The Goddess Spear. Who made who? Nobody likes you. The broken fountain and the empty square.

Sal found himself slowly backing up into the square as he gazed up at the tower. Lights went out on an upper floor. Farther up, more lights winked on. Against the black night sky, it was beautiful.

Before he knew it, he was sitting on the basin of the dry fountain. He didn’t give the central statue a second look, but he could tell it wasn’t a depiction of him anymore. He was rather grateful for that.

His hand fell onto his knee.

Betty sat on his wrist, gripping his arm hair. She was so light and little, it felt rather comforting. “Oh, buddy, I know, I know, you’re a little gob smacked. Actually, a lot of people think the Godspear is what killed you. Or more precisely, the goddess spear, though Madra doesn’t get nearly enough credit.”

Sal squinted up at the tower. It leaned a bit to the right. “Madra threw the spear? Why?”

“We don’t know if it was the All-Mother or not, but I wouldn’t put it past her. She was more of the warrior of the bunch. Unlike her lazy husband.”

“But she created the people.”

“Not all the people, buster. Not the Gwynar. We came directly from Grandmother Maker, thank you very much. Along with the Primogeny, but between you and me, pal, I’d take a Gwynar pit viper over one of those arrogant Primos. You must really hate the elves.”

“Elves?” Sal cocked his head. “What is this word you use? Are not elves not synonymous with storybook fairies or forest fae or any number of folklore sprites?”

Betty chuckled. “Yeah, forgot. You ain’t up on the current lingo. People started calling the Primos elves. There aren’t many left around, and the ones that are still are super old. But anyway, yeah, you still have a resentment against ‘em?”

Sal wasn’t sure what to say. Would speaking ill of the Primogeny affect his Karmic Guage? Truth be told, he had hated the Primos. They had joined with the Menold to slay his grandfather. While it was the Menold warriors that had done most of the heavy lifting in battle Grandfather Mood’s Gorbin armies, in the end, it was a Primogenous blade that had killed him. At least Grandfather hadn’t been betrayed by his best friend.

“Loathing the arrogant is an easy game to play,” he said after a while. “Madra threw the spear…at…at me?”

“We don’t know who threw the spear, but my bet is on Madra. But let’s not get sidetracked. I think you said something about betrayal. The way I understand it, you were basically dead when the tower spear came slicing down. Kinda of a dramatic way to end your reign. You must be kinda glad.”

Sal wasn’t sure what he thought. It meant failure on a grand scale; he was sure of that. It was an end to everything he’d built, no thanks to his father. His Gorbin army, actually, was thanks to his grandfather. As for his ash demon, he’d wrangled Dergle Driptongue on his own. After a thousand years, Dergle had to be either dead or destroyed.

Sal couldn’t keep his eyes off the tower. “But it was wood before, polished hickory. How can it be stone now?”

“Yeah, can’t speak to that. Giant spears from the heavens are weird, no matter how you slice it. Started out wood, turned to stone, less upkeep maybe. Don’t ask me.”

Sal gulped in a breath. “So people refer to it as the God Spear? I would think The Tower Spear would be more appropriate.”

“For a while, people called it the Divine Spike. Goes up all the way to heaven, or so the stories say. As you can see from the windows, it’s hollow inside. Whatever you wanna call it, the Tower pulls in a lot of traffic from around the various empires and kingdoms and what-not. Rumor has it, your old Deux Coin is at the top, but after a thousand years, no one has been able to reach the top. One party of Climbers, a while ago, got close, but then they disappeared. Before that, some Gorbins got close, though the Gorbins, have, um, changed since your time. And don’t think about trying to raise another army because if you’re in charge of it, and someone dies, it’s your fault, and there goes the deal. Which, by the way, means no Tower Ascending. Nope. Your main job in life is getting me chocolate-chip cookies. To do that, you need a frickin’ job.”

Sal set the mouse on the basin. He stood up. “This is still Grief City, and—”

The mouse held up a paw. “Tower City. No one calls it Grief City anymore.”

Sal found himself a bit sad. Yes, he’d never liked his grandfather’s words for things, but such a change? It seemed disrespectful somehow.

Betty must’ve seen how crestfallen he was. “But they still call it Torment Island. And sometimes people call it the Tower of Torment. The Dark Lord Mood lives on!” The mouse paused. “Hey, pal, another thing we need to talk about. Nobody likes you or your family. You were Dark fricking Lords, man. You squashed uprisings. People still talk about the Slaughter at Hearthhome.”

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Sal was about to fall into his diatribe about the Battle of Hearthome, and about his Dark General Keyneth Kinkaid, and a hundred ways he’d tried to make the lives of his subjects better. He’d only become a Dark Lord because no one was willing to step up and be any kind of lord at all. Everybody wanted peace and order, nobody was willing to do the beheadings to get it. That had been joke between him and Kenny. Very few were beheaded or tortured during his reign. But try telling the historians that.

Sal found himself pointing at the…at the…fountain. It wasn’t him, no, and that was fine. But standing there, the Destiny Blade lifted in one gauntleted fist, was a statue of Keyneth Kinkaid. If the fountain had been working, the water would’ve trickled down the blade and onto the Dark General’s pauldrons. The fountain must’ve worked at one point because there were stains on the stone.

