You are a minion in the service of a dark lord. Your master has tasked you with creating and spreading a prophecy about a chosen one, the only person who can defeat him, so that the so-called “heroes” will stop resisting his rule and instead wait for their savior to arrive.
There are moments when you become stupidly tenderhearted for the Red Lord. The moment you realized that it essentially hid it’s name (as powerful wizards usually do from what you’ve learned) so well that it forgot it. How the Red Lord just offhandedly saved the few surviving species of your desolate world because you helped it when you found it in the waste where it’d been exiled. (None of you were going to repay it for that, not for generations.) It’s surprising patience for nippy ordat pups, the way it falls asleep while reading, book dangling out of its thin hands.
It’s complete and absolute ignorance of how people worked.
The Red Lord proposes a false prophecy that will make the “heroes” wait for the savior instead of directly going to war with it. How could anyone be so naive? It took you a moment to realize it wasn’t even joking; some of you almost laugh. You saw that it was absolutely serious, eyes intent and curious because you weren’t answering, not even with a spacer noise. (A few of you actually cry instead as you realize, overcome by the strange innocence of the Red Lord.) “What?” it asks, irritated now because it thinks it is old, and that you shouldn’t be looking at it like “a small child who has done something precious and stupid.” (To you it is literally a small child who does precious and stupid things. )
“Where did we find you, master?” You ask it.
It frowns at you. “At the edge of what you called the Green Glass Waste,” it says. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You could say that the waste was created by the act of waiting…what you propose will not go the way you plan it…you might manage a certain amount of complacence but otherwise no…” You are full of voices, all of them wanting to get a word in edgewise. The Red Lord listens intently. (It is at least a good listener.) You explain some of the wars that eventually destroyed your world, and convey the essence of how complicated they were. (People will wait for a savior sometimes, yes, but it won’t stop them from fighting if they think they have to. And they will, destroying everything in their path to wipe out that hated thing.)
“Fine so the idea is entirely without merit,” it grinds out.
You are about to reassure it that the idea simply hadn’t taken into account how determined people could be to destroy something they hated, when a few of you make spacer noises. The idea that occurs to you from that direction is very interesting. “Not necessarily, master,” you say. “You just didn’t develop the idea enough, and you lacked certain details which we provided you. What you need master is a defeated prophecy, that also happens to be a false prophecy.”
“We will need one of your constructs,” you say. “It should be parasitic, self-willed to a certain extent and have a good instinct for survival.”
“Self-replicating might also be useful,” you say.
“No, that would be too dangerous,” you also object. “It might mutate the programming.”
“Would that be a bad thing, since we want to confuse matters?”
“Yes!”
“We’d like the complete liturgies and holy texts of your nearest opponents,” you say.
You spend nights researching and planning, and more nights programming the construct that will become your false prophecy. These constructs are a particular skill of your master. The more complicated ones are capable of thought and self-direction which is both fascinating and horrifying to your master’s enemies. Apparently it’s more accepted to use summoned entities than “attempt to create life.” (To do so was obviously hubris to your master’s enemies.)
The construct was programmed with a long life cycle. It would jump from host to host and one of you would be responsible for handling it and feeding it power that it would use to perform “miracles.” You named the construct “Voice of Prophecy” and set it loose on an abbey in a polity outside the Red Lord’s territory. It infected a nun who became a saint, deliberately martyred so that the prophecy could jump to an enemy Knight. The Knight formed an Order and the construct learned how to fight which involved muscle memory that you couldn’t teach it. The construct strengthened the Order which grew into many chapter houses over the next century.
The prophecy took root, passed on by the Order. The Voice periodically jumped to priests and monks, bards and warriors. It gained complexity and grew in intelligence and skills. Voice of Prophecy was a beautiful construct, shining and bright with a wicked sense of humor, eager to reach its end goal. With your help, it set up the circumstances that would lead to it infecting a “Chosen One.” It carefully groomed a “paladin.” The paladin became the figurehead of an invasion into the Red Lord’s territory. (Your master was not happy about this part of the plan. It was understandably protective of its territory and it’s apprentice-followers.)
The paladin was very young, with preternatural skill supplied by the Voice of Prophecy and as much power as you could supply it. It was loved by its people, and it was full of faith in its mission. The Red Lord’s followers both admired and hated it, not knowing that the paladin was a stalking horse, and the honesty of their emotion made the perfect camouflage for Voice. (However this also made Voice’s next steps very difficult. It essentially had to plan its way through the Red Lord’s territory and fight its best generals with no help except for you.)
