by Pirateaba
“Ooh, he’s good.”
The Fool spins into the air, flicking daggers at people rushing at him. He rolls under Richard’s sword and trips him up. The [Knight] goes down and the Fool kicks Richard in the head. He bounces about, too fast to be caught.
The Blighted Queen rushes at him. The Fool dances away from her, tossing daggers. She blocks each one with her mace. He throws something. She trips.
A juggling ball. The Blighted Queen is on her feet in a moment, but too late. The Fool races towards the Blighted King. A fireball flies towards him from the left, too fast to dodge—
He turns, grabs for the fire. It disappears. He makes it vanish. I sit up.
“Whoa. Can I do that?”
I should take notes! Then I see an angry [Mage] standing in front of the Blighted King. Nereshal’s nose is bloody, but his hands crackle with magic. I carefully lean back.
“[Lightning Storm].”
Bolts of lightning blast from his fingertips, the same ones that emptied the courtyard of life minutes ago. The Fool stands in the center of the electrical storm.
Time slows as the lightning begins to strike the Fool. I see him twist. His hands rise. One bolt of lightning is stretching towards his chest. His hand blocks the bolt, and then the lightning collects in it. The Fool spins, tosses it, and then catches another bolt. He throws it back at Nereshal.
He juggles the lightning.
Explosions. I feel one blast me off my feet. I roll, and see the lightning storm reverse course. Countless bolts strike Nereshal. I see him throw up his hands, and then it’s over. In the blink of an eye. Nereshal collapses, a shield of magic disintegrating around him as his eyes roll up in his head.
The Fool stands in front of him, breathing heavily. His hands are blackened, the skin smoking. But he still moves. He races towards the Blighted King and before anyone can stop him, has a knife to his throat.
“Now we come to it, your Majesty! Now we put an end to this pathetic performance. I should have done this years ago!”
He shouts. The courtyard is still. There are a hundred bows trained on the Fool, [Mages] ready with spells, warriors with blades. None of them dare move. Because the knife at the Blighted King’s throat is faster than them all.
The Blighted King stands still. His voice is calm.
“Do it, then, traitor. But tell me why, first. You pledged your loyalty to me, to this nation. Why betray it?”
“Why? Why?”
The Fool is trembling. His hands still smoke. There are tears in his voice, but none in his eyes. I can see Erille, standing with her hands on her mouth next to Isodore. The Fool can’t look at her. A tableau.
“Why do you think? All you’ve done, all the horrors you’ve committed, the crimes—I could understand. That, for war. But the ritual? The cost? Never.”
“What I do, I do for my people. So that they may live.”
The Fool shakes his head. His dagger presses into the King’s throat, drawing blood. I hear a sound from the Blighted Queen. Pain.
“You do not deserve to be a King. Tell them what you did. Tell them!”
“No. Kill me. But I will die first.”
The Fool hesitates. The Blighted King is ready to impale himself on the dagger before either one speaks. I can see him looking, staring at Erille, hand tensing on the hilt—
“My turn.”
Everyone turns as I stand, brushing myself off. The Fool looks at me. I’m not sure if he hates me, even now.
“There’s nothing you can do, Tom. Step away. The Blighted King dies, and I die too. Let that be an end to it.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not over. You’re here, Fool, and so am I. We can’t let it end with you dying just like that. We need a final grudge match, a proper end. [Fool] vs [Clown]. A battle for the ages. What do you say?”
He stares at me. I grin at him. He looks away.
“You truly are mad, aren’t you? You…I’m sorry. Sorry you ever came here, Tom.”
“Don’t say that. Tell you what; I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
There are two knives in my hand. I have three left. The Fool stares at me.
“You can’t scare me with death. I’m ready for it.”
I roll my eyes.
“Not your death, obviously. I’m thinking more poetically.”
I look past the Blighted King, past the Fool. At a girl staring with wide eyes. The Fool’s mouth opens. He screams.
“No!”
The knife flies past the Blighted King, through the air, towards Erille. Too fast for anyone to block. Anyone, but a Fool.
