62. Hull - Audience With the King

Chapter 62

Audience With the King

I barely had time to take a single shuffling step towards Basil, still holding onto my guts to keep them inside, before the world went white and suddenly we were back in the real world. A wash of tingles went through me like I’d walked through a cold mist. All my pain disappeared, and I stood up straight, gasping at the sudden change. Even the cuts and bloodstains in my clothes were gone. There was noise and commotion all around, but my eyes were still fixed on Basil, who was stretched out on the sunlit cobblestones in front of me. He was blinking in confusion and patting himself all over as if surprised by his own wholeness.

I rushed over to him and pulled him to his feet. “You stupid ass, you had me beaten! Why’d you concede?”

He looked over my shoulder and broke into a smile, a good, old-fashioned Basil smile. “That’s why,” he said, pointing.

I looked around for the first time and gulped. We were standing in the great square that fronted the palace. The plaza and all the streets leading off into the city were absolutely jammed with people. The Twins hadn’t put us back where we’d been when this tournament ended; they’d dumped us all right here, competitors and spectators both. Every damn person in the city was lined up, rank upon rank upon rank, all looking in my direction. Rakkoden the centaur was only a few feet away, and he’d been shouting something to everyone in a loud voice. I’d heard it in the back of my mind, but I’d been too preoccupied to pay attention. Whatever it was, he was just now reaching his peak.

“...the one the Everlasting Twins chose as the best, the most capable, the most powerful. People of Treledyne, I present to you your king!” He swept an arm toward me, and the whole world erupted in cheers.

“HULL! HULL! HULL!” the shouts rang out over and over. People were clapping and cheering and jumping up and down. People were crying and hugging each other. I’d have been stampeded and crushed for sure, but it looked like the Twins had lined us all up like playing tiles, and there was a double ring of City Watch boys holding the line just a few armlengths out into the crowd. They were yelling and cheering too, but enough of them had their heads about them to keep everyone else back.

“You’re one of them, Hull,” Basil said in my ear, “in a way I never could have been. I could be a good king, yes, but you will be a great one. The one our city needs.”

“But you won,” I mumbled, heart twisting. “It should be you.”

He shrugged and gave me a wistful smile. “I begin to think that true wisdom is knowing that there are some battles one shouldn’t win.”

Led by the booming centaur, the endless crowds knelt in a wave. “KING HULL! KING HULL!”

Esmi appeared at Basil’s side. I hadn’t seen her before, but she must have been close. “Go on, Your Majesty. Acknowledge your people. Take your place.”

Afi stepped up and hooked her arm through mine. “Listen to your nobles, Hull. They know what they’re doing.”

I scanned each of their faces and found nothing but confidence and trust. That, more than anything else, was what pushed me into action. If these incredible people – these friends – believed in me, maybe I could do this thing after all.

I raised my hand and waved to the masses of Treledyne. The noise, already incredible, tripled in volume. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. All these people, and they were cheering for me. My wins in the Coliseum were nothing compared to this. I would remember this moment forever.

The Queen stepped forward and gave a curtsy. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Your Majesty,” she said. “You could have doomed us all by forcing that tournament.”

“But he didn’t,” Basil countered. “Taking the right risks and winning is what kings are supposed to do.”

The Queen gave us both a steely look and nodded curtly. “We’ll talk more,” she promised me. “You think you’ve won, and you have, but what you don’t really comprehend yet is that you’ve won yourself a lifetime of headaches and hassle.” She took hold of one of my hands. “But for all that…” Her knees dipped into a curtsy and she kissed my hand. “Thank you, Hull. You saved us.”

“They all did near as much as me,” I said, embarrassed.

Her hand tightened painfully on mine. “First lesson. Kings don’t deflect praise, they take it as their due. You nod your head graciously and keep your bullshit doubts to yourself.”

Afi snorted in amusement, and Basil and Esmi shared a knowing look. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

The crowd began to quiet, with some at the edges beginning to disperse. Rakkoden the centaur approached me and knelt on a horsey knee. “Congratulations, competitor Hull. You have pleased the Twins with your performance, and They are pleased to grant you the victor’s prize: control of Treledyne itself. Please, take the token of Their esteem.”

