Shadow Kingdom

by N. A. Oberheide

  He looked over briefly back in front of him, but the Crimson Guard was nowhere to be seen. Just then he felt the boulder of a hand let off his should and he stood up, wheeling around to get a better look at the man. He felt his face flush and instinctively snapped off a salute.

  “Your Highness? Reporting for duty?” Naurus squeaked, barely able to stop himself from shaking.

  The man threw his head back and laughed deeply, the bellowing laugh echoing throughout the hall and shimmering the iridescent hues of his kaftan with every shake. Naurus froze in place, unsure what to do but keep saluting.

  “Such a shame they don’t teach you how to address royalty these days, isn’t it?” The statuesque man continued. “You aren’t supposed to salute someone who isn’t active service. At ease, sailor.”

  Naurus obeyed. “So....you are the Immortal King, yes?” He winced at what he though was a stupid question.

  “Well, in a way yes. You could say I’m his public facing side.”

  “....what?” Naurus rubbed his forehead in confusion and nervousness.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am the left hand of the King. I am the hand that knocks. I am the spark that lets you know your left from your right. I am the forces unknown that observe your actions. I am blood, soil, and iron. You however may call me Lucht.”

  “Yes sire! So uh...where is Recht?”

  “He isn’t here. You are meeting me in his stead.”

  “Ok then. What is this all about? I don’t get what the King or his inner circle could possibly want with me?” Naurus tried his hardest to keep his voice from quavering. Lucht shifted and leaned against the throne.

  “You’ve had quite a busy life recently, and that bruise on your cheek is only the icing on the cake. This is indeed about your father and what he owes me. As Recht has informed you, the sins of your father must be paid out by his own kin, a debt paid in blood. Come, let’s go discuss this somewhere less stuffy.”

  Lucht took a long, graceful step towards Naurus who had no time to react before his massive, heavy hand found his shoulder. Vertigo struck instantly, his head felt like it was about to spin off. He felt himself flop onto the cold, stone floor and did his usual routine of closing his eyes and breathing heavily to stave off the nausea. When he opened his eyes, he realized he wasn’t on the floor, but in fact leaned up against a wall. Lucht looked at him with an impeccable smile.

  “Can we...” Naurus fought off a dry heave. “Stop doing that? Teleporting makes me so sick.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Come, stand with me.”

  Naurus looked around and realized he was on a large balcony that overlooked the courtyard and jutted out form the roof of the keep he was just in. The view was simply breathtaking. The bay to the southwest shimmered in its brilliant aquamarine hue as the sun bounced his abundant light off the waters that never stilled. Even down off to the south, Naurus could make out the smoke stacks of the foundry huffing and puffing away, black sooty smoke tracing its trail every slowly into the sky. He leaned against the polished granite balustrade and forgot for a moment he was in very important company.

  “All the lands before you, for as far as your bare eyes can see is in my charge. And it was equally so for the first five hundred years of my uninterrupted reign.”

  Naurus looked at him, and his profile was nothing short of regal indeed.

  “I hear tell you are quite the bookworm, but now it's time for a history lesson that you would have never been able to read anywhere. You look at me with befuddlement but listen closely. When my reign started, we were but a simple society subsisting on fishing and farming. I simply outlived anyone who tried to get next in line to the throne, so over time I came to be known as the Immortal King. Eventually, we made contact with the Ostragan peoples when they sailed some ships into the bay and it turned into a very fruitful trading alliance. Eventually, we grew stronger and advanced our technology greatly when their dwarven prospectors found veins of untold amounts of ores, both precious and mundane. I eventually befriended their government, which resulted in a series of events that formed the Astranian Empire when they accepted being an independent protectorate under my wing. This was the start of bad blood though, as initially they wanted equal representation under a new name: The Ostro-Astranian Empire. I refused, and given the trade deficits and their greed in wanting access to my ores, they eventually rescinded. This was, however, peaceful for hundreds of years. Elves, dwarves, and man co-existed peacefully and without much fuss. At first miscegenation was frowned upon but it continued to happen and the children born of those pairings found they didn’t fully identify with either of their parent races. They only identified with each other, and these communities grew larger and eventually intermingled into one larger umbrella. They eventually called themselves the Transcendents, and not without good reason.”

