One of the older men—my eldest son—came and gripped my other hand, tears in his eyes, and Tendo again touched his forehead to my knuckles. Now that I knew that the gauntlets were safe, I could leave. A bright white light appeared at the edges of my vision, growing steadily brighter, burning everything else away, accompanied by a blissful warmth…
I staggered back from the skeleton with a jarring jolt like an unexpected kick from a mule. I was back in the crypt, with Isu staring at me intensely, her luscious lips curled into a strange smile.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” she murmured.
Feeling a little nauseous and disoriented, although nowhere near as bad as I had the first few times I’d done this, I nodded.
“I saw it, yeah,” I grunted. “And I’m still trying to make sense of what it is that I saw. Uger… he fought alongside a Yengish warrior called Kemji. And together, from what I could gather, they fought the Blood God and the Demogorgon and won.
“There was something Kemji’s grandson mentioned, gauntlets, to control something called a storm drake. They were hidden, locked away beneath some ancient pyramid. Tendo, the grandson, said that the location of the gauntlets would be a secret, passed down through our respective family lines, in case the threat of the Blood God rose again.
“Well, it sure as fuck has risen again, but I was never told anything about Uger fighting the Blood God, or gauntlets that controlled storm drakes, whatever the fuck they are.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?” she remarked with a strange grin.
“I’ve got way more questions now than answers,” I muttered. “One thing that did strike me as weird, though, was the fact that it seemed to be this huge deal—which it was, of course. I mean, we know now how massive a threat the Blood God and a fully materialized Demogorgon is, and obviously this was something that actually happened in the past.
“Tendo said that Uger and Kemji’s victory would be remembered forever, but this is the first I’ve ever heard of it. Wouldn’t you think that something of that kind of significance would leave an imprint on our collective memory, even if it did happen over a thousand years ago? I mean, defeating the Blood God and his Demogorgon is something that you’d think the world would fucking remember, right?”
“There are many things that happened in the past that have been forgotten,” Isu said. “And there are many things that should not have been forgotten but were erased by those who would benefit from the oblivion.”
“Are you trying to tell me that someone deliberately erased this part of history? That someone erased the story of what Uger and Kemji did and wiped it out of all the history books and scrolls?”
“He who controls the memory of the past controls the present.”
“Well, who the fuck would do that? Why would they erase the memory of what Uger and Kemji did? And how did they manage to erase it from my own family line, and—”
I paused mid-sentence as a memory suddenly hit me. A memory of my father, speaking to me before I left on my pilgrimage to the Luminescent Spires—the trip that forever changed my life and destiny. It had also been the last time I’d seen my father alive.
“Look at you, my boy,” he’d said. “All grown up and almost ready to take over from your old man, eh?”
“Not just yet, father,” I’d said with a laugh. “I still have to become a Consecrated Knight first!”
“I don’t know why you’re insisting on doing this, my boy, because there really is no need to go off and join that cul—Well, you know my thoughts on the Church of Light, and you and I don’t need to argue about it anymore, not now, when you’re leaving for your long journey. But when you come back, regardless of whether you succeed or fail in this quest of yours, you’ll be a man. And then, you’ll be ready for a little secret. It’s something every Lord Chauzec learns about when he sits on the throne of Brakith for the first time.”
“Can’t you just tell me now, father?”
“Only when you return and officially sit on the throne for the first time. I’m sorry, son, but that’s how the tradition works, and that’s how it’s worked since Uger’s days. I’m not about to break over a thousand years of tradition. Just keep in mind the fact that it’ll be waiting for you when you return.”
And that had been the last time he and I had ever spoken. After that, my treacherous uncle Rodrick had murdered him. Since then, I hadn’t thought much about what he’d said, but now, after catching a glimpse of Uger’s final moments and hearing what Tendo had said, it all made a lot more sense.
“You remembered something important, Vance?” Isu asked.
“Damn straight I did. Shit, my father knew all about this, and he was going to tell me when I came back from Luminescent Spires. But then Rodrick murdered him before he could pass the secret on to me.”
“And now that knowledge is lost forever. How convenient for your uncle Rodrick, a servant of the Blood God.”
I punched my fist into my palm. I hadn’t thought that I could possibly hate Rodrick any more than I currently did, but now I had a special kind of loathing reserved for that piece of goblin shit.
“Wait!” I said as a sudden realization hit me. “Tendo said that the secret would be passed down his family line as well, so if that