He lets the Blighted King go and dives for the knife. I’ve never seen a man move that fast. The Fool catches the blade in midair, right in front of Erille’s face. Of course, I knew he’d do that.
That’s why I threw three.
The Fool’s hands blur as he throws all three knives. Two fly towards the Blighted King, striking him in the chest, and in the shoulder. The next one strikes me in the stomach. It doesn’t slow me down as I tackle the [Fool]. We roll around on the ground, hands flashing, fighting for daggers, pulling them out of the air, out of each other’s trick spaces.
“You idiot! You mad monster!”
He screams at me as he slashes my face, my arms and front. I laugh, stabbing back. He dodges, even locked together as we are. He kicks me away and we stand. I throw a dagger, his dagger, and he throws it right back. I snatch it out of the air and we cut at each other, dodging, weaving, too close for anyone to interfere.
“Why do you do it? Why!?”
He’s shouting, stumbling. His hands don’t grasp the knives properly. I laugh.
“Do you want to know why? Do you know what separates the two of us? Clown and fool? It’s easy!”
I grab his arm. He stabs me, but I don’t let go. I draw him closer as he stabs, looking for my heart.
“You’re a fool. People laugh at you. You make them laugh. But I? I’m a clown. I laugh at the world.”
He stares at me. My free hand reaches out. I grin.
“And guess what I just found?”
His eyes widen. I pull the fireball out of the air, out of the space he kept it in. He tries to back away—
And there’s fire.
—-
The Fool’s body lies on the ground, blackened. One of his eyelids is burnt away, exposing an eye. His right hand—gone. The rest of his body is destroyed.
But he is still alive. I walk towards him and pick him up in my arms. I don’t feel my body anymore.
“That’s funny. Are you…crying, Tom?”
He looks at me. I stare down at him. Me. The laughing man in my head is gone.
“I guess I am, Fool. I’m sorry. It was me. I did all this.”
“You don’t say?”
We stand alone in a blackened crater in the courtyard. Alone, but for all the witnesses. The Blighted King lies on the ground, breathing heavily. But he is alive. And the rest, the citizens of Rhir who pour through the gates, the battered Drake company led by Cirille, gather. To see a dying Fool, and the clown who killed him. One, a beloved face turned traitor. The other a monster. A hero.
“I’m so sorry, Fool. I don’t know what I would have done. But—I couldn’t let you. I knew that.”
“I suppose not. You’re not a funny fellow, Tom. Not funny. But you don’t want to be, I think. But do you know what’s funny?”
His voice is hoarse. A whisper. No one else can hear him. I have to put my ear to his lips.
“What? What is it?”
“The Blighted King. Why do you think I turned on him? It was the day after the ritual that I knew. When you were summoned, I learned the cost.”
“What cost?”
“Crimson.”
“What?”
“They wear it. Crimson for the lost. Miscarriages, they said. A curse. But it wasn’t. And the price was—high.”
I raise my head. Standing in a group across from me are the ladies of the Blighted King’s court
. Lady Zekyria stares at me, her face pale. Her gown is torn and scorched. But light red, closer to pink, and white.
For her dead child.
“Yes.”
The Fool’s whisper is pitiful. He looks up at me, pain in his eyes.
“One thousand unborn souls. For you sixty. Isn’t that—that—”
His remaining eyelid flickers. His other eye strays before snapping back on me. He’s dying.
“A funny joke, Tom. A terrible joke.”
“But it’s over, Fool. It’s over and done.”
“No.”
The Fool reaches up. His hand—flakes away at the touch. But he looks me in the eye.
“Ten thousand. He wants an army this time. An army. He’d sacrifice so many for any edge. And if ten thousand doesn’t work, he’ll sacrifice a hundred thousand. To kill Demons. To kill people just like you and me.”
I stare at him. Of course. I can’t be surprised. It makes sense, in the horrible way of this world. I’m almost…numb? But the Fool cares. He cares so much, and the pain in his eyes—he whispers his last words to me.
“I cannot stop him. I couldn’t end it. Or save her. But you can. Protect her. Take her away.”
