Location: Fubar and Akka
Timeline: Sixth Age, 53rd Year, Spring
Whilst I recovered from my ill-timed visit to Ramssee, the viperz’ long day continued.
Although exhausted, he did not return to his bed. The silk sheets and the warmth of Monnik’s embrace felt like a different life—one lived by a man who hadn’t just looked into the hollow sockets of his own creator. Instead, Ramssee remained in the King’s Den, slumped in his armchair. He sat in the suffocating silence, eyes squeezed shut as if he could manually erase the image of my skeletal hand reaching for his throat.
Another candlemark crawled by. The only sound was rasping of the viperz’s ragged breath.
As the first grey light of pre-dawn began to bleed through the high windows, the Viperz stood. His movements fueled by the manic desperation of a cornered animal. He crossed the room to the locked cabinet and retrieved the wooden caisse. With trembling fingers, he pulled out the Akkanian Lamp.
He didn’t hesitate this time. He couldn’t afford to. He traced the <swirl> on the golden bowl—the one depicting the most visceral slaughter of Hacktor Derkillez and his dwarf-lords. Setting the lantern on the floor, Ramssee scrambled back, his breath hitching as he tried to wrap himself in a cloak of false confidence.
The violet smoke didn’t merely drift; it erupted with a sound like a distant, underground explosion. A torrential spill of ethereal haze, thick and smelling of ozone and sun-scorched copper, coiled toward the ceiling in frantic, oily plumes. Within that roiling cloud, Sssaura began to weave himself into reality.
First came the eyes—two burning pits of shifting iridescent light, like oil slicks on a sunlit pond, that tracked Ramssee’s every twitch. Then, the smoke thickened into a torso as broad as a draft horse, yet as fluid as a mountain stream. His skin was a nightmare of translucent scales that pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly purple glow, revealing a network of glowing veins that seemed to carry liquid starlight instead of blood.
Sssaura’s malformed, humanoid face shimmered with a predatory hunger. His jaw was double-hinged, elongated like a serpent’s, and when he spoke, a dozen rows of needle-thin, glass-clear fangs caught the dim morning light. He had no legs; his body tapered into a massive, muscular tail of smoke and shadow that lashed the air, knocking books from the shelves and rattling the very stones of the palace.
“Sssooo… it isss you, Massster,” the djiin hissed. The sound was a low-frequency vibration that rattled Ramssee’s teeth and made the liquor in the broken glass on the floor dance in tiny concentric circles. “And what wisssh ssshall I grant for you today?”
Ramssee paced the perimeter of the room, his boots crunching on the shattered crystal of the decanter. He kept the heavy mahogany furniture between himself and the slithering smoke-wraith, feeling the unnatural chill the creature cast over the Den.
Sssaura’s eyes flared. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his shifting features before he masked it with a grin of needle-teeth. “Cssertainly, my lord. Your desssire isss my command. What ssshall it be? To walk through the corridorsss of Time? To drink from the Cup of Youth? Perhapsss the endlessss gold of Altazzzizzz?”
Ramssee waved the suggestions away as if they were stinging flies. “No. None of that. I wish to be severed from the bonds of my creator, Shedu Mazai. I wish to never be visited by him again, in any form, in any vision, in any world. Can you grant me this?”
The djiin’s smile widened, stretching further than any human mouth should allow. A low, wet sound—the djiin’s version of a chuckle—echoed in the Den. “And sssooo it ssshall beeee. Exssactly asss you requessst, Massster.”
Ramssee let out a breath he seemed to have been holding since the sunrise. He replayed the wording in his mind, checking for loopholes with the frantic precision of a lawyer. No, it’s solid. If he cannot visit me, he cannot take me. I have locked the door to the Abyss.
“Thank you, Sssaura,” the Steward whispered, leaning against the wall. “That will be all.”
“Asss you command,” the djiin replied. With a violent, rushing sound, the mist was sucked back into the spout, leaving the room smelling of old dust.
Ramssee lunged for the lamp, thrusting it back into its velvet-lined box and locking the cabinet with a final, definitive clack. He slumped against the bookcase, his forehead resting against the cool wood. “I don’t care if the sun is up,” he muttered. “I am going to sleep until the world forgets my name.”
