Dangalf dripped wax on the corners of the cards to hold them down against the breeze. And so they waited. And winds whipped around them sounding like the whispers of the dead, and the dead whispered like the sounding of the wind, and so ironically the Keepers worried when the winds blew and relaxed when the dead spoke. The candles burned through a third of their life, but that said more about the quality of the candles than it did about how long they waited. An especially gusty whisper blew out their candles, and they were in a darkness made even more black by the memory of the candles. When Dangalf relit the first candle, another party had joined them sitting at the table. She was a delicate-looking girl on the cusp of womanhood. She wore a red hood and cape with a white blouse. But even her girlish appearance was so startling in its suddenness as to momentarily terrify all of them. Even Dangalf, who thought he knew what he was doing, knocked over the unlit candles. He righted them and lit them quickly. She removed her hood to reveal braided blond locks. She had pouty red lips and blue eyes wide with innocence. None of the Keepers yet dared speak, so it was up to Red Riding Hood.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the Blackened Grove,” said Dangalf. “Not far from Templa Taur.”
“Yes,” said Red. “I remember being brought to the elven lands. What happened? Where is my mother!”
“You don’t know?” asked Ashlyn gently.
“I remember the men coming. They were dressed as knights, but they attacked us.”
“The Witchfinder General,” said Dangalf. “There was a great massacre on this spot.”
“I remember him,” said Red, growing more anxious. “They said they were Templars, but they were murderers. We were just women and children.”
“Were you a witch?” asked Ashlyn.
“I am only a child,” she said, weeping. “My mother is a naturalist. We were humans who wanted to live as the elves do.” Dangalf remembered the divination deck and began to lay out cards as she spoke. “We were not witches anymore than you druids are.” She looked about curiously. “Where is my mother?” Ashlyn looked to Dangalf, but he was flipping his cards. “How long have I been asleep?” It was an uncomfortable silence for the others. And Dangalf was just playing with his cards.
When he did speak, it was not what anyone wanted to hear from him. But it was as he read in the cards, and he spoke it, surprising himself as well as the others. “You’re lying,” said Dangalf.
“Sire?” said the girl through a sorrow-choked throat.
“Dangalf!” said Ashlyn.
“You know you’re dead,” he continued to read his cards. “You play at deceit. It must be very boring to have died so young and to be trapped on this desolate circle of ash with no playmates.”
“Please,” cried Red. “Help me find my mother!”
“You are daevayasna,” Dangalf said while reading his cards. “Demon worshiper. Necromancer. You have made blood sacrifices.” Dangalf paused over one especially troubling card before looking at Red. “You have sacrificed sapiens.” Red shot him a wicked look that none thought this innocent face was capable of before seeing it. “Show us your true face,” commanded Dangalf as he laid the Looking Glass card before her. And then she showed her true form, and it was that of a black, charred skeleton with just enough flesh attached to indicate a very violent and painful death. The black flesh glowed red in spots like burning charcoal. And she screamed the sound of the tortured deaths of a legion, and all before her were frightened so that their lizard brains took over and commanded fight or flight. Doppelganger stood up and readied his axe. Nerdraaage unappeared with his daggers ready. Ashlyn morphed and retreated, climbing as high as she could on a charred and branchless tree. Only Dangalf was able to react from the bigger and comfortably appointed part of the sapien brain. Before the séance he had readied his repair dwarves, and now they emptied barrels of white bile into the river of his blood to keep Dangalf phlegmatic. And so he sat there impassively, holding his cards against her wind, until she finished screaming.
“You cannot harm us,” challenged Dangalf. “Bellow your cacophony, release your foul odors, vomit your sickening bile…” And with that Red unleashed a torrent of ectoplasmic bile into Dangalf’s face. He had time only to close his eyes before he was covered in an unctuous and stinking soup of bile. He wiped the vile liquid and even viler squishy bits from his hands and face. “I guess I should have expected that,” he sighed. The others returned cautiously to their seats.
