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Algol - Part 1

     Despite his words to the spectre, Malefactos had no intention of delaying long before proceeding to the centre of Arnor.

     The Necropolis was a cold, dismal place, even to the rak, and there wasn’t much to see that he hadn’t seen in the first half hour. He saw more gangs of skeletons and zombies busily rebuilding the city under the direction of cropazombies or other intermediate types of undead. He saw other areas that hadn’t been reached by them yet where buildings still lay in crumbling ruins covered by the shriveled, dead remains of weeds and shrubbery. He saw the occasional stone building that had somehow managed to survive the centuries more or less intact, usually a museum, a theatre, a school or some other public building, and he had wandered in and out of them, finding nothing of interest whatsoever. He had also seen the occasional higher undead. Ghosts, wraiths or other spirits, flitting around the dead city like fish in a coral reef, engaged upon who knew what kind of business, or perhaps just dreaming of the city as it had been, back in its days of glory.

     By the end of the day he was thoroughly bored and, deciding that he’d done enough to make his point to the Circle of Raks, he turned towards the centre of the city. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps, though, when a strange and rather disconcerting feeling came over him. It was a little like the feeling of being watched, and it was so strong that he spun around so see whether another messenger of the Circle had come to spy on him. To his relief, though, there was nothing and no-one to be seen anywhere around him, and he continued walking on again. Suddenly he froze as he realised what he’d just done. He’d been relieved to find that he was still alone. Relieved! He realised with a considerable shock that whatever this feeling was, it was scaring him.

     He looked around more carefully, this time examining his surroundings with the full range of his rak senses augmented by the power of the Crown of Auros. There was something there, he now realised, hovering above the partially rebuilt shell of an old courthouse about fifty yards away. Something he couldn’t quite see, whose form and outline he couldn’t quite make out, but it was intelligent, beyond a doubt, and it was evil, and it was powerful, and it was watching him.

     Real fear took a firm hold on him and it took an act of will to prevent himself from backing away from the apparition, from activating his Robes of Flying and fleeing the area as fast as he could. “I am Malefactos,” he whispered to himself, making it a litany to ward off the fear. “I am Malefactos. I am Malefactos. I am Malefactos.” This time, though, it didn’t work, and the fear remained like a cold lump of lead in the pit of his stomach.

     He forced himself to face the apparition and confront it. “What are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

     The apparition didn’t respond, but it began to move, dropping down towards ground level and drifting towards him, and this time the rak did back away, despite his every effort not to do so. He could sense the appalling power of this creature, whatever it was, and he could sense that it was angry with him. Very angry indeed.

     This wasn’t exactly the way he’d planned things, to be searched for and found out like a naughty child caught trespassing in a rich man’s garden, but he told himself that it still suited his plans well enough. He’d been planning to make contact with the Circle of Raks soon anyway, and he’d always known that fooling them into thinking that he genuinely wanted to join them would mean sacrificing some of his pride and dignity. He’d known that he’d have to pretend to be afraid of them, but what he hadn’t counted on was encountering a being so powerful that he wouldn’t have to pretend. What kind of creature was this, he wondered as it came to a halt about a dozen feet away, hovering at eye level. A demon of some kind? No, because his rak senses detected a faintly human quality about it, as if it had once been human, and he realised with a shock that it was a rak, like him.

     No, not like him, he amended as he felt the raw power of the creature again, radiating in all directions like the stench from a puddle of sour milk. This was a being far, far older than himself, so old that it had advanced the art of magic to a level he could only dream of. So old that what remained of its undead body had completely disintegrated, consisting now of only a handful of dust on the floor of some long forgotten mausoleum. But if there’d been a rak this powerful in the world, he’d have been aware of it years ago! No matter what spells of concealment it had been using to avoid detection, no matter what runes of hiding it had employed. If there’d been a creature as powerful as this sharing the world with him, then he, Malefactos, would have known it.

     There was only one possible answer. This being was not native to this world. This was a creature that had been born on some far distant world, perhaps in a completely different universe. It had lived his or her whole life there and then become a rak in the proper course of things, until his world had been conquered by the Shadowlord, exactly as this world was now being conquered. The rak had been part of the Shadowlord’s army on that other world, part of its Circle of Raks, and when that world had fallen he had left to carry the war to new worlds, one after another after another. Growing more powerful all the time until he had reached this towering pinnacle of achievement.

     Fool! Malefactos cursed himself as he realised how completely outmatched he was by this being. Of course he was more powerful than anything else originating on this world, but his arrogance and pride had blinded him to the possibility that the Shadowlord might have brought along veterans from his victories on other worlds. Too late now, though. Far, far too late. Now there was nothing he could do except go ahead with his original plan and hope against hope that the creature facing him suspected nothing.

     All these thoughts flashed through his mind in a few seconds as the two raks faced each other in the ruined street, and with them came the name of this creature, a name he had heard for the first time only a few short hours before. “Algol.”

     Algol acknowledged the greeting by becoming visible for the first time, and as Malefactos watched in fearful fascination, the spectral outline of a human being began to take form. It was male, very tall but skinny as a rake so that his dark robes hung like rags on a scarecrow. He was old, as old as the stars themselves perhaps, and only a few scraps of snow white hair clung to his smooth, mottled scalp. His hands were thin and bony with bulging knuckles where he gripped a long spectral staff, and his face was lined and gaunt, with a long thin nose and prominent cheekbones, but he radiated the same soul freezing cold as Malefactos and his eyes blazed with such malevolent glee that the younger rak found himself unable to meet his gaze.

