Jovan's Gaze

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PROLOGUE

Tapping. I could hear the tapping echo in the empty hallways. Tap, tap, tap. Somewhere ahead water dripped endlessly, and the sound carried outward from each tiny, wet impact, through the long stone-walled corridors, barren and scarred by burn marks. The sound carried all the way to my ears, knocking on my eardrums one after the other. It almost itched, the sound of it. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

It agitated me, set me on edge. I drew my short sword, felt the weight in my hand. I knew there was nothing here. I knew that. I was certain. This place was empty. It was so empty, not even insects dared trespass. It was as though they feared the place, as most creatures did. As most people did. It was not just that the massive stone keep was empty. Skyreach Keep had been that way for years. It was that it was always so silent, so utterly silent. It was like having thick cotton wadding in your ears. The silence was smothering, all consuming. I was alone, with nothing to keep me company but my own breathing and rustling. Still, the sword gave me some small comfort, like a child with a candle in the dark. It protected me from the tapping sound of the water against the stone.

It was dark here. The magic candles that should have burned eternally had long since been snuffed out by the angry storms that harried this place. The malevolence which once ruled here, and the magic which fed on it, had fled along with those whose darkness fueled it. The candles burned no more. The darkness hung in the corridor like a stench, some thick blanket of death that only added to the sense of emptiness. It was sickening, a barren deathscape where the silence was deafening.   

Yet there it was. Tap, tap, tap. Incessant and loud, the water dripped upon the floor like a grim musician beating endlessly upon some odd instrument. The wooden floorboards which covered the stone floor were still intact in this part of the keep, so the drops must be falling into a puddle to make such a noise. So where was the water coming from?

It had not rained here in weeks. It almost never did, even before the war. The ground outside the keep, and for miles in every direction, was parched, cracked, and dead. The trees, sentinels, husks, stood as a reminder of just how very dead this place was, and had been since the magic plagues first took hold. Nothing grew here. Nothing could. The parched land did not help. The utter lack of water certainly did not help. So what was dripping? Some small container, knocked over during a plague storm? Surely, after so long, so very many years, anything apt to tumble would have long since done so.

The plague storms shook this place regularly. The raging storms pounded on the keep's walls, shook the ground, and sent fire and worse through the corridors. Anything not well sealed and stowed safely was long destroyed. The rooms and corridors, the dungeons and workshops, the rooms where machinations both dark and cruel were set in motion, all of them had been burned clean by some manner of stormy vengeance or another. Fire, rage, the cries of the dead. All of these things swept through the keep, and the lands which surrounded it, regularly. Fire, but not natural flame. No, not here. In this place, the fires burned with the angry, mournful cries of the dead, the countless victims who had suffered unspeakable ends in this place. This was one of the worst places in all of Theris, the darkest spot on a land where now only darkness reigned. Dark within dark. Only the throne room itself remained intact, its evil so deeply sunk into the stone, it kept out even the storms.

If it was not rain that dripped, if it was not some forgotten vial or vessel, what then caused the drip? I gripped my short sword tighter, leveled the blade for a quick, upward strike. Had some other wanderer decided to brave the storms, hoping for some trinket or treasure? In fifteen years, only a handful of us had ever dared come in sight of this terrible place. None but I had walked these corridors in well over a decade. The storms had seen to that, taking those less cautious than I in their wake. The shadows seared into the wall in the very next room attested to what happened when the foolish and inattentive wandered past their ability to stay alive. Their twisted forms, catching their last painful seconds, attested to that. This place, scoured though it was of the people who had made it such a fierce stronghold, did not suffer the presence of fools.

No, not other wanderers. I alone dared to come here. I claimed no great bravery to do so, since no danger but the storms held sway here. The exodus had drawn away all but the most terrible, the cruelest, and the most twisted denizens of this fallen, empty kingdom. They perished in those first few years, as the plague storms tore at places like this, scoured the land, and made short work of the drawn-out plans of those who lived here and conspired to do evil. Nothing that had lived here Before continued to do so After. After was a very different world, and only those who had come to understand its moods and desires had any hope of surviving in places like this keep.

No, I was alone.

So, what then dripped?

