Lordac and Sianni

Last week I introduced you to Lordac. Well here he is again. This time his sister has come to call. She's not a welcome guest.

Lordac settled back in his throne, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. Of course, it wasn’t much of a throne. Then again, his new home wasn’t much of a castle. More a squat tower slowly limping its way skyward.

“Your Majesty, there is a woman here who insists on seeing you,” one of his human servants said, bowing low.

“Who is she?” Lordac asked.

“We don’t know,” the servant said. “She didn’t come on one of the boats. She just appeared on the beach.”

Lordac sighed. “There is only one creature that would be so unbearably rude as to come where she’s not invited,” he said. “Let her in. She’ll just force her way through anyway.” The servant bowed again and scurried out of the room.

A few moments later, a very familiar figure stalked into the throne room. She looked a little worse for wear, her clothing scorched and her once long flowing locks ruthlessly sheared off at her jaw. “Lordac, what are you doing?” she demanded.

“Sianni, you look like you’ve been having quite the adventure,” Lordac said.

“Mother sent us to keep track of the dragons,” Sianni said. “What are you doing on this island?”

“Cultivating spies,” Lordac said with a smile. “You know as well as I do that you and I can’t approach the dragons directly. Though it certainly looks like you’ve been giving that a try. The humans on the mainland are all so superstitious it’s hard to get any of them to talk to me let alone agree to watch the dragons. So I came here.”

“How is this cultivating spies?” Sianni demanded. “These people are so backwards they’re still living in grass huts. How in the names of the Guardians did you even get them to build you this tower?”

“It’s amazing what a little kindness can do for you,” Lordac said. “I am aware that these people are simple, Sianni. That’s what will make them the perfect spies. I have to build up a decent civilization here, work on finding something to trade with the mainland so my people have a legitimate reason for being there. Then and only then will I be able to achieve the goal that mother sent us here for.”

“Your people?” Sianni asked. “These people should belong to mother, not you.”

Lordac sighed. “Sianni, mother is a distant dream to the mortals of this island,” he said. “As are the rest of the Guardians. They abandoned these people when the God of Time shattered the continent. They have no one to watch over them. I simply filled the void.”

“You’re setting yourself up as their god?” Sianni asked.

“As their king,” Lordac said. “I certainly wouldn’t claim something so pretentious as the title of a god. I’m not that suicidal, Sianni. If mother found out she’d erase me from existence. Please recall what happened to the others when they tried that very thing.”

“I think I ought to tell mother what you’re doing,” Sianni said. “She won’t be pleased.”

Lordac laughed. “Do you really think I’d let you leave here?” He gestured with one hand. Heavy black chains wrapped around Sianni. “You’re not going anywhere, dear sister. Perhaps by keeping you here I can also protect you from your own stupidity. At least now the dragons won’t be able to attack you.”

Sianni brought her arms up and twisted her wrists. The chains fell away. “I’m not powerless, Lordac,” Sianni said.

Lordac stood. “Neither am I, sister dear,” he said, gesturing again. A ball of light appeared in front of him. He sent it at Sianni.

She dodged it with ease. “Too slow, Lordac,” she said.

“Not at all,” Lordac said. He pulled the threads of magic and the ball rebounded. It struck Sianni in the back.

Sianni staggered forward but kept her feet. “Not good enough,” she said. She gestured and a ball of light similar to his appeared in front of her. Hers shot off at great speed and Lordac barely managed to escape its blast. His throne wasn’t so lucky. It shattered, sending fragments of wood and shreds of fabric through the room.

“That was rude,” Lordac said. “What did my throne ever do to you?” He pulled the threads again and wrapped them around Sianni’s wrists.

Sianni snapped the threads. “You’re using weak magic, Lordac. That will never hold me,” she said. Another ball appeared in front of her. It flew towards Lordac. Lordac dodged and the ball opened a hole in the wall behind him.

“Stone is a very precious commodity on this island,” Lordac said. He pulled the threads tightly around Sianni, augmenting their strength with his own. “I rather dislike wanton destruction, especially of someone else’s property.”

