Tenebroum

Chapter 180: Setting the Table

Without checking the Skoeticnomikos, Tenebroum was uncertain exactly how many years it had labored to erode the bulwark that was the All-Father. The God was a craggy edifice of pure tradition and willpower, so any normal effort to do what the Lich was doing might well take a millennium. It was certain its plans would come to fruition much faster.

Gods weren’t immortal, though. Tenebroum had proved that already, and this had already been going on for more than a decade, so it was sure that it would bear fruit soon. Of course, it had believed the same thing about that cursed Lunaris until recently, it thought with rising bitterness.

Then, just like that, his whole plan had been apparently undone, and she was whole once more. The moon had apparently recovered seemingly overnight from the terrible poison it had injected her with. Its Queen of Thorns could devour a thousand lesser nature goddesses, and it wouldn’t be worth half what it might have been to bring the moon down. So, now, the Lich was redoubling its efforts. It would not allow another of these troublesome gods to slip through its fingers.

So, now, instead of basking in the prayers of its worshipers and priests as it had done while it watched her slowly fade to nothing, it stormed around the catacombs at the heart of its lair like a dark storm, causing terror and exaltation in its worshipers by turns. Now, it was focused. Now, it was monitoring the progress of every major effort. The Lich sent messengers to every corner of its dark empire with demands for updates and new, more ambitious orders. The Lich did not know what happened, but it would find a way to have its revenge.

The only plan that had born fruit, in recent memory, were the efforts of its huntress and hound. They had located what was very probably the third part of this dark godling it had sought for so long. That was tantalizing, and Tenebroum was sure that it would learn much before it devoured them.

The find was being transported night by night under guard. So, it would yet be weeks before the seal sarcophagus arrived, but that was acceptable.

The Lich would use that time to prepare a secure area for study. It was imperative that it understand those three strange divinities and the way that their broken souls fit together. That said, it was equally imperative that they not join together until or unless it decided that was the correct move. Layers of binding runes and wards would be prepared. Each cell would be ringed with all the names it knew for these little monsters so that it could experiment on them as long as it wanted.

Until that good news was received, though, things had been quiet. The Voice of Reason was still on her way back south and had claimed a new island of primitive worshipers for its growing religion, and its armies to the north were making only limited headway against the humans they faced off against there. It would seem that they learned from the slaughter of their cousins to the south. There had not yet been any reports of light-eyed Templars, but the men of the north had their own magics that were proving to be quite formidable. Tenebroum was looking forward to learning those as well.

None of that was as important as the news that the All-Father was on the verge of cracking, though. That report had caused it to drop everything and rush to the giant storehouse where it kept the trove of dwarven artifacts that it had sacked and stolen during the endless guerilla wars that Krulm’venor was engaged in.

In almost all cases, weapons, armor, and jewelry were melted down and put to work in other, more important projects. That was both because they had no apparent effect on the God and because it could get such rare metals nowhere else. Mithril was scarce, even to a dwarf, but their tombs were full of the stuff, and the Lich would put it all to use.

The crystalline skulls of the honored dead, though, those had a higher purpose, and of the hundreds of thousands of such things it had stolen so far, nearly a hundred thousand had been tainted and then placed in the ever-growing cathedral that Verdein had been constructing for some time now.

It wasn’t complete. In fact, it might never be complete, but that didn’t stop it from being ready for its purpose. Already almost fifty thousand skulls had been added to the niches carved into place. That number would only grow over time, but the summoning circle that was its primary focus had long since been completed. It had to be; the Lich had long been ready to face the All-Father, but soon the All-Father would be ready as well.

Still, even incomplete, the thing was a sight to behold. It was a giant cylinder a dozen stories tall, built to mock Mourn-den, and other smaller ossuaries that the dwarves had built over the centuries. Hundreds of thousand eyeless skulls would stare down at a broken anvil in the center. That would be the only monument to the dwarves left when its servant had finished scourging them from the underworld.

Monument or not, though, each soul that the Lich tainted was a drop of poison in the blood of the All-Father, and though dwarves could resist poison better than anyone, they were not immune.

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In some way, it had yet to fully understand the souls of the dead dwarves still existed in both their remains and their God. It was a duality that should have made the God even more powerful. Tenebroum had used such techniques for the ring that bound its power to the world like a scar. Should it even be defeated on the battlefield, the magics that swirled thickly in those bloody passages would birth it once more.

