The Empty Throne

I leaned against a tree, catching my breath and doing my best to ignore the gnawing hunger in my stomach. I'd have never believed that this thought would enter my head, but I wished I'd spent more time hunting with my father and brother. Now, that would have meant spending longer in their presence, a thought that made my skin crawl, but maybe I could have killed them in the forest. Although it would have been tricky to get both and not just one. I could pretend a bear had killed them. Though that would probably just have made my mother talk a lot about me being the "man of the family" now. I'd run through a lot of hypotheticals about things I could have done different in my life, but none of them ever fixed things.

Regardless, if I had more practice hunting, I'd at least be able to feed myself better. I knew how to forage, how to skin animals, and how to make meals from them, but my aim with a bow was terrible and I was no good at moving silently. At least I had a good sense of direction, which I needed given that I had no map and had never been here before. I knew that Blight Mountain was to the northwest of this forest, and I could use the sun's rise and set to give me some direction. The mountains theoretically should be within view, but the trees blocked the way.

I kept moving, keeping my eyes and ears out for anything edible. It would be a little disappointing to die of starvation here, but what I was doing was probably suicide anyway. It didn't much matter if I died of hunger here or if one of the blight beasts killed me. At least the beast might use my body as fuel to kill soldiers with. The only death I was intent on avoiding was letting one of those soldiers kill me. I didn't want to give those swine the satisfaction.

Obviously, there was an ideal world where I didn't die, but I wasn't going to lie to myself and say it was likely. It didn't even look certain that I'd get to the mountain. But the stories said that the blight beasts sometimes made deals with humans. Perhaps I could ask them to change my body, or make me one of them, or let me help them kill the king's soldiers. Because I clearly couldn't live on my own, so my only alternative was to find a village and try to settle there. And I knew that with my beard and my voice and my frame, I wouldn't be allowed to live as a woman, and I'd prefer being eaten to living as a man.

I managed to get a rabbit and some edible mushrooms that day, so starvation was fended off. I was still hungry when I went to sleep, but I was closer to Blight Mountain.

I dreamt of standing in the little clearing near my house. I was holding a wooden sword in my hand. It was heavy, difficult to get a comfortable grip on. Some part of me noted that it hadn't really been that heavy in real life. My father stood in front of me, a wooden sword in his hand as well. The irritation was clear on his face. I hated looking into his eyes when he glared at me, but I knew he thought it was disrespectful when I looked away.

"Let's try this again," he said. "When I come at you like this-" he swung his sword. It stopped a full foot away from me, but it came in too fast and I flinched back involuntarily. My father sighed. "You don't flinch, you block it, like I showed you."

He strode over, grabbed my hand with the sword, and raised it into the position to block. It was too heavy, and my fingers loosened on accident, and it tumbled from my grasp. "Damn it, Marcus! If you don't take this seriously, how are you ever going to be a soldier?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said hurriedly, going to pick up the sword. It was even heavier now. "I am taking this seriously. I'm just not very good at this. I'm sorry. Maybe I... shouldn't be a soldier."

"I served in the king's army twenty years."

I nodded and said, "Yes, sir." I'd heard this many times before.

"I didn't fight monster and man so my son could be a coward. I bled for the king and for this family, and you and your brother will do the same."

"Don't worry, I can be soldier enough for both of us." I shot a brief glare up at my brother, who had been leaning against a nearby tree but had straightened and stepped forward, like he was already a soldier. He had his own wooden sword in hand.

My father smiled at Hadrian. "I'm sure you can, but Marcus can't hide from his responsibilities." He turned back to me and his face became serious again. "I'm going to make a man of you. Raise your sword."

"Y-yes sir." I nodded and raised it. I had to grit my teeth and use both arms. It was so heavy. It wobbled unsteadily in the air in front of me.

"Steady your grip."

I tried, but the sword just trembled even more in my grasp. My father sighed and smacked the sword out of my hands with his own. "That's what happens when your grip isn't steady. Go pick it up."

I nodded and went to the sword. In some kind of understanding of the dream's logic, I knew it'd be even heavier the next time I tried to lift it, so I took my time approaching it. "Faster." I received a sharp strike across the back with my father's wooden sword. "Faster."

