The small band of "heroes," less one, regrouped on the steps of the castle ruins after fleeing over a very rickety bridge - the only easy way over the castle's moat. Gerald, for the first time in his life, was giving orders. His first order of business was getting rid of that bridge. He was about to use his magic when he had second thoughts, pulled a knife out of his cloak and cut the already frayed ropes tying it to their side. It fell with an underwhelming splat, sending bits of mud and algae all over his cloak.
"Oh, that was nicely done, Gerald," a familiar voice called from behind. Gerald jumped, the werewolves yipped, and Arien stood there with his mouth agape. The Wizard was slowly climbing over the ruins behind them (a route they thought was safe from intruders) and several other people were climbing down after him.
"What are you doing here?" Gerald demanded.
"I've always wanted to tour these ruins, and these architects," he waived to the men and women behind him, "were getting together a group to come and take one of the tours advertised by the cult who lives on these lands, so I thought now would be as good a time as any. Unfortunately the cult seems to have gone off somewhere."
"Was now really the best time for this thing?" Gerald said dryly.
"Mmm, yes, well, no time like the present if we're all going to be annihilated on the 'morrow. Am I right?" Said the Wizard.
"What's this about annihilation?" One of the architects called.
"It's what happened to the castle..."
"I thought that was seven hundred years ago..."
"Did someone say tomorrow?"
"I say, the craftsmanship on these stones is magnificent, nothing like we get today. Everyone wants their building done yesterday, with no account for the time it takes to produce real...oh, am I interrupting something?"
The last architect was making his way down from above completely unaware of everything else going on. He pushed his red glasses up onto his nose and looked around, getting the feeling things weren't quite the same as they'd been when they went up.
He was right.
There was now a small army of rabid salespeople ascending the low hill that led up to the castle ruins, carrying whatever kind of weapon they could find, and all wearing their OMEGA SHAVE outfits. The werewolves spread out against the edge of the moat as the first line of defense, and Gerald and the Wizard were readying balls of fire to throw. Arien's pants had randomly turned up and he was making them into a sling to throw rocks.
"At least there's a moat*," Arien said, ready to find the silver-lining in any situation.
The others looked at the moat, looked at Arien, and then all the architects save one began scrambling back up the ruins as quickly as they could go.
"I've always wanted to be in a fight," said the one who stayed.
This is exactly what idiots who have never been in fights usually say. He was actually quite tall, and muscular (which is saying something given his chosen profession, whose members don't often see the light of day), and dabbled in martial arts as a form of exercise.
"Arien, look out!" Gerald shouted, and Arien ducked just in time to avoid having his head cut off by an axe.
"Hey!" yelled the architect, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" He was, in fact, exactly the same size as the elf who had just tried to take off Arien's head.
The architect deftly avoided an axe chop and with unexpected speed for a man of his size, shot in close for an upper cut to the elf's chin. The elf, who hadn't ever fought anyone before, and who'd never been punched in the face, collapsed and began sobbing about something called "premiums." The architect momentarily felt bad, but then grabbed the discarded axe and sped off to help the werewolves who were being overwhelmed by mad salesmen -and saleswomen.
Arien noticed another elf, scrawnier like himself, awkwardly wading through the moat, holding a bejeweled scimitar high in the air to ensure it stayed dry. Arien loaded a rock into his sling and spun it around his head faster and faster, finally letting it fly. It did not hit its mark. In truth, it didn't hit anywhere close. But it did hit another rock, which made a loud noise, which made the elf spin too quickly and slip in the slimy waters. Down he went, instinctively throwing the scimitar high into the air.
Arien leapt up and caught the sword, which luckily was coming down hilt first, and immediately a warmth spread over his body. Hair sprouted where there had been little before, and he suddenly felt much manlier than ever before. He almost felt man-enough to pull off wearing a leather jacket. He did a couple passes with the scimitar and it felt natural in his hand.
What neither Arien, nor the very moist elf who was dragging himself out the far side of the moat gagging in disgust knew was that this was a perfectly legitimate recreation of the original aquatic ceremony which had gave the Old Kings their divine mandate to rule the Kingdom.
