Chapter Text
“There’s still so much to be done. Do you think that if Quackity happened to still be alive, and we somehow found him, that he would join Kinoko Kingdom?” asked George from below me. He and I toiled under a broad spring sky, carving out a skylight window for my library there in the little hidden kingdom. We climbed about the branches of the hollowed-out tree; he passed me tools and I put them to work. “He wasn’t still mad about the election rally, was he?” continued George, handing me a chisel. “That was more than half a year ago. Quackity and I are still friends, or at least acquaintances. Right, Karl?”
I chiseled along the rough windowsill. “He was just upset about everything that had happened.”
“And that’s good enough reason to abandon his two best friends, you and Sapnap?”
I hated how he said that. I drew a deep breath and let it go. “George, what were you doing on Doomsday? When New L’Manberg was getting bombed?”
“I don’t know.” His black-and-white goggles glazed over, humidity beading on their lenses. “Probably asleep in my castle.”
“So you had no idea what was going on?”
George huffed. “Karl, you know that was all Dream’s fault. But in regards to Doomsday,” he hesitated, eased the next words out, “you guys really had it coming to you.”
I knew it, but it still hurt. “You’re right. We were practically asking for it at that point.” I turned to gaze across the growing kingdom, at everything George, Sapnap, and I had labored so hard over these past months. It could get bombed in one day and all go away. “If you think about it, everything we have here is temporary,” I whispered. “Whether something stays true or strays, it can never last forever.”
George chuckled. “Right. Who’s to say there wasn’t a massive ancient city around these parts that disappeared without a trace so many centuries ago?”
A subtle roar hovered just beyond my senses. I stared skyward, but no sky stared back. Rather, a hundred soulless eyes looked down from the stone world carved across that arching ceiling. The carvings depicted men, picks and shovels on their shoulders, marching in a line, then striking the earth, finally raising the treasure they found above their heads.
Where…? What the honk is this? How did I get here?
I was so engrossed with the carvings, that I didn’t notice the real people weaving all about me, until one abruptly barreled into my shoulder. “Apologies,” this person uttered and went on with his life. Meanwhile, I fell over my silver shoes and got a good look at the ground. My palms stung.
Is this… Am I dreaming? Or did I time travel again?
I raised my head. I lay in the middle of the floor of a tunnel, and a big one at that. Elaborate brass sconces carried torches along its length, lighting the way for the people. Who are these people? And all in a hurry – pushing carts full of barrels or sweeping the stony tunnel floor. They didn’t say a word to each other, as if listening to that distant roar.
I wobbled to my feet. I wiped off my hand on my tunic, which turned out to be a bad idea since it and the rest of my clothing were white.
It’s not a dream. I remember these clothes. What should I do? Should I ask for help?
I started to approach one dirty-faced worker. “Um, hello? My name is –” but the words strangled in my throat, and I couldn’t get them out. Like before. Ohhh…
Before I could say anything else, a gruff shout overtook me from behind.
“You!”
I turned, seeing a huge man enveloped in bronze armor marching toward me, his shortsword aimed to kill.
I glanced behind me just in case. “Who? Me?”
“You!” he yelled again through his helmet, and stopped right in front of me. “Can you write?”
I blinked. “I, um, yes?”
He lunged toward me. I prepared myself to die, but the man didn’t kill me. Instead, he took my wrist and towed me down the tunnel.
This is really bad. Ohhhh, what is happening to me?
My feet could barely keep up. Carvings blurred by. The roaring increased. It was the sound of a great number of people, yelling and cheering, becoming louder and louder until the noise surrounded me. The tunnel ended in an array of archways teeming with these enthusiastic people, their backs turned. Above their heads, I caught a glimpse of sky-blue through the arches, but the armored man lugged me down a passage to the left, circumventing the throngs. I stared at them through the arches. These men and women weren’t clad in the drab attire of the tunnel folk. No, these people wore all the chitons and drapery associated with the classic Greco-Roman style – decidedly paired with enough brass bangles, buckled vests, boned corsets, and bejeweled canes to make any ordinary person wonder if they had stepped into a steampunk alternate universe.
The armored man never stopped to let me catch my breath. He dragged me up a short staircase before at last releasing me. I fell on my hands for the second time that day. A chunky purple rug covered the ground beneath my palms, sparing me further damage.
I peered up. Beyond the canopied platform I crouched upon, the sky blazed above a lake of yellow. I crept to the edge of the platform to get a better look. The yellow lake focused into an enormous high-walled arena filled with sand and speckled with empty pillars. Above the walls rose lines of bleachers bursting with the spectators I had seen before. I know what this is. I did time travel again, didn’t I? This is sometime in the past. The glitter of the sea marked the horizon. My gaze returned to the arena. Two men stood in the center of it – or rather, only one actually stood. The other lay at his feet in a twitching heap. Broken weaponry, scorch marks, and plant matter surrounded them.
“Are you the new scribe to record the events of the feriae?” blared a voice from behind. It didn’t sound like the armored man.
I twisted around.
The man frowning down on me possessed shoulders reminiscent of an anvil. A thick, red-tinted monocle concealed his right eye. His mustache and beard were styled into two tusks curling outward, and a crown like a wreath of emeralds encircled his puckered brow. “Ozymandias has had enough of that old scribe,” he said, or yelled.
I remained on the floor, gawping at the anvil man. “Who is Mr. Ozymandias? Like the sonnet?”
His frown turned tyrannical. “I am Ozymandias, king of Mizu! Take up your papyrus and record for me, subject!” He kicked some paper and a stylus in my direction.
“Yes sir!” Thoroughly shaken, only vaguely wondering what the writing utensils were doing on the rug, I “took up my papyrus” and got to ordering the pages. “ ‘Old scribe’? What happened to the old scribe?” I dared to ask.
The king grouched over to the fancy chair in the middle of the platform. “If you had seen what he wrote, you would know,” he muttered at top volume.
I found the first page in two pieces, one under the rug, the other near the edge of the platform, and so beheld what the old scribe had written. I deciphered the wispy handwriting, and the timeless reporter behind it:
This round presents state gladiator Lux versus Benedictus “Dawn Breaker,” a fighter privately-owned by the Florakis family. Whe’r or not the private-owned gladiators will at last overcome the cosseted state champions is the question pressing every bettor. Lux, like most state fairies, may have an exceptional pedigree, yet he is younger and less experienced than Benedictus. Though I am but a humble scribe, I’d bet my livelihood on the Dawn Breaker’s victory. Of not only this round, but the entire feriae, overthrowing that state champion and highbrow, Evangelos. The trumpets are sounding the start of the duel. King Ozymandias is looking over my shoulder. No matter what he thinks, I’m not rooting for the state. I’m not –
It ended there.
A gladiator fight? I thought. Like the Roman days, but this is Mizu. I feel like I’ve heard of Mizu before, but I'm not sure.
