Lich for Hire

Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune, two old fogeys each a few centuries old, strolled down the city street.

Gazing up at the enormous statue in the distance, Mr. Misfortune grew nostalgic. "I remember the first time I brought you to the royal capital. You were startled by the statue of Arthur Lyon, and swore you'd become a hero just like him."

Ambrose scratched his head, a little sheepish. "Well... I thought a few of the girls in the orchestra were quite pretty. I was mostly trying to get their attention."

Mr. Misfortune: "..."

That damned lich. He had just smeared a coat of gray over an otherwise fond memory.

The two of them passed alongside the great plaza, where a hundred-piece orchestra was performing.

Ambrose sensed something peculiar in the surrounding air: an invisible acoustic barrier, ensuring that every note of the open-air performance reached its audience with perfect clarity.

"The conductor's a mage," Ambrose said, impressed. "He's the one maintaining the air walls. I never noticed that when we were young."

"We were both just apprentices then." Mr. Misfortune's voice turned quieter. "Your oath may have been an excuse, but mine was not. I wanted to save this country, to wash away the stain of usurpation from my ancestors' name."

He was moved, even now. He had spent most of his later years within sight of this plaza, this statue, within earshot of these endless anthems. Yet this was only the second time he had stood here beside Ambrose.

The years had turned one ardent young man into a lich, and another into an old man with white hair.

Ambrose looked up at the statue of Arthur Lyon. "Your ancestor was one of the original Thirteen Impure, wasn't he? And he later renounced his seat?"

"Yes. He spent his whole life tormented by guilt for stealing the glory that should have belonged to the hero. Every member of our family since then has shared the same ideal: to atone for what he did."

"And what exactly did he do wrong?" Ambrose asked.

Mr. Misfortune blinked. "The Thirteen Impure contributed nothing to the battle against the Dragon Tyrant. They hid at the rear like cowards, then walked away with dominion over an entire kingdom. Even the hero's bloodline was lost. How is that not wrong?"

Ambrose let out a quiet laugh. "If I were a tifling, which would I prefer: thirteen ordinary people governing the kingdom through a council, or a three-year-old child given absolute power simply because his father was a hero?"

"The glory of one's forebears ought to benefit their descendants," Mr. Misfortune shot back. "Otherwise, what's the point of striving for honor and wealth in the first place?"

"Keep that honor and wealth within your family, then. Gold, land, artifacts—those are all fine rewards. But don't hand over the fate of a nation as a prize for heroism. Yes, that hero saved the world. But making his three-year-old the next king? Do you want a child to ruin the very people his father died to protect?"

"You—" Mr. Misfortune's voice rose with indignation. "This is sacrilege. After all these years, you haven't improved in the slightest. If anything, you've gotten worse. No wonder you became a lich."

Ambrose shook his head. "This is exactly why we never agree. Senior, your true ambition was never to benefit the people. It was to restore your family's honor. If slaughter were deemed glorious, you would carry it out without hesitation."

"Sophistry," Mr. Misfortune said dismissively. "Honor only means something when the majority recognizes it. If everyone agreed that slaughter was righteous, the real question would be how things ever got to that point. Swapping out concepts mid-argument is a child's trick. We're not children."

"Precisely: honor is what the majority recognizes. So tell me, of all the tiflings in this kingdom, how many actually endorse the rule of the Unholy Council? How many genuinely believe a three-year-old king would be preferable? I'm a diviner. Numbers are my specialty. Shall we wager on which side comes out ahead?"

Mr. Misfortune opened his mouth, then closed it. For a moment he had no answer.

"Vladimir." Ambrose's tone softened slightly. "Noble honor is a fine personal philosophy, but don't force it on everyone else. Over a thousand years have passed. Even if that hero left behind a perfect legacy, it's long since been spent. In my view, thirteen ordinary people making decisions in place of a child was the right call, but those thirteen have since fallen just as far."

He wouldn't have said any of this to anyone else. Anyone else, and Ambrose would have simply nodded along.

Mr. Misfortune was quiet for a long time. Then: "So why are you helping me? Don't say it's because we're friends. I won't believe that."

"Call it charity toward several tens of millions of tiflings. As I said before, saving the world deserves a reward. I don't want to be your king. Just pay me."

Mr. Misfortune studied the lich's face, but found nothing.

At last he sighed. "Then follow me. The timing should be about right."

Ambrose fell into step behind him. Together, they left the plaza and made their way toward the largest structure in the city.

