INTRODUCTION 8 page

“It was an oversight, yes,” Luca agreed dryly.

Corsini gave him a sly glance. “How are your sons, by the way?”

“They’re well. Alesandro’s finally taken over his late father’s business now that the Goldsmith’s Guild has accepted his membership.”

“He cast the communion goblets for Santa Lucia’s, did he not?”

“He did.”

“He’s a fine craftsman. No doubt that little shop of his will do well for him. There are plenty of opportunities in Riamo for a young man with ambition, if he knows where to look for them. His mother would be proud.”

“I agree.”

“And Domito?”

“In Cerchicava negotiating a new trade agreement with the Vintner’s Guild.”

“How old is he now?”

“Twenty‑one.”

“Who would credit it? Why it seems like only yesterday that you took him in. What was it, fourteen years ago?”

“Yes. His youth and vigor make me feel old.”

“Bollocks. Get yourself a new wife and sire one of your own blood if you want to feel young again, or better yet, marry him off; that’ll take the wind out of his sails.”

Luca smiled tightly. “I understand your son, Vincent, is to be married this spring.”

“To the daughter of a long‑distance trader from Calegro. In point of fact, her father and I are outfitting a ship bound for the far east. It could turn a pretty profit for anyone with shares in the venture; if you’re interested.”

“I might be.”

“Mention it to Alesandro and Domito as well. It’s time they began making decisions as men. They can’t hide behind their father’s purse strings forever, you know.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Later, standing in the center of his workshop beneath the Palazzo della Rona, a compact riverside manor house he’d inherited from his late wife, Luca lifted a delicate glass vial containing a sliver of brain matter from Corsini’s late father. The old man had died of strangulation, leaving everything to Dante. So much for not hiding behind a father’s purse strings, he sneered.

Luca’s own father had been terrified of the trade and had exhausted the family fortune trying to buy enough protection for the family mausoleum to keep the Death Mages at bay. A decade after his death, Luca had harvested necromantic components from every single corpse inside, including his father’s. It paid to be careful in Cerchicava even more than it did in Riamo.

The crimson preserving fluid within the vial sparkled seductively in the lamplight and Luca savored the many offensive possibilities it afforded before exchanging it for a plain ceramic urn with an expression of real regret. Then, tying a leather apron about his waist, he popped the seal on the urn and poured the contents onto his dissecting table before selecting a fine bone‑handled knife from the wall.

“Find out what the cargo on Corsini’s new ship is and who his backers are, Piero,” he said without turning. “Then make sure we have at least one sailor aboard sworn to the trade.”

Hovering off to one side, the manservant bowed respectfully. “Yes, sir.”

“Has there been any word from Drey?”

“No, sir. I’ve people waiting on the docks for him but he’s well skilled at avoiding detection when he wants to.”

Luca frowned. “Has there been any word to suggest that he might want to?”

“None as of yet. The mission was a success and word is that the Huntsman evaded all attempts to capture him, both magical and otherwise.” Piero brows drew down. “He made an interesting choice marking Johanni Gagio,” he noted.

“A curious choice,” Luca amended. “Obviously the duc of Cerchicava was the most attractive candidate, but Drey may not have had the opportunity to mark him properly. Gagio’s death creates political ramifications a little closer to home than one of the other ducs might have done, but nothing that can’t be dealt with.” He carefully slit the piece of human intestine on the table before staring pensively down at its interior. “There’s a reasoning at work here, but whether it’s the Huntsman’s, Drey Orcicci’s, or Domito Preto’s is still unclear; he always was a complex child.” He turned, his eyes burning a deep, dark red. “But regardless, I want an answer, Piero. Find him before I lose patience with the question.”

“Yes, sir.”

The manservant bowed and withdrew, his tone of voice conveying his opinion of Drey’s reasoning as plainly as if he’d spoken it aloud. He’d always believed that Drey was too complex to be trusted. Trading on their years together to deflect his master’s displeasure, he’d said as much when Luca had taken the half‑starved Cerchicavan orphan into his employ and later into his family; then again when he’d set a crossbow into his hands and sent him out to act as the trade’s clandestine enforcer and executioner. He was brilliant but rash, ruthless but sentimental, too ambitious to act in secret and too young to act independently. No good would come of giving him so much power so soon.

