Have you heard the story of the Peculiar Warlord? If not, I shall tell it to you. There was a time - and it doesn't really matter when, for this tale happens in that hazy once upon a time where all stories exist - when there was a child. This child was both fortunate and unfortunate: fortunate, because he was high-born to a wealthy House; unfortunate, because that House happened to be House d'Murani of Magnagora. 

Now, we who live in kinder lands have no cause to know this, but the upbringing of a Magnagoran child is cruel, even when that child is heir to wealth and power. Some are spirited away to secret estates, there to be tutored intensely in the arts of lore and power; others are left to fend for themselves in the Blasted Lands. Nowadays, of course, they send their children to hard labour in the Feyranti Bloodmines. But their belief has always been the same: that only the strong and cruel and cunning shall survive.

None of these things happened to the child we speak of, whose name was Alezar d'Murani. Alezar was allowed to wander out of the city, having nothing in his pockets but a bundle of his favorite cookies, which he stole from the kitchen cupboard. He made his way safely through the Blasted Lands, for as a younger boy he had spent countless hours on the city walls watching hapless travellers stumble into gravedigger pits, and throwing apple cores in their direction. 

By and by Alezar finished all his cookies, and wandered around aimlessly looking for food until a helpful lucidian arrived. The lucidian offered Alezar more cookies, which Alezar gleefully accepted. Then, the lucidian led Alezar to the Arthar'rt Observatory, which still stood in those days. That was a place with a dark history, with scientists who conceived of only some as true people, and others as subjects to be enslaved or experimented upon. So it was for the viscanti children who passed through its doors. 

The cookie Alezar ate was clouding his mind; but as he entered the high tower, he saw all around him the cold and sterile rooms of stone and crystal, and the docile and blank expressions of the viscanti children who served there, and a terror rose within him so that he stumbled backwards, half falling and half running, back out the door. And though the friendly lucidian - who was, in the end, maybe not so friendly after all - called after him, he did not stop, but rather kept running along the Emerald Road, and from there into the mountains of Avechna's Teeth.

Days passed as Alezar travelled, and he was miserable and hungry. He raided the nests of birds for their eggs, and drank from clear mountain streams. Eventually, he came to the mountain taller than all other mountains, Avechna's Peak itself, where many pilgrims go. Tired and bedraggled, he stumbled into the first great building he saw, and lay down to sleep.

That building was the World Library, and the venerable old badger Weeky Peedia took in the child, pitying him despite his tainted origins. For years, Alezar lived in the Library, running odd errands and squashing bookworms as needed. In his spare time, he consumed all the stories that he could read. It was not an unpleasant way to grow up, for all that Alezar remained completely ignorant of the things his fellow Magnagoran nobility knew. He could have been quite content to remain there, if not for the summons.

The summons came in Alezar's twentieth year, delivered not by the usual run of post office birds, but by kestrel. Alezar opened the letter with shaking hands - even after so long, he remembered enough of his old life to know what receiving such a missive meant. The contents of the letter did not surprise. The old Chancellor d'Murani was dead from a blowgun dart in the night, wielded by an unknown assassin. Alezar as the heir was summoned to return from wherever he was.

As Alezar was packing his things - a few simple articles of clothing, a small dagger, and a truly impressive stack of books - he turned to see Weeky Peedia looking at him. The old badger furrikin's gaze was sad behind his glasses. "Will you return to your home?" Weeky asked. "You need not. You are welcome here, and we would not lose you to the Tainted once more."

"I must, mentor," said Alezar. He hesitated a moment. "I know it isn't what you hoped. But I have to see to my family."

The old furrikin sighed, and said nothing. Alezar bowed his head a moment, his horns dipping slightly. "I won't forget what I've learned here," Alezar promised, and stepped out the door.

--

The return to Magnagora was uneventful. Alezar spent the trip cataloguing cows on the highway, and when he entered the Northern Magnagora Gates he looked around at the city, which remained unchanged from his childhood memories. The city constable at the gate looked briefly as though he might rouse himself to interrogate Alezar, but subsided and settled back into his indolent lean against the wall instead.

Out of nowhere, a young urchin darted past, snatching Alezar's satchel from him. "Hey!" Alezar yelled, as the urchin dashed down a side path. Alezar turned to the constable. "Aren't you going to do something about this?" he asked.

