Reign of Immortals

by Marin Landis

  “That’s not a problem. I’ll take it to the King and explain what happened. We’ll probably be rewarded somehow.”

  “And how will you explain if the magic has run out? If it was only a one time event? It will be almost like murder? He won’t be best pleased that you’ve snatched immortality from his closest ally.”

  “Fuck!” Melvekior swore, this was becoming ever more complicated. “We have no choice, I won’t skulk about a traitor, I trust both the King and Prince to understand that I am returning the pendant taken by my deceased father. It could not have been known that it might be activated.”

  “Ye are forgetting one thing, boy,” spoke Janesca in a low voice. “Your mother.”

  Melvekior nodded, he had put that out of his mind, like most of his memories of her. “You said already that her death had something to do with these damnable necklaces. How can that be?”

  “Ye’ll as like not believe me, but I was told of yer mother’s fate long before it came to pass.” He looked at his son for some sign of engagement, but Melvekior had that look on his face, the look he got when his mother was mentioned. The blank look of a man trying to keep himself from reacting. “Foerlund, the Tarkan Grand Shaman, showed me things and took me places that no man should see. On one such journey we came to a place where nothing but a smoking mountain stood and within that mountain lived the ancient Jotnar. He pledged to show me their character, but a fiery vision stopped me entering the volcano. It was a vast bird, rising from the flames and made from the flames and for a split second I saw your mother, trapped within those flames.” Janesca looked sad. “I had forgotten that until the day he visited Saens Martelle and I saw the bird around his neck. It came flooding back and I knew what I should do. I would take that necklace and find out its secrets. That is why I was so often absent, son. I learned much, but not enough to satisfy me. In death though I have learned much, but Calra and Sunar are hiding something. This may not be the greatest of their secrets.”

  “In addition to that,” interrupted Accus. Melvekior was feeling less fond of this character with every word he spoke, “this body is rotting. It will decay at an increased rate. It will start to emanate a definite odor, its motor functions will fail until the body rots away completely. I don’t know then what will happen to your soul Martelle.” He looked appraisingly over at Janesca.

  “It’s merely Mikael now, deathman, Martelle is my son.”

  A fine time to become sentimental father, thought Melvekior. “Accus, can you do anything about that? Do you have magic to halt the decay?”

  “I can but it would have to be done every night at the darkest hour. For a chance to study the Mother’s seed though, I’d certainly do the honors. Plus the King is due here in a week for the Festival of High Summer, so you could petition him then for an audience. This is quite an opportunity for me, it would increase my standing in the order considerably. And I would overlook the destruction you’ve wrought in here.” He raised an eyebrow, knowing that he now had some leverage.

  “Actually, that’s not the only problem,” spoke Martelle senior, all heads turned to face him. “She’s still in here.”

  “What?!” An exclamation by the Necromancer and Knight alike.

  “Janesca. She’s in here too. I’m keeping her down but her soul as well as mine inhabits this body.”

  Melvekior stamped his foot down on the upturned table, smashing it and crushing a good deal of it into smithereens.

  “I can’t believe this is happening! I left my home and the only people in the world that I know, with a mere handful of crowns to seek adventure and what happens? My father is a half female, half male Draugr, our only ally is a crazed Necromancer, we’re about to admit stealing from the second most powerful head of state in the Three Kingdoms.” He stopped ranting suddenly, realizing that everyone was looking at him. Neither Necromancer nor dead father was taking him seriously and Accus even looked amused. His father broke the awkward silence.

  “This is what adventure looks like, so stop yer complaining.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  King Calra Alpre

  “We have become Gods!” - Thacritus.

  Calra Alpre was over three centuries old. He was King Alpre XVII and in fact the seventeenth in a row with that name. It was never commented on, as far as he knew, and probably not at all that unusual that a long line of kings would all have the same name. Every time he named an heir, that heir became known as Calra Alpre and at the pre-ordained time was ritually slain and the transmogrification initiated.

  He lived in constant fear of being killed or dying without his next body being ready, so took great care at all times. He employed the ridiculously expensive Deniers of Kurhu as bodyguards and was never without at least two within spitting distance. Calra never did anything dangerous and never, ever visited any of the battlefields on which his armies fought. That is not to say that he didn’t cause a lot of wars, he was a renowned warmonger, just that he fought his wars from the comfort of his own home and from behind the shield of immortality.

  This current avatar was of average height, with thick wavy black hair and blue eyes. Well built without being stocky and hands gifted with a musicians fingers and a dancer’s feet. He’d played the lute for centuries and the Alpre line was famous all over the known world for generation after generation of gifted players. Consequently, he was quite a hit with the ladies, although, honestly, being King meant that one was never short of female attention. The mother of this one still had her looks but of course, she was off limits. Slaying your children and inhabiting their body was one thing, having sex with your mother was quite another. Moral lines were blurred when you were an immortal king, but Calra wanted to constrain himself within some boundaries. It was necessary he felt to keep himself grounded. Look what had happened to Sunar and Critus, after all. Besides, any offspring ran the risk of being deformed and he didn’t want to take over a body and then for some awful congenital defect to arise, heretofore unknown, leaving him to spend decades in an unsuitable body, waiting for the amulet to recharge.