Sianni shrieked and struggled to break free of the threads. “I won’t let you defy mother,” she said. Energy surged around her and the threads broke again. Lordac took a step back. “You won’t live to regret this, Lordac.” Sianni vanished.

Lordac called for one of his human servants. “See to it that the wall is repaired as soon as possible. I’ll be back shortly,” he said. With that, he stepped out of the mortal realm and into his mother’s.

Lordac had no trouble finding his mother. He could hear Sianni’s strident tones from halfway across the garden. He followed the sound. Sianni had thrown herself on the ground in front of Morana, leaning her head into her mother’s lap. Morana smoothed Sianni’s shorn hair as she told her mother of Lordac’s transgression.

“You had better have a very good reason for what you’re doing, Lordac,” Morana said, looking up as he reached them.

“I’m cultivating spies, mother,” Lordac said. “The dragons are too powerful to approach directly. The people of Vassa are not simple sheep anymore. They do not trust anything that even remotely reminds them of the Guardians. I could get no further with them than I could with the dragons, though at least the mortals were less damaging when they drove me off.”

“So why are you able to approach the people of this island you seem to have made yourself king of?” Morana asked.

“It’s simple, really,” Lordac said. “These are the mortals that were forgotten by the Guardians. They wandered off from the city and started their own community. They were quite well developed for a primitive society when the continent shattered and took with it their stability. They’ve been floundering ever since.”

“So what makes you think they need you and not me?” Morana asked.

“I never said they didn’t need you, mother,” Lordac said. “I never even implied it. I’m simply helping them rebuild their society. When I’m done, I’ll have reintroduced the concept of a deity to them and they will fall on their knees in humble worship of you.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Morana said. “Sianni dear, I think you overreacted to your brother’s actions. However, I don’t like the fact that you two attacked each other. No more fighting. I sent you to do a job. I expect it to be done, and I expect you to use whatever means are necessary to do it.”

“Of course, mother,” Lordac said. “I am, as I have ever been, your most faithful son.”

“We’ll see,” Morana said. “Sianni, you could learn something of subtlety from your brother. You need to stop approaching the dragons directly, work through another agent. I expect results, children. And I expect them relatively soon.”

“Yes mother,” Lordac said, bowing deeply.

“Yes mother,” Sianni said as she pouted.

“I’m glad you understand,” Morana said. “Now get back to Vassa and get me that information.” Lordac smiled at his sister and stepped back to the southern island.

“Your Majesty, the repairs are not yet finished,” one of his servants said as Lordac reappeared.

“I didn’t expect they would be,” Lordac said. “I am not angry.”

“Don’t think this is the end of this, Lordac,” Sianni said as she appeared in front of him. “Mother may believe you but I don’t.”

“Mother doesn’t believe me either,” Lordac said. “But she knows that the best way to get information is to work through the other races, and these humans will be my agents in finding out what the dragons are up to. Perhaps if you focused less on your desires and more on mother’s wishes you’d find a way to use the mortal races to help you too.”

“I’m staying here,” Sianni said. “I’m going to watch you. When you bring these people to mother, then I’ll leave. But if you don’t, I’ll go back to tell her.”

“Sianni, you are by far the most childish woman I have ever met,” Lordac said. “However, if you feel you must remain here so be it. Just don’t get in my way and don’t interfere. Or I will seal you up and lock you away.”

“You can’t,” Sianni said. “I’m too powerful.”

“Care to make a wager on that?” Lordac asked. Sianni glared at him and stalked off. Lordac laughed, and followed her out of the tower.

Lordac gets his first race

I introduced you to the Gray King a couple weeks ago, in a little snippet from the short story I was working on. Here is the larger piece, though it's very rough and I'm not sure where it's going from here.

Lordac sat back in his throne, his eyes half closed. All around him the moans of the damned echoed through the vaulted chamber. He sighed and shifted in his seat. A few of the liches pontificating before him paused but when he showed no other sign of moving, they resumed.

“My lord, forgive the intrusion.” The squat, toad-like creations his mother used for messengers were among the only living things in this realm and Lordac welcomed their appearance, even if it usually meant trouble for him. “Your mother is looking for you.”

“She knows where to find me. She's the one who put me here in the first place,” Lordac said. He sighed and straightened the iron crown on his brow. “All right, where is she?”

