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the Carthodox anew, refreshed and strength-ened.
But Baylock the Brutal would have none of it.
"They may count God on their side, but we count many Gods," Baylock is said to
have bellowed. "It begins and ends in this system."
Kryll was a technical officer in charge of an emerg-ing order within the
Necromonger movement. He called it the Order of the Quasi-Dead.
The "Quasies" (as they are now known) began as monk-like ascetics who
voluntarily deprived them-selves of virtually all nourishment. Their goal was
to slow down bodily function to the point where their existence walked the
cusp between life and death. They are fragile yet powerful beings, as all
bodily re-sources are devoted to mental pursuits.
After years of overseeing the growth of this order, Kryll came forward to
offer Baylock and the military the use of Quasi-Deads as telepathic conduits.
Once the advantages promised by such a system were rec-ognized, the offer was
quickly accepted. A network of Quasi-Deads was hastened into service, with at
least one installed on every command ship, a practice followed to this day.
The Quasis enjoyed quick suc-cess. At last, here was the incorruptible line of
com-munication the military had been seeking! The impact of the Quasis began
to be felt on the battle-field, as their point-to-point communications could
not be intercepted by the Carthodox, who had no equivalent resource. They were
helping to turn the tide of war when something extraordinary occurred.
Baylock died in a landing accident on Neibaum Prime.
Questions outnumbered answers. Who was now in charge? Would the commanders
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appoint a lord marshal from among their own ranks? Or would they fall to
fighting one another even as they did bat-tle with the Carthodox?
The corpse of Baylock was dispatched to the Threshold. There, the Guardian
floated the corpse in an open ark and sailed it into the UnderVerse. As the
corpse vanished, the Guardian as he later swore be-fore a congress of
commanders heard Baylock stir and speak. And with his final words, Baylock
named a successor.
The Fifth Regime: Kryll
The Carthodox were overcome. Their false icons were burned or otherwise laid
aside, their numbers purified and absorbed. Though it had been predicted that
the Carthodox, being pious themselves, would never convert to Necroism, most
Carthodox did so with surprising readiness. Some would later become respected
Necromonger warriors, and many other documents chronicle their stories.
Perhaps as an act of gratitude, Kryll overruled the Necromonger prohibition on
the raising of personal
icons to erect a mountainous statue of Baylock the Brutal. It was left behind
on the cratered remains of
Neibaum Prime, a reminder of the battles that Bay-lock prosecuted there. This
was the first of the great planetary icons which would, in the next regime,
take on greater import. Moreover, Kryll ordered statuary to grace the ancient
interior of Necropolis, including images of all the lord marshals, past and
present.
Ever mindful of challenges from within the Faith, Kryll refined his
Quasi-Deads, creating the Order of the
Greater Quasi-Deads. This group was comprised of five highly evolved toward
death individuals who could probe the minds of any individual. So powerful
were they that, when grouped together, they could hemorrhage the brain of a
resistant sub-ject.
Today, the "Greater Quasies" serve at the pleasure of the reigning lord
marshal, while the "Lesser
Quasies" fill both military and private deep-space communication needs.
The Carthodox weaponry, so formidable, was fit-ted on Necromonger warships,
making the armada stronger than ever. Necroism, a movement that had already
absorbed two other faiths, was poised to spread to new worlds with new speed&
Kryll's time ended unexpectedly. With no verbal announcement, he committed
ritualistic suicide.
Thankfully, a pyro-doc was found near his corpse by a trusted officer, Zhylaw,
and this succession docu-ment averted the rancorous in-fighting that marked
the transition between the Fourth and Fifth
Regimes.
The Sixth Regime: Zhylaw the Last
The succession document named Zhylaw as the next lord marshal as an historian,
it is not my duty to report rumor. But since, in this case, rumor led to
tribunal, it should be mentioned that a public debate ensued, some suggesting
that Zhylaw was somehow complicit in the passing of Kryll. Zhylaw was promptly
exonerated, and the perpetuators of these spiteful stories were hunted out and
killed before due time. In an attempt to protect his reputation for the ages,
Zhylaw had the succession document naming him lord marshal stored in our most
secure vaults, under the tightest of guard. There it will remain, pro-tected
for all posterity.
As a young warrior Zhylaw distinguished himself in forward operations, a
branch of the armada that forays to unexplored worlds. Normally these teams
conduct simple mapping and targeting missions, but
Zhylaw with a fleet of fast frigates at his disposal redefined its role. He
attacked and removed nascent colonies of man wherever he found them, before
they could grow to military significance.
Zhylaw believed in killing his enemies young. His actions won the praise of
his superiors including Lord
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Marshal Kryll, who came to think of Zhylaw as a brilliant if wayward son.
As we are living, it is too early to write the true history of this regime.
But as the Campaign grows and the worlds of man dwindle, there is a swelling
belief that Zhylaw will be the last lord marshal the one who will lead all
Necromongers through the Threshold and into the glory that is the UnderVerse.
Alan Dean Foster has written in a variety of genres, including hard science
fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contem-porary
fiction. He is the author of the
New York Times bestseller
Star Wars: The Approaching Storm
, as well as the novelizations of several films, including
Star Wars
, the first three
Alien films, and
Alien Nation
. His novel
Cyber Way won the Southwest Book
Award for Fiction in 1990, the first science fiction work ever to do so.
Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, reside in Prescott, Arizona, in a house
built of brick that was salvaged from a turn-of-the-century miners'
brothel. He is presently at work on several new novels and media projects.
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