, I’ll say nothing on the matter. But...” he turned his head, looked around at the room. “But there is no contingency plan if I die with this uncompleted. Amelia can’t match me. Rezzak was never arcanely-inclined. The Dwarves won’t touch the plan, not with their King agitating against it. Who else could we trust?” The old necromancer said to the ex-cultist. “Who could we trust with this responsibility?”

  “It’s power,” Melos agreed, peeling his gauntlet off with a hiss of pain and mopping his face with his throbbing hand. “And I know what power does. Just...” he sighed, feeling the fire drain from him, feeling old. “Promise me you won’t get dumb over this.”

  “I won’t. Didn’t get this far by being stupid.” Grissle looked around. “This really is my legacy,” he said, gesturing at the cluttered workshop, and the apparatus he’d spent months building, perfecting, while the Seven hunted down cores to finish it. “I don’t want it tarnished by my weakness.”

  “You’re not weak,” Melos said, smiling, though his eyes were still hot and his head throbbed. “You’re the second strongest person I know.”

  “Amelia’s the first, I’ll wager?” Grissle smiled.

  “You’d win that bet, if I was stupid enough to make it...”

  *****

  Cecelia cooed in his arms, and he rocked her as best he could with his armor in the way. He’d had special, non-spiky pauldrons made for expressly this purpose. The effect diminished the overall look he’d gone for, but... well, somehow, scaring people just wasn’t as fulfilling as it had been, before he’d become a father.

  Besides, he could still use his Demon Knight skills to help with intimidation when the need arose. The job was all about fear, but fear didn’t have to dominate his life when he was off the clock, so to speak.

  A noise at his back made him tense, and he shifted in the creaking wooden chair—

  —but it was just a black kitten, creeping up onto the table, all pudgy belly and curious little face. It stared at the little girl, then Melos met its gaze. Little yellow eyes widened, and the cat was gone, disappearing so quickly that Melos almost doubted it was there in the first place. Up until he saw a quivering black tail behind one of the mantle plates.

  “Oh come on, I wasn’t even trying.” Melos complained.

  Which spooked the cat and sent the plate crashing to the floor as it fled the room entirely.

  Cecelia wailed, frightened by the sound.

  “Is everything all right?” Amelia called, from upstairs.

  “It’s fine,” Melos said. “Fine, just... fine.” He rocked Cecelia until her sobs subsided, then made his way to the shards of the plate. “Mend,” he whispered, and picked up the reconstructed dish.

  When he looked up, Caradon was glaring down from the balcony at the top of the staircase.

  “Your cat got a little clumsy,” Melos explained, putting the plate back on the mantle.

  Only to have it slip through his gauntleted fingers and hit the ground again. Cecelia wailed as it broke, and Melos felt his temper flare as the middle-aged man snorted in disgust.

  “My cat. Sure,” Caradon said. “You could use a few more animator levels, looks like. The dexterity would do you good.”

  “True,” Melos said, raising his voice over the wailing infant. “Mend.” The plate reassembled, and he put it on the table this time. “Although they’re good in other ways. Animus Blade has got some interesting synergies with my Hellswords—”

  “I don’t want to hear that filth.”

  The air fell silent between them, save for the frightened infant’s sobbing. Melos rocked her, shushing her, but his eyes never left his father-in-law’s gaze.

  Finally, Caradon turned away. “Are you done yet, Amelia?”

  “Almost!” she called back. Her voice was very muffled. This house had thick walls, and for once, Melos was thankful for it. Around her, both he and Caradon pretended to be on polite terms. It was an unspoken agreement, really.

  Caradon finally shook his head and pointed at the bassinet to the side of the fireplace.

  Melos breathed hard, sighing with Cecelia as she finally subsided, and deposited his daughter into the baby bed, smoothing her frizzy little fringe of hair with one hand, all under Caradon’s stare.

  A stare that finally turned, as his daughter hugged Caradon from behind. He turned and she kissed him goodbye.

  Melos held the door for Amelia when she bustled downstairs and ordered Emmet to follow.

  “Remind me why we’re here and not at the pass again?” Melos asked his wife.

  “Besides a chance for Father to meet Cecelia? And Grissle needing us to check his calculations?” She grinned. “It’s a chance to go hiking. There are some awesome views along here, and I want to show them to you.”

  “Did I mention that I’m more of a city guy? I’m really more of a city guy. We’ve got some awesome views back at home. Outside our window and all. Really, they could have sent Jane.”

  “Jane’s got her own hands full in the North. With whatever the Earl of Balmoran has her doing.”

  “Is that where she is?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “She say anything about what was going on up there?”

  Amelia snorted.

  “Right, right, dumb question.”

