Twenty-third of Parat, in the year 219 after Deadhaus It is done. My work has borne its terrible fruit… my weapon… my child. When last I wrote of my efforts, I had just managed to reanimate a single cadaver, and thanks to the treachery of the damnable ghoul, almost joined my creation in death. But I have come so much further since then. The Crucible has become a fountain of unlife, and the reanimated cadaver is but one of many to come. It is all so clear to me now…
the only way to stop the dead is with the dead. They are tireless; they require no rest, no sustenance. Well, the latter may not be true of ghouls and vampires, but it is certainly true of my wights. That is what I have elected to call them, for they are creatures of no single origin. I may have begun the process with an intact cadaver, but as I continued to experiment, I found it more useful to select individual components from multiple corpses and stitch
them together as a greater whole. The arm of a miner crushed in a cave-in, the torso of an oarsmen drowned at sea, the legs of a slave that spent his days hitched to the plough, strength is most desirable in selecting components, strength and size. For when these bodily pieces are assembled and animated, the strength they possessed in life is magnified in death. A corpse of average proportions is reanimated
with a strength that outmatches all but the most physically powerful men. But a wight assembled from components specially selected for their strength--that comes back from death as a monster. I can only guess as to why the reanimation process augments them so. Perhaps the living are capable of such physical feats, but would be irreparably damaged, and so cannot consciously push themselves to perform them. But my wights have no such reservations, no instinct for self-preservation
whatsoever. When given a task, they will perform it until their tissues degrade and their stitching unravels, or they are told to stop. Even if I should command them to walk into fire, they would do so without hesitation. But gaining this level of control over them was no simple matter. It took months of experimentation and refinement. It began with the chimes. “Get up,” I commanded the newly assembled wight that lay before me. It was the first I
had successfully constructed. “I said stand up.” From one corner of the lab, the cadaver from my earliest experiments with the Crucible rose to its feet. “Not you!” It stood motionless by the wall to which it was bound by a chain and collar wrought of dead man’s iron. The wight began to stir then, pulling its stitched-together body upright. It towered over me, gazing ahead with the one eye that remained to it, as its head belonged to one who died in a fire.
Its half-melted face carried no expression as it began to step toward me. “Stop,” I commanded with another strike of the chimes, and the wight stood still. “Why is your first instinct to destroy me?” “You do not know its purpose,” the ghoul spoke from its cage. “The only way to know is to let it approach, yes.” “That one already showed me exactly what they want,” I said, motioning to the chained cadaver.
“Not all dead share the same want,” “Yes, I’m sure a conversation with you about the motivations of the dead would be both clear and informative, but I’ll just have to--no! Stop!” I struck the chimes as the wight took another step toward me. “Step back.” It returned to its original position beside the table, and the cadaver slumped back against the wall. “These normally last longer… they last longer on that one.” I muttered to myself, eyeing the cadaver. “It is strong,” the ghoul said.
“Strength has nothing to do with it. I am far weaker than this creature, but the chimes cannot sway me. It is focus that muffles them.” “Then we too are focused.” “Of that I have no doubt.” I began a series of experiments to measure the range and duration of control the chimes provided. The wight seemed to be able to understand simple commands. It could move from one point to another and wait there. It could retrieve objects and bring them to me. It could stand, or crouch,
or lie flat, though shifting between these configurations was cumbersome. I was unable to impart any sense of haste to the wight. No matter the command, no matter the urgency or aggression with which I gave it, the wight always moved at the same pace, slow and methodical. Complex commands were ignored, presumably because it did not understand them. These commands were also ignored by the cadaver, who strained against its bindings to follow the same orders I gave the
wight. But whenever the power of the chimes faded, the wight would immediately cease its given task. If it was carrying something, it would simply drop the object. If it lay flat on the ground, it would stagger to its feet. And then, every time, without malice, without emotion of any kind, in the same methodical pace, it would begin moving toward me until I struck the chimes once more. I suppose the ghoul was technically correct. I cannot know empirically what the wight’s intentions were.
