Son of a Liche

by J. Zachary Pike

  “I like it!” said the Head of Marketing. “Needs some rebranding, but there’s a lot to work with! How do you feel about the Dead Tundra? Or the Frozen Wastes? Frostweep Castle? The Icemire of Death?”

  Tyren nodded absently, ignoring the proposed trademarks, and turned once more to his daughter. “Farewell, Aubren Ur’Thos. Remember me a little more fondly.” Nodding to her, he started to lead the pack of shambling undead down the road.

  “Father?”

  Tyren turned back to his daughter. She wore a conflicted wince.

  “Maybe… maybe I could write you a letter?”

  “I’d like that,” said Tyren, his skeletal grin more sincere than ever before. Unable to hold back his surging paternal enthusiasm, he added, “You could even visit Castle Ur’Thos!”

  Aubren wrung her crimson kerchief as she looked at the slavering, rotting dead surrounding them. “Or write a letter.”

  “Yes. Right. Of course. A letter would be great.” With a final wave to his daughter, Tyren set off down the street.

  He could feel the walking dead gathering around him now, could sense them bending to his will as he made his way back toward the main gate. Skeletons and zombies broke away from confused defenders to hobble after him. Ghouls clambered from the shadows to fall in line with the marching throng. Genevieve and a few ghosts drifted down from the sky. In the distance, the Gnomish organ began playing a sad song of retreat of its own accord.

  Genevieve flew up beside Tyren. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To Castle Chillmourne on the Iceblood Coast!” said the Head of Marketing.

  “Why? What are we going to do there?” asked Genevieve.

  The flaming skull bobbed in a shoulderless shrug. “Beats me. We can figure that out once we have a good name.”

  “I have some thoughts on the matter,” chimed in Mr. Stearn. “What do you know about mortgage backed securities?”

  “I have always considered myself a bit of an expert on real estate,” said Ted, straightening up a bit. “And finance.”

  “And everything else,” grumbled Ned, rubbing his empty stomach.

  “Say what you will, Ned, but I think us undead could make excellent investors.” The zombie tapped his rotting skull. “No more emotions, see? Nothing but cold, rational logic.”

  “Oh yes, absolutely!” said Rudge, eager to be part of the discussion.

  “But do you really think we can open a bank?” Genevieve asked Tyren. “I mean, don’t we need money?”

  “Leave capitalization to Mr. Stearn,” said the zombified werebear. His grin somehow looked more menacing than when he was trying to eat the townsfolk.

  “Sure, we can do it,” said the Head of Marketing. “I’ll run marketing, of course, and Genevieve can handle customer service. And the knight-commander can be chairman of the board.”

  “Does he know much about the business?” asked Ned.

  “Probably not, but we still have to do everything he says anyway,” said the Head of Marketing.

  “Sounds like chairman to me,” said Mr. Stearn.

  Tyren paid the others’ plans no mind. He strode quietly through the ruined streets of Andarun, drawing the undead to him as a lantern brings evening moths. A familiar skeletal torso emerged from a ruined building, and the armless, headless body bobbed along with enthusiasm, rattling the sign nailed to its sternum.

  The knight-commander considered the sign for a moment before delivering a couple of swift strokes with his sword. Wooden blocks bearing the words “ABANDON” and “ALL” clattered on the cobblestones, leaving the shaken skeleton with the word “HOPE” nailed to its chest.

  “Hardly the time for playing with signs, what with us retreating,” grumbled Ned.

  “The knight-commander’s setting a tone, Ned,” said Ted. “It’s symbolic.”

  “It’s indulgent and tacky, that’s what it is,” said the ghoul. “This isn’t the time for wordplay.”

  “Well, they say everybody’s allowed just one,” said the zombie.

  Tyren remained silent. His eyes were to the east, where the rising sun marked his path back to Ruskan, but his thoughts were with the young woman on the second tier and the future that lay ahead of her.

  Chapter 32

  “So, what happens next?”

  Jynn looked up from the violet crystal in his skeletal hand. Laruna leaned against a ruined wall, arms crossed.

