by Rachel Aaron
James had nothing else he could say. Fortunately, Flameboyant seemed more than eager to fill the awkward silence.
"Well," the elf said cheerfully, "if you guys are done throwing each other around, I'm going to try to catch some sleep. All that casting and almost dying on an empty stomach wore me out."
"We should all sleep," agreed Ar'Bati. "Evening is already here, and it sounds as though Captain Malakai means to march at dawn. There's a good chance we'll remain imprisoned and unable to act, but we should still ready ourselves for battle. Just in case."
With that, the warrior grabbed the top bunk and swung himself up. Still silent, James slipped into the hard bed on the bottom and stared at the tick marks carved into the stone wall beside him, wondering if it was too late. For what, he didn't even know. There didn't seem to be a good outcome to any of this. Whoever won this war, lives would be lost, the city would be weakened, and relations between players and the people of Bastion would get even worse. No matter what Ar'Bati said, James couldn't help but feel that he'd let a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip through his fingers in the council room. There had to have been something he could say, some argument he could make to convince the king--or apparently more importantly, Raffestain--that the players were not their enemies. That they needed each other.
Restless and angry, he rolled over in the dark, repeating the conversations in his mind to try to figure out what he could have done better, how he could fix this. No matter which way he looked at it, though, all he saw was betrayal.
This led his brain to start rehashing every time he'd done Tina wrong, and boy, were there a lot. Other than those few happy months when she'd been leveling Roxxy and they'd played FFO together as though it were the only thing in the world, James couldn't actually remember a time when they hadn't been at odds. He tried to focus on the happy memories, like their first run through Red Canyon back when Roxxy had been two levels too low and SilentBlayde could still only communicate via the in-game translator. It had been one of the worst dungeons James had ever suffered through, but he still remembered it fondly because it was one of the only times he could recall Tina being happy. Every time they wiped, she'd thanked him over and over again for staying in and healing them even though he didn't need the loot. It had made James feel like a hero, like a good brother.
That would be the only time. As he'd told Fangs, Tina hadn't gotten her low opinion of him from nowhere. Outside of FFO, all of his memories were of him treating her like trash, like how he'd selfishly squandered all of their family's money on his failed degree or the year he'd guilted their parents into taking their whole family out of state to watch his first national competition on her tenth birthday. He even stole a slice of her cake before they lit the candles because he'd been hungry and he'd felt that he'd earned it since he won his match.
Now, of course, he knew that he'd been a horrible, spoiled little brat. But by the time he'd gotten smacked around enough by life to wake up and realize the damage he was doing, it was too late. Even his apologies were just more sticks on the fire because he'd broken faith with Tina too many times for words to mean anything. He didn't know how to make her see that he was different now. He'd never gotten up the courage to tell her about the horrible event that had started the spiral that led to him flunking out of college.
He'd tried to. If there was anyone who deserved an explanation for his behavior during that terrible, terrible summer, it was Tina. But every time he tried to talk to her about it, he ended up saying something that screwed things up even more. It was all just so broken, and now he was doing it again. It didn't matter that it had been for a good reason. He'd thrown Tina to the wolves to save himself in this world just like he had back home. How could Ar'Bati say he was a hero? He couldn't even do right by the one person who most deserved it.
On and on it went. His body was exhausted from his wounds and all the mana he'd spent, but his brain just wouldn't shut up. He had no idea how long he lay awake in the dark, bashing himself bloody on a lifetime of wrongs. It must have been hours, because when he heard the scrape of the cellblock door opening, his balled-up body was too stiff to jump. By the time he managed to unwind enough to stand up, the person was already coming down the hall.
James's ears twitched. Whoever was coming, they didn't clink as a guard would. It was very dark in the cellblock, but his jubatus eyes could still pick out the strangely giant shape of a man in a cloak feeling his way down the hall. He stopped when he reached James's cell and fumbled in the dark to fit keys into the lock. When he saw James staring, he lifted a finger to his lips. James nodded and said nothing then looked nervously over his shoulder at Ar'Bati as the king--for there was no one else the eight-foot-tall stranger could be--unlocked the cell and stood back, making room for James to dart through the open iron door.
When he was in the hall, the king lifted his finger to his lips again then motioned for James to follow him. James nodded silently and obeyed, padding down the stone hall behind him, which was an experience. Now that he was no longer kneeling, he was finally realizing just how big the holy king of Bastion was. Even out of his armor, he was bigger than Roxxy, so tall that he had to hunch over to keep his cloaked head from banging on the high ceiling. It struck him as ludicrous that a living human could be so large, but the king with him now was the same size he'd been back when FFO was a game. Malakai was oversized as well, which led James to think the towering stature was a legacy of being a raid boss.
Either way, King Gregory moved very quietly for a giant. His leather shoes made no sound at all as he led James past the empty prison cells, up the stairs, and into the guard room, which was the only way in or out of the dungeon area. There were no guards inside, though, just a table with a lantern on it and some chairs in an empty, windowless stone room.
"Sit," the king said, taking a seat on a sturdy oak stool.
