The blankets of his gown rolled down his bulk and off the throne, dozens of feet to its base where a council of twelve pale, skeletal men sat before a golden table fifty-feet long. The councilmen all wore robes of their own, the backs of them sewn into the ends of the King’s so that they were as one; as if they were his toes poking from his robe. Despite the size and heft of the table the council sat before, it was so laden with food that it seemed it might collapse. Whole turkeys and hams gently steamed upon jewel-encrusted platters; There were wheels of cheese and plates of crackers; Golden decanters of wine were set here and there; Baskets of breads and fruits where everywhere; Jars of butters and jellies added spots of bright color amid the flickering candles. But no amount of food could deter the terrible odors that emanated from the creature upon that throne.
Before each councilman was a plate stacked with food. They ate ravenously, but yet they were skeletal. Wisps of gray hair lay flat upon their liver-spotted scalps and their dark, sunken eyes stared down at their plates. They gripped golden forks and knives in their bony hands as they shoveled food past thin lips with such fervent hunger that the attending staff, all dressed in fine robes, had to constantly carve more meat or cheese or refill their glasses as they ate.
Hadraniel’s lips turned up in disgust as he watched them consume their food. And then his belly burned as a terrible horror struck him. With every feverish mouthful they gulped, a subtle but distinct undulation moved from their robes and up Gatima’s, all the way to his belly where it quivered ever so slightly beneath his gowns. His eyes fixed on the terrible sight, hoping his fear would not be confirmed. But it was unmistakable. What they ate somehow fed into Gatima. What abominable horror chained them to Gatima the robes thankfully hid, but Hadraniel’s mind was flooded with horrific ideas.
Nausea hit him hard. He felt as if he might vomit and his Caliber desperately sought Karinael’s. But all he could feel from her was her own fear and disgust and it was all he could do to turn to the side and lose his lunch. No sooner than it had splattered upon the floor, along came a hasty maid servant. She was as starved and skeletal as the councilmen beneath her gown and apron, and she used her bony hands to scoop the vomit into a small bucket. Hadraniel watched in horror as she brought it to the table and set it on the floor beneath it. From beneath Gatima’s robes came a pack of starved dogs who ravenously growled and fought for ownership of it.
“WASTE NOT,” the King sucked in a huge breath, “WANT NOT.” King Gatima’s voice was rich and full in a most unnatural way and it consumed the entire chamber with its sluggish indolence. He chuckled a lazy, arrogant chuckle, and his entire bulk bounced. Hadraniel swore he could feel the very room shudder. The council at the table did not pause in their eating.
Ovid bowed and then stepped to the side. Hadraniel stepped forward, Karinael at his side, and they both bowed deeply. “Most Exalted King Gatima,” said Hadraniel softly. “We have received your summons and are here to serve.”
“GOOD. GOOD.” said Gatima, his voice huge and slow. His council continued to eat beneath him as the servants went about restocking their plates. He sucked in a huge breath. “LOYALTY IS A VIRTUE ABOVE ALL OTHERS.” He chuckled lazily.
“How may we be of service to you, my King?” asked Karinael.
Gatima paused and began smacking his enormous, fat lips. An engorged, pink tongue slithered out and licked at the sides of his mouth. A couple servants ran up the steep flight of golden steps at either side of his throne and stood upon small platforms next to his head. One carried a large pitcher in his hands and the other a plush towel. Next to Gatima’s face, the servants looked like midgets. The servant with the pitcher began to pour the contents into Gatima’s mouth as the other gently dabbed at his chins with the towel. When they had finished they both scampered down the steps and went back to attending the councilmen.
“WHY DO MY PEOPLE NOT HEED MY WORDS?” Gatima’s voice filled the room with a terrible heaviness. “LOOK. LOOK.” his enormous hands flapped, trying to gesture at the table beneath him. “DO THEY NOT SEE THE BOUNTY I PROVIDE?” he sucked in a huge breath. “WHY, MY CASTLE BURSTS WITH THE BOUNTY OF MY LANDS. IT BURSTS. IT BURSTS.”
Hadraniel cast his silver eyes down. He could see Karinael chewing on her lip. He really hoped she wouldn’t say what he knew she wanted to.
“WHY DO THEY NOT HEED MY WORDS? WHY? WHY?”
“I… I do not know, my King.” said Karinael.
“HADRANIEL, MY SAINT. WHY DO THEY NOT HEED MY WORDS? WHY?”
