Also, as a special treat to all the readers of the Tome Series, this is the entire Chapter 3... enjoy...
Tome: When the Night Falls
Chapter 3
Number 47 stood at
the door of the room again with the same man beside him, he was meek as ever
and quivered even more.
“Open it…” Number 47
said.
The man nodded and
opened the door.
Number 47 gestured
for him to go in but the man looked at him dumbfounded. Number 47 sighed, “In
you go…”
The man shook his
head quickly, “I can’t… I shouldn’t…”
Number 47 drew his
pistol and in an instant it was at the man’s head, the safety clicked off… The
sound echoed down the square hallways and the two stared each other in the
eyes. Number 47’s eyes were hidden by his tinted sunglasses which made him seem
all the more formidable. The meek man’s eye dilated in fear and looked at
Number 47. His mechanical eye was not much better.
“Sir… I’m going to
have to ask you to put the gun away…” the meek man said quietly.
“Sir… I’m going to
have to ask you to get into that room…” Number 47 pressed his pistol against
the man’s forehead and forced him through and into the room.
“Tell me, where do
these pipes lead whelp?” Number 47 led him forcefully towards the fallen body
of the Clockwork Watchman lay. His neck was a gross colour of black and blues.
Crushed and squeezed of all of its life.
The man quivered but
Number 47 ignored the man’s quivering and he roared, “Tell me what is behind that wall…”
The wall itself was
plain, there were no details except for the lights that gave off their light
blue tint. Where the pipes entered there was a simple life sign which showed
the true extent of how dead the man was. The reading showed his last few
seconds alive before he had died. The Clockwork Watchman was strangled over his
breath and then left to die on the ground.
Number 47 returned to
the man and unlocked the safety on his weapon, “Tell me now…” he whispered, the
serious in his voice scared the meek man.
“I don’t know… nobody
told me what is behind that wall…” although Number 47 had seen the eye process
information, only the smallest of hints that it was doing something. An extra
click out of rhythm and the hum of something being accessed.
“You’re lying,”
Number 47’s finger tightened around the trigger.
“Wait, wait,” the man
screamed and pleaded for his life.
Number 47’s trigger
finger loosened, “I’m waiting whelp.”
The man bawled out
what he knew, “The Machine God is one of
the Haloed Ones, Machine they called
him… It is his blood that they have
in there… The raw energy of a Haloed
One…”
“Thank you,” Number
47 nodded raised his gun and brought its butt down on the man’s head and he fell
to the floor with a great clang of metal on metal.
Number 47 whipped out
his phone and started dialling, “Get everybody
here… this is bigger than the Noble Alliance
The men in the woods had bound Dead Weight to the tree with
heavy ropes and chains, amongst them there was a Paladin. He hadn’t noticed.
The shining armour in
the early morning sun, bright white and illuminated by the sunshine. Sheathed
across his back and tied to his wrist by a chain was an axe. It’s twin blades
glittered in the sunlight welcoming the new born sun rising over the hills in
the distance. Its helm was plain and simple with glowing runes scribed into it, Viking runes Kenaz meaning light and Jera
meaning life. The entire armour seemed to be made of a stone like material.
Very much unlike the
Black Paladins of the Necromancers. They were all armed with many weapons all
strapped to their back ready for their use but would mostly use the Royal
Claymores in defence of Cale. When Necromancy started to die, they were the
fist to go with it. Their existence so tenuous and thin that it snapped and
broke their conscience. Although that was not to be the end of these dark,
shadowy warriors as the powers of the Haloed Ones inhabited them. Sorcerers
were unsure how these Paladins would act. Would they act like their masters
with evil intentions or would they act like the Black Paladins. Silent. Hardworking.
Needing to be ordered around…
The Paladin walked up
to him and gave him a long hard stare through his helm. Dead Weight could see
his eyes. Bright blue and more importantly fuelled by the dead powers of the
Haloed Ones. Around them the shadows broke through… Perhaps that would be
important… Dead Weight constantly thought of this. It was not the fist time
that he had been captured and there were several ways to kill an enemy… If you
knew how to.