“In her garden,” the creature said.

“Where in her garden?” Lordac asked.

“By the roses,” the creature said.

“Which ones?” Lordac hated playing these games.

“The black ones,” the creature said.

“Well that narrows it down to only a quarter of the garden,” Lordac muttered. He stood up and stretched. “I'll be back as soon as my mother is finished with me this time.”

“If she lets you come back,” one of the liches muttered.

Lordac made note of which one had spoken. When he returned, he'd have to think of a suitable punishment for it. There was, after all, very little to amuse him in this sterile, dead world.

Lordac's cloak swirled behind him as he headed out of the tower that his mother had named him lord over. The undead scuttled out of his way as he strode down the black stone floor.

He made his way to his mother's garden, a mocking echo of the glory it had once held in the mortal world. For once, his mother was relatively easy to find. She was seated with Sianni and a few of his other siblings nearest to the thicket of rose bushes that she favored when punishing wayward mortal souls.

“Lordac, I was beginning to wonder if my summons was going to go unanswered again,” Morana, Guardian of Death, said as he came up. “I see you are as formal as ever.”

“Your messengers are dreadfully slow, mother,” Lordac said. He smiled and bowed to her. “I am, as I have always been, your most faithful son.”

“Well you're the only one who hasn't tried to rise up against me, that's for certain,” Morana said. “Which is why you and Sianni are going to do something for me.”

“What is that, mother?” Lordac asked.

“The dragons are up to something,” Morana said. “The others are in agreement with me. We don't know what, but ever since the end of the war they've been brooding in those mountains of theirs. I want you and Sianni to go to Vassa and see if you can find out what's going on. Make yourself useful and find something to amuse yourselves while you are there, but keep an eye on the dragons.”

“I have no problem with going to Vassa, but how are we to keep an eye on the dragons? If we get anywhere near their homes the dragons are going to notice,” Lordac said. “And Sianni? Really, mother? You don't have enough problems with this new world without sending her with me?”

“Your sister is perfectly capable of handling this small task,” Morana said. “I could always send one of the others with her instead if you don't want to do it.”

“I'll do it,” Lordac said. “But you still haven't answered my first question.”

“That's up to you to figure out,” Morana said. “The others are sending their children to do the same thing.”

“I doubt that,” Lordac muttered under his breath. He checked to see if his mother had heard him, but she seemed cheerfully ignorant of his comment. “When did you want us to go?”

“As soon as you can possibly leave,” Morana said. “You are my children, so that gives you some power of your own. If you need me for anything, call for me and I'll help you where I can. The Elder Gods are being rather finicky about what we can do so I may not be able to do much.”

“The Elder Gods have been in a snit since you and the others declared war on the dragons,” Lordac said.

“The dragons declared war on us, we did not declare war on them. We simply retaliated when they attacked,” Morana said.

“Of course, mother,” Lordac said. “I was only a child at the time so my memory of the events are of course faulty.”

Morana turned her attention to one of her daughters. One pale hand stroked Sianni's dark curls. “You won't disappoint me, will you, Sianni?”

“No mother,” Sianni said breathlessly. She smiled adoringly up at the goddess who'd created her.

“Excellent,” Morana said. “Now go, both of you.”

Lordac bowed to his mother and turned away. “Lordac, wait for me,” Sianni called.

“Why?” Lordac asked, glancing over his shoulder. “You can take yourself to Vassa. You don't need me to help you.”

“Mother wants us to work together,” Sianni said.

“Mother wants us both to go to Vassa,” Lordac said. “There was nothing in what she said to make me think she expected us to stay together.”

“What am I supposed to do if you're not with me?” Sianni asked.

“You'll find something to amuse yourself,” Lordac said. He continued walking, ignoring his sister's pleas.

He returned to his tower long enough to exchange his fine clothes for something more appropriate to the mortal world. It wasn't as if his strange pallor, his black eyes, and his height wouldn't alert only the moderately observant individual that he wasn't a mortal. He sighed and returned to his throne room.

“Are you leaving us, my lord?” one of the liches asked.