The constable shrugged. "Them's the Cogs in the Smog," he said philosophically. "They'll always be up to something. Look, they're wanted." He gestured to a large poster plastered over the dark stone walls next to the gate. "A thousand gold if'n you catch one. But we don't bother cause they're quick as greased seawolves, and besides it's too much work to go after anyone who hasn't robbed a noble. Too much work to get out the bloodhounds."

Alezar opened his mouth to say, I am a noble, you idiot, before closing it again. In all the literary tomes he had read, arrogant scions of noble houses who went around proclaiming their identities seldom ended up well. Instead, he just sighed, gathered his cloak around him, and trudged along the road to the d'Murani Tower.

The servants recognized him, at the very least, and ushered him in with haste to the private study upstairs, where his sister Aesenmah was waiting. She had shown early promise in the dark arts, and had been one of the children sent off to be tutored in secret, before being apprenticed to the Nihilists. Now she wore the robes of a follower of Luciphage, but today the composure of that priesthood deserted her, and spots of colour rose livid in her cheeks, matching almost the rubies set into her gilded horns.

"It took you long enough to get here," Aesenmah snapped. "Did you walk all this way?"

"Yes," Alezar replied steadily. "All the way from Avechna's Peak, actually."

Aesenmah paused briefly, a slightly stunned look on her face. "Really?" she asked, before waving a hand dismissively. "Never mind that. But you snuck unannounced into the city - it is unacceptable! We are now in a struggle against the Warlord himself, and such weakness cannot be tolerated."

Alezar raised an eyebrow. "Should I then have announced myself with pomp and circumstance and met the same fate as Father? Why are we struggling with the Warlord anyway?" he asked.

Aesenmah frowned at him. "Must you have everything spelled out for you? The Warlord is of House i'Xiia, and his goal is to see us torn down while he mouths empty platitudes about serving the Engine. He didn't send the assassins - I'm fairly sure that was House Feyranti since Father was working on a proposal to tax the Bloodmine profits for the city coffers before he was killed. But he'll use our weakness anyway."

"Well," said Alezar calmly, "we can't fight both the Feyranti and the Warlord. You'll have to pick one."

"I have," Aesenmah said grimly. "We're going to make an alliance with House Feyranti, agree not to touch the Bloodmines, and kill the Warlord. The i'Xiia must go."

Alezar laughed. "And how will you get the Feyranti to agree to such an alliance?"

Aesenmah smiled with smug satisfaction. "As it happens, I don't have to. I sent my spies out, and we've waylaid Chancellor Feyranti's most favoured daughter. You'll wed her before witnesses in the Cathedral, I'll draft up a contract about the Bloodmine, and that will be that. The Chancellor won't want scandal to attach to his daughter."

Alezar sighed. "You know," he said, "I was afraid you'd say something like that."

--

There was no dungeon in the d'Murani Tower, it being primarily a residence instead of a fortress. Alezar hauled a bulky pack full of various implements behind him as he climbed up the black marble stairway to the top of the Tower, where two guards stood. He nodded at them, and they stood aside to let him through.

"Should we go, my lord?" asked one of the guards, who was perhaps a little too familiar with Magnagoran vices.

"No," said Alezar shortly. "I might need you if I'm in trouble." Without waiting for a reply, he unlatched the door and stepped inside.

The room was dark, aside from the flickering of a fire in the fireplace. Before it stood a viscanti woman about his own age, who was kneeling in front of the fire as if in contemplation. As he stepped closer, though, he saw that she had her head tilted up, and was intently examining the chimney flue.

"I wouldn't do that," said Alezar. "I had the workmen come and put grates over all the ventilation passages earlier today. I'm Alezar d'Murani, by the way."

The woman started, and turned her head to look at him. She had striking features: pale purple skin, dark lavender eyes, and a pride to her features as her chin lifted defiantly. "I know who you are," she said coldly. "And I know what you plan to do. I am Sirifa Feyranti, and House Feyranti will never agree to a forced alliance. I would sooner die than allow myself to be wed against my will to some mewling young lordling."

Alezar regarded her for a moment, taking in the sight before him. Some remnant of his youth murmured in approval, and he could understand why this would be the favoured daughter of the Feyranti: bold, quick of mind, and with the pride that seemed ubiquitous among the entire nobility of the city. The latter trait, as it happened, wasn't one that he himself really shared.