Luca had told Piero to be patient, that the boy would season. He was a calculated risk that would pay high dividends in the future, and in the meantime, he wore one of the strongest binding spells possible. They were secure. Period.

This had mollified the manservant for a time. Piero had held one of the first binding spells on Luca himself in the early days of Luca’s apprenticeship. At Montefero de Sepori’s command, Piero had taught him everything he knew of the necromantic arts, changing him from a defrocked and condemned churchman to a highly skilled Death Mage in under seven years. When Sepori was finally taken down by the duc of Cerchicava and a young ex‑cutter named Coll Svedali, Piero had escaped and fled to Riamo. Now he wore Luca’s binding spell and was perhaps the only living man the Death Mage trusted, besides his son Drey.

But there were limits to both.

Eyes flashing a brilliant crimson, Luca spoke the words of a dual questing spell, then straightened with a nod as the piece of intestine turned first black and then gray before crumbling into ash. Drey was alive and Piero had not conspired to waylay him. So why hadn’t he returned home?

The next day the city was abuzz with the news that the Huntsman had struck again, this time in Riamo itself. The body of Anthony Spoleto, a wool merchant and owner of several warehouses in the harbor district, had been found wedged under a dock just before dawn with the assassin’s signature crossbow quarrel buried between his shoulder blades. An hour later another body, that of Ciuto Farnese, owner of one of Riamo’s midsize mills, was pulled from the Ardechi River, again pierced from behind with a crossbow quarrel. By the time the Huntsman’s third victim, Ferrante Ascanio, a banker for the city’s Spice Merchants’ Guild, was discovered stuffed into a packing crate not a hundred yards from where Ciuto had lain, the quarrel so deeply embedded in his back that it could hardly be seen, the city was in hysterics.

Bowing to the pressure of his council, the duc closed the harbors and sent his own Court Mages in to try and discern the Huntsman’s identity through any trace magics on the quarrels. Despite their best efforts, they failed to discover anything about him. Rumors began to fly that he was protected by a deeper, darker magic than the Court Mages had access to and, for the first time, the word necromancy began to be heard in taverns and alehouses across the city.

His face set in a grim line, Luca sent Piero to obtain components from each corpse, and standing over the three carefully collected squares of organ meat on his table, he threw a handful of dried belladonna over them and shouted out a single word. The accompanying flash of fire told Luca all he needed to know.

“It’s Drey. And he’s blocking me.”

Piero knew better than to ask why.

* * *

They received a less than satisfactory answer that afternoon. A grubby child, wearing a simple coercion spell activated by the coin in his fist that had passed through three others before coming to him, brought a message shortly before dinner. Luca read the missive silently, then handed it to Piero, who peered down at it suspiciously.

Dear Father. Negotiations in Cerchicava have become somewhat more complicated than I had anticipated but I expect to be home in time for His Grace’s funeral. Your loving son, Domito. The manservant gave an unimpressed sniff. “He cocked up the duc’s death somehow and now he’s afraid to come home.”

“Possibly.” Retrieving the missive, Luca’s eyes flashed red for an instant and a series of fine, scarlet lines appeared scrawled across the paper before disappearing once again.

It’s nothing, I’ll fix it, he read. “You’re right, something’s happened.” Crossing to the window, he stared out at the sky, watching as the sun slowly disappeared behind the turreted roofline of the ducal palazzo. “Nothing too serious apparently and fixable before Johanni Gagio’s funeral.”

“Word is that may be as soon as three days from now. The five ducs are already on their way.”

“Three days then.” Luca’s eyes narrowed. “He wasn’t identified,” he mused, “or we’d have heard.”

“Every city along the Ardechi would have heard.”

“Yes. The Huntsman’s notorious. Every rumor, every speculation about him, is savored like a midwinter banquet. So he wasn’t identified, and he wasn’t injured‑the writing would have revealed that by a darker color and a thicker line‑and he wasn’t captured, or he wouldn’t have been able to set a cipher on his message or a coercion on his messenger.”

