Interview with a Lich

Interview with a Lich is anonymously authored book, written in Mordentish, and purporting to record the time spent by its author in the presence of Nightblood, a lich dwelling in a secret underground lair in an unnamed land. The work is part of a series of interviews with intelligent undead (see Interview with a Ghoul and Interview with a Vampire). The author is shown a considerable degree of respect by the undead who seem to see in him an understanding audience, a being possessed of like appetites, and a creature that can be more useful alive than dead. The veracity of the works is uncertain.

Excerpt

There is hardly a man, woman or child who does not know at least one thing worth preserving. Yet they all are to die and rot away, even the children, damning their knowledge to oblivion. No longer. I save them. I guard what they have learnt. They endure within these walls. They are not corpses difficultly unearthed. And they are not hollowed out shells of their former selves. They are at hand. They are possessed of intelligence. And once I have mastered the rite for breaking through their raving madness, few indeed will be the secrets hidden from me. And so it is time. Tell me. Tell me all. And you will serve me in life, enjoying a natural death. Otherwise, I will give you, as I have given your servant, to their grasping hands. I will wed you to them in collective torment til stone becomes sand and perhaps beyond.

-Nightblood

Authorship

Interview with a Lich was created by cure as part of a contribution to John W. Mangrum's Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror project (posted on the Fraternity of Shadows message board).