But the universe, it seems, was not finished with its sport. As he turned toward the door, his hand reaching for the latch, the wood shuddered.
<KNOCK> <KNOCK> <KNOCK>
“No!” Ramssee groaned, his voice a ragged plea. He wrenched the door open, his amber eyes bloodshot and filled with venom. “Drat it all! Who is it now?”
Ramssee had only just sealed the Akkanian Lamp back into its velvet tomb when the rhythmic thudding against the oak door set his teeth on edge. He stood amidst the drying stains of red wine and the shattered crystal, feeling the hollow exhaustion of a man who had traded his soul for a shield that might not even hold.
He wrenched the door open, ready to lash out at whatever servant had dared to follow the sunrise with a summons. But his snarl died in his throat. Standing there, flanked by two guards who looked as if they’d rather be facing a firing squad, was the nondescript, middle-aged page he’d seen before—the same rabbit-faced creature Monnik had sent to stir him yesterday.
“You?” Ramssee hissed, his amber eyes bloodshot. “Has the King finally choked on his own terror? Or has Monnik sent you to claim a reward for her theater?”
“No, Sire,” the courtier stammered, bowing so low his forehead nearly brushed the stone. “It is… news. Most interesting news, my lord!” He puffed out his chest, trying to look important, waiting for the Steward to beg for the crumb he held.
“Speak, or I’ll have your tongue for the crows,” Ramssee groaned, leaning against the doorframe.
“A runner from Skarra Bree, Sire! He arrived not a candlemark ago. He claims two dwarves—Drokka from the Rhokkii Mountains—took a room at an inn there. They stayed but two nights, asking after the road to Fubar. If the runner’s estimate holds, they are already back on the highway. They will be at our gates in four, perhaps five days.”
Ramssee’s heart, which had only just begun to find a steady rhythm, lurched. Disbelief fought with a mounting sense of doom. More Dwarves? Surely they must be searching for the pair that Kaoz had clashed with in the winter? The beast murdered one and the other Ramssee had thrown in the dungeon. I wonder if that poor brute is still alive? The Steward had figured the bearded stone-grubbers would eventually come looking for their brethren – which was yet another reason why Ramssee had forced Diked to build up the city’s walls. Yet this is the last thing I need to deal with now. He cursed. Between a rotting city, a cowering King, a shackled General, and a demon’s ultimatum, now I’ve got the Akkanians on my back. Arg!
“Well done,” Ramssee hid his fears, his voice dropping into that oily, deceptive calm. He reached out and grasped the page warmly by the shoulder, steering him into the wreckage of the Den. “You are a helpful chap, aren’t you? A real pillar of the court.”
The page suddenly looked as if he’d swallowed a wasp. It was one thing to be praised in the hallway under the watchful eyes of the guards; it was quite another to be ushered into The King’s Den when the king himself wasn’t there. The room smelled a bit off and the man noted with unease the predatory look in The Steward’s eyes.
“Ah, Sire… I am but a messenger,” The page squeaked, trying to backpedal. “I’m sure I can be of no further assistance than—”
Ramssee ignored the protest, his grip tightening like a vice as he kicked the door shut, leaving the two guards outside to snicker at the page’s “good fortune.”
“My good man,” Ramssee smiled, the light from the rising sun catching the faint shimmer of his skin. “Do you realize your life is about to change?”
The older man backed away, realizing he had just walked into a spider’s parlor as he repeated his plea, “I… I am a mere messenger, Sire. Truly.”
“Sit,” Ramssee commanded. It wasn’t a suggestion. He steered the man toward an overstuffed armchair and stood over him. “What is your name?”
“Holms, Sire.”
“Well, Holms, what do you drink?”
The page blinked, glancing at the dust motes dancing in the morning light. “It’s a bit early, my lord. I—”
“I didn’t ask for a sermon, Holms,” Ramssee snapped, his patience fraying. “I asked what you drink. Now.”
“Whiteproof, Sire!” Holms blurted out.