“Why do you move toward me when the chimes have faded?” I asked, expecting no answer and hearing none. “Take that chair over there and show me what you would do if you reached me before I stopped you,” I said, but the wight simply stared ahead. “We can show you what we would do, Alaric von Beller. Give us the chair.” “Oh, shut up.” Each ring of the chimes gave me less than a minute of control over the wight, which made its value
questionable at best. Even the strongest and most obedient servants are worth nothing if they require constant oversight. The next experiment was to observe how long it took the animating force of the Crucible to dissipate from the wight. I had to stand there striking the chimes every minute for nearly an entire day, about the same as the cadaver, before the wight’s body collapsed.
This too was a problem. Even if I could achieve total control, having to recharge the wight from the Crucible every day would significantly limit the range that future wights could be deployed. But that night, as I slept, I was visited by the strangest dream. It began with hundreds of voices whispering all at once. I saw the Crucible as it was when I found it, suspended between the great pyramids of the chamber within the stone. I saw myself ascend the steps to claim the ancient
device and watched again as the chamber was thrown into darkness. The light of the crucible shone as a single lamp, a glinting green candle in a sea of black, and then I saw something that did not happen that night. The strange waters that hung in the stone, neither flowing nor falling, so too did they hang upon the Crucible. Where its glass should have been, there was only the bizarre fluid. I saw the green substance roiling within, unable to pass through the liquid.
Then the Alaric of the dream reached into the waters, his face bathed in green light, his eyes cast in shadows as if they were empty. He lifted cupped hands from the Crucible and bore aloft its swirling energies. They filled the shadows in his eyes and burned away the darkness, until they shone as jade-fire lamps. And from the stretching shadows of the chamber, wights came crawling up the sides of the pyramid. They were reaching for him, reaching for me, their decayed faces
opened empty mouths as if to scream, but there came only chimes. Then the whispers stopped. I rushed to the laboratory as soon as I had woken and rummaged through my satchel. It did not take me long to find it, a sample I had collected over a year ago, a flask of the strange waters that hung in the Way Stone below Os Kurrox. My experiments with the substance had yielded no results, nothing worth recording, and now less than half of it remained, but it waited still
within the flask, neither sloshing nor flowing as liquid should when I moved it. I knew that it was no ordinary dream that led me here. Perhaps it was the Crucible itself, speaking to me, guiding me closer to my destiny. I would need more than was in this flask, but I knew where to find it. The Way Stone beneath Os Kurrox was out of the question--I knew what would be waiting for me on the other side if I should open it--but the stone that led me to the Crucible
was safe. I had only to return on a full moon, and at midnight the stone would flow as water. And so I did, and so I collected flask after flask of the strange water, which was undiminished, no matter how much I took from it. And then, satchel clattering with so many flasks, I returned to the capital to construct a new device, a storage device for the Crucible’s energies.
For weeks I worked tirelessly as the cadaver decayed in the corner. I kept it animated though, kept notes on the duration, to see if it was affected by its state of decay. The stench curdled my guts, but a pattern did emerge. As the flesh sloughed off, as the cadaver withered away, it could not remain animated for as long as it once had. Eventually, when the animating force had left the cadaver, I submerged its remains in an acid bath.
The ghoul rattled its displeasure as the flesh dissolved, leaving only bones behind. It no longer animated as a whole after that. Individual bones would jostle about briefly, but they would not move together as they had when part of a body. But this was idle curiosity next to my true purpose. During the observation of the cadaver, I constructed a replication of the crucible to the best of my abilities. I could not replicate the intricate mechanisms or folding protrusions.
I could only shape the common materials at my disposal into an approximation of the Crucible’s form. Iron and glass, that was all I had--that, and the strange water. The first test was to take the plain replication and imbue it with the Crucible’s energies. It behaved much in the same way as any nonliving object did--trembled a bit, rolled languidly of its own accord, then fell still. The energies had dissipated. I then tried pouring the strange water
on the replication, but it would not fall from the flask when overturned. By pulling the flask upward rapidly, the strange water was left hanging in the air for a moment before fading away. But if I could not coat the materials in the strange water, perhaps I could mix it in their making. Molten iron flows like liquid. I cast a flask of the water into its burning glow. The glass burst, but there was no hiss of steam as there would have been with plain water.
