3 – The Emperor

“They are... making progress,” Olette said, gesturing to the map that had been pinned to the table. Upon it were many small figures, carved from wood, designed to represent soldiers. Those with feathered helmets were Rhondian, the ones with winged helmets were Novosian. A spearhead of the former had broken through Novos’ western border, at the once-thought impregnable Kanda Valley.

Because, whenever anyone had tried to make a move there in the past, they had the Wight to drive them away.

Already the Rhondians had entrenched and fortified that position, and were setting up supply lines deeper into Novos’ empire.

The emperor bore a blank look on his face, but those who knew him could see the way his jaw and the sides of his neck were twitching. The man’s blood pressure was such that a papercut would have sent red gushing from the wound.

The war had been something of a stalemate these past years, grinding back and forth at the borderlands, with incursions on either side of it.

The Wight had been Novos’ great equaliser in these parts. Sometimes a spearhead, sometimes an aegis, handy for either breaking sieges or repelling them. But his absence had been very richly felt these past weeks, and as yet Novos had yet to find a worthwhile replacement for him.

The truth was, making wights in general was a challenge that required a very specific set of circumstances. And even then, Tarion had been something special. An inhuman among inhumans. Something about him, Novos reasoned, was different on a fundamental level. Perhaps some latent magical potential, or perhaps something even stranger had been afoot.

“They are... making inroads, I can see that,” Novos said. “Have we set up fortifications at Grondia?”

Olette nodded. “Freshly reinforced, same with Fort Valiant and Fort Kaspid. We have agents moving in to launch raids on their supply lines, and our spies are accelerating their attacks on Rhondian infrastructure beyond the border.”

Novos nodded. That all sounded... good, but it was not enough on its own to turn the tide in their favour. He would need to get personally involved in some of thee battles, but...

Novos worked his jaw again.

Being anywhere near the Celestial Blade made him uneasy. Supposedly that divine energy could carve through magic as if it were butter, and even his layered barriers would falter against such power. The idea of being vulnerable, even hypothetically, revolted him to his core.

“Kursk and Black Ansiel are making the finishing touches on their ritual. The idea is to make an illusion of the Wight to draw the Celestial Blade in, and then... well they are two senior wizards. Working in tandem with the forces you gave to them, they should be enough to kill that damn boy.”

Novos sighed. “In theory.” Erin Dasia had an infuriating ability to survive impossible odds, having done so on multiple occasions. And he was willing to bet the efforts of Kursk and Black Ansiel would falter too. “Have you heard back from your spies in the east?”

Olette shifted uneasily at the question, watching the emperor from the corner of his eye. “Nothing... noteworthy as yet, your eminence. Cathaya is a vast continent, and Tsukio is a very large land too. My agents are doing what they can but... even skinchangers need to move subtly in such lands. It would be easy to draw in... unwelcome attention.”

The cultivators, Novos noted bitterly. Overgrown children who used magicka for their petty feuds. Still, for as absurd as he found them to be, he also understood how dangerous they could be. Particularly to those without magicka at their command.

“Very well. I suppose there is... a reason for caution.” Bu he knew something had to be out there. Only weeks ago he had felt... something from the east. Magicka carried with it an echo, reverberating through space. These ripples were often unheard, unfelt by people who were not actively aware of them.

But he knew the power of the Wight. Knew that his burning soul tasted like.

He was out there... had to be.

“We press on, Olette. Continue to prepare and bolster our defences. We will make them bleed and die for each inch of land they seek to claim.”

That evening, having doled out his orders on how his army should proceed, Novos dined heartily and helped himself to his private reserved of Othrani wine. And, once suitably satisfied, he made is way down into the bowels of the imperial palace.

The air down here was stygian and dark, a foreboding and deathly silent place where no servants dared to venture. The walls and steps were forged from glossy black stone, older than the bones of the world, lit faintly by the orb of fire that hovered perpetually at Novos’ side.

His pace brought him down to a vast and vaulted chamber, populated by ten men in the silvery raiment of Rhondian cavalry. Or it had been silvery once, but a crust of grime, mud, and blood had made the men far less impressive.

“Novos, you bastard,” one of the men croaked. The chains on his wrists clinked as he struggled to kneel. “Finally showing your face?”

His allies were much slower to rise.

Novos sighed and fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Spare me your theatrics,” he replied. “I’ve no interest in what you have to say.” His magicks reached out silently, subtly, from his body and into the umbral darkness beyond where the men lay.

His mind was like a scalpel, slicing through space and into realms beyond mortality, dark planes that no man was ever meant to tread. Worlds of stygian blackness, untapped eternities, Plutonian shores home only to hateful and destructive things.

“Then why are we here?” the man huffed. The unicorn shield on his breast marked him as a captain.

Something stirred in the darkness of the vast chamber, shadows coming alive bit by bit. A shape that the human eye would initially struggle to see.A vague impression in the air itself.

“You are here,” Novos said, “as an offering.”

Emperor Novos. It has been too long.

The thing that took shape in that darkness, looming above the bound men, was a thing of such inherent abhorrence that even Novos felt a pain in his eyes from looking right at it. A lanky insectoid thing of shadowy flesh, a row of blade-like teeth gleaming in the pitch blackness like a full moon piercing trough a veil of clouds.

And if one looked into its many eyes they could see eternity, stretching all the way back to the primordial chaos of creation. His captives, seeing the entity, woke from their injured stupor and filled the chamber with manic screams, pulling uselessly on the chains that bound them to the floor.

“Duke Moloch,” Novos said, bowing to the half-formed spectral thing in his palace. An avatar, for the real thing was much too vast and powerful to exist in the material plane without wreaking untold destruction. “Please consider these as an offering for your services.”

It was risky, making pacts of any kind with demons. But... well Novos didn’t want to admit to being desperate, but that was gradually becoming the case.

Why Novos, the demon said, his manifold eyes blazing like a cluster of baleful stars. How generous of you, offering me such fine snacks.

“A humble offering for one of the most magnificent dukes of the Hells.”

Flattery could get one very far with demons. Unfathomable cosmic entities still had egos that could be massaged and bribed.

Over half an hour later the floor as a slick mess of blood and chunks of anomalous human meat. Moloch picked his teeth clean of armour scraps and human skin with a massive talon.

Your offering... pleases me, said Moloch, his voice lethargic from his freshly filled belly.And each word he spoke carried with it a flurry of hissing echoes, as if he had a chorus whispering his words on repeat.

“I am truly glad,” he calmly replied. But even the feared emperor of Novosia struggled to stem the flow of his fear in Moloch’s presence.

Now then... what do you wish to request of me?

A faint smile took shape on Novos’ face, grim and devoid of mirth. “I require from you... a champion.”