Hindemith: Spy in the Lich King's Retinue

The necromancers of Aden already have a reputation darker than their craft: the city shuns them, the church stigmatizes them, and the guild senses any rumor of ties to the undead like a noose around their neck. And here, it's not rumor—it's thunder. The master's best spy hardin, a necromancer named Hindemith, sent to keep an eye on the Lich King's gang, seemed to have himself joined his banner.

"Have you met a necromancer named Hindemith? He was sent to spy on the minions of the Lich King Akron—and now rumor has it he's become a servant of this lawless despot! We haven't heard from him since. The pressure on our guild is growing: Hindemith must be dealt with, one way or another."

Master Hardin to his apprentice, the future Soultaker

A man who himself stands on the threshold of the necromancers' highest initiation is sent to investigate. Thus begins a story in which the pursuit of a traitor turns into a pursuit of truth—and comes to a head with a question that even the Tablets cannot answer.

The despot who wanted the consciousness of the gods

About the Lich King Akron In Aden, they speak briefly and cautiously. His gang is no rabble of gravediggers: it is a force that slaughters servants of light in broad daylight. High Priest Gregory of Goddard remembers its work all too well.

"Remember how the Lich King Akron's band slaughtered Goddard's priests and then killed the search party? They say Hindemith was seen among the band at the scene of the massacre—but why would he do such a thing?"

High Priest Gregory of Goddard

But carnage is just a means. Akron's goal is more terrifying: he's hunting for Tablets of VisionSix stone slabs scattered across the land of Aden hold what the gods once deliberately took from mortals.

"For a necromancer to become a Soultaker, you must shed your mortal view of the world and embrace the consciousness of the gods. In ancient times, the gods sealed this power and scattered it across the world to prevent humans from fully realizing their potential. You will reclaim this forbidden knowledge—one tablet at a time."

Hardin on the Tablets of Vision pilgrimage

Heroes walking through a third professionThey take this knowledge bit by bit—stone by stone, trial by trial. Akron intended to take it all. A lich with eternity ahead of him can afford a hunt that lasts centuries—and he set out on the same pilgrimage as the living, only not to purify, but to reap.

The Six Tablets Chase

The path of a Hardin apprentice becomes a reading of footprints. On each tablet—from the slab south of the Tower of Insolence to the stones of the Valley of the Saints and the southeastern walls of Argos — the same thing: Hindemith has already been here and gone, and the strange silvery powder of Cursed Bone, the working dust of necromancers, is scattered on the ground. The pursuit is always a step too late.

The knowledge itself is guarded as if the gods don't fully trust their own seals. In the Valley of the Saints, the tablet stands Guardians of Forbidden Knowledge. At the wall of Argos the Stone of Communion is held by a winged Archangel Iconoclasis — the sky personally guards what it sealed. And the next stone has to be taken by force from Archon Halisha in the depths Four Tombs — the monster comes to light only when the pilgrim has collected seven hundred marks of his faithful.

And each tablet, giving direction, also gives a voice - alien, inhuman.

"Countless thoughts, incomprehensible, are painfully burned into my brain. A woman's voice seems to float past—as if she's quietly laughing at you..."

Communicating with the Tablet of Vision

A woman in blue. A man's voice in the void. The laughter a pilgrim hears inside his own skull. Those who have completed the pilgrimage prefer not to find out who these voices belong to.

Forest of the Dead: The Truth About the Traitor

The denouement awaits at the last tablet, in the north Forests of the Dead - that very forest where the family once perished Von HellmannHere, Hardin's apprentice finally sees two beings: Hindemith and the Lich King Akron. Not side by side. Opposite each other.

"Master Hardin sent me to find out what the Lich King, Akron, was up to. I needed to investigate his lair from the inside—and so I infiltrated the Lich King's own warband! Recently, I accompanied him on a pilgrimage to the Tablets: Akron is very interested in their power. I couldn't let the power of the final Tablet of Vision fall into his hands! Without thinking about the consequences, I recklessly attacked him—and exposed myself!"

Hindemith Truevoice - to his savior

That's all there is to treason. The scout had gone so deep that he didn't even dare send word to his own master—and meanwhile, back home, they had already buried him as a defector. When the final tablet faced a choice—preserve his identity or thwart the despot's plans—Hindemith struck, knowing the entire gang would be after his head.

"Tell the master not to worry: contrary to rumors, I would never have joined the Lich King Akron's gang! Take this Stone of Communion—I took it from Akron himself. And I'm going after it again!"

Hindemith - going in pursuit

The stone, torn from the lich, reveals the final tablet to the pilgrim. And it finally reveals the strangest vision of the entire journey.

"A sharp flash of knowledge pierces the skull. A distant laugh is heard. A man proclaims the birth of a new Hero. The woman in blue disagrees... She sees this child for the last time!"

The Last Tablet of Vision

The tablets do not say who these two are, arguing over the cradle of each new hero. But the woman in blue has already been met in Aden: an unearthly guest with the same eyes has appeared and to the blacksmith Reorin — to prophesy a hero “who will reshape the face of the world.”

Lich of Two Names

The story could have been closed: the slander refuted, the most faithful servant vindicated, the despot fleeing. But in the Aden bestiary, the creature the pilgrim encounters at the final tablet is not listed as Akron. It bears a different name: Lich King Icarus.

And the name Icarus is not empty in Aden. That is the name of the lich from Hardin Academy — the greatest expert on necromancy on earth, who languishes among students, neither eating nor sleeping, and drowning his "neither alive nor dead" in ectoplasmic liqueur. This is also the name of the sacred book of dark truth by which the priests of Shilen worship. dark elvesAnd the academic Icarus and the Hardin cave have their own history.

"Better ask the Lich King Icarus himself for details—he was the first master here, after all, and I'm the second or third... I met him in my travels and took possession of this cave by winning a contest. Before that, he kept his lair here—and, it seems, did a lot of evil. Ha-ha..."

Hardin on the cave of his Academy

"All the students, myself included, feared him. But the magic he wields—especially his knowledge of necromancy—is the greatest in these lands. He appears to roam freely, but they say Master Hardin actually keeps him on an invisible chain. That's why he teaches us so kindly... Although, I have a feeling he would teach without the chain. Not because the undead are capable of attachment... For another reason..."

Master Kaspar on Icarus

Now put it all together. The lich, "who has done much evil," whose lair Hardin stole and whom he keeps on an invisible chain. The despot Akron, after whom Hardin sends a spy, and then an apprentice. One name in the bestiary for both. And Hardin himself— a magician whose name is read backwards, as the only one who knows the answer and will never give it. Whether this is the same creature, and whether the entire chase was a long leash on which the Academy's master walks his lich—the records are silent. The only one we can ask is Hardin himself. But we already know what he'll say: "Let's assume. What difference does it make?"

This chronicle has two lessons. The first is about rumor: gossip buries a man faster than necromancy, and a servant vetted twenty times becomes a "traitor" for a single piece of gossip, just as the priest Innocentin became a "heretic." The second is about names: in Aden, a book, a prisoner, and a despot can all bear a name, and no one can tell where one ends and the other begins. Even now, somewhere out there in the darkness, Hindemith is following the trail of a creature whose true name even he may not know.