Forever!

Yep, for something that was planned on being a daily gig, I have failed pretty hard on posting here.  In any case, I'm releasing my Machine of Death story onto here for public viewing, since it wasn't accepted for the second Machine of Death anthology.  I would love to get me some feedback, leave a comment here if you read it!  I warn you, it's a bit dark, and I haven't touched it since I sent it in.  I'm aware that there are a handful of grammatical issues, but the odd writing style is for the most part intended (and a part of who I am).

(Go here to learn about Machine of Death, so you understand the target.  Without further ado...)

                                                              

Author:  W.Michael DePeel

Name:  KILLED BY THE CROWN

Word Count: 4114

                                                                

“Take it.”

The silhouette of a man and something else wider and larger stood beside him. His breath was labored, and his frequent coughs were wet. He held a small beaker up to the prisoner's mouth.

“What is it?” Her voice belied the hospitality of the dungeon.

“Something to help with the pain.” He quivered as he spoke.

“You're lying. Just like your father.” The man coughed and pretended not to hear.

“Your teeth should break it open when it begins. Don't break it before then, whatever you do. Open up.” She obeyed, and a tear ran down her cheek. He kissed her forehead, and he and his larger shadow turned to leave. He turned for one last look.

I love you.

* * *

Nearly thirty years ago, Talarn of the Ironborne was pulled from his mother's womb. The wet-nurse held the child while the father let a few drops of blood from the bottom of his tiny foot collect into a small cup. Jared Ironborne took his son and placed him on the worried mother's breast, and the wet-nurse wrapped the newborn's foot. He turned to leave the room with the cup.

“Jared, I won't let them kill our son, no matter what the king divines from that.” His wife never believed in this ritual. Of course, I wouldn't want to believe in the ritual either, if my parents told me I would be BOILED IN OIL, he thought. Her brother's son had been deemed at birth as a threat to the kingdom, and through her nephew's death her hatred of the throne was born. She hadn't been quiet about any of it, often stating that the villages would be better off without the king and his keep.

He paused without turning. His voice was calm and commanding, but hopeless, as if he knew the words were futile as he spoke them.

“If the bells toll from the towers, run woman, run.”

He rushed from underneath the thatched roof of their hut. The night air was humid as he made his way from the village that was huddled together at the base of the mountain, as small as ants at the roots of an oak. The stronghold was nestled in a throng of mountain peaks. Amidst the towering black silhouette, the only way in or out was lit up with torches, a cave opening between the slopes and ridges where one would wait for the rotating platforms to ascend to the top. To walk there from his home village usually set him back a half hour.

The guards there assessed him wearily as he arrived. One peered into his cup, waved the other guards and went to the large lifting wheel, gesturing for Jared to climb onto the plank that hung there by a great chain. Above him the chain wavered into what was mostly darkness, though he saw the flickers of torchlight bouncing off the ridges as the cave wound back and forth. It was a slow ascent until the guards atop saw their wheel moving and pushed as well.

Jared brushed away the sweat from his brow and held onto the log railing of the lift. What if the result is the same as our nephew? Will I stand aside and allow them to kill my firstborn? Would it make a difference, if that is his fate? He had known his brother-in-law for many years, and they had been friends then. After the tragedy, the man seemed different. Hollow. Will I stand aside, only to live a hollow life? The sound of feasting and merriment trickled down the slick black walls of the cave, amidst the flowing rainwater. Rough-hewn cave turned to foundation and slab and brick and mortar.

Numbly, nervously, he walked into the foyer, the great hall that was infested with the nobleman and ladies that had been chosen to live within the walls by the same divination that he was about to take part in. The same divination that chose his own fate to lead the low-born of his village. His father had told him what the King said for his own divination. It was one word. SACRIFICE. He was six years old then, and his father's eyes had searched his own as he spoke the word, plagued by knowing and yet not knowing his son's demise. Even from that age, Jared never wanted to tell his own child how they would die, and wanted even less to know. His father had been a leader of the low-born as well, and as he slowed in labor from old age, he had died at the hands of a noble family. More accurately, they gave the order for his death, and the guards carried it out. The King then appointed Jared as the new leader, liaison of the rich to the poor, and they thought he should be happy for it.

