The Common King

by Brian Olsen

  “I wish I could do more than just pick people up and drop them off. I feel like a bus driver.”

  I kiss him again. I mean it to be a quick kiss, but he grabs me and holds me longer.

  “Gotta steal privacy where we can,” he explains.

  “I’m not complaining.”

  He winces. “Alisa’s yelling in my head. Asking what’s the hold up.”

  “Better not keep the boss waiting.”

  We walk through his portal and emerge in the burnt-out remains of the basement, alongside Lily and Mr. Green. It’s still day in Charlesville, although sunset isn’t far off. Zane drops his portal and our surroundings immediately change as Ihsan lets us back into our prison refuge.

  We’re in the living room. It’s relatively quiet, since almost everybody is out somewhere, trying to fight the chaos the world has fallen into. A few people snooze on couches, getting some rest before heading back out. Barely anybody has slept since a few hours before sunrise, when Zane rescued Nate. Seems like forever ago.

  “Welcome back, my friends!” Ihsan raises a mug of tea to us. “I’m sorry, but Alisa has another task for you, if you feel well enough.”

  “Just tell us where,” Mr. Green says.

  “Mr. Green, Alisa would like you to accompany Mrs. Wollard. The crocotta have been released in the city of Wilz, in Luxembourg.”

  “Crocotta?”

  “Dog-like creatures, of animal intelligence. Close enough to wolves that Mrs. Wollard should be able to calm them, but Alisa prefers nobody go out alone.”

  Mr. Green nods. “Just let me use the facilities and I’ll be ready.”

  “I’m gonna check in with Alisa, Mr. Green,” Zane says. “Then we can go.” He kisses my cheek. “Back to work.” He heads down the corridor, to the bedroom, where Alisa has set up camp.

  “Lily,” Ihsan continues, “your mother and Andy are in Mexico. I don’t know precisely where, but Mr. Liefer is prepared to take you to them. They are dealing with will o’ the wisps. Several hundred of them. The wisps are leading people into the desert. Your mother and Andy are having some success convincing people not to follow them, but they are not able to reach everyone quickly enough. Alisa thought you could multiply yourself several times to assist.”

  “Maybe Lily shouldn’t push herself,” I say.

  Lily glares at me. “It’s not a problem, Ihsan.” She storms off towards Mr. Liefer, who’s waiting for her at the far end of the room. He nods to her, says his word, and both disappear.

  “What about me?” I ask.

  He squirms a little. “Perhaps you should take a rest, Chris.”

  “Rest?” I laugh. “I’ve barely done anything, Ihsan. Come on. Where does Alisa want me?”

  “Ah.” He coughs. “Excuse me. Mr. Liefer will return soon. I need to keep watch for him.” He turns away.

  Okay. I get the picture. I walk down the hallway into the far room, where Alisa sits at the central table. Her eyes are closed and her fingers are at her temples.

  Zane lies on one of the beds, his arm thrown over his eyes, while Mrs. Liefer and Nate are seated on either side of Alisa. Nate has his phone, Mrs. Liefer has a tablet. They’re both checking the news.

  “What about this, Mrs. L.?” Nate speaks quietly, so as not to break Alisa’s concentration. “Gargoyles in China. Real ones, not phony Finlay.”

  Mrs. Liefer leans over to look at his phone. “They’re fighting the Chinese army. Not much we can do for them now. We’re looking for situations we can get ahead of. Places where we can defuse fighting before it starts.”

  “Right, I knew that.” Nate bites his lip. “Sorry. A little tired.”

  “Take a nap, I’ll…oh, hi, Chris.”

  Nate waves at me. “Hey. You find a pot of gold?”

  Alisa’s eyes snap open. “Chris. How’d it go with the leprechauns?”

  “Badly. Sorry, Alisa.”

  She rubs her forehead. “Not your fault.”

  I sit opposite her. “How are the elves?”

  She pats her necklace. “Staying put. Tannyl says they didn’t feel anything when the other magical species were freed. The Common King must only be working with the artifacts he has possession of.”

  “That’s good news, right?”

