The Once King Read online

  “Holy shit!” squeaked Tina, crouching next to her brother on the boulder, which was now a lone pillar of stone in the middle of a vast black ravine. “I didn’t think they’d show up in person!”

  “We should bow or something,” James whispered back, cowering behind her. “Show respect!”

  He followed his own advice by dropping into a low bow. A second later, Tina did the same, bowing at the waist until her body formed a ninety-degree angle, which seemed to please the kings immensely.

  “You are a player-made stonekin,” the six boomed. “Despite this, you are our child. We watch over you the same as we care for all creations of the deep stone.”

  “Uh, thank you,” Tina said, straightening back up. “I appreciate the—”

  “You, Roxxy, have done many things,” they boomed over her. “You have done…well!”

  “Huh?” Tina said, confused. James didn’t get it, either. The Bedrock Kings’ stone faces were as expressionless as statues, but their voices were full of joy.

  “We sculpted our stonekin as weapons to fight the Once King,” the giant stones said. “They were created to be as unstoppable and tireless as the undead they destroyed. You were not made by our hands, and yet you have exceeded even our greatest expectations. You have bested the king’s generals, broken his weapons, and saved his enemies from undeath! Of all our stonekin, you, Roxxy, have accomplished the most.” Six expressionless stone faces split into smiles. “We are so proud of you!”

  Tina began to shake. Alarmed, James looked up to see his sister was…well, not actually crying, but it was a very near thing. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what was wrong. They were praising her; why would she be upset? Then, feeling like an ass, James realized that was the reason. He couldn’t remember their parents ever telling Tina “good job” or “we’re proud of you.” They’d always been too busy with their work or James’s problems to notice his little sister’s accomplishments. She’d told him as much herself, but he’d never actually stopped to consider how much that must have hurt her until he saw her reduced almost to tears by the praise of giant stone authority figures she’d never even met.

  “Thank you,” Tina said, wiping her face. “I did my best. But if you’ve been watching me all this time, why haven’t you come to help before? We’ve nearly lost so many times.”

  “But you did not lose,” the kings replied as one. “You stood firm as the mountains, the rock upon which the undead break. Now you seek to challenge the Once King himself, and so we are here.”

  “Thank you,” Tina said again. Then she grinned up at the giant stone figures. “So are you going to help us fight him? Because you guys look like total bosses!”

  The giant royal figures exchanged unreadable stone glances. “We cannot,” they intoned at last, reaching up in unison to lay their giant stone hands upon their smooth carved backs. “We are but shadows, ruins of what we once were, and the Once King was ever the best of us. Also, the prison he has shut himself away within is protected from the Sun and all its children. Even if we wished it, we cannot enter.”

  James’s ears fell.

  “So does that mean you can’t take us into the Deadlands?” Tina asked, voicing his fears.

  “This is correct.”

  “Damn,” Tina said. Then her eyes lit up again. “I don’t suppose you have an army of totally awesome stonekin we could borrow instead?”

  “We do not,” the six replied without a trace of humor. “There are only ever one hundred natural stonekin at any given time. Currently, they are scattered far and wide as generals and commanders, holding the line against the undead in other corners of the world.”

  Fat lot of good that did them here. James was wracking his brain for something else they could ask for that the Bedrock Kings could do when the stone monarchs suddenly added, “We cannot transport you to the doorstep of the Dead Mountain, but the Verdancy is within our reach. If we take you to the edge of our enemy’s realm, will you crash upon him?”

  “Like a fucking rockslide,” Tina promised, pounding her fists together.

  James winced at her rude choice of words, but as with everything else Tina did, the Bedrock Kings ate it up.

  “Well spoken, little creation!” they cried, their entwined voices humming with satisfaction. “Ready your fleshlings for the fight. We shall open the way!”