I caught my reflection in a shard of mirror upon the floor. My washed-out blue pupils stared back at me, the tanned skin framing them like the holy relics that once hung in the old reliquaries of the western monasteries. They were long since looted, yet I was not, and my thirty-five year old face seemed so much older. Was it the storms? Had they taken their toll upon my face? Surely not. There was not a wrinkle to be found on my face. My muscles were as taught and powerful as when I wore the King's crest. I brushed a lock of black hair aside; no gray to mar it. I was as fit a man as still remained in this plagued land, and yet I felt old. That feeling weighed upon me.

Steady, Jovan, I whispered to myself. Focus.

My words were a slight comfort, but more than most wanderers had in this terrible land. Perhaps it marked me as mad to speak to myself. Others said so, even Jeannine sometimes said so, yet I found that it gave me strength, and I needed that in great abundance. That was especially true in a place like Skyreach Keep.

Focus on the task at hand, Jovan, I reminded myself, tearing my gaze away from my own tired visage.

I inched forward slowly, carefully, silently. The darkened corridors kept out the day's light. Even at its zenith, the sun could not find its way into this place in anything but the slightest portions. Still, it was enough. I could see far better in the dark than most could in the light, my eye sight growing more accustomed to the darkness every time I visited this place. The bare stone walls, gray, unyielding, seemed to close in on me. They were narrow, and the ceiling was low, built that way to make assault a terrible ordeal for the enemies of this place and its cruel Lord. The stone was scorched in places, blackened where the plague storms had swept through with fire. The scent had long since fled, but the black marks remained. The little light that found its way in illuminated the slight tatters of tapestries and such, rendered well beyond reading. These few artifacts of those who lived here crumbled underfoot, turning to dust as I passed.

I crept forward, the long corridor stretching out before me. The two doors ahead were both open, but I knew the sound was further ahead. The rooms themselves were empty. The room to my left had once been a guard post, where several pieces of armor lay upon a fire-scrubbed floor, ownerless and black. To the right, the lair of some minor guard captain, doomed to spend their life sorting through lists of food and such. In those early days, before a storm tore down the room's narrow window and cleared it out, I had absently flipped through the mass of endless reports. Evil was not always the cruelty of the heart and soul. Sometimes, evil was in numbing detail of the everyday and mundane. In this place, evil was found everywhere, in most every form.

My footfalls made very little noise; the tapping of the water upon its puddle masked them. Still, I was as silent as I could manage. My sword was ready, my reflexes taut, my eyes moving about in search of some obstacle or foe. The dead stench of the place, the dryness, seemed to creep across my skin like the death-cold hands of some corpse. I shook my head ever so slightly, as though the feeling would simply melt away. It did not.

My leather coat creaked slightly, and I stopped to loosen the tanned straps which held the sleeves tight for fighting. I was not worried about catching my sleeve on something here, and the creaking might betray me to… what? Still, I was glad to have the armor, though it was only good leather. The coat and pants had saved me several times. They were thick enough to shield me from a glancing blow, though it had been years since anyone had challenged my sword. More to the point, the leather kept away the bramble thorns, and the poisons waiting at their pointed, grasping tips. Better to wash away the poison from the leather after a day passing through the thickets here, than to suffer through those poisons, and find myself a shambling victim of the plague storms' leavings.

I stopped just short of the two doors, slowly leaning inward for some sign of danger. The old guard station was just as I had seen it a month past, when I was last here. The chipped sword still lay upon the floor, while the helm and one glove, both now blackened by fire, lay nearby. The window was long since destroyed, and the sun cast in enough light to deny an assailant a place to hide. The clerk's paper-dungeon was likewise as it had been. The stacks of paper were long gone, as was the table and single chair upon which this tortured minion had done his best, which in turned allowed his comrades to do their worst.

I stepped past the doors quickly and moved onward. The corridor eventually turned to the right, as it followed the outer wall of the keep. I stepped clear of a small hole in the floor where the floorboards had been damaged. I knew this place well enough to avoid causing creaks, and my passing was thus silent. The dripping got louder, each tap assaulting my ears, like some impurity fouling perfection. The utter silence seemed to shatter like glass with each falling drop.

The corner straightened out into another long corridor. Here the floors above had collapsed, leaving a gaping hole that looked down upon this level. I could see the glint of the drops as they fell. Tap, tap, tap. The puddle upon the floor reflected what little light found its way here. It was enough to obscure the puddle itself. Still, the scent was strong. Blood. I stopped cold, and took care to survey the corridor as entirely as possible. What lay bleeding above me? If another wanderer had indeed died here, it was very recent. It was not hard to see that a plague storm had swept this area not three days ago, and it would have claimed whatever body lay here. Recent. Very recent.

