Of Tombs and Kings [2/2]

It was, admittedly, a reckless idea. Putting the chalice back into the corpse’s hands might very well have resurrected it. And well, it sort of had. The mummy king had briefly and partially awoken, his eyes only barely glowing. The flickering was unsteady, as if he was almost completely drained of any and all magical energy. He was essentially a husk of an undead, which was sort of impressive in its own right.

Then, in a surprisingly smooth voice, it told her a story. Something about this chalice was strangely prone to encouraging the undead that interacted with it into being far more verbose than most.

***

King Cyna was the leader of a vast and powerful nation. His people were proud, and he was even prouder for it. He stood at their helm and ruled them with admirable judgement. Even so, a king is just a man.

The king was very bold in his youth, which was all well and good since he was strong and decently lucky. Some of the trouble he got up to he really should not have been able to escape from with barely a scar to show for it. He went around in disguise, challenging strong warriors to prove himself. He also went around challenging nature itself, which was a far stupider trial to put himself through. But he was young, and the feeling of his heart racing was addictive. The pounding beat in his chest was his personal war drum.

His own father had gained more than a handful of gray hairs from the habit. However, Prince Cyna always came home, some times in rougher shape than others, but always home again. Thus, despite all their complaints, no one ever stopped him from his wanderlust or roaming.

As roaming young princes are want to do, he met a beautiful young lady and fell in love. Fortunately, his was not a culture that demanded any particular social class from the ruler’s spouse, so there was no opposition to her queenship. That was especially relieving for the upper courts, as they knew the prince was very prone toward and willing to fight for what he wanted. They usually admired that trait in him, as their future leader, but on a personal level it had caused more than just a handful of headaches.

The price and his consort were very happy together, and went on many adventures. They saved their people from monsters, secretly solved crises, and saw many wonderful things. The princess consort liked to draw, so she would sketch and paint the sights for them to remember for many years to come.

Then, as is often the case between couples, they had a child.

He was the first daughter of the prince, and he loved her as the moon loves the sun. He did everything he could to encourage her to shine as brilliantly as her parents had. She grew up listening to the tales, only slightly embellished, and seeing her mother’s paintings of the things she saw. Naturally, when she was of age, she wanted to roam around and see many sights herself. She wanted to explore the whole world, to travel ever further than her mother or father ever did.

By this time her father had ascended thrown, and become the king. He used all his many experiences to rule his people with wisdom and mercy. To listen and understand the needs of his people.

Of course, King Cyna was worried for his daughter. He finally understood how his own parents must have felt, letting their only son roam about getting into scuffles and danger. But despite all his many worries, he let her go. King Cyna trusted his daughter, and the way he had raised her. He knew she was as strong as he was, and as clever as her mother. She would be fine. She would come home again, he was sure. He still worried, though. He was beginning to learn that worrying is the natural state of a parent.

So, the little princess went off into the world. She saw many things, and went on adventures all her own, and collected a few scars like her parents. She sent them letters about her travels, which they happily read together in great amusement and affectionate awe. She made friends on her travels as well, and went on even more journeys with them; to the further places she had once dreamed of.

Then, one day, she went too far. She roamed into the territory of an enemy nation. She was very courageous and fought with all her might, but it wasn’t quite enough.

When she returned home, for the final time, she was already cold and lost to the world.

Her parents were inconsolable. Losing their child tore apart their hearts and even strained the previous joyous relationship between them.

Suddenly, King Cyna found his fairytale life crumbling around him. He still did his best as a king, but he was often despondent. The queen hardly left her chambers, staring long hours out the window and drawing countless pictures of her baby. Neither of them could move on. The higher court wanted them to have another child, as the queen was still in good health; or, if not her, then another younger woman. The king refused on both counts.

But he still wanted to address the concerns of his people, so he went looking for a solution.

Coincidentally, the loss of his daughter had also made him more fearful of death as a whole. He was afraid to lose anyone else he loved. That was when he remembered the existence of creatures that, while not living, also were not fully dead either. He sent out his people to collect and research the phenomenon of un-death.