Red laughed like a schoolgirl juxtaposed against her grisly appearance. “What are your names?” she asked.
“Don’t tell her!” shouted Dangalf.
“But I know your name,” she said with a broad smile that caused charred skin to crumble from where her face creased. “Dangalf.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ashlyn.
“It’s not your fault,” said Dangalf, wiping out bile that had somehow splashed into his ear. “I didn’t mention it. I didn’t think my séance was going to be such a rousing success.”
Red looked at Ashlyn jealously. “She is your beloved, Dangalf?”
“No,” said Ashlyn quickly. She didn’t have to deny it that quickly, thought Dangalf.
“Righteous you play at but it was men just like you who drowned me and hanged me and finally burned me!”
“It was a triple killing,” said Dangalf academically. “Customary for killing witches. And your presence tonight suggests even this was not entirely successful.”
“Do you think me pretty, Dangalf?” she asked gently. “Before, when you saw my original self?”
“We are not here to answer your questions, witch,” he said. “You are here to answer ours.”
“I require a blood sacrifice.”
“We will not kill to satisfy your blood lust,” said Dangalf.
“Just a little something,” she pleaded. “A coney. A field mouse. A leach ripe with human blood.”
“No.”
“I require an offering!” she shouted supernaturally. And then quietly: “A prick of your finger, Dangalf. So that I may have just a taste.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” said Dangalf. “My name and my blood.”
“Yes,” said Red, smiling and crumbling some more.
“This is your offering,” said Dangalf setting a balled cloth on the table and unwrapping it. It was the ring taken from the troll necromancer slain by Icil. Doppelganger was perturbed. Dangalf had not mentioned keeping the ring. What other secrets was the conjurer hiding? Why were they even here at this wicked place with this foul creature? How deeply had Dangalf delved into the Black School?
Red’s eyes widened. She knew this was the ring of a great troll necromancer, and she wanted it. “I will answer you one question,” she offered.
“Three,” said Dangalf.
“Very well,” she said. “Two questions.”
“Three,” insisted Dangalf. Red hissed at him. Curse him, she thought. This black dilettante knew that she was compelled to answer one of his three questions truthfully. But perhaps she could still deceive him.
“What are your questions!” she shouted. She remained angry so as to let him believe he had outwitted her.
Dangalf hesitated. Perhaps he should have thought this out beforehand. Honestly, he had not expected to get this far. “Who summoned us to this world?” he asked.
“Your summoner can be followed by the footprints he leaves beneath the waves,” said Red. Dangalf turned a card. It was the Dagger.
“What does that mean?” asked Nerdraaage.
“Treachery,” said Dangalf. “She is lying. I ask you again, who summoned us to this world.”
“Your summoner no longer lives,” said Red. Dangalf turned another card. The Scrivener.
“Now she tells the truth,” said Dangalf.
“Our summoner is dead?” asked Nerdraaage.
“I think her answer was pretty clear,” said Dangalf dejectedly. “And the Scrivener card couldn’t be a more reliable sign that she is te
lling the truth.”
“Why would she say he is not alive?” asked Ashlyn. “I mean instead of saying he’s dead.” Red remained with the same look of distaste she had on her face when the questioning began.
“There are many ways to say the same thing,” said Dangalf.
“Yeah,” agreed Nerdraaage. “Everyone here talks like they’re writing a poem.”
“Ask her another question,” said Ashlyn. “You have one more, right?”
“It wouldn’t matter,” said Dangalf. “She has given us her truthful answer.”
“Isn’t there anything we can learn from an untruthful answer?” asked Ashlyn.
Dangalf understood finally. A yes-or-no question at this point would give them a truthful answer when Red’s answer was reversed. “Is our summoner dead?”
“No,” said Red.
“Which means ‘yes,’” said Dangalf. “When her untruthful answer is reversed. Whoever summoned us to this world is dead. And they may have taken the secret of our purpose with them.”