“Or mark three Riamo merchants,” Piero added.

Luca shot him a flat expression. “One puzzle at a time, if you don’t mind,” he spat.

“Your pardon, sir.”

“He’s in the city,” Luca continued. “But he either can’t or won’t come home.”

“A locate spell on the message itself should reveal where he was when he wrote it.”

“Yes, and I’ll leave that to you presently. He won’t have lingered but it will give us a place to start looking. He’ll know that and may have left another message.”

“So he’s going to lead us on some little treasure hunt?” Piero asked in an indignant tone.

“It seems so, and you can make your displeasure known to him later. For the moment, however, follow his trail of bread crumbs and find out what he cocked up.”

“Excuse me for saying so, sir, but you could just execute a full‑out locate and coercion spell on the boy himself,” Piero said carefully.

“I could, and I may, but for now, you will carry out my commands.”

Piero bowed at once. “Yes, Master.”

The locate spell on the missive led to the site of Anthony Spoleto’s murder but no farther. With a dark expression, Luca opened a small iron cask and removed a wax‑sealed ceramic jar containing the preserved flesh of a Cerchicavan priest long dead. The priest had been in charge of the Svedali Innocenti Foundling Home where Drey had spent the first six years of his life. Luca had obtained the flesh just after he’d taken the boy in and had used it only once, when he’d given Drey the name Orcicci and taken his oaths as master and father. Under such circumstances, the flesh would serve as the catalyst for a powerful locate and coercion spell that would see the Huntsman forced into Luca’s presence despite all obstacles in his path.

“Unless to do so would be to betray me to an enemy, in which case, the dual pressure would kill him.”

Setting the jar in the middle of the dissecting table, he closed and locked the cask once more.

“He has until the duc’s funeral as requested. In the meantime, find out everything you can about the men he marked and what they might have had in common.”

Standing to one side, Piero bowed but said nothing.

The next three days passed without further incident and Riamo began to breathe a little easier. One by one, the ducs of Montecino, Rocasta, Calegro, Pisario, and Cerchicava arrived. The added security made unobtrusive movement in the city difficult, but Piero still managed to uncover the link between Spoleto, Farnese, and Ascanio. A single name. Dante Corsini.

The morning of Johanni Gagio’s funeral dawned cold and wet; the wind whipping through the tree‑lined avenues of the city promised a violent winter to come. Every sconce, lamp, and candelabra in the San Salvadore Cathedral was alight when Luca took his place along the western wall in the pew reserved for foreign nobility. Drey was nowhere to be found and, eyes narrowed, Luca scanned the crowds of people, watching as the prosperous citizens of Riamo began to take their seats, most staring unabashedly at the exotic foreign dignitaries in their midst. For many, this was their first glimpse of a world outside the narrow confines of their shops and counting houses and once again Luca found himself grinding his teeth in contemptuous impatience.

Across the quire, he saw Alesandro take his solitary place in the Albergo family pew, and forcibly schooled his expression. A quiet, soft‑spoken young man, Alesandro had accepted his new civic responsibilities with all the prudence and piety expected of a man of his class, but it seemed to be taking a heavy toll on him these last few months. His face was pale and his usually open countenance cloudy. As the Corsini family passed by on the way to their own pew, Dante paused to speak with him and Alesandro started uneasily. Luca’s eyes narrowed.

Drey and Alesandro had been ten‑year‑old boys when Luca had married Vallenza Albergo, the widow of a successful goldsmith. Despite their vastly divergent upbringings the two new brothers had become inseparable companions and continued to spend time together as adults. Luca was surprised that Alesandro didn’t turn to see if his brother had taken his place beside his stepfather. As the Gagio family took their seats before Johanni’s ornate casket and the signal for the great double doors to be closed was given, Alesandro met Luca’s gaze with a supplicant expression and Luca nodded.

The funeral was a long and dull affair dominated by the bishop who, taking advantage of a captive audience, extolled the virtues of Johanni Gagio and his administration until even the most devout eye was glazed over with boredom. When the congregation was finally released several hours later, they dispersed rapidly, heading for the city’s taverns and alehouses with an obvious air of relief. Directing Piero to wait for him, Luca made his way unhurriedly across the sturdy marble bridge that linked the cathedral grounds to the tidy, well‑kept merchant’s cemetery to the west. Standing before the modestly decorated Albergo mausoleum as if taking a moment for a quiet prayer, he stared down at the bronze plaque that bore Vallenza’s name and waited for her son to join him.