“I do not know,” said Hadraniel softly. “But I know they love you and adore you, my King.”
“AS THEY SHOULD. AS THEY SHOULD. I AM THE GREAT PROVIDER. LOOK AT THE BOUNTY. LOOK. LOOK.”
Hadraniel swallowed hard and made a show of looking about the room. Somehow, his eyes were still drawn to the councilmen at the table and their constant eating; and that ever-so-subtle undulation that followed up Gatima’s robes every time they swallowed.
“BOUNTY. SUCH BOUNTY.”
Karinael licked her lips. “My King, what service might we provide you?”
“MY CITY OF GATIPA.” said Gatima. He sucked in a huge breath. “THEY SETTLE TOO FAR FROM ME. MUCH TOO FAR.”
“Two-hundred-and-three-miles.” said one of the councilmen at the table so quickly and abruptly that Hadraniel was scarcely sure he caught a glimpse of the one who said it before he resumed shoveling food into his mouth.
“TWO HUNDRED AND THREE.” said Gatima. “TOO FAR. MUCH, MUCH TOO FAR. THEY MUST BE CLOSER. MUST BE CLOSER TO ME. THINGS MUST BE CLOSE TO MY HANDS.” Gatima paused and began smacking his lips again. His attendants ran up to him once more, pouring more liquid down his massive throat and dabbing at his rolling chins. “BUT THERE IS MORE. MUCH MORE.”
“Food-shipments.-Stealing.” blurted one of the councilmen, hardly even pausing his eating.
“THEY STEAL.” said Gatima. “THEY STEAL MY BOUNTY. WHY? WHY DO THEY STEAL FROM ME? WHY WHEN I PROVIDE SUCH BOUNTY MUST THEY STEAL?”
“I don’t know, my King.” said Hadraniel. He could detect an anger brewing deep within Gatima’s voice. It was an undertone in the very atmosphere that was at once terrible and frightening. It made the air thicker, heavier, harder to bear.
“MINE. IT’S MINE. MY BOUNTY. MINE. IT’S MINE.” Gatima’s voice was still sluggish but was becoming more and more terrible and more and more consuming of the room.
“Yes, my King.” said Hadraniel. “Of course, my King.”
“YET THERE IS MORE. MUCH MORE.”
“Someone-is-helping-them.” blurted a councilman. “Helping-them-get-shipments-of-food.”
“HELP. WHAT HELP BUT MINE DO THEY NEED? I PROVIDE. I AM THE PROVIDER! I PROVIDE AND THEY ARE TAKING IT. IT’S MINE! MINE! IT IS ALL MINE!” the chamber began to rattle beneath the weight of Gatima’s voice. “WHO’S TAKING?! WHO IS TAKING?! MINE! MY BOUNTY! IT’S MINE! HOW DARE THEY? HOW DARE THEY TAKE AND TAKE FROM ME? HOW DARE THEY? TELL ME! TELL ME! WHO IS HELPING?! WHO IS HELPING?!”
Hadraniel swallowed hard as Gatima’s attendants ran up the stairs and began toweling his face. The King’s breaths were loud and seemed to consume all the air in the room. Hadraniel himself found he was having a hard time breathing, though he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t panic. He and Karinael were the ones helping. Did Gatima know? Did his council know? He swallowed hard again.
He chanced a glance at Karinael. She stood silently at his side, her eyes cast down as well. Then he felt her foot gently tap his. He looked at her and she softly gestured with her head to the side. He looked. A thin layer of water began trickling across the floor from around the King’s throne. It raced across the marble and began to pool at Ovid’s star-metal boots. Then it spread out, flowing across the floor in a sheet, swirling around their own feet, and Hadraniel and Karinael both stepped back. Water from nowhere was the herald of Leviathan Hydra.
From around Gatima’s
throne came seven unnaturally tall women. There was a strange light about them, as if yellow-green gaslight was cast upon them through a thick fog across an unseen sea. There was a sickly, yellow cast to their flesh, and their long, blonde hair seemed tinged with the same green that colored their serpentine eyes. They walked with a slight hunch, their hands limp before them, their fingers hung with yellowed claws. There was a wetness about them; a dampness that matted their hair and made their yellow-green gowns cling to their tall, slinky forms. It beaded on their skin, and dripped from their nails. Their bare feet padded across the floor, lost in the puddles of water beneath them. Their seven sets of terrible eyes found Karinael and Hadraniel and their vertical pupils narrowed into angry slits. Their lips—blue like a corpse’s found floating in a lake—furled, revealing mouthfuls of needle-sharp teeth, like one might find on a barracuda.