James obeyed at once, sitting down across from the king and placing his hands on the table where the monarch could see them. King Gregory smiled and reached into the saddle-bag-sized leather satchel he carried under his enormous cloak to pull out two jugs of wine and a stack of something that looked like playing cards. He also pulled out a silver wine cup, which looked comically small in his giant hands. He set it carefully on the table and filled it from the jug, pouring the wine with extreme slowness before sliding the cup across the table to James.
"Please."
James smiled nervously and took a sip. He was no expert on wine--he mostly stuck to beer and tequila--so he had no idea if it was good or not. Honestly, he found the taste unpleasantly sour, but he made a show of enjoying it nonetheless, savoring his mouthful before placing the cup down to get to business.
"Your Majesty--"
"Just Gregory, please," the king said, waving down at the plain white shirt he wore below his cloak. "I get 'your majesty-ed' enough upstairs."
"Gregory, then," James said nervously. "Thank you for the wine and for coming. I really appreciate it."
"I appreciate the opportunity to have a real conversation with a player," the king said, giving him a smile. "Your kind talked to me day and night during the Nightmare, but I never got to talk back, at least not in my own words." He pushed the stack of playing cards he'd brought across the table. "I was hoping you could show me how to play this Pokémon game I've heard so much about. After eighty years, I'm dreadfully curious."
That request was so out of left field, James didn't know if he should laugh or panic. He covered his shock by reaching for the card deck. The gold-embossed cards were a royally nice version of the same four-suite set used in the FFO Carnival mini-games. They weren't that different from standard playing card decks back home, which unfortunately made them utterly unsuitable for the king's request.
"I'm sorry, but these aren't Pokémon cards," James said. When the king's face fell, he scrambled to add, "but I can use them to teach you poker. Would that be okay?"
"Yes, please," Gregory said with renewed enthusiasm. "Can you show me how
to 'hold 'em' as they do in Texas?"
James swallowed a snort before it looked like he was laughing at the king. "I can try. We'll need something to wager, though."
The king promptly dumped out his coin purse on the table. James split the pile, making sure that His Majesty's stack was larger than his own, and started dealing. After several hands, the king started memorizing the combinations of what beat what. Since James was unsure of what Bastion's monarch really wanted, he kept the conversation to the game and waited. When no questions of real substance emerged after half an hour, though, James decided it was time to press.
"Did you come down here just to play cards with me, or is there something else you'd like to talk about?"
Gregory shuffled the playing cards in his enormous hands nervously, then he put them down with a sigh. "I'm not trying to mislead you," he said carefully. "I just thought a game would break the ice. You players always seemed obsessed with them, even referring to yourselves as 'gamers.' I thought it would get us started on the right foot."
James boggled at that for a moment. "But... you're the king," he said at last. "Any foot you choose is the right one."
"Not always," Gregory said quietly, tilting his giant head to study James in the lamplight. "But since you ask, there is something I must know. Why did you risk your life to bring us news of the undead?"
"Because if I didn't, all of Bastion would fall," James replied.
"But you're not a citizen," the king pressed. "You're not even from this world. Why would you put yourself in such danger to save us?"
"Well," James said thoughtfully, "there's the obvious motive of self-preservation. I'm stuck in this world, too, now, and I'd rather not become an undead slave to the Once King. On a personal level, though, I think it's because I'd rather die doing the right thing than run away and let the world burn just to save my own hide. I've been a failure long enough in my world to know that it's no way to live, and since I've gotten a chance to start over again here, I thought I'd try to get it right this time."
James thought that was a very good answer. In hindsight, he knew he'd thrown himself through that stained-glass window for the same reason he'd jumped into that pit with Gore Maul: because it was the only way he could keep living with himself. But the king just looked confused.
"But you are level eighty, are you not?" Gregory said. "I learned during the Nightmare that that was the greatest accomplishment players could achieve. How could one such as you consider himself a failure?"
James batted self-consciously at one of his tufted ears. "Actually, being level eighty isn't something people in my world care about if they don't play Forever Fantasy Online. Back home, I'm just a college dropout who's buried in debt. I'm kinda the shame of my family."
"I can sympathize with that feeling," the king said sadly. "I am well aware that, outside of this castle, I am known far and wide as 'The Buffoon King.'"
"I think it's meant affectionately," James said quickly, but the king gave him a cutting look.
"I'm not actually a fool," he said hotly, then his face fell. "But I am unqualified to rule. I was the third son. No one thought that I would ever take the throne, especially not me. But then my father and brothers died in the Forgiven War, and the crown landed on my head. I tried to be a good king, but everything I touched ended up in disaster. My advisers always had to step in and fix my messes. Sometimes, I thought it would be better for everyone to just shorten the process and just let them handle things from the start, but I wasn't willing to give up on my responsibilities just yet. I thought I was starting to make a little progress when the Nightmare hit. After that, well, everything just became impossible. I'm lucky they let me enter the council chamber as I am now."
James frowned. That attitude explained why the king let Raffestain and the others treat him like a child, but he still didn't understand. "Why would the Nightmare make it impossible for you to be king?"
