The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (111 page)

Altered Status

Daybreak in a World of
Perpetual Snow and Ice…

It had once been a place
of pure chaos lacking in detail or anything precise. Its’ weather
had changed as if on a whim, its’ temperature had fluctuated as if
mad. It could’ve been land in one blink and altered to an ocean in
the next. It could’ve been a landscape of flame in one instant and
a frozen tundra a second after that, a jungle in one breath, a
desert in the following heartbeat. There was no form; there were no
laws or rules or mandates, or anything with true definition – even
meaning – there was merely pure, unadulterated chaos.

It was an ancient plane,
older than all except one. Its’ origins stretched back all the way
to the making of things as simple as energy or matter, when mass
was but an infant and velocity was barely born. It had been created
then, gushing forth from the birthplace of all things, a random
possibility of a million, million possibilities. Even in its’
infancy, it was wild and untamed, an inexhaustibly evil place of
existence.

It had stayed thus, for
countless dreary millennia until He had been thrust into being, a
creature who specified such notions as greed and lust and jealousy,
because he was them in their truest form. He didn’t represent them
or live by them, he
was
them. Because of it, they made him insatiable,
insanely driven, made crazy with boundless want. There was a vast
hole within him he could never hope to fill. The qualities that
comprised him would never allow him to stop. He would fight on and
on, and on, and on. He wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t desist. He
wouldn’t be deterred.
Ever!

It had taken thousands and
thousands of years, until he had finally seized his prize, grabbed
it by the horns and rode it for all he was worth. He had spilled
enough blood to make an ocean. He burned enough flesh to blanket
the sky with the foul smokes of the dead. He befouled countless
creatures with his lust, their numbers larger than the largest of
armies ever mustered upon the fledgling World of Man. His wrath was
Storm, his will was Maelstrom and his dreams were
Destruction.

Over time, this place had
begun to change, to slow down a bit, to breathe easy, maybe even
sigh with relief. With all of that came a degree of stability. For
the first time ever, details became real and not mere figments of
the imagination. Things began to cool, chill… then, everything
froze. The oceans turned soupy charcoal like molasses, befouled
with oils and the detritus of decay. The rivers became inky flows,
forever stopped in time and were only liquid at their very cores.
The land had grayed and blackened, became stark and desolate.
Though capable of sustaining life, it was life unlike ever before
witnessed within Space and Time. It was impossibly aggressive,
unimaginably malignant and was as twisted as the creature now
ruling over them all. His was a fist of molten iron. His was a
heart as blue as ten-thousand-year-old ice, a heart just as cold,
dense, lifeless.

This place became a
reflection of him. He was embodiment of it.

He became the Lord of the
Storm.

It became the World of
Storm.

Its’ energy was what
powered his whirlpool of carnality. They were two made one, forever
and always.

And then, eons
passed.

She had been His once, but
that was so long ago, in a time that was no more, during a
circumstance that she hardly remembered, even if she had wanted
too.

She had more pressing
issues at hand – items and lists, and lists of items, commands,
missives, monies, requests. The tally of them was endless. All of
it was spread about the huge desk before her. It was more than she
was used too, by far. Yet, it wasn’t every day she was in the
process of mustering
all
of the vast forces at her command, a feat that
hadn’t been duplicated since the great Wars of Reunification
themselves.

That had been thousands of
years ago.

So, she deemed, it might
be understandable to find her desk piled as high as it had been
ever since the Great Maelstrom had called forth the six great
Overlords and the High Kings and the Arch-Demons to his great
Citadel. Wherein he had laid out his Grand Design before them all,
a diabolical plan of such immense proportions it took him a full
year to explain the true extant of it.

The Six-Fold Empire was
now mobilizing, gathering its’ incredible might to the field. They
would wage a war unlike any ever seen before, upon a world that
shouldn’t have existed, but did nonetheless. This would be the war
to end all others. After this, one way or the other, the greatest
questions of the Multiverse would be answered, finally and in
totality. By the end of this conflict, there would be but one
victor, and he would rule
everything
.

She was the Grän Herra,
the High Lady of the Skrímsli, the exiled Arch-Demon of the
Antithues, and the Supreme Mistress of all upon the vast continent
of Richuese. Though within, she contained a titanic wellspring of
Vyche, a skill beyond even that of the grandest of grandmasters,
she was a rather diminutive figure when compared to others of like
power and influence. When she stood, she was a mere four inches
above five feet in height or eight inches shy of a cable’s length,
depending upon which scale of linear measurement one preferred. She
was thin hipped, big breasted and equally proportioned throughout
with small hands and feet. Her hair was the color of the darkest
night and was offset, nicely against a complexion so pale it was
almost translucent, though it didn’t appear wrinkled or
parchment-like. Her skin was perfect, without a blemish of any
sort. Her features tended toward petite or thin, depending upon
ones’ perspective. It was her eyes and her lips that stood out the
most – molten lava and bloody crimson respectively.

She was clad in a sheer,
crimson gown of chiffon, a slit higher than mid-thigh upon her left
side with an intricately beaded bodice plunging at the neckline to
show of her ample cleavage. As ageless as she was, there was no
need for propriety or modesty. She would walk naked if she so
chose, who about her could stop her from doing what she wished? She
smiled, fingering a flawless, ermine cloak, white, extending all
the way down to her feet. She had encased them in long, red hose
under soft, leather slippers matching her dress.

