Deus Necros

“That is rather interesting,” the King spoke at last, the words peeling off a dry throat, “since I am told that the one named as such has been caught and captured.”

“Yes. Some bastard has been impersonating me,” Ludwig said. He removed his mask without hurry, the cloth parting like a curtain around a familiar stage. The large scars that had been carved over his face faded as if their ink had been washed out by a silent tide, and the plain travel clothes softened back into the regalia of the House of Bastos. The old silver thread caught and held the chamber light in small, precise lines. The weight of a name settled over him again, not boasted and not denied, simply worn.

“Your majesty.” Steel came alive all at once. Points flared. Half the circle of royal guards tightened as one body, the ring of blades knitting itself around Ludwig with a craftsman’s neatness. Polished edges showed the room back to itself in thirty thin slices.

“This is the third time,” Ludwig said, tone steady and bored in equal measure, “and it is getting pretty boring now.”

“Everyone stand down. You cannot take him on.” The guard captain did not shout. He did not need to. The years of command were already inside the sound of his breath.

“What do you mean we cannot take him on,” snapped a younger guard from the ring. His stance was correct and his wrists were not. “Also was it not you who brought this person here. How are you going to take responsibility for this.”

“I will handle it,” the guard captain said. “He is not a foe. And you are not helping to keep it that way.” The man’s hand did not leave his hilt. His eyes never left Ludwig’s shoulders.

“Stand down,” the King said, and the sick man’s voice filled the hall with the old memory of command. “Or I will have everyone leave the room but this young man.”

Reluctance tugged at boots and mouths, but the circle loosened. Metal sank back toward leather. The floor gained the space of a breath. Ludwig let it be. He did not smile at pride being forced to heel. He knew how steel repaid humiliation.

“You are very brave for coming all the way here,” the King said. The fingers upon the bedcover were light and tremored. A life of decisions had forgotten how to anchor itself in the flesh.

“It is sad that you call it bravery,” Ludwig replied. “It was nothing but circumstance.” The word fell flat. He had lived with it long enough that it no longer needed color.

“And why are you here,” the King asked. His eyes were sunken but not dull.

“To stop this foolish war that is happening,” Ludwig said.

The King weighed that answer as if it were a coin with a missing stamp. “I was not the one handling political affairs. I, the Sultan, was unconscious for most of the time. I will handle the matter with the empire. I will have them stop their attacks no matter the price we must pay.”

“It will be pricey,” Ludwig said. “The emperor is not one to simply accept what you offer.” He let the warning sit where it could be seen. He did not press it forward.

“I know him better than most,” the Sultan said. “Do not worry.” A line tried to become a smile and could not lift itself. “Regardless. For the situation to spiral down all the way to an all out war, I must have really been going insane.”

“It was invisible,” Ludwig said. “Thanks to the moon priestess, the demonic tendencies and affliction have been almost fully removed.”

The King lifted a hand and set it gently on the priestess’s head. It was a father’s gesture performed in front of guards and enemies without apology. “It is a shame that you were chosen as a servant of Uhsn’ak. But it brings me joy to see my daughter helping her old man.” He did not hold the touch long. He did not need to. “Call the chancellor. I need a few words with him.”

“I am here, your majesty,” the old man said, appearing with the careful haste of someone who had already been waiting behind a different door. Ink stained a fingertip. The folds of his robe carried the dust of corridors.

“Tell me, old friend,” the Sultan said, “how come we are at war.”

“I honestly have no clue,” the chancellor answered. The voice had the flatness that comes from sleep being replaced with paper for too many nights. “The reason the empire has given is flimsy at best. That we attacked some of their trading routes. That we instigated terror events in the heart of their kingdom multiple times. Yet no matter how I look and search and investigate, not a single order from the palace, your sons, or even her ladyship was given to cause these attacks.”

“Not even the attack on Rima five years ago?” Ludwig asked.

The chancellor’s eyes sharpened and narrowed, then hid their edge again. “I heard that something like an attack was propagated but it was stopped. The incident was kept extremely secretive since one of the lords of the empire handled it. So how come an unrelated person like you knows of what happened then.”

“Because I was the one who solved it,” Ludwig said. “One of your sheiks went rogue. I had to handle him. It was not that tough.” He lifted one shoulder. It was an old load. It no longer bent his back.

Several guards twitched at the word sheik and then forced stillness on the twitch. The priestess did not move at all. The guard captain’s exhale sounded like leather being pressed flat.

“Ah,” the King sighed. “A sheik even. No wonder he disappeared then. I had my doubts, but we did not recover a corpse. One of ours went missing back then. Still, that should not be enough to cause war to start.”

“I found more of them hiding in the Dragon Forest when I was coming here,” Ludwig said. “You really have a loose hold of your people. Djinns, demons and humans alike are playing you and your army like a fiddle.”

“Sir Ludwig,” the guard captain said, “it is getting a bit too rude.”

“He is not wrong,” said another voice. Alex stepped into the space of the pause without a show of daring. “The attacks of the empire would have no reason to begin if it were not for the lacking fist of the kingdom of the sand. You allowed demons in your territory while knowing that the Holy Order serves inside the empire and that eradicating the demonic is their lifelong work and their calling.”

