Path of Lyssa
was written as part of a novel-writing challenge over the month of November. Please expect poor editing!
Final word count:
66,555
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6 - Lords
The covered cart rattled along the cracked road leading between the eastern mountains. Someday, when the Dark Lord was done building the new wing of his monstrous palace, there might be cut stone enough to smooth out the road for the Dark Adherents who used it, but that day would be far off, considering its current state. Overhead, the grey clouds seemed to have dropped down to encase the mighty stone titans in a roiling, dark layer, tugged downwards by the gravity of the Dark Legion. And today, as on most other days, the land resounded with the chaotic activity of Karaszen's workforce.
On either side of the crumbling road lay squat, stone buildings half-buried in rubble. There must have been some fifty Dark Adherents present at this castle town, out in the meagre excuse for midday sun that managed to make its way through the low clouds. The valley rumbled with the disorganised yelling of the servants of the Dark Lord. Their festivities spilled out of the building designed as a tavern and into the wide road, forcing the trundling cart's hooded driver to angle their advance back and forth around the clusters of idle Adherents. Some of the black-robed men and women made to investigate the contents of the cart with curious grins visible beneath their hoods, but other, smarter members of the community always pulled them back. They knew what supposedly lay within, and it was strictly off limits to the likes of them. The Dark Lord's personal delivery. Who were they to sample the goods meant for him?
Karaszen was a mighty sorcerer and an ambitious ruler, but he had little interest in the day-to-day running of an empire of darkness. As such, a vast majority of his workforce had little to attend themselves to for most of their time. Manual labour and the building of the Black Palace? They had ghouls for that. Mailing deliveries and shipping messages? They had the newest recruits to do that. The logistics of Karaszen's advance across the land and against the walls of the neighbouring nations? That was management's job. And left entirely to themselves, the remaining cultists of the Dark Lord filled their hours as they knew best. They would drink when there was drink available from the tithing of the nearby settlements. When there wasn't, they would argue, often about nothing at all. When arguments broke down, they would fight. The pecking order was decided by muscles second, since victory almost always went to those who had earned a vestige of dark magic from their highest echelons. A blast of aberrant energy was usually more than enough to decide the correct party in any given debate. And when a Dark Adherent was proven wrong, their sulking and whinging could be cured with a bout or two with an idle ghoul, posted along the borders of the ramshackle settlement. They didn't fight back, making them perfect for relieving a bit of frustration.
The cart rolled on through all of this. The driver pulled her hood closer around her face and held tight to the reins of the twin horses. Whenever an intrusive pedestrian startled the animals, she would gently return them to peace. And before long, they were through. The deep ravine that divided the wider territory of the Dark Legion from the periphery of the Black Palace, and its long, black bridge, lay open to them.
And beyond, the Black Palace itself. A grand fortress of slate stone, made one with the sharp peaks of the mountains by its central tower, which gave the structure an appearance like a titanic spike of hewn rock. It stabbed up into the clouds with a bombastic disregard for the primacy of nature, the humility of humanity. It was a testament of one man's dominance over his world. At the very top of the spire was a balcony with a dark window. Who knew what happened within that highest of chambers?
On the far side of the bridge, a bored-looking Adherent pushed himself up from his seat on the wall with a huff and approached the cart as it made to cross to the far side. He had a parchment list of expected deliveries, but he folded this into his baggy sleeve at once, content that he knew what the cart was carrying. He waved his hand for the driver to stop, and they did.
"For the new wing, yes?" he asked tiredly. "Gifts for his Highness?"
The driver nodded, saying nothing.
"Let me just take a quick gander, then, and I will let you-..."
The Dark Adherent poked his head beneath the thick hemp of the cart's covering, and came face to face with Lyssa.
"
Allow us passage,
" she commanded. "
Take us to a quiet entrance to the palace that you may access without complaint.
"
The Adherent stood stock still for a long moment. Lyssa saw his eyes bulging as his brain struggled to come to terms with the complex compulsion laid upon it by her words. He wobbled on his feet for a moment. Then he let the cart's covering fall.
"Follow me," he told the driver. "Th-This way."
The cart recommenced its advance, and Lyssa breathed a sigh of relief as she sat back in her place in the cart's bed. That had been a heavy enchantment. She hadn't been certain that it would take hold. But if there was a time for risky choices, it was now.
"Say, Lyssa," asked Charisse in a raised whisper, sitting across from her with his knees up, hands and axe dangling between them. "If you told someone to 'die,' what would happen?"
She twisted her lip at him. "A thoroughly distasteful notion," she said. "I would rather not attempt such a thing."
"You do not know what would happen?"
Lyssa sighed. She thought on the Dark Adherent now leading them to a palace side entrance. He had needed to interpret her words and turn them into plausible action. So, if she told him to 'die,' he would have to interpret that as well. Maybe he would cast himself into the ravine they had just passed or draw a dagger from his belt and run it through his own throat.
But then she thought of Delain. 'Grow,' she had commanded, and he had grown for her. No conscious effort was involved with the generation of a nice, hard erection, or so she believed. Perhaps a man told to die would simply cease to live by the same subconscious impulse. Heart stopping, blood congealing, brain falling cold and quiet. Chilling. She shivered.
"I believe they would die," she told Charisse.
His chuckle, shaded by the thick covering above their heads, was just as chilling. "Brilliant," he said. "You are brilliant."
She hugged her knees against her stomach and refused to look up anymore.
Before long, the cart was coming once more to a halt. Lyssa peeked out at their new destination and found them down at the end of a long, narrow road worked against the high outer wall of the Black Palace's central structure. Across the cracked road from the tall, black walls was a drop into nothingness, and then the rocky cliffside that made up their previous elevation up by the bridge. As she had asked, the Dark Adherent had brought them to a small but heavy wooden door built into the side of the palace. A second Adherent was keeping watch here. He had his hood down, and he was smoking something from a long, black-wood pipe. He was frowning at the party as it approached his domain, but he nodded his head at the fellow dazedly leading their way.
"Ho, there," he said in greeting. "What's this? I know you care not for bridge duty, but there is no need to escort the shipments yourself, is there? You are digging for an excuse to see me, I think."
The man chuckled as he approached the stationary cart. His eyes glimmered with mirth, watching his comrade for a reaction. But Lyssa's black-robed escort said nothing. He walked forward on unsteady legs, and his friend peered into his hood with a curious scowl.
"You well?"
"I... They..." the enchanted Adherent stammered. "They need to... go inside. Quietly."