The old magic, which bound the Kings to their land, was once again in play, and Arien's Second Sight also intensified with his manhood. He looked up at the tower and yelled to Gerald as he sped down the hillside to join the fight against the salesmen (and saleswomen). What Arien saw, and interpreted correctly, was a darkness gathering on the top of the tower, and the Harvest Moon rising slowly over the treetops.
Lorred and Onyx transported themselves to the top of the tower for a better view of the battle below, and some much needed father-daughter time.
"Well, my dear, we finally have some privacy," Lorred said.
"Soon we'll have all the time in the world," Onyx replied. "Well, the universe. I guess the world won't be here for much longer." There was an odd tone to the last bit which made Lorred look at her.
"Of course not, but then you've never really liked this world anyway. You've been held back this whole time. Once I'm completely freed from my prison you'll never be held back by anything ever again. You shall be the Dark Queen, with more power than you can dream of," he said.
Onyx was confused. "Aren't you already free?"
"You mean this body? No, this is only my form here on earth. The rest of me is still trapped in that annoying prison hidden amongst the stars."
Onyx considered this.
"I guess I'm just trying to figure out where I fit into all of this. If my powers come from you, won't you just consume me once you're free? Just like you'll consume everything else?"
"No, of course not. There's no need for me to take back what powers I've given to you. I'll have plenty of power, and I don't mind sharing." (He was lying - he absolutely did mind sharing.)
"You're lying," Onyx said, she always knew when people were lying. It was a gift, or maybe a curse, she didn't know which.
"I hate lying, it's not nearly as fun, nor as destructive as the truth. How can I trust you if you lie to me?"
"Trust me?! I'm the Dark Lord, why would you trust me?"
"Because you're my father! Aren't children supposed to be able to trust their fathers? Shouldn't children at the very least expect their parents not to lie to them?" (Parents everywhere commence sad laughter)
Now admittedly, Onyx couldn't really remember any of her other parents - having caused their deaths and whatnot - and the Dark Lord had never parented anyone, so they were both coming at this parent-child relationship with a complete lack of either innate knowledge or adequate role models. This led to an uncomfortable silence, during which Rose, who'd crawled forth from the recesses of her mind, made a play for dominant consciousness.
While this decidedly poor father-daughter moment was happening at the top of the tower, Gerald had been doing his best to figure out how to get into the bottom of it.
He'd tried climbing up the outside, but after falling off after the second step, decided maybe that wasn't the best way. He would have asked the Wizard for help, but the Wizard had to run off when several salesmen (only salesmen this time) forded the moat on the other side of the ruins and threatened to attack their group from behind. Gerald was about to give up when one of the other architects who'd been hiding popped her head out from behind some rocks.
"Do you think you could keep it down? I don't want anyone to notice we're hiding back here."
Gerald went off like a firework, and gave her a verbal lashing like she hadn't had since her first year in architecture school when her professor found out she was designing things "because she liked them that way," rather than the profound BS which was required to support all architectural designs.
"Well if you wanted a way in you could have just asked," she said. "The main entrance is blocked, but that tower holds more than 50 people so it has to have two means of egress. The other door is over here."
She took him over some rocks, and down into a small cave, and sure enough, there was a small door. He opened it and found Fate, sitting with her legs crossed, bouncing her foot like she'd been waiting for him longer than she wanted.
"Took you long enough," she chided.
"Maybe you could have just opened the door?" Gerald replied drily.
"You know I can't do things like that. That would be like picking a side, and I can't do that."
He glared at her. "Fine, but I'm going to need you to give me that," he said, pointing at a silver ring on her left middle finger which held a large, shimmering, black stone."
Fate smiled, "I thought you'd never ask," she said as she pulled it off and tossed it to him. "This time, don't lose it." She headed toward the door.
"Wait, where are you going? You're not going to just disappear again are you?"
"Don't worry, I wouldn't miss this! I love a good reckoning. Don't get to see those but once a century, and this one is extra good because...well you know, there could be an apocalypse. It's so exciting, I'm on the edge of my seat. Which way will it go?" Fate said.
