Chapter 18
Flutic lay before Harald, under siege, mostly dark, but spread out like a vast tapestry of blocks and the occasional glimmering scale light.
Above, the moon sailed free of ragged wisps of clouds to bathe the great mountainside of the cathedral rooftop in silver, showing dark rents where the demonic battle had torn through tiles and rafters.
Sythryxa’s corpse lay alongside him, shrunken now to her normal form, black ichor draining from the neck stump to paint the tiles with an oily sheen.
Harald pursed his lips as he considered the crown in his hands.
It had to be cursed. Yet it also had to possess terrible power if Sythryxa had been willing to abandon her Handmaidens so as to safeguard it.
Eclavistra’s ploy in Flutic had revolved around this Artifact.
Yet for a terrifying moment there, Harald’s own demonic essence had responded to Sythryxa’s command, and thus, through the Handmaiden, to Eclavistra herself.
Did he dare toy with this Artifact? Wouldn’t it be wiser to hand it over to the dwarves, to allow Forge Father Thangrim to dispose of it?
The crown gleamed with a liquid sheen as he turned it about, the black opals like abyssal eyes.
Wisdom bade him hand it over.
Hunger urged him to simply take a look. A description couldn’t harm him. And he should know what the crown was capable of before turning it over to the dwarves, shouldn’t he?
Harald laughed. For a moment, his sense of self buckled, and then he exhaled sharply and put the heel of his palm to his brow.
He felt giddy, feverish, unnerved. The Demoniac Body had been a radical departure from his sense of self.
It had shaken him more than he’d realized.
For a brief while, he’d felt unstoppable, had been thrown bodily into massive stone blocks, and it had been the wall that had crumpled.
Not him.
He sat up, rubbed at his face, and with the Aureate Master still amplifying his Ego, brought his reeling sense of identity under control.
He was fine. He had this.
So he reached out to Eclavistra’s Crown, and summoned its description.
THE CROWN OF THE ETERNAL COURT
Quality: Legendary
Special Ability: Investiture of the Court
Activation: While worn, any person of consequence who yields to the bearer's sovereign authority—through oath, submission, or capitulation—is bound as Courtier, and falls under the sway of the monarch. The more Courtiers bound, the brighter the bearer’s Thrones burn.
Passive siphon of Courtier vitality proportional to depth of submission.
Court synergy scales with Courtier count.
+1 Presence per Courtier
Limitation: The Crown demands tribute proportional to the bearer's power. If the Court is insufficient, the Crown feeds on the bearer—consuming levels, powers, and progression at an accelerating rate until equilibrium is reached or the bearer is emptied, and the Crown becomes an Endowment.
Harald reread the description several times, then leaned back onto the broken tiles. He felt… disappointed. A Twilight Crown knock-off in truth. A means to bind the Houses to Vic, and thus gain control over the political situation.
Strange. Harald had assumed Eclavistra was after something more.
What could gaining a handful of mortal thralls in Flutic do for her position in the Celestial War?
It wasn’t as if Silenthros or Vorakhar or any of the other major demons cared for humanity as anything but a potential source of demon-kin.
A presence manifested just behind him, and Harald spun to see Exeros padding silently down the tiles to where he sat sunken in this tiled pit.
The moonlight gilded the angel’s six wings, which splayed out like static plumage, but cast his face in shadow, so that their piercing stare seemed to emanate from dark hollows.
Gaunt, horribly childlike, wearing the threadbare rags of indeterminate dark color and with a weathered walking stick in hand, the white-haired Seraph stopped by Harald’s side and stared morosely down at the Crown.
Exeros extended his scarred and filthy hand. “May I?”
Huh. Harald couldn’t think of any reason not to, so he handed the black Crown up.
The child frowned at the Artifact. Turned it back and forth, his brow furrowed, and then snorted in amusement. “Typical.”
“How so?”
Exeros trained his gaze on Harald once more, and it felt like being scrutinized by a war-torn battlefield. “Demons always obscure the most important aspects of their Artifacts. This drips with Eclavistra’s dreams and hopes. It’s a lure. A gob of honey in the center of her wished for web.”
Harald shifted, interested once more, and pleasantly surprised that the Seraph was willing to converse. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why does she want mortal influence?”
“She doesn’t.” Exeros raised the Crown. “Observe.” And he exhaled, his breath suddenly ghostly as if the temperature had plummeted to freezing.