I shuffled to the foot of the king’s throne. “So who won? Ben–” I checked the papyrus. “Benedictus or the state guy, um, Lux?”
Ozymandias threw a disappointed hand gesture toward the arena.
I squinted at the two figures. “I can’t really see –”
The king yeeted a pair of goggles, which hit me hard in the right ear. They had heavy, hexagonal lenses secured in brass frames with twisty screws on the sides. I fitted them over my springy brown curls. The arena bulged before my eyes, its borders like kaleidoscopes in my vision. Ohhh, they’re binoculars! I realized.
By now, a few workers had trickled into the arena to clean things up. Equipped with the binocular-goggles, I again squinted at the two men in the center. The workers brought a stretcher next to the immobilized fellow. I couldn’t really figure out how he was wounded. His sparse leather armor looked entirely intact; his face remained concealed behind his glowing yellow hair.
Going by how upset the king is, the loser must be the state gladiator, Lux. Which means the winner is Benedictus, the one called “Dawn Breaker.”
I focused on the winner; two guards now confiscated his javelins before escorting him out of the arena. They led him at swordpoint, as if he might turn on them at any second, weaponless as he was. He stood taller than any of them, but he didn’t wear half as much armor. No helmet covered his rich dark red hair, tied into a loose knot on top of his head, the rest flowing free with only a braid or two. He turned, gazed up at the king’s platform, and I saw his face. Everything seemed to droop: his eyes, his frown, his pointed ears – and yet he still managed to be incredibly good-looking. And ripped. I saw some kind of mark on his forehead through his bangs; I couldn’t make out what it was.
I just got here, I hardly know what’s going on, but – I pushed up my goggles. My stylus scratched at the papyrus, and I wrote, Benedictus defeated state gladiator Lux. I scanned the old scribe’s writings again. Wait, the gladiators are fairies –?
The king stood all of a sudden. “Fore tonight’s banquet, I shall visit the barracks,” he declared. “Join, my scribe. You must get acquainted with the contestants!”
“Coming!” I gathered myself, got to my feet, and so discovered I stood half-a-head taller than Ozymandias. “Ohhhhhhhh…” I started, but Ozymandias turned without a word.
The three of us – king, bodyguard, and scribe – descended our platform. Instead of joining the general populace, we turned down a far statelier tunnel at the base of the amphitheater. The sentries raised the portcullis for us. The torches shone dimmer here, the walls leaned closer together. And at the tunnel’s end stood two more heavily-armed guards flanking a solid metal gate, which they opened.
The low ceiling did not improve the dour atmosphere of that windowless room. A long wooden table occupied the center, a cornucopia of off-color vegetables and soup pots adorning its surface. The farthest wall narrowed into a tunnel which broke off into several passages, but cages made up the near walls flanking the table. I could see nothing but shadows behind the bars of the cells, however I could hear the growling beasts inside. And smell them.
“My name is Ozymandias, and these are the gladiator fairies!” the king announced. “As fierce and powerful as the first four generations of fairies ever to walk the earth. State-owned and private-owned, each one will fight another until one is crowned the victor of this year’s feriae!”
“They smell gross,” I said, peeking into the cells and holding my nose.
Ozymandias gave me a rough push. “Not them – THEM !” He turned my attention to the people – or, fairies – around the table, and the one man lying prostrate on the floor.
“Bow! ” the one on the ground hissed to the others. They dipped their heads in tenuous respect.
“Thank you, Warring,” the king yelled at the man on the floor, but he looked pleased. “Introduce yourself to the scribe!”
“Of course, Your Lordship.” The man sprang to his feet and faced me. A pair of curled ears poked out from his shiny, wheat-colored hair. “I am Warring. That is my name. State gladiator, and contender of multiple Mizu feriae across the years.” He wasn’t very tall, but his robust physique and confident demeanor made up for the inches he lacked. Like Benedictus, he bore a tattoo on his forehead – the depiction of a pickaxe with a short phrase curving below it, but it was all so embellished, I couldn’t make out what it said.
“Hi, I’m the scribe,” I said without meaning to. Keeping my papers tucked beneath one arm, I reached out for a handshake. He took my hand, turned it over, and kissed it. I took my hand back, hoping I wouldn’t have to kiss his hand too. “Oh.” I looked for a way to relieve the awkwardness. “And these are your friends?” I turned to the three fairies still sitting at the table. One of them ate from his bowl; the other two stared at me.
“Private-owned curs,” Ozymandias grumbled noisily.
“That one’s Geneva,” said Warring, pointing to the only woman. The blonde offered a dismissive wave. “That’s Lysander. Lysander, stop eating.” Lysander glanced up, foggy-eyed, pieces of squash falling out of his mouth. A puff of steam or cloud hovered above his head and didn’t look like it was going to go away anytime soon. “And lastly – I actually haven’t seen him much until now because he’s refused to socialize with the rest of us, but…”
Commotion rattled up one of the connecting passages. Benedictus “Dawn Breaker” entered, towering above everyone else in the room. An entourage of guards followed him, as well as a medic helping the injured Lux limp up the hall.
I put myself forward. “Congratulations on the win, Benedictus!”
Benedictus shouldered past me to the refreshment table. He offered no acknowledgement to the king in the room, but grabbed a rancid-smelling bottle and stalked away into a dark corner beside the cells of beasts.
“He has always been a sore winner,” the king declared.
“I don’t think that’s what that means,” I said.
“My name is Ozymandias, and you are mute. He sha’n’t be a winner for long anyhow. I must find Evangelos.”
Ozymandias marched down the hall with his guard. Lux and the medic had to back against the walls and wait until His Lordship passed before they could enter the dining area. The medic guided the injured fairy to one of the benches. Lux slumped against the table, face contorted in an effort not to scream, most likely. Warring stood beside him. “You good?” he asked.
“No, I’m terrible,” Lux heaved. I spotted rough pink stripes winding around the skin of his neck. “Who’s…who’s fighting the next round?”
“That was the last round today,” said Warring, and gave him an awkward pat on the back. “The next one’s not until tomorrow, but of course you sha’n’t be fighting for the rest of the season. You should go to your room and get better.”
Lux shook his head. “I don’t want to. I’m starving. Can you fetch me a bowl already?”
“You can’t do it yourself…?” Warring started, but after a scowl from Lux, he got to ladling soup.
They both had yellow hair and curled ears. Why, they’ve got to be brothers. “Which one of you is older?” I asked.
“Who?” Warring shot back.
“You and Lux.”
The two fairies looked at each other. Lux bit his lip. Warring’s ears flushed red. “Be quiet!” he snapped.
“I didn’t say anything!” Lux insisted, a smile starting.
“Waiiiit…” started Lysander, the foggy-eyed one. “Aren’t you his…”
“Yes!” Warring howled. “I’m his dad! You know this, Lysander!”