He held out a card, and I took it gingerly.

“Now that,” said Basil, peeking over my shoulder, “is the card of a king.”

“All enemy competitors and their surviving armies have been returned to their home domains,” Rakkoden said. “This card’s ability is how the Gracious Ones will enforce the outcome of their tourney. Note that this gains you one year of enforced peace, no more and no less. It is not the Twins’ will that conflict should cease forever, for it is thus that their children grow and learn. I encourage you to use this respite well and wisely.”

“Summon it,” Afi urged me.

I looked to Rakkoden, who spread his hands. “That is why it was given.”

Heart quickening, I sifted through my Mind Home to extract my Sucking Void. I might have grown in strength lately, but I could still only fit a single Legendary in my Mind Home. It was strange to think that I wouldn’t need my well-loved Spell so long as I had this Scepter around.

As soon as the new card slotted home behind my ear and landed in my drawn hand I summoned it. A mighty burst of power surged out of me, causing the remaining crowd to startle. They oohed and aahed as a bubble of peace and calmness spread outward from where I stood, distorting the air until it covered the whole city.

The scepter was pleasantly heavy in my hand. “Hot damn,” I said, closing my eyes. “Will you look at that?”

Legendary. Twins take me. A year ago I’d been eating out of trash piles and wishing I had a card – any card – so I could climb my way out of the gutter. I might not have been able to kill Hestorus the way I’d dreamed back then – oh sure, I’d fought his card, but that wasn’t really the same thing at all – but instead, I’d done something better. I’d replaced him.

My inner eye roved over the card again, and then my real ones snapped open. “Why does my card say King of Humanity?” I growled at Rakkoden.

“You must speak to your last competitor in that regard,” the centaur said with a smile. “I believe his new ability may have something to do with it.”

I wheeled on Basil. “What’s your new ability? What did you do?”

He looked nonplussed. “I… well, I announced you as Hull, first of your name, King of Treledyne. A tad dramatic, perhaps, but the moment called for it.” A small, satisfied smile creased his mouth. “I am something called a Judicator now in the Twins’ eyes, it seems, and my ability can bind my words onto those on whom I pronounce judgment. So the wording suggests.”

“And what precisely did you say, Basil of house Hintal?” Rakkoden prompted. 

He thought back and shook his head in annoyance. “I don’t recall, I’m afraid. Not exactly.”

My blood went chill. “Hull, first of his name, king of us all. That’s what you said.”

He hesitated. “Ah.” Then he smiled and shrugged quizzically. “But it’s an ambiguous statement. I meant ‘king of Treledyne,’ not king of all humankind.”

“That may have been what you meant, but it isn’t what you said,” Rakkoden said gently. “A Judicator needs to be very careful with his pronouncements.”

Basil paled. “Wait, but–”

He never got the chance to finish his protestation. A great, howling wind whipped across the square, and we all ducked reflexively. A sound like a great roar echoed in the far, far distance, so faint that it was nearly lost in the sound of the wind. A glimmer like a miniature sun arced through the sky and plunged toward us like a shooting star. I had a brief moment to wonder whether my Scepter’s power would protect us from something like that – was there ill intent involved? – before the sparkling thing shivered to a stop in the air above us. 

It was Hestorus’s card. Last time I’d seen it, it had been in my mother’s possession. I spared a brief second of half-hearted pity for her – not only had I taken and shattered her soul card, but now it seemed that the Twins had ripped away the prize she’d come to Treledyne for in the first place. Wherever she was back in the Demon Realm, she was not having a good day.

The Queen saw the card hanging over us and turned to Rakkoden. “Do you know the meaning of this?”

He smiled enigmatically. “Watch.”

The roar that had been so faint, so distant, was growing louder as the wind continued to whip at us. Merchants in the crowd clutched their hats, and the City Watchmen gripped their pikes as if wondering where they should be pointing the weapons.

I stared at the glittering Legendary card floating there, thoughts churning. The most powerful alchemical mix Mother had been able to create hadn’t so much as cracked it. Hestorus’s spirit – or something – had been wandering around the misty city where Mind Homes lived. He’d given us the information we needed to trigger the apotheosis that had saved the city.

