Oblivion's Crown

by M. H. Johnson

  Scores of people blanched at that. Julia forced the gentlest of smiles upon her exhausted features. “But should you prove loyal, we welcome you to live lives rich in prosperity, happiness, and opportunity. Now come, swear yourselves before my chosen, and jump through. A new life awaits those who would walk by my side!”

  And with those words, taking the hand of the anxious young woman holding her child tightly to her, Julia stepped through.

  8

  “That little shit-throwing monkey. How dare he!” Brutal-looking features seethed with fury as the would-be Overlord glared at the inert hyperion terminal before him, squeezing the armrests of his chair so tightly the hardwood cracked and splintered within his grip.

  Kentric rose from his massive chair, looming over the terrified Dauda sworn to his service, her shadowy form instantly coalescing before his Piercing Gaze.

  “What is the meaning of this, Elsith? Tell me!”

  A trembling Elsith struggled to speak. “I am sorry, Your Eminence. I don’t know what to say. What is it you are asking of me?”

  “That fool dared to mock me!” Kentric roared, jabbing his massive finger at the inert monitor. “Had the gall to gloat over his crimes and laugh in my face!” One massive fist grabbed the Dauda’s silken attire, hoisting her up effortlessly, Kentric forcing her terrified eyes to meet his own.

  “I want to know what secrets you Dauda have been keeping from me! How has he done what he has done? Who among your clan serves under his banner?”

  The horrified girl could only tremble in his grip, blanching before Kentric’s fearsome gaze.

  He forced a smile upon his features. “Well, Dauda puppet? Don’t think you can hide your ugly little secrets. It has already been revealed that Valor Hunter walks the Path of Shadow. It is time for the truth! You know the Psychic Bindings upon you. You know how you will suffer if you dare to break them!” he roared, shaking her in his grip. “Is he your pawn? Your wildcard you Dauda would use to seize the board for yourselves? I want answers, woman, and I want them now!”

  “No!” she screamed, reeking of terror, not daring to look away from Kentric’s fearsome glare. “We would never dare the throne. It is death for our people to try!”

  Dead silence. Only far off cries, barely more than whispers, could be heard as Kentric’s massive nostrils dilated, smelling her terror.

  Tasting her fear.

  His furious eyes tore through Elsith’s terrified mind, plucking all her secrets free.

  He flashed a cynical smile. “Your people were involved. Weren’t they.”

  Elsith paled. “Please, Master. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Kentric’s terrible smile only grew. “I think you do.” He jerked her dangling form closer, whispering into her ear. “Oh, don’t worry, my puppet. I can taste the fear your people have of me. And that is good. When you say no Dauda would dare follow his banner, I believe you. But I taste another secret as well. What you fear. You fear your brethren are responsible for what occurred at Newford Port. You fear they dared to take the coin of my greatest foe, arranging for the sabotage of twenty of my mecha for base coin alone, thinking the accords would protect them!”

  His smile only grew as Elsith shook in his grip.

  Kentric chuckled softly. “And perhaps the accords will. This time. This time alone I will permit your mercenary freedoms to supersede the oath you have sworn and by extension your people have sworn, to serve me. And me alone! Now look at me, Elsith...”

  The terrified Dauda forced herself to meet his gaze.

  “That’s good. I need you to pass along a message for me. Can you do that, Elsith?”

  She jerked a quick nod as massive hands gently stroked her hair.

  “Good. You will tell your clan elders that never again are they to serve the mongrel halfblood. Are we clear?”

  Elsith jerked a nod, trembling as Kentric’s fingers continued to caress her features.

  “Good, child. That’s good. And you will open your mind fully, when you return. You will hide nothing from me. Everything your elder says, all of your suspicions, every word to leave your mouth, will be known to me. You are now my agent in all things, Elsith. In all things.”

  Elsith choked back a sob. “Yes, my master. It will be as you say.”

