In the La’Anatula, I have felt,

  The goodness left within yet lives,

  Beneath his blackened eyes of death.

  -An excerpt from the Cordil Saga

  “So this is the returned son of Hurona…” Asked the witches in the dark of the night, “How well will this one serve?” Misha awoke and waited for his vision to adjust to the light of the twin moons floating far above. The living corpses of hundreds of men lay tucked away head to foot, with little room for breath or life. He sat in the dark, unsure of who had spoken and unable to ask.

  He waited in the moonlight, looking at the great pyramid that rose between Zyklon’s Camps—the obsidian pyramid watching back, unblinkingly.

  In time, morning came, and the men were rustled from their cots by petty officers who used whips to lap at their weathered skin. Above them, dark red skies boiled, and black smoke rose from Camp.

  Officers in black boots and crisp uniforms watched as their inferiors gave daily marching orders. Camp A was filled with the young and strong, who could manage the precise tools of the great factories of Camp A. Does my son yet live, wondered Misha as he gazed at the rising smoke over Camp A.

  During roll call, the guards singled out the eldest and weakest for transport to the Obsidian Pyramid. Guards then watched as Misha and his crew were outfitted for rock blasting. Beside Misha stood a ten-year-old boy whose asthma had rendered him unfit to work in Camp A. He looked into the young boy's eyes and saw those of his son still left in that camp.

  None should have to suffer like this, he thought silently as his eyes drifted over broken rock and worn-down picks. Suffering is the point of it, he snapped his mind back to the work at hand. Suffering without end and hope without reason. He looked at the guards and, when they turned away to others, he pocketed an extra stick of dynamite. It is set in motion, then, he thought.

  His team marched into the mines and crawled down to the furthest depths of it. They could feel heat from the planet’s core, which boiled the blood in their veins and seared their pale flesh.

  Misha watched as the little boy sweated until nothing more could be drawn from the well of his body. He grabbed a box of dynamite with four sticks and loaded it onto a cart, moving towards a great boulder that blocked the way of the diggers. Together, they drilled holes into the rock with dull hand tools.

  A long-dormant hope sparked within him. It will not be long before we can break our chains, he thought as the dynamite jingled in his pocket. As soon as he finished drilling the hole, he told the boy to reach for the box and grab two sticks, “nice and slow,” he cautioned his fellow prisoners. Whispers moved through the tunnels. To war, Misha thought.

  The young boy took two sticks of Hercules dynamite, placed the cap on the fuse, and inserted them into the cartridges. Misha then wiped some grease on the cartridge paper before tucking them into a carved hole.

  “Loaded!” Misha called out to the other workers who stood at a safe distance. Then Misha carefully unwound a spool of wire and backed away. Misha attached the wire leads to a charging device, “clear!” He exclaimed. A ripple moved through the tunnels.

  After a few moments, he pressed the charge button. But nothing sounded in the cavern. No explosion, no puff of smoke or pop of light. Misha looked to his comrades, then to where the kid had been waiting. To Misha’s surprise, the boy had started to run up to the boulder to check the dynamite.

  “Wait!” Cried Misha, but as he spoke, the chamber was filled with light and smoke. Misha’s head pounded, and his lungs were filled with finely misted rocks. The cave had opened into an unsealed chamber.

  Misha stared into the darkness of the tunnel, blinded by the sudden burst of brightness, but could see nothing. The child was gone. A hollow wind flowed, and darkness fell upon the men who gathered with Misha.

  When his hearing returned, he heard them chant the song of fallen miners, and he could see the visage of his son, playing in the darkness. Suffering without end, reason without hope, and death without pity, his mind sank into despair.

  Suddenly, the mine above lit up, and chanting rose from floor to floor. Something dark was coming, and he did not want anyone to see the light deep within his heart. Heavy black boots tripped over the rubble and uneven ground of the mines. Guards, he panicked.

  The men quickly hushed, and an eerie silence fell upon the prisoners. Misha turned and saw a caravan of armed guards surrounding a tall figure in a long sable cloak with an antique golden mask. Behind them stood three women wrapped in black habits.

  Misha sulked and shifted to the back of the crowd as Lord Heydrich and his troop inspected the destroyed boulder.

  “Gather up what’s left,” he looked at the mist and vicera, “and contact the Red Queen in Gor,” then the man moved into the chamber that had been opened. Misha peeked beyond the crowd and saw what looked to be the remains of an ancient building, far older than the camps of Mordau. Misha’s mind began to warp and stretch as he stared into its infernal darkness.

  Heydrich disappeared into the chamber, and the crowd remained silent. Misha could see a sense of unease growing on the guards’ faces, though he was unsure if this was the work of their Master or if it was because they noticed how outnumbered they were.

