Underland - Chapter 45: The Weight of Dreams

Liliane’s father, as usual for powerful people, made his guests wait at his leisure.

Valdemar had heard it was a power move among nobles and wealthy elites, but he thought the man would have made an exception for his own daughter. Apparently not. His servants pretended that Lord De Vane was busy with an important meeting that overstayed its welcome.

At least his “Sabaoth office” offered a welcome contrast with the rest of the Domain. The waiting room had enough stuffed chairs to house a dozen people, and even included its own fireplace. Paintings of De Vane Family members adorned the wall alongside tapestries, while the window offered a nice view of the foundries outside. Magical wards erased the noise from outside, giving the guests a degree of intimacy. Servants had left the group alone with refreshments, bidding them to wait until their master was ready to receive them.

While Iren had gone to carry out the favor his friend asked of him and Hermann examined the paintings in the room, Valdemar and Marianne were using the free-time productively. “So,” Valdemar resumed, Ktulu playing with a bone ship next to his chair, “Lady Mathilde taught you how to recreate her Elixir of Youth?”

“She didn’t teach me, but she gave me some insight into how it worked,” Liliane replied as she sank into her chair. “It uses advanced alchemy to revert the body to an earlier state registered in the body’s memory while leaving the soul untouched. However, if improperly prepared, the effect is partial, causing cancers, tumors…”

“Or making the body shrink down in age until they go back to a fetus?” Valdemar guessed.

Liliane forced herself to smile. “Lady Mathilde showed me the failed results of her prototypes and… they weren’t pretty.”

“But how would it help Bertrand?” Marianne asked with a frown, her arms crossed while her eyes wandered to the window and doors from time to time. She always remained wary of an attack. “The Beast Plague bonds with a target on a fundamental level.”

“Yes, but hear me out.” Liliane raised a finger, delighting at explaining to them her genius idea. “Lady Mathilde agreed to do a test on an infected subject. For a brief moment after taking the Elixir of Youth, their body reverted to a healthy state… only to be reinfected immediately.”

Valdemar’s eyes widened. “He carried the plague, but didn’t show the symptoms immediately?”

“Yes…” Hermann rasped as he turned away from the paintings to join the conversation. “The Beast Plague… it takes a moment to take root in someone’s flesh. For less than a few minutes… it circulates in the body, but doesn’t bond with it.”

“And that’s where I had a great idea,” Liliane said. “The Black Blood probably works the same way. We could restrain Bertrand, give him a shot of the Elixir of Youth, and then immediately extract the mutagens in his body before they bond to his flesh again. But we would need a good biomancer to run the procedure.”

“Not any biomancer…” Hermann countered. “If they extract the Black Blood… they will be in contact with it and risk mutating.”

“I can do it,” Valdemar replied firmly. “Even touching a Pleromian’s body didn’t affect me, and it was made of the stuff. But how many bottles of Elixir of Youth could we afford to use?”

Liliane’s enthusiasm faltered. “Precious few. It’s super complicated to make, and the wrong dose causes side-effects.”

So they couldn’t mass-produce it to cure the Beast Plague… not yet at least. And Bertrand would fight back while transformed. So long as the Black Blood held sway, he was little more than a savage hellhound for the Verney cult.

Valdemar kept his thoughts to himself, for Marianne’s face beamed with hope. For the first time in many weeks, they had a credible shot at curing her butler and friend. “I thank you, Liliane,” she said while offering Liliane a nod. “If this works…”

“It will.” Liliane took the older woman’s hand in her own. “I know you worry about him, but you aren’t facing this threat alone. They want to divide us with their lies and diseases because they know we will figure out a solution together.”

After so many nights of fighting, Valdemar found it relieving to watch Marianne’s face breathe in life and hope. Liliane’s warm personality had a way to reassure people, to convince them everything was alright. She would make a terrific politician, Valdemar thought, if she were a little less earnest.

“Now… the question is how we catch them unaware…” Hermann rasped as he glanced at Valdemar. “You are the best bait… and we know the place… where they gather.”

“If the Dark Lords allow us to strike them,” Valdemar pointed out. Lord Bethor had already all but stated that he would run the operation himself, and that his apprentices would have to follow his lead. “They might ask us to sit the conflict out or worse.”

“And something else… bothers me.” Hermann cleared his throat. “You said that in your dreams… the Lilith collected skins.”

Valdemar nodded slowly. “I didn’t understand why though.”

