The King's Mission

used to have a name, and a face. I had a life and a family and a history. But, sadly, I died one Tuesday. And then Wednesday came.

My body was taken to the morgue on the outskirts of Bortevo. The mortician placed me upon the slab and covered me with a sheet. It was the very next day that Lassic, gone mad in his wickedness, brought grief and ruin to Bortevo. Full of anger as he was, Lassic would come to strike many cities and villages. But he struck Bortevo especially hard, for it was his home town, and the birthplace of his pain.

The houses were burned and the people were slaughtered. The morgue where I had been placed, just beyond the city wall, was razed. I rotted and fermented for days, weeks, months. The smell of death filled the morgue's cold hallways. A green film formed on the blue walls as every manner of filth and degeneration festered in that hole, eventually escaping the darkness and moving out to poison the rest of the world.

My body had been waiting under a sheet browned with rot for over a year when Lassic returned to Bortevo. His robots and cut-throats, though numerous, could not be everywhere at once. King Lassic the Butcher had decided he needed a new army. And so, with the dark priests he had befriended at his side, he slithered into the ruins of the mortuary and made his way to where I, and others like me, lay waiting.

Lassic pulled the sheet off of my corpse. The sight of my gaunt, crumbled, tightened face -- with its empty sockets and mouth stretched into the eternal scream of death -- made him scowl. He had to turn away from me. My body had grown purple and green and bile yellow, like an endless bruise. The bones that poked through the holes in my flesh were a dull gray. Insects crawled through every opening.

"Is this the best you could do, Lassic?" one of the priests asked. He was dressed all in black, with intimidating armor and a flowing cape. He wore a tall, pointed helmet. It was like a bishop's hat but strangely twisted. A semi-transparent mask obscured his face.

Lassic frowned. His face, like mine, had seen better days. His eyes had grown small and sunken in. His skin was dry and flaky like the host of grounded autumn leaves. "Yes," he said coldly, fingering his scepter nervously. "Can you do what I ask or not?"

The second priest looked around at the score of bodies similar to mine that lay strewn about the room in various states of distress. He sighed. "I suppose we can," he said. "But I do this under protest. Such wretched work..."

"Cease your complaining," the first priest said. He pulled off the black velvet gloves he wore, revealing long, scaly, nearly skeletal hands. A sickening slithering sound was heard, and Lassic could distinctly see the outline of a great flat and pointed tongue lashing against the inside of the priest's helmet, coating the clear part of the mask with a sticky, stinking film.

"You are not like the others," Lassic said, shaking his head. "You are not like Palmans at all..."

"No, we are not, King Lassic," the second priest said as he, too, pulled off his gloves. "The ones you have met with previously serve our master. And we, in turn, serve them."

"Your master?" Lassic asked.

"Yes, you know him well," answered the first. "He is the 'demon' you see in your dreams..."

The two priests laughed and began to wave their hands in the air, their fingers twitching spasmodically.

"What are you?" asked the king. He wrapped his robes tighter around his body and slinked back a few paces into the shadows.

"You may call us L-Elm-Gan, the black wizards," the second said. "Now quiet yourself so that we may do our work."

The L-Elm-Gan began to move their hands in a circular motion. As they did so they moved from corpse to corpse, placing their hands just above the faces of the bodies. They were casting a spell of necromancy, and, to Lassic's surprise, within only seconds it began to take effect. The bodies creaked and shuddered. Bones tapped against the stone floor. Even the dust that covered the floor flowed and sifted as if suddenly possessed of life. The display clearly terrified Lassic in a very fundamental and severe way, but he tried his best to appear brave.

One of the priests stood over me, and there was a great flash of light in my brain. For the first time in a year I knew consciousness. I sat up. I could feel the cold medical slab against my body. I could hear the creaking of bones and the ripping of stiff skin. And with my newly crafted eyes I could see the miserable horror that was my violet-hued body, and the sickened terror on the face of Lassic.

