by Hugo Huesca
Ed gave Gallio a sideways glance. The Inquisitor was dealing with the increasing altitude better than Ryan—or Ed himself, for that matter. Gallio’s expression was one of complete focus, eyes fixed up ahead and lips pressed into a thin white line.
Isn’t the lack of oxygen some kind of constant damage, Objectivity-wise? Ed thought, trying to figure out the secret behind Gallio’s superhuman endurance. If so, my stubborn resilience should be able to weather it. He focused his will. It wasn’t just considering asphyxiation a kind of damage, he had to believe that his interpretation of his talent’s description was correct. Slowly, the white veil over his vision lifted, if not completely. His mind began thinking clearly again. His body burned all over, a sort of growing fever, not dissimilar to using his reflexes too much. Overusing stubborn resilience would eventually be just as deadly, but he had bought himself some time. Now he had to make it count.
They reached the top of the stairs and came face to face with what had once been a huge pair of elegant steel doors. They had been forced open by some powerful spell that had turned them into slag, and the remains were all over the floor. The interior of Tillman’s office beckoned, dark and foreboding like the proverbial wolf’s mouth.
“Ready?” Gallio asked Ed. Both men drew their swords.
“Let’s go,” Ed responded. They walked into the darkness, weapons at the ready, trying to be as quiet as possible.
The office wasn’t entirely black. There was light, coming from many sources, up ahead. A faint tremor reached Ed’s feet. The air was cold and dry, and smelled of dust and old books, and something bitter that stirred Ed’s memories. It was a smell he associated with incoming dread. Formaldehyde.
The first thing they saw was a wingless mindbrood, lying unmoving on the floor. Its exoskeleton somehow looked sunken, and the rest of its body was withered. Ed and Gallio exchanged a silent look, and the Dungeon Lord carefully inched closer to the body. He poked it with his sword, and the mindbrood collapsed on itself like a sandcastle on a windy day.
They stepped over the dissolving corpse. Whatever had done that was up ahead. There was no way in their current condition that they could face it. Nevertheless, they had to try. The lights around and above him, he realized, were illusionary displays like the ones he used in the Haunt’s Observatory. They showed diagrams with transversal cuts of security scorpions, as well as ever-updating maps of the Factory’s many floors. Status reports flashed red with warnings about altitude, alarms blared about infestations in the lower basements. A projection of dozens of mindbroods rushing through maintenance tunnels danced next to the displays.
Sephar must’ve called in for reinforcements, Ed thought.
The strongest source of light hovered up ahead above a huge raised dais that contained a hulking mechanism built out of brass tubes that reached all the way to the ceiling, with a wide center that resembled a pipe organ. The organ’s pipes grew without any apparent order, in a chaotic way that resembled the image of a neuron Ed had seen in a book one time. If Tillman’s office was located in the cranium of the dragon, this mechanism, he decided, had to be the brain.
There was a seat in front of the main bulk of the Factory’s brass brain, and a hooded figure wearing a tattered robe sat hunched down. A gleaming, transparent sphere floated a few meters above the figure, the source of the light Ed and Gallio had seen from a distance. Ed recognized the spell as some sort of containment field, although it appeared much more complex than any other magical display he’d seen before, not counting gods.
Sephar, in his human form, was inside the sphere, an unreadable expression on his face. He seemed to be arguing with the hooded figure, although it refused to move.
“Careful,” Gallio said. “I’m sensing something really Dark-aligned up ahead.”
“You mean Sephar,” Ryan said. “I see him. He’s right there.”
Gallio shook his head. “Sephar is invisible to my talents. Somehow, he is not aligned with the Dark.” He pointed at the hooded figure, which just then began to turn toward them. “I’m talking about that.”
The hood dropped, and a pair of malicious emerald embers stared straight at Ed from deep inside the empty eye sockets of a smiling skull. Memories rushed back at Ed. He had seen a creature such as that one once before. His skeletal hand tingled in recognition even as he activated his Evil Eye to confirm his suspicions.
“Evangeline Tillman. Ascended Wraith,” read the character sheet.
An aura of cold dread—of overwhelming fear—reached Ed, as if the woman’s cold hands had wrapped around his heart like a vise.