  “What's that reason? My commodore is one of them and she is so hush-hush!”

  Lucht chuckled then continued. “Well you see they discovered eugenics, and with this they realized they could selectively breed out bad genetics and only pass on that which resulted in better strength and intelligence. What was realized later is that their connection to magicka hadn’t been diluted by the miscegenation as first thought, and they indeed saw themselves as above any of the other races because of their amoral approach to strengthening their own kind. This, however, caused much friction as other races bridled with jealousy at their imagined usurpation. The Transcendents had no will or motivation to try to rule over others, but greed and envy won out at the end of the day. This indeed is what let to my temporary exile.”

  “What do you mean? I thought only you were strong enough to lead all these people?” Naurus scratched his head.

  “So you would think. So I thought as well. But this all changed when one day I was tending my courtyard garden and suddenly in walked a man flanked with a heavily armed contingent. The man was middle-aged but quite imposing. He introduced himself as Xomus, a native of Ostragan and served me with an ultimatum. He apparently was an elected official serving on behalf of the Ostragan diaspora, but I never was able to verify that.”

  “Why didn’t you just have your own guard handle them? That’s treason!”

  After a deep sigh that shimmered his kaftan in the sunlight, Lucht looked over the expanse below and went on. “You may not believe this, but I was naïve back then. I wanted to be loved, not feared. I went to such great lengths to be loved that I never even considered someone wanting to stage a coup against me. That day came when I was least expecting it. Of course, I told Xomus that he had no right to my throne, but he simply replied that he would bury me where I stood if I didn’t comply. I wanted no bloodshed, and I certainly didn’t want to start a civil war. I left and was exiled for a hundred years, and in that time Xomus and his son Caemon ruled with an iron fist, earning the moniker of the Two Tyrants. Caemon eventually bit off more than he could chew. He grew drunk with power and started helping himself to the property and the women of his constituents, being so arrogant as to forgo having his bodyguard with him. Rumor has it that a mob beat him, took him out to sea, and stuffed him into a sack with a snake, a dog, and a chicken and threw him to the depths below. Xomus holed up in this here fortress, mad with grief and swore horrible vengeance on those responsible. He became utterly blinded by his focus on revenge and dabbled in dark necromancy. That’s when the winds of change blew once again, and I made my plans to come back.”

  “How did you know about all this? Weren’t you stuck somewhere far away and completely isolated?” Naurus asked in confusion.

  “Well you see, they didn’t think through their plans of exiling me very well. They dumped me off in a scrap wood raft barely a day’s sail past The Rock and expected me to flounder and die most likely. Of course, they failed to take into account the fact that I could fly, so I gingerly made my way back to The Rock and assumed a disguise to blend into the local populace. I was nothing more than a simple fishmonger there, but all the sailors
and traders brought plenty of gossip and news from home, and that’s where it all started—”

  “You can fly? Show me! That sounds cool!” Naurus butted in.

  Lucht shot sapphire daggers through his young guest, who quickly lost his excitement.

  “Patience, young man. This is important. You see I put out feelers about what people felt about the rightful King in his exile and what would happen if he came back. Everyone seemed to be impatient for that day to come with how oppressive the Two Tyrants had been. So, I gave the people what they wanted. I made my way back to my rightful home and found Xomus standing in the garden making a sad attempt at horticulture. Xomus was old but not decrepit, having used dark magicks called the School of Deaths Door to artificially extend his life. I endeavored to cut that short. I became a ruler to be feared, instead of loved. I buried him where he stood, and that spot where he is buried remains bald to this day, having been utterly destroyed by the dark magick that infused his body.”

