by Hugo Huesca
Ed believed there were such things as true good and true evil, even if mortals—and maybe even gods—couldn’t discern them with just a glance. But perhaps it was the nature of power that one could never be fully virtuous. Thus, the Bards’ ideal of a “good king” was a myth. All rulers carried the shadow of the Tyrant on their backs. The greater the king, the more terrible the threat of the shadow.
“Well I, for one, don’t care much for your Earth. The name doesn’t catch my interest, you know,” said Shrukew with a chuckle.
Ed let out a weary sigh. Carrion avians weren’t exactly profound conversational partners. They didn’t need to be. Ask one and they’d say they had all the philosophy they needed, out here among the stars. Everything else was but a pale imitation.
Distracted as he was, he didn’t realize anything was wrong until Zcaceet said, “Lord Wraith, your prey is stirring.”
A sharp spike of his headache brought the Dungeon Lord back to reality. “No way,” he said as he struggled to turn in Shrukew’s grasp unsuccessfully. The dose in Alder’s ring should last for hours, considering Ryan’s Endurance.
But when he managed to turn far enough, he found Ryan staring straight at him with a mixture of hatred and fear.
“Fuck you, Ed!” Ryan said, a yell the wind reduced to a whisper.
“Get him,” Ed told Shrukew as Kharon’s Chosen made a small gesture and a ripple appeared right in front of him, a perfect circle of white amid the black sky. Shrukew dove forward, following Ed’s command, and Ed felt a lurching sensation in his stomach. A powerful gust of wind came out of nowhere and almost tore his shoulders from the avian’s grasp, followed by a steel-sharp cold that seeped into his tired bones and stole the air of his lungs like a fist.
The cold was killing him. Ed opened his eyes to darkness all around as his lungs screamed for air, and for an instant he believed the deed was done. He was dead and buried.
Then again, death wasn’t supposed to be painful, was it? He pushed outward with his skeletal hand with all his strength and managed to burst through what he had thought was his coffin. The material was soft and malleable. Snow. He felt the frozen wind lick his undead fingers, and his chest started to convulse as hypothermia started to rear its head.
Only seconds left. “Protection from element: cold,” he mumbled, fighting his unsteady breath at every syllable. Magical energy buzzed like an electrical current through his body as Objectivity registered the command and shaped the spell. A warm, transparent cloak surrounded his body, and the deathly cold became vaguely inconvenient.
Ed burst from the snowbank like one of Undercity catacombs’ zombies, gasping for air, his body still shaking from the onset of hypothermia. Outside, the world was dark and lit only by the Netherworld’s hell-glow.
How long had he been out?
Stunned, fighting through the remains of the brain fog, Ed looked around. Snow in all directions, flowing like the dunes in a desert. Adrenaline surged through his tired veins.
Where are the others?
“Spook lights,” he cast, a Necromantic variant of the basic illumination spell. A ring of green and purple flames spread around his wrist, drawing a circle of dancing light around him. At his command, the ring divided itself into eight small orbs of flame and he sent them away in different directions.
Shrukew was lying a few feet away, almost entirely hidden by the snow he had crashed into. The wind devoured the last traces of the fall a second after Ed reached the carrion avian’s leg and grasped it. “Protection from element: cold,” he intoned. Were avians more resistant to the cold than humans? If the fall hadn’t damaged Shrukew’s fragile wings, the cold could very well have.
The carrion avian stirred, but there was no time to help him further. Where are the others? Ed thought as he stumbled his way blindly through the frozen tundra. They needed to leave now. He wasn’t a specialized spellcaster—his protection spell was merely basic in rank. In normal circumstances, it could’ve lasted four to eight hours, but the strain of the unnatural Netherworldly cold was draining the spell’s energy like a siphon. If he was lucky, it would last a minute or two. Ed could cast about a dozen basic spells per day. Divided between six people? The math wasn’t in their favor.
He almost stumbled against a pale human hand, already turning blue. Alder! “Protection from element: cold!” Ed exclaimed as he grasped the hand and pulled the body out of the snow.
