Oblivion's Crown

by M. H. Johnson

  One of the half-dozen men before them blinked his silver eyes and stepped back, shaking his head.

  Another bristled at Val’s tone. “Who the hell do you think you are? This is Dominicus territory. Unless you have authorized business, I suggest you leave, unless you want us to make more permanent arrangements for you.”

  The other four, however, were gazing hungrily his way. First at Val, then at the bag.

  “The bounty!” one of the men hissed, before blinking in confusion. “But wait, what?”

  “That’s right,” Val said. “I’m here to collect the bounty. One million credits to whoever brings forth Valor Hunter’s head, and I aim to collect on that prize!”

  Rapt eyes gazed at the bag like wolves slavering over a kill.

  The man dressed in an officer’s uniform frowned at his men. “Stand straight!” he snapped, before glaring Val’s way. “Bounty, is it? I seem to recall something...” He shook his head angrily. “But that doesn’t explain who the hell you are.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Julia snapped imperiously, “My Terran servant has secured my property. Unless you wish to interfere in Highlord affairs, I suggest you direct us to the palace immediately.” She flashed a cold smile. “Kentric rewards those who show loyalty and initiative.” Her smirk turned to an ice-cold sneer. “And he has no patience for fools who get in the way!”

  The officer paled, jerking a nod. “I understand, Lady...”

  “Valoria Starfire.”

  The officer blinked and Val suppressed a wince at Julia using the name of one of her characters, but it made perfect sense. Even in game, Valoria was an ice-cold bitch, and that was just the sort of personality they had to embrace if they were going to have a chance in hell of pulling this off. Julia couldn’t just mimic a role. She had to truly embrace her character. And that immersion would make her persona that much more believable. That much more real.

  “Valoria Starfire… I do not recall hearing that name before...”

  The crackling hum of forceshield and Psiblade activated. “You dare to question my clan’s honor, my right to be here? Give challenge or beg for forgiveness, worm. I won’t ask a second time.”

  The officer immediately sunk to the ground, his soldiers quickly following suit. “My deepest apologies, Highlady Valoria Starfire, of course I recognize the name now. It only slipped my mind in the stress of the moment. I will be honored to escort you to the palace straight away!”

  Julia smirked, her crackling Psiblade holstered seconds later. “That will suffice. But keep your lackeys here. We have a war on, and no enemies may be permitted to ambush our chosen. Now what is your name, soldier?”

  “Gillen, my lady,” he whispered. “And you are absolutely correct. Men, keep a sharp eye out, let no one unauthorized pass!” At which point he commandeered a vehicle covered with what Val assumed were military insignias, eyes widening in amazement as Val’s bike abruptly disappeared.

  “Well, drive, fool, we haven’t got all day!” Julia snapped the moment she had seated herself, the flustered soldier doing just that.

  Val flashed a cold smile. Even though he could feel eldritch magics pinning his physical body in place, at least his mind was able to slip free and drift within the darkness and gloom all around.

  Catching the cries of civilians being beaten senseless by hostile troops, tasting the murderous excitement hovering over the city like a foul mist.

  And after a handful of minutes driving through a city half the size of Blackenthorp’s central hub, they found themselves before a palace every bit as grand as Lucius’s own. A full squadron of heavily armed soldiers in full battle armor was there to greet them.

  “Halt and state the nature of your business!” said the foremost guard.

  “Officer Gillen, soldier, on Highlord business. And if you were doing your job, you’d note the insignias on our veli!”

  The armored guard turned his head, taking a close look at the veli before giving a slow nod. “Acknowledged. But what is the nature...” His eyes then fastened onto Val and his words died on his lips, replaced by rapid breathing, fists clenching in sudden strange anticipation.

  Val abruptly held up the sack. “My name is Alex Reaver! Terran adventurer protected by the Accords, in the hire of Highlady Starfire! We’ve come to claim the prize for taking out the threat to our Overlord’s rightful rule! One million credits for the head of Valor Hunter, and his head is before you now!” Val roared, grinning wildly, lifting the gore-soaked bag.

  The fully armored guard gave a strange shake of his head. “So he’s dead. The target… the bounty...”

