"One Cup For The Dead.": Some Speculative Fiction

Some light reading for your weekend.

I wrote this on Thursday for no reason other than being inspired. I was hit by a bolt and had to get it on paper. Eventually I realized I was writing dialog for heroes who hadn't "joined the group" yet and decided to fix that.

But the thing that inspired me was the scene with the War Dog. I post it here, but I warn you: I do not know that these things (no spoilers) are true of the war dogs. And, if they ARE true, I am unsure of the wisdom of putting these ideas in front of new players.

Ideally, IF this is what we learn about Ajax's fanatical undead death commandos, they would be revealed in a late adventure, product-cycle wise. But I lack discipline and having written it, I want to share it and I figured, well the patrons are the true believers, it's safe to share it with them.

Will anything like this ever make it into an MCDM product? No idea! But you, at least, get to read it! We few, we happy few... :D

P.S. this follows immediately after the lore on Time Raiders, see your playtest packet and read that first!

One Cup For The Dead

“John!” Vaatikalisax called out. John put his boot in the chest of the war dog he’d just skewed, and pulled his saber out, kicking the corpse to the ground. Thus ended the battle against Taxiarch Lycaon and his troopers. John turned to look for the dragon knight.

On the other side of the battlefield, Embers walked up to the dwarf who’d joined them from the village. He was dressed in the garb of a High Theocron of Zarok, the Law-giver. A dwarf in a small village like this was not unusual, but a High Theocron was unusual anywhere.

“You are the priest of this town?” Embers asked. “These people are blessed if so.”

“Aye on both counts,” the dwarf said, and thrust his hand out and up. Embers looked down at it for a moment and remembered the human custom. She was well-used to the greeting, but it seemed strange coming from this dwarf. Like it was something he’d observed, but never practiced.

She shook his hand. “I apologize for my lateness,” the dwarf said. “But when I saw it was battle I rushed to get my armor and staff. I am Dazar.” They unclasped hands and the dwarf took a step back.

“Embers,” the high elf said, and bowed.

“Yes. By name, garb, and reputation, I make you A Mist Curls Around Dying Embers, mistress of the Tower of Translation. But your tower is fallen lady,” he said, and looked at the party who appeared to be interrogating a captured war dog. “And you now find yourself in the company of a motley band opposed to the war dogs at least, if not Ajax.”

“The war dogs,” Embers tilted her head, “and Ajax.”

The dwarf nodded, satisfied. “Good.” He gestured to a spot of empty ground beside him, and a cloud of black ash erupted from the ground. As the wisps of ash settled, they settled on a crouching figure with long, twisting furred ears and and a billowing silk cloak so black it seemed it was made from the falling ash. In spite of her age and experience, Embers was visibly startled.

“This is Gwillyv,” the dwarf said. The wode elf stood up and nodded once to Embers.

“Ah,” Embers said. “When I saw the cadre of tetherites fall to the ground as one with no sign of attacker, I suspected I was in the presence of a graduate of the College of Black Ash. You are far from the Orchid Court.” The wode elf raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“When we saw the war dogs had captured an alien, I said battle. Gwillyv said peace. ‘Time reveals weakness’ she said, and I saw the wisdom in this.”

Embers looked from one to the other and wondered, what would John do? “You are wasted,” she said and looked to the villagers recovering from battle, “Defending just these. There’s a world needs mending.” She was proud that she managed to make the offer in a short few words. Watching John, she thought directness had virtue. 

“As a member of your party? Or a member of the resistance?” Dazar sneered a wolfish grin, and it was clear which answer he hoped for.

“Who do I thank for my rescue!?” the time raider approached, holstering her meson blaster. She stood before the two elves and the dwarf. “Or must I kill all of you as well?”

“Hah!” Dazar barked his approval. The time raider looked at him and smiled. 

“You have Sir John to thank,” Embers said, and indicated the human knight who, with the polder and the draconian were inspecting the captured war dog for some reason. Embers was curious. 

“Well then, as I deem we are now safe,” she brought the fingers of her upper left hand and lower right hand toward her mouth and, contorting them in ways Embers didn’t understand, inserted them between her lips and exhaled sharply, producing a whirring whistle that sharply alternated between two high-pitched notes.

“Hork!” a creature barked, and bounding out of the forest at the edge of town came what looked like a six-eyed, six-limbed demon dog. “Hork, hork, hork!” The beast butted its head affectionately against the time raider’s leg and then plopped its rump on the ground, looking at the others, her tongue lolling out.

“And as it seems a time for introductions. I am Ph’ekala the Skeptical. This is my thrazz, Yogon.”

“You’re a beastheart!” Embers said, delighted and surprised.