“At last,” said the wraith’s voice, coming from seemingly nowhere. “The second-worst option arrives.”
“Wright!” Gallio warned, but it was already too late.
An invisible force caught Ed and lifted his feet off the ground before he had time to react. A sphere of force just like the one holding Sephar appeared around him in a flurry of shifting glyphs and arcane iterations. Ed smashed against the surface of the sphere, although he bounced back perfectly without doing any damage whatsoever other than to himself. The sphere flew at a dizzying speed toward the eldritch pipe organ, only to stop just as abruptly before striking it. Ed saw Sephar’s sphere hovering just a few feet away from his, the two Dungeon Lords trapped like butterflies on a display.
Evangeline Tillman extended her skeletal hands and slowly, majestically, levitated herself up to Ed’s eye level.
“You cannot keep me in here forever,” Sephar warned her, his voice muffled inside his sphere. His hands were aflame with necrotic energy, and he was pushing against the surface of the sphere. Ed saw a small crack appear on it. Sephar kept pushing, and bit by bit the crack grew.
“I can keep you in there long enough, my dear,” Evangeline Tillman told him. Then she turned the naked bone of her skull straight at Ed. “Just long enough to give this foreign Dungeon Lord a chance to convince me not to crash my Factory into the ground with everyone inside.”
All things considered, Ed managed to keep a measure of composure when staring at the “face” of one of the many monsters he saw in his nightmares—probably because he had nowhere to go.
“Tillman. So our suspicions were true; you weren’t—” He had been about to say “dead,” but realized his mistake “—gone.”
Sephar chuckled. “Lily is the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known. It’s not surprising in the slightest that not even death managed to get the drop on her.”
“Dungeon Lords have a tendency to stay around even after they’re gone,” Tillman said, giving Sephar a meaningful glance. “Keep them in your company and you end up picking up some of their tricks.”
Ed wracked his brain to try to remember what he’d learned about both Sephar and Tillman from the history lessons he’d received from Jarlen and Alder back in the Haunt. They had never mentioned a friendship between the two—not even a passing acquaintance. Then again, Jarlen knew Sephar and Tillman from a distance, like a person from Earth might follow the lives of the rich and famous from the stories of the scandals in the magazines. He knew Tillman had died under mysterious circumstances during the decline of her company, and that Jarlen believed the Regents had assassinated the woman. That was about it.
Behind the wraith, Ed could see Gallio making a run toward the dais, probably hoping to get to sunwave range. Before Ed could get his hopes up, Tillman simply snapped her fingers without even turning. “Sleep,” she uttered. Gallio dropped to the floor as if struck by lightning.
“That one’s a fighter,” Sephar warned her jovially, “kill him before he can annoy us further.”
“Explain something to me,” Ed told the wraith, speaking quickly in an attempt to divert her attention from Gallio. “The Endeavor. Why trick everyone into trying to take the Factory if you were still around?”
The wraith lifted her arms to the sides in such a way that made her robe flutter and reveal the ribs underneath. “You call this ‘still being around?’” she asked. “Fo
reigner, in life I was a powerful Witch. My knowledge of the spiritual craft was almost unrivaled. This construct of unlife you see before you is but a shard of what was once Evangeline Tillman. Indeed, my current functions are more in line with those of a temporal legal guardian than a vetted Director.” She shook her head sadly. “In other words, I am not an appropriate figurehead to inspire confidence in Saint Claire & Tillman’s venerable customer base.”
Ed blinked. “You… are not what I expected,” he said carefully. Next to him, Sephar was still busy trying to destroy his holding sphere, and he was making progress. Ed knew he had to speed up the conversation. “You are still looking for a replacement, is that what you’re saying? Then why not select one yourself? Just point your finger at someone you like and stop the constant bloodbath.”
“Young Vaines would chide you for the dislike you profess to have for violence,” Tillman told him. “In practice, however, I saw you kill Dungeon Lord Vandran barehanded, without ceremony.” The shredded hem of her robe swayed as if she had drowned long ago yet had remained forever trapped under the waters. “Both your attitude and your words show blatant disregard for the ancient traditions of the Lordship, like a child rebelling against his parents. There is talent inside you, I admit. Potential, as well. But potential is not enough without experience, and that you lack. You are not qualified to be the face of a traditional company.”
