by C. M. Carney
“Yes,” Vonn said and sighed, perfectly at ease.
Lex sniffed himself and his nose turned up in disgust. “I think that’s a bit unfair. We have been camping against this door for days. Where do you expect me to bathe?”
“I wasn’t that concerned about the bathing. It was all the murdering and thieving that really sealed the comparison.”
“That wasn’t my fault, well not totally.”
Vonn pulled his hood up and gave Lex his patient look that all great teachers and religious figures seem born with. A look that said, ‘you know you’re full of shit, but I’m gonna let you figure that out on your own, cuz I’m super wise and Zen.’
“Fine, I may have gone a little overboard.” Lex said, pouting.
Vonn harrumphed in amusement and pulled his hood back over his eyes.
Maybe I do have issues, Lex thought. After he’d been separated from his player Gryph, Lex had found himself in the quaint town of Harlan’s Watch. He’d had limited time to relax however, and soon he discovered he was stuck in some kind of time loop, cursed to repeat the same day over and over and over. During that challenging time, he may have committed several thousand murders and robbed a whole bunch of people.
“But it was a time loop, so it can be said that none of really happened.” Vonn gave Lex another of his patented judgmental gazes. It had some of its intended effect. “I’ve changed since then.” Lex kicked a clod of dirt and sat back down next to Vonn.
“Yes, you have, and I am proud of you.”
“Thanks man.”
The distant hoot of an owl added charm to the pleasant night.
“We have been here forever,” Lex whined.
“It has only been three days, and I would think after your recent experiences you’d have learned some patience,” Vonn said and flipped the page in Lex’s copy of the Writs of Cerrunos. “Plus, the weather has been lovely.”
Lex looked up in a panic. He’d seen enough movies to know that kind of statement always led to a sudden, inexplicable downpour. But, the night skies were clear, with just a few wispy clouds passing in front of Korynn’s moons. He heard no distant rumbles of thunder, saw no flash of lightning. After a moment he eased back against the door.
“And I’ve got the patience of a saint,” Lex said.
Vonn chuckled in derision and Lex felt his face flush with heat. How does he do that? He banged his head against the door several times. “I’m just so bored.”
“You want the book?” Vonn asked.
“Nah, reading is not really my thing. I’ll just wait for the movie.”
“You’re not making sense again.”
“Am too.”
“You do realize that you are a priest of a knowledge god, right? So, maybe reading should be ‘your thing’.”
“Yeah, a dead one.” That had been a particularly irritating discovery. Right after his physical form had been forged, he’d learned the god he was a devotee of had been dead for millennia.” Just another eff you from the Realms to Lex.”
“All things have a purpose.”
“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that. If your dipshit philosophy is true and your all-powerful Source has some hidden purpose for us, why are we still camping in the dirt?” Lex stood and for the umpteenth time in the last several days, he traced his fingers along the edges of the carvings, seeking some hidden catch or mechanism that would open the doors.
“It is not for us to question the Source.”
Lex roared in frustration and pushed against the doors with all his might.
“What makes you think that’s going to work this time?”
“Didn’t you tell me to have faith? Well, I’m gonna faith the shit out of this bastard until it lets us in.”
“You sure you don’t want a turn with the book? It is likely the only copy on Korynn,”
“Great so my god is dead, and I can’t even discuss his book with my book club, CUZ NOBODY ELSE HAS A COPY!”
“Why are you yelling?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Lex roared and pushed and grunted and swore and sweat, but the door refused to budge.
“Huh, this is interesting,” Vonn said, absorbed by the book.
“What is interesting?” Lex said a bit too harshly.
“According to this, your god may not be dead after all.”
“Well … maybe … he … can … open … this … effing … door!” With each word, Lex smashed the door with all his might, and as the last word exploded from his mouth there was a small click and the doors flew open.
Lex tumbled forward and fell flat on his face. He grumbled, spat out a mouthful of dust and slowly got back to his feet.
“Uh, Lex?” Vonn said in alarm.
Lex looked up to see a group of five large, bald, featureless men staring down on them. They held very long, very pointy spears and they were pointing them rather close to Lex and Vonn’s faces.
“Hi, fellas. Say, wouldn’t happen to know a guy named Gryph would ya?”
The End of The Lost City
Gryph and Lex will return in Scourge of Souls.
And, if you’re wondering what the hell Lex is talking about, go read Killing Time.
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BONUS CONTENT!
