Editing Millennial King (section)

=== Assassins ===

We have made a terrible mistake, my liege.

It was supposed to be so easy. A kingdom of undead, the vizier told us! They would welcome us, use us to expand their power, he said! We could usurp them once we found out how it worked, and use them to bring our country greater glory! Whether the vizier is an imbecile or plotting our downfall, it doesn't matter anymore.

Three Necromancers. Two Blackguard for protection. An assassin to help with any impediments to the mission. Our country... distant from Arran'ak, we knew so little. Arran'ak is a tiny little country, with the kind of name you expect when it ends up with some lich necromancer in charge of it all. We crossed the border in the dead of night and when daylight came, we thought that they did a good job of keeping things looking normal in the borderlands. People going about their business. And we knew the undead were there in the fields, I could -feel- them, by the devils, as I feel all undead. But something felt... strange about them. We could not put our finger on it, but we chalked it up to whatever magic pulled the strings on these particular marionettes. We vowed to master it ourselves.

The closer we got to the Spire, the more uneasy we became. We came across a patrol of Sentinels on the march; living and dead, though mostly dead, but they all called themselves Sentinels. Curious. They pointed us toward the Spire when we asked, without hesitation. After all, they had no fear of a delegation of diplomats who had lost their way. It isn't as if we were standing in black armor covered in spikes, for if we were we would have been sorely out of place. They seemed dressed as any army unit might be, not quite as dark as we had expected, but they were certainly none of those positive-energy creatures and they were hardly garbed in white robes.

We continued our travelling, the Spire cresting the horizon in the distance, when we first began to have our doubts. None of us expected the Spire to look as it did. This was the home of a necromancer, of a powerful lich! And yet... wouldn't one expect a towering monolith of black stone or the like? Instead, white marble! As we entered the city itself we found that it was even gilded in gold! We passed more undead toiling in the fields. Had it not been for our concerns about the assassin's reaction, we might have cut and run right there. But he was sent along with us to make sure our mission was accomplished, by any means necessary.

The lich was unannounced. He walked in alone. While one of the other necromancers was about to speak, he raised his hand. After a few moments' ponderance, he spoke... I have never heard a voice like his and I hope never to hear it again. It sounded... no, it -felt- like bones scraping against each other.

"You have come among my people, and into my home. I knew of your darkness from the moment you stepped foot onto this land. You are not diplomats. What are your intentions?" The words were what we expected... but the tone was all wrong. The others didn't realize it, but I felt it in the pit of my stomach, I knew everything was going wrong and I needed to get out of there. But the only way out was through the window. The entrance lay behind him.

"My lord, we heard of your kingdom and of you, and we wish to serve alongside you, and to learn from you, if you would but permit it!" gushed one of the black clerics. Llast was one who wanted to eventually become a lich himself, so of course he would be the one to say that. At those words I felt an urgent need to run him through with a blade; it was not the line we had practiced, though it was technically correct.

The lich shook his head slowly. "Your words may be true but I know the intent behind them. You think I am fool enough to let you defile the one thing I have given this world? You are transparent to me. I will allow you a choice. You may leave this place, or you can attempt what you will doubtlessly attempt. I have instructed the Chronus Guard not to intervene. You might even stand a chance." His laugh sounded akin to a rasp.

Plan B it was; there would be no going back. We would need to take what we came for without the niceties we had planned. It was all choreographed; one of the Blackguards would charge forward to distract, the other would summon hellhounds to take on the lich, and they would alternate. We would try to drain his power, and the assassin would search for the phylactery which doubtlessly was in the Spire; with my aid, he would find it and break it.

Nothing went as planned, of course. One moment he was being charged by the Blackguard... the next he was behind the assassin holding him up by the throat and shocking the rest of us with lightning. We did not hear what he told the assassin as his body withered before our eyes, but he threw him against the wall as he shocked us again. The shock really did not take all that much out of us, but it kept us from casting against him. The Blackguards had tried to both summon hellhounds to bolster our ranks, but that didn't work very well; instead they charged him. And sure, they probably did damage when they struck him, but it was hard to tell. He threw the assassin's body against a wall and I stared at it in disbelief as the flesh came off of it as dust, leaving it nothing more than a skeleton.

Spectral missiles flew at us after that, as he repeated the treatment with the blackguards, one at a time. We were no match for him, and the whole of the Spire was warded against teleporting, so there was no easy escape for us that way. So obviously, I did the only logical thing I could. I jumped out the damn window, used the ring of feather fall I'd bought before leaving to glide to safety, and ran. There was no chance of survival against him. The six of us and he was well beyond our capabilities. We had no chance of victory from the start and he knew it.

Did they find me? Of course they found me, before I'd even made it out of the city. I tried to fight against them but the only casualty I caused was against one of the living Sentinels before I was beaten into unconsciousness. When I awoke again, it was in a marble chamber, and the Sentinel I'd killed was on a stone bench. A diamond was between his hands, clasped over his navel. Lining the chamber were a half dozen undead Sentinels on either side.

"You have taken the life of a citizen. You attempted to take my life and usurp me. For this, you would suffer immolation, and your ashes would be scattered to the wind. I could bind you to these ashes and trap you here forever, or send you into the afterlife. There are many there, no doubt, who would enjoy tormenting you. None of whom I will speak the name of, but they are no allies of mine." I felt his voice in my head -- telepathy. He was not present in the room. He did not need to be. If he'd wanted me dead he would have killed me already, I was sure of it. "Your crimes will be forgiven and you will be exiled from my kingdom, should you agree to this: raise the Sentinel whose life you took. And abandon your pursuit of power, if for nothing but the sake of your soul. The first condition I can see, but the second condition lies solely on your future action. There may yet be hope that you will go to a better place than you would if you died right now."

What could I do? I took the diamond, recited the incantations, and waited. I was quite surprised when I saw him enter the body -- normally raising the enemy almost never succeeds, but he seemed to appreciate it. He even thanked me, before the lich spoke again: "Now leave this place, and never return. And again, child, for the sake of your soul... take a long, hard look at your life and what would lie after it. I nearly walked the same path you walk before I realized that there were more important things in this world than myself."

He said more than this, of course, and I listened. There was wisdom in his words, and he had the time to gain that wisdom. In time, I left, unmolested, and no one would so much as look at me. So far as they were concerned, I was dead to them.

I am rue to say this, sire, but he had a point. I have had this gift all my life, but until now I have only used it to further my own goals. I saw something while I was in Arran'ak, though, that I did not expect to see. I saw the living and the undead working alongside each other. I saw a man who was genuinely loved by his people, not a lich who was ruling through fear and using hatred as a tool.

There is a balance that can be struck between life, death and undeath, and the Millennial Emperor opened my eyes to it. Forgive me, my liege, but I can no longer remain in your service. There is more to this world, and this is not where I belong. This message will find you by courier, and I paid well for its safe delivery, but I will not be returning to our empire. There is a wider world, and I must find my place in it on my own.

-- Tyr'anon Bakonn