The time raider raised one eyebrow and it seemed one ocular sensor focused in on the high elf. “I am a bonded hunter, and this is my partner,” she reached out her lower right hand and the alien dogthing craned its head up to meet it. As the time raider kneaded the alien dog’s piebald skin, she said “Though it likes me, this term ‘beast heart.’” She looked down at her companion who gazed back up at the alien in what was probably some loose analog for adoration. “It has a poetry to it that speaks well to our connection.”

“Hork!” the thrazz said in apparent agreement. “Yes it does,” the time raider smiled at her pet, then looked at the others. “Come” she said. “It is time for us to meet this Ser J’onn. And the dragon that walks as a man.”

The newly rescued and newly recruited joined the rest of the party, who faced a lone war dog. Sir John registered their arrival, nodded at them, but his attention was elsewhere.

“Why isn't he attacking?” Jackson Bootblack asked. The war dog just stood there, swaying on it's feet. Its gaze darted around, confused.

“I think…,” John peered at the patchwork trooper. He had two different colored patches of hair, and his nose was darkly tanned. But his cheeks and hazel eyes…. 

The disarmed war dog stared back at John, and something…human passed between them.

“Black gods,” Jackson Bootblack said. “John he recognizes you.”

“That's impossible,” Embers said, and Dazar nodded agreement.

“We should put it out of it's misery,” Gwillyv whispered.

Vaantikalisax put his hand on his mace, ready to do the deed if necessary, but at the same time held his hand up, silencing the wode elf.

John took a step forward. His breathing was ragged and rapid, but it wasn’t from the battle. There was a look of fascinated horror on his face.

“Vaant. Vaant it’s….”

“It’s Brys,” the dragon knight said, he voice a low whisper. “Captain Brys.”

The war dog gasped and suddenly looked confused. Eyes darting everywhere. It has the expression of a child awaiting punishment for breaking a rule it did not understand.

Embers walked to stand between Sir John and Sir Vaantikalisax. “You knew this man, in life.” 

They both nodded. “We served together in the King’s First,” Vaantikalisax said. John was struck dumb and could not tear his eyes away from the war dog. “Under Lady Estrid. After the fall of Omund.”

The war dog just stood there. It kept glancing at John and then looking away. A sickeningly human look of fear on its face. Confusion. Shame.

John couldn’t stop himself. He leaned his face over to force the corpse of Captain Brys to look at him, to force the war dog to look back. In a low voice, John spoke, slowly and methodically.

“Time was, we laughed at the others;

We thought we were wiser than them;

Those fools who cried for their mothers,

Who still hoped to see them again.

No! Stand to your glasses, steady!

The thoughtless man here is more wise:

One cup for those dead already—

While John spoke, Vaantikalisax rummaged in his pack and produced a simple clay cup. John snatched it from his hand and thrust it at the War Dog whose eyes had gone wide.

“One cup! For those dead! Already!” John barked, trying to will something to happen. 

The war dog, arm shaking as if two minds fought for control, reached out and took the cup, stared at it with wide eyes brimming with tears. Held it in both hands like a precious thing.

“What is happening?” Gwillyv whispered, taking a step back.

The newly rescued Time Raider backed away from the group. She no longer thought she understood those who had rescued her. “I like this not!” she said.

“What sorcery is this you work?” Dazar said, disapproving. “There are forces here not to be….”

“Who dreads…to the dust…returning?” the war dog spoke, and it was a hollow, echoing voice that came from that mouth. 

“Black gods!” Jackson Bootblack said, and Dazar warded himself against evil. The Time Raider’s eyebrows shot up and her crystalline ocular sensors flashed red for shock. She was suddenly interested in spite of herself.

But the voice continued, and it was a different voice than any war dogs spoke with. The echo died, and the voice grew louder until it was a human voice coming from between human lips.

“Who shrinks…from that silvery shore?”

Ember’s eyes darted back from the war dog to John and Vaant, and she noticed something impossible. Vaatikalisax’s lips were matching the words the war dog spoke. He knows this poem!

“Where the high and haughty yearning

Of the soul can sting you no more.”

He looked at John and there was a painful recognition mixed with eagerness there. He was shouting now, shouting anger and pain and trying to push past something, reach something.

“No, stand to your glasses, steady!

This world is a world of lies!”

He thrust the clay cup forward on the next line, and raised it to the sky with the last.

“One cup for those dead already!

One cup to the next that dies!”

“Brys,” John said, and his cheeks were wet with tears. “Oh Brys what did they do to you?”

“John,” Vaantikalisax said. “Brys died, we saw it. Whatever this is…”

“Vaant,” Brys said, confused, disoriented. He looked at the others, not recognizing, then his gaze landed on the dragon knight, and he nodded recognition as though they had only been parted a few moments. “Vaant, they…they killed me. John…,” He dropped the cup and put a hand to his forehead and you could see where the discontinuity between pale flesh and a triangle of yellowed flesh met, the stitches that kept the skin together.

