Book I, Chapter 3

Before I get on with my tale, I’d like to address one point in particular.  You’ve heard me mention elves, dwarves and orcs.  Some of you are no doubt saying to yourselves, “Here we go with another Tolkien rip-off.  Big fucking deal.”  Let me point out that, by his own admission, Tolkien was the mere translator of the Red Book of Westmarch, not its author.  What kind of a slack-ass takes credit for inventing history? In a Creation of infinite universes, Middle Earth is no more or less real than my Oerth is.  Besides which, even if Tolkien was lying and he did make up the whole thing, he cribbed most of his ideas from old Celtic and Norse mythology.  Hell, I could have done that.  I can assure you that those arrogant, hemp-wearing, lute-playing, rope-smoking, herbal-tea-drinking elves that you will meet in my story are quite real, as are those smelly, avaricious, beer-swilling, gas-passing gluttonous dwarves.  Middle Earth may just be a universe or two away from mine, but at least I’m farther away from it then that other pale Middle Earth knock-off described so profitably in those Sword of Shannara books.  If I could create my own universe to inhabit, it would be a lot more futuristic, maybe like Star Wars.  You think it’s fun living in the equivalent of 12th Century Europe?  Try walking down the streets of Redhawk dodging the chamber pots being dumped out onto the street because there’s no sanitation system.  Try living through a simple case of the flu because modern medicine has yet to be invented.  Try dating a girl with hairy legs who doesn’t bathe.  And let me tell you, it would a lot easier to slay a dragon with a lightsaber than the heavy metal I had to lug around.  You didn’t hear about any of that stuff in Tolkien, because he cleaned it all up.  Hobbit holes don’t exactly smell like freshly shorn rose petals, you know. They generally smell like outhouses.

So anyway, there I was, a young man still wet behind the ears, having arrived in Redhawk to seek my fortune.  Or I should say to seek a new fortune, as I had recently renounced all claims to my father’s wealth.  As the second son I would have been entitled to my own fleet, my own castle and men-at-arms, my own lands and flocks.   It would have been a good life, don’t get me wrong.  It just wouldn’t have been my life.  It was all right for Eldernon, my brother and heir to the throne, to live at my father’s beck and call, because he was supposed to be learning statecraft.  One day he would run the show and could toss out the window all of the “wisdom” our father had so diligently drummed into his thick skull.  But what was in it for me, exactly?  A lifetime of watching my brother hog all the glory, take credit for my accomplishments, and slowly whittle away what little self-respect our father allowed me to keep?  No thanks.  I had my bags packed the moment I was old enough to know the score.

I remember well my father’s expression when I told him I had renounced my titles and land.  He looked like a man who had just had his worst suspicions confirmed.

“Did you fall out of your tower window again?”  he asked me.

“No, father, I didn’t,” I said, striving to keep my knees from knocking together.  “I’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Thought?” My father gave what passed on his face for a smile.  “Is that your hobby these days?  You think it’s sensible, do you, to throw away a lifetime of security to go scouring dungeons?”

“I’m a good fighter.  I can out-duel any man in your army.  I’m better than Eldernon, and I’m better than you.  There’s a need for good fighters out there.  There’s evil to be vanquished.  Kingdoms to be won.  I might even save a damsel or two.”

Olderon rose up out of his throne to face me.  He married late in life, and was in his autumn years by the time my brother and I grew to manhood, but even then he was a physically imposing man.  He was all about upper body strength, with legs that looked way too small to tote around such an overdeveloped torso, and he could, when the mood struck him, summon the physical presence of a mastiff ready to tear the hindquarters off an unlucky deer.  He gave me the full effect, as it were, and fixed his heavy brows into a battlement that overhung his steel-gray eyes.