  Val nodded. “It isn’t pretty, but the bastard’s a corpse now.”

  Val could hear the man’s swallow. “Can I… can I see?”

  Val smirked, slowly, almost ceremoniously bringing forth a head brutally savaged, face sheared off, hair almost completely stripped free.

  But it didn’t matter as intensely powerful Jordian noses sniffed the air almost uncontrollably, hungry tongues licking lips before a dazed expression came over the soldier who had addressed Val directly. He abruptly lurched back. “I… believe you. It smells like him. I don’t know how the hell I know that, but yes, it’s his blood.”

  And Val felt a chill quickly suppressed when all the guards nodded in unison, suddenly not minding a bit the agony he had felt, deliberately tearing open a vein and filling that savaged skull with his blood, the brain somehow soaking it up like a sponge, after drinking a regeneration potion and a litre of water, then pasting his own hair upon the top of his prize. His hunch was paying off. Magic as much as visual recognition was involved in this curse, perhaps far more so. And as far as arcane connections went, that skull was now as much him as it was the remnants of the enemy soldier he had butchered, the skull now filled with his blood, covered with his hair.

  Now, it even smelled like him. At least when he bled.

  Val smirked before sealing the grisly horror away once more, burlap sack still dribbling blood upon the ground.

  The armored officer came to an abrupt decision. “If you will come this way, Highlady Starfire, Highlord Dominicus will want to be informed of this development immediately.”

  Julia smirked, giving an imperious nod. “Of course. Lead the way, soldier.”

  Pivoting on his heels after a fluid bow, the armored guard led the way into the opulent palace, armored boots clanking on pristine marble floors, the walls sparkling in gold and burnished quartz, with magnificent Baroque architectural extravagance visible everywhere from the high arched hallways to the strikingly vivid scenes of domestic life and dueling Highlords depicted in lush, hyperrealistic detail as murals and paintings both.

  The entire palace was an exquisite masterpiece, and Val was so keyed into the moment as scores of soldiers rushed to and fro, endless threats coming and going at all angles, that all he could do was take it one agonizing heartbeat at a time. Julia’s haunted eyes briefly met his own before taking on the derisive sneer reminiscent of the character everyone had loved to hate, once upon a time.

  Val knew that neither of them was likely to make it out of there alive.

  But before his dying breath, Val had every intention of seeing it all crash to the ground.

  4

  “Highlady Starfire and the Terran adventurer Alex Reaver are here to see Highlord Dominicus for the bounty!” the armored soldier breathlessly explained, falling into a bow before the sentinels standing guard in front of a pair of massive ornate doors faced in Altersian crystal, very much like the door that had once guarded the tomb within which Val had once catalyzed his own existence from nothing but quantum flux and his own furious will to live and save the girl by his side even now.

  Who he was risking with this absolute madness.

  Val grinned at the doors before him, his Arcane and Psionic Perception sensing just how heavily reinforced and fortified the entire chamber truly was.

  It was obvious that Dominicus was a paranoid clan. And nothing could suit V
al’s purposes better.

  The pair of guards frowned, silver and gold eyes peering carefully at first Julia, then Val, who quickly bowed, raising his bloody package. “The head of Valor Hunter is in this bag. Smell the truth of his blood!” Val roared like the most arrogant of adventurers. “Now I want my damn bounty!”

  Julia chuckled throatily. “My darling ape is a bit of a savage, but that is what I adore most about him.” Her smile turned to ice as she patted the Psiblade at her hip. “Now unless you dare to give challenge, you will get me His Grace. Now.”

  The pair of heavily armored men frowned, exchanging a quick glance before the leftmost one bowed his head to Julia. “Wait here, honored Highlady. We shall inform Highlord Dominicus of your presence.” At which point the rightmost guard rapped the reinforced door with his armored fists in a staccato fashion that was repeated on the other side before what sounded like levers were manipulated, the massive door ponderously opening as the guard slipped through, and the brief glimpse Val saw on the other side sent shivers down Val’s spine, quickly muted by the icy calm of darkest shadow his mind had fully immersed itself within.

  But plans needed to be changed.