Ramssee chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “A little man with a taste for lightning. I respect that.” He crossed to a cabinet, pulling out a bottle of clear, lethal-looking grain alcohol. He poured two glasses, handing one to the trembling page. “Try this. Smuggled through Cripp’s Cove, originally destined for the King of Mersia. You’ll find it… illuminating.”
Holms took a sip, the liquid fire clearly stealing his breath for a moment. “It’s… it’s good, Sire.”
“Good?” Ramssee shook his head. “It’s the best in the world. And you’d better get used to the finer things, Holms. How would you like to be my official Advisor? My top Aide?”
The page’s face went through a kaleidoscope of emotions. For a career courtier, it was the dream of a lifetime—the kind of power men killed for. But Holms wasn’t a fool. He’d been around long enough to know that the past advisors to Ramssee all died of ‘mysterious circumstances.’
“I… I just don’t know, Sire,” he stuttered.
Ramssee’s face transformed. The friendly host vanished, replaced by the Viperz. He leaned down, his face inches from the page’s. “It is not an offer you can refuse, Holms.”
The page blanched, the Whiteproof suddenly sitting very heavy in his gut. “I—I meant no disrespect! I would be honored! Honored, my lord!”
“Excellent,” Ramssee smiled, his fangs catching the light. “Then let’s get down to our first order of business.”
“The dwarves?” Holms asked, his voice wavering as he stared into the depths of his Whiteproof.
“Indeed,” Ramssee purred, his eyes reflecting the harsh morning light. “Two of them. Kin to the stone-grubbers who once claimed the mines as their own.”
“What should we do, Sire?” The new Aide queried, leaning into his role with a desperate, wide-eyed eagerness. “Shall I carry word to the Grand Entry? Tell the captains to double the watch, to rain fire upon them the moment their boots touch the causeway?”
“No. We are going to do exactly the opposite.” The Steward’s grin was a thin line.
“I don’t understand, my lord.”
“Holms, Fubar is currently a charnel house. I know it feels safe within these palace walls, but remember why the people call our king ‘Diked the Doomed.’ Have you forgotten about the ‘Curse of Akka?’ Sadly, our streets are a wasteland of quarantine and military steel. It would be a diplomatic disaster to allow royal Drokka to witness our… internal struggles.” Ramssee began to pace, his silk robes snapping against his heels. “We cannot let them reach the city. For their own safety, of course.”
“Of course, Sire. Most noble of you.” Holms was confused by The Steward’s seeming magnanimity.
“We must be merciful,” Ramssee continued, his voice dripping with a mock-altruism that made the very shadows in the room crawl. “I want you to draft a decree stating that the capital is under a ‘Divine Seal’ for the protection of all people. We shall not allow these travelers to breathe our pestilence. Instead, we will meet them on the road. A delegation of mercy, Holms! To provide them with supplies and a warning to return to the Rhokkii Mountains before the curse claims them too.”
Holms nodded fervently, his face lighting up with relief at this seemingly peaceful solution. “A stroke of brilliance! It casts you as the protector of the dwarves – perhaps a future ally? Who shall lead this sensitive party to the Skarra Bree ford?”
Ramssee stopped pacing and turned, his amber eyes flaring. “I have just the person. Someone who understands the… nuances of Drokka politics. Leave it to me. He is already out there, prowling the outskirts near the Parkway. I’ll get word to him and my man will meet these dwarves. I’m sure he’ll ‘deliver’ my message.”
“Very efficient,” Holms noted. “If he can make them understand the gravity of the situation, it’s a beautiful plan, sir.’
“Oh, my man will make them understand perfectly,” Ramssee said, his smile widening, already picturing Kaoz at work.
He didn’t tell Holms that the “message” would be delivered in steel, nor that the “gold” would likely be used to pay for the silence of those who assisted in digging the roadside graves. He knew these dwarves were almost certainly searching for Barkla and Brega—the pair of Drokka princes that Kaoz had waylaid months ago. If they reached the walls and spoke to a single guard, the lie about Akka would unravel. By sending the Myz, Ramssee would be able to delay dealing with the ‘dwarf problem’ for months. Almost certainly more would come – perhaps many more – but by then, The Steward would be The Emperor and his defense and army would balloon to take on any threat.