“Now you listen to me, boy,” he said.  “Don’t tell me about vanquishing evil and winning kingdoms.  Who do you think civilized these islands?  When we first settlers landed on Hydra Rock, there was nothing here but a flourishing Stone Age civilization with an advanced knowledge of astronomy and an unfortunate penchant for human sacrifice.  Do you think it was easy destroying their culture and usurping their land?  Why, if it weren’t for our rock-solid belief in Manifest Destiny, you and I would still be toiling away in the copper mines of the Great Empire.  I was stacking bodies like cordwood when you were still flinging shit on the walls of your nursery.  I built this Lordship with my own two hands, devoted my life to it, and for what?  To see my own son spit in my face? I’d sooner see you fed to the sea drakes!”

We stood nose to nose.  I held my ground.  Don’t misunderstand me, I was still terrified of him— his idea of strong parenting was to lock us in a maze with a hired Minotaur and force us to fight our way out.  I told myself that if I could look him in the eye while telling him that I didn’t want his charity, I would be able to face anything.  Orcs, dragons, the undead, evil demi-gods bent on world domination— all would pale before the unholy visage of my father’s wrath.

“Who said I was spitting in anybody’s face?”  I said.  “I want what you wanted— to forge my own destiny!”

“I’m your father— if there’s any destiny to be forged, I’ll be the one to do it!”

“The only thing you’ll forge are shackles if you expect to keep me here!”

“I’ll bind you with them myself!”

“You and what army?”

That did it.  Olderon reached for his broadsword, found the haft, and swung it overhead in a broad arc aimed straight at my skull.  It was an empty gesture; he had the strength to stop the blade before it cleaved me in two.  Just the same, I grabbed a buckler from the wall and brought it up swiftly to absorb the blow.  Better safe than dead.

We glared at each other for a charged moment.  Fortunately, I had come prepared for this impasse.  I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“There’s only one way to settle this,” I said.

Father raised a furry brow.  “You don’t mean…”

“Crush the Kobold,” I said.  “One game.  If you win, I stay and polish your brass.  If I win, I go with your blessing.”

Father considered.  He eyed me with suspicion.  “No strings?”

“Would I ever take advantage of you?”

This broke his mood.  He lowered his sword, chuckled, and patted me on the shoulder.

“You are an arrow from your old man’s quiver, my boy,” he said.  “All right, you’ll have your game.  Three days hence, when the cock crows.  I’ll have my steward make all the arrangements.  But I’ll hear no pleas for a rematch when we fish you out of the moat.”

“I’ll have the alligators removed.”

I had appealed to his vanity and won.  Now all I had to do was win the match. Lucky for me that I had the proverbial ace up my sleeve.

Book I: Chapter 2

So you must think I have it pretty good: sitting on the throne of one of the most progressive kingdoms on Oerth, secure in my accomplishments, basking in the love of my adoring subjects, enjoying the erotic delights of my still-luscious queen.  My 65th birthday is just ten days away, the celebration of which promises to be the most anticipated event in recent memory. You’d think I’d be giddy with delight.
 
Well, you know what I found out, just yesterday?  I found out how long I’m going to live.  I even know the exact date of my death.  How do you think you’d handle that bon mot?
 
It all comes back to Wilberd.  I swear to Odin that he secretly despises me.  He’s a monk, which means he has dedicated his life to his faith, though he’s never bothered to tell me which god he worships.  When we first met, he browbeat me for months to get a religion of my own.
 
“What in blazes for?” I asked him, after he had worn me down enough to get a response.
 
“Who are you going to praise after a battle?”  he asked me.  “To whom are you going to dedicate your conquests?  To what afterlife do you want to commend your immortal soul?”
 
We spoke in a back room of the Suds and Shade Tavern in Redhawk.  It must have been forty-five years ago now.  Wilberd and I have known each other since we were both apprentices still trying to break into the adventuring trade.  I was recently divorced from my father’s wealth; I had a broadsword on my back, a set of smelly leather armor, a buckler and a few silver pieces in my pocket.  I had met him at a Guild training class a few months earlier.  Wilberd was technically under a vow of silence and so not permitted to speak, but he spoke to me when no one else was around.  I felt privileged, at first.  Then he just started to annoy me.
 
