The Dux's Tale

"Did you notice how this stronghold is strangely empty of guards, servants and other people who are considered essential to the running of a duxy?"the mundane asked.

The magocrat paused and looked down an empty hallway imperiously. The mapmaker furtively checked his boot for splinters.

"No?" Percy said, eventually. "I think I'm going to wet myself, now that you bring tremendous levels of fear into this whole thing."

"Shall fluids emanate from you, careless mapmaker, point yourself away from this body and venture to direct the flow more toward the river," Duk said, sniffing the air. "Dearest Plin, my knowledge is complete of these regions of the stronghold, and while your observation is essentially correct — what great honors must be bestowed upon you! — as we are by all accounts amidst the covert locales of the highest powers this duxy knows, extreme spaces of non-fullness will commence in abundance."

Plin nodded. "So we won't find a pile of dead people around the next corner?"

"I think I did wet myself."

"Stow it, young Percy, bowels and all."

The stronghold shook as though a giant had wrested it from its peat and mud base and dropped it again. The mundane crouched low, keeping his balance. The magocrat used magic to maintain his foothold. The mapmaker fell sprawling, and only stopped because his foot wedged in a crack in the wood floor, severely spraining him.

"Ow!" Percy cried.

Plin helped Percy to his feet as Duk wandered to the door at the end of the hall.

"That leads to his council chambers," Percy said.

"The dux's?" Plin asked, and when Percy nodded, he looked at Duk. "Duk, while our names need to be cleared, is it worth facing the weard killer to do it? Our problem may have taken care of itself, you see, because Merflatug may be dead."

Percy moaned. Plin kicked him.

"Your intuition is strong, most excellent comrade," Duk said. "But your thoughts are shallow. My chasmatic ruminations, on the other hand, have produced a most divine revelation. We must approach the dux, and confront our multi-cloaked opponent, for the rewards will be beyond your comprehension."

"What about mine?" Percy said, limping forward.

"Yours too," Duk said.

"But, I'm a weard."

"You're a mapmaker, the way you act," Plin said, striding past Percy. "And don't you forget it."

"But ..."

Duk opened the door to a blast furnace.

The magocrat threw up a wall of force to block the worst of the flames, but the three standing in the door got singed anyway. The fires died almost immediately, but they were replaced by ferocious winds. Voices drifted to them.

"Come on, is that the worst you can throw at me?" raged a voice Percy did not recognize. Plin squinted as the voice reached into his memory, looking for a connection. Duk nodded to himself.

"If you'd just stand still, I'll skin you alive and feed you your own spleen!"

"Merflatug," Percy whispered.

"That asshole," Plin muttered.

"Onward," Duk said, stepping into the badly burned room.

"But ..." Percy and Plin said together and hid behind the door as Duk explored ahead.

Meanwhile, the conversation inside had not abated.

"Your filthy carcass isn't even good enough for the konig worms, you foul and rejected damnen!" screamed Merflatug, hurling bolts of energy into a dark corner. His hovered near the ceiling, taking command of the high ground as he destroyed his massive council chambers.

"Garbled posturing," the weard killer critiqued, from some invisible corner of the room. Lightning flashed around the shredded tables. "Oh, brother, when will you learn?"

Merflatug's eyes narrowed, and he gathered for another blast. A wave of glistening liquid arced through the air and connected firmly with the dux's face. Immediately, the dux fell to the floor with a loud crack and scream that shattered eardrums and both of his legs.

His hidden opponent appeared out of nowhere with a flourish of his cloak. He dropped a golden vial on the floor, then crushed it with his boot.

The weard killer was not a giant, but he was a large man. The dux barely reached his broad chest. His thick, dark hair was well-groomed but greasy, and he sported a well-manicured beard, against all common sense. The cloak thrown back over his shoulders did indeed have colors on it akin to every weard's degree, and he sported a lavender band about his right forearm and an orange one about his left.

"Haile," Merflatug whispered, his eyes staring at the orange band.

"Ah, the minister. A lusty wench if anyone ever fit the cliche."

The dux's watering eyes found the other band. "My oldest friend, Tejun."

"An incompetent twit. If you had chosen me for your warden, sweet brother, then the road to Domus would have been paved in gold, for you to take as you would."