“But Sire,” Holms hesitated, “what of the… mementoes? The palace is still filled with the gold and carvings we… rescued from Akka. Even if these two are turned back, what if others come?”
Ramssee’s eyes hardened. He thought of the Drokka Prince currently shackled in the dark beneath their feet. “An excellent observation, Holms. Perhaps you were born for this role after all. We shall issue an immediate, secret decree. Every Akkanian artifact, every scrap of mountain-craft, is to be stripped from the public halls and locked away. This applies to all the Lords of Orkney too. They can keep their treasures, but only if they hide them for now.”
“Hmmm. I wonder…” Holms let the thought trail away into the dregs of his glass.
“What?” Ramssee snapped, his tone edged with a sudden, sharp irritability. He was beginning to feel a flicker of self-consciousness; this unremarkable page was weaving webs with a speed that rivaled his own. “What is it now, Holms?”
“Well, it’s just that,” Holms said, squinting through the amber light of the Den, “can we truly trust the high-born nobles to bury the treasures? These Akkanian trinkets—the gold-pressed icons, the obsidian carvings—they have become the status symbols of the capital. If some preening Duke ‘forgets’ to hide a mountain-ruby in an attempt to outshine his rival, the… er charade of a ‘Plague-Sanctified City’ falters. Is it wise to leave our necks in the hands of the vain?”
Ramssee pursed his lips, his yellowed eyes narrowing as he evaluated the man sitting before him. The page was no longer just a messenger; he was a mirror of Ramssee’s own dark soul. “I must say—you are quite the little schemer, aren’t you?” The Steward leaned back, crossing his spindly legs. “Fine. Let us say I agree. What is the cure? I cannot visit every castle in Orkney. And I can’t very well threaten them with the pike – we may need their loyalty later.”
“Would you consider the merits of an ‘Official Custodial Inventory’?”
“Explain.”
“Issue an emergency decree,” Holms advised, his voice gaining a smooth, bureaucratic chill. “Tell the nobility that because the dwarvish people are ‘unstable’ and likely to demand reparations, all mementoes of Akka must be returned to the Palace—to you—for protective cataloging. Frame it as a service. You are protecting their investments from the specter of Akkanian looters. Use the soldiers to collect the crates. Bring them here. Then do with them what you will.”
“Frankly, Holms, I don’t see the benefit,” the Viperz pretended to pooh-poohed, though his pulse had already begun to quicken. Testing his aide, he asked, “How do you see all this playing out?”
Holms stood up, paced by the excitement of his own treachery. “As I see it, if you take custody of every artifact in Fubar, you decide when they are returned. You could maintain them in a ‘Imperial Treasury’ where you retain the physical gold while the lords merely hold paper ‘rights’ to items. Or better yet…” Holms paused, grinning. “Perhaps the lords should pay you a ‘Protection Fee.’ A tenth of every crate for the trouble of you and your soldiers. If you play this correctly, you could convince the nobles to praise you as their champion for guarding their riches, even as you decide how best to use them.”
Ramssee’s jaw dropped. It was a stroke of absolute, administrative villainy. “My god, man,” he whispered. “You are a genius.”
“No, Sire,” Holms replied, bowing with a newfound confidence as he drained the last of the Whiteproof. “It is you who are the genius for recognizing my potential. I am sorry I hesitated to join your circle. I pledge myself to your shadow from this breath forward.” He dropped to one knee, the empty glass clinking against the stone.
Still amazed at the potential he’d discovered in his new aide, Ramssee made a mental note to not trust the man further than he could throw him, yet before he could ponder further, there was yet another interruption.
<KNOCK> <KNOCK> <KNOCK>
The rapid-fire pounding at the door made the Steward flinch as if he’d been struck. “Ach! How do all these people know where to find me?!” he growled, his shoulders slumping under the weight of his silken robes. “I need a new hiding place. A tomb, perhaps. Somewhere without a door.”
Holms, eager to prove his worth in his new, wine-stained finery, sprang to his feet. “Don’t worry, Master. I’ll handle the rabble.” He scurried across the room, his small frame vibrating with a newfound, borrowed authority.