“Who are you to butt in,” a guard barked, anger returning to fill the place of fear.

“Stand down,” the Sultan said. The words were not loud and they did not need to be. “You are in the presence of royalty. Do not point your weapon at him.”

The small flash of surprise that crossed the prince’s face died quickly, but not quickly enough. The old Sultan smiled as if a board had finally settled square on its legs. “Do you think me foolish enough not to recognize the son of the emperor. At least you could have worn a disguise.”

A guard’s hand jerked toward a hilt with the muscle memory of habit. He did not complete the draw. A different blade already lay along the line of his throat. Tull had found a weapon and had placed it where it mattered. His eyes did not blink.

“Calm down, everyone,” Redd said. The tone was dry as a roof tile. “Why is it that each time a piece of information drops, someone feels the need to give the room a look at his steel. At this rate we will spend the whole day drawing and putting back our weapons.”

The King pressed two fingers to his temple and breathed once through his teeth. “Everyone leaves besides the guard captain.”

“But your majesty.”

“I said leave.” The rip of that sentence moved through the chamber like a storm under stone. For a heartbeat the man on the bed was not sick at all. He was the voice that had taught a city how to bow.

Boot soles turned. Cloaks lifted and fell. Metal whispered against leather. The guards withdrew in bodies and remained in weight. Their breath waited just beyond the door. The chamber felt larger by a handspan and heavier by a ton.

“So tell me,” the Sultan said when the quiet settled, “what is going on here.”

“Ah,” the prince said. He allowed himself the small truth of it. “I came here because I thought it would be fun, but I still do not understand how you recognized me when we never met.”

“We did,” the Sultan answered. “I was there in the empire personally when the attack on Tulmud happened. I even attended the award of heroes who helped stop that incident. Not many recognized me.” The smile showed and went out like a candle pinched between finger and thumb. “I prefer to be a shadow when I can.”

“Ah. So you understand why I am doing this,” the prince said.

“It can grow stuffy in a palace,” the Sultan replied. “You chose air and risk.”

“Are you going to use me as a bargaining chip now to stop the empire,” the prince asked. He kept his voice even. His eyes did not leave the King’s face.

“It would be a great chip,” the Sultan said, “however I doubt your father would buckle under threats. He might use it as a reason to begin a full invasion of the western desert.”

“Damn. Kings do know each other,” the prince said. “You are right. That is most probable.” He turned to Ludwig without drama. “Though now that Sir Ludwig has said as much, how are we intending on dealing with these demons.”

Ludwig lifted a brow and let it fall. “I do not know who is causing this. I came here to find the source. I thought it was you,” he said, and let his eyes rest on the King with honesty and no cruelty, “but you are still human. So far, besides the servant who was bathing you, not a single trace of demons remains in the palace. Which is extremely odd.”

“Not even my wife,” the Sultan asked.

“Ah.” Ludwig stood still and allowed the thought to finish itself. “She is not a demon. That is certain.”

“Ah. I see.”

“But she is something far worse,” Ludwig said. “Probably as bad as the one I fought back in Solania.”

[You are in a deadly situation]

The warning struck the base of his skull like a bell. The air shifted in front of his face. The stone underfoot gave a groan that was not yet sound and then became sound all at once. The floor bucked. The walls pulled apart as if a giant hand had decided this room was a toy that needed to be unmade.

The next instant the chamber opened like a wound. White dust exploded. Beams snapped. Drapes tore. Fingers the size of oak trunks punched through marble and air and living flesh. The strike did not hesitate. It went through the prince and the king at the same time and through anyone who had been slow to step away from where they had been standing when the breath before this one began. Blood lifted and hung in the air like torn silk before the spray reached stone and people and cloth.

Ludwig’s body climbed without his legs moving. A grip like the closing of a press found him under the ribs and behind the spine. Bone answered the pressure with the small, helpless noises of things that crack. He was lifted into the open light that the roof had once kept away. For a brief, cold second before everything narrowed, he saw what had taken him.

An angry giant stood in the heart of the palace where the ceiling had been. It did not fit the space. It did not belong to a line of creatures that could be described with day words. Fat. Vast. Impossible. Ugly in a way that simple insult could not catch. Bat wings jutted from its back, much too small for the rest of it, like ornaments pinned to a mountain. Lards of pale, sweating fat spilled over its chest. Heavy folds hung and swung like grotesque breasts all the way to the waist. The skin shone with the slick of sickness.

The face was the nightmare of a pig. The snout was flattened and wet. Yellowed tusks had grown out at wrong angles from jaw and cheek. Some curled inward and cut into its own meat. Some pushed outward and looked like broken spears in need of more breaking. The breath that came from between those tusks smelled of rot and old sweet.

Its eyes were small and cruel. They glowed with a knowing malice. They were the eyes of a thing that judged and condemned and was pleased to do both. They found him and held him in a gaze that felt like a hand forcing a head under water.

Then the light narrowed to a thread and the thread went out.

[You Died]