He had not dreamed since the night before his death. Not once in six hundred and fifty years.

Perhaps, as the [Sage] Y’klitre once claimed, the dead truly did dream. But the undead had no dreams. There was only, for Fetohep of Khelt, the permanent, eternal wake.

He had never described what it felt like for so few, even [Necromancers], had ever asked until his chosen successor had wondered what she might experience. That she had asked when all other candidates over the long centuries had not spoke to the fact she was the best among them. Thus, he had told Pewerthe the [Potter].

“What is it like? Ah…it is a difficult thing to explain. What do you think it is?”

Solemnly, the brown-skinned young woman with a plain, sometimes unnoticeable face—a twice-broken nose from her time as the captive of [Bandits], and eyes that flashed with cunning insight an owl might envy—brushed at some potter’s mud on one cheek. She ignored the handkerchief made of Seasilk that Fetohep pointedly glanced at; he had one placed next to her whenever she attended him.

She did not have royal decorum. Her posture was good, for a [Potter] sat all day, but she smelled of loam. Her clothing was not…refined. She wore a workwoman’s overalls stained with colors and mud. She did not carry herself with his regal authority, as if his will were draped over the throne room itself, a carpet of his regality that made any moment he was part of royal and austere.

These things she must learn, but the stubborn young woman was proud of her class. And she alone in this vast kingdom dared argue with the monarch of Khelt.

It was one of the virtues by which he had chosen her. Khelt’s ruler must have the will to survive dying. Khelt’s ruler must have the morality to lead, the foresight to choose, the strength of arms…

She lacked so many qualities, but so had he. He had few options. If she were to die…Fetohep’s golden gaze focused on Pewerthe as she thought. If she were to die, Alked Fellbow might well be her successor, for all he had no knowledge of Khelt.

Dark times were coming. Nothing Fetohep had placed his faith in might remain. The undead of Khelt had lost their ghosts, the anchor of knowledge and experience that gave them their famed intelligence. Khelt had lost its eternal monarchs who watched over them from the afterlife. And soon Khelt might…

“What do I think it is, Your Majesty? I imagine being undead is…cold.”

“Cold? Why would this be, Potter?”

He smiled, and she ducked her head.

“I do not know, Your Majesty. Perhaps it is because I think of death as cold. Bodies grow cold. Should death not be the same? I imagine you feel, if not cold, then nothing at all, perhaps. That you are will and intention, and your body is but the vessel your spirit inhabits. Much like a—a Golem.”

He shifted, then. Crisscrossing a leg on the throne. For she was not entirely wrong, and her insight sometimes unnerved him, though he would never show it.

“Close.”

Here sat Fetohep of Khelt, whose emaciated body wore open robes of royal purple written with the names of his every subject. Upon his head glinted the bone crown and ivory tokens hand-scribed by Khelta herself. He carried no arms upon his person, but he had been a warrior; when he moved, his grace was that of a king, but the surety came from a man who had once commanded his own body as well as armies.

He…forgot at times. But her words evoked memory, so the King of Khelt spoke.

“It is not pure emptiness, Pewerthe. I would rather it. What will you feel? I recall…exercise as a mortal man. My lungs burning until I could not but breathe. Days when I drank or stayed up too late and lay abed, cursing the sloth that gripped my bones. These feelings…you understand them?”

He glanced at her, and she drew her black brows together.

“…Do I understand staying up too late and wanting to sleep in? Yes, Fetohep.”

“Good. One does wonder about the commonality of experiences. Is it a—common emotion?”

He had forgotten. Pewerthe nodded again, slowly.

“I did it just last night, Your Majesty. Too long writing [Messages]. Half your servants might be too long awake at night, preparing for their duties here or bragging about the honor. Or asking others what they should look at when they are not serving.”

Fetohep glanced at some of the aforementioned servants, who drew from a lottery to work in the palace, and they bowed instantly, staring at Pewerthe with frank amazement that she dared be so open—or that Fetohep was so interested in their lives. He saw a flash of silver hair, yellow, pink—coloring one’s hair was all the rage, he understood.

Fashions swept Khelt like a faerie’s fancy. One day he would see everyone with hats, desiring the biggest, the best, and the next, they had it in their heads to learn fencing or play tennis. New things from Earth were always hits.

He had thought…truly thought that when he proclaimed they should learn a practical trade, learn to fight or gain classes, they would stick with it.

They had not. In the weeks after his return from the great battles at the Meeting of Tribes, they had been passionate. In a month, all but those who had found something to love had ceased to practice skill at arms or show up for daily practice. Today…

This story of Khelt’s woes was a long one. Fetohep returned his attention to Pewerthe.

She gave him hope.

“Then you understand the opposite, Pewerthe. When one is filled with energy after a day of rest. When you spring out of bed or drink the strongest tea or restorative before heading into battle. That shaking adrenaline? To be undead is to be…just before that. Not tired. But not full of energy either. It is to be active, to be filled with just enough energy as to never want for more. And never to feel otherwise.”

He was always awake. He always could exert his body or mind to the utmost capacity. But he would never again feel that burning rush. Pewerthe seemed to understand this, because her smile dimmed.

“It seems…difficult to be always so, Your Majesty.”

“Perhaps.”

An admission he would not have made last year. Fetohep lifted a hand, summoning a cup filled with liquid mana. He showed her the liquid which could fall and become a gas-like haze if he sloshed it unwisely.

“Some things—magic—can create a sense of greater energy or reduce it within me. Otherwise, I am thus. Much like a Golem, as you say. Though I do feel my body. It has no sensation. No pain, but I can feel it. I know the shape of my hand. I know it flexes, but not what that feels like. This is what it means to be undead. But also…”

His head turned sideways just so. Chin turned up, and he tapped his bare, yellowed teeth with a finger.

“Perhaps an illustration of other rulers of Khelt would do. Servants. Find me smaller illustrations of the rulers of Khelt. All of them.”

The servants attending the two dashed from the room with bows, hurrying to find images of Khelta, Serept, and the other rulers preceding Fetohep. Pewerthe raised her brows.

“I have seen the many likenesses of…oh.”

Fetohep waited for the servants to rush off before returning to the conversation. He did not lower his voice, but she scooted closer on the little chair. These words were for her alone.

“That is how it feels, Pewerthe. But the other thing that is required, the reason I chose you and any of your successors must have the same will, is this. There is the silence. The mortal form I bear, and my soul for company. We are alone. Betimes, I feel great powers of undeath in the distance, like distant voices. But I share no kinship with other mortals beyond my love of Khelt itself. My heart is silent. Will anchors me. Will and duty. The silence of my resolve and soul. And in the distance…”

His eyes winked out, and his head rose. Fetohep seemed to peer across the great horizon as he had once seen Erin doing. As Khelta had once turned and proclaimed the doom of Khelt. And he heard it. Perhaps the ghosts had forgotten, but he?

“There, like the sea and thundering of the tide, in the distance, oft-ignored or unheard, is that roaring.”

“Roaring, Fetohep?”

The golden flames flickered. The magic flaring in his eyesockets, golden fire pulsing upwards, subtly altered. Was there a flash of green? Just for a second? A single twining light among the gold?

“It sounds like a chorus. A million, a billion, a trillion voices all crying out as one. And below it all, the first word. It speaks one thing: death. A scream urging me to lay waste to the living. To forsake all vows. I know it echoes to every body that rises.”

She shifted. The golden gaze swung back to her, and the green flicker was gone. Fetohep leaned back in his throne.

“It will be loudest when you first wake. Master it. Even the least of Khelt’s dead master it. Khelta spoke of this voice, the will of undeath itself. There is nothing to it.”

“What is it, Your Majesty? Instinct? Some grave curse from the first [Necromancers]?”

He shrugged.

“Khelta’s own writings in her journals are there for you to peruse. I have never found an answer. But that is what it is.”

Will and silence and eternal wake. A grave weight. She sat there and looked him in the eyes, troubled.

“I do not want this, Your Majesty. It sounds like a dreadful curse.”

“I know. It is. Will you bear it, my chosen heir?”

“…Yes.”

He smiled. He always smiled, but he could not in his heart for her. The King of Khelt bowed his head. Then, when she had left for her life of many distractions and delights, he sat there. He did not rest, for he could not. He simply worked.

Duty unending.

——

His dream came to him as he worked. Sorting through reports of insects in each city, town, and village in his kingdom and manually assigning skeletons to cleaning duties. Going to each one—and he had assigned over two hundred thousand—and re-checking them to make sure they were working and not…going astray.

They were doing it more and more. They obeyed orders, but not with the same grace or efficiency as before. The ghosts were dead. They had given Khelt’s undead their loyalty and minds. Now…they were still loyal, but foolish. Prone to mistakes. Inept; they could get lost. Or, he feared, do worse.

So he checked them. Two hundred thousand plus skeletons, correcting any that ran into issues, moving them to comb street-by-street for the bugs. In places he had never thought to check; cracks in walls, sewers. It had been so easy before.

When he finished checking all two hundred thousand undead, he started again from the beginning. This was how he passed a night, of late. In the days when spring began, he thought he could keep doing this night-after-night.

He was wrong. The dream stole over him as his mind worked, the constant, repetitious nature of his tasks blurring together until the dream came in waking. A vision. Memory and falsity, imagination, all rolled into one.

A man inhaled. He could not remember his own face. Only that when he raised his hands, they were strong, callused. A halberdier’s trained forearms, brown skin like Pewerthe’s…nothing else. Did he have hair? Was he bald? 

The details of his life had fallen from him like the grains of sand blowing around his face. Where was he? He stood in a garden of dead plants and knew it. The wailing gardens of Queen Xierca, his beloved Queen. 18th Ruler of Khelt.

But the plants were dead. The obnoxious blue blooms that drove people away with their wails and screams were rotted to the vine. Withered and flaking away as a sandstorm struck Khelt. But this was wrong.

He had preserved Xierca’s cursed gardens, just transplanted them bloom-by-bloom elsewhere. Sandstorms did not hit the capital of Koirezune; magic protected the citizens from that.

Yet it blew and seemed to take parts of his body away as the man felt at his face and didn’t sense any features. He walked forwards, a puppet, confused. Falling to pieces.

If this was her garden then…

There. He saw Queen Xierca as he had known her. Not as she had come to him, a ghost remembering her stitched flesh, but the withered, mummified corpse adorned in the robes of Khelt’s rulers, just like him. Her eyes glowed with a pale, icy-blue flame. So piercing in their insight that men and women had wept before them.

“My Queen?”

She had been facing the palace. When she turned to him, he saw that eternal smile she wore, like him. Her robes swept around, the fur lining glittering, and he saw her hand rise as the rings he had inherited shone. 

The wind blew. Parts of her face and body flaked away, as if the sand were disintegrating her. Fetohep saw Queen Xierca falling to dust and raised his own hand.

“Xierca?”

Then he saw the palace unmaking itself before the sandstorm. Stumbling, Fetohep tried to climb the stairs, searching for Xierca as she blew away. Going towards the throne room. 

The world was falling to bits. He could see the lower levels of the palace blowing away as he ran now. Lungs straining for breath. His body was so slow, so weak. When he came to the throne room, he could not breathe. He gazed towards the throne, thinking to sit there and halt this. But the throne was gone.

There was only…a stone bier. Frozen, engraved like a tomb of Khelt’s greatest heroes. He had never seen it with his own two eyes, so his imagination made the resting place regal. Fit for the [Queen] who lay there.

Khelta. Her hands were folded across her chest, and she was blowing away as the sandstorm swept into the throne room. Fetohep stumbled forwards and saw three figures kneeling before her berth.

He knew them.

Hecrelunn, the first [Vizir] of Khelt, the great mage and spellcaster, turned crimson eyes to him. He was dwarfed by Thuermenon, the half-Giant who had been Serept’s greatest honor-guard in life. And last was Captain Cikroleth, who had come with Sand at Sea and its undead crew. Each one a protector in Khelt’s hour of need. Its last champions.

They turned to gaze at him, faces emotionless, each one an undead being regarding him from where they had died in the age of legends. He halted, panting, and a final figure rose. 

Erin Solstice. She had been bending over Khelta. But now, as the undead ruler blew away, she stepped backwards. The throne of Khelt appeared behind her, and he waited.

Waited for her to take a seat. But instead, the throne and the wall dissolved into a sea of dust as she was walking. Walking into the Great Desert itself as his kingdom vanished. Only the man remained, now grasping at the sand. The three Revenants regarded him with contempt, sorrow, and pain in their gazes. Then they turned and walked away. And he…

“Your Majesty? Your Majesty.”

—He realized each grain of sand was a face. A soul. Children, men, women of Khelt blowing around him. So many souls, and he tried to capture them in his hands. But they kept streaming towards a darkness engulfing everything as the world itself fell into the void of eternal night, and a woman who was the death of everything beckoned him—

“Your Majesty! Please!”

Then he realized he was dreaming. And woke. When he finally stirred, and voices screamed and gasped and they fell to their knees and sobbed in relief, he realized he had woken to another disaster.

Just like every day in Eternal Khelt.

——

The story of Eternal Khelt, the great paradise nation, the Necrocracy that had endured for ageless millenia, was truly amazing. It spanned back before some of Terandria’s kingdoms; only those founded by the Hundred Heroes themselves could claim to be older.

For instance, Nerrhavia’s Fallen? Way younger than Khelt. The Walled Cities of Izril could claim to be older in inception, but no other place in Izril. The Five Families were children who had founded their claims in the north as Khelt watched.

Khelt was ancient. It had records dating back to eras of Giants and Dragons, and that was a claim any long-lived nation could state, but Khelt had actual, preserved records. Even they had lost their records in the endless battle against time and the decay of magical bindings, but Khelt was still a goldmine of information, and Named-rank Adventurer Frieke, known as the Falcon of Medain Khelt, loved reading the records.

She was a Dullahan woman who had a Seahawk named Konska. She was a [Falconer], a dangerous multi-role specialist with a powerful bird-ally, and she was utterly convinced that the only reason she had been given a place in Eternal Khelt was to annoy High King Perric of Medain.

And yes, maybe it stung to have her entire adventuring career reduced to a single joke—that of her ‘slaying’ Fetohep, and that she only was here because it was amusing—but one did not quibble with that when paradise came calling.

Frieke liked history. It was one of her quirks. Not that anyone really asked; Fetohep didn’t treat her like Alked Fellbow, whom he seemed to enjoy the company of. She was just…here. So she read histories.

According to the books she read, Khelt was not nearly as old as she imagined. She’d always assumed it might be as old as the Hundred Heroes of Terandria, but they predated almost everything.

The Hundred Heroes had settled Terandria at the dawn of time and were so mythical records of their exact deeds were scarce, but they predated every major event she could find. The Dragonwars and formation of the Shield Kingdoms, the Continent of Glass—huge and major moments took place after those [Heroes] created kingdoms by battling Giants and myths to win humanity a home.

They had settled the land inhabited by mythical monsters and carved out kingdoms for the struggling Humans—and made alliances with the half-Elven kingdom and Dwarf mountain city, which, funnily, predated even them. But Khelt?

Let’s see. Frieke had jotted down a rough timeline, and you skipped Erribathe’s founding, the last known sighting of Elves in their first queen, the first reference to the Witch of Calamity, the Continent of Glass, the Continent of Glass sinking piecemeal, Dragonwars, the Quarass and Shield Kingdoms and Gnoll’s Time of Hiding, Wistram forming, the Long Night, the Stitch-folk’s war for independence, emergence of Selphids, and…aha!

Perhaps it had been long after the start of recorded history and the age of the Hundred Heroes, but you could still argue the world was far more ancient back then, and magic was greater. Unstable—it was always unstable after the fall of a great age, and the Breathless Age of Nekhret had led to a warring, restless time in Chandrar marked by hardship and lots of rogue undead.

It was then, with necromancy still powerful, even if its true era of power had come and gone, that the stage was set. Then, Khelta had walked on Chandrar’s sands and envisioned a nation where the dead might serve and protect the living rather than the other way around. Around twenty-one thousand years ago, Khelt had been formed.

That was ancient. The Quarass might be older, but she was probably the only being on Chandrar who could lay claim to that, unless there was some Dragon still alive. A’ctelios Salash was older, but even the Immortal Tyrant came from a period after Khelt. That was how old the nation was.

“And so you see, Konska, even if Khelt isn’t that old, they have records salvaged from other kingdoms with stories that do reach back several eras! For instance, I found this tale from the Era of Broken Fangs—I’d place it, um, in one of the pre-Long Night dark ages. Not as bad as when the Hundred Heroes existed, but close. Giants and great ‘Beasts’ everywhere. People can hardly exist!”

Konska was trying to ignore her. He had put his head under one wing and was pretending to be asleep as Frieke showed him the book. She doggedly went on.

“Come on, this is great stuff! There were Rocs, you know. Imagine it! You couldn’t live without a Roc swooping down on your cattle and eating them all for a snack or seeing Dragons duelling in the skies! Even the Hundred Kingdoms aren’t doing well. Erribathe is, but it was founded by some actual Elven Queen, and the other Hundred Kingdoms are, uh, lesser in number now. I think they’re down to sixty originals or something at this point.”

Erribathe wasn’t the oldest kingdom in the entire world—though it might be the oldest one still standing. As an [Amateur Historian], the only place better to be than Khelt, in Frieke’s opinion, would be in Erribathe.

But no one ever wrote much about the first Queen of Erribathe. A real Elf? Anyways, Frieke went on as Konska poked his head out to take some fine ashwheat seeds she was tempting him with. He gave her a look as he fluttered his grey-white wings speckled with blue. ‘Alright, you’ve got me as long as I’m eating, but this had better be good.’

“Okay, so this is the Era of Broken Fangs—chaos, terrifying monsters. The kingdoms of Terandria are still beset by ‘Beasts’, and they need to be slain. This is a story about [Hunters], believe it or not! They’re like super Named-rank adventurers who are going around slaying the ‘Beasts’ of each land. The Beast of Fiskren, the Beast of Avel—and one of them, Piortesenzth the Stalker, is called upon to go all the way to Izril! He has to obtain a poison that can slay the undying Beast of Albez. Albez! That’s a place that exists! Apparently, some Gnoll tribe was wiped out, and he was sent for. But he goes to Chandrar first…because he wants poison from the world’s finest maker of it. And, I quote, ‘the woman who walks a hundred lives, Ruler of the Shield Kingdom of Ger, sat upon her throne and demanded a mighty price for the poison that took her sixteen days and nights to brew’. That’s the Quarass! The Quarass!”

