Chapter 1
Life coursed through a man’s veins for the first time in centuries. The tendons in muscular arms rippled like steel cord as he pushed at the walls of his coffin. Light shined down on him. He winced at it, eyes sensitive.
Most people thought that being put in stasis left no memories. That somebody went to sleep, then woke up an instant later as if nothing happened in the intervening months or years.
This man was living proof of the opposite. Pulling himself out of his coffin, he briefly sighed in relief that his muscles hadn’t atrophied from lack of use.
He couldn’t recall how long he had spent in that interminable void. There had been no sound. No sight. No people. Not even his thoughts to keep him company. He had been aware, but his mind had been incapable of doing anything for a time longer than he was capable of comprehending.
Finally, he awoke in reality. But he found it hard to remain here.
He felt that if he closed his eyes, he would drift away again. Back to that void. Likely forever.
Somebody shouted nearby. The noise drew him away from his thoughts. Blood lingered in the air, or the smell of it at least.
The words were unintelligible, but something scratched at the man’s mind. As if he should be capable of understanding what was said.
He looked over at the source of the shout. Three armed men stood over a tied-up woman. They hadn’t noticed the new arrival. The woman appeared unharmed, and her fine clothing stood out against the rags of the men.
The surroundings were clearly that of a castle. A ruined one. A thick layer of dust coated rubble while moss, lichen, and plants thrived. Shafts of sunlight poked in through holes in the stone roof.
The awakened man frowned as he looked around. His memories remained jumbled, but he knew this place was unfamiliar. Somehow, it appeared different to any castle he felt he recognized. There were strange sigils etched into the walls, but time had eroded these beyond recognition.
“Ah, you have awoken,” a voice said. “And it appears that my worries over your health were unnecessary.”
The man looked around but saw nothing. Instinctively, he reached for a sword at his hip. His hands came up empty. He was dressed in well-tailored black silk clothes. Otherwise, he had nothing else on him.
More worryingly, the voice appeared to lack a source or body. The men in the distance continued to ignore him, chatting amongst themselves.
The disembodied voice chuckled. Its tone was low and had an oddly empty timber to it. A memory told the man that meant the speaker was using magic to talk. Magic produced detectable traces when used to reproduce voices, at least in those sensitive to magical energy.
“Politesse would have us introduce ourselves to one another, given we will be working together for the foreseeable future,” the voice said. “I am Orthrus. Know that we are each the keys to one another’s freedom. I feel it’s important that I know who and what you are.”
Wonderful. The first thing the man encountered when he woke up was a disembodied voice so formal that it used the word “politesse.”
His name, though. The awakened man struggled to grasp it. He knew his name was important if he wanted to remember who he was, regardless of what he told the strange voice.
His name defined him. He knew that he hadn’t forgotten everything while in that void. Instead, his identity had drifted away from him, just like his body. He needed to reconnect to himself.
So, he focused himself with every ounce of concentration he had. He took back his name, and with it, everything that he was.
“Talarys,” the man said aloud after several long seconds. “My name is Talarys.”
He rolled his shoulders as his memories flooded his mind. Centuries of warfare, bloodshed, and the collapse of the world.
In his memories, Talarys had been a general for one of the greatest of infernals: the archdevil Malusian. He had been born a human and lived in servitude to them for most of his life. Despite that, he had gained immense power and become free when the Infernal Empire collapsed.
None of that explained how he had ended up here. The castle still looked unfamiliar, but now he understood why it bothered him. The architecture reminded him of one of the ancient divine races that had occupied one of the western continents. Said race no longer existed, but it was a curious connection.
“Talarys. I see. We have much to discuss,” the voice said. “We should head below and leave these men to their plaything.”
Talarys ignored the voice. He had spent most of his life in service to demons and devils, which were collectively known as infernals. Whatever this voice was, it didn’t matter. Talarys had no intention of obeying it.
He was his own master now.
Even if Talarys couldn’t recall why he was here or where he was, he remembered who he was. He felt his power creeping back into his muscles, heating them up from the inside. His body ran on magic, as it had been so corrupted by infernals that it barely qualified as human anymore.
