Chapter 223 – Contact
“Behind me, if you please.”
I was polite, but there was no missing the authority in my voice. Eri and my disciples quickly gathered behind me. They were all armed and armored, of course. I would not have brought them out to a potential dimensional breach without protection. But they were not combatants on my level, and, if this were an invasion, the first group through would likely be shock troops, meant to take and hold a beachhead to ensure that the others could follow.
Captain Fairchild and the others from the local contingent stayed back a bit further. Out of the ‘splash zone’, one might say. Which was fine. They did not even have the level of equipment or preparation that Eri and my disciples did, after all.
No one came through at once. I wasn’t surprised about that, honestly. My ritual had caused the portal to snap into place before they were ready. Hours, maybe even a day before the scheduled time. It was foolish and wasteful to simply keep troops alert for hours, ready to charge through a portal the moment it opened, on the off-chance it opened early. That was how you dulled your troops’ edge. Only mindless undead or constructs could maintain that level of vigilance, and they could not take the initiative and act on whatever they found on the other side of a portal.
It mattered little that mindless creatures could not think for themselves when your desire was to have them simply kill everything they found on the other side of the portal. However, that same mindlessness meant that they would not be able to react to, say, a moat of acid in front of the portal. Even if the acid was not enough to destroy the creature, it would still ruin their equipment and degrade their bodies, making them easier for defenders to handle. There was a reason why mindless undead were used as simple fodder to wear down a target’s defenses, while constructs either acted as bodyguards or sentinels.
There was a soft thrum in the magic, like a guitar string being plucked, and then the surface of the portal rippled, like when you dropped a stone into a deep body of water. “Captain Fairchild, take note of the way the portal’s surface is moving. This is a sign that someone or something is about to pass through the portal. While it takes a mage or specialized instruments to detect the ‘call’ of the magic, even a mundane can see the ripples in the surface. When those appear, you have perhaps thirty seconds until the visitor comes through. Not enough time to flee, or get reinforcements, but enough that you can make ready, and sound the alarm.”
“I see it, your Majesty.”
Right on cue, creatures emerged from the portal, like stepping through a doorway. They were elves, as I had expected, and there were twenty of them. Each was wearing breastplates of gleaming mithril with chain underneath, and had helms upon their heads that hid much of their face, but could not hide the distinctive glowing eyes that typified the elves of Onerth. Their weapons differed depending on their individual skills, though each had a curved short sword, and those who were not brandishing their shields had them slung across their back.
Each of them wore a tabard of dark velvet black, with a sanguine tree above a silver lake. If it were not for the colors, I would have sworn that it was Elthara’s crest. However, the elves of that land used a green background, for their connection to Life, a blue tree, for the Water Oak that stood in the center of their homeland, growing up in the midst of the Silverlake. The image matched exactly, save for the colors.
And then, there was the formation of warriors. Because of how easily their bodies channeled magic, you could always tell what element an elf of Onerth possessed because their eyes would glow with that color. The traditional strike force of Elthara’s elite Othalus Order consisted of twenty elves of the Warrior’s Way, with a Blade and a Soul of each of the main elements, and a Sword and Priest of both Holy and Unholy. Not one of them below Master-level. It was a formation designed to respond to any threat, and leave no openings that an enemy force could exploit. The Grandmasters of their order would give even me, as I was before my ascension into the Heroine of the Elements Undivided, a run for my money, if I were to face them alone, and them at their full strength.
A quick glance was enough to tell me that there were two pairs each of green eyes for Life, red for Fire, blue for Water, a frosty cyan for Air, amber for Earth, velvet black for Death, pitch black for Shadow, gold for Light, sickly green for Unholy, and a shining white for Holy. Just like the Othalus Order would do. But, again, my attention was drawn back to the tabards, and the symbols they bore. There was no way that the prideful elven rulers of Elthara would allow the Order to change their heraldry like that, and they certainly wouldn’t allow some other group to rise up and take such a similar mark to their own.
I spoke the elven tongue, or at least the elven tongue from Onerth. “Halt. You stand now upon a world not your own, having forced your way through the veil between worlds with no warning and not seeking any permission. Speak, now, and identify yourselves, and your masters.”
The elves all focused their eyes on me. I could see their eyes widen in recognition. But was it because they recognized I was an Archlich, or because they recognized me? That question, however, was answered for me in the next moment, as one of the warriors, a Deathblade, stepped forward. His words were in the elven tongue, but I understood them easily. “The Queen of the Damned! We found her!”
The Queen of the Damned was what my ‘worshippers’ amongst the death cult called me. I’d named my flagship as a back-handed admission to that title, but also because it was fitting. It was a nice little gesture that kept the majority of my ‘civilian’ undead happy, without actually costing me anything. That was all it was supposed to be.
The Deathblade kneeled, and the rest of the twenty warriors followed him. As one, they made the sign of the sickle and staff, which was not a salute from Eltharan lands, but rather the holy sign of the cult, much like how some Christians would make the sign of the cross. The symbol was supposed to demonstrate my overwhelming magic (that was the staff), and the fact that, wherever I went, I collected dead souls, and put them to good use (which is where the sickle came in).
