Chapter 1
30 Years Ago
Omand watched in awe as the ocean consumed the land.
His mind could barely comprehend the size of the tidal wave. Mighty Vokkan oak trees, eighty feet tall, disappeared in the wave’s shadow. It hit the beach, roaring with all the thunder in the world.
There was a casteless village there. Because of the never-ending threat of sea demons, only the non-people were expendable enough to live near the shore, only it wouldn’t be demons who did these in, but the fury of hell itself.
The village was obliterated in an instant.
Such power. Such destruction. Omand had never been jealous of the sea before.
The water was still coming at them.
His fellow Inquisitors ran for their lives, but Omand remained watching. As always, he remained supremely rational, even as something so seemingly irrational unfolded before his eyes. The fear was there, but logically he knew their camp was a mile from shore, and atop the tallest hill in the area. Even as his senses screamed to flee, he knew there was no better place to go, at least none that he could reach in time. The wave would either sweep over their hill, or it would not. In the meantime, he would enjoy the show.
The wave toppled and spread. Churning white turned to roiling brown as the ground was torn to pieces and swept away. An entire forest was uprooted. Fields were buried. It carried massive boulders as if they were pebbles. The watery death covered that mile in a few heartbeats. There was another settlement in its path, worker caste, farmers by the looks of them, but then it too was smashed to bits. Houses were ripped from their foundations and bounced along atop the muddy mass, rolling until they shattered. Every resident who hadn’t been instantly crushed would surely drown.
Thousands dead…just like that.
With astonishing speed, the ocean reached the Inquisitors’ hill. Gigantic trees bounced off the rocks below. Plumes of mud shot up, drenching them in a rain of filth. Omand had avoided the sea for so long he had forgotten its odor of salt and decay. The churning mass of debris was shoved farther and farther up the hillside, but it was slowing, and with a calculating eye, he guessed it would not make it over the summit. So Omand watched, detached, as the dead and dying flashed by beneath him. Casteless or worker, it was hard to tell the difference when they were just bobbing corpses. Man, woman, child, even the livestock, pigs and cows, and wild animals, deer and birds—the ocean spared nothing.
If their leader had not insisted on setting up their camp for the night on this high ground, they would be among those dead. There had been a small earthquake before dawn. The shaking had barely roused Omand from his slumber, but he had thought nothing of it and gone back to sleep. A brief time later the Inquisitors had woken to the sounds of monkeys screaming and hooting in the forest, as if they were fleeing something in terror. Leave it to those clever animals to have more sense than man. Luckily, before the Inquisitors had broken their fast and moved out, they had seen the distant sea receding.
And now it had come rushing back with a vengeance.
Who would have guessed that the demons’ home would be even more wrathful than its inhabitants? Thankfully, fear of sea-demon raids kept anyone of importance from settling too close to the shores, so none of these people would matter much. The Inquisitors had been sent to this province to root out a rumored gang of religious fanatics in the valley below. Those criminals were surely drowned now, so mission accomplished.
Despite the unimportance of the dead, a catastrophe of this magnitude would be a blow to his house. The water continued inland, turning small streams and canals into wide bolts of devastation. How far would it go? He did not know. Omand had heard of tidal waves like this happening before, but the last one of such magnificence here had been when his great-grandfather had been a child, and those tales spoke of a wave probably half the size of this.
For hours the Inquisitors’ hill become an island, the only survivors above a sea of frothing mud and carnage. The others were terrified, but their w
itch hunter ordered them to remain wary. The ocean was always treacherous. There was no reason to expect it to behave any differently now that it was on land.
So Omand had sat upon a rock, smoked his pipe, and contemplated the fleeting nature of mortality as the bodies had accumulated below.
The next few days had been a hellish blur of labor and effort. As the water retreated, it left behind a ruined wasteland, stark and terrible beyond anything Omand had ever imagined.