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. He’d wanted this. He’d intended it. Dead as a doornail and still my bastard father managed to make us dance to his fiddle. 

The roar was deafening now. People were covering their ears.

“What’s happening?” Afi screamed over the din.

I just shook my head and pointed at the card. Whatever this was, it would happen soon enough.

Tracings of light began sparking from Hestorus’s card, whisper-thin lines that I couldn’t quite follow at first, but soon more and more of the streamers coursed out into the air, pulsing like will-o-the-wisps chasing each other through the woods. These darts of light, though, all followed the same sinuous lines, pulsing, multiplying, and extending ever further to trace the outlines of a massive something with the diamond-edged card firmly at its center. 

“I should have known it,” I muttered, unheard by anyone as the great roar swelled around us. “Too easy for you to just die and leave us alone.”

The lights filled in the outline of a great, spiked tail, a long, sinuous neck, and enormous wings. Brighter and brighter they glowed until we all had to look away with watering eyes. The sound crested, and a wave of power even greater than what had come out of me at Legendary knocked us all to the ground.

The roar turned into words. “I RETURN,” boomed a mighty voice. A voice I knew. 

I looked up, and a colossal dragon with sunlight scales beat its wings in the air above us. It spun and dove in midair pirouettes, flashing, gleaming. Preening.

Hestorus had come back. As a dragon.

“People of Treledyne,” he trumpeted. “Your Sun King has transcended!” With a shout of triumph, he sent a lance of brilliant flame shooting skyward from his mouth.

The people, to their credit, clapped and cheered him just as they had me. They knew that voice as well as I did – before his death, it had greeted them with his sunrise ritual every damn day for as long as anyone could remember. They knew better than to spurn that voice, especially when it came from a being who could swallow a dozen of them in a bite.

“I will not usurp my son’s ascendence to the throne,” Hestorus thundered, settling into a looping figure-eight overhead. “Yes, it is true: Hull, he whom you have cheered, is indeed the son of my flesh, and heir to the throne even without the Twins’ blessing. Though I have loved you well, my time as your king has passed. I have done everything I could for you.”

Everything I could. My lip curled in a sneer. He might have come back as some kind of  powerful elder being, but Hestorus was still a showboating piece of shit.

“I would speak with your king,” he intoned from on high. “When I am gone, tell your children of this day. You will never see my like again!”

An unseen hand settled on my body and lifted me into the air. Afi made as if to hold onto my foot, but I shook my head at her. No point in her getting dragged into this. Daddy wanted to have a chat with his favored boy now that I’d proved worthy, and nobody else was invited. I set my jaw. Don’t anger him. Yes, I had my Scepter, so he probably couldn’t chomp me… but he was also a golden dragon born from the card of a dead Legendary, so all bets were off.

Up and up we both floated, his unseen power depositing me atop his great horned head as he circled ever higher. I could see forever up here. No wonder he’d always loved to fly.

“All right, you dickhead,” I said. “What do you want?”

His laugh rumbled up from below. “I’m glad it was you that won. You’ve got stones like none of the others. Well, Juriss was similar, but she proved not strong enough against the Orc.”

My mind made the connection instantly. “I have her card. I got it from him when he died.”

“Good. Elevate her if you can. Reaching Legendary after death never produces the same level of strength as reaching it when living, but any child of mine will still be an asset once elevated.”

“You don’t give two shits that I won,” I challenged him. “It could have been any of us as far as you care. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” he boomed cheerfully. “It became clear as I faced Targu’Thal and your mother that the path past Legendary would not be so simple as I hoped. It wasn’t just about elevating the humans around me – I had to sacrifice to make it happen. But once I’d done that, yes, any of you reaching Legendary would have brought me back.”

I laughed bitterly. “I’m not even really Legendary yet. It’s the scepter card that elevates me while I’m holding it.” I wondered what would happen if I tried to bury the thing in his great shining eyeball. That probably counted as ill intent.

“It’s funny how picky those damned Twins are in some ways and how loosey-goosey they are in others,” he admitted. “The temporary elevation seems to have satisfied their requirements for me. You’ll hit Legendary on your own in due time, I have no doubt.”