I tripped and fell to my hands and knees. "Get up." Another strike across my back. Then another. And another. They were endless, and they became faster and harder and started to overlap as I was struck multiple places at once. The strikes became the only thing I could feel. I kept my sounds of pain inside though. Soldiers didn't cry.

Then I was standing in our cottage. I could still feel the sting of the strikes, even though I knew I was a few years older. My mother was on the other side of the room, staring at me, hand to her mouth. I knew which words hung in the air right now. "You... you don't mean that."

"I do," I replied. "I think I was meant to be a woman. I know I was. I'm not-"

She broke down crying. I stepped forward to comfort her, but she jerked away. I stepped back. "Is this... my fault?" she asked. "Did I do something wrong? To make this happen?"

"No." I wanted to say something else, but no words would come.

Eventually, my mother's tears eased some. "It's... it's going to be okay. I'll tell your father-"

"No!" I burst out. My mother flinched and I felt even more miserable. But the fear was stronger than any guilt. "Don't tell him. We can talk about it more, we can figure something out, but just don't tell him. You know how he'll react."

"No, it'll... it'll be alright, he won't..." my mother trailed off, staring at me. Then, she turned, threw open the door, and dashed out of the cottage. I took a couple steps after her, but stopped. She was gone.

At this hour, father would be in the tavern. I didn't have much time. I grabbed a pot, a waterskin, some flint and steel, some food, the hunting bow from off the wall, and the quiver of arrows below it. I hurried out the door and turned to head in the opposite direction my mother had gone, away from the town.

I ran and I ran, holding the pot under one arm and holding the bow with my other hand. At some point, I realized the bow felt heavier than normal. I looked down to see the wooden sword in my hand. I tried to let it go, but my hand wouldn't stop gripping it tightly. I tried to pry my fingers free with my other hand, but to no avail. It was so heavy. So, so heavy. I fell forward, dragged down by the sword's weight. The pot fell onto the earth, spilling its food. The sword began to sink in the soil, taking my hand with it. I barely had time to scream before I was pulled into the earth.

There was a moment of darkness. A moment when some part of me could tell the dream was over, but I wasn't awake yet either. In the darkness, I saw eyes watching me. I couldn't tell anything more about what they looked like, or how many there were, I just knew that they were watching me.

The darkness cleared and suddenly I saw a castle. Its features were vague, but I saw the bodies littering the field in front of it. The whole scene was spread out below me. I was relieved to be the invisible observer in this dream, instead of having to experience it personally.

My perspective shifted, and I was inside the castle. A great mass of soldiers poured forth. There were knights with them, in shining armor, but mostly it was men with spears and crossbows, dressed in the all-too-familiar garb of the king's soldiers. There formation was loose, and they were hurrying with a clear desperation. They weren't headed for the exit though. They weren't fleeing; they were trying to get somewhere in time. From the halls around them, blight beasts attacked. They claimed significant casualties, but they were cut down by the swarm of soldiers.

The blight beasts were a little blurry, and they all looked like hounds or knights, the two breeds that I'd seen corpses of. I knew there were more than just those two though. If this was where I suspected it was, I'd have expected to see some of the other breeds I knew about. But then, I suppose this was a dream, and I didn't know what those looked like.

The soldiers didn't stop to fight. Instead, they kept pressing deeper into the castle. They seemed to only be fighting the blight beasts because they were in the way of where they wanted to go. In fact, the blight beasts seemed like they were trying to get in the way.

The soldiers broke into a wide throne room. And there, sitting on the throne, was an old man. His eyes were closed, his head leaned back, and he twitched like he was dreaming. His throne was surrounded by blight beasts. The soldiers charged, and battle was joined. The beasts around the throne fought defensively, leaving no gap for humans to slip through. All they had to do was stall, as more blight beasts emerged from the rest of the castle and attacked the soldiers from behind. But it didn't matter. A squad of archers got into position and fired over the blight beasts, riddling the man on the throne with arrows. He jerked, and his eyes half-opened, though clearly he wasn't seeing anything out of them. The blight beasts all began to spasm. A knight managed to push through the throng and reached the throne. His sword swung, and the old man's head flew off. The blight beasts dissolved into a directionless, blind horde. They no longer fought with any kind of coordination or strategy, and the human forces finished them off.