Those born of the first caste did not normally get their hands dirty, but these were not normal circumstances, and the local arbiter had ordered all able-bodied men, regardless of caste, to help salvage whatever could be saved in the aftermath of the wave. Omand’s duty was to capture criminals and torture confessions from them, so he was used to filth and stench and pain, but that work had a higher purpose, and was rewarding. Omand took joy in hurting people. He always had. In comparison to his noble obligation this sort of labor was degrading and beneath him, but he did as he was commanded and labored alongside those of lower birth.
It was exhausting to the point it became difficult to remember how much time had passed since the disaster—enough for some bits of ground to dry and the bodies atop it to bloat and begin to burst in the heat—when a casteless woman ran into the rescuers’ camp, breathless and terrified, crying about some trapped horror. Most had paid no mind to the mad ramblings of the non-person, but Omand’s superior was an experienced witch hunter—one of the Inquisition’s elite—and often admonished his men that valuable intelligence could come from the most unlikely of sources, even a pathetic non-person.
The witch hunter had donned his golden mask before questioning the casteless, and when the hideous visage of the Law didn’t frighten her as much as what she had claimed to see, they had known she was speaking the truth, for non-people normally avoided the Inquisition at all costs.
“Help! There be a demon! There be a demon in the woods!”
Though Omand had never personally dealt with any of the fearsome creatures, he had heard they were attracted by carnage, and there was certainly no shortage of that here. Though demons didn’t usually stray far from water, today the water had come to them.
“Where did you see this beast?”
She pointed back the way she’d come from. “The bottoms. Or what’s left of ’em.”
Demons were living weapons. When they trespassed on land, they slaughtered man until their hunger was sated, and then they returned to the sea. Sometimes someone managed to kill a sea demon, but that usually required great effort and sacrificing many warriors in the process. Omand didn’t know much about fighting demons, as that was out of the Inquisition’s jurisdiction. That responsibility was left
to their rivals, the Protectors. Except their witch hunter didn’t seem to care that there were no Protectors here.
“Which way was it headed?”
“It weren’t headed nowhere. It’s stuck under rocks.”
“Dead?” the witch hunter had asked, hope in his voice, because demon flesh was one of the only two sources of magic in the world, and thus an incredibly valuable resource. As one of the rare people born with the gift of wizardry, the Order of Inquisition had issued Omand a single demon tooth to fuel the one magical pattern he’d been officially taught. Even that one tiny fragment was incredibly valuable. An intact body would be worth a fortune.
“Not dead. Stuck. The wave left it here all broken and tore. If it could move it would’ve ate me.”
The witch hunter paused, surely thinking about how handsomely the Grand Inquisitor would reward them for securing such a prize.
“Show me the way, casteless.”
Omand had never seen a demon before. Even partially crushed beneath debris, it was still incredibly intimidating. Normally they were supposed to be sleek and black as night, but this one was crusted in drying mud. It had no discernable eyes, but it was clearly watching the Inquisitors, as its lump of a head turned directly toward them. As the group drew closer, its slit of a mouth opened, revealing rows of black razor teeth, exactly like the one in Omand’s pocket. The creature made no sound, but the display made Omand think of a cat, hissing a warning.
It surely would have killed them all if it could, but the casteless had spoken true. From the look of things the wave had swept through these lowlands with a great deal of force, surely carrying the demon all the way from the sea, to be smashed between two rolling boulders. Its arms had been ripped off somewhere along the way, leaving behind jagged stumps. Demon blood was white as milk, and it had dried all over the rocks. The demon’s lower half was still crushed flat beneath a giant log, and its white guts had squirted out. From the angle of its back its spine must have been broken. It was a testament to how incredibly resilient the things were that it still lived at all.
“We must kill it!” one of his brothers shouted. “Hurry, before it frees itself.”
“Steady your nerves, Inquisitor. This is quite the momentous occasion. It is rare someone is able to look so closely upon a living demon and survive to talk about it. I wish to investigate further.”
The witch hunter approached the demon cautiously as Omand and the others got ready to run for their lives. When the demon did nothing, their superior squatted down, just out of reach of the monster’s jaws, to study it. Omand marveled at his courage, and after some time passed without the demon striking, Omand walked over and joined him. He may have been the youngest among the Inquisitors, but
he was born of high status, and holding back would make him look like a coward. Omand was far too ambitious to be seen as a coward.