Konska stopped pecking at his seeds and gave her a second look. ‘Okay, this is mildly interesting, but how does this matter?’ Everyone knew the Quarass was old.

Frieke knew that; she’d even met the previous Quarass and been let down, but it was one thing to meet the woman or see her, and another to read a history book as ancient as this about her! But Konska didn’t care, that barbarian. He was a very straightforward bird. She pointed, and he flew over and raked someone with his claws, then pooped on their corpse. She glared at him.

“I should have chosen the Balerosian Parrot when I was at that bazaar, you ingrate! She had culture. And she could talk! Ow! Ow, stop it!”

He began pecking at her, and she shielded herself with her book until he and she realized he was actually damaging the precious material. Then both hurriedly stopped fighting because Fetohep might behead her for damaging this tome—even if it was a copy. It had been copied a hundred and two times according to the notations in the book. Frieke went on, sighing.

“…The point is that Khelt has records that go back way beyond it, and all its histories are tens of thousands of years old! They document everything about Khelta beautifully. She doesn’t live long, you know; barely eight hundred years, I think? Which sounds unimpressive, but she was alive the entire time. She never became a Revenant. So it’s her successors who begin to live for millenia. Fetohep’s short-lived compared to some of them. Well, I think magic’s also a bit more powerful back then. Several records indicate they could repair their bodies.”

He could not. And there were no [Necromancers] in Khelt. Frieke made some notes in a journal.

“Mostly, thereafter, Khelt stays to itself. It does not participate in many wars. All the Nagatine Empires? Khelt never fights. Or if they try to invade, Khelt fights back. There’s a hilarious story about how some Dragonfire General invades Khelt because the Lizardfolk are all sweeping across Chandrar, and ten years later they’re in full retreat because so many undead are attacking even they’re getting overwhelmed. But Khelt’s in all the big events. Even the Creler Wars!”

She had a list of some huge world-events with Khelt’s parts in them noted down—and a few events that seemed big that she’d never heard of. Frieke went on as Konska gave her an encouraging squawk, getting invested despite himself.

“Like what? Okay, Creler Wars. King Razzimir. They start living much shorter lives; he only exists…one thousand one hundred years? It says he died of grief and shame because he failed to act for so long. But he builds ‘Razzimir’s Arrows’, the huge [Light Arrows] that King Fetohep can fire, and he unleashes three out of the five Revenants. So Serept’s half-Giants, the Scourgeriders, and Sand at Sea. I think he avoided Hecrelunn and Salui because they weren’t that controllable.”

Having seen both in action, Frieke could understand his wariness. She went on.

“The Revenants joined the push to get rid of Crelers in Chandrar, but even they couldn’t end the war; it took decades to purge Chandrar once the tides shifted! Lots of notes from Razzimir’s journals about how he was holding onto Salui and Hecrelunn in case an Elder Creler or ‘greater’ appeared. He’s quite guilty about not using them, but they never went after Khelt’s capital.”

Isolationism was the name of Khelt. In the same way, she pointed out their role in another pivotal moment of world history.

“Khelt survived their fair share of calamities, you know. The ‘Bloodless Shores’ is a lesser event that took place where some kind of super-Kraken that drank blood terrorized every coastline and killed trade worldwide for nigh on a century before someone killed it. Imagine it, no trade except teleportation. No one could even live forty miles inland of the coasts or it would pull the sea with it and eat you. Mass starvation, kingdoms in jeopardy. This was Queen Emrist’s time, and her Scourgeriders came into existence around now. Er, she kept Khelt intact, but she did a lot of plundering to ‘keep Khelt’s greatness intact’.”

An era when you had to look up and fear carpet-riding Kheltians throwing [Fireballs] and carrying off everything. Terrible, but…also amazing. Something you could imagine, like the tales of Jinn walking the world.

Sometimes, it felt to Frieke like all the amazing moments were in the past. Any age where she was considered a famous Named-rank adventurer surely wasn’t that amazing, right?

Her companion, Konska, saw Frieke glancing down at her scarred hands and paused in preening himself. He knew her thoughts thanks to their bond and pecked her hard, but affectionately, on the arm.

Don’t think of yourself like that. She yelped, but then relented. Frieke finished writing in her journal and took a huge breath.

“There. That’s a basis. Very rough, but I don’t want to, um, commit to a full account of history since I might be wrong. These books are dated, but the dates are always changing because of the eras. So I don’t know. But this—d’you think this would impress her? Historian Satar?”

Again, the Seahawk rolled his eyes in his head. Another feature of Frieke that might have been inbuilt even before Fetohep was her lack of confidence. A feature King Perric appreciated but…Frieke treated Satar Silverfang like some kind of hero. Frieke the Falconer, a Named-rank…

In some ways, it allowed Frieke to integrate well into Khelt. She’d hopped ship from Medain and was loyal to Khelt; she loved it here. No need for money? Amazing vistas? Historical records and admiration for her class?

She was as good as retired. And she had no problem with that. Only the fear that she’d be exiled, but she’d realized once she was in that King Fetohep didn’t expel anyone unless they broke some major law. She was Kheltian, and…and she would be for life. Her descendants would be.

She’d made it. And Frieke had brought no one into Khelt, so she didn’t have Fellbow’s worry about his family, who had all the culture shock of integrating into Khelt. Frieke was…alone.

Oh, she had family of a kind who’d claimed her after she’d become a Gold-rank adventurer, but they hadn’t raised her. She didn’t owe them Khelt. The street urchins and beggars she’d grown up with were her family, and if she could have taken them…

You didn’t live long in those conditions. She’d paid for [Healers] and respite for the last of them, and now she was alone and had come to Khelt as such.

Alone save for Konska, a bird she’d bought by chance at a bazaar, who had become her only companion and person she could rely on. She talked to him, treated him like an equal, and by Named-rank standards, she was actually very healthy because she had one friend she could trust.

Konska, for his part, felt like he’d also gotten lucky with Frieke. Sure, sometimes he had that itch that said he should fly out to sea and start a nest, but he’d have been dead of old age if not for Frieke. When she settled down, he’d find some lovely bird to make eggs with. Though he was really unclear on how he was going to get some eggs going since all the other Seahawks he’d clicked with hadn’t been female, but hey, cross that bridge when you came to it.

The point was, they were lounging in Khelt’s largesse and Frieke could be a silly nerd trying to win the approval of a nineteen year-old Gnoll. He’d been with her from the start, and even if Khelt’s ruler set himself against Frieke, Konska would just peck out Fetohep’s flame-eyes and poop in his eye sockets. He’d been there when Frieke had been forced to kill her father. He’d be there at the end.

In that way—Frieke was like a puddle that had depths. She sat in her rather spacious apartments half-converted into a nest where Konska had torn up all the bedding and made a huge, slightly poo-covered roost for himself, and tried to write a letter to Satar begging the Gnoll to read her attempts at a historical analysis of Khelt. Then someone rapped on her door urgently.

“Adventurer Frieke! Adventurer Frieke! Help!”

Retired or not, Frieke and Konska were lounging one moment, then in action the next. Frieke’s shortsword was drawn, and she had her shoulder to a joist in the wall in a second. The hardest place to stab through if someone was on the other side. Konska was at the window, ready to fly, swivelling his head.

“Mister Mistreq? What is it?”

Frieke thought she recognized another tenant of her ‘apartment’ complex. They were in the big city, which meant they were in what Kheltians called ‘cramped’ quarters. In truth, it was more like a vast mansion of houses; each apartment had multiple rooms and a patio or rooftop space. Dead gods, Frieke had a swimming pool on her roof!

Mistreq was her next-door neighbor, and she flicked a little orb into the air. It froze and hovered; the Seeing Eye let her glance out the top of her door and see the man. Konska leapt out of the window and dove before gaining altitude rapidly.

No threats so far—he’d circle and be her eyes in the sky. Frieke heard a muffled sob.

“Miss Frieke, you must help! It’s a b—b—no one can do anything!”

“A what? A Blood Slime? Bagrhaven?”

What kind of threats appeared in a capital city? Even Koirezune—

“A bug! A huge one!”

Mistreq wailed. Konska nearly slammed into the side of the apartments. Frieke stopped reaching for an enchanted arrow. Her head slowly rose.

“A what.”

——

It was a big bug. Not your standard roach, but a weird bug with two ‘heads’, which wiggled as the multifaceted eyes bulging from each ‘head’ glittered in a gross way. It had bright red wings, but the bug also had a tan underbelly that looked rather maggot-like.

So, yeah. Gross. Frieke made a face as it crawled up the destroyed room’s wall.

Not that it had destroyed the room, you understand. Or the other three. But the cowering residents of the apartment had hurled everything they had at it, trying to kill the bug, and the alarmed insect had fluttered out of one apartment after terrorizing a screaming family and into Mister Mistreq’s.

He was taking cover behind an overturned couch of hand-patterned silk as Konska and Frieke exchanged glances.

“It’s horrible! Be careful, Adventurer Frieke!”

“Er…I will. Definitely. How’d it get in? The window?”

“Yes!”

“Which you left open.”

“I always leave them open! This has never happened!”

What, never? Not once? Frieke was confused, but she let go of the squirming bug and tossed it. Konska snapped his beak closed and crunched the bug up. He shrugged his wings at her.

Tastes like shit. She waited for it to be poison or something, but he just swallowed after a moment. Frieke coughed.

“I’ve, uh, dealt with the bug.”

“Oh, thank His Majesty! You really are brave as can be, Frieke!”

The man had tears in his eyes when he rose. Frieke and Konska traded glances, but he was actually, legitimately serious. Mistreq shook Frieke’s hand repeatedly.

“First, you save young Altet when he was so badly hurt, now this! We’re all so much safer for you around! And you’re so exotic! So worldly!”

“Altet broke his leg.”

“I know! It was so dreadful! We were all screaming for His Majesty’s skeletons, but they were slow to arrive, and you came by and dealt with it! First that, now this. This has been such a distressing month. My entire year might be unsettled!”

It was the first month of the year. Frieke just kept staring as the man went on.

“I heard rumors about bugs appearing in houses, but you know, you never think it might be you. I feel changed. Older.”

Konska spat a leg onto the man’s floor. Frieke covertly stepped on it to avoid the fellow fainting, then smiled.

“I, uh, I’m happy to help. Truly.”

She had to leave before he kept praising her and gifting her vouchers for his favorite restaurants. This was unreal, but despite Konska’s gagging, Frieke whispered.

“Konska, be nice. If this is the worst we ever have to deal with…”

He nodded. But seriously? A bug?

Frieke smirked herself. But this was Khelt. Now that she thought about it, mosquitos didn’t have as much presence in Chandrar as other nations. It could get bad on the coasts…but she was used to rats, beetles, any kind of pests. Even ants. She hadn’t had a mosquito bite or seen any insect in all Khelt her entire time here, only this one, today.

There were no insects in Khelt. Or at least, by her standards none. The streets were clean.

——

The streets were…beautiful. Each one a masterpiece of art. Frieke stared down at the glass street that her apartment exited onto. This particular street was known because when you walked on the clear glass, you were walking over a literal river. With fish inside, streaming down the pathways and staring up at the people who walked on the sky of their world.

A beautiful river made into a street just because it was pretty to look at. A fortune in glass and water. And magic, Frieke just knew. Cooling spells so that the fish didn’t broil with the light hitting them and ambient temperatures. Probably anti-glare spells so they didn’t burn in the sun. Insanity.

Water was a premium in any Chandrarian nation, but Khelt had so many gemstones that could produce water that it had created vast reservoirs. This one allowed fish to swim below the street. When she turned the corner, each flagstone was a piece of art from a different artist, a work of over two thousand years in the making.

And people walked about and didn’t even glance down because this was their home. To Frieke, it was the most glorious work of art she had ever seen. To them, it was the ground.

Oh, and lest you think this was just artistic excellence, the street was flat. It was so damn flat, in fact, that Frieke felt like she had sea-legs. There were no bumps, unlevelled road, or anything else to trip or stumble on. Someone had taken a level to the ground and ensured it was the most pristine walking experience in your life.

It was a level of wealth that Medain’s richest citizens could not aspire to. It was a city of beauty, and if it was just this, Frieke, as a girl who’d grown up in Medain’s dregs, might hate it and King Fetohep. But…she glanced sideways and remembered a friend she’d had as a kid.

Mirq, he’d been called. One-legged, hopping around on a crutch, born that way rather than a casualty of Medain’s mines or any other hard industry. Hop, hop, always with a new scheme or plan to get ahead.

Too slow. Too slow to run when trouble came. Just one of the many faces a Named-rank adventurer remembered, even if he had come and gone before she had even been Bronze-rank. Little Mirq…whose sin was being born missing a leg.

He did not exist in Khelt. Or to be more precise, he did exist! She saw a girl who was missing two legs, whether by birth or accident, who could say? But she was leading a pack of children ahead, running faster than the others.

Two Golem-made prostheses were allowing her to sprint like the wind. She was kicking a football ahead of them, and they were shouting.

“No fair! No fair! Turn your legs down, Khalatta!”

Past Frieke, the girl ran, eyes alight with joy, as if she had worn those legs forever. And she probably had, but they were legs custom-fitted to her. She’d have to change them as she grew older, and Frieke had no doubts she would get those prostheses. How would King Fetohep allow anything less? He had probably had someone commission these legs from House Terland.

Luxury beyond imagination combined with the compassion of a monarch beyond all limits. Be it so selfish, Frieke would hope this kingdom endured so long as she resided in it.

“I could actually see myself having kids here or something, Konska. I wouldn’t worry about them or—it’s so safe. No one’s going to cut our throats here.”

The Seahawk nodded solemnly as the girl ran on, then nudged Frieke with a wing. She scowled at him.

“Don’t ask who! I’m just saying, I could have a kid—I’ll find someone. People like me.”

He smirked at her like any other Named-ranker. That old refrain of adventurers. ‘I’ll find someone once I retire. I can do it. I’m just busy now. It’s not that I’m a sociopath with the personality of a blood-hungry lemon, it’s that I’m busy.’

In fairness, Frieke thought she could pull off a relationship with some nice…person. Not many Dullahans in Chandrar, but in fairness, she wasn’t very Dullahan. She’d practically been raised Human; no cultural background other than being a streetrat of Medain. She’d tried to go to Baleros and visit her ancestral roots, but everyone had given her looks like she was some kind of idiot savage…

“I could find a nice…meek fellow in Khelt. And squash all the bugs for him.”

Konska puked some of the bug up, and one of the passersby gave him such a horrified gaze that Frieke hurried him on.

“Behave, would you? Let’s get to the Mage’s Guild!”

——

Here was the thing. The one downside of Khelt was that in a city where no one had to work, finding someone to do a job for you could be, uh, hard.

Skeletons took care of all the menial tasks. Sweeping, hauling, even cooking and cleaning. And Kheltians loved the arts, so plenty of people could make food, pottery, what have you. But that meant there was a sector of skilled work that no one wanted to do.

Mages to send [Messages]? Boring as anything. Khelt encouraged them to work by offering incentives. Little vouchers that were ‘currency’ here, or luxuries in exchange for effort, but the end result was still lackadaisical effort.

For instance, the way the [Mage] on duty at the Mage’s Guild coped with all the effort of sending [Messages] was by being the most gossipy person ever.

“Hello, Adventurer Frieke? Who are we sending to?”

He leaned over the counter and read her missive as she handed it to him. Zero confidentiality here; if you sent something, he was going to read and comment on it.

“A missive to Satar Silverfang, Magus Veirde. Could you oblige me?”

“Of course! For a Named-rank adventurer, obviously! If she sends you anything back, I’ll log it for your next visit. If she sends you anything interesting, I’ll make sure you get the message! Via a Street Runner—these skeletons are so unreliable. Now, where’s Vhidye? Vhidye, your penpal in Pallass has so much amazing gossip! She actually saw the white Gnoll girl, Mrsha!”

Every head snapped around as the delighted [Mage] shouted at someone else. Frieke sighed.

In Medain, you’d be dead in a day for all the things you say, Veirde. But here it was power and social capital, so she just smiled at Veirde and resolved never to trust him with anything she needed confidential.

She could send to another Mage’s Guild in Germina or even Reim if she needed to. She had gold, connections. Frankly, if she wanted more, she could pick up any number of objects Kheltians “sold” or gifted each other and sell it for hundreds of gold coins in another city.

After that? Frieke and Konska had lunch. Just like every day in the city, they were spoiled for choice.

——

“Adventurer Frieke! One meal if you tell a story?”

“Hello, Adventurer! If you teach us how to fire a bow, we’ll serve you!”

Even now, Frieke ate where she wanted. Of course she ate for free; gold was meaningless to most citizens of Khelt. Some liked it, but they bartered for what they wanted, and even after her fame had worn off, Frieke had a valuable currency.

Stories. Her level. She could parlay a harrowing tale of life-or-death into a meal at any ‘top’ restaurant, another reason why she liked Khelt. She bypassed the social order. So, after some whispering, they ended up sitting at an open-air restaurant where huge, ginormous crabs were being cracked open and seasoned by a [Chef].

“I recently levelled up to Level 30. As a reward, His Majesty allowed me to choose a gift—those who hit Level 30 are rewarded, so I asked for the largest crab species he could find. These are ‘Hollowstone Deceivers’, which I breed. They can grow even larger, but they only taste delicious when young.”

Frieke and Konska licked their lips and beak as the crab was opened, and they began to devour the rather delicious meat inside. They savored their bites, adding butter and more condiments to flavor the crab just right, and they were so engrossed in their meal, they didn’t notice the young woman trying to ‘buy’ a seat until they heard her arguing.

“I’d like a seat, even a side-one. Just give me some crab, please?”

“I don’t know…Potter, is it? I’m not in the mood for some pots.”

The [Chef] was drumming his fingers critically on a podium where he admitted guests to his very small restaurant. He was a startup; he might well get bored and switch his entire theme, so he was picky unlike [Chefs] who did this all the time. And the young woman with an exasperated expression on her face was neither beautiful nor socially famous enough to gain entry.

But she really wanted some crab. Frieke got a nudge from Konska and recognized the woman vaguely.

Wasn’t that…Pewerthe? She was important in some way, and Frieke tuned into the conversation out of pure instinct. The young woman was trying to be polite.

