Tales of the Lorekeepers 01 - Rise of the Red Dragon

the throne was stolen. If he intends to keep it, he should listen to you. The gods, history and fate, could care less about his feelings toward what needs to be accomplish. Everything has to be done for the greater good, am I not right?”
    “Of course you are.”
    “Good.”
    The dark man stood up over the table, looking at all the scrolls Morghan had laid there earlier. With a swift movement of his right hand, he shoved everything off the table, heedless of the mess he was creating on the floor. Then he opened his robe and pulled out a dark parchment of his own. Carefully, he placed it on the empty table and slowly unrolled it.
    On the parchment were many sketches and dozens of inscriptions he could not decipher. The characters looked unlike anything he had ever seen before, even in the oldest of grimoires he had read in the kingdom’s archives. Written vertically, apparently meant to be read from top to bottom, the writings were sometimes arranged in dense paragraphs, probably explaining the adjacent sketches. In other places, they looked like formulas or incantations.
    Morghan could not suppress a certain nervousness. This power seemed to be dealing with demons from hell, or perhaps the devil himself.
    “What … what do all these writings mean?” he asked the dark stranger, his voice trembling.
    Without a word, the dark man pointed to the main sketch. The drawing depicted something that looked like a cross, only there was a massive circle around the central point. Two beams were assembled to form the crucifix, and the circle went around the point where they crossed, so that the beams divided the circle into four equal quadrants.
    Along each beam, symbols were inscribed, and more symbols ran around the circle. At each point where the circle made contact with one of the beams, a larger rune was displayed, different in all four spots. The advisor thought they probably represented the four cardinal points.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “An altar,” answered the dark stranger. “These are the instructions to build it.”
    Morghan shivered in disgust.
    “Is this … is this where the boy needs to be sacrificed?”
    “Indeed it is. You will take these sketches to your king, and convince him to build the altar. A few moments ago, you mentioned that some men might be harder to persuade than others when it came to dealing with pagan rites. This is why you will present this altar as a cross—a Christian cross. You will instruct your men to build it exactly as it’s shown here, and to carve each symbol into the wood exactly as it is depicted on the parchment. It is very important that the sigils be identical to the sketches.”
    “It is certainly very clever to disguise the altar as a Christian cross, but Vortigern will ask why this cross looks so strange.”
    “Tell your king and the rest of your council that the cross is part of a forbidden Christian celebration. Tell them that it is so powerful against curses that it is also terribly dangerous. Tell them it had to be kept a secret so no one would toy with its power. Tell them that even you don’t understand the full power of the cross—which is the truth.”
    Morghan bit his lower lip. “What if they ask where I got this parchment and how I know of this powerful cross?” he said.
    The stranger turned toward the advisor. “Do I also have to teach you how to take a piss, old man? Can’t you do anything by yourself? If they ask such questions, make up answers. Explain to them how you learned of the existence of these documents and the cross a long time ago. Invent some horrific stories and strike fear in their hearts with threats, so they stop asking useless questions. It usually works on men, especially frightened and desperate ones.”
    Morghan remained silent, looking anywhere but at the dark stranger. He had no idea how he could make up such stories and come up with threats strong enough to quiet the king or the council, but he figured it was easier to invent such lies than ask more questions of this man.
    “Tell your men to fashion this cross at a thirty degree angle from the ground,” continued the dark stranger. “Tell them it will channel the forces of your god, or that of the angels. In reality, this is where the boy will be kept, until we have drained every last drop of his blood. To maintain the altar in place, you will also need to make a base capable of holding it, like this one.” The hooded man pointed to a smaller drawing of a