Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

The harbor of Mayoi was cool and lifeless. Once it had been fairly busy with fishermen, working the shallow waters inside the Shoreward, at least judging by the docks extending out into the waters. The docks were built low so rafts and shallow-drafting rounded boats could be unloaded easily from them, if not simply hauled ashore when the work was done in the evening. The shallow waters extended for some distance, giving the city a fairly decent income from the sea, along with shelter from the worst of the storms coming off the sea.

Now, the boats were broken, decaying things scattered across the beach, many of them burned for fires at some point or another. Skeletal troops and the occasional undead commander stood motionless at attention, the only thing moving about them scraps of armor or uniforms blowing in the breeze as they threatened to tear off or drop away, yet never did.

There were hundreds of them, easily equal to the numbers up in Hebian-to. But where MacNaill’s lot of fools were multi-racial and a motley assortment of adventurers, brigands, and former soldiers, these unliving warriors were almost all clad in Sho armor and bearing weapons of that culture. They’d taken some steps to maintain their gear, even in the apathy of their undead state, and their formations and pickets were disciplined, evenly spaced, and ready to act.

The buildings had at least been completely cleaned up, even if they weren’t repaired to their former states, especially artistically. The signs of the Fall were apparent on almost every building, either with signs of combat magical or martial, or charred scars from feedback from the ley lines rupturing out here and there.

I eyed the sprawl of buildings around the harbor area, thinning out rapidly as they moved away from the shore or the city’s center.

The center of the city was remarkably hilly compared to the other cities on the island we’d been to, but it only added to the charm, as the up and down slopes had been worked with trails and terraces in the Sho style. While such were damaged and no longer as artistic as they once were, they were still in shape and maintained at least enough to be useful, so people and undead were following the trails and paths instead of tramping all over the place.

The central pagoda of Mayoi, with a flame burning atop it and multiple skeletons standing vigil up there, was naturally where the Master was. With a word to Gunzo Tokukawa, the Mick took us on a short tour of the center of the city, specifically four locations.

We looked upon the bronzed Statue of one of the more earthen golums, sitting up there on its pedestal of verdigris. There were scars and gouges all over it that had not quite been fixed properly, testaments to a great number of fights that it had been used in. The Mick reported that it was mobilized at least once a month, and usually ended up destroyed when it was, mostly lugian forces sweeping down out of the hills to the north to assault the town with bellowing Summons.

Then there was the ruptured pit with dimensional energies, which were ubiquitous to most of the towns. The Mick explained that place was once the Town Portal network access, which had once linked all the towns of the people of Ispar, regardless of how far-flung they were. It was possible to walk from one end of Dereth to the other in just a couple minutes using the network, but the whole thing had imploded and vanished at the Fall, and those who’d worked inside it were gone and presumed lost forever.

Its loss had been one of the huge blows to humanity and its allies on Dereth.

The third was what we were now informed were the Allegiance Hall pits. The classic-style building had held a Portal to a meeting chamber suitable for assemblies and performances, which had become the gaping cavern that had erupted into existence under each one of them, precipitating the heavy stone of the outside facade to crash through the ceiling and open it up to the world.

Here in Mayoi, similar to Hebian-to, it had been dutifully excavated and turned into a barracks and storage area for the city and the undead. The latter didn’t rest here so much as walk in and simply stop moving or thinking, time passing by in whispers and mists, until they were called forth to do their duty once more.

The last, naturally enough, was the Deathstone pit.

There was an ornate and well-maintained Joji shrine before and about the pit, and that location was where the last of the Royal Scouts had assembled to meet us, paying their respects to the dead. The building nearby had been designated as quarters for the living, many of the skeletons finding it difficult to tell between who of the living were friends or foes. As such, they’d waited here for the Mick to arrive, adding another four to the numbers of his students.

The reports waited as the Mick shushed them, watching Princess Kristie and I step forwards to the Deathstone pit.

It was at least as densely packed as Hebian-to’s had been, if not moreso. The screaming, ossified remains of adventurers and powerful warriors of all the allied races were untouched. Slain in mid-resurrection, their skulls were screaming and psychic wails and cries permeating the space about the place as restless souls unable to accept their doom swirled about in the energy wrought from an unregulated ley line. The ruptured, spitting energy from the Deathstone suffused everything, its fragments yet sticking out of the ground in all directions, often impaling multiple half-formed corpses.

The crystals still gleamed, as if ready to be drawn out and impale more souls.

The only motion from Kris was the flaring of her nostrils, and a deadly, burning fire deep in her purple eyes.

