"Would you like to say any last words?" asked Halewijn, shouting down to the two men.
"No, but I can play them a little tune," said Piper. "If you’d just give me my pipes."
"You’ll be dancing to a tune soon enough," retorted Halewijn. "And you Black? Anything to say to your adoring gang of pickpockets and thieves?"
"Yes," said Black. "I would like to address the crowd."
The crowd cheered, then a cascade of hushes spread throughout the audience as it silenced so Black could be heard.
"You see before you today a man of principles," said Black, shouting. "This war was over a key. It was no ordinary key, but a magical one, one that opens a door wherever it appears."
Halewijn’s grip tightened on the railing, but he didn’t stop Black. It was too late. All eyes were upon Black.
"I know that our Queen is near death and an heir has yet to be found. But I also know the secret to finding a successor of royal blood."
"The Hyrtstone!" shouted a few in the crowd.
"Aye, the Hyrtstone. And I know where it is."
"Lies!" shouted Halewijn, visibly discomfited by this revelation. It was clear Halewijn didn’t know why Black wanted the key back so desperately. "A condemned man will say anything to save himself from the gallows."
The crowd roared in protest. Calls of "tell us where it is!" and "you can’t kill him now!’ and even "torture him until he tells us!" rang out.
"It’s true. And if I thought I could bargain for my life I would, but I suspect it no longer matters," Black craned his neck to look up at Halewijn. "Know only that the secret of the Hyrtstone goes with me to my grave, for you will never find the precise place I hid it. And that’s my final vengeance."
"That’s enough," snarled Halewijn. "Executioner! Do your duty!"
The plodding executioner reached for the lever that would release the trapdoors beneath Black and Piper.
Everything happened at once. A flaming arrow struck the lever in the opposite direction, jamming it. The executioner drew back his hand.
I looked for the source. Sure enough, Vasilissa stood with flaming bow, held aloft by four of Black’s Boys. A brown hooded cloak was thrown back, revealing her multicolored tresses.
The guards barely had time to react when keys were flung upwards towards Black and Piper. The boys had picked the guardsmen’s pockets.
"Stop them!" shouted Halewijn.
Screams and shouts sounded from the perimeter of the crowd to the gallows, citizens pointing at the ground and squealing. A wave of rats swarmed over the gallows, climbing up the crossbeam to gnaw on the ropes.
A flaming arrow whistled towards Halewijn. He held up one hand and it bounced off an invisible barrier.
The guardsmen shouted warnings, pushing the crowd back.
Switch climbed up to the front of my cage. Halewijn, distracted by the attack, didn’t see him.
"Switch?" I shouted.
He couldn’t hear me. But he could smell me. He sniffed the air and then, when his whiskers brushed the cage, he clamped his jaws on one of the thin metal bars. It was futile; alone, he couldn’t open it.
But Switch was not alone. More and more rats joined him, and all their jaws working together bent the bars open.
I leaped free just in time to see Halewijn whirl round on us. He raised his hands to cast a spell…
When Jacko slammed into him. Stunned, Halewijn landed flat on his back.
The dog leaped at his throat, but his goal wasn’t to harm Halewijn. He snapped the leather cord holding the key and bounded off.
Halewijn hopped to his feet. "Get that key!" he shouted.
The pogeyan shimmered into existence, eyes glowing red. It took off like a shot, flashing through the crowd to startled cries of confused citizens. It was rocketing towards its goal: Jacko.
The executioner on the gallows finally reacted. Seeing Piper and Black about to be free, he hefted a mighty axe. It was far too ungainly for a human to wield in combat. So he changed tactics by changing his appearance to his true form.
Ura! The blue-skinned ogre in all his glory was enough to set the crowd in a panic.
Piper managed to undo his feet just as Ura swung the axe at the jammed lever. The doors opened and dropped Piper and Black into the abyss below.
But Switch’s rats had done their job, gnawing through the ropes. The ropes broke, and they landed in a heap in the shadow of the hangman’s platform.
