The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

  “No, it’s definitely empty,” James said, looking back at the giant, silent, ghostfire-lit hall they’d come from. “Maybe someone made it out and dropped it while they were fleeing?”

  That didn’t seem likely, but there was no other explanation. Soul binding didn’t break unless the owner died—or, in Tina’s case, completely changed bodies. James didn’t know who’d owned this dagger before, but their magic was still tied to it tightly, which meant he couldn’t use it. Sighing at the waste, James tucked the dagger into his belt anyway and leaned on the wall below the last torch to try to come up with a plan. He was scowling up at the ghostfire flickering above his head when he realized the flame was bending in the wrong direction.

  “Wait a moment,” he said, stepping back.

  The hallway they’d followed to get here had been just as still and quiet as everywhere else in the seemingly empty fortress. There were no windows this deep inside the mountain, which meant the airflow was nonexistent, but the last ghostfire torch next to Sanguilar’s sealed doors was bending and fluttering sharply to the left. Bracing against the unnatural cold, James reached his hand up beside the flame, smiling when, sure enough, he felt a stiff breeze on his fur.

  “Maybe this isn’t a dead end after all,” he said, walking down the wall with his hand raised to follow the breeze upwind. “The air is moving fast here, which means there’s gotta be….ah ha!”

  He stopped short as his fingers slid around a lip of stone. In the dark, it had just looked like another shadow, but now that he was touching it, James saw that it was actually a hidden doorway, the source of the fresh air. Inside, James found a spiral stairwell going up. It was barely big enough for them to climb single file, but James could see the faint blue flicker of another ghostfire torch just around the first bend, and his face broke into a smile.

  “Looks like our invitation still stands.”

  Putting up their weapons, the two started warily up the spiral. Unlike the stairwells below, which had been broad and huge enough for an entire raid to climb, this stair was tight and incredibly steep, going up relentlessly toward the mountain’s peak. After what had to have been several hundred revolutions, James was dizzy and out of breath. He wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest, but he didn’t. He went faster instead, because the torches on the walls were getting brighter.

  “We must be…getting near…the source,” he huffed, nodding at the furiously burning ghostfire. “The Great Pyre is at the very…top of the mountain, and the Once King’s throne is…directly beneath it. Can’t be…much farther.”

  The panted words were barely out of his mouth when the tight spiral they’d been following suddenly ended, and they emerged from yet another hidden door into a richly decorated hallway. Its floor was carpeted in thick, rich black lined with silver trim, while the soaring walls were covered in richly colored tapestries depicting events and images James had never seen before. One showed a host of winged elves flying toward the sun with their hands raised in prayer. Another showed what was clearly the same group of elves, except now their backs bore only blackened stumps as they descended, weeping, into a cave.

  “This is incredible,” James said, moving in for a closer look. The embroidered images were so detailed they looked almost like paintings. Each tapestry was packed with long, interconnected sequences that told a story, and the hallway was packed with them.

  “There have to be hundreds,” James said, looking up and down the long corridor. “I wish we had more time to stay and look.”

  That was usually Ar’Bati’s cue to remind him that they did not, in fact, have time, but when James looked over at his brother, the warrior was standing in front of a tapestry a few feet down the hall, his hand hovering over it as if he were dying to touch the gleaming threads but didn’t dare.

  Curious, James walked over. Unlike the others, this tapestry was a portrait, a larger-than-life image of a staggeringly handsome jubatus warrior. He wore armor made from Bird scales, and his fur had a distinct reddish hue to it that James had never seen before.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The first lord of the Savanna,” Ar’Bati said reverently. “Father of all our kind. He lived so long ago that no art of him remains, but this image matches his description in the ballads exactly.” He looked back down the hall. “I wonder if there are more.”

  James wanted to know, too, but the ghostfire was flaring in the sconces on the walls, reminding James just whom they were keeping waiting.

  “We have to go,” he whispered, grabbing his brother’s arm.

  Fangs nodded, letting James drag him away from the picture of their shared ancestor.

  They walked as quickly as they could without running, their footsteps silent on the thick carpet. Eventually, the tapestry hall ended at a much grander thoroughfare James recognized from the game. It was the Royal Hall, the path that led to the throne room where the first phase of the Once King’s fight took place. If they managed to get the Once King down to two-thirds health, he’d blast through the ceiling and open a stairway to the top of the mountain for phases two and three. Not that anyone had ever seen phase three, since it started with the Million Damage Blast.

  That memory did not make James feel more at ease. He led the way through the cavernous Royal Hall in silence, following the ghostfire breadcrumb trail to the end, where two tall doors made from richly polished wood were carved in relief to resemble a pair of glorious feathery wings, one on each door. At the bottom of the doors was a silver disk polished to a mirror gleam. There was clearly supposed to be a matching golden disk at the top, but it had been gouged out long ago, leaving only scraps of gold foil between huge, old claw marks.

  “I don’t understand,” Fangs said, pointing at the destroyed disk. “That one is clearly the Sun, but what of the second? Casting the Sun in silver is sacrilege. It is only ever represented in gold. Even the Once King should know better than to disrespect a god.”