  “Val?”

  “Kentric. Hyperion link.” Val thought back, his eyes giving away nothing as he took a deep breath, carefully retracting the deliciously potent flasks of Elementium laced Silbion he had been slowly slipping into the bag. A certain deadly gift he would leave as inert as the codes of war demanded, realizing his strike would have to be far riskier than he would like. He would have to play by the rules, for all that he would soon be twisting them in ways beyond terrible, but the rules he would abide.

  No blatant use of explosives. Not when his greatest enemy would be looking right at him, finally realizing just how badly Val had played him for a fool, only days before.

  Julia’s widened eyes and tightly clenched jaw made it clear she understood as well.

  They would be going with Plan B. No exothermics here. Formal challenge would be given as they entered a room completely blind to the layout and opposition, and Val could only hope he could cover Julia long and well enough for her to play their deadliest card.

  And the fury he had heard in Kentric’s voice on the massive hyperion screen made it clear the man would settle for nothing less than their heads in pain vats, if Val couldn’t pull off what was coming.

  Then the clang of gears clicking into place once more, as the door slowly opened.

  “My lord will see you now, Highlady Starfire,” the guard said breathlessly. “Please, come right this way.”

  Val flashed a cocky grin at the stiffly saluting door guard as his partner ushered them in, two other guards discreetly closing and sealing the reinforced vault door behind them, a shiny chrome wheel quickly spun as massive bolts locked shut.

  Val allowed himself an icy smile. His pounding heart and stomach-churning dread at the danger he was about to embrace transforming to cold exhilaration as he quickly took in the layout of the room.

  Fifteen guards. All of them wearing full body armor, armed with blaster carbines. Three stood guard before the doors. Eight stood at full attention at the end of the plush red carpet Val and Julia were being escorted along by four more guards who were far more focused on standing at attention, faces forward as an escort, than eyeing Val or Julia. If anything, they went out of their way to avoid the mercurial Highlady’s gaze.

  Val also noted what appeared to be a pair of servants dressed in white, heads deferentially bowed, managing several tables laid out with various delicacies upon plates of crystal, and what looked to be pitchers of sangria even now being carefully poured into goblets of gold.

  Kneeling before the throne, heads demurely lowered, were three exquisitely beautiful women dressed in nothing more than rubies and strands of pearls, their endowments as bold as their expressions were chaste. Hair of ivory, ebony, and gold distinguished the otherwise identical-looking trio, a further pair of what Val suspected were pleasure maidens were playing a lute and mandolin by a four-poster bed, as luxurious-looking as it was massive, in one corner of the grand throne room. Val thought the layout a bit odd for its lack of privacy, but of course it was logical. A Highlord could quite comfortably live in a single secured throne room with guards able to keep an eye on everything in the grandly decorated but sparsely furnished chamber such that any attacker would be immediately apparent, and quickly dealt with. And propriety was something Val already knew that Highlords were utterly lacking.

  And just behind the trio of plush-looking chairs of leather and gold-inlaid wood was what Val took to be the communication and perhaps entertainment center, though no technician was present now, the massive hyperion screen filled with the image of would-be Overlord Kentric castigating a pair of similarly dressed Highlords, each of them wearing silver mesh armor very similar to what Julia wore at that very moment. There was also the telltale glimmer of force fields surrounding both men, Psiblades and forceshields on their hips. Paranoid didn’t even begin to cover it. And a coldly smiling Val didn’t blame them a bit.

  “Your brother was a fool to lose thirty battle-mechs and over twenty thousand troops to a single minor territory!” Hot red eyes glared from the screen. “He lost to an upstart Terran who dares claim the Path of Shadow! Worse, far worse… the fool thought I was unaware of his perfidities.” Kentric's thin lips widened to show massive teeth the color of lead. “He had the arrogance to think that I was unaware of his dreams of duplicity. Dreams which mercurial fate alone spared him from savoring the bitter fruit that his treacherous designs would have brought him! It would be best if you did not disappoint me like your brother did, Vidar.”

  “No, Overlord Kentric,” the taller of the pair of Highlords hastily assured as the second turned around, gesturing imperiously at the guards leading Val and Julia forward, as if urging them to greater haste.

