Mort looks up to Ziru. He has no words, he has no logic, no argument, no rhetoric – bu he does have a message.

  He roars, draws his machete, and strikes.

  Ziru’s skill as a swordsman pays its dues again, his focus allowing him to catch Mort’s exceptionally fast draw and dodge out of the way just in time – but dodging away was exactly what Mort had wanted from him.

  The Black King, immaculate, armored, and fit to fight a hundred wars in continuum, gets his last sight in light.

  Two pairs of eyes: the small, dark, cute face of a fairy lass, staring back at him with utter contempt, and a half-breed, his disgust so palpable that it’s not even like one warrior to another, but a man letting his foot down onto an insect – by moral alone, Ziru is that little to him.

  The king sees the bomb coming, soaring at him, but he does not comprehend anywhere near the speed at which it could save him. After all, bombs have fuses, and require a person to pull them out and struggle with flint, perhaps simply fire magic, to light it before throwing.

  It was as simple and easy as tossing a stone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Illuminated Gatekeeper

  Effie understands now what she's created. Somehow Mort's ability to regenerate, hold energy, and perhaps even his purpose for being itself is all wrapped into the one purpose of revenge - his anger has become his lifeline, his desire to kill those that have wronged him his singular reason. She watched with incredulity at the sight of his arm, held up to the molten wound of his bloody socket, retake to the injury and meld itself over with only a scar in its place.

  The comparison between the austere, uncertain scholar she met, to this occult shroud of fatal intent is more than striking, it's horrifying.

  What is worse, she realizes, is that she must encourage this. For some reason he listens to her, respects her word. She has unwittingly placed herself in a position of exceptional power, yet one that necessitates destruction. She knows she can stop him, talk him down, but the next time he's shot, or cut, or hurt in some way, will he be able to retake to his fury again in time?

  This thought cuts hard through her mind as she holds onto his collar on the turbulent advance through the city. The two tear through the streets, Mort displaying a physical prowess that would compete even with Maydi and Ziru's own exceptional, enchanted athleticism - humans are not supposed to move this quickly, she's certain: it must be that god behind him.

  Her dark gaze sharpens in a demureness rare for her.

  "It's all because it believes in you, then?" she asks, almost a whisper.

  Mort vaults over another wall, banking along the top like a boy hopping a fence. "It has to be. He's here for me, and I'm not going to deny that gift any more."

  Her eyes darken. "It's going to kill you, you know."

  Without skipping a beat, he lands on the other side and opens up into a sprint. "I don't care. This is what a hero would do, isn't it?" he answers, a puff of soot whirling out from the force of his breath.

  A chill runs through the little fairy. Yes, perhaps it is, but she doesn't like the change. She doesn't care much for the humans, she would proudly admit, but she cares quite a bit about what's happening to Mort.

  She thinks a moment on how she'll answer. "Don't get carried away," is all she really comes up with.

  The two force forward, now deep into the royal quarters of the city, darting under lavishly detailed, glorious statues and obelisks honoring the kings and queens of times passed, using both sets of white and dark marble to recognize the separation of two cultures, to races, to ways, brought together, and yet apart - separate, but so-called equal.

  Mort and Effie find themselves in the center courtyard before the castle. They're almost there, and yet the place seems abandoned.

  "They must all be managing their little insect problem," Effie notes with a hum. "I wonder how it could have gone undetected for so long."

  The chemist makes no motion, but his brow furrows. "Some problems cost too much to fix, I reckon," he says, slowing down to a stop in the middle of the courtyard, right where the lines of white and black marble meet.

  The air on his skin, despite all the soot, gives him a distinct feeling. It's as if someone is whispering, and he can even feel the slight undulations of air pressure from the movement of the words.

  "Get ready," he says, any semblance of intelligence on his face again dying out to the deranged animal within.

  Certain that it's either his humanity or their lives, she lifts her right arm up to her chest at the ready.

  As if on the same cue, a voice speaks out from the statuary:

  "-get'han, aidama!" cries a smooth tone, effectively concealing a torrent of emotion.

  Mort leaps aside the second a bolt of solid ice flicks across the courtyard, as large as a lance and as heavy as a millstone, smashes into the spot he was standing. Shards of ice, enchanted to fracture with glass-like sharpness, fragment and pepper the rogue monk.

  Effie, safe behind his neck, hears an array of thick shards thunk into his side before he rolls to catch his fall.

  Mort and Effie look up to see, elevated on her staff, the black queen Vaya, her robes flowing with an arcane elegance on the soft wind of the day. She folds one leg over the other as a platoon of crossbowmen flank the two in the open, forming a half-moon of coverage and ensuring everyone has a clear, easy, safe shot at the two vigilantes.

  "That was... northerner magic," Effie says with a squint. "I've never seen anyone outside of the woods who could do that."

  Vaya is silent for a moment as she looks the two over: Effie's uneasy fascination, and Mort's utter, targeted disgust, his soot-covered face like a window to the color he could have been, instead of the lowly, sacrilegious brown he's been cursed with.

  The Black Queen does not draw back at ease, in fact she seems more distressed than ever.