Liliane bit her lower lip, letting Marianne’s hand go. “They didn’t say it in the news, but…” she gulped. “Friends in Saklas told me that some of the murder victims had been flayed alive after being inflicted with the Beast Plague.”

Marianne’s hopeful expression turned into a scowl. “They’re harvesting them? For what, a ritual?”

Valdemar tried to remember his dreams the best he could. “I think they said something about calling a soul out from the darkness, or something along the that line. They needed a special container.”

“A Qlippoth?” Hermann asked. “Maybe they… intend to summon a Nahemoth.”

“Maybe,” Valdemar conceded with some skepticism, “but I don’t know any Qlippoth that needs wererat skins as part of its summoning ritual.”

“In any case, their crimes are clearly building up to something,” Marianne pointed out. “Whatever it is, we must strike them before they can finish their preparations.”

Valdemar could only agree with her.

“Ktulu!” The summoner looked at his left as his familiar raised his cracked bone-ship toy at him with a displeased look. “Ktulhulhu!”

“What is it?” Valdemar sighed as he realized Ktulu had broken his toy again. “Seriously, can’t you be more care—”

The summoner never finished his sentence. He had noticed something scratched on the toy’s side.

The bone-ship’s hull was an immaculate white, crafted from Valdemar’s own immortal body. But Ktulu had scratched something on its surface with its tiny claws. A set of symbols so tiny and crude that his summoner could barely identify them.

Numbers.

Thirty-eight, thirty-seven. Four, twenty. One-hundred and one, three…

Valdemar’s eyes widened as he understood the sequence’s significance, rising from his seat. “I need to go.”

“What?” Liliane blinked at her friend, as he grabbed Ktulu in his arms. “Right now?”

“It shouldn’t take long.” Now that he had learned to teleport, distance mattered little to him. “But I cannot bring you with me, Marianne.”

His partner didn’t hide her displeasure. “Where you go, I follow.”

“No. I am sorry, but not this time.” Lord Och would immediately detect her presence otherwise. “I swear I will be back soon.”

Marianne locked her gaze with him, and at this moment Valdemar seriously wondered if she could read his mind. “Are you truly certain?” she asked with worry, but Valdemar nodded all the same. “Alright then. But please be wary.”

“And return quickly,” Liliane asked with a frown. “If this is just an excuse to not wait with us, I’ll never forgive you.”

Valdemar offered her a nod as the fabric of space bent around him. He teleported away, leaving Sabaoth for another Domain.

All areas of Underland were bound by the Blood, from the lowest tunnel to the frontier of the world’s surface. The veins of Ialdabaoth had spread all over the planet like a tree’s roots, leaving no place unspoiled by their corruption.

Not even a Dark Lord’s vault.

Using the Blood and his connection to Ialdabaoth, Valdemar could teleport anywhere he wanted; so long as he had seen the place beforehand. And he had had enough experience with his master’s lair, both from his memory and that of his harvested soul.

Ignoring the gazes sent by the Pleromian statues as he walked towards the central vault, Valdemar examined his grandfather’s journal. “Thirty-eight,” he whispered to himself, flipping the pages. “Thirty-seven… not enough words…”

Ktulu hopped after him, glancing at the ruins with curiosity while it held its bony ship toy. Valdemar would have to destroy the item afterwards to prevent Lord Och from figuring out the truth, but for now the summoner had the benefit of time. His master was busy preparing for the Sabbath, and though his vault’s protective wards were advanced, Valdemar’s knowledge had grown in the past weeks. He could bypass them.

But who was he kidding? Of course Lord Och would know. Valdemar doubted that his master didn’t have redundant hidden systems to warn him about intrusions in his vault, even if the summoner couldn’t detect them. What mattered was that he wouldn’t learn about it quickly enough to interfere.

In fact, a part of Valdemar wanted the lich to know. He wished to show the ancient undead that his apprentice wasn’t some pawn he could manipulate at will and then callously throw his friends aside without repercussions. Even if Valdemar lacked the power to meaningfully challenge the Dark Lord, he would show that he had the resolve to try.

And if the summoner failed to activate the portal bloodlessly… then he would erase the activation codes again without the possibility of recovery, denying Lord Och the opportunity to kill anyone.

“Syllables,” Valdemar decided after counting the words. “Syllables it is.”

There was only one book in the world that Valdemar had almost entirely memorized by heart, the same way priests mastered scriptures of the Light. No one else could decode this series of numbers, because no one else understood its frame of reference.