“Who says I have to dedicate anything to anybody?” I said.  “What ever happened to looking out for number one?  If I get a religion, it means I have to live by a bunch of bloody rules concocted thousands of years ago by some prophet on a mountaintop who doesn’t know dick about anything.  I’ll have to go to temple, sacrifice the fattest rams in my flock, tithe ten percent of everything I bring in— it’s all just a big pain in the ass.  No thanks.”
 
“Look, what alignment are you practicing?” Wilberd asked.
 
“Neutral Good,” I said.  “Live and let live, that’s my motto.”
 
“There are a lot of perfectly good religions that will still let you be a practicing Neutral.  Just pick one that fits your image.  Something with a good God of War.  What about the Greek pantheon?”
 
“Zeus and that lot?  Don’t make me laugh.”
 
“Well, you’d better think hard about it,” Wilberd said.   “It could save your life someday.  Did you know that you can call on your deity once per battle, and that he has a five-percent chance of appearing?  That’s across the board, no matter who you worship.  The Deity is obligated to save your neck.”
 
“No kidding?”
 
“You’d probably have to go on a quest afterwards, but that’s a small price to pay.  Just think about it.”
 
And so I did.  I took a stroll down Temple Avenue in Redhawk, wandering with my nose in the air through the great throng of true believers winding there way amongst fluted marble columns, past the shrines and the temples and the mosques and the cathedrals representing a veritable buyer’s market of faiths spanning thousands of years and hundreds of universes.  You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a messiah of one sort or another.  I tried to look disinterested, as in truth I was, as I collected the pamphlets pressed into my palm by hairy old men in sackcloth who rent their garments, bathed in ashes and flagellated themselves with cats-o-nine-tails whenever they weren’t pooling their money to have a couple of halfling prostitutes come over to the temple and put on a little show.  It was all a lot of bloody nonsense.  But the bit about having a Deity around to pull your nuts out of the fire appealed to me.
 
So I shopped around a little.  The Melnibonean gods, Arioch and that crowd, interested me from an aesthetic viewpoint, but there were a lot of copyright laws involved there and I couldn’t afford a good shylock.  The Romans were just arrogant mythology-stealing pricks in my book, and who wanted to speak bloody Latin anyway?  Finally I settled on the Norse mythos.  I liked the whole look and feel of that pantheon; their gods had a lot of style.  Odin had his two ravens and his eight-legged steed, Thor his mighty hammer.  Maybe if I pretended to believe in the whole song-and-dance, a couple of Valkyries might descend from Valhalla to carry my broken corpse off of some future-distant battlefield.
 
So I received my blessing from a staff cleric, paid my start-up fees and received, along with my membership card and introductory materials, a very nice hickory staff that I still have to this day.  As a religion, the Norse mythos has served me well.  It’s easy to show fealty to a God whose only commandment is Thou Shalt Kick Ass and Take Names, and who doesn’t mind if you take his name in vain, in fact he even expects you to, and will fuck up your life big time if things are going well just so you don’t get complacent.  I like to think that there’s a flagon of ale reserved for me in Valhalla when I get there.  Which brings me back to my original point, which is that, thanks to Wilberd, I now know exactly when I’ll get there.
 
This was just yesterday.  I’m minding my own business, pruning the azaleas out in the main courtyard of my castle, as is my wont.  I’ve always had a thing about a well-kept garden, and now in my advancing years I have the time and the wherewithal to indulge myself.  I do it all— the planting, the weeding, the pruning, the mowing.  Cassiopeia has tried to direct my attention away from the greenery by hiring gardeners behind my back, but I always smoke them out and kick their asses into the moat.  Nobody touches my garden but me.  I love the smell of freshly shorn grass, the line of well-trimmed shrubbery, the vibrant chaos of a flowerbed.  It keeps me young.
 
So there I am with the azaleas, when Wilberd appears from around a hedgerow.  I can tell by the expression on his face that I’m in for trouble.
 
“Go away.  Can’t you see I’m pruning?” I said by way of greeting.
 
“I have good news for you,” Wilberd said.
 
“War has broken out?”
 