The king stared at him as if he were insane. "How can you ask that?" He spread his giant arms. "Look at me. I'm a monster! The Nightmare filled me with so much strength that I break everything I touch. It wasn't so bad when I was stuck in the throne room, unable to do anything except repeat the same lines over and over to players, but now I have to actually live around other people like this, and I just can't. I can kill anyone less than level eighty with a careless gesture, and I have. The whole castle is terrified of me, and rightly so. I'm a nightmare."
Gregory clenched his giant fists on the table. "If I had an heir, I'd abdicate at once. The only reason I'm still king is because someone has to wield the Dawnblade and control the Bastion. But I can't rule like this, not that I was any good at it, anyway." He shook his head firmly. "No, it's better for everyone if I keep to my rooms and stay out of my advisers' way. It's taken me all the days since the Nightmare ended just to learn how to pick up a wine jug without crushing it. How can a man like me possibly be Bastion's king? It's absurd. My country's better off without me."
The king's words were heartbreakingly sad, but they filled James with hope. If King Gregory had spent all the time since the Nightmare hiding in his rooms while he learned to deal with the strength that came from being a five-skull raid boss, then maybe he didn't know about the atrocities his knights were committing in the city. That would resolve the paradox of how a famously good man--and after that confession, James was certain the king sitting in front of him was a good man--could be behind Malakai's rampage. Maybe he wasn't out of chances to save Tina yet.
Terrified excitement rose in James's stomach as he leaned forward, bringing his hands down on the table with a thunk. "I disagree with all of that."
Gregory's head shot up at the vehemence in his voice, but James wasn't finished. "You may not be the most experienced king," he said, "but there is no mistake in judgment you could possibly make that would be worse than the colossal disaster Captain Malakai is leading Bastion into at this very moment."
"What do you mean?" Gregory demanded, his face showing his confusion. "Malakai has been the captain of the Royal Knights since my father's reign. He is passionate, certainly, but he's an honorable and loyal man who is more than qualified to lead our armies to victory."
"If you'd seen what he was actually doing out there in your name, you wouldn't say that," James said, picking his words carefully. "What has he told you about my sister, Tina?"
"That's she's what we've feared most," the king said quietly, staring at his cards so he wouldn't have to look at James. "A top-tier raider in charge of a large, functional guild that seems well supplied and well coordinated. We still don't know how she managed to get into the city when all player portal magic was supposed to be warded off, but she's been both destructive and unstoppable since her arrival. Her soldiers have killed an enormous number of our patrols, and her raid slaughtered Malakai's player containment camp to a man before the castle garrison could sally forth. She even killed Malakai herself. It's a miracle the Clerics were able to get there in time to revive him. If they'd been even a minute slower, it would have been too late.
"Now they tell me she's gathered all the toughest player factions into an army on the island of Dawn's Hope. Thankfully, all of the trainers made it out alive, but my prayers that she would pass through Bastion and leave us be have not been granted. There's no reason she would take over one of the last functional crafting facilities in the city unless she was readying for an attack. Malakai believes she intends to sack the castle and take my crown. That's why I turned on the Bastion at his request and why I've given him command of the army. Even I know that no one gains power faster than players. Malakai says the only way to stop her is to strike first and destroy her before she destroys us, and I believe him."
James sat quietly while the king talked. Gregory must have been making those same arguments to himself for some time, because the words spilled out of him in a swift, practiced torrent. When he finally fell silent, James put his hands flat on the table with a sigh.
"I can see why you're s
cared of her," he said gently. "Things do look pretty bad from your side. In hindsight, though, I think I asked the wrong question. I'd like to try again, if that's all right."
When the king nodded, James said, "Who do you think Tina is?"
Again, Gregory's eyes slid down to lock on the table, and James smiled. "I won't be offended if you have a poor opinion of her," he promised. "I just need to know your honest thoughts so I can help you deal with her."
The king's head snapped back up. "You would help me against your own blood?"
"I want to stop a war," James said firmly. "That's the best way to help everyone, especially my sister. So please, tell me what you think."
Gregory frowned, drumming his huge hands on the table. "Honestly?" he said at last. "I think she's a monster. I know how that sounds coming from, you know..." He waved his hands at his giant form. "But you can't deny she's like something out of a Hallow's Eve tale. She appeared from nowhere with an unbeatable army and immediately started killing my knights, who were already sacrificing themselves trying to save the people of Bastion from the players who were running amok. She attacks without provocation, kills indiscriminately, and takes whatever she wants. Malakai says she's even joined forces with the infamous Red Sands murderers who were the single greatest cause of death in the city before she came. That she would accept such people into her company proves her villainy." The king shook his head. "I'm sorry to speak ill of your kin, James, but you have been honest with me, and so I must be honest with you. Your sister is a terror, and I feel that we are right to fear her."
As unsurprising as Gregory's terrible opinion of Tina was, hearing it still made James wince. "Thank you for being honest. I understand why you see things that way, but there's an important point on which you are misinformed. One that changes the whole situation."
"What's that?"
James looked him in the eye. "Tina did not do any of these things without provocation."