And Ktulu… Valdemar had imprinted the sequence in its subconscious, without the familiar realizing its significance. A mind-reader wouldn’t have caught this information among the chaotic streams of thoughts of its childish spirit.

“I have the sequence now,” Valdemar whispered as he closed the journal and hid it beneath his scholarly robes. “I have to try… to make it work without any death…”

He walked into the Pleromian vault, facing the great slumbering portal. The underground was an empty tomb, silent and lifeless.

Valdemar approached the portal with his familiar following after him. The Pleromian soul inside him reacted to the device’s presence, the same way a faithful hound remembered the smell of an old house it had once called home. Valdemar’s fingers trailed against the archway’s alien metal, his fingers examining the structure while he analyzed it with his psychic sight.

Even after centuries of dormancy, the summoner could still sense the blood soaking the structure.

After having strengthened his magic under Lord Bethor’s tutelage and gathered knowledge from the Pleromian soul, Valdemar delved into the portal’s structure farther than ever before. He hadn’t noticed any soul within its archway the first time… but now that Valdemar examined the device more carefully, he realized he had been wrong.

There was at least one soul inside this portal, buried deep inside the steel. So old and ancient that Valdemar struggled to distinguish it from the portal’s matter. Was it all that remained of the portal’s original sacrifices? If so then it meant that Lord Och hadn’t yet sacrificed anyone to it.

“No time to waste,” Valdemar whispered as he looked under his clothes and brought out small bottles full of blood. Hermann had kindly contributed to it, alongside Iren. Valdemar would have added Frigga’s lifeblood as well if he could have, but he hoped that his own semi-divine lifeblood would compensate.

Soaking the archway with his friends’ blood, Valdemar bit his thumb and added his own body fluid to the mix. The fluids tainted the dark metal red, but didn’t form any magical crystal on its surface. A bad omen.

Valdemar spoke the syllables in the order detailed in his Ktulu’s message, and he sensed the portal answering his call. The device was too weak to open a breach, but it recognized the summoner’s mastery at least.

If Valdemar could open the gate through his own power and lifeblood, then nobody would have to die.

“Open the path,” Valdemar ordered while Ktulu watched. “Open the path to Earth. The Red Prince demands it.”

His blood floated out of his wound as the portal thrummed, the archway breathing like a living creature. Its heartbeat echoed across the vault, its surface brightening with sorcery.

And yet no tear in space opened.

Valdemar, who had so easily torn space apart by sacrificing the Pleromian and a Haunter, found the fabric of reality an impermeable fortress. The portal listened to his orders, but it didn’t help. The place he sought to access was too far away, the power offered insufficient to open a breach. Even though Valdemar was a demigod, the prince of the Blood and scion of an ancient deity, the toll of passage was far too great for his meager offering.

The portal hungered for far more than blood. It needed a rarer resource, a fuel as precious as the burning heart of stars. It craved souls.

And not just any kind. As Valdemar’s spirit worked in tune with the portal’s magical architecture, he realized that only specific souls would do. Summoned creatures could be slain on this metal altar, but their souls would resist and fight back. Unless they gave their lives away, surrendered themselves wholly and fully to the steel, their strength would be turned inward rather than outward. So long as a spirit longed for life and freedom, it would never work in harmony with the portal. Only martyrs willing to offer everything would do.

And the plane he sought to access demanded very specific sacrifices. The blood of plants and lizards, of mammals and fish and birds. Valdemar felt a phantom connection between this portal and the Earth he craved so much, brought about by his blood. His own soul alone could fuel the device… or that of a carefully selected lot.

Nothing else would work.

Valdemar deactivated the portal with the command codes as a tear failed to materialize, the archway returning to sleep. His blood hadn’t yet dried on the archway, nor had Hermann’s.

“It is useless,” a familiar voice said. “I already tried.”

Valdemar tensed up, as he heard Lord Och’s footsteps behind him. Ktulu immediately hid behind its master. The familiar was wary of Lord Bethor, but something about Och frightened it to the bone.

“Blood is a good fuel, but it is neither rare nor precious.” The lich walked at his apprentice’s side, gazing at the bodily fluids soaking the portal. “A little food and your body produces more all the time. Souls though? Souls are priceless… especially when willingly offered. Not even a god’s blood is an acceptable substitute.”

Valdemar glared at his master. “Shouldn’t you be preparing for the Sabbath, my teacher?”

“Shouldn’t you be visiting Young Liliane’s father, apprentice?”