After the royal bloodline of the Unholy Kingdom had been fully extinguished, the old palace had been converted into the chambers of the Unholy Council. It had only thirteen members, but the complex was large enough to house ten thousand people comfortably.

The Impure were nominally required to sever ties with their families and take up residence here. Domina Lowry, as one of the thirteen, lived within these walls.

Her scheduled afternoon tea was twenty minutes away. Mr. Misfortune quickened his pace.

As before, no guards saw them. The infiltration went without a hitch.

Ambrose found himself growing increasingly envious of Mr. Misfortune's ability. These threads of fate operated on entirely different principles from his dice of fate, and seemed considerably more practical.

A shame he had never mastered it. It wasn't a path available to Ambrose.

Perhaps Harvey could one day combine both disciplines, but that would take a few more years of growth.

They passed through corridor after corridor, archway after archway, until at last they arrived at a small, immaculate garden.

Domina Lowry sat within it, quietly drinking red tea.

Ambrose took stock of her. By female tifling standards, Domina Lowry was remarkably imposing. She was nearly two meters tall, and twenty centimeters taller if you included her horns.

A former infernal knight who had campaigned in the Hells alongside Sariel and returned—that required genuine capability.

And to then pivot from knight to alchemist, and earn recognition from Alkhemia at that? The woman was extraordinary. Calling her a genius would be an understatement.

She had long since shed her armor, and wore instead a tailored evening gown that, against all odds, made her large frame appear almost languid and even alluring. Her face, too, was striking; she was a rare vintage among mature women.

One look was enough to tell she had been taking Potions of Youth for years. Her hands were lined with the deep creases of age, while her face looked barely past thirty: a classic sign of fading efficacy.

Youth potions built up resistance over time. The first bottle might restore fifty years of youth; the second, forty-nine for one person, thirty for another. Before his transformation into a lich, Ambrose had needed a bottle every year, and five hundred thousand gold a year was a figure that had genuinely haunted him.

As resistance accumulated, a potion might only restore youth partially. Domina Lowry's face looked no older than her early thirties, but her hands read as fifty or sixty: the telltale sign of overuse. The potion was no longer able to take effect on her extremities.

"Don't get any closer," Mr. Misfortune said. "I have too much history with Domina Lowry. Move within range and the severed threads of fate will reknit. She'll notice us."

They were standing about thirty meters away, close enough for Ambrose to work a spell.

"Wait here," Ambrose said.

"What are you doing?" Mr. Misfortune asked, his voice tight. If the threads of fate reknit, their invisibility would break. They were in the capital of the Unholy Kingdom, where he was a wanted man. Discovery meant ruin.

"Relax. I'm going to have a conversation with her, but not here."

Ambrose walked toward Domina Lowry alone: twenty meters, then ten, a distance at which any conventional invisibility would have long since failed. Yet Domina Lowry went on sipping her tea, undisturbed and wholly unaware of him.

Leyla's True Illusion was a spell powerful enough to fool even gods. Infernal knights and alchemists were not known for their perceptive gifts, and Domina Lowry was evidently no exception.

Mr. Misfortune watched, helpless, as Ambrose conjured a cascade of dice and sent them raining down onto Domina Lowry.

Dice of fate were visible only to diviners: they were colorless, weightless, and left no impression even on the air.

Domina Lowry didn't flinch. The dice landed across her body one after another. She felt nothing.

Then Ambrose produced a small vial and tipped a measure of dark gray powder into her teacup.

When he returned to Mr. Misfortune's side, the man was practically vibrating.

"What did you do? Did you poison her?!"

Ambrose laughed. "You're this worked up over someone you claim wasn't your old flame?"

Mr. Misfortune reddened. "She is nothing of the sort. She's one of the original Thirteen. She's over a thousand years older than me!"

"Ah. So it's older women you go for. Completely understandable. Nothing wrong with that."

"You insufferable—what did you do? What fate did you impose with those dice?!"

Ambrose clapped him on the shoulder. "Nothing dramatic. I just made the magical defenses on her body malfunction for a few seconds—drained arrays, uncharged wards, that sort of thing. I ran through the possibilities all at once. Couldn't very well slip something into her drink if she had active defenses, could I?"

"And what was that powder?"

"Relax. It's just something to help her sleep." Ambrose held up the vial of gray powder and grinned. "Come on then, Vladimir. We're going to meet her in her dreams."