Lux burst out laughing, and kept going, despite his interspersed painful hacking. Geneva and Lysander joined him in laughter, while Warring and myself remained thoroughly embarrassed. Just off the corner of my vision, Benedictus glared through my soul.
I looked for somewhere to put myself and escape the comical spotlight. “Mind if I sit next to you, ah –” and I realized that while Warring had presented Geneva and Lysander to me, he had never gotten around to introducing the last fairy at the table.
This young man smiled graciously back at me. Tight braids crawled up one side of his head, gushing into an abundance of curls on the other side. His clothing didn’t have the quality of the other fairies’; his tunic was a faded tangerine color with scuffs along its seams. “My name is Jacinth,” he said, his voice so smooth and his words so precise, it pierced through the torrents of laughter around us, and he scarcely sounded human at all.
He’s not a human anyway, Karl. He’s a fairy.
“Hi, Jacinth,” said I, and sat on his right, arranging my papers on my lap.
There was something else different about him. I looked at the others, still lost in the throes of laughter and shouting: Lux and Warring, Geneva and Lysander, even Benedictus, and I realized that every one of them bore that same symbol tattooed on their forehead. And the same words (I could read them now): “NE’R THY OWN.” That’s what made Jacinth so different from them – he lacked any such tattoo.
“You don’t have the…” I gestured to my own forehead.
Jacinth shook his head. “Because I don’t have an owner.” He looked at them all, and their eyes met his, the laughter dying out of their souls. That gracious smile turned wretched, and he said: “I live, I work, I feed my family. Nobody owns me.”
The cloud above Lysander’s head poofed away.
No one spoke now. Not until Lux mumbled, “I didn’t know there was fairies that wasn’t slaves.”
State-owned…private-owned… Ohhh, it makes sense now. They’re all slaves. Except for Jacinth.
“Awfully gutsy of you to come from the ghettos to this circus,” Benedictus slurped from his corner. “They could kidnap and sell your family while you’re here competing for a worthless title.”
“The riches that come with that title aren’t worthless,” the woman, Geneva, pointed out, dipping a skewered squash into her bowl of greasy soup. “You know it. You’re the most likely to win out of all of us, Dawn Breaker.” She took a bite from the squash and winced.
Benedictus scoffed. “I could win all the riches, all the titles, and I’d still be a slave.”
“But you’re not going to win, so that’s not really an issue.” A new person stepped forth from the tunnels, side-by-side with the king. This last gladiator held his chin high, staring down all the others with scornful arrogance. He tossed his high ponytail; it swished like a giant white plume flowing down to his anklets.
All these people have awesome hair. It’s got to be a fairy thing.
“This is Evangelos,” boomed Ozymandias, looking very satisfied. “As my prized gladiator, he will be taking the title as champion of this season’s feriae.”
I caught numerous eyerolls around the room.
Hmm, I dunno about that.
I reached for the display of chalky green squash, hoping it tasted better than it looked. The king slapped my hand before it made it. “No, my scribe,” he chided. “We go to the banquet now!”
“Yes sir.” I stood and caught up to Ozymandias, who was already at the gate.
Before we left the smelly barracks, Ozymandias extended a last-minute invitation to his prized gladiator. “You are welcome to join us, Evangelos.”
Evangelos bowed deeply. “Thank you, Your Lordship. But save it until after my victory.”
He also bore the tattoo.
The banquet took place above ground, under the stars, to my surprise. Just outside the mouth of a huge tunnel, hundreds of people laughed around tables stacked high with unidentifiable meats and puddings. They crammed their gaudy faces with the stuff, letting it splatter and crumb over their emerald-encrusted finery. A cloying stench saturated the thick air. The candlesticks poking up from the carnage melted into the autumn sunset.
Seated with the king at the head of the long main table, I hadn’t touched any food yet, only my chalice of fermented peach juice. I swiveled about in my chair, trying to grasp a hold of my surroundings. Servants prepared spare drinks at little stands on the outskirts of the banquet. I could see the plaster-coated walls of several short buildings nearby, also the wide cobblestone path leading up to the venue.
I wrapped myself in my white cloak. How did I get to this place? Where was I before? Ohhh, who’s going to win the feriae?
I reached for my chalice.
“Would you like more drink, Master Scribe?”
One of the servant ladies stood right in front of me, cradling a pitcher in her arms. Waves of starry pink hair framed the tattoo on her forehead, looped around her pointed ears, and draped in front of her shoulders. Her expressionless face was so intangibly beautiful, I almost choked on my chalice. “Th-Thank you, Miss Fairy, Ma’am.”
She promptly curtsied, and moved on to the next banquet guest.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to the king, busy horking down a roasted leg bone.
Ozymandias only spared her a glance. “Mm, your server.”
“Just my server?”
“She isn’t going to marry you, Scribe,” he said, loud enough to draw attention. “This one is Evangelos’s lady.”
The gladiators have wives? I felt my face and neck burn at the king’s comment, but dared to look at her again. The silky material of her high-waisted gown traced the prominent bulge of her stomach. Ohhh, I wonder when she’s due.
The sky turned a brassy purple. After a trip to the local bathroom, I started feeling a tad sick. By the end, I ate little more than a handful of tart grapes I plucked from what looked like a raw oyster and cherry seed salad.
You better get to bed soon, Karl.
Just as I nodded off, Ozymandias combusted to my right. “TIME!” he stood and shouted.
“Woahhh!” All my papers spilled off my lap to the cobblestones. I dove after them while the king addressed his munching assembly.
“My name is Ozymandias, and I’ve brought you all a treat this feriae,” he divulged. “A pinch of seasoning for the subsequent rounds. An addition to the state menagerie.”
He gestured to a trumpeter, who gave off a blast. At the sound, a horse-drawn coach clopped up the torchlit cobblestone path. It made a U-turn at the banquet site and halted there, with its back facing the onlookers. Soldiers collected at either side.
“My men shot him down from the air,” the king continued. He kicked aside his chair and strutted up to the coach. “Do it. Show them!”
The guards threw open the canvas veiling the back of the coach, revealing a cage. At first, I could see nothing in the fickle torchlight. Neither could anyone else; they all leaned forward from where they sat or stood, quietly babbling behind their hands. One of the guards cracked a whip against the ground. The horses stirred – as did something inside the cage.
“An exotic hybrid,” said Ozymandias. He whispered, and so almost managed a normal speaking volume. “The only one of his kind.”
A massive wing fell against the bars of the cage. Its feathers were a musty brown and gray, like a buzzard’s wing.
The king’s eyes bulged until his monocle popped off his face. “Half fairy, half bird.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I mumbled.
Ozymandias tackled one of the torches off its stand. He thrust the flame through the bars. The wing shuffled and flapped in its cramped cage, joined by a second wing. The light made it past both, illuminating the slight, humanoid figure flinching at the back of the cage. He hid his face with his hands, but I could see those amber eyes glistening between his fingers and hair.
