“We’re talking about confidence.” Rys gave her a small smile, but his mind churned as he searched for the right words. Her emotions were on full display, but he barely knew her. “People bring out their best when doing what truly motivates them. Are you doing that right now?”
Fara stared at him. “Given I’m surrounded by a bunch of demons, clearly not.”
“Why not?” he asked, ignoring her jibe.
“Because I value my honor. I want…” She sighed. “I wanted to see Gregory succeed. It had been years since I met somebody with his drive. I love Vallis like a daughter, but she doesn’t motivate me the same way. But you…”
Fara’s tails curled around her. “You have a charisma I don’t fully understand. That confidence of yours, where you seem certain that you’ll succeed no matter what action others take. Vallis was taken in instantly by it.”
“And you’re not?”
“It’s attractive, like you,” Fara said. She rolled her eyes at his smirk. “You’re practically sculpted from marble. Any woman will find you attractive. But we’ll see about anything more.”
She stepped away from him and no more words were said between them. The rest of the trip back was relatively uneventful.
Rys’s first Labyrinth dive was over. He hadn’t succeeded at everything he wanted to, but it was his first day. Once he regained some of his power, he’d turn that undead dragon into a proper corpse.
Chapter 9
“I continue to be amazed at my own decision-making skills,” Vallis said. She excitedly rifled through the carts full of trash they’d brought back from the Labyrinth.
No, not trash. Awkwardly shaped gold. Somebody was apparently going to pay good money for this random crap, if Vallis’s glee was any measure. Rys didn’t know why, as none of it was magical or even particularly exciting. The Labyrinth was a source of endless wonder to him, but none of that lay inside these carts.
“How can you possibly take credit for any of this?” Fara asked.
“Because I’m the reason you’re even here. Thank me for once.” Vallis glared at the fox. “I was right about Rys.”
Fara opened her mouth to argue, but decided against it.
The group stood inside the landing just inside the Labyrinth entrance. Grigor had intended to send most of the demons upstairs, but they had other ideas.
Namely, erecting grisly totems built from the corpses of Labyrinth monsters.
Vallis followed Rys’s eyes and grimaced. “I told them they couldn’t do this upstairs and definitely not outside. So they started doing it down here. Terry said something about how it keeps morale high.”
“Demons have only a few things they like to do at home,” Rys said. “Fighting, resting in their dens, and admiring their trophies.”
“What about eating?” Vallis asked. “They seemed really keen on trying out the local cuisine.”
“That, too. They don’t need to eat, as demons literally run on magic, but it’s like sex to them. It feels good, so they’ll do it for pleasure,” Rys said.
Vallis and Fara stared at Rys.
“Was that comparison really necessary?” Fara asked.
Rys raised an eyebrow. “If that bothered you, then you’re going to find things deeply uncomfortable once I start summoning succubi. They come in a lot of shapes and sizes.”
Given some of the demons were now setting up a barbecue for the monster meat, Rys decided now was a great time to leave. He ordered a few demons to pull the carts up the stairs and made a mental note to install some sort of lift system here. If they were going to be hauling heavy things up and down, it made sense to automate it.
Once upstairs, he left Vallis and Fara to the artifacts. His interest was purely in the power slate. He slipped away with it to the control room.
Orthrus was already there.
“Do you know what these hollows do with each slate?” Rys asked.
“Things that may not be entirely relevant anymore,” Orthrus said slowly. “This room was restored to its original state, but it does not control everything it once did.”
Rys frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“When the Labyrinth’s Creator resided here, he used Castle Aion as his abode. But that time has long since passed. The castle and the Labyrinth are separate entities now, even though they are inextricably linked,” Orthrus said.
“Is that why the Labyrinth can create things that don’t disappear outside the archipelago but the castle can’t?” Rys said.
Orthrus remained silent for some time. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Rys to ask that.
While the golden orb threw his silent tantrum, Rys looked around the room. There were so many vacant holes for slates. Each grouping of holes formed a module in the room and was surrounded by different furnishing. But while his mind was connected to the castle, he sensed only one of these modules.
Did that mean the others had no purpose anymore?
Rys suspected he needed to alter the control room and the slates if he wanted to maximize his control over Castel Aion. Bend the place to his will, so to speak.
Orthrus interrupted Rys, finally speaking again, “That appears to be the case. For some reason I had thought otherwise. Hmm.”
“A memory issue?” Rys asked, skeptical.
“Most likely,” Orthrus said. “For the time being, know that the castle’s link to the Labyrinth works both ways. It draws power from the Labyrinth, but can also extend that power over it. The power slates do not actually generate power. Rather, they are a conduit.”
Rys blinked. “Wait, like the ones we’re searching for?”
“Indeed. Those are far larger and have a specific purpose, but their design is the same. They channel a far greater power into this world,” Orthrus said. “What it is, I don’t recall.”
That explained why Rys didn’t sense magic from the slates themselves.
At the same time, countless questions rose within Rys. Namely, what power could possibly be so great as to power the Labyrinth and castle? And how had the Creator drawn on it and controlled it with these slabs of stone?