“Such a shame,” Sephar said. “Perhaps you should try again in another century or so, Edward. I’m sure you’ll be more than qualified then.”
Tillman fluttered to Sephar, the green pinpricks that were her eyes glinting with rage. “And you are no better, Lord Sephar,” she told him. “Never did you pay the faintest respects for our history and values, and now you aren’t even human. A successful business endeavor needs respectability. A strong base that supports a culture of innovation. You bring a wave of unfiltered chaos, Sephar of the Wetlands. Your resurgence today has sent the spiritual world into disarray. The ley lines shake under the shadow of what you wish to unleash upon the world. A business cannot thrive if there is no civilization to profit from.”
That is what you care about? Ed thought with dismay. He was starting to see Jarlen’s point when she had said that Tillman had a reputation for being eccentric.
“Such small-minded ideas,” Sephar told her as the cracks in his sphere widened. “Change is inevitable. Saint Claire & Tillman may have been powerful once, but you failed to adapt. I am evolution, Witch, and I shall triumph where you did not.” He smiled, and Ed caught a flicker of a tongue that wasn’t human. “Name me as your successor, and the Regents that murdered you shall never bother mortals again. The gods themselves will fear the name of Evangeline Tillman. I shall bring life and prosperity to a world that only knows death and suffering.”
“Succeed, and you shall bring about eternal hunger,” Tillman told him.
If a Dungeon Lord’s Evil Eye reflected the strength of his conviction, then Sephar’s had to have some of the strongest beliefs Ed had ever seen. “Call it however you want. You cannot stop me,” he said. “Kill this body and I’ll return with more. Name a different person and they’ll join the brood, one way or the other. Destroy the Factory and I shall rebuild it. You are a remnant of the past, growing weaker each time you use your spellcraft. You are fading, Lily. But I am the future. And you cannot stop me.”
“Correct,” Evangeline Tillman said, no emotion visible on her old bones. “I can, however, slow you down.” She pointed upward, and the display that showed Sephar’s mindbroods on the lower levels of the Factory floated forward. The mindbroods lay in a pile. Dead, Ed thought at first. But the image zoomed in and he saw they were still breathing, although weakly. “To start, I shall purge your plague out of my Factory’s bowels, and then the Standard Factory and I shall have one last flight. Perhaps I’ll crash it right on Korghiran’s Palace. I never did like her.” She shrugged. “One way or the other, no one will get the Standard Factory.”
Sephar lost his composure. He smashed his hand against the sphere over and over, screaming in frustration. His lustrous hair flew in all directions. “You utter fool! Can’t you see I’m trying to do what you want? Pray I don’t get to you before you have a chance to fade away or you shall know hell on Earth before you have a taste of the real thing!” He almost reminded Ed of Ryan in his worst moments at Lasershark, entitled and furious things weren’t going his way.
Something is wrong, Ed realized. The vivid memory of himself and Mohnuran on the Gray Highway came to his mind. How he had acted like a stereotypical Dungeon Lord to trick Mohnuran—and thus the Inquisition—into thinking he wanted to use the Highway to run away, when in truth he planned to stay and fight. Misdirection, the Dungeon Lord thought.
And then he understood the truth. Sephar wanted Tillman to destroy the Factory.
One of the maxims of warfare was not only to muster as many resources as possible to achieve one’s objectives, but to deny your enemy the resources they need to accomplish theirs.
If Sephar won the Factory, then he had gained a valuable asset, something that would massively speed up his plans to infest the world. However, if the Factory was destroyed with Ed and everyone else inside, then Sephar would’ve deprived his opposition of not only the Factory but of powerful men and women willing to stop him. Either way, he came out ahead.
No, it is even worse, Ed thought. Sephar was already at an advantage. The mindbrood larva was difficult to detect to anyone but Dungeon Lords, and the adult mindbrood was almost impossible to kill. Sephar had gods-knew how many at his disposal. And how many sleeping agents had he hidden in the courts of Ivalis? Politicians thinking they were real, when in truth all their choices and decisions served Sephar. Generals, Kings, High Priests… None were safe.