“You are braver than the others.”
“Merely curious, sir.”
“Tell me what you think, Novice Inquisitor.”
Up close, the creature was even more alien than expected. It was shaped like a man, but only vaguely. The thing was terrifying, yet simultaneously piteous in its current situation. The mud around the demon had already dried into nothing but a few puddles. It had clearly been trapped here since the waters had receded.
“It’s not going anywhere.”
“I believe you are correct.”
Even missing big pieces of its body, the demon still had to weigh at least four hundred pounds. Since it was still alive the magic would be exceedingly fresh—far better quality than the rotted demon parts that washed up on shore the Inquisition was usually able to procure. They would be able to harvest an incredible amount of magic from this flesh. Only it was then that Omand noticed the most curious thing. From the demon’s stumps, it appeared new bones were growing, like weeds sprouting from the soil. Coated in the milky substance, tiny new claws could already be discerned sprouting from the end.
The senior had noted that as well. “It seems demons are like the lizards that can shed their tail and grow a new one.”
Only these new limbs would be filled with potent magic. If a dead demon was worth a fortune to the Inquisition, what would a live one be?
“You are from these lands, Omand. Correct?”
“This is my house, but I am from Sudorat, south of here,” Omand answered. “I was raised in the great house itself, of the first caste.”
“Then your name will carry more weight with these people. We will require great secrecy. Gather the surviving workers. They will need to build a mighty cage.”
The demon continued to watch them, fangs bared, as if it somehow understood its fate.
Years had passed since they had last met.
Omand had been promoted to witch hunter, traveled the entire continent, and learned much in the ways of magic. Being extremely effective at his obligation, he had risen in rank, status, and influence.
The stranded sea demon had not been so fortunate.
The Order of Inquisition had built a secret facility in Vokkan to hold their demonic prisoner, where it had lived in a state of endless torment. Each time the resilient creature was mostly healed—a process that took several weeks—it was harpooned and hauled from its tiny, filthy pond. Then Inquisitors would smash out its teeth with hammers, amputate the weak new limbs, slice off chunks of flesh and
hide, then toss it back in the water. The harvested body parts were then sent back to the Inquisitor’s Dome near the Capitol for distribution. The cruel process had netted the Inquisition a truly impressive amount of magic, so much so that those in the know had begun to refer to this place as the farm.
Among those Inquisitors, however, Omand alone had the foresight to realize that the prisoner could be valuable for more than just its flesh and bones. His illegal research into the forbidden works of the past had given him unique insights into the nature of demons, and he had formulated a theory about how to communicate with the beast. If the old tomes were correct, then demons were more than just nigh-indestructible killers, but beings capable of reasoning. Omand had requested a temporary assignment to the farm in order to test his theory.
The thing below him was a pathetic shell of the fearsome beast he’d seen left by the tidal wave. The demon seemed thin and sickly now, lying there, facedown in the mud. Milky white blood leaked from the strips that had been recently peeled from its back. Oddly shaped bones could be seen pressing through its black skin, like a victim of famine. He’d been told they kept it hungry on purpose. That slowed the healing, and thus the harvesting, but it also made the creature more manageable. Even starving, it remained incredibly dangerous.
The demon’s home was little more than a big puddle, filled with saltwater hauled in from the Vokkan shore. Bits of rotting meat floated on the surface from its last meal—a fanatic who had been condemned to execution. The Inquisition was extremely pragmatic like that.
“Do not let its appearance fool you, Witch Hunter Omand,” one of the local Inquisitors said. “Even freshly cut as it is now, it remains a quick and spiteful thing. We have lost seventeen men to it over the years, drowned or crushed mostly. We carve their names on the wall of the barracks as a warning so the rest of us never become complacent around the prisoner.”
“I will be fine. Leave us.”
“That’s not a good idea, sir.”
