The Kingdoms of Evil Read Online Free Page B

the Maelstrom Cannot read Despot of Skrea, detection of magical incursion Evil Despot of Skrea This spell has performed an illegal operation Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of Evil, cease operation or pray to your god Evil Evil pray to your god.
    The mutated error codes pulsed somber red light with every beat of his heart. Freetrick blinked hard, trying to wake up, looked down at the hands holding the mirror, and nearly screamed out loud.
    Freetrick's finger, his hand, his whole body was white. Not pale tan or pink, but white . There was even a faint blue tinge in the shadows. And...he brought his hand up… were his nails pointed ?
    What the struck-out hell had happened to him? Then Freetrick looked again at the mirror's now blank and reflective surface, and this time he did scream.
    Freetrick's face matched the rest of his body, the skin smooth and ghastly. The basic shape---he rubbed at his cheeks with panic-tingling fingers---the basic shape seemed unchanged. But…Freetrick tilted the mirror. Had his eyebrows always been so sharp? Certainly his hairline had not been a widow's peak before today.
    Fighting panic, Freetrick leaned further toward the mirror. Something else was wrong. More wrong than just skin or hair color. His eyes... Freetrick squinted, but he could see no iris, no sclera, just shiny, inky blackness, as if someone had replaced his eyeballs with polished globes of jet. The lack of pupils dampened his expression, made him look cold and alien, even to himself.
    Freetrick tried to see the brown his eyes ought to be under that under the inky blankness. It didn't help that everything was so blurry. He squinted harder, focusing until pain needled the inside of his forehead.
    "Ow!"
    A flash of heat, a tingling, and bright spots of light leapt across the surfaces of Freetrick's eyes.
    "Ow!"
    Another flash of heat, and again twin sparks stretched from his upper to his lower lids. Hot tingles flashed up Freetrick's arms and legs as the sparks jumped a third time, then again, until a continuous band of hot, blue light bisected each eye.
    Now the face staring back at him from the mirror was not simply odd, it was malevolent, with slitted snake pupils like jags of lightning across a pitch black sky.
    "No!" Freetrick gasped at his reflection, the face that belonged to a monster, to something out of the Kingdoms of Evil. "No!" The mirror dropped from his senseless fingers. H e hurled himself out of the bed.
    As he stood, Freetrick realized he was naked. His entire body was the same matte white as his hands. Clothes will cover it up , thought Freetrick incoherently, and rocked toward his dresser.
    It looked wrong. Freetrick squinted, and realized the problem wasn't just the dresser. When he held his fingertips in front of his eyes they looked all right, but anything much farther than six inches from his nose became indistinct and blurry.
    What the gibbering hell was happening?
    Freetrick shut his eyes hard, then opened them. The desk, dresser, and postered walls of his dorm room refused to resolve into focus. Had his vision spells failed too? That would explain his sudden nearsightedness, but how could all of this magic to go wrong at once? And the white skin? It was impossible!
    Freetrick fumbled open his dresser and pulled out his underwear, jerkin, and hose. For a moment the clothes' familiar scent and texture against his skin dimmed the panic rising in his chest.
    But as Freetrick smoothed his tunic over his chest, he noticed the irregular, dark stains that spotted the cloth. Squinting his unfocused eyes, he saw cloudy blotches like oily handprints all over his clothing.
    Freetrick looked at his hands. They seemed clean, but ...he brought his arm up to his face… no it wasn't just a trick of his eyes. There was a haze or halo of darkness above his skin. He moved his arm, and the cloud dissipated, only to re-form when he held still.
    What was this stuff? Aside from something that stained clothing
    Freetrick reached down