“I’d just like a crab, Chef. The smallest will do.”

“Yes, but…for free?”

“Everything’s free, Chef. If it helps, I’ve attended to His Majesty today.”

That normally got you entry, but the snooty [Chef of the Refined Palate] just drummed his fingers on the podium again.

“I hear you do that a lot. Why do you have His Majesty’s favor? I’ve seen your pots. There are better, you know.”

Pewerthe gave him an exasperated smile.

“Sometimes, I make pots just to make a pot, Chef. Beauty is not my talent.”

“Oh, evidently. I simply mean to elucidate that you have little to offer His Majesty, and I, personally, would hate to think you waste his time when one other could do it better. I have never been called to the palace as a day-servant, you know, but I imagine I would impress him when I am. With my sterling conduct, if nothing else!”

Pewerthe’s smile grew more strained.

“I am not King Fetohep of Khelt, so I cannot know what he sees in me. But as I have been helpful, a crab?”

“I don’t know. I’m not feeling your presence meshing with my guests.”

The [Chef] tilted his head back and forth, and Pewerthe sighed.

“Fine. I’ll go to the palace and ask for crab. The one time I want seafood…”

She was about to stomp off when the [Chef] grew more incensed.

“You’d trouble His Majesty for food? How dare you!”

He strode off his podium and began poking her in the shoulder. Pewerthe’s shoulders hunched.

“Listen, Chef. I realize you are acting in your role as is perfectly fit and normal for any citizen of Khelt, but I caution you with due…probity.”

Frieke had to actually look that word up with a personal dictionary she’d bought. Everyone in Khelt had too much education. Actually, Pewerthe seemed like she was also annoyed by the elevated use of diction. She turned.

“Poke me again and I will slap that hand of yours.”

A gasp from the [Chef], who recoiled and glanced at the other guests; they turned as if Pewerthe had drawn a knife.

“Did you hear that? I knew you were a savage woman, but the rumors didn’t do it credit!”

Pewerthe rolled her eyes.

“Yes, the dreaded [Potter] who slaps hands.”

She said it so ironically that Frieke grinned until she realized everyone else was gasping in horror. Then she realized Pewerthe’s nose was crooked.

Seems broken to me. Konska shot Frieke a side-eye. Few citizens of Khelt would have any kind of damage. The [Chef]’s nostrils flared so wide Frieke wagered she could stick that evil bug from this morning up there.

“Begone, you dastardly…disruptor! If you annoy His Majesty in any way or gainsay his free time, I shall ensure you never eat in this city again! I—”

Pewerthe was already striding away when Frieke got up from her chair, grabbed the half of the crab she’d really been unable to finish even with Konska, and called out.

“Miss Pewerthe, if you’d like some crab—Konska’s only pecked a bit of mine.”

Another gasp. The [Chef] turned and clutched at his heart as if stabbed from behind. He gave Frieke a look of betrayal as Pewerthe turned and smiled, gratified. Konska fluttered over and pecked the man on the forehead.

He screamed.

——

It took twenty minutes for the ‘Watch’, who were more like civil servants whose job it was to resolve squabbles and fights, to finish interviewing Frieke and soothe the screaming man—after he’d woken up.

Frieke’s brush with the law was enough time for Pewerthe to eat some of the crab on the side of the street, like a savage to judge by the horrified looks of the pedestrians. She didn’t care, and when Frieke ambled over, Pewerthe glanced up.

“I hope I haven’t troubled you unduly, Adventurer. I was just hungry and…sometimes, it wears upon me.”

She wore an expression that suggested she felt like a Seahawk pecking you so lightly he didn’t draw blood was a ridiculous thing, and Frieke squatted down next to her, relieved to talk to someone normal. Fellbow and she got together to commiserate sometimes, and she nodded.

“They just scolded me for a few minutes. Honestly, the fellow was obnoxious.”

Pewerthe wore a guilty smile.

“His Majesty will lecture me once he hears of this. The [Chef] was within his rights entirely to refuse me service. I just…really like crab, and it has been a wearing day.”

“In Koirezune?”

Frieke meant it as a joke, but Pewerthe wiped her mouth on her arm and nodded. Her gaze, when it turned to Frieke, was direct.

“For very few of Khelt’s own, yes, there can be bad days. Oh, and here’s another day-ruiner. Look. Dead gods.”

She pointed down, and a fly was buzzing around her crab. Pewerthe’s voice was flat.

“I may never eat food again. I may vomit. Such an insect cloys at my mind. Oh, Eternal Khelt!”

Konska snapped the fly up, and Frieke eyed Pewerthe. The [Potter] sighed.

“More flies.”

“They don’t…bother you?”

“I may have lived here years, but I can still swat one if it lands on my food, not toss out an entire meal over it, Adventurer Frieke. You will be happy to know that you never get to that point.”

That had been a legitimate concern of Frieke and Konska, and they sighed in relief. Pewerthe shook her head.

“Some things of Khelt I accept as citizens living in safety. But that?”

“Oh, so you lived outside of Khelt? If it is personal, I shouldn’t like to pry…”

Another nod. Pewerthe brushed at her hair.

“I am rather infamous for it. It is no bother. I am Pewerthe the Exile. Whose family left Khelt, and who were admitted back by the grace of His Majesty. It was barely nine years, in truth. I was just young enough to adapt to living outside. My family…less so. My father was a skilled [Mage] who grew fascinated with the outside and left, then realized ‘out’ was less pleasant than he dreamed. My mother? Well, both of them and my older brother were traumatized by leaving Eternal Khelt. They begged for re-entry after the second year, then every year hence.”

That intrigued Frieke, so as Pewerthe stood, they walked back towards Pewerthe’s house, chatting.

“I was informed one did not re-enter Khelt lightly. What changed?”

“They were captured by [Bandits]. We all were; we’d been begging on the border of Khelt for His Majesty’s largesse. They held my family for a week. Me for six months. His Majesty sent his undead to slaughter the [Bandits] when the tale finally reached him, and upon hearing my story, he granted us all citizenship.”

One week versus six months? Frieke’s mind jumped to one conclusion, and she studied Pewerthe.

“Did the [Bandits]…?”

She didn’t know how to broach the subject, but Pewerthe smiled at her tiredly.

“No. They might have, or at least, my mother, because I inherited less of her looks, but I convinced them to let her go. The wrath of Khelt and all that. They made me cook and clean, and by the time His Majesty sent the undead, they’d fallen to infighting and were easy pickings. My tale impressed King Fetohep enough that he gave us all citizenship again. It was just a local bandit group in Ger.”

In Germina, the Shield Kingdom? The Quarass didn’t suffer bandits lightly. Even if the old one had been inept…Frieke thought that story sounded familiar, actually, but she just smiled.

“That’s an incredible tale, Potter Pewerthe. And your family’s fine? I imagine they loved returning to Khelt.”

Pewerthe paused, then softly laughed.

“What? Oh, yes. They live further inland and swear they’ll never even go near the border. I’m now the daring [Potter] who’s too violent and forgets Khelt’s graces.”

That checked out. But it endeared her to Frieke, who said so.

“Well, for one who knows the lands outside of Khelt, you are very refreshing. If you ever need someone to chat to or win entry to restaurants, Konska and I are delighted to talk to someone.”

“Thank you, Adventurer Frieke. Perhaps I will take you up on that. His Majesty was hoping you had settled into Khelt well.”

Pewerthe smiled and nodded, reinforcing Frieke’s image that Pewerthe was worth cultivating as a friend. Konska clearly agreed because he hopped over and let Pewerthe pet him. They liked Pewerthe of course, but it was always good to cozy up to people like this.

Pewerthe had classes to teach, and they parted ways after this. Frieke ambled around the city, of a mind to maybe take classes herself in something or other. Like that, another halcyon day passed in Khelt save for two events.

The first was that Frieke’s worries about getting bored of all this largesse and gaining a paunch were interrupted by an excited message from the Mage’s Guild. She raced back to gain a missive (already read and annotated with his commentary by the nosy magus) from no less than Satar Silverfang!

It not only expressed admiration for Frieke’s historical research, but asked if she’d also paint a picture of Khelt in the modern day. The Gnolls of Izril owed Khelt a debt of gratitude, and it would be an honor to instill their history and current events into a library in the Great Plains!

Frieke suddenly had work! She rushed around obtaining journals and trying to figure out how to set down both history and current events in Khelt for a record for Satar—apparently, the Gnoll was asking for other accounts from other cities.

The second thing was this: on her errands rushing about the city, asking excited people who wanted to be part of this moment in history to give testimony and opinions, Frieke stopped by the Adventurer’s Guild.

It was a joke of a place where Bronze-rankers existed. They had one Silver-rank team; there weren’t enough monsters to hunt anywhere. But it did have all the up-to-date records and information because of course it did.

After patiently teaching all the people from staff to adventurers some swordplay for half-an-hour, Frieke got access to the guild records. Being a history buff helped for research and work. Frieke muttered to herself as Konska peered at the book—he could read.

“Bandits in Germina. Bandits in Germina…aha! I knew I remembered them. Hold on.”

She blinked at the page.

“Those weren’t any [Bandits]. That—did Pewerthe get captured by the Sands of Cuzale? They held up Djinni-guarded caravans in Nerrhavia’s Fallen!”

That was not a regular [Bandit] group. Frieke distinctly remembered them; there had been bounties posted for their apprehension, and she’d taken one glance at them and decided against. Word on the streets was that they had Level 30+ regulars and a Level 34 [Robber Baron]!

Pewerthe had downplayed the events. But her name was so famous that even the ‘Guildmaster’ of the Adventurer’s Guild knew her and repeated her story more or less verbatim to Frieke. That wasn’t the shocking thing. Even if they’d been a dangerous gang, Pewerthe’s story checked out, but Frieke kept reading, and several details made her stop and think.

“The Sands of Cuzale were eliminated by a Kheltian force sent by His Majesty of Khelt including local adventurers…but all but a tenth of the [Bandits] were dead when they were found. Infighting. And there were no Kheltian survivors aside from one girl. Other nation’s victims were repatriated…one survivor of Khelt?”

Hadn’t Pewerthe said her family was living safe and sound inland of Khelt? Frieke had to ask, but the Adventurer’s Guild had no records. Still, it was easy. All she had to do was ask Magus Veirde.

“Pewerthe the Potter’s family? Let me just check…you know I met her once? Dreadful, though, she never asked for [Messages] through me. She had so many issues with me taking looks at people’s [Messages], as if everyone doesn’t read them, and apparently she got a Scroll of Messages for her own personal use! The nerve! That’s expensive even here! Her parents? Yes, yes, we all know the…huh.”

The [Magus] sorted through his lists of people and places and stopped. Then he frowned.

“Mother, father, brother. The Sincleis family…”

“Could I send a message?”

Veirde glanced up.

“Ah, no. Sadly, they have entered Khelt’s eternal service.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Was it sudden?”

“No…the date says…it must be a mistake. Otherwise, they’d have passed years ago. Before Pewerthe even came back to Khelt. Well, I’m sure it’s a mistake.”

Veirde laughed, waving the moment off, and Frieke schooled her face to neutrality. Well then. That told her something, but what of it? A woman was allowed to lie. Frieke did it all the time. But it did suggest that Pewerthe was a bit harder than even Frieke had given her credit for. Perhaps that was why she had Fetohep of Khelt’s interest. At any rate, Frieke was as happy as could be.

Then she began documenting Khelt as it was now. She realized…there were a few issues.

——

Of all the paradises in the world—and there were so few—Khelt was arguably the…hardest to acclimate to. Which was something that Alked Fellbow hadn’t predicted nor known, and in hindsight, it made him feel like a Bronze-rank fool.

He’d leapt at King Fetohep’s offer and spent all his caution trying to find out whether it was genuine or a way to get him to go on some Death Zone mission, and not on Khelt itself. It wasn’t a huge issue, but it made him feel like he was getting soft, and he could not become soft.

Even if Khelt was a paradise, Alked personally refused to relinquish the levels and talents he had worked himself unto death to acquire. And he knew it was not…safe. The Winter Solstice had proven that.

Even paradise would be threatened by what was coming, but Alked did not feel tricked by King Fetohep. Having gained a measure of the Revenant, Alked felt sure his citizenship had been truly offered without hidden strings attached. For that one reason, King Fetohep had Alked’s loyalty.

It may seem a small thing to other adventurers or his glorious homeland of Nerrhavia’s Fallen, the vast empire beyond compare in so many ways. But Alked had never met a monarch who engendered a sense of loyalty in him that had lasted longer than a week. A boy had once knelt before one of the former rulers of Nerrhavia’s Fallen and stared in awe at a regal Stitch-man made of fabulous thread and thought it fitting that one should rule another. Dreamed of changing his cloth.

A man of Hemp knew his cloth would never, could never change in the eyes of the Court of Silks. And he placed more faith in an undead Revenant than his own people.

Oh, but it was hard to emigrate to Khelt. Fetohep was not to be blamed in many senses; he didn’t know.

Consider paradise. Alked had been doing a bit of research of late. He’d kept bumping into Frieke in the libraries and assumed she was doing her own information-gathering. He had his eye on her, but she actually seemed to be into books. Alked wasn’t that scholarly; he enjoyed adventure tales more than dusty histories. He was a man who used knowledge in pursuit of his goals, so he had quickly dropped books and reached out via contacts. Sent a few gifts, gone out of Khelt and bought some drinks. Gotten some expensive [Communication] spells and learned the truth.

There were five official paradises in this world. Lots of places that could qualify for certain residents or had been at one point or other—Ailendamus was said to have a high standard of living, for instance. But paradise meant you didn’t have to work at all. It didn’t just mean safe. It meant beyond safe. Bliss.

They were: Samal, the Silent Dome of Baleros, the Archmage’s Isle of Heiste, the House of Minos, and Eternal Khelt. And of the five, two weren’t even full nations.

The Silent Dome of Baleros was a paradise, yes, as was the Archmage’s Isle of Heiste, but if you knew anything about the two locations (and Alked had needed to do his research on both), you quickly realized they were more like…resorts.

Oh, you could live there forever, and some people did. But both were clearly gated by wealth and power; the Five Families—or rather, House Wellfar—owned Heiste and only about a dozen people had permanent residency. That had changed over the years, so was it really a paradise…?

Well, you could survive there forever. Magic and Golems took care of every conceivable need, so despite the low population, paradise it was called. The Silent Dome was bigger; it was some kind of heat-shielded dome in the wintery north of Baleros. Magically protected from any outside influence.

Apparently, it had once been made to deflect Dragon assaults. A kind of safe-haven that became another ultra-rich hideaway. It was protected by one of the Four Great companies, and everything inside the dome was brought to you. In a sense, the Silent Dome was the least self-sufficient; a Great Company had to fund and pamper those inside since it didn’t have its own agriculture or means of production.

“Doubtless a single [Thief] could rob everyone inside blind.”

Alked had grunted sourly when a Dullahan foreign adventurer had told him about it. The other Dullahan—who, unlike Frieke, was a native of Baleros—had snorted mildly.

“They did do that, Fellbow. The Lightning Thief ran the entire place. Stole everything. It’s in one of his books. The Iron Vanguard still holds a grudge over it. I thought you liked your adventure books?”

“I like books that don’t sound like fairytales. The Lightning Thief kills no one. He always gets out by the skin of his teeth; there’s no blood or real drama aside from the lady of the hour he sleeps with.”

“Ah, but it’s a real story. Real enough that my mother swears he stole a kiss from her.”

The Stitch-man snorted as they had a drink in a dust-ridden pub in Germina, bordering Khelt. It was so much…realer to him than Khelt. He had to get outside of the kingdom; the sight of dust, the smell of a bit of piss, and a drink that he could nurse without thinking it was the greatest thing he’d ever tasted grounded him.

The Dullahan, whose name was Blithe, sipped from the bowl his head was resting in front of and shot Alked a side-eye. His main body was throwing darts at a board on the other side of the room. Germina loved throwing games. It came of being a famous assassin-nation, Alked supposed.

He might have worried about someone trying to steal his coinpouch or slit his throat for his gear, but the new Quarass was apparently very thorough. It showed; the last time he’d been through, crime had been high for all they had loved the Quarass. This time? People seemed healthier, but they watched him constantly with those polite smiles.

Alked knew cultures. Just not Khelt’s. It was alien. He glanced at Blithe.

“Does your mother have any real facts about the Lightning Thief, then? How many people really died?”

“She claims none by his hand.”

“Hah.”

“I mean it, Fellbow. He was a [Thief], not some killer. He could steal the glimmer out of your eyes. Steal an army’s weapons rather than let them fight. Which he did—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. The War of Fists.”

Blithe gulped down more of the piss-beer.

“What do you read, if not the Lightning Thief?”

“Take a look.”

So saying, Alked placed a book carefully on the counter and winced as he saw the beautiful cover instantly stick to some not-quite-dried beer. Blithe had to put his head back on his shoulders to stare, and so did the [Bartender] and everyone else.

A book from Khelt was unreal. It looked like what people thought adventurer’s loot was. Something sparkling, too-bright, pristine, because it was.

Four gemstones set into each corner of the golden metal inlays on the book. Each one was the eye of a Dragon, who roared across the cover, the work of some master engraver, and the pages were brushed with gold—real gold—and the paper was so bright that Alked saw stains from the finger-grease where he touched the book.

“Damn me, Fellbow. Treat it more carefully!”

“Don’t bother. It goes through a special artifact at the library, Blithe. It automatically restores everything about the book. Like casting both a [Repair] spell and [Cleanse], but higher-tier. This is Tales of Adventure and Woe, Issue 10,000.”

Blithe blinked.

“Only that? Wait, issue…?”

“Yep. Special edition. It’s about Dragons. Dragonlords. Their adventures. Apparently, some Dragons decided to write a book about their exploits, and they published it as the ten thousandth edition.”

It was a fat book and, Alked had to admit, very well written. Someone had worked hard on it, and Blithe’s eyes grew round.

“I had no notion. How many editions of the Tales series does Khelt’s library have?”

“Literally thousands.”

It’d fill at least a decade of Alked’s life, he reasoned. He smiled, but Blithe’s expression of envy and disbelief…the Dullahan leaned over as he delicately inspected the book.

“What’s Khelt like, Fellbow? And why all these questions about other paradises? If you say you’ve got buyer’s remorse, I may have to stab you.”