“You seem disturbed,” he said without preamble.

Alesandro nodded unhappily. “It’s Dom,” he replied with some hesitation. “He sent me to fetch you. He’s in trouble.”

The tiny orphanage of San Jorge had been abandoned long before Luca had come to Riamo. The children and the priests who’d cared for them had moved to larger quarters when the last plague had swelled the orphans’ numbers beyond what the small building could contain and it had never been reoccupied. Luca strode up the overgrown walkway with an air of bored disinterest while maintaining an almost painful scrutiny of every aspect of his surroundings. When Drey emerged from the open doorway, his lean face devoid of expression, Luca almost snarled at him.

“Just what do you think you’re playing at?” he demanded.

“I couldn’t risk returning right away, but I knew you would be getting impatient.” Resetting the wards on the orphanage door, Drey leaned against the wall of the main entrance hall with a calm expression.

He explained his absence to his father in as few words as possible. The duc of Cerchicava had been his original candidate as expected but the same Coll Svedali who had aided the duc in destroying the trade in that city had intervened again, throwing a strange combined magic at Drey that had taken him completely by surprise. It had left a pale, white scar across his cheek which was only now beginning to fade. That Drey and Coll had been contemporaries at the Svedali Innocenti Foundling Home together and that Drey had encountered him at least once before without killing him made Luca’s eyes darken dangerously.

“So, you allow yourself to be marked …” The Death Mage showed his teeth at Drey’s response to the necromantic word, “… with a locate spell of unknown magic, you leave the marker alive, you come home, and you send for your civilian brother.”

“I needed to get a message to you. It was the safest way.”

“And how did you explain your inability to return home to him?”

“I told him I had the clap.”

“And do you?” Luca echoed Drey’s responding expression. “I ask only because something’s obviously addled your brains. You deliberately put Alesandro at risk.”

Drey’s calm demeanor did not change. “Not at all. The spell is one of location only and it had already begun to fade when I sent for him.”

“How can you know that? You said the spell casting was new.”

“The spell casting is new. The components are conventional.”

“There’s nothing conventional about this threat in Cerchicava.”

“Coll’s only a threat to the few Death Mages remaining there and anything that weakens them strengthens us. When you’re ready to step in, Coll can be removed without causing any kind of stir.”

“We will set your presumptuous and naive assessment of that situation aside for the moment,” Luca snarled at him. “In the meantime you will explain to me why you chose to mark the duc of Riamo.”

Drey shrugged. “There was opportunity?”

“And then,” Luca continued, throwing him a warning look, “decided to further destabilize the situation here by marking three Riamo merchants just to pass the time? Don’t even think to deny it,” he snapped when the younger man gave him a patently false wide‑eyed look. “Their deaths have the Huntsman written all over them.”

Drey shrugged. “The Huntsman’s habits are well known. Anyone could copy them.”

“Really?” Luca locked eyes with his son. “I have Farnese’s corpse on my table as we speak. Do you really want me to cast an identify spell of my own brand of conventional magic upon it? Should the perpetrator wear my binding spell the results would be dramatic.”

“I had private reasons to mark them,” Drey answered a little to quickly.

“ What reasons?”

Drey looked away. “They’re not mine to tell,” he said at last.

“Than whose are they?”

“Alesandro’s.”

“What?”

“I got into some trouble.”

The other man had been waiting in the back garden for Drey to fetch him in. When Luca signaled curtly for him to explain, he ran a hand through his sandy‑colored hair with a helpless gesture. “I borrowed heavily to invest in a ship bound for the far east. It was supposed to return with a cargo of gold of unsurpassed quality. When it sank, the moneylender I borrowed the original investment from called in his debt.”

“Ferrante Ascanio,” Drey supplied.

Luca raised one finger to silence Drey before returning his attention to Alesandro.