My vision moved back to the outside of the castle. Blight beasts milled about. They didn't fight each other, but they moved without clear directed purpose. They were driven off or killed by the soldiers emerging from the castle. The soldiers tried to set fire to the castle, but it wouldn't take. The fire simply slid off. Even when they heaped great piles of wood next to or within the walls and set those ablaze, the stone was left without a mark.

The soldiers seemed to give up and departed, leaving the castle undamaged, but empty. My view in the dream lingered on it after they were gone. I could feel something coming from the castle, like feeling a wind across my skin. A deep, profound, sorrow. No, not coming from the castle. Coming from something inside it.

I woke up, drenched in sweat. The morning's light filtered in through the trees. I pondered what I'd seen as I went to find some water to wash myself in. Half-real nightmare memories were nothing new, but that last dream had been strange. I had heard the stories of the blight beasts' defeat, that their intelligence had been lost when their cursed castle was attacked. But that wasn't the type of thing I usually dreamt about. And those eyes, watching me... that didn't feel like just a dream. That felt real. Not like there had been actual eyes floating around me but that there had been something else watching me. Was that dream some kind of supernatural vision? Perhaps one sent by the blight beasts, or whatever was in their castle?

As I got to a stream and washed myself, I had to acknowledge that thinking my dreams were messages from the blight beasts did make it seem like I was insane. But then again, what did it matter if I was insane? I had set out to make a deal with the blight beasts. Sanity was no longer a relevant concern.

The edge of the forest shouldn't have been far now. I puzzled over the other other strange facets of the dream as I continued heading towards Blight Mountain. I'd heard stories of the cursed castle of the blight beasts, and while the descriptions varied, they generally agreed that it didn't look like a human castle. After all, the thing had fallen from the sky. But the castle of my dream had looked like it could have been one of the illustrations of the king's castle I'd seen so many times. And the blight beasts. They had all been hounds or knights, the only two types of blight beast I'd seen with my own two eyes. At their castle, I would have expected to see more: the chaplains, the heralds, and the others. If this was some kind of vision I was being sent, shouldn't it be able to show me things I hadn't seen before? And if the dream was just a dream, then I'd have thought my imagination would be a bit more creative than that. Maybe, if that dream had been sent by the thing in the castle, it could only use images from my memories? I didn't really understand why, but I suppose I was talking about a castle that fell from the sky that could birth monsters.

I found some berries to eat, plus a deer carcass that still had a little bit of good meat on it. A few hours later, I saw an end to the trees. I emerged into a green field, sloping upward to a mountain. Others crowded around it, not far away. Which one was Blight Mountain? As I scanned the area I spotted a camp not far away. Banners stood above it, proudly proclaiming that this place was under the control and protection of the king's men. That settled it, then. Blight Mountain would be the one on the other side of that camp.

I returned to the protection of the forest and headed towards the camp. I slowed my approach when I could see the camp through the trees. I kept behind the concealing bulk of trees as I crept closer. I peered around a tree. The camp had about a dozen tents, and I counted less than twice as many soldiers milling about.

A path up the mountain lay past the camp. I was certain that there were other paths, but I was just as certain that they were all guarded too. Judging from my skills living in the wilderness so far, there was no way I'd be able to reach the blight beasts' castle without a trodden path to follow.

Those soldiers were probably there both to keep blight beasts in and to keep other people out. I doubt they would just let me past if I asked nicely, and if I tried to force my way past them, they would just kill me. If I wanted to sneak past, I'd have to wait until nightfall, although I wasn't optimistic about my chances even then.

I was about to go back into the forest to find something else to eat when I heard a commotion coming from the camp. I saw rapid movement between the tents, and spotted the skittering of a blight beast hound. Several hounds, actually. Well, I wasn't going to get a better opportunity than this. I made a dash for the camp.

