Chapter 15

 

As soon as Guillermo appeared everyone suddenly could see everyone else. The group was together once more. There were cheers, hugs and sighs of relief that they had all made it through. A few revealed their stories.

“How come it still affected me?” complained Damon. “I have that Immunity to the effects of undead bracelet, and it’s always active!”

“I don’t think that was an undead effect,” declared Sue. She turned to the lich lord. “What did you see, Guillermo?”

“Nothing at all. That silly little spell didn’t work on me.” Guillermo tapped his forehead with a pointy claw.

“Silly little spell?” Sue gasped. “I really thought I was back at work again!”

“It’s called Deceptive Illusion. It’s a Seventh Circle spell, but I’ve spent years protecting myself against that sort of thing. Basically the wiser you are the quicker you’ll come through it.”

“But we all appeared at the same time.”

“Time doesn’t exist within a Deceptive Illusion. If you’re not careful you can feel like you’re trapped within one for years. But still only minutes will pass for your body. People have been known to go mad when they finally realise it was all a bad dream and return to themselves.”

Sue shuddered. “I wish I hadn’t asked.” She turned to the companions. “Did any of you feel like you were stuck in there forever?”

They all shook their heads. Their answers ranged from a few minutes to a few hours. “I’m not sure if what I saw was part of the Illusion,” Aelfstan put in.

“You may have been protected by your God. People of very high faith can resist it. Now I suggest we keep moving – the Emperor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Guillermo started down the long, vaulted corridor with its flickering torches. Although they appeared to be burning they produced no heat and showed no sign of dying, presumably permanently enchanted. The walls were adorned with long tapestries of the emperor's violent exploits. One depicted the Emperor and a shadowy wraith – presumably Albiroth – battling a pair of lich lords. Weapons were flashing and horrible spells flew everywhere. One of the liches had long wispy white hair and was dressed in a long red velvet robe – Leonidas. The other was smaller and blonde, looking almost alive.

“Guillermo,” Sue murmured.

Suddenly a door up ahead opened and a party of undead servants in aprons scurried out, pushing trolleys and carrying trays. Some of the trays still had half-chewed bones on them. Most were zombie and skeleton servants, but a higher level ghoul accompanied them, barking orders in a rasping voice. The bizarre group hurried past the travellers without sparing them a second glance.

Strangely enough they were all dressed like waiters, in black suits and white aprons.

“The Emperor must have just finished his lunch,” Blagan muttered, feeling queasy.

Then another party of zombies hurried past from the opposite direction, pushing trolleys filled with cleaning implements; brooms, mops and buckets. All were dressed in skimpy little French Maid outfits with frilly knickers.

“Oh my God - tell me I just didn't see that,” Blake croaked in horror.

“I think I need to burn my eyeballs,” agreed Damon.

“Come on you clowns,” growled Sue. “The quicker we get down there, the quicker this will all be over.” She led the group towards the doors the first group of undead had emerged from. The doors were made of gold and covered with grisly bas reliefs, depicting more of the Emperor’s and Albiroth’s conquests.

“Modest, aren’t they?” asked Blake.

“Have you ever met an evil undead ruler who doesn’t have an ego the size of a continent?” Sue asked. “Alright – here goes.” She took a deep breath, lifted a hand, and pushed the doors open.

The group entered a cavernous throne-room. Almost immediately the temperature dropped several degrees and everyone shivered. Tall columns capped with gruesome carvings held up an elaborately vaulted ceiling. Cobwebs stretched from one to the other and hung down like curtains, wafting in an unfelt breeze. Standing guard around the walls were about twenty human-sized death knights, also clad in black armour and carrying wicked looking halberds. The zombie servants they had seen earlier shuffled about in the gloomy alcoves, performing their various cleaning duties, and wraithlike figures flickered through the cobwebs like shreds of smoke.

Dear Lord, how were they possibly getting out of this room alive? Those death knights had not been mentioned in the book. Obviously the Emperor had grown considerably more paranoid in his old un-age. Sue hoped Guillermo knew what he was doing.

Off to one side of the doors a previous petitioner cowered on his knees, blubbering into his hands – obviously someone who had not been able to handle the Deceptive Illusion. No-one had gotten around to removing him yet. Perhaps he would end up in tomorrow’s lunch.

Sue felt sick but continued forward into the room, her boots echoing eerily across the shiny black floor. They took her inexorably towards the enormous throne at the far end of the room.

On it sat the Emperor of the Undead.

