Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story

by James Maxstadt

  But, if the gates were closed, you could also see straight down and tell who or what was at the door.

  The day was bright and the sun beat down on the walls and the ground below, warming everything up nicely. If you looked up into the clear, blue sky, you’d swear that there couldn’t be a thing wrong in the world. A day this perfect wouldn’t allow it. Somewhere, the flowers were blooming, water sparkled in streams, and the lovers of the world mooned over each other in bliss.

  And then you looked down, at the figure near the gates to the city, and it all changed.

  The flowers in your mind wilted, died, and rotted in seconds, leaving a slimy, foul smelling mess. The waters in the brooks stilled, stagnated and dead fish floated belly up, fouling them even further as they too rotted. The lovers’ expressions of devotion to each other faded, became leers and snarls, and sharp knives were fingered behind their backs.

  All of that and more ran through my mind as I looked down. Whatever it was, it was scary. Looking at Lilly, I saw that she was pale, her eyes large, and she was trembling. I moved closer, and put my arm around her.

  “What is it?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes from the armored figure.

  “A Death Knight,” she whispered. “By the gods, Duke, it’s a Death Knight.”

  I didn’t know what a Death Knight was, and didn’t think I wanted to. He sat on a black horse before the gates, clad completely in plate mail armor, also painted black. He wore a huge helm that covered his entire face, shaped like a snarling beast with huge, curled horns at each temple. At his side hung a long sword, and a morningstar hung from his horse’s saddle, within easy reach.

  But those weren’t his most potent weapons, I could tell that. Not by a long shot. His most lethal weapon was fear, and he used it like an expert swordsman wielded their blade.

  He must have felt us staring down at him. He looked up, directly at us, two glowing red spots shining through the eye slit in his helm.

  “Open the gates,” he boomed, his voice was deep, hollow and very loud. “Open the gates so that I may return to my home.”

  There was nothing in the world that I wanted to do less than to open those gates and let that thing into the city. And yet, I felt a strange compulsion to do exactly that. My legs almost started moving of their own accord.

  “Not a chance,” Lilly responded. In comparison to the Death Knight, her voice sounded high and strained, with a slight waver to it. Still, she refused him, and that act alone gave a little more steel to my spine.

  “Open the gates,” the Death Knight boomed out again. “Open the gates so that I may return to my home.”

  “Get bent!” Lilly yelled, and started casting a spell, her hair frizzing, eyes blackening…I moved away before the sparks came.

  “Three times must I ask,” the Death Knight said. “Open the gates. Open the gates that I may return to my home.”

  Lilly didn’t bother responding this time. She chanted out nonsense words, to me at least, and a black globe, shot through with veins of gold, formed between her hands. She moved as if she was molding it, forming it into a perfect sphere. Then, she raised it above her head, spitting and crackling with magical energy, and prepared to hurl it onto the Death Knight below.

  The Death Knight looked up, raised his left hand, with two fingers extended up, the rest curled into his gloved palm, and spoke a word. The word hurt. It flew from his lips into my ears and I thought that my head was going to split in two. My vision blurred and went red, and I sank to my knees. And I only got the edge of it.

  Whatever the spell was, it hit Lilly like a ton of bricks. She gasped, and the orb she held above her head winked out of existence as if it had never been. Gasping, she collapsed to her knees, retching and heaving.

  Below us, another word came, in the same foul, dark language as the first one. There was a rumble, and a crash, and the gates fell to the ground, followed by the portcullis, its iron bars twisted into a tangled heap of scrap.

  I yanked my gun from my belt, croaked, “Death Knight” at it, and raised it as the Death Knight appeared through the ruins of the gate on our side of the wall.

  He looked up again, only this time, his gaze was focused on me. It was all I could do to continue to look at him, to try to aim and pull the trigger.

  “Ah,” he said, and his voice was quieter now, more like a groan coming from something buried, but awake, inside a crypt. “Griefmaker. There you are.”

  He raised his hand and said another word, and I pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. The gun didn’t fire. Never, in all the years that I owned it, did that happen. Not once. I pulled the trigger over and over, desperate now, and still nothing happened.

  The Death Knight laughed, a sound that sent more shivers through me, and turned his back and rode on. As he moved away, he became cloudy, and then started to fade, until he disappeared from sight entirely. The noise of his horse’s hooves faded slowly away as well, until it was as if he was never there. The only evidence that he had been was the ruined gates, and the vile feeling that persisted from when he looked at me.

  “What the hell was that, Lilly?” I asked, feeling like I was on the edge of panic.

  “I told you,” she groaned, leaning back against the parapet. “It was a Death Knight. This is bad, Duke. Really bad.”

  No kidding, I thought, but chose not to say it out loud.

  We collected ourselves and slowly made our way down the steps inside the wall. The gate lay in total ruin at our feet, and there was no sign of the Watchmen, or anyone else, returning.

  “Lilly,” I said. “Did you hear what that thing said? When I tried to shoot it?”

  “No, I was busy trying not to heave my guts out. What’d it say?”

  “It said, and I quote, ‘ah, Griefmaker, there you are’. Then he said another word in that scary language, and my gun didn’t work.”