I crept forward once more, and felt the sickening-sweet smell of death wash over me. I forced its ravages from my mind, focusing on the danger I began to sense around me. I looked toward the hole in the ceiling. Did I dare approach from this floor? No, that was far too dangerous. The high ground was a fighter's greatest advantage. Three years in the Royal Guard had taught me that much. Always seek the high ground.

I turned back, retreating to the beginning of the corridor. The guard station and Captain's room still sat silent and empty as I passed them on the way to the winding staircase. I slid through the half-closed door that led to the stairs, careful not to allow the door to creak on its rusty hinges. The stairs were narrow and steep, designed with the same intention as the corridors; to slow the progress of unwanted, armed, and likely angry guests. The stairs extended down five floors to the ground, and as many upward.

The floor above was much the same as the one I had just left. The corridors were bleak and empty, though more worn and torn. There were rooms placed here and there, all just as empty, all just as bled dry of any evidence of occupancy. I was careful, but moved quickly, hoping to catch whatever awaited me off-guard. As I turned the corner, I spotted the body near the hole in the floor. A beam of sunlight shone in through a hole in the outer wall, where some fierce storm had sent a lightning bolt to tear at the keep's skin. The light fell exactly upon the corpse.

It was a deer, twisted in its final pose. I moved closer, and saw instantly what had happened. The floors above the corpse were also torn open, and the deer had fallen several floors to its death, coming to a stop here. A simple fall. The deer, far from its home in the forests to the east, had likely wandered in looking for food. A simple slip, and this terrible place, so long devoid of its denizens, had claimed yet one more innocent life. What a waste.

Still, to travel so far in search of food was terribly out of the ordinary, even in a world gone as mad as ours.   The forests, despite the ravages of the storms, had managed to provide the wildlife with enough food to carry on. What could drive an animal so far, three days travel at a good run, in search of food? I examined the corpse from a distance, careful not to approach. The corpse seemed gaunt, as though its' last meal had been weeks past. The skin was already cracking, the fur dry and patchy. This animal had not seen water in days before its death..

I started to move forward, slowly, carefully, unsure of the floor beneath my feet. The hole torn down through these various levels, which opened up this terrible place to the angry sky, was large and ragged. I had always avoided this area of the keep before, and had no wish to explore it by crashing through it.

Just as I stepped into reach of the corpse, the air changed. It was sudden, but familiar. The air grew cold, very cold, and it seemed to thicken, as though I could swim through it, maybe even cut through it with my blade. It was mere perception, of course. I knew this change. I had weathered it many times, and I knew how to survive its ravages. A plague storm was coming!

Spinning on the ball of my foot, I dashed back down the corridor toward the stairs. My boots struck the floor quickly, with no regard for noise. Even if a foe really did exist here, they would be hurrying for shelter. Nobody who had survived this long was foolish enough to do anything but seek protection at the first sign of a plague storm. My cloak fluttered behind me, having come free of the leather strap which tied it in place.

As I turned the corner of the corridor, it caught on a metal bracket on the wall. I caught myself before I could fall, but just barely. The cloak tore where it caught the brace, its eternal candle long since fallen away. I pulled to free the cloak, but it would not come. As I stepped closer to the brace to free myself, the air changed again. The smell of death, which so permeated this place, melted away. In its place, an overwhelming surge, was a sweet scent, honey-like. My time was quickly running out! Sighing at the loss of the cloak, well made and well worn, I pulled the string which fastened it around my neck, and let it hang where it was.

I hurried onward, down the stairs as fast as I could without slipping on the steep, narrow stone steps. I took the last several floors in leaps, dashing downward with speed far beyond the safe and sound. My shoulder struck the stone wall of the staircase, but I had not time for such trivialities. This storm felt fierce, and I would not survive without proper shelter. Here, in this terrible place, that meant the throne room.

Despite the terrible evil that had once occupied it, and despite the reek of malignant anger that stained its stone walls, it was the only safe harbor near enough. My pack was in the main courtyard of the keep, and the storm blanket it carried was not powerful enough to stave off what felt like a massive storm. It would have to be the throne room this time. I steeled myself for what was to come. The throne room was indeed safe harbor from the plague storms, but it was a punishment all on its own. Hopefully, the storm would pass quickly.