  The words were barely out of the stone giants’ mouths when the chasm James and Tina’s rock was sticking out of like a toothpick suddenly rumbled again. Grabbing his sister so he wouldn’t fall off, James watched in amazement as new stone rose from the seemingly endless black depths, forming a flat path leading down.

  “The Timeless Tunnels are yours,” the kings said as the crowd of players crept forward to gawk at the new road, which was as wide as a highway, going down into the ground in front of them. “We have but one last request.”

  “Go for it,” Tina said.

  Though still expressionless, James would have sworn that the Bedrock Kings’ stone faces grew sad. “We know that you must save the world from He Who Was Once King, but as his followers and former friends, we also beseech you to save him from himself.”

  “Save the Once King?” Tina repeated, arching a copper eyebrow. “You know the plan is to beat him, blackmail him into doing what we want, and then most likely kill him, right?”

  “We know,” the towering statues replied, their voices blending into a melancholy chord. “He has earned your ire and your vengeance, but he was our king once. For all that he became our enemy, he never once betrayed us. It was he who said we shouldn’t descend from the Unbounded Sky, he who gave up his own freedom to help us once we became trapped here. When we raised our prayers to the heavens for salvation, it was our king who warned us of the Sun’s treachery. When it was done, it was he who tended our wounds and tried his best to give us new purpose. Even when we moved on to new lives and new forms, he remained king, endlessly alive and alone. Such is his devotion to his duty.”

  James stared at them in shock. He’d never heard the Once King described that way, but the stone giants’ plea reminded him of what Lilac had said after he and Ar’Bati saved her from the lich’s orb. She’d claimed she’d heard the Once King’s voice speaking in her head and that he’d apologized. That description had never lined up with anything else James knew of FFO’s ultimate end boss, but now the Bedrock Kings—beings who’d literally created stone super-soldiers to fight the undead—also seemed to be asking for leniency, and it just didn’t make sense. He had so many questions: Why had the Celestial Elves descended from the Unbounded Sky? Why had the Once King been against it? And where exactly had they descended to?

  That line of thought brought up yet more mysteries. Long ago, a famous FFO streamer had pointed out that the game world appeared to have no name. This observation had kicked off a frenzy of exploration, data mining, and conspiracy theories as people tried to figure out why a fantasy game lacked such an obvious fantasy element as a world name, but no one had ever found a solid answer. Even the development company had been tight-lipped. James had been too busy frantically leveling to care about the controversy back in the day, but now that he lived here, he realized he’d never heard any of FFO’s actual residents refer to their world by name. “Earth” was an English word that had no parallel in Central or any other language he knew. As a Naturalist, James called the magic he cast on dirt and rocks “earth magic,” but that was only his brain’s translation of the concept. Gray Fang and Thunder Paw always called it “Sculpting the Foundation” or “the Deep Sea of Amber.” They’d never used an actual word for the ground they were standing on other than “ground” or “dirt.”

  The questions were still buzzing in his head when Tina stepped forward.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded, glaring at each of the Bedrock Kings in turn. “Devoted to duty? He made the undead! He’s working to destroy the world as we speak. That’s not something a good king does. He doesn’t deserve mercy!”
/>   “He would not take it if you offered,” the six replied. “Such is his pride. But it is not entirely his fault. He is as he was made to be: the once and only king.”

  Tina gritted her teeth in frustration, and the stone giants smiled. “We do not ask you to understand,” they said gently. “Only that you promise not to rob him of his dignity or deny him respect in defeat.”

  “Fine, fine,” she grumbled. “I solemnly swear that we’ll kick his ass in the politest way possible. So—with that same great politeness—can we go now? If you’re dropping us in the Verdancy, that’s two extra days of walking we didn’t know we’d have to do. If we don’t get a move on, there’s not going to be any world left to save.”

  “You speak bluntly and true,” said the six, raising their arms in unison. “Go with our blessings, little stonekin. Go and grant him the peace of death.”

