The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [117]
Baylock died in a landing accident on Neibaum Prime.
Questions outnumbered answers. Who was now in charge? Would the commanders appoint a lord marshal from among their own ranks? Or would they fall to fighting one another even as they did battle 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 before 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 Baylock 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 subject.
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 fitted 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 document 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, protected 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 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