  James didn’t know about that, but the silver disk had caught his eye as well. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be two suns,” he said, running his finger over the mirror-bright metal. “I think it’s the Moon.” He looked over his shoulder at Ar’Bati. “On Earth, we frequently use silver or a silver crescent to represent the moon and its phases. Have you ever seen an image like this before?”

  “Never,” Fangs said, making a ward against evil with his fingers as he stared at the clawed sunburst. “But I wouldn’t be surprised by anything in this place. It’s clear that the Once King has forsaken all that is good and warm.”

  “I’m still not convinced it’s that simple,” James said, shaking his head. “The Moon was clearly just as important as the Sun in the theology at some point, but now no one seems to remember it ever existed, and I find that highly suspicious. Why are there still prayers to the Moon for crafting but nothing about it in any of the histories? And if it really was here once, where did it go?”

  “I don’t know,” Fangs said, clearly uncomfortable with all this blasphemy. “Why does it matter? The Once King is firstborn of the Sun. What should he care of the Moon even if it did exist?”

  James had no answer for that. He had no answers for anything, just hunches and theories that didn’t add up. That was why they’d come here—to find out the truth—so he screwed up his courage and reached out to give the huge doors a push, jumping back in surprise when they swung open without a sound, revealing a three-story-tall room of black stone with a domed roof.

  Though it was almost at the top of the mountain, the room had no windows or skylights. All the light came from a massive ghostfire chandelier that hung from the center of the dome like a crown. And seated below it on a massive throne made from twisting Eclipsed Steel was the Once King.

  James stepped back again, his whole body trembling. The throne room was beautiful in a cold, dark, elegant way. It had been like that even back in the game, but seeing it now, James knew instinctively that he was looking at a shadow of what had once been glory on a
scale no mortal could comprehend. Everything about it—the cursed steel, the blistered walls, the blackened metal of the chandelier—looked like what was left after a fire. There was no soot or ash, nothing dirty or out of place, but the feeling of ruin and loss hung in the air like smoke, making his eyes tear up as he looked upon the winged elf seated at its center, the most ruined of it all.

  “Welcome,” the Once King said, his deep voice scaled down from what it had been on the battlefield but still booming in the smaller space of his throne room.

  Unsure what to say, James lowered his head, trying not to stare and failing miserably. Like everything here, the Once King looked almost exactly as he had in the game except for several small but critical details. He was still dressed from the neck down in his Eclipsed Steel armor, but his helmet was gone. In its place, he wore a simple crown of corrupted sun steel, leaving his white-blond hair free to tumble elegantly behind his long, pointed ears. His sheathed sword rested near his right hand, leaned up against the side of his throne next to a four-foot-tall stack of ancient books that James remembered from the game. Back then, the books had just been objects, uninteractable and unreadable. Now, though, they were open, their pages so well read they were falling apart. James was trying to figure out if they were written in Old Elven when the king spoke again.

  “Enter and present yourselves,” the Once King commanded, his smooth voice vibrating through James’s very bones. “We run short on time to waste.”

  Exchanging a nervous look, James and Ar’Bati strode across the threshold into the home of FFO’s only undefeated raid boss. When they reached the foot of the dais, James knelt and bowed his head low. Technically, as the older son, Fangs should have taken the lead, but his brother was staring at the world’s oldest enemy like he didn’t know if he should go for the throat or the eyes, so James decided to break decorum before the Once King broke them both.

  “First of all kings,” he said, as nobly as he could. “I am James of Claw Born, second son of Lord Rends Iron Hides. Beside me is Fangs in the Grass, heir of the Claw Born and Ar’Bati of the Four Clans. Thank you for allowing us into your presence.”

  “I acknowledge you,” the Once King said, his cold, perfect face revealing no emotion good or ill. “Rise, sons of Claw Born. Your eyes and words are permitted to reach me.”

  James stood up, keeping his body tight to hide how badly his knees were shaking. This was it. The next words out of his mouth might save or doom everyone, starting with Fangs and himself. But while he had so many questions they were burning a hole in his brain, now that he was actually here, James realized he had no idea where to begin. How did you start a conversation with the first born of all creation? He was still scrambling for an opener that wouldn’t make this sound like an interrogation when the Once King saved him the trouble.

  “You have come to my court as the princes of the Savanna,” the ancient elf said formally. “It is only fitting, then, that we speak first of matters of the state.” With a wave of his hand, the Once King conjured a floating disk of ghostfire. As it moved and flickered, James realized he was looking at a top-down view of the military camp the Roughnecks and the Order had set up at the valley entrance. The image was so clear he could actually make out individuals moving between the tents, particularly the enormous form of Commander Garrond. He was still wincing at how good the Once King’s scrying abilities were, and all the horrific implications of that, when the king closed his hand, and the image vanished.

  “You have come to my lands with an army to siege my castle and two player raids intent on assassinating me,” the Once King said scornfully. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”

  The force of the king’s displeasure hit him like a punch. James’s instincts screamed in reply, demanding that he throw himself on the ground and beg forgiveness. At this point, though, James was very used to much bigger powers being angry at him, and he stuck to his guns.

