The Common King

by Brian Olsen

  Mr. Liefer is there. Upright. Sealed to the neck inside a block of ice.

  My mother is there. With an ice spear in her hand. About to plunge it into his face.

  Thirty-four

  “Mom, stop! Don’t kill him!”

  She pivots at the sound of my voice, turning her spear away from Mr. Liefer and towards this new intruder. Then her eyes widen in recognition. The spear falls from her hand, its sharp tip shattering on the roof.

  “You’re alive. Oh my god, you’re alive.”

  I take a step towards her. She steps back.

  “Why did you come?” she says. “I told you to stay away from him. I warned you.”

  “Did you come after me? When he threw me, did you come after me?” I step forward again.

  A patch of ice in a circle spreads across the roof, radiating outward from her feet. “Keep back!”

  “Mom—”

  “Stop calling me that!” She thrusts her hands into her hair. A small cloud of snow billows out, some of it settling on her face and shoulders. “I’m nobody’s mother! Nobody’s wife!”

  “You are! You’re my mother! You’re Dad’s—”

  She bends double and screams. A wave of cold air hits me, knocking me back a step. The chill lingers, despite the bright summer sun shining down on us. I hug myself and shiver.

  Mom’s scream fades to a choked-off sob.

  “It’s not right.” She stands straight again and brushes a frozen tear from her cheek. “It’s not fair.”

  “They shouldn’t have done what they did,” I say. “Changed memories. But—”

  “Not that.” She holds herself, the same way I am, although I’m sure she doesn’t feel the cold. “Eric.”

  A lump forms in my throat. “Oh.”

  “Was that part of the spell? Was it my punishment for being an ‘evil’ logomancer?” She smacks her hand against her breast, hard. “They made me love him, and now he’s gone, and there’s just this…this…” She thumps herself again. “This grief! This absence! This hole in my— I can’t…I can’t bear it!” She lets out a moan of absolute anguish. The circle of ice spreads again, covering the entire roof, then spreading over the ledge and down the walls. “He wasn’t real! He was a phantom! It shouldn’t—” She balls her hands into fists and pounds her forehead, sending a flurry of snow flying around her face. “It shouldn’t hurt like this!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want your pity!” she roars at me.

  I scream back, “It’s not pity!”

  She’s silent. She stares at me impassively from behind a veil of snow.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat, quieter. “I’m sorry I killed him.” I cover my eyes with my hand. “I killed Dad. I killed him. It’s my fault, all mine. I’m sorry.” My throat hurts. My shoulders shake. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop it. Stop.”

  I can’t. I drop my head and try to stifle the sobs but they keep coming. I cry into my hand.

  “Stop that.” Her voice is sharp. “Stop it. I mean it. It’s not your fault. Miller tricked you.” When I don’t respond, she adds, softly, “It’s my fault he’s dead, Chris. Not yours. Mine.”

  I lower my hand. My eyes are wet, blurring my vision, but I think she may be crying too.

  “I brought him to that field,” she continues. “I delivered Eric to Mr. Miller.”

  I wipe my face with my sleeve. “To save him.”

  She laughs. “I was a fool. Of course he’d use Eric against you. Of course he would. I should have left well enough alone. I should have ran, as far away as I could get.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going, while the Common King is distracted. You should do the same.”

  “No, Mom. Don’t leave.”

  I move for her, but she throws a hand towards me and the ice beneath my feet thickens. I slip and land hard on my backside while she moves around me in a wide arc, making for the stairwell.

  “Mom!” I reach for her. “Please don’t. Please don’t leave me again.”

  She grabs the bulkhead door, forcing it open over the carpet of ice she created. “Sorry, Chris. If you’re dumb enough to face him, I’m not going to watch what happens. I can’t go through that again.” She steps inside. “I just can’t.”

  “Do you think you’re the only one?” I shout.

  She steps inside.

  “I know you’re not my mother!”

  She pauses.

  “And I know he wasn’t my father!” I get back to my feet. “I’m not an idiot. And I’m not pretending.”

