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The throne room of the King of Algo was dark, illuminated only by
four dimly-glowing light cells affixed to the corners. The bank of
lights set into the ceiling, which were bright enough to turn night
into day, remained unlit. When alone, King Lassic liked it that way.
It reminded him of a castle from the planet Palma's feudal period.
Towering stone walls, crenelated battlements manned by knights and
espers--that was what a king's throne was. Any child of five knew that
from storybooks. The most powerful man in the Algo Solar System,
though, did not have a castle. He reigned from the Camineet Government
Building, a sterile creation of technology which towered over the
dome-shaped houses and shops currently in architectural vogue.
I've always wanted to be king, Lassic admitted to himself.
Yet if not for that fool Ossale, I might never have known. The
death of King Marek Landale had catapulted Chancellor Lassic into the
position of Regent, but he might never have risen higher had it not
been for General Alex Ossale and the old Esper, Soothsayer Damor.
What did they see in me? the king wondered as he had wondered
hundreds of times before. Had it been the naked ambition the
then-Regent hadn't himself known that he harbored? Or something else?
Or had they only been serving their own political ends?
Whatever their reasons, Ossale and Damor had stolen the heir to the
throne, King Marek's baby daughter Alis. Ossale had boldly claimed to
have done it to "protect" her--to protect the queen-to-be from her
appointed Regent! But then, the general had been on trial then, his
inflammatory rhetoric perhaps designed to stir up a wave of popular
support. The soothsayer had been wiser; he had fled, was missing
still, and the girl was gone as well. There were no Landale heirs left
to assume the throne.
So, due to the actions of the very ones who had sought to deny him
the crown, Regent Lassic had risen to take the crown as the new King of
Algo and founder of a new dynasty. He had achieved a status that most
people could only dream of, and yet just three years into his reign,
Lassic was discontent.
"'Tis because you are naught but a figurehead."
The king sat bolt upright in his throne, eyes slashing the darkness
for the source of the voice that had answered his very thoughts.
"Who? Who's there?"
Lassic had meant it to sound bold and commanding, but it came out
not as a king's demand but the plea of an old man.
From the shadows to his left a form took shape, hunched but manlike
in a tattered maroon cape, a three-foot wand clutched in its right
hand. A curious mask covered its face, a flexible tube extending from
the mouth as if part of some breathing apparatus. On the other side of
the room a second figure advanced, identical to the first except that
its hooded cloak was green.
Lassic may have been old, but he was by no means defenseless. His
mind began to channel the mystic power needed for a fire spell; he
could feel the power build and wait, ready to be released at a word.
His right hand slid towards the arm of his throne, ready to touch the
alarm that would bring a dozen Palman and robot guards racing to his
defense.
"Despise us not for speaking the truth," the green-robed stranger
said. His mask distorted his voice, lending it a curious, sibilant
quality.
"A king should rule, not be ruled," chanted his companion.
"Who are you?" Lassic demanded again, this time with steel in his
voice.
"We are servants."
"I am aware of that," Lassic said, his lip curling in a sneer.
"Whom do you serve? What is his business with me?"
"Our master can make thee a true king," the green-robed intruder
declared.
"A king's birthright is power," crooned the other.
"I will not be mocked!" boomed Lassic. "I am the King of
Algo!"
"Not now, but perhaps soon," sang the stranger in red.
"You will be silent! Flaeli!"
Lassic's command released power from within him; he felt the rush
through his body as if it were blood racing in his veins. From his
outstretched hand two bursts of flame slashed across the room, burning
two gaping holes in the maroon-robed intruder's torso. The corpse
struck the floor heavily, but with an unnatural sound, like an overripe
melon bursting when dropped from a height.
The green-robed stranger raised his staff and leveled its tip at
Lassic, chanting, "Bindwa." At once the king found himself
helpless, paralyzed and bound by his opponent's spell.
"You act to exterminate folly. 'Tis good that you do. My companion
was, however, but an apprentice. I am a master. It is within
you to be one as well, but as yet that is beyond you. Therefore, you
will listen."
Lassic did not respond. He recognized the vulnerability of his
position and would make no sudden moves until he felt ready to do so.
Instead, he tested the magical bindings, attempting to determine if the
green-robed spellcaster was truly the more powerful, or if he or she
had just managed a lucky cast.
"In you, there is potential. Our master has seen it. Through him,
that potential will be developed. You will be able to set aside these
petty restrictions placed upon you by law. A true king is the law;
'tis not for others to make it into a yoke for you."
The rope spell was perfect and powerful, Lassic realized. His arms
and legs were frozen fast, unable to move at all, though his heart and
lungs still functioned and he retained the power of speech. The
magician was a powerful foe, and that in turn spoke for the strength of
his or her unnamed master.
"Why would your master wish to aid me?"
"He seeks the worship of those he deems worthy. 'Tis the man who
knows of the use of power our master seeks. The ones who will not
shirk from the opportunities life presents. Those who understand that
rewards are not given, but that they must be seized."
"You said...worship. Your master claims to be God?"
The stranger's masked face somehow communicated a dreadful intensity
to Lassic as he responded to that question.
"To us, he is a god. He is our guiding hand, our source of
power. To those who serve faithfully and well, there is eternal life."