Ryan came out up to his waist, already coughing and gasping for air.
Ed cursed, his words eaten by the wind. He couldn’t leave Ryan—Kharon’s Chosen was their ticket out of here. Normally, Ed would’ve dragged him around without issue, but after the fight with Vaines he could barely lift his own arms.
So he zapped a couple of Endurance ranks from Ryan.
“What are you doing?!” Ryan screamed as he attempted to shake Ed off. “Let me go!”
“You idiot,” Ed said through gritted teeth as he wrestled Ryan’s arm behind his back and pushed the man down. “If my friends die because of you…”
Ryan reached for his sword, but Alder had taken it away earlier. Instead, Ryan went for his boot. Ed swept him off his feet and pushed him face first into the snow.
“Stay away from me!” Ryan yelled.
Ryan managed a half-roll as he fell and launched a blind sideways slash that could’ve gutted Ed like a fish. Instead, the Dungeon Lord was expecting the attack and his boot connected with Ryan’s wrist midway through the strike, hard, almost cracking bone.
The knife flew away and Ryan screamed in agony, clutching his hand.
Good, Ed thought. Clearly, Kharon’s Chosen had gotten some training from Vaines. Not enough, though. He stepped on Ryan’s shoulder, then desperately looked around. His only hope was that Alder hadn’t fallen into the Portal, or that he’d had the presence of mind to protect himself.
The boulder almost took Ed’s head off, only missing because improved reflexes had become second nature to him. Ed ducked, and the projectile zoomed past, an inch above his head, with the force of a cannonball.
“Shit!” He saw a humanoid shape in the distance, huge arms raised as if in furious challenge. It was either very close or very big. Judging by the size of the rock it had thrown, Ed guessed it was the second.
Ryan tackled him, and both Dungeon Lord and Kharon’s Chosen rolled across the snow, desperately trying to get the upper hand.
“I won’t let you take this away from me!” Ryan shouted as he got on top of Ed and attempted to choke him out. Ryan was fresh and Ed was winded, so strength favored the newcomer. However, the difference of talents and experience between them was just like it had been with Ed and Vaines. The Dungeon Lord drained another couple of Ryan’s Endurance ranks—as many as he dared without knocking him out—then locked his legs around Ryan’s and tensed his torso as he kicked sideways. He swiped his elbow to break Ryan’s grasp on his neck, then put him in a chokehold as he rolled over Kharon’s Chosen.
In any other situation, the fight would’ve been cathartic.
“You’re delusional,” Ed gasped, holding Ryan’s face down against the snow with his skeletal hand and using his own weight to overwhelm the man. “Ryan, you’re not Ivalis Online’s main character! These people are using you. You don’t know them. You don’t know the creature that brought you here in the first place. They’ll either discard you when they’re done with you or turn you into something far worse than what you think. Also, protection from element: cold, protection from element: cold,” he added quickly, casting on himself and on Ryan.
Another two spells down. He would have to reach Shrukew again soon. In the distance, the giant humanoid was approaching them in a rage, running through the snow as if it were hard pavement. Occasionally, the giant would bend down and throw rocks their way. At least his aim wasn’t very good.
“Like it happened to you?” Ryan grunted, trying and failing to wriggle out of Ed’s hold. “You have no problem playing their game, and you’ve got so much power!”
“It’s different,” Ed said. “There’s always a price. The Dark changes people no matter how hard they try, and I don’t want to know what it could do to someone like you.”
“Oh, you’re a piece of work!” Ryan screamed. He tapped the snow above his head as if he were surrendering, but instead a ripple appeared right in front of Ed. The Portal led to a room Ed hadn’t seen before, with walls and floor made of either glass or polished ice. “You think you’re the only one worthy of coming to this magical world? Everyone else is just an asshole, especially your old boss that knows your real self! This place didn’t change you, Eddy, you’ve always been a violent asshole! Always looking for a fight, always thinking you’re better than everyone. There was always something wrong about you. I could always tell. You were born to play a villain!”