  She stopped walking and turned to me.

  “That’s not good either, Duke. Nothing has stopped your gun, not even the Fomorii. Does it work now?”

  “Good question.” I pulled it from my belt and turned back to the ruined gate. When I pulled the trigger, there was a loud report, and the little, metal ball sped out, kicking dust up from the ground where it hit.

  “Yep, it works now. But he did something to it. And he called it, or me, Griefmaker, like it was a name.”

  “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking to you, Duke. No offense, but I don’t see why he would have been. No, he recognized your gun, and had a spell ready to deal with it.”

  “That’s very disturbing,” I said. “And what was up with that having to ask three times and wanting the gates open to come home stuff?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. Honestly, Death Knights are like bogeymen for necromancers. Something that’s used to scare us. I didn’t believe they even really existed until now.”

  “Not something that you’re going to banish back to the netherworld, then?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think he’s stronger than I am. A lot.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we go back to the watchhouse. You let Sarge know what’s going on, I’ll talk to my bosses.”

  Sarge wasn’t too happy to find out that two of his officers deserted their posts, but after listening to what I told him, and filling him in on what Lilly said, his anger cooled off. He sent some men out to see if they could find the deserters and to spread the word to be on the lookout for the Death Knight, but to be aware of how dangerous it was and not to attack it.

  For her part, Lilly disappeared down the stairs to the necromancer’s area immediately. But it wasn’t long before she came back up, fuming.

  “Those idiots!” she stormed. “Unbelievable!”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “They don’t believe me! They think it must have been something else and that I’m covering for getting my butt kicked. There was even some suggestion that I take a few days off!”

  I was stunne
d. Lilly was always fiercely loyal to the Watch and had risked her life on several occasions in the performance of her duties.

  “How could they say that?” I said. “Don’t they know the things you’ve done?”

  She deflated.

  “Thanks, Duke. But you have to say that. Plus…I guess I can kind of see their point. They don’t want to believe that a Death Knight is loose in the city. They wouldn’t know how to deal with it.”

  “I believe you,” Sarge said. “And we’ll watch for him. But from what Duke has told me, it’s going to be more than my folks can handle.”

  “Don’t let them approach him!” she said. “Not even close. If they see him, you have to get word to me. I don’t know what I can do either, but I’ll be working on something.”

  When I heard Lilly talk like this, and heard the iron in her voice, I didn’t know if I should be more worried about her, or the Death Knight. Then I recalled the ease with which he destroyed the gates, taken us both out, and shut down my Ultimate Weapon. I was definitely more worried about Lilly.

  We said our goodbyes to Sarge and walked out, intending to go home, get some rest and hope that our headaches would pass. But we didn’t go more than a block when we heard the noise of horse hooves walking slowly past on the cobblestone street. There was nothing there, no sign of an actual horse, just the sound of its passing. It started out quietly, but steadily increased, until it rang out as clear as a normal horse.

  The air seemed to shimmer as we watched, and the Death Knight slowly came into view, appearing from nothingness. He didn’t so much as glance at us, instead, he rode straight on, directly toward the watchhouse.

  He stopped his horse there and dismounted. It was only then that I really took note of the beast for the first time. Black, with a black saddle and reins, it was a large horse, the Death Knights helmet only coming to his jaw. But that wasn’t the most disturbing thing. The horse was obviously dead, and had been for some time. Its eyes were gone, leaving two empty holes in its skull, covered over by tattered flesh. The teeth showed through the side of its jaw in places, and bones showed clearly through the thin skin along the rest of its body. Yet it stood strong and tall, the remnants of a once proud steed, animated in a mockery of the life it once had.

  As for the Death Knight, he turned to the Watchhouse and raised his arms, his voice starting a chant, low and hollow from inside his helm.

  “Not happening,” I heard Lilly say, and she raised her own hands, the sparks dancing, the hair flying, and her eyes black orbs.

  The Death Knight paid no attention to her, so his back was turned when Lilly unleashed her own spell. It sped away from her, invisible, but with a buzzing sound as it cut through the air, like a swarm of angry hornets. It hit the Death Knight in the small of the back, causing him to stumble forward, his arms coming down and his chant interrupted.

  But that was the only effect. He turned and looked at us, and again, all thoughts of anything pure and good in the world were corrupted and turned to filth.

  “I was hoping that would do more,” Lilly said. “It would have cut right through anyone else.”

  The Death Knight simply regarded us for a moment, and then laughed, that same mocking laugh he used before.

  “Little wizard,” his voice boomed out. “You think the realm of death is yours to command, but you are wrong. Now witness the power of a true master of death.”

  He pointed at Lilly, and said another word in that horrible language. I lunged, trying to get to her, tackle her to the ground and out of the path of whatever spell was coming. But it moved too fast.

  Lilly gasped and bent over, as if she had been punched in the stomach. That was all. She didn’t fly through the air, or start bleeding, or vomiting, or anything. But when she straightened, I could see a horrible loss on her face.

  “Lilly,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, “what is it?”

  “It’s gone, Duke,” she whispered, her eyes wide and staring, returned to their normal blue.

