Chapter 65: Then and Now

Betrayal was a pain unlike any other, for it often hurt in ways that not even time could heal. Not only did it tend to linger in the hearts of the betrayed, but in some cases, it persisted even through death, passed from generation to generation like an inherited trait. The deeper the wound, the stronger the resentment. Often, it festered like an infection and grew unseen beneath the surface until inevitably bursting and enveloping the world in the fires of toxic retribution. But could one truly blame the betrayed for seeking their belated justice? Of course not. The righting of wrongs was the most fundamental principle of justice itself: and few wrongs were as deserving of bloodshed as betrayal. And so, should one be of rational mind, the only possible conclusion to be reached was that Queen Vayra deserved to bleed.

Queen Vayra was a woman who needed to die, and not simply for what she had done, but alas, for what she continued to do. Nay, death alone was not sufficient. Queen Vayra needed to suffer. She needed to be tortured in such a way that every last neuron in her brain was dedicated solely to the feeling of pain. She was a woman who needed to experience the absolute maximum suffering it was possible for an individual to feel: the upper-limit of torture. In fact, she deserved even worse than that! Were it only possible, her brain ought to be modified to heighten the range and depth of agony one could process so that she might know a level of torment exceeding that which was medically possible. That, indeed, was what such a horrific, miserable, and traitorous bitch such as Queen Vayra deserved. She was a traitor. She was a liar! Her promises were worth less than a pig’s shit. She had lied to him. She had broken his heart and robbed his life of joy.

“And I can never forgive her,” he finished in a whisper.

“I know you can’t.”

“No matter much time comes and goes, I still hurt.”

“I know you do.”

“It never gets any better.”

“That’s how it is sometimes, Moldark. But you have to pull yourself together. What you’re attempting to do is wrong. On some level, I know you must realize this. But believe me, my friend, I do understand how you feel.”

Moldark pulled his face out of his hands and weakly stared up into the eyes of Francis Calador, who stood across from him behind a desk littered with paperwork and photos of his children. “No, Francis, you don’t know how I feel. You couldn’t! They’re in Manhattan right now, the queen and Adamus, sabotaging everything I’ve worked for. And you’ve chosen to stand against me!” He wiped his eyes, which had dampened with tears of rage. “Do you think I wanted to be here under these circumstances?”

Moldark knew he was becoming unhinged. He tried his best to calm himself as he gripped the armrests of the large velvet couch in which he sat. Meanwhile, the sound of screams and death echoed from outside of the large, well-furnished office at the top floor of the tallest building in the one and only human city in all of Galterra: Tomb of Fire.

“No, please!” cried a voice from somewhere down the hall. Then came another scream. With a pained sigh, Francis reached into his oak desk and removed a bottle of whiskey along with two small glasses.

“Let’s have a drink together,” he said. “Like old times.”

“I don’t want to drink, Francis! I want to kill. That’s all I want to do: kill.”

“I know,” he said. “But it will help you feel better.”

Francis was tall, thin, and had soft, caring eyes along with a head of short, black, and wavy hair. By appearance alone, one would never suspect him to be the leader of what, until today, had been humanity’s largest guild, the Order of the Golden Fox. Even having known him for most of his life, Moldark would never understand how someone so compassionate and emotionally understanding could hold within himself such spectacularly destructive power. Though he would not dare say so aloud, Moldark strongly suspected that Francis Calador may just well represent the closest in terms of raw power that any human had ever come to reaching the capabilities of an Elvish Great One. Had he only the appetite to push himself further, perhaps he could even rival or exceed them. He was not only the strongest human that Moldark had ever known, but until last week, he had also been the only man in this world other than his own son who Moldark would willingly die for.

For this reason, even in a world where guild vs. guild violence was as common as the sunrise, Moldark had never once allowed the Guild of Gentlemen—the new largest human guild in Galterra that Moldark had created with his own two hands—to go to war with the Golden Fox. It was a good thing, too, because having the two most powerful human guilds abstain from conflict brought a degree of stability to the world. It was a moderating factor as all the small- and medium-sized guilds seemed to relish in conflict and destruction--exactly as those Elvish bastards wanted it. Yet, sadly, even that tradition had to end. And now, today, following a week of what was surely the bloodiest human-on-human conflict to have ever taken place on Galterran soil, Moldark had seized the Tomb of Fire, which itself was the only place on this entire goddamn planet that supposedly resembled anything like home.

