Tenebroum

Chapter 170: The Death of a Dream

For more than two years, The Voice of Reason had pushed forward, practically unchallenged, since the earliest naval battles. She had seen a whole region fall to the Lich’s command, with only a few battles to put the desert peoples in her place.

Part of her had thought that this would be the new model going forward and that the dread armies, which only grew larger month after month thanks to the tithes that she’d secured and the bloodstained flesh factories that had been built amidst the wastes and the endless dunes.

For a time, she even let herself second-guess the Lich’s original campaign. She knew deep down that if it had only built her earlier and used the dreamer for more than just mind games and communal torture, that they could have secured huge regions of devoted worshipers instead of the empty kingdoms that it ruled over now in the south.

Those dreams were all ended by the Kingdom of Varenell, though. For months, she lingered at sea, not far from their border. At first, she sent scouts and spies. Later envoys followed, but all of these were rebuffed. After that came scouting parties and headhunters that brought back enough body parts for the Puppeteer to rummage through their memories and determine what they might try next. His words were anything but reassuring.

“They’ve been warned about us,” he told her in the voice of one of the dead men he was currently playing with. “Extensively, it would seem. To call them on their guard would be an understatement.”

Indeed, the longer they lingered, the more they learned and the more bad news they had to deliver to their master so far away. This new kingdom had strength, both magically and physically. For generations, they had built a wall that would hold back not just the desert but the raiders that regularly came from it, and now those fortifications were paying dividends in stopping the march of the Dark Paragons and their fifty thousand undead abominations.

There would be no peaceful conquest here, she decided, which saddened her, but that did not mean that she could give up entirely. To claim the desert was a victory, but to leave when she could have done more was unforgivable. She offered to use her forces to sink whatever fleets came from the north, but after a meeting with the generals, they decided to confiscate most of her martial resources and all of her death’s heads instead, sending her back to the south with little more than a skeleton crew.

“The fleet existed to bypass the desert and explore the islands beyond them,” the Triumvirate told her in a message that had been spoken practically in a single place, “That has been done now, and at least until we have gained a foothold, there is no longer room for peace.”

This was disappointing to the Voice of Reason, but she did not dispute it. That wasn’t because they were right, though. She wasn’t sure that they were; it was because their decision absolved her of responsibility for whatever it was that was going to come after.

The Lich’s servants might not fight to the same degree as the courtiers and nobles of other mortal courts, but she at least could see the struggles of competition as different servants jockeyed for their dark master’s favor. As far as the warriors were concerned, the Lich’s ambassador had been given much too much time in the spotlight, and now they aimed to take their turn.

While she thought that was premature, at least she could wash her hands of it. Even as they set up dungeons and looked for weak points in the fortifications, she sailed south. She had given the Lich the north, and whatever these generals did next would be on her. That was of some comfort as she made her long journey home.

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She didn’t go back, though, not right away. Despite the Voice’s confidence that she’d done her best, the shadow of the Lich’s judgment still frightened her. So, she took her time and stopped by every city-state and principality that had bent the knee to the darkness and reinforced her position there.

Ostensibly, those visits were about intimidation, and she made a point to mention just how well the war was going and just how far north her armies had pressed. She enjoyed watching the way those strong men paled as she discussed the dead cities or the endless ranks of armored zombies that she’d observed so recently, but it took several visits to realize that she enjoyed one thing even more than that.

It was only when she returned to the island of Golway, and she was sipping a glass of blood amidst the Amir’s inner circle when she realized she would miss the pomp and ritual of these occasions almost as much as she would miss everything else. She might even miss it more, she realized as she gazed out past the paper lanterns of the party and the glittering seaside city spread out half a dozen stories below the tower where they held a feast in her honor.

She had no purpose in Blackwater or even in Rahkin. She knew that. They were dead cities. There, she would find no agreements to forge or terms to hammer out. She might visit some of the smaller kingdoms that had surrendered in the early stages of the war, but it would be nothing like this.

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It was vanity, and it was selfish. She knew that. She even regretted it and wondered what her master would do to her when he saw it inside of her. It was that last thought that slowed her trip down even more.

Up until now, she’d been lingering to enjoy the strange journey for as long as she could, but now that she worried she could be tormented the way the Lich toyed with Krulm’vanor or even broken down and stripped for parts if she was truly useless, she grew afraid, and her voyage slowed even further.