Well, some version of it at least. The Lich did not like to contemplate the possibility. It felt too much like a pretender rising up to take its throne. It would prefer that a Tenebroum be the one to conquer the world, of course, but in reality, it would accept no one else.

That duality did not strengthen the dwarven God as it strengthened Tenebroum, though, because it left pieces of itself scattered across the world in a way that anyone might take them. This gave the dwarven deity a terrible weakness. Anywhere those remains were scattered around haphazardly, they created a terrible vulnerability.

Now, after tirelessly exploiting that vulnerability with the souls of goblins and profane symbols, things were finally bearing fruit. Now, some of the skulls they had not yet defiled were already found dim and damaged in the piles. The damage that its servants had been causing for so long was adding up, and every day, the divinity was getting closer and closer to collapse. Tenebroum could feel it.

That was why it was unwilling to slow or slacken. Instead, it sent more wraiths to probe the Iron City for weaknesses and ways in even as it devoted more servants to the cause of inflicting a death by a hundred thousand cuts on its enemy.

The dwarves would have certainly called it dishonorable. In fact, they did, often. The spirits that were bound to the horrible tasks wailed and chaffed against their task, the same way that Krulm’venor had early on. They cursed the Lich for making them do this, and they swore that it would be defeated. It made no effort to silence these complaints. It enjoyed them. The only thing sweeter than the prayers of the devout were the curses of the suffering, and it soaked them all in.

None of that stopped their busy hands from doing an excellent job of defaming and tormenting their elders who still dwelled within their God. Now, though, the work was spreading. The curses were appearing on skulls that had not yet been intentionally tainted, which meant that the cracks it had long sought to create in the armored edifice of dwarven faith were spreading on their own. Things like this tended not to move all for a long time before moving suddenly and sharply, like an avalanche.

Tenebroum no longer restlessly passed through its lair looking for answers regarding the moon or status updates for other projects. Instead, it haunted those dark and spacious rooms, watching for more signs of stress that indicated that its long-planned schism was imminent.

The avatars of the All-Father had taken the field on more than one occasion. They were mighty if temporary things. Soon, though, that cosmic craftsman wouldn’t have enough power to enchant a sword or an axe, let alone channel a spell like that to his priests.

For weeks, the only thing that it did beyond lurk and watch was to order Krulm’venor to prepare to assault the Iron City itself. Such an attack would be suicide, even for its fire godling. The same might be true if it sent a dozen armies, though. The giant city buried hundreds of feet below the ground was a fortress that was utterly immune to any conventional attack it could think of. That was why it was going to kill their God to distract them.

It was distracted by these thoughts when it happened, but only for a moment. The first indication that something monumental was about to happen was the way the skulls began to dim in unison. Whole sections of the piles began to flicker and fade out as one. Then the screaming started.

Tenebroum had never wondered what half a million crystalline voices screaming out in pain would sound like, but now it knew. The Lich instantly ordered its terrible tome to document that in musical notation as best it could. Suddenly, High Priest Verdenin’s cathedral would have another use now, once its primary use was completed. They would put on an opera voiced solely by the dead: The Death of the All-Father.

For generations, dwarven society had been unified by a single idea. There was only one way to live a good life. There was only one way to contribute and be remembered, and anything less fell short of that idea and, therefore, of contributing to divinity. What the Lich had done was shatter that. Now, their God was splintering under the weight of darkness and insanity it was directing into the dwarven afterlife, and it doubted very much that their culture would survive any more than their God would.

. . .

Krulm’venor had crouched in the cramped airshaft a dozen feet above the market street for weeks now, basically unmoving. He didn’t mind that. He had found a way into the city without drawing the Lich’s attention, and he had waited for further orders.

It was as pleasant a command as he’d had in years. For the first time in a very long time, the normal noises of a dwarven city were enough to block out all the terrible whispers and deranged howls that echoed through his soul.

The sound of merchants hawking their wares and housewives haggling for every last copper was a balm to his soul. He knew he would have to move when the ratcatchers came through this area or when the Lich gave its command, but for now, he just lay there, staring out of the iron-barred grate at the street far below him, idly fidgeting with that damn button as he tried to remember what it had meant to be a dwarf.

He might have done that forever, but when the Lich whispered to him to be ready to begin his assault, he knew that perfect moment was all but over. What he did not expect, though, was for the world to go insane.