Shadows of the Serpent

1. Resurrection

Resurrection

The room fell silent when the Dark King entered the dusky hall.

The Black Tower’s banquet area, or “throne room,” as it was sometimes informally known, rose some sixty feet at its highest arch, and nearly eighty in length.

Malefic’s grandfather had told him once, while he was still young, that Raughloch Bones, original builder and designer of The Black Tower, envisioned the hall as a temple modeled after European-style churches that sprang up during the height of the Holy Roman Empire on Earth.

Raughloch liked the grandiose style, and the seeming permanence of such structures.

Therefore, he not only replicated it, he kept it at scale, and made it one of the three massive wings of the house.

The same vision manifested in Eustacia Morwormer Hall at Malcroix Bones Academy, where Raughloch truly felt he perfected the vision. With its high, arched ceilings, enormous statues, and magicked ceiling, it put the previous structure on that site to shame.

It also served as a quiet reminder of that original hall’s intended use.

Malefic supposed he could ask Raughloch himself about some of those design choices, now that he had been resurrected inside the body of a twenty-year-old mage.

Many questions might be revisited with his newly resurrected ancestors, once the more pressing issues of their family’s future and legacy had been settled.

For now, he had other things on his mind.

Recent events would have brought the vultures watching and hovering, looking for any perceived weakness on either side of the opening rift.

It had been that understanding, even more than legitimate concerns about assassination attempts against him inside the Gaol, that caused Malefic to push Sergius and the others to free him from the Pyramid sooner rather than later.

Malefic now had the advantage once again.

He had just demonstrated that to all of Magique with his swelled ranks of magical fighters, and what they already managed to destabilize in such a short time.

Sergius and the others not only freed him from the Gaol, they annihilated it.

He had broken into Malcroix Bones Academy and reclaimed his heir.

In the process, he’d stolen the heirs of numerous other Magical families who dared to spurn him.

Those facts would no doubt cause fear to reverberate through the halls of the Ethnarch’s Temple of Apollo outside Paris, and the King’s Palace of Lions.

The loss of his arm still rankled.

Had he been allowed to deteriorate inside the gaol much longer, he might have lost everything, even apart what his disloyal bitch of a wife had done.

Ironically, that was even more true now, given the temperament and ambitions of his own ancestors, Raughloch among them, and perhaps first in line to assume leadership in Malefic’s absence. His great-grandfather, Valefor Bones, would be a close second.

Malefic would need to monitor both of them for loyalty, even now.

All eyes watched him as he strode through the arched doorway.

His presence effortlessly parted the crowd, but he gauged their auras for sincerity, submission, deception, weakness, judgment, reverence, cunning, and any breath of hidden resentment.

He kept his physical frame utterly straight, despite the disgusting deformity he’d been cursed with.

His arm would still not hang naturally, even now, after he’d manipulated and contorted it under layers of spells.

Being home, he could perhaps fix that, as well.

For now, he ignited his magic, pushing his aura larger to compensate.

He would compel their gaze, despite what that mongrel cunt had done to him.

His son’s new wife would pay the price for her abomination later.

The last thing he could show now was weakness, no matter what the Pyramid had done to him in those weeks, no matter what the poisonous hybrid had done to him before he arrived. The humiliations would all be repaid, and with interest.

His closest followers knew better than to try and capitalize on what had been done to him. He would ensure the newcomers quickly learned that lesson, as well, no matter who they were to him, in blood or otherwise.

A whisper of satisfaction gleamed in the eyes of one of his more loyal scions as Yoric Orrin noted the blood spatter on Malefic’s elegant black jacket and waistcoat.

Those eyes traced the evidence of where Malefic had just come with luxurious glee, all the way up to Malefic’s silk shirt above his ornate vest.

Malefic knew it might be slightly unseemly to enter the hall unwashed, but for strategic reasons, he wanted them to see. He walked to the brightest part of the firelight for that purpose, for those who hadn’t been looking for it the way Orrin undoubtedly had.

