The Undying Emperor [Grand Conquest Fantasy]

To the mighty Jarl of the 7th Moon,

I pray that this letter reaches you in good condition. My name is Michael Redmont and for the past weeks, I have been confined to the penal colony known as the Western Copper Mine. During my imprisonment, most of my days have been spent assisting the quartermaster and I have noticed a concealed pattern in the purchasing of goods for the mine.

The following I explain only as reason I was able to deduce this pattern. The crime of which I was arrested was listed as blasphemy, but it was in a literal sense my study of the nature of lightning. I understand that the common thought is that such study is a grisly affair, one of dissecting animals and people to torture and desecrate, or at best this is what the dragon monks of the east do, and I cannot deny that such experiments occur, that is but the biological study of the natural phenomenon. As is true of heat and light and gravity, the laws of the gods dictate the condition of all natural things in our bodies and without. Only magic is unique to life, and lightning is not magic.

The warden has been purchasing unshaped dragonstone from the sea merchants. Ostensibly, this is for the creation of navigational compasses, but this is a dubious practice at best. Ask any of the hammer workers and they'll tell you that for every ten parts of copper we extract, there is one part of iron. It's largely used for the mine's own extraction needs, but it is sufficient to thwart and confuse a miner's compass when they least expect it. Even if the dragonstones are being genuinely used for these fickle needles, the quantities are far too high.

How I came to find their true purpose is merely an accident of fate. I happened to have been allowed up to the mine's edge, bringing a crate of supplies to one of the work buildings. There I saw what had become of the dragonstone. They had been attached here and there to the various axles and wheels of the elevators surrounded by webs and fans of steel like leaves upon copper vines. I recognized the arcane work at once, but didn't believe it to have actually been made until I managed to set my finger upon one of the cloth-wrapped wires. My skin tingled with the touch of lightning.

I confess, the darkness of my heart ebbed when I saw the fruit of my own mind brought to the physical world. The pain of my body and the ache of my soul was forgotten as I followed the wires on hands and knees, scraping it away from the dusty cliff until I found that they led to the very work house I had been sent to furnish.

Now, I fear I must extend beyond my own knowledge and can only speculate, but I believe the harnessed lightning was being used to sublimate the meager essence of gold from the chaff ore.

To my knowledge, and I believe the records of my trial will concur that I am an expert in this field, nobody in Skaldheim should possess the means to create such a device. Most likely, the warden has struck a deal with a foreign agent. Drachenreach is the most likely, but given our proximity, Vassermark cannot be ruled out either. It is one thing to bring in knowledge from the wide world, but to do so secretly is to give a home to espionage.

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I ask for an inquiry into this machinery and, as the one to discover it and in light of my capability in the domain, I volunteer myself to analyze the device. If it is indeed a way to extract gold, it is a technology that should be distributed throughout Skaldheim to enrich the realm, and not merely to line the pockets of one remote overseer.

Below, I will give an account of the figure I believe to be the origin of this device. I have seen him in the lowest reaches of the mine, but the lift operators tell me that they have never seen such a man. Unless the gods gifted him with the wings of birds, there is no way into the mine save those lifts, but he is among us workers nonetheless. He stands taller than the slumped laborers of the mine, but shorter than the average man of Skaldheim. I know neither whether he is strong or weak, for he is always clad in robes the color of the night sky which blend him into the shadows like a thief's cloak. I know of no thief that walks about with a lantern attached to his walking staff, however, even if I have never seen it lit.

His skin is most peculiar. Not only is it the darkest shade of earth I have ever seen upon a man, there is an intensity to it that captures the eye. It is both weathered and vibrant. Drawing upon my memories I am certain I saw the crevasses of age like the many fjords of the east, but there was so much more to his presence. We prisoners were like candle flames of life compared to the great pyres of the temples, and that same intensity existed in his black eyes when they fixed upon me.

In one moment he took my measure and I was never spoken to by the man. I have seen him conversing with some of the guards and they have hurried to conscript workers into various projects of mild importance. Most often, they were tasked with expanding walkways, or reinforcing walls. Once, men were marshalled to dig out a cave collapse, which fortunately succeeded in the rescuing of the workers.

Though I have no proof, I am certain his actions are not always benevolent. I think the earlier events were nothing more than the idle demands of a competent mind. The improvements to the mine were things I myself had remarked upon, be they spreading cracks in a cliff, or uneven steps in the floor. They were annoyances that scratched at the mind. The only difference was that his words produced action while mine might have brought a whip to my back.

The most striking time I observed this man, the time when I was able to properly see his hand upon his staff and his piercing eyes, he had sat for some hours upon a perch above the cells. He had the characteristic of a vulture and his eyes sat fixed upon one row of cells. That night, I was unable to sleep. The sores upon my back burned no matter how I tried to lay and I was forced into that unbearable twilight of rousing for hours upon hours, made worse by the knowledge that I would be given no reprieve when the sun rose. That was how I found myself watching the man watching us.

In due course, I inspected what so gripped his attention, but it was simply another hovel for a prisoner such as myself. Then one of those whip-bearing thugs posturing as men of the law passed by it. To my dismay, I watched as the neighboring prisoners were roused and together they dragged out the limp corpse of my fellow inmate. Like all who perished in the mine, the body was brought to the southern end of the pit. There, the salt water of the sea had infiltrated and claimed what had been a rich tunnel. His body was to be tied down with stones and sunk as is the burial of all prisoners here.

But the stranger was now watching me with the curious gaze of a hunting owl.

I retreated to the shadows of my cell, the drumming of my heart too great to even contemplate sleep. When the sun rose, he was nowhere to be seen, but I expect to find him again, if he is not busy with his alchemy. His is the gaze of death I feel.