"You shouldn't ever say you'd sooner die than do something," he found himself saying, to his own surprise. "Someone might take you up on it."

The woman - Sirifa - blinked once, before her features clouded. "You threaten me," she said. "I had expected nothing less."

"No, no, that's not what this is," said Alezar. "The wedding is off, by the way," he added. "At least, if I have anything to say about it."

The look that crossed Sirifa's face was definitely shock this time, followed by deep suspicion. "You would not say that unless you wished to put me off my guard," she said.

"No, I mean it," said Alezar. "Look, I know how this ends, right? I marry you, you don't want to, I wake up in the middle of the night with a dagger in my ribs, or choke on poison in my pie, or die horribly on a cross somewhere, and the last thing I hear is your mocking laughter as your vengeance is complete."

Sirifa now looked completely baffled. "That's... terribly detailed," she said at last. "Have you been telepathically monitoring me?"

"No," said Alezar, "but I don't need to. Look, does nobody in this city ever read any books? This always happens. All of the plots are so impractical. Although I don't know why I expected anything else, considering that we have a literal bridge of dead bodies in the harbour when normal stone would have worked better and taken less power to build and also offered the benefit of your feet not sinking into dead flesh when you walk."

Alezar stopped for a moment, becoming increasingly aware that he was dangerously close to explaining himself to his prisoner, which was probably a bad idea. "Anyway," he said after a moment, "You'd better get going. Before my sister comes and kills me." He walked over to the window, opened his pack, and dropped a rope ladder out of the window, affixing the upper end to the windowsill.

Sirifa regarded him with a slight tilt to her head, and a faint smile creeping for the first time onto her face. "You are very strange," she said, as she glided over to the windowsill. Alezar noticed that she surriptitiously tested the strength of the knots as she laid her hand on the ladder, and that she inspected the grounds outside for signs of guards. 

"I will offer you one thing in exchange for this," Sirifa said. "House Feyranti did not kill Lord d'Murani. The Warlord did. Believe me or not as you will." And with that, she swung herself over the windowsill and dropped out of sight. Alezar, gazing after her, found himself a little more perturbed than he had anticipated.

--

As it turned out, Alezar was right about Aesenmah's wrath, which shrieked around the Tower until she realized that it was probably better to keep quiet about this particular failed plan in case word got out among the servants. Besides, the question was moot anyway - having failed to secure an alliance with the Feyranti, they were left in the position of needing to depose the Warlord, and quickly.

"We could poison his gas lamp," said Aesenmah, her eyes alight. "He would die slowly by the very light he used."

"Poetic, but no," said Alezar. "That would take weeks, and given the way gas spreads, you could end up poisoning the entire city. Which you might not mind, but is terribly inefficient when everyone is dead."

Aesenmah scowled at him. "Well, do you have a better idea?" she asked. 

Alezar nodded. "You are skilled in Cosmic rituals, sister," he said, "and can scry many people at once. I need you to find a particular street urchin for me..."

Some hours later, Alezar traipsed into the building that had once served as the old Feyranti estate, drawing his cloak and hood around him to hide his features. The building was apparently now the headquarters of the urchin gang known as the Cogs in the Smog. He went unerringly to one particular urchin lurking in a corner, and grabbed him by the ear. The other street children scattered in alarm, and soon Alezar and the urchin were alone.

"Where are my books?" Alezar asked, by way of introduction, and the urchin wailed.

"Dun kill me!" the urchin babbled, flailing his arms in a vain attempt to get away. "I only did it to become a proper Cog!"

Alezar blinked. "What do you mean?"

"See, to become a proper Cog in th' Smog I had to relieve three nobles of their goods, sir lord, sir," said the urchin. "And I were hopin' it would be gold or jewels, it bein' so heavy, but it turned out to be naught but books, and I can't even read 'em." Looking at Alezar again, the urchin begain to wail once more.

"Be quiet," Alezar suggested, and the urchin shut up as if a valve had been closed off. "I don't tend to kill people," Alezar continued. "It's wasteful, and if I killed everyone nobody would be left to do things. But you can be of help to me - and yes, before you ask, there's gold involved. And no, I'm not going to tell you who I am. But I need you to pass these out to your friends, and tell them to cover up all your wanted posters with them. And I might have a few other odd tasks. After you do that, you can come to me for your reward."

The urchin eyed the stack of papers dubiously, before taking them and tucking them under one arm. "I'll do it, guvnor," he said.