  He was admiring himself in the mirror in his bedchamber when there was a rap at the door. A hesitant rap, so he knew who it was. Ortense; his secretary and mistress. Everyone else just knocked like a buffoon, but Ortense was a delicate, scared woman. Scared of being found out by his wife and terrified of the Deniers. She knocked again. He sighed and made his way over to his writing desk. It was a small piece of furniture with just enough room for him to slide a chair beneath. Square in shape with a half-moon cut out of one of the corners, which is where he now sat. He reached out for the pen which stood in an ink-well, tapped it against the edge of the well and bowed his head over some papers and began to sign them.

  Halfway through the first document he shouted, “Yes, who is it?”

  A muffled voice came back through the door. “It is I, Ortense, Your Majesty. I bear a communique of some importance.”

  “Very well, you may enter,” said the king. He turned on his chair to face the doors. They were ornate, dark wood, carved with a hunting scene. A king, standing over the body of a great boar, triumphant, while chaste maidens gamboled around a forest clearing. It was impressive, a work of genius probably. He’d been looking at it for over three hundred years.

  The eight foot tall double doors opened slowly. Without stood his servant, flanked by the two Deniers. While any sane person would be wary of them, Ortense, already a nervous type, looked like she was about to cry. Calra beckoned her in and waited until the doors closed on the nearly nude guards. He himself suppressed a shiver. No matter how long he lived he would never get used to them, so alien were their beliefs and culture, but they provided a much needed service. To him and the kingdom.

  “What is it, Ortense?” he asked coldly. He liked her immensely, but resented that she seemed to be the only person he knew who gave him work to do.

  “This came from the court of Prince Sunar, Lord.” He held out a scroll, wrapped up with a light purple silk ri
bbon. It matched, by accident or design he didn’t know, Ortense’s hair ribbon. The woman was a monument to vanity which of course made her beautiful, one of the most beautiful he had ever seen. From her short straight, immaculately trimmed hair, to her colorful lace blouson, this day in purple and white, to the tight, brown, skirt that ended at the knee. It gave her figure an hourglass appearance that was extremely alluring. She constantly fiddled with her hair and clothing, ensuring the perfection of her appearance. Apart from all that, she was loyal and obsessively organized, all to please him.

  He nodded casually and took the scroll, unfurled it and read it eagerly. Prince Sunar was his brother. Or was he? It was difficult to know exactly, but they were born of the same mother, three and a half centuries ago. Both had lived in many different bodies since then but it was the same man he had grown up with, fought beside and forged an empire alongside. His current avatar was absolutely no relation to Sunar’s and only a handful of people knew of the connection between them.

  Cal,” the letter started, “I hope you are well, I am not.” What you are is a drama queen, thought Calra. He continued to read, pleased with his private joke. “My amulet has been stolen. Yes, the unthinkable has happened. Not just stolen but replaced with an almost identical replica, so that I’d already named my heir and started the rite of transference. That was this morning and as you well know, that means I have sixteen days to complete the rite or this body will die. I have sent this same message to Critus. Could we meet tonight in the same old place? Say an hour after nightfall? Yours, Sunar.”

  Calra didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So, it’s the perfect little brother who is the first to go? I always thought it would be me. He will probably try to invoke the clause in the Covenant that covered the loss of our individual portions of Neral. Critus will never agree to it, we made it strict for a reason and that will be that. It will be the end of an era. I’ll take over his lands and Critus, his Volcanium reserves.

  Part of him, a three hundred year old part, felt a little sad.

  He rolled up the scroll, walked behind his desk and dropped it into the fireplace. That sort of information must never get out. “I will be traveling through the Precipitator tonight, have everything readied,” he told Ortense as he took a seat again at his desk. He opened a drawer, took out a fresh sheet of parchment and began to write.

  “My loyal subjects, it pains me greatly to hear of the death of Prince Sunar. He was a great man and a great friend…”

  Hours later, he stood before the Precipitator. He was dressed every inch the King. A regal, royal-purple robe, inlaid with gold filigree arranged intricately with the overall effect of making the monarch appear taller than he was. His hair was oiled and curled carefully so that it hung to his shoulders, perfectly framing his handsome face. He wore no crown, for the people he would meet were as royal as he, or nearly as much so, but a simple platinum band across his forehead adorned with a single purple stone in the center. He had a sombre look on his face and he stepped in his most stately fashion through the swirling gray portal which was the Precipitator.

  It was not always “on”, but most of the time looked like a huge mirror in an oval frame, eight feet tall, supported by a simple stand composed of two half moon shapes at either end of a block of wood.

  A Thacritian Mage was always on duty in case the King wanted to travel somewhere in a hurry or to receive people or objects from elsewhere through the gate. Sunar’s scroll had thus come earlier that day. The position of Gate Attendant was one of the most boring in the country, receiving very little recognition of the skill involved. The current incumbent had never had a thank-you from anyone and often wondered if even his superiors remembered that he was alive.