Betty saw where he was looking. “Yeah, Sal, uh, no easy way to say this, but, the Kinkaid clan kinda became a big deal. People started calling Keyneth the—”

Sal interrupted her. “The Lordslayer, yes. There’s a placard.”

“You have very good night vision.”

“Thank you. I had a spell, Owleyes, that enhanced my eyesight. Alas, it is as gone as everything else.” He paused to read the inscription. “Lordslayer, champion of light, he turned from the darkness, which made him burn brighter.”

Then there was Keyneth Kinkaid’s birth date and death date.

Sal couldn’t stand to look at the statue for even a moment longer. Once, the Dark Lord Square had been a marketplace, filled with taverns and inns stood In stalls and carts, smoky fires cooked both fish and sweetmeats. Merchant sold precious goods and exotic spices from around the world.

Now, the stalls and carts were gone, and all those inns were shuttered. The taverns had fallen into disrepair, and even the fountain didn’t work.

“Dark Lord Square used to be the center of the world,” Sal mused. “And yet, lo, look thee upon the Church of the Sacred Family. I believe even that place of worship has seen better days.”

Back down the street rose the spires of the church, and Sal wasn’t wrong. There were several roof tiles knocked askance, and one of the gargoyles had fallen. The hole had been patched with wood. Worse yet, there were more wooden patches covering the stained-glass windows.

Betty winced. “You’re not going to like this either, Sal, but it’s no longer called Dark Lord Square. It’s called The Champion’s Plaza, or used to be. Nobody calls it much of anything anymore. Thing is, it’s on the wrong side of the Tower. Now, on the other side, that’s where things are happening. You have Destiny Square and the Governor’s Mansion and all sorts of shops, inns, taverns, cafes, bodegas, all along Blessed Fate Highway. We could stroll over there. That whole section of town never quiets down. Not sure what a bodega is, but they sure have ‘em.”

Sal felt beaten, stricken, and he had to sit down. With his back to the statue of Kenny, thank you very much.

He started sputtering. “I just cannot even begin to…. I would like very much to…. I do not expect that I should….” He tried to start every thought with a new sentence in a new way, but what could he say? He’d once owned most of the world. He’d trusted the wrong Dark General, even before the business on the Grand Midnight Terrace. He’d been murdered, and then he’d suffered in the Abyssmuck for a thousand years only to be given new life as penniless disempowered fool whose only friend was a mouse that he could never fully trust.

“The Slaughter at Hearthhome wasn’t my fault,” he said after a while. “I actually wanted to leave Hearthhome alone. Kenny disobeyed my orders. He led the Gorbin Strike Squads, and they butchered everyone. I took the credit because I was the Dark Lord, but it wasn’t me. I have…other sins, certainly. But I do not suppose that matters to anyone anymore.”

His hand went to the scar on his face, a reminder of Hearthhome, and yet, his skin was whole. He was back to being twenty years old again.

Betty put her tiny claws on his arm. “It matters to me, Sal. Look, I don’t want you to be some scenery-chewing psychopath with murder always on his mind. I wasn’t kidding when I said I need food, and you’re going to need food. And things are really going to get complicated when we actually start living in the cursed café. Not just cursed. Super cursed. But we have a home, a place out of the rain, which is really nice. Sure, you can’t go about Dark Lording anymore, and you can’t kill anyone or anything, but we have a place to start. This whole square— “Her tiny arms stretched to take in the plaza –“died out because of that café. We fix that, we get the fountain working again, we can bring business back. Don’t think I don’t forget you have experience doing something other than Dark Lording. You worked at your father’s cafe, later on, after Mood died and his empire crumbled. This isn’t the first time you’ve had to start over.”

Sal felt himself tearing up. When his grandfather had been killed, he and his inept dad had gone to Caya Idle, not far away, and his father had opened a tavern. Sal had helped him run it, and it had been miserable work, but yes, he did have experience doing something other than Dark Lording.

Sal fought to control his emotions and he won. No tears spilled. He didn’t even sniffle. “Do you believe me about Hearthhome?”

The mouse shrugged. “Sure. Slaughter of the century, crimes against humanity, three days that lived on infamy, not your fault. Gotcha. Glad to hear it. But we’re in the here and now. From now on, you’re no longer Salvanguish Abner Ordinal. Maybe we’ll call you Sal Ord. You’re not a Dark Lord anymore. You’re a Dark Ord! The owner of a new café that given time, will only be slightly cursed.”

Sal felt exhausted. Being resurrected and then shown a world he scarcely recognized anymore had taken a lot out of him. It was nice that yes, he did have a place to stay.

He wasn’t going to go traipsing about the upper floors, so he crawled into the window and onto the table. He made a quick bed for Betty in the broken bowl with some leftover linen. Once she was comfortable, he stretched out on the bench. He was surprised to find sleep quickly. Lying on the hard, splintery wood wasn’t comfortable, but he felt so tired.

He woke to shrieking, a sound that would’ve woken the dead if Sal hadn’t already been woken from being dead. Small resurrection joke there.

The long, extended scream was a sound of pure terror.

Sal’s first thought was to grab the short sword he’d left on the floor. But then he thought better of it. No killing. Not even a ghost.

And he had the idea that was exactly what he’d just heard.

The bench then gave way and he found himself hurling toward the floor, toward a spike hammered into the wooden floor. Where had that come from?

In the end, that didn’t matter, because whatever the source, he was about to lose an eye.

That was a shame. He liked his depth perception.