The end goal was of course, the final battle. A final battle that did not happen. The paladin and its followers eventually broke into the Red Citadel complex and fought their way to the throne. You and your master were waiting for them. Voice froze the paladin, and you descended on the followers, holding them in place. You almost expected a kill order, but instead the Red Lord simply…explained. It’s voice was at a speaking level, but also amplified so the entire invading army could hear it. The paladin started looking sick, then dazed. To your further surprise, the Red Lord simply lets the paladin go. You shoot your master a questioning look, but it doesn’t really answer.
The broken and dispirited invaders are driven back out of the territory, or taken captive and put in work gangs to repair the infrastructure. You still have tabs on the “paladin” due to Voice. You find that Voice has become attached to its host and is worried for it. (“I’m afraid it will hurt itself. I don’t want it to hurt itself. Please help.”) You are somewhat concerned for Voice, but it won’t let you simply retrieve the paladin (nor will your master when you suggest it).
Then Kerrick Barrod, one of the Red Lord’s higher ranking followers detains one of you. “They say the Champion walked out of the Tower, unharmed,” it says tightly, its hand around one of your limbs.
You break its grip gently. “It did,” you tell it. “It was the Red Lord’s whim.”
“Why?” Kerrick demands.
“Whim,” you point out. “We choose words very precisely.”
You can hear Kerrick grind its silly flat teeth at you. “Dammit Sekket,” it says. “I don’t like being played with.”
“We aren’t playing.” You think about it. “You feel angry, betrayed you weren’t trusted with this strategy?”
“No, apparently it’s been going on since before I was born,” Kerrick says. It does in fact sound betrayed. “Knights of the Blue Star murdered my mother. They were secretly serving the Red Lord and they murdered one of the strongest war mages of that generation.”
“It won’t make you feel better, but it was also a secret to them,” you say.
“No it doesn’t,” Kerrick says with a bitter smile. Then another thought comes to it. “Did they know they were serving the Red Lord?” It asks, meaning the false champion. “Were they allowed to go? Rewarded?” It is difficult to read the expression on its face. A tinge of hope, a bit of anger.
“The false champion was infected from birth with a construct that had been programmed to insert the prophecy and eventually create a chosen one,” you explain. “Voice of Prophecy is one of our better programming designs.”
“That doesn’t actually answer my question Sekket,” Kerrick says patiently. Now there’s some amusement toward you.
“We confess Voice is more important to us that its host,” you say. “The chosen one didn’t know. Breaking its followers meant breaking it.”
Kerrick goes still at that. “Gods,” it says.
“It will stop the war, for a while. The enemy will be too busy rooting out heresy and attacking the order Voice recreated.” Your network informed you that kingdoms outside your master’s territory were in a state of complete collapse. If it’s careful, it might even be able to expand a bit. “The false paladin isn’t a danger, according to Voice.”
“I’m not worried about the paladin being a danger,” Kerrick says, and sounds worried. “Where are they?” it asks.
You query Voice. “Voice doesn’t want to tell you,” you admit to Kerrick.
Kerrick frowns. “Order it,” it says, testiness entering its tone.
“It also doesn’t want us to tell you,” you say. “It’s an autonomous construct, and used to being a solitary agent. It isn’t for example, Wolf-Teeth,” you say, referencing its Tur.
Kerrick snorts, sounding much like its Tur. “Even solitary agents should follow orders.”
“It was programmed to survive, and doesn’t want its current host to die,” you tell it, without mentioning Voice’s fondness for its host.
Kerrick flexes its hands. “I don’t want to kill them,” it says. It sounds half-surprised by this. “It’s just…a loose end. I don’t like it.” You don’t think it’s being honest about this. With either you or itself. Voice is…sending you images of encounters Kerrick has had with the paladin.
Voice is trying to prove that Kerrick is definitely a threat to it, but you see something else. “You’re one of the ones who admired it,” you say. Kerrick flinches a little, half guilty, half embarrassed. “It was supposed to be admired,” you tell it.
Kerrick laughs. It is not a happy sound. “Who was I actually admiring?” it asks. “The parasite-construct or the host?”
“Voice actually exerts very little control over its hosts,” you tell it. “The false paladin’s mind was mostly its own except where it was being groomed to become the chosen one.”
Kerrick shakes its head. “That doesn’t actually answer the question,” it says.
You are not surprised when Kerrick leaves the next day with a small group of its soldiers. It should have stayed a least a few days longer, but it pleads that it needs to return to its territory. You suspect it is going to be taking a significant detour outside both its territory and that of the Red Lord until it finds the false paladin. You bring this up to your master, who does not at all seem surprised. “I thought he might do something like that,” it says. “Kerrick has a particular obsession for the champion, and he was the angriest over the strategy.”
“Does something need to be done?” you ask.
The Red Lord shakes it’s head. “No.”
Originally posted on tumblr March 28 2021
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