“You didn’t turn over a card,” said Ashlyn. Red held her ashen tongue, but it was all she could do to not vomit on the she-elf.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dangalf. “She has given her truthful answer and confirmed it with her final lie.” Ashlyn stood and turned over the next card. It was the sword. Another weapon, but not like the dagger. It was the weapon of truth and justice and divine appointment.
“She told the truth,” said Dangalf. “She was compelled to tell the truth once but she did it twice to deceive me. And it almost worked had it not been for you,” he said humbly to Ashlyn.
“Stupid bitch,” hissed Red. She vomited her remaining bile up, but it was not enough to project at the she-elf and instead dribbled down her own chin. Dangalf was impressed. Clearly Ashlyn had an impressive intellect even if not a full ectomorph.
“Our summoner is not dead and he’s not alive?” asked Nerdraaage. “What does that mean?”
“He is a lich,” said Dangalf.
“Undead,” said Nerdraaage solemnly.
“You have your answers,” screeched Red. “Now give me my ring!”
“Don’t give it to her,” said Doppelganger. “We have our answers. Let her rot. We can still sell it.”
“No,” said Dangalf. “We are righteous. Lawful good. Only trouble can come from misdeeds. Even against a wretch such as this.”
“Put it on my finger,” she said raising her left hand. Dangalf picked up the ring and stood to reach across the table. He slid it on her digit gingerly hoping that her finger would not crumble away during the process. “Dangalf,” she crumble-smiled. “My betrothed!”
“Go back from whence you came,” pronounced Dangalf, and as he did so he slapped down the Graveyard card to compel her. But it was in fact not the Graveyard card that appeared on the table but the Black Wedding card. He started fanning through the deck for the Graveyard card. He should have known things had gone too smoothly.
“Yes, Dangalf,” said Red. “I will be your black bride!” She rose and limped one-footed around the table toward Dangalf.
“Let’s just go,” said Dangalf to the others as he scooped up his cards.
“Don’t you have to complete the ceremony?” asked Ashlyn.
“Ceremony’s over,” said Dangalf. “Let’s go.”
Dangalf hustled off the way they had entered Blackened Grove, and the others followed. “She’s still following us,” said Nerdraaage.
“Just ignore her!”
“We shall be together forever until death do us join,” Red called after Dangalf.
Dangalf stopped outside the border of the Blackened Grove and caught his breath. “Don’t worry,” said Dangalf. “She will not be able to leave her ashen domain.”
“You will never walk alone, dearest Dangalf,” said Red as she left her ashen domain.
“I’ve had enough of this,” said Doppelganger. He charged the burnt corpse and hacked it to pieces until it could no longer walk. And then he hacked it to smaller pieces until it could no longer call to Dangalf. And then just as Dangalf sighed in relief, she rematerialized as Red Riding Hood but this time wearing a blood-red wedding dress and carrying a bouquet of black roses. Doppelganger swiped through her with his axe, but she was only a specter and immune to his worldly axe.
“You gave me your ring and name, Dangalf,” said Red. “We are bound forever.” And she floated toward him.
“Okay, run,” said Dangalf. They all ran until Red could no longer be seen or heard. And they kept running. And Dangalf being the least mesomorphic felt as though he would die from exhaustion, but he kept on because he had the most reason to run. And they kept running all the way back to Templa Taur.
When they returned to the safety of the town in the trees, they all climbed into their respective beds just as light was coming up. All except for Ashlyn, who said she had to go to training. Dangalf felt bad and suggested she could miss one day of training, but she insisted she was fine. She had run all the way back to town in tyger form and had used only a fraction of the energy that the others had.
They discussed briefly their new knowledge that their summoner was a lich. And apparently a lich with free will. These were some of the most rare and powerful monsters in the game. They possessed both the secrets of the grave and the strength of those who felt no pain or fatigue. If the Keepers did not know before that they faced a formidable foe, they now knew it with certainty.
LXXV
They entered without the clanking and squealing that should accompany the opening of the dungeon’s ancient door. In fact, to the untrained eye, it would appear that they entered the dungeon without opening the door at all. But then that illusion came easily to the assassins. Troll sisters who moved as one. The sister assassins were so inseparable that the sages of Vinland kept only one book on them.