  The quartet of guards picked up their ceremonial pace. Slightly.

  “I am your loyal man, through and through! And with time, as my blood sings with the memory and potency of my fallen brother, as his gifts become my own, I too shall serve you just as he did, forging gates that will unite our world as never before! Assuring your unquestioned tactical might.” The man stood up straighter, boldly gazing back at Kentric. “For I have faith that my brother sadly lacked. Faith that the future king of Jordia will reward those who dare to unite the entire world under your banner with prizes worthy of the boon offered in turn! Now let me present to you the first of many feats proving the worth of my clan! By the power of the Path I walk, I bring to you the head of our enemy, the thorn in our side. The head of Valor Dauda Hunter, the Terran who dares to walk the Path of Shadow!”

  Val felt strangely chilled. How the hell did they know that much about him? Pushing it aside. Focusing only on the peril before him, the plan he was desperate to make work.

  And that was when Val spotted her. The plainly uniformed woman with features so bland Val never would have paid her any mind in a crowd, who seemed to blend perfectly in the background behind Kentric.

  Dauda. She had to be.

  And Kentric’s hot gaze instantly pivoted towards Julia and Val as they got within fifteen feet, Vidar and his brother also turning to face them. Two pairs of cold, silver eyes under heavy brows gazing intently at the bag Val immediately raised high, dripping blood upon the gold-veined marble floor. The brothers were as hard-featured and lacking of grace or beauty as any Highlord or Jordian that Val had seen since arriving, but they radiated a deadly potency that no doubt garnered a certain type of admiration.

  Val smiled at the display, having pulled away from Julia’s increasingly tense, silent queries, sheathing his mind in ice even as his body was pinned by every guard present and the pair of Highlords gazing at him with a feral intensity just a heartbeat away from savage hunger. And Julia already understood through the spirit link what their next move had to be.

  “I bring before you the head of your enemy!” Val roared, lifting up the sa
ck. “One Valor Hunter, his head claimed by me! Your greatest foe is now here before you, his territories defenseless before your might!”

  Vidar’s eyes lit up as his nostrils widened, a glorious smile transforming heavy features to something almost approaching handsome. “Indeed it is, I can smell the truth of it!” He chuckled. “Did I not tell you, Overlord, the power of the Path I now walk? This is but the first of many feats of triumph I shall perform for you!”

  So many gazes, locked upon that bag. It was all Val could do to hold on to Shadowmind so ephemeral it guarded his thoughts alone, mind and body both now vulnerable to the attacks of others, thanks to the vile curse he endured.

  Kentric’s hot eyes narrowed. “I know you. You’re the one who claimed Calvar’s whores. The Terran who swore to bring recruits under my banner!"

  Val grinned, giving the monitor a quick bow. “Indeed! And before you I have a prize grander than any recruited gamer. At the behest of my patron Highlady Starfire, I present to you the head of the man who destroyed your forces and rubbed your faces in it. I am guessing this prize is worth considerably more than any Earth-bound player!”

  Kentric chuckled softly. “Ah, you do know how to play this game after all, Terran. Well done. Well done indeed.” He tilted his head, a puzzled frown strangely out of place upon his fearsome features. “And you do not seem to be affected by the...hunger affecting everyone else under the curse. No doubt thanks to your being here only in spirit.”

  Val’s smile grew. “That’s right. I know the bounty offered is mere delusion. I explained that to Lady Starfire. Just like I explained that the rewards you offered loyal followers more than make up for it.”

  “It had better be worth more than the million these deluded fools keep muttering,” Julia snapped. “I went through far too much coin and trouble setting up the ambush needed to take this annoyance out! The unmitigated gall of it. A Terran actually daring the throne!”

  Kentric’s hard smile only grew as Val shoved past the glaring row of guardsmen while Julia hung back. Intimidation check: success! The guards dared nothing save clenching their blasters and scowling as Val solemnly handed the bag to a now near-hyperventilating Vidar who closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as he inhaled the pungent tang of Val’s coagulating blood. “Yes. It is his blood. I can smell it!”