Lich for Hire

Ambrose's mastery of fate worked by collapsing countless possibilities into one, locking fate into a single predetermined outcome.

Mr. Misfortune's gift was the inverse: he could reach into those countless possibilities and seal one of them off, ensuring that a particular outcome could never come to pass.

This was why, when divining, Ambrose preferred to lay out a handful of options and let Fate choose one. Mr. Misfortune, by contrast, would draw out the countless possibilities as threads and let Fate trim them away until only one remained.

The results looked the same, but the methods couldn't have been more different.

The two of them had been apart for centuries, and yet they worked together as if they had done this millions of times before. Threads of fate winked out one by one. Dice of fate spun to a halt one by one. Every possibility converged. Innumerable images flickered in and out of existence, until at last a single picture remained.

It was a sight that struck the heart with awe and dread.

A silver-white dragon of impossible scale soared through the sky. Beneath it was an endless sea of paladins.

Mr. Misfortune was puzzled. "Lyon's invasion? But we already knew that was coming."

Ambrose was a little puzzled himself. The whole point of working together was to draw out something they didn't already know. Still, that absurdly massive time dragon was a striking sight. That had to be the form the Draconic Armaments took when fully unleashed.

Small wonder it was Lyon's national treasure. It was awe-inspiring. A single breath from those jaws would unmake an entire city.

But what did the image mean?

Both Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune frowned at the scene. They had reached the most important phase of any prophecy: interpretation.

Countless diviners over the centuries had floundered at exactly this point. Misread the vision, and the consequences would almost surely be catastrophic.

After studying the scene for some time, Mr. Misfortune was the first to speak. "Something about this isn't right. I recognize that mountain peak. It's already inside the Unholy Kingdom's borders, which means the Lyon army has marched all the way to our doorstep."

Ambrose caught up immediately. "The Hellgates! The Hellgates are gone!"

The Unholy Kingdom's borders bristled with Hellgates. If Lyon had pushed in this far, the place ought to be teeming with infernal hordes pouring out to meet them. Why was the landscape empty?

The answer was obvious. By the time Lyon invaded, the Hellgate problem had already been solved.

"Did we resolve the issue of the Hellgates?" Ambrose mused.

Mr. Misfortune rolled his eyes. "There are seventy-eight Hellgates. How exactly do you propose to deal with them? They were built using the full might of the kingdom. What could the two of us possibly do about that?"

This was a project tied to the very fate of the nation, decades in the making. One or two legends weren't going to undo it by themselves.

Hellgates, once constructed, settled into a kind of virtualized state. They were nearly immune to attacks and external influence right up until the moment they were activated. And once they were opened, the flood of infernal creatures would ensure that there was no time to dismantle them.

One, even two, might have been possible to handle with the two of them working together.

But seventy-eight... The mere thought was overwhelming. They could work themselves to death without accomplishing anything of note.

Ambrose was a little shocked himself. Seventy-eight Hellgates—the tiflings really were playing with fire. With the slightest miscalculation, the whole kingdom would collapse into the abyss.

Still, he wasn't discouraged. The prophecy showed that the Hellgates were gone. Their goal would somehow be achieved. The only question was how, and by whom.

He thought for a moment, then turned to Mr. Misfortune. "If neither of us can do it, then someone else must be involved. We need to think along those lines and find whoever does have the means to take down all those Hellgates. The story should fall into place from there. Could the Unholy Council pull every gate down at once?"

Mr. Misfortune shook his head. "No. We never planned to dismantle them in the first place. The plan was to either fight Lyon to the bitter end when they came, or hold the gates as a deterrent until either Lyon faltered or we collapsed under our own weight."

Ambrose sighed. "So it's not the Unholy Council. And it's not you and me. Eliminate the impossible, and only one answer remains."

Mr. Misfortune frowned. "The Lyon Empire?"

Ambrose nodded. "Right. Lyon found a way to neutralize the Hellgates, and that's why they've mustered the army. I have no idea how they managed it, but it's the only possibility left. It's not as if a god is going to descend and do it for them."

Mr. Misfortune found the reasoning sound enough, but that wasn't what was troubling him.

"Arthas, we came here to learn about the contract Sariel signed with Domina Lowry. What good does it do us to know that Lyon can take out the Hellgates? We should be using this image to deduce the contract's terms."

Ambrose shook his head. "There's no need. Pursuing those details is pointless at this stage. We already know that Domina Lowry wagered the entire Unholy Kingdom and tricked the Council into signing the contract. Everything they've done since has been in service of fulfilling that contract. The Hellgates are part of it. There's no question about that.

"Building the Hellgates was very likely a condition Sariel set. The current count isn't enough yet, which is why Domina Lowry keeps pushing for more construction. The contract won't take effect until the Hellgates reach the required number. And if Lyon manages to remove them, then Sariel's plan will very likely fall apart."