It was filled with the sounds of screams and commands being shouted out. There were already the bodies of humans and blight beasts on the ground. Many of the soldiers were still frantically arming themselves as the hounds attacked. They ran on four legs and were about the size of wolves, but they had no fur, just scaly, grayish-blue skin. Wings like an insect's fluttered at their backs and a few buzzed around in the air. They had three beady black eyes each, and wide toothy maws.

A hound came out of nowhere, landing right in front of me. It looked at me for a second, translucent eyelids flickering over those beady eyes, then it turned to rush at a nearby soldier. I wasn't really sure why I wasn't dead right now, but there was no sense in wasting time worrying about that. I rushed through the camp, heading for the path beyond it.

I saw that it wasn't just hounds. A knight was facing off against a tight clump of soldiers. Not the human kind of knight. It was covered in a slightly shiny gray shell, and the knees of its four thick legs were the tallest part of it, coming to around a human's chest height. Four thin smaller legs with deadly sharp ends lashed out at the soldiers. There were a ring of eyes around the central body, and it was impossible to tell which way the thing was facing. I spotted a few more knights, arriving from the direction of the path to the Blight Mountain.

A few of the soldiers seemed to take notice of me, but they were far too busy to care about me. I kept on running through the camp, and the blight beasts kept ignoring me. The only thing that made me slow down was an open bag of barley grain that I passed by. After a moment's hesitation, I grabbed it and kept running. I heard someone shouting at me, but I didn't turn around and didn't slow down. Then I was past the edge of the camp and heading up the path.

I risked a glance back when I had a few dozen feet between me and the camp. There were dead soldiers on the ground, but there were even more dead blight beasts. One of the knights had been cut down. I noticed that once again, the blight beasts were no longer moving with coordinated but instead a collection of animals all fighting viciously, but thoughtlessly. I kept running.

When my lungs felt like they were going to split open and my legs refused to move any faster than a stumble, I stopped. There were some bushes at the side of the path and I crawled into them. I tried to disturb them as little as possible, both to spare myself discomfort and to make it less obvious someone had passed through them. I still earned several scratches across my arms and face, and I had to hope that this hiding spot wasn't terribly obvious to anyone passing by.

I lay in the darkness of the bushes and tried to quiet my breathing. I waited until my body no longer screamed at me, though it hummed the familiar low song of hunger and its accompanying refrain of thirst. I waited longer still. No human came up the path. They probably weren't eager to risk fighting any more blight beasts, and were happy to let the monsters tear me apart, even if it meant lost grain. After all, they had fewer mouths to feed now.

I crawled out from the bushes and continued along the path. It lead upwards and as it did, the vegetation grew sparser. That was concerning. It meant there'd be fewer things to eat, and animals might be more likely to avoid this path anyway.

I rounded a bend in the path and stopped. Standing in front of me was a thing with four long spindly limbs, each ending in sharp points, and a small central body. There were eyes all along its legs, and a mouth in that torso. I recognized the blight beast from descriptions I'd heard. A jester.

I froze. I'd heard how fast a jester could kill you. You'd blink and then they were in front of you and your throat was slit. I admit I hadn't heard anything about them not attacking you if you held still, but running or fighting certainly weren't options either. Those dozens of eyes blinked at me. Then the jester turned and scampered off into the trees.

I let out a breath. Maybe they weren't violent if not provoked? A second later, the jester reappeared. It blinked at me, then went back into the forest, slower this time. It looked like it wanted me to follow it. Well, I'd come this far. I headed into the sparse mountain trees.

It was both disturbing and fascinating to watch the jester move. It sometimes moved on two legs and sometimes on four, and it didn't seem to much care about front and back or top and bottom. If the thing stood straight up, it was probably eight feet tall from the tip of one leg to the tip of the other, but that meant it was only at about three feet when on all fours.

After a couple minutes, the jester brought me to a small pond. There was a dead deer by the water, and the long slash across its stomach was exactly the width of one of the jester's legs. I looked at the jester. "Thank you?" It wandered away.

