Far from the academy, deep within the grand palace, sat the king on his massive stone throne, artfully carved into intricate designs with the bones of defeated enemies lining past victories.
His face was stern, his demeanor regal. Around him stood a circle of trusted kingsmen, all robed in finery embroidered with threads of gold, each representative of their house nobles.
Thick tendrils of incense wafted through the air, infusing the great hall with an aura of mysticism.
Groaning in unison, the heavy wooden doors slowly began to open to admit an entrant-a woman who seemed to enter with purpose, her light steps commanding attention.
She was a vision of beauty, raven-black hair cascading about her shoulders in soft waves; emerald-green eyes, sharp and piercing like a blade at ready.
Smooth, near-porcelain-like skin and gilt adornments on her royal blue gown seemed to shimmer with each candle. Material hugged a shape most graceful upon her; grace and authority was held high, even within carriage.
She approached the king briskly.
"Father! The grave news in the east--" clear and without one slight break in the voice.
The eyes of the king clouded over, and his fingers instinctively dug deep into the carvings that adorned the arms of his throne. The room fell silent. He shifted forward in his seat, inclining his head. "Speak, you may speak."
She took a deep breath and said, "I had a vision—the necromancer we sent to fetch the Dragon Heart from the Bene Gesserit has failed. Worse, he's been taken. It seems that they have a magician among them, strong enough to make him stop."
There were collective gasps throughout the room. The kingsmen exchange a nervous glance though the king didn't budge an inch, his face the only thing working with the processing of the words. His jaw clamped.
"A male of the Bene Gesserit? That is not supposed to be so," he muttered to himself frowning, his eyes narrowed. "Well. You have seen well and you have done well to report it."
He exhaled hard and then gave the order: "Go to the Forge Master. Tell him to gather his night creatures, the most powerful of them all. We are to retrieve our necromancer before they even have a chance to draw a word from him."
She nodded, knowing this was a matter of great urgency. A slight bow and turning, the soft swishing of her gown sounded as she swept out of the throne room.
The Dungeon Depths—the Forge Master's Lair
Deep beneath the great halls of the palace above, an underground forge—and very different—dank, dark, and thick with the stench of burning metals and decaying flesh.
Remnants of previous experiments lined the walls in chains, old bones, and rusted weaponry.
Darkly lit, the room was flickering with torches, a huge forge right in the middle of it, the leaping flames dancing macabre shadows on stone walls.
Gotten down by the king's daughter via some stone stairs, bodies were strewn about all over, laying ungraciously on the ground.
Some of them had been fresh kills, faces still contorted in terror, but the rest had lain there for days; their rot filled the air with noxious odors.
And at the far end of the hall, near a long wooden table, was standing the Forge Master himself.
An imposing figure enveloped in tattered dark robes hardly hid his muscular physique.
His skin was as pale as a ghost; half of his face was masked with metal so that only his crimson-red eyes could be seen.
His hands were thick, with deep-set callouses to prove many years in the business of crafting monsters. His right hand clutched a short hammer, barely as long as the forearm was thick, his left much longer-nearly as long as a sword. These were his tools, his creation and destruction. And his name was Malakar, the Soul Forger.
Unlike any other necromancer, though they brought in the dead to raise them, Malakar would put inside their bodies something far darker.
Thus, his magical craft allows him to invoke the souls of demons from deep inside the pit of hell and bind them in the bodies of fallen warriors. The result is terrors quite unlike anything the world has ever seen-to wit, creatures with powers from hell, constant allegiance only to their master.
Closer stepped the king's daughter, her eyes unblinking. "Father, the king decrees that you prepare your demons. We attack tonight. The Bene Gesserit have seized Adam, the necromancer."
Malakar did not immediately answer him, but rather he brought his hammers together in twin cold ringing clanks, clanks that echoed through the dungeon, and smote the cold, dead body that lay upon the table before him.
The instant it hit, a blinding flash of blue lit from the corpse. It began to convulse furiously, skin bubbling and twisting, darkening veins across its body.
Bones cracked and resurfaced, lengthening and sharpening. His hands stretched into clawed talons, and his mouth stretched into a monstrous grin full of jagged teeth.
Then, a deep guttural growl tore from the creature as its eyes snapped open, aglow with red.
He smiled behind his mask, said, "Very well." Deep voice, gravelly from disuse-or perhaps something else, something near to inhuman was laced through it. "Tell the king… my army is ready."
The daughter of the king smiled wryly. "Then we strike at dawn."