The she-trolls saw the new sign in large Acadish letters that read, “Welcome to the Dungeon.” They understood it was motivated by this human foible called “humor.” In Trollish, humor referred only to the bodily fluids that dictated temperament. Likewise they had no word for laughter, the closest being hasa, the involuntary sound and shudder that overcame one after seeing another wounded or killed in an especially dishonorable way. And smile? Well that in Trollish was a cut of the throat that ran from ear to ear.
The she-trolls were drawn breathlessly to the screams, which had now ended and were replaced with the sound of feasting. It pleased them to see their master eat. They had been drawn irresistibly to him since he first confided in them his true nature. So seduced had they been that they allied with him to imprison their own mistress while he ascended to her throne. “Get out!” he bellowed at them angrily when he saw them.
“We have done as you commanded,” said a sister.
“I will have your heads!” he shouted, and they were gone as quickly and quietly as they had entered. His anger at them was a reflection of his own shame at what he had become. Nothing drove that point home more than when he fed. He had become a loathsome creature. But lichs did not generate protoplasm and had to get it secondhand. And there was no source riper with that than living brains. He had made himself a lich willingly and not without purpose. The path to divinity, the ancient grimoire had promised.
LXXVI
The she-trolls approached their master again as he sat on his throne, only months before vacated unwillingly by their former mistress. They crawled across the expansive floor to his place, but they were blackguards and trolls and they covered the distance quickly. They kept their eyes averted and hoped that this sign of subservience would please him. They both knew that he would kill them without hesitation, and that excited them. There was so little left in this world for them to fear.
They stopped before him, and one chanced a glance at him. He looked down on her sternly, but their subservience did please him, and he smiled. He had washed his face after his meal, but his teeth were still stained crimson. She nodded excitedly, and the other dared look
. They flicked their forked tongues gratefully at being back in his good graces.
The armored lich stepped to the first she-troll and brought his sword down across her chest. Even her blackguard reflexes were not quick enough to avert the blow. But it was clearly not his intention to kill her and only her leather tunic was separated. Exposed now was a strange bloody wound between her blue breasts heaving with excited breaths. He turned to her sister and tore open her tunic. She also bore the mark, the wound that would never heal: a scarlet letter in the shape of a unicorn bloodrune.
He spoke to them in their own language. He had split his tongue at the tip so that he could speak even the ancient Trollish words. This self-mutilation was not an extravagant commitment. After all he could no longer feel pain, and if he wanted it whole again, he needed only to sew it up. “You have done something that not even I can protect you from.”
“You will take us to Oceania,” said a sister. “Where we will all be reborn of the flesh.”
“Perhaps,” he said. And then, “What of Princess Dymphna?”
“She had a Templar with her,” hissed the other. He understood what that meant.
“Bring in Kaldmunnr,” he said.
Kaldmunnr entered as the she-trolls held open the throne room doors for him. He could not see if they meant to kill him. Fear was clouding his vision. It had for some time. He wished he had never taken on his new master. The goblins had paid him well enough, and he knew he would have lived long in their service if not richly. He saw the lich sitting in Gykoja’s throne. There was not even the pretense anymore that he was doing her bidding! Certainly the royal seers must have seen this and informed the queen of this affront. As Kaldmunnr approached his master, the she-trolls unappeared. He could not tell if they had left the room, only that he could not see them.
“Come,” said the master, rising and taking a lone cup from a nearby tray. “Drink.”
The troll picked up his robes and walked quickly toward the lich. He nodded as he took the cup. “Will you not join me, sire?”
“I,” hesitated the lich. “I eat and drink only in solitude. Drink up. I would not kill you with poison.” The troll took a drink. It was warm and unpleasant, but it was not poison. “You said Princess Dymphna would be without guard. Perhaps with a guard of low rank. She was instead escorted by her Templar.”
Cronica Acadia Page 28
