“You see, sir, it’s just that you were going to personally lead the sacking of East Upshore, and while I don’t want to suggest that it isn’t going well—”
He was interrupted by the cry of a bannerman outside being violently conscripted into the undead army.
“Because it is going very well,” Ned continued. “But we couldn’t help notice that you’ve ah, recused yourself from the battle. And you know Ted and I respect that there are many styles of leadership, and we didn’t expect you on the front lines, but it was suggested that you might want some say, as to, ah, what we’re doing out here.”
“And what are we doing out here?” Tyren asked, touching the plaque with a skeletal finger. The young woman’s name had faded away, lost to the ages.
“Well, I figured you’d come looking for a snack, which didn’t seem too bad an idea to me, of course.” The ghoul shrugged his shoulders. “But anyone worth eating has already clawed their way to the surface and joined the ranks. Nothing down here but broken bones and grave dust.”
Tyren had stopped listening. “What did she dream of?” he wondered aloud. “Did she want to take up a trade? To travel the world? Would she have had children of her own? What did her death deny her?”
The ghoul’s jaw flapped open and shut like a fish gasping for breath. “I… I… I suppose I couldn’t say, sir.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” murmured Tyren.
Ned’s face lit up as he made a sudden connection. “Ah, but sir! That’s why we’re marching on Andarun, isn’t it? All these poor sods died and that was it. No more hopes and dreams for them. But we came back after we died. It isn’t the end for us.”
“Oh?” asked Tyren. “And what hopes and dreams are you currently pursuing, Ned?”
“Well, I…” Ned stopped and thought for a moment. “I suppose there’s always immortality. Continued existence is always a fundamental drive of any biological organism. Not that we’re strictly biological these days, of course. But beyond that I… I’ve…” the ghoul trailed off with his fangs set in a troubled grimace.
“Is this what you always dreamed of?” Tyren’s voice was bitter and hollow, even for a walking skeleton. “Did you always want to raze Parald, or march on the Freedlands?”
“Not specifically.” Neddard Biggins always ceded as little ground as possible in any debate.
Tyren’s hand curled into a bony fist. “We can do nothing that isn’t the master’s will, and all the liche wills us to do is shackle other people with the same curse that we bear.”
“Whoa, whoa, easy there, sir,” said the ghoul, waving his hands in the air. “These are dangerous thoughts.”
The knight-commander shook his head and stared at the plaque. So young.
For a creature who allegedly spent his existence skulking about crypts, Ned couldn’t endure silence very long. “Besides, sir, there are worse fates than undeath. Remember? You said yourself it isn’t so bad.”
Tyren whirled on the ghoul, arcs of crimson energy crackling across his hands. The plaques on the walls darkened, and shadows like black flames licked stones by his feet. “It isn’t so bad for me!” he snarled. “It isn’t so bad for a drunken, washed up soldier who threw everything away. But not for her! It’s not enough for her!”
Ned’s face screwed up in confusion. “But you aren’t… I mean, sir, you’re a noble hero. You were with us at the walls of Vetchell.”
“Not on purpose,” said Tyren. “I was drunk. I lost my way, and wound up dying. This wasn’t my fight then, and it’s not my fight today.”
“I… I don’t know what to make of that.” Ned’s voice was more of a whisper to himself. “But still, given the—”
“I do not care,” said Tyren, straightening himself. “I want no part of it. Leave me.”
“But sir—”
“I said leave me!” Tyren said it with more force than he intended, but the message was received better than expected. The ghoul went rigid as though affected by the sudden onset of rigor mortis. Without another word, Ned turned and goose-stepped out of the crypt.
Tyren turned back to the grave. A miasma of dark magic emanating from him was corroding away the plaque on the wall, and jagged scorch marks had crept up the stones of the mausoleum and over the grave dust. For a time, he stared at the remains, haunted by his own memories. He saw the many men and women he’d sent to their deaths at the recruitment tables. He saw himself drinking alone in his offices, blithely ignoring the soldiers asking him for help. He saw the fights with his wife, scaring the little girl hiding in the corner. And he saw little Aubey playing on his knee, her tawny curls bouncing around her smile. An ache roiled in the dark cavern where his heart used to be.