“If I am wrong, then you may feel great satisfaction as you put my name on your wall of warning…Begone.”
The Inquisitors bowed and did as they were told. Omand was neither naïve nor prideful, but this experiment would require privacy, and if he was right, it would be worth the risk. For if the banned tomes were true, demons knew the secrets to unlocking powers beyond comprehension. He waited until the others had closed the gates of the enclosure before walking toward the muck.
In the ancient times, after the demons had fallen from the sky and torn the world apart, but before man had rallied and driven the invaders into the sea, wizards had formulated a way to communicate with demons, mind to mind. Their attempts at parley had failed, because the demons had been single-minded in their determination to destroy mankind. Only times had changed, and with this one, it was t
he Inquisition who held the advantage.
The demon stirred as Omand visualized the ancient magical pattern and called upon the fragment of black steel clutched in his fist to fuel it. He stopped just out of what he hoped was the creature’s reach.
“Hear my words and understand, demon. I am Senior Witch Hunter Omand Vokkan, and I have come here to negotiate.”
Bubbles floated to the surface. A sharp pain formed in Omand’s skull as the demon answered. There were no words, only crashing images, and violence made thought. The effect staggered him, sending him to his knees. The demon’s message was gone in an instant, but it left impressions behind, like footsteps in sand. Omand struggled to decipher them. Confusion. Rage. It despised being cut and burned by the Inquisitors. A dark ocean. The beast desired freedom.
It probably could have struggled up the bank and killed him right then, but the monster hesitated, as it was as curious as Omand about this strange communication.
Blood dripped between his fingers, because he had been squeezing the shard of black steel so tight it had sliced open his palm. Omand gritted his teeth, refocused the pattern, and tried again. “I can return you to the sea, but first you must submit to my will.”
It was then that Omand the torturer discovered what real torment was, as his mind was assaulted with a thousand years of collected hate, for demons never forget a wrong. And worse, it seemed that each one was born retaining the knowledge of the demons that had come before it. It was the concentrated anger of a millennium. The agony would have felled a lesser man, but Omand did not relent. The pattern held.
Omand thought it was involuntary tears running from his eye, but when he wiped them away he discovered it was blood. As the forbidden tome had said, communicating with demons was not for the faint of heart. “Calm yourself, demon, or I will have you cut and burned every single day for the rest of your miserable existence.” Then to be sure, he tried to turn that threat into pictures in his mind, so the demon would understand the seriousness of Omand’s commitment.
It worked, because when the demon spoke again, but rather than noise and pain, the impressions were soft, nothing more than a slithering whisper. The demon wanted to know what Omand wanted.
Witch hunter duties had taken him to the darkest corners of Lok and exposed him to secrets that had been kept since before the Age of Law, before the Age of Kings, from before the rain of demons had ruined the old world, from a time when their immortal wizard kings possessed magic granting the abilities great and terrible
, ruling over life and death, creation and destruction, so mighty that to this day the religious fanatics still thought of them as gods. Only Omand knew the ancients had begun as men…It was their magic that had enabled them to bend reality to their will.
There was no reason why feats that had been achieved once, could not be achieved again.
“I know what brought your kind to this world, demon. I know why you made war upon us. Your old enemies have turned to dust. Their greatest treasure is beyond your reach now, but not mine. You will show me how to access the source. Only then will I throw you back into the sea.”
The demon understood…but such knowledge would require far more than one demon’s freedom. No amount of torture would make the demon reveal a secret so valuable. Then the slither grew to a scream. No! Their kind thirsted for something else. Their entire species held a desire for revenge the likes of which even cruel Omand could barely comprehend. Not just against the ancient hero who had thwarted them, but against every one of his mortal descendants. For Omand to be shown the location of the ancient source, an entire bloodline would have to be eradicated. Millions would have to perish.
“Your terms are acceptable.”
For the next two decades, Omand continued secretly working toward his goals, in the process becoming the most respected witch hunter in the Inquisition. He rooted out traitors and fanatics within the borders of every great house. Except each time, before he publicly destroyed their idols or burned their books, he privately studied them for himself, to see if there was any secret knowledge he could glean from them.
