Fiction:Tenet/History/13

= The Puppet King =

King Makann kneels amidst the cinders. They flutter in the breeze like orange fireflies, bouncing against the lamellar plates of his armor, catching on the priceless steel sword he wears at his hip.

Beside him, behind him, are his angels. They're as close as shadows, as always, one at each shoulder. Ever since he grew his third eye he's seen them as they really are. They're like hollow skins, ragged and decaying, emptied out and then filled so full of vile power it seeps from cracks in their mummified skin.

"Why?" he asks.

"We would ask the same of you," says one. The Wise Man, ever at his right. If he turns he knows what he'll see -- a cadaverous thing in tattered once-white robes with once-gold trimming, draped in tarnished bronze trinkets and jewelry.

"Why did you make this necessary?" asks the other. The Cunning Man, ever at his left. Stick-thin and stick-gnarled, clad in dented scale armor and rags of canvas all strung with yellowing bones and talismans. "Do you hate victory? Is that it?"

"Remind us what you said to them, O king," mocks the Wise Man. "What was it? 'Let us parley on neutral ground. My heart is sick of war.'"

"This is weakness," sneers the Cunning Man. "This is what allowed your people to be conquered in the first place."

It walks forward, into Makann's field of view. Contemptuously, the thing kicks aside a charred femur and plants its long-axe on the ground. "Do you want to go back to sweeping temples, O king? Do you want your people to go back to groveling in the dirt to every passing warlord?"

Makann stands slowly. He breathes in the sulfurous smoke of Imyrrha, fourth city of the Refusalist alliance. Imyrrha, which he had wanted to spare from bloodshed, not simply for their sake but for his own.

Makann is tired. So very tired.

"Meditate upon these ashes," says the Wise Man. "Think upon what they mean. What we did here, we did for you."

Makann saw what they did here. He'd seen it from half a mile away, as he was returning to his army's camp after offering his parley. He'd seen the wrath of angels. Fire and brimstone and blood. The glow had been like a second sunrise, visible from ten miles distant, and the smoke must have been visible from a hundred. None of the Imyrrhai survived the conflagration.

"Ambition, King Makann," says the Cunning Man. "Will to power. If you're weak, you'll be usurped by the strong."

The Wise Man moves too, walking with a priest's dignity to stand opposite its opposite. "If you had shown weakness here, your people would have never forgiven you."

"We've done your work for you," says the Cunning Man. "Instead of talking about how you've gone soft, they'll talk about the powers you command. They'll talk about how you sent us to destroy Imyrrha utterly as a warning to the other Refusalists."

"You should thank us," says the Wise Man.

And Makann roars in rage. He draws his sword from his belt and lunges at the two angels, the two demons who slaughter tens of thousands of innocent lives in his name and tell him to be /thankful/ --

The Cunning Man steps forward to meet him, grinning with needle-teeth beneath its eyeless face. Its long-axe spins and deflects Makann's sword, and then whips around and slams its haft into his stomach.

Makann stumbles backwards, but he has eaten the flesh of beasts and warriors, and he is not so easy to bring down. He bellows again and throws himself at the Cunning Man, his sword blurring with unnatural speed and strength, drawing from the skills of a dozen soldiers and swordsmen to cut the monster before him down.

And the Cunning Man laughs. Its axe is a blur too, its blade suddenly alight with sickly green fire. It clashes against Makann's every swing, it deflects Makann's every stab. It whirls in a complicated figure-of-eight and there's a rattling impact; Makann's sword flies out of his hands and lands point-first in the ash.

Makann staggers, but he rights himself in a second. His claws are sharp and his horns are long, and in his fury he's utterly willing to fight the Cunning Man with those alone, but then behind him the Wise Man says "Fall," --

-- and Makann collapses into the dust, every muscle in his body suddenly slack.

The Cunning Man laughs again. Feet ending in talons go tik-tik-tik against the charred cobblestones as it walks towards Makann, dragging its long-axe along the ground. The Cunning Man raises it into the air. The Cunning Man swings it down towards Makann's neck.

The blade is cold, colder than ice, and somehow /hungry/. Its edge rests lightly on Makann's fur, just barely touching the skin beneath.

"You have grown strong, O king," says the Wise Man. "But you will never be stronger than us."

"Not if you ate the world itself," agrees the Cunning Man. "Not even if you ate the sky and the stars." It lifts its axe.

"Stand, O king," says the Wise Man, and Makann slowly feels control returning to his body. "Stand and return to your people, who you must still lead. We forgive you for this lapse."

"We hope you've learned something today," says the Cunning Man. "Don't try this again. We've invested too much in you to throw you away."

Makann gets to his feet, panting. The Cunning Man raises a sword to him, grip-first -- Makann's sword. He isn't sure how or when it picked it up.

Wordlessly, Makann takes the blade and sheathes it at his side. Wordlessly, Makann turns and walks through the ashes of Imyrrha, back to his army. And the Wise Man and the Cunning Man walk behind him.