"Eternal life?" the king mocked. He knew the words to be a lie, and
yet they still pulled at him, fascinatingly, alluringly. He was an
aged man, a man for whom there were perhaps a dozen years left, and the
promise of more time would always tempt. Yet, he had the proof there
in front of him. "You speak of eternal life when your companion lies
dead before us?"
The magician did not speak, but went to the fallen stranger's side
and raised his staff over the body. A circle formed on the floor
beneath the corpse, a circle of putrid radiance, of mystic symbols set
out in a sickly yellow glow. Brighter and brighter it shone, until
Lassic could feel his skin crawl as the light played over his body.
Even the king could sense the terrible wrongness at work, and yet there
was no escaping the truth--there was power here, immense power
on a scale Lassic had never before touched.
The tip of the magician's wand snapped down. A single word was
spoken to invoke the spell. The corpse jerked, its muscles spasming,
and then, incredibly, it drew itself upright.
"All praise to our master," the red-cloaked stranger chanted.
"He was accepted the word of the Master, and can be brought back
again and again, though his foes strike him down. Nor will he submit
to the ravages of time. 'Tis so for me as well. It can be so for
you."
"What would your god get in return for this power you offer?"
The green-robed magician laughed, a strange and unnatural sound
behind its mask, high-pitched and rasping.
"Surely you understand. Our master has few followers. By his hand
you shall make yourself the one true ruler of all Algo, now and
forever. Through this, the way will be laid open for him to seek
converts."
The stranger raised his hand and gestured sharply. The restraints
on Lassic fell away.
"An alliance, then," the king mused. "Each of us gets what we
want."
Lassic surveyed the two priests. In their masks and frayed robes
they seemed like alien creatures, neither Palman nor Motavian nor
Dezorian. What sort of world were they from? Did they wear their masks
because Palma's air itself was incompatible with their bodies, like a
fish trying to breathe on land? Then there was the way the
maroon-cloaked one had fallen. It hadn't sounded right, not
like a person at all, more like a rotten fruit bursting against the
floor. These people weren't natural.
They were, however, powerful. Very powerful. And they offered
something more valuable than they knew. Lassic had no wife, no
children, no family to warm his last years. His studies of magic had
long since reached the limit he was capable of attaining alone. All he
had left to look forward to were dry, empty years of a reign spent
trying to keep from being bullied by the Royal Council, Palma's
popularly elected legislature. Afraid or not, he had nothing to lose
by accepting the strangers' offer.
Any last pleas of caution his mind tried to send out were drowned in
a wave of ambition and greed.
"Very well," Lassic declared. "If your god can make good on his
promises, then an alliance between us is acceptable to me."
"Then step forward and receive his power!"
Lassic rose from his throne and approached the cloaked priests.
They stood to either side of him, lifting their wands. A mystic circle
like the one used in the resurrection spell took shape beneath him.
The light didn't just look wrong, this time, it felt wrong; its
radiance made Lassic's skin prickle and creep, his breath catch in his
throat. An overripe, corrupt taste filled his mouth, bearing the
sickly-sweet stench of decay.
The shadows deepened, and from their essence a form took shape,
huge, towering over him. Its torso was heavily muscled, its clawed
hands gigantic at the end of disproportionately long arms, while below
the waist it appeared slight and withered, ultimately fading into the
shadows rather than ending in legs. The head was monstrous, with
burning, sunken eyes and a snarling, fanged mouth. This was only an
image, not the being itself, and yet it exuded an aura of such pure,
unadulterated evil that it had a tangible presence. Lassic's body
trembled; the animal part of his hindbrain screamed at him to run, to
cower, to hide from this thing, but he ignored it. The king's skin
burned with the force of corruption, but he stood fast.
"I know you," he declared. "I've read of you in arcane legends.
You are the One Who Comes with the Millennium. You are the bringer of
destruction. You are the dark force who consumes all life."
Dark Force laughed, a booming sound that filled the chamber yet,
Lassic somehow knew, did not penetrate beyond the walls of the throne
room.
"I am he who will give you power such as you have never dreamed of,
Lassic. You will rule all Algo with an iron hand, and bend it to my
will. No mortal magic will be able to withstand your power."
Dark Force, it seemed, knew his man well.
"Yes!" Lassic snarled. "I accept your gift!"
"Then become mine!"
The image opened its maw and spewed forth a wave of utter blackness.
The ebon force surged into Lassic's body, twisting and purging his
flesh of life. Cells decayed, blood ceased to flow, his skin became
withered and twisted. The pain was excruciating; the very essence of
his being writhed in agony as he was purged of the basic energies of
life. Yet still Lassic lived, or at least existed. He was filled with
the dark power that had been breathed into him, and this power animated
his body, made it move as his mind bade. More than that, it seemed to
crackle through his nerves, urging, no, demanding to be used.
The screams of his soul were a small, puny thing indeed next to that
sensation.
"Now you are mine, King of Algo," Dark Force exulted. "You are my
creature. You live only to carry out my will. With my power you will
grind the puny worms who infest this solar system under your heel, and
so bring about in the end its complete destruction!"
"Yes, my Master," Lassic agreed wholeheartedly, the song of Dark
Force's corrupt power burning in his mind.
"Then from this moment on you will bear a new name to symbolize your
devotion. To the foolish masses outside you will still be King Lassic,
but I and mine will always know you by your true self."
In the silence of his heart, the king felt it. No longer Lassic, he
was, now and forever, Dark Force's creation.
Lashiec.
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