  She half-turns back to me. “Then you know it’s not real. That the right thing to do is to try…” She takes a deep breath. “Try as best we can to move past these false feelings they put in us.”

  “No. No.”

  “Chris—”

  “I love you.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Losing Dad is eating at me.” I wipe my face again. “It’s killing me. I tell myself I’m okay, that I’m dealing, that I can’t afford the time to grieve right now, but it keeps…” My shoulders drop. “It keeps coming for me anyway.”

  She leans one hand on the doorway. “Yes.”

  “I’m doing what I have to do. Lives are at stake and my friends need me and I’m doing what I have to do but all I want is to let this pain swallow me up until there’s nothing left. I want to live inside it and let the rest of the world burn.”

  She sniffs away a tear and nods. “Keep telling yourself it’s not real. That’s what I do. It helps. It helps get through the day. Eric wasn’t real, and we—”

  I run a few steps forward, shouting, “He was real!” I stop short before I slip again. “He was real.”

  “For how long?” she says sadly. “How long was he alive, from when the Moment created him until he died in that field? Three weeks? Four?”

  “Long enough.”

  I close my eyes and I see him. Sitting at our kitchen table, eating breakfast. Asking me about school, about lacrosse, about the boys I’m dating. Complaining about work. Raving about some old record he bought online. Making bad jokes.

  “This life may have been forced on me,” I say. “But it’s a good life. And losing Dad hurts. And losing you hurts. And I may lose more people today, and that will hurt too. But pretending I never loved them because of that hurt? That’d be the real lie.” I open my eyes. “What I love might be taken from me, but I will never throw it away.”

  She steps out of the doorway, back onto the roof. “We’re not related. We’re not family.”

  “Being related doesn’t make you family. Love does.”

  “But they made us love, Chris. They made us.”

  “Yeah, they did.” I shoot a glance at Mr. Liefer, still trapped in a block of ice. He’s been silent this whole time, watching us impassively. “They didn’t give us any choice but to love one another. We didn’t remember anything else, so we didn’t know any better.” I step closer to her. She doesn’t move. “But I know better now. I know what Dad was, and I choose to love him anyway. I know who you are, Kelle Gerddinchild, and right here, right now, I choose to love you.” I hold out my hand.

  She stares at it. “I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be.”

  “I’m not asking for another lie. I want you to be who you want to be. Whoever that is.”

  “You want me to be your mother.”

  “I want you to be honest about what you want. Yes, it was wrong, what was done to you. What was done to us. How do you feel now? You talk about what I want from you. What do you want from me? What do you choose?”

  She lingers in the doorway for a moment. Then she steps out, keeping one hand on the sill, as if she might pull herself back inside, away from me.

  She shakes her head and mutters, “Damn it, hero.”

  She lets go of the door and takes my hand.

  Beneath our feet, the ice melts and seeps into the roof.

  Thirty-five

  I’m happy. F
or the first time since I was split off from the Common King, I’m actually happy.

  I squeeze Mom’s hand. Kelle’s hand. Whatever she wants to call herself. It doesn’t matter, because she chose me. Maybe she’s not the woman I remember, not entirely. That doesn’t matter. I have my mother back. I don’t care if she’s changed a little.

  “Excuse me. If you don’t mind…”

  Mr. Liefer’s interjection interrupts our reunion and an annoyed look crosses Mom’s face. She waves a hand absently and ice encases his head.

  Okay, maybe she’s changed more than a little.

  “Mom! He’ll suffocate!”

  “He started it.”

  “Mom!”

  She sighs. “Yes. Right. Neve Armstrong doesn’t kill. I’m sorry.” She waves her hand at him again. “Ice.”

  The block around his head melts away, leaving Liefer’s oily black hair matted against his scalp. He sputters and gasps, spitting water. I put my finger to my mouth and he nods. Well, nods as much as he can, given he’s still encased in ice up to his neck. But I get the gist.

  My mother purses her lips. “You’re still calling me ‘Mom,’ huh?”