“I had no way to pay him back,” his brother continued.

“So why didn’t you come to me?” Luca asked. “Your mother’s invested monies are there for you to make use of. You only had to ask.”

Alesandro looked away. “I knew how conservative you were in matters of money. I didn’t think you’d approve.”

“And you thought I’d approve of you subjugating yourself to a moneylender instead?”

“Well, I’d hoped you wouldn’t find out. I thought I could recoup my losses on the next venture, so when Vincent Corsini…”

“Vincent Corsini?”

“Yes. He came to see me. I told him of my difficulties and he said he knew some people who could help me. He convinced Anthony Spoleto to clear the debt with Ascanio.”

“This just keeps getting better and better.”

“But soon he began to make demands on the shop,” Alesandro continued. “He wanted to use my cellars as storage facilities for smuggled cargos and my clientele as possible borrowers for Ascanio. When I refused, he sent Ciuto Farnese to see me. He said that Spoleto would take my shop if I didn’t cooperate. That I would be ruined and the Albergo name would be disgraced. Vincent couldn’t help me, so when I heard that Dom was back in the city, I went to him.”

“How did you know where to find him?”

The two brothers exchanged a look before reaching into their doublets to pull out a pair of matching amulets.

Luca just shook his head. “So, what did you think Domito could do about them?”

Alesandro met his stepfather’s angry gaze with an even expression. “I knew the Huntsman could kill them for me,” he said bluntly.

The shocked silence in the hall was almost palatable.

“How long has he known about you?”

Luca had ordered Alesandro to go to the Palazzo della Rona and wait for them there. Once he was out of earshot, the Death Mage had taken his other son by the throat, shaking him like a dog until the rage had ebbed enough for coherent speech. When he finally released him, Drey stepped back, his usual deadpan demeanor unchanged.

“He’s always known, father,” he answered calmly. “Alesandro and I don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“Unbound?” Luca could barely get the words through his teeth they were clenched so tightly together. “You let him walk about with this kind of knowledge for anyone to discover, unbound!”

“I trust him.”

“I will kill you and leave your body for lesser mages to pick out your eyeballs like carrion crows!”

“That’s your right.”

“Right? You don’t know anything about right. Are you so witless that you can’t take a lesson from your own experiences? Coll Svedali, that fellow foundling of yours that you’re so unwilling to mark, left unbound by Lord Montefero de Sepori, destroyed the trade in Cerchicava with one stroke! Hundreds tortured and executed in the dungeons below their cathedral. And they have dungeons below San Salvadore too, you know. Or did you think you were so powerful you couldn’t be arrested, or that Alesandro couldn’t be? One night in their hands is all either of you would last. One night!”

Striding to the window, he glared out at the distant rooftops of their home barely visible in the failing light.

“Dante Corsini’s behind it,” Drey said to his back. “All three of the men I marked ultimately work for him.”

“Yes, I know that. Be quiet a moment.” Luca took a deep breath to calm himself. “There’s an object lesson in this,” he said finally. “A lesson about the nature of power and security; whether there’s greater security in keeping your power hidden or in being so openly powerful that none would dare defy you for fear of the most terrible retaliation. Riamo is an example of the former, Cerchicava of the latter.”

He turned, his eyes a dark, blood red. “You will set a binding spell on your brother at once. He’s your responsibility now. Anything happens to him, anything at all, and I’ll lay you out on my table. I’ll not have the two of you destroying everything I’ve spent a lifetime building.”

Drey nodded silently.

“And I,” Luca continued, “will deal with our incautious long‑distance trader.”

Dante Corsini disappeared from his bed before dawn the next day. His body was found in Pisario a week later, stripped naked, the marks of a savage beating standing out across his face and ribs, his belly slashed open, and the organs within desecrated by the obvious signs of a necromantic collection.

The entire city of Riamo collapsed in hysterics; Eugene Gagio fled to Rocasta and the bishop declared a state of religious emergency as the citizens overwhelmed the priesthood, demanding that they strengthen the protective wards on their families’ crypts and mausoleums that had been allowed to fall into disrepair from years of complacent neglect. When many of the bodies interred within were discovered to have been defiled already, the city erupted in violence. First Minister Poggeso summoned the Watch, but it was a week before order was restored.