     “Aye, I am Algol,” replied the apparition, taking a couple of steps forward, “and thou art Malefactos, youngest but most promising of all the raks this world has to offer. In time, thou mayst become one of the Bone Prince’s most valued servants. Thou hast the potential, but first thou hast much to learn. Learn well and thou hast a mighty future ahead of thee, but learn not well and thou hast no future at all. Do I make my meaning clear?”

     Anger and fear warred within Malefactos, and the younger rak struggled to control the fear while allowing it to show in his face and actions. “You do, sir,” he replied, “and I beg forgiveness for ignoring your earlier summons. I meant no disrespect, I assure you. I simply had no idea that one such as you could be found among the Shadowlord’s ranks. I thought, in my ignorance, that the Circle of Raks contained only undead wizards from this world. Externums with no University training who attained their present rank despite, rather than because of, the teachings of their masters."

     “Aye, I know this well,” said Algol, “for my presence on this world is known to but a few, and so thy earlier attitude is understandable. The Circle is indeed worthy only of contempt, for all that they perform their duties adequately. Still, thy insolence to my messenger must be punished.”

     He began to cast a spell, and Malefactos raced to cast a defensive spell to ward it off. The younger rak finished his spell first, since by their very nature defensive spells have to be quick to cast, and a shell of magical energy sprang into being around him; a shell so strong that any ordinary wizard could have cast spells at it all day without denting it in the slightest. To his horror, though, the spell cast by Algol tore effortlessly through it, and the younger rak felt an awful twisting, a sickening wrenching, as the older rak’s magic had its effect on him. A moment later Malefactos had vanished, and in his place was a tiny white maggot, wriggling in terror in the dust and rubble of the ruined street.

     Algol, whose spectral form had now become almost as solid as living human flesh, reached down and picked up the maggot, watching it with his cold, cruel eyes as it wriggled around in the palm of his hand. “In that form thou shalt remain until it pleases me to change thee back,” he said. “Learn thy lesson well, Malefactos, for the task of teacher is hard and seldom rewarding. It is often easier and far more satisfying to simply destroy an errant pupil.”

     The spectral rak then cast a mind reading spell, intending to examine Malefactos’s memories of the events that had brought him here. Though his body was transformed, however, Malefactos’s mind was completely unaffected and he’d expected to have to undergo some kind of telepathic interrogation some time or other. His true memories of recent events would reveal him as a spy, of course, and there was no telling what Algol would do to him if he found that out, but fortunately the younger rak had taken precautions that would, hopefully, preserve his cover.

     A simple mental shield to block out Algol’s probe would have been useless, since he could simply increase the power of the probe until he broke through (Malefactos did, in fact, have a mental shield anyway. The Circle of Raks would have been instantly suspicious if his mind had been too open). An amulet of mind protection, as used by the clay men and the questers currently languishing on Kronos, would probably have been equally useless, as any really experienced telepath would have spotted the deception at once and he’d had to count on there being at least one such person in the Circle. No, he’d decided that something considerably more sophisticated would be needed and so, before leaving his castle on Sereena, he’d spent a whole day and a night constructing a mental mask for himself.

     A mental mask was a collection of false memories that a mind reader would read and, hopefully, believe to be his real memories. It was risky, as the mind reader would only have to look a little deeper to see the real memories beneath, but if he thought he’d already found what he was looking for, then hopefully he wouldn’t feel the need to look deeper.

     Mentally crossing his fingers, therefore, Malefactos raised the mask into position and strengthened his shields as much as he could, now confident that no shield, no matter how powerful, would be able to keep Algol’s probe out. Sure enough, a moment later, his shields were penetrated as easily as his earlier defensive spell had been, and the older rak began to subject his mask to the most minute, meticulous scrutiny. He saw Malefactos’s futile quest for the secret of immortality, how he’d been on the verge of a crucial breakthrough when the other University wizards had become aware of what he was doing and moved to stop him, invading his laboratory, destroying his equipment and burning all his notes. Algol nodded in approval as he read about Malefactos’s revenge. His devastating strike against the University which had left three senior wizards dead and dozens wounded before he’d been forced to flee to Sereena to escape their wrath. There, Malefactos had turned himself into a rak in order to avoid death from overuse of magic and had decided to revenge himself upon the University even more by answering the Shadowlord’s call.

     The spectral rak then read about Malefactos’s first tentative forays into the Shadow. His caution and fear about jumping straight into the unknown and his consequent decision to have a look around first, to find out what exactly he was getting himself into. From that point on the mask came to an end and Algol found himself reading the truth about Malefactos’s explorations, with only his true motives for being there being hidden. When he got to the point where the younger rak had abducted the ghost of Sharmos Attwin and forced him to act as a guide, however, Algol gave a snort of annoyance and, with a snap of his fingers, produced the diamond within which he was imprisoned.

     Algol spoke a word and the ghost was released, to immediately grovel at his feet, begging piteously.

     “Thou hast deserted thy post,” said the older rak.

     “Forgive me, lordly one!” begged the ghost, twisting his hat in his hands. “He gave me no choice! He threatened me with the most terrible tortures if I refused!”

     “What is pain, what is suffering, compared with the joy of serving the Shadowlord?” replied Algol. “He trusted thee, and thou hast betrayed him. Thou must pay the price.”

     “Mercy, mercy, lordly one!” begged the ghost, pressing his incorporeal head to the ground and grasping at the rak’s legs. “Have mercy on me!”

     Algol ignored his pleas, however, and spoke another word, transforming the groveling ghost into a statue of cold iron, doomed to remain kneeling there until the end of time.

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