She found a chain of islands that had been missed on the way up and spent two months touring from one end to the other and using the dreamer to put the fear into them. Before her arrival, they worshiped a volcano that was just powerful enough for her to be sure a small god dwelled within it because of the way that it smoked fitfully whenever she approached it.

After she left, though, the inhabitants’ ancestor shrines had been tainted, their dreams had been haunted, and she was sure that at least a few of them would continue to worship the golden skull even after she departed.

Perhaps this will make up for some of my other misdeeds, she tried to tell herself as the smoldering island slowly disappeared in the wake of her black fleet. She wasn’t hopeful, though. The Lich wasn’t the type to forgive even the smallest of slights. It used the Skoeticnomikos for many things, but its most important function was to document each and every slight that had been made against it, as well as an appropriate punishment so that the Lich would be prepared to torment each and every one of its enemies as soon as their lives or their souls fell into its bony hands.

It was a fate that, at this point, she could delay, but she doubted she could avoid it. So she sailed on, reliving her original journey in reverse, until eventually she arrived in Tanda, where it had all started so long ago. Back then, it had been a voyage of discovery, and she’d sunk the first fleet to cross her path. No, no one opposed her because they knew with certainty what would happen to them.

Instead, the welcome she received was very nearly a moonlight parade. Despite the unexpected timing of her appearance, they still managed for dozens of performers and hundreds of gleaming soldiers to escort her to the Sultan’s palace, where she was feasted, her master was honored, and the vows of peace were renewed.

Part of her wished that she still had the death knights and the other weapons of war to conquer this city and make it her own. She couldn’t, of course, and she wouldn’t have even if she had an overwhelming army. Still, the temptation was there. There was just something about being at the heart of power, surrounded by people who decided the fate of thousands, that felt right to her.

It was only toward the end of the night when she was touring several beautiful mosaic-encrusted shrines on her way back to the harbor and to her vessel and admiring the tan and supple skin of the acolytes, that she finally met the small goddess of the city.

“This is Tanda Nihara,” the Voice of Reason’s Guide said after a small bow. “And she is—”

“She is here to talk to the dead woman,” the goddess barked. “Everyone, leave us.”

She was a slight woman in ivory veils with skin that was every bit as lovely as those that served her, and judging by the reaction of her guide, her appearance was entirely unexpected and not part of the plan.

After the men and women filed out of the room, and they were left only with the altar and the burning oil lamps, the goddess waved a hand, and the doors vanished. They did not simply blink out of existence. Instead, the mosaics shifted, sliding sideways until the blue and white tiles devoured them, leaving the four walls of the inner sanctum bare of any way to escape.

“Do you mean to obstruct a servant of the Lich?” the Voice asked with all the dignity she could muster.

“Why would I harm a puppet just to anger her master,” Tanda Nihara said crossly, with a heavy accent. “You will be on your way in a few minutes. I wish only to offer you a warning. That is all.”

“I’m listening,” the Voice answered with a nod. Her suspicion had not abated, but then she doubted very much that she could harm the other goddess if she tried. She’d heard about the Lich’s encounter in Constantinal, and she was fairly certain that on their own turf, small gods of places like this were close to inviolable.

“Most of the city-states that you visited in your time amidst the kingdoms of Zum Jubar… they seek to betray you and your lord as soon as the situation allows for it,” the goddess explained, obviously conflicted.

“I should think that is obvious,” the Voice said, “The question is, why you are telling me this now?”

“Because if the Lich’s wrath is roused and he scourges these lands like a haboob, I do not wish to be caught up in its wrath. Send a plague if you must to eliminate the city, but leave it intact. I want no part of this. I know what it is capable of.” The goddess spoke like she hated both the Voice and the Lich, but that did not stop her from helping them.

“Why would the Lich spare you, even after you betray its servants and break its deals?” the Voice asked, skeptically.

“Because I already stopped this little revolt once,” she spat. “The other cities wait for Tanda to give the word, and I have prevented the Pasha from doing anything so stupid for now,” Tanda Nihara answered wearily, “But the day will come when he gets his way. Probably after your first real defeat against the northern kingdoms if I had to guess, and then, the pits of all the hells will vomit up their chaos onto the world.”