Standing by Vallenza’s plaque, Luca observed that at least the feeling of contemptuous impatience had been replaced by a stirring of curious excitement he hadn’t experienced in years. It felt both powerful and refreshing after all this time.

He turned to the two young men standing behind him, matching sparks of crimson fire lighting up their eyes. “Dante said it was time you both began making decisions as men,” he said, “so, here’s your chance. Alesandro, you will open up trade negotiations with Vincent Corsini that strongly favor the Albergo family. Make it plain to him that he would do well to accept your business terms or he’ll find himself sharing his father’s fate. Be as obvious or as subtle as you wish. The days of hiding are over.

“You,” he turned a jaundiced gaze on Drey. “Will find your way past the wards on the ducal mausoleum and obtain components from Johanni Gagio’s body and any others you find within. You will accomplish this within the week or you will answer to Piero for it.”

Turning, he caught sight of the manservant waiting for him at the cemetery gates, his expression one of barely concealed disapproval.

“I’ll give you both just two pieces of advice,” Luca continued. “One: listen to your lieutenants, especially when they tell you that you can’t trust your own sons.”

He turned to go, and Drey made an inquisitive noise.

“What?”

“The second piece of advice, father?”

“Never have sons in the first place.”

Turning, the premier Death Mage of Riamo took his leave, already planning the next step in his conquest of the city.

LOSER TAKES ALL by Donald J. Bingle

C lint Hardaway hit the reply button before he had even finished scanning the IM from his college buddy Jason.

“Thought I might try UO.”

“Ultimate Overlord? LOL. Man, you do have time on your hands. I try to limit myself to two hours a night. Let me know when you’re in universe. Lots of nasties to kill. Just be sure to save some for me.”

“We’ll see,” typed Clint. “TTFN.” He clicked off the IM box without waiting for a reply, and clicked the link for Ultimate Overlord. Acknowledging Conditions of Use that he didn’t bother to read, he filled out some forms, entered the number of his platinum Amex card and got ready to play. He clicked by the credits and went to the opening screen.

“Can you become the ULTIMATE OVERLORD? The path is unclear, the rules unknown. There is no luck but the luck you make, no rewards but the rewards you earn. Everyone starts equal, but some prove themselves superior by their actions. The ultimate challenge awaits you in a universe beyond your imagining. Click here to begin your journey.”

A bit hokey, to be sure, but Clint liked the approach. No tutorial of how to play and what to do. No long lists of things to do, puzzles to solve, or rules to memorize. You learned as you experienced the game, just like in life.

Of course, he knew that there were rules. Every universe has rules.

From overarching principles of cosmic import to minor fads of fashion, there were always rules that you must learn to survive, that you must master and bend to get ahead. He liked that the site said nothing about what those rules were. That would be too easy. More challenging, more interesting, to figure them out for yourself. By trial and error, by deductive reasoning, by publication, by rumor, and by stealth, you must discern cause and effect, the algorithms, formulae, and step‑functions that determine success and failure, fame and fortune, life and death.

That’s life, a random search for Easter eggs of hidden knowledge in a stark and unforgiving landscape.

Clint lived, had always lived, to parse out the rules and bend them to his own advantage. There was, he knew, no other way to become the Ultimate Overlord.

Even before he clicked to start the scenario, however, he made some decisions about the rules that would govern his character.

Rule No. 1. The Ultimate Overlord Is Evil. The first rule was the simplest to intuit. There’s no way to become the ruler of the universe without being evil. Those who believe in goodness believe in all sorts of other warm, fuzzy, touchy‑feely concepts, like kindness and consensus and democratic values and giving to those too poor to fend for themselves. This universe, he deduced, would not tolerate such suckers. No one wields ultimate power by committee; no one gains all by being nice. No one gets ahead by giving away what they have to others, whether goods or knowledge.

Besides, the good don’t want to rule the world. They want the world to rule the world. They don’t crave power. They crave happiness, but not for themselves. For others. For everyone. As if a limited supply of happiness could stretch so thin. As if happiness could exist if suffering did not exist for contrast.