Alked grunted. He sat back on the stool which hurt his ass, despite it being woven of hemp, and he knew he seemed somewhat…rough. Crude. Some might even say unfinished, in a sense; his nose was blocky, his cheeks were coarse—both from weather and his very cloth—and his skin had a thick, darker quality to it, beyond even what a tan or birth could give.

He was Hemp. His cloth came from the fur and manes of monsters he’d hunted. It was hard to process, so he looked even less-refined than others of his cloth, but the nature of thicker-threaded Stitch-folk was to look like this. They were tough, resilient, but considered thick of mind and inferior by other Stitch-folk.

His entire life, Alked had been treated like he was half as intelligent as anyone of Cotton or Silk. There had been discussion for two years on awarding him Gold-rank status, let alone Named-rank, because it was unseemly for a Hemp to surpass the other cloths. He had not liked it, of course, but thought it the way of things until he’d started leaving Nerrhavia’s Fallen and seeing other nations, where a Hemp man was treated like a Silk Stitch-folk by many: just another species.

Not that Alked was a revolutionary. That got you killed. Of course, he’d done research there too. Attended a few meetings, but he doubted if the Burnt Strings remembered him. Then again, with that disastrous war in Pomle he’d gotten out of…perhaps they were gaining momentum.

That just meant more raids, infiltrators, crackdowns—they’d told him the hour when they changed all threads was coming when he was fourteen. It was always coming, to hear them say it, but right now Nerrhavia’s Fallen…

No, no. Alked wrenched his mind away from the thoughts of home. He was Khelt’s champion now, and it needed protecting. But the first step was to want to safeguard this nation, so he spoke candidly to Blithe.

“It’s hard, Blithe.”

“Yank my other leg off. You smell like a rose, your clothing nearly got both of us mugged on the way in, and you can take books like these out from some amazing library? How’s it hard?”

The Dullahan gave Fellbow an outraged look, but they had a past friendship; Dullahans and Stitch-folk had the ability to detach limbs and connected on that point, unlike other species. Alked drummed his fingers on the counter.

“I mean it. Don’t get me wrong, everything is the best I’ve had in my life. The food, the art—the streets! Blithe, I feel like a [King] every second, and my family tiptoes around the mansion we were given, too afraid to touch anything! No one accepts any coins, the streets are free of dust or insects, and if you so much as sneeze wrong, the best [Healers] will see you in a moment.”

Everyone in the bar listened with envy as Alked spoke, but this was what everyone knew of Eternal Khelt. The Stitch-man wet his tongue with the foul alcohol, then took a breath.

“Before you shout, Blithe…you grew up like I did. Poor.”

“I wasn’t a Hemp living in Nerrhavia’s Fallen, but sure. They only kicked my teeth in for not having any money instead of just existing.”

A twisted smile from both men, and they clinked mugs. Alked downed his cup, motioned with two fingers for another, and spoke.

“Then tell me, Blithe. How d’you think it feels to speak every day to men and women who’ve never even done their own laundry? My neighbors came out, appalled, when they saw me hanging up linens to dry. Told me to get skeletons or, better yet, a charm to do it. They said it was beneath me. I was at a bar in Khelt’s capital, fine as could be. Enjoying myself, even the company, playing darts with a fellow who could throw as well as I. Then he stopped just as we were heating up. Guess why?”

Blithe frowned, mouthing.

“…Because you were Hemp? No, damn. I don’t know.”

“Not Hemp. He couldn’t care less; it was because his fingers were chafing. He’d thrown a dart wrong and it hurt his flesh. He’d never taken so much as a bruise in his life, you see.”

This time, the Dullahan sucked in his lips before grimacing.

“Ah, makes you want to rob the entire place blind and piss on their doorsteps. Like living with a bunch of nobles?”

“Exactly like that.”

The richness of Khelt could indeed delight and awe you, but like fat on the tongue, it could become rancid until you wanted to puke from the excess, the wealth. And the worst part was that Kheltians didn’t even understand how rich they were. They complained of ordinary woes and sounded so privileged…

“Khelt’s the worst for it. Samal and the House of Minos are better, to hear it said. Samal because one can visit and because the keys provide enough incentive that you have something to work on, and the House of Minos points you towards a task, a calling. Whereas Khelt…”

“…Doesn’t admit even a hundred people in a decade. Ah, so the man who has it all suffers a bit. Well, that makes me feel better. Think you’ll still adventure to stay sane?”

Blithe knocked back his drink, slightly amused and satisfied, and Alked shrugged moodily.

“I think I will if only to keep sharp. But I want to love Khelt, Blithe. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

On paper, Khelt had it all. His family would never be conscripted or killed for being Hemp. They were safe, he was safe. He just had to love the nation. It was hard. It was damn hard.

They did not hate him. They were, in fact, in awe of his rank, his deeds. They admired him, but he could not help but feel some contempt for Kheltians. Like fat roaches living as one man, King Fetohep, took upon himself the duties of a nation, and Fetohep was no perfect man. But Alked had no respect for Kheltians. Some respect for Frieke and certainly for Pewerthe, the heir apparent, but two among a nation of countless people who would drive him mad.

He had to rectify this. Along with securing Khelt’s safety, of course, but one went with the other. Knowing his problem now, Alked decided that he had best be his own introduction to Khelt.

——

The issue was that there was no tour guide, no one to acclimatize new citizens to Khelt. No one to be both reassurance and guide, the hype man and gentle greeter.

A Baron Regalius for lack of a better word. Alked had watched the Baron doing a tour of Ailendamus for some promotional video the Kingdom of Glass and Glory put out.

“Greetings, citizens of Ailendamus! You who see me now are honored citizens of the Kingdom of Glass and Glory! I salute you!”

The man, with all his impeccable dress and puffed-out chest, was grand. A [Baron], a popinjay, but one who took a bow, an unheard of thing, and set the tone. He swept his arms out as his wife joined him and introduced his silly naked cats before showing his audience a guided tour of Ailendamus.

“In every city in Ailendamus, you may find changes you are unused to depending on your home nations. For instance, the water? Pumped via these magical fixtures on wells. Free of charge, and drinkable! No well in Ailendamus with such a fixture is unpotable water. And, may I just add, that if you find any hint of sickness or grime, you should inform your local official, who will take the matter seriously. Public threats shall always be dealt with. Thus, if you are sick, you are encouraged to go to a [Healer], who shall not charge you, regardless of the ailment. Sickness is a menace that threatens all citizens…”

It was a splendid advertisement. It made you want to join Ailendamus for all the things any citizen got for free. Not once did Regalius point out another city lacked these things or afforded you less rights; it was purely implicit by comparison.

By contrast, Fetohep had directed one of his servants to give Alked and his family each a vast house after asking him where he wanted to live, sent a two-thousand year-old wine bottle to Alked along with a sheaf of magical arrows as further gifts along with his Relic-class bow, and the next day, Alked had tried to pay at a restaurant with gold and the staff had laughed at him.

Utter confusion, and he was handling it well. Alked broached the subject with Fetohep himself, actually. He had a twice-weekly meeting with the King of Khelt for security, and Fetohep’s golden eye-flames focused on the recording in silence.

“This…is not an issue I had foreseen. Few join Khelt in any year, and I have often taken it upon myself to ensure their comfort personally for years. This pressing time has stolen my focus. Fellbow, this issue must be rectified. Servants—have volunteers prepare a suitable ‘entry video’ to be shown to new citizens and training begun for the position amongst officials. Let us say…five per each city.”

Say this about Fetohep, he could admit when something was lacking, but his response was immediate and even overblown. Like this, Fellbow realized he had accidentally created at least a hundred positions in government and bit his tongue on a protest. It wasn’t like Kheltians had anything else to do, and the cost? What cost?

Fetohep’s servants scrambled to do this as Fetohep returned his attention to the scrying orb.

“We should not be behind Ailendamus in any conceivable way. Hmm. This troubles me, Fellbow. Adventurer Frieke seems well, but then, do the People of Zair feel this same ostracization you do?”

The Stitch-man coughed into one fist, shifting his feet uncomfortably.

“I wasn’t uncomfortable, Your Majesty. I merely…”

Fetohep glanced at him, and Alked ducked his head. The King of Khelt raised a finger.

“You are an adaptable man, Fellbow. Your family? Ah, yes. It will take time to perfect such methods. I wish that I had one recently inducted to Khelt…but most went to the north. The Gnolls!”

He had admitted three tribes to his kingdom. Fetohep’s head swivelled again.

“They must surely feel this disconnect even greater than you. Fellbow, if I task you with the monitoring of their conditions? You need not resolve the issues, merely report.”

“I could do that, Your Majesty. But what of the other concerns of Khelt?”

This had meant to be light conversation, but Fetohep was devoting a lot of time to it. Alked, personally, felt like Khelt’s other issues were important, but Fetohep was insistent, so he promised. Only then did the Revenant turn to the matters of state.

“For now, the Jaws of Zeikhal are inactive, Fellbow. The one who slew George…destroyed by the King of Destruction, and he believes it was the work of—that woman. Not Khelt. I am inclined to agree, but four more hold position. On Khelt’s borders, Medain’s, the Claiven Earth’s, and outside of A’ctelios Salash. Along with the corpse of the great Ash Giant, Zirconia.”

He tapped a map, and Fellbow felt a chill as four gigantic undead figurines stood on the map of Chandrar. Each one a weapon of mass-destruction, an undead of unparalleled size and scope. Jaws of Zeikhal kept growing all their lives, and these had been adults.

City-destroyers. A single bite from their bone-mandibles could crush buildings between their jaws. Of course, only a foe of Khelt had anything to fear.

If Fetohep could control them. If the dead hadn’t lost their ghosts.

They were…inactive. For now. But Khelt’s war-potential had been reduced to almost nothing. Their armies of intelligent, capable undead were now mindless skeletons. They could no longer bring to bear countless legions upon their foes capable of fighting with tactics. They had armies of, well, trash. Fearsome enough in numbers, but utterly outmatched against any trained foe.

In a real sense, Khelt was toothless. But the world could not know this. The problem was that Khelt…Fetohep’s finger tapped two glowing nations to the north.

“The Claiven Earth and Medain continue to send the agreed-upon tributes to Khelt. Today, I will inform the Speaker of Trees and the High King that I will withdraw all but the Jaws from their lands in exchange for a sizable sum. The pretext is that I have grown…tired with the use of my undead. The implication they will pick up upon is that I am wary of other threats, existential ones such as Erin Solstice faces.”

Alked shifted again. He was no great man of politics, but he did understand them. He exhaled.

“Will they accept that, Your Majesty? To their knowledge, you have armies without equal standing ready to crush them. Just as you almost did when you rode north. Would keeping the illusion not be better?”

Fetohep lifted a finger, eyes flashing.

“I had considered this, but an army upon either nation’s lands may be tested. By accident if nothing else. Serept’s Honor-Guard has left Khelt. Their locations unknown. Vizir Hecrelunn has vanished. Salui is dead. To the Claiven Earth, the lack of Revenants might embolden them to take action alone.”

And if they attacked or even tested the undead, they’d find the truth. Fellbow nodded. Retreat was the only option.

“If the pretext works…”

“It should upon the half-Elves. I have always respected their danger, even when Khelt was mighty. High King Perric seems intimidated before me. He has not gainsaid a single thing I have ever said. All forces shall retreat to New Jecrass or Khelt, and the training of our mortal army has begun. Assuming there are no moments of strife, all will be well.”

A safe thing, or it would have been. But Khelt had been active of late. Far too active. Between their new lands in Jecrass, the crushed Terandrian crusade…Fellbow stared at the map. Fetohep waved a hand as the Named-ranker hunched his shoulders.

“I merely apprise you of the situation, Alked Fellbow. This is my duty.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. If I may aid in any way, let me know.”

Alked glanced up, and Fetohep smiled at him, lifting a ringed hand.

“Perhaps I shall send you to inspect New Jecrass, teach the soldiers, or check on the Jaws, Alked. But not yet. Better to present the illusion, as you said. Check upon my subjects; that is all I ask until our next meeting. To them, Khelt’s focus ever lies.”

What could he say to that? Alked bowed, and that was the situation in the early spring for him. The charade, and the King of Khelt maintaining that all was well to his people and to the world. There were not many cracks—then.

Just a few incidents of bugs. Just the magnanimity of Khelt, which was not that out of character, really. Just Alked’s worries. So he tried to make himself like Khelt, but it was so damned hard.

In some ways, it was a poison, and he realized it had missed him, and Frieke, because they were Named-rankers and knew to dodge. But it nearly killed Herdmistress Geraeri.

——

The People of Zair mostly occupied New Jecrass, the third of Jecrass ceded to Khelt in exchange for their aid by Queen Jecaina. It was their home, and they loved the nomadic lands, but they’d also come to Khelt just to see it.

They were doing well. Centaurs could party as hard as any species, and more than one young Centaur was racing around Khelt, bedecked in new finery, flirting outrageously with interested Kheltians, drinking, eating, the truest joy in their eyes.

“Paradise, we are in paradise!”

They made wreaths of flowers and draped themselves over newcomers to their vast herd-camps. Even Alked got one made of bright white flowers by a singing Centauress. The People of Zair understood what they’d received, and they had thrown a party that hadn’t stopped since they’d been inducted into Khelt months ago.

There was some practicality to it, actually. The food and drink was wasteful, but Khelt had unlimited amounts of that. Rather, the Centaurs were rather shrewdly drawing in Kheltians, teaching them how to hand-braid rugs or make Centaur alcohol by stomping fruits in huge tubs, essentially finding a role in this barter-based economy.

They were good artisans; more than one was accepting orders for bows by Kheltians, and they only had to keep catching themselves and remember not to ask for coins. When Alked introduced himself to a warrior-Centaur by the name of Frivek, even the lifelong fighter seemed happier than not.

“Ah, His Majesty worries about us? He needn’t fear; it was something to see Khelt’s riches. We had some of the young colts and fillies growing lightfingered—but all was returned! The owners barely noticed they were gone.”

Alked nodded, keeping his face straight as Frivek shot him a sideways glance, worried perhaps this might reflect badly on them. Thievery was associated with nomads constantly, but Alked knew better.

“But how do the adults do, and yourself, Frivek? I’ve worried about growing soft and my role here.”

Frivek snorted, but nodded as Alked brought up some of his own worries. He pawed the ground as his hand stole to the light lance he used.

“Well, I’m no Named-rank. Half of my warriors would rather settle down. They’re already planning children. Me? I think New Jecrass will need security, so I fear for my position less. Centaurs can be hot-tempered, especially males fighting over courtships. There will always be a need for someone who can kick everyone into line.”

A fair answer, a good answer. Alked envied Frivek and cast his eyes over the People.

“Do you think you’ll keep to your herd camps and make art?”

It seemed like a logical choice, but Frivek hesitated. He glanced at the enamoured Kheltians before saying something odd.

“Hard to compete. I imagine the Gnolls will parlay their uniqueness too until we find another way to make a mark. A familiar people, they are. I find common ground with them, but I think…no. I think in time, only some of us will stay in the herd camps and practice our arts and ways. The rest will move to the cities. This will kill much of the People of Zair, but our people will be Kheltian, and we will be represented in their numbers greatly from now on.”

What a statement. It sounded like the death of an entire culture, yet Frivek did not sound horrified by this as Alked thought a proud member of his clan might. He eyed the Centaur, and Frivek grinned, brushing at his hair.

“You’re surprised, no, Fellbow? Don’t take this wisdom as falling from my mouth alone. ‘Twas my great aunt’s aunt who said it. Herdmistress Geraeri saw the nature of our bargain with King Fetohep from the start. It is still worth it. Paradise may change us, but safety such as this is worth it.”

“Of course. It sounds like the Herdmistress.”

She was like Fellbow, someone over Level 40, but a leader, someone who could see and direct this entire group of Centaurs and empower them. Small wonder her people adapted so well. Alked smiled; Fetohep would be relieved to know the largest and most powerful of his new people were splendidly integrating.

“May I offer her my compliments? I have a gift from Koirezune, though that means little here.”

He expected she was out and about, but this final formality was actually the hardest bit. Frivek hesitated and stepped backwards. He raised a hoof, put it down, twisted his torso to glance at a Centauress that might be his wife, then seemed to think better of lying as he turned back to Fellbow.

He dropped the half-smile he’d tried to conjure, then lowered his head and voice to whisper.

“Since we are all allies and you and I rode to the Meeting of Tribes and you report to His Majesty who we trust implicitly, this I shall do. But you understand…she has paid her debts. She rode to the Meeting of Tribes as she promised.”

“Of course.”

Fellbow’s internal sense of alarm rose as Frivek nodded to a tent that was not central in the herd camp; it was set back away from the noise and hubbub. Still one of the largest. He noted a few Centaurs entering and exiting as Frivek led him that way; all female, of varying ages, but the rest stayed away.

“Great aunt’s aunt? It’s I, Frivek. I’ve brought Adventurer Fellbow with me to give his greetings.”

Frivek stomped in front of the tent, and a voice spoke from within.

“Who?”

“Fellbow, Great aunt’s aunt. He—the one who fought with you.”

“Oh…come in, come in then. I’ll put some tea together. I’ve been sorting roots for the baskets.”

Another glance. Frivek pushed the huge flaps open as he trotted through, and when Alked saw the Herdmistress of such renown, he sighed, suddenly, as it clicked.

Khelt’s poison.

He bowed as Herdmistress Geraeri stood, somewhat unsteadily, and three Centaurs trotted around her in a panic.

“Grandmother—”

“Mother—”

“Great aunt—don’t trouble yourself!”

Alked’s memory was of an older Centauress, but one who was regal and wild, yes, lined with age, but hair of bronze streaked with grey, wearing gemstones braided into her hair, and the kilts Centaurs loved, patterned with hand-embroidered fabric.

Both warrior and leader, leading her Centaurs after Fetohep into new lands like a storm. In many ways, she was the same woman, but her hair…

It had been bleached of all color. Perhaps she’d been dying it, but it was now fully gray, and instead of the sharp, intelligent features, she seemed lost as she stood, trotting over to a high-standing teapot. She’d been kneeling on the ground, sorting through a tablecloth filled with various roots.

When he saw that, Frivek stopped ducking his head to Herdmistress Geraeri and glared at her family.

“Why are all those roots here? That’s work for a low-level sorter!”

