Chapter 30 - Hell hath no truth (First Evolution arc)

　　The prince moved restless and alone, his blade still in hand. He sought refuge in hell and its empty halls, stepping through to the miners—he had seen where they went when the morning was gone. Artisan should be here, and Linaria. But the prince thought he knew a slight sense of unknowing—would they harken to him and have faith, when he looked like this... when he felt like this.

　　Through sprawling networks, he walked along large mineshafts, saw the rookies work pickaxes and wheelbarrows, all for gruel in a life worn and raw.

　　There was no end to the misery; the only way out was up. And despite his fear, he would do it. Fight Gorkon and break him. So that as above, a prince might reign here below. A dark prince, no doubt. But not the devil or his brother. Not quite.

　　He was looking for Artisan—the prince told himself that. But in truth he wanted merely to linger. Like a half-removed ghost that does right by silence. Why did he hate himself so?

　　Prideful to a fault, though it was closer to act than reality. He needed to know that the world knows—this prince does not suffer indignity lightly. The ego was a thing to be cherished, for what are we without?

　　"And yes, if you must inquire," the prince intoned to a head-shaking guard nearby, "I procured it... equitable and just." The bag and bottle he had borrowed` from the alchemy hall—potent stuff, that`s no lie. He felt it more than the mead, this aqua vitae... well-distilled though not decanted. And far too little: the drink was bliss.

　　A throng of foragers walked past, stepping neatly in formation. Some second-grade escort that led the way. They carried wicker baskets filled with forest delights—mostly mushrooms of all sorts and sizes, including the blue-capped death that tasted divine. Aurora Azureum.

　　Behind them came a squad of trappers and perhaps some hunters—they carted in a wheeled construction; it was stacked with venison and boar and halved-out carcasses.

　　How could the world below work so well when he himself was so lost?

　　The prince felt his heart thud hard and fast and then slow... and then hard again. He was starting to sweat.

　　Why was he left to his own will and devices—the prince could go wherever, it seemed. As close to free as a caged man gets. The arena was his when he wanted practice; master Grok stood in awe of his fluency in goblin-foreign scripts; the statistician called him a champion and anomaly, then let him walk free from her office freshly reborn.

　　And what to think of the stellar timing—Gorkon barging in to save the day, muting Zazra and her clear-cut ambitions. Or just now, was it luck or something more sinister? How the raid captain and her horde let him walk cleanly out.

　　Then there was the threat of untruth, the lies and omissions of things that seemed to the prince so essential. Where were the armies—the vast goblin hordes he had seen when Landsbury claimed his lost soul and love? Who was the warchief who had done him in, and where were the other markbearers?

　　All of it left in the dark like he was.

　　His body felt hot as if taken by fever. The prince got the very clear notion now that he was being deceived. That the stage had been set and that he was unwittingly an actor. Was anything here real at all?

　　It might have been the aqua vitae talking, filling his mind with doubts and delusions. But to hell with it—the prince did not care. He would act out of turn and gather data. See if the world holds up when he stops playing nice.

　　Framed in such a way, a mind that unravels can seem almost rational.

　　The prince ran up to the foragers, dipped down greedily into their baskets, snatching out handfuls of mushrooms, including plentiful samples of Aurora Azurea. He devoured them all where he stood, waiting for their hard looks and disgusted faces... but nothing.

　　Then he went to the trappers and hunters, picked off a big venison steak, and began a gluttonous feast right before their eyes—biting out huge chunks and chewing indiscriminately, mostly with his mouth open, spilling slaver and meat juice all over. And...

　　Nothing. No response.

　　He ran up to a guard, a mean-looking bastard if ever there was one. The prince raised his blade as if to strike... and the guard took a stance of defence, seeming simply unnerved; he did not react with violence. Neither did any of the other goblins present.

　　Everyone let it happen. Let him be. As though instructed to do so.

　　The prince felt his grip on the world start to give way. He broke down in tears in the middle of the hall—and where was it now, his unwavering pride? Where was Artisan? Or Linaria? Someone familiar enough to help him try and make sense of it all.

　　But could he trust them still, or anyone for that matter?