The Haunt—no, everyone—needed the Factory if they were to have a chance at survival.
“You cannot destroy the Factory,” Ed told her. “That’s what he wants.”
“If I made you Director you would never be able to survive the ploys of the Regents, and the constant attacks of your fellow Dungeon Lords,” Tillman told him. “You need a mentor. But it is too late now.”
“Damn it, if you won’t give it to me, then hand it off to someone else. Anyone who is willing to oppose him. Give it to Vaines!”
The wraith’s phantom eyes flickered. “It is true that Vaines could navigate the Dark’s political landscape. She, however, is too traditional,” she said. “She’s had a career that spans decades, and not even once has she opposed the will of the Regents. Eventually, she is doomed to go down the same path as Everbleed: a mere spent puppet, dancing in their palms. That is not what I gave my life for.”
Ed wanted to scream in frustration. “You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” he said, and was aware even as he spoke that Tillman would have no idea what he meant. “Look, you can’t have everything you want. At some point, Tillman, you need to compromise. Surely a suboptimal Director is better than destroying the whole damn thing?”
“Walk away, Lord Wright,” Tillman said. “Get your Planeshifter to take you to safety. There’s nothing you want here.”
The Dungeon Lord could see the amusement dancing in Sephar’s eyes. Ed raised an eyebrow. “I’m not leaving,” he told the wraith. “Do what you have to do.”
As if following some unseen command from Tillman, the whole room quickly slanted upward, and the pressure in Ed’s ears grew along with his fever. The Factory was flying as straight up as it could, Ed realized.
“That right there is the kind of mistake an experienced Dungeon Lord would’ve never made,” Tillman said. “Principles should never be above operational strategy. Farewell, Lord Wright.” All the displays above and around them went red with warning alerts. Ed couldn’t hear the strain on the Factory, but he could almost feel it.
In the other sphere, Sephar was laughing.
Then, coming seemingly from nowhere, a woman’s voice announced, “I’ll be his mentor.”
&n
bsp; Xorander and Macer finished securing Lord Steros to their improvised harnesses, and then the young Dungeon Lady took a look at the elevator shaft. “Lord Wraith better be right about this,” she said. The Haunt’s minions had told her through a message spell that the carrion avians were down there, following along the Factory’s path, ready for, as the woman of the message had put it, “an improvised rescue operation.”
Vaines couldn’t see the fear in the young Dungeon Lady—she couldn’t see much at all anymore—but she could sense it.
“It is your last hope,” Vaines told her. “You’ll have to trust Lord Wright.”
“But you aren’t,” Xorander said. “You are staying.”
Vaines would’ve nodded, but her spine had turned to crystal. “I believe I can still be of use,” she explained. “You, however, would be entirely useless here. Don’t waste your life away, young Lady.”
“You know what? Screw you,” Xorander said. “I may be out of spells, but at least I can still walk, unlike you. Maybe I’ll just stay and take the Factory for myself.” Vaines could sense ambition and resentment where doubt and fear had nested. Perhaps Xorander had had some potential after all.
“How brave of you,” she told the young woman. “It seems that Wright’s rashness is contagious. Something to keep in mind. But now is not the time. Rolim, if you don’t mind.”
The undead man took a step forward, now face to face with Xorander.
“Macer, take care of your Lady,” Vaines said. Macer, stunned and weak as he was, hurried to do as asked, and grabbed Xorander’s arms.
Xorander raised an indignant eyebrow. “What do you think—?”
Rolim pushed her down the shaft. Macer fell with her, and a second later Steros did as well.
“Finally,” Vaines said. “Some peace and quiet.” She focused on the undead man. She could sense intelligence underneath the stoic appearance, although she wasn’t entirely sure if that preserved brain had human intelligence. “Your orders are to remain with the wounded,” she told him. “I am the wounded. But you also have a duty to protect your master, do you not? He’s in mortal danger as we speak. If you bring me to him, then you’ll be able to accomplish both requirements at the same time.”