Although these ropes burned. When he had been bound they had
been clever enough to make sure that they were invested with the energy of the
Paladin. His concentrated force flew through those ropes.
Dead Weight knew
something about Paladins and their connection to Haloed energy. Haloed energy is like energy in one
way, impossible to destroy but unlike energy, Haloed energy is limitless. In
more ways than one… Haloed energy could create matter. Haloed energy could
destroy matter. There were no limits and no boundaries to it.
That was what made
them so dangerous Dead Weight recalled… they truly were dark times…
The Paladins
continued to look at Dead Weight.
Dead Weight gave him
and long hard stare but when he didn’t get the picture, he instead said, “What
do you want?”
The Paladin didn’t
flinch nor did it even move. Unmoving it said, “Why?”
“Why whit?” Dead
Weight growled.
“Why would you kill
the Clockwork Mechanic?” the Paladin asked.
Dead Weight looked at
him and laughed, “He wasn’t always a Clockwork Mechanic, Paladin… although you
would already know that if you remembered?”
Still unmoving the
Paladin asked, “Remembered what?”
Dead Weight shook his
head, “Dumb Paladin…”
The ropes around him
began to burn brighter and hotter against his Necromancy energy until he was
stifling down a scream.
“Remember what?” the Paladin seethed.
Dead Weight looked
straight at the Paladin and breathed, “You really don’t remember anything do you?”
The burning stopped,
“We forgot everything of our former lives human… There was nothing left for us
on this Earth and me and my brothers were happy to die… The Haloed Ones…
they’re survivors and our recently dead bodies. Perfect for picking up from the
floor…”
Dead Weight looked at
him, “Then let me tell you a story Paladin:
You and your brothers were once all servants. Forced into servitude by that man that I murdered.”
“The Clockwork
Watchman?” the Paladin said surprised but his monotone voice showed none of
that surprise.
“He wasn’t always the
Clockwork Watchman. Once he was a Necromancer much like me. Before Necromancy
was dying, he lead an evil place filled with creatures… creatures beyond
comprehension…”
“How do you know
this?” the Paladin asked.
“Trust me… I was…
born there,” Dead Weight’s memories shivered remembering. “You followed him
with no free will. Armour animated by the shadows and given a very minimal amount of free will… A sad,
sad life led by a sad, sad little man…”
The Paladin continued
to show no emotion behind that stone mask. The runes glowed indifferent. His eyes
didn’t move. When it wanted to stay still it certainty could…
“What is your name
Paladin?” Dead Weight asked.
The Paladin turned to
walk away and told him, “The Paladins have no names, Necromancer. Surely you
should know that…”
“Do you want a name?”
Dead Weight asked.
The Paladin stopped
and thought. Would a name suit this
new body of his. The Haloed One energy within his armour screamed out “No” but this new mind given its own free
will wanted to stray. Stray far from this path that it was one and make its own
choices after having been (apparently) treated like a slave and animated by
this man Cale.
It turned to face the
Necromancer again, “What would you suggest?”
Dead Weight looked
long and hard at the Paladin and then suggested, “Tiberius?”
The Paladin looked
strangely thoughtful in the stone white armour before saying aloud the name, “Tiberius…” it rolled off of its tongue
and played through the air. Its head titled to one side as it continued to
think before finally coming to a conclusion.
“I like it…” Tiberius
said ponderously. “Did we have names.”
“No,” Dead Weight
said bluntly.
Tiberius nodded politely
and began to walk away from Dead Weight but the Necromancer had more to say…
“Tiberius,” he called
out.
Tiberius turned
around and looked at him, silent, waiting for Dead Weight to speak again.
“I’m sorry,” Dead
Weight apologised in advance as the shadows inside Tiberius’s helm expanded and
widened. Cracks in the helm protruded through as they did but more importantly:
Tiberius screamed…
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