Quaver rang out, a solemn and sad ding! ting! echoing out and turning the eyes of all the undead in the area in her direction. The Lost Light swirled around the adamantine length of a Blade that was suddenly the most real thing in all the world to their eyes, its workmanship stamping itself upon empty eye sockets as she stepped forward and gently began to sweep her Blade back and forth.

In the darkness of the night, it was a brilliant Light that could not be ignored.

Bones rattled all around, and ghostly sighs began to fill the air as motes of Lost Light trailing vivus washed out over the dead and those damnable crystals, and they began to Burn in unwhite fire.

She was neither fast nor slow, but she was very thorough. Glowing particles spattered across petrified bones, none escaping her as Quaver rang softly, pulling in the skeletons and undead around to watch as the whirlwind nexus of pain and death that circled about the pit, as real as a tornado to the dead, began to still, to go quiet, and slowly and peacefully Burn away.

There was someone new standing next to the Mick.

His armor was completely bone-white, done in the high samurai tradition, but he wore no helm, and carried only an immaculate daisho set at his waist. White was the color of death among the Sho, and so he stood there, not an ounce of flesh upon a naked skull, hot white lights burning deep in empty eye sockets, watching as Kris and Quaver laid the spirits here finally to rest.

A dozen powerful undead and skeletal subordinates had gathered behind the Master, all of their armors laminated in the hues of clan and family, but also chased with bone-white in the same pattern as every single unliving officer I’d seen, including Gunzo Tokukawa. Some held spears or naginatas, but all of them wore swords, and not all of them in the Sho style, either.

Hollow eyes stared at the unwhite bonfire leaking heavy mist into the ground, like a great blazing flame in the middle of a winter storm, beckoning the dead to finally rest.

“I am Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs of the Empire of Ispar!” Kris’ voice rang out, despite being only a whisper, and the whole unliving population of Mayoi shivered to hear it. “There is an old saying in many cultures that have a warrior’s code, that ‘only in death does duty end.’

“You have proven that saying is a lie.

“You have abandoned what should have been your rest to take up your duty and safeguard those who yet live, your kin and kind, your friends and family.

“You are fools. The most noble and valiant kind of fools.

“I promise you this. I will return with those you have warded with your lives and your deaths. They will take up your duties, and finally allow you to rest, to be free of this foolishness you chose on their behalf.

“Receive the Salute of the Rose, noble fools, on behalf of all those living you have saved, and who will one day return to save you!”

Quaver etched the air, Lost Light wove as she danced, and colors of ki and magic swirled as her dance reached past the visible to the spiritual. She wove into being a thing of wondrous, sublime beauty, a beauty even undead eyes could see and appreciate.

The glowing Rose was more perfect than any such flower could grow, woven of love and harmony and serenity, everything these men and women had died for. It glowed for them, the Lost Light swirling before them as her promise swept them up and in.

Tired, dutiful old souls found that they could glow and rise once more. Bones crackled as the unliving straightened themselves, feeling the regard of the living once more, knowing that they were seen, they were acknowledged, and that those they protected would return to finally let them know peace.

They were not forgotten, and would never be!

---

Princess Kristie stepped over to face the skeletal master standing next to the Mick. “Master Ben Ten, I presume? Your reputation precedes you, Elder.” She bowed respectfully to him, Quaver executing an elaborate flourish that conveyed subtle things only a master of the blade could really understand. “I am Kristie Rantha-Briggs of the House of Briggs, Second Imperial Princess of the Empire of Ispar.”

“You are a student of the Sword,” the hollow, yet strong and cultured voice of the dead master returned to her, bowing to equal depth in a show of respect for her station. “Forgive me for ignorance of your family, as the Empire you represent is far from here.”

“Truer words are seldom spoken, Elder!” she agreed with a suddenly cheerful smile. “Rest assured that I am not resting on the laurels of my family name and status. I merely find it helps with a lot of minor problems that might need to otherwise be solved with plentiful applications of skull-cracking to claim it ahead of time and, well, if people wish to be rude, things may continue with somewhat more practical applications, as opposed to diplomatic ones.”

“Lord Mick, you have brought in another one who is too much like yourself,” the Master noted to the living man next to him.

The Mick just beamed. “Aye, she’s high country Aluvian, right enough, Master, although from the other side o’ the valleys,” he managed in jovially disparaging tones. “Me uncle knows her father an’ her mother from, ah, personal experience, back on Ispar. Right terrors the both o’ them. She’s got quite the tales to tell o’ back home.”

“I look forward to hearing them. Shall we have some tea?” the great swordsman proposed, waving his hand toward the pagoda, while his students and lieutenants quickly sent the gathered unliving troops back to their stations.

“Of course!” Princess Kristie agreed, and off we went to enjoy some undead hospitality.

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Note that Master Ben Ten was years before the cartoon, and Ben is his family name!...