The ground floor of the keep was open, grand, and intimidating. The staircase opened up into its main courtyard, where the great steel doors were once opened up like a gaping maw to devour fearful victims. The courtyard was massive, reaching high, with its arched ceilings. Once, terrible frescoes, detailing the terrible life of the place's darkest Lords, covered the ceiling. These had long since been scoured clean by the storms. The doors had been left open when those who dwelt here fled. The storms had had an easy time burning that terrible art, and I did not regret the absence of it.

I dashed across its wide space, where the forces of the keep's Lords once assembled for the hunt. Instead of the hooves of cavalry and the boots of terrible masses, it was just me. I hurried past the steel husk of a cart, its bits worn away. My pack rested within it, where on the chance that some other wanderer came here, it would not be quickly spotted. I quickly hefted its weight onto my back, and hurried onward.

The courtyard led down a high-ceiling hall, lined on both sides by suits of armor. Cruel, horrid armor that was once the most feared sight in all of Theris, stared back at me. When cruel men and beasts roamed this place, this was called the Hall of Heroes, though to know its use was to understand what it meant to be a hero in the service of this keep's Dark Lords. Soldiers who distinguished themselves in battle, in cruelty, in utter submission to their dark-souled master, were retired to this place. When they could no longer serve, their bones where fashioned into the stand upon which their armor stood its ground. Thus were the most fierce rewarded for their ferocity.

The armor was the perfection of a thousand years of tyrannous thought and evil deed, the culmination of centuries of exhausting effort. The metalworkers of this place had created their armor to be the best of its kind, so that it wearer could do their worst. The helm was pointed like some crow's head, with narrow slits for the eyes. The shoulders had spikes, and the chest plate was etched with prayers to the terrible gods and their darkened skies. One such chest plate was art, in its own cruel fashion, depicting the armies of this darkest of Lords tearing up the ground in search of our benevolent gods.

The metal of the armor was polished to a high sheen, save for the hands, which were burnished black. Those gloves made the suit seem so very impersonal. The bearers of such suits did not even care to display the bloody results of their work; the black hid the blood, as though it was not worth displaying. Those who fell under these suits were simply obstacles to be stepped upon, crushed, butchered thoughtlessly. The storms of this place, which scorched anything they touched, had left these suits unharmed. Such was the evil that was mixed into the metal.

I hurried past these sentinels, these husks who guarded the keep of a Dark Lord now fifteen years fled eastward. I hurried through the metal door that led into the throne room. Not at all like the gaping maw of the keep's doors, the throne room door was small, lest some attacker get this far. One had to remove their armor to fit through the door. The Dark Lord's personal guard entered from elsewhere, from deep within their Lord's inner sanctum. All others entered through this narrow entrance.

Kicking open the door I was always so careful to close when I left the keep, I removed my pack and thrust it through the narrow entrance, hurrying in after it. The sweet smell was getting stronger, and the storm was almost upon this place. What would the plague storm bring this time? Would it simply scour this place once more, or would it finally bring it down? I knew of people who could sense such things in advance, exactly how strong a storm would be, but I was not one of them. I did know a fierce storm when I felt it, though, like knowing that a great army marches on you, without knowing the count of its soldiers. I knew that much. And I knew how to survive the storms. I certainly understood that, and so I slammed shut the door, sealing off the throne room.

Just as the door was about to close, I felt a terrible heat at my fingers, and a wall of flame seemed to erupt through the crack in the nearly-closed door. I screamed as the flames seared the flesh of my left hand, but I forced the door shut nonetheless. I stepped back, cradling the ruined hand. My flesh was scorched, the muscle and bone protruding from beneath the blackened skin. Fat bubbled and spat in the heat. The smell was nauseating.

I reached for my pack, but as I did, I realized that the tapestry near the door was burning. I set aside the searing, dizzying pain of my left hand. If this place burned, my hand would be the least of my woes.   I took a deep breath and pushed the pain out of the way. With my good hand, I tore down the hanging tapestry, its curtain rod popping off the hooks on the stone wall. It struck me in the head as I pulled down the burning material, but again, I stayed fixed upon my task. The angry plague fire from the storm was intense, so much so that the fires consumed materials quickly. Much of the tapestry touched by the fire was simply gone, its edges burning slowly. I stamped out the flames quickly.