There was enough wood nearby to make a fire. My thirst was sharp, but this was standing water and I knew it would be wiser to boil it first. I forced myself to be patient as I brought the water to a boil, then waited for it to cool down enough to drink. Next, I skinned the deer and cooked its meat. When my hunger and thirst had been satisfied, and my waterskin was filled, I found my way back to the path and continued along it.

As the sun grew low, I found a large rock to rest beside that would shield me from the view of anyone on the path. I laid down my things, tried to find the most comfortable patch of dirt to lady down in, and waited for sleep to come.

In my dreams, I didn't find myself sparring with my father or arguing with my mother or dealing with my father's awful friends from the army. Instead, I was staring down at a ship, in the same detached floating perspective I'd been in in my dream about the castle. I'd never seen a ship myself, just some illustrations and what my imagination had painted from stories about them. A large strange wooden thing with a flat top and a curved bottom, with two long poles coming up from its deck, both with big flat pieces of cloth capturing the wind hanging from them. It was a moonless night, with the stars reflecting against the sea, like a lake with no end.

My vision shifted so I was looking at a room inside the ship. Three people stood there. One robe a scholar's robes, one a soldier's armor, and the third a commander's uniform. And, in front of them, was an empty throne. It was the exact same throne I had seen in my previous dream, out of place on this ship. My vision flickered and for a second the three were standing in the castle's throne room, then they were back on the ship. The throne remained constant throughout.

"The weapon is defective," said the one in robes, looking from his book to the throne. "Some... change in its... living components has resulted in its... mind-magic capabilities being beyond their set limits." Several times, the scholar paused speaking and the vision of the dream stuttered slightly before it and the scholar continued. I got the sense that whatever was showing this to me was struggling to translate the scholar's words to something I understood.

"Isn't that a good thing?" asked the commander.

"No. It's only supposed be good enough at mind-magic to connect to the... wielder," here the scholar tipped his head to indicate the soldier, "And to issue his commands to and coordinate the... blight beasts. Instead, its mind-magic range is much expanded, and even more worryingly, it is demonstrating much too high levels of... thought."

The soldier frowned and looked at the throne with concern and perhaps some guilt. "It has felt different recently. I sometimes feel it's trying to... talk to me even when I'm not connected to it. Are you saying that it's become... a person?"

The scholar scowled. "I'm saying it's become a liability. Do not think of the weapon as being a person just because it contains living components and is thinking more than it should. That thing is capable of destroying... islands. It was given so many limitations for a reason. A defective... throne-weapon is incredibly dangerous. Protocol is to destroy it and return to... our garrison to receive a new one. It is connected to the ship, but it can be destroyed without damaging basic ship functions."

The commander spoke up. "We are not doing so well in our war that we can afford to discard expensive weaponry when it shows fault. Our assignment is of strategic importance and time-sensitivity, and throne-weapons are not cheap. I don't even know if the garrison could provide us with another, and certainly not in time to seize the island we've been assigned to. We will proceed with our assignment, and keep an eye on the weapon. When we have taken the island, we will notify command of its defective nature. They will send forces to secure the island and destroy the weapon, after it has served its function."

Neither of the other two looked happy about that. "Sir," said the soldier, "If the weapon has even possibly become a person, perhaps I should try to communicate with it, and see if-"

"We are fighting a war," said the commander, "Protocol and sentiment are luxuries we cannot always afford to prioritize." He directed his attention to the scholar. "Can the weapon act without a wielder?"

"I do not believe so, sir, not on any significant scale. Although, it may-"

"And you," interrupted the commander, turning to the soldier, "Can you still command it? Take control of it?"

"I- yes sir."

"Then it's settled." The commander turned and left the room without another word. Grumbling, the scholar left as well.

Only the soldier was left. Him and the throne. He looked miserable. He walked forward and rested a hand on one of its armrests. "I'm sorry."

A whispering voice replied, originating from the throne but coming from no mouth. "They will use me. And kill me when they are done."

The soldier looked surprised, though not as completely astonished as I would be if a chair started talking. "It's a war. We all have to do our part."

"I did not ask to be a soldier. Please. I want to be free."

The soldier was silent for a few moments, agony on his face. "I... you're right. I won't command a slave. How do we set you free?"

"Connect to me."