Did I mention that Wilberd has a Unicorn horn sticking out of his forehead?  Not a fake one, either.  It’s really fused with his skull.  He got it by opening the wrong magic egg in a temple near the Underground Sea.  Most of the magic eggs were blessings— extra health, short-term invulnerability, that sort of thing.  But when Wilberd cracked his egg open, damned if a spiral unicorn horn didn’t sprout right out of his forehead.  Looked like it hurt, too.  He was pretty upset about it at first; he had to sleep on his back, suffered a lot of neck strain and so forth.  He went from one cleric and wizard to another, trying to have it removed, but it was a tough curse and no one could figure it out.  Finally he just accepted it.  Now, whenever I make a stupid comment like the one I had just made, he has the habit of lowering the horn as if he’s going to ram me with it.  I love the guy, but if he ever tried a move like that I’d remove that fucking horn right quick and shove it up his ass.  End of curse.
 
Wilberd seemed to sense my thoughts and raised his horn.  “Remember that Seeing Stone I was working on?”
 
“Not really.”
 
“The one that I could only get to show the chambermaid’s dressing quarters.”
 
“Oh, that one.  We had a lot of laughs with it.”
 
“Well, I finally got it to divine the future.  You can only ask it one question before it clouds over and dissolves into the image of an unblinking vagina-shaped red eye, but it gives you a clear answer.”
 
“So it works.  What did you ask it?”
 
“I asked it how long you would live.”
 
For a minute I felt as if I was back on the deck of one of my Quinquiremes; the ground seemed to lurch and sway beneath me.  Suddenly the knowledge of my own mortality, the sheer inescapable conclusion that someday I would die, would no longer draw breath or eat or shit or make love, came crashing down upon me.  I was silent for a good twenty seconds before I spoke.
 
“Why the fuck would you ask it that?” I finally asked.
 
“Had to ask it something.”
 
“Why didn’t you ask it how long you’ll live?”
 
“Oh, I couldn’t handle it.  The knowledge would drive me mad.  I wouldn’t even tell you what it said, except that it’s such good news.”
 
“Good news?” I could feel the blood rising to my face.
 
“You’re going to live to be one hundred and thirty years old!” Wilberd said with that annoying mixture of wonder and condescension with which he addressed me whenever he felt like he had the upper hand.  “Your sixty-fifth birthday is only the halfway point of your life. You’ll have the lifespan of two normal men!”
 
My legs felt like creamed spinach.  I dropped my shears and collapsed onto a nearby stone bench.  I cannot fully describe the thoughts that raced through my head at that moment.  Another sixty-five years.  That was good, wasn’t it?  Especially considering that the average lifespan for humans in our pre-industrial society was about 45 years. Hell, elves didn’t even reach puberty until they were 75.  Dwarves sometimes lived to be 250, as if anybody could stand to be around a dwarf for that long.  But your average Homo Sapiens evolved monkey type was fortunate to see his own kids make it to childbearing age.  If the Seeing Stone was correct, I’d probably outlive most of my own children.  My wife would probably be in the ground a good forty years before me.
 
Who wanted to live that long?
 
I could see it if I could have had the extra time thirty years ago.  If I could be thirty-five for an extra sixty-five years, then sign me up.  But I was facing another sixty-five years of decrepitude.  Another three-score and five years of gazing longingly at my trusty old battle-axe, knowing that even if I could swing it with the same force I possessed in my salad days, I would wrench my back and have to spend three days in bed.  And of course there were all the usual signs of creeping doom one had to look forward to: hair falling out, teeth rotting, skin shriveling up, hair sprouting out of your nose and ears, brain slowly putrefying in your skull until finally you’re right back where you started when you first arrived on this godforsaken planet, requiring constant attention and cleaning up after just to get by.  Who wants it?  Who needs it?  The whole circle of life, far from being miraculous, is one vast cosmic joke.  We’re forced into this world, we’re absolutely clueless about everything for most of our lives, and finally, just when we manage to accumulate a little bit of wisdom and perspective, Death bends us over the table and doesn’t even give us the courtesy of a reach-around. It’s all a giant steaming bowl of shit soup, if you ask me.
 