“They…they killed me and then they…” He looked at his hands and forearms and screamed. “My arms!!” Captain Brys howled. He started ripping and tearing at his own arms. “Where are my arms?!” He was peeling away the stitched together flesh revealing crimson red meat and pale white bone.

John and Vaantikalisax rushed forward to restrain their former comrade. The thing that had been Sir Brys was strong enough to lift both of them and, ignoring their attempts at restraint howled “WHOSE SKIN IS THIS?!”

Frowning in disapproval, Dazar began a prayer, but Embers saw this and stopped him. Her lithe star-black fingers danced and she spoke a word, and the war dog calmed itself. Still confused, but no longer resisting.

“Brys,” John held his friend by the shoulders, trying to force the former war dog to look at him. “Brys what’s the last thing you remember? Do you remember the Crysopolis? Think! Did you see the body banks?!”

“I saw…,” Brys said, and he started crying, weeping. “I saw where the bodies….” Suddenly his eyes went wide, he snapped almost to attention and he looked, perfectly lucid, from Vaant to Sir John.

“Wait!” the thing that had been Captain Brys suddenly shouted with recognition. He shook his head trying to clear it. “Listen. Listen, M-Mortum…,” whatever this thing was, it was desperate to get the words out. “He isn’t…y-you don’t know what he’s doing. No one does! He wants to…he’s going to….”

Suddenly, as though Captain Brys had spoken some curse, his hazel eyes filled with black blood. The sinews on his neck stood out like cords and he howled pain and anguish to the sky, before whatever magics had been holding him together failed and his entire body fell to bits and scraps, leaving John holding an upper arm and half a shoulder. He looked at his hands for a moment and then his arms spasmed as he dropped the body parts and wiped his hands on his breastplate.

“John, there’s a conduit of…,” Embers began, gesturing to Dazar.

“Bring him back!” John demanded, turning to the High Theocron and stabbing a finger at the ruined corpse. Vaantikalisax put a hand on John’s shoulder, restraining him.

Amazed and horrified at the demand, Dazar looked from John to the dead war dog and anger replaced horror. “He was never alive!” Dazar said, disgusted at the knight-commander. “I have not the power! And had I the power, I have not the right! And had I the power, and had I the right, still I would not! Some things are better left dead, Sir Knight.” the dwarf bit the word off, tacitly questioning the validity of the man’s title. “Whoever he was, whoever’s…memory you just dredged up…you desecrated them today!

John turned, he couldn’t face Dazar. The conduit looked at Vaantikaliax who was similarly struck dumb and consumed with grief, confusion. “This was an unhallowed thing that happened here,” the conduit of Zarok, Law-giver spoke. “An inauspicious beginning.”

In time, apologies and explanations were passed around. And something like a group formed. Some villagers had been wounded in the battle, though none died, and the heroes tended to the injured and helped the villagers drag the bodies of the war dogs into a cart to take out of town and burn. No one touched the parts that had once been Captain Brys. None of them knew what to do with such a corpse. If corpse it be.

                                                                          •

It was dusk, and the sun sat low in the sky. A shadowy figure with twisting furred ears and a flowing black silk cloak darted from cover to cover until they crouched over the slain war dog. The lithe feminine figure bent down and sniffed all around the ruined war dog, until they reached some conclusion. She gathered all the bits of the trooper and arranged them as near to their original position as possible. 

“A lost soul calls out,” the shadow said, and placed her hand on the forehead of the ruined, patchwork soldier. She leaned forward and whispered.

“Revenge.” 

-----

Time was, we laughed at the others;

We thought we were wiser than them;

Those fools who cried for their mothers,

Who still hoped to see them again.

No! Stand to your glasses, steady!

The thoughtless man here is more wise:

One cup for those dead already—

One cup to the next who dies!

There a mist on our glasses congealing,

It’s the hurricane's sultry breath;

And so does the warmth of feeling

Turn ice in the grasp of Death.

But stand to your glasses, steady!

For a moment the vapor flies:

One cup to the dead already—

One cup to the next who dies!

Who dreads to the dust returning?

Who shrinks from that silvery shore,

Where the high and haughty yearning

Of the soul can sting you no more?

No, stand to your glasses, steady!

The world is a world of lies:

One cup to the dead already—

One cup to the next that dies!

Cut off from the land that bore us,

Betrayed by the land we find,

When the brightest have gone before us,

And the dullest remain here behind—

So stand to your glasses, steady!

'Tis all we have left to prize:

One cup to the dead already—

One cup to the next that dies!

-Barracks-room song of the King’s First.