  "So... you're the ones, mmm?" she asks with a tone not of pretension, but of concerned, hurt judgement, as if she already knows what's happened.

  Mort has no rhetoric for her like he did the others, his mind's already in the place it needs to be to take another life. He gives a slow, confirming nod, his eyes staring up at her hovering frame with a hunter-like avarice.

  "Maydi and Ziru went ahead, the fools. They never want to follow along with the plan, and... and he just said it was inevitable," she reports, rotating her wand dexterously about her right hand. "Well, I don't believe that... I also don't believe in letting you off, even if you beg. My husband and his pet were brash, and it shows in how they fight - I'm not like them. I'm the only Southern practitioner of The Northern Art in the kingdom, all the rest are with the church. I assure you, whatever spells or god you follow, it won't be a match to my education and the will of Vahaidah."

  "Don't speak that name to me," Mort snaps. "She's the one at fault for all this mess."

  Vaya scoffs, her wand-spinning slowing to a halt as she looks around with an obvious, ironic flare. "What, all of this? This mess?" she asks, winning a quick laugh from the crossbow platoon as they throw a few admiring glances to the eloquent statuary surrounding them. "Vahaidah stopped a centuries-old conflict and gave peace to humanity. Do you mean to say that there's something wrong with following the laws of someone who has given us so much?"

  Mort is quiet, his gaze unchanged.

  The Black Queen shrugs. "I don't think so. In fact I think there's quite a lot of honor in hunting down animals like you. To be frank," she glances gently to the guards below her for some reason before continuing. "To be very frank I don't even care that you're a half-breed. I know better now. I'm wiser than I was when I was a girl. Your race matters to Vahaidah, but not to me, it's your half-breed decisions that concern me."

  Effie, glancing over to gauge Mort's expression, flinches nervously.

  Like a dog pushed to the absolute edge of his psychological threshold, Mort's eyes widen with full, murderous animism; he looks to her like he's going to tear the queen apart with his bare hands before eating her.

  "You, you poor thing, really had little choice in the matter," Vaya continues, "You only can do so much with the mind you were given, and without appropriate guidance form either a Northerner or Southerner, I can see why you've taken to active terrorism. You're jealous, aren't you?"

  Now, less like a face and more like a monolith of pure, targeted focus, Mort's expression deludes into a vessel that communicates only his intent to kill, like even his humanity is being brushed aside to become a lifeform of pure, unapologetic killer instinct.

  "After all, we together have built all of this, and what have you done? Half-breeds commit crimes, run about doing nonsensical errands for the Southern Powers, completely unaware of Vahaidah's guiding light. The Northerners had to give up magic outside of The Church and The Court, as well as the Southerns and our backslidden worship of old, damaging phantasms. Vahaidah put a collar of servitude on us all, certainly, but the weight is light, and the rewards, as you can see, are wondrous. So do not tell me not to speak her name to you as if you even have the right to decide what your minuscule brain can manage, mud. I know your kind can be redeemed, but you certainly cannot," she flicks her wand down into a casting grip. "Now die."

  She motions her pinky gently, and the lieutenant of the platoon takes the signal.

  "Fire!" he shouts.

  And that's all he says.

  With an immediacy afforded only by machines and those who have become like such, Mort flicks a fist-full of three charges, each spinning out from his grip at slight intervals to send them out in a semi-circle.

  "NOW!" Mort screams, the very moment Vaya slings out her next spell.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Longer Goodbye

  Up in the royal laboratory, connected directly to the Court's war room, King Karrseth cuts a different image than the rest. The din of a massive explosion overtakes the hall from the statuary below, but he does not even give it a moment's attention - he's focused on something far more important to him.

  He wears no armor, no ceremonial robes, but the comfortable, classical look of a northern noble, his clean white overshirt rolling pleasantly around the earthy colors of his vest.

  He's looking down on a piece of paper with a pen arched eloquently in his right hand. To his right are about a dozen discarded papers, all of which start the same way, but none of which deliver the satisfaction he desires.

  With the poise of a man weighing his final words, he scribbles another message just as two young boys come up from along the side of the room, its spiral staircase leading up from the joint-family quarters shared by the four leaders, their two sons, and a certain couple others.

  "Father," the white prince starts.

  "Lord Karrseth," the black prince greets, the two of them presenting with equal respect.

  Karrseth gives them a short glance in acknowledgement before going back to his paper.

  The two boys share a short glance while they both wait patiently. Nearly a minute passes, and the young men are both overtaken by impatience.

  "Father," the white prince begins, "we're ready to take your directive."

  Karrseth draws back, and sighs. He turns to the boys with a look not of frustration, but of acceptance. "Of course you are... do you know what is happening right now?"

  The two boys share another glance before the white prince, the more familiar with Karrseth by only a slight degree, clears his throat.

  "I would assume we are under attack, father."

  Karrseth nods, pushing aside the pen and paper to give the two his full, tender attention. "This is so."

  The Black Prince looks between them, but isn't picking up any additional cues - The White King is easily the hardest to read out of the four rulers, which is both a good and bad thing depending on the time and place, as he understands.