Turn the page for an exclusive short novella available nowhere else.
Dead Must Die
Simon died once, he’ll be damned before he dies twice.
Simon never asked to become the new dungeon master of the Barrow, but a millennia old teenager stuck in the skull of a dead lich has few life options. After bonding with the Barrow’s dungeon core, he learns they are starving to death and only by consuming the life energy and experiences of sentient beings can they survive.
Lucky for Simon a party of murderous adventurers invades the Barrow in search of treasure and glory. They look to be a perfectly tasty meal, until one transforms into a mentally unstable fanatic whose specialty is killing the undead in all its forms, especially teenagers stuck in skulls bonded to dungeons.
If Simon can’t master his new powers, defeat invaders bent on plunder and convince the Barrow to take a kinder, gentler approach to feeding, then he will die a second time. And this time it’ll be permanent.
Dead
Must
Die
A Short Novella of the Realms
by
C.M. Carney
Dead Must Die – A Short Novella of The Realms by C.M. Carney
www.cmcarneywrites.com
© 2018 C.M. Carney
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [email protected]
C
Dedication
To my sister, Melissa Luedke.
Just so you have to read a dorky book.
Love Ya Sis!
1
Simon stared at the Barrow King’s throne for several long minutes as the conflicting feelings of anger and pride battled within him. It was a chair made from fused bones, which seemed perfect for an undead sorcerer whose real body had died millennia ago, but Simon wasn’t sure it was him. Of course these days he wasn’t sure what ‘him’ was.
Was he the eons dead boy who’d been tortured and murdered? Was he the eternal spirit in the shape of that boy who�
�d been an enslaved butler to the Barrow King? Was he the newly minted master of the Barrow? Was he all of those things? None of them?
He would have frowned if he’d had lips or muscles or any flesh at all. But he did not. Simon was undead, and all he had for a body was a cruddy old skull with several missing teeth. Some part of him that wasn’t him dredged up the term redneck. The word was foreign, otherworldly, and he wasn’t sure how he understood the word or why it made him feel so bad about himself.
Simon turned towards the nearest dread knight. The spectral energies and mists of his body turned with him and he raised a skeletal hand that had not, until that moment, existed and pointed at his undead minion.
“You, come here,” Simon said appalled to hear a slight pubescent crack in his voice. He had no teenage male body, so why did he have teenage male problems? Some sort of residual body image, perhaps? Simon thought.
The dread knight shambled up to Simon. A part of him knew he should be afraid as the undead beastie came closer, but he was not. He was the master of this dungeon, and the dread knights were his servants. The undead warrior came close, but instead of stopping a polite distance from Simon, the ghoul kept coming until it stood a mere inch from Simon’s face. No respect for personal space, apparently, Simon thought.
Simon took a step back and the dread knight took a corresponding step forward. He repeated the exercise several times, each with the same result. Finally, Simon grew annoyed and held his hand against his dimwitted servant’s chest, arresting his advance.
“Stop. Okay, new rule for all of you,” Simon said as he looked at the two other dread knights. “Keep a distance of at least three feet from me at all times unless I say otherwise. Understand?”
A chorus of “Nnnnggggggs” filled the room and the dread knight that was all up in his business backed up to exactly three feet.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Simon said. He advanced on the dread knight near him and the undead creature took a step back. Simon took another step, and the creature did the same. “You, stop and stand still,” Simon said in irritation. Are these damn idiots going to take everything so literally?
Simon reached up and to his relief, the dread knight stayed put as Simon gripped the creature’s least rotten tooth. With a gentle side-to-side motion, Simon worked the tooth until it came free with a dry tearing sound. He looked at it a moment, cursing the vanity that made him even consider this idea, then shrugged and crammed the tooth into one of the gaps in his own skull. There was a small tug as the tooth slurped up and into the jawbone. Huh, gross. Wasn’t expecting that to work.
A few minutes later he’d commandeered enough teeth to have a full smile. He had one of the dread knights hold up the shiniest shield it could find and got a decent enough look at his new smile. It wouldn’t appear in any pearly white toothpaste TV commercials, but at least he had a full set. Toothpaste? TV? Commercials? What the hell is wrong with me? A part of his brain understood these words, but he did not know why. After a moment, typical teenager apathy took hold, and he shrugged, returning his attention to his new teeth.