  Kentric flashed an indulgent smile, before twisting her ear so tightly cartilage popped and she screamed. “And should you even think about leaving my service, should you so much as whisper a word about our agreement, I will scour every Dauda from the face of this realm the moment I take the throne. Are we clear, wench!?”

  “Yes!” Elsith sobbed as Kentric dropped her to the ground, curling herself into a shaking heap, haunted eyes windows into her broken soul.

  “Good.” Kentric sneered. “Now strip.”

  Elsith whimpered, cheeks flushing with sudden shame.

  Kentric’s cold smile only grew as he took his due.

  “My lord! Emergency!” said a gasping soldier bursting into the throne room, eyes wide with panic. He paled and fell to the ground, crying out as Kentric’s furious gaze fell upon him.

  Hot crimson eyes pinned the terrified soldier where he stood. “You dare to enter my throne room unannounced?”

  “Please forgive me, your majesty! The general requests your presence at once!”

  Kentric clenched his fists. “What news?”

  The young soldier swallowed. “The gate is not closed to us! It has actually turned translucent. We can peer right into Dominicus territory. At least, we think it’s Dominicus.”

  “Explain yourself!”

  “Yes, sir. The light, it’s strange. Like peering into the depths of the ocean, and all we see are wildlands and ruins. We saw no trace of our forces. No trace of our men. And when several went through with the hyperion transceivers, they didn’t work.”

  “Of course not!" Kentric snapped. "They’re short-range! If my men were further afield, the scouts wouldn’t pick up the signal!”

  “Yes, sir. Of course you’re right sir. What I mean to say is they don’t work at all.”

  Kentric caressed the hilt of his Psiblade, smiling at the terror in the soldier’s eyes. “Make sense, or you’ll spend all your days struggling for clearer words inside a pain vat!”

  The young man fell to his knees. “That’s what the general said! The transceivers failed to work the moment we enter the portal! We have no way to reach out and recover our cut-off forces!”

  Kentric snarled, his foot lashing out in a fearsome kick. A single gurgled cry from the surprised soldier as his ribcage burst, his broken body sent slamming into a computer bank lining the wall, the boy’s mouth opening and closing in wordless confusion before stilling with death’s embrace.

  “We’re heading to the damned gate, Elsith. Attend me!” Kentric stormed out of the throne room, and for a moment there was nothing but shadows and gloom and the soft sobbing of a woman trapped in nightmare without end.

  “Well, Klas? Explain yourself!”

  The hard-eyed man bowed deferentially before a towering Kentric. He showed no fear, but his genuflection was deep, his powerful voice modulated to soothing tones. “My deepest apologies for inconveniencing you, Overlord.” He gestured towards the gate. “We have good news. The gate has not been sundered, and the doom your enslaved mage screamed was suddenly upon us seems to have been a false alarm. We can have the torturers discipline him, but his predictions have never been wrong before.”

  “I knew that damned jackanapes was bluffing!” Kentric snarled, hands like claws. “When I get my hands on that piece of filth...”

  Klas blinked. “I’m sorry, sir?”

  Kentric shook his head. “Continue your report.”

  “Yes, sir. We have been unable to get in touch with our men. When our soldiers tried to set up a transceiver station just beyond the gate, the equipment completely malfunctioned. At first, we thought it was faulty equipment. When we checked it, it was inoperable.” The general took a deep breath. “
We then made sure all hyperion transmitter units were in top condition before sending them through. And all of them failed without question.”

  Kentric hissed. “Where are my troops, general?”

  Klas paled before his master’s gaze. “Since the gate shifted and we lost contact with our men, I’ve sent out numerous scouts and a full company of soldiers through with strict orders to have designated men report back on the hour and 30 minutes after the hour. Sir, I regret to inform you that we have lost all contact with the expeditionary force. Only the handful of men stationed within sight of the gate can be accounted for.”

  Kentric’s eyes bulged. “60,000 men. 107 battle-mechs. Are you telling me they’ve all just disappeared?”