  “So, then,” the White Prince clears his throat. “are you putting in measures for our defense. Are you leading the men, or formulating a plan?”

  Karrseth looks in the eyes of his son, and then to the Black Prince, his gaze even, equal, and with an attention that spares none his compassion.

  “Father?” the boy asks.

  The older man smiles. “This is the judgement of the gods, lads. All four of us will be dead in less than an hour, I expect.”

  Another explosion rocks the castle, this one so firm that it lures The Black Prince to the window – his expression immediately twists in horror.

  “M-....mo-“ he can’t quite push the word out, but he wants to say “mother”.

  Karrseth fires a woeful look to the Black Prince before addressing them both again. “She, like the other two, rolled their dice to spit in the face of The Powers.”

  “The Swamp Gods of The South?” the White Prince asks, struggling to throw an incriminating glance at his spiritual brother.

  The White King nods. “We have insulted their honor from what we have done.”

  “V-“ the Black Prince takes a deep breath, his eyes glued to the scene below in the statuary. “Vahaidah’s going to help us.”

  Karrseth’s face is dull in disinterest. “Will she?”

  On the faces of the two boys is the simultaneous realization that their parents are about to die, under the sludge-like grip of some foreign occult tormentor.

  The White Prince shakes his head in denial. “Mother wouldn’t have... actually, would she? She’s the fastest swordsman in-“

  “The Crater Sorcerer fights with a magic that supersedes all physical combatants,” the king pauses as a sharp explosion overtakes the statuary below, matched appropriately to a look of utter, destroyed horror at what he sees when the dust clears. The Black Prince slumps down from the window, turning into his knees with a wide, teary-eyed stare. “We do not have the means to defeat such a specific threat. Our understanding of his means were totally wrong. As the guards manage the infestation in the sewers below-“

  “Infestation?” the White Prince asks incredulously.

  Karrseth nods, his eyes scanting over to fire a short, cross look at his son. “We knew of it for some time, and we don’t know if they’re working together, but these two threats in tandem have reared their head, and we do not have the means to solve this problem without Vahaidah’s direct aid.”

  The White Prince’s eyes well up indignantly as the Black Prince begins sobbing into his knees. “What do you mean, father! For fuck’s sake! What of the priesthood!”

  The king raises a brow. “They will do their best, but they will do their best in fighting back the infestation. They’re all around the city... none of them are here.”

  The boy’s breathing picks up, his chest trembling in undulating disbelief. “That... all we need to do is shut up, and wait... surviv-“ his voice, clear and crisp, is overwhelmed without contest by a deep explosion sounding like it came from the center of the keep.

  The two boys look aside to the main hall as a squad of guards run across to meet the intruders, but Karrseth’s expression is level in its defeat.

  “All we can do is to hope.”

  The Black Prince wipes his face with his hands, smearing the tears across his cheeks. “Hope for what? My parents are dead!”

  Karrseth takes a long breath. “Hope that the sorcerer is a human after all.”

  The two boys share shocked looks, rife with disbelief. Did the White King actually say that?

  “F-father?”

  “Lord Karrseth, how could you say such a thing?!”

  He shakes his head. “I need you two to take the two keys, open the girls up from their rooms, and place them right at the front of the tower door.”

  “We could fight!”

  “That’s right, an ambush!” the two princes encourage, the two of them both trembling at the thought of facing off against something so completely merciless as the murderer of their legendary parentage.

  Karrseth looks back to his note, looks over to a small glass bottle filled with what looks like a small amount of brown dust, and he looks back to the boys with a smile. He gets up from his chair, and hands both of the boys a key. They all embrace, warmly, fearfully, for the last time. “Tell them both how sorry I am, but give them... give them this,” he says, reaching over to the current note, folding it over, and handing it to the Black Prince.

  The two boys nod, looking up at the kingdom’s greatest chemical mind with wide, receptive eyes.

  “What... what will we do?” the White Prince asks.

  “Rule the country into a new era. Do not rely on The Goddess, as she will forsake you with laws. Rely on each other. I want all four of you to rule together, not as marriages, but as siblings.”

  The two halt on his words for only a moment, but both come to give confirming, promising nods.

  A dense explosion crackles in the mid-way of the castle, feeling just a floor or two beneath them.

  “Now go,” he adds, pushing the two boys away.

  The duo of princes complete the hug, exchange parting kisses on the foreheads and cheeks, and depart, back up the way they had come, except with the note and the keys.

  The White Banner King was never much of one for hugging, or close contact in general, but this is an exception; he knows he’ll won’t hold any of them again.

  Karrseth watches the boys go up, his heart light, faint, and feeling as though he’s watching the final strain of life that is worth living disappear from his sight forever.

  Then he turns back to the chemist’s table.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Planner and The Coward

  A directed spark strikes into the side of the gauze wrapping. Its soft, wiry form immolates in an instant, critical flash of sound and light. When the flash and the crash is gone, all that's left is a five-meter wide crater leading to the floor below, and the destroyed remains of yet another team of guards. Standing over the hole, once again, is Mort and Effie. Not even pausing to take in the brutality of what he's done, he immediately crosses around the smashed-through tile to continue into the royal quarters.

 

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