Speaking of his body, he quickly checked that he had come out of the coffin in one piece. He patted down his chest, arms, and legs. Nothing seemed out of place. The magical nature of his body prevented him from aging. On the other hand, he’d spent a thousand years in a coffin. That might test his durability a touch.
He still had his jet-black hair and was clean shaven without a speck of stubble. Even under his clothes, his muscles rippled.
His body had been crafted by a powerful succubus, and she had a particular taste in men. Fortunately, that taste had been rather normal. He knew a few slaves who had been turned into rather horrific beasts by their succubus owners.
In the distance, the men raised their voices again. This time, Talarys understood them. With the restoration of his memories, he had regained the ability to use his magic, which included translation.
“We can’t kill her yet,” one of them said. “If we chop her head off, then we can’t get her to sign over everything she owns. How else does she make good on the family debt?”
“Good point,” another said, rubbing his crotch. “Plus, with tits like those, I can think of a good way to convince her to sign the documents. It’ll be fun for us too.”
Ah, debt collectors. This trio was a truly wonderful specimen of…
Not humanity, as it turned out. Horns protruded from each of the men’s heads, no longer than an inch or two in length. Despite the clearly non-human appearance of the men, Talarys failed to sense any magic around or within them. They appeared to be humans with horns.
Talarys had never seen a race like them, and he’d seen every race that had ever walked the planet in recorded history. Or at least, history recorded while he had been walking the planet. Clearly, he needed to brush up.
One of the men turned around, a leer on his face. He froze when he saw Talarys.
“Holy hells, the corpse is alive!” the man shouted, pointing at Talarys.
The other two men jumped, their hands falling to axes at their hips. Their weapons looked crude, almost as if they had simply grabbed whatever they had lying around. Or perhaps they were using weapons that could pass as work tools.
“About time you noticed me,” Talarys said, crossing his arms as he sized up the men. “I think it’s best if you leave. Just looking at you makes me want to turn you into ash.”
Each of the debt collectors hesitated as they raised their weapons. They looked at each other, a hint of fear passing through their eyes. Their clothes were simple brown cloth, and they looked like typical malnourished farmers.
In other words, they were simple rural folk that shouldn’t pick a fight with a man who could incinerate them all with a wave of his hand. Talarys felt it only fair to offer them the opportunity to walk away.
“Fucking foreigners,” one of them spat. “Bringing necromancy here. We’ll burn this talking corpse, then chop this fucking merchant’s body up into pieces. To hell with her money and her body. She’s tainted.”
The others muttered agreement, tightening their jaws as they stared at Talarys.
“Well, I gave you a chance,” he said, then shrugged.
Talarys raised a hand. Nothing happened.
He frowned. Odd.
Grins spread across the faces of the debt collectors.
“You’re a fucking corpse. Your magic doesn’t work anymore,” they yelled, taking steps toward him.
Talarys ignored them and tried something else, twisting his wrist this time.
The wrist-twist didn’t do anything, but the effect looked nice.
Shadow erupted from his hand, driving away the sunlight. Lines of red light ran along his arm and chest, like veins of infernal energy protruding from his skin and visible through his clothes.
The jaws of the debt collectors fell. One of them turned and tried to run, but he only made it a step before Talarys finished casting his spell.
An explosion of blood red fire consumed all three men. Pitch black shadow rose from the flames instead of smoke, and there wasn’t a hint of white flame within the magical blaze.
As quick as it came, the fire vanished. It left no remains. Not even ashes.
“I’m not even sure that counts as a warmup,” Talarys said, frowning. “But at least I learned something important.”
Said important thing being that he had lost one of his most important powers.
An Infernal Gift. The primary means by which demons and devils gave other races magical abilities, and the source of much of Talarys’s magical power.
He flexed his fingers, staring at them in a mixture of confusion and worry. While he had worked out how to use his infernal sorcery, his missing Gifts concerned him.
“Your powers are sealed, great one,” the voice from earlier said. “You may be awake, but much of what you are capable of is beyond you. Only by working together will we be able to become what we once were.”
Unlike before, the voice was no longer disembodied. With some focus, Talarys saw a glowing golden wisp hovering near him. There was no face or discernable shape within it.
Perhaps ignoring the wisp was unwise, but there was another reason not to respond.
