by P. G. Thomas
Black mist like tendrils reached out from Zymse, grabbing the arrow in midflight, breaking it. As black-clad guards rushed him, Panry fired three more in quick succession, but each arrow met the same fateful black embrace. Unable to defeat the odd black substance that now defended Zymse, he whispered, “Unnamed, I command you to finish my task,” Knowing he had lost and paid a terrible price, as Panry dropped his bow, he unsheathed his blade and also picked up Babartin’s fallen sword. Just as he began to advance on the black-clad soldiers, his feet refused to move, sticking to the roof as if he had stepped in glue. He saw the threatening guards slow, stop, and from the corners of his eyes, he saw the ground begin to lift. He had seen similar in swamps where plants lured insects to them, trapping and then devouring them. Watching the sides close around him, he slashed at them with his swords, but the sticky substance held the blades in place, and no amount of effort would loosen the steel or his boots. He saw the two sides begin to marry together, the sky disappearing above, and watched as the blackness devoured him, “Mother I am coming—” Then, once again, the theater was quiet.
Zymse looked out over the crowd, “Guess I was wrong. They just do not know when to give up.” He looked to the young lady carrying the crown, “Finish this.”
As she approached the Master of Ceremonies, he began shrinking to normal size, and then he picked up the crown, placing it on the head of Zymse Darpac. “On this day, I do hereby proclaim you King of Calicon.”
He stood, looked at the silent crowd, “All will cheer now!”
As if compelled by magic, all 25,000 in the theater cheered. Zymse smiled behind his black veil, adjusted his crown, and looked out upon his now loyal subjects. “So long ago I came to this wasteland, and then I invited my distant countrymen to join me. Which you did, and in doing so, prospered, but my thanks, my praise, where is it? I learned a long time ago, if you want something from life, you have to take it. Many years ago, I started to prepare for this day, which has finally arrived. All those who are pleased to worship me as King, bow before me.”
Though few actually wanted to, the crowd that viewed the odd spectacle bowed.
Zymse took a long, deep breath, “On this day, I also wish to announce that I have been blessed further. This week I was expecting my heir to be born, but my blessing was beyond my expectations. I have always played the odds, but never before been so richly rewarded, so a sign it must be. I wanted one heir to carry on my legacy, and instead, a father five times over this week I am. All will now cheer!”
The crowd roared with incredible excitement.
As they quieted down, the curtains on the stage separated, and a tall regally dressed lady in a black dress walked out, followed by five younger girls who each carried a newborn baby in their arms.
Zymse turned to the crowd, “On your knees now, and pledge your allegiance to my heirs, and your respects to my Queen.”
The crowd did as commanded, and even those in the reception room in the back did the same. Ryan, mimicking their behavior, began to understand what was happening.
“My loyal subjects, I have one more announcement. The history of Darkpaye has a troubled past. Those who sought power would conspire against those to whom it belonged, taking it. As such, I have little desire to see the same anarchy fester here, so I created my Obedience Bond, and if you look at your hand, you will see it. From this day forward, you will do as I say, never act against my heirs, my house, or myself. As you go forth, tell all of this great day and of the new King of Calicon. Tell them that any who fail to come forward in the next seven days to receive my gift of obedience, on the eighth, they will be floating obediently out to sea on the Key River. DEAD! The legacy of Zymse Darpac will rule the lands of Calicon from now until the last sun burns out. On this day, I decree this to be true,” and then he smiled behind his black veil.
*******
Lauren fell to her knees, “What the hell just happened? Where’s Ryan? That was my daughter Samantha! I could tell even from here. Those were my grandsons, and Zymse is their bastard father. Where are the other two? Are they dead? What the hell do we do?”
Steve caught up in a world that he was unable to understand, dropped to his knees, and being incapable of finding the words to comfort her, he wrapped his arms around Lauren.