There was no escape.

“You knew all along, didn’t you?” Valdemar asked in defiance.

“I may not look like it, but I am an immortal creature with more years than you can count. I have schemed and plotted for centuries. Few tricks may surprise me.” The lich chuckled. “I take back what I just said. My, why are you thinking of Pleromian orgies of all things?”

Valdemar remained silent as a tomb, but the undead archmage was wise enough to figure it out.

“Ah, clever apprentice, you are using what little remains of the Pleromian’s soul as a screen so I cannot read your thoughts. Truly inventive… but alas, futile.” Lord Och glanced at the empty archway. “I learned the portal’s codes within the first five minutes of our dear Pleromian guest’s electrotherapy. Even if you deactivate the device, a mere word will wake it up.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?”

The Dark Lord said a few ancient words of power, and Valdemar heard the portal stir in response. The machinery of the Pleromians answered Lord Och’s call, before falling asleep once again.

A crushing weight of despair and impotent rage fell on Valdemar’s shoulders, as he realized it had all been a trick. “It’s impossible,” he muttered. “You couldn’t… you couldn’t possibly anticipate…”

“You foolish disciple, have you learned nothing? I know all of your plans before they even cross your mind, because a long, long time ago…” The lich waved a hand at his chest, and then in his apprentice’s direction. “I was exactly like you.”

“I’m nothing like you!” Valdemar spat. “I wouldn’t betray people who trusted me for my personal gain!”

“What betrayal are you accusing me of?”

“Is it true?” Valdemar rasped, trying to keep his anger in check. “Did you truly gather the scholars for the express purpose of sacrificing them? Did you give these people hope and knowledge, only to fatten them like beasts for the slaughter?”

The answer was swift, the tone casual.

“Yes, of course.” The lich didn’t bother to deny it. “It’s not a betrayal, since I would have needed to care first. Young Hermann, Liliane, even Marianne… they are like giant beetles to me. We breed these creatures to carry loads and win races. Then when they grow too old or weak to serve and start to cost more to keep alive than dead, we eat them and harvest their parts. I do not despise these people, nor do I appreciate them.”

The Dark Lord chuckled.

“I feel nothing for them.”

Valdemar’s fists clenched in rage. “You invented the Soulstones,” the summoner realized. “Did you release that magical knowledge only so you could have a supply of souls to fuel your devices?”

His question amused the lich. “Oh my, did you expect a heart of gold buried somewhere in my rib cage? If so, Young Valdemar, you haven’t been paying attention. I discarded my heart long ago and looked down on humanity ever since.”

Truth be told, yes, Valdemar had hoped that a sliver of nobility remained in the Dark Lord. He had spent so long looking for a flicker of light inside the undead that he missed the darkness all around it.

“Then why haven’t you sacrificed them already?” Valdemar asked warily, trembling with anger. “Why?”

“Why would I?” The lich’s answer surprised his apprentice. “Between us, I never intended to use this portal to open a gate to Earth. Or any other planet for that matter.”

Valdemar squinted in disbelief, but his undead teacher sounded completely serious. “You didn’t?”

“I pursue higher stakes.” Lord Och put his hands behind his back, his gaunt figure casting a dark shadow. “Freedom.”

Valdemar frowned, Ktulu’s six eyes glaring at Och with an expression that his summoner had never seen before. Something between wariness and childish disdain. “Freedom?” Valdemar whispered, trying to make sense out of the lich’s motivations.

“Not the kind of liberty that your young, untested mind can fathom,” Lord Och replied. “Freedom from this pointless cycle of life and death, from the expectations of citizens and the laws that govern this lesser universe.”

The lich’s voice brimmed with resentment and bitterness. His words sounded too venomous not to be genuine.

“I can hardly stand this cage of stone anymore, this… this prison of flesh and life and death.” The lich glared at the stone ceiling of the vault. “This world of matter keeps my soul anchored to a lesser existence as surely as gravity. Lichdom gave me a little more leeway, but alas, I remain bound to the laws of nature. For now at least. Even though I could escape this doomed planet for another, I would only be trading cells.”

“You want to achieve a higher state of existence.” Valdemar’s eyes widened at the depth of his master’s limitless ambition. “To follow in Lord Bethor’s footsteps and become a Stranger.”

“In a way… but it is too early for us to discuss this yet.” Lord Och shrugged as he changed the subject. “I had considered using this portal in a pinch, yes, hence why I gathered the necessary fuel in my Institute. But these beetles have so far proven more useful alive than dead, so I decided to spare them. I do not want to access Earth all that much.”

