the area where the history and legend; of the creation of the alliance
of the forming of the three; this has been deemed worthy to pass on..

[..Part Five: Slaves to Prophecy..]

After the incident with the Lich, we tread a bit more lightly, not knowing
whether word had spread of the guardsman iZ had in thrall. As inobtrusively
as possible, we scouted out the entire area around the Palace of King
Algai'kin'drom. Only a single morning and afternoon was spent in
reconnaissance. In the morning, the Alliance split into five pairs and a
trio, an Altairi accompanying one or two other members of the Alliance: vAl
and Kier, Alv and Tam, Sin Eagle and Barky, Romulus and myself, Di'Ethe and
Emyr, and iZrAfeL with both Kaz and Ky.

Like I said, I was put into the charge of Romulus, seeing as I'm the
Apprentice Records Keeper, and he's the true one; we were assigned the
boulevards that came into the front entrance of the Palace. We wandered
around, rating women as much as rating attack or escape routes. We stopped
in a couple stores, checking out weaponry--swords and staves, mostly--or
magik shops, wherein I bought a forbidden book--made less so with a little
gold in hand--that detailed the undead, their 'birth', their death, and what
have you. After a more or less uneventful day, we returned to the inn, to
share what we'd found with the rest. As we were the first to return, we sat
in almost silence, carrying on a bit of conversation until the others had
gotten back.

Each party, it seemed, had met with varying degrees of success, and the
differences were painted on their faces. Sin Eagle and Barky came back with
few maps, dismissing their lack of maps by claiming to have gotten caught up
in a game of Sperkloft, which was quite likely. Half an hour or so later,
Tam and Alv came in, laughing fit to bust and carrying more maps than Either
Romulus or Barky had, however, they would not reveal the cause of their
hysteria, no matter how hard we pressed them. Not long after, Emyr came in,
her face redder than a ripe cherry, dragging behind her a thoroughly broken
Di'Ethe, who held up a single, dirt-soiled sheet of paper with a few streets
sketched out on it. No one made any comments, although knowing looks were
traded about the table. Emyr snorted. As twilight was setting in, vAl and
Kier entered the room, clothes shredded and stained black with dried blood,
more of others than of themselves. vAl was miraculously unharmed, whereas
Kier was more than a bit cut up. And last of all came the trio of
troublemakers. Slightly tipsy, they came in wearing lipstick all over their
faces, and not a map to be found in the lot of them. Oh well, we got a
laugh out of it, at the very least. A small thing, that, as compared with
what they'd had...

We all agreed that there was little use in approaching the King that night,
so we discussed plans of finding and destroying this foul insurrection.
Several methods were put forth, and we debated them far into the night,
their merits, their handicaps, et cetera. Someone suggested we search each
barrow mound or tomb in the area of the latest strikes. We all responded
that it was not only highly improbable that we'd come up with anything but
angry townsfolk, but also it would take too damn much time. While they
argued over intensely laborious and incredibly time-wasting strategies, I
consulted the book I'd bought earlier that day. Finding the passage I
wanted, I cleared my throat to get the attention of all. They quieted down
to see what the 'quiet one' had to say. I began to read from the forbidden
tome:

'...And when the dead have waited for long enough, there shall come a man of
great and terrible power, who shall not relinquish his hold on life, even in
death. He shall raise about him his dread followers, leading forth an army
from the barrow mounds of Tamarst. Unless an other-worldly power shall
strike down the man, the entire globe shall be washed over into Darkness,
and swallowed whole, a world lost to the--'

Alv cut me off. 'Yes, Drask. We know what has already happened. Skip down
to where it says how to stop this sonofabitch. Hey, where'd you get that
anyways?'

I gave him a tight-lipped smirk, and found the next passage, the one he
had... requested.

'The Heroes of Light shall come down, with help from the highest heavens, in
order to turn the tides and crimson back upon themselves, but in order to do
so, they must suffer a great loss. To stop the march of Lich-led army,
these brave souls must enter the heart of the battle, fighting those who
have none. By killing the great and horrible ArchLich, they shall stem the
tide of risen dead.' I stopped reading, leaving the room in a dead silence.