Orthrus drifted away, leaving Rys to his thoughts.
Realizing his questions were unproductive, Rys refocused himself on how to use the slate. That meant rebuilding this control room.
After several hours, he felt that he had a suitable solution.
There were now only four modules in the control room. The dais in the corner remained untouched, along with its four hollows. These slates controlled power for the entire castle.
The other three power modules had been adjusted, however. One of them had extended its power to the Labyrinth, but felt off. Rys fiddled with it until it felt right, but he still didn’t understand it. Most likely this had something to do with controlling the Labyrinth.
Another power module supported the entire castle. If Rys put a slate into it, it enhanced his ability to construct the castle. That should reduce the burden on the central control system.
The final power module was a custom one that Rys had built from the remaining modules. Rys felt the castle’s power in his mind but he couldn’t use it directly. Why not change that?
That seemed quite dangerous, so he kept the amount of power available highly limited. The castle’s power altered reality in seconds. A surge might obliterate Rys if he wasn’t careful. He’d spent centuries mastering his own magic. He knew he could safely use this to summon additional infernals, but using it for other spells was dangerous. Despite that, he did have some ideas boiling in the back of his mind.
Summoning was a good enough use for now, Rys decided. He slotted a slate into the power support module. His mind felt the extra reserves become available to him personally, requiring only a thought to tap into.
Rys did exactly that. Reaching out for the immense mass of power that lurked on the outer edges of his mind, he prepared himself for any backlash.
He fumbled the connection, his tired mind unable to grasp onto such an imm
ense amount of power. Rather than risk another attempt while he was this tired, given how dangerous it was, he chose to leave the power alone for now. He’d have to summon additional infernals after some rest. Any future testing would also need to wait.
Rys continued to sense that strange presence within his mind, farther beyond the castle’s presence. Given Orthrus’s explanation, that must be the Labyrinth itself. Connecting with that monstrous presence was extremely dangerous. Rys didn’t want to risk alerting it to his presence.
Stepping out of the control room, he saw Fara and Vallis had moved the carts. The halls were empty, save for a single patrolling demon.
Rys wandered into the hall above. It hadn’t changed yet, although the rest of the castle was deconstructing itself. For the time being, everybody would need to stay below ground.
Nobody else was here. The stars shined in the night sky above him.
The empty hand carts sat at one end of the hall. Presumably Vallis had loaded whatever she wanted from them into her own cart. Rys walked up to the castle entrance, going all the way up to the invisible barrier around the edge of the hall.
A single demon patrolled the grassy plateau outside. No sign of Fara or Grigor. A large wooden wagon with a canvas cover sat nearby, its rear full of large wooden crates. It lacked any horses to draw it.
Rys raised an eyebrow at the wagon. There was a large metal box built into the front of it, below where the driver presumably sat. A short pole stuck up on one side of the seat, with a leather knob on one end. Small amounts of magic dwelt within that box.
Frustrated at his inability to investigate the contraption, Rys pressed a hand against the invisible barrier.
His hand went through it and Rys stumbled forward. He blinked in surprise.
Was he free?
No, he quickly found out. The invisible barrier had moved outward. Rys could explore the full grounds of his estate before running into it. If his memory was correct, the barrier had extended as far out as his castle construction radius did.
Now that Rys was free to investigate the wagon, he did. Not that he properly understood it, at least not without pulling it apart. He suspected it was some sort of engine that moved the wagon.
The metal box contained magic, but it was something he didn’t properly understand. It used the ambient magical energy in the world around him. Rys had always thought that it was impossible for devices to draw on magical energy by themselves—everything in the Infernal Empire had been fed refined magic from crystals or other fuel sources.
Was this the power of this new method of magic called evocation? Had humanity come this far?
Maybe the world had improved enough to be interesting to Rys as something more than a target of conquest.
He wandered back inside and collapsed on his bed.
It turned out that after centuries of doing nothing, spending a day burning magical energy like crazy exhausted Rys. Sleep came easily to him.
Snow fell in his dream. That instantly told Rys when this took place.
Gauron was in the southern hemisphere. That made snow a rare event unless you were on a mountain. At least, natural snow was rare. In all of his centuries in Ruathym, it had snowed twice.
Rys sat in an alleyway. A cold, blue haze hung over the tall brick buildings around him. Everything felt crushed together like a child had slapped down a bunch of blocks, then pushed them together with his bare hands. Guttering ran into other roofs. Buildings leaned into one another. Windows opened against solid walls.
Ruathym had the city sprawl to end all sprawls. Darus had shown Rys the modern day Ahm, but Ruathym dwarfed it by far. Millions lived in Ruathym. Infernals, humans, elves, dragons, elementals, djinn—even angels lived here at this time. Whatever the race, it called this shithole home.
People crept out into the alleyway to stare up at the sky. Behind Rys, the sound of the road came to a halt as snow fell. Workers and traders from all walks of life snuck breaks from their work and dull lives to see the only snow they would ever see.
Rys knew he would see it many more times. But his young self didn’t know this, sitting in this alleyway, rubbing his hands together, and staring up at falling flakes of snow.