*******
Ryan was still standing at the back of the room with Darkath, but he noticed a change in the man, realizing that the Obedience Bond now influenced the one-time traitor’s thoughts. Giving him a quick hard jab on the chin, knocking him out cold, he rolled him under a skirted table. When he turned around, his appearance was that of Darkath. After the room had emptied, he headed down to a heavily guarded door where he saw Zymse sitting on a makeshift throne, receiving salutations from his now loyal followers. He walked up to the guard, “I would like to congratulate our new King.” When the guard asked for his name, he replied Darkath. Checking the list and the hand for the Obedience Bond, the guard let him into the crowded room. For two hours, he watched Zymse receive those that were both worried about their futures, and who felt compelled to recognize the one that now ruled them. As he watched from the back, he kept his rage in check by thinking about Lauren.
As the last of the crowd began to dwindle, Zymse smiled at his drinking partner and waved him over. Ryan, remaining calm, approached. [Secondary objective confirmed. Conditions: 99% success probability. Action: Terminate with extreme prejudice.] When he was two feet away, his body transformed back to Ryan, but his skin was rock hard, his left arm now a sword, and he lunged at Zymse with all of his rage. However, the magical blade suddenly stopped in midair, and the unexpected change in action caught him by surprise. Before him stood an odd figure of a man, having an elaborate scale-like tattoo, who was now holding his sword arm motionless without any effort. Ryan, screaming in anger at the mysterious man, could feel the rage building. He grew in size by over two feet, increasing his bulk, but so did the tattooed being. Then a second appeared, and a third, and finally, a fourth, who all grabbed him. He tried to change shapes, but the beings with similar powers countered his moves. He transformed his body, covering it in razor sharp spikes, but his opponents melded around them. When he increased his body heat to super-hot, they did the same. Making himself small, they followed suit. Invisibility had no effect, and when he tried to teleport away, the odd creatures that clung to him negated his escape route. He made his body slippery, but they changed their bodies to be grit covered. Even when he went two-dimensional, they still refused to release their grip, and he felt like he was battling an image in a mirror. [Analyze situation: Outnumbered. Offense: Ineffective. Counter Measures: Ineffective. Opponents Energy Source: Mithril. Warning-Warning-Warning. Reserves being siphoned. Options: Immediate Shutdown.] Ryan fell motionless to the ground.
Chapter 24
“We need to get back to the house,” pleaded Lauren.
“I know, but we can’t leave right now. We need to wait for the crowd to die down and, damn, there are a lot here. If somebody sees us, they’ll shout for the guards.”
She sat down on a box. “I wish John hadn’t taken all of the portal bracelets to Ironhouse,” and she then started praying to Mother and Tranquil.
*******
[Reboot. Safe Mode.] Ryan woke chained to a large board leaning against a wall. On either side of him stood one of the beings with the odd tattoos, but their chests were now bare, allowing him to see how the tattoos covered their entire upper body. While not actually standing, they had melded to the board with both their hands and feet morphing into large shackles holding him in place. As he struggled to free himself, he saw the one to the right open its eyes, but its face was emotionless. He called to the rage, wanting to kill Zymse, but it never answered.
He scanned the room, trying to understand what had happened, and where he was. To his right, more boards empty of occupants leaned against the wall. Several feet away sat a brazier with hot coals, and protruding from the center, wooden handles with their metal ends wedged
into the glowing embers. To his left, on the adjacent wall, were several small cells with barred doors, and the far wall of the room had chains with numerous cruel instruments of torture hanging on it. The wall to the left had a disturbing shrine-like display, having over one hundred elf belt buckles mounted around a lone stuffed wolf’s head. On the ground in front, a headless wolf fur rug. Beside the shrine stood the armor that once protected Eric, but from above, acid slowly dripped eating away at it, and numerous pieces had already fallen into the caustic pool at the bottom of the grotesque display. Beside it, the once powerful sword called Tranquil Fury rested on two pedestals, with acid dripping onto the once highly polished blade, pooling in the deeply cut runes. The once razor sharp edges now had deep V’s cut into the hard metal, caused by years of the corrosive liquid devouring them.