Jacko dodged and weaved in between the crowd, stopping only for a moment next to one of Black's Boys, who then ran off towards Vasilissa. The pogeyan flew through startled onlookers without heed, passing right through them.
Shaking his head violently, Jacko flung the key into the air.
Lycus hopped up and caught it. Then he crouched, waiting for the pogeyan.
"You want the key, cat?" Lycus wound up and threw the key to Vasilissa. "Go get it!"
The pogeyan leaped through the air towards the key, its jaws closing on it just as Vasilissa used the real key. One of Black’s Boys had made the switch.
A portal opened and the surprised phantom cat sailed right into it!
Vasilissa twisted the key again and the portal closed behind the pogeyan, trapping it in the only container that could hold it. Lycus’ sleight of hand was worth something after all.
"You!" shouted Halewijn, snarling at me. "This is your doing!"
I backed up on the platform. Switch stood by me, although the other rats had fled. We would face our end together.
"You useless, meaningless, inconsequential speck! Did you think that you could stop me? Unlike you, I am a true sorcerer! I can move mountains, destroy cities, drink oceans! You are nothing! You are just a rat!"
I felt the energy flow out of me again as Halewijn verbally abused me. It was like we were back again before the Queen, and I was once again the stumbling buffoon.
Halewijn grew, chanting words of power and strength. What at first was only a bullying presence overshadowing me became reality; he grew tremendously in size, a foot at a time, larger and larger. People continued to scream and run as a giant Halewijn rose to his full height in their midst.
"Run Switch!" I told him. "I don’t know how you got here or why, but this isn’t your fight!"
"No," said Switch. "It’s yours. That’s why I am here."
Switch was right. I had survived. Despite working for Black, despite Piper’s magic, despite being turned into a rat, despite everything that ate rats and some that ate people, I had survived. I WAS worth something.
Piper and Black had crawled out from the gallows, only to find the entire square in chaos. Ura hopped down, axe held high overhead, ready to chop Black in two. Black stumbled back…
A flaming arrow whistled past Ura’s nose. He dropped the axe. "Discretion is the better part of valor!" he shouted and transformed into a monstrous bat with a wingspan of over six feet. He flapped into the air.
One of Black’s Boys threw Piper his pipes. They had grabbed them in the fracas.
Piper played a tune, and suddenly Ura in bat form was helpless. Forced to obey, he turned and glided to attack Halewijn, a mere mosquito in comparison.
But the music was much more than that. The bat swarm was summoned back from the eaves of Stromgate, shrieking and squawking as they swirled around Halewijn. It was enough to irritate him, a momentary distraction we desperately needed.
With all my friends there, I broadcast back to them. "I need your help to defeat him! Focus on me!"
Their collective thoughts and emotions were like a hot ray of sunlight piercing my soul. I could feel affection and love, admiration and hope. There was fear too, but it was fear for me, not themselves. From my old friends in Black’s gang to Jacko and Switch, to my fellow rats, to Lycus and Vasilissa who loved each other, to even Piper, and most of all Black, who was like a father to me even though he was an imperfect one.
I reached out further, contacting all the minds in the crowd I could see, every one of them. I projected
that feeling of calm and peace to them all, even as a giant swatted at a thousand bats.
Halewijn, so large that his head receded a bit form my vantage point, reached into the tower and snapped Sikkar's Blade off of it like a club.
"YOU DARE DEFY ME, LITTLE MITE? I WILL SQUASH YOU LIKE A BUG!"
With my mental energy washing over the crowd, even the guardsmen calmly and carefully backed away. The strong helped the weak, people who had fallen in the melee were helped by others. In that moment I saved hundreds of lives. They all took a few steps back, retreating to the alleys of the square, leaving only my allies and old enemies to finish this once and for all.
I had but one word. A word I had not used against Halewijn, not ever. One single utterance of defiance.
No!
NO, I would no longer tolerate being abused.
NO, I would not believe the terrible things he said to me.
NO, I would not. I would not!
I mentally blasted Halewijn with my defiance. The giant turned to pinpoint me, glaring down at what he couldn’t even see from his height.