'So that's what we have to do. We might try to catch the bastard in the
middle of an attack, because now that his son is incapacitated--by yours
truly, I might add--this ArchLich will have to lead his forces himself. So
we have to sleep days and work nights.
Anyone else have a better idea?'

No one did.

'So that settles it. I don't know about you, but I'm going to bed now. See
you all in the morning.' Having said that, I turned and left the room,
bedding down on the floor in the chamber one over. That night, I had a
series of dreams, some of them messages, others premonitions, and dire ones
at that.

* * * * *

I was in a palace, probably the very same as I would be visiting on the
morrow... or maybe it was just later today. Time is a confusing thing when
one sleeps and knows not when in the night he does... Above me, columns
rose hundreds of feet into the air, drawing the eye skyward, finally
stopping to support a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Thirty or so yards of
high-quality, well-tread, vermilion rug ahead of me was an enormous,
overbearing throne of gilt and ebonstone atop an oversized marble dais. I
heard footsteps in the corridor, so I looked around desperately for some
shadows into which I could slip; none were there to be found--all was lit
with glowbulbs set in torch brackets--so I went upwards, levitating as far
and fast as I could. As the Royal entourage entered the Throne Room, I
stopped, easily three hundred feet above the hard marble floor, laid out in
blue and green marble eight-point stars inlaid in a black and white
checkerboard. The dais was in the middle of half of what would be a
sixteen-point star. The King assumed his throne, and no one was the wiser
to my presence. As long as I didn't move, I was fine. So I watched.
Surely I was here for a purpose, I thought. To watch something perhaps? I
would soon find out.

Sounds of fighting, outside the chamber. Guards were flooding the room,
spacing themselves such that they were as compact as possible--and therefore
with as many guards as possible--without getting in the way of each others'
swings. A tight formation resulted. Fighting still going on outside, but
from other directions, too. Guards fell swiftly as the zombies poured in,
striking out with unusually strong arms for what they seemed, digging
wickedly pointed nails into human flesh. The last guard fell, and the King
quivered on his throne, trying to climb up the side of the smooth, flawless
stone with aged hands and slippery feet. The zombies parted as the ArchLich
himself entered, gliding on the bloody carpet that led to the cowering
King. Two strokes, one taking the head off, another ripping out the heart.
The head was replaced, and the ArchLich ate the heart, spitting upon the
place from whence it came. And thus a royal zombie was born. new dream. shift.

I stood in the midst of a great battle. The many combating the few. The
skirmish line fluctuated back and forth, back and forth. We were the few;
the undead, the many. No matter what the state of battle, whether it was we
who were on the offensive or they, not a single member of the Alliance
succumbed to the forces of evil. And as the tides of war turned on us, it
was then that the dream forked. I was in two places at once. In one, no
one did anything heroic, just fought as themselves. And one by one, we
dropped like flies. In this version we had lost. On the reverse position
of things, one of us decided that the whole was greater than just the sum of
the parts, and so he decided to sacrifice himself. I could not make this
tragic hero out, for he was shrouded in a blinding light, which lit the
field far and wide. And wherever that light went, the tide turned and ran,
breaking formation and fleeing. This unknown martyr continued in this way
until he'd reached the ArchLich himself. And then I was nightblind as the
light was cast down, cut out of reality. We had won, but so too had we
lost. shift.

We were in the Garden, all of the Alliance assembled before the Three.
Amiadus stepped forward, preparing to address the fears that plagued out
minds, just out of conscious notice. And she spoke:

"I come before you now because you do seem to be lost in despair. Do not
fear this Agent of Darkness. Have not each of you overcome the influences
of Dimindium's Many Faces? Have not each of you overcome Agents of Darkness
in being brought into this Alliance? How now, that one King in a state of
living death drives you unto stark terror? Awake, my Heroes of Light, and
turn back the Tides of Darkness from these hallowed shores."

And so she left, Amiadus the First Fallen. Still dreaming, I wondered why
it was that she chose to Fall before any other. Love of humanity? Or was
it that she thought, and perhaps rightly so, that humanity needed a champion
in these dark times? Since no mere mortal can truly understand the mind of
a divine entity, I leave the question open.shift.