Tyren’s mood was as foul as the sludge dripping from his armor by the time another figure cast a shadow through the door of the mausoleum. “Leave me,” he said.
“I think not,” said Detarr Ur’Mayan. “You and I will have a word.”
A piercing chill ran through Tyren, cutting through even the veil of undeath. He remained defiantly silent as the liche floated into the chamber.
“I must admit, I’m surprised that you would be one for treason,” mused Detarr. “I mean, I’ve learned that you can’t trust anyone with all of your secrets. And I certainly suspected Lady Carabae would eventually try to overthrow me. She’s a vampire, after all, and the gods know how much they love their schemes and intrigue.
“But you?” The liche shook his head as he paced in a wide circle around Tyren. “You’ve been instrumental in shaping the movement. You’re a founding figure of the revolution. Our revolution! You’ve been given boundless authority, limitless opportunity. No master of undeath before me has offered any of his subjects such freedom. And you repay me with this defiance?”
In truth, keeping his silence was about as much defiance as Tyren could muster. The same foul sorceries that bound his soul to his remains shackled him in Detarr’s service, and a part of him wanted to bow his head in deference and get back to work.
“I suppose that I should have learned by now to expect this sort of disappointment.” The liche paced around the knight-commander. “I had so much planned for you. For us.”
“More… power and… subjects,” growled Tyren.
“Oh, you have no idea what sorts of power I’m dealing with,” said Detarr. “Nor do you need to. It is enough for you to know that you are making a better world. A world without pain, without struggle, without ending.”
“Without movement… Without achievement. Without joy.” The words were coming easier to Tyren now, his will gaining strength as he exercised it. “You may take away life’s hardships, but you also take away everything that makes it worth living.”
“It’s worth it,” said Detarr.
“Maybe for you or I,” said Tyren. “But is it really what you’d want for your children?”
“Obedience? Conformity? An unshakable constitution?” said Detarr. “Gods, you don’t know how many times I’ve wanted that for my son. And now I’m bringing all that and immortality to him. To all of Arth.”
“Believe what suits you,” said Tyren. “I want no part of it.”
“So that’s where we stand.” From within his flaming skull, Detarr leveled an icy stare at the knight-commander. “You must understand that this would be a very inconvenient time to modify the organizational chart with our upcoming march on Andarun. Plus, you play a pivotal role in our invasion. Most of my troops report to you, and delegating rather than subjugating is the key to my success.”
“I said I’ll have no part in it,” said Tyren.
“No, you said you wanted no part of it. There’s a difference,” said the liche. “Fortunately, I don’t have to use my energies to directly control the entire army. All I need to do is control the one in charge, the one who has put himself at the center of my operations, and the rest of my subjects can still enjoy the benefits of their freedom.”
Fear welled up in Tyren, but he raised his c
hin and looked the liche in the eye sockets. “If dissent is insubordination, if I’m to be shackled for not taking part, are we really free?”
The flames around Detarr’s head boiled and flared. “I suppose not,” he said, pulling the Crown of Iron Thorns from within his robes. “But as it turns out, I can make peace with that.”
Tyren braced himself for the moment the crown touched the liche’s skull, but it was futile. Some deep shred of the knight-commander’s soul screamed, trying to fight the onslaught of the crown’s power. The majority of him, however, felt any such notion washed away in a tide of dark magic. Inwardly writhing in silent torment, Tyren marched out of the mausoleum, through the flaming remains of the town of East Upshore, and to the head of the ranks of skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and ghosts on the road to Andarun.
“It’s to be a siege then. No later than the end of the month.”
Bolbi Baggs made the ominous pronouncement as he stared out the window. His back was to the rest of the ebony and marble office at the top of Goldson Baggs Group’s headquarters on the tenth tier of Andarun. With one hand, he idly signed a document presented to him by some office acolyte or another. In the other, he held an ornate gold spyglass.