“For a time, yes,” Lordac said. “Do try to keep the old place from falling apart any more than it already is while I'm gone.” Everything around him blurred and the sudden shift of the smells told him that though he was surrounded by darkness he was no longer in his mother's realm.

He glanced up and saw tiny pin pricks of light. Stars, he thought. I haven't seen stars in a while. He heard a strange sound to his right. He turned his head. Something with glowing eyes was growling at him. He frowned. A large canine snarled and leapt at him. Lordac moved out of the beast's way and started to walk away. The animal lunged at him again. With a quick blow, Lordac snapped the thing's neck. He dumped the body and continued on his way.

Something didn't feel right. He stopped walking. He sniffed the air. There were a whole myriad of scents he didn't recognize. It had been some time since he was in the mortal world but he couldn't remember smelling anything like this. He knelt down and touched the earth beneath his feet. It was dry and granulated.

“What is this?” he asked, standing up and looking around. Though it was dark his eyes picked out shapes easily. Or they would have, if there had been shapes to see. The land around him was flat and unchanging. He turned slowly, taking in everything around him. There, in the distance, was a smudge of something. He turned and headed in that direction.

The sun rose and Lordac was able to get a better look at the wilderness he now trekked through. Sand as far as the eye could see, with no sign of anything to break it up. The smudge he'd seen in the distance looked to be part of the massive forest that had dominated the continent when he last walked the mortal world. The race that Rauha, Guardian of Peace, had created lived within the forest. Perhaps they would be useful in keeping tabs on the dragons.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, the heat increased until Lordac began to cast around for someplace to rest. There was no place in sight other than the forest on the horizon. He stopped and regarded it with a disgruntled expression. It wasn't that far away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the continent with how hot the day had grown.

Lordac decided to risk detection. He focused on the forest and pulled on the threads of magic. The world around him blurred. A discordant sound emerged from the threads. He staggered as he came to a stop.

He was closer to the forest but not as close as he'd intended. He frowned. That was odd. Something in the forest was acting against him. He increased his pace and covered the distance within just a few candlemarks.

The forest was nothing like the primeval woods they'd left behind. He watched as vines writhed through the trees like slow, barbed serpents. Twisted beasts prowled in the shadows. From deep within the forest he sensed something that was completely out of place in this world. Curious, Lordac plunged himself into the forest.

Here, the beasts pulled back from him. Nothing molested him as he made his way to the center of the mass of trees. A white tree shimmered in a shaft of sunlight. Its branches were laden with iridescent fruit. Beneath its branches, a handful of elves white of skin and hair wandered aimlessly. They whimpered, pressed themselves up against the tree, clawed at the fruit, before returning to their wandering.

“A Chaos tree,” Lordac whispered. “No wonder the forest is so twisted.” He backed carefully away from the tree, trying not to draw the attention of the cursed elves beneath lurking in its shadow.

As he drew back, he heard muffled weeping coming from the trees behind him. He followed the sound until he found a group of elves huddled at the center of a grove. All of them bore marks of having been mauled by the things that now prowled the trees.

A few of them saw him and drew back in horror. “You are one of the cursed ones,” a young female with only one eye said. “Stay back. We'll not let you take more of our children.”

“I am not one of the cursed ones,” Lordac said. “I would know what has happened here.”

“The white tree came and the forest changed,” the woman said. Several of the others were clinging to crude weapons and watching him warily as she spoke. “Nothing here answers to us anymore. We are hunted yet we cannot hunt because nothing that prowls here is safe to eat. We call and we call but there are none left to answer our prayers.”

“I will answer your prayers,” Lordac said. He looked up. “I will climb to the higher branches to see what I may.” He seized one of the lower branches and pulled himself up into a tree.

He climbed as high as he dared. He surveyed the upper branches. There was fruit up here. He reached out and seized one. He took a bite. It was untainted. Small animals scampered among the tops of the trees, and birds nested without fear.

He climbed back down. “How can you answer our prayers?” the one eyed woman asked. “You are no god.”

“I am your god,” Lordac said. “You are small and light. You can climb higher than I did. But there is good fruit and animals that are not tainted in the tops of the trees. Build your homes there. Your hunts will bring you better food.”