She was seated behind her
plateau of a desk, her firm bottom upon an over-sized chair so
massive she couldn’t move it physically, rather she was reduced to
using her mind to shift its great bulk this way or that, pursuant
to her needs at a given time. She would have destroyed the whole
damned thing ages ago, but it had been a gift given to by her
people as a symbol of her might. So, out of respect of their
workmanship, she had endured it.

Who would think an
Arch-Demon would care about respect
, she
thought as she pushed away the vellum sheets before her and sat
back into the soft, warm confines of her chair, absently rubbing at
her temples.
Well, that was one good thing
about this cursed seat
, she mused
internally, for one of the perpetuating spells forged into the very
wood and steel and cushions and fabrics of the chair was a simple
one of warmth. It would always make her feel comfortably cocooned
with the precise amount of heat she desired.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t thrown this monstrosity into the
hearth.

She had been up all night,
preparing, organizing, re-organizing, thinking, plotting, scheming,
tallying, planning, construing, and even scrying - to the best of
her limited ability to do so in that form of Vyche. All of it was
in lieu of her moving the largest concentration of armed forces
into the Construct. These were the forces that were to await the
Lord of the Storm’s victory over the Twelve and the subsequent
opening of the way into the World of Man. The Skrímsli were to be
the foremost assault upon mankind, an endless wave of beings,
creatures and entities that would smash themselves onto the
unsuspecting, technological weapons of that infantile race. It
would be a sight to behold indeed, for nothing, in all of time, had
ever positioned two armies upon the field of battle as different as
those of the Skrímsli and those of the World of Man.

She smiled inwardly,
though betrayed none of her mirth upon her face or in her carriage.
She merely sank deeper into her chair and gazed about the room, her
private chambers. She was deep within the confines of her Dread
Fortress of Dǿd, nestled in the vast Plains of Aramont, placed
somewhat centrally within the continent of Richuese of which was
hers in its entirety.

Her innermost sanctum was
vast, but just about everything with the Skrímsli was such. It was
roughly octagonal, but wasn’t symmetrical, having four of its walls
considerably shorter than the others, so it was much more square
than anything else. The stone ceiling was supported by four huge,
Corinthian columns set, one each, in the angled corners of the
room, as thick as three-hundred-year-old elms. She sat in between
two great swaths of stained glass decorating the wall behind her,
depicting the Skrímsli’s rise from obscurity to full acceptance
into the rank and file of the Six-Fold Empire. To either side of
her were various iron bound chests and armored armoires holding
many if the things she considered most valuable to her and to her
people, though none of it was treasure. That was someplace else and
more heavily guarded than her bedchamber.

To her left, the southern
portion of the chamber was the wide bed upon which she slept and
made love to her consort, but did little else upon. She was never
one to lie about, supine and vulnerable. No, she preferred to sit
or stand upright, poised for whatever may come, ready for the next
challenge. Though there hadn’t been one in longer than she cared to
remember.

To her right, was a pair
of towering bookshelves that held the contents of the private
library she had amassed over the course of the years following the
Wars of Unification. Between them, were the colossal twin doors
leading from her private quarters to the ante-chamber beyond. The
foyer itself was a large space that typically housed a squad or two
of her fiercest fighters, all of whom would lay down their lives to
protect her. Before the doors and to either side of the
bookshelves, stood four huge were-bears, as unmoving as stone,
though they missed not a thing. They were
forced-turned
, meaning they could
never shape-shift back to their original species, having
volunteered to do so in defense of their beloved Mistress. They
wore boiled, studded leather cuirasses flaring at the waist,
providing protective leather flaps about their legs and backsides,
but nothing else, except the iron shod, knee-high boots of hardened
leather. Each was armed with a Guisarme as thick as an oak sapling,
easily three cable’s-lengths long, a heavy bastard sword belted and
sheathed at the waist, a set of matching daggers tucked into their
wide belts.

There were others guarding
her person, but for the moment they couldn’t be seen by the naked
eye.
She
knew
precisely where they were, for none of the Skrímsli could ever hide
from her.

She was their
mistress.

She was their
savior.

She alone had raised them
all too equal status among the other five master races. They had
pledged everything to her, including their abilities to mask
themselves from her mind. It was a small price to pay, but one paid
nonetheless, for those vowing allegiance to her. Those who had not,
she had slain herself.

There were only two others
doors leading from her private apartment – one leading to her
dressing rooms and wardrobes and the other to the small private
kitchen that served only her and any visitors she sought to feed
upon a whim.

Before her, beyond her
spacious desk and the chairs before it, was a small council table
surrounded by even larger, more comfortable chairs where she
sometimes took her meals, but where she, more often, met with the
senior members of her Privy Council to discuss the weighty matters
of her people.

Further, to the far
western portions of the chamber, sat great over-stuffed couches and
reclining chairs atop a plush rug made of more than a score of Tünn
hides stitched together with such expertise that one could not tell
where one skin ended and another began. All of this stood before a
truly gigantic hearth made of dark-stained granite that stretched
across a sixty-foot expanse. The fireplace was so wide and deep
that whole tree trunks could be place upon its heavy grates - an
amount of wood that could burn for half a week and still keep the
entire bedchamber warm.

She gazed over her most
private possessions for a second time, reluctant to return to the
doldrums of paperwork that kept the great machinery of her
government moving, a hulking bureaucracy that grew like an entity
onto itself though she was a despot and shared rule with no
one.

Even before the knock
resounded against the surface of doors leading to her sanctum
proper, she knew someone had come to see her. She sat erect and
folded her thin-fingered hands in her lap, muting the fire in her
eyes so her gaze merely smoldered.