This world, this so-called “gift of freedom” was not in any way like the stories Moldark had heard as a child of Earth. It was hazardous and hostile: it was uncivilized. It was a dangerous, unkind planet that the ancestors of those who would not submit to Elvish rule had been sent to begin anew. It was a place governed by a system of rules and laws that had been enacted after the original Elvish civilization that lived here had wiped themselves out in some civil war.

And to think: this was considered a gift. An act of mercy and freedom! Everywhere one stepped there was danger. One could not venture more than a mile outside the city without some vicious, crude imitation of life leaping at you with murderous intent. This city itself was built upon a “dungeon,” the entrance to which was buried deep in the sub-basement of a skyscraper across town. It was only due to the existence of this dungeon that an area of safety had been found, as no mobs spawned on the land above it. It was now all that humanity had.

“Francis,” Moldark whispered, “do you truly intend to let me kill you without a fight?”

He took a seat on a fancy black leather reclining chair across from Moldark and smiled. “I’m done fighting, my friend.”

“I didn’t want this. I really, truly did not.”

“I know you didn’t.” With that, Francis placed two glasses on the table between them and slowly filled each. Rubbing his forehead a moment as stress overcame him, Moldark leaned forward and grabbed his, as did Francis. The two toasted, and then they drank.

“At least tell me why you did it,” Moldark said. “Why did you side with Queen Vayra?”

“I didn’t,” Francis insisted. “I sided against you.”

Moldark closed his eyes a moment and waited for the pain in his chest to subside, as hearing his greatest friend speak those words hurt him more than any blade. “After what she did, how could you?”

Francis sighed. He briefly lowered his head as if to glance upon his empty glass, and then a moment later, he refilled them both. “Moldark,” he said, “I do not support, not in the slightest, what Yorna has—”

“Do not call her that!” Moldark shouted, slamming his fist down on table. “I don’t ever want to hear that name again!”

Francis held up his right palm. “Understood. Let me correct myself, then. I do not support what Queen Vayra has done.”

“She promised me she would give it back to us. She lied.”

“I know you aren’t going to like hearing this,” Francis began, speaking with a lowered tone that suggested he feared what he was about to say might further provoke Moldark’s temper. “But I don’t think her intention was to lie to you. She tends to make promises she regrets or later realizes she can’t keep. She always has.”

“Oh, I am well aware,” Moldark said, not in the slightest bit offended by his suggestion. “Even after we wed, I think there was a time when she still loved me and still intended to keep her word.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“So then…” Francis leaned forward slightly. “…you do comprehend her reasoning?”

“Of course. Absolutely, I do.” Moldark leaned forward slightly as well. “It’s a load of shit, though. And regardless of all other factors, she made me a promise. Nay, she made us a promise. She swore to return the Earth to humanity. She told us we could go home!”

“You could have gone home!” Francis shouted, and it was the first sign of temper he had shown since Moldark had literally paraded his troops through the streets slaughtering his people. “We all could have gone home were it not for your actions!”

“Home to what?” Moldark replied. “An Elvish controlled world? An Elvish controlled society? Where our people are oppressed.”

Francis shook his head. “They’re not.”

“How can you say that?” Moldark demanded.

“Because the humans who live on Earth today don’t even remember a time when the planet was ours. They live in peace with the Elves. They follow the same laws as the Elves. They’re given the same opportunities as the Elves. It’s how they govern.”

“BUT IT’S OURS!” Moldark screamed at Francis.

“Was ours,” Francis said back to him, downing another shot of Whiskey.

Moldark laughed, but it was not a sound of joy or amusement. Even to his own ears, he was offput by the hatred and illness in it. Shaking his head, he leaned back in the chair and again tried to comprehend how Francis had been so taken in by these Elvish scoundrels.