Ed raised an eyebrow and began to draw Ryan away from the Portal. “You’re the last person whose opinion I care about. Make a Portal back and pray no one died because of your idiocy. Now.”
Instead, Ryan gave him a maddened gaze. “I searched for you, you know? After you escaped. Did you know the police have no records of your childhood? It’s as if you just suddenly appeared at age eleven. All documents before then are blank. They don’t even know who your parents are!”
“If you’re trying to distract me—”
“What are your parents’ names?” Ryan yelled, as he tried to drag himself back to the Portal.
The world froze solid around Ed for an instant, as if the cold had frozen his thoughts. “What?” he asked quietly. Of course he remembered. They had been two government clerks that had died in an accident when he was a kid. It wasn’t a conspiracy or whatever Ryan thought. Their names were
BLANK
Ed blinked, full of the strangest sensation. It was as if someone had pressed PAUSE on reality itself and had only now restarted the flow of time. What just happened? What was I talking about? Ryan was halfway through the Portal. “Wait!” Ed exclaimed, using minor order to empower his words.
The spell forced the two men’s Spirits to clash, and Ryan instantly froze between realities. Another daily spell gone.
“If you step through that Portal,” Ed said as he stumbled his way through the wind, trying to reach Ryan in time, “then you’re on your own. I won’t risk any more lives saving your ass. Your dad’s money won’t get you out of this one, Ryan. Nothing will. For the first time in your life, you’ll have to face the consequences of your own actions.”
Kharon’s Chosen locked his gaze with the Dungeon Lord. “I’d rather that than take your help,” Ryan said. Then he crossed the Portal, which blinked right out of existence in front of Ed’s extended hand.
Almost as if going on autopilot, Ed walked back to the spot where he had left Shrukew. The carrion avian sat, stunned and shaking, hugging himself to preserve heat.
“Protection from element: cold,” Ed said twice, replenishing Shrukew and his own enchantment. He was quickly tiring of repeating the same phrase, but he wouldn’t need to for long, anyway. He was almost out of spells.
Shrukew stood up, almost overwhelmed by the wind. “Broken eggs!” he cursed. “What happened? Where are we?”
“Netherworld,” Ed said. “The cold part. Did you see the others fall through?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe not. I dove for the weird wrong sky like you ordered, but Zcaceet would’ve had no time to brake. She probably kept going.”
“Good to know,” Ed said, looking around.
“What do we do?” Shrukew said.
Only his years as a Dungeon Lord stopped Ed from shrugging. “We figure out a way to leave this place in the next… three minutes.”
“Can you create a sky window like the one that brought us here?”
“A Portal? If I had an hour, a ruby, a dungeon, and we weren’t in the Netherworld, then sure. But don’t worry about that for now.”
“Lord Wraith, no offense to you, but what could possibly be more important?”
Ed nodded at the ice giant as he crested a snowy hill a couple hundred feet away. “That.” The creature was bigger than an ogre, and much uglier. Like an overgrown silverback gorilla, with serrated fangs that still had tendrils of rotting fiend flesh strung through them. He brandished a mace—no, a huge femur—almost as tall and wide as a man.
“Oh,” said Shrukew. “Point taken.”
The giant bellowed a guttural challenge and charged at them.
Enough things had gone wrong that Ed almost considered giving up. He was too stubborn, though, to let anyone have a free kill. Even back on Earth he’d liked to play his matches out to the bitter end, even if only to make his enemy miserable for a few more minutes.
“Can you fly us away?” he asked Shrukew, looking for a way to stay in the “match” as long as possible. There was no respawn in real life, after all.
“Sorry,” the carrion avian said. “Too hurt. The wind would crush us against the rocks, anyway.”
“Of course,” Ed said. “Fine.” He had one or two advanced spells left, and a handful of basic ones he needed for protection; his throat was thick with the taste of his own blood, and he was so tired he couldn’t even lift his blade. He walked toward the rapidly approaching ice giant.