  With that, the six stone giants turned back into six giant rocks. It happened so suddenly this time that James caught himself staring at the crags that had been faces like he still expected it to talk. The unnatural silence of the stones was still there, though, muting the players’ nervous chatter as they edged toward the lip of the road the kings had left for them, an immense stone highway leading straight down into the dark. Standing above it on the pillar, James swore he could feel air blowing in and out of the dark like breaths, ruffling his fur with every puff.

  “Right,” Tina said, her voice only shaking a little as she stared into the void. Then, as always, she pulled it together.

  “Okay, everyone!” she yelled, hopping off her pillar onto the new road. “Don’t act like it’s your first time walking into a giant magical cave that looks like it’s going to eat you. March!”

  No one laughed at her joke, but they did obey, shuffling after Roxxy into the dark. Summoning a ball of glowing water so he wouldn’t trip and break his nose, James crept after her as well, though he was very relieved when Ar’Bati emerged from the crowd to join him.

  “Well done, James,” his brother said, grinning into the dark. “The rocks have given us a sally! Onward to the death of our enemy!”

  James shook his head in awe. “Do you ever feel fear, Fangs?”

  “Of course,” his brother said. “But fear is useless. Bloodlust makes a far better marching partner.” He nodded hungrily at the wall of impenetrable darkness ahead of Roxxy’s looming shape. “Think of it. At the end of this tunnel, our oldest enemy waits, vulnerable and alone. How can I be afraid when I know I will soon sink my blade into the Once King’s neck?”

  “Never thought of it that way,” James replied, unsure if that advice did anything for him. It was, however, very Fangs-like, which amused him enough to keep the worst of the panic at bay as the sun vanished overhead.

  “Don’t dawdle!” Tina yelled over her shoulder at the crowd. “The faster we walk, the sooner we get out of here and on to punching the Once King in the face. Game clock’s running. Chop chop!”

  With much grumbling and trepidation, the players crept on. As they went forward, the wide tunnel they were following constricted and curved downward sharply, just like a throat. That was an observation James really could have done without, so he decided to focus on the little ball of glowing water he’d formed above his staff, pointedly ignoring how the circle of light it shed at his feet was way smaller than it should have been.

  They walked for what felt like a very long time. How long exactly was hard to say. He’d often heard of caves referred to as “timeless,” but this was insane. The moment the daylight from the mouth of the tunnel behind them vanished, James was suddenly unable to say if he’d been down here for an hour or a day or a century. Clearly, the Timeless Tunnels had been well named.

  Fortunately, there was no chance of getting lost. The tunnel was dark as pitch, but it had no turns or forks. It simply went endlessly down, the stone walls eating the noise of the raid instead of bouncing it back as they should. Some players tried to chat, and Cinco even tried to strike up a bawdy marching song, but the silence of the place won in the end. With no way to talk and nothing to see, James was left alone with what was inside his own head, and soon he was lost in thoughts of home.

  He could already see himself waking up in a hospital and trying to explain to his parents what had happened. He was certain they wouldn’t believe him, but they’d have no choice once all the other players who returned started telling corroborating stories. The knowledge that he’d lose his magic when he went back was already making him depressed, but James hoped he’d get to keep his knowledge of FFO’s languages. How cool would it be to be fluent in two tongues that were completely alien to Earth? Not that he could do anything with that knowledge except document the languages for linguists, but it would still be cool to help preserve and study them.

  Not that he’d be needed for that, of course. There’d be plenty of other, much more educated former players to study languages and tell the story of what had happened here. Once the novelty faded, James would go back to being just another face in the crowd. A deeply in debt face with no degree and no prospects.