Lord Och raised a bony finger at Valdemar’s heart, his skull grinning wickedly.

“But you do.”

Only then did Valdemar begin to fathom the depth of the lich’s cruelty. “No,” the summoner whispered. “Never.”

“It is the only way to achieve your dream, Young Valdemar. Unless, of course, you sacrifice yourself to become the gate.”

“I can find other people,” Valdemar protested, Ktulu squealing behind him. “Prisoners of war, enemies…”

“But the problem will remain the same.” The lich’s laughter reverberated across the chamber. “You will convince others to martyr themselves so you do not have to. Because as much as you pretend otherwise and cloak your true goal behind high-minded aspirations, this is all about you reaching Earth. You could have only opened the path to a better future for your kind since the moment you visited the Silent King, but you refused to.”

“Why should anybody have to sacrifice anything?” Valdemar argued. “There has to be another way!”

“Which one? Pictomancy? The painted doorway was only made possible because of a Stranger’s cooperation on the other side, and it came with a price. Temporary tears demand sacrifices and as you have seen, they never last long. Otto Blutgang could have helped, but you burned that bridge when you refused to compromise on your morals. Because you always refuse to make sacrifices.”

Valdemar stood firm in his decision. “The cost of allying with the Derros was too great.”

“And what cost will be small enough for you?” Lord Och asked with clear amusement. “I believe you do not want to pay anything, you greedy little child. No more than I do.”

Valdemar ground his teeth, refusing to be folded in the same category as this cold, heartless creature. “There has to be another way.”

“I have spent centuries trying to find one. If you discover another method, be my guest.”

“There is another portal in Ariouth,” Valdemar whispered, grasping at any option. “You said it yourself. Maybe it can work differently.”

Lord Och chuckled mirthlessly. “Even if you manage to fool my former apprentice and access the device, you shall be disappointed… as I was. And the more you wait, the more our kind shall suffer. This world was doomed the moment the Whitemoon arrived, and Ialdabaoth’s awakening can only be delayed. We are but pawns in a great war that will consume this planet, as it did with so many others. The longer you delay, the greater the risk we all perish for nothing.”

“You’re wrong!” Valdemar argued, his familiar wincing as he raised his voice. “Maybe Ialdabaoth’s awakening is inevitable, but if we keep delaying it, it will never happen! It won’t escape its binding under my watch!”

“Well then, mankind shall continue to suffer from the lack of space, the plagues, the Strangers, the wars, and the depredation of monsters. Our souls will feed our father’s bottomless appetite while you waver.” The Dark Lord tilted his head to the side like a curious cat. “What I mean to say apprentice, is that somebody will pay a toll for your decisions. If you want to achieve your dreams, you will have to decide who shall bear the burden; or the choice will be forced upon you.”

Valdemar shivered as the memories of the Outer Darkness flooded his mind. He remembered the dark abyss of souls condemning mankind to oblivion after death… and Otto Blutgang would only offer the slavery of steel while they lived.

Everywhere he looked, he had seen Strangers and monsters tormenting mankind. Shelley and his plagues were but the latest stage of this endless war against civilization, but horrors like the Nightwalker would persist long after the rat’s death. The longer mankind withered in these tunnels, the more souls would suffer.

And all he had to do to save them all was to open the path to a better place. To sacrifice his chance to see the sun for the sake of others. Why? the summoner wondered. Why can I open the path to paradise, and yet be condemned to stay on the doorstep?

“Why did you lead me to Blutgang?” Valdemar asked, his voice breaking. “If you had no desire to open this portal, then why did you put me through these sick mind-games?”

“I wished to see if you had it in you to defy me. I do not want a weak-willed follower for an apprentice, and I was pleasantly surprised by your initiative.” Lord Och chuckled. “This was all for your sake, obviously. I gave you options, let you find your own way. As I told you, the only person who can decide who you are… is you, Valdemar.”

The Dark Lord’s shadow seemed to lengthen, covering his apprentice in a blanket of cold and darkness. “Yes, I could sacrifice all your ‘friends’ to the portal and open the gate to Earth. You would blame me and achieve your dream free of guilt. But that won’t happen. You alone will bear the weight of your dream.”

The lich narrowed his skull, his baleful gaze swallowing Valdemar’s vision.

“The choice is all yours.”

The Time Has Come