　　The books he had read and the words he had heard—which parts were real and could stand up to scrutiny? How would he ever even know?

　　Staggering back, the prince sought to return to the statistician. Perhaps she would tell him things—she seemed the only one with some sound hold on objective assessments. She had numbers and notes he would trust, if only for lack of firmer footing.

　　When he turned around, the prince saw the lorekeeper—that same fragile man who had told him a prince did no mining... who had fetched him from the arena and sent him down to the scholar`s hall. Was this fool following him, keeping track of his every move to then report to Gorkon?

　　His heart beat like hell and the world whirled away—he lost all sense of direction. His eyelids were heavy and this body as well, his new form that had power but felt strange.

　　The last sound he heard was his blade as it clattered down on the ground.The author`s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　The prince collapsed.

　　--

　　He awoke in a room with green grim-looking faces and bodies. His arms tried to move but they were chained. A nurse with a bird-like beak mask hovered over him, lancet in hand, slicing at his temporal veins—an antiquated attempt to relieve the mind of its madness. Bloodletting was all the rage in the ragged quarters. There was no solid proof of its safety or efficacy—this the magetower healers had long since asserted.

　　"Stop," said the prince in a quiet voice, wanting neither to startle nor incense the nurse in his vulnerable position. But the procedure carried on—his words held no weight. Not when spoken softly.

　　He felt a low thing akin to rage, directed at no one goblin but at all—these rotten green hell-dwellers... and he was one.

　　"Stop," the prince said again, enveloping the room with the blue of his aura. "Leave."

　　And the nurses and healers left, entranced by his force. So were the patients, for that matter—the second-grade goblins that were wounded or ill. They all funnelled out of the room. There was power in the spoken word of princes.

　　Let them all leave, he thought. At least there was peace in the absence of bodies.

　　"Unbind me," he said to the last healer present, and she obeyed.

　　The prince got up and he washed his wound—a wide gash on the temple, bleeding still but only slightly. He felt steady or at least less uncertain. Like the world had stopped spinning. At some point he would reflect on what had happened. For now, the prince was glad to let them go, the thoughts that flowed out as green bodies might, leaving him lonely and alone.

　　From the corner of his eye, he saw a hobbling man head for the exit—one of the many he had compelled into action. His gait too familiar to ignore.

　　"Stop, not you... friend Artisan," said the prince, hesitating a touch as he pronounced the word. Friend. He needed answers first. Now. Not later.

　　Artisan stopped, his body snapping out of the spell the prince had voiced. His eyes grew alight, and the man seemed cordial. But distant. He did not amble over to assess the prince or his wound. Both were confined to their own islands of thought, and the air was tense. Though not quite electric.

　　"My prince," Artisan started...

　　"Am I?" retorted the prince, intent to retain the initiative.

　　"My loyalty is unlike my stance—it never wavers!" Artisan bristled, though he did not draw nearer, sensing danger perhaps. It was hard to guess the ancient man`s mind. It always was. "The aqua vitae, my liege," he continued. "Potent on its own, but thrice so for one newly reborn. You... lost your hold for a while—but it is not like madness." The latter phrase he was quick to add. "The mark is still strong, and how you have grown! Soon you will feel..."

　　"Stop telling me how I will feel," broke in the prince. A puerile phrase fit for a teenaged princeling... but for a man twice reborn, it sounded desperate and small. "There are things going on down here, and though I cannot quite prove what I shall now say, I say it regardless. I am being deceived. My acts and tribulations since hatching green and foul... which part of these was real? Think well before you answer. And don`t say all`—not everything I gained came from fair conquest. There are... actors` of sorts, for lack of a better word. The guards that will not harm me. The..."

　　"Yes," said Artisan. "You are right, though I had hoped to find you less insightful for a time longer." He sighed. "Some reverence is ingrained; Gorkon gives clear orders from time to time—those who harm a mark-bearer are brutalized beyond cognition; doubly so when it involves one with a master-mark—the Blackroses, wielders of the master god-blade Dicebolg, and the men and women of the mire, Feldirk`s line, likewise wielders of a master blade, Caladbrinn of the Fallen Order; although the latter`s blood-bearing offspring have renounced goblinhood... they have their methods, of which I will tell you, if you wish."

