Gravetower

by Kell Inkston

  “And you, Ranalie… Do you think people would understand?”

  For a second, she considers leaning into his tall, broad shoulder— but the scars of the past run far too deep for her to really feel the same way he does about her. Somehow, after all these thousands of years, Redemption is still willing to be hurt like that. Order’s smile curls crassly again as she is reminded that she is utterly damaged goods without any hope for recompense or repair. She may be desirable by some but once the mantle of heroine comes off and they look inside, they’d know, just like she does, how completely unlovable she truly is. “Understand about us?” She asks.

  “Yes. If… if we were to…” he straightens his gaze for the cell. “Join in secret,” he adds gently.

  They both scoff at the thought.

  “The scandal would be historic. Those L.M.H.I. people would be all over us.”

  “Love is normal, Ran’.”

  “No, she’s not,” Order says with a smirk.

  “I mean, being in love.”

  “O-oh, right. It is normal, but it’s not allowed for us. Just Rayda’s ghost haunting us still, eh?”

  Redemption chuckles like an old man in the body of a fortified thirty-year-old. “I suppose he i-”

  There’s a knock on the door, and the two separate hands instantly.

  “Come in,” Redemption says.

  The long horns, robust stature, and deep cloaks of Uurd the Swamp come into view. As the Magic Council’s foremost interrogator of information, she has to look the part— though she’d try to look the part even if she didn’t have to, the creep.

  “I hear you need some information.”

  “Yes, hello— how convenient to have you with us today when you’re so accessible. We need you to interrogate this Chaos-minion here.”

  Uurd looks over through the glass, her dark skull showing no face underneath its soulless gaze. “Aw, well shit. She’s gonna be a tough one,” she notes, watching Scout Minion resort to spinning around on the floor in somersaults and breakdance-like spirals.

  Redemption sighs. “Well we all know it can feel pain like anything else. Just hit it until it talks.”

  “She won’t get nuthin’ outta’ me!” Scout Minion screeches as she rolls around viciously, like a living, extreme wheel that’s equal parts chair and furious minion.

  Uurd draws in as Redemption draws back. “She can hear us even through his glass?” Redemption asks.

  “Fascinating,” Uurd says in a tone that makes neither of the knights comfortable.

  “Minions can pick up vibrations. They don’t have actual ears, rather their whole body is one big feeling instrument.”

  “Very fascinating,” Uurd adds, subconsciously reaching into the folds of her several cloak layers to find something nasty to interrogate with.

  “Uh, right— so do you think you can do it?” Redemption asks with a raised brow.

  Uurd hums. “I can. It won’t be hard at a-”

  “I will run you over! And skid you across the planet!” Scout Minion cries as she rams into the wall with shocking speed, creating a powerful thud through the halls.

  Redemption crosses his arms. “You’re sure?”

  “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” Uurd affirms with put-on confidence.

  Redemption, of course, would like to be polite— but he seriously thinks she hasn’t actually dealt with anything like this before.

  “Good luck,” Order says.

  “Thank you,” Uurd answers as she steps down the stairs to enter the mid-way room into the cell.

  Redemption and Order watch a moment more as Uurd enters the cell, only to be rammed by a top-spinning chair-bound Scout Minion.

  “YOU ARE BUT A ROAD TO ME, MIRE WENCH!” Scout Minion screams as she almost gains wall time from the momentum of smashing over Uurd.

  Order and Redemption look on with bemused expressions, despite all that’s happened.

  “Oh, so I guess we should pile in Uurd with Glory and Meeo, eh?”

  Redemption purses his lips to stifle a laugh. “This is one fucked up life we have for us, eh?”

  She nods, then nudges him gently. “But the pain is worth it, isn’t it?”

  “You’re weirdly chipper.”

  “I am, and I don’t really know why. I don’t think… I’ve ever gotten Chaos’ arm before.”

  Redemption gently pantomimes applause. “We can kill him.”

  Her features sharpen. “Yeah… we certainly could.”

