She was seeking for soft young shrimp that might be trudging about in the shallows, but saw a cockle in the sand, its heart-shaped shell wide open. She grabbed it in her beak, but it snapped closed instantly.
So she hurled it against a rock until the shell shattered. Then she held the cockle under one talon while she pulled the sweet meat free with her beak.
Suddenly the carrion crow felt a cool touch, a wind that hinted at winter, and looked up in alarm, ruffling her feathers. She cawed in warning to others of her kind, though the beach was empty, and then peered about, her black eyes blinking as she searched for the source of her fear.
There was a shape above her, hiding beneath a twisted pine on a craggy ledge. It was not moving. It was large and white of skin, much like the wyrmlings that the crow sometimes saw marching along the ridge in the predawn. But it was ill-shaped, and though it had sockets for eyes, she saw nothing in its eye holes but empty shadows.
Suddenly the bloated figure dropped, its ugly white skin deflating, like a bubble in the water that has popped. In that instant, a shadow blurred toward her, and the crow recognized the source of her fear. . . .
Crull-maldor lunged from the shadows, abandoning her cloak of glory, her malevolent spirit but a darker shade among the morning shadows, and she seized the crow. She did not grab it with physical hands, did not rend it with teeth or fingers. Instead, she took it with her mind and her will, forcing her spirit into the tiny shell of its body, grasping hold of its consciousness.
Almost, Crull-maldor could imagine the voice of her ancient master Yultonkin warning, “Do not be too eager to seize the mind of a bird, for birds are prey to many, to the hawk and coyote, the bobcat and the mink, and if you should die while your two minds are joined, you may never be able to return to your flesh.”
So once she had seized control of the bird’s mind, Crull-maldor blinked, peering about for signs of danger, looking out from the eyes of the crow.
The world was distorted. The crow’s eyes were set upon the side of its head, and so it had a vast field of vision, and it could focus with only one eye at a time. The crow saw a wider spectrum of colors than Crull-maldor could with her own eyes. The crow saw the blacks and whites and reds that a wyrmling can see, but it also saw greens and blues and yellows, and everything had a crystalline clarity that Crull-maldor envied.
So Crull-maldor scanned for danger.
The beach was a wasteland, rocky and uninviting. A few huge walruses could be seen in the distance, surfing in upon some waves to spend the day swatting at sand flies on the beach. But there was little else. Few gulls. No hawks or foxes.
The lich had little to fear in the way of predators, she knew. The powerful spells that let her cling to life allowed her to exist only by siphoning off spiritual energy from creatures around her, and as she drew off that energy, the plants and animals around her weakened and succumbed. Most of the Northern Wastes were barren of life not because they were infertile, but because the presence of her kind drew so much from the land. There were no fine trees here anymore, and fewer herds of caribou and musk oxen than there had once been. Crull-maldor and her disciples had sucked the life from such creatures long ago. Now the lifeless land left her weak. Nearly all that survived within fifty miles of here was a few tenacious gorse bushes, insects, and the larger creatures that haunted the beaches.
Now comfortable, Crull-maldor gobbled the tender yellow innards of the cockle in one swallow. It tasted of sand and shell and salt. The savor was not altogether pleasing, but she would need sustenance this day.
The carrion crow leapt into the air, then flew up into the pines. Crull-maldor loved the sense of freedom that came with flying.
The bird was eager to return to its nest, regurgitate the cockle into the mouth of her babes. But Crull-maldor wrestled for control, forbidding it.
It was a struggle, a constant struggle, to take control of living things. Even after a hundred and eighty-two years of practicing the skill, Crull-maldor found her hold upon this beast to be tenuous.
Yet she held on to the crow with her mind. Seizing it with claw and talons would not have been half so cruel, for the crow ached to return to its nest.
As the sun rose, a luminous pearl climbing up from the sea, the carrion crow found itself leaping into the air, and flying out over the waters to the south.
Crull-maldor dominated the crow completely now, and peered out through its eyes, scanning the distant horizon for ships.
All that she saw were a few large wyrmling fishing vessels, their square sails the color of blood.
The crow would tire and falter long before it reached the distant shore, some two hundred miles south, Crull-maldor knew. When it did, Crull-maldor would let it fall and drown. Until then, she felt the exhilaration of flight. . . .
Such was her lot, day after endless day. There is a price to be paid for working in the service of evil, and the lich lord Crull-maldor was paying it. She was too powerful in the ways of magic for others to kill. Indeed, she had mastered dark magics known to no one else. Thus, she held the exalted position of Grand Wizard of the Wyrmling Hordes, and was far too dangerous for her political rivals to want around. So one hundred and eighty-seven years ago, the emperor Zul-torac had “promoted” her, sending her to lead the garrison at the wyrmling fortress in the Great Wastes of the North.
As such, it was her duty to protect this land from intrusion, to keep the humans from ever returning. Her armies occupied the wastes, and it was her job to feed and clothe them. Thus, her hunting parties scoured the lands in the far north hunting for caribou, seals, and great white bears. Her fishermen plied the coastal waters, taking the great serpentine leviathans that chased schools of fish to the north each summer.
She also commanded scores of miners and workers: smiths to forge weapons, armorers to carve mail from the bones of world wyrms, sorcerers to manufacture goods that could be used as tribute to the empire— cloaks of glory that would let a lich walk in the sun, artificial wings, and wight wombs to shelter and nourish the spirits of the newly dead.
But though Crull-maldor was Lord of the Northern Wastes, and thus had an exalted title and rank, hers was an appointment that would take her nowhere. She had no opportunity for advancement, no hopes of ever returning to the great fortress at Rugassa. Serving well at her post would earn her no reward. She had been disposed of utterly, and forgotten.
In more ways than one, she was the living dead.
Yet always there was the hope that the emperor Zul-torac would fall from grace, and that the great Creator—Despair—would need someone to replace him. Crull-maldor knew that it would happen eventually, and in that moment, if all went well, Despair would remember Crull-maldor’s name. It was only a matter of time, but Crull-maldor lived in hopes of that moment.
Thus, she did her master’s bidding.
By night the wyrmlings of her garrison would usher out into the wastes, keeping watch over the ocean shores lest a cohort of humans try to settle. Theirs was a futile watch, for it had been fifty-eight years since a human had been seen.
By day, while her wyrmlings toiled, Crull-maldor kept her own watch.
She climbed higher into the air. The seas were glassy calm for as far as the crow’s sharp eyes could perceive.
Killer whales were spouting as they herded a school of salmon along, and a few gulls rode the calm waters. Crull-maldor spotted a young leviathan undulating over the waves. Nothing else moved.