Will to Survive The Fall of Dragons: A Foul God Stirs

Will to Survive

Part 1 The Fall of Dragons

V. A Foul God Stirs

Shar-ait, 24th day of Guthion
Second Month of Autumn
Festival of the Harvest Moons
In the 10,568th year Since Creation

        The altar was carried into the throne room by members of Meleketh's druidihar kinsmen. They placed the black altar upon the floor and withdrew. Light gleamed from the cut and polished surfaces of the altar, hewn from a flow of lava that had turned to black glass upon its cooling. The signs of Necronus were clearly carved into its facings. The altar itself was not flat, the top of it tilted at a gentle angle, furrowed with channels which led directly to the foot of the altar.
        A silent, hooded figure entered the throne room after the drow had left. In the darkness his face could not be seen. Meleketh had no doubt that no amount of light would ever uncover the face of the disciple which had journeyed with the Dark Forces to the Dragonlands and into the heart of Darcoth'maern.
        In the disciple's hands was a box, carved of charred yew wood. When the disciple had come to the foot of the altar he opened the box and withdrew the object within. A skull twice as large as that of a man's rested on black silk. Its sockets were blank, the bone was yellowed as were the teeth. It was a frightening artifact, even to Meleketh who had met the assembled disciples of Necronus only once and briefly. As powerful as Judeo was, Meleketh did not actually fear him. The disciples of Necronus were another matter. They lived on the prison moon of Galtos-frey, from which Necronus had once emerged upon the worlds. None of their faces were ever seen by others and their charge to the god of undeath was a binding and eternal one.
        The disciple placed the skull at the foot of the altar, where the channels met so that anything traveling down those channels emptied into the mouth of the skull.
        Judeo bowed deeply to the disciple as the figure closed the box and moved away, receding into the shadows of the darkened throne room. Meleketh, taking no chances, fell to his knees and prostrated himself. Only the disciples of Necronus commanded such respect from the drow lord. Not even Judeo was so highly regarded by Meleketh.
        "Proceed, Judeo," the disciple whispered. The deep voice grated along Meleketh's spine and he shivered at the harsh sound of the whisper.
        The drow returned, their eyes averted from the disciple's form. They carried between them the struggling form of Darmen Draconian, former prince and heir to the Dragonlands and its throne. A single word issued from the man as he was chained to the altar. "Camielya."
        "Have no fear, prince," Meleketh soothed, teeth gleaming with his demonic grin. "I will look after her for you. She will be quite fine under my care." The drow lord patted Darmen's naked chest reassuringly with his gauntleted hand as the other drow chained the prince to the black glass altar.
        Darmen's only reply was a look of despair as he turned away from the drow lord. Meleketh tittered at the look of pain on the young prince's face. True love ripped apart by the cruelties of fate. Meleketh could not contain himself.
        "Enough, lackey," commanded Judeo as he approached the altar and withdrew the kress from the sleeve of his robes. "It is time."
        Judeo stood over Darmen and looked down at the young man who, by fate, had the blood of dragons running the course of his veins. The Dragonblood made him special in a way that no other on the Five Planets nor their moons ever could be. The Dragonblood were descendants of the Forefather, Aastineus, and his daughter/wife, Mautra. Their blood kept Necronus sealed away beneath a wasteland, fettered from his desires and denied his glories as the god of undeath, avatar of Unlife. There was only one way to free Necronus. The Dragonblood had to be spilled.
        "Where is your son?" Judeo queried soothingly. "Do not speak, I will take it from your mind." The misty figure placed a hand upon Darmen's head, spreading the coldness into Darmen's brain. Judeo muttered a curse as he withdrew his hand. The apostate looked to the hooded disciple. "He does not know," Judeo reported. "He dies not knowing where his son is."
        With that, Judeo struck, digging the tip of the kress into the forehead of Darmen and slicing downwards with a carefully controlled hand. The nose was sawed in half and the lips parted vertically as the former prince of the Dragonlands screamed out his pain and denial. The screams were fruitless as were the strains of well shaped muscles that pulled taut against the fetters that held him down. The tip of the kress continued downwards, slicing open the throat and changing Darmen's scream into an agonized gurgle. The chest and abdomen were halved and onwards the kress followed, blood flowing down the body and the sides of Darmen's body. Into the channels of the alter the blood went and the first trickles of the crimson life fluid found its way into the open and waiting mouth of the skull.
        Judeo continued the ritual, slicing genitalia from the jerking body of the prince and throwing the severed organs into the channels. Blood would push them into the mouth soon enough. Next the apostate sliced open the inner thighs of the prince. Darmen's eyes were wide and wild. Despite the blood spilling from him he still lived and his heart still beat. Necromantic magic sustained his life, keeping him from escaping into death. From Judeo there was only grim determination and deep contentment at the ritualistic work. It brought a small peace over his mind and form.
        Judeo waited as the body stilled and was finally unmoving. Dim beats of the heart echoed in Judeo's ears as he extended his hands into the severed flesh of the chest and pulled back the muscle, exposing the gleaming rib cage. Below the bones and cartilage the heart gave weak beats, its strength ebbing.
        Judeo pulled back the bones, bending, cracking and breaking the ribs to reach the heart. The misty hands closed around the organ and wrenched, pulling it free of its home and hoisting it into the air for the disciple and Meleketh to see. The disciple gave a slow nod of his head.
        The heart followed the blood and genitalia into the gaping mouth of the skull, reverently placed between the yellowed teeth. It fell away into nothingness and was gone, consumed into a void which led back to Necronus in his crypt on Galtos-frey.