“She doesn’t want to rest, Frivek! We had to give her something or she trots around. Adventurer Fellbow, please sit—”

They had high cushions for Fellbow to sit on so he could be somewhat level with the Centaurs, who sat on huge rugs and cushions to support their horse bodies. He did so nimbly and saw Geraeri moving with practice, finding tea, pouring water into a kettle over a fire. Then pausing for a second before turning blankly to him.

“Fellbow…I remember you. Yes. Greetings, Named-rank adventurer. Have you come on business of some kind?”

“No, Herdmistress. Merely to check on the People of Zair on behalf of His Majesty.”

“Oh, His Majesty. So good of him. Yes, there’s nothing to be done. We have reached paradise.”

She trotted back slowly, and one of her daughters sprang up to check on the hot water and make the tea. Geraeri almost rose, but they bade her rest, and then she sat, blowing on the tea after it was served, and making polite conversation.

And he realized after only a few more sentences that her mind had gone, a bit. She was distracted, asking Frivek about the camps, which had no worries. About if they had food planted and were gathering and had to be reminded that Khelt had all they wanted. Then she sat aimlessly.

“It is well, Alked Fellbow. Very well. Do you go to see the Gnolls next? You must take a gift from us.”

“We gave them several, Mother—but oh, we could find something.”

The three members of Geraeri’s family had to spend the next fifteen minutes picking out a choice gift, which turned out to be a white jade flute that Alked accepted with a bow and promised to gift to the Gnolls. He offered Geraeri some wine from Fetohep’s palace, which she smiled over, and then she sat.

“My strength deserted me when I returned to Chandrar’s soils. Is the King of Destruction still warring?”

“With Nerrhavia’s Fallen, yes, Herdmistress.”

For a second, her eyes seemed to focus, and she whispered.

“He shall never stop his war. The war is a means more than its end. Sometimes, I think he came back just to fill that hole he lost in the last one. But it is nothing to do with us now. I think I shall rest a while, Fellbow. I have grown very tired.”

“You look as brilliant as the moment I saw you riding across Izril’s plains, Herdmistress.”

He lied, and Frivek managed a smile as he glanced away from Geraeri, and the Centauress laughed at Fellbow.

“Whom ever said you were a simple man, Fellbow? No. No, I’m just—content. Strange.”

She looked around, a smile on her face, without her people to worry after. No food, no dangers, no threats…nothing at all for the Herdmistress to focus on.

You lost your edge. Geraeri lifted her cup and drank with both hands clasping it.

“Relaxation will be the death of me, but I have nothing else to do, Fellbow. Will you take your ease? I have countless granddaughters and daughters to introduce you to.”

He studied her and smiled, a slash of an expression as he touched the bow on his back, and it gleamed. Heaven’s Arc, the Relic-class bow entrusted to him. And Fetohep had promised to reward Geraeri in kind, hadn’t he?

“What about your vow to return to Baleros, Herdmistress? Didn’t His Majesty give you armor for that purpose?”

He’d heard the People of Zair had left due to some blood-feud and they had dreamed of returning to Baleros one day, but Geraeri just looked about, and he saw said armor, polished and hanging upon a rack. She smiled at it, almost guilty.

“Ah, that. It’s been generations since we left. I grew up on those stories, and most of the clans that forced us to flee are dead or changed. It’s the kind of dream that you speak of, but in truth? Getting aboard so many ships to leave the home we know? Much less to carve out a place in Baleros with the Dyed Lands erupting?”

She glanced at him, and he understood. When someone like King Fetohep enabled any dream or wish, sometimes you realized what you had wanted didn’t shine as brightly when you could have it. Geraeri chuckled softly.

“I feel rather embarrassed. I have not pressed His Majesty, and I hope he does not take us at our word. We would rather rest in paradise than leave it.”

“I shall assure him of that, if he asks.”

Another chuckle.

“You are an adventurer who wields words as well as blades, Fellbow. Thank you. As you can see, we have come to peace. Will you also retire, now all debts have been paid and we sit in this pleasant eternity?”

For a second, Geraeri’s eyes focused on it, and Fellbow shook his head.

“I have a few more things to do before I can rest, Herdmistress.”

“Oh. Good. I envy you.”

——

Frivek saw Fellbow off with politeness, only commenting that he thought Geraeri might simply need rest. Fellbow agreed and privately thought she might be dead within the year if nothing roused her.

Something for Fetohep to remark upon. Alked had seen it happen with other Named-rankers. He’d known someone in her nineties, a hard-as-hell Cotton Stitch-woman who’d kept going despite her age and injuries.

When some idiots had finally gotten her to stop, she’d drained of life like that. Just fallen asleep and never woken up.

Sometimes, people needed a drive. Kheltians were born without. How could they live like this?

Alked had met their ilk in Nerrhavia’s Fallen countless times. Silks, not fat in form mostly because they could change it to be beautiful and elegant, but corpulent in their heads and souls, permanently dissatisfied, permanently with something to prove because they had never struggled for anything.

They were, ironically, the ones with the greatest ambitions, with huge ideas of things they could do to prove themselves and little ability to make such things happen. Dangerous clients both for their tempers and inability to gauge threats.

Yet…not all Kheltians quite fit that mold. They were privileged, yes. Rich beyond imagination! But not as cruel, not as petty or insecure.

Why? And could he love them?

Certainly, one of the Kheltians in Ishrilcandrer, one of the new cities built for the Gnoll tribes, did not impress Alked greatly.

Three entire Gnoll tribes had been offered sanctuary by Fetohep, much like how the King of Destruction had inducted so many to his kingdom. The King of Khelt had spared no expense in giving them both city and land to live upon. He had failed to give them people to help integrate into Khelt, but they were not without locals.

Kheltians had come to the new cities, one of which was dubbed Ishrilcandrer, to live alongside the Gnolls. The one who had met with Fellbow to show him around was named Zamec, and he was a native-born Kheltian.

“Welcome to Ishrilcandrer, Adventurer Fellbow! Do you wish to meet the Chieftains? Or an Honored Gnoll, or just see the city? Do you like the name, yes? It is Gnollish! Izril and Chandrar combined, you see, yes?”

The ‘yes’ quirk of Gnolls sounded weird coming off Zamec’s tongue, and it annoyed Alked from the start. The young man was well enough, fully Human and fit enough to stride through the huge archway decorated with…vines? Fellbow saw much of the city was practically overgrown as he tilted his head back.

“Hm. Low buildings. These plants—did the [Shamans] of the Gnolls grow them?”

“Yes, Adventurer Fellbow! This is the Decles tribe’s work. They decided they wished to live amongst nature while the Satest Fletching tribe refuses to live in any city at all! The Gembows have a more formal design, but it is fascinating, yes? The Druid-village of Losht came to help build this place. Some even stayed!”

“There’s a [Druid]…of course there is. Nevermind. And you came here to live?”

Zamec’s eyes gleamed as Alked saw Gnolls opening shutters to hang clothing off lines, sweeping the streets, or, since it was early morning when he’d come to the distant northern city, bringing in kills from hunts. A Gnoll had a string of armadillo-like rats slung over a pole dripping blood.

Zamec halted in clear startlement, but he regained his composure quickly, suggesting that while this wasn’t normal to him, he’d seen it a lot. Alked?

He smiled.

Now this was a city he liked. 

——

The Gnolls refused to stop working even if they were in Khelt. They hunted, made food, did laundry, and if they had excess? They gave it back to Khelt’s storehouses or traded it for favors.

Since it wasn’t high-grade luxurious food, there was little demand for it, but the Gnolls insisted on eating their own fare and seemed to regard the rest of Khelt like a luxury best taken in small bites.

“It is something we visit on weekends, Adventurer Fellbow, yes? I have visited, hrr, seven cities now, and I intend to go further abroad when I have time. But I keep hunting. Do you know if there is more than small game in Khelt? Myself, I find it hard to keep hunting rats.”

The Gnoll who’d had the armadillo-rats was actually one of the higher-level Gnolls in the Decles tribe, and the eager Zamec introduced them as Alked warmed up to the Gnolls almost as fast as they warmed up under the Chandrarian sun. There were plenty of canopies in the short, mostly single or double-story city. They were all, in fact, laying on long, foldable chairs with more stretched fabric or hammocks.

“Hunting is difficult because anything dangerous is killed by the skeletons, Master Qirrel.”

“Hunter Qirrel if anything, Adventurer Fellbow. Or just Qirrel; I would not call myself master of aught in front of you.”

“Qirrel, then. And I’m just Alked. Mostly, the biggest animals you’ll find are gazelles. They roam from the oases, which Khelt has plenty of; entire herds. I’d be wary, though. Some are friends of [Druids], and they might object if you shoot them.”

Qirrel heaved a huge sigh through his nose.

“This I have been told, yes. Anything else? Of worth?”

“Hmm. Try birds. They migrate more frequently than you’d think, and some are quite exotic. Plus, their feathers are of more use to Kheltians. Come to that, if you don’t mind a bit of digging, there’s a number of subterranean animals. Not much to hunt with a bow…”

“…But hunting of a different kind is hunting. We must all adapt.”

Qirrel’s eyes lit up, and he smiled as Alked outlined a few valuable animals. The Gnoll grinned as he found a map and swiftly marked the spots, then sighed.

“Argh, but the sand. It gets everywhere, yes? And it is coarse and grainy.”

“I’ve heard half a dozen Gnolls say that.”

Fellbow felt like it was a saying, and Qirrel heaved a huger sigh.

“Some Human came up with it, and we have all agreed they were words of wisdom indeed. The heat bakes us dry and itchy, and the sun! We cannot even function when it grows hot. You see?”

The long hammocks or folding chairs had countless Gnolls who were lying in the shade, taking a siesta against the heat. This was not the Decles tribe’s way, but they were adapting. And that was what they were doing, Alked realized. Adapting.

“I have already called for Gembow’s Chieftain and Satest Fletching. Satest still has their Chieftain, but former-chieftain Lessha, she still is one in spirit. She may well win the elections for mayor of her city even though she refused to run.”

That amused Qirrel, who grinned toothily. Alked raised his brows.

“Two tribes have done away with their [Chieftains]?”

Qirrel spread his paws.

“How could we keep them? We must change, Alked, yes? We wanted change, we who fled the damnation of Izril and took King Fetohep’s generosity. I am glad of it. There was nothing but death and despair in Izril. No matter what the other tribes pretend: that Meeting of Tribes was damned by the Drakes, and they will damn us again and again until we are all dead. Not in any one battle, but I am tired of enemies.”

Then Alked realized that Qirrel was the Chieftain of the Decles tribe. He seemed younger, after laying down his class, and he smiled wearily.

“I have renounced my [Chieftain] class entirely. I am but a [Hunter], and a low-level one, but I think…yes, I think I am happy. Even if we have little worth in Khelt, we will adapt. It is stubbornness that keeps us wanting to clean and do what we can now do without. Our young are more energetic.”

Zamec jumped into the conversation here, grinning fit to burst.

“They are coming to our cities more and more! I go around with plenty of friends these days. I know over a hundred Gnolls by name and sight, yes? I often introduce other Kheltians to my Gnoll friends; they can be so ignorant.”

Alked and Qirrel both winced at the ‘Gnollish’ Kheltian, but his heart was in the right place. Qirrel muttered to Alked.

“Here I feared that the Decles tribe would vanish from how many died at the Meeting of Tribes. But to smell and see it, our population is about to double or triple. Though I cannot see what most Gnolls see in him.”

He jerked his head at Zamec, who was flirting with a Gnoll who sat up on another hammock and waved at him. Alked snorted.

“Young people have their own standards, and Kheltians can practice fitness if nothing else. Both are exotic to the other, I suspect.”

And it probably seemed like Zamec could buy them endless luxuries even if he only used the basic amenities of any citizen. Qirrel rolled his eyes.

“Yes, but…sixteen in a week? I don’t think I was that lucky all year when I was young. Damn cities. When I was young, you had to wait until another tribe came over and—argh! I’ve become old! I’m not even married!”

He pulled at the fur on his head in visible distress, and Alked had to laugh. Qirrel rubbed at his fur, hugely embarrassed.

“Maybe I should shave my fur short. It keeps you cooler, but I am still the former [Chieftain]…it just seems surprising for so many Gnolls to find so much to love in Kheltians of any species. No offense, but it is not that common in Izril.”

“Hmm. Does it help that Chandrarian species aren’t Drakes and Kheltians love and admire interesting foreigners?”

Qirrel stopped tugging at his chin-hair and glanced at Alked respectfully. He ducked his head.

“Yes. Yes, not having to warn our younger folk to stay away from Drakes lest there be trouble for any reason—yes. We have less history, and all that we have is gratitude. But the flesh…”

He shook his head, then narrowed his eyes at Zamec, who’d already, somehow, managed to secure a date for a hangout that night. With two people. Even Alked had to stare.

Does he have a relationship class or Skill or something? It’d make sense. He glanced back at Qirrel.

“Stitch-folk can have fur and look rather…furry. Ever heard of Alterkinds?”

“No. But I’m now listening. How is that Human doing that?”

Qirrel edged forwards, still peering at Zamec. Alked coughed into one hand, realizing the oversight Qirrel was making.

“All the Gnolls he’s flirting with are males, Qirrel.”

“What? Oh. Oh. That would also…in Izril, I’d lecture them about relationships that would have Drakes come down on you and needing to have children. Here?”

Qirrel put his feet up on the folding chair and smiled ruefully, then peered at Alked.

“So if I went to the capital, say, would a former-[Chieftain] who is a decent hunter attract any attention? From, say, Stitch-ladies? You know what? Any species. I’m really not sure what you meant by fur. But let’s say I—”

It was at that moment that Lessha of the Fletching Tribe and Chieftain Honoghest of the Gembows arrived. The aged male Gnoll bopped Qirrel on the head with a staff, and Lessha gave him such a look that he fell out of his folding chair.

“Qirrel, we have His Majesty’s servant here and you ask for dating tips? Shame, you fool you!”

“I wasn’t—I was only—ahem! Let me introduce you, Adventurer Fellbow…”

Both Gnoll tribes were close by to Ishrilcandrer. The Gembow’s city, named after their tribe, and the camp of Satest Fletching were very close.

In case of danger. The Gnolls wouldn’t let their guards down again, but both groups were exceptionally cordial with Alked and, it seemed, more integrated than he.

“The richness of Khelt? Yes, it shocked and dismayed and, I will say, even upset us. To see what they have and we do not, that is pure jealousy. Some of us were bothered, but we talked it out. And I hear you, Fellbow, and respect His Majesty’s concerns. But we have found enough to love here. Even if not all of us stay.”

Lessha was the youngest and another skilled archer, though she was a [Bowyer] like her tribe. She grinned as she carved a piece of wood, working on a bow, and old Honoghest sat with a sigh; he was a [Shaman] and [Chieftain] combined.

“Where will you go? Out of Khelt? There is no way back if you do.”

Alked warned them, not sure if Fetohep would relax that rule even for the Gnolls, but Lessha waved this away airily.

“Oh, I do not speak of tomorrow or even years from now, Alked. But perhaps in time, those of us who do not want to live here will set out. We will use this safety to train, to rebuild, to learn. And if we feel it calling in our fur…Gnolls shall explore the world again. Some may want to reclaim Izril. I think it would be wiser to let them go out; once, we roamed Chandrar. We should again.”

Ah, now there was a vision for a people. Qirrel muttered softly as Honoghest nodded.

“We clearly left because of the sand. Which gets—”

He received two pokes and shut up. Alked nodded in appreciation of the Gnolls’ plans and trust to share this openly, but he paused.

“There are truly no problems with the tribes?”

Another grin, and this time, Qirrel replied.

“For a people taken from the site of bloody massacre and dropped a continent away? Few as you could hope, Alked Fellbow. Some, yes. But we have found what it is we admire in Kheltians.”

“Admire?”

Alked sat up, and all three Gnolls nodded. Honoghest spoke in a low rumble, amused.

“We saw what you did, but they demonstrated their own worth in time. You may not see it yet, but if you wish it, stay a day in our company and it shall become obvious.”

What could he say to that but to accept? Alked found himself reclining on a folding chair with the other Gnolls until Qirrel got up to serve them some of the armadillo-rat he’d hunted, drizzled with fat and only a few spices. Alked washed the meal down with some fresh water and then just lay, belly full, staring at the blue skies as the sun warmed him just enough to be drowsy…

Could he live forever like this?

——

When he woke up, he reached for his shortsword, not knowing where he was for a second. Kill or be killed. Are you safe? Be ready to defend—

Only when he saw Lessha’s eyes on him, and his hand jumped free of the hilt, did he understand. And saw she did too.

For those of us who have lived a life of death and violence, perhaps rest is impossible. Maybe Khelt would just be a place he came back to time and again to relax before being driven back to the knife’s edge where he felt at home.

…He could live with that. Alked wondered if he was a broken man. He’d chipped away a younger man’s body, taken lives, placed himself against monsters again and again, breaking his sense of normalcy down.

It was worth it to see his mother weeping in relief for days in this safe place. To see his younger brother flirting without fear of his cloth landing him in trouble for loving the wrong person, or his father cease his endless work at the grindstone. In time, perhaps he’d find something for himself.

But first, protect this nation. Love it. Alked didn’t know what had woken him at first. Then the voices from below the roof where he had been napping rose again, and he heard it.

The Gnolls in the city. They were singing. Alked saw Lessha beckoning him to the edge of the roof and glanced down. Then he saw, in an open square filled with a huge ring of furry bodies around a bright, glowing crystal hovering in the center, what the Gnolls did with their free time.

They sang. It surprised Alked immensely; he had heard countless songs in Hemp communities, the kind that Cotton and Silk would never hear. But he didn’t realize…

“You’re surprised, Fellbow? This pleases me that a Named-rank adventurer looks so.”

Lessha stretched out as she leaned over the railing. She had some feathers tied into the mane of hair running along her back. She had mostly black fur and a streak of silvery grey highlighting her features. The former [Chieftain] closed one eye as Alked replied softly.

“I knew Gnolls sang, of course. But I didn’t think so many sang so…well.”

“Ah, well. Every Gnoll in a tribe joins in songs. Is it not so among your species?”

When he told her it wasn’t common, at least, in Stitch-folk societies in Nerrhavia’s Fallen, she looked surprised and a bit sad for him.

“Learning that any voice can be part of beautiful chorus, regardless of talent, is a valuable thing. Kheltians sing, of course, but not like this. This attracts them, so it became a tradition. It’s…hrr. What is the word? Tourism, yes?”