  “About the only good news we’ve got.” She leans back in her chair. “I don’t think we’re making any difference out there at all, honestly.”

  Mrs. Liefer puts her tablet down. “Don’t say that. We’ve saved lives today.”

  “A handful.” Alisa shakes her head. “It’s all escalated so fast. The Common King planned this perfectly. Predatory species were placed where there’d be nobody to stop them from hunting people. Peaceful species arrived where their appearance would cause the most fear. And they all came out of their artifacts confused, with no idea where they’ve been, where they are, or why the world’s changed.”

  “And in such numbers,” Mrs. Liefer continues. “Thousands, hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of members of a particular species, all arriving in one city at the same time. Of course everyone’s panicked.”

  Nate scrolls past something on his phone. “People are calling it a worldwide invasion.”

  “The creatures are invading,” Mrs. Liefer says. “But not voluntarily.”

  Zane sits up, blinking his tired eyes. “I don’t think it’s fair to call it an invasion. This is their world too. Even if nobody knows it.” He yawns and stands. “Looks like Mr. Green’s out of the bathroom. I’ll take him and Mrs. Wollard where they need to go.” He heads out into the hallway, muttering, “Where’s Luxembourg, exactly?”

  “Leave your portal open behind you, if you can,” Alisa calls after him. “So Ihsan doesn’t have to let you back in. He’s getting tired.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Zane yells back.

  I lean my hands on the table. “Don’t bench me, coach. Put me out there. I want to help.”

  Alisa sighs. “Too many of the magical species will recognize you as the Common King, Chris. They won’t trust you.”

  “So let me help with the animal species.”

  “There’s not much we can do there.” She slams the table with her fist, sending Mrs. Liefer’s tablet bouncing. “There’s not much we can do anywhere! This is pointless.”

  Mrs. Liefer picks her tablet up again. “It’s not pointless.”

  “It is. We’re too reactive. We should be doing something! Taking the fight to the Common King!”

  “Gotta find him first,” Nate points out. “We checked the hotel. Kenny boosted Mr. Ambrose, who disrupted the hell out of the place. Nobody there but some traumatized staff.”

  “Then they’ve moved somewhere else,” I say. “Did you scry for them again?”

  Alisa nods. “Even with Kenny amplifying me, I can’t get a lock on them. I don’t have a link strong enough to pierce through Dante’s magic. Not this time.”

  Mrs. Liefer gasps. She holds her screen up for us. “Look! Look at this!”

  Before I can see what’s got her so worked up, Zane appears from a shadow on the wall in the hallway, followed closely by Mr. Green and Mrs. Wollard. They run into the room.

  “They’re gone!” Mrs. Wollard cries. “Vanished!”

  “The crocotta,” Mr. Green explains. “They disappeared. It was already happening as we arrived. They turned into long strings, like the mermaids did, and flew somewhere out of sight.”

  “Same with the wisps.” Mr. Liefer strides into the room. “Returned to their artifact.”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you!” Mrs. Liefer holds up her tablet. “They’re all disappearing. All the monsters, everywhere.”

  “What’s that mean?” Nate squints at his phone. “Did we win?”

  “All the monsters everywhere?” Alisa asks. “Are you sure?”

  Mrs. Liefer scrolls through a few more news stories. “Yes, it looks like—”

  “Yasu!” Nate drops his phone and claps his hands. “Yasu!”

  I hadn�
��t noticed the baku, curled up on one of the lower bunks. At Nate’s call he jumps up with a startled bleat and runs to him, putting his cat forelegs in Nate’s lap. He affectionately snuffles my friend’s face with his trunk for a second, but stops abruptly with a jolt, his elephant ears opening wide as if he senses something.

  “No, no!” Nate hugs the baku tight. “Not you, buddy, no way!”

  Yasu’s body distends. He howls as he’s pulled by an unseen force out of Nate’s arms, shrinking into a thread and flying upwards.

  “Imprison!” Ihsan shouts.

  The baku string hits the ceiling and bounces off. It floats there for a moment, hits the roof one more time, then inflates back into the familiarly bizarre form of Yasu. The nightmare-eater lands with an ungraceful thump on a top bunk, then burrows under the bedspread, shaking.

