90th Day of Ash, 122nd Year of the Age of Steel
The stone face of Quetharax the Knowing seemed alive with some hidden amusement as the torchlight flickered across it. The dark eyes felt almost oppressive with their shadowed gaze out across the entrance hall. Masagh stared up into the face of the ancient one. Always when he came here Masagh felt the weight of the unknown upon him. A shroud of mystery that slowed him and made him clumsy. If he was to be the next step on the road to an undead nation, a home for all grave born, why was there so much unknown and ignored?
Fear, the answer came as it always did under the dauntless gaze of the first lich. They had been crippled, and made to cower below the living when an empire became a scattered few. He had more tools than most, with runes and safety, resources to grow his power, but it was not enough. It was a shadow of what had once been. Now the sky was inked with a cursed and even their handful was dwindling. The unanswered questions added their weight to the already cumbersome responsibilities left to him.
Masagh grunted and his face twisted into a frown. He turned his back on the statue.
Keep your secrets then Quetharax. I will find my answers one way or another.
Still lost in thought, he made his way to the laboratory. The room was silent and still, completely empty today. Masagh had been planning to do some rune forging, but found his mind clouded, instead he pulled a long bar of iron from the stores and set it to the forge. He watched the metal heat, the bright flames leaving echoes on his eyes.
As he stood with his arms crossed, watching the iron turn a bright orange, he heard foot steps. Turning, he found his mother watching him with a small frown.
“You alright, Masagh?” She asked.
He did not answer, but turned back to the forge and pulled thick gloves on. With a set of tongs he slid the iron bar free of the heat and set it onto the larger of the two anvils. He pulled a medium hammer free from there rack and began the measured beating, metal ringing in the almost empty room. Emerande watched him work silently, not saying more. He focused on the measured drop of the hammer. The blade needed to be even to grind into an edge. The key was letting gravity drop the hammer for you. Then when the orange faded to red, then black he drove it home in the forge again.
“You are right to train me in Necromancy, mother.” Masagh said finally, as they both watched the flames like the iron.
“I know I am. Why do you say it?” Emerande shot a faint smile over at him. She had crossed her arms and her bright orange gaze was at least as fierce as the forge before them.
“This season has been a trial.” Masagh said finally.
“Yes, we have had much ichor shed, but the world is also suffering.” Emerande said, her tone lifting a shard of hope into the conversation.
Masagh let it fall in his silence. He brought the iron bar back onto the anvil and began to beat the edge into it. The ringing filled the space where conversation had been. It allowed Masagh to think about what he would say next. How could he have avoided their losses this past season. Cleon, Calliope, his arm, those smugglers and the Ork who had gotten away, the Inquisitors. All of it was too much risk. House Creth and those it protected deserved better.
When the metal cooled again he placed it back in the forge. Then he gave a soft snort of laughter.
“What is it?” Emerande asked, eyeing him.
“I am the sword.” Masagh said, gesturing vaguely at the forge where the iron bar was heated. “I cut because all I have is an edge.” That was the problem. Quetharax had more than an edge, Emerande was more than an edge. He turned to look at her. “That is why I am grateful to learn Necromancy, and all other things. I need more than a sword.” He said finally, and something of the sadness he felt must have shown. Her blazing gaze softened and she glanced at the forge too before walking to him and placing her hand against his cheek.
“You have always been more than that sword.” She said softly. “That is why I push you so hard. You are the one who is least content. Sabrione is a great warrior, but she loves her place as Weaponmaster. Cyran is a master of his craft, but he is only a crafter at heart. He will not lead warriors into battle. Parthena… Parthena is no conqueror. She seeks my approval too much for that.” Emerande pressed her fingers into his cheek slightly, drawing his wandering eyes back to her.
“You want more, and I need someone who wants more.” She said gravely. “If we are to grow we need someone who is ready to move out from under my shadow and help me gain the power to do so.”
Masagh went to the forge again and watched the flames. “Perhaps we should create other undead… more ghosts, thralls… liches?” He raised his eyes to her as he pulled the iron from the forge again.
She nodded and raised a brow briefly. “Perhaps give each sworn a team of thralls to make their work less dangerous.” She mused, stepping up to the other side of the anvil and handing him the hammer he had been using. “Although I don’t know any liches left in the area we could trust.”
“Perhaps we can make one, they are very powerful are they not? Wouldn’t having one increase our capability and arsenal?” He asked, feigning nonchalance. He brought the hammer down and finished the rudiments of the blade, leaving the handle side smooth and round. Then he placed a rod at the crossbar and hammered in the dimple for the hilt.
“Make one of us a lich?!” Emerande asked incredulous, her eyes searching his face with the first glimmer of suspicion. Masagh felt his stomach roll over and glanced up at her, forcing his face into a neutral visage. He shrugged and pulled the metal bar over to the step grinder.
“What they are powerful, are they not? What does it mean to be a lich, even?” He asked, keeping his tone light. He would rather her think it an off hand idea rather than an aspiration. An aspiration? Was that what it was?
“Liches give up much to be made so, and their power comes at the price of other things.” Emerande said. “We are born undead and our lineage is what gives strength to our people, I would not bargain that for any amount of power increase.” Emerande said.
Masagh nodded and handed her the leather and cloth face mask. He pulled one over his face as well, grateful to hide his expression from her. He began to pump the grinding belt with his foot while sending a shower of sparks against the wall as he ran the blade across it.
“So it’s just a matter of bloodline purity, mother?” He asked after he had done once side and inspected it. “Surely we can’t worry about purity when we are numbered only five High Borns? When do we make sacrifices for the capability to defend our people? What do you have against those who seize power like that? I thought they would be admired. They seemed to also be ill at ease with their place and aspired for more.” He pressed, masking frustration with confusion.
“The process is dangerous Masagh, and can be-“ Emerande paused. “Can kill one. No amount of power is worth losing one of our number left to us, let alone a High Born.”
There is was again. The fear that made all things stagnant in Creth. Masagh looked at his mother, but her face was hidden by the mask. Perhaps fear was not the right word.
Love.
She loved them. She had loved so many more before them as well. Love and lost and been left to pull together the scraps of a civilization here. Now her world and her power extended to the walls of this crypt, and her influence the city beyond. She was unwilling to to risk the protection she afforded her last precious kin, not for the chance to lift up the burden of that dead empire again. Masagh knew now what she saw in him.
She saw another who had what it took to help her protect the family. To look at the whole picture and guide the grave born into the future. She had abandoned the dream of the empire in favor of survival for those she loved. A sacrifice in her eyes, surely, and one that had undoubtedly lead to him being born into the life he lead now. But Masagh was not what she envisioned.
He had not abandoned the dream. He loved his family dearly, but he could not abandon the grave born scattered across the world. They deserved his every effort.
He would need to be much more than a sword.