I look up and see Erille. She stares at me. Me, the man who killed her beloved Fool. He grasps my arm.
“Please. I wished—”
I wait for the rest. It never comes. The Fool’s hand grips my arm, tight, stiff. He doesn’t let go. Even in death.
—-
The foolish clown sits in the broken courtyard as the people gather on the balconies, flood through the gates. Royals, knights and mages and dignitaries, common folk and people from another world. He weeps, holding the body of the Fool in his hands.
No one else sheds a tear. No one. They wipe them away, hiding them, like shame. The [Princess] has to hide them. But the clown wears his tears on his face. And then, his sobs turn into laughter.
He laughs at them, at him, at this broken world. And he holds the broken Fool in his body, the hero who tried to put an end to a bad joke.
It should be raining. But the night is cool and still. Yet there is liquid of a kind. Blood flows through the courtyard, pooling. It reflects poorly, but someone watches in that crimson mirror. The devil himself laughs and bows to the audience only he can see. His voice can only be heard by the clown.
“Next time, dear Tom. Next time. They’ll be coming, the lost and afraid. From our world.”
He points, mockingly, to the Blighted King, whose eyes are on the clown, the [Hero] of the day. He laughs, as the clown levels up. As a [Clown] and [Hero] both.
“You can’t escape it. Not this. And now, more will come. More, to dance and laugh along with this joke. Can you stop it? You can’t. But I can. And I’ll be with you, each step of the way. Whenever you call—and when you don’t.”
He bows and fades. But his voice remains, echoing, reminding the clown of all he lost. And promising him, telling him of the future.
“I’ll be waiting.”
4.33
It was said that of the five continents, Terandria was the wealthiest, the safest, and the most advanced place to live in the entire world. And that was true. But only if you averaged things out.
Wealthiest? Terandria might be second place to Baleros, where the riches of the jungle and the companies turned blood into gold, or third if you debated the relative size of Izril and compared the three populations of Gnoll, Drake, and Humans to the smaller Terandrian continent. However, it was certainly a rich place, and fewer people died for its wealth.
As for advanced—in magic and technology, Terandria boasted the sole gathering of Dwarf-kind, and thus exported steel and metals far stronger than that. And its strong ties to Wistram meant that mages frequented its shores. However…one could say the same of Baleros and Rhir, whose militaries boasted the most ancient artifacts and highest-level craftspeople.
But safest. Yes, Terandria could call itself safe. Wars were endemic to this world and Terandria had its fair share. But in Terandria, there were rules. Wars were begun and ended with signed declarations, laws against slaughtering civilians and non-combatants were enforced by all nations. And since the populations of each nation were largely Human, they seldom wiped each other out.
It was a subject of mockery in other countries across the world. Terandrians were cowards, it was said. The fat, bickering rulers of each nation would roll over when poked with an ink-stained quill. And perhaps it was true that Terandria had grown too political, that it fought with words and poisoned drinks more than actual soldiers and armies. Perhaps they had grown soft.
But Lyonette missed her home, all the same. Sometimes. She remembered why she hated it, but she also remembered that she had never seen a dead body before leaving. Not once. She was too delicate as a [Princess] to look upon a poisoned uncle’s face, or go to the funeral of an esteemed [Knight]. And death didn’t intrude in her old life. Terandria was safe. Genteel.
On Izril, even Gold-rank adventurers could die. Good, innocent Gnolls could die. Brunkr, someone Lyonette had feared, someone she’d barely known, but begun to like—could die without any reason. And his killer would get away.
People died on Izril. And when they did, they tore holes out of Lyonette’s heart.
—-
Morning. Lyonette woke up and felt like the sky had fallen. She stared up at the ceiling of her room dully, too tired to get up and start her usual routine. What was the point?
She only moved when she noticed two things. First, was that Ryoka was gone. Yes, she remembered. But it was still another empty space where it should have been filled.
The second thing was that Mrsha was missing. That made Lyonette sit up. She dressed herself quickly and hurried downstairs. She found Mrsha in the common room to her intense relief.
The little Gnoll was lying on the ground in a corner, by the patched-up wall. She was a little ball of white fur, lolling on the ground. Listlessly. Mrsha stared blankly at a wall.