The demon was his only confidant. No one else understood his true mission. His network of allies and contacts grew. Those who stood in his way, both witting and unwitting, were removed through various methods, often framing them for a crime—slander, blackmail, and the occasional murder. When it came time for the judges to appoint a new Grand Inquisitor, Omand had made certain he was the only suitable candidate.
He enjoyed ruling over an entire order, but that was merely another step on his inevitable path toward ruling the entire world.
Having tired of making the long journey to Vokkan, Omand had commissioned the construction of a special chamber deep beneath the Inquisitor’s Dome to hold their most important prisoner. Each time he communed with the demon, it offered tantalizing glimpses of the past but never the full picture, just enough for him to know that the legends were based in fact, and the power was real. Each time it denied him any new clues, Omand would have the demon harvested afterward as punishment for its stubborn insolence.
Today, Grand Inquisitor Omand stood before the thick glass of the demon’s tank, triumphant, for thirty years of effort were finally bearing great fruit. The demon floated on the other side, barely visible through the murk.
“The assassination of the Chief Judge has forced the issue. The orders have gone out to every province in every great house. The casteless are to be destroyed. The blood of the children of Ramrowan has begun to
water the land.”
The Capitol moved with ponderous slowness in all things. Even having a casteless rebel strike down the Chief Judge with an illegal Fortress rod wasn’t shocking enough to overcome the inertia of bureaucracy. The vote in favor of the Great Extermination had come swiftly afterward, but then it had become a manner of logistics and schedules, as petty members of the first caste squabbled over who would be responsible for what, and how it would all be paid for. Several months had passed, during which rumors had certainly spread to every casteless quarter in Lok of their impending doom. That delay gave the casteless time to flee or prepare to fight, but Omand didn’t mind. Chaos benefitted his plans. The sooner the Law fell apart, the sooner he could install his puppet king to save it.
Ramrowan blood suffer death
Omand had taught the demon a few words, simply because it spared him the onslaught that was demon thought. He pressed one hand against the glass. “See that I speak the truth.”
The demon drifted forward and pressed its blank lump of a head against the glass. It saw the images from Omand’s mind and understood.
“Now show me where the source is.”
Remainder upon kill
The answer was not unexpected. The demon was as determined as he was. Only they both knew it could potentially take years to eradicate all the casteless, and Omand was tired of waiting. “I do not think so. I have given you much, now I expect something in return. You will show me the location now, or I will call it off. I created the Great Extermination. I can end it.”
The demon didn’t believe him.
“There are many great houses that depend upon their casteless in one way or another. They will accept any excuse to avoid cutting their own throats. Regardless of what you do, my plans are nearly complete. Shortly, I will rule the Capitol from the shadows. Then I will continue to search for the source, with or without your help, only then I will be searching with all the resources of all the great houses at my fingertips. While you suffer the rest of your days knowing that you could have ended the bloodline of Ramrowan, but I snatched their lives from your claws.” Omand made a fist and struck the glass. “Show me, demon!”
The demon relented.
The vision came upon him, as it had before, as if he was high above Lok, falling through the clouds. It was a memory from the rain of demons, so long ago. Only this time the vision didn’t end as early as it had before, and the ground kept rushing up toward him. Closer and closer, until Omand was able to recognize terrain features—
And then it ended.
Remainder upon kill all blood all
Omand stepped away from the tank and wiped a red tear from his eye. “You play a risky game, demon. My patience wears thin. The Great Extermi
nation will continue. Only now you’ve revealed enough information that I know where to send an expedition. My Order has already cataloged the ruins there. This time we will dig deeper. If I find the source without you, then I promise you will never see the ocean again.” Omand turned and began walking away.
Kill all Ramrowan blood
Omand paused to smile, for he had put into motion a slaughter the likes of which had not been seen since this thing’s ancestors had fallen from the sky and ripped the world apart. And nothing—demon, god, or man—would stand in his way.
“Enjoy today’s harvest, old friend.”
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