  Klas blanched, stepping back, just a foot before the gate, silhouetted by the haunting green light beyond. Massive impact craters, shattered rubble, and vast copses of towering trees could be seen wavering in the distance. A land alien and strange, save for the sparse handful of preserved buildings that were a perfect mirror of Dominicus architecture, even if those final surviving remnants looked weathered and worn with centuries of corrosion.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We are doing our best to make contact with any survivors, but the transceivers are no longer working and not one soldier who ventured beyond sight of the portal has returned.” The man gulped, giving an anxious salute. “Permission to send a full brigade through.”

  Kentric stilled his wrath, turning around, taking in his massive military base. Blocky grey buildings of steel, chrome, and translucent thermoplastic had been arranged in ordered rows, capable of holding hundreds of thousands of men. Yet only a fraction of the men he was used to seeing at this time were about. Hangar doors leading to numerous battle-mech stations stood almost completely empty. Of his mighty battalion of battle-mechs, only a handful remained.

  Kentric took a slow, measured breath, turning back to the general. “Less than half of my troops remain. Less than half! But I will not let that bastard win. You have my—”

  A bone-rattling shriek could be heard as survival instincts sent Kentric crashing to the ground before twisting around to catch sight of the gate, and the horror that had emerged. Massive rotting fingers of a thousand joints covered in bulbous eyes filled with eldritch light hissed and sizzled in the air, flailing about like tentacles.

  The thrashing appendages quickly snapped back inside the massive battle-mech sized gate, yanking along a handful of screaming soldiers and General Klas along with it, his stern gaze now wide with terror as he fought alongside his desperate men to pull themselves free.

  Kentric and his shadow were the only ones to escape the sudden attack, quickly stepping back as a mass of writhing fingers and bilious crimson orbs oozed in and out of being before him, as if bursting forth from dimensions alien and strange.

  And within the center of that horror of rotting appendages and glowing eyes was a massive, human-like mouth, flashing a ghastly grin.

  “Who among you is worthy of my knowledge? Who among you has the gifts I seek?”

  The words could be heard with chilling clarity through the gate.

  Soldiers spasmed uncontrollably from the other side of the gate as the rotting fingertips caressed their skulls. And where they touched, bilious green eyes popped into being. Eyes the appendages immediately plunged into, twisting and writhing around as if caressing their victim's very brains from within.

  The soldier's eyes bulged to the point of bursting, and Kentric could almost taste the vile flood of eldritch potency pouring into their souls.

  Some men began screaming, others foaming from jaws clenched so tight their teeth began to crack, one man wearing a rapturous grin. “Knowledge… so much knowledge!” The man’s awed expression quickly soured, the captive slowly shaking his head then shuddering as his face transformed to a mask of horror. “It’s too much… it’s too much!” And he began to scream just as loudly and shrilly as all the others, eyes bulging out of their sockets just before his skull exploded in brain and gore. Along with every other soldier within the writhing mass of appendages, the exposed loops of brain glowing a faint violet hue for just a second before rotting and shriveling to ash with their owner's deaths, until only Klas remained.

  “I see everything! Oh gods, I understand everything. Everything!” cried General Klas, eyes grown massive and bloodshot, somehow bulging out of their sockets without rupturing, screaming loudest and longest of all as misshapen appendages caressed his flesh, covering him with blinking eyes oozing slime.

  The horror’s purr was a rumble so low Kentric felt it in his bones. “There. One who is close to transcendence. One whose mind can almost glimpse the glorious heights of wisdom to which he must ascend. One who is almost worthy of my dark blessings!"

  And then a final gurgle as Klas’s skull began to bulge, glowing nodules of brain rupturing from his disintegrating skull. “Yes… feel the knowledge burn through your soul. Feel it transform you...” crooned the dreadful voice.

  And a flash of grey and purple as a writhing Klas’s brain exploded at last.

  “Worthless!” roared the horror as the corpses wrapped in his appendages shriveled to blackened husks within seconds. “Yet their souls…. How sweet is the sacrifice too long denied me!”