"You ... bastard." The dux struggled backward.

Plin gaped. "Why doesn't he use magic?" he said in a low voice.

"Morutsen," Percy answered just as quietly. "I should've known."

"What?"

"Watch."

Duk's quiet approach had gone unnoticed as the villain made his final, slow monologue to the dux, tearing the man down for everything he had done. The magocrat withdrew a hemp bag from his inside pocket and produced a small golden vial similar to the one the weard killer had stepped on.

"Weard Kilar," Duk said quietly, and as the man turned in surprise, he, too, was splashed with the disabling liquid.

"Bah!" the man sputtered. "Bah!"

"What did he call him? It sounded different," Percy said.

"He called him weard killer."

"No, no, it sounded more like a name. Kilar."

"Who?"

"The man over there."

The dark man leapt at Duk, who tossed him aside with a flick of his wrist. Laughter filled the room.

"Good magocrat," Merflatug giggled through tear-soaked eyes. "Slay him, and your rewards will be bountiful."

Duk looked at him, shaking visibly.

"Oh, I've seen this before," Plin said under his breath.

"Eh?"

"Drake's spawn!" the dark man shouted. Duk's head whipped around, but the man had not moved. "Damn you, Duk. You know this child of Domin has nothing left to give. He has already sold it to me."

Face reddened, hands shaking so the vial fell out of his hand, spilling the rest of its contents on the ground, Duk opened his mouth, spittle flying out, but Plin leapt into the room, followed closely by Percy.

"Usually I do the talking," Plin said quickly, "because no one can understand you, Duk. No offense."

The magocrat roared, "Greubelk jiwulalerk jakelwul lakakjyded deeki jowuler kajekel kwil wuke jaji kalew!"

"See? Haha, hold on guys," Plin said and smacked Duk on the side of the head. The magocrat shut up and stared in shock at the mundane. "Helps?" He did it again. The magocrat's face grew red, hand-shaped welts as the other three watched in fascination. Finally, Duk raised his hand and stopped Plin's strike.

"Attend, I am well," the magocrat said, taking a deep breath.

"Good," Plin said. He walked back over to Percy, who stared at him in awe. "What? When he knows he's won a great victory, I mean, a really, catch-all victory unlike anything you've ever seen, he goes into what he calls an ‘ecstatic seizure.' I have to knock him out of it."

"Well?" Merflatug said, finally, seeming to have reached some kind of pain-numbing point. "Kill that eternal carnivore, and this business will end."

"Wait, wait," Percy said, shaking but stepping forward. "Who is he?"

"What in all the gods' names does it matter?" Merflatug roared. "Percy, are you still under my command?"

"At this point, sir, I do not know."

"I am Moida Kilar," the man said, bowing slightly where he sat limply against the wall. Duk and Plin watching him like a hawk. "I am Weard Kilar."

"Weard ... you are the weard killer, are you not?"

The man barked a laugh, fingering his cloak with pride. "I have killed a few weards in my day, the most recent being this man's two most trusted servants."

"Bah, you foul-mouthed father of filth," Merflatug said, half-heartedly. "For them, I shall come down upon you like Marrish on Dinah."

"And I will tear out my hair and curse your lands to spout death," Kilar retorted.

"Th-that's an unfortunate name," Percy interjected. The two men looked at him.

"And Merflatug isn't?" Kilar laughed harshly. "Oh, the story we could tell!"

"Tell it," Plin said, stepping up next to Percy.

"Are you insane?" Merflatug said, but without much enthusiasm.

"Tell it," Plin repeated, "or I'll kill you, and Duk will kill Weard Kilar, and we'll burn down all of Flasten, and hand over these lands to Domus."

Everyone gasped.

Kilar looked at Merflatug, who looked ready to pass out. Percy saw in the softening of the eyes that the two could indeed be brothers, though one was twice the size of the other and at least marginally handsome.

And so Merflatug spoke, with interjections from Kilar.

********

Let Seruvus have his say about the truth of this retelling. Let Marrish's genuine bolts of incandescent lightning strike down upon us all should lies be uttered. Let Fraemauna judge; let the goddess of wisdom fill our hearts with her strength, that we may all better understand what will soon be told.