  She led him through the hills, up a small mountain, and into a shielded valley. It was... good for his agility, at least. “You know, Jane could have totally done this with one of her ninja run thingies or whatever it’s called,” he griped to Amelia. “Just stuck her arms out to the back of her and charged headfirst through the thickest forests here, never eating a tree branch once.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on wearing armor. Don’t you have Alwa
ys in Uniform?”

  “Well yes, but Demonplate doesn’t work with it.”

  “Probably good. There’s no way I’m letting demons get into your pants. You’re past those days,” Amelia smirked.

  “Har har de fucking har. Please tell me we’re there.”

  “About.” She stopped, stared up at a high mountain slope. “Now we wait.”

  “How’d you find this spot, anyway?”

  “One of Dad’s friends used to take me all up and down through these woods. Tried to convince me I needed to be a scout. Good guy but obsessed with the outdoors. All the time.”

  “Ah. So you told him—”

  “Same thing I told you, when you wanted to sleep with the window open a few months ago. Fuck winter. Winter is for curling up inside with books.” She smiled and leaned back against a tree. “And warm husbands.”

  “Can’t object to that,” he said, feeling himself stir as he looked at her, arms spread out, flush with life and heat from the walk.

  She was beautiful.

  “How much time do we have, do you think?” Melos said, bracing himself against the tree, looking down into her black eyes. She smiled, lips parting, as he moved in close, so close to her.

  “Mmm. I like the way you think—”

  The light shifted.

  “None,” she said, looking sharp, and pushing herself away from the tree. And him. “It’s happening.”

  A flicker, then a CRACK, followed by a rolling rumble so loud that for a second Melos thought it was a storm. To the south the light above the mountains dimmed, then dimmed further. “Is that it?” he asked Amelia.

  “Appraise.” She squinted up the peak. “We need to get closer.”

  “Is it safe?”

  She reached into a pocket, pulled out a mechanical bird. “Animus.” It wound within seconds, key turning in it, then it fluttered up into the sky. “Dollseye,” Amelia said. Then she nodded. “It’s there. It’s... huh. I think it’s stable.”

  “So he succeeded!”

  “Maybe. We need a closer look. Come on, it’ll only be up an hour.”

  “That’s a pretty steep slope.”

  “Yeah, we’d probably better leave Emmet here. Agility isn’t his forte.”

  “I was more worried about me. Agility isn’t mine.”

  “Oh don’t be a baby. C’mon. Animate your own armor if you get tired.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  They made it in about fifteen minutes. It was a rough climb, but Melos had spent so long building his constitution that it scarcely mattered. Amelia actually had it rougher than he did, and though wisdom had never been a priority, he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut as he gave her a hand up the last few feet.

  And there it was... A rippling black curtain that filled the sky, filled the world, stretching up beyond sight and to both sides. It was, simply, nothing.

  Amelia’s animated bird sat on a boulder, observing it.

  There wasn’t much else up here, on this little plateau. A few trees, a few rocks, a small pond that wasn’t much more than a collection of puddles with delusions of grandeur.

  “Well, it’s here.” Melos scooped up a rock, hucked it into the big wall of nothing. It disappeared soundlessly.

  Amelia scooped up the bird, hesitated. “I don’t want to lose it. Let’s see...” She dug in her pack, pulled out a little black bear. “Whoa no. No, you stay right here, Fluffy.”

  “Fluffy?”

  “One of my old toys. Dad wanted to give her back to me.”

  “Fluffy.”

  “Shut up! I was like two!”

  “I wasn’t laughing. It’s cute.”

  “Damn straight she’s cute. Ah, here we go.” Amelia pulled out a straw mannequin, tossed it to the ground. “Animus. Dollseye.” She blinked a few times. “Always weird shifting sight from one to another. Okay, dolly. March!” The little toy went in, and Melos watched it vanish just like the rock had.

  “Nothing. Nothing... whoa,” Amelia gasped. “Numbers. Green numbers.”

  “Above you?”

  “No, It’s like it’s in them, they’re all around.“ She shut up for a second, then spoke again, her voice troubled. “The link is gone.”

  Melos looked at his party screen. Himself, Amelia, Emmet... “You invited the doll before you sent it in there, right?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Got any more of those?”

  “Nope, but those trees have deadwood, and I’ve got Carpenter. Give me a few.”

  Every experiment ended the same way. The animi went in, and the ones who didn’t encounter the numbers managed to return intact. The ones who did disappeared entirely.

  “It’s almost like it’s moving, too. The numbers aren’t always in the same place. And with no frame of reference, it’s hard as hell to avoid running into them.” Amelia shook her head. “Once you do, you’ve got like a split second to back off, but if you get in among them, you’re gone. That’s what it looks like to me, anyway. You want to give it a whirl?”