  “I think we’re going to try to find Gorm before the meeting,” said the omnimancer.

  “They’re as much trying to find you,” said the solamancer. “Half the city watched you fight your father alone. And the Archmagi of the Academy just saw the return of the Twilight Order. People are already talking, whether you’re there or not.”

  Jynn shrugged. “I needed time to think.”

  “Fair enough,” said Laruna. She walked into the charred ruins where Jynn had found refuge and sat down next to him on the steps. “But I’m most curious about what you’ll do with your father’s phylactery.”

  Jynn looked back to the crystal. He could feel the power and heat radiating from it even in his fleshless hand.

  It was a matter of some debate whether a liche’s crystalline phylactery was created during the transition to undeath, or if it was an ingredient of the dark ritual that prepared a mage for their dark transformation. Presumably liches themselves knew, but they were both naturally reticent to talk about their sole weakness and eager to convert curious researchers into abominable, unliving servants, and so the secret remained hidden from the living.

  “I don’t know,” he said truthfully.

  “They’ll want you to destroy it,” said Laruna.

  Jynn nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose.” He watched the tiny, muted threads of necromancy curling from the crystal, probing the enchantments and wards that Jynn had woven around it. As long as the phylactery remained whole, it would try to regrow the liche.

  “But you don’t want to?”

  “I don’t know if I do,” said Jynn. “He was a horrible father, no doubt. But… but I remember he was different with Mother around. And for years after she died, for most of my early memories, it was just me and him against… against the world, really. It’d be one thing to kill him in battle, but now he’s helpless. And through the phylactery, I… I can sense his feelings. Sorrow. Anger. Fear. A bit of paternal pride, much to my surprise. And even remorse.”

  Laruna shook her head and gestured toward the hole in the wall in the ruined square. “None of that changes what he’s done here.”

  “No,” agreed Jynn. “Which is why I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “And you’ll just keep the soul of a liche in your pocket until you decide?”

  “I’ve plenty of experience handling dangerous and forbidden relics.” Jynn smirked. “Father’s phylactery would be the third most deadly relic in my study in the Chambers of the Red Hawk. At worst.”

  “I suppose.” Laruna tried to hide the subconscious glance at Jynn’s left hand. He flexed the dead appendage and held it up for her to inspect.

  “So, you did that when you saved my life,” said Laruna.

  “Yes.”

  “And then you hid it from all of us.”

  Jynn shrugged. “It’s my hand, and my business.”

  Laruna shook her head. “I just don’t understand why you would conceal something like that.”

  “Because I know you, Laruna.”

  “Me?” The solamancer’s brow furrowed. “Did you just assume I’d accuse you of necromancy?”

  Jynn sighed. “I knew you’d be angry about my omnimancy, and all the more so that I kept it from you. But I also know that the only thing you hate more than being lied to is being indebted to anyone. If you knew that curing you cost me my hand, you’d feel guilty. And then you’d try to make it up to me by…” He shifted uncomfortably. “By taking me back, I suspect. I didn’t want you to be with me, or anyone, because you feel like you have to be. And I won’t be anybody’s obliga
tion.”

  The solamancer glared at him. “You don’t know everything.”

  “True enough,” said Jynn, looking back to Detarr’s phylactery. “But I know that.”

  “It might have been different,” said Laruna.

  “Maybe. But probably not.”

  “I’d still rather you let me decide for myself.”

  “I knew that, too.”

  Laruna laughed bitterly to herself as she stood. “Well, be that as it may, thank you for saving me. I owe you my life, and I’m grateful for it. All things considered, you’ve been a good friend.”

  “I’d say we were more than friends.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter what we were. All that matters is what we’re trying to be going forward.” The solamancer smiled at Jynn, but he could see the sparkle of tears at the corner of her eyes.

  Jynn set the pain in his chest into an imaginary box, placed the lump in his throat on top of it, and closed the top. “Agreed,” he said with a joyless smile. “You’re a good friend as well.”

  “Yeah,” said Laruna. “Come on. Let’s go help the others find Gorm.”