  “What’s gone?”

  “My magic. He cut me off. I can still feel it, but it’s out of reach…like a tease…”

  The Death Knight laughed and turned from us, dismissing us from his thoughts. He raised his arms high, and started chanting again.

  What the hell, I needed to try. I pulled my gun and aimed, squeezing the trigger as I did. Nothing. Again, nothing happened, and the gun refused to fire. I didn’t expect anything else, but it was worth a shot.

  Instead, it was time for sword work. I stuck the gun back into my belt, drew my sword and charged. I fared no better than Lilly’s spell.

  The Death Knight stood with his back to me, and I ran in, swinging as I came. My sword whipped around, and crashed into the side of his helm, a blow that should have knocked him sideways at the very least, and removed his head if I was lucky. It did nothing of the sort.

  Instead, I yelped as my sword stopped dead, as if I swung it as hard as I could at a large stone, only with less effect. There were no chips or splinters that went flying, and in the brief glimpse I got, I didn’t so much as put a scratch on him.

  But there was an effect on me. After my blow fell, there was a flash of light and I was thrown back, landing in a heap several paces away. I picked myself up, groaning, only to see that my sword was now a smoking ruin, the metal pitted and corroded, like it had been buried underground for decades, and then burned in a forge.

  “Stop, Duke,” Lilly said, moving to my side. “We can’t beat him. Not like this.”

  It infuriated me, but she was right. Instead, we could only watch as he continued his spell casting.

  The watchhouse started to change, as well as the buildings that surrounded it on either side. The walls turned to stone and grew, forming towers on each end. All up and down the block, the buildings that held the Watch, businesses, taverns and homes were swallowed up, or replaced, and a dark keep formed in their places.

  Where the watchhouse once stood, was now the entrance to the keep, the gates dark wood, thick and sturdy. They opened at the Death Knight’s gesture, and I could see a courtyard beyond, where once other buildings had been. It was a dead place, with weeds and skeletal trees growing, and a fog hovering above the ground. A cold wind came from there, like breath from a suddenly opened tomb.

  The Death Knight mounted his horse, rode forward without a glance in our direction, and entered what we could only imagine was his home. The gates swung shut behind him, and all was still.

  A new keep suddenly formed in the middle of Capital City, rivaling the castle of His Majesty on the hill. But that wasn’t my main concern at the moment. Instead, I was much more worried about Lilly, and about everyone else caught inside.

  I managed to get Lilly home, glad that I was with her. She seemed to be in a daze, letting me lead her along and not saying a word. She looked around her with an expression like she had never seen the world before. Once we were home, I got her settled into a chair and brought her a cup of hot tea.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “I think so. It’s …it’s hard, Duke. I’ve been able to touch magic my whole life, ever since I can remember. That’s how it works for a lot of us. It’s something we’re born with. But now, it’s like…I don’t know…like someone removed my sight, or hearing. It’s hard to explain.”

  “No, you’re doing fine. But the real question is, what can we do about it? How can we get it back?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I’ve never even heard of this happening to anyone. I told you that this was going to be bad.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I said. “But we’ll figure something out.”

  She didn’t answer me. She only sat and sipped her tea quietly.

  Of course, the first thing that I did was go to see Petal’s people. They all adored Lilly and credited her with getting them away from Fogwell and his Fun Fair. When I explained to them that she was in trouble, they came up immediately and saw her.

  “Pretty p
retty lady hurt?” Petal asked her, and wrapped her tiny arms as far as she could around Lilly’s neck. Lilly actually smiled at that, a little.

  The Brownies looked her over and cast spells, singing in those rapid high-pitched voices that they have. I was sure this was the answer, considering the natural power that they have. But in the end, they had to admit defeat also. Through the translators that the Watch wizards cooked up, they told us that they couldn’t even tell what was wrong, let alone how to fix it.

  I thanked them for trying, and with many a backward glance and well-wishes, they returned to their home in the basement. Petal stayed for a while, sitting quietly on Lilly’s shoulder, one hand wrapped around a lock of her hair. But after a time, she too left, and Lilly and I were alone again.

  “Thanks for trying, Duke,” she told me. “It was a good thought.”

  “It’s only the first,” I replied. “I’m not through yet.”

  But the truth was, I didn’t know what else to do. If Death Knight magic could stump Brownie magic, where else could we turn? And if Lilly was cut off from her power, what chance did I have against that thing?

  There were no answers, at least not tonight. It had been a long day, and a hard one, so despite our worries, Lilly and I turned in, hoping that the light of day would illuminate a way forward.

  It didn’t. Not really anyway. If anything, the light of day was pretty dingy. It broke gray and overcast, and we weren’t sure if it was going to rain, or if it was due to the presence of the Death Knight. Either way, it was a yucky day.

  We took a walk to the site of the watchhouse, hoping to see a change for the better. But if anything, it was worse. The keep was now fully solid, built of strong, dark gray stone, stacked high with tight joints. The gate was firmly shut, blocking any attempt to enter. When we walked around the block, the wall continued, all the way around it, tall and strong, totally supplanting anything that was there previously.