“It’s been a siege for days,” barked Fenrir Goldson, without looking up from the paperwork on his desk. “It’s about to be a bloodbath.”
Weaver Ortson stood between the titans of industry with a beleaguered scowl on his face. “You’re talking about different things again,” he sighed with waning patience.
“Not at all, Mr. Ortson. I was just commenting to Mr. Goldson that I can see the smoke from the undead incursion in the southeast.” Mr. Baggs shrugged. “Their arrival will send the stock tumbling.”
“Which is what I was talking about,” said Mr. Goldson. “We’ve been propping our share price up with a few rapid acquisitions, but with the attack on Andarun the threat indexes have gone mad. The investors will be out for blood.”
“So you see, we’re on the same page,” said Baggs. “Although you do worry too much, Mr. Goldson. We have plenty of liquidity.”
“Which is what brings me to your office, gentlemen,” said Ortson.
“This had better not be about paying more for the city’s defense,” said Goldson.
“You’ll recall that our firm already made a generous donation,” added Baggs.
“Oh no! I mean, yes. I mean…” Ortson took a deep breath. “I’m not asking you to directly pay for the heroes. But the Heroes’ Guild would appreciate an up-front payment from your firm. An advance of sorts.”
“An advance on what?” snorted Fenrir.
“Well, on the death of the liche, and… and… and on the value your CTOs are sure to gain once he’s finally dead. Er, again.”
“The value—you think—the CTOs…” Goldson was indignant and mystified in equal measure. “Do you even know how collateralized threat obligations work, sir?”
Ortson felt a bead of sweat on his brow. “Uh, do you?”
Mr. Goldson and Mr. Baggs shared an awkward glance. “Well, I… uh… generally. I’m not intimately familiar with the details,” said Goldson.
“The math is very complicated,” added Mr. Baggs.
“Still, it’s apparent that we understand them better than you,” asserted Goldson. “Once a threat obligation has been triggered, it pays out. After that, it’s worthless paper. They don’t gain value again. And if our CTO was using such threat obligations for collateral, it’s no better off.”
“Besides, even if they gained value, we wouldn’t owe the Heroes’ Guild a cent,” said Baggs. “We’re not obligated to pay you a portion of our profits.”
“Just like you’re not obligated to pay us for the massive losses your guild’s ineptitude has cost us.” The ancient Dwarf gave Ortson a withering glare.
“Well, aha ha, in a very real way, we have.” Ortson forced an uncomfortable smile. “You see, the Heroes’ Guild was the original issuer of threat obligations. We’ve been selling them for quite some time, as a way to generate immediate revenue. The guild has paid out huge sums for our threat obligations.”
“We’re aware of the obligations you’ve paid,” said Goldson coldly.
“And we’re much more concerned with the ones you haven’t,” added Baggs.
“The king—no, the entire kingdom—is depending on the guild to rally heroes to the defense of the city. And those heroes aren’t rallying without funds,” said Ortson. “Surely you must see my problem.”
“Yes, but we also see that it is exactly that,” said Goldson.
“Your problem,” Baggs added, noting Ortson’s confusion.
“It’s going to be everybody’s problem soon,” said Ortson. “If I can’t get more heroes to the city, we’re all doomed.”
“Ortson, you’re so melodramatic when you’re sober,” sighed Baggs. “Help yourself to a drink.”
“I don’t want a drink!” snarled Ortson.
“There’s a first time for everything,” smirked Goldson.
“We’re running out of time. It may already be too late!”
“Poor odds and bad timing don’t sound like a good investment, Mr. Ortson,” chided Baggs, pouring himself a tumbler of whiskey.
“Investment?” said Ortson. “You could die!”
“Or we could take the pair of Great Eagles on our roof down to the Knifevale office.” Goldson opened a small, black case on his desk to reveal a sprite-stone. “Buy forty thousand of Andarun Insurance at five giltin,” he commanded with a tap on the stone.