  Naurus looked at him, now unsure of what to say.

  “I see that glint in your strange red eyes, mutated by genetics and inherited trauma. Indeed, I know about your father and what happened in Walsvern Woods. It was an ugly time, but everything happens for a reason. It all started with me, as I became a ruler people feared. The iron fist in a velvet glove. It is better to be feared than loved as a ruler. Both in equal measure are an impossible ideal. You see, when I came back I had quite the mess to clean up. The dwarven clans had pooled their money and resources into a syndicate called the Apel-Lorran Combine. This was a powerful syndicate that exerted a monopoly on raw ores, the foundries and workshops that refined them. All this with the aim to beat other races into submission by strangling their purses without any recourse. This worked, for a time. Soon though, elves and humans started race riots, and the Transcendents simply sat it out without comment. This is where your father comes into the equation.”

  “What did he do? He hasn’t told me anything!”

  “I’m not surprised, and here’s why. At that point, he was my right-hand man. He personally witnessed the regicide I committed as he was just about to report back to Xomus on important intelligence he gathered, but instead of stepping in he thanked me and swore his allegiance back to me. Xomus was using him for underhanded tasks such as subterfuge and snuffing out political dissent. Changelings are incredibly useful spies and agents. No need to look at me like that, he hated it and only did it because the money was right. However, I had a different plan for him. We brainstormed, and he pointed out that the other side of the mountains was open land just ready to be settled. So, we decided to hatch a plan to move the dwarves out there under the pretense that they could have all the land and resources they wanted over there without any bother from us. This was difficult to pull off in actuality, as blood poured in the streets and open gang warfare was the norm with the racial tension that poured out in the riots. Dwarves versus the other races, it simply threatened to tear our empire apart. However, your father was able to hunt down the cabal at the top of the Combine and make them an offer they couldn’t refuse. We bribed them and promised safe passage and all, and I put your father in charge of their migration through the Iron Valley. This was all going smoothly, until they were ushered through Walsvern Woods. In there, the Black Door operatives and civilian gangs lay in wait. The riots had ended, but instead they exploded into a pogrom. Nobody was safe. Women, clutching their babes to their breasts, where cut down and shot through all the same. Very few survived, but I know some did as news of this eventually made its way back to Ostragan.”

  “Wait, you’re saying my own father ordered a pogrom? How could he—”

  “Well no it’s not that simple.” Lucht cut him off. “Your father wasn’t actually present when the massacre started. He was in a meeting with Recht about details of this independent dwarven state. He trusted his underlings to be able to handle this task, but unbeknownst to him they had different plans. Your father came up through the Iron Valley expecting to see a peaceful migration, but instead was greeted with the din of a pogrom and pandemonium breaking out in the woods. Your father rushed in to try to stop this, but instead was only able to catch a dying young dwarf in his arms and watch powerlessly as she bled out. That wasn’t the worst of it though. You see the dwarves had a de facto leader, a hexer by the name of Aydym Ironstone. He was felled in the center of the clearing, and the spot where he fell is marked by that cursed sword which hexed you so. Aydym’s dying curse made the woods a living, breathing revenant that strikes vengeance upon all non-dwarves who are foolish enough to venture in there. And this curse affected your father too. Between the trauma of what he saw and the curse severing most of his connection to magicka, he was never the same man. His rage and sorrow were directed at Recht, and the accusations flew like the arrows and bullets that took thousands of lives out there. Your father resigned from his position shortly after, and when the word of the pogrom reached Ostragan the empire sundered from within and the Separation War started. Ever since then your father has occupied his time beating, robbing, and even killing those he believes are responsible for what happened going so far as to revisit his vengeance upon their families. Could I stop him forcefully? Sure I could. But, more often than not, he’s taking out the trash for me thus helping me inadvertently.”

  “So…” Naurus was having trouble processing this information and keeping his composure. “What does this have to do with me? Why am I here?”