"You kept me all this time because I was the TRUE sorcerer!" I shouted. "You used me as a receptacle, siphoning my magic to power your own spells. You were never a great wizard! You were a fraud, a stage magician who leeched my magic to create his own!"
Halewijn laughed, a terrifying boom of thunder. With one swing of his hand, the bats were dispersed, crushed in mid-air. Halewijn didn’t bother to speak. Abstractly, I realized that the sun went out. A huge form had blocked it, overshadowing me.
"And what will you do?" He responded to me with mind-speech. "Do you hope to return to your human form, little rat? I did you a favor. Do you know what you were? What you always were? A CRIPPLE."
It came to me in flashes then. Why I couldn’t pick pockets like Piper. Why I was left alone when he played his music for Black’s Boys. Why I was a jester in Halewijn’s stage acts and why everyone laughed at me. I was born with one leg shorter than the other. I was no good to anyone.
"You are better off a rat than a person," echoed Halewijn in my mind as the air whistled overhead and the shadow grew larger. "And now you will be neither."
"I may have been crippled," I shouted back, "but I am a person in any form! My name is Tesso! And Halewijn the Magician, Assassin of Queens and Charlatan of Stage and Court, YOU are the rat!"
The wind stopped as Sikkar’s blade quivered overhead. Halewijn’s gigantic form shuddered.
"You poisoned the nobles!" I broadcast to everyone I could see, even the crowd at the perimeter of the square. "You blamed it on me! You made me your scapegoat. And then you used Ura the shapeshifter to start a war over the key, because you knew that the key is the secret to the Hyrtstone! Because Black had it all along!"
There was a collective gasp. Halewijn was shrinking. He slammed the blade into the ground, tip down in the pavement. The platform I was on shuddered.
Switch and I climbed down off the platform, just in time as I lost all control over my body. I sat up on my haunches, and then fell to my hands and knees.
All I could think was: I have hands and knees!
I was transforming, growing, as Halewijn diminished. He was howling with rage, helpless to stop the flow of magical energy as our roles were finally reversed. I took the magic back from him and into myself.
I slowly rose to my feet. I looked down at a rat that I distantly realized was Switch. He was so tiny! I couldn’t hear his thoughts any longer.
I spoke out loud, staring at myself in wonder. "I'm a boy?"
The crowd, whispering in awe, started to move forward into the square to greet the new me. Halewijn was writhing on the ground near the base of the blade, continuing to shrink.
Halewijn’s features lengthened, his front teeth protruding. His arms and legs curled up beneath him, and a long pink tail spiraled out of his tailbone. His eyes, normally in the front of his head, receded, and his ears grew long and wide. Then his face stretched and an explosion of hair, starting with the hair on top of his head, spread like mold across his body. He squeaked in rage.
Vasilissa, taking the cage that had only moments before contained me, snapped it over Halewijn. She smiled up at me, but the smile disappeared and was replaced by one of fear.
I could feel the rejection. My old self. I was ugly, hideous. The old shame and self-loathing seethed within me like a poison. Then a lengthening shadow fell over me and I realized Vasilissa’s fear wasn’t about me at all.
Black slammed me out of the way as Sikkar’s Blade tipped over, crushing him. His entire lower torso was pinned.
The spell was broken. The crowd resumed its panic. Guards rushed forward to help.
I limped over to Black, my disability temporarily forgotten. Halewijn hadn’t lied. I was lame.
Black’s eyes fluttered. He reached for me. "Tesso," he croaked. "Tesso, my dear boy."
"Yes?" I leaned over him, tears in my eyes. "I have magic, maybe I can—"
But the magic was gone. I had spent it all. With enough time, perhaps I could regain it. But I didn’t have days. I didn’t have minutes.
“No," Black coughed, a terrible sound. "This is important. Listen to me." He pulled me closer. "I know you saw me with the key."
I sobbed. So he had known, all along, that I had seen him! I could only nod.
"You saw the Hyrtstone. You saw it glow."