A small, green sprite leapt into existence and flew for an open window.
“But… gentlemen, please! Andarun is your home,” protested Ortson.
“Home is where the heart is,” said Baggs.
“Or at least where it stays beating,” added Goldson mirthlessly. “Buy five hundred thousand shares of Vorpal Corporation at two giltin.”
Ortson was flabbergasted. “And what of the people in the streets? What about your workers and colleagues? Where are your principles?”
A hint of a scowl creased Baggs’ face. “We are standing on our principles.”
“Buy low, sell high,” Goldson said, just before he unleashed another green sprite with a muttered order.
“Keep to the investment strategy, no matter what the markets do,” said Baggs.
“Watch fundamentals, not sentiment,” Goldson barked.
“Those, Mr. Ortson, are key among our principles,” said Mr. Baggs. “Although we also hold it true and dear that private companies should not be pressed upon to fund public institutions beyond the exorbitant tax rates we already pay. We hope that Andarun can rally and defeat this threat—”
“We’ll make a killing if they do,” Goldson muttered to himself as he made a note in his ledger.
Baggs didn’t skip a beat. “But if they cannot, if darkness triumphs, then our duty will still be to our investors. And the responsibility for the tragedy will fall upon the city-state and its institutions.”
“It’s time to hold government accountable,” said Goldson.
“And what of the business community’s part in this mess?” Ortson demanded. “Need I remind you of the role your firm has played in this calamity?”
“There’s already been much done to hold business responsible,” said Baggs. “Surely you’ll recall that Lamia Sisters took a tumble last month.”
“And they were thrown over the Wall, too,” added Goldson.
“Were they really?” asked Baggs.
“M’hmm, yes. And a number of other bankers with them. James Sapphire, that Mr. Stearn fellow, half the board of J.P. Gorgon…”
“Ghastly. I thought people were just talking about their share price.” Baggs shrugged. “But there. Several bankers paid the ultimate price, and many more have been shut down.”
Goldson perked up for a moment. “Which reminds me, we’re to sign for buying out Silver Guard Securities from Mr. Poldo in a half hour.”
“And there it i
s!” snapped Weaver. “Others may be suffering, but you’re still buying up companies. How have you two been brought to account for your role in this disaster?”
“Oh, we take full responsibility for our actions,” said Mr. Baggs.
“We had to say as much in front of the Royal Court,” added Goldson.
“That’s it, then?” said the guildmaster. “Full responsibility and no consequences?”
“Now we’re playing semantics,” said Baggs with a reptilian smile.
“And we’re better at it than you,” said Goldson.
Weaver was about to press the point further, but a tiny ball of pink light wafted in through the window, working against the line of Goldson’s green sprites that dutifully streamed out the window. It fluttered over to hover a few inches from Ortson’s face.
“I have a message for Weaver Ortson!” chirruped the sprite.
“Yes, I can see that,” said Ortson, shielding his eyes from the intensely pink luminescence. “Pardon me, gentlemen. Play the message.”
“Hello? Hello? Is this… how do I start this?” said the sprite in its high, tweeting voice. “Just tap the stone, sire. Like this? Yes, sire. Oh. I thought I did that.”
Weaver rolled his eyes.
The sprite was filled with sudden bravado, “Ha! Weaver! The forces of evil are massing at our doorstep, and we shall meet them in glorious battle! I look forward to riding with your heroes into the heart of the darkness and ridding this land of the undead scourge once and for all! Ha ha! Come join us as soon as you can to finalize the plans for the defense of the city!”
Weaver felt the blood drain out of his face at the sprite’s laughter, like a blast from a minuscule trumpet. He’d have to face Johan with a woefully small cadre of heroes to offer, and there was no time left to recruit more.
The sprite was still buzzing inanely in Ortson’s face. “How do you stop it? Has it stopped? Tell it you are done, sire. What? I thought it would have made a sprite by now. Just tell it you are done, Majesty. Oh, I just say—” With a little sigh, the glowing ball winked out of existence.
Son of a Liche Page 51