by Adam Vine
I dreamt I was a very old man, older than time itself, sitting upon a throne made of skulls, where I slept and waited, sharpening my long, murderous fingernails to a razor’s edge.
I dreamt that my life wasn’t mine at all, but someone else’s, a story being whispered in my ear by the Crown, which had been sitting so long and heavy upon my head it had fused with my flesh and become part of me. Warriors would come to slay me, not knowing I was only the shell through which the Crown acted, that I could not control my own body, that I could only wait, and watch, and scream inside the silent prison of my mind with a thousand other nameless voices.
Inevitably, I would lure those brave warriors in until they came just close enough, then my fingernails would plunge through their breastplates, chain mail, flesh, bone, and all, driving straight into their still-beating hearts, and those who came to slay me would die. Then I – or rather, the Crown – would absorb their memories, and I would become someone else. I would assume the voice of the last warrior who had died.
When I awoke in my chambers, I was myself again. But this dream came to me so often that part of me started to believe it was reality, that I truly was a dead man sitting on that old chair, and my life in the royal palace in Ito was the dream, and always had been; that I’d never been a coffin maker’s son.
***
One night, she tried to take the Crown from me.
I stirred from my dream of being the Lich to find Pia’s fingers crawling along the pale edges of my scalp. I slapped her hands away, screaming, “What are you doing?”
“You n-n-never t-take it off,” Pia said, through stutter-stop sobs. “Look what it’s done to you. To us. Please. I want you to take it off, this once.”
My voice, magnified by the Crown, thundered so loud it shook the palace to its foundation. “Why should I take it off? I saved the Empire. It chose me! Why should you have it?”
Pia raised her hands to her face as though I would strike her. “I d-don’t want it, my love. It’s just that…” My queen hesitated. “I t-tried to take it off twice before, while you were s-sleeping, and couldn’t. I thought there might be a latch, but… how do you take it off? Your forehead has grown so white. It stinks. I tried to wash it, but… why do you never pray? You neglect the gods. You never let me read to you anymore. I’m worried sick about you.”
I do not know if it was I, or the Crown, who said, “If I take it off, we lose everything. Would you sacrifice our People to save this stinking, little marriage, you selfish whore?”
Pia fell to her knees, weeping and grasping my hand like it was her last shred of life. “My love, do you not see? It’s called the Crown of Whispers because it lies.”
She was a benevolent queen, an adoring wife, and of far greater intelligence than I ever was. Pia saw the writing on the wall before it was written.
***
I was at court when they came for me. Twenty men of my own household guard surrounded me at spear point, led by Gahri, my Master-At-Arms. Pia wasn’t there.
“You, the King, stand convicted of high treason, as well as blasphemy, fraud, adultery, and unholy sodomy. Father Sun, Mother Moon, their respective churches, and the patriarchs of all the Old Families support these charges. The queen, Lady Pia of the Papyrus House has testified in a secret tribunal that you are mad, and that you have willingly set the Empire of the Sun and Moon on a course toward poverty and destruction. Should you sign this confession and admit your crimes, you will be stripped of all wealth and titles, but allowed to spend your life in exile, in the New Provinces. Should you resist, or deny these charges, you will be executed by burning at dawn tomorrow, as your own laws have decreed to be the punishment for treason.”
Gahri offered me the parchment to sign. I took it in my hands, ready to tear it in two and then kill them all when I felt someone’s hot breath on my neck. A familiar voice whispered over my shoulder.
“Don’t be a fool,” my friend San, the merchant said. “Don’t throw your life away. Sign it.”
He felt me move and tried to imprison me with magic, but I was always the better sorcerer. I threw Ball Lightning at his Cage of Ice and impaled San’s heart with his own dagger as he fried in a pool of his own conjured water, then rained fire and ice down upon my would-be captors’ heads, magical traps I’d set ages before in case of such a betrayal.
They burned and froze and shattered and died, all but Gahri, who dodged my attacks nimbly and rushed me with his long axe. The silver-tipped polearm slashed toward me and I remembered the Lich’s black fingernails from my dreams, punching like spike traps to skewer the brave warriors who came to slay me. I slid to Gahri’s left and bashed his skull in with mine, using the Crown of Whispers to turn his head into crimson pulp.
Then, I ran.
***
And now, brave warrior, you know the story of my fall, of how the unlikely ruler of the greatest Empire known to history lost everything, betrayed by the people he trusted most. You know the rest of my story.
I fled into the mountains and became the Lich. I fled the royal palace to the river, then to the Iga Mountains, then across the Izo Pass and into the heights, to the Eye of the Sea, and the only place I knew I could be alone, the Castle-Under-The-Mountain. I set traps. I sent out spies, bugs and worms and crows, beasts I could easily control with the Crown’s magnetic thrum. I began to change. The Crown changed me. I called out to my bastard children in their dreams. They came to me and became my wights.
I find myself rather exhausted by all this glorious retelling, and do not have the strength to speak much longer. Please, just one more step. Ah, yes. That’s close enough.
See? I am old and weak as rotten paper. See my lolling head. I can barely hold the Crown aloft. My magic is naught but barest illusion, no match for your gods-given courage. You will take the Crown of Whispers for yourself, and return to your Empire, a hero. They will call you “The Farmer King,” the boy who killed the Lich, who rose from nothing to save an empire. You will succeed where I failed.
But before you do, a warning.
To be the hero, you must slay the Lich. But to slay the Lich is to slay yourself, for in every man a Lich lies waiting. All that must happen for the Lich to be born is the man must lose everything, and behold! The warrior becomes what he set out to so gallantly kill, as I once did, as you soon will.
So, what are you waiting for, my brave and valiant warrior? Take pity on my bitter, tortured soul. Put me out of my misery. Come nice and close, and strike me down.
Have at me.
***
They called me the Farmer King.
I was the hero who slew the Lich and returned the Crown of Whispers to the Empire. The man of the people who rose to become emperor, only to fall again to a conspirator’s blade. The cursed one. The creature of darkness, doomed to wander these shadowed halls for years uncounted. But you already know all this, don’t you?
Please, do come a bit closer.
First published in the Ancient Enemies anthology from Bloodlines Press.
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