She was a bit dismissive, but the chorus of Gnolls were singing songs that Alked had never heard. He knew Great Plains Sing, but this wasn’t that. The Gnolls were crooning, and they were very good at that with that bass rumble in their voice. This was some song about a Chieftain fighting a great monster.

First, the male Gnolls sang, then the female Gnolls sang. An alternating dance of voices until they joined together.

That was the first song—then the music picked up, and Alked heard a far faster song, and the crooning became a roar of voices. A chant—the stomp of feet. Drums played, and he thought this was a warrior’s song, perhaps for before battle.

“It’s fine music, Honored Lessha. Fine as I’ve ever heard.”

He smiled and was surprised by it. The Gnoll woman grinned at him, in delight for the compliment, and pointed down. Qirrel was there with Honoghest. Singing with Gnolls young and old.

“We are Gnolls broken by the revelation at the Meeting of Tribes, Alked Fellbow. By treachery and the lies of Plain’s Eye and Chieftain Xherw. It took a horrific undead from another continent showing us mercy to survive.”

He opened his mouth to deny that, and she lifted a paw to his mouth.

“It is fair to call us that. A broken people surviving only on generosity. But we have not forgotten our community. We shall thrive. Both Gnolls of Khelt and our cousins in Reim. If a thousand years pass, we shall not forget that.”

In her eyes sparked a different promise than the Centaurs of the People of Zair. Like a pool of bark, a river of a forest, her gaze was like the history of Gnolls. Changing, shifting, but always that people who had once explored every inch of the world.

In a thousand years…Alked wondered what her people would look like and if that dream would come true. He supposed only Fetohep would know, and for that one thing, he envied the Revenant.

Truth behind these promises. But then Lessha stepped back and pointed.

“Ah, but here—this is good. Here is the other part. Which endeared us even to Kheltian’s silliness. Look.”

He’d been lost staring at her for a moment. Alked swivelled on his heels, and he was just in time to see Zamec of all people appear in the center of the ring of Gnolls next to the floating blue crystal.

“What is that thing? It’s magical, some kind of mass-spell…”

She grinned.

“A stone of cooling. It would be a bonfire in Izril, yes? But it’s too damn hot here. In the nights, we’ll set a flame, but now…do you see?”

King Fetohep had probably just sent a giant stone of cooling because the Gnolls were sweaty. Alked shook his head, but then he saw Zamec stop and beam as he lifted something up.

A bag of holding.

“Honored friends, I am Zamec, here to answer the Gnolls’ great music with Khelt’s! I am the poorest of those here, yes?”

Half the Gnolls, Alked was pleased to see, winced at the ‘yes’, but they held back as Zamec went on.

“This is a quickly-made copy, and I am little-practiced with this, but I have had to play and adapt this listening to the Singer of Terandria’s works.”

Oh, great. He was going to put on music, but it was from the Siren of Songs? Alked sighed; he’d bought enough song-crystals for his sister and mother (and father) to know what to expect. Each new song was good, but—wait. He narrowed his eyes as Zamec lifted a bag of holding up and then carefully pulled something out of it.

Something…huge. No Bag of Holding had that capacity! But the object he sat on with a flourish was a stool, and in front of it was an entire…

“What is that contraption?”

He’d never seen the like in his life. Lessha snorted softly.

“Damn Kheltians. It’s a modified harpsichord. They must have watched the broadcast of the Meeting of Tribes and seen our piano.”

It was a more simplified version of the larger instrument that was the grand piano. However Zamec had come by this one, it was clear from how he sat that he had some practice with it. Some kind of broadcast…? Lessha smiled mysteriously when Alked glanced at her and tapped the side of her nose.

“I get some information from the Meeting of Tribes, even if we have left, Adventurer Alked. Though I am not the Chieftain of the Fletchsing tribe.”

She chuckled at that as if that were some huge joke, and Qirrel glanced up from where he stood and rolled his eyes. Alked just watched Zamec spread his hands over the keys.

He was prepared for a cover of Singer Cara’s music. Or for some of the other Kheltians or Gnolls to join in and just sing a song straight, but Zamec just took a breath. Then he leaned his head back, chin tilting upwards, and he closed his eyes. His hands rose and touched the keys of the piano.

And then Fellbow realized that the Singer of Terandria’s songs did feature a piano, harpsichord, or something close to what Zamec was playing. And—her songs didn’t feature complex parts at all. That instrument was just one note in a chorus, and the voice almost always predominated.

This was a song only from the piano. With deference to the power of the Gnolls’ combined chorus, the lone Kheltian created just as much awe in Alked with his solo performance.

He played. He played like a master, and Alked had heard enough to recognize it. He was not as good as the likes of Barelle the Bard, who was an undisputable master across the world, but one or two levels below Barelle?

“Dead gods.”

Zamec’s fingers were dancing across the keys of the piano, faster and faster, as the gentle song picked up in intensity. It was a beautiful song, like someone building a structure out of panes of glass, each one polished.

It continued to be so beautiful, each note pristine, but the tempo was increasing. Half again as fast. Double…then back to a slow, building chorus. But when the music slowed, there were twice as many notes despite the slower beat.

The careful chaos was—actually a bit damn stressful to listen to. It reminded Alked of his rushing heart when he was waiting for a monster to round the corner, a hammering crescendo of panic as he lay, bow drawn, one arrow left. Life or death—

And the song was getting faster. Building and building as Gnolls shifted, striking faster and faster until the tension made Alked realize he was actually gripping the railing of the rooftop. Lessha’s teeth were bared, but she was nodding to the beat until both caught each other’s eyes and realized they were tensing. Then they laughed, and Zamec struck the keys, leaving only a ringing silence, a rushing of beating hearts—and he turned and bowed. Then he caught sight of Alked and waved his hands.

“It is an incomplete song, Adventurer Fellbow! But it evokes a panic well, I hope! Next? I apologize if I have disappointed my great Gnoll friends, but we try music here!”

He leapt off the harpsichord and swept it into his bag of holding. Another Kheltian strode forwards, a middle-aged man with a cello. He planted it in the center of the ring of Gnolls and spoke.

“This is a poor performance, but I have practiced it for a decade, and a Noelictan once told me it was good. For our new citizens and their music, I play a song from Noelictus’ fields.”

Then he touched the bow of his instrument to the cello and produced a somber note that ran across the city. And Alked saw it. He turned to Lessha and whispered.

“Music.”

She winked at him.

“Well, the art is very nice, but yes, we were impressed by the music. You should see them dance or act.”

——

It was no grand revelation. In fact, Pewerthe and Fetohep seemed rather surprised when Alked relayed this to them later, but the thing that had charmed the Gnolls and the redeeming element of Khelt was just that.

King Fetohep’s triumph. Queen Xierca’s really. How did you deal with a citizenry who had everything? They might turn to hedonism, or worse, and other rulers of Khelt had been forced to curtail such rising corruption in their citizens.

The solution that Xierca had found and Fetohep had continued was art. Music. Dancing, even.

Alked had associated the fine food of the capital city with richness, but he realized—someone did have to make that food. The skeletons made plenty of food you could eat for free, but to have a city full of tasty delights, you had to have citizens who wanted to cook, who took pride in it.

As for cooking, the same for music and the other arts. Kheltians, it turned out, could dance. Not only that, but their obsession with the latest fads meant they had both [Actors] and a wide, wide variety of influences.

Cut his strings, Alked swore he even heard some Hemp music in the hodgepodge of musical stylings that went on through the rest of the day. The Singer of Terandria’s music style predominated, but like Zamec, countless Kheltians were experimenting with her music. It was like a cavalcade of talented artists emerging from rather insipid, ordinary people.

Because, clearly, the Kheltians felt like they were barely rising to the Gnolls’ splendid culture. Nevermind that the Gnollish tribes had far fewer musicians-per-pound than the Kheltians.

It was the communal singing that drew the Kheltians like Zamec in, Alked learned. The community among the tribes was foreign to Kheltians who loved the mass-songs and traditions.

And that…was all Alked wanted to see, really. He let out a breath then as he spent a day with the Gnolls and found that there was indeed something of Khelt to love. It was not perfect, of course. Zamec was still mildly annoying. But it was that promise that maybe…if he laid down his bow, lost all his edge and means of protecting himself, he too might learn to make something beautiful like that.

He wasn’t going to do that, obviously, not any time soon, but it was enough. Alked smiled, and motivation returned, he intended to tell His Majesty of Khelt that the Gnolls and Centaurs would be just fine, each in their own way, though Herdmistress Geraeri was a consideration.

When he returned to the capital, of course. Tomorrow. Because he spent the rest of today circulating the city, seeing the many things the Gnolls were building, listening to music, eating Gnollish food, ducking Zamec, and flirting with Lessha.

The former-chieftain of the Satest Fletching tribe seemed to regard it as a game, and Alked might be a Named-rank adventurer and thus a tad bit close to insanity, but he was still a master-class archer, and Gnolls loved archers. She made the ‘mistake’ of betting a kiss that he couldn’t hit any target she could point at with an arrow.

——

The next day, Qirrel pointed an accusatory finger at Alked as he saw them off.

“You too, Fellbow? I thought you were on my side! Curse you, curse—”

He earned a full kick from Chieftain Honoghest, and Alked rode away back to the capital with lightened spirits. The Gnolls were doing great. In fact, when he brought up Khelt’s woes, they had all just gazed at him.

“Oh no, flies. Beetles. I saw five of them this year. I may die.”

He had laughed about that with Lessha that morning. Upon his return to the capital, though, the first thing Alked Fellbow saw was an upset Kheltian woman screaming about ants in her flour that she’d left out in the open overnight.

In the middle of the street.

He sighed.

Back to Khelt’s woes.

——

The bugs really disturbed Fetohep of Khelt. They disturbed his people. They could not be allowed to stand, and he explained it to the man a sixteenth time.

“Insects do not exist in Khelt.”

“…At all, Your Majesty?”

“No.”

Alked smiled politely, and Fetohep paused a moment and realized he must explain.

“You laugh internally, Fellbow, thinking I make some hyperbole or joke. No. I am telling you that insects, ants, mosquitos, much less beetles, do not exist in Khelt. There are no rats in Khelt.”

The smile vanished. Alked frowned and leaned forwards.

“Pardon me, Your Majesty, but you are making some kind of overexaggeration. They surely exist. If they are all but unnoticed, that is one thing, but you have sewers. Rats…are rats. They have burrows, just not in cities.”

Fetohep smiled.

“No, Fellbow. They do not exist. Allow me to give you a prescient example. Two hundred and thirty years ago, mosquito swarms were plaguing Chandrar. A rather prolific spawning. They flew across the borders into Khelt, as one might expect. They brought sickness, itches…a million skeletons were deployed. Every body of water was treated for their eggs, [Detect Insect] spells honed and sands combed for their offspring. Skeletons with fine mesh nets waved them through the air ceaselessly. Every bush, every plant in Khelt was treated to destroy the insects. Then the undead advanced. A hundred mile radius was cleared around Khelt in every direction. The Quarass at the time thought it might be an invasion at first until I clarified. Finally, I had a barrier spell erected across Khelt that killed every single bug that flew through it. There were five mosquito found the next year. Ah, I correct myself. Five mosquito eggs, as they could lay dormant for years, hence the thoroughness of the search. None found the year after. Bugs. Do not. Exist. In Khelt.”

The Named-rank Adventurer was once again reminded of both Khelt’s richness and its ruler’s single-minded obsession with, well, perfection. He shifted in his chair.

“…But the insects in Khelt are no plague, Your Majesty. Your subjects claim that.”

“Would it not be the result of plague spells? Some foreign assault by Roshal, Fellbow? The complaints and sightings are daily, now.”

Fetohep stood and stared out the window of his palace, disturbed. Alked peered at his back and coughed.

“…No, Your Majesty. Bugs are a regular occurrence.”

“A daily one?”

Fetohep swung around, and Alked nodded slowly. Fetohep tapped his teeth.

“Truly? Could it not be a plague?”

Alked thought of the tiny ants that probably came from a single colony in one woman’s bag of flour and a beetle nest that had required him to go out and just destroy it. Then he thought of a [Plague of Lice] spell.

“…I am positive, Your Majesty.”

“Hmm. But they must be stopped! Where one bug exists, more are hidden. And yet, and yet…my skeletons cannot clean. They are inept. I must control them myself, perhaps. A full deployment lest this spread. Do you have any advice, protector of my realm?”

The Stitch-man wore the expression of a Named-rank adventurer who had suddenly been relegated to bane of insects. Hilarity, uncertainty, dismay.

“I…could you control enough undead to sweep the city, Your Majesty?”

Fetohep was thinking, musing.

“Two hundred thousand may do. They may have to go across all of Khelt. Yes, I will try this. It is taxing, you see, Alked. You understand, the undead of Khelt were, until now, loyal and intelligent. I needed not direct them manually, which is what I shall do. What I now must do. I am not a [Necromancer]. I have some powers in that area from my status as ruler of Khelt, but in life, I was but a passable warrior and weak leader.”

“Were you not Level 50, Your Majesty?”

Fetohep flicked his fingers.

“Barely passable. I had no legend of me like the Herald of the Forest. A different time. I am the weakest of my predecessors in talent in my respective field…I digress. I can control the undead, but this shall take my focus entirely. Monitoring my kingdom is how I would prefer to use my focus, but if no other solution can be effected…”

“What about magical spells?”

“Magical spells tend to create magical monsters if overused. Additionally, it requires [Mages] to cast them in most cases, or scrolls. And Kheltians would be…hesitant to deal with so many insects.”

“Ah. A beetle would have them run screaming.”

Fetohep didn’t care for Alked’s honesty, but he sighed.

“…As so. Lastly, this is simply the role of skeletons. If alternatives needed to be found, there would be questions. I have looked into other solutions, but alas…the only other servants who can act autonomously would be Djinni or Golems. And I trust Djinni not at all and object to their use. As for Golems? I have bought near two hundred from Illivere and House Terland.”

“Is that not enough, Your Majesty?”

Alked ventured, and Fetohep glanced at him and realized the man was serious.

“Aha. No. Two hundred? Two hundred can barely provide one service for a city, Fellbow. If I deployed all two hundred purely in service of cleaning in Koirezune…they might stay on top of the insects. No. I have tasked most in service to Farmer Colovt.”

They had to have a source of food. Khelt could pay for it for a long time, but without the skeletons tilling the fields…Alked sobered.

“So, you must control the skeletons.”

“Yes. Unless there’s some…anti-insect Relic that can shield entire cities. I shall put my [Historians] upon the task. They must be dealt with, Fellbow. My citizens are noticing.”

And the bugs were spreading. They multiplied like, well, bugs. So, Fetohep sat on his throne the first night and began sending out skeletons by the thousand. Then realized he had to control them even more finely than he wanted.

Two hundred thousand is not enough! But even working without a second’s pause, he could barely keep up. Not for the first time since the Meeting of Tribes, Fetohep wished he had a [Necromancer] he could trust.

If I could induct Pewerthe or…no, two hundred thousand can at least clear the most obvious insects. It was only ten hours of managing two hundred thousand skeletons, more or less simultaneously.

The morning thereafter, Fetohep placed a call with the Magus-Crafter Femithain of Illivere and Lady Ulva Terland, inquiring if they might take a larger order of Golems as he had some interest in them.

Both were rather receptive to his request, but Magus-Crafter Femithain regretted to report that the war with Nerrhavia’s Fallen that Illivere had entered on the side of Empress Nsiia meant that his [Golem Artificers] were occupied and could not satisfy such an order.

House Terland also indicated that they would be delighted to produce a thousand Golems for Khelt over ten years’ time. When he requested they be their highest-grade, multi-faceted Autonomous-class Golems able to adapt to multiple situations, Lady Ulva Terland laughed…then realized he was serious. She informed him it was not a matter of cost, and the King of Khelt ordered as many Golems as she could make as quickly as she could make.

Then he spent the rest of the day sending [Messages] to Kevin, asking about these ‘vacuum cleaners’ that the young man had once mentioned.

Then Fetohep remembered Kevin was dead.

He returned to business. Commanded two hundred thousand skeletons again that night.

The next day, Fetohep smiled when no reports of insects came in—until someone found them nesting in their laundry hamper. He began sending [Messages] to Wistram about mass-cleaning spells, but Archmage Viltach also backed down on an order of a hundred thousand mass-insect cleansing ward totems.

The third night of directing the skeletons, King Fetohep was so occupied he missed three [Messages] from Jecaina and a query from the Quarass and had to reply to them in the morning. He spent the rest of the day having servants bring him notes on Relics of cleaning and searching up how fast ants spread.

He did not like the facts he obtained.

On the fourth night, Fetohep of Khelt dreamt his first dream in six hundred and fifty years.

——

The thing about being King Fetohep’s heir apparent was that it gave you very little power and a lot of work. Which, Pewerthe supposed, was appropriate.

The rest of her afterlife would be spent largely the same way, if her King was any indication. Not that it had been hard before this…she’d met with Fetohep twice a year, which he’d deemed sufficient, for only twenty minutes sometimes. They had lived like half-Elves in their unchanging kingdom.

These days, she might meet the king every day of the eight-day week, and it was rare they didn’t speak at least one day. And she had duties that took her outside of Koirezune too.

It meant her pottery classes and workshop were in danger of closing—which meant her license for the workspace might be revoked. Space was at a premium, and if she couldn’t justify her craft, she’d lose the entire cozy area down Giantsbreath Avenue filled with flowers and a morning breeze that swept through the city…

Argh. It would be fine. Pewerthe didn’t have time for her pottery beyond a few pieces each night, and her only hobby was communicating with some penpals via her [Message] scroll. She had a lot. More and more Kheltians were picking up people to talk with, but they often came across as too sheltered or didn’t realize their penpals couldn’t keep firing off [Message] spells because it cost money where they lived.

In fact, she was writing to one of them now using Wistram’s new messaging services.

Potgirl: I must go. I have to ride and check on some farms this morning.

SexyAir: Noo. What? They make you work?

Potgirl: It’s not work, it’s His Majesty’s interests.

SexyAir: Darling child, that’s just work for monarchs.

RealStitching: Forsooth, as I think it’s said. Doesn’t Khelt import everything?

Potgirl: His Majesty wants Sweetberries he doesn’t have to pay for. And I actually can tell if a plant is growing. I must remove myself and return at a later date.