The smoke from the ancient paint and cloth stuck in my nostrils, and I coughed loudly. I spat to clear out the acrid taste and struck the tapestry, not at all worried about desecrating such a foul thing as this. The tapestry depicted one of the most terrible days in my good kingdom's history; the day the Dark Lord of this place slew our old king's gracious wife. The Dark Lord's soldiers carried her severed right hand through the streets of local towns as they made their triumphant way back here. Thus was the tapestry painted; that black day's Dark Lord, the cruel master named Aara, atop his black steed, our queen's gracious hand tied on a pole like mere meat. I kicked the tapestry away, not wishing to remember the event that gave my grandfather such terrible nightmares in his final days of fitful sleep and sickness.

Yet that was the way of this room, the throne room of the Dark Lords of the kingdom of Krona. The walls of this rectangular room were decorated with the tapestries of a thousand years of terror and malice, directed as much against the good kingdom of Esis as against the Dark Lord's own people. The candles here still burned, their magic holding strong. Still, the room was dark, as befitted such a terrible place. The carpets that covered the stone floor were blood red, as though to stand before the Dark Lord of the place, one stood in a pool of blood. Indeed, it was often the case that to stand in front of the keep's Dark Lord, to face the ruler of the darkened kingdom of Krona, was to stand in a pool of one's own blood as death rushed in.

The carpet, leading from the door, down the length of the room, stopped several steps from the throne itself. Strangely, growing up around the hearths where villagers told the terrible tales of this kingdom, and later in the training halls of the Royal Guard, I had always expected a throne of bone and horror. Perhaps it was the throne that drew me to this place. Curiosity had always been as much of a motivator for my travels as necessity. There was certainly no need to approach this most terrible of places. The towering keep of Krona had nothing I required to survive in this twisted, torn land. Yet there was this throne, and it still held my curiosity, even after all of this time.

The seat of the Dark Lords of Krona was not at all what I expected. Indeed, the stories from my youth and training had spoken of a terrible sight to behold, a seat formed from the tormented bodies of those whom Krona and its terrible armies had overrun and destroyed. These were stories designed to strike fear into the hearts of the very young, as if the reality of Krona's millennium of terror was not enough. The stories were intended to keep the good people of our own fair kingdom, Esis, from being lured by the seductive power offered by Krona's agents; they who roamed our roads, offering gold and glory in exchange for service… for servitude.

So when I had learned how to weather the storms, to survive in this changed land, my mind returned to those stories. I had served in the Royal Guard, we who protected our righteous royal family against the horrors of Krona. I wanted to see the seat of that which we most hated. I needed to see it, and the need grew over the months and years, until finally I could resist no longer. After all, was not Krona just as emptied out as Esis? Had this terrible place not suffered as all of Theris has suffered? What had I to fear, if this place was as empty as the rest?

The throne was now as it had been when I first found it. It seemed to me just as sad a thing as that first day, now years past. A solid thing made of thick wood, lacquered dark and red, as though the blood of the owner’s countless victims had helped color it. The back rose high, yet the throne itself was not raised above the floor. In our own throne room, the Esian kings looked down onto the throne room from a raised floor. Not here, though. Here, the Dark Lords of Krona had loomed fierce enough on their own. The maroon cloth that draped over the back of the throne, down over the seat, was dusty but otherwise intact. Nobody save myself had likely entered here since the days of the darkened kingdom.

I could imagine some terrified captive of the last darkened ruler, cowering before the throne. In my mind, Sarena, the last to sit high in her chair, glares at the shaking prisoner, and rises from the throne to her full height of seven feet. Her blackened armor seems to absorb the light, and her cruel eyes reach outward, the sharpened fingernails at the ends of long, bony fingers, hungering for the poor prisoner’s throat. No, this throne needed nothing more than the beast that sat upon it, in order to draw out the fear of its victims.

The raging fire storm outside the door distracted me from my revere. The door rattled, yet held fast. The terrible power of this room was still enough, fifteen years on, to hold back the plague storms. Even the terrible result of so much misused power could not penetrate here. I knew I was safe here, at least from the storm. What effect the room itself might have on me was another matter. Would I feel my heart turn cold? Would I feel a growing need for power, or for blood, or for… what?