Thicker streaks of scarlet decorated his pale, dangling fingers, particularly those belonging to the hand that still had full function.

Now he lifted that hand higher, to draw more eyes.

He tugged the pristine, white handkerchief from his breast pocket with a slight flourish, right as he reached the apex of the room.

He shook the handkerchief out, then clumsily held it still with his bad hand so that he could wipe the blood off his fingers.

Malefic didn’t acknowledge the blood directly.

He didn’t need to.

The room had fallen silent as he felt their attention riveted to his hands.

His silver eyes rose, gauging those reactions with outward indifference, but he didn’t miss any nuance of their expressions, magical or otherwise.

He measured his faithful, his mind going from coldly angry, a remnant of the interview he’d just left with his only child, to silent and weighing.

He had already decided what needed to happen next.

“I’m afraid I must confer with only a few of you at this time,” he said, his voice ringing across the high ceilings, just as they’d been designed. The silence of the crowd meant that every person in there heard, as if he stood near them and spoke only to them.

“Yoric Orrin,” he said, his voice vibrating with magic. “Sergius and Sirena Calvarias.” He made his voice the slightest bit less commanding. “And, if they are so moved, I would like to invite Grandfather Valefor, Madame Morticia, and Ancestor Raughloch to attend, as well.”

As he spoke those last three names, he bowed before two wizards and a sorceress, all three of whom wore physical bodies that were almost humorously young.

A handful of murmurs rippled through the crowd.

Malefic could not help but see pique on a few faces for being excluded, including several who would normally attend meetings of his inner circle. He also saw several measure him, and his crippled arm, resentment faint but visible in their auras.

Malefic made a mental note of each one.

“For those not named,” Malefic continued. “Kindly find refreshment in the dining hall behind me. We will rejoin you shortly, once we have concluded our business.”

The pause that time was brief but pregnant.

Then everyone not named on his very short list began shuffling and then walking towards one of the massive sets of wooden doors on either side of the stone fireplace.

Malefic’s eyes returned to those Magicals who didn’t move.

It was odd to think that the blond-haired mage with the dark red eyes and cherubic face was the resurrected soul of his great-grandfather, Valefor Bones.

It was almost as strange to remember that the muscular mage standing a few feet away was Raughloch Bones, an even older ancestor.

In personality, the two blood relatives could not be more different.

While Valefor had been cool, brilliant, and surgical, Raughloch had been feared both for his magic and his unpredictable rages, not to mention his taste for conquering neighboring estates to expand his own.

It was because of Raughloch that the Bones family still owned most of Exmoor, and much of the land to the south and west.

After laying claim to as much of England as the Crown would tolerate, Raughloch left on excursions for the New World.

From there, he brought back a new wife, new children, and spoils from entire continents.

He’d always been shrewd enough to set aside a sufficiently large portion for the King to remain in favor.

Now Raughloch appeared scarcely twenty.

The eyes that burned from that face did not fit the youth of the body around it, despite a monstrous frame that looked like it could lift a horse with one hand.

His blond, red, and black-streaked hair looked scraggly already, despite how pristinely it had been primped by its previous owner. A faint sneer lived on his lips below silver eyes which glowed faintly with his magic.

It was a curious quirk of the Resurrection that the eye color of the body changed upon receiving a new owner. This vessel had come with violet eyes initially, but within weeks they slowly morphed to silver, like Raughloch’s had been before he died.

As was the case for most bodies they used, the boy came from a family of minor nobility, a royal by birth, but one either too far down on the succession line to matter, or the offspring of a patriarch insufficiently loyal to the cause.

Strangemore fell into the disloyal camp.

The family patriarch hadn’t suffered from an ideological conflict, per se, but more an excess of greed.

The Strangemore family accumulated the majority of its wealth in the modern era, not via inheritance, but in shipping.

Strangemore had not wished to alienate either the Crown or their government contractors by joining the cause.

Malefic ordered Orrin to take the quisling’s son, and luckily, the heir fit their needs in all other respects.

Healthy. Good magical structure. The right age. The right breeding.