When the door at the far end opened, the new King of Calicon walked in with a black sash across his body, wearing a smaller one covering the lower half of his face and his gold crown. “Of the six, you were always my biggest concern.” Zymse walked over to the shrine, stepped out of his shoes, and dug his bare toes into the wolf skin rug, letting out a soft moan. “Hello, Zack,” and then he began to add twelve new elf belt buckles to the wall. “It took months of getting those damned dwarf bards drunk to understand what you six had done. However, they would never tell me everything I wanted to know. Then I found one who was down on his luck, as he was having disagreements with the other bards about discrepancies in the ‘great play,’ and once he proved that his knowledge was second to none, I offered him the chance to write his own version.” Zymse stepped back, and he began to dust the display with an odd long brush that hung at the side. It was over two feet long, which had a band tied around it every few inches, and Ryan knew that it once hung from the chin of Bor Ironhouse. “I had him start with the final battle, inquiring oftgen how these six young ones had developed such extraordinary powers. Quite often, I made him so drunk that he readily gave up his secrets. Then one night he said ‘mithril.’ Knowing that only steel can defeat steel, I knew I would have to counter this strange mithril magic of yours in case I ever had the misfortune of meeting you.” He returned the dwarven beard brush to its honored place, “However, there was a problem. If I were successful, my creations would be stronger than I could ever be.” Behind his black veil he smiled, “Well, that was a long time ago and things recently changed. I had to find a way to make them mindless slaves who would only be capable of understanding me, but never having a thought of their own. I had to hire hundreds, experimented on all of them, but I had little luck. Then I found a healer in Alron, a truly talented elf, extraordinary gift really. I cut out her tongue, so she was unable to call her damn Earth Guard or Mother, and then I painfully convinced her to see things my way. After that, I found just the right spot to drill into the brain so that it did minimal damage, but it allowed my new soldiers to function, only following my orders. I originally tried to insert mithril into them, but it failed to work, and even she was unable to save them. So I decided to tattoo their bodies with it instead. For the record, it is very painful, but it worked. They are actually quite amazing, so go ahead and struggle since I have waited for this moment for so long.”
Ryan was unable to believe what he was hearing or seeing, “You bastard, you stole my daughters!”
“You coupled with the Earth Bitch? Oh, that is an unexpected bonus. I mean that is simply glorious.” Clapping his hands, a young girl clad only in a long flowing skirt, her entire upper body covered in an intricate brand, entered the room, “A chair. I am tired of standing.”
“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” shouted Ryan.
“BECAUSE YOU SIX DID SOMETHING! I have no idea on what, but it had to be all of you. My pain started when the invasion ended, and it was you and your friends that did that. YOU DID SOMETHING TO ME, AND I WANT IT BACK!”
“ME? It was you that stole my daughters. I didn’t do anything to you!”
The young slave girl brought in the chair, but with Zymse anger being unleashed, he slapped her face, “GET OUT!”
Ryan struggled, calling to the rage, but nothing happened.
“You can do better than this. I heard about you on the battlefield where you were unstoppable, but now look at you, you pathetic piece of dog dirt. Unnamed, they should have called you Unworthy. I WILL ASK YOU AGAIN, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?”
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“Thank you, but compliments will get you nowhere.” Zymse stood, walked to the smoking brazier, and pulled out one of the wooden handles with a metal tip glowing red. “Branding is such a lost art, did you know that?” Then he walked over, ripped the shirt off, and began to drag it across the bare flesh, and Ryan screamed.
An hour later, after Ryan had passed out, Zymse heard a knock at the door. Telling them to enter, a black-clad soldier walked in, “My King, Darkath gave us the information instantly like you said he would, and we fulfilled your commands.”
“How long?”
“We went slow, but I think he gave up since he barely lasted an hour.”
Zymse shook his head in disappointment, “Skin the body, and tan the hide to make me a new chair. He had a wife did he not?”
“Yes, my King.”