  “…You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course… after all, he did kill my husband all those… unimaginable years ago. He ruined the fight against Apocalypse. He even stole a pie from my windowsill once. He’s a dirty one.”

  For some reason her assurance doesn’t put Redemption at ease, and his brows lift up in mild concern. It’s something about her tone of voice.

  “You’re okay, then?”

  She nods with a satisfied smile as Scout Minion positively pummels Uurd. “Yeah, just have a lot to think about is all.”

  “Is it something we can talk about?”

  The two watch the humorous scene unfold below as she purses her lips. “I don’t think it is.” Very subtly, she brushes his hand with her own. “Take care.”

  Redemption clenches his fist at her touch. “…You too.”

  “Enjoy the show,” she adds as she passes off into somewhere else in the HQ.

  No sooner does she get halfway through the hall than a small paper slip in her kit binder catches fire. Not many people know the significance of a magician’s personal book, but they tend to keep them handy and protected. Love’s is a small, quaint note pad with random bunches of scribbles and cute pictures. Redemption’s is closed up in a box in a secure location. Chaos, bless his heart, has about seven dozen but keeps forgetting them and continually begins new ones. Order, however, keeps hers tucked in her pack with travel filters iconography. The second the little slip of paper ignites, the White Witch Queen of the West knows that something with an enormous magical weight has passed into Overlord Space— and she designed these to light off only when something as extreme as a certain High Overlord passes in.

  Order does not lay back to enjoy a well-earned rest; instead, she leaves a note detailing her absence at her desk, takes up her gear, and sets off for the HQ space gate. It's a matter of fact that she has a job to do, and the primary part of that job is hunting Chaos at every opportunity.

  “You’re not coming back for your arm, then?” she addresses outwardly as if someone were listening, just as she passes into the gate to another realm. “I guess I’ll get to see all your tricks for once, rabbit,” she adds, figuring she might as well take care of three birds with one stone.

  Then, as if mechanically and by nature, she sets off for the hunt— entirely unaware of the greater design that she and Chaos have set at their feet. They have unwittingly joined a fatal wager, where there is only one player that sees the entire board. Just as she passes through, the first round of the released knights is tossed out from the space gate— bound, gagged, and covered with charming minion-style insults markered across their faces.

  Chapter Nineteen: Absolute Torture

  Some time before this, Overlord Pales thinly enters The Twelfth Lunar House— its great full moon chained in the sky above, where it waxes full as long as she commands it.

  In her arms is the desecrated Knight Love, her strewn entirety trailing over Pales’ arms like gruesome drapes as the two gently descend just a meter above the keep’s outer foyer; a lone werewolf butler approaches to take his queen’s word.

  “Who is this, my lady?”

  Pales, no longer an incorporeal mess of shifting light, smiles as she looks over Meeo— who is conscious only from adrenaline. “Our vengeance, dear kinsman. Prepare a place for her.”

  “In the dungeon?” The white-haired wolf growls.

  Her crimson-red lips purse in humor. “The room, next to mine.”

  The wyrdwolf draws back
a moment, looking over the helpless woman’s expression of indescribable agony. “This is the one we’ve been readying for? If I may be so bold—”

  “You may not. Off with you.”

  The wolf steps back quickly with a bow, and rushes away.

  Pales sighs as she drifts through the hall, leaving a trail of Meeo’s blood drizzling across the dark marble floors on the way to the secret abode. The two pass by Pales’ numerous minions. Unlike Chaos’ cute retinue of disrespectful jobbers, each of her underlings are at their knees the second she comes into view. Her red moon gaze crosses them all with care, as her standards are always high, and her punishments for failing to meet said standards is doubly-so.

  The duo float along up hallways and down secret bloody promenades, through secrets and sentries of the most occult kind— all the way to her personal chambers. She’s not a proponent to the prevailing overlord culture attitude of “not being a bitch and being ready for a fight at all times”. Pales, for as long as she’s lived, has learned; while viciousness is part of the path to success, the other side of the coin is secrecy.