The Elves pulled the same wickedness everywhere they went. They would invade whatever they deemed a “struggling civilization” and conquer the entire planet; then they would assimilate the population, and afterwards, they would send those who would not willingly subordinate to their laws to Galterra where they would be given a fresh start under their system, of which Earth itself was now a part. They’d done this to the lizards, the dwarves, those monstrous barbarians known as “orcs,” and to all the other races as well. When did it end?

“They had no right to take our home from us.”

“They did not,” Francis agreed. Then he shrugged. “But they did. You know the history as well as I. We fought, we lost, and yet, humanity still exists.”

The Elvish were known, among other things, to be religiously, culturally, and personally averse to anything resembling genocide. It was why even the patently parasitic species known as the “orcs” had been allowed to continue to exist. Regardless of how the next stage of Moldark’s plan proceeded, that was one Elvish mistake that needed correcting. Orcs were animals, not sentients. Vicious, bloodthirsty, and loud animals that performed atrocities against all other races, especially the humans. Their two races had gone to war pretty much from the moment the system had been reset. Luckily, the orcs were now too busy dealing with the gnomes to raid their smaller villages and outposts dotted around North Bastia.

In silence, Moldark shared another drink with the best friend he’d ever known. Then he stood up and drew his blade. “You really won’t fight back, will you?”

Francis did not even rise to his feet. He merely poured himself another glass and began to sip at it even as Moldark pressed the blade against his neck. “I don’t want to do this. I’ve never wanted anything less.”

Francis shifted his eyes upwards. “Then don’t.”

“I have to. You know I can’t stop now. Not unless you have a sudden change of heart.”

“I won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because if you succeed in hacking the system, and you spawn the World Eater on Earth, you won’t just massacre the Elves, but the billions of humans who live there too. The planet will die. The skies will become red. It will be the end of the home world you cherish.”

Moldark laughed, and this time, it was of amusement. “If humans can’t have it, no one can.”

Francis exhaled slowly. “Just tell me one thing, Moldark. Please.” As he spoke, there was real, genuine concern in his voice—and more than a touch of fear.

“What is it?” Moldark replied, his blade still pressing into his friend’s neck.

“My children. Are you going to hurt them?”

At this, Moldark actually flinched, unable to believe what he’d been asked. “Jesus Christ, Francis. Absolutely not! How could you even…? I would never. I would never.”

Francis sighed. “I just wanted to make sure. All right. Get it over with.”

Moldark squeezed the blade more tightly and nodded. He would make this quick. “As my great grandfather used to say, Francis, ‘Au revoir, mona mi.’”

And with that, Fluffles brought his sword down onto Francis’s neck, and then he began immediately jumping all over the office looking for chicken. The cat became agitated, unable to find what he was looking for.

“Fluffles still hungry,” he complained bitterly. He meowed. “Zach, wake up. I want to play. It boring here.”

Clearly, the cat was not pleased. He was bored because he’d killed Francis and had nothing left to do. Wait…who was Francis again? Uh, he’d been that guy who…gah! Why couldn’t Zach remember? Actually, come to think of it, why, exactly, was Zach here again? Where was here? No, wait, even better question: was he actually here?

“Zaaaaaaach!” the cat moaned, running behind him. “You sleep so long. Wake up!”

As Fluffles ran, Zach spun around to look at him. The little creature darted beneath the desk in the office. Or wait, was this an office? It looked a lot more like a cave. That was right. He was in a cave, not an office. That had been a different dream.

Dream? I’m asleep? When did I even go to bed? When did I—

*****

Zach gasped loudly as his eyes popped open. He inhaled, sucking as much air into his lungs as he could manage. He could hardly see. Everything was blurry. His body felt damp, as though he’d been soaking in his own sweat. There was something wet on his head, though it felt like fresh, warm water. Was it a cloth? A towel? His heart began to beat faster. He was confused. Where was he? How had he gotten here? What was the last thing he’d done? Did he have school today?

He tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Something was securing him to the bed. Actually, this wasn’t a bed at all. He felt like he was on a metal table of some kind. He tried to rub his eyes to clear some of the blurriness, but for some reason, he could not lift his hands—or his feet for that matter. Slowly, it occurred to him that he was strapped in. This set off a panic within him.

“Hello?” he called out, terrified. “What’s going—ppfvvvt.”