His enormous chair was fashioned entirely from the skulls of different creatures. Fortunately these didn’t chatter and sling insults like the ones outside. They were quiet and dead, merely providing support for the huge figure.

The Emperor may not have been as tall as one of his giant guards, but he still loomed over all the adventurers. He was dressed in the gleaming blood red armour with the demonic face on the breast plate, but now everyone could make out all the evil-looking runes engraved all over it. On the cover of the Empire sourcebook he had been bareheaded but now he wore a helmet that resembled a leering skull with wings, fitted snugly around his own head. His skin was dark and leathery, his eyes glowing like malevolent fires. A sword roughly the size and weight of a steel girder was slung at his hip, its hilt crafted to look like a row of skulls with arm-bones for a crosspiece. It had been wrapped with strips of sinew. A black leather cloak had been flicked over the arm of his throne. His aura of fear engulfed everyone, sending more than one pair of knees knocking together.

The frightened group assembled in front of him.

The Emperor tapped his gauntleted fingers on the arm of his throne. “Well?” he growled in a voice so deep and ominous it sounded like a pair of tomb doors slamming shut. “Out with it. I don’t have all day.”

They had expected some terrifying speech about how small and puny they were in comparison to his lordly undead might. To hear him bark out such an ordinary order threw them. Sue hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, and then said; “Er – ah – we’d like to see the wizard Albiroth.”

“No-one sees Albiroth. Now hand over your tribute and leave.” He pointed at the doors.

Guillermo produced a large bag of coins from God only knew where and held it out to Sue. She took it, staggering beneath the weight, but didn’t hand it over. She kept it clutched close in her arms. “But we need to see Albiroth,” she continued. “We have some very important news for him.”

“What news?” demanded the Emperor. He held his hand out for the money and impatiently snapped his gauntleted fingers. There was a flash of sparks.

“We know where the Artificer Leonidas is hiding.”

The Emperor dropped his hand and leaned forward in excitement. “The Last Artificer? Where?” he demanded.

“I will only tell you and Albiroth together,” Sue declared.

The Emperor glared, considering. “Very well.” He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers again, this time at the air above his head. More sparks flashed.

A dark shape began to coalesce beside the Emperor’s throne, forming into a humanoid shape. The undead wizard Albiroth, wispy and incorporeal, clad in ragged black robes that wafted around him like smoke. A cowl concealed his face and nothing could be seen in the shadows within. No glowing red eyes, nothing at all. Just an inky blackness that seemed to tear at the adventurers’ very souls.

“What is so important you had to disturb me in the middle of my research?” hissed the wizard in a voice that sounded like the buzzing of a million angry wasps.

“This party has requested your presence, wizard,” replied the Emperor. “They have important news for us.”

“What news?” growled the undead mage, still clearly unimpressed.

“The location of the Last Artificer, Leonidas!”

Albiroth gave a hiss of pleasure and floated out from behind the Emperor’s throne, approaching the little group. Everyone cringed; around this creature the temperature dropped even further, lowing to an almost freezing level. The darkness coming from within his cowl seemed to suck the light from the room.

“Well? Where is he?” demanded Albiroth.

Guillermo threw his hood back with one hand while raising the other to point at the wizard. “Why, he’s right under your nose.”

He let fly with a bolt of brilliant green energy roughly one metre wide and almost as bright as the sun. It burned right through Albiroth, exploding him into fragments of darkness that were sent flying in all directions. The blast continued into the Emperor, blowing his throne into about a million bone fragments and sending him flying head over heels across the throne room to land with a thunderous crash against the far wall.

“Holy crap!” Blake gasped. He couldn’t believe it had been that easy!

But then the wisps of Albiroth began to coalesce, the Emperor picked himself up off the floor – and all the death knights, zombies and incorporeal undead in the room started to move towards them. The death knights hefted their pole-arms, preparing to swing. The zombies in their French maid outfits raised their cleaning implements like weapons, and the shadows, spectres and wraiths spiralled in with their unholy claws outstretched, ready to drain strength and life. Sue dropped the bag of coins at her feet and drew her own sword.

“Holy crap,” Blake said again, for an entirely different reason.

“Priest – do whatever you have to do!” shouted Blagan as he drew his battle axe.

Aelfstan lifted the little mirror from around his throat and held it up. He remembered what Stormwalker had said to him in the tunnel outside. “When something is killed, it should stay dead!” he shouted. The little mirror started to glow.