  “Straight to the point, I like it.” The impeccable smile eased the tension. “You display many qualities that made your father such an asset to the empire. Don’t make faces, I’ll explain. For one, you have an inborn resistance to ill effects of magicka, owing to your father’s changeling nature. If you didn’t, then the teleportation you did to get here would likely have killed you. Also, only you have the power to help you father find peace with the past. You are his blood after all, no one else can claim that. It may not make any sense to you now, but it will. You see, I have decided to develop your talents into something greater. War is on the horizon. Ostragan wants what she claims as her rightful clay, and scouting parties are reporting ships massing and heading this direction. You will have to take the fight to them, but only after we defend our homeland. My coffers are running dry because of this blockade, and unorthodox tactics are necessary in these trying times.”

  “W-What do you mean? I can’t single handedly fight an entire nation!” Naurus was flustered now.

  “Of course you can’t! This is exactly why I have enlisted some help for you. I heard of what happened in your first action at sea. Every time an officer is harmed by a subordinate, a report is made and I just happened to read yours since it was a rather unusual case which I caught wind of in a meeting with top brass. I’m impressed by what she said about you and in fact has recommended you for promotion. Morra has taken a shine to you, and I can see why now that you are standing here. In fact, I have a little surprise for you.” Lucht clacked his boot heel against the ground twice in rapid succession.

  Naurus heard nothing for a few moments, but then heard rhythmic footfalls rapidly approaching from behind him. He wheeled around and was completely caught off guard. Morra was there, in the flesh and blood walking towards them from the doorway behind her. She wanted to be heard. As usual, her silky gait looked as if she was walking through water. What was most impressive was her uniform though. Her verdant hair was mostly covered by a beaver fur shako adorned with a rosette and a peacock feather. Her black linen tunic was adorned by twin rows of brass buttons that would have popped off like bullets had they been any tighter across her chest. A blood red sash with a thin black belt over it demarcated her waist which ended in black calfskin pants tucked into leather jackboots. Naurus snapped to a salute automatically as she looked him over. Her face was much better off than last time he saw her, with most of her features returning to normal. Faint dark circles still haloed her eyes and the color therein was still not quite right, the violet rims on
her eyes burning like such a flame.

  “At ease, sailor.” Her smooth baritone was reassuring and Naurus felt a bit less anxious. “You are quite pale, see a ghost did you?”

  Naurus blushed. “No ma’am! It’s just…I wasn’t expecting you here. And now I’m being told the truth of my life all the while you and he are talking about me and this new mission or something. What’s going on?”

  Morra cracked a mischievous smile. “War is what’s going on. A general mobilization is about to be called up, and after that we have a mission. Looks like you’ve already had a little war of your own, why is there a bruise on your cheek?”

  Naurus rubbed the tender spot on his cheek, completely forgetting about until now. “Oh...uh well we were jumped in an alley when I was following my father. It was nothing really just—”

  “Let me guess, it was Swadil?” Morra interrupted.

  “Yeah well, I didn’t know he’d see us there! Not only does he think I’m a vampyr, now he thinks I’m little more than a common thief skulking in the shadows!”

  Morra and Lucht locked eyes in unison and burst out laughing. Morra’s legato laughter harmonized well with Lucht’s brassy bellowing, leaving Naurus only to ponder what was so funny.

  “Well, you see...” Morra wiped a tear from her eye. “Way back in the day, vampyrs really did look something like you. They were bloodthirsty indeed, but very intelligent and allergic to sunlight all the while. You would never see one before they saw you in the dark of night. In more recent times, much has changed. The last vampyrs people have encountered were far vainer, and much lustier in chasing after women for reasons unknown, fighting each other endlessly for whatever girl caught their fancies. They became much easier to spot, as they had a predilection for going shirtless. They were even said to glitter in the right conditions. It’s just sad how they devolved, but I doubt you’ll encounter one seeing how irrelevant they have become...that is if they are even a real thing.”