He has wings. I know someone with wings. Who…?
The fairy hybrid let out a dark, menacing growl: “Dè an rathad gu Gall-Ghàidhealaibh?”
The crowd squelched in awe, their faces still stuffed with gutbread and sweetmeats.
“Do you have something to say to these people?!” Ozymandias shook the bars. “Something we can all understand!”
“Thoir mi ann!” The hybrid pounced for Ozymandias; the king jumped aside in time, leaving the creature to claw at the bars of the cage. A guard snapped a warning with his whip. “Canaidh sibh Galloway ris,” the hybrid hissed, in that strange, foreign tongue of his. He sank to his stomach, still wringing at the bars, wings buckling over him like a contortionist. “Seall dhomh Galloway. Gabh mi a Ghalloway!”
“Hmm. Galloway!” the king guffawed. “That’s what his name shall be! Everyone, send your greetings to Galloway! But don’t get too close; he has a nasty gift I’m told. One of my huntsmen is still sick, and he said the beast did little more than graze his bare skin.”
Ozymandias now glared at us, all mirth turning to stone-faced sincerity.
“Don’t let Galloway touch you.”
After an odd night spent in the servants’ quarters somewhere in Ozymandias’s underground palace, the new day raised its head and smiled. At least, that's what they told me; I hadn’t seen the sky in hours. Even now as I sloughed beside the king’s horse through the marketplace, stone carvings alone arched above my head. As we made our way to the coliseum, our strange little procession toted “STATE CHAMPIONS” signs, complete with the archaic equivalent of Evangelos clip art tacked all over them.
“In case the citizens are unsure of who to place their bets on,” Ozymandias blared in his horse’s ear.
The mare snorted, but nodded, because like everyone else in Mizu, she didn’t dare defy the king. I sneezed. The horse (I think her name was Naevia) looked offended, and I had never felt so ashamed of my allergies.
An hour later, the king and his scribe, equipped with shrimp co*cktails for breakfast, camped on their sheltered platform overlooking the arena. The fight hadn’t begun yet – only a circus act to whet the audience’s appetites. Although I had missed most of it, this circus act featured two clowns (three, if you counted the enderman), something which might have been a tuba, and something which was definitely a pumpkin.
“Let’s get on with it!” Ozymandias demanded.
The official feriae speaker stepped onto his plinth and pulled out an antiquated megaphone. “Lysander of the Marcellus family against Jacinth the free-fighter.”
I checked my list of competitors I’d scrawled last night:
State-owned gladiators:
Lux (defeated by Benedictus)
Warring
Evangelos
Private-owned gladiators:
Benedictus “Dawn Breaker”
Lysander
Geneva
Free gladiators:
Jacinth
“Neither one is a state competitor, so I have no stake in this,” Ozymandias yelled to himself.
The gladiator gates opened. I put on my goggles. A billow of white cloud rolled out from one of the gates. It reached for the other side of the arena, making the entire amphitheater smell like rain. Foggy-eyed Lysander tottered out of the same gate, the mist playing at his feet. He blinked around the arena, scratched at his head with the side of his pike, and waved.
“Lysander,” Ozymandias narrated through a mouthful of crunchy shrimp tails. “The down-and-out merchant who owns him has been entering the dimwit into the feriae the past three years, and he never makes it past the preliminaries. You better be writing this down, Scribe.”
“Yes sir!”
Jacinth crept out from his gate at the opposite end, eyes wide as he took in the clouded arena. He carried a bladed longbow on his person.
Ozymandias fingered his tusks of facial hair. “This is prime time to scope out the newcomer Jacinth, and see what gift he is to show us. Probably something mundane, like lemon farming, which will be of no use in the arena.”
I stopped writing. “Wait, why does Jacinth have to give us a present?”
“No, we’re going to see his gift! Like Lysander’s clouds. Every fairy has one or two. Have you never encountered a fairy in your life, my scribe?”
Both gladiator gates shut. The trumpets squalled. Lysander pinpointed Jacinth and bumbled toward him. Jacinth didn’t retreat – rather, he did the opposite, his bladed longbow ready to slice the end off of Lysander’s pike. Lysander dramatically turned tail and fled into the thickening fog, face drawn in absolute horror without making a sound. The clouds parted as he cut through them; they returned seconds later to fill in the holes. Jacinth followed, stopped, aimed his bow. He didn’t fire, no doubt disrupted by the hazy playing field.
The audience hushed as they squinted down at the arena, trying to pick out the contenders. By now it looked like an enormous dandelion puff had made its home in the amphitheater, with only the occasional pike or rainbow breaking its shroud. Somewhere in there, two fairies either hunted each other or dallied for time to end.
Ozymandias stared at it all through today’s blue-tinted monocle. “I’m BORED!” he bellowed to the world, no megaphone needed. “Bring out the excitement!”
My stylus snapped.
The excitement came in the form of two heavily-armored guards towing that hybrid Galloway into the arena by two lengths of chain. Then they pulled out their whips and hurled them upon the creature. The clouds lifted from the violent movements. When the hybrid proved sufficiently angry, the two guards scurried back inside the gate before he could catch them. “Gall-Ghàidhealaibh!” he screamed at them, and battered on the closed gate. No reply, except for the incited audience. Galloway looked up and spooked. He skittered around the fog in senseless circles, clipped wings splayed wide. In seconds, Lysander appeared, scrambling through the mist, avoiding Galloway like the plague.
“This is more like it!” Ozymandias roared. He drummed his boots on his footstool.
Lysander, carrying his pike under one arm, scaled a cracked pillar on the left-hand side of the arena. He had not so much as made it to the top, than Galloway burst out of the mist. Not climbing, but gliding straight for Lysander. Lysander lost balance. He dropped so he hung onto the column with one hand, losing his pike in the process. Galloway sailed overhead, then disappeared beneath the fog. Lysander clawed his way back onto the pillar. There he balanced, shivering uncontrollably.
All went quiet as quickly as it had begun.
Galloway’s great wings flapped. Lysander started. The clouds cleared in the center of the stadium, but hurried back into place in an instant. No sign of Jacinth. Maybe Galloway had gotten him, and Lysander had won.
Is this it?
Until Jacinth’s voice danced above everything. “Lysander!” it cried, loud as a clanging chime, from the farthest borders of the arena, “clear the fog!”
Still no trace of him or Galloway. The clouds remained.
The voice came again from the same place. “Lysander, clear it now!”
He shouldn’t have spoken. Galloway’s feathers crested the mist as he ran, charging for the far edge of the arena. For Jacinth. Every onlooker rose in their seats. All predicted the dire outcome. I forgot about my broken stylus and watched.