  Nate lets out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Ihsan. Without the screen, we wouldn’t be able to get him back.”

  Ihsan smiles. “We mustn’t lose our good-luck charm.”

  “Why is the king sending all the creatures back?” Nate asks. “He had us on the ropes. Didn’t he?”

  “Oh. Oh, no.” Mrs. Liefer beckons everyone over. “Look.”

  We crowd around her to see what she’s watching. A video has been picked up by the news. It’s him. The Common King. Just his face, in front of a blank white wall. Shaky, like he’s being recorded on a phone.

  “Greetings, people of this world,” he says. “You already know my face. I am the flying man, the master of fire. Your leaders assured you my power was a trick. A hoax.” He smiles. “It should be clear now that they were very wrong. I’m the man who set the monsters loose among you. I’ve sent them away, but I can bring them back. What does this mean, you’re surely asking? Who am I? What do I want? It’s simple.”

  He leans forward, closer to the camera.

  “I am the Common King. And this world is mine.”

  Twenty-nine

  I take the sheet from one of the top bunks and drape it so it hangs down, partially covering the bottom bunk from view. Then I climb in behind my makeshift screen, prop a pillow against the wall, and sit back. It’s hard to get privacy in the bunker. There’s a lot of heated discussion about what to do after the Common King’s broadcast, but I need to tune it all out.

  Nate lent me his phone. He’s got the number I want in his contacts so I don’t have to remember it. I open a new text message and start typing.

  “Hi mom. This is Chris not Nate”

  No response. I don’t really expect one.

  “A lot has happened and we haven’t had a chance to talk”

  I laugh. ‘A lot has happened.’ That’s an understatement.

  “I hope you’re seeing this. I don’t know if he lets you keep your phone.” Huh. If my double sees these messages I don’t want him to blame her. “I know you’ll have to tell him about this. That’s ok”

  I lower the phone. Shoot. Will just the fact that I’m talking to her be enough to get him mad? He might hurt her just to spite me. Maybe I should stop.

  Three dots. She’s typing a reply. I fold my legs under me and sit forward.

  Her message comes through. “It’s all right. Jasmine doesn’t spy on our dreams anymore.”

  Huh. That’s interesting. Because he trusts them, or because Jasmine’s loyalties are wavering? I’ll need to tell Alisa about that.

  I type a response. “How are you?”

  “I’m well. How are you?” Another message comes through before I can respond. “Don’t tell me where you are.”

  “I won’t. I’m ok I miss you”

  She waits a long time before replying. “You have to stay hidden. He might let the rest live if they stop resisting but not you.”

  “Were not going to stop”

  “Chris you have to! You have to convince Alisa and Liefer to stop! You can’t beat him! You don’t know”

  “Know what”

  “What he’s capable of now.”

  “Then tell me”

  A long pause. No response.

  I type, “His plan won’t work. He’s not going to get every country in the world to surrender to him no matter what he does”

  “We know. But some will. He’ll start with that and work on the rest. He can do it Chris. He can. Please just hide and stop fighting and maybe he’ll forget about you.”

  I bang my head against the wall. Lightly. Then I type, “You know we won’t stop. But I don’t want to argue that’s not why I texted you”

  “Ok. Why then?”

  I pause, my fingers hovering over the screen.

  Outside my sheet-fort, Emmet and Mrs. Liefer talk quietly.

  I type, “I understand why you don’t think of me as your son and why you don’t love me the same way anymore. Even though it makes me sad I know its not your fault. If there’s anything you feel bad about I forgive you. If you don’t feel bad about anything I guess I still forgive you.” I hesitate for a second, then add, “I don’t know if we’ll see each other again. Goodbye and I love you”

  I sit and wait, staring at the screen.

  Finally, three dots.

  Then, just “Goodbye.”

  I drop the phone onto the bed.

  The hanging sheet shakes, and a furry trunk slides underneath, snuffling furiously. It finds my foot and then snakes up the length of my calf.

  I lift the sheet a little. “Come on, then.”

