Born a Monster

Chapter 98

Hero’s Journey

I am told that returning home is part of the quest of a hero. I didn’t feel heroic.

I mean, I didn’t feel helpless, by any means. I was armored enough to take on up to two plains-cats with confidence, not that any of those skirmishes lasted long.

Home, as it turns out, was smaller than I remember it, perhaps nine hundred paces from end to end. The coral was the same light pink and white as I remembered, and there was a granite column just sticking out of the middle of it.

The sea birds flew overhead, screeching at each other.

.....

There were no signs of siblings, or even eggs. Secreted in a little micro-fjord, someone had shed a lobster-like shell with four claws.

Had I arrived too late? Was this one of my siblings that I hadn’t noticed?

I left my armor and equipment on the beach and swam both inside the lagoon and in the nearby ocean.

There was nothing especially menacing or threatening, nor any sign of anything more un-natural than a jellyfish. When I sent the sea creatures thought-messages, they fled.

Of the predators that threatened me so as a child, none was larger than my two fists held together.

I looked at my pinky finger, as I dried myself on the strand above the beach. Had I truly been so small? Had I truly been so helpless?

And whatever had become of my brothers and sisters?

There was a centaur watching me, so I waved.

She waved back, and approached.

I didn’t recognize her at first. Her dress-blanket was yellow, run through with cross-hatches of red.

“Zinzelle!” I called.

“Little Rhee. I see you’ve grown.”

“In more ways than one.”

“So I see. Whatever you’re doing, it’s good for you.”

“And bad as well.” I admitted.

“I do notice your heraldry is that of the Uruk nation.”

“Are they a nation, now? It seems much different from my perspective.”

“Word says that one of the gatehouses at Whitehill has fallen.”

“Whitehill has been conquered. The nearest human settlement I know of that hasn’t been is in the Khanate.”

“There are others.”

“Please don’t tell me where. After what happened to Seacrest...”

“Seacrest is what happened to Seacrest. If it wasn’t the Crimson Hand, it would have been some other marauders.”

Not exactly what had happened, but not all truths need to be spoken.

“It’s... this war, the politics involved. The more I learn, the less I understand.”

“You do understand that you’re on the side of evil, right?”

“I don’t think there is an evil side to this conflict.”

“Yeah... I don’t think you should visit the wood, Rhee. You might not get out if you say something like that.”

“I trust you to know the mood of the Clan better than I do.”

“Then I am sorry that this war has come between us. I do, some days, miss the simplicity of living among the Clan.”

She shook her head. “Simplicity. Be beyond range of our riders come nightfall, Rhee of the Red Tide.”

What? What had I said? “Be well, Zinzelle of Clan Cloverhoof.”

“Until nightfall.”

#

Well, I went east along the coastline, until the black plume of smoke from the mines could be readily seen.

I had no interest in meeting actual kobolds; their human-like faces just didn’t look right on a scaled people.

I had no doubts they regarded me as equally freakish.

After my chat with Zinzelle, I was just... spent.

Obviously, the clans never decided to attack me. I stayed well away from the border of uruk lands, and yet I am here writing these memoirs.

I was unable to cook, lacking access to ready wood, but I foraged enough that I didn’t have to eat grass.

Narrow Valley was held by a skeleton crew, almost evenly mixed uruk, human, and hobgoblins.

There was a message for me at the town center. GO SOUTH, MEET HORTILUK, HE HAS FOUND YOUR BROTHER.

I decided to delay a day and join a convoy headed south. It was near two weeks, at the pace the carts travelled, but there was enough food that I was able to pay for a statistic bonus, bringing my Valor back to three. (With a one month timer.)

And I was making minor evolutions at a slower pace. Trying to restore my scale color to green without giving up on the kobold improvements was more difficult than I imagined, and I just hadn’t managed it yet.

There was small talk, which reminded me of how much was going on that I didn’t know about. But it doesn’t belong here.

Montu’s Glory had expanded its field of stumps.

I know we all like firewood, and being warm at night. And carts do need wooden parts from time to time. But the sheer laziness in not removing the stumps...

But this was Hortiluk’s territory now, not mine.

So I just endured the ugliness.

I paid a fee at the gate, and thought nothing of it. I visited the chemistry shop, and was assured that other than one incident, everything was going fine.

Really? Three months without an accident, and then one of the managers, of all people falls into one of the refining vats?

Yes, reading that you know it’s suspicious. But all the workers I talked to assured me it was just an accident, and I trusted them.

Fool that I was.

But that actually belongs in a later story, when I became aware of it.

Eventually, I ran out of excuses to not go see Hortiluk, seated on the gold encrusted throne in what was now his temple fortress.

“Why should I let you in to see Hortiluk?” one of the robed adjutants asked.

“Because he should be expecting me.”

“He is EXPECTING Rakkal, not some... servant.”

“Do I get promoted to servant warrior if I stab you?”

The guards to either side of him bristled, and his lips quivered for a moment. “I shall report your insolence.”