Said reason lay on the ground nearby, gagged and tied up with rope. The explosion of fire left her unharmed, but she looked worried. She wore finer clothing than the debt collectors, namely a combination of leather and silk, and a black weatherproof cape. Her pants and tight-fitting top emphasized her bountiful curves and suggested she had been travelling. Her silky long black hair was messy and full of sticks and leaves.
The woman looked young, at least by Talarys’s standards. Mid-twenties at the oldest. More than beautiful enough to earn unwanted attention, even without the debt collectors.
With a snap of his fingers, Talarys destroyed her restraints. She jumped as they disintegrated into light. The hellfire that he cast didn’t leave ashes behind.
Talarys held out a hand after crossing the hall. Taking it, she let herself be pulled up. She then brushed herself off and gave him an uncertain grin. Her face bled from a few scratches, and the gloves on her hands were torn, but she looked fine otherwise.
“Well, it seems I’m secretly a master necromancer. I can raise a powerful sorcerer from the dead without even casting a spell,” the woman said, still grinning at him.
But her eyes wavered and her hands shook despite her light words. The brush with death had rattled her, but she put on a brave face for him despite that.
“I’m Vallis Tornnes,” she continued. “I’m assuming you’re not going to turn me into… whatever the debt collectors became. What’s somebody of your talent doing here? Assuming you, uh, didn’t rise from the dead.”
To tell her the truth or not, Talarys wondered. What was there to lose by being honest, given how vast the gap in power was and how much he needed to learn?
“Are you asking what I’m doing in this castle, or in this area in general?” Talarys asked.
Vallis laughed. “Both. No mage with your ability would live here. We only get the hacks and petty mages who think being able to blow up a house means you should be able to rule a village.”
An archipelago? Talarys blinked, then frowned. The last he remembered, he had been on the continent of Gauron and there were precious few archipelagos of interest there.
“I’ll level with you,” Talarys said. “I did climb out of that coffin, but I’m not undead. The last thing I remember was being in Basette to deal with some personal business. I thought I got used to things being strange after the Cataclysm.”
Frustratingly, he couldn’t remember what that personal business involved. He simply knew he wanted to visit somebody there, but couldn’t remember who or what.
Now it was Vallis’s turn to blink in confusion. “Basette? That place is a legend. It was a ruin even when my grandfather came here. The history books talk about it a lot, though. And the Cataclysm is literal myth, isn’t it? People talking about how the world nearly ended two thousand years ago and such.”
Two thousand years ago? A pit formed in Talarys’s stomach. How long had he been in that coffin for?
The voice, Orthrus, spoke again, “You are far from your time, infernal one. We have that in common, at least. The Infernal Empire fell 1600 years ago. The Cataclysm was over 1900 years ago. I can’t help but wonder how old you are, if you talk about such an event as if it were recent history?”
As old as a fossil, as it turned out. He had been asleep for over 1500 years.
And while he was now awake, everything felt different. He had already seen an unfamiliar race. Vallis spoke about an archipelago that he didn’t know about. His power was sealed and other things felt very off about his infernal magic.
This wasn’t the greatest morning that Talarys had ever had, to put it bluntly. He held a hand against his temple and resisted the urge to groan.
Life contained challenges. This was a new one. An exciting one. And Talarys had never shied away from whatever punches life threw at him.
This punch felt particularly vicious, however. If only there was someone he could complain to about how unfair life was, but he’d met a lot of the most powerful beings in the world. Slept with a few, even. None of them felt particularly godlike, and some of them might even be responsible for his current predicament.
With a sigh, Talarys abandoned his thoughts and returned to reality. Vallis continued to give him an odd look. Orthrus’s voice appeared to be inaudible to the merchant, which raised questions that Talarys chose to ignore.
“Well, this is awkward,” Talarys said. “See, I brought those up because I thought they might help you give me some sort of indication of where I am or something I could use as guidance. Instead, it’s only made it clear that I’m very lost.”
“How lost?” Vallis asked.
“About 1500 years lost. Give or take a century,” Talarys said, waving a flat palm in the air. “I lived through the Cataclysm, you see. Felt two of the world’s continents be destroyed. Understood how small we are compared to the obscene power of demigod-like beings.”
