Note: Alright troops, it's my birthday tomorrow so I'm taking some shore leave. No new chapters tomorrow. Fantasy General will be back on Friday with a chapter that you won't want to miss...

Marcus sat silently in his chambers, his fingers drumming into the stone armrests of his chair that faced the balcony window.

Outside, there were chants being spurned on in his name. There were ratmen down there who were ready to throw their lives away just to get a look at him and to know, for certain, that he was still alive.

"They've pinned their whole hopes on me," he whispered."And yet, I'd sell them all out just to see Mari again."

He leaned back at stared at the empty ceiling above, tracing the cracks in the stones where the rats had probably done battle before.

"What kind of person does that make me?" he asked the vacant ceiling. "Someone worth believing in? Or something who lets his own selfish desires run his mind?"

The door to his room creaked open, and a small, robed rat shuffled in.

"I guess I'll find out soon enough," Marcus said as he turned to meet the visitor he had called to his room alone.

Deekius.

The rat-priest looked up at him with both awe and – Marcus thought – a small sliver of fear. Perhaps the rat himself now believed all the sermons he had delivered about Marcus the Shai-Alud. Perhaps he didn't, and the display of terror-stricken reverence was merely an act.

He bowed his head so low that his snout practically kissed the stones of Marcus's floor.

"Shai-Alud," he said. "It is being my honor to stand before you once again. How are your wounds healing?"

Marcus waved his trivial concerns away. "My bruises are psychological, at best," he said. "More importantly, tell me straight, can your Gloomraava do anything for Festicus?"

The rat-priest closed his eyes. His silence said enough.

"Then he truly is gone," Marcus stated, turning back to the balcony and the legions of baying fans waiting down there.

"We will be giving him a proper ceremony in the Grand Cathedral of the Unclean," Deekius stated. "Then, he will be afforded the highest honor – his body shall be returned to King Skylock of Marrow and consumed by their Clan's Queen. King Shrykul is making necessary preparations."

Marcus hesitated before he spoke his next words, his mind racing.

"Tell him to wait," he said.

Deekius blinked. "Sire? The King is giving order to –"

"Do the soldiers of Clan Marrow know their commander is gone?" Marcus asked. "Do they know how, and where, he died?"

"They…they are knowing the assassins struck here tonight. They are knowing their commander is pursuing them, but all his forces do not yet know he is perishing on top of the Foundry."

"Good," Marcus said. "We will be keeping it that way."

Now he turned back to the little rat-priest. The one who brought him here when it seemed his purpose in life had departed him. When he was at his most hopeless…

"The prisoner," he said. "Where is she being kept?"

"She is being taken to the dungeons on Gloomraava Verulex's authority," Deekius said. "Her execution is being scheduled for 6 hours from now. I am being sorry, Sire Marcus, but the priest of Glumrot is having final say in this matter."

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"But not," Marcus added. "The sole domain of priest Verulex."

Deekius cocked his eyebrows at him, his fur furrowing beneath his hood.

"No," he said slowly. "But he is being senior priest here. Authority of Glumrot priests are second only to Prime Putrefact's."

"Yes, of course," Marcus replied. "And where is Gloomraava Verulex currently?"

"He is in his chambers resting," Deekius replied. "He is still recovering from his wounds – the poison of the Yokun Matron is working on him. But he shall be surviving yet. He is just needing rest after all his exertions."

"Yes," Marcus said. "He was gravely wounded. Wasn't he?"

Silence weaved its way between both rat and man as the hidden meaning in Marcus's words spilled out into the air around them.

"Deekius," the human finally said. "I know you have ambition in you."

Are you really going to do this? he asked himself. Once you take a step like this…there is no going back. This is the abyss.

Even as his mind fumbled, he recalled the image of Verulex's hateful eyes staring at him beneath his ragged hood. He recalled the feeling of the Yokun's blade against his flesh as the rat held it before him. And he recalled the ratman's statements in the war-chamber. He had realized, as he was brought back to this castle, why that little priest showed no fear in making such open threats.

Because he thinks I'm weak, Marcus told himself. He thinks my displays of mercy to be the whims of a coward. He thinks I am a tool to be exploited, and nothing more.

But I have tools of my own. I'm not just a history professor, anymore. Words no longer have to be my only weapons…

"Sire?" the ratman mumbled.

"I have heard the sermons you sing about me," Marcus said, stepping closer and bending low to look the ratman right in his sharp eyes. "About the power you wield now that He-Who-Festers has looked upon you as His chosen priest. After all, it was you who summoned the Shai-Alud. And it was you who called those illusions – at the palace doors and atop the Foundry tower – that led to the defeat of the Yokun assassins, wasn't it?"

"You are knowing my skills too well, Sire," Deekius replied with a humble bow.

Now's the time, Marcus. Do it. Show him who you are. Who you can be. Show them all.

"A rat like you," he began cooly. "A rat with such power flowing through him – a Gloomraava chosen by the Unclean – shouldn't a rat like that be the priest who commands the highest office of respect in this place? Shouldn't it be a priest of Fleapit – the priest of Fleapit – who speaks for the Shai-Alud and for his people?"

The light of an epiphany slowly began to creep into the rat-priest's dark eyeballs. His mind was catching up to the desire that lay at the core of his Shai-Alud's words.

"I could give you it all, Deekius," Marcus continued as he saw the light of the priest's own desires flare in his face. "You will be installed as the new Prime Putrefact. Your old leader – he was too weak. He was captured and rots with the enemy. This happened because He Who Festers did not see him as worthy. Not like you."

The eyes of the ratman widened now. Anticipation, excitement, and even a little bit of bloodlust had just taken root within his small mind.

"Sire," he smirked. "You really are having the soul of a rat."

This is it, Marcus. If you go forward now, there is no return.

One path led towards return to his home – the honorable path where he did his job and then shipped out. That was the path he had expected he'd follow. The path that had been causing him all his headaches recently. Now, with the Glitterpak gone, it would simply be even harder to force a surrender from the Kobolds.

But another path had just been opened – a path where Mari lay at the end. If it was true that she really was here, among the warriors of the Yokun, then that meant he'd be going home without her if he found Silas alive. It meant returning to his mundane life without the one thing that made it matter at all.

The right path was so obvious to him. So clear that it was almost comical.

But that's exactly the path he could no longer tread.

"I am knowing what you want to say," Deekius whispered. "If I may speak plainly, Shai-Alud, it is something your human honor will not allow you to voice. But you wish it of me, don't you, Sire?"

Marcus licked his pale lips, feeling the trembling that had set in them earlier fade away.

"Yes, Deekius," he replied. "I do."

A curt nod from the rat and – just like that – a conspiracy was born.

"How?" the priest asked.

"First, a promise," Marcus replied. "I want your word that you shall swear your fealty to no one but me, your Shai-Alud, from this night until the end of all nights. Do this, and I will give you all the honors within my power. King Shrykul will not deny me – I am the only hope of his ailing wife. The warriors of Marrow and Glumrot will fall into line – your sermons will see to that. And from this night forward, this empire will know the name of one priest only."

That was it. That was the final stoking of the fire that sent the rat into an almost trembling frenzy. And the future of the ratman race was decided by his last whispered words:

"Sire," he said. "This is a promise. Together, we shall be making history."

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