Just when the fog started to thin, and Lysander looked ready to swoon – Jacinth, of all people, sprinted up Lysander’s pillar from the opposite side of the arena from whence his voice had come. He bowled Lysander over from behind, caught the poor fairy before he toppled forward off his perch, and held him there. Galloway realized what was happening. He barreled around toward the pillar at top speed, with the intent to kill, no doubt.
“Forfeit,” Jacinth ordered, still projecting his voice as he looked down at Lysander.
Lysander remained frozen in his grasp, staring at the sand below him. His lips moved, probably in protest.
“Please forfeit!” Jacinth repeated, and almost pushed the fairy over the column’s edge. Galloway arrived and sprang. Jacinth lashed at him with his bladed longbow in his other hand.
“Okay!” Lysander squealed. “I forfeit!”
Jacinth pulled his fellow gladiator beside him on the pillar. He kept fending off Galloway, but glanced up at the king’s platform. “You hear that?!” his voice flew over to us. “He forfeits!”
“Can he do that?” I whispered to Ozymandias.
The king made a funny rumbling sound, then flew to his feet. “Fine, ‘tis over! My name is Ozymandias, and I don’t care about either of you anyway. The match was entertaining enough. Clean it up, men. The rest of you – HALFTIME!”
The official speaker stumbled for an embarrassing second. “Lysander is eliminated,” he announced. “Jacinth wins!” No one appeared as excited about this announcement as they were for halftime.
I crossed off the name “Lysander ” on my list with the rough edge of my stylus. I still have to document the second half of the fight.
A legion of guards tumbled into the arena to where the rabid hybrid terrorized the two gladiators on the pillar. Galloway switched on the guards in an instant, but they had a net.
I’m glad Galloway wasn’t able to touch Jacinth or Lysander. I dunno what would’ve happened, but the king made it sound really bad.
I stood up from the rug and stretched. I propped my goggles up on my head; the skin around my eyes felt muggy. “What’s for lunch?” I asked.
“Jacinth!” shouted Ozymandias, taking me off-guard. “I want you, my scribe, to go down to the barracks and interview him. See if you can find out anything about his gift, since he refused to show anything today. And then come right back. Evangelos will be fighting that gladiatrix Geneva, and I want you to record every second of it!”
I took up my papyrus and made my way down to the barracks with the king’s bodyguard. There he left me to find Jacinth on my own.
I think Jacinth did show his gift back there. Something about how he was able to make his voice sound like it was coming from somewhere else. Or maybe he’s just really fast? I don’t know how these gifts work.
“Has Jacinth come in yet?” I inquired of the father and son – Warring and Lux – currently partaking of buttered okra for lunch.
“Who won?” asked Lux. He looked slightly healthier than yesterday, but still sat in the exact same chair, like he hadn’t moved all night.
“Who do you think?” came Warring. “Lysander hasn’t won a single duel in his life. And swallow fore talking.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. We don’t know what Jacinth is capable of.”
I guess Jacinth hasn’t returned yet.
I noticed Evangelos kneeling by the cells running on either side of the table, whispering. On the other side of the iron grate, a dozen wild boars faced the fairy like a row of soldiers. Evangelos stood, flipped his hair over his shoulder. As if on cue, the foremost boar let out a trumpeting squeal, and the whole line of them bowed before the king’s favorite gladiator.
I gasped. “Evangelos. Is that your – your gift?”
The fairy turned to face me. He stared down his nose at my simplicity. “Decided who to bet on yet?”
I didn’t answer, because at that moment, several guards strode up the passages, Galloway chained tight between them. He seemed too tired to fight back, and so let them drag him into the room. The soldiers headed to an empty cell, but before they reached it, Evangelos sauntered up to the group. “All the boars heed my whispers,” he said, regarding Galloway’s spidery frame. “Will this mad beast obey my commands like they?”
One of the guards tightened the chain he held. “Careful. Don’t let him touch you.”
“Silence.” Evangelos bent down to look Galloway in the eye. “Will you fight for me?”
Galloway didn’t meet his gaze. I actually hadn’t gotten a good look at Galloway’s face until now. Dark freckles dotted his white cheeks – something I found interesting, as none of the other fairies had a single speck on their skin. His ears were pointed, but not especially long. The hybrid stared at the floor through a part in his unruly dark brown hair, mouthing his strange words: “Rugadh i an Galloway, ach dh'itealaich i.”
“Let me bear the power over you,” said Evangelos, “Let you be tame to no one but I. And by my gift, by your actions through my commands, we shall overcome the lesser gladiators and take the victory for this year’s feriae.”
“Stop it. He’s not going to do it,” I heard Warring comment. “You are a whisperer of boars. That is your gift. Galloway’s not going to do squat for you.”
I backed to the opposite end of the table.
The guards remained still. They wanted to see something happen.
“Bidh i a’ cumail air falbh,” Galloway mumbled sleepily.
“You don’t understand a word I say, do you?” Evangelos sneered. “Well, I’m sure you’ll understand this.” He reached for the chain on Galloway’s left wrist, and guided his arm downward. The guards followed Evangelos’s movements. Galloway didn’t appear to comprehend what was happening, until they had pushed him onto his knees. He looked up at them all, his wide-eyed gaze darting from one to the next. “Bow to me, beast,” Evangelos ordered.
Behind them, I noticed Benedictus coming up the tunnel. One look at the scene in front of him, and he turned back the way he had come.
I must’ve blinked, because everything changed in less than a second. The hybrid lunged off the ground, tearing the chains out of the guards’ hands, tearing his wings free from the net, tearing right into Evangelos. The two toppled over a chair onto the ground, shrieking. What had the king said? Anyone who touches Galloway dies?
Lux and Warring, previously engaged in lunch, now shied into a corner of the room, food spilled, Lux struggling to stay on his feet. The guards sprang from their places. They drew their swords and blathered orders to each other.
But then Evangelos threw the lightweight creature off and over his head. Galloway smashed into a series of cells, landing uncomfortably close to me. I skittered toward the exit with my papyrus, but the solid metal gate was locked. And – Galloway noticed me. He watched me as he rose to his feet, wings hunched over him like a vulture, chains and netting dripping off his body. He pounced. I threw my arms (and papyrus) in front of me. My mistake. Galloway turned back on the others. His feathers swooped over my head, but if I hadn't extended my arms, my right hand wouldn’t have brushed his.
He touched me!
My hand tingled, the pinpricks dissipating into cold numbness. I leaned against the gate and slid down to the floor, my hand trembling in front of my eyes.
Is this it? Am I going to die?
Lord, have mercy… Please, no please! The panic set in with hyperventilation. My mind tumbled over itself, trying to catch up before I lost all time. I had already said this prayer before, in quiet and solitude, but fear prompted me. Please, Lord. I am a sinner, but Jesus paid my price. I accept His offering, please let me die in Your favor! Forgive me!