The cloud of his breath glowed slightly, and where it passed over the Crown, it caused four strands to appear, each emanating from an opal and extending out into the night before disappearing.
“Whoa,” said Harald. “What are those?”
“Conduits. The Crown is Eclavistra’s creation. She is a creature of seduction, beauty, and cruelty. Of sovereignty through consumption. She rules by making others part of her, so that they can’t distinguish between their own interests and her own.”
“Sure,” said Harald. “It’s how she’s manipulated Vic.”
Exeros plucked at a strand that was already fading.
It vibrated, and Harald felt the sound in his bones and teeth more than in his ears.
“More. This allows the bearer to create a web of souls bound to the bearer. Bound willingly or not. The bearer gains real power. Enhanced Thrones, supernatural authority, the capacity to project sovereign will over Flutic. And each Courtier would in turn be fed by their own subjects. The threads would extend throughout the city, creating a great web connecting every will to the Crown.”
“Oh,” said Harald. “So Vic would have ruled over every member of each House, not just their heads?”
“Vic would have ruled in name only.” Exeros turned the Crown about, his disdain for the Artifact obvious.
“These threads carry the Court’s power back to Eclavistra.
In time, it would infect every organization, every person of consequence in the city, creating a living lattice of souls.
And all that power would flow into the demon queen.
And these threads…” Again he plucked a nearly invisible one.
“Function both ways. She could send power to any subject, possibly take over their minds and bodies, or simply peer out through their eyes. In time, Flutic would have become an extension of herself. But mostly it would have become a tremendous source of power.”
“Damn,” whispered Harald. “That’s… you’ve got to give it to her. That’s insidious.”
“In theory.” Exeros tossed the Crown up and caught it carelessly, as if it were a child’s hoop. “Her tools were weak and insufficient to the design. Now the Crown lies in your power. What will you do with it?”
“What else does it say? That limitation—the Crown can become an Endowment? I’ve never heard of that before.”
“Hmm.” Exeros focused on the Artifact once more.
“To make this Artifact, she had to imbue it with tremendous hunger. Enough to devour an entire metropolis. If the bearer refuses to create a Court, then the hunger must still feed. But…” Exeros’ eyes abruptly began to glow.
From dull black, they incandesced and grew so bright that Harald hissed and turned away sharply, the burning orbs leaving searing afterimages in his sight.
Blinking, he glanced back through his upraised hand, but the Seraph’s eyes were already dimming.
“Curious.” The Seraph turned the Crown about once more.
“Each depth opens to yet another. This is cunningly wrought. But Eclavistra didn’t anticipate it being examined by one such as myself.
The stronger the bearer, the greater the Crown’s hunger, and the larger the Court must be to satisfy it.
If you refuse the Crown its court, it feeds on the bearer, yes—but the Crown is absorbed into the bearer’s Cosmos, where it becomes a Throne fed by Eclavistra’s own power.
A weakness in its design. The two-way nature of the conduit can be turned against her. ”
Harald’s eyes widened. “The Crown would feed from her? So if I absorbed it, I’d gain a new Throne and weaken her at the same time?”
Exeros tongued the inside of his cheek as he considered. “You would be greatly reduced. The Crown would consume your levels, your stats, your powers. Who knows how weak it would leave you.”
“But it wouldn’t drain my Thrones?”
“I… don’t think so.”
“So I’d functionally have five Thrones. With the possibility of one day having… eight?” The very notion felt heretical, went against every teaching of the Mother Church.
Exeros’ smile was contemptuous. “You humans. You are weather vanes set before a storm whose winds only blow toward power.”
“With five Thrones and my new understanding of my Class, I wouldn’t be at a disadvantage for long.” Harald stared out at nothing. “I’d have to work hard—and fast—but I could recoup lost ground quickly. And then, when I return to Level 10, I’d be…”
“You would possibly be her plaything,” said Exeros.
“Eclavistra created this Artifact. I am no stranger to demonic toys. This stinks of an ambush. Yes, the details were hidden. But the Investiture Without Court—the act of taking the Crown as an endowment—is too neatly designed. The conduit goes both ways, which means that while you would gain a Throne from her, there is no telling what she would gain from you.”
“Right, right.” Harald bit his lower lip and nodded distractedly. “More demon influence. Though I’ve already got the one Demon Seed. Can a mortal carry two?”
“No.” Exeros’ amusement was bleak. “The greater of the two Seeds consumes the other.”