—in Lord Perth’s name—

Akantha lived by four simple directives.

Obey Lord Perth.
Protect Lord Perth.
Care for Lord Perth’s every need.
Destroy anyone that would cause harm to Lord Perth.

She strode down the stairs, plotting out possible courses of action. The soulwyrms had put Lord Perth beyond death, but he could still be damaged, he could still be ruined beyond repair; so could she. The nursemaid did not like to think what something like that would mean. 

For eighteen years she had complied with Lord Perth’s tenets, laboring day in and day out in the increasingly dysfunctional Perth household. Her existence had been idyllic at first. Lord Perth, cowed by his infirmaties, had been the easiest of charges and Mara had been grateful for the assistance. When the children had come they had brought delight to the household —so tiny and tender! Each one a little semblance of Lord Perth’s glory. Of course they had never really taken to Akantha, her immutable exterior and her absent emotions disturbed them. They did not understand that in many ways she was a child too.

In the early years of his retirement, Lord Perth received many guests—mystagogues, leaders and prophets all came to him for advice. Even one of the Grand Masters visited, but did not stay for dinner. Lord Perth rejected countless entreaties to accept a teaching position. Thus, as time wore on, visitors became rarer and rarer. The worlds of politics and magic had moved on and Lord Perth was no longer relevant to them. Finally, even the routine Inquisition check-ups came only once every several years.

It was around that time that the tenor of Lord Perth’s experiments began to change. Why? It was not her place to question. Perhaps he had learned all he could learn from forces of Essence. Perhaps he knew, as she did, that the condition that had left him blind and weak would soon kill him. Perhaps he simply went mad. Mad or not Akantha observed her directives; Lord Perth needed her steady hands and her clear eyesight. She as always there to clean the vials and philters he was finished and was there to protect him when his experiments went awry. 

She was there when he bargained with the dark cultists for a single egg. The emotion of fear was alien to her but when she beheld that those tainted monstrosities she still felt a coldness in her chest.

The egg had been tiny, the size of a pebble and rough to the touch. The parasite was sleeping inside it, hibernating. They could hibernate for centuries, only hatching when they were immersed in cranial-spinal fluid. 

In his genius, Lord Perth had decided that he could breed a new genius of soulwyrm—vermis-animus he had called it. This wyrm would be free of its cousin’s vile appetites and terrible side effects. Lord Perth ordered her to keep his growing colony fed. First she used small animals, then the brains of primates and finally, inevitably she found herself preying on the inhabitants of the nearby town. Lord Perth still held fast to his morality, he only allowed her to take the sickly and the addle-minded.

Akantha knew that his grand experiment would have succeeded if not for his wife.

The nursemaid remembered coming home from one of her forays into town to find the children gone, the septic tank flooded back into the library and Lord Perth slumped over in his wheelchair, his lips turning blue.

For a time—perhaps it was a minute, perhaps it was an hour—she stood perfectly still, pondering his body and the implications. To have so utterly failed in her directives, to be without direction and purpose. Freedom was a luxury for others, not her. She lived to serve the Lord Perth, she could conceive of nothing else. 

There was a danger in using the soulwyrms to resurrect the Lord Perth but it was a danger she knew he would be willing to risk. Unharvested soulwyrms not only devour and procreate in the host brain, leaving their victim dead, they in a strange way become the host. Somehow they adapt and imitate the actions of the neurons and neuralgia they devour, animating the corpse of their victim. Thus revived, the host/victim becomes a mobile nest for the parasites, memories and personality intact but driven by a maddening hunger for fresh gray matter.

Reverently she laid his body out on the same workbench he had used to conceive her. When he awoke he was ravenously hungry but there were three meals waiting for him—Mara and her children. Despite his craving he took his time feeding, glorying in his vengeance. Over a period of forty-eight hours he devoured his children, saving Mara for last. Akantha made sure the betrayer watched and heard every bite. When Lord Perth came for his wife, she did not struggle; she surrendered willingly to his embrace.

The slapdash resurrection had left Lord Perth stronger than he had been in life, with working eyes and strong limbs. For a time, things settled back into a kind of routine—working, experimenting, studying and trying to salvage what they could of his library. She had faith that he would find a way to bring himself back to life, all they needed was time.

Keeping Lord Perth and the soulwyrms fed fast became a burden. Akantha was forced to go foraging further away—day trips to other towns and cities became common. It seemed that each time she came back to find Lord Perth and his house in a further state of degeneration. One day she found him cutting the heads off his daughter’s dolls, whispering to them all the while. Another time she found him masturbating into his books, ejaculating wryms over the yellowed pages. Such actions had no effect on her directives.

Now this girl, this girl might very well be a turning point for the Lord Perth, if she had magic—powerful magic—her wisdom could be added to Lord Perth’s own. Perhaps that could aid him, help him to find a way to—

A rapid series of thuds stirred her from the calculations. The nursemaid turned to see her other captive, the man, curled into a ball and rolling down the stairs. He was headed straight for her. 

—a near-hit—

Halfway through the spell she dropped to her knees, coughing uncontrollably. Globs of ichor coated her fist and ran down her clothes. She was gasping like a fish, struggling to cast one last spell. The dead man was a few feet away, almost within grabbing distance. He sneered “Is this what they teach for magic now? Pathetic.”

It was a simple spell really, a channeling of force, it could be enough force to move a pencil or enough force to shatter a stone wall. It all depended on the skill of the caster.

Lorelei’s hand began to glow with light, she forced herself to stand.

“Again? All right, one last spell, then . . .” the dead man paused.

A ball of radiance launched itself from Lorelei’s quivering hand and rocketed past the dead man to impact the stone bookshelf behind him.

The dead man began to laugh hysterically. Lorelei bolted past him, throwing herself out of the alcove. A heavy creaking sound filled the air. The dead man was so busy laughing and shambling after her that he never even saw the basalt bookcase come crashing down on him.