Behind my shaking fingers, the skirmish persisted. Galloway leapt onto the table and hurtled down its length. Guards charged. Galloway scratched and beat at the soldiers, but he couldn’t get through their bronze armor. So he turned his attention on those who lacked protection – the closest being Warring and Lux. Warring shielded his injured son just as the mad beast dove off the table for the two fairies. The guards grabbed hold of his chains in time. Galloway remained five feet from striking Warring, bowed forward for the kill, both arms wrenched behind him. They stayed that way for a dream-like moment, before Galloway cut the soldiers off with a swipe of his wings and descended upon Warring.
Please… Please, forgive us.
That was the last thing I saw before I blacked out.
I thought I glimpsed a white castle, and I almost thought it was Heaven.
A wooden table top unblurred in my immediate vision. I lifted my head from its surface, tiny headaches prickling the corners of my mind. All these bits put themselves together and relocated themselves to my bandaged right arm. Not the skin or muscle, but somewhere withering inside, somewhere I couldn’t reach.
“The medic patched you up, but he didn’t know who you was, so they all simply left you here,” stated Benedictus. I started. The gladiator strolled around the barracks table, I its sole occupant. “Not even that hog-of-a-king, Ozymandias, batted an eye at you when he came to check on Evangelos. You’re out of a job, Scribe.” He guzzled from a bottle in his hand.
I couldn’t see anyone else in the room besides some guards flocked around a cell across from me. They dangled scraps of food through the bars. I heard a snarl, then glimpsed a feathered wing in the cell, and I remembered.
Ohhh… Galloway got me.
I tried flexing my right hand, but the joints felt fuzzy, like I had plunged my arm into a box of tightly-packed cotton. “Is it just me? Did anyone else get hurt?”
A crash reverberated just outside the walls, followed by the audience’s muffled roar. Dust sifted down from the rafters supporting the carved ceiling.
Benedictus let out a bitter chuckle. “Evangelos got it bad, but the obdurate fool sha’n’t be forfeiting. Can’t blame him, really. We grew up fighting. He’s out there battling Geneva as we speak.”
I listened, heard more crashes, clanging, buzzing (strangely enough), and a horde of hoofbeats. “What about…” I looked back at Benedictus. “What about Warring?”
Benedictus studied the flickering lights. “The medics say they’re trying everything they can, but he’s withering away by the hour. Lux hasn’t left him.”
“What about Jacinth?” I croaked. “Lysander?”
“They’re fine. Lysander’s owner came to retrieve him. Private-owned fairies only live in the barracks until they are eliminated from the competition. Then we are put in another cage.”
I could hear Galloway, still mournfully hissing to himself: “Tha mi airson itealaich cuideachd, ach chan eil fios agam air an t-slighe.”
The guards shouted. “Stop talking and eat your foodstuffs!”
I kind of need foodstuffs, I thought, bent over my stomach. Anything but alcoholic pickle juice, or whatever it was Benedictus slurped on.
Benedictus kept his back turned to me, whispering so the guards wouldn’t hear him. “We’re not fighting for home or honor. We’re fighting because they have shackles and whips. They drug our food to keep us docile between fights. You win once, they give you a parade, but the feriae returns next year. This game never ends.”
“I don’t think it’ll never end,” I interjected. “I mean, over the course of history, empires never…” I trailed off.
“You think it will end?” he scoffed. “Then may it happen soon. My life is too long for this.”
The crowds released a shuddering roll of applause. The gates at the end of the tunnels opened. Footsteps hastened inside. I turned to see who it was. A large garnet dragonfly whistled alongside the group: a couple guards, carrying a stretcher between them, and on top of it, Geneva. Bleeding, just barely breathing.
I didn’t know where I was going. After a sleepless night at the barracks dining table, with only spilled okra to nibble on, I convinced the guards to let me out. They didn’t put up a fuss, and I found myself wandering around the first level of bleachers in the amphitheater, unable to find the stairs up. The sky paled to dawn. Serfs bustled into the arena to smooth out the sand; I put on the goggles, and I vaguely noted that a few of the servants were fairies. From this vantage, I would be able to hear the contestants speak, as long as they didn’t whisper. Vendors and spectators trickled into the audience stands until the bleachers bulged. No one joined me on the first level except for a row of trumpeters and security bowmen.
It ends today. And then maybe, I can go home.
Where do I live?
“Welcome, visitors and citizens of Mizu!” the speaker announced when everyone had settled. “So comes the last round and finale of our annual feriae. Does His Lordship, King Ozymandias, wish to say any words fore we begin?”
His Lordship, King Ozymandias, lounged in his throne with a fettuccine sundae. “Naw!” he honked.
“Very well,” said the speaker. “For today’s first event, we have –”
“Actually yes!” Ozymandias clambered to his feet and got to yammering. “My fathers started the feriae and gladiator games. And their fathers founded this city by the north-eastern mines, which feed us with emeralds to this day. They conquered the fairy kind with their solidarity, something even the extinct pureblooded fairies lacked. Who could have foretold we’d rise so high from mere miners! Surely even the gods pale in comparison to we of the capital of Mizu! My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, and we shall thrive for centuries to come, stamping our names into the history books of our descendants!”
The masses thundered their approval.
The speaker cleared his throat. “Thank you, Your Lordship. Now then, although King Ozymandias has declared a quick conclusion to the gladiator games, we are featuring the first-ever three-way round for the finale!”
Evangelos and Benedictus paraded out of their respective gates, each bedecked in an outrageous display of wealth, per their owners. Evangelos flaunted a spectacular headdress, complete with boar tusks, which reminded me of Ozymandias’s facial décor. Benedictus’s floral-themed getup displayed the crest of the Florakis family, trimmed with the obligatory emeralds. And then there was Jacinth, with little beyond his faded cotton and leather. He almost disappeared into the sand before the glorious presence of the other two.
Galloway was present, chained by a long lead to one of the pillars, on Benedictus’s side of the arena, of course. The hybrid thrashed with rabid ferocity, but as long as the contestants kept their distance, no one would get hurt.
My arm stung. Galloway is too dangerous. I wish they would stop bringing him out.
The speaker introduced the contestants. “I give you the free-fighter Jacinth; Benedictus ‘Dawn Breaker’ of the Florakis family; and state champion Evangelos!”
Benedictus allowed no emotion on his face but a defiant glower. The gladiator threw off his mantle, revealing three javelins strapped to his back. He raised his fist and swung it, opening his fingers and scattering a handful of tiny specks across the arena. He did it again, and this time, the wind carried a couple of these specks over to me. They caught between the bench and the floor; I picked one out with my fingernails. It was a dark, pointed seed.
With some effort, Evangelos shed his own headdress and robes, unabashedly displaying the bandages covering his body. He swayed, but cast a defiant gaze on Benedictus.
He’s still recovering from what Galloway did to him. Ohhh, maybe that’s why they decided to make it a three-way finale. Ozymandias is catering to Evangelos and speeding things up.
