“My Lord,” came a low, deferential voice, from just a few feet behind Him.
The Unifier had heard the figure emerge out onto the surface of the tower, just moments before.
If the owner of the voice had been able to see the Unifier’s face at the moment, he would have beheld solid, bright red eyes that gazed out well beyond the outskirts of the city. The burning stare penetrated far beyond even the outer boundaries of Avanor, piercing the horizons themselves, and worlds beyond.
The Unifier slowly turned His gaze away from the vantage that offered Him such a stunning view of the city, His now-blue eyes attentive upon the lone man standing behind Him.
Dressed in a long white habit, quite similar to that worn by the Clarvasian monks, was one of the most powerful of the Unifier’s Sorcerers, and one of His few regular personal attendants.
Baalmon’s eyebrows stretched in nearly invisible, white arches over eyes that were usually icy cold, and rigidly impassive. At the present, they reflected a glint of fear, which resonated in the nervous twitch that pulled at the upper lip of the Sorcerer’s broad mouth.
Baalmon’s nostrils flared briefly as he took in a quick breath of air, almost having neglected to breathe while in the Unifier’s immediate presence. His hands remained folded tightly before him, his arms framing the single pendant that hung down his chest. The pendant was crafted into the image of a silver star, with its many straight, extending protrusions, representing rays of light.
“Baalmon, I have been expecting you,” the Unifier addressed the other calmly, watching the steadfast breeze tug at the flowing fabric of His servant’s linen habit. The Unifier spoke in a voice that was at once pleasing to the ear, an immaculately smooth, low tone palatable to any listener. Underneath the surface, the voice carried a subtle undercurrent of authority, an authority that those such as Baalmon never forgot, not even for an instant.
The Unifier almost smiled in amusement, as He often did at the predicament of His Sorcerers. They were well aware that any errant thoughts or deceits could not be hidden within their minds, which would not hesitate to betray them to the Unifier, despite their best efforts or concentration.
The Unifier drew pleasure whenever He first revealed that aspect of Himself to a person who had no inkling of His deeper natures. He had watched many who had thought that they could obscure their thoughts grovel in sheer terror, at the moment when they had learned of their inner nakedness to the Unifier’s pervading gaze.
Adding to the disconcertment of a Sorcerer’s private meeting with the Unifier, Baalmon had to endure the conversation without the benefit of the illusory facade that the Unifier displayed with most others. The Unifier did not bother to exhibit the gratuitous smile and eloquent manner that He carried in public situations with His Sorcerers in private. His countenance was implacably stern, void of all masks of compassion, empathy, or selfless concern. His piercing eyes were unforgiving and exacting in their scrutiny, the iciness in them stripped of any mirage of warmth or kindliness. The face that Baalmon looked upon was the most honest expression of the Unifier’s incarnate form.
“What word do you bring me?” The Unifier asked. “The war now moves to the south, and will take place there for some time. I can wait no longer concerning those matters.”
“Your group of trained Darroks is ready to go forth, my Lord,” Baalmmon replied, his eyes lowered towards the tower’s surface in front of his feet.
He could not bring his eyes to look into those of the Unifier, and the Unifier knew that it was all that the Sorcerer could do to keep his voice steady. Such was the regular condition of those that knew the Unifier most intimately.
In public, where the Unifier put on many charming guises, the Sorcerers had to muster discipline, careful to hide their fear of Him.
“Ready to be prepared, or truly ready to leave for the east?” the Unifier asked.
“They are harnessed, and their Trogen crews are assembled,” Baalmon answered resolutely, to the Unifier’s satisfaction.
“That is good,” the Unifier said after a tense pause. The Unifier could feel the relief seeping into Baalmon at those three words. The currents seemed to churn faster in the Unifier’s swirling eyes as He continued, “The primitive savages of the Five Realms will have a very strong message delivered unto them. Make sure that there is no question about the strength of the message that we send to them. The crews are to hold nothing back… They are to spare nothing in their path.
“Perhaps it will bring those primitives some last shreds of wisdom, even as their villages are destroyed. It is also My wish to receive clear word of the Darroks, and how they fare. They are My newest weapon, among several that I intend to introduce in the coming months within Ave. I intend for them to be a weapon that I will use against any last realm foolish enough to try and resist My power. They will be as thunderclouds that will bring My storms to bear. Go now, and see to My bidding, by personally seeing these Darroks into the skies and heading eastward.”
“Yes, my Lord, at once,” Baalmon nodded, before hastily departing.
In moments, the Sorcerer was nimbly descending the steps within the thick walls of the high tower. The contrast between how he behaved in executing his tasks away from the Unifier, and how he acted in the presence of the Lord of Avanor, were incredibly amusing.
The Unifier knew well enough that Baalmon was very stately, intimidating, and even arrogant in his regular dealings with mortals. In truth, among the humans in the citadel Baalmon enjoyed a quite fearsome reputation. He was exceedingly powerful in his own right, steeped in the blackest of arts, and capable of wielding them with titanic fury.
He owed that entirely to the Unifier, who had opened doors into previously unknown depths of the abyss for the Sorcerers. Dark mysteries had been revealed to them, and dark wonders shown. Baalmon had been shown to be one of the strongest and greatest of aptitude, graced in abundance by the Lord of the Abyss, Jebaalos.
Yet all that was reduced in a moment, when the acolyte was before his Master. Baalmon could boast of nothing before the Unifier, who had brought him all his knowledge and powers, and held the strings of both his life and spirit in His hands.
Seeing the Sorcerer like a whimpering, shuffling servant was much more to the Unifier’s liking. In time, He would see kings and emperors in modes of even lower obeisance than that shown now by His Sorcerers in private audiences. That glorious day was drawing ever nearer.
For the present, the Unifier would have to allow some mortal rulers to persist in some light delusions. Little did they know of the truth of the nature of the relationship between the Unifier and those most intimate with Him.
Most persons in Avanor, Norengal, and from across the other lands of Ave believed that being closer to the Unifier’s side would bring great privileges of position and access. Many of the more ambitious and ruthless were not above recklessly accepting the destruction of their very own souls to gain a step closer to the Unifier’s confidence, at least in terms of how they perceived the relationship.
In some ways, they would find out that their initial assessment was correct. Power and privilege of position and access did exist within an individual’s closeness to the Unifier, but few anticipated the risks and costs that came with it.
The prices of failure for one with preeminent rank such as Baalmon, as the Sorcerer well knew, were not survivable. He also understood very clearly that the threat of punishment not only regarded his mortal life in Ave, but would be inescapable in the afterworld to come.
No other being than the Unifier could issue such a threat with genuine confidence. The Sorcerer, like all others in the inner circle around the Unifier, was desperate not to suffer even the slightest semblance of failure.
The palpable fear of those tethered closest to Him was simply exquisite, yet the Unifier knew that there was little room for beguiling diversions. The Unifier had to keep His mind riveted on the principle tasks ahead, just as Baalmon would be doing. Still, it was always enjoyable to savor the sweet taste of the world that was to come, if even for just a moment.
As the fearful servant hurried down the steps deep in the tower, the Unifier calmly turned back towards the horizon, gazing towards the south and east. He gently rested His hands on the cool stone between two stout merlons, His long fingers wrapping around the rough edge of the crenel.
His blue eyes shimmered once again, as they transformed into an abyss of deep, blood red.
His lips parted into a wide, feral smile, giving a rare exhibit of His unnaturally sharp, opalescent teeth. The Unifier was indeed pleased with the general course of things, as He turned His thoughts towards several other matters.