“But how are we to shape the forest? We cannot bond to it as we once did,” the one eyed female said.

“Blood,” Lordac said. “The cursed ones, as you call them, have been corrupted by a great power. Only life's power will permit you some control over the forest again. To do that you must shed some of your blood and bond yourselves to the forest. It will not give you complete control, and you will still need to take to the high branches, but you should be able to bend the trees to your will.”

“How do we do this?” the one eyed woman asked.

Lordac began pulling on the threads. “Take your knives. Each one of you, the children included, must open a small cut on your hands. Your blood must touch the forest floor.” The group eyed him suspiciously but they did as he told them. Everyone, down to the infants at their mother's breasts, were cut and their blood mingled with the earth.

Lordac yanked on the threads, tying them to the blood they'd shed. Shrieks of pain echoed as the strands burrowed into their flesh. A few moments later, they all stood there gasping. Infants and children whimpered. “What did you do?” the one eyed woman asked.

“You are now bound to the forest. Though it will be slow to do so at first, it will answer you to some degree,” Lordac said. “Now, take your children and climb. Climb as high as you can. Build your homes at the tops of the trees. Your lives will now be tied to the upper levels of the forest.”

“How are we to build?” the one eyed woman asked.

“Surely you remember how to shape the trees,” Lordac said. “I know you used to be able to do that. Command the branches to weave themselves into homes for you. Scavenge wood from the forest floor, though I would be careful in that as you will not be able to control the beasts.”

“We have no tools,” the one eyed woman said. “We have lost everything.”

Lordac sighed. This was going to take a little more power than he was wanting to use. The last thing he wanted to do was attract his mother's attention. “I will help you this once. Then you will have to help yourselves.”

Lordac climbed back up the tree. He began by twisting threads and binding branches to each other. He grabbed smaller tree limbs and wove them together. Several candlemarks later he climbed back down. “What did you do? We heard the trees call out,” the one eyed woman said.

“Climb and find new homes. They will do until you can build something better for yourselves,” Lordac said.

Children were slung on backs and infants cradled against chests. The elves clambered up the trees, twisting and turning with the branches as they climbed higher. He could hear their cries as they reached the crude shelters he'd created for them. As he turned to leave, the one eyed woman dropped down onto one of the lower branches.

“Who are you, that we may direct our prayers to you,” she said.

Lordac looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “I am Lordac, the Gray King. I will hear your prayers and if it pleases me, I will answer them. I will not coddle you as Rauha did. You must learn to survive on your own. But I will help when I feel it is necessary.”

“We will build shrines to you and our children will worship your name,” the one eyed woman said. She climbed back up the tree. Lordac carefully wove a net over the community so he would know if they called out to him. He smiled. These would only be the first. He turned and walked out of the forest. It wouldn't do to disobey his mother. For now.

Fiction Friday - Meet Lordac

Since the vlog isn't going well, I thought I'd share a bit of the fiction I'm writing right now. Lordac is the Gray King in Vassa, a demi-god who wants to break free of his mother, the Goddess of Death.

Lordac sat back in his throne, his eyes half closed. All around him the moans of the damned echoed through the vaulted chamber. He sighed and shifted in his seat. A few of the liches pontificating before him paused but when he showed no other sign of moving, they resumed.

“My lord, forgive the intrusion.” The squat, toad-like creations his mother used for messengers were among the only living things in this realm and Lordac welcomed their appearance, even if it usually meant trouble for him. “Your mother is looking for you.”

“She knows where to find me. She's the one who put me here in the first place,” Lordac said. He sighed and straightened the iron crown on his brow. “All right, where is she?”

“In her garden,” the creature said.

“Where in her garden?” Lordac asked.

“By the roses,” the creature said.

“Which ones?” Lordac hated playing these games.

“The black ones,” the creature said.

“Well that narrows it down to only a quarter of the garden,” Lordac muttered. He stood up and stretched. “I'll be back as soon as my mother is finished with me this time.”

“If she lets you come back,” one of the liches muttered.

Lordac made note of which one had spoken. When he returned, he'd have to think of a suitable punishment for it. There was, after all, very little to amuse him in this sterile, dead world.