  Yasu jumps onto the bed, wriggling his front half into my lap. The baku is kind of big but he settles in comfortably enough. I wrap my arms around his furry, patchy body.

  “You here to make me feel better, or because you think I’ve got some tasty bad dreams coming?”

  He snorts and reaches his trunk up to my cheek. I lean over and bury my face in his mane.

  I want my mom. I want my dad.

  I don’t want to do what I think I have to do.

  The sheet lifts and Nate slides in next to me. He hefts Yasu’s back half up into his lap, then puts his arm around me and rests his head on my upper back. With his free hand, he scratches Yasu’s backside.

  “Did you talk to her?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  Even though my voice is muffled by baku fur, I’m sure he can hear that I’ve been crying. Through my shirt I feel him kiss my back.

  “I’m sorry, dude.”

  I sit up. We lean against the wall, his arm around me. I rest my head on his shoulder.

  “What did she say?”

  I wipe my face with my sleeve. “Tried to convince us to stop. Said we couldn’t beat him. That I should hide.”

  “Fat chance of that.”

  Yasu nudges my shoulder with his trunk. I scratch his back and he snorts in contentment.

  “I think he might be losing his friends,” I say. “She said Jasmine doesn’t inspect their dreams anymore. Maybe the Jaz we know is coming back?”

  “I don’t think so.” He sighs. “Jaz spent the whole time I was with them telling me he was going to make the world better. Like, we thought we had just seen him kill people I love, people she’s supposed to love, including my own damn father, and she still made excuses for him. I didn’t see a whole lot of my Jasmine in there.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well. Life sucks all over. Do you think your mom is coming around?”

  “I don’t know. She’s worried about me. That’s something. But she’s still with him, despite everything.”

  “Maybe she’s scared to leave. He’s pretty scary.”

  ‘Maybe. Or…”

  I stop petting Yasu. He gives a quiet, annoyed bleat and kicks his front legs in my lap.

  “What?” Nate asks.

  “Just wondering.”

  “Sure. Wondering what?”

  I swallow. “If she stays with him because he’s more her son than I am.”

  “What?” Nate pulls his arm from around me and sits forward to look me in the face. “That’s nuts.”

  “Is it? You’ve been
the one all along saying who’s real and who’s not. He’s the one who lived a real life. I’m the copy with fake memories. If either of us is real, it’s him. If she feels something, why shouldn’t it be for him?”

  “Because she’s not his mother! She’s Neve Armstrong, and you’re Chris Armstrong, and he’s…whatever his real name is.”

  “Kirt.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, he’s Kirt Whatever, not Chris Armstrong. Not her son.”

  “He’s as much Chris Armstrong as I’m the Common King.”

  “Yes!” Nate throws his hands up. “Which is not at all! That’s the point I’m making!”

  “I’m not saying this right.” I smack the wall behind me with my fist. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “She doesn’t love him like a mother. No way.”

  “Maybe not. But all I am to her is a memory of a son. A fake memory. She cares enough to not want me dead, but not enough to actually do anything to keep me alive. She knows he’s real and I’m not, so she’s choosing him.”

  “Stop saying you’re not real.”

  “Why not?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “You never stopped saying you’re not real, no matter how many times I told you to stop.”

  “I was wrong!” He leans back against the wall and exhales a long breath. “Man, you are pissing me off right now.”

  “I’m saying you had a point all along.”

  “I didn’t. Yasu, down.”

  He shoves Yasu’s legs off his lap. The baku snorts in protest but after another shove from Nate he slowly climbs down off the bed, disappearing behind the other side of the hanging sheet.

  Nate shifts himself and I pull my legs in to make room. We sit, cross-legged, facing each other.

  He takes my hands in his. “After I made a couple jokes about us being fake people, my dad sat me down and gave me one of his Native history lessons.”

  “I like your dad’s Native history lessons.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you haven’t heard them all a thousand times. Anyway. You’ve learned enough from him and my uncle to know how white people have tried a whole bunch of ways to get rid of us over the years.”

  “Sure.”

  “And one of those was cultural assimilation. Right? Basically trying to turn us into Europeans.”