“Treachery, treachery, treachery,” they hissed, their voices in an eerie, haunting unison that seemed to come from everywhere. Together, their voices were like a ghost whispering upon a stormy sea. “Such treachery is afoot.”
Hadraniel and Karinael squirmed on their feet as the seven women approached them, their wet gowns dragging in the dark, abyssal waters at their feet, and it followed them as they came. Hadraniel could see the water rising and sloshing over his and Karinael’s star-metal boots as they neared. Where once the waters ran clear, they were now dark, as if they had come from the bottom of some angry ocean. Though only a couple inches deep, Hadraniel’s heart raced, feeling as if he might sink into some unimaginable depth.
Like a singular snake, the seven moved forward, circling them. Their claws were dripping with water, and past their needle-like teeth Hadraniel was certain he could see forked tongues. “What’s this? What have we? What are they?”
Hadraniel shifted on his feet. The women were all a good two-feet taller than he, even with their hunched gait.
“Send them. Send them, our King. Send these for your bidding.”
“YES. YES.” the King’s voice was as deep as the depths from wherever Leviathan Hydra’s waters came. “GO TO GATIPA. TAKE BACK WHAT IS MINE. TAKE IT. BRING IT TO ME. BRING ME WHAT IS MINE. I WANT IT. I SHALL HAVE IT. BRING IT TO ME.”
Hadraniel and Karinael each made a slight bow. “Yes, my King.” said Hadraniel. “Your will shall be done.”
“DO NOT FAIL. NEVER FAIL. IT SHOULD ALL BE MINE. NEVER FORGET. NEVER FORGET!”
“Yes, my King.” said Hadraniel. He made another slight bow. He and Karinael both turned to leave, the waters stirring at their feet.
“WAIT. THERE IS MORE. MUCH MORE.”
Karinael and Hadraniel both stopped but did not turn back around.
“KILL THEM. KILL THEM ALL. KILL THE THIEVES. LIFE AND DEATH BELONG TO ME. KILL THEM AND MAKE THEIR DEATHS MINE.”
“Yes, my King.” said Hadraniel. He and Karinael strode forth, their boots rippling the waters beneath their feet until the puddles ended and they were out the doors.
“THERE IS MORE. MUCH MORE.” said Gatima once the two had gone. “THERE IS TREACHERY. TREACHERY AMONG MY NUMBERS.”
“Much treachery. Treachery everywhere. We saw it. The shadows crept over your throne.”
“I shall follow them.” said Ovid. His black eyes turned up to look upon Gatima. “I shall root out the treachery.”
“GOOD. GOOD.” said the King. “FOLLOW THEM, MY OVID. FOLLOW THEM AND WATCH THEM. MAKE TREACHERY PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.”
Ovid’s lips curled into a wicked smile. He bowed, then turned and took his leave.
As the golden doors of the throne room closed with a thunderous rumble behind Ovid, Gatima’s eyes turned into dark beads. He cast them down upon the seven women. “YET THERE IS MORE. MUCH MORE.”
— 5 —
The Dragon Forge
Mount Yotun was the tallest and most imposing peak in the entire Yotun mountain range. It sat lonesomely at the southeastern edge of Duroton, surrounded by vast tracts of pine forests. It was a stony, craggy, arthritic looking thing that had not aged as gracefully as the lands that surrounded it. Its sharp peak was lost among the clouds and the snows tried to blanket its body but could not cover all the oddly angled precipices, giving it a restless demeanor. For ages it had been mined of gems and rare metals, and thousands of tunnels ran like veins throughout it. Many parts were still rich and mining operations never ceased.
But Lord Tarquin commanded the mountain’s underworld where few knew what was taking place. Tarquin’s domain was accessed by the largest and oldest of all the mountain’s tunnels. It began as a gaping maw at the foot of Mount Yotun, an opening two-hundred feet in height and more than that in width. For hundreds of years miners had toiled in never-ending shifts to rob this richest of veins of all its metals, and the throaty tunnel never narrowed, only lengthened. It descended two-miles into the earth where the mountain’s very belly had been emptied. It was in this vast chamber, hundreds of yards in width and height, where the greatest artifact ever found had been hidden away, and Lord Tarquin considered it all his own.
