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Chapter 9 tangent: Rayla's Rage
Birgit and her troop return in the dead of night to find Aqu waiting near a small fire at the mouth of Noob Cave.
“We have done as you asked,” Birgit says, producing the Orbs of Destiny and extending them to the hooded man.
He draws back his hood and, on seeing the familiar useless orbs, sighs heavily in disappointment. “You are mistaken,” he says. “Go now, and try again - kill Pannych and Phyr, and bind their souls to the crystals my friend gave you.”
“Our menders are skilled soulbinders,” Birgit says. “There is no mistake: this orb contains the soul of Pannych, and this one, that of Phyr.”
“These are Orbs of Destiny, useless to us. This… is our fault,” Aqu says, hanging his head. “We really should have been more specific.”
“No,” Rayla fumes, stepping out from the shadows of the cave’s entrance. “I told you specifically to kill them and to capture their souls in the crystals I gave you. Not only did you not do that, not only did you let them go, but now you stubbornly insist that your counterfeits are the genuine article?”
“Hey, now,” Aqu says.
“Enough,” Rayla spits. “I have had it up to here with this bullshit! Those fuckers took everything from us!”
“They took our levels,” Aqu says in an attempt to mollify her. “Our empire is still intact. Or it was, at any rate. Had we not abdicated-”
“We would have been overthrown! Our might was the glue that held the House together! Do you think that General Mephistopheles would have faithfully executed our orders, if he thought he could stage a successful coup? Do you think Edric Nadab would manage the treasury honestly, if he thought he could get away with embezzling? Or High Priestess Morrigan - would she preach loyalty and servitude, or righteous retribution, now that our power has been shattered and scattered?! Vipers all, just waiting for a chance to usurp the Broken Throne! And without all of them undergirding our empire, united only by fear of the two of us, do you think Garv will continue to keep his hordes at bay? Or will he see a ripe opportunity?”
“The dragon hordes are not a problem right now,” Aqu says.
“But for how long? How long until the world is whole and Garv takes wing for the mainland? Do you know? Because I sure as shit don’t! We built a mighty empire, but we are the cornerstone on which it was founded. Crush that cornerstone to dust, and the whole edifice crumbles!”
“Alice set up a-”
“Alice! That traitorous bitch! Don’t you get me started on her! We found her, protected her, rewarded her, trusted her, and this is how she repays us?! By consorting with the noobs the very moment our backs were turned?!”
“But the noobs-”
“The noobs, the noobs, the poor, defenseless noobs! They’re so downtrodden, they’re only TWENTY-FOOT-TALL MAGIC-WIELDING SAPIENT BEARS! If only they-”
“Dammit, Rayla!” Aqu shouts in her face as he grabs her shoulders. “Get a hold of yourself, woman!” The noobs have been watching in stunned silence, the revelation dawning that they stand in the presence of Rayla Har’tei and Aqu Abbe’nei, High Monarchs of the Nine Provinces, Arbiters of Justice, Bulwark Against the Dragon Hordes, Butchers of the Last Gods, and sole survivors of their lost clans. To know that the desperate, unhinged vagabonds in their midst are in truth two fallen rulers striving against prophecy is, in a word, unsettling.
Rayla regards him coolly for a moment, then says, “Unhand me.”
Aqu says, “I will - if you let me finish one sentence!”
Another moment, and she nods, saying, “Choose it wisely.”
Aqu takes a deep breath and thinks for a moment more. At last, he says, “For someone whose downfall was prophesied and who had centuries to prepare for it, I would think you’d be a little more accepting of your fate by this point, so you’d be able to roll with it when things go predictably tits-up at every step we take in defiance of our destiny.”
Rayla sniffs and says, “Destiny. Yes, even when we defy destiny, we fulfill it. Tell me, what good is life, if it’s all laid out in advance, like a book that sits whole upon your shelf?”
“You can decide what parts of the book to read, or not. You can even erase words from the page, or write down your own, provided you have…” he trails off.
“The right tools?” Aqu sighs as she finishes his thought. “Yes, yes, I take your point. But in this book of destiny, whose words do we propose to erase and re-write?”
“The gods, I suppose.”
“Well, the gods are all dead now,” Rayla says. “You and I even put a few of them down, ourselves. Tell me, Birgit: didn’t you have a god?”
“Yes,” the noob chief answers. “Ignis, god of fire. He led us here. He-”
“He did a buncha things, I got it,” she interrupts. “But did he ever swear an oath to you? Did he ever fail to keep such an oath?”
“All his words came true. So he spoke, and so it was. Except…” Birgit furrows her brow and looks away.
“Except?”
“He did promise to protect us in our darkest hour. And if the human colonization of our island doesn’t qualify, then I am not sure what could be a stronger contender.”
“I’m not interested in the whys and wherefores,” Rayla says. “I have just one question for you.” She draws her spear and asks, “Where is your god now?”
The noobs roar in pain and fury throughout the night, their anguished cries echoing throughout the valley. One by one, each voice is silenced.
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