The truth.

The unadulterated truth.

The deeds and actions that led to the capture and charges of three travelers whose course led them too far astray.

The ... well, enough small talk.

In the mists of time (some 40 years ago), a woman bore a strong, healthy child, though stunted in size. She named him Merflatug, after her grandfather, who, it should be said, garnered his name from his grandmother's maiden name, which is, while not common, an example of what can happen to a person when one's mother isn't particularly bright. Merflatug, for the illiterate, means, literally, "oceans of urine" or, in parlance at the time of his grandmother's father's capture of such a title as the inventor of the indoor outhouse, well, again, enough of the small talk.

The woman, our mother, bore another child, who was weak, and whose cries died soon after air pumped into his lungs. She named the boy Moida, after the daughter she wished she most desired, and passed him on to a midwife as though he was dead.

The twins were not to see each other again until Swind led their paths to cross.

One grew up strong in a family well-to-do in Flasten Palus. Merflatug of the ill-fated name showed the strength of his father in the arts of magic, earning a top scholarship to the local academy. His marks, while not the top of his class, were hard-won, and his teachers spoke well of him. Upon his graduation, he re-enrolled in post-graduate courses. Quite literally, he sought to out-perform his father, who had risen to the cyan rank of fifth-degree and sought no more.

The other was raised in the caring arms of a weak and poor family, who struggled to raise their own children yet loved and cherished this cast off son of a wealthy family. Moida, constantly ridiculed for his feminine name, fought hard to earn his full-ride scholarship into the academy, and fought against every imaginable pressure to rise to graduate No. 2 in the same class Merflatug edged into the top 50 percent. Upon his graduation, he fled to the recesses of Wasfal Palus, far to the east, where he endeavored to escape the stigma of his name and, perhaps, dwell on the unfairness of his birth, a loathing his adoptive parents had not forgotten to instill in him, on the off chance one day he would grow up to become the sole heir to his birth family's fortunes.

Such disparate upbringings! While Merflatug studied ahead into the arts of magic, Moida plunged headlong into banditry. While Moida learned the arts of haggling in information, Merflatug argued his theses on magic as a land-shaping tool. And as Heliotosis retreated to catch his cold, winter's breath, and Swind pressed his advantage in their constant struggle, Moida heard of a young weard's attempts to build a road to Domus.

Moida knew of his twin. His adoptive parents would hardly let a day pass without reminding him of what he owed them. Moida thought he was stronger than their wills, especially so far away in Wasfal Palus, but his newfound skills in manipulation and trafficking pressured him to be used. They called out to him, in the forms of the friends who had taught him his trade, in the shapes of the business partners he consulted, and most importantly, in the patronage of the dux of Wasfal, whose hands are always deeply mired in the movement of goods through the land routes of Marrishland, and who knew of Moida's relationship to Merflatug as well.

So the younger twin returned to Flasten for the first time since his graduation, seeking, in a way, his fortune. Of all the debates he had with himself during the long trek across the swamps, the darkest was whether to tell Merflatug they were brothers. Reuniting the family could be a brilliant strategical move and earn him a greater financial gain. But his foster parents' poisonous words shadowed these thoughts. His natural parents had cast him off in favor of this golden child. They had left him to die, named him as a girl, and treated him as though he did not exist.

Moida, in the well-cut brown cloak of a tradesman, met Merflatug, garbed in the brilliant yellow of seventh-degree, at his office in the Flasten stronghold.

The two brothers stared across the table at each other.

"You look familiar," Merflatug said briskly, by way of small talk. "Have I met you before?"

"No," Moida said, truthfully. As far as his foster mother had said, they had never before been in the same room before.

"Then let's get to business."

"Wait," Moida said, overruling his gut. "There is a story I must tell you."

And the yellow-garbed weard sat in growing shock as the tradesman green unfolded the tale of their births and of their separation. Merflatug had grown up as you know him now, short, ugly and brilliant; Moida was as he looks now, tall, bearded and intelligent. The two could not look any less alike, yet Merflatug felt the man before him spoke the truth.