SexyAir: sys

Quiescent Bloom: ???

SexyAir: ‘See you soon’. You have to srsly learn how to write.

RealStitching: No, I believe you do.

Pewerthe smiled as she closed the scroll that Fetohep had given her, one of the few perks of her job. Talking to outsiders made her feel better. Made her feel useful and important. She strode to a stable where horses were free for anyone who could ride and hadn’t hurt or endangered themselves or the animals.

You had to have a license for that too. A lot of deaths in Khelt came from injuries while riding or operating vehicles. Still very few, but it was the leading cause of death, so the handler checked her license twice.

“I’ve seldom seen an All-Animals pass, Potter…Pewerthe? Oh—”

Yes, yes, the Potter Who Returned. The Girl Who Lived Outside For Several Years. Pewerthe kept her face straight, but the younger [Handler] was congenial. He eyed her nose and faint scars, but he had a few himself from horses. The more physically demanding your hobby or job, the more tolerant you were in Khelt, she’d found.

“Where are you bound? I ask only because some of the animals do better the longer they go.”

“Round trip to Farmer Colovt’s new farms and back. It’s a four hour trip?”

Normally, she’d take an undead horse and carriage, but like everything else…the [Handler] seemed to read her mind.

“That’s hard, even with our best saddles, if you don’t have the legs for it. I’d offer a carriage, but they haven’t been available of late. Needed in New Jecrass, I think.”

Another moment where Pewerthe felt her stomach churn. The secrets unravelling. She crossed her arms casually as he led her to the stables where happy horses, camels, and even magical animals were trotting around a huge ranch area rather than being penned in. Several came over excitedly as he chose among them.

“I can ride that long without issue. Do you get a lot of complaints about the lack of carriages?”

“Oh, constantly. Especially because half the citizens who want to use the carriages wish to visit New Jecrass, but it’s too dangerous for that. Some of the soldiers who went north tell me it’s still a wild and dangerous place. One can be attacked there, you know!”

“By [Bandits]?”

The young man gave Pewerthe a blank look, then shook his head.

“No, other citizens, I mean! They shove each other and raise fists—terrible things. Though the ones who come here are well-behaved. It’s not that much grumbling. The bugs were worst. I had to deal with flies around the animals’ manure.”

“Ah, well, it is spring. These things happen now and then.”

The [Handler] shook his head in the face of Pewerthe’s blithe comments.

“The city’s abuzz with it, Potter. So many complaints. It must be some terrible migration of insects! But these last few days, I’ve not heard of more than one or two incidents. Those skeletons are back sweeping the streets. One was cleaning the manure pits just the other night—I had worried since they seemed less active of late. These are exciting times, so I don’t complain, but you know our olders.”

That was good. Pewerthe nodded slowly and smiled. The ‘olders’ certainly did like to complain, but she suspected even the youngest Kheltians would be up in arms if things were really bad.

“Well then, thank you for this lovely mare. I’ll be back.”

“Of course. Wait, you forgot your bag of treats for her! And if she tosses her head, it means she’s uncomfortable, so check her hooves or for anything on the road…”

Pewerthe was on her way after a few more minutes, and the ride to Colovt’s farm was not bad. She set a brisk pace, enough for the mare to clearly enjoy actually having to run, and Pewerthe realized she was not that saddle-ready. But she doggedly kept going, even when she felt a bit saddlesore. This was nothing to worry about. She knew that.

——

Farmer Colovt was another Kheltian who had real levels. More than Pewerthe’s. And he had weathered hands, even if his skin was in immaculate condition. But he actually knew his trade—over a hundred thousand skeletons and four dozen Golems were moving around the huge fields he had constructed, and he doffed his straw hat to bow to her.

He knew her true rank.

“Potter, His Majesty’s attention is an honor—”

“Oh, stop it, Colovt. You know he values you, and I’m just Pewerthe.”

She was tired and a bit saddle-sore, but the [Farmer] just smiled at her.

“I don’t grow tired of awe for our [King]. Do you?”

“…In some ways, I think the awe wears off. But I do admire and love him. I’m just tired, and you shouldn’t speak like someone who doesn’t know him, Colovt. He respects someone who speaks to him not like a fawning subject, but an equal of sorts.”

Pewerthe ducked her head by way of apology, and Colovt offered her some purified water in a crystal cup. She drank gratefully as her horse munched on some grass.

Grass since the entire area was being misted by water spewing out of a series of magical gemstones configured to draw from Khelt’s aqueducts and hydrate the entire area. Colovt had Golems, the skeletons of Khelt, and magical backing from Khelt’s mages, who were still top-tier in the world.

Everything he needed to ensure Khelt could feed itself. The problem was that Colovt’s face was still anxious as he gestured to the fields.

“Perhaps I…I am not so confident because my efforts, despite all I am given, fail to bear fruit. Literally. You see my fields, Pewerthe?”

She peered at the swathes of green, occasionally changing into bands of other colors, that marked huge fields of various plants. Sweetberries, as she’d said to her friends, but also mundane crops like Yellats or corn—some had to be controlled in different bounded fields marked by pillars of hardened magicore that raised the temperature or adjusted the humidity.

She even saw a Terland-made Golem taking a soil sample. The wooden Golem had leafy limbs like it were a tree and inserted some soil into a compartment on its hand before discharging the soil. It seemed to approve of the results and went back to tromping down the field, inspecting crops.

It all appeared very good to Pewerthe, but Colovt wasn’t happy.

“Something is wrong with half my crops, Pewerthe. The Yellats have already had a first harvest. I could let them lay in the ground long as needed, of course, but I wanted to check…they’re fine. A few other crops, but the Sweetberries? These cucumbers? I think it’s the imported seeds or something…nothing’s growing.”

That alarmed her.

“They look green to me.”

She could see the plant’s leaves growing; some of it didn’t even look like plants. Cucumbers, for instance, were viney flowers of yellow, and she refused to believe the yellow buds would turn into the oblong cucumbers she knew and cordially despised. But Colovt just knelt over them, frowning hugely.

“They’ve been so for weeks. This is wrong. They should continue growing. I’ve never had this issue in my entire life. I’ve sent for [Druids] to figure out the problem. At first, I thought it was the Golems or foreign seeds, but these are ones from my own crops I re-planted.”

Her heart began to beat worriedly.

“If it’s a disease or something…?”

He gave her a wretched glance.

“I don’t know. My Skills aren’t what other [Farmers] usually have. I don’t have any to prevent disease or rid myself of pests, Pewerthe! Some for poor soil quality from my time in Reim, but the rest is just quality-focused. Skills to make the yields better or shorter—I haven’t needed anything else before now.”

He was still a Kheltian [Farmer]. Pewerthe stomped over to another field and saw bright red flowers above the Sweetberries.

“Could it be they’re missing nutrients?”

“The Golems don’t think so! And they’ve been a huge help. The skeletons are not as—as responsive as they used to be. Perhaps because so many work here? Or they are busy in New Jecrass?”

He didn’t know the entire truth, so Pewerthe let that go, but the Terlands’ farming Golems seemed very good at their jobs. Colovt mopped at his brows.

“They even helped me with those insects that everyone’s spoken of. We had a number of them—gone now, of course, and I’m used to the odd bite or finding them, but perhaps? If His Majesty would send for another [Farmer], I might be reassured. There’s a woman from Germina who I have written to who may be able to figure it out.”

“Give me her name and I’ll see about bringing her in. Just to consult, you understand. It wouldn’t do for anyone to think things were ill. Khelt must be best in all ways.”

“Of course, Pewerthe. I just hate to let His Majesty down, but I don’t know…”

Colovt seemed like he’d been tearing his hair out over his first harvest for weeks. Pewerthe took down the name of the woman and promised to look into it. She even saw some [Druids] coming as she rode back to Koirezune: more flower than man, one of them, so bestrewn with blooms that his clothing was literally alive, some leafy overcoat of flowers.

And bugs. Bees and butterflies clung to him, and she guessed he’d come from the one [Druid]-based settlement far to the northwest. It was the only one allowed such insects, and most Kheltians never visited because of the ‘hazards’. Another [Druid] was a Falcon Beastwoman who flew down. Not high-level, but higher than most Kheltians; they were allowed to cherish nature to the fullest extent there.

Well, she hoped they’d find the solution, but her report to Fetohep wouldn’t be that promising. Not the worst, either; Colovt was growing Yellats, and he’d shown her enough to feed even Koirezune…for a day. Assuming you could get anyone to eat raw Yellats.

——

The point was that Pewerthe saw progress despite the many problems she knew Khelt to be facing. She had just returned to her workshop after dropping her tired mare off at the stables and was putting her feet up on a little heated footstool while she reached for a scrying orb and some clay.

She’d see Fetohep that evening; Colovt’s report wasn’t dire, and that hard ride deserved a moment of pottery. Pewerthe began to spin some truly black clay on her potter’s wheel—magically powered to spin, not manual—and began finding some bright colors to mix into the clay.

She wanted something with real contrast, like a vision of stars in pitch blackness or something. Anything to match the tales Fetohep had told of her of that [Innkeeper] who was Khelt’s ruler as much as she. If Erin Solstice were to take the throne…not that anyone would need to replace Fetohep for a long time. But if she were to do so, could Pewerthe cede the position to her easily?

I must think she is fit to rule Khelt, if so. Though my opinion may not matter if Khelta herself approved of her. I just want to know what she is like.

Fire. Pewerthe was picking out colors like those magical flames she had seen the [Innkeeper] make when a rattatatatat! on her door made her jump. Her hand hit the clay, and it instantly spun itself into a lump.

“Khelta’s bones, I’m closed!”

She snapped at the knocker, annoyed. This wasn’t that rude; Kheltians might be a people without physical strife, but they could be nasty and socially obstreperous. So much so that throwing hands was Pewerthe’s trump card at times. However, the urgent voice from the door was both a whisper and shout.

“Potter Pewerthe! Is that you?”

“What? Speak up!”

She had to get up as someone hissed at her. Pewerthe groaned as she turned off her footstool, pottery wheel, and stomped over to the door. She glared as she yanked it open—three people nearly bowled her over.

Each one wore black and gold on their tunics. She blinked. That was the mark of the palace.

“What is it? Does His Majesty want me that urgently?”

They scrambled up, and one of them, another day-servant chosen to work in the palace, grabbed her urgently.

“It—he—you must come quickly! We checked your workshop, but they said you’d left! And you didn’t answer our [Messages]!”

She blinked, then checked her scroll and realized she hadn’t—Pewerthe sighed.

“What is it? If His Majesty wanted me, he’d send a skeleton.”

She was used to them walking towards her and his voice speaking through their mouths, or one rising from the ground where they were buried, delivering instructions. But the man clutching her arm had a face like he’d been stabbed. And she knew what that looked like. He was sweating, eyes darting around as another shut the door, then yanked it back open.

“It—you must come very quickly. Adventurer Fellbow is there, but you are on the list of those to contact.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Then she felt a note of alarm, and when none of them wanted to say—it was not far to the palace. She could have run, but they insisted on walking, on acting casual. Of course, that probably made it more obvious, but when she got to the palace and saw all the servants gathered around the doors to the throne room, some on their knees—Pewerthe stared at them then strode into the vast chambers.

“Your Majesty?”

Alked Fellbow turned from a figure sitting upon the throne with perfect, regal posture. King Fetohep of Khelt stared out into the distance, ever as she had known him, perfect of grace. Unwavering, his robes pooled around the ancient Truegold throne.

There were no golden flames in his eye sockets. Alked Fellbow had an arrow loosely nocked to Heaven’s Arc, and he had been feeling at the ruler of Khelt’s head. Pewerthe stopped.

“Your Majesty?”

——

“We found him like this last night. At first, we thought—he did not wish to be disturbed. But when the sun rose and he did not move, we attempted to rouse him.”

“How?”

The day-servants were terrified. One spoke to Alked and Pewerthe as they stood in a drawing room. Not the throne room; they were so terrified half could barely speak there.

“W-we called to him. Then raised our voices. We thought he might wake, but after hours passed—”

“You should have sent for me immediately!”

“We thought—then you were gone, and—”

Pewerthe was tearing through a book Fetohep had given her. She riffled through instructions on how to ring the Dragonward Bells, commands to activate this function of the palace or this contingency. Alked wanted to peer over her shoulder, but she snapped.

“Don’t touch this book or even read it! The ward-spells will kill you just for looking!”

He backed up at once. This was a relic of Khelt. Instructions for the next ruler. The next heir. Which was now her.

She had thought she had at least another century. Fetohep’s body was not in nearly as much disrepair as Xierca’s had been. He was…she…

“He might not be dead.”

“He cannot be!”

The servants wailed as Alked spoke, and Pewerthe’s heart twisted in her chest. She spoke, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

“This has never occurred in the history of his rule that we know of, Alked. After the Winter Solstice…you recall his orders to you?”

She remembered them. He’d had her locked in a safe-room while he confronted the woman he refused to name. Had Alked aim an arrow at his head so that if he fell—the Named-rank adventurer was thinking the same thing, but his reply was incisive. He wasn’t panicking.

“I know, but he thought he’d be possessed. This isn’t the same scenario. Nor is His Majesty truly dead, I think.”

“How can you tell?”

She glanced at him; there were no instructions about malfunctioning Revenants she could find in the book. There was a…ritual though. A way to kill herself and bind herself to Khelt if need be. She stared at the words, then tore her attention away.

I will do as I must. But first—the Stitch-man replied, eyes flicking to the throne room.

“Undead don’t die like the living. If he was alive and had passed, I would observe his body stiffen like it is now. It’s a known phenomenon among non-Stitch-folk. Bowels empty. The skin grows taut, and joints lock up—”

One of the servants blanched, but Pewerthe nodded impatiently.

“But undead don’t do that?”

“No. They turn to dust or crumble. Skeletons crumble; zombies collapse. But the nature of undead is that they reanimate as long as there’s potential, usually a head. If he were…dead, then I’d expect his corpse to reanimate. Which would mean facing an undead of Fetohep’s caliber. I’d imagine it would start at Draugr-strength—at least. Probably higher-level.”

There was a horror of a thought. Pewerthe swallowed and cast her eyes towards the throne room.

“Have all the day-servants leave the throne room. Do not let them go into the city. No one is to speak a word of this. Understood?”

The man was staring at her uncomprehendingly.

“Potter, what are you talking about? We—we must rouse His Majesty at once! Surely there’s some way to heal him? If he is—is—the next ruler of Khelt. Someone must help us! The Quarass?”

She closed the book with a snap, and he jumped as she stood. Alked’s eyes fell upon her.

“The next ruler of Khelt is me. Until we know if His Majesty is…here or not, I will do as he has appointed and trained me to do. Seal the palace. No one is to speak of this.”

They gazed at her in horror, and one of them dropped one of Fetohep’s favorite drinks. The ghostly liquid spilled out as they gaped at Pewerthe.

“You? The potter?”

She sighed.

——

Locking down the palace was the easy part. The servants were in no fit mood to do anything. Most were frozen, but Pewerthe quickly realized that getting anything else done was going to be—hard.

“We cannot admit His Majesty is incapable. Not until we are certain. If I am Khelt’s next ruler, I must have the authority of Khelt, and I do not. Not for its citizens or the undead.”

She grimaced as she stood with the only capable people in the capital: Alked Fellbow, Frieke of Medain, and an officer of Khelt’s armies, [Death Commander] Lanodest. They were on break from their duties in New Jecrass and luck had them here. They had served during the war against the Claiven Earth and Medain, and that made them capable enough.

Frieke of Medain and her Seahawk did not seem happy about the news, but they were still Named-rankers. Lanodest appeared ready to puke, and Pewerthe felt the same.

“Just so I’m clear—you cannot command the undead?”

“I can command them like any citizen of Khelt if I see them. The wardens of the vaults recognize me and would listen to me. But I don’t command the breadth and scope of Khelt, no. If I speak, they will not rise across the land. Nor do I…look the part. You saw how those servants reacted to me.”

They were not taking her new leadership well. One look at her and they’d asked why Fetohep had chosen a [Potter]. Why no one had told them. Pewerthe’s smile was grim.

“I am well-known, but it would be like hearing your next-door neighbor were the new King of Destruction, adventurers. Yet I have been prepared, and I was chosen near a decade hence. Understand that it is true. Do you doubt it, Death Commander Lanodest?”

He bowed immediately.

“If His Majesty wills it, let it be so, Potter. But…”

He glanced up at her, and she saw doubt in his eyes. Yes. Pewerthe touched her face.

She did not look the part. No mortal, living, and breathing soul could command Khelt. If she were a Revenant, undead, with eyes of fire, then she would be their Queen, regardless of her background.

But I do not want to die yet. Frieke raised a cautious hand.

“Er, killing yourself and rising as a Revenant seems a bit extreme at the moment, Your Majesty.”

“My thoughts exactly. But I am in a difficult position, then. I have no command of the undead or living. But it must be until we know what is wrong. Have the [Magi] arrived?”

Alked glanced at the doorway.

“They’re gathering.”

“Good. Then swear all to secrecy and inform them of the situation, Alked. You direct them. You will give orders to the servants. Lanodest, you will command the undead and army. Frieke, you will represent His Majesty’s voice if we need communicate with other nations.”

All three nodded at this, and Alked looked unsettled, but then agreed. He was a known subordinate of Fetohep and a Named-rank. He strode out of the throne room as Pewerthe glanced around.

“I’ll use this study. Come here to find me, and get the servants running messages. We shall say nothing, show no weakness.”

Khelt could continue running a day without Fetohep, surely. Enough time to uncover what was wrong, right?

——

The [Magi] had no idea what was wrong with him. A pale-faced [Grand Magus]—a magister Recime, formerly of Belchan—gave a report to Pewerthe.

“I have never seen the like, Potter—er, Your Highness. I studied some death magic in Belchan, but it wasn’t taught widely after Az’kerash. And you know the rules against death magic in Khelt.”

“I’m aware. But can anything be done?”

“We—very cautiously—tried to inject death mana into His Majesty. That might rouse or empower undead. But he had an abundance of it, and the palace is steeped in death magic. That was not the issue. More than that? You could have a [Necromancer] try to command him, but such a powerful undead would resist anyone under Level 40 completely, I imagine, and if they were to control him…”

Bad options. Pewerthe cursed.

“Do you have any contacts who know death-magic, Magus? Ones not in Wistram or a…large organization?”