  The first thing that Gorm Ingerson was aware of was the stench of decaying meat wafting over his face in noxious waves. His shut his eyes tighter and covered his nostrils with his hand. A moment later something wet and slimy dragged across his face.

  “Gerrofff!” he growled through a mouthful of tongue, pushing a muzzle out of his face.

  “Oh, yeah! Good boy!” Kobold paws scrabbled on stone, and now Burt was shouting at someone in the distance. “Hey! Hey, Patches found him!”

  Gorm fended Patches’ affection off long enough to open one eye and look at the Kobold picking his way through the wreckage. His muscles burned, and his mouth tasted of blood.

  “Hey, chum.” Burt crouched into view, a limp cigarette clenched in his grin. “Guess how long you’ve been passed out for.”

  “Not long enough,” grumbled Gorm, clutching his head. The blood was pounding in his ears, exacerbating a skull-rending headache.

  “Well, it was at least long enough for the shamans to get the waygate open again,” said the Kobold. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had old Patches here to sniff you out. He’s getting pretty good at finding you.”

  “Lucky me.” Gorm tried shoving the affectionate dog away again, but Patches easily switched from kissing his face to licking his hand.

  Kaitha stepped into view. “There’s the hero. Still sleeping it off?”

  “I’d like to be,” said Gorm, “I take it Jynn won, then.”

  “Oh, he won all right,” Burt said.

  “Thanks in no small part to you decapitating the liche,” added Kaitha.

  “Really?” Hints of memories flashed through Gorm’s consciousness, too fast and fluid to make any sense of. “I don’t recall that.”

  “Well, sounds more like you took his body off and left the head behind from what I hear,” said Burt. “But there ain’t a word for that, and it’s the same effect, more or less.”

  “You did it right after you jumped through a wall, if that helps,” Kaitha offered.

  “Which one?” It occurred to Gorm that between drinking and berserking, he’d spent a regrettable portion of his life blacked out. He shook his head. “Wait! Did anybody see it?”

  “Almost everyone saw the Old Dwarven Kingdoms’ army arrive,” said Kaitha.

  “Complete with Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, and every other kind of Shadowkin!” added Burt. “Half the city was out on the tiers watching us save them!”

  “So Jynn had quite the audience when he took down Detarr,” added Kaitha.

  “And the army cleared out the rest of the undead?” Gorm asked.

  “Well, they definitely would have,” said Burt. “If there had been a fight.”

  “Most of the remaining dead dropped everything and headed east,” said Kaitha with a shrug. “There’s an odd lurker here or there, but the guild has issued a few quests to clear them out. Should be all taken care of soon enough.”

  Gorm couldn’t stop his own smile from splitting his face. “So it worked then.”

  “Of course it worked!” Burt interjected. “Listen.”

  Gorm perked up. Over the blood pounding in his ears, he could detect a distant roaring with an exuberant quality. “Sounds like leverage to me,” he said, jumping up. “Come on! Let’s go put it to use.”

  It was often said that nobody knew how to celebrate like the citizens of Andarun, though perhaps it would be more accurate to say that nobody was better situated to throw a party. The city’s many tiers formed an inverted amphitheater. Spectacle attracts an audience, but the opposite is also true; the presence of so many eager eyes in one giant stadium of sorts meant that every civic organization in the city was perpetually prepared to put on some sort of show, play, display, or chorus.

  Andarun was one big, festive tinderbox waiting for a spark. And Jynn had lit a fire.

  The sky swirled with rainbow smoke and bright red and blue ribbons, punctuated by bursts of brilliant fireworks. Chants and songs occasionally swelled, only to be swallowed up again in a cacophony of cheering. Bannermen and civilians lined the walls of every tier and the top of every roof, waving flags featuring Andarun’s seven-pointed star and screaming down at the army of Dwarves and Shadowkin.

  King Forder’s royal tent provided refuge from the oppressive jubilation. The heavy, velvet canopy had been set up near the ruins of Andarun’s main gate, next to the deep trough that the Dark Spire had carved through the city streets. Like any good Dwarven tent, the interior was dark, cool, and as quiet as anywhere could be, given the circumstances.