“Please do so. I’ll just peruse the art out here while I wait.”

#

The statue of Montu was getting a head-ectomy, where the head of a statue was removed to make way for a new head. I knew it wasn’t something Rakkal had ordered.

What was going on in Montu’s Glory that the very presence of Montu was being publicly redesigned?

Something was going on there, something that I felt I should recognize. But I did not.

Other artifacts of value were on display. Golden plates and flatware, carved with runic designs that seemed more ornamentation than invocation. Funerary masks of the sun, a silver moon, and a black mask set with pearl-stars.

A falcon crafted of bronze with lapis lazuli set into the eye sockets. The construction was crude, I don’t know why I felt like it was looking at me.

But Hortiluk did have things he wanted to say to me.

“The Conclave of Thorns is in the middle of a civil war.”

“As people who tried to execute me, you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for them.”

“The news I received says that someone from our side of the Daggers freed two prisoners of the Sect, calling into question their authority.”

“Their own boneheaded decisions call into question their authority.”

“Some say that Loki himself calls for vengeance.”

.....

“If any god calls for vengeance against me, I’ll probably know when an angel tears me limb from limb.”

“So – no concern for hundreds of people dying because of what you did?”

“On the other side of the Daggers? Let them slaughter each other to Loki’s content.”

“And if they were part of my plans?”

I shrugged. “Were they? What do you think I know of your plans?”

“An accident, then. An unfortunate accident that destroys any hope we ever had of allying with them.”

“I find it odd that you waited all winter to discuss this, and now it is spring.”

“I find it odd that you chose to tell me nothing.”

“Rakkal failed to mention that I should report to you. What are you to him?”

“I am the most trusted of his followers, and the one entrusted to rule here. Where do you rule, again?”

“We both know that I rule nowhere, and want to rule nowhere. Has rulership brought you happiness?”

“Uneasy weighs the crown. Do you know which hero said that?”

“Richard the Spear?”

“Richard the Knife, but yes, one of the three Richards.”

I noted that the three Richards didn’t actually defeat the Pirate Queen, Bessmorgan. Was he quoting failures for a reason? Manorans? Heroes?

I could work myself into a frenzy and never come close to Hortiluk’s actual motives.

“I have a note saying you have found one of my brothers?”

“Don’t get your expectations up, he was caught eating our diplomat to the Southern Isles.”

“Oh? I didn’t know we had vessels, to even send diplomats that far south.”

“You don’t know a goodly number of things, it seems.”

Fair enough. I didn’t.

#

My first thought was that the well resembled the Pits of Thor, minus the ramp for walking out.

Actually, I suppose a well thirty feet across can more properly be called a cistern, can’t it?

But chained down there, an ichthyoid monster. It had four arm-legs, and an equal amount of tentacles that ended in tentacle clusters. It was predominantly blue, but parts of it included every color of the rainbow.

I sent it.

. It sent me HATRED and PAIN and HUNGER. It resembled...

I sent him a picture of my brother who chased me from the lagoon that day.

It sent back a picture of a pale white worm thing with vestigial limbs, fleeing. Food, only food.

It thrashed, and tried to pull its chain from the ring, or the ring from the wall of the cistern.

“Well, it hasn’t had that reaction to anyone else.” Hortiluk said from just a step over my left shoulder.

I reset my feet to try a hip throw if he attempted to shove me in. “It is hard not to pity him.”

“Is it? This is barely a monster; little more than an animal.”

“Vashathan!” it screamed, still thrashing.

“I think you play a dangerous game with that belief.”

“Do I? Every person I sacrifice to it, it becomes larger, grows more powerful. I think I shall let Rakkal fight it.”

“I’ve lost so many of my brothers and sisters. I should hate to lose another.”

“Your hatreds are near the bottom twelve of my concerns.”

“As they should be. I’m certain you have the hatred of people far more violent than just me.”

“Violent and subtle. You have no clue how easy it is to read your emotions from your body posture.”

“I admit I’ve never had to examine my posture to determine my emotions.”

“So. Have you seen enough? I’d rather not excite the poor thing into throttling itself, or crushing its head to get loose from the shackle.”

“How do you keep it from doing that?”

“Like you, it is fairly constant of form. I think you lose your Protean nature after your first year.”

“I would be distressed to learn that.”

“Are you saying it is otherwise?”

“I’ve honestly had other concerns.”

“Ah, yes. The forge-smithy of Whitehill, or whatever it is called.”

I pulled myself from the lip of the cistern, passed within easy dagger range of Hortiluk.

At that time, neither of us stabbed the other.

“You probably know better than I do what it is called.”

“Indeed, I think I do. And I think I know what you’ll be doing instead of seeing that monstrosity of science constructed.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“As I mentioned, our diplomat to the Southern Isles was recently eaten.”

“Oh, who would be that diplomat? Am I your assistant?”

“Well, I’ve only heard rumors, of course. But those rumors indicate that you are the latest among our diplomats.”

#