He wrenched the door open, his mouth already forming a sharp dismissal. “No visitors n—”
He was silenced by a calloused hand that shoved him aside like a stack of loose parchment. The foreman of the Akka stalked into the Den. The burly miner paid no mind to Holms’s sputtering protests, his heavy boots leaving tracks of grey dust across the polished floor until he stood directly before Ramssee.
“Grand news! Grand news indeed, My Lord!” the foreman proclaimed, ripping his dented steel helmet from a sweat-grimed brow.
Before the Steward could summon a breath of indignation, the miner continued, his voice booming with the triumph of a conqueror. “The Deepest Depths! The passageway is finally purged of the ancient stone! All the rubble is clear, Sire. The way to the core is open. You can enter at your leisure!”
Ramssee froze. The liquor in his glass caught the morning light, perfectly still. For years, he had bled the treasury dry to crack that mountain’s heart, and now, at the precise moment when the Rhokki’s sons were marching toward his gate and a djiin was breathing down his neck, the Fates had finally opened the door.
Holms, sensing the Steward’s paralysis, stepped in, his voice pitching high with nerves. “Ah, I’m not sure what you’re talking about, fellow, but our Lord is… occupied. He is not interested in—”
The foreman cast a single, lethal look at the scrawny courtier—the kind of look a wolf gives a yapping lapdog—and Holms went silent. The miner turned back to Ramssee. “Sire, you said I was to notify you the heartbeat the breakthrough occurred. Today is that day! After years of breaking our picks against that cursed rock, we have a hole wide enough for a man to pass through!” His eyes glittered with the greed of what might lay in those dark, virgin tunnels. “What is the next step? When do we proceed?”
Ramssee found his voice, but it was low, quiet, and edged with a rueful, bitter iron. “What do I want you to do?” He shook his head slowly. “Well, what I want doesn’t matter anymore. Because what I need you to do… is SEAL it back up. Every inch of it.”
The foreman’s jaw dropped. “Seal it? Sire, we just spent three years and a countless lives opening it! We’ve braved the plague and we’ve won! Surely you’re jesting?”
“It is no jest,” Holms interjected, stepping forward again, bolstered by Ramssee’s silence. “You will do as our Lord commands and not ques—”
“And just who are you?” the miner growled, his hand drifting toward the heavy pick-handle at his belt.
The smaller man looked to Ramssee, seeking the anchor of his approval. When the Viperz nodded—a sharp, dismissive jerk of the chin—Holms puffed out his chest. “I am the official Aide to the Steward. His right hand. His voice. You would do well to listen.”
“Is this true, Sire?” the foreman asked, his confusion turning to a slow, smoldering anger.
“Aye. He speaks for me,” Ramssee concurred. “But listen to me, friend. You did well. You shall be rewarded with enough gold to drown in when this is done. Rest assured, it’s but a temporary pause. We have to make sure there isn’t a darker plague lurking in those depths. For the protection of you and your men, rebuild that wall – knowing that we can take it down just as easily – but keep that between us. Mask the entrance. Make it look as though no man has touched that stone in a thousand years.”
“And quickly!” Holms added, tasting the power of the command.
“How quickly?” the foreman asked, his eyes narrowing to slits.
“Two days,” Holms averred. “Not a moment more.”
“Impossible!” the miner roared. “That much rock—it would take a week just to—”
Finally, Ramssee’s thin veneer of patience snapped. The lack of sleep, the terror of the lamp, and the shifting chess pieces of the morning converged into a white-hot rage.
“NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!” he screamed, his amber eyes flaring with a sudden, predatory light that made even the iron-willed foreman recoil. “You will find a way! You will work your men until they drop dead in the shafts, and then you will use their bodies to fill the gaps if you must!”
He turned his vibrating finger toward Holms. “And you! You will go to the mines. You will ensure the decree is followed and the ‘Inventory’ begins. If either of you fails me, the plague will be a mercy compared to the grave I find for you.”
He waved a hand, a sharp, dismissive slash through the air. “Now, get out! Leave me to my peace! OUT!”
The Apocrypha of Azazel 