The cause of this snow was a duel between the archdevil Kauros and one of Ariel’s pet demon lords. Kauros had used some insane piece of infernal sorcery that altered the climate for half of Gauron.
In the coming months, the marvel regarding the snow would turn to terror and anger. Winter crops would freeze and die, as it wasn’t expected to get this cold in the sub-tropics. Rivers and dams that froze would rapidly melt and flood towns and villages. The railriders broke down, forcing the Empire to upgrade them and reinforce them against extreme temperatures.
Economically, food prices rose drastically. Refugees and homeless flooded cities. Infernals warred with each other and argued in courts. Malusian attacked Kauros, angry that his territory had been impacted. The Infernal Empire filled with war and conflict.
But that was in the future of this dream. Rys enjoyed the falling snowflakes for what they were.
A door opened behind him. A moment later, a steaming hot mug of cocoa hovered near his face. He took it and shot a smile at the woman who gave it to him.
Her face was a blur in this dream. He barely remembered who she was.
What was her name? Nissa? Nima? Nila? Rys only remembered that it had started with a “Ni—” sound and ended with an “—a” sound. The rest was blurry, like so many of his memories of life before Lacrissa reshaped his body.
“It really is snowing,” Nissa said. “You always say that you want to see and do impossible things like this.”
“Some big time infernal or angel must be responsible,” an excited Rys said, his voice low and much younger. He was in his early twenties in the dream. “Maybe one of the other races that some of the devils mention. I can’t imagine ever being able to do this myself.”
Nissa smiled and sat down next to him. She leaned against him and he leaned back.
“Really? I thought you had endless ambition,” Nissa teased. The dream blurred for a moment, as if to signal the passing of time. Noise increased behind them. “There’s so much happening here in Ruathym, Tal. You don’t need to chase it. Settle down with me. Work at my father’s forge full-time instead of just doing piecework for large orders. He could help you get your own forge within a few years.”
Tal. That name was a blast from the past. Nobody called him that anymore. It was either Talarys or Rys.
He drained the dregs of his cocoa. The mug no longer steamed with heat. “That wouldn’t be enough. I just need another year. Then I’ll have enough money to set up my own forge.”
Nissa let out an exasperated sigh. A smile became visible through her blurred face. When Rys had been young, he thought she was forgiving him with that smile. Now he saw the condescension in it.
“Okay, but you’re still going to help us with this next big order, right?” she asked.
Rys nodded, then stood up and slipped back into the blacksmith’s forge. He left the gawking crowd behind him, ignoring the marvel of the falling snow.
The dream shifted. Rys stared down at a huge wooden crate from Nissa’s family forge. Long black pine boxes were stacked wall-to-wall within the crate. Reaching down, Rys cracked open a box.
Inside it was one of his finest longswords, surrounded by finely milled woodchips to protect it from damage. Rys had crafted these only weeks ago. Deftly removing the hilt, Rys saw that his maker’s mark had been crudely removed with magic and replaced with the mark of Nissa’s father.
Fortunately, the buyer had been suspicious. Almost everybody in lower Ruathym knew about Rys’s rune-crafting. The buyer told Rys, and he took extra precautions when he made this batch of longswords.
Over a year had passed. The bitter warfare and conflict within the Infernal Empire had increased the demand for weaponry. That proved beneficial to Rys. Wealthy infernals had flooded the market with cash after agricul
ture began to fail. They lent money to anybody with even the slightest chance of success in the weapons market.
For Rys, that let him start his own forge and get into rune-crafting far faster than he ever expected. Business was flourishing.
But, smitten with Nissa, he had stupidly continued to work for her father’s forge. What kind of idiot helped his competitor for next to nothing?
This idiot. The one staring into a box full of his own weapons, which were being passed off as being forged by somebody else.
Rys’s hands balled into fists. Even now, he felt the rage boiling in his younger self. This had been a harsh lesson in life.
Fortunately, Ruathym had strict rules regarding trade fraud. The infernals that ran the city encouraged people to bend the rules and see what they could get away with, but once caught, the penalties were harsh.
Rys walked out of Nissa’s home a few hours later, his sword and body covered in blood.
A greater demon stood outside. He wore a sergeant’s uniform and held a spiked mace as large as Rys.
The demon gave Rys a grisly grin. “Heh. I always love these cases. Bunch of devils are gonna have a ball tracking down all the fraud and theft over the years.”
Rys stared at the demon, expecting something else to happen. The demon simply continued to grin.
“Some bean counter devil will visit you within a few days to talk numbers. You’ll get back your money.” The demon’s eyes shined. “But I bet you don’t give a shit about that, do you, sir? You already got the most important thing.”
Vengeance. The demon left it unsaid, but they both knew.
That had been the first time an infernal had ever called Rys “sir.”
It had felt damn good.
“—Rys. Rys!” a female voice said. Fara’s.
Rys opened his eyes and sat up in bed. He rolled his shoulders and looked around.
Back in the present day, almost 2000 years after his dream had taken place.
Fara stood just inside the door of his bedroom. Her expression showed concern, and she licked her lips when he looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
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