The Emperor lurched to his feet with a thunderous roar. His enormous black sword was out and swinging in his hand. “Guillermo!” he bellowed in fury as he came charging into battle. “You live? You both live?”

Guillermo raised his hands to release another spell, but then the strangest thing happened. Sue stepped forward. “I know your true name, Undead Emperor!” she shouted in a commanding voice. “Kahlu-Ul-Duran!”

The strange words seemed to rock the ancient chamber on its foundations, and the undead Emperor faltered, lowering his formidable weapon. Elation filled Sue. It worked, she thought. It actually worked!

But then the Emperor’s thin, bloodless lips split in an evil smile and he lifted his sword again. “My true name. How predictable. After Streicher managed to find it out and command me, I vowed I would never make that mistake again. Protection against one's True Name is difficult to acquire, but not impossible.”

“You have to obey me,” Sue declared, struggling to keep her voice from cracking in terror.

“I do not. As I said, I am protected.” The Emperor came in with his sword, and Guillermo let off his second spell, another glowing green blast that sent the usurper flying across the room a second time.

Aelfstan held his mirror, now glowing brilliantly, above his head. The incorporeal undead circled angrily above, unable to penetrate the invisible barrier of his faith. The zombies started falling to their knees. Some began to drop body parts, first fingers and toes, then entire arms and legs. Fuelled by his faith in his retributive lord, the priest’s power grew. Die, you revolting things, he thought. Return to your natural states!

The zombies started to disintegrate into clouds of vile-smelling grave dust and the death-knights faltered, staggering drunkenly. The shadows and some of the spectres also exploded and vanished. Sue activated her invisibility to undead ring and booted the bag of money at the knights. The pouch came open, sending all the shiny truesilver coins rolling under their huge armoured feet.

Even now Blagan groaned in dismay.

But the coins had the desired effect. The knights’ metal boots slipped on the coins. They staggered and stumbled, some falling with a crash. Blagan, Blake, Damon and Kyanne immediately raced in to take advantage of the knights’ confusion. Kiara whipped out the wand Michael McBride had given her and began blasting them with the disintegrate spell. Damocles darted off as though he was fleeing the battle, but he really wanted enough room to move.

He was going to shift into the biggest thing he could manage in here.

Sue was furious that speaking the Emperor’s true name hadn’t worked. It should have, dammit! That my one big ace! Now I don’t know what we’re going to do! That enormous armoured creep is about a hundred levels higher than me!

“Help me, Sue!” called Aelfstan. “Join your faith to mine! We might be able to defeat the rest of those wraiths and the death knights together!”

Holding her sword at the ready, Sue stepped to Aelfstan’s side. Immediately the power of his faith filled her, buoying her confidence. She focussed on the dual deity, both good and evil, and concentrated on driving the death knights and the swirling insubstantial undead back.

Some knights who were still lumbering towards the battle faltered and stopped, unable to proceed any further. The rest of the spectres were vaporised, and the wraiths started to snarl and hiss in pain as the power of Aelfstan’s faith tore wisps of ectoplasm from their bodies.

“It’s working!” Sue cried. “We’re holding them at bay!”

Blagan whooped as he swung his axe like a dervish, sending one of the knights falling to the ground in a pile of his armour. The empty pieces scattered across the room.

The incorporeal mage Albiroth finally managed to pull himself together and fly down to join the Emperor as he scrambled to his feet a second time.

“Is that all you’ve got, little Artificer?” the Emperor snarled at Guillermo as he charged him, raising his sword above his head for a mighty swing, It should have taken Guillermo’s half-metal head clean off his shoulders. But the mage lifted his clockwork hand and a blade shot right out of his wrist, parrying the enormous black sword with an impressive shower of sparks.

“No, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve.”

Albiroth lifted a skeletal hand the colour of old ashes, his fingers tipped with filthy black talons. He blasted Guillermo with tendrils of dark energy. They danced and rippled around his body, designed to rip undead flesh and bone. But since Guillermo was now mostly metal, they didn’t do much to him at all. In fact his concentration on the Emperor didn’t waver as they continued to meet blades. Somehow Guillermo’s small metal wrist-blade blocked that massive black sword each and every time.

Then, incredibly, Guillermo began to speak and cast a spell with his other hand.

Albiroth hissed in fury; even he had not managed to master mental shaping after all this time! Time to resort to an old standard, he thought darkly. He would hit Guillermo with as many manabolts as he could manage.