“What’s the plan?” Shrukew asked.
“Check this out,” Ed told him. “I’m going to rip him apart with my bare hands and then we’re going to crawl inside his belly for warmth.”
“Ancestors! Really?”
“Sure, just give me some space.”
Watching the giant run was almost a zen-like experience. Ed hoped that Alder had made it out all right and that he’d somehow find out how Ed had died, because the mental image of a wounded Dungeon Lord facing an ice giant in the middle of an infernal ice storm belonged in his Chronicle. Of course, the very next second would end with Ed going to meet Murmur after an unceremonious splat.
However, he still had one trick to try. Without ceremony, he drew his sword and tossed it on the snow. At his current pace, the giant was about five seconds away, close enough for Ed to see the thick saliva trailing behind the beast’s ugly face.
“Kharon,” Ed said quietly. “I know you’re watching.”
Nothing happened, except now the giant was four seconds away.
“Ryan didn’t wake up on his own. You interfered. We are here because of you. That goes against our agreement, asshole.”
Two seconds away and so close Ed could smell him. He activated improved reflexes out of instinct, but fought back against the overwhelming impulse to dodge at the last instant. The only way this would work was if Kharon realized Ed wasn’t going to even attempt to slug it out.
However, Ed wasn’t entirely convinced he was right. Perhaps Ryan had woken up on his own, by a cosmological coincidence, and his headache was just due to how hard Vaines had punched him.
That would be an undignified way to go.
“Well, guess your stupid game is out one player,” Ed said. The Alder in him carefully considered what his last words were going to be. Caring about those things was part of the Dungeon Lord package. Would it be an inspiring phrase? Forgiving? Maybe wise? In the end, he decided simple was better.
“Thanks for nothing, you piece of—”
The giant was upon him, like an avalanche that smelled of old piss and decay. The bone swung at the Dungeon Lord with the violence of a demolition crane.
The mace stopped an inch from the Dungeon Lord’s ear. The giant stood like a frozen statue, and even the snowflakes had stopped their movement.
Ed let out the breath he had been holding and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he turned around.
“There you go,” he said quietly. “That wasn’t so hard.”
Kharon, Murmur’s Boatman, glared at Ed with red eyes that oozed evil.
14
Chapter Fourteen
*Three Customary Questions
The Traveler Between Dimensions, Ender of Innocence, Child Eater, and a slew of other edgy titles usua
lly met Ed with a gleeful smile on his featureless, wax-like face. This time, however, Kharon’s lipless mouth trembled with anger. The sight almost made Ed take a step back. “Edward. I thought we understood each other. I am not a damned Deus Ex Machina for you to call upon whenever you get yourself in trouble.”
“I damn well will if your direct meddling is about to get me killed,” Ed said.
“You’re a Dungeon Lord; hard as a roach to kill or you get your money back. So what if the giant smashes you around a bit? At best he cripples you, and you become a Dungeon Jewel. At worst, you die, and the Wraith’s curse awakens you to undeath.”
“No thanks. Lavy would hate me if I undeaded myself without her help.” Ed very carefully tried to get his breathing under control so the Boatman wouldn’t realize how much his brush with death had unnerved him. “I had won back there, Kharon. Ryan was with me, Vaines bought the ruse. But then you stepped in. What was it you told me once about not interfering with the affairs of mortals?”
“Argent Planeshifter is different. He is my affair. I invested my own divine experience into his talents, so I have a say in where he ends up. And, you see, it’s more entertaining if he stays with Aramis.”
At least the “freezing to death” part had been put on hold. Whatever power Kharon used to stop time, it didn’t slack on the job.
Kharon was a demigod, powerful beyond the limits of mortals—even beyond Dungeon Lords. He was stronger than his little brothers, the Regents. But he was limited in the ways he could interfere with mankind, which was probably mankind’s greatest lucky break since the discovery of fire.
After running into the Boatman far more times than he would’ve liked—which would have been zero—the Dungeon Lord had come to understand Kharon, in a superficial sort of way.