The villagers of Clearlake, where I lived when I was not wandering, did not take kindly to my stories of this place. When I first returned from the keep, parents sent their children from the room when I recounted the stories. Eventually, even they did not want to hear about what I had seen in this place. It was as though they feared that the very keep itself was tainted. I could not say, one way or the other. I had visited this place perhaps a dozen times since the storms started, usually on my way to somewhere else. I felt no ill effects, though I suppose evil rarely announces itself to its new host. Still, I did not crave blood, nor seek power. Jeannine still took me in her arms, and tenderly set her lips upon mine. If she did not fear me, what was there to fear?

The door rattled again, and I sighed. The storms either burned out quickly, or stayed for a while. This one had gone on long enough to tell me it was the latter. This storm would likely last all day and through the howling night, and I unable to leave until then. I made my way toward the throne, and sighing again, sat down.

Just wood and cloth, that was all. No whispering voices, no sudden blood lust. Just wood and cloth. I smiled to myself, enjoying the irony. Here I was, a Royal Guardsman for a family long since fled, sitting upon the throne of our single, terrible foe. She was also fled. I was sitting on the bones of the enemy, the carcass of a powerful kingdom long since crumbled and burned.

This was what happened when rulers put too much faith in the powers of their mages. This is what happens when the desire for power over one’s foes overtakes all sense of restraint. The mages of both kingdoms, powerful magic wielders, had conjured magic far beyond their ability to control, and this was the result; a world nearly swept clean of its own people. The land was cursed. Its people were forced to escape into the doom of the eastern mountains and the endless desert beyond, where they had all perished. The survivors, we terrible few we stayed behind, eked out a life haunted by plagues of magic.

Sometimes those plagues came slowly, like in the once-great forest of Meekwood, where the uncontrolled magic had melded wolves and men into terrible, merciless creatures who hunted by night. Sometimes, it came in a flash, like the plains of Akuna, where in an instant, a spell by our own battle-mages, intended to heal our wounded soldiers, had reduced the entire population to shambling mockeries of life.

Sometimes, the plagues came again and again, like here. Here, the plagues came as storms. Sometimes, like now, fire swept through the empty places where life had once thrived. Other times, it was sheer rage, a howling, furious wind that overwhelmed those caught in it with the angry cries of the dead. It was enough to kill, your own soul joining the howling storm. Sometimes it just drove people mad.

Every parcel of the once-great land of Theris was cursed with its own manner of magic plague, the halls of my own kingdom no less than here. Theris was a tortured land; fifteen years of endless terror reigned over it. I had seen enough of it to know that the land itself was losing its battle against our foolishness. Soon, we few would be left to perish, just as those masses that fled across the mountains had perished in the endless desert of the east. Perhaps they had been the fortunate ones, to die under a parching sun. At least there, with the magic plagues held back by the mountains, they were left to die on their own. How sad it was, I thought, that the best off all choices was death in a parching, endless desert.

I shook my head, and looked about the room.

What a waste, I muttered to nobody in particular.

CHAPTER 1

Sometime during the night, sitting on the throne of the long-fled Dark Lord, listening to the raging fire storm, I fell asleep. The pulsing pain in my hand seemed to lessen,   my breathing slowed, and I began to sleep. It was an uneasy sleep. The flat, straight backing of the chair was not the problem, however, nor the un-cushioned seat itself. I had slept in worse places. No, that was not the problem.

The fire storm howled with the angry voices of countless victims. The cries reached out to me, even through the thick doors which protected me from the flames. The voices cried out, though for what I could not discern. Some of those voices had lost their bodies a thousand years past, when the first Dark Lord seized Skyreach Keep and began a reign of terror which others would continue after his death. Some died in Krona's last days, only fifteen years ago, when the magic plagues swept through the halls of the keep, and its inhabitants fled with whatever they could carry.

Skyreach Keep. Even the name was a reminder of its sullied past. It was built a thousand years ago, when the secrets of towering construction had only recently been unraveled. Skyreach Keep was built to watch over the lands of the north. Though only a scant eleven stories high, it must surely have seemed to reach into the clouds, to those early primitives who sought to extend their reign over all the land of Theris. So they built their keep and called it Skyreach, to remind themselves that their new kingdom, Esis, would soar as the great birds did.

