Chapter Nineteen

  It was surprisingly easy to make time alone, and once alone, Ulbert, in Torald’s eyes, seemed to relax a fair bit. Enough so that when Torald said, “Now that you’re not in a demon form, if you like, you can ride on the back of my horse, he doesn’t seem wary of you now.”

  “I’ve never ridden a horse before.” Ulbert admitted and looked uneasily at the giant animal. While killing it certainly wouldn’t have been an issue… controlling such a creature was another matter, and falling off would have made him look absurd.

  Torald’s long brown hair bounced a little when he laughed and leaned over to hold out a hand. “M’lord, to ride behind me you need no skill, just a good grip to hold on to me. As long as you do that, I’ll keep the reins and do the rest.”

  Ulbert hesitated, he narrowed his eyes at the extended metal covered hand.

  “Trust me.” Torald said with a half smile on his face.

  And Ulbert reached a decision, while he could have jumped up easily enough, something about doing so felt wrong. Like he would have been spurning the man’s offer rather than accepting it.

  So he took the offered hand and allowed Torald to give a firm, if unnecessary pull, and Ulbert swung his leg up over the back and found himself right behind the thick brown leather saddle.

  He held on to the metal plating of Torald’s armored torso and the knight kicked his heels lightly against the horse’s flanks to speed it up a little. “I’d rather avoid a chance of the storm coming after us. Unless…” Torald looked over his shoulder, “Can m’lord control the weather?”

  “I can make the weather lethal, if that counts.” Ulbert answered dryly and straight faced, “But no, the spell to change the weather to something more pleasant is the sort of thing I left to…” He paused, ‘NPC probably won’t mean anything to him… so, the next best way to say it…’ He thought and then continued, “servants.”

  “My Lord had servants?” Torald asked, it was difficult to picture, more difficult than he expected it to be. The demon in disguise was charismatic to a disturbing degree, had a noble bearing, and considerable power. ‘Why wouldn’t he have money and wealth, and servants to go with all that?’

  And yet it was hard to picture, because Ulbert was so overtly personable and so disinterested in the ease with which he could have whatever luxury he wished. He hadn’t demanded money, or sacrifice, or subservience of any sort.

  “My friends and I, yes. A long time ago. We built a home for ourselves, and created servants to attend to our needs and to our home’s care, maintenance, and protection.” Ulbert looked briefly off into the distance, “It was a wonderful place, like no other, we filled it with our greatest treasures, and we filled it with stories of our adventures, our games, my friends and I, I’ve never forgotten them…”

  “My Lord speaks of it as if it is gone, did my lord’s friends… did they die? What happened to your home…?” Torald immediately cursed himself, “No, forgive the foolish question. It’s no business of mine. If my lord doesn’t wish to speak of it-”

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  “No.” Ulbert answered and swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s good to say some things.” He closed his eyes and expelled a breath that brushed past Torald’s neck, the heat was greater than that of a human, but not nearly as much as the knight expected.

  “I just don’t know quite what to say about it. We built it all ourselves, each one of us, on land we won with our own hands and our own power. I created a wise counselor with a mean streak, someone capable of administering to dark but necessary affairs and deep insight. I poured hours into shaping him as a perfect representation of someone fit to lead… and I built his base, his workshop, and created minions suitable for someone like him. My friends also created servants of their own, matching their vision. Takemikazuchi built the ideal warrior, a monster with a sense of profound honor, dignity, and respect even for the ones whose lives he would take…”

  “The perfect knight.” Torald said, and Ulbert nodded his agreement.

  “You could say that, yes. We decorated the home with tapestries and statues, filled it with beautiful maids whose personalities were as designed by us as the very clothing they wore. But what I remember most, were the times we would celebrate our holidays together. We threw great parties, feasts, you could say, and played table games that were sometimes more adventurous than the real world.” Ulbert laughed while he looked up at the endless blue sky.

  “But nothing in any world lasts forever. One by one, we had to say goodbye, to it, and to each other… called to… another plane, we left our things, our creations behind… I wasn’t the last to leave. But I knew until not long ago, that there was only one who stayed there still.”

  “How did my lord know that?” Torald asked it quietly, it was like the whispers of a god retelling the creation and destruction of an older world.

  “Because the world in which our home rested, it was going to end. You could say that it was going to die, and the one who stayed, he sent us ah… message, asking us to come back for the last day, to bear witness to the end.” Ulbert had to swallow another lump in his throat as he thought of Momonga all alone there in Nazarick with nobody but NPCs for company…

  ‘How do I make up for that? He was my friend… no, I had to go, he understood…’ Ulbert tried to reassure himself, but at the core of his being he knew for sure, ‘Even things understood, still leave injuries…’

  Nonetheless, he forced himself to go on, “And on the message I received, all of us were listed, that meant if he were writing to all of us, it is because all of us were gone. He was the last of us, asking for his friends to return one more time to say farewell to the world and to the home we built, forever.”

  “And, m’lord was the only one to go back?” Torald guessed.

  “No. No, I wasn’t. But of those I know who tried to return, we were scattered, and before I could join my friend again, everything was just…” Ulbert sought a way to explain his appearance, and found none.

  However he took some time to find nothing, and Torald prompted him, “Just what, m’lord?”

  “Just gone.” Ulbert finally went for the easiest explanation, “I was no longer in that world, and I found myself in this one, and of course, you know the rest. Now my home, my companions, and both the ‘planes’ I know are gone and out of reach and I have no place left for me.”

  The catch in Ulbert’s voice was such that Torald could not help but feel pity move his heart, and all he wanted to do was bring cheer to the demon in disguise. “Your pardon, m’lord, but I barely understand all the way up to ‘the rest’.”

  It was enough for Ulbert to give a weak chuckle at least, and that in turn was enough to make Torald smile, even if just a little, and the hours of their travels continued to pass by and become days, trading stories that ranged from banal to impossible in the eyes of the Draconic Kingdom knight, passing days that seemed like they would last forever, until the spires of the capital were lit up by the rays of the sun.