The Undying Emperor [Grand Conquest Fantasy]

It was always cloudy on the isle. Days passed in a muddled shift between illumination and gloom, marked more by the tides than the obscured sun. The tides pulled in water among the whale bones, peeling thick layers of algae off old rocks and letting the fat carp attack the new surface. High tide meant the monster of the isle could move. He was a snapping turtle, barely able to be buoyed up by the water and crawl over the rubble to spread his maw where a curious fish might meet its end. While the fish were stupid with their size, even a wise fish, wizened from years of battling fishermen, could have been fooled by the sheer size of the turtle's maw.

Like the gatekeepers of the monastery, the turtle had refused to die. Unlike them, it had grown impossibly large, until its shell was as mighty as iron. There were few things left in the world that could have cracked it, and yet on the morning that Lucius von Solhart set foot upon the isle, a shadow passed over it. Before the shadow had come a noise from a human throat. The turtle had no imagination of what the shadow might be, but it pulled back from a suddenly startled fish. Head and limbs retracted to their bony abodes before the boulder fell upon it. The rock was larger than any of the carp and had been tossed at it from a great height. The impact jarred through the turtle's shell, pushing it against the rocks below before it careened into the isle's lagoon.

The turtle was unharmed.

The gatekeeper invented new ways to curse the beast, balling his mangled hands into mounds of flesh that approximated fists. He stamped his foot and raved, much to the amusement of his fellow. The fit of rage was the only form of amusement on the isle, and the other gatekeeper let a fit of lunatic mirth consume him. His laughter wheezed and cackled, almost inhuman, but he heard almost none of it. Among the years on the isle, he had lost most of his hearing, and the other gatekeeper had lost much of his sight. Both counted themselves lucky.

The third gatekeeper could hardly be called human anymore.

It was the third that Lucius found first. He was alone on the isle, for none of the ship's crew would set foot upon it. Some had pleaded holy prohibitions, others had explained the danger of the lepers. Lucius had not pressed them to accompany him, but reconsidered his choice when he saw the first inhabitant of Acheliah's monastery. The man was monstrously tall, but he would learn this was a characteristic of all three of the gatekeepers. He had thought of them as a type of ascetic, but his first impression was of madness.

The gatekeeper dressed modestly, it could be said. His clothes were of a thick fabric, but voluminous, bound here and there with long strips of leather, like an inverse impression of an aristocrat's plate armor. He wore a wooden mask carved like a caricature of a fish, such that hardly a spot of human flesh could be seen. Of inhuman flesh, there was plenty. His right arm could not be said to be that of a human. Chitinous segments had consumed it, apparently maintaining function despite having the claw of a crustacean instead of a hand. Of its effectiveness, Lucius had no doubt. Crushed between the scything chitin was one of the gatekeeper's primary meals: a turtle still dripping blood.

Lucius hailed the man and the gatekeeper faced him, but no explanation was met with a reply. The only noise the gatekeeper emitted was wheezing breath and the occasional wet cough, which was accompanied by a glistening at a wet spot on his chest. The dirt-like coloration of the fabric made it difficult to know for certain, but it didn't seem to be blood the man oozed.

When Lucius asked if there was anyone else on the isle, the gatekeeper nodded and trudged out of the tidal shallows, still carrying the turtle. He walked neither gracefully nor infirmly, trusting only one of his legs to propel him up the many steps to the ruins of the monastery the gatekeepers resided in.

It had once been a fine structure, but the masonry had fallen apart. Wind whistled through the many gaps, soaking the stone in sea spray. Where once had been furniture, there remained only vestiges and moss. Through one such unintentional window, Lucius realized that not a single tree or woody bush lived upon the isle. The only life seemed to be wandering birds and the moss that grew upon their guano. Consequently, although the gatekeeper put the turtle upon a cooking brazier, there was no blaze, not even ashes. He did not set upon the carcass with knife and fork, but picked up a rusted fire poker and beat it upon the stones before sitting upon a stone. Judging by the carving, it had once been part of a column in the facade, but now the smooth joining surface had been worn into a divot the size of the gatekeeper's rear. There were two other such stones, but Lucius remained standing and soon heard the noise of queer robes shuffling.

The two other gatekeepers entered the apparent dining area, both dressed the same as the first. Neither of them seemed to have an inhuman growth, but Lucius had no true idea of what flesh was beneath the fabric. They were tall though, with stretched proportions. Their necks were too long, their shoulders sloped out like mountains, and their legs were childish for their height as though belonging to men of regular stature. Both had masks, but theirs were broken. One's mask attempted to cover half his face, though rippling scar tissue clearly consumed one eye and much else. The other had little more than the jaw of his mask still dangling on, a pox-marked face bare and looking as though crows and sampled his skin and found it wanting.