  Misha felt the dynamite in his pocket. The other prisoners smiled devilishly but composed themself as Heydrich reemerged. Some guards began moving towards the exit, and their Master seemed to follow, but stopped in front of Misha. Heydrich stared through his golden mask, his mottled flesh perforated and curled along its edges. Slowly, Misha lowered the dynamite into a box behind him.

  “Bring him to my pyramid,” he barked.

  Misha’s lip curled slightly, but he quickly dampened the unconscious motion and lowered his head. His heart pounded profusely as the Ahnenerbe guards grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. Another guard bludgeoned him with a stick, and he promptly fell unconscious.

  In rotating dreams, like the machine work of a twisted clock, Misha looked upon the eviscerated face of his son and watched as his young child was ground and churned into bonemeal and fed to a great machine, an ancient beast that craved flesh. Each moment slowed as the great clock ticked and turned its watchful eye to Misha. He awoke before the face of the man with the iron heart.

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  “You thought that the dreams of a peasant, a slave, could fuel some kind of revolution? Two sticks of dynamite to free a billion slaves,” Misha looked upon Heydrich and then to his surroundings. He was in a lavishly furnished office. A circular grand oak desk sat in the middle of the office, equidistant from each of the four grand windows out over the Zyklon camps. Documents were strewn about the desk, interspersed with antique artifacts.

  Between the great windows were large wood-paneled walls adorned with tapestries and paintings, the likes of which Misha had only ever heard dim tales about, passed down from the ancestors first sent to the colonial prison planet, “I have been watching you for quite some time, Misha,” Heydrich growled as he sat down at the grand desk and picked up a few memos before tossing them aside carelessly, “ever since I realized what you… really are.”

  Misha’s heart palpitated, and his throat dried up.

  “Contrary to popular notions,” whispered the Litch, “I listen. Each time your conspirators plot in the night, I am there. I know each hymn and chant well. Do you know how many rebellions I have crushed, how many uprisings have been quelled?”

  The Litch stepped closer to his desk and grabbed a file from it, “that’s the problem with you mortals.” He muttered, “you never lose your sense of hope. I can change that,” the Litch threw a pile of papers onto the ground carelessly, “You never understand because you are limited in your conception and perception of time and the power of your enemy,” Heydrich carefully took off his tarnished golden mask. Coldly, he placed it on the oak desk and stood over his prisoner, looming like a demon.

  Misha could see the age warped upon his face, the ages past. What remained was like that of a living skeleton, long-dead and yet animated by the cruelty of his iron heart. Down the length of his cheeks ran three carved marks.

  Misha gasped at the horror of his captor and muttered, “We will defeat you. We will overthrow you; you can’t control these people forever. You cannot control me!” He sputtered and gasped for air as the gloved hand of Heydrich quickly wrapped around his neck and squeezed. The man with the iron heart leaned closer, staring intensely into Misha’s soul as he began to steal away the worn-down man’s last gasps of hope. Heydrich’s collar had come unbuttoned, and Misha could see the remains of a crudely sewn gash running across his neck.

  “I slaughtered Himmler… I locked away the Migmagod! I have followed along the eternal lines of destiny… I am a harbinger of death for my master’s enemies,” growled the Litch as he tightened his grip around Misha’s throat.

  Outside the window towards Camp B, two bright lights shattered the calm of the night. Pillars of light rose, and the camp alarms began to sound. Heydrich’s radio chattered as guards awoke and started to arm themselves. The camp rebels used the remaining sticks of dynamite to break open the armory and seize several guns.

  Flashes of gunfire rose from the darkness of the camp below. Heydrich's skeletal face looked out from the great window of his office. Misha’s breath had slowed, and his mind was unable to process the action outside. His neck was surely broken, and he was surely dead.

  “But, I must admit, you are right and rather perceptive for a rat,” Heydrich sneered, “I cannot control people,” he continued, “I cannot break their soul or bend their spirit through will alone. Blood centuries of running camps has shown me that the soul is an unbreakable force. You can be used, terminated… set free,” he smirked, “You could never be truly controlled. Until now… the Allfather will see my true value,”

  Heydrich swept over his desk and pulled out a carefully carved wooden box from within it. Though unable to speak or move, Misha could feel a dark presence emanating from the box; his overburdened heart began to palpitate, and his vision faded in the corners of his eyes.

