The First Lich Lord
Chapter 48

I returned from the mindscape and found Raven curled up in my lap, sound asleep. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching for bad guys?” I asked, scratching her behind the ears.

She stretched and let out a yowl as if to say ‘I have been, I just got tired.’ The sun was high in the sky, and the valley was as serene as I remember it being. I’d been in the mindscape for several days, so for a long moment, I took stock of myself. A lot had changed, and I needed to make sure I was ready to deal with the world before I left this place.

I spent the remaining time in the valley going through different fighting stances and working to see if I noticed the presence of my new precognition ability. The sense was muted as compared to the mindscape, but through focusing, I began to feel it more.

As night fell, I decided I was ready. The darkness was my friend, I knew that now. Before, there’d been a lingering sense of guilt at my ability to see in the dark. Certainly, that made no sense, but it had been there. Now it was gone and I was thankful.

Moving through the darkness, I made my way back down to the main valley and headed for home. It took all of the night, and I arrive just as the sun was beginning to rise. A note was nailed to my door—from Maxwell. He’d visited and was letting me know he was going to be online for a while. He said he was in town and that Father Mathis told him to have me report to the temple as soon as possible.

I had at least today before anyone noticed movement around my home. And Maxwell had dated the letter, also mentioning he had a small job that would take him a day or so. So, I spent the day at home, deciding Mathis could wait.

I set to work on expanding my cabin. My goal was to add more rooms and dig out a cellar. I didn’t have a lot of need to store food, but it was something I wanted to do. It made the place feel more like a home. I was also pretty certain I had a hidden lair now. What better place to hide the entrance to such a place than in a cellar?

When night fell, I’d made good progress in tunneling the cellar under the main section of my cabin. It was hard work, but it was made easy by my undead endurance. That night, I redid my illusion spell. I’d been purposely wasteful in how the spell was cast before, but now I wanted to have some access to my mana, so I spent the night reworking the spell.

After that, I meditated for the rest the night, and in the early morning headed into town. Father Mathis met me at the docks, no doubt seeing me cross the lake.

“Where have you been?”

“In the mountains,” I said. “I had a little soul-searching to do.”

Father Mathis huffed in annoyance. “Well, I hope it was worth it, I needed your help.”

I gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Oh, it was. What do you need my help with?”

“I need you to take Maxwell and hunt down an enclave of—” he spat on the ground in disgust “—fae folk. There have been rumors of them defiling the mountains with their fae magic. It has been detected and confirmed, and they are not to be allowed to prosper.”

Father Mathis’s disgust surprised me. Fae folk was the common term used in the area for nonhumans that weren’t of the races considered evil. That generally meant the dwarves, elves, fairies, and other typically good aligned races. The fact that Father Mathis showed such hatred was strange.

“I thought fae folk were friends?” I said carefully. “Aren’t there many nonhuman races throughout the kingdom.”

“Thanks to the weak will of the king, they continue to exist,” Father Mathis said. “This particular enclave is practicing dangerous magic, so it is our duty to make sure it does not threaten this prosperous land.”

“Are they inside the borders of the kingdom?” I asked.

“I don’t see why that matters,” Father Mathis huffed. “But no, they are in the unclaimed zone of the mountains between us and the heathens to the west.”

“I see…” I met his gaze. “Why should we be harassing those who are not inside your authority. Shouldn’t they be allowed to live as they please?”

Father Mathis glared. “They threaten us, so they should be removed.” His tone had become icy. “If you’re worried about it, I am not asking you to hunt them down, only to find them.” When I didn’t say anything, Father Mathis continued. “It is your duty as a citizen of this fine kingdom to at least assist me in identifying potential threats. Or do you not care about the well-being of the place you’ve come to call home?”

“Fine, I’ll go find them. You have any indication of the location or should I just blindly search the mountains?”

“I do,” Father Mathis nodded regally. “I will show you the map of the region that we detected them in.”

I’d hoped he wouldn’t have a heading, and that I could spend weeks or even months wandering the mountains and not have to report that I found anyone.

“If Maxwell’s in town, I should check and make sure he’s free to go. He might have a job that he’s completing.”

“He got back from that job this morning,” Father Mathis said. “I talked to him already. He’s waiting for you in the tavern.”

Through this whole conversation, I couldn’t help but replay Damien’s comments about Mathis through my mind. I could see why Damien saw him as a monster. But how do you kill a monster that does not appear as a monster?

Something in my gaze alarmed Father Mathis and he stepped away from me. “Careful of your thoughts, child. Olattee knows all.”

I glared at him and shoved past, muttering under my breath, “If Olattee knows all, then why have you not been smited?”

“What was that?” Mathis snapped.

Without stopping or turning around, I said, “Nothing. I’ll find you at the temple entrance so you can show us where to go.”

Mathis did not reply. Maybe he realized there was only so far he could push before things spiraled out of his control. All he knew was that for now, I was still listening.

I missed Rhea. She’d been kind, though stern. I couldn’t help but think that she wouldn’t have a problem with an enclave of independent fae taking up residence in the mountains. Then again, maybe she would. Maybe all of Olattee was full of bigoted fools.

That thought got me rethinking many things. Up until then, I’d been working to try and somehow redeem myself by serving Olattee. But if the darkness wasn’t inherently bad, what then did I have to redeem myself for? My actions before my death, while atrocious, could be excused to a certain extent because I didn’t know what I was doing was real. A weak argument, yes, but what could I do to fix it?

I was both remorseful and sorry. Though dwelling on that wouldn’t help me. With my emotions returning, I was swimming in feelings that surprised me. I’d expected to be crippled by greed and self-loathing, but instead I was almost embarrassed by the self-righteous cross I was trying to bear. I was almost behaving like a flagellant, whipping myself over and over because of my supposed sins.

I should’ve known better. Those fanatics from the fourteenth century were crazy, and it was exactly what I’d been doing to myself. It took speaking with Father Mathis to truly acknowledge this, and I resolved myself to do better. To actually try, and not just think that I could fix what happened by beating myself up over it while I wallowed in inaction.

Lost in my thoughts, I barely noticed when I reached the tavern.

“Zeke! It’s good to see you,” Maxwell said, standing to greet me, but then he paused, his tone changing. “Are you okay?”

“There’s just a lot on my mind.” I shook his outstretched hand. “Father Mathis said you’re ready to go on his mission.”

“Unfortunately,” Maxwell said. “Maybe you can get some of what’s bugging you off your chest in the mountains.”

“That would be nice.”

Maxwell was a friend that I did not deserve, and I was glad he was here. He would give me a sounding board to hopefully work through these thoughts.

From the tavern, we went to the temple and met Father Mathis. He showed us a map of the region that the magic of the enclave was detected in. Unlike the last couple of times, the best route for us to get there was to travel along some of the roads leading out of Omark, instead of heading back up the lake. We left the village promptly. Neither of us wanted to run the risk of interacting with Father Mathis any more than we had to.