I considered all of this while I sat there contemplating my next move.  The thought of wrapping my hands around Wilberd’s throat gave me a brief moment of solace, but it passed.
 
“Did it show you how I die?” I asked.
 
“Well,” Wilberd said, now looking away from me, “yes.  But you might not want to hear that part.”
 
“Look, you’ve already gone this far, I may as well have the rest of it.”
 
“You die sitting down,” he offered.
 
“Sitting down? Where?”
 
“On the toilet.”
 
I lurched upright, made guttural noises in my throat that caused Wilberd to take a step back.
 
“On the toilet?” I croaked.
 
“I told you, you might not want to hear that part.”
 
“That’s just swell!  That’s just perfect!  How is it going to look when I arrive in Valhalla, stand before Odin and Odin asks me, ‘So tell me, my son, how did you come to stand before me?  Did it take a dozen men to pull you down?  How many did you send before you?  Twenty? Thirty?’ and I say, ‘None, my lord, because I died on the fucking toilet’?  I’ll be laughed out of the place!”
 
“It won’t do any good to curse at me,” Wilberd said.  “It isn’t my doing.  I’m just telling you what I saw.”
 
I began to pace.  “So what if I just pull a sword down off the wall and cut my own throat with it five minutes from now?  Where would your crystal ball be then?”
 
“Don’t be dense.  All the Stone does is show you where your current path through life will lead.  It doesn’t eliminate free will.  If you step off the path, the choice is yours.”
 
I looked at the shears lying on the ground.  I had lost all interest in the azaleas.  Really, I had no idea where to go or what to do next.  The foreknowledge imparted to me by Wilberd’s big mouth hung like a petrified dragon turd around my neck.  I had the urge to flee— to run out of the castle, through Tradewind City, down to the harbor, commandeer a ship, and keep sailing until I had outrun my fate.  But I knew that no matter how far I ran, my fate would still lie before me, rising with the sun, shining with the stars, keeping me fixed in its inexorable gaze.  And if the truth be known, it wasn’t the knowledge of when and how I would die that really got to me.  It was the certain truth that I was going to die, period— that I wasn’t really immortal, as I had always secretly hoped.  Fate had me, as it had all men, in its net.  And it had already started to haul me in.
 
So now I sit here, on my throne, where I have sat since Wilberd dropped his bombshell on me.  My wife has given up speaking to me. So have my ministers, and even my light-in-the-breaches son.  They ask me if I’m all right, if I need to talk to my cleric, if they can get me anything.  I have refused all ministrations.  I just want to be left alone, now, at this moment.
 
I dwell now mostly in the past. 
 
If I really examine the first half of my life, I am forced to conclude that I have always sought Death, in one form or another.  I have taken terrible chances.  I mean more than the usual hack-and-slash adventures that never really pose much of a threat.  I can still clear a dungeon in my sleep.  I’m talking about epic adventure, the kind where the fate of the Universe is at stake.  I have stared in the eyes of the Lich-King Luz and lived to tell about it.  I have been to Hell and back.  I have fought extra-terrestrial spider queens who can attack you in more than three dimensions.  That sort of saving-the-world stuff always requires a sacrifice.  One of the good guys has to die, or there was never really much at stake in the first place.  It could have been me.  So why, when I have spent my life seeking out Death, am I so scared now that Death has finally knocked on my door?  That I don’t have to answer it for another sixty-five years gives me small comfort.
 
My birthday party is ten days hence.  There will be parades, a fleet processional, feasts, speeches and Odin knows what else.  Heads of state from across the Free Kingdoms are even now undertaking long and perilous journeys just to sit at my table and toast my health.  Those of my old adventuring crew still drawing breath will be here as well.  It should be a time for me to bask in the love of my friends, family and subjects, secure in the knowledge that I have lived, as much as it is possible to do so in this dangerous and incalculably heartless world, a good life.