  Scores of glowing eyes formed before the creature, all of them gazing upon a snarling Kentric, holding his Psiblade in a hanging parry, backing steadily away from the gate.

  “What the hell are you?”

  The creature’s eyes simultaneously blinked, as if considering those words. “I am Illuminous. The keeper of all knowledge and wisdom that is worthy of being kept. I am the dark ideal all wizards seek to embrace.” The creature seemed almost to sigh. “How long it has been since my supplicants properly sent me sacrifice? Centuries! It has been centuries since I last fed, feeding my servants in turn with rapturous wisdom only I can provide!”

  “Where are my battle-mechs? Where are my men?” Kentric roared, fist squeezing the hilt of his blade, snarling at the apparition before him.

  Low, dark burbling laughter could be heard all around him.

  “Ah, you seek knowledge then, do you not? Come, supplicant. Come before me, and I shall fill your mind with secrets hideous and grand.”

  Kentric lurched away as half a dozen massive finger-like appendages whipped out from the gate, sizzling and hissing for endless seconds as they reached for the Highlord before snapping back within.

  “Strange. The air is thin and flat where you are. Lifeless. You should come in here, supplicant, and embrace the sweet air alive once more after eons of death! Come, mortal, join me and bask in my knowledge. Together, you and I shall accomplish feats wondrous and grand.”

  “Where are my soldiers?” Kentric shouted. “Where are my mecha? Where are my men? What happened in there? What did that bastard Terran monkey do to my army?”

  Kentric’s eyes widened with furious horror as cold, mocking laughter echoed throughout the entire compound. “Come, worthy supplicants. You need but cross the gate and seek the Keeper. Should you prove yourselves worthy of my blessings, all questions shall be answered. All knowledge shall be yours.” The gruesome monster discorporated in a horrific display of bulging eyes and eerily jointed appendages oozing through the cracks between worlds, and within moments it was gone as if it had never been, save for the dozen ashy puddles where loyal soldiers had once struggled futilely for their lives.

  “Seek Illuminous, the Keeper of Lost Secrets, and all knowledge shall be yours,” whispered the horrific voice in the back of Kentric’s soul, and then nothing but the stares of hundreds of shaken troops throughout the compound, all gazing Kentric’s way.

  Kentric raised his blade. “Get to work, fools! And bring General Albin to the throne room!”

  Then his hot gaze immediately snapped to the dimness beside him that was a trembling Elsith, eyes wide with horror.

  His fist sent her reeling back with a cry.

  “That abomination took my men and you did nothing
! Nothing! Again you fail me, you worthless piece of treacherous filth!”

  Elsith raised desperate hands, not daring to draw her vibroblade as her employer’s massive fist yanked her off her feet for the second time in her life.

  He pressed his face into her own. “You are going to make up for your failures, Elsith. You are going to make amends!”

  “No, no! Please stop!” Elisith’s eyes bulged. Daring to hold back no longer, she frantically struggled against Kentric’s savage strength, desperately trying to break his grip. To no avail. Then she screamed as his terrible mind clamped tightly upon her own, doing things no Highlord should be able to do. Elsith spasmed as he violated her soul every bit as savagely as he had her body, just a short time ago.

  “I am changing the nature of our Psionic Oathbinding, Dauda. No more vague loopholes you can scurry around like the rat you are! Your new orders are simple. Find out what happened to my battle-mechs and my men, then report back to me by any means necessary! You are not permitted to speak to anyone save myself. You will never seek the comfort of your foul tribe again, and you are not permitted to commit suicide to escape your obligations to me! You will do this, Elsith, or you will know agony unending. Do you understand?”

  Elsith sobbed, able to hold back tears no longer. Kentric shook her like a rag doll, glaring into her terrified eyes.

  “I will hear you say it.”

  “Yes, yes I understand, my master. I understand!”

  An executioner’s gaze measured her trembling form before he gave the slightest of nods. “Good.” He flashed a smile chilling in its cruelty. “It’s good you took the healing potion after savoring my discipline. You will need to be strong for what comes next.”