  “Beyond the pale of memory!” Heydrich declared, “long before the Abrahamic gods made their covenants with the people of the earth, before the cavemen rooted for berries in the forests of Germany. Before the world itself, there was Ozymandias and his Father. In this age of magic, myths, and monsters, darkness gathered at the world's edges, and people learned to harness it. Before the rise of the red star of Cordil, Count Dinsmore spent a hundred years perfecting dark arts using the knowledge afforded to him by the Shadows of the world, and by my Master’s grace, he perfected the art of necromancy.”

  The Litch carefully removed a strange, desiccated hand curled and black from the wooden box on his desk, “the gift,” he continued, “of Count Dinsmore’s talent for necromancy thankfully did not die with him but lives within what remains of him, and what remains has been passed through the ages beyond the destruction of the universe.”

  Misha felt his heart slow down, then stop. His mind faded, and he could just feel the release of his soul before it was dragged back down into the flesh of his body.

  “You will not escape from me that easily,” growled the Litch, “for you still have use to me. With the hand of Dinsmore… I can harness the power of life and death. I can command your spirit,”

  Misha’s eyes reopened, and though he could see, his flesh was no longer his own. For a moment, he could not control his movement. His mind was unable to comprehend the chains placed upon it by the desiccated hand of Dinsmore, wrapped in a metal glove encrusted with jewels and dark carvings. Heydrich untied Misha and then commanded him to stand. Without question, his flesh obeyed, and Misha’s body stood despite his attempts to fight the command.

  “Your coordination surprised even me when I finally caught wind of it. I must say, this was the most expansive rebellion in a generation,” the corpse let out a dry laugh, “now…” He muttered, “there is the small matter of Camp B… and your son…” Heydrich spread over to the window like a shadow, his cloak flowing darkly. The sound of his jackboots echoed softly on the hardwood floors of his office.

  “Come,” he commanded, and Misha’s body obeyed. Look out this window,” the guards were outnumbered and overwhelmed, and Misha’s plan appeared to be working. Similar sounds emanated from Camp A as the people rose up in full revolution against Heydrich’s reign of terror over the camps. Fires rose in the distance.

  “I had to know the work of Dinsmore would control even you.” Said the Litch softly, “Otherwise… I could not do this.”

  On the radio, the guard's chatter was slowly getting quieter as they became overwhelmed and destroyed. Misha felt a pang of hope that his people would succeed and finally throw off the shackles that held them, and something akin to a smile crossed his haggard face.

  This pang quickly faded, however, as the sounds of planes hummed overhead. Large C-40 bombers lumbered across the blood-red skies, leaving streaks of white smoke as they passed over the Litch’s obsidian pyramid.

  Then Misha could see the fruits of their atomic labor as great mushroom clouds ascended over the camps. Fire and blood rose from the earth, and tons of dirt and stone were thrown into the atmosphere. A force of the wind folded against the thick panes of the office window. All of the Zyklon camps were instantly vaporized as a series of atomic warheads detonated just above the heads of the prisoners.

  Those who fought for freedom, those who had remained afraid, and even the guards were vaporized. Misha tried to cry, but his body refused the command. Below, he could see a wasteland of broken buildings and mangled corpses. Those who did not get vaporized in the blasts were either dead or dying in the nuclear wasteland. That was when Heydrich held up the glove of Dinsmore and whispered dark chants, beckoning its power.

  The corpses that lay in the killing fields began to stir. The dead began to rise and gather themselves. That which remained of Misha’s soul recoiled at the horror before him. Then, from the mountains, descended two old bombers.

  Misha forced his eyes to look towards Camp A. My son, he strained.

  “Now,” the Litch King crowed, “I release the shackles on your flesh,” he stated with a wave of the count’s wicked hand. Misha fell to the floor and sobbed, “for a thousand years… I have watched the people of this camp wither and die, rebel, be destroyed… You see,” he explained, “But I have not seen a son of Hurona here before… Long ago, I killed Hurona’s La’Anatula... Long ago, I cast away his broken form… and now you’ve returned,” breathed the Litch, “you can do a great service for me. You shall destroy your brother and give us both eternal life. An eternal life for you to share with your only son… perhaps?”

  Misha looked down and saw a small golden blade that had fallen onto the carpet at his feet. He slowly reached for it and then leaped up to strike at the Litch. I can take this beast, he roiled.

  “Child! If you destroy me now, you would destroy yourself… And your son... Your life emanates from me now. Your destiny is tied to my flesh. Your history… Culture. Strike me down, and you will have destroyed what remains of yourself,” the Litch growled. Misha grasped the knife and lunged.

  I, he pushed himself, I cannot. His eyes fell to the blood-red carpet in shame.

  “Now,” rasped the Litch, “join me for dinner. There is much to discuss about your new duties in my service,” he leaned closely and looked deeply into Misha’s cold, dead eyes, “what do you know of the Bannerman?”