"Which way... wait a minute, aren't you supposed to know?" Gerald cried.
"Who me? No, that's all on Destiny's side. I know, I know, so many people get us mixed up, but really we're not at all the same," Fate said.
"Err... what's the difference?" Gerald said sheepishly. He hadn't ever considered they weren't one and the same.
"I am what occurs when people follow the path laid out before them without any thought to their own ability to change it. Destiny is what happens when people realize they have the ability to shape the path laid before them. Same ending, perhaps, but sometimes choosing the path less traveled can make all the difference," Fate said.
Gerald was very confused, but didn't want to seem like an idiot.
"Anyway, that moon is rising, and you've got two hundred steps in front of you. If you're going to get her that ring in time, maybe you should stop chatting with me, and start climbing?"
"Just tell me, is there any hope?" He asked. "Rose isn't herself anymore. Onyx won that battle."
Fate shook her head and slipped out the door calling, "Spoilers!"
It took Gerald another seven minutes of very heavy breathing and several breaks to reach the top of the tower. Rose had just made her bid for domination as he threw open the trap door.
"Rose!" Gerald called, as he lobbed the ring to her.
It sailed through the air, glinting in the moonlight, and landed in the palm of her waiting hand. She turned it over once.
"Thanks Gerald," she said, caught slightly off guard. She turned it over a second time, as Lorred D'Kay noticed what she had.
He lunged for the ring as she transferred it to her other hand, and turned it over for a third time.
Mid-lunge there was a POP and a whooshing noise and Lorred was thrown back against the far wall of the tower. Where the tower was previously quiet and as peaceful as a tower with the ultimate evil standing on it could be, it was now overly crowded with old men in multi-colored cloaks, and several women in gowns, and filled with noisy complaints.
"It's about time!"
"I say, that's much better."
"Where are we?"
"...speaking of time, when are we?"
"I'm the Queen, I should be asking the questions."
"Really, Rosemary, we've been trapped in that damn purgatory for how long now? You can't think pulling rank will do you any good now, do you?"
"Do you think there's a bathroom nearby? I suddenly have to pee for the first time in an eternity."
"Rosemary?" Lorred D'Kay's voice broke the cacophony.
"Yes? Who's speaking? Byron, do move over, I can't see a thing," a melodic voice wove through the crowd as they parted for a spectacular woman.
She was the most beautiful woman Rose had ever seen, with tumbling dark curls and buttery skin, and Rose felt an emotion rise within her which she'd never felt before.
"Mama?"
The woman looked at Rose. Then she looked at Lorred D'Kay, and after an unreadable expression, she walked forward and wrapped her arms around Rose. The woman smelled of rosemary and a summer's day, and Rose melted into her buxom bosom.
Rose wanted to ask so many questions, but before she could get any out Lorred D'Kay interrupted with several of his own.
"Rosemary? Didn't you die? How are you here? What is going on? Can you please talk some sense into your daughter?"
The queen, who's name was Rosemary, and who Rose had been named for, narrowed her eyes at Lorred.
"Oh, so the moment she doesn't listen to you she's 'my' daughter?" The Queen asked.
The cloaked men, who were the Mage Society's Board of Directors, trapped in the time bubble with Rose's mother, were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this family reunion of sorts. Gerald signaled to them from the trap door and they followed him out of the tower. The other women who had been in the room, mainly midwives, followed, hoping for a bathroom. There wasn't one.
"...you wouldn't know it by the way she's acting. And you didn't answer my other questions," Lorred exclaimed.
"It's a long story," the Queen argued, "and the moment I appear you start on with these accusations that I'M not evil enough, and it's MY humanity that's screwing her up. How long has it been, Lorred, and yet here you are, going on about the same tired arguments we were having seven hundred years ago.
"Maybe I'm not feeling quite so evil as I once was. Maybe I'm happy for her to not to go around killing people. You're the whole reason she was fated to cause the apocalypse in the first place. Do you know what it's like being the parent of a child who is a killer?" the Queen exclaimed. "It's drastically affected my popularity."
"That's right, your popularity. Now the truth comes out..."