Business was not concluded that day, for Merflatug embraced his long-lost, never-knew-existed brother for the first time and invited him home to their parents' abode. The well-to-do complex near the stronghold was familiar to Moida in design, but foreign to him in memory. The same could be said of his natural parents, who took one look at the two brothers and grew stone-faced.

"Mother," Moida said, stepping forward after his brother recounted the tale and gently admonished the older weards for this oversight. "I have come home."

The woman fainted. Merflatug leapt to catch her, magic holding her body afloat, even as another spell wrapped itself around Moida, severely inhibiting his limited magical prowess.

The younger twin stared into the ashen face of his father.

"Begone, damnen," the man said.

"Father, what do you mean?"

The man sighed deeply. "We had prayed to Niminth and Sendala for a healthy son to round out our family. But Seruvus came to us in dreams and said Dinah would strike our family for some failure of my father's. In fear, we sought aid of Cedar to intervene with the Bald Goddess, but his pleas for us were in vain. In an act of blessed charity, Cedar granted us twins, one to be our loving child, the other to carry the curse Dinah bestowed upon us to his youthful grave." The man's long, glowering face gained deeper shadows. "And as I look upon the countenance of my second son, I find love and apprehension. I would strike you down, my son, but I cannot, for your gaze binds me."

Merflatug listened to all this in meditative silence, but Moida's blood roared in his veins.

"I am the curse Dinah was to lay on you?" he said. "You bargained for mother to give birth to a new life simply to save your family from destruction? What reasons for this game of gods in the first place? But no matter, no matter. Now, when you would see I am but a loving, giving offspring, who desires only to once again, no, for the first time to be a part of your life, you would reject me. You know my return spells your doom, yet you cannot lay a finger to harm me. And I had no reason to be your doom, until you wove your tale about me."

"Moida, what are you saying?" Merflatug asked.

The younger twin's voice came out like Heliotosis' breath. "I came to close a business deal with a man I knew to be my brother. I came with reservations about bestowing this knowledge upon him. Yet I did. I trusted him with what was my deepest secret. Our father has trusted us with what is his deepest secret, yet it only enrages me to hear this bitter truth. I was made to be cast off? Created to die?" Heat rose with his voice, his face growing red. "And knowing I will destroy you, what am I to do now?"

It was their mother who answered him. "You must leave and never come back."

"What curse have you just cast upon me, mother?" Moida laughed bitterly. "Every day of my life, to know that my false existence, a product of your wicked covenant with Dinah, is lengthened in misery at the inability of my parents to love me?" He shook his head. "No, no I cannot leave and never come back. I must take this step forward and persuade you that I am not here to be your curse."

He stepped forward, and his father struck. The weak ball of fire scorched his clothes and pushed him back.

"What, my own father attacks me?"

"Leave us," the old man said. "Take heed of your mother. Remove yourself from Flasten, and never come back."

"I will not answer for your crimes," Moida roared, and stepped forward again.

Again, fire roared through him, a little hotter this time.

"Begone, Dinah!" his father cried. "Take your monster with you!"

"I am no minion of the bald goddess," he said. "But I feel my father's lies. Will you not embrace you own son with your arms instead of your fire?"

The man's eyes watered. "No," he whispered. "You cannot make me love this damnen, Dinah."

Moida knew the next blast would kill him, and he dove at his father to stop him, steel in his heart. And, strangely, in his hand. What ill fate made Moida murder his own father in front of his mother and brother? And what strange energy led to the cutting of his mother and the subsequent, endless chasing of his brother?

So Moida did flee Flasten, ahead of what armies his brother could muster. Dinah's curse had indeed struck, and the family torn apart. Years would pass. Sendala and Niminth would dance countless times, sometimes in the face of Her. Heliotosis would continue to make yearly gains and losses to his brother, Swind. Marrish would send countless storms against Dinah, while Seruvus and Fraemauna watched all and kept their own piece. Whatever game the gods played in the lives of this family, they seemed to have forgotten.

All except Cedar, who had intervened, and maybe felt Moida, the curse of Dinah, his responsibility. So Cedar showed Moida more trickery, such as becoming invisible and making morutsen. So the god of plants and harvests gave the dark twin knowledge of the mind-numbing, paralytic effects of several species of plants. And so the god who loved creation above good or evil created a deep addiction in the body of Merflatug for his brother's products.