  His shoulders slumped in the dark. Who was he kidding? Coming back from getting stuck into a game wasn’t special when you were one of thousands. It didn’t matter if he could still speak of Wind and Grass or not; he’d still be a loser working three minimum-wage jobs seventy hours a week just to make his rent and debt payments. That was what he was fighting so hard to return to: thirty more years of being a slave to his past self’s stupidity. If it hadn’t meant sticking his parents with his debts, James would have stayed in this world in a heartbeat. He had family here, and friends. The nameless world of FFO was the only place in the universe he’d actually managed to do things right. But even he wasn’t that irresponsible. He’d made his mess, and he’d go home and fix it. It was the least he could do after screwing up his family’s—and Tina’s—lives so spectacularly.

  But even knowing that he was doing the right thing did little to lessen the crushing weight on James’s shoulders as he marched endlessly through the dark. Oddly, he didn’t appear to be the only one. Everyone looked glum and introspective as they shuffled on and on and on until, without warning, the sound returned.

  It felt like taking off a pair of noise-canceling headphones. All at once, the oppressive dark and quiet vanished, replaced with the bright glow of player armor and the loud echo of voices bouncing off walls as they normally did. The moment they realized it was over, the army of players burst into relieved chatter, filling the cave with whoops and crude jokes about holes. Tina yelled at everyone to quiet down and pointed ahead, which was when James noticed the eternally downward-sloping road was now going up.

  He surged forward. Sure enough, there was a light in front of them. A cold, gloomy gray one that reminded him of winter clouds, but it was still daylight. The air smelled different as well, a cold ashy scent very different from the wet, mineral-y cave-scent of the Timeless Tunnels. He was breathing through his nose to get a better sense of it when the road they’d been following abruptly ended, dumping them out at the base of the tallest mountains James had ever seen.

  “Hey!” someone yelled excitedly. “We’re in the pass to the Deadlands!”

  James was almost trampled as the rest of the raid rushed toward the gray daylight. He jumped to the side, shielding his eyes against the light that—though dim for morning—was still blinding after the dark. Even after his eyes adjusted, though, his brain had a hard time making sense of what they were seeing. He’d been to the Deadlands countless times back in the game, but seeing them in person, for real, was another experience entirely.

  The raid was standing at the mouth of a lifeless mountain pass. Behind them, far, far down the crumbling gray slope, James could just barely make out the bright-green treetops of the Verdancy. That was the only color, though. Everything else around them was gray—gray rocks, gray trunks of long-dead trees, gray dust swirling up to low gray clouds. There was so much monotonous gray blending together that he almost
missed the giant stone fortress blocking their path forward.

  He had no idea how. The building was enormous, a manmade cliff of once-white, now gray-stained stone that blocked the entire pass between the mountains. On top of the walls, between the swirls of gray ash, James spotted banners of the Holy Sun fluttering from the battlements. There were soldiers up there as well, tiny figures wearing dusty but still faintly gleaming golden armor.

  They must have spotted the players at the same time James saw them, because all the little armored figures on the walls started to scramble as he watched. Horns sounded next, sending sharp alarm calls echoing off the mountains as bowmen flooded onto the walls. Behind him, the player army drew their weapons in reply, but Tina waved them down.

  “Relax,” she said, striding purposefully down the pass toward the walls. “I got this.”

  “What does she have against a fortress?” Fangs snarled in his ear.

  James had no idea, but he had a feeling they were about to find out.

  Chapter 7

  Tina

  It’s like déjà vu all over again.

  Tina stomped up the mountain pass toward the fortress of the Order of the Golden Sun. Up on the battlements, soldiers wearing the Order’s golden tabard were freaking out and pointing their bows at her again. Not that Tina could blame them. She’d just led two full raids of players out of the side of a mountain on their flank. Of course they were in a panic. She just hoped no one got spooked enough to do something stupid before she could explain.

  “Players!” someone shouted in a panicked voice from the wall.

  Tina’s jaw ticked in annoyance. Seriously? This again? She’d thought they’d at least be able to recognize the world’s only female stonekin who wore full Dead Mountain tanking gear, especially after how hard she’d saved their asses not a week ago. She was about to yell at them to stop being insulting when CincoDeMurder jogged up to join her, his face grim.