The same was done with molten glass, and the two materials were shaped into the Crucible’s form. This time, when I brought the replication to be filled by the Crucible’s light, nothing happened. No light, no color. The replication was sealed from the Crucible’s energies. The dream became clearer to me. I was closer to its meaning, closer to my purpose. With the strange water, I could contain the energies of the crucible, delay their dissipation.
I will not write of the steps I took between then and the final product. I fear I have written too much already. When the war with Deadhaus is done, when Thacea stands victorious, I will destroy my works, all of them, as well as the writing of them. There must be no record of any of this. As for the Crucible itself, I doubt that it can be destroyed, at least not without also destroying Thacea. I will return it to the stone and bury the ruins with explosives. No one will wield
it after it has served its final purpose. Suffice it to say, I succeeded in my designs. I crafted a device, a core, that could contain the Crucible’s energies--for days at first, then weeks, and now I am uncertain how long it will last. And I knew that if I were to insert that core into the wight, it would remain animated and in need of constant supervision with the chimes for as long as the energies remained… perhaps indefinitely. But I also knew the truth of the dream.
I went to where the wight’s remains laid upon a table. A set of many tools gleamed in the Crucible’s light nearby. A fishing knife was the first I’d need, to slice the scalp free from the skull. Next came the hammer and chisel, to chip away the bone. Arduous work, but the brain was revealed in time, to be scooped out like so much yellowed jelly. And in its place, the now empty cavity of the skull would house something new… a set of chimes. I sutured the scalp back in place,
covering the opening at the top of the wight’s head. Then I set to work with my saw. The ribs were difficult, and the flesh between them kept gumming up the saw’s teeth. My arms burned under the labor, but I persisted until the sternum snapped free and I was able to spread the ribs apart. No heart and lungs were needed here. I tossed them to the ghoul, who rattled in approval. “Arsenic…” it muttered between bites.
Once an opening in the chest was made large enough, I took the core, which glowed with its own green light, and pressed it into the cavity. It took some forcing, which was intentional, but slid in eventually. I stepped back then, waiting for what would come next. The wight’s hands twitched; its arms spasmed, then it sat upright. It stood and took a step toward me, then stopped. I said nothing, merely waited. It took another step, then stopped.
“You can hear them can’t you? Inside your skull.” The wight stepped forward again, then stopped. “Every time you move, they move. Every step you take, they strike each other.” It stepped, then stopped. It had nearly reached me. “The fact that you can move at all is quite remarkable.” It reached for me. “Stop,” I said. It froze. “I am Alaric von Beller. I am your master now. You will obey me and only me. You will not harm me, but you will destroy my enemies.”
The wight lowered its arm. “Good, now lie down on that table, and let me patch you up.” I set to work binding the core more tightly to the ribs with wires. If it were to become dislodged, the wight would be little more than dead flesh. Once the core was secure, I began the next step in my plan, which was to bind it from head to foot in linen bandages until even the glow of its core was obscured. I then draped a cloak around its shoulders and covered
its bandaged head with the hood. Its one good eye peered lifelessly between the linen strips. “What lies beneath the hood and wrappings? Who can say? A burn victim? A man suffering some deformity, hiding from the judgement of others?” “A slave,” the ghoul answered. “Only the living can be slaves.” “We too are slaves, yes.” “I’m fairly certain slaves are meant to be useful.” The room began to spin as a wave of
exhaustion washed over me. “I have rested too little these days, eaten too little.” “Sleep then, Alaric von Beller. We will watch over your slave, make sure it behaves, yes.” “Yes, how generous,” I said. Then, turning to the wight,”Follow me.” I led the wight to my chambers. No servants were about at that hour, but even if they had been,
they would not have known what lurked beneath the wrappings. “You will stand guard over me as I sleep,” I commanded, and the wight moved to stand near the door. I was gone as soon as my head hit the pillow. A frantic knocking drew me from my dreamless sleep. In my waking stupor, I did not rouse quickly enough. The servant burst into the room.