All this leads to the near past, when Moida returned to Flasten in secret to generate a large drug trade, indirectly aiding his business partners and the dux of Wasfal as his original aims had been so many years before in coming here to manufacture a road to Domus, which as we know, does not exist. Though gifted a thousand ways to reach his brother, to, as Cedar always claimed, make amends for the murders and garner recompense for years of being poor, Moida discovered the drugs only made Merflatug more paranoid, less likely to see people. He cultivated Haile for some time, until the dux's debts grew too great.

Then came the crackdown on drugs. Moida instantly knew Merflatug was seizing his product to feed his addiction, denying him Cedar's promised recompense while the dux still owed the tradesman half his duxy.

As luck would have it, an ill-tempered, expendable, over-spoken magocrat approached Moida for an illicit sale, which did indeed go through, and Moida suddenly had his way into the stronghold.

********

"You traded all of our pots for a vial of morutsen?" Plin said.

"Affirmative, my cogitating companion."

"A vial of morutsen." Plin repeated incredulously. "Which you used just now to incapacitate Mister Kilar after he nearly killed the dux?"

"Your observations remain true."

"You were used," Percy said in tones of awe. "Yet you defeated your manipulator."

Duk smiled brightly. "My geniusness is far-reaching and ever-terrific."

"That's not why you purchased the morutsen," Kilar said. "You bought it to feed your own cravings."

"My unselfish actions are none of your concern," Duk said softly. "Now, let us discuss the measure of recompense owed. You, Weard Kilar, for your manipulation of my self, and you, Dux Merflatug of Flasten, for your slanderous incarceration of a perfectly innocent wandering magocrat."

"I have nothing," Merflatug said, obviously wearied and numb. "I owe half my duxy to my brother. And more, the other half is debted to the investors for the road. Haile never found a way to pay them off."

"And, if the well-told story is truth, you shall certainly soon feel the withdrawal effects of your addictions," Duk added.

"I suppose that is true," the dux said, too calmly, "but I am certain arrangements can be made."

"You, Weard Kilar?" Plin said. "What do you have to offer us?"

Duk cleared his throat.

"Him," the mundane corrected. "What do you have to offer our magocrat, Duk?"

The man laughed. "I have half the duxy of Flasten, my good weard, which I grant you in good faith. Rule as wisely as you wish."

"This recompense is lavish, but what good a duxy in debt?" Duk said.

"The other half is still mine," Merflatug snapped. "You will not usurp my place."

Percy cleared his throat. "Technically, your mortgage of the lands of Flasten in such a circumstance makes them the property of the lenders until you can repay them. Note that without control of the other half of Flasten, your income will never again be strong enough to again become an interest in the duxy." He smiled strangely. "Thus you own none of Flasten, Duk owns half, and a bevy of investors in Domus and Wasfal own the rest."

"I sold my duxy to build a road and to wash my sorrows in drugs," Merflatug sighed. "I am left a penniless, legless pauper."

Moida laughed long and loudly. "Then we are equal, brother. Perhaps we could wander to Gunne and seek our fortunes there."

*******

Some time later, Duk rested on the throne of Flasten, a staff in his hands, meeting with the representatives of the investors who controlled the outer lands of the duxy.

"So the new dux is a duck?" said one of the less bright ones, and Plin shook his head slowly.

Percy proved to be the mastermind behind refinancing the deal. As it turned out, following a massive, mind-reeling orgy of lecturing intonations from the magocrat, the mapmaker took over the remainder of the meeting, and Duk sat in the chair and fidgeted, often silenced by the mundane, who stood at his elbow.

Duk said out of the corner of his mouth, "This is stifling."

Plin bowed his head and whispered, "This is what being a dux means."

"Then let someone else do it."

The mundane stared at the magocrat. "You traded an infinite amount of wild rice for the a duxy in perhaps the greatest coup of all time, and you want to hand it off? For what?"

"Perhaps a house barge, like our friend who aided us in our hunger? And onward to Domus, along a road made of mapmakers?"

"By all the gods, you will make this into a joke yet," Plin said.

Copyright 2005-2006 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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