“Oh, Vengeful Lady of Damnation, we, your loyal servants, have crossed the void between worlds so that we might look upon your deathly radiance, and know peace, or join your forces as you reign over the land.”
“You call yourselves my servants, yet I do not know you. I never had any living elves from Elthara in my train when I walked the lands of Onerth, and I certainly have not had any in my service since I returned to my world. Who are you, and whom do you serve?”
The Deathblade realized that he had failed to introduce himself, or his people. “Forgive me, your Majesty. I am Vesryn Yelran, Deathblade of the Fifth Mark of the Nafaallas Order. We are what the Othalus Order became, after the fall of Elthara, in the Unmaking, six years ago.”
“Oh, so when I left Onerth, they declared that the Unmaking? I know that I left many surprises behind, for when I left, but I did not know that things were so successful that it has gotten a grand name such as that.”
“Aye, your Majesty. Great and terrible was your vengeance upon the world, as the Death-Speakers of the Chapter of the Ebon Skull foretold. For years, they had warned that, when the Dead Queen completed her task upon Onerth, that she would unmake the world, so that a new world could rise up from the ashes. When the seat of Athelia-that-was disappeared in a column of light that erased the entire city, the shockwaves spread across the world like a thunderbolt. Every slave, everywhere in the world found their collars gone, their shackles shattered. The revolts were brutal, and successful in many places, as they infiltrated key areas, and destroyed critical infrastructure from the inside.
“One by one, the major cities fell, as the slaves rebelled, the orcs and goblins as well. And, from Haerth and Athelia-that-was, for the Risen had already left its lands, came horrors out of nightmares, twisted abominations of flesh and metal coming from the East, and abominations of undead flesh on the West. The Free Kingdoms, for the most part, have fallen, either to monsters or to rebellions.”
“And what of Elthara? Did the former Hero your land betrayed return for some vengeance?”
“The Hero of the Shadowed Blood, the Hand of Justice, did return, just as the Prophecy of the Lady’s Vengeance foretold.” He paused, and then began to recite what must have been the prophecy he was referring to.
As soon as the moon turns blue, the dead woman shall mark an end to our fortune.
It shall be on the day that the dead rise that one of pure blood shall bring forth an aeon of suffering.
Once the sky turns red, two siblings shall bring the rise of the slaves and an age of fury.
The day the last one dies, a secret man shall bring the destruction of culture and an end to enemies.
“The power of the ritual you used to leave Onerth caused a magical backlash across the land. The first sign, for those who were too far from the blast itself to see it, was the moon turning an azure blue, and suddenly becoming full, despite it being the wrong time of month. Slave collars across the world shattered, and the slaves wasted no time in escaping, or fighting for their freedom.
“Then, as the fighting spread, they found that any who died while the Azure Moon was high rose again as undead, even those who did not die a violent death. So many of the great houses were cut down from inside, as treacherous plots caused any deaths to turn back on the one who caused them. Any potential for saving the land of Elthara without help from the outside was a fool’s hope.
“The sky turned red with the dawn, and two siblings, a brother and sister, who had been separated from a young age due to their family selling the daughter as a slave so that the parents could continue to afford their lifestyle, met for the first time in fifty years. Together, they organized the individual groups of rebels and rioters together. The slave riots became a revolution, and none who got in its way escaped unscathed. Or at all.
“And though we did not learn about it until later, we saw that the last of the bloodline that sealed the Hero of Shadowed Blood died on the outskirts of Athelas, or where the city used to be. And, once the seal was undone, the Hand of Justice escaped, and returned to Elthara. There, he captured the heads of the Eight Families that were the bedrock of Elthara, and drained their bloodlines of their magic to fuel their return, turning the Water Oak to a Blood Oak in the process.
“Not one member of the Families, even to the furthest separation, survived, as their bodies could not withstand the strain of their cultivation being ripped away. With their deaths, and the Water Oak changed, Elthara fell, and the Chapter of the Ebon Skull gathered those who remained, and showed the prophecies that had been made, and how they had come to be. The Chapter of the Ebon Skull gathered all who remained, and made a great pilgrimage, with Hunters and Huntresses of Lady Murena at their fore, to the site of the Queen’s Rebuke, where you smote Athelas, and turned away from Onerth.”
“I see. What lands remain, of the world that was?”
“For the elves, the Blessed Vale remains strong, as does Waselin, who had no slaves to turn against them. Of the dwarves, none know, for they have shut the gates to their underground holds, and accept no more refugees. The gnomes and the halflings have all but died off completely, either to the orks and goblins, or to the undead and other horrors unleashed upon the land. What humans remain have rallied around Vacete and the new Deathwatch Kingdom it created, at the borders of where Risen Athelia once stood.”
There was a pause, and then, “So, why is it that your pilgrimage turned into building a portal to this world?”