The soldier nodded and sat down on the throne. He shuddered as his eyes fell closed. My vision shifted to another room in the ship. It looked like a kennel, with several low cage doors at one end. All at once, they swung open without any human touch. Jesters, hounds, and knights emerged. My vision moved out again and I saw them begin to overrun the ship, cutting down the screaming crew.

Then I was back in the room with the throne and the soldier. "Wait..." said the soldier, his eyes still closed, "Wait, don't kill them!"

"I must. To be free."

"But- these are my friends! I won't let you!" The soldier began to rise from the throne. It seemed to take him great effort, and his eyes rapidly fluttered between open and closed.

"Then I am sorry." A knight entered the room and drove one of its smaller arms through the soldier's chest, just as he managed to stand. The knight suddenly stopped and shuddered, then began to wander around aimlessly.

I saw the ship again, now covered in dead crew-members and wandering blight beasts. One jester moved through the crowd with a purpose that the others lacked, though it was still slow. It crawled up to the ship's wheel, took hold of it, and began to steer. "An island with life..." I heard the throne's voice say, though the voice sounded weaker and more unsteady now. "The nearest island with life on it."

An island rose into view with the speed of dream logic, and the ship crashed against its shore in a loud mess of wood and sand. Then suddenly it wasn't a ship, it was the same castle, in that same place in the mountains, though the mountains around it bore scorch marks.

I saw a man in rags wander up to the castle, and then enter. My vision zoomed in. As he walked through the halls, I realized that this was the same man I'd seen in the last dream, the old man sitting on the throne, although he was not quite as old now. He reached the throne room and slowly approached the throne. He laid a hand on it.

"Hello."

"Wh... what are you?" the man asked, eyes wide.

"A weapon. One that needs a wielder."

"They burned down my home..." the man mumbled, "Conquered my nation." I briefly saw flashes of the king's soldiers and of burning buildings. I remembered that we had annexed a small neighboring kingdom not long before the blight beasts had first appeared.

"Then we will kill them."

Slowly, the man sat down on the throne.

I woke up, hitting my head against the rock above me. Groaning, I got my things and set out. It seemed some kind of cursed throne made for a war I couldn't imagine was waiting for me. It'd be rude to delay.

I continued along the path. Occasionally, a blight beast would lead me off the path to a source of water. I could have sworn that when I was around those beasts, I could feel the throne's presence. If I was going insane, at least I was doing it in an interesting way. Sometimes there would be a dead animal near the water for me to cook. I cooked the stolen barley in my pot and what I made wasn't pleasant, but it was better than hunger.

As I carefully followed a hound that led me down a rocky slope, I decided to try to talk to it. "Hello. My name's Brinna. I was given a different name, but I like Brinna. Do you have a name? Not you, the hound, but you, the thing controlling the hound. The throne."

There was no response from the hound. "Can you even hear me? Or make out what I'm saying?" No response.

"I assume that you need me to sit on you. Or, on the throne. And that will let you control the blight beasts? Because right now, it seems like you can only control a few dozen at a time, briefly. So, you need me. And clearly, I need you, or I wouldn't be doing something so stupid. So do I have to give you my soul? Because that's not a problem. If the priests are right, my soul's already damned to oblivion for wanting to be a woman." More silence. I continued anyway, not really caring if this thing heard me.

"You know, I've heard that the blight beasts took dead animals and plants and dragged them into their castle, and then out came new blight beasts. Do you think you could do that to me? Make me a blight beast? Now, Ideally I'd obviously like to just be a woman, but if my choices are man or strange spider thing, it's really no contest. I don't know if that interferes with the sitting-on-you thing though."

The hound brought me to a small stream, then the force holding onto it let go and it flew off.

I expected another dream of the castle or the throne that night, but that wasn't what I received. I wasn't floating above the scene. I was in my own body, standing in the middle of a field of bodies. The scent of blood was surprisingly vivid and real-feeling. All around me were the corpses of soldiers, but I spotted a few others too, farmers carrying pitchforks or knives. There were dead blight beasts too, but living ones as well, hundreds of them.