Though I was aware, I was nonetheless under the control of the dark priests. The other undead and I were lined up neatly in rows, and the dark priests doled out to us weapons of all kinds that they had brought with them. We were divided into battalions. And then I was separated from my group. A special task had been set aside for me.

It was Lassic himself who approached me, a sword and shield in his hands. I bowed instinctively; the reverence I felt for him was unexpected, but no less real.

"Rise, Skull-En," Lassic said. I stood upright before him, proud to respond to the name I had been given. He handed to me the sword and shield he held, wrapped in a filthy, soiled linen. I took them and held them before me in the half-light. At first they appeared cheaply crafted, but the incandescent glow that surrounded my new armaments told me that there was special magic within them.

"I have a mission for you," Lassic said to me. "There is a young girl who has been causing me much grief as of late. I foolishly ordered the death of her brother. He is now a martyr amongst the rebels who would seek to assassinate me, and as word of her efforts spreads, this twit girl is becoming a hero as well."

One of the dark priests waved his hand at me, and after he did so, I was able to speak. My voice was dry and harsh, like the sound of sharpened glass being scraped over a rock. But within that near-metallic screech I could hear a faint echo of the voice I had once known. Hearing it was a strange sensation.

"What will you have me do, Sire?" I asked Lassic, slowly and with great pains.

"This day the girl is resting in Camineet, my greatest city...and her home town. Her first week of insurrection has left her exhausted."

"Then I shall hunt her down and kill her," I whispered.

"If you can, do," Lassic said. "But I have others for that. Your true mission is to follow her. You will stalk her every footfall. You will watch her and report every move she makes to me. You shall act as my eyes. Do you understand?"

I bowed extravagantly. The sound of the bones in my knees scraping against one another echoed throughout the morgue.

"I understand, Majesty."

"Very well, then, Stalker," Lassic said, holding his chin high. "Be on your way."

As the others looked on, I slowly shuffled out of the morgue and into the bright, hot light of the sun. My eyes instantly dried and grew sore, but I had no eyelids with which to blink. I staggered out into the daylight. For a moment I stared at the ruin of Bortevo, thinking I had spotted some movement in the rubble. But then, seeing nothing more, I moved on.

It was sunset a day later when I finally caught up with the girl Lassic had sent me to kill. By that point she had been joined by a Musk Cat and a hulking warrior who carried an axe and a heat gun. I attacked the party on sight, but after a lengthy battle I was defeated. I fell to the ground and landed in a pile of dust and broken bones and snapped tendons. But after the trio moved on, the dark spell of the L-Elm-Gan was renewed, and I was made whole again.

I resumed my pursuit.

Two days later I found them near the town of Abion. An Esper had joined their effort. I fought against the foursome bravely, and was nearly victorious, but at the last moment the wizard cast a fire spell at me. I was consumed in the flames, and only many hours later was I revived.

During the night, deep in the forests near Loar, I ambushed a young man who was traveling alone. He screamed at the sight of me and tried to run, but I ran him clean through before he had gone ten paces. I stole his clothes, and I donned his hooded cloak. So disguised I was able to walk amongst the townsfolk. I went unnoticed as long as I kept my distance, and when my true nature was discovered, I simply eliminated whoever had seen too much. I listened for any talk of the girl, who I learned was called "Alis." Using the news and rumors I gathered, I found her routinely after that. But each time we fought, I was defeated.

It has now been a month since Alis took up her sword and I crept out of the morgue. For this long month I have fought bravely and kept King Lassic apprised of Alis' activities. And now the moment of truth has arrived. I wait for Alis at the top of the tower of Baya Malay, preparing an ambush. I can hear the clicking of her footsteps as she climbs the staircase. I can hear the muttered conversation of her companions.

I raise my sword and stand in silence. At last, Alis, I shall speak my peace. At last, you shall know my mission. And you shall know my name. I am the lich of Alex Ossale, once your father, and now your stalker. A long time in coming our reunion has been. But now, at last, the fated moment has arrived.

You told Damor, the soothsayer, that you sought for me. And if you seek, my daughter, you will surely find.

Fin.