“I…I could reach out. What about the [Necromancer], Pisces the Scourge?”

For a second, Pewerthe hesitated, but she shook her head.

“Even if he is trusted, he is an adventurer. They bring attention, and he is unpredictable and far away. Find an expert who can devote their time to this matter now. Do so covertly. Have a [Mage] stationed in the throne room. Next!”

——

The Quarass of Germina raised her brows when Frieke of Khelt appeared on the scrying orb.

“Where is Fetohep? He is late.”

“Er—I am Frieke of M—Khelt, Great Quarass! I merely beg your forgiveness. His Majesty is occupied, and I have been dispatched to render due apologies.”

Frieke was pale-faced, but she bowed as the Quarass’ brows instantly shot together. She sat up.

“And what requires Fetohep’s attention so thoroughly that he will not issue such apologies to me in person?”

“I am not at liberty to say, Quarass!”

Frieke bowed and apologized as Konska flapped his wings, and the Quarass peered at her. Only the Quarass had necessitated a personal apology; the other groups that had been waiting to speak to Fetohep or asked for his time could easily be [Messaged]. The Quarass had been insistent.

“I see. Then I shall accept his apologies myself whenever he finds it convenient. Farewell, Frieke the Falconer.”

Her eyes flicked left, once, and she nodded and rose. Frieke exhaled, then dashed off to find Pewerthe.

——

“She’ll send a spy to the palace if she hasn’t already. Someone intercept them.”

Pewerthe had been warned about the Quarass. Sure enough, Alked caught a single citizen of Khelt trying to sneak into one of the palace’s entrances, and the undead halted another. Two more came posing as day-servants and were turned away. She wrote down their names as Frieke looked horrified.

“The Quarass has spies in Khelt?”

“She has spies everywhere, Frieke. They might not even think of themselves as spies, merely people who owe favors. I am trying to…”

She had taken King Fetohep’s personal Scroll of Messages—well, he had a bunch of them—and had been reading through them. Some of what she found made her blink, but the urgency kept her reading on.

It felt like intruding into someone’s personal life, and she had never thought of His Majesty as having any personal moments, but here was the entirety of it. Just small things like a conversation with a little girl.

Mri (14/23/23): ur a poo head.

Fetohep (14/23/23): Thy fur coat would not satisfy a Fraerling beggar, or even be worth a place as a chimneysweep’s doormat.

Mri (14/26/23): Your Queen called, she said your skin is so dusty that all the water in the sea couldn’t moisturize it.

Fetohep (14/27/23): Your mother wishes me to inform you that your odor has set off [Dangersenses] across half the world.

Mri (14/29/23): Fetohep? The Winter Solstice is coming. I’m scared.

Fetohep (14/29/23): I will do what I can. Listen to your mother and Erin Solstice, Mrsha.

Fetohep (15/1/23): Mrsha? Is all well?

Mri (15/3/23): your underwear stinks worse than Ekirra’s after he eats a bean-curry pot.

Little things. She saw messages to Kevin—unanswered. And a message from the Quarass.

Quarass: What is occurring, Fetohep? If you are reading this, Pewerthe, respond and I shall render my aid.

“As terrifying as you said, Your Majesty.”

Pewerthe debated writing back, but the Quarass was like quicksand. Engage with her and she’d find out everything in moments. Pewerthe left the message be—she was searching for someone.

“Vizir Hecrelunn. Vizir…”

Of all the beings who could help Khelt, it would only be him. The terrifying, the dangerous, the egomaniacal burner of cities. Hecrelunn. He’d vanished after the Meeting of Tribes, but Fetohep’s spies had noted a certain eastern coast of Chandrar had gone dark, and rumors of a ‘Great Overlord’ had appeared despite the information blackout.

However, if he’d messaged the Vizir, it wasn’t among his casual parlances. Cursing, Pewerthe called out.

“He doesn’t have a way to contact Erin Solstice or the Vizir, Frieke! Can your Seahawk fly messages or would a Courier be faster?”

Frieke leapt up from where she’d been sitting and trying to write in a journal.

“Konska? He’s not that fast, but he could fly…you want to contact the [Innkeeper]? Why?”

Pewerthe didn’t want to explain right now and glanced back at the [Messages].

“He has a lengthy missive composed to her in the Forgotten Wing Company of Baleros, and to Niers Astoragon, but he never sent it. Why? Both could help lead Khelt. Nevermind the [Innkeeper]; she’s too far. But the Vizir—”

Frieke was turning to Konska, who was giving her a look as he preened at one wing, when the doors to the study blew open and salty air stung Pewerthe’s face. She spun, and Frieke drew a sword, but hesitated as a voice booming like the sonorous deeps spoke, and two blue-white flames burned in a skeleton’s eye sockets.

“If you seek the Vizir, my crew and I will reach him fast as any bird can fly. But the moment he hears of His Majesty’s weakness, he’ll return to rule this nation, Heir of Khelt. Be that the right course, I shall steer us that way, but be certain of it. Sand at Sea sails by your will.”

Captain Cikroleth. Pewerthe stared at him and then realized she had forgotten entirely about Khelt’s last and only remaining Revenant—the vessel and crew of King Dolenm, the famous pirate-king of Khelt. She almost bowed to him, but the [Captain] was all action as he strode towards her. He still wore the garb of a [Pirate], clinking with jewelry upon his bony limbs, and a bandolier with six different weapons strapped across his chest. His clothes hung across his thin frame, but he spoke like a [Pirate].

Ironic, then, that he was the only Revenant not to abandon Khelt.

“We came the moment servants sent word. We were returning already with a haul of goods.”

“Sit, Captain Cikroleth. If there is anything you can do, tell me. What—what has His Majesty had you doing?”

The undead captain sat, uncorked a bottle, and drank some ghostly liquid which ran down into his ribcage past his open vest and pooled there before making his bones glow. He made a spitting sound and wiped his mouth, despite both actions being entirely unnecessary.

“Naught but escort or trade work. We’re too restless upon land, so His Majesty had us run deliveries for Khelt, mapping the new seas out. ‘Twas luck had us back so soon. I’ve already taken a look at His Majesty. He’s not dead. But nor is he here.”

She felt relieved at that, then worried.

“But what, then?”

“I don’t know. I’m no death-magic expert nor a bone-fucker from Wistram. Being made undead—eh, the most I can do is pull my head off and gut a bastard who thinks I’m some skeleton. Dolenm was the one who knew death. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen, though. He could throw his soul from his body to another undead. It looks vaguely like that’s what happened here, but Dolenm would always rouse himself if his main body was endangered.”

“So His Majesty could be…elsewhere?”

“Aye. Or cursed, or any manner. The question is what your will is. Find this Vizir? He’s a bastard sure enough. We had to rouse one time just to keep him in check. I warn you: if he comes, he comes to rule. Wouldn’t be the best, wouldn’t be the worst of options.”

Pewerthe didn’t know. She was paralyzed by the decision, and so did what she feared might be the worst option: delayed.

“Until we know if His Majesty is well…”

Until we know. Cikroleth seemed to understand what was wrong, so he stood briskly.

“Sand at Sea’s naught much good for more than fighting or movement. We can kill a score, but we’re one ship, not a fleet. I remind you of that, just as I reminded His Majesty. Not every [Pirate] of this era is a wet-behind-the-ears rookie. Same for armies. Have you need of me, Majesty, call and we sail.”

He bowed once, then stepped away. Frieke exhaled, wide-eyed.

“I forgot…that’s a relief. I felt like Alked and I were the only fighters here.”

“Khelt has backups. Magical weapons. Even more undead. It just lacks for a thinking, functional army. It’s all mindless skeletons now.”

“…Say what?”

Frieke’s expression of alarm made Pewerthe realize she wasn’t in on the truth. Rubbing at her face, Pewerthe began to explain then wondered if this was a mistake.

But Frieke has seen Fetohep. If she isn’t loyal, I’ll soon find out. Trust needed to be extended because it was clear they had four people in this palace besides Pewerthe who could be trusted to act! More if Captain Cikroleth’s crew could be counted, but…this was a nation.

Even so, Sand at Sea reassured Pewerthe, and after a few more checks to ensure no one was suspicious of Fetohep’s ‘busyness’, Pewerthe let herself relax as the day turned into evening. Another mistake. It was only as the sun was setting that someone came to her study in a panic.

“Pewerthe! It’s from the city! I didn’t realize it because we locked the palace, but I went out—just to get some food because no one here is doing anything and—”

Frieke burst back into the room and Pewerthe leapt to her feet where she’d been dozing.

“What?”

“The skeletons. They’ve stopped.”

——

All the undead of Khelt had gone still. They stood where they were, staring skywards, frozen. They had to be re-commanded to work, and they did, but with a slowness that was palpable.

It was not a disaster—but it required a statement, and Pewerthe was working on one with Grand Magus Recime.

“A death-mana spike of unknown elements…command any undead you see to return to work. His Majesty is busy ensuring the most sacred dead are not disturbed…there.”

That would scan, and if anyone was spying on Khelt…Pewerthe was having it sent to each city when more servants entered the study.

“Your Majesty, requests for urgent communication from the Claiven Earth and Medain.”

“Send them the same polite apologies.”

Pewerthe waved it off, and the servant hesitated, again unwilling to quite believe she was—

“Yes, but it’s the Speaker of Trees and the High King!”

Pewerthe paused this time.

“His Majesty is busy. He is most definitely not here. What else is there to be said? Polite apologies.”

Her argument got through to the woman, who hesitated, then began to scribble a reply. Pewerthe noticed a few icons on the [Message] scroll. Six missives from the Claiven Earth, eighteen from Medain. Then again, she’d noticed High King Perric loved to chatter to Fetohep.

It would hold. After ten more minutes of ensuring that the announcements had gone out, Pewerthe was relaxing when the servant returned.

“Pewerthe—A’ctelios Salash wishes to speak. And both previous nations have issued requests of the utmost importance. The Herald of the Forests, now, and High King Perric and his [Generals].”

“The Carven City? Same rules.”

“They’re insistent—”

“He’s busy.”

What else could be said? Pewerthe didn’t like it, though. Why those three nations? She got up after a second and checked the message scroll.

114 unread messages from High King Perric.

34 from the Speaker of Trees.

7 from A’ctelios Salash.

She stopped, then, and an uneasy feeling grew in her stomach. She turned.

“Perhaps I could speak to one of them. The Speaker—”

Then Alked Fellbow burst into the room, and his face was pale as he raised something.

“Pewerthe. The scrying orbs. The Jaws of Zeikhal have activated. They’re attacking.”

She turned, then raced out of the study. Into the throne room, which had a view of—Pewerthe threw open the doors to a patio and strode out, and she thought she might even be able to see them, even if they were just dots on the horizon. Moving dots.

——

The Jaws of Zeikhal were moving. Attacking from where they had been stationed across each border. One was lumbering at A’ctelios Salash as the image on Nerrhavia’s Wonders network changed to a Jaw approaching the forests of the Claiven Earth. Hundreds of lights were blooming over its skeletal body, and it slowed, shuffling backwards as if in pain.

The half-Elves were trying to force it back. But Medain—Pewerthe saw a Jaw of Zeikhal bearing down on a city, looming over the walls, which barely stopped a pincer as it smashed through the enchanted masonry in a second. She peered up.

“I cannot stop them.”

“We have to destroy them.”

Alked was reaching for his bow, but even the Relic-class weapon…could it destroy a monster that big? Pewerthe was staring at the image as someone argued.

“If we do that, we admit Khelt lost control. No. Let them rampage.”

Captain Cikroleth stabbed a finger at the scrying orb, and everyone turned to him, appalled.

“What reason would His Majesty have for doing that?”

“I don’t know. Find one. But Khelt never admits it’s down a hand. Politics is a game of cards.”

“They’re murdering people! We have to stop them!”

Frieke gazed down at her former homeland. Pewerthe’s lips moved.

“Frieke. Do you have a [Message] contact with His Majesty of Medain? No—send a missive to him anyways, and to the Adventurer’s Guild. Tell him to mobilize his army to fight the Jaws off. The Claiven Earth is already fighting, and the one at A’ctelios Salash—”

She’d seen a single image of the Carven City’s people boiling out the great monstrosity’s orifices and climbing the Jaw. Like a sea of zombies, biting, tearing at the giant undead. It was crushing them second by second, but they had no fear. If the legends of it were true—

“Me? What do I say?”

Frieke whirled, and Pewerthe’s lips moved faster than her heart. The [Potter of Secrets] glanced up, and everyone turned to her.

“Tell him…His Majesty of Khelt is raging. A citizen of New Jecrass was slain by a [Bandit] who came from the north. No, an entire family. Alked, repeat the warning to the Claiven Earth. You are both petitioning His Majesty of Khelt.”

She had a quill in her hands, and she was writing in her personal [Message] scroll. Frieke’s mouth fell open, then she was scrambling for a quill. Pewerthe saw Alked’s head turn to her as Captain Cikroleth grinned. The Named-rank studied Pewerthe.

“Medain will take immense casualties if it can even defeat the Jaw. It’s not the Claiven Earth.”

The undead [Captain] nodded.

“Aye. A bastard’s lie. Or do you disagree with Khelt’s heir?”

He placed a hand on his side, favoring the hilt of his shortsword, and Alked hesitated just once.

“No.”

Pewerthe met his gaze levelly.

“If I sent Sand at Sea, they would be hours to reach Medain, and they are but one ship, even if you and Frieke crewed it. This is what I deem best, Alked. Tell them to break the Jaws.”

He considered it, like a man approaching a battle from all sides, then nodded.

“Of course.”

They wrote and watched as the Jaws rampaged into the night. The city had gone quiet outside, Pewerthe realized. The citizens had scrying orbs. They had heard the news. A citizen—a family of Khelt had died, and this was the punishment of the King of Khelt.

She wondered if they understood how this appeared to other nations. When she sent a servant to check, they gave her a simple report:

“Citizens are watching the destruction and battle with solemnity, Potter. They mourn the damage to the Jaws of Zeikhal. There were tears when the one in the Claiven Earth lost one of its pincers.”

She just studied him, and the servant himself stared at the images of a Jaw collapsing outside A’ctelios Salash and gazed away, as if that hurt his spirit. The sand was red with blood. It had torn pieces out of A’ctelios’ head, but the wounds seemed to be regrowing, and the Jaw was dying. Pewerthe murmured.

“I see. You are dismissed.”

She sat into that long night, watching the scrying orbs, writing replies to her friends abroad, and counting the missives on Fetohep’s [Message] scrolls rising in number. She had produced a quill and was inking it when there was a voice.

“Pewerthe?”

She turned, ready to react, to speak, and saw a figure standing in the doorway. His eyes were banked, the fires low. The golden flames of King Fetohep’s eyes reflected something she had scarcely seen in him.

Fear.

Guilt.

Horror.

“Your Majesty—the Jaws—”

“They have halted. One is dead. A’ctelios Salash has slain its Jaw. The other two have retreated. I have sent Captain Cikroleth and Alked Fellbow to…effect their dismantling once they reach New Jecrass. Have you communicated in my name?”

“Not yet. I was about to—”

The [Message] scroll floated towards Fetohep as he beckoned for it. He caught the golden parchment and tapped something, then read. His eyes dimmed further, and he stood there, but then he produced a golden quill made of magic and began to write.

“Your lie was an apt one, Pewerthe. I shall rectify all that I can. Rest—”

“Your Majesty, what happened? Was it an attack?”

She had to know. Fetohep glanced up, briefly, and shook his head as his hand moved. He snapped his fingers, and servants appeared, relieved, overjoyed. Heedless of the cost.

“No. Servants, scrying orbs now. In my throne room.”

They vanished, and Fetohep regarded her.

“I believe it was the skeletons.”

“The…the cleaners?”

“Yes. Too many, too long. I was unconscious for…a day? Yes. I dreamed, Pewerthe. I dreamed for a day and thousands died.”

He had dreamed of Khelt’s ruination and woke to the sound of crumbling dynasty. The King of Khelt stood there as she rose and bowed, and the same fear was on her face, of someone thrust into a role she was not ready for.

“I can help, Your Majesty. The tale is a decent one. It will have repercussions, but…”

Then she stopped, and digested part of what he’d said. King Fetohep nodded, and his worries about the bugs seemed so small. But he said it, so softly.

“There will be more insects as the spring deepens. Alternative solutions must be found. I shall release the Claiven Earth and Medain from the terms of their surrender forthwith.”

It would not be the same again. Then, as the overweary [King] sat back upon his throne, and Kheltians began to realize something was wrong…

Then came the Prophet.

Author’s Note:

Hello, hello, I’m back, and I have brought a long-awaited arc: Fetohep of Khelt! This one has been time in the making, and I have thought upon it long…when better to write it than my break?

A few notes from the writing side. I trust it was clear that Fetohep’s dream in this chapter at the start is the same one that leads to him being ‘unconscious’ for a day later in the chapter. Multiple perspectives, and this arc carries us essentially from the Winter Solstice into the next year over the course of months.

Writing perspectives that are not always occurring simultaneously in time are tricky, and I know readers get confused, but I’ve tried to make the flow of time clear as possible aside from that one section. And I hope you enjoyed the chapter! It will not be the longest of arcs, but I have the second one ready pending edits and am building up my backlog like I had at the end of last year!

I am…refreshed and ready to go. Though I feel slightly rusty even if I am undeniably more vigorous after my long break. I always talk about that and the fact that two months off would not go amiss. What did I do on my break? Again, I vegetated. Truly, eerily, an entire week went by of me not doing much of anything I consider great, certainly not thinking of The Wandering Inn. Near the end, I did more active stuff.

A few more chapters of Katalepsis, a web serial I want to get into (at this rate, it shall be years before I finish because I need to be off-writing to read), Hazbin Hotel Season 2…which I give a 7/10 because the plot had a lot of problems, but animation, music, top tier, and the news.

I’ve written about that in my blog post, but rest and good vibes don’t exactly spring forth from last month. And I’m running about doing real life tasks which get in the way of single-focus writing, so it feels like February will be a hectic month, but that fits the theme, doesn’t it? Fetohep has far more to do than I, but I found while writing that I was looking forward to the next stream, the next scene. I’m eager to write whoever won that poll, and hopefully you’ve been thinking of the story! Welcome back, take a seat…and let’s get back to work.

—pirateaba

Previous Chapter Next Chapter