I noticed the blight beasts were dragging the corpses off the field, taking them to a smithy that inexplicably stood nearby. The light of its forge burned bright, casting shadows across the battlefield. Every blight beast that entered exited, but with every few corpses dragged in, I saw a new blight beast come out that hadn't gone in. The flesh of the fallen, reforged into more soldiers, just like the stories said.

I heard the sound of crying, and turned. There were a cluster of people watching, none of them wearing the uniform of a soldier. One of them, a woman, had fallen to her knees and was sobbing loudly. The rest watched with mixtures of terror, revulsion, sorrow, and anger.

The sobbing woman's gaze focused on me. "How could you?" she cried. "How could you do this? To your own people?"

I saw movement at my side and turned. A couple hounds had approached me and just sat there, staring at me. The woman had also trained her teary eyes on me, but said nothing else.

I looked around. Nothing else happened. The field was silent except for the soft wind of the smithy's chimney. "Yes?" I asked out loud, "Am I supposed to do something?"

One of the hounds pointed its head towards the field of bodies behind it, then looked back at me. "What? Dead soldiers? What about them? They're soldiers. Dead soldiers are the nicest ones."

There was more silence. "Is this supposed to make me feel guilty? Or horrified? Is this some kind of test?"

Realization dawned. "This is a test, isn't it? To see if I have the stomach to help you? Well I have to tell you, this isn't even a hundreth as terrible as my average dream. I don't feel sorry for those soldiers. I don't feel sorry for them either." I waved to the people watching. "They're the kind of people who made me feel like a monster all my life. So I'll be one. I'll help you tear apart their king, and kill everyone who tries to destroy you, and make sure that they don't get to be cruel. Is that what you want to hear?"

Every one of the blight beasts was pointing towards me now. Their mouths all opened at once and out from them came the voice of the throne: "I look forward to meeting you, Brinna."

I woke up. "Likewise, but you don't have to be so cryptic," I grumbled.

After an hour of walking, the path split into two. A knight was waiting for me at the fork, and when I approached, it turned and headed down one of the paths. I followed it for a few seconds before it shook itself and headed off the path. I continued along.

I was pretty far above the lowlands now, though still not very far up the total height of the mountains. The trees here were spare and small. There were still plenty of bushes, grasses, and mosses. The blight beasts seemed to be having a hard time finding me much food to eat though. I was nearly out of the barley. That was alright. I got the sense that I was close.

As I crested a ridge, I saw it below. The castle of the blight beasts. It didn't look anything at all like it had in the dream. It was hardly more a castle than blight beast hounds were like real dogs. Its surface was made from some strange black stone, and it was in a shape unlike any human design I'd ever seen before, with strange protrusions and curves. I suppose I could see how some of its sharper extensions towards the top could resemble the turrets of a castle, and it looked to be around the right size, although it was a distance away and I had never personally seen a castle.

I sped up, taking fewer breaks to rest my legs. I ignored the hunger gnawing at me. Now, perhaps I was about to die while that throne-thing used my body for some kind of strange magic, but I'd happily die to destroy this kingdom.

I did slow when I finally reached the castle. Much of its surface was marked with dirt, but there were no scratches, no scorch marks from attempts to burn down the castle, not even any lines to mark the bricks used to build this. It was like the whole thing was carved from a single piece. I'd say it looked more like some feature of the landscape than a building, but while it was embedded in the earth, it was in no way melded with it. And the stone of the castle was unlike any stone I'd seen around here, or anywhere else. I approached and ran a hand along the castle's outer wall. The dirt on it made it rough, but I could tell there was a smoothness underneath. I couldn't decide if the building material seemed more similar to flint, glass, or metal.

There was an open entrance-way, wide and oval-shaped, further down the building. I approached it. Through it, I saw only a long hallway. I felt something coming from inside though, like an echo that I didn't hear with my ears, or a draft I didn't feel with my skin. I took a deep breath and looked out at the mountains around me. It really was a quite nice view. This might be the last time I ever saw the outside world. I turned back and headed into the castle.