“Might as well make it a matching set.” Then Zymse turned to the two mithril tattooed beings that held Ryan in place, “You two stay there, and never let go of him. The rest of you, follow me.” Then four black-clad mithril tattooed beings materialized, obeying the command.
*******
Logan and Eric were pacing in the front room, trying to figure out if there was anything they could do, and then they heard Korg and Hoyle barking. They rushed to the front uncertain of what to expect, finding Ryan standing inside the gate.
Sometimes, the mind, being so desperate for the desired news, manufactures it before the questions that should have been asked—are answered. Eric’s eyes went wide. “They must smell Zymse on him. Hoyle! Korg! Get back!”
“You did it?” asked Logan.
Ryan nodded.
Logan, thinking he should have been more excited, was distracted by Eric’s commands.
“Get back, now!”
The ward dogs had a confused expression when they looked up to Eric, refusing to follow the commands like they had in the past.
“Back! Back to the bushes and stay!”
The wards, taught never to question orders, retreated.
As Ryan approached the house, Eric and Logan headed into the dining room, being curious to discover what had happened, but neither realized that the front door remained open.
“Did you see Lauren or Steve?” asked Eric.
Ryan looked at him, “Steve?”
“We think he went with Lauren,” replied Logan, and then he felt a cold steel blade at his neck, and a black-clad soldier materialized out of thin air, grabbing him.
As Eric was about to react, he also felt a blade at his throat, and from his peripheral vision saw a black-clad soldier standing beside him.
Amber, Gor, and Grax were also completely surprised, being uncertain of what to do because their axes were upstairs. Before any could move, another strange soldier appeared in front of them.
When Logan started to rub his forearms, they heard a new voice in the hallway.
“I would not do that if I were you, Bastard!”
As they turned, the new King of Calicon, crown and all, entered the dining room, wearing his familiar black sashes. Zymse shook his head, “I always thought this would be harder, but part of me figured the dwarves exaggerated your abilities. The Earth Bitch and the short one. Where are they?”
The five remained quiet, turning their gaze to the floor.
Then Eric reached up, grabbed the sword at his neck, and the sharp edge cut a deep gash into his hand. He pushed his assailant away, throwing several punches at him, but with little effect. Logan seized the opportunity and again, began rubbing his forearms, but then he saw a black mist encircle his arms, trapping them
in place. When the guard behind him smashed the back of his head, Logan bent forward unconscious. Eric was scanning the room, looking for a weapon, when the tattooed black-clad guard kicked Eric’s knee, shattering it. Unable to support his own weight and in agonizing pain, he fell backwards and blacked out.
When Zymse clapped his hands, soldiers entered the house. By this time, the replica of Ryan and the other tattooed soldiers were now holding the three Ironhouse dwarves, suspended in the air by their hair. The new king turned to them, “Put those three into the second wagon with the ‘Champion,’ if you can call him that. You two, make the Bastard uncomfortable.” A second guard moved towards Logan, and then they both morphed around his body, becoming one, with him trapped inside of them. Zymse, calling the black mists back to him, commanded the soldiers. “Take them all to the keep where I can question them. You two stay here, taking their forms. Should any return…be captivating in your entertainment of them.”
The two tattooed soldiers looked at each other.
Zymse shook his head, “Capture anybody who enters this house,” and then he left.
As they carried the three dwarves to the waiting jail wagon, Amber saw the motionless corpses of Hoyle and Korg thrown into the bushes.
In the neighbor’s house, Mirtza, staring out of the partially open curtains, was experiencing a panic attack, as he watched all of the black-clad men swarm out of the house—with their prisoners.
*******
“I haven’t heard anything for twenty minutes,” Steve advised, “I think it’s safe.”
Raising herself from the crate, Lauren approached when he opened the door and peered into the quiet hall. Pulling her out of the room, closing the door behind them, they moved as fast as possible, so if any saw them, they would still consider their actions normal. Once at an exit, they stepped outside, which was free of any guards, and headed into the forest. There, Lauren produced the flying horse amulets and brought them forth.