  She places Love into a chair in her personal, windowless room, which is enveloped horribly by any number of arcane mementos and ornate, lavish trappings. She coos with humor a moment, glad Oa at least left the knightess's neck intact, and then gently straddles the chair.

  Love flinches as Pales wraps around her, but she’s helpless to resist.

  “Do excuse the wait,” Pales says, her lips but a centimeter from Meeo’s soft neck. “But I wouldn’t dare do this outside of privacy.”

  With a quick, soft kiss, she bites— and crimson, wild sparks can be seen in the depths of Meeo’s dark eyes.

  At once Meeo draws breath, and her organs begin steadily, eerily, gathering themselves back into her. Like some form of profane clockwork, her entire body reels itself back together, suturing up as if Oa had never even dreamt of her.

  Meeo exhales, but the air which spills out is cold. “H-hi,” she says with only half-sense.

  Pales hugs Meeo against her. “Hi! Are you okay?”

  Steadily, any darkness in Meeo’s eyes is purged by the bright red encroaching upon it. She nods.

  “I’m alright… That wasn’t painful at all.”

  Pales strokes a stray bang from Meeo’s forehead. “You poor dear, Oa was a bit of a bastard, I’m afrai-”

  Meeo shakes her head gently. “I mean, vampirification.”

  “Changing over? Yes, after the bite it’s quite painless.”

  Meeo’s features sharpen, her old self returning quickly— or rather, part of her old self. “You said he was? You mean to s-”

  “Dead. He, it, Oa, is gone.”

  Meeo smiles in relief. “Then we’re still on track.”

  Pales nods gleefully, looking over Meeo like her personal golden goose— a true worker of miracles. “I was worried for a bit, but it seems like not a soul is suspicious. They don’t have a clue!”

  Meeo bows her head as she receives another appreciative peck from Pales. “They certainly don’t, and if all goes as planned Chaos will only find the first two books in the series.”

  “Our series?” Pales asks with a smile as she leans away and offers Meeo her hand. Meeo takes up the Vampire Goddess’ slender white fingers, and is pulled to her feet.

  “That’s right~ Now if all goes well, Chaos and Order will come here; we’ll close one of them in with Celayneth, they’ll take care of him while we take care of the other, and then you’ll be the one remaining child of Ohkiij.”

  “And the rightful possessor of all its magic!”

  Meeo chuckles. “That’s right. There will be nothing stopping you.”

  Pales, one for entering personal space as much as possible as both a feature of habit and for taking prey off its guard, steps up to Meeo again and embraces her— breathing in the faint tones of incense from her clothing.

  Meeo responds, perhaps only politely, by embracing her back.

  “You mean nothing stopping us.”

  “I have a request, though,” Meeo says.

  Pales presses her finger against Meeo’s lips. “As agreed, your little white dove will join us too. I have wondered, though. Her skin is so fair, and she’s lived for so long, are you sure Order isn’t a vampire?”

  Meeo smirks. “She hails from a forest tribe North of Kanvane—long-since destroyed by the dragons. They all had white hair and pale skin. She’s been through a lot, you know. Even so, it’ll take her some getting used to. She hunts y- our kind without mercy, probably takes pleasure in it. I’ve been her friend for… as long as I can remember, now— so I can guarantee you she’d sooner die than become a vampire, but I figure if we don’t give her the choice then it won’t be a problem.”

  The High Vampiress strokes Meeo’s neck, right over the bitemarks; they are the only injuries that remain after her transformation. “I’d be happy to have you both as high sisters in my house. Just know that I will always be your dearest masteress; don’t you dare forget it.”

  The Realmancer leans gently into her touch, just like she did with Chaos the day before yesterday. “Those terms are perfectly fine for me. Thank you, my masteress. As per our agreement, do I have a place for my craft?”

  Pales draws back just far enough to make eye contact; two crimson gazes unite with the tenderness of family, and probably something more. “As agreed. It’s all next door to your quarters. I’d love to watch you sometime—cast realmancy, I mean.”