  “Is that all right? Seems weird to call you ‘Kelle’ or ‘Neve’ but I could try.”

  She shrugs. “It’s not important. Call me whatever you want.” She shades her eyes and peers down towards Father Duffy Square. “They’re still fighting. Time to run.”

  “No, Mom.”

  She drops her hand. “Together, I mean. You and me, Chris. Now, while he’s distracted.”

  “No.”

  “He’ll kill me if he sees me. He’s doubted my loyalty since the beginning, but even more so after he blew up the museum. Now I’ve run off in the middle of a fight. He’ll know I went looking for you.”

  “Maybe that’s good.” I tap my chin. “Maybe we can use that. Mr. Liefer, if you—”

  “No, Chris!” She yanks me across the roof, out of Liefer’s earshot. “We have to go! He’s too strong. You have no idea. He’s so much stronger than before. There’s no fighting him.”

  “There is, Mom. We have a plan. We just have to get all the pieces in place.”

  “It’s suicide.”

  “We have to try.”

  “Why?” She grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me. “Your friends are doomed, Chris! I’m sorry, but it’s true. You can’t save them. So let’s get out of here before it’s too late!”

  “I can’t abandon them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not how you and Dad raised me.”

  She steps back like I slapped her. “I…” She puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh. Oh, Chris.” She presses her palms against her eyes, shaking her head. “Neve Armstrong is a fiction. But she’s such a better woman than Kelle Gerddinchild ever was.” She takes a deep breath and straightens her spine. “All right. If you insist on this suicide run, then I guess I’m going to help. What’s the plan, hero?”

  “First, can you let Mr. Liefer out? He’s turning blue.”

  She grimaces and yells over at him, “You won’t try to teleport me over the ledge again, will you?”

  He forces a smile and, through chattering teeth, calls, “Certainly not. You have my most sincere apologies, Mrs. Armstrong.”

  “Ugh. I never liked you, Mr. Liefer. In either world.”

  She waves her hand and his icy prison dissolves with a massive splash. Liefer collapses to his knees, shivering. I run to help him, and, after a moment, he allows me to support him by the elbow as he gets back to his feet.

  “Mr. Liefer, your hands…” His bandages are ruined, completely soaked through.

  “Yes.” He hold his hands out, taking in the soggy messes surrounding them. “Space.”

  The bandages disappear. His palms are scarred and red, and most of his fingers are withered and black. I gasp, despite myself. He scowls in response, shoving his burnt hands into the pockets of his sodden suit jacket, out of sight.

  “Your fingers,” I say. “I thought Andy…he healed himself from his burns, why…?”

  “Andy’s healing abilities are limited, and work better on himself than on others. He did his best.”

  “Does it…I mean, are you sure you want to…”

  I don’t even know what I’m asking. He obviously should have been in a hospital all this time. There’s no way he’s not going to lose most of his fingers. Maybe the whole hands. He must be in agony. How is he functioning without Mr. Ambrose here to shut down his pain receptors?

  He answers my unasked questions. “We do what we have to do, Chris. And we pay the cost.”

  “I’m sorry.” My mother looks stricken. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for my part in this, Mr. Liefer.”

  Liefer nods. “A sincere apology is always worth something, Mrs. Armstrong. Now, Chris, we need to get you back into the thick of things without getting you killed. I could teleport you, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t give our colleagues time to react and instigate the plan before the Common King incinerated you.”

  “And what is your plan?” Mom asks.

  Liefer harrumphs. “Maybe it’s best if you follow our lead for now, Mrs. Armstrong. No offense.”

  She scowls, but doesn’t argue. I don’t either. Mom’s on our side now. I believe that.

  But better safe…

  I head for the door back into the building. “Save your strength, Mr. Liefer. We don’t know what we’ll find down there and you might need to get somebody to safety quick. I have an idea about how I can get close to the king without getting killed.”

  As we take the stairs down to the street, I think to Alisa, Mom’s with us now. Don’t believe what you’re about to see.