“Not too shabby,” Simon said, irritated that he still heard a slight high-pitched crack in his voice. “Okay, what now?” He looked around. Several corpses, bits of broken bone, rusted pieces of metal and other unidentifiable detritus littered the floor. Simon tried to scowl but found that it was impossible to make a facial expression when one had no face. This further ruined his mood and with an irritated wave of his hand he ordered his minions to clean up the place.
He watched their herky-jerky motions for a time, but soon boredom took over and he plopped himself onto the throne of fused bone with a grumpy sigh. Hmmm, how can I sigh without lungs? he thought, but the question had barely formed when a presence surged into his mind as if another consciousness had eased into his own. It startled him so much that he fell off the throne, his skull clattering and his misty body dissipating.
With a grunt of annoyance, Simon willed his skull aloft and reformed his ethereal form. His head sat askew, and he formed a pair of hands to move it back into place. Then he glowered at the throne. “What the hell was that?” he yelled and his voice echoed around the chamber. None of the dread knights or corpses they piled up against the wall answered.
He sat back down on the throne as hesitantly and gingerly as a man with a bad case of hemorrhoids. For a moment Simon felt nothing, but then the presence returned. It was a slight pressure that slowly built in intensity. Simon wanted to flee but forced himself to remain still. This time the presence eased itself into his mind as if understanding the error it had made the first time. A chill moved through him, like an intense case of goosebumps and then a voice spoke.
You are not he, the voice said.
“Ahhhh!” Simon squealed, and he nearly fell off the throne again. “What? Who?” he sputtered.
You are not he, the voice repeated.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Simon said rather more loudly than he meant to.
The lich… Ouzeriuo, the voice said.
“No, I am not Ouzeriuo. I hate that guy.”
Hate?
Simon tried to explain the meaning of the word but could not come up with a satisfactory definition. But his mind seethed around the concept and he knew the presence understood.
Hate. Yes. Also hate Ouzeriuo.
“Yeah that guy was a douche,” Simon said, wondering how he knew what the foreign sounding word meant.
Douche?
“Never mind,” Simon said and then grumbled when he realized that he was speaking aloud to a voice in his head. Who are you?
I… am the Barrow, the voice said in a manner that made Simon wonder if it had never described itself with the pronoun.
The Barrow? I don’t understand.
It is… difficult to explain, the voice said, and Simon sensed the presence struggling to find the right words. I am the sentience that animates this dungeon. Without my presence, it would simply be passageways of rock and haven to monster and beast. Without me, it would be a place of pointless life and wasted death.
So, you’re telling me you’re some kinda spirit who possesses the Barrow? Simon said.
No, I am the Barrow. I am a symbiotic life form. I have no physical form of my own. This makes my ability to alter things in the physical world… complicated. I am meant to join with a physical being, a host, a dungeon master.
And you want me to be this dungeon master?
Yes, together we would be greater than we are alone. Together we can make the Barrow great again.
The same part of his brain that knew what rednecks and douches meant found the phrase ‘make the Barrow great again’ off-putting, but once again he had no reference for why. Then something else occurred to him and panic rushed up inside of him like bile.
You merged with Ouzeriuo.
No, he was unwilling to share, to grow. He wished only to dominate. He loved only power and was driven by fear. I fought against him, worked to foil his plans, but he was powerful and I grew ever weaker. It is a shame he refused to bond.
Simon scowled or tried to. That whole no flesh thing again. You’re telling me that if he’d been willing you would have bonded with him?
Of course. He was very powerful. Together we could have made…
Made the Barrow great again, yeah I get it. Anger burned inside him. But he was evil.
Evil and good are mortal concepts. They do not concern me.
What? Simon sputtered. Well, they should.
I am sorry, they do not. However, if it makes you … feel better … my purpose and concerns will change as the bonding grows. What is you, will become me and what I am will become you.
So, I will make you nicer?
Perhaps. The nature of the bonding is hard to predict.
Simon thought on it for a moment. Was this any different from what Ouzeriuo had done to him?
So let me get this straight, you want to merge with me, infect me, make the two of us one?
Yes, the Barrow said with a sense of purpose and finality.
What’s in it for me? Simon asked.
Your mind, your very being will be expanded. You will feel what I feel, know what I know. You will have the potential of everlasting life. You could help shape the Realms in ways you cannot conceive of.
That sounds pretty great, Simon had to admit.
It is, but be warned, the bonding will make us one. What affects me will affect you, and what affects you will affect me.
Is the bonding permanent?
Yes, until you die. Then I will lose some of what I was, but after a time I would bond with another.