His words were cut off as Fluffles, who was also here for some reason, randomly jumped on his face, licked his forehead one single time with his sandpaper tongue, then jumped off, humming some kind of song he’d heard. Still unable to see clearly, Zach could tell by experience alone that the sound of something crashing off to his right was the result of Fluffles inconsiderately and intentionally knocking an item off a shelf.

“What the hell is going on?” Zach again asked, his vision still slow to clear. “Fluffles, where am I? Are we in Whispery Woods? What happened?”

“Oh,” the cat said, jumping onto his chest. “Zach die. But it okay now.”

“I what?”

Fluffles meowed. “Zach die.”

“You mean I…I almost died?”

“No!” he meowed, and the sound of it came across as agitated and annoyed. “Why Zach stupid now? Zach die.”

“I obviously didn’t die, because I’m—”

“Actually, you did,” said a voice from what sounded like across whatever room he was in—and perhaps slightly above him, too, as though the speaker was looking down on him from an elevated balcony.

“Who is that?” Zach shouted. He was dazed, oblivious, and horrifically confused. He lacked any idea what was going on.

“My name’s Olivir Saloux: also known as Count Olivir Saloux. I’m a vampire.” He laughed. “You know, the one you came all the way to this planet to kill? That ring a bell?”

It did. And Zach frowned as his grip on reality and recent events began flooding back into him. “Oh, shit! Look, man, I didn’t…I don’t know anything about your war with—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said with another laugh. “I promise I’m not here to hurt you. Actually, you know what? I’m the one who saved ya.”

“Why can’t I see? What happened to my eyes?”

“Nothing. You’ve just been asleep for twenty-five hours, and you um, you’ve been up for like twenty-five seconds. Give it a minute.”

“I…I remember what happened. I think…” He gasped. “I think I died.”

“Yeah, you did,” the vampire said. His voice was oddly playful, lacking in any sense of malice. He also sounded young: around Zach’s age. With a chuckle, the vampire added, “Me and your cat are telling you the truth. You did die. Also, I know you’re agitated, upset, disoriented, frightened, and you probably have no idea why you’ve been bound to the operating table, but before I can tell you any of that, I need to ask you: please tell Fluffles to stop chasing my zombie around the estate. Their ‘playing’ is causing literal explosions that can be heard for miles, and unless you want Queen Vayra to find us, I need him to stop, please. They are both way too hyper and out of control.”

“It not true!” Fluffles hissed. “Vampire man is lying. Fluffles was a good cat and did not break anything. Grundor too hyper, not Fluffles. Fluffles play nice but Grundor hyper.”

“You both are,” the vampire calling himself Olivir insisted.

Zach was so out of it that the words and accusations he was hearing meant absolutely nothing to him, and yet, incredibly, he still knew the vampire was telling the truth, because when it came to Fluffles, everything that the cat was being accused of doing was totally believable.

“Fluffles, stop it or no dinner,” Zach said. The cat hissed, loudly and angrily, but Zach was in no mood for this right now. “I don’t want to hear it, little buddy. I just found I died, okay? I died. And I’m locked into a”—he tried again to move his arms and legs—“I’m shackled to an operating table. Please. Just stop whatever it is you’re doing.”

Fluffles jumped up onto the operating table, and now, Zach’s vision cleared just enough to see the outline of his face. Even though cats could not directly make facial expressions, they still somehow had a way of showing off their grumpy face. Spinning around, Fluffles jumped off the table and began walking in a huff across the room while grumbling about how Zach had sided with “the vampire man” instead of the “the best cat.”

“I am so confused,” Zach moaned.

“Ehh, I’m pretty confused too,” the young-sounding vampire said. “Hey, look. I have just as many questions for you as you do for me, so…you know what? Do you like pancakes, um, Zach’s your name, right? I still eat ‘em. I mean, I don’t get anything out of it, like, nutritionally, but I love them. You’ve gotta be hungry after sleeping over a day. Why don’t we just talk, and we’ll see where we both stand, okay? Tell ya what: I’ll let you out of those level-48 shackles right now if you promise not to hurt me or anyone else here, and then we can just talk this out. All right?”

Zach nodded and exhaled. “Yeah, all right.”

Pancakes sounded nice, truth be told.