The Fallen World

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.