* * * * *

I marshaled the forces, ordering them to break into three platoons of five
hundred skeletons each, with threescore zombies, and all under the command
of a single member of the Ever-Guard. I headed my own elite squadron, with
two dozen of the Ever-Guard and fourscore zombies. We marched in silence,
not an uncommon thing, since only the Ever-Guard possessed enough
intelligence to communicate; the others could only hear and obey.

Each of us came from a different direction, splitting up ten miles east of
the city and going in our own separate ways. My group took the main gate,
which was the most heavily guarded: an entire garrison of soldiers, with no
fewer than eight men on duty in the gate house at any given time of day or
night. Eight men, against one hundred five undead? The only question was
whether or not they would be able to raise the alarm. I had a plan such
that they would not.

Under the clouds, covering the full moon, a dozen of my Ever-Guard walked up
to the city walls and began to scale them silently. Coming in through the
windows, they caught the watchmen enough off-guard that only a few muffled
shouts were heard. Not enough to raise the attention of the garrison two
hundred or so yards beyond. Soon the gates swept open, giving us entrance
to the King's domain. We picked our way through the streets, only
disturbing those who saw us--their bodies were hidden carefully--and made
towards our ultimate goal: the palace and the King.

Just outside the palace, we met up with the other three forces, and prepared
our assault on the King's chambers. A special task force of incendiaries
that I myself had created earlier that week were sent up to the gate, and
made themselves useful, one at a time: one by one, they acted as
explosives, silently detonating and burning through the thick wood that
barred us from our goal. The king would yet be my slave in death, in life,
in between. That much, at least, is certain.

We were inside his sanctuary. Nothing could stop us now. I marveled at the
lax watchmenship--I lost not a single thrall as I had the guards dispatched.
I split up my troops into twenty groups with a dozen zombies each, under
the command of one of my Ever-Guard--keeping seven of them and a score of
zombies for myself-- and set the skeletons on silencing all the external
guards. At every cross-passage, a task group would depart from the main,
going down the hallways on either side and exterminating all who lived
within the offshooting chambers. At last my elites were all that remained,
and only one room left in which to look, the doors guarded by two dozing
guards on both sides of the heavy double doors. The wights froze them in
place, sucking out all the life force that kept them out of a coma. We
entered the King's chambers.

The doors squeaked on rusty hinges, causing the King himself to wake, and
call for the Palace Guard. Forty men set up a phalanx about the man's four
posted bed, gothic shields protecting both their owner and the man to his
left. I idly wondered what they did with all the left-handed applicants...
It mattered not. Zombies began to dismantle the phalanx on either end,
snapping spears and yanking shields away. The work of ten minutes, the
last of those frantic men. And then the king was mine.

Parting the wall of undead bodies, I walked towards the king, cowering under
his bedsheets. He blanched as he looked upon my horrid visage, and knew his
end was nigh. 'Know ye who I am? I am thy lord, thy master, and thy maker.
In but a few minutes, you shall bow your head for me, and allow yourself
to be shaped unto my will.'

I took the crown of golden laurel leaves that lay upon his bedside table,
trying not to prick myself upon the hidden daggers that lay therein, and
placed it, dagger-point down, upon his bald head. Small streams of blood
flowed down into his eyes, open wide as dinner plates. He wailed as I put
my hand upon his forehead, and began the incantation. The tortured screams
of a damnéd man who pours out his very soul in those cries still echo in my
thoughts. His flesh cooled, taking on the blue tinge of a wight. He became
one of the Ever-Guard, and an unusually strong one at that.

'Thou art the new Captain of the Guard. Hear and obey.'

'Yes, my Lord.'

'Find us the quickest way out of here, that we may retreat to our tomb
before the hated sun peaks above the dark skies.'

'As you wish, my Lord.'

* * * * *

Upon having learned our way about to a sufficient degree that we didn't
appear to be nothing more than just a group of well-armed tourists, we
decided that we must confront the King on this grave security issue of the
undead army and what we should do about it.
Tuesday, I believe it was, when we made our way to the King's Palace.