Then the first Dark Lord came. His name long since lost to the fog of history, the first Dark Lord emerged from within the ranks of the Esis nobility. Drawn by the promise of power and riches, and worshiping the terrible gods of the sky, he seized the keep. At first, or so the murky story goes, not even the King in the south knew what was happening. A peasant uprising? A jealous knight? Some spoke of a shooting star which predicted the coming of a great evil. The stories began to travel south, carried by those lucky enough to flee the carnage which issued forth from the keep. Villages razed, crops burned. Nobles killed and their children hung from trees as a warning. At some point, and none who actually witnessed it lived to speak of exactly when it happened, the Dark Lord made a pact with the angry gods which skirted the edge of our world. What started out as a jealous noble seeking his own seat of power, became a war between decency and cruelty. The kingdom of Krona was born, with terror as its midwife. Skyreach Keep, built with such promise, was now in the hands of people who rained death down upon everyone within the grasp of their clawed, bloodied hands. The keep itself became a beacon of despair to all who saw its form on the horizon, or heard its name fearfully whispered.

Now, a thousand years later, sleeping on the throne of that terrible kingdom, images of the first Dark Lord lurked in the foggy depths of my dreams. In my mind, I watched the Dark Lord sit upon his throne, and issue orders that would sow fear and carnage across entire swaths of countryside. I listened to him laugh, and saw the deep emptiness in his eyes, which seemed   bottomless pits of woe, with no soul to be found in their depths. Perhaps it was simply that his soul was too black to be seen, like a darkness which drew in the very light itself. I sensed a sickening twist of admiration and fear which gripped the people who flocked to his service. I saw their eyes, so filled with greed and hate, take in the terrible visage of their new ruler. All who looked upon him trembled with fear, and yet shook with excitement, dreaming of the power they sought in his service.

Oddly, though this same dream had found me every time I slept in the keep, I was always denied a proper view of the Dark Lord himself. I saw the hollow eyes, and the great height of the monster-king, but never the entire face, nor the body. It was as if my mind deemed the eyes enough to behold, the cruel laughter and barked orders enough to hear. Or was it my mind refusing to see his face? Did my soul fear to look at the full view of evil? When I spoke of my dreams to Jeannine, she insisted that it was the keep itself. She feared for my soul, though I paid little attention to her worries. And though I never again spoke of the dreams, I sometimes wondered about her fears. Was I wrong? Had I been wrong, all these years? Was the keep working its will upon me?

No, that was foolish. Certainly, the magic of this place ran deep. It seeped from the walls, and the plague storms which drew on that magic created fierce fire storms. That was all, though. Nothing more, certainly. The magic here was a tool for a darkness which no longer roamed the halls and dungeons of the keep. Magic was merely a tool, after all. Magic could be good or evil, and though such distinctions seemed rather childish, especially after the damage wrought by the magic plagues, it was a good rule of thumb. Still, good or evil, magic was not altogether different than a sword. A sword could be crafted artfully, or with cruel angles. Regardless, its use was entirely up to those who held it. A cruel-looking sword in the hands of a noble king was made noble. A sword wrought nobly, yet held in the hands of a creature of evil, was fouled by the uses found for it. So it was for magic, as well. The magic here, as horrid as its uses were, was nothing more than a weapon left upon a battlefield. It was only dangerous to those who did not respect such tools. I understood that, and I was cautious. Thus, I was safe.

At some point in the night, after I had let my heavy eyelids fall, the firestorm stopped. The wailing ceased. I awoke to the silence to which I was accustomed. The door had held, despite the single burst of flame at the outset. Rising from the throne, I stretched out my sore muscles. It was then that I noticed my hand. It was no longer blistered, merely red. I examined it, unsure of what I was looking at.

Huh, I muttered to myself.

It seemed that my wounds were not what I had first thought. It was not the first time I had been deceived. The storms here were as much about fear as anything else. They played upon the mind. Obviously, my 'burns' had been another such ploy by the angry souls here, intended to sink me into a mire of despair, and then draw me in and drown me. Not today. I could not be driven to despair or madness by the sight of a few blisters and some scorched skin. I had seen far worse during the war.

Without looking back at the throne of the once-terrible kingdom of Krona, I took up my pack, and unbolted the door. Working a crick out of my neck, I started my journey home.