They traveled far and wide to bring their king the answers he sought. One of them, a man practiced in the arcane arts, succeeded. He brought to them a being of great and frightful power, unlike any other undead they had seen before. The being was an arch-lich, but they did not call it that.

They revered the frightening being and called it the master of death. They heeded its words and acted as its servants. As long as it did not harm his people, the king gave the lich anything it desired. The lich, in turn, fulfilled many wishes and needs for the king and his country as well. When they fell on hard times, the lich filled their treasury with his powers. And when fear of death stilled them, it taught them the secrets of reanimation. It promised, when they died, that it would make them all immortal like him. Then, death would never threaten them again.

It taught them how to preserve bodies so they would reanimate nicely, and gave them a promise in the form of a mark left on their souls. The people would be its loyal followers, to do its bidding, and it would never betray them.

Only the king did not accept the brand, he wanted something else to serve as their promise. The lich was a bit upset by this, but it told the king to wait and said it would soon return with what the king requested. That was when the arch-lich created the chalice and brought it to the king. He promised, so long as the king took ahold of this cup after reanimating, that their promise would be completed at last.

The king eventually died, as all people do, and was buried in the great tombs prepared by the people who would stay behind in the past. The king slept for a long long time. Not that he could feel the passage of time in his state, but he knew it had been long when he awoke and everything was so decayed.

King Cyna was the first of his people to awaken. He had climbed out of his box with the memories of his promise in tact and little else. Find the chalice. His mind had urged, his body, his very instincts. It practically echoed inside him, the tremendous force of it driving him directly to it. The mummy king stumbled his way to the innermost treasure room where the cup resided and grasped onto the stem.

It should have branded him too, in that moment, but the artifact had failed. The lich hadn’t had time to test it after its creation, so it did not know the actual affects of the chalice on the undead. The only part of the spells imbued in it were the ones that draw others to it. The cup was a wonderful magnet, but it could not enslave someone that was already dead and then undead. Instead, the power of the cup had caused the mummy king to remember his life.

He looked around at the chambers, and thought about all he had done and hadn’t done, and deeply regretted the trust he had placed into the being. In fact, he regretted several of the choices he made throughout his life. But there was one choice he regretted above all others. Was it the choice to let his daughter roam off into dangerous lands? No, that could never be a mistake, despite how it had ended. It was not a mistake to let her grow.

His mistake had been his inability to remember her in a way that would let him grieve properly. Instead of making peace with death, and accepting the end of life, he had clung on to it. And in doing so, he had failed all his people that had followed him into this mess. Even worse, there was not much the mummy king could do about his mistakes. He did have the ability to free his people from the influence of the arch-lich, and he did not have the knowledge or strength either.

What he could do, was pathetically limited. What he could do, was interfere with the chalice and the role it played in the lich’s plans to turn his people into an undead army. It was all he could do to control the cups power; he gave it every last piece of himself and made it so it would not work for anyone that did not have a heart as least as noble, true, and brave as his daughter had been. Only someone with a truly upright character would be able to refuse the control of the chalice and the implicit brand caused by using it. And in doing so, they would absorb all the power the chalice had been storing, thus preventing it from falling into the lich’s hands.

That person would die, it was unavoidable, and the king added that to his many regrets. However, it was the only way to release the magic inside that he knew. Perhaps, if he were a master of the arcane, instead of a foolish king, he could have spared the loss of that life. All they would have to do is hold the cup and then refuse its offer. So long as they did that, as any truly upright and brave person would, the chalice would be stripped of its power. The king hadn’t known that someone else could accept the proposition on behalf of the cup holder, but perhaps he should had anticipated such a trick from an evil artifact.

The chalice could not be destroyed, because it was still anchored to the undead king. He too, had a final request for Yew: defeat the arch-lich.

Yew promised, once again, and set the king free in a dazzling glow.