Dark seas lash the bows of the proud ship Helena, tossing it about like a child teasing a helpless creature. The waters do their best to sink the vessel but the Helena is strong, rising and falling on the deathly waves with mustered grace and finesse. Its crew race frantically about its parts, steadying, shifting and securing, and within it, standing firmly as a landmark for his crew, the Commandant, brutal, merciless and efficient watches as the chaos erupts around him, calmly and coldly assessing the situation.
His eyes narrow on the mountainous horizon of rolling waves, no flat to be seen. As the boat veers and tips he corrects his gaze, intent on one particular point. Suddenly his first mate tumbles at his feet, drenched to the bone and with hat askew. The Commandant does not move a muscle except to calmly roar above the howling wind and braying sea to his first, "How go the men? Do they tire?"
"Aye sir," the first mate replies from the floor, nodding his sodden head.
"Then give them the lash, man. Do not falter."
"But sir, they cannot give any more."
"I am not asking for more. I am asking for their obedience."
The first mate scrambles to his feet and attempts to look authoritive. "Sir," he cries out tiredly, "the men cannot go on much longer, even if they wished to."
The Commandant immediately fixes him with a burrowing stare, delving deep into his soul. The first mate trembles and a chill grips his heart. "So you say they do not wish to continue?" hisses the Commandant.
"No, sir," he stutters in reply, "I meant to say that..." But he is cut off by an enormous crash of exploding, splintering wood and a jolt that rattles the ship ferociously. It begins tipping to one side, slowly sending loose items into the froth below. The first mate falls over and slips between hunkered-down crewmen towards the precipice, screaming all the way. At the last moment a burly hand grabs his arm and keeps him from following his dangling legs over the side and into the watery darkness below. And what a darkness it is: a blackness that shines like dark marble, so dark in fact that the first mate has stopped screaming to stare with wide eyes.
The Commandant has sufficiently regained his footing to attend to the frantic calling of his crew peering over the side and hollering at the sight. He reaches the edge and leans over, looking up and down at the giant jagged black horn piercing the side of the ship, holding it firmly in place amongst the massive waves. The Commandant shows no emotion when he announces their success to the ship: "We have found the Spire!"
And from those menacing foundations was constructed the towering omen of the Tattered Spire, looming over all of Albion's coast and even some of its peaks. Though it stood far out to sea it was not long before its presence was noticed and keenly felt by all who saw it by day and by its absence at night, black upon black. Lucien Fairfax, the architect of its reconstruction, knew exactly what was needed for the Spire to reach fruition and poured his entire fortune into it, but money alone could not build such a powerfully magical tower. In time he came to realise that it required souls and so he set about supplying first the willing, then the uncertain, and finally the unwilling, to continue building and maintaining it as it rose steadily out of the sea. To all his peons and slaves it was a labour of the body, a sacrifice of sweat and blood, but only Lucien knew what really drove the towers ascension.
Many years passed since that meeting between the Commandant and the Spire's submerged foundations, when Lucien was still a young man and recent widower, but eventually Lucien found that his hair had turned white, his hands had begun trembling and that his eyelids were heavier, and still the great task he had set himself was incomplete. It was missing some final vital organs for which he searched in vain.
But his resolve had never faltered, not even when the sight of the men and women who were dragged into his dungeon-like kingdom no longer made him pitiful or regretful, nor when the hundredth scream of a poor soul having tripped over the edge and falling to their death ceased to make him flinch. After more than half his life had passed in this dark place did he suddenly shake as if from a dream and notice that he was standing in a thorny prison of his own making, a cold metallic chair serving as his only respite as he viewed from his balcony the entirety of the Spires innards.
He looked down at his hands, dressed in finest silk, and then past them at the thousands of lights below showing that countless souls were still working day and night to make his vision a reality. His own voice sounded alien to him as he shakily begged the question, "What am I doing?"
Slowly he gripped the arms of his throne and pushed himself up, aching under his own aged fragility, and stared in horror at the hell he had created. The sound of unforgiving labour filled the Spire: chinks and clinks, screams and shouts, and the unforgettable sound of a million heartbeats, all thumping in unison.
It was the first thing one noticed upon entering the Spire, the irrepressible dull thud of all the hearts of all the workers and guards beating at the same time, constantly. It filled your eardrums and gripped your brain, the rhythm inevitably consuming you as well, though you might try to resist. The Spire took all those who entered and embraced them.
Except Lucien, who had passionately welcomed the Spire into his body and who felt it more keenly within himself than any other, had felt the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat slightly out of step. A dissident heart perhaps? It would have to be a powerful one to overcome the combined might of the Spire and all her parts, but still the shock had shattered Lucien's mindset and he suddenly remembered that he and the Spire were not the same, which then led to his startled surprise at seeing his own hands before him.
His eyes shimmered with terrified horror at his own machinations of torture and all the people who were now no better than mindless machines for his cause. He remembered why he had set out on his impossible quest in the first place, for his beloved wife and daughter, and imagined the love in their eyes departing if they could see him now, what he had become. But then he clenched his eyes shut and kept their faces in his mind, recalling the pain he had felt at their passing which had initially spurred him on, and with that he focussed on returning to his catatonic state so that he might be able to continue.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, and saw before him a means to an end once more.
But still that rogue heartbeat persisted. He scanned the scene before him for a clue when he remembered the Hero of his nightmares, the secret one who had the power to topple all that he had created and was even now setting about bringing his downfall to bear. This Hero had slain the undead, unlocked ancient powers and even destroyed some of his own elite forces as though they were nothing. Lucien was worried before, but now he feared that the Hero's heartbeat, which would be supremely defiant to the Spires grip, was here now, signalling their very physical presence.
Lucien began to panic, his eyes darting about the place. And the heartbeat, the sinister shadow, grew quicker. It was gaining momentum: the Hero was here!
Lucien spun around to face an empty room, silent but dark. He saw all the hidden places the hero could hide, waiting to ambush him as he stood on the precipice. The heartbeat grew quicker still, sending shivers coursing through his body. All his strength and confidence left him and he held onto his chair to stop himself from collapsing.
And still the wraith remained invisible, taunting him in silence.
His skin grew cold, the sweat slithering down his wrinkled face. His breath grew shorter, shallower, quicker, and his heart…
He froze.
His heart. It was beating faster than the rest. The rogue rhythm, the anonymous individual, was himself. His own heart was out of step with the Spire, with all the souls he had enslaved within it. The brief moment he had contemplated his own madness was enough to force him from the inescapable prison he himself had created. The memories of his wife and daughter, for whom all this was for and to whom it would all have been abhorrent, had reminded him of his humanity.
Lucien calmed down, feeling a fool for the first time in a long while. His composure was regained and he stood himself up to his full noble height again, washing away the thoughts of his beloved and adored so that he might better concentrate on the construction of his abyss. For at its completion lay two lives reborn, and only a heart empty of compassion could see it through. Lucien had chosen to make the sacrifice of his own soul and the countless other slaves' who worked on the Spire in clear knowledge that it was an irreversible path to damnation. He could not falter. There would be no redemption.
As the rhythm of his own heart matched with those of the Spires once more Lucien found himself falling back into blissful ignorance, free from morality, remorse and anguish, and embracing the cold dark heart of the Tattered Spire.
And far beneath him, arriving on a ship, was a dissident heart.
His ultimate end.