  “What else did you expect?” he demanded, proud that his voice only shook a little. “You have declared yourself the enemy of all life. Your armies sacked Bastion unprovoked and even now pursue our king into the Savanna. We are here in just defense of our land, our families, and our lives!”

  The king looked disappointed. “I thought you’d be different,” he said, his deep voice tinged with sadness. “You seemed ready to listen before, but now that you’re here, you’re just like the others. You don’t understand.” He sighed deeply, sinking back on his throne like a tired old man. But the illusion of weakness only lasted a heartbeat. When the elf looked up again, he was every inch the implacable, unreachable king. “Very well. What are your demands?”

  James opened his mouth, but his brother beat him to it. “We demand that you extinguish the Great Pyre and cease all hostilities at once!” Ar’Bati cried, baring his teeth at the first king. “Only when you are no longer a threat to every living thing will we even consider peace!”

  “No,” the Once King replied without hesitation, his narrow brows furrowing in scorn. “Short-sighted kitten, I fight for the sake of all our eternities. Your current lives and complaints are insignificant by comparison.”

  “Then we will slay you and bring peace that way!” Ar’Bati cried, his brown fur standing on end as he reached for his sword.

  The Once King stood up in reply, causing the two jubatus to scramble back, but something was off. James had expected anger or defiance in the face of Ar’Bati’s open antagonism, but the Once King didn’t look mad at all. Instead, the primal king’s face looked relieved, almost eager, which turned out to be far, far more terrifying.

  “I find your terms acceptable,” the Once King said, reaching down to retrieve his own sword. “Your blade may be close to my throat, but mine is already piercing your heart. As we speak, Gregory, the man who uses my name as if it were a title, is fighting a losing battle at Red Canyon. When he inevitably succumbs, my victory will be all but guaranteed. The Nightmare has already done the rest of my work for me. All the zones of the world are already fallen or in flames. Soon, the last of the Heraldsfords will be dead, and the Bastion he guards will be smashed. Without them, you have no more hope.”

  “We have ourselves!” Ar’Bati cried defiantly. “We are still here! We will fight you!”

  “With what?” the Once King demanded. “Your forces’ loyalties are already compromised. One breath of a promise from me and your raiders will perish on each other’s blades. Your allies will do the last of my work for me, and the curtain will finally close on this wretched world. This land will return to what it was always meant to be: a shadow beloved only by the schtumples and the Birds. They will be glad to be rid of us, and we will be glad to be gone.”

  The way the Once King said that shook James to his core not because the king was angry or vengeful, but because he sounded so relieved. He’d said nothing James hadn’t already guessed, but hearing it in his own words had finally made him understand the breadth of the Once King’s nihilism. He wasn’t waging a war against all life for some nefarious, unknown purpose. The war was the purpose. Death was the end, not the means, but James still didn’t understand.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice cracking on the word.

  “Because we were all doomed long ago,” the king replied, his voice tired, as if he’d answered that question many, many times before. “Death is the only escape. I told you this before.”

  He had, many, many times. But now as then, James refused to believe it, because he’d seen this before. He’d heard that same resignation and hopelessness in SilentBlayde’s voice, and in Grayson’s. But before he’d selfishly ignored him, his friend had been asking for help, and now it was happening again. If the Once King was truly committed to his nihilism—if he truly didn’t care—he wouldn’t have invited James and Ar’Bati here. But he had. He wanted to talk, as Grayson had, which meant deep down, some small part of him wasn’t ready to die. So long as that spark existed, James had hope. Now he just had to figure out a way to make the Once King feel i
t, too.

  “I believe this concludes our negotiations,” the Once King said, lifting his sword. “You have stated your demands, and I have refused them. You may now return to your army to face the inevitab—”

  “Wait!” James cried, stepping forward. “I have one more demand.”

  The king arched a perfect eyebrow.

  “It’s more of a request, really,” James hedged. “But we still have some time before my sister’s raid arrives, and I still don’t understand why we have to die. You keep saying we’re doomed, but I’ve seen the people of this world, and they don’t looked doomed to me.” He looked at his brother, who nodded. “I don’t doubt you’re doing this for good reason,” James went on, turning back to the king. “Even the Bedrock Kings said you were a dutiful ruler who always put his people first, so help us understand. Until we do, we’ll never be able to reach a satisfactory agreement.”

  “That is fair,” the Once King said, lowering his sword. “It would put my mind at ease to tell the tale one more time before the end. But such an intimacy would make our dealings personal, and you may not wish that.”

  “Why not?” James asked.

  The Once King gave him a sad look. “Here, protected by the distance and formality of court, I am able to release you back to your people. But if I speak with you frankly, share my history and regrets, we shall become closer, and I will inevitably feel compelled to save you.”

  James swallowed. He knew what the Once King meant when he said “save.” The ancient elf would tell them his secrets, and then he’d feed them both to the ghostfire. That was a pretty horrible fate, but as things stood, they were probably going to die anyway. Whether it happened now or in a few hours didn’t really matter, and while they couldn’t possibly face the Once King with just the two of them, James didn’t want to kill the king anyway. He wanted to change his mind, and the chances of that were a lot better if he knew why the king felt this way to begin with.