A brigade of wild boars stomped in from another gate on Evangelos’s side. Docile as kittens, they positioned around him. He whispered to them, and they knelt as I had seen before, then rose, shaking their manes and eyeing Benedictus. I shuddered at their glinting tusks curling over their jaws like spiked muzzles. Evangelos removed the massive netherite greataxe from his back, chest heaving, arms shaking. None of the other gladiators had used netherite up until that point. Probably Ozymandias showing off again.
Hmm, that axe looks familiar…
Trumpets blasted.
The sands erupted in front of Benedictus. Young green vines reared up, sprouting shoots and leaves faster than a scribe’s stylus could write. They slithered up one pillar, then the next, tangled together, and bloomed. A hundred indigo morning glories showed their faces. The crowd let it out, cheering, chanting the name “Dawn Breaker” to the morning sky.
That’s his gift!
“Tear him down!” Evangelos commanded. His army of wild boars all surged forward at once, intent on trampling their foe. The first two ripped through the web of flowers knotting between the pillars, but the next ones couldn’t break the tightly-woven wall of vines.
Benedictus downed a boar with a javelin. The next one took the blow, but kept charging. Benedictus sprang up a pillar out of its reach, and he finished it off from there.
Evangelos remained stiff in his half of the arena, completely dependent on his boars due to his injuries. He still heaved, bending over a couple of times as if to catch his breath. How long could he last in this condition?
The hogs hacked at the vines; a few managed to break through. On the other side of the wall of morning glories, Benedictus perched atop his column. He felled boar after boar from there, only leaving to retrieve his javelins and climb back up. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find Jacinth. The free gladiator undoubtedly hid somewhere, waiting for the other two to tear each other apart.
I couldn’t document the fight on paper, but I recited it in my mind. It looks like the Dawn Breaker just might take the win.
I happened to gaze up, and so spotted a disgruntled Ozymandias aiming a longbow toward the arena. What is he doing? I tried to yell a warning at Benedictus; the words stopped in my throat against my power, unable to sway the happenings of the past.
The arrow flew – not for Benedictus. It sailed toward Galloway, merely brushing his feathers before burying its head in the sand. Galloway went ballistic. He whirled his wings, growled his gibberish, lunged for Benedictus’s pillar, and still the chain held fast.
Evangelos marched up to the vine barrier. Weak as he was, he swung his greataxe at the plants. The vines moved by themselves and plucked the huge weapon right out of his grasp. Desperate, Evangelos tried tearing at the blossoms with his hands, and in doing so, nearly got struck by Benedictus’s javelin.
Ozymandias let loose another arrow. It missed Galloway again. Benedictus gave the hybrid a wary glance, but I don’t think he noticed the arrows.
What is the king trying to do?
Boars burst through the barrier. Some which I had presumed to be dead now crawled back on their hooves. They climbed and leapt on top of each other to run Benedictus off his pedestal. It worked – for a minute. Benedictus got a nasty gash to his calf, but once he’d retrieved his javelins, downed the additional boars, and scattered some more seeds while he was at it, the Dawn Breaker stood on top once more.
New shoots sprang from the ground beneath Evangelos. Before he could react, they coiled themselves up his legs, keeping him in place. Balanced upon the column, Benedictus raised his javelin. Evangelos struggled; the vines wound tighter. That would have been the end of him, except for Ozymandias’s third and final arrow.
This arrow struck Galloway’s chain, snapping the links instantly.
“GOT IT!” the king cried.
I flinched before it happened.
Galloway flew for Benedictus. He took him right off the pillar. They both fell into the sand, lost in a flurry of bristled feathers and tangled hair. My right arm throbbed as I watched the horrible scene. Boars shrank away in fright.
I glared up at the king – the cheater – who watched with delighted frenzy.
Benedictus managed to wrench himself to his feet, having tethered Galloway to the ground with ropes of morning glories around his neck and body. Galloway thrashed. Benedictus tottered where he stood, bleeding. His skin already looked so gray. Each breath came in gusts. He found a javelin he had dropped nearby, and leveled it above the hybrid, ready to finish him off for good.
Galloway’s scratched Benedictus up so much. He looks worse than Evangelos. He might not make it.
Benedictus kept the javelin poised. He glanced at Evangelos’s immobilized figure, then up at the king. His shoulders sank. Even Galloway tired of his writhing, and waited to see what the gladiator would do.
The sun settled into noon, but it felt later than that. Dawn felt like something from a very long time ago, reserved to history books and fairytales.
The javelin lowered to Benedictus’s side. He extended a gray hand to the winged man on the ground. The morning glories loosened their grip.
“What is he doing?!” Ozymandias raged.
Galloway didn’t hesitate. He sprang off the ground, took Benedictus’s hand, and descended upon him once more.
Benedictus didn’t even struggle.
And then it ended.
The following minutes heard hardly a sound. Galloway grumbled to himself as he stalked circles around Benedictus’s demise, but nothing else wanted to move.
The vines entangling Evangelos died. They had grown too fast and no longer had the will to live. Evangelos picked himself out with the help of a boar. He didn’t bother flipping his ponytail out of his face, but stared up at Ozymandias. “My king,” he shouted up through clenched teeth, leaning on his boar. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“The Dawn Breaker is broken, and ‘tis a tragedy,” Ozymandias blared at the air, “but that only proves that Evangelos is stronger and worthy of –”
“I forfeit!” Evangelos exploded.
The crowd remained cold as a sea of statues.
Ozymandias wrinkled his lip into a sneer. “You cannot. You will not. My name is Ozymandias, and I order you to win the feriae.”
“Do your worst!” Evangelos screamed back. His voice couldn’t project like the king’s, weakening to a whine. “Lock me in irons, cage me up, make me another Galloway!” He twisted his bandaged arms. His face looked grayer than before. “I’m already ruined.”
A bright, oscillating noise emanated throughout the arena. It cleared into the sound of someone laughing – Jacinth laughing as he staggered into view from Evangelos’s side of the field. He snatched Evangelos’s headdress from the sand and tried it on. A couple boars snorted at him from nearby, but they remained by their master’s side. “I won!” Jacinth whistled. Then louder, penetrating the whole amphitheater: “I won the feriae!” No one could hear each other speaking or yelling over his oppressive laughter. I covered one ear with my left hand and pressed the other into my shoulder.
Only Ozymandias could compete with Jacinth’s sheer volume, and only after he’d gotten ahold of the megaphone. “SILENCE!” he boomed. His monocle might’ve cracked.
Jacinth silenced himself, but stood gazing up at the king from the arena, an expectant smile on his face. Everyone else recovered their equilibrium. The boars smoothed their bristled manes, and Galloway unburied his head from his wings.
Ozymandias wasn’t giving the free fairy anything. “You won the award for most obnoxious gift. The finale’s over, so now someone get on with the closing event. I hear there’s an execution to see!”
“Mine? ” Evangelos flared.