  Stepping into a completely different room, the King thought back on all the times he’d been in this exact spot. It hadn’t changed in over three hundred years and that was how they all liked it. He was the first one there and the chamber was empty. It was a large room, the common room of a unused tavern, its name long forgotten to the denizens of Amaranth, the city in which it stood, but Calra remembered. The King’s Head. Ironic.

  Most of the room was empty. A Precipitator, the same as the one in his Observatory, stood in the center of the room and off to one side were three comfortable chairs. It was also quite dark, there being no light source apart from some faint luminescence from the transport mirror. There was no dust in this room, no rats and such was the level of magical protection, no person would bother trying to get in. They’d be distracted by something else or be otherwise turned away from trying to gain entrance. In all those years, there’d been no break-ins. Critus had his uses.

  As he sat on the same chair he’d sat on many times before, he reflected that this was probably the first time in a decade he’d been without bodyguards. He felt confident though that neither of his brothers would try to do him harm.

  Critus came next. He appeared suddenly next to his own chair, not even using the Precipitator. Calra nodded awkwardly, they never had a lot to say to each other, even as children. He hadn’t changed a bit. Some magic of his meant that the immortality that their amulets afforded them could apply to his physical form as well as his soul. Of course he refused to share the process or even talk much about it. When Sunar had pressed him he had refused, saying “I’ve already taught you how to harness the Forever Stone, is eternal life not enough for you?”

  He was average in height and had the look of their mother. He wore now, as always, a black, hooded robe. As head of state of the Thacritian Mages he was the only one permitted to wear such a robe. There was a complex ranking system in place that meant your rank determined what you wore. A Mage’s status, role and power could easily be determined by a quick glance at his robe’s color, design and decoration. In their twisted set of values, plain black was the number one color. Calra thought them all pretentious and overly sensitive and had as little to do with them as possible. Their trade requirements were minimal and they didn’t need help fighting any wars as they weren’t ambitious enough to want to attack anyone. The couple of times they’d been invaded over the past centuries, ended in complete disaster for the invading forces, adding to their notoriety and dissuading other potential enemies.

  Sunar, Sukie as they called him as children, the youngest of the three brothers, appeared last. He’d taken on board the same strategy as his brother by making it part of the statute books that every ruler of Maresh-Kar take the same name.

  Looking harassed and not his usual handsome and well-kept self, he almost threw himself into his chair. “Brothers,” he said as way of greeting.

  Critus waved his hand dramatically and a bottle with three glass appeared magically on the table between the three chairs. Big sleeves can hide a multitude of sins, thought Calra. No way did he do that with actual magic.

  Sunar opened the bottle and poured each of them a generous measure of the strong spirit, drinking his down in one large mouthful and pouring another.

  The Prince of Maresh-Kar wore a pair of black, ankle length boots, black leggings, a purple shirt and a yellow overcoat. Overall, a popinjay of the highest order. Calra couldn’t figure out why he would spend so much time being vain, how could it possibly aid him? Wasn’t being the ruler of the second most powerful nation on the continent enough? Did one have to be famously handsome too? Insecure.

  “Thank you for coming. I know how much my letter must have surprised and enraged you.” No matter which body Sunar took, he still managed to achieve the same smile. Calling it a smile was stretch to be fair, sneer would be more accurate.

  “How could you have lost your amulet and who could know what it means?” Calra would take no prisoners here. His little brother had put their immortality at risk and long ago they had set forth the punishment and rules that would apply here.

  “I don’t know, if I knew I would track them down. Do you honestly believe that if I had a single clue who swapped my amulet with this piece of junk,” he threw something down on the ta
ble between them, “that I wouldn’t find them and make them pay. I don’t even know when it happened.”

  “And you are under the geas of the rite of transference?” whispered Critus in the same croaking excuse for a voice that he’d had since they were children. Calra believed it to be affected and had heard him many times speak normally when he was excited or believed himself alone.

  “Yes, definitely. I have fifteen days now to complete the rite or this body will fail, isn’t that so?” He peered over at Critus who nodded slowly.

  Sunar did not continue and this was frustrating for Calra. The little bastard always expected others to sort out his messes and three centuries of being pandered to by hangers-on and toadying courtiers had only made matters worse.

  “Well, what do you expect us to do about it?” shouted Calra. “Our amulets aren’t missing. We didn’t lose OUR immortality.” He found himself standing, so took a deep breath and sat back onto the chair. Critus’s face was unreadable and half shadowed. Sunar looked crestfallen.

  “Brother, for now, I ask merely for your help in finding the amulet. With our pooled resources, there will surely be a way we can discover its location and retrieve it…”

  “And if not? There isn’t much time after all.” interrupted Calra.

  “Then I will invoke Force Majeure and end our contract.” He crossed his arms like a spoiled child.

  Critus hissed in surprise beneath his hood. Calra was furious. He’d damn us all, for his own sake, he thought.

  “Do not risk it, Sukie.” Calra appealed to his brother’s good side, to their fraternity, but like him, Sunar’s moral compass needle had swung towards self-preservation.

  “We are different men now, Cal, we are not scared teenagers any longer.” He turned to face his youngest brother, whom he hardly knew and never had. “Critus, surely you have the power to cure the Phagia.”