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They appraised Lucius, speaking amongst themselves a mere few steps away from Lucius, discussing who he might be without inquiring. He bore no markings of Sapphira and had brought no supplies with him, so it was clear he was not some form of relief. Nor did he have the sea bedraggled appearance of a shipwreck. Then they saw the meal and seemingly forgot about Lucius. They sat down, surrounding the crushed animal with the crudest of cutlery. But one knife remained upon the isle, save what Lucius brought on his person, and it was chipped nearly in half. They substituted with old shells and bones, sharpened to points and edges from rubbing against stone. They ripped apart the turtle's shell, digging out meat and organs they consumed raw, gnashing through the viscera with what remained of their teeth.

The cannibals in the wastelands had turned the boy's stomach less, and he announced himself. "I am Lucius von Solhart. I come here by order of the angel Acheliah, whom you serve. She has tasked me with returning her reaping blade to her."

The eyeless gatekeeper and the one with the claw turned on him, pausing their bloody feast. A moment later, the third noticed, but his gaze switched between the other gatekeepers rather than looking at Lucius. Then the eyeless gatekeeper spoke to him, "Come to relieve us of our burden then, have you? To steal from us poor men our reason to live? We'll die after you take it from us. Is that what the angel wishes? And I'm afraid you'll have to forgive this one. Can't hear a thing. And this one isn't much of a talker."

Lucius looked around the room and back to the diseased gatekeepers. His honest thought was that Acheliah had probably forgotten they were still on the isle. He'd noticed the presence of magic the moment he set foot on it, in the same way that being near the corpse of a demon has magic. He had no reason to think that the angel would entrust the protection of a relic to mere humans. They were likely an afterthought, or an obfuscation long past its usefulness. "Will you take me to the blade?"

The gatekeeper laughed and pointed his carving shell at Lucius, still dripping with blade. "But we already have! I present to you the reaping blade!"

Lucius took the piece of shell from the man, causing the three gatekeepers to laugh and watch him further. Of course, there was nothing magical to the shell. When he flexed it, the piece of bone shattered in half. "Will you stop me from getting it myself?"

Their laughter stopped, but the answer was simple. "No."

Lucius left the madmen to their meal. The monastery had not been designed to be a maze, and more often than not, the collapse had made it easier to navigate than not. A few rooms had been blocked off, but after passing through the halls, he made a second pass around the periphery of the building and confirmed that each blocked room was either a complete collapse, or accessible from the outside. Although, the only creatures to have made such access appeared to be birds.

His journey eventually brought him to the lagoon. It was an open mouthed bay with a deep channel out to the sea. The monastery had been primarily built upon the eastern landmass, but there were rock formations in the west his eyes determined had been shaped by human hands. He had to descend to the rocky shore to pass over. Only when he approached the shore did he realize the water was not thriving with bushes. The green algae had deceived him from a distance, but while standing upon a great boulder, he saw the myriad stalks for what they were: whalefall. Hundreds upon hundreds of such skeletons, piled atop one another, as if the dying beasts had thrown themselves upon their predecessors to impale their guts and quicken their demise.

He was still in shock when the boulder beneath him stood up.

Lucius leapt back, hand to his sword, and watched as the largest snapping turtle he had ever seen climbed deeper into the receding tide and picked a new spot to nestle, sending a dozen fish the size of pigs fleeing elsewhere in the lagoon. The creature huddled, mouth open, and one eye fixed on Lucius.

The boy picked his path more carefully after that, reaching the western stretch without further incident. The stone proved to be masonry, but not of a building proper. The ground had been cleared and, long ago, a prayer shrine had stood facing the sea. Nothing remained above knee height and where there should have been ceremonial wine was naught but lichen. The stones weren't even all there anymore, and he saw more than a few fallen off a cliff edge and into the lagoon below.

There was no sign of the reaping blade. He could see the temple ship, anchored a short distance from the isle. A few of the crew had sufficient eyesight, so he waved at the bobbing vessel and let them see he was well, but had no way to tell them the wait might be much longer than anticipated. For all he knew, the reaping blade was kept in some buried tomb, and there was still the matter of the thing's weight.

Descending to a shore that could accept a small vessel, he stood and waved until one of the ship's rowboats was put to sea. The crew arrived, expecting to take him away, only to be told he'd need provisions and anyone brave enough to join him in the desolate search. One of the oarsmen agreed, on condition of not leaving Lucius' side, but there was a curious matter. On the beach was another rowboat, and not the ruined thing he would have expected of the gatekeepers. The wood was in good condition and the iron fittings un-rusted. The crew testified it wasn't one of theirs.

Someone else was on the island, and Lucius could not have guessed it was the Blade of Night.