She stared at him.
“I’m Talarys. You would have heard of me if we were in my time period, but I doubt that’s the case now,” Talarys said. “Call me Rys for short. I was a general in the Infernal Empire, before it went pop along with all the infernals.”
“Talarys,” Vallis said, sounding out the name. “You know, I actually do recognize the name. I come from a family of merchants and studied history. You’re named after a city.” She paused and her eyes lit up. “Or a city was named after you, actually.”
“Yes. That,” Rys said. “You mentioned we’re on an archipelago. Which archipelago?”
“The Tolaran Archipelago.” Vallis grimaced. “You, uh, probably haven’t heard of it. It was only discovered a century ago. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“Northern or southern hemisphere?” Rys asked. She was right. He hadn’t heard of it.
“Northern. East of Pharos, north of Gauron,” she answered.
Pharos and Gauron were the two remaining continents on Harrium, which was the name of this world. Rys had grown up on Gauron, and it had been ruled by the Infernal Empire for most of his life. It was in the southern hemisphere. By contrast, Pharos was in the northern hemisphere and was a much different country. A lot more rice, for one thing.
But knowing the rough location of the archipelago only told Rys he was very far from home. He gestured for Vallis to follow him as his mind churned.
Rys walked toward the castle entrance, or what was left of it. The entire front of the keep had caved in long before he had awoken. Outside stood a grassy meadow lush with unkept greenery. There were few trees in sight, but Rys doubted anybody lived nearby given the state of the meadow. Mountaintops were visible in the distance, along with clouds.
They were high-up. The castle must be up in the mountains.
Vallis followed behind him as he approached that meadow.
“I think we can help each other,” Rys said, keeping his stance relaxed and hands behind his back as he walked.
“Planning to take over the world?” Vallis asked glibly.
“No. That attracts unsavory interest. My aims are simpler for the moment,” he said. “But I don’t like doing things without a power base. You remain free by being strong enough. Right now, I’m alone. Given what nearly happened to you, you don’t seem any better off.”
Vallis scratched the back of her head and looked away with a wince. “I’m surprised you’re asking for my help after what you saw.” Her eyes lingered on the spot where the debt collectors had been vaporized by Rys.
“Sometimes we have to work with what we have,” Rys said drily. “And I consider myself a fairly good judge of character.”
“Do you consider yourself bad at anything?” Vallis asked, before her expression froze. “Uhhh…”
Rys rolled his eyes. “Punishing the insubordinate. I was the ‘soft one’ by infernal standards.”
“You catch more flies with honey?” Vallis smiled.
“No. You deal with the fly problem by training spiders to eat them for you and to stay in their corner, because there are bigger spiders that will happily eat them if they don’t,” Rys said with a smile.
Vallis’s smile stiffened, then relaxed. “Yeah, okay. I can work with that. Worse things get done for stupider reasons. My family history is full of that. My grandfather came here to try to rebuild the family fortune after it was lost due to annoying the wrong people.”
Rys opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted as he slammed into something solid as steel. He swore as pain flared in his head, even though it vanished just as quickly.
“Are you alright? Did you hit a piece of rubble?” Vallis asked, looking at the air and scratching her cheek in confusion.
Rys looked at the place where he had ran into something. His eyes saw nothing. Only empty space. But his hand touched something solid.
Once again, Orthrus made himself known. The glowing orb had followed him. “Your seal is not fully broken. Your powers are sealed away and your movements are restricted to this castle.” The orb’s voice lowered, and he hissed, “We need to speak of important matters. Worry about your schemes for power later.”
Rys waved Vallis off, trying to hide his annoyance at Orthrus’s attempt to order him around. “Wait here. I need to…” Rys trailed off, fumbling for an excuse to find some privacy. “Just wait here. I’ll be back in a second.”
“Forget something in your coffin?” Vallis asked with a crooked smile.
Rys rolled his eyes, but took the excuse. The merchant’s eyes watched him like a hawk. She leaned against a wall, her arms crossed beneath her impressive chest.
The moment she thought he wasn’t watching, she slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. Her body shook, despite her earlier efforts to hide her fear.