“No. But if you wish for a chance to –” the king’s mouth twitched in a grimace “– redeem yourself, you may do the honors!” The king turned his gaze to Jacinth, and even flicked a glare at Galloway. “As well as anyone else who wants to. We have a criminal on our hands: a fairy, captured from down south! They say he simply walked through a village, and a day later – every man, woman, child, and cat was found dead. Bring him out!”
Well, he’s just trying to change the subject now.
Soldiers scuttled to retrieve the criminal. No one bothered cleaning the arena or putting away the boars; they were probably too scared to approach Galloway, still circling Benedictus’s remains like a scavenger. The gate opened in the wall below me, so I couldn’t see anything right away. But before I did, I felt something in my mind, a voice I had hoped never to hear again.
“My, my, the meddling time traveler is back.”
The name hovered on my lips, but I couldn’t get it out. Echo, I thought, already juddering with fear.
One last person, escorted in chains by two guards, walked into the arena below me. Maybe he lacked his shark jawbone and flamboyant jewelry from before, but this hauntingly beautiful fairy bore the same glittery emerald eyes and stony washes of hair as the young murderer from The Town of Good Intentions.
What are you doing here? I asked him in my mind.
“They want to punish me and get a show while they’re at it. Adults can be so silly.”
Wait. Are you not an –
“Greetings, King of Mizu!” Echo bowed, smiling up at Ozymandias. “Are you looking to add me to your menagerie?”
Ozymandias would have none of it. “Say your last words, criminal!”
Echo appeared to think for a moment. He scanned the arena – Jacinth steady in front of him, Evangelos giving way with his beasts, the wilting morning glories – and he said, carefully, “Dh'fhag i thu do Ghall-Ghàidhealaibh.”
No one expected this, least of all Galloway. Ignoring every uneasy guard and gladiator, the hybrid alighted upon the wall of vines so he could see Echo. “Bha cianalas oirre!” he responded in an urgent tone.
A half-smile curled on Echo’s lips, showing those obsidian-black teeth of his. “Cha robh i gad iarraidh, a Leth-Bhriod.” He hissed the last part, as if it tasted bad in his mouth.
“Leth-Briod…” Galloway mouthed the words. It might have meant something deep to him, but I couldn’t imagine what. He just looked very sad now, as if everything he sought burned before his eyes at that moment.
“What’s going on here?!” King Ozymandias demanded. “Put Galloway back in his cage!”
Galloway regarded the soldiers who had bound and cut his wings, and a solemn vengeance replaced the insanity in his gaze.
Echo rolled his eyes and smirked.
Just as it started, I bolted from my seat. The battlefield erupted in my ears. I had to get away. I could hear Galloway ripping through the yelling soldiers; perhaps he had figured out how to get around their armor. Boars squealed and thundered. Was Evangelos fighting now? Whose side had he taken? Ozymandias bellowed, as did the crowd. I started up the stairs (of course I remembered where they were), when a high-pitched squall hit me like a throwing knife. I nearly tripped, yet dared to cast a glance over my shoulder.
Chaos littered the playing field. Jacinth, no longer wearing the headdress, dodged a swarm of boars. They grazed him with their tusks, but he kept leaping, assailing the drove with razor-sharp wails and arrows. Soldiers kept pouring in, trying to get a grip on that one-man army, Galloway. Evangelos, once the center of attention, cowered into the background, letting his beasts ravage the abusers.
In the middle of it all stood Echo. The captive threw his head back and raised his shackled wrists to the sky. He danced in circles, footsteps lilting. That watery hair swirled around him like a waterspout while he twirled – as did the storm clouds thickening the noon sky. Ozymandias screamed for someone to stop him; the thunder drowned him out. Threads of lightning stretched as Echo manipulated his hands in the air, drawing them in. They whipped above the city, never striking it, only the ocean horizon beyond. At Echo’s signal, a pair of lightning bolts snatched the surface of the inlet, and held it there. They pulled, drawing the inlet toward the city like two ephemeral ropes. The waters bulged and crested the borders of the amphitheater. The walls broke before the waves.
My feet wouldn’t move fast enough. Suddenly, people surrounded me, scrambling from the bleachers, rushing to escape. I had almost made it to the top, when I stumbled. I fell hard on my right hand, and let out a curse without meaning to.
“The game’s over!” I heard one last cry from Jacinth, his voice whistling up the columns. “I won!” His hysterical screams fell beneath the thundering waves with everyone else’s. I tried not to think about it. But I couldn’t do anything else as the masses surged around me, pinning me to the stairs. Their brass accessories knocked my head and shoulders. Once or twice, someone stepped on me.
I craned my head around to look back at the ocean overtaking the city. The water burst into sprays of dagger-like foam, cracking with lightning, striking down the tallest pillars and proudest statues, filling up the bleachers. I still couldn’t move.
Evangelos is down there. Lysander and Geneva have gone home to their owners, but what about Warring and Lux? They’re still in the barracks; they can’t get out in time. And what of their wives?
Past the hordes of men, women, and children, I located the king’s platform splintering in the midst of it all. Ozymandias clung to his throne, waters gushing all around him, trying to pull him under. A silvery shape squiggled beneath the surface until it came right up to him. It broke the surface, revealing Echo. Devoid of chains, the young fairy looked quite at home among the torrents.
“To think you tried to test a third-generation fairy,” I somehow heard him say above the cacophony. “Else maybe I simply repeated it in your mind, simple time traveler.”
“Ozymandias didn’t know!” the king cried. “No! Mizu will last!”
Echo sighed like a fed-up teenager. “Mizu’s over, like your games. I doubt anyone will remember you six hundred years from now. Not even me. But all these lives, all these displaced fairy gifts – the morning glory vines, the boar-whispering, the withering touch – I’ve got to try something with them. Only know, you’ve brought this curse on yourself, and all the people of your mitely town. ‘Tis only fairest.”
I pushed myself to my feet, clawed through the masses, trying to flee the storms. We never made it.
“The games are over, and I’ll be End-Gamers.”
My eyes opened. Tree branches spiraled above me as I fell. I might have died, or at least broken something important, if George hadn't caught me just then. He managed to keep his balance between a couple boughs as he shoved me back onto my own branch above him. “Karl!” he cried up to me. “Now’s not the time to space out! Thank the Lord I was able to catch you; you literally almost broke your neck.”
My hands flitted on either side of me and grabbed onto pieces of tree. Kinoko Kingdom spread before me all at once, brimming with springtime’s finery. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” George repeated with irritation. “I was stood here asking about if we should look for Quackity and have him join us, when you clocked out for five seconds, during which you almost plummeted to your death.”
I rubbed the fingers of my right hand together. They felt normal, but I almost thought I detected something gnawing away at me under my skin. Five seconds? I blinked down at George, after which I opened my mouth and I asked, with upmost sincerity:
“Who’s Quackity?”