“Mrsha?”
The Gnoll’s short tail wasn’t wagging like usual. She didn’t respond when Lyonette came over. Lyonette tried to gather her up into her arms, but a sense in her head stopped her. She paused as a huge bee crawled onto Mrsha’s head and fanned its wings gently.
“Apista, shoo.”
Lyonette gently made the bee get off Mrsha by offering it her arm. The bee obligingly crawled onto Lyonette’s head; it wasn’t pleasant, feeling its sharp little legs crawling on her skin, but Lyonette put up with it. She bent and tried to pick up Mrsha.
“Come on Mrsha, don’t lie there.”
The Gnoll resisted. Passively. She was limp as a rag, and heavy. Lyonette stopped trying to pick her up and tried a different tack.
“I know you’re sad, Mrsha. I am too. But…I bet you’re hungry. You should eat.”
Mrsha didn’t respond. Lyonette crooned to her, edging over and stroking the back of Mrsha’s head.
“I know you like honey. Why don’t you have some with eggs? And Erin made a pizza two days ago. And she made lasagna last week. What if you had a bit of all that? With some sweet juice? Milk?”
The Gnoll cub’s tail twitched. It began to wag ever so slightly. Lyonette kept encouraging her. In the end, Mrsha got up and padded over to a table. She sat there, staring at the wood, while Lyonette hurried into the kitchen. Apista flew onto the table and twitched her antennas to keep Mrsha company.
Breakfast was a thin slice of lasagna, half a slice of pizza, a fried egg drizzled with a spot of honey, and hot milk. The last of the milk, in fact. It was well used. Mrsha ate her breakfast slowly, but with a sense of growing…peace? Calm? Perhaps the word was relief. A temporary relief from sorrow. Yes, that was it.
Tending to Mrsha helped Lyonette as well. She was able to eat a bit herself—just a slice of the odd ‘pizza’ that Erin was so fond of making. It certainly was easy to eat. And so she was present when Drassi walked in.
“Lyonette, I’m so sorry.”
Tha
t was the first thing the female Drake said. She’d heard, of course. Not all of it, but enough. And she’d gotten all the big parts. Regrika Blackpaw, the traitor. Her murder of Brunkr and then the death of a Gold-rank adventurer. In Erin’s inn. And all this right before the Goblin Lord’s army marched by the city.
“It was terrifying. All of the Watch was on the walls and we were ordered to stay indoors, but we were all out on the streets of course. I kept thinking, ‘what about Erin and all the people in The Wandering Inn’? But then I heard you’d all fled to Celum, so I was relieved. But oh, it’s too cruel. And after Brunkr was—”
Lyonette put a hand over Drassi’s mouth and the Drake shut up. Both [Barmaids] looked at Mrsha, who’d paused in eating her egg. Gnoll hearing. Drassi coughed guiltily.
“I want to help. You should stay with Mrsha, you really should. Ishkr’s…not feeling well. I don’t think he’ll be in. But I’m sure I can handle whatever’s needed myself!”
“That’s fine. Thank you. I don’t think we’ll have many guests. Can you help me get ready? We have…the Horns of Hammerad and Halfseekers are still here. And Zel. And Erin. I bet she’ll be down soon.”
Drassi paused. She glanced towards the door and then at Lyonette.
“Erin? I saw her outside just a minute ago.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she was pulling arrows out of the dirt. The ones the Goblins shot. And she had a hammer.”
“A—”
Something went crack by one of the windows. Everyone jumped. Lyonette turned, and saw one of the glass windows, open to let the sunlight in. Someone was hitting it. With…a hammer?
“Erin!”
When Lyonette raced outside she found Erin, a carpenter’s claw hammer in hand, smashing it repeatedly on the glass window. Erin stopped and turned to Lyonette.
“Morning, Lyonette.”
“Uh—good morning. What are you doing?”
Erin stared at Lyonette. She didn’t look like she’d gotten much sleep. Her eyes were bloodshot and she was unsteady on her feet. She raised the hammer.