Mr. Misfortune couldn't be as detached about this as Ambrose. This was his homeland; he had been born here. He had lived here for centuries. He couldn't simply discuss the wanton destruction about to devastate his home in the way Ambrose could.

"If we can't pin down what their plan actually is," he asked, "how can you be sure the Hellgates' disappearance isn't part of it? What if the contract requires them to protect the Hellgates?"

"No, you don't understand. Devil contracts can be vicious, but the terms have to match the stakes. Sariel's prize is the entire Unholy Kingdom. With a haul that big, she can't get away with the kind of one-sided contract you're imagining. Aion won't permit it. The bigger the wager, the fairer the contract must be.

"Damning a single mortal soul takes nothing more than getting a man drunk and pressing his thumbprint to a page. Damning an entire kingdom requires equivalent payment. Whether the Thirteen were coerced or seduced into signing the contract, both sides have to stake something of roughly equal value, or Aion will smack Sariel into oblivion. Building and protecting the Hellgates doesn't even begin to compare to handing over an entire kingdom. It can't be that."

Mr. Misfortune had never made a study of infernal behavior, and he had no way to verify Ambrose's claims. Still, he trusted Ambrose. It seemed unlikely that Ambrose would lie about something like this.

He frowned, thinking aloud. "A price equal to an entire kingdom... the Hellgates... Lyon..."

After muttering for a while, his eyes suddenly went wide. "The price Sariel offered—could it be the protection of the Unholy Kingdom?"

Ambrose quickly understood his senior's point.

"You mean that Sariel is planning to use the Hellgates to repel Lyon's invasion, saving the kingdom from annihilation in exchange for eventual ownership of it. It's a reasonable guess. You're as skilled as ever, Senior."

But Mr. Misfortune seemed more upset than ever. "It's only because this kingdom matters more to me than anything else. To you, it carries no weight at all."

Only by understanding what the kingdom was worth could one guess at what Sariel might be willing to pay. Ambrose, for all his cleverness, was an outsider. He couldn't feel the weight of it the way Mr. Misfortune did.

Ambrose continued the train of thought. "So if Lyon takes care of the Hellgates, Sariel can no longer protect the Unholy Kingdom, and the contract voids itself automatically. But that creates a new problem: without the Hellgates, how can the tiflings hold off Lyon's paladin army?"

If Sariel held Lyon back, the Unholy Kingdom would fall to Hell. If Sariel couldn't hold Lyon back, the tiflings would be crushed and the bulk of their souls would still end up in Hell anyway. Either way, Sariel won.

A lord of Hell, indeed. The deal she had struck was practically guaranteed to be a win for her.

Then, abruptly, Mr. Misfortune's eyes lit up. "I see what we have to do. Once Lyon takes care of the Hellgates, all we need to do is hold off Lyon's offensive ourselves."

Ambrose gave him a look. "Don't just parrot what I said. Do you actually have a way to do that?"

"Not yet, but we can work toward it. Wars between kingdoms aren't decided easily. Even with all of Lyon's military might, it'd take years to truly subjugate this kingdom. It was the same with the dwarves. If we can hold out, an opportunity will surely arise."

It wasn't a bad approach. Sacrifice a few border cities, fight a scorched-earth campaign, and defend the kingdom city by city... They could surely grind down the paladins' strength that way.

Lyon was surrounded by enemies. As long as the war didn't turn into a rout, the other kingdoms might make a move as well.

If the dwarves and orcs counterattacked while Lyon was tied down, even Lyon might struggle to hold the line.

Mr. Misfortune's plan, all things considered, had a real chance of success.

"Enough talk. I need to start preparing for war. The Hellgates' disappearance will throw the kingdom into a panic. If we aren't prepared for it, our armies will collapse the moment that happens."

Mr. Misfortune left Ambrose's extradimensional space in a hurry.

Ambrose didn't try to stop him. His senior was rattled, and there was no point trying to discuss the second issue with him in that state.

They had worked out Sariel's contract. But what about the other lord of Hell?

When Ambrose had first crossed into the Unholy Kingdom, the tifling guarding the teleportation array had pressed him to sign an infernal contract. That contract bore not only Sariel's sigil but Tiamat's as well.

What role was the Dragon Queen playing in this arrangement? What had she set up for later?

That question, Ambrose would have to puzzle out alone. Fate had granted him one favor, allowing him a glimpse of the future. He wasn't going to be foolish enough to attempt a second divination. That would earn him a slap from the Goddess of Fate herself.

But he had nothing to go on. Anything concerning gods had to be addressed by gods.

Ambrose stroked his chin and considered. A risky idea began to take shape.

Perhaps... he could ask Shara about it.