  “I don’t have Dollseye yet. It’d be pointless.”

  “Oh, right, right, we can work on that.”

  “Should we head back?”

  “Mmm.” Amelia debated, then shook her head. “It’s only got about twenty minutes left. Let’s wait to see what things look like when it goes down.”

  But it didn’t go down. Not twenty minutes later, not an half an hour later, and not a full hour later.

  “Something’s wrong,” Amelia said.

  “We need to get back to the Castle,” Melos said, feeling a premonition stir in the back of his mind. “And we need to go prepared for trouble.”

  She bit her lips. “Cecelia...”

  “We can leave her with your Father.”

  “No. This is too close to the... whatever that is. If it shifts a few miles, it could take them.” Her face set into hard lines. “We’ll teleport to the townhouse. Drop Cecelia with Betsy, then go to the castle on foot. And hope that the others did the same...”

  *****

  Chaos reigned.

  The city rotted, as dead things stalked the night, mist filled its streets, and sane people hid indoors to try and survive the nightmare.

  And Melos and Amelia carved a path through it, braving the choking fog that filled the air, battering through the glazed-eyed zombie dwarves that filled the street, all wearing miniskirts and looking fabulous. Even while they were hunched around the bodies of the fallen, eating their brains, they somehow managed to do it with dignity and poise.

  They were too late to save the people who’d died at the city gate, or in the market, or in the thoroughfare leading up to the castle.

  But when Melos hammered his gauntlet against the siege door, his heart lifted when it opened, revealing a ring of pale palace guards... and a familiar figure. “Rezzak!”

  “This is the gladdest I’ve ever been to see you,” the Invoker said, hands full with a mug of something bubbly. “Everything’s fucked.”

  “Can you be more concise?” Amelia entered, collecting her daggers from the air as the guards slammed the door behind her and barred it.

  “I can’t. He can,” Rezzak pointed to a shivering dwarf in a torn blue robe.

  “You’re...” Melos squinted. He’d forgotten the dwarf’s name.

  “Ragnor. Sir.” The dwarf stared past him, unseeing. Melos knew that look.

  “It’s all right, you’re safe,” Melos lied, kneeling down to look the little guy in the eyes. “Tell us what happened.”

  “I... it... Grissle, sir. We fired up the Throne; the dungeons integrated fine, then Brin collapsed. Grissle yelled at me to get her clear, and I did, then he shifted the column control to the main runic integration console, and, and, and...”

  “He collapsed too,” Melos said.

  “Yes. But... he, he got... he...”

  “He stood back up.” Melos said. “But it wasn’t him anymore, was it?”

  “At first I thought it was all right,”
Ragnor babbled. “I thought ah, he’s got this. And he did. He sat back down in the chair, and remodulated the arrays until they balanced. But he left them on. He just sat there, blue light glowing out his eyes, in the throne, looking at everything.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I tried to pull Brin toward the entrance. Get her some help, once I was sure things were stable. And he said no. I asked him why the hell not? He said he didn’t want any interruptions until his research was done.”

  “Damn it all.” Melos closed his eyes. “I warned him.”

  “I kept on dragging her, and he looked at me, and I thought he was blinking until the smoke goes up, and no, it’s his eyes. His eyes are bubbling out of his head. Bubbling away until the only thing left there is the light, that blue light...”

  “Oh gods,” Amelia whispered. “Blue eyes. Hot blue eyes.”

  “The eyes of a lich,” Melos said.

  “I asked him when his research would be done,” Ragnor whispered. “He said, a few decades, maybe. I said no, Brin wouldn’t survive that long, she needed help now, and he said that was easy to fix.” Ragnor swallowed. “He killed her. And told me to keep taking notes.”

  “You ran,” Melos said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No. You did the smart thing.” Melos felt his guts clench. “Rezzak? Where are the others?”

  “Combing the city, getting everyone inside.” Rezzak took a long swallow of wine. “I’m only back because my pools are down. It’s all zombies out there. To us they’re nothing, but there’s a lot of them.”

  “He animated her and put her in a mob pillar,” Melos shook his head. “Just to buy himself time.”

  “There are dozens dead because of this.” Amelia’s face hardened. “How could he do this?”

  “It’s not them he cares about. It’s us.” Melos took a breath. “He’s a creature of pure logic and pure obsession now. I warned him. I feared this. But not enough.” He reached back, felt the hilts of the blades on his back. “We have to stop him. We have to make this right. And we have to save our kingdom, bring down this thing he’s built without destroying everything. Ragnor? Do you know how to do that?”