“Forgiveness, Grand Inquisitor, but the emperor requires your presence immediately. He wishes to--” The servant was cut off by the wight’s hand clamping around his face and had only enough time for one muffled scream before it turned his head completely backwards. “No!” I shot out of bed, rushing to slam the door shut. “Why!?” The wight stared blankly ahead. “I did not tell you to do this!” It stooped down to the servant’s body and twisted
his now lifeless head so that it faced forward in a silent scream. “That’s not what I meant!” The wight twisted the servant’s head to face backward once more. “Enough! Stop touching that!” It stood and stared blankly ahead. I pressed my face into my hands, then went to my bed and pulled the sheets free. I wrapped the servant’s body in them and pointed to it. “Carry that and follow me.” I stepped into the hall, but soon halted upon the stairs as I heard the loud thumping behind me.
I turned to find the wight dragging the bundle that contained the servant’s remains along the floor so that his head rebounded off every stair. “Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!” I whispered through my teeth. The wight obeyed. And thank our absentee gods that no one else was around then. We made it to the laboratory without further incident. The ghoul perked up, sniffing as we entered the laboratory. “You spoil us, Alaric von Beller,” it said.
“I’m going to unlatch the top of your cage, and my wight is going to drop this in for you. But I’m going to have my crossbow on you the whole time. If you so much as twitch in a way I don’t approve, I will put a silver bolt between those sunken pits where your eyes used to be.” It rattled uneasily. “Silver.” But the ghoul made no trouble. It stayed perfectly still as the corpse was dropped in, and I latched the cage once more.
“I must go to the palace. It would be too dangerous for you to wait for me in my chambers now. You will wait for me here, but you will not listen to a word that this one says,” I motioned to the ghoul, who was lost in its meal. “You obey only me, no one else.” The wight stared blankly ahead. I could not trust the ghoul, of course, but I could trust the chimes. The wight had stayed by my side throughout the night and caused me no harm.
I am still uncertain as to why it attacked the servant, but it was clearly under my power now. Again, the emperor called me before him to speak of a “Crimson Cult.” This time, I was not panicked and could listen more carefully. Still, I did not share his concern over a single group of fanatics. Why waste time and resources over this when Deadhaus marches ever northward? The cult would be destroyed along with the rest of us if Deadhaus wasn’t stopped.
I assured him I would investigate the matter further, which seemed to placate him. But I have no such time to spare for lesser threats. I will assign another inquisitor to investigate this cult. For now, there was more important work to be done. I knew that the only way I could manufacture as many wights as would be needed in the war with Deadhaus was to acquire imperial support. Only the full resources of Thacea and a team of
trained alchemists could handle the production of an army of wights. But the only way I was going to get that kind of support would be to prove their usefulness. Of course, this would mean revealing that I had created them in the first place, that I had defied imperial decree, studied undead specimens, reanimated dead tissue. The penalty for that was death. But if I could show that the wights were entirely under my control, that they were as invaluable as I claimed, then
perhaps the sentence could be pardoned. Perhaps the emperor would have no choice but to support my efforts once he saw they could win the war. I would not achieve this by asking for permission. It could only be done through sufficient demonstration… something that no one could deny. If I were to retake Ft. Zaestra, lead a group of wights south and drive out the dead there, this might be sufficient. It would regain the Thacean Empire control of the southern border.
Ft. Zaestra guards the only way into the northern provinces not blocked by mountains. Many have tried and failed to retake the fort since it was lost last year. None of them returned. But I will return. I will use the dead to do what the living cannot. Yes… this is what the dream has shown me… this is what the Crucible intended for me. But first I will need more wights. One will not be enough. Alaric von Beller, Grand Inquisitor of the Thacean Empire