They went round and round until Rose felt like a piece of meat being fought over by two greedy bears.
"Ugh, I'm beginning to think these two might be the worst," a thought from Onyx rose unbidden to her mind.
"Me too," she replied. "If I'm going to destroy anything it might just be them."
Onyx chuckled.
Rose looked inward and contemplated her dark half. In many ways her father was right - they weren't that different after all. She was a bit more good, and Onyx was a bit more bad, but overall she felt like most "normal" people she met weren't that far off being half-evil themselves.
"I think I misjudged you," Rose said. "Perhaps I've been unfair to keep you walled off, though in my defense, it wasn't a conscious action."
"I appreciate that, and I'm sorry I've caused you so much trouble. I just wanted to be given a chance, but you never seemed to notice I was there, so I kept having to come up with ways to get you to notice me," Onyx replied.
"If that's all you wanted, I'm happy to give it a trial run. What do you think, would you join me?" Rose reached out to her.
"To destroy everything?" Onyx asked, timidly.
"No, to save most things, and destroy some things, but mostly just to experience life."
Onyx thought about this. She'd never been invited to anything before. She'd always wanted to be invited to things, even if she couldn't go. She didn't quite know how to respond.
"I've always wanted to try a pyramid scheme," said Onyx. "Especially if I could call it something else to confuse people and make them think it wasn't a pyramid scheme. If I join you, do you think we could do that?"
"That's a deal," Rose said, embracing her dark half.
In that moment, as the Harvest Moon rose fully over the top of the tower, aligning with the other planets to create the potential for the Dark Lord to finally break free of his prison, Onyx Rose accepted herself fully and completely. A chill ran through her body and the stars sang as she came fully into her powers.
Lorred D'Kay, sensing his moment's arrival, broke off his argument with the Queen to look expectantly at his daughter.
"Are you ready?" He asked.
Onyx Rose looked at him, and studied the ring on her finger. Before he could do anything she struck with all of her power, enhanced by the celestial axes, and urged on by her friend's yells below as they battled the dwindling armies of evil.
Her magic swirled around Lorred, who was dumbstruck and powerless to stop her. Onyx Rose held out her hand, the ring on her left middle finger, where Fate had worn it previously, and slowly Lorred D'Kay was drawn, screaming, into the ring. His screams became fainter and fainter until finally he was gone.
At once, the chemical potency, as well as the inexplicable draw of OMEGA SHAVE's marketing scheme, lessened. The salespeople who weren't too far gone woke up as if from a daze, and found themselves amongst blood and gore and other salespeople, and ran as fast as they could back to their homes. The others were quickly dispatched, and the now-considerably-larger band of heroes collapsed on the ground, completely exhausted and congratulating themselves on narrowly avoiding the apocalypse (some twice over), or death by salesmen.
Onyx Rose and the Queen emerged from the tower and were overwhelmed with their welcome. Arien and Gerald were relieved to see their friend was mostly herself again. The architects emerged from their hiding places, and immediately began discussing the way the castle was built with the Mage Society Board of Directors. The Board conjured a celebratory feast for everyone, and they decided to sleep in the shelter of the ruins since they were too exhausted to go anywhere else until morning. After some conference with the Wizard, they conjured a birthday cake for Onyx Rose, who, for the first time in her life, blew out candles on her actual birthday. She didn't wish for anything.**
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Next Time on The Dark Heir...
There are unexpected consequences.
Seafood buffets prove to be a poor choice.
There is a lot of Firewine***
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*
The moat in question was basically a glorified pond encircling the castle ruins, and wouldn't have stopped any reasonably sized animal, much less an army. It's only menacing quality was the thick green algae covering its top, and the distinct smell which came from dead things and pine pollen rotting in a watery grave. It was impressively disgusting, though unimpressive in every other way.
**
Not because she didn't want anything, but because she didn't know it was an option. Had she wished for something it probably would have been a hot bath, a warm bed, and a reasonable outfit that wasn't made of wool.
***
Gerald dives headfirst off the proverbial (and literal) wagon, and realizes he's made a huge mistake - the literal diving, not the proverbial diving.