SPOILER WARNING: This story WILL give away plot details that pertain heavily to the conclusion of That Hideous Slumber, so I recommend finishing it first.
The Two Deaths of Atlas Kinnley
A
companion to That Hideous Slumber
I.
I do not know how death is supposed
to work for most.
I can only tell you how it felt to
me, having experienced it more than once. I slipped into the beyond not once,
but twice. The second time was perhaps a little more permanent.
Firstly, I can say with confidence I
was born to be a soldier. As a boy it was all I ever dreamed of. I fashioned
myself a sword from a broken branch and fancied myself protector of all Eldara,
the tiny province southwest of the Eastwold where I was born.
When the Rabbitheart conquered our
little country and initiated a draft for young soldiers, I was perhaps the only
one who delighted at the opportunity. I would right wrongs, rescue innocents,
and win the hearts of beautiful maidens the world over.
And so, though I felt I’d been a
soldier all my life, it became official on a hazy morning in May when I turned
16.
For I, Atlas Kinnley, it was nothing
short of destiny fulfilled.
I became a loyal citizen of Nicculus
and its newest champion on the same day, and I never looked back or second
guessed a thing. Ours was a conquering nation, but the conquered were generally
treated fairly. As long as they paid their taxes and fulfilled their duty to
provide young men for the draft. King Asriel, nicknamed the Rabbitheart by his
ungrateful subjects, was a just king in the way he treated his subjects.
I distinguished myself early in my
career by helping to conquer a bookish land known as Tychos. With giant
libraries and tall, marble buildings, its capital was a beautiful city. It
would have been an easy task, but for the wizards who counted it home, wulfren
they called themselves.
Men capable of transforming into
enormous, wolf-like beasts. They drove us from the city with the ferocity of
their attacks. I was a corporal at the time, but ambitious. I knew if I could
put an end to the woes brought on by the wulfren, I would be a commander before
the year was out.
Word spread of my ambition quickly.
Not to move up the Rabbitheart’s ladder but to ruthlessly put an end to the
wulfren threat. I could not abide such a thorn in my side as Tychos had become
in refusing to relent to our rule. I received a message from the queen of a
fiercely independent monarchy by the sea known as Argenta.
She offered me a solution, a way to
neutralize the powers of the wulfren if I were willing to meet with her. I rode
hard for her far-flung Silver City, a strange and beautiful place with high, gleaming
walls that gave the place its name. As it turned out it wasn’t so hard to get
to, just a little north and east of Tychos.
Queen Victoriana was an odd specimen,
a youthful looking blond woman with a small wide-eyed girl playing at her feet.
Of the child’s father I never saw or heard a thing. Her palace was filled with
frightful creatures born of living stone. It was a ghastly court, and one I
couldn’t wait to free myself from the moment I entered.
The queen’s plan was as ruthless as
it was absurd. Apparently, the woman was also a witch, for her plans were based
entirely around a strange magical spell. Mostly all it required was a betrayal.
I had to falsely negotiate terms with the wulfren, as though willing to grant
them some concessions. According to Victoriana, a broken treaty was a part of
the curse she intended to cast.
The plan was simple. I would draw up
a contract, get the wulfren to accept it, then kill one of them once all was
ratified. I knew it was more complex than that, knew the queen would be working
some sort of occult magic from the safety of her silver palace, but the
betrayal was my end of things, and all that concerned me.
It rankled a little to do something so dishonest, but the things it promised for my career as a soldier were far too tempting. For further rationalization and justification, I told myself that it would save the lives of my men, keeping them out of combat.
And so it was that I sent a messenger
into the city bearing a white flag of peace to determine some sort of time when
I could meet with the odd wizards.
The following day, I found myself
walking through a quiet city street, the dead zone between our encampment
outside the city and the great library where our enemy were holed up. I’d left
all my weapons behind, all armor, carrying none of the usual trappings of war,
save one. A tiny dagger hidden up my sleeve that would slide forward when
needed to shed the blood that needed spilling.
The library of Tychos was a beautiful
building made of white marble that had a feeling of permanence about it, as
though it had weathered the world for some time already and would continue to
do so well into the future, protecting the vulnerable paper within. And this
regardless of one ambitious soldier’s scheming.
Humbled by the enormous library, I
ducked inside to find a dim labyrinth of bookshelves inside. This dark and
dusty was wholly unfamiliar to me, having never been much of a reader. Instead of letting the place cow me,
I went to all the dependable fallbacks for a trained warrior. I figured out my
exit strategy, gauged a secondary egress in case things went wrong, and took
stock of the room, memorizing the layout in case I needed to fight my way out.
I was met by one man, a black haired
fellow with a scar across his cheek that looked recent. He grinned and led me
towards a table inlaid with black and white squares like a large chessboard.
When both of us were settled into
chairs across from one another, he looked me square in the eye and spoke
confidently. “Come to discuss the terms of your surrender?”
I took a moment before speaking,
hardly able to believe the man’s nerve. “Something like that,” I replied,
letting a deadly smile cross my lips. I could play this game. I comforted
myself with the knowledge that the man would be dead soon either way.
I forced myself to be as servile and
humble as I could while talk turned to a treaty. I made self-deprecating remarks,
I kept my voice quiet, and I always let the wulfren speak first. I let him
think he had me at an advantage through every minute of our conversation. The
agreement we finally wound up drawing up and ratifying was a horrible sham,
something I would never have been able to accept under any honest
circumstances. Putting my signature at the bottom of that document would be the
biggest lie of my entire life.
The moment his quill finished its
neat scribbling and my opponent set it down, I struck. My blade slid forward
and accomplished its treacherous work quickly. The man’s arrogant, snide smirk
fell away, and he dropped to the table, blood pooling over the parchment we’d
just signed.
It would be the last death in the
battle for Tychos.
A dozen of the wulfren began to dart
from hiding places all around me. They leapt from balconies, from behind
bookshelves and counters, all thirsty for vengeance. As they transformed to
wolf-beasts, I simply stood by the door, waiting calmly. If Victoriana had
betrayed me, I would die. If she had been successful, I expected nothing would
happen.
One after another, the creatures
found themselves impotent to harm me. There was much snarling and snapping of
jaws in frustration, but I was not harmed. Claws that swiped at me simply never
hit their mark.
We conquered the land within a day of
my treachery. After I stepped out of that library, I never saw a wulfren in
Tychos again. They were all indentured servants to the queen of Argenta now.
What I didn’t realize at the time, (and what my superiors thankfully never did
either) was that we’d just made Argenta unconquerable.
That next day, when Tychos became yet
another province of Nicculus, I was promoted to lieutenant. I never told anyone
the particulars of what happened in the library, merely that I convinced the
wulfren to see things my way. This was a shared mistruth, for Victoriana would
never tell the truth about where they came from either, claiming to have
created them herself.
A lieutenant I was, but having
distinguished myself, I wouldn’t stay one for long.
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