I nodded again, tears streaming down my face.
"It only…" he wheezed, struggling to form words. "It only glows in the presence of the next heir. I thought it was me."
"But why didn’t you say something?"
"Because I was afraid," he whispered. "I was afraid of the responsibility. But now…" he trailed off. "It wasn’t glowing…for me."
His eyes fluttered. I held up his head. "Black, please…"
They opened again. "I was not the best father, I know. But I loved you like a son…"
And then his eyes closed for the last time.
* * *
The procession trailed behind me as I made my way towards Piper’s house. Someone had thoughtfully provided me with clothes and a crutch. Everyone was afraid to touch me.
Piper walked at my side as we entered his home, which once had been Black’s home. Vasilissa and Lycus walked side-by-side behind us. Even Jacko trotted behind us. A contingent of guards flanked us on all sides.
The scorpions were gone. Piper bent down to undo several traps, reached up to deactivate several more. I was glad I hadn’t just waltzed through the front door.
The huge cat hissed at us as we passed. Jacko growled and it fled.
The procession made its way up the steps. I went back to the old room, the room where I had first awakened, where I saw Black find his precious treasure and then return it to its hiding place. Lycus handed me the key. I took it and turned it in the spot where Black had used it.
The tiny portal opened. I reached in and felt around. There was a box, just as I remembered it.
I pulled it out. We all stared nervously at the box. What would happen if there was no Hyrtstone within? Worse, what would happen if there was?
I took a deep breath. I wished for my old life back, when I was happy begging for scraps with Piper, when we were innocent and foolish, when rats didn’t aspire to be wizards and wizards didn’t become rats. And I was neither.
Piper smiled at me. "Open it," he said slowly.
I opened the box. A red light pulsed within.
The red crystal beat like a heart. I held it up and the crystal’s beating matched that of my heart, which was beating quickly.
"The Hyrtstone," whispered Lycus. "It’s true!"
He kneeled. At first, I thought he was searching for something.
"What are you …"
I didn’t understand as Lycus bowed his head. Then Piper. Then Vasilissa. Then the guards. Even Jacko sat back on his haunches.
"Long live the King!" shouted Piper.
"Long live the King!" shouted Lycus.
<
br /> "Long live the King!" shouted Vasilissa.
And the chant spread from Black’s old decrepit house throughout all of Calximus.
Conclusion
I sat on the throne, unaccustomed to the seat of power. The last time I was in the throne room I was accused of being the Queen’s assassin, and then turned into a rat. It would be a long time before the grand hall took on new significance for me.
All of my friends were before me. The guards stood in their gleaming armor, halberds held in ceremonial salute. The Hyrtstone was embedded in my crown. I would be known as the Glowing King, and whispered in dark corners, the Rat King. I didn’t mind.
The palace was packed with citizens. I had left it open to all of them. They knew the truth behind Halewijn’s plan, they knew what had happened to me, but there was still unfinished business to attend to. My coronation complete, I had to render verdicts.
Piper stood before me, awaiting judgment. I had allowed all to dress and change, but things moved quickly in politics, and there was little patience for me to dawdle on petty things like rest or getting acclimated to being human again. I was woefully tired; my time as a rat and the magic I had used to defeat Halewijn all took a dreadful toll. It was hard enough to just stay awake. But there was business to attend to.
"Piper, come forward."
Piper bowed low. "My lord, I throw myself at your mercy."
I steepled my fingers. "On the one hand, you waged a war with scorpions and other vermin in full daylight, endangering the citizens of Stromgate. On the other hand, you used your magic to save my life. I think that counts for something, don’t you?"
Piper looked up. "Only at your whim, my lord."
"Whim? No, I like to think that cooler heads will use reason. After these decisions, I will be mandating that all decisions be passed through king AND council. Too much power in one man’s hands is dangerous, and we can never have what Halewijn achieved happen again."
There were murmurs of agreement. Like all good politicians, I had gotten consent from the nobles before I made any announcement. Surprises sounded good on paper, but they never went over well with the people who held the true power.
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