　　The prince clenched his jaw, felt his rage grow fell within, for they had indeed deceived him... but also in a way he was relieved. Here was a confession; he had not gone mad, and it had not been merely the drink talking. The matter was not resolved, but the current thread of conversation was appealing also. And so the prince made a guess as to why the newer births among Caladbrinn-wielders are no longer chained to the goblin death. "They are buried in two boxes, the heart and mind separated from the corpse, these men and women of Feldirk`s line?"

　　"Wh... Yes!" Artisan exclaimed, beyond himself from shock. "How did you..."

　　"The Edict of the Crown," said the prince. Grok made me translate it—a forged copy, let me add. It spoke of Baldirk, son of Feldirk the lost king... how his body was buried in parts. A box for the mind, and a box for the heart or soul. And it did set me thinking, friend Artisan... perhaps that is the way to escape as you alluded to in Crucible, but were barred from outright stating. Is that our mission, then? To retrieve our own rotted corpses from the time we were men? To hack up the remains and bury the bits in a fashion more acceptable?"

　　Artisan glowed like a teacher, fortunate to see his prize pupil eclipse him. "Oh my prince, you have no idea how many experience points you will have gathered completing that quest. I am so relieved I must not deprive you of the joy and the gain, the real tangible gain of discovery. Had you pressed me now, I would have told you, but I am so glad it did not come to that."

　　"Will it work?" asked the prince as his heart quickened—the prospect of a path beyond eternal reincarnation in ever-lower green bodies sounded so much like a dream, it might as well be heaven.

　　"I think so." Artisan nodded fiercely up and down. "The corpses of those serving the goblin death are shielded from true rot—we will find our hearts and minds... quite intact inside the skeletal remains. But to sever them requires a god-blade. Now there is a bitter irony—the blades that condemn us are likewise fit to undo the sentence. This one has tried, I will have you know... many goblin deaths ago I had reclaimed Ferignost, and because I do not have a blood right to wield it, I stacked three magiguard gauntlets on my right hand... and barely could I wield it. I was strong then, too—level 30 and a raid leader, my body at maximum capacity. But the blade or I was not strong enough. I stood over my own decomposed body, hacked it apart with all I had... but the bonds would not break. And so my theory is that only a master blade can set us free. Dicebolg—you must reclaim it and do what we need done."

　　The two sat amiably now, reunited by truth and a grand joint purpose.

　　"Still," said the prince, "I have more questions. Too many to count and so I will simply start. How many Blackroses have you guided and why? Have you sworn before, to renew your pledge of fealty? And speak true now, friend, or the kindness between us falls away like frost after winter." Gael. He had not thought of her when he said the words, but now she was here, foremost on his mind. Where she belonged. It soothed him to know there was still space for her there.

　　"Aye, now there`s a question." Leaning back and to the side, Artisan wrenched against discomfort—the hunchbacked burden that was always his. "Five times, my prince. Perhaps more, but five strikes me as right."

　　The prince breathed deep, stretched his burning muscles so they would not act before he could. "So you have a Blackrose routine of sorts? You act hard and uninviting, but gradually lure me and my kin, bestowing magestone gifts and the odd compliment? Then you seek discord once more but find mercy in your frail form, as you faint against a tree... rousing pity in the Blackrose of the day? And so on and on, forging a bond through mistrust and trust, through hardship and small victories? Is that your act, Artisan?"

　　Tears streamed down Artisan`s face as he heard the prince intuit the truth to such great approximation that corrections were undue. "Aye, that is me. I am a coward and a fiend. But let this low one remain what he is also, that I beg you." He looked at the prince in that searching way of his, scouting through tear-stained eyes. "Let me be your friend still."

　　The prince sat still, stirred to some emotion or multitudes thereof, ones he could not place.

　　Artisan stood up, cracked his fist against his hollow chest. "I will tell you my full truth."

　　With a nod from the prince, the man sat back down, farther away... but the prince again intervened, getting up and moving gently, grasping the arm of a man showing shame—the tears were real, the moment true.

　　They sat close together, and the prince patiently waited for his friend to start talking.