The skull of the fire dragon was something terrifying to behold. No man, not even Dagrir Thorodin, the King of Duroton, had ever gazed upon it without equal amounts of fear and awe. It was giant without comparison. Before it, men stood like ants against stony fangs that rose a hundred feet high. It was set against the chamber’s farthest wall, in something of a pit that had been dug to keep the lower jaw-bone flush with the rocky floor. High above, the upper jaw protruded outward, its enormous fangs curling down like stalactites born in the most primordial age. From this yawning cavern of bone and teeth was breathed a fiery light like those birthed in the heart of a volcano. It lit the entire chamber in flickering oranges and yellows. Within the lower jaw was a sea of molten slag that flowed without cooling, filling the chamber with sulfurous fumes. It erupted in plumes deep within the throat, tossing magma so high that it clung to the upper jaw before raining down in fiery chunks, or oozing off the high fangs like glowing blood.
The heat and fumes which exuded from this titanic skull made the entire chamber a sweltering, hellish place to work. The ceiling, some six-hundred feet above, was a catwalk of rusty ductwork fed by enormous fans that struggled to keep up with the job. They ran without end, their constant rattle and chugging echoing throughout, but often lost among the screeching gears and thunderous banging of beastly machines used to smelt and refine ore of every type. Ramps and tunnels and steel tracks created a maze of paths which all led to and from this frightening, iron equipment where laborers toiled. And it was all bathed in the unrelenting heat and light exuded from the skull’s maw.
But for all its light and fire, the skull’s eye sockets were dark chambers lit only by pinholes of fiery red. It gave it a malicious gaze; a hateful stare; a look of contempt over what it had become. And Lord Tarquin’s throne was little more than an insulting crown atop its head; an abject jewel that could not satisfy the creature’s terrible magnificence. It was a plain but menacing seat that had been cast in solid iron, and the cold thing’s surface was all pitted and pocked. It had a dull red about it, but not from rust or paint, and it sat within the deep recess between the skull’s eye sockets.
From this high perch Tarquin could gaze as contemptuously as the skull itself upon all those who toiled for him here, or look down and glimpse the very fires of Hell through a pair of openings near the foot of his throne. Even now Tarquin sneered as he watched a great, iron crane swing into position over a number of muscular men whose naked torsos were wet with sweat and streaked with oil and grime. The crane was a simple and rugged looking thing, powered by steam that billowed from tall pipes on its back. It was built upon the outside of one of the skull’s large, frontal fangs and a rickety network of steel scaffolding led up to it. There was another crane upon the opposite fang as well, but that one had broken down again yesterday. So close to the heat of the skull’s mouth it was impossible to keep paint o
n the rusty things and the continual baking wreaked havoc on the internal gears and hydraulics.
A set of oxidized tracks ran up to the front of the skull and a pair of horses—muscular, Icelandic Great-Hoofs—struggled to pull a steel, flatbed cart along them. Behind the cart, two of Tarquin’s soldiers helped push, heaving with all their might. These soldiers were once Dark Star Knights like Tarquin himself, but had now become known as Guardians of the Dragon Forge, a more elite order of Dark Star Knights under Tarquin’s command. Instead of the black armor and shrouds worn by Dark Star Knights, the Guardians’ armor was stylized to give them a dragonesque visage. It was all enameled in a dull, metallic orange and they wore crimson capes whose edges were cut like the ragged fingers of fire. Their helmets were sculpted like the head of a dragon; their bodies, arms and legs all had sculpted scales and fin-like flourishes. Tarquin’s own armor was very similar, although his enjoyed a more regal paint, colored in reds with yellow and orange highlights. His cape was black and upon it in red was the emblem of the Order of the Dragon Forge, a symbol like flames and fangs.
The Guardians of the Dragon Forge still carried the same crystallic swords upon their sides as when they were Dark Star Knights, and they still painted the arms of their armor in the power they associated themselves with. For Tarquin, his arms were painted with gray spirals to match the gray crystal of his sword, Whisper. For the two soldiers below, it was flames that were painted in brilliant reds and yellows up their arms. They still, of course, possessed their Dark Star Knight powers, and dust from the stone floor swirled in a disc around their waists as they used this power to lower the gravity around them. Even still, they struggled to push the cart along the tracks as the horses tugged the chains taught.
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