  It might have been a relaxing spot, but by the time Gorm and his party arrived at Forder’s encampment, members of Andarun’s royal guard were already swarming the square. The soldiers barely had time to usher Gorm and his companions into the tent before a herald followed them in and piped the first few notes of the Freedlands’ anthem on his trumpet.

  At the urging of a couple Dwarves, Gorm hurried to take his place kneeling beside Asherzu and King Forder. The rest of the party took up positions behind them, where Darak, Jorruk, Korgen, and a retinue of Dwarves and Shadowkin waited patiently.

  The herald set down his bugle and cleared his throat. “All hail His Majesty, the Lord of the Freedlands, King of Andarun—”

  “Ha! There’s to be plenty of dull ceremony today without the titles, lad! They know who I am.” Johan the Mighty brushed the boy aside as he swept into the tent. The king was clad in his typical suit of golden plate mail, but atypically he wore an ornate helm with glowing runes around the Y shaped opening in its face and eagle wings set atop it.

  The nonplussed herald tried to rally. “And Guildmaster Weaver—”

  “Nobody cares about Ortson,” said Johan, dismissing the servant with a wave of his hand.

  “Indeed, sire,” muttered the rotund guildmaster as he crept into the tent.

  The king planted his mailed fists on his armored hips and puffed out his breastplate as he swept his eyes over the room. “King Forder. Orc. And… Ha! Gorm Ingerson! I should have known!”

  “Probably,” said Gorm. His lips pulled back into a smile-like shape.

  “We welcome you, King Johan,” said King Forder. “And I appreciate Your Grace’s directness. If I may return the favor, I suggest we get right to our offer.”

  The Human king looked at his advisers, each of whom attempted and failed to shrug inconspicuously. “What offer?”

  The Dwarven king held out a hand, and an attendant gave him a circlet of iron spikes wrought at odd angles. “The Crown of Iron Thorns. It would be best for Arth if it was stored in your Great Vault, and as such, I’m willing to sell it at a heavy discount.”

  “What sort of offer is that?” Johan snorted. “Why would we even discuss such matters today? This will all be settled at the loot arbitration.”

  “I imagine it will, Your Majesty,” said Korgen. “But seeing as Andarun won’t be r
epresented at the loot arbitration, all parties agreed to offer ye the Crown for sixty percent of assessed value.”

  “What?” Johan’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.

  “Ludicrous!” snarled Ortson, his jowls shaking in fury.

  “I won’t go below fifty-five percent,” said King Forder with a slight smile.

  “What makes you think the Freedlands won’t be at loot arbitration?” said King Johan.

  “Why would they be?” asked Forder with saccharine innocence.

  “Dwarven heroes completed a Ruskan quest,” said Korgen. “The people of the Freedlands need not concern themselves.”

  “But you saved our city!” snapped Ortson.

  “A collateral benefit, I’m afraid,” said King Forder. “Regrettably, our force of heroes isn’t eligible to participate in quests for the Freedlands, and as they did the slaying, the only quests that could be completed are those of the Old Dwarven Kingdoms and Ruskan. Even if they wanted to submit paperwork for Andarun’s.”

  “They aren’t eligible for our quest because they’re F.O.E.s!” said Johan.

  “Are they?” said Forder with relish. “These Shadowkin were given Dwarven citizenship and enlisted as heroes by my Kingdom’s guild.”

  “We’ve the paperwork to prove it,” said Korgen.

  “This is robbery!” snarled Johan.

  “Speaking of which, is that not the Wyrmwood Staff?” Weaver pointed accusingly at Jynn. “That’s stolen property. It was taken from the Museum of Andarun just over a month back.”

  “No, it’s loot,” said Jynn. “I took it from the liche I killed.”

  Gorm nodded. “Whatever came before that is irrelevant.”

  Ortson scowled. “That’s a flimsy defense.”

  “Aye, but ye know what isn’t?” growled Gorm. “A whole city full of cheering people that just saw us savin’ them from the brink of annihilation. Ye think they’ll care about the paperwork? Ye think those tired soldiers will go to war with their rescuers over a staff?”