  I hear a faint flicker of a response, a tickle in my head that feels like Alisa. Although maybe I’m fooling myself. I just have to hope she got the message, and passes it along to everyone else.

  Liefer must have done the same thing, because when we reach the street, he says, “I’m worried about Alisa. I can’t get through to her.”

  “Me, neither. But she knows I’m still alive, and she’s smart. They all are. We’ll do our part and trust that they’re doing theirs.”

  Mom squares her shoulders. “How are we doing this? Rushing in like fools to join the fight?”

  “Not if we can help it.” I lead them north, away from the battle. “Do you think you can handle a ghoul?”

  “Yes. They’re strong, but not strong enough to shatter a block of ice from the inside.”

  “Great.” I look up and down the side streets. “Then we just need to find one.”

  We keep walking, past the burning NY Gifts and up to West 48th Street. No humans, but no goblins or chimeras either. The magical visitors have either moved on to new territory or found a place to hide from the nearby logomancer battle.

  Liefer, hands still in his pockets, nods towards the next street up. “There.”

  Mom laughs. “Wait forever for a ghoul, and then three show up at once.”

  Three lumbering shapes have turned the corner from 49th. Two look like humans, a tall black man and a short Latina woman. The third’s last meal was a goblin, thankfully not one I recognize. Spotting us, the ghouls shamble in our direction with incoherent roars.

  “How many do you need?” Mom asks.

  “Just one. The goblin, preferably.”

  She flicks both wrists at our approaching attackers. Two spears fly out and punch through the faces of the two human-appearing ghouls, exploding their heads and dropping their bodies to the street. With another gesture, ice encases the goblin up to his neck.

  Mr. Liefer whistles. “You’ve been holding back, Mrs. Armstrong. You didn’t even say your word aloud. Impressive.”

  “I have all my memories, Mr. Liefer. With that comes all my power.” She gives me a quick, sad look before returning her attention to the surviving ghoul. “What do we want this monster for?”

  “Yes.” Mr. Liefer’s lip curls in disgust. “I was wonder
ing that myself. Chris?”

  I swallow. “We do what we have to do. And we pay the cost.”

  He frowns. “I beg your pardon?”

  They’ll stop me if I give them the chance. I’ll stop myself if I think about what I have to do.

  I hope the ghoul only needs a little bit.

  I run to the ice block and shove the tip of my left pinky in the imprisoned creature’s mouth. Its sharp goblin teeth bite down eagerly and tear off a chunk of my little finger.

  Oh my god that hurts oh my god I scream! Have to shut up, have to be quiet, oh my god I pull away from the creature and my skin tears free. I shove my hand against my stomach. The blood spurts and my white shirt stains red.

  Mr. Liefer runs off, I don’t know where, he’s just gone. Holy shit this hurts so bad. This better have worked. Oh my god I just lost part of my finger.

  “Chris!” Mom supports me as I collapse to the street. “What were you thinking?” She cradles me to her chest as I shake and sob. “Oh, hero, it’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.”

  Liefer reappears, sweaty and out of breath. “I checked a few stores. Found this.” Under one arm he’s got a little white box with a red cross on it.

  A few stores? How long was he gone? Did I black out? Cold sweat beads on my forehead. I think I might throw up.

  Yup, throwing up now. I get clear of Mom just in time. She rubs my back, ignoring the splash.

  Was this a mistake? I didn’t think losing a little bit of pinky would be such a big deal.

  Stomach’s empty. I sit back up, wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my uninjured arm, and let Mr. Liefer and Mom help me. He can’t use his hands so she fixes me up. The plastic box has a couple rolls of bandages and some gauze and other stuff that turns red from my blood fast. She puts pressure on it and I think the bleeding slows. I think it’s better. Although it doesn’t feel much better.

  “I thought you’d use ice.” My words sound slurred in my ears.

  “What?”

  “I thought you’d use ice. On my finger.”

  “What would that do?” She lifts my hand above my heart. “Keep it elevated. There’s a lot of blood but it’s only a small chunk missing. Just to the bottom of the nail.”