***

Spent the night, did you?

The voice called out from across the river. Erik waved at me as he crossed through the waist-deep, slow-moving river, his hands holding his massive sword above his head for balance.

No choice, I called back, as I washed my hands in the cool water. A storm hit while I was inside. I had to wait it out. I am not partial to being scorched down to the soles of my boots.

It was a joke, but I instinctively looked down to my hand. It was healthy and whole, of course, but the memory of the false burn of two nights past still sent pain shooting up my arm. The hallucination, for what else could it have been, was still very vivid in my mind. It had bothered me as I journeyed across the barren fields around the keep, and then through the empty fields beyond it, leading me to this small river.

Erik shook his head, his thinning mane of gray-tinted red hair waving back and forth over his face like a curtain in a breeze. He brushed it aside. That's nonsense. You didn't have to be there to begin with.

How would you know? I asked.

The package was intended for Meekwood, he retorted. That is three walking days east of the keep.

Your point, Erik? I asked with a smirk.

My point, dear boy, he replied as he reached my bank of the river, somewhat winded from the effort, is that you wasted away that time on your little excursion.

I shrugged, shaking the water from my hands. That is really my concern. It was a one-way delivery. I dried my hands on my pants. I delivered it quickly. That's why they pay me.

And how were we to know? Erik huffed, his large, muscular form thumping down on the ground as he took some rest. The wolves might have taken you, and Meekwood would have been without the medicine it asked for.

I can outsmart wolves, I replied, pretending to concentrate on brushing the dust from my clothing.

Those wolves are not just wolves, and you know it.

I nodded. I was there when it happened.

So you should know better, Erik said with annoyance.

Somewhere under my indifference, I agreed with Erik's point. The forests which separated Meekwood from the barrens around the keep were thick with the howls of angry beasts. The forests had always been home to wolves, massive predator packs, moving with impunity. Since the war, though, the wolves had changed. Whatever magic the locals had wrought upon those thickets did more than was intended. The rebellious villagers, seeing Kronan troops coming to crush their revolt, had sought to twist and turn the bodies of the Dark Lord's troops. They expected these troops to turn away from their intended invasion and flee, but they had not done so. The whips and claws of the Kronan officers were a far greater motivator than the magic set upon the trees. So the Kronan troops, a thousand of them in all, marched onward through the forest. At some point during their march, the wolves came upon them. Now the wolf packs and the Kronan horde were one in the same. Twisted Kronan wolves with terrible eyes, many still wearing some of the armor from their man-halves.

The stories from the Meekwood villagers were always the same. The Kronan soldiers, driven mad by the twisting magic, lived an existence scoured of memory. They wandered aimlessly, unsure of who they were or what their purpose was. That was, until the scent of life came to them. Then the changes came, and the flesh and teeth became fur and fangs. The howls echoed among the trees, and the Kronan army became a wolf pack. Such wolves as these did not relent until their prey was felled and consumed. I had seen it happen, and I knew enough to avoid that forest, or at least to cross at its narrowest point. Thankfully, the Kronan wolves did not venture beyond the trees. Food was plentiful enough under their leaf-canopy.

Erik lay back on the bank, stretching. I heard his back crack, and he let out a sigh of relief. At fifty-two, Erik was hardly fit enough to be traveling like this. Moving between the few safe areas of our world was a job for the young. Erik's only advantage was that in his youth and well into his older years he had been a warrior of unparalleled strength. The muscles remained, softened though they were. Still, he was slower, heavier, and tired far more easily than the fierce man I had known as a young soldier.

This is not really about how long it took to get to Meekwood and back, I started.

No, he sat up. No, it's not. It is about your obsession with that damned place.

I waved him off with a smile and a shake of the head. It is not an obsession.

What do you call it? he demanded, his tone taking on a slight edge. You take any opportunity to go there.

So? I asked. So what if I do? I am not bringing anything out of there, and anyway, the place is dead. What harm is there in going?

You keep saying that, he grumbled. You say it is dead, and yet you keep going back. What is so interesting in a dead place that you keep going back to it?

I sat down beside the old warrior. I gazed at the blue sky, so much calmer here than the approaches to the keep. I am curious, just that. I spent enough time in our own throne room, hearing tales about that awful place. I just had to see it.

Fine, once. He nodded, as though declaring some truth. "Once I can understand. I will even