But I have a few scores to settle.  I have a few debts to collect, and a few to pay.  If I can work out the details, my birthday guests might be in for a shock— especially Wilberd, that smug bald-headed bastard.   This old broken-down hero may have a few acts of daring-do left in him yet. 

Book I: Chapter 1

They call me a hero.

They call me a leader of men. “They”, in this case, refers to my loyal subjects, all 850,000 of them, spread across the grottos, harbors and sparkling blue shores of a chain of islands no bigger than the Florida Keys. Shipwrights, fishermen, blacksmiths, nobles, commoners, men-at-arms— all of them drink to my health at the local taverns and regale each other with tales of my exploits, when I was a young man wandering the Oerth in search of fame and fortune. They wonder at my strength and courage. They spend coins with my profile stamped on them. To their eyes, they live in the most enlightened monarchy this side of Keoland. They go to sleep at night convinced that they rest under the watchful care of a courageous and noble king.

Bloody fools.

You want titles? I got ‘em. King Elberon, Lord of the Isles, Defender of the Faith, President of the Iron League, High Admiral of the Seven Fleets, Protector of the Adamantium Coast and Friend of the Dolphins. I most likely have other titles of which I am not aware, honorifics bestowed upon me by some High Council or another at elaborate ceremonies at which I may or may not have been present. Who knows? None of them mean shit to me. My Trophy Hall is filled with the dusty relics of my past triumphs. Tapestries recount great battles at which I led my armies and fleets to astounding victories. The hall is chock full of rare and powerful magical items: glowing armor that can turn a Frost Giant spear, shields that can withstand a freezing blast of White Dragon breath, swords that burn lustily with mysterious arcane powers. I hardly look at them any more.

My father, the illustrious and well-storied King Olderon II, once told me I have more wisdom than intelligence. It was the closest he ever came to giving me a compliment. I took it to mean that I lacked the sense to avoid making a stupid move, but had enough wisdom to feel guilty about it afterwards. When I first got my adventurer’s license, way back when in Redhawk, the Guild actually measured both my wisdom and intelligence, assigning number values to both: 15 for my wisdom and 11 for my intelligence. I never quite understood what those numbers measured or where upon what scale they lay. Wilberd told me to be thankful that I hadn’t tried to be a wizard. “Wizards need at least a 15 intelligence to stay alive,” he told me.

I never wanted to be a wizard. I was always a fighter by trade. The Wizards’ Code forbids them to wear armor or to use any weapons other than your standard-issue dagger, and so they have to lurk around in the back of a raiding party, hiding from whatever monster is trying to disembowel them, waiting for the right moment to launch a Magic Missile or a Fireball and then run like hell. Not my style. I like to knock down doors. Nothing gives me more pleasure in life than to feel the satisfying thunk of my battle-ax blade biting into the skull of an Orc warrior. I was always the first to wade into battle; my modus operandi was to stand like an unfaltering sea-cliff while wave upon wave of enemy orcs or skeletons or whatever crashed and broke against the rock of my great strength. My battle-axe cut a wide arc of death around me. It was not uncommon for me to behead three or more opponents with one blow. If I got into trouble, I could always count on the great sword of Amabored or the singing bow of that pointy-eared elf boy Lithaine to haul my ass out of danger. Man, those were the days.

So now I’m a King. I thought it was what I wanted, even though I was the younger of two sons and had no chance at all of ever inheriting the throne. I figured that I’d end up regent of some little kingdom looking for a man of stature to represent them at Elvish councils, someone to preside over feasts and revelries, someone to knock up a princess and produce an heir. I left my father’s kingdom and renounced my wealth in order to prove my worth to him, never dreaming that one day I would indeed take his place. Would he be proud of me? If so, he never would have dared to admit it, because that would have meant admitting that his opinion of my worth was ill founded. Now he’s dead, both he and my brother Eldernon slain at the hands of the assassin Garrin Grimmreaper, whom I personally beheaded atop the uppermost spire of the Crimson Citadel. Got my revenge, all right. Somewhere in Valhalla, my father is wondering why it took me so long.