        Starlangof gasped with pain, in the same way that he had when he felt Shalm'talik die. The aged wizard clutched his heart as his face screwed itself up in pain.
        At his side were the oracle, Moira, and the centaur, Sh'gar. They had come to Starlangof's aid when he teleported himself to the Highlands, home of the High Council. In the Highlands Starlangof kept a separate home he visited infrequently, mostly during the sessions when the High Council convened to deal with the problems of the five planets.
        Tonight he had come here after his defeat at the hands of Judeo. It was the last refuge for the dethroned king of the Dragonlands. He had only narrowly escaped death. His magics nearly failed him as he made the jump between the castle in Darcoth'maern and his refuge in the Sanctum, where the buildings housing the High Council were kept.
        "Starlangof," Moira said, coming to his side, worry on her face. "What is it?"
        Starlangof's eyes, as they looked at her, were morose. "What does your second sight show you, Oracle?"
        Moira closed her eyes and bowed her head. She already knew what had happened in the Dragonlands. She had seen, with the gift of sight granted to her by the goddess Omey, the sacrificial death of Darmen. She had not said anything of it, hoping to forestall the pain that Starlangof was feeling.
        "He is beyond all reach," she whispered. "Judeo has carried out the commandment of his god and spilled the Dragonblood."
        "My son," Starlangof whispered. "I should have tried to save him."
        "You barely saved yourself, Starlangof," Sh'gar said. His wound had been healed by Moira who was gifted with healing arts as well as second sight. "There was nothing that could have been done. Another entered the castle after you left. Whoever it was more powerful than even Judeo. No one could have done anything."
        "Shad has not been found," Moira said. "There is still hope for your grandson."
        "Can you see where he is?" pleaded Starlangof.
        Moira looked off into the distance for a moment and then shook her head. "No. Camielya's spell of hiding is too powerful. But I am sure that the baby is safe. I would have felt otherwise."
        Starlangof nodded. "Thank you, Vladisnor, for sparing my grandson. But why any of this, Lord? Have I displeased you?"
        "This was the work of Necronus," Moira said. "There was nothing any of the gods could have done. They are apart from the worlds as they promised to be. Fate has decided this."
        "I should search for Shad," Starlangof said, pushing himself upward from the couch that he rested on. As he sat upright the High Lord clutched his chest and panted.
        "Lie down, Starlangof," Moira ordered, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "There is nothing that you can do now but wait and hope that Shad will be brought to us or to a friendly nation. You are too weakened from battle to do otherwise."
        Starlangof frowned and held out his hand, summoning the Staff of Ancients. It did not appear and he remembered that that, too, was lost. His nation and home, his family and the talisman created by the Forefather were all gone. He had nothing left.
        Closing his eyes, he leaned back into the couch and remained still. "Let me be for a time, will you, my friends?"
        Moira nodded and together she and Sh'gar exited the room and left Starlangof to himself. Once they were gone he began to weep, letting the hot tears run down his cheeks and into his beard. Where they touched his wounds, they stung with salt.