Alezar nodded. "Also, give me my books back."

--

Over the next few days, stray rumours began to appear on the streets. The Warlord was sick; the Warlord was mad; the Warlord had gone to Nil to pledge before Lord Gorgulu and been bitten in an embarrassing location. The Warlord had died and there was an imposter in his place.

Aesenmah sulked in the d'Murani Tower the whole week long. "The Warlord is holed up in his manse," she said. "I hope you're happy. At this rate we'll never get to him. And why do you have a street urchin in our spare bedroom?"

Alezar shrugged. "The Warlord will come out eventually," he said. "And if not, then it won't be any trouble to appoint a new Warlord. As for the urchin, he'll be off soon, but I need to keep an eye on him for a few days."

As it happened, that day came sooner than they expected. The Warlord called a public gathering of the entire city, ostensibly to announce a festival and a power-gathering competition. Alezar scanned the notice, taking such tired phrases as "for the glory of the Engine" and "always in service."

Alezar and Aesenmah, as part of the nobility, were obliged to attend, and they travelled to the appointed place, which overlooked the Necromentate, dressed in their best finery. The Warlord was there, and the assembled upper echelons of Magnagora. The Warlord was an imposing man: a tall orclach in full plate armour, bearing a standard with the arms of the city upon it. As the Warlord stood, the crowd went silent.

"We are here today that we may serve our city," said the Warlord. "Let it grow ever stronger! Ever hungrier! Ours is the power." A smattering of polite applause greeted this opening. "And yet, before we begin, let us always remember that the Engine must be fed. And who better to feed it, than those who would cause strife with whispered words?"

A sudden metallic hiss of swords, and the guards were blocking the door. More marched down the the corridors, advancing upon Alezar until he was surrounded by a circle of drawn weapons. Beside him, he felt his sister tense, bowing her head and clenching her fists. In the pit below, the gaping maw of the Necromentate opened wide, as if to receive an offering.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice your little trick?" said the Warlord. "You can hide behind your little helpers all you like, d'Murani. You are less subtle than you think. It is no matter. As you have transgressed in life, so shall you serve with your death."

Alezar swallowed, trying to force words past his throat. "I shall serve," he said, in a hoarse voice. He had known this might happen, but to be in the moment was different. His limbs felt like water. "Will you permit me to say one thing before I die?"

The Warlord waved a hand dismissively, eyes fixed on Alezar from where he stood on the other side of the gaping pit. "And what would those last words be, young d'Murani?"

"You really shouldn't have let me keep talking," said Alezar, and several things happened at once. The ground before Aesenmah's feet opened, and her archdemon clambered out of it, turning in a mesmerizing beckoning motion. A second glitter of steel flashed across the room as the Feyranti guardsmen drew their swords, surrounding the city guard. And from across the pit, the Warlord stared transfixed at the demon, before taking one unwilling step forward -

It was enough. The Warlord teetered on the edge, before slipping and falling down into the wide maw of the Necromentate below, which roared in delight and chomped once. The city guard looked completely baffled. Some moved forward as if they could grab Alezar and throw him in after, but the grim Feyranti guardsmen moved a little closer, swords out and in formation, and the city guard seemed to think better of it.

Sirifa Feyranti gazed at Alezar from across the room, her lavender eyes bright. "House Feyranti agrees to a military alliance," she said to him. After a moment, she smiled and added, "For one so hard to surprise, I suspect you were not expecting that."

Alezar opened his mouth to say that he in fact had been considering it a possibility, but then for once in his life decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and shut his mouth again.

--

Little else is known about the life of the Peculiar Warlord. Perhaps, as the years went on, he did in fact wed the Feyranti lady; or perhaps he didn't. Maybe his reign was long; or maybe it was short. Some say his time in power was characterized by a decided lack of unnecessary death and dismemberment, and a great rise in practical architecture. Other say that his greatest contribution was a scroll he left for his descendants, warning them against the kind of dramatic flourishes one finds in stories (though, as someone who inspired stories, perhaps he wasn't as immune to them as he would have liked to think himself.) 

After his death, by and large the Tainted city reverted to the way it was: infighting, backstabbing, stuff more fit for the stage than for life. And yet, for we who oppose them, it may be useful to remember the Peculiar Warlord's motto: sometimes, being evil gets in the way of being great.