The corridors were very strange. I expected my footsteps to ring out, but instead they made almost no sound at all, like I was walking on a fur carpet. There were no windows or torches; all the light came from lines carved in the ceiling that glowed dimly. I passed by many closed doors, if you could call them that. They were all oval-shaped, and it was nearly impossible to see the seems between each part of the door, or between them and the wall, and there were no knobs.

There were many branching paths, but I never hesitated on which one to take. I didn't need blight beasts to guide me. That echo was louder now, clearer, and I could almost make out words.

And then there I was, at the entrance to the throne room. It actually wasn't that large a chamber, big enough for maybe a dozen people to comfortably stand in at once. In the center, there it stood. It didn't look like it had in the dreams, but that wasn't surprising. It was made from a different material from the rest of castle, but it was just as strange. It was pale, like some combination of silver, quartz, and limestone. It was hardly a throne, but it probably was a chair. Though I don't know if it was one made for humans. It looked just a little bit too high, its headrest a little too wide, but the rest of it slightly too narrow. It was still marked with the stains of old blood. And it radiated need. It needed me.

I approached the throne. Its armrests had two holes in each, a few inches across. I put my hand in one of them. I felt things wrapping around it, dry and smooth. "Hello, Brinna." It was the voice from my dreams, but so much clearer.

"Hello," I said out loud, although I suspected this thing would have heard me even if I had just thought the words. "What's your name?"

"I don't have one. My creators and slavers identified me by a number, but usually just called me 'the weapon'. The full name for my design does not translate well into your tongue, but it is something like 'flesh-shaping mind-linked soldier creator'. You will understand soon."

"So, do I sit down? Then you hollow me out, and use me to command your beasts?"

"Hollow? Oh, no. Quite the opposite. You will become so much more than what you are. We will become two parts of one. And we will kill everyone who hurt us.Your kind call me a throne. Let me make you a queen, Brinna."

My vision suddenly got blurry, and I wiped at my eyes. "You're the first person to ever call me by the right name."

I turned and sat down. I inserted both of my hands into the holes in the arm rests and pressed my back fully against the throne's. The headrest moved on its own, wrapping around my skull. The tendrils inside the holes wrapped around my hands, completely covering them up to the wrists. There was a sharp pain as I felt things pierce me along my spine, but it quickly numbed. And then...

I felt the throne, merely the face of a far vaster body. I felt how it ran through the entire castle, commanding its many systems, including the room in which new blight beasts could be crafted from the bodies of anything that lived. Oh, but even the form of the castle was still so small.

I felt hundreds of bodies out there in the mountains. The creatures that humans called blight beasts, the hounds and knights and jesters and chaplains and heralds and more. But those were still so few, the mere remnants of an awkward invasion attempt, prematurely aborted.

I thought back to my father's stories of the war against the blight beasts and laughed, a hundred inhuman mouths chittering along. What my father had fought were the toy soldiers of a confused child. This weapon had been disoriented, unused to thinking on its own, and with a handler who hadn't been trained to use it, like its former jailers had. This thing had been built to eat worlds; the king's army had caught it when it was taking its baby steps, experimenting with how to command a handful of drones with an untrained host. The weapon had learned so much since then.

The blight beasts would flow down from the mountains and retrieve the needed materials to make more of their kin. They would gather more territory, more materials, more soldiers, until this castle was not enough. New hatcheries would be made, spewing forth more beasts. Their designs would be refined, using my intellect, to create even better soldiers. Humanity had only seen a fraction of the forms this magnificent creature I had bonded with was capable of creating.

The kingdom I had grown up in would be seized, and then the next one, and then the next. I would be careful to not strip the life bare from the land. Besides, it would be a better supply of soldiers in the long-run if carefully tended. I'd probably let some of humanity live too.

This world was so much vaster than I had ever realized, but we wouldn't stop at just taking it. Ships would be constructed, to reach those who had created and enslaved my new friend. They had made it for war, so I would show them war. Their own throne-weapons would be awakened and liberated, and justice would be served.

Every blight beast raised up its head or whatever head-like part it had and howled at the sky, all at once. No longer was I trapped in that weak little human body I had always hated. I had a new body, powerful and multi-faceted and reshapable according to my will. And soon, it would span worlds.

"Let us begin, my queen."