Rys decided to ignore her. If she ran off, then he’d make do without her. While a local merchant was useful, a lot had changed in the space of a minute.
Mostly because he was now trapped inside this stupid castle. The idea of taking over the neighboring lands and building a kingdom became less appealing.
Once convinced he was deep enough in the hall that he couldn’t be heard, Rys took additional measures. He drew a ritual circle around himself to block out sound. He then turned to face the wisp, which remained inside the circle.
“Talk,” he said.
“Quite the impertinent one, aren’t you?” Orthrus said, before making a clicking noise. “But I can work with that. As I said earlier, I am Orthrus. I am sealed here, the same as you are. Ever since I regained my awareness, I have been eroding your seal in the hopes that I might give you enough autonomy to free the both of us. That objective is within reach now, after far too many centuries.”
“And what exactly are you, Orthrus?” Rys asked, crossing his arms.
“I do not know,” Orthrus responded. Before Rys objected, the wisp continued, “Surely you’ve noticed the gaps in your own memory by now? The seals actively prevent us from escaping. That includes removing memories that would make it easier for us to escape.”
Rys frowned. He had noticed a few gaps. The most notable being that he didn’t remember how he wound up here. To say nothing of his inability to recall what he had been doing in Basette.
And it wasn’t as though he could simply comb his memories and find the holes. Trying to remember what he couldn’t remember was nonsense.
“I take it you know how to break the seal?” Rys asked.
“In general terms.” The wisp floated around, as if attempting to wave a non-existent hand in the air. “There are two seals. Each is powered by three power conduits within a Labyrinth beneath the archipelago. That Labyrinth is connected to this castle, which is known to most as Castle Aion and is older than you can possibly imagine.”
“I can imagine a lot,” Rys said. Then he frowned. “Are you talking pre-Emergence?”
Orthrus chuckled. It was a strange, hollow sound that gave the impression of bones clacking together. “Sharp, aren’t we? Yes. The Creator of this castle and Labyrinth is beyond ancient. Truly pre-historic. He predates the Emergence of the angels, infernals, and other beings that your memories are so full of. That makes this place special, but also immensely dangerous.”
“Right. So I need to dive into one of the oldest, most dangerous places that exists on the planet, destroy three power conduits, then shatter both of our magical seals. Then I’ll be free to roam the world again and have all of my power back?” Rys smirked. “I know you tried to make this sound hard, but you don’t know the things I’ve done.”
Another chuckle from Orthrus. “True. I look forward to our alliance, young Talarys. There are things I need to show you. But first, I think you need to deal with your ally. Although I don’t see the purpose in wasting time on her.”
“If I’m stuck in this place, then she might prove useful,” Rys said.
As if he cared about the approval of the glowing orb. This entire situation was strange. Why could Rys break the seals from within them? How did Orthrus know so much about the seals but nothing about himself?
Only an idiot would trust this orb further than he could throw it. And given the orb was intangible, that wasn’t very far. Rys needed to tread carefully around Orthrus.
“Wait, he said to give him some privacy,” Vallis shouted from the castle entrance.
Rys looked over to see Vallis and another woman walking toward him.
That woman looked nothing like anyone Rys had seen in his long life. She had four massive black fox tails, a pair of fox ears on top of her head, and wore a tight-fitting black and white outfit that looked like something from the rice-growing continent of Pharos.
She stopped short of Rys and glared at the magical circle around his feet. Her jet-black hair fell down to her shoulders and her piercing blue eyes burned into him with unexpected fire. Her outfit was short enough to reveal muscly pale-skinned thighs. Thick black-leather combat boots covered her calves, and a pair of black socks extended farther over her knees. She’d be intimidating if Rys didn’t have a foot on her.
Her race was unfamiliar to Rys. Maybe it had something to do with why she glared at him so ferociously. Her exotic beauty shined through despite her attitude, and he felt a strange urge to plunge his hands into those massive fluffy tails of hers.
The fox-lady prevented Vallis from getting close to Rys by physically holding her back.
“You told me he was an infernalist, Vallis. Not a literal infernal. Who and what are you, devil?” the fox-lady spat, glaring at Rys as blue flames flickered along her fingertips.