  Meeo coos. “One does not cast realmancy, my masteress, they ‘commit’ it; also I’m afraid it only works if there’s only one consciousness within the sealed chamber. The results differ significantly if it's witnessed, and not for the better.”

  The Queen of All Parasites pouts teasingly. “Oh, well I’ll just have to settle to view you some other time.” She says this with a carefully locked gaze into Meeo, who isn’t quite so used to the directness.

  Without blood running through her, Meeo cannot blush. “Ah, well, it would be an honor if you ever should wish it.”

  Pales nods. “So you need to go and commit some realmancy?”

  “That’s right. I need to double check the causal strands for the likelihood of the narrative.”

  Pales prides herself with being well-learned in many powerful magics— but like most overlords, magics that are at the very, very highest echelon of sophistication stand above her as an eternal taunt. “And I suppose this is your way of finding out how likely something is to happen?”

  “Correct. If this Inkston person is writing a detailed narrative of what did happen, I simply need to find the version of the books that has the highest accuracy to the causal strands.”

  Pales raises a black-night brow, perfectly self-caring and always looking fabulous like every other inch of her unholy entirety. “There’s more than one version of the books?”

  Meeo nods as she reaches into one of her dimensional satchels. From this bag she pulls out five identical-looking copies of Woodcastle.

  “The big challenge is that Kell hasn’t as far as I know actually written any of these yet, and technically he won’t write any of them. The closest I’ve found has a causal probability of eighty-three percent.”

  “So the story inside is eighty-three percent likely.”

  “The object is eighty-three percent likely to be created. I’ve seen versions where one hundred pages of the text are just random grouping of numbers and letters. I’ve found one where the cover has one of Chaos’ dancing minions on it. You have to understand you can get any version of anything through realmancy if you try hard enough.”

  “Because it’s the collection of objects that do not exist.”

  “You’re a sharp one, my lady, not that I’m surprised,” Meeo notes with a smile as she opens each of the copies and shows her different inconsistencies; she even reads aloud a couple passages where the narrative takes a completely weird direction— like during the fight with Oa, when the late knight Lain Gainswold ends up clim
bing atop of it and killing it single-handedly, or a version where Chaos just kills Love and Aoline the moment he sees them in his tower.

  Pales’ features steadily darken all throughout, warier and warier to the layered schemes of her newest charge. It becomes painfully obvious to the Alpha Vampire that Meeo is not just well-mannered, good company, and properly soft to her tastes— but also a deeply-introspective mastermind and not someone to be underestimated.

  Meeo replaces the books into the satchel and looks back up to Pales. “That said, I have to be very certain that the probability of our plan hasn’t changed. There’s a possibility that bringing them both here could have them both, by some tragedy, join forces temporarily— and that would give us a serious run for our coin if they took care of Celayneth together and then made way right for you.”

  Pales searches Meeo’s eyes and reaffirms herself that she can be trusted. “And, both will be… weaker, yes?”

  Meeo nods with a certain smile. “Order will be motivated through combat and cause, but she’ll be weak— and Chaos, bless his heart, will be at the lowest state that history’s ever seen him in by the time he reaches the center keep. I’ll do more research, but I can at least guarantee you he will be missing an arm, will be at a pittance of mana, and probably won’t even have Kingdom Slayer.”

  Meeo’s fortunate estimation sets Pales a bit at ease. “So what’s the most likely outcome, right now?”

  “Chaos and Order will enter the Lunar house, battle across its defenses separately, meet about halfway; they will do battle, with no victor. We will seal one away using a fake passage that leads to the Hell of Nails, and then after lots more excitement that we won’t have to worry about, they’ll both meet us up here at slightly separate times. This is where we will first cripple Order to await your domination and crush that void-hopping low-life.”

  Pales draws back, her concerns abated even more with dreams of being the one—the divine, unstoppable force that could rightfully claim the title of Chaos’ Slayer, and the new, rightful High Overlady. It would be her face on the top of the O.E.L. most wanted list, not that short-term memory ignoramus.

  “And… and what of our fellows in the night? Those that comprise the defense.”