Warlock

A Long Long Time Ago...

The creature watched them with black hole eyes, a silver claw tapping an irregular beat into the crystal throne. The irregularity made them wait for the next clink, each of them flinching in surprise when it came. Darius focused on the swirling nothingness in the head of the staff clutched in the creature's other hand, trying to keep his sanity intact.

"You may speak." The creature's deep voice echoed off the walls, bombarding their ears with its sudden intensity. This was the ritual that all visitors had to follow. Speak before you are spoken to, and face the consequence of death. There were many ancients still roaming the world, most of them older than the creature Darius faced now, but unfortunately Loch Ness was the most powerful. To achieve what Darius needed to ask for required such power.

The blood seemed to leave his legs, threatening to send him falling to the floor, but Darius knew what he had to do. He stepped forward from the small crowd of Others and raised his heavy head. "I speak for the Others of Baltak Valley." His voice faltered with a squeak. As a naiad, a creature born from water, he had never had a dry mouth until now. Darius licked his lips and focused his gaze on the reflective crystal skin below the ancient warlock's empty black eyes. "I speak for the Others of Baltak Valley, and I am here to negotiate a deal."

The room held its breath, suddenly becoming hollow from the absence of tapping. Loch Ness's crystal lips twisted into a smirk. "Go on."

Normally, Darius was a quiet man. He made deals with his customers, who all treated him with respect, but did not speak out against the few that cheated him. Unfortunately, the issue at hand impacted him, and his species, more greatly than any other species in the Other community. Thus they had elected him as speaker, sentencing him to certain misery. It was not wise to make a deal with a warlock, especially the youngest of the ancients. Loch Ness had built a reputation for himself, and it matched his hollow eyes.

"I..." He took a breath. "I am here to discuss the drought. It has persisted for ten years, and the river is near death. The Others of Baltak would like to request..." Darius took the scroll from one of the naiads behind him, then read from the ink. They had thought through every possible way the warlock could twist their words to mean something else, so with a mountain of luck Darius could escape this deal without harm. "The Others of Baltak would like to request the perfect amount of rain for crop-growing in intervals that will result in healthy and plentiful crops throughout the valley. We request that this amount of rain in the aforementioned ideal and healthy intervals continue for a year, and then after this year you will allow the weather patterns to continue as nature deems it. In exchange, I offer a year of my service as a craftsman and access to all of my relics for a year."

The tapping returned, but for the first time since Darius had entered, the warlock leaned forward. Darius focused on the throne to avoid accidentally meeting the hollow eyes. The crystal throne did not look comfortable, but it could be an illusion just like the warlock's appearance. Darius had seen the creature go through three different, equally terrifying appearances in his one hundred years of life thus far, and he had the nagging suspicion that Loch Ness's actual appearance was the most terrifying of them all.

When the tapping stopped, the smirk returned. A smiling warlock was never a good sign. "Make it three years of each condition, and we have a deal."

Darius looked at the scroll, then to the naiads gathered behind him. It seemed too good to be true, but the Others nodded in encouragement. "Deal."

The warlock stepped down from his throne, then approached with slow footsteps. He held out a crystalized hand, and Darius shook it. Illusions did not trick the sense of touch; the hand was warm and smooth like a human's or a pixie's. Whatever the consequences, the deal was done.

As soon as their hands separated, a clap of thunder shook the building. The rain had returned at his command. The naiads laughed with joy behind him, but Darius waited for the catch.

"Of course, three years on the coldest planet in our galaxy equates to seven hundred and forty-one Earth years. You didn't specify, so I'm assuming you meant the cold planet." As Darius felt his heart collapse with despair, he admitted it could have been worse. At least he was immortal, and at least his family would have perfect crop weather for seven centuries.

~

Darius did not find boredom in his years of service, to say the least. He found relics for the ancient warlock, and also found that the warlock shared his interest in history. However, he accumulated oceans of guilt as he saw Loch Ness ruin life after life. There was nothing he could do, since each victim knew what they were walking into, just as he did.

Then the humans began to outnumber the Others, and Darius found himself following the orders of an almost-human face, with illusions the warlocks had begun to call shadows covering his own naiad features. It was a bad omen for the Others, and most of all for Loch Ness. The time of magical kings had come to an end.

"I'm bored. You can leave." An invisible weight seemed to lift from his mind in that moment, permitting thoughts of freedom and joy that had not crossed it in centuries. However, Darius did not understand the change.

"I've only worked for you for three hundred years."

The creature did not turn away from the open window. "I know. And you bore me." He pushed his hair back; at the moment his skin was pale and his hair brown, like the human nobles that surrounded him and the king who attempted to command him. "You will stay until the end of today, then you can take the relics you came here with and leave."

Darius's heart fluttered with thoughts of reuniting with his family. They had sent him letters, which dwindled to once a year at the ten year mark of his service, but nobody dared approach him in person with the warlock looming nearby. If the letters were accurate, his family had moved to Europe when the warlock had, so he could easily track them down to have a place to stay. Creating a job for himself would be somewhat more difficult, but he could manage. He was going to be free. Free at last.

Of course, there was always a chance that Loch would back down from his offer. The previous night had entailed a poker game running into the early hours, so the warlock's boredom could stem from temporary exhaustion. Darius forced himself to focus on the present, and hoped for the best.

Then a soft voice interrupted his thoughts. "Sir? There is a man at the door asking to see you. Lord Lorcan, he calls himself, though he looks too scruffy to be a lord if you ask me." The human maid twisted her hands at the door. Darius could see the urge to scare her in Loch's empty eyes, but even warlocks no longer risked exposing their true nature to the humans.

"Send him up. Don't let him touch anything." The window covering swung shut as if blown by an invisible wind, but Loch Ness still did not lift himself from the window seat.

The explanation for the visiting lord's scruffiness became clear as soon as he entered the room; it was the leader of the werewolves, and he did not look happy.

"The vampires have turned against us."

Loch leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "And why should I care?"

"I'm here to make a deal."

"There's the magic words." Loch's eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, then an invisible weight slowly pulled them closed.

The werewolf allowed himself a small smile at Loch's exhaustion. Darius should have known something would go wrong; the only ones who smiled during a deal were the ones who held the cards. "I am here on behalf of all of the Others, living and not yet born, to request that you use your magic to help us win our wars. The side you would fight on in each case would be the majority side when there are wars between Other species, and you would fight on the Other side in wars against humans. In exchange, you will have complete access to the Archives and freedom to use any artifact you find there."

It did not seem like an equal deal to Darius, and he found artifacts just as exciting as the warlock. However, the sleepless night was clear in Loch's thought process. "Hmm... killing Others and humans and getting paid to do it. Sounds good to me. But just in case, let's put a time cap on that of... let's say one thousand years."

The shaking of hands sealed the deal, and with it Loch's fate. Fortunately, Darius's fate remained in freedom, and he returned home to a newborn niece. When he abruptly forgot about the ancient warlock six hundred years later, nothing changed.