         Judeo and Meleketh followed the disciple as he took the skull up the dais and to the side wall of the alcove into which the throne was set. The disciple pressed the skull to the stone and the bone melded with the stone, sinking inwards until nearly half of the skull had merged with the wall. There the disciple stopped and stepped away, bowing as he did so. Judeo and Meleketh also bowed in reverence.
        A voice, harsh and scraping, issued from the skull. "More blood. More blood to seal my place here. A gently born child."
        Meleketh left at once and found where the noble children captured by Raoul were kept. He selected a blue eyed boy with blond hair falling in loose curls down his neck. A tender age of six, the child of one of the younger lords of the Dragonlands.
        "What is your name?" queried Meleketh with sweet malevolence as he leaned down and smiled, flashing his white, gleaming teeth.
        "Stratvin," the boy replied, dull fear in his eyes. "Stratvin Darsinus."
        "Son of a count, aren't you? A long family line, isn't it?"
        Stratvin nodded and swallowed, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. "What are you going to do to me?"
        Meleketh's broad smile widened as he grasped boy's shoulders. "You are to be honored, Stratvin. Your new king is going to honor you above all others. Be proud, son. Be proud."
        Hooting with excitement and merriment Meleketh swept up the boy in his arms, spun a circle and bounded for the throne room, clutching the young son of one of the Dragonlands' most beloved noble men close to his chest. He smelled the youth and cleanliness of the child. The golden locks of hair. There was also the fine, cultivated and bred blood of a noble line.
        "Such an honor," whispered Meleketh into Stratvin's ear. "Such an honor."
        Meleketh delivered the boy to Judeo and the disciple. When Stratvin saw the apostle and disciple of Necronus he screamed. The screams grew shrill when he saw the skull implanted in the wall of the throne room. In the sockets of the skull two dim lights shone, feeble as of yet; waiting to be strengthened.
        Judeo held out his arms to receive the boy. Stratvin continued to scream and now began thrashing against the incredible strength of the drow lord.
        "Quite a bundle, wouldn't you say, Master?" Meleketh tittered as he placed the boy into Judeo's arms. "Ripe with life and full of fight."
        Neither Judeo, the disciple, nor the skull made a reply to Meleketh's observation and the drow lord fell uncharacteristically silent. He stood in the midst of great powers strong enough to destroy any in their way. But none of them had his sense of humor or levity.
        Stratvin stiffened as Judeo tightened his embrace. "Still, child. Still. Let the brain freeze with the breath of death and the blood flow hot."
        Judeo held the boy in one arm and drew a finger along his throat. Where the finger traced, the skin parted, and blood ringed the wound. Judeo stepped closer to the skull and the jaws parted, stretching wide. The blood leapt from the wound and into the gaping maw of the jaws. More blood followed. It streamed from the wound, sucked into the skull and away, absorbed and put to use feeding the contact that Necronus had established through the skull.
        Stratvin's eyes were wide and as the blood seeped out him they became glassy as his skin lost its color, becoming a pasty white.
        When the child was drained, the light of the skull's eyes flared bright and lit the darkness of the alcove with a red tinge. "Give the child's body to your servant, Judeo. Reward him for his work."
        Meleketh bowed in appreciation to the skull. "My thanks for your generosity, Lord. I will always serve you." The skull did not reply and Meleketh gathered the dead child hastily and melted away into the shadows, not wanting to be in the room when the conversation started again.
        "You have failed me, Judeo," the skull rasped. "Both Starlangof and the baby, Shad, are free. They must die before I am released from my prison. So long as they live I am held bound in my tomb. For ten thousand years I have waited. I give you power and an army. You give me only one of three of the Dragonblood. Would you like to know what it is like to be imprisoned, unmoving, for ten millennia?"
        Judeo bowed his head in shame. Then his frame shook as Necronus did show the apostate what it was like to be held. The madness and anguish. Always conscious and seeing, never exercising his will nor being able to touch anything other than the cold stone. Being alone with the still darkness.
        Necronus withdrew the sights. "Enough. Continue making the wraithdin. Then double your efforts to find the baby. I will contend with Starlangof. It will still take time until I harvest him from the fields of life and bring him and his power into the folds of the Unlife. But when he is mine, Aastineus' curse on me will be broken.
        "Disciple, return to Galtos-frey at once and begin preparing for my coming. You and your brothers have much left to do. The nations of the five worlds must be ready for my coming."
        The disciple bowed and was gone.

"I will rest now, Judeo. Do as I have commanded and bring me the baby. It is only a single babe, lost in the world, bereft of mother's teat and father's embrace. The child will call out. Be ready to hear his cry." Continued in the next installment of Will To Survive, "The Streets of Darcoth'Maern"... Back to Fantasy

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