I’d already had the thought myself. As powerful as I was as a Legendary right now, this was not the skillset I hoped to cultivate. When I reached the peak of power fair and square on my own, I resolved that my card would look significantly different than it currently did. “So what are you now, then? Extra Legendary?”

“I am one of eight Transcendent beings currently in our world,” he said. “I don’t even know how I know that, believe it or not. Before my death I believed myself to be at the peak of power. Imagine my discontent at breaking through and finding seven others have already beat me to it.”

“Why are you such an asshole?” I said without thinking. “Why don’t you give a shit about anyone but yourself?”

He was silent for a long moment, and I wondered if I’d offended him. I hoped I had. “It was the only path I could take,” he finally said. “Nothing else pushed me like focusing on myself.”

“If that’s so, then I’m fine topping out at Legendary,” I said. “I’m going to fix that city you ruined.”

“Give yourself a thousand years and then let’s talk,” he said dryly. “Perspectives change with time.”

I shook my head firmly. “I’m never going to be like you. Never.”

“Good,” he murmured. “Don’t be like me. Be like you. That’s the only way forward. I could ask for nothing more from you.”

That sounded almost noble, and it shut me up for a minute. We flew in silence, appreciating the view. Treledyne was nothing but a dot far below.

“What should I do?” I asked grudgingly. “To be a good king?”

“Push them,” he said. “Elevate them. Humanity is too weak to take on the rest of the world just yet. We need more Legendaries. More Mythics. More of the little folk forming their soul cards, for that matter. It has to start somewhere.”

“I’m not going to let the Lows stay poor,” I said hotly. “Even if you tell me I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “It was an experiment, nothing more. Though I will point out that it was a successful one: it produced you. Don’t get so caught up in individuals that you lose sight of your responsibilities to the greater whole.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “The greater whole is made up of individuals. You treated us all like chess pieces, and I won’t do it. And if you think you can boss me around as king now that you’re back, let’s go ahead and fight right now.”

He hmmed deep in his barrel chest. “I told the people I would leave, and I will. Treledyne – and all of humanity, from what I overheard – is your responsibility now. I have my own work to do, and it will be elsewhere. Here, I have a gift that may help you.”

A slim stack of cards appeared behind the dragon’s left ear and floated toward me. I snatched them out of the air with one hand while staying anchored to a horn with the other. I didn’t dare flip through them while thousands of feet up in the air for fear of fumbling fingers. “What is this?”

“The cards of my early companions when founding Treledyne, the ones you call heroes. Young Basil has his own ancestor already without my leave, the rascal, but these are the founders of the other eight great houses of the city. Hold them in reserve. I was able to keep the noble families loyal by holding their greatest ancestors hostage. Do the same and you can be sure of their obedience.”

“You know it’s possible to get people to do what you want without threats and fear, right?” I said. “Did that thought ever occur to you?”

“Frequently,” he said in a lazy tone. “But it rarely proved true.”

“Must have been hard trying to shepherd us all to elevation when you had such a low opinion of us,” I said sourly.

He didn’t respond.

“Well, thanks for the cards, I guess,” I sighed.

“I have no use for them,” he replied. “They would only hinder me from this point forward.”

“What’s it like?” I asked, intrigued. “Being Transcendent?”

“You have no frame of reference for the sensations I am experiencing. Not yet, at least. We will have many useful conversations in the centuries to come, you and I. You think me jaded; I think you callow and inexperienced. If outcomes prove your approach to rule to be right, I will say so. If those outcomes prove you wrong, I expect you to develop the humility to return the favor.”

I shook my head. He almost sounded reasonable, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he had changed or because I had. “I’ll never like you, Hestorus.”

His laugh shook underneath me. “I’ve had plenty of people like me, Hull. It’s nice, but after long enough, the approval of others starts to fade in importance. I don’t need you to like me. I just need you to follow the path of elevation. That’s what it’s all about. I thought I’d reached the end of that path, and it nearly destroyed me. But now? Now, my son, I can see like never before.”

He gouted another billowing jet of flame and we flew through the wash of heat. “The path never ends, Hull. Transcendent is nothing. It is only the beginning.”