Then a mighty roar tore through the throne room, and everyone paused in their battles to gape in amazement at this new, even more bizarre sight.

A huge, scaly red creature had appeared, almost as long as the entire throne room. It was crouched on four clawed feet as big as tyres and flexing a large pair of batwings. But it wasn’t interested in flying anywhere. It swung around a huge head adorned with bony spikes, and belched out a cone of white-hot flame at the death knights who weren’t already engaged in combat. Six were disintegrated instantly by the white-hot dragon fire, their black armour sent clattering to the ground in smouldering fragments.

“Where the hell did that come from?” squeaked Blake.

“I didn’t know he could do bloody dragons!” cried Blagan.

“Who?” Blake swung at his opponent, and his blade slid in between two segments of the knight’s armour. He managed to knock its breast plate off, revealing only swirling darkness within. Without its armour to hold it together, the death knight started to dissipate. It collapsed to its knees and Blake karate-kicked it in the head, sending it flying backwards.

“Who d’you think?” Blagan drive his axe into his death knight’s helmet, cleaving it in half. It collapsed in a pile of metal. “The shapeshifter!”

The dragon lunched into battle, snapping and snarling and clawing, biting death knights in half and knocking their armoured segments flying. With him on their side, the warriors began to prevail against foes that should have easily defeated them.

Guillermo blasted off his spell at the Emperor just as Albiroth hit him with a barrage of manabolts. Guillermo’s spell was the same one Albiroth had used against him. Dark tendrils of energy seared into the Emperor’s desiccated, undead flesh, tearing it from his bones and eating into the skeleton beneath.

But then Guillermo staggered beneath the formidable Magick energy of Albiroth’s manabolts.

With a curse the Emperor swung at the Artificer while he was stunned and his blade struck his side with a deafening clang. Guillermo was sent flying. He rolled over and over, crashing into one of the dragon’s front legs.

The dragon lifted its foot and turned its head, realising that the Emperor and Albiroth no longer had any group members near them. It drew in a big, deep breath.

Neither the Emperor nor Albiroth had any protection against red dragon firebreath.

Damocles opened his mouth and spat a massive cone of flame, engulfing both the injured Emperor and his wizard. Some wraiths caught on the periphery were also destroyed. Already badly wounded from Guillermo’s Rend Undead spell, the Emperor had not had nearly enough time to regenerate. He shrieked in agony as the sun-hot fire seared through the gaps in his armour and melted the remaining undead flesh from his bones. It cooked his skeleton and vaporised his marrow. Roaring his fury he collapsed to his knees, refusing to believe that he was dying.

Albiroth, who had managed to regenerate most of the damage caused by Guillermo’s first death spell, was almost obliterated. But unlike the Emperor, he had put into place a contingency plan. He was far too paranoid to appear anywhere outside his laboratory in his true form. The incorporeal wraith was not him, merely a projection created from deep within his underground lair. It evaporated with a loud whoomph, and suddenly Albiroth was slammed back in his all too corporeal undead body, swearing and cursing the mysterious arrival of that young red dragon. He could have cranked up the machinery to return to the battle, but he knew it was lost.

Well, they wouldn’t be getting to him in a hurry. Albiroth ripped off his glass helmet, scrambled from his chair and yanked on a chain, starting an enormous bell clanging.

Up in the throne room the Emperor was a flaming skeleton in his blazing black armour. He howled and flailed with his sword, refusing to believe that he had been defeated by such an inept and inexperienced group of adventurers. Then he collapsed to his hands and knees, the pieces of his armour tumbling from his bare bones and clattering to the glossy stone floor. His sword skittered form his grasp. Even now his phenomenal will clamped down, struggling to keep his spirit imprisoned. But his body continued to crumble, sinews snapping, bones detaching and falling to the floor. His regeneration actually accelerated, struggling to compensate for the damage caused by the red dragon’s firebreath, but the searing heat ate into him faster than he could mend, and he collapsed on the floor. His blackened, smouldering bones slid across the smooth dark stone.

Realising what was happening, Kyanne ran forward, kicking the bones and armour apart so they could not crawl back together. Each time she saw a piece move she booted it across the room. “Give him another blast!” she called to Damocles.

She jumped back as the dragon hosed the Emperor’s remains again, reducing his organic components to dust and his armour to lumps of molten slag. Finally, nothing more moved. Kyanne stopped, her shoulders slumping, and turned to look at the rest of the group.

“The Emperor is dead,” she declared.

 

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