As such, Jared was accustomed to pleasing the high-born, bowing and doling pleasantries. It made him feel as if he were praising dogs for keeping their waste outside the walls of his house.

“Oho, I should have known you could finish that bottle on your own! A spectacle as always, sire!” he said to the man who grinned through his chugging. Wine ran from his mouth and down his chin to grow the fresh stain on his shirt. What death belonged to them that they are awarded with a life of vanity and luxury? What would the King see in SACRIFICE to appoint me a leader of low-born?

Through the dim-lit halls and up the stairs he passed, to the throne room. King Wrant sat there on the throne he inherited. A couple with a newborn was before the throne, and they passed a cup decorated with beads to the king in angst.

The ritual had been upheld for countless generations by kings prior, and when it was time for a crown-bearer to die, a new heir would take his life and resume their work. His highness took the cup, added the water to the drops of blood and drank. Wrant's eyes rolled white and his mouth gaped. In a monotone he pronounced:

“DEFENDING THE KING.”

The mother inhaled sharply and hugged her son tight. The king blinked after a time, and his eyes returned to their normal positions. “He shall be raised and brought to squire at the end of his boyhood, to join the knight's order. This I decree.” The crowd of nobility and royalty present in the room clapped and cheered at this. His parents, overjoyed, thanked Wrant as they bowed over and over, all the way out of the room.

Eyes fell onto Jared as he brought his own clay cup forth. He handed it over to the guard to escort it to the throne.

“Who's fate is this? Is this not the blood of a newborn?” The king asked as he eyed the contents. Jared knelt and bowed low.

“Your majesty. Nobles and ladies.” Jared breathed out with a quiver as he began. His wife would have known he was lying from that alone. Lying is lying, he thought, but the tale is true – from a certain point of view. “I beg for your pardons. An unknown man came out of the wild and into my home, and I wish to know what his fate will be. He seemed an honest man, but even the most virtuous men can betray us if they bring the Plague with them. He didn't want to be bled, which made me suspicious, and so I forced it out of him.”

King Wrant looked down to the blood again with disdain.

“You would have me drink some rogue's blood, eh?” He glanced at his subjects on either side of him as he added the water. “So be it.” He drank, and his eyes rolled white once more.

“EATEN ALIVE.”

Jared's heart sank. What a terrible death, and I cannot save him from it. Everyone gasped at this pronouncement, and then went to speculating. He tried to think of a way to get out of his lie and confess the truth of his new son.

“Maybe he's a nomad, eaten by a mountain lion?”

“Pack of wolves!” This pained Jared to think upon.

Wrant's eyes did not return to normal. Instead, his mouth frothed and drool ran over his lip. He stood, and everyone grew silent, staring. The king ran to the nearest noble and began tearing at his neck with blood-stained teeth. The fat noble screamed and cried for help, but all stood and watched as he flailed at the air.

Jared took the sword of a guard that stood frozen, swung the sword up in an arc, and beheaded the King.

* * *

Since that night, Jared Ironborne was king. With the old king passed many old traditions. He no longer allowed the drunkards to continue their exclusive claim to the courts and keep. Instead, the palace was opened to the inhabitants that were within reach of the crown. New windows and vistas were carved out of the walls, and the keep was no longer a place for gloom to gather. The low-born were brought to dine with the leader they had always followed, and eventually they replaced the old nobility altogether. The old king was nearly forgotten.

However, the tradition withstood, that whoever ended the life of an old king would take his place on the throne – and consequently be subjected to performing the blood-rite of any who request it. The nobles taught Jared that kings had no special powers of blood-seeing, that it was in fact the crown that granted the ability. It had passed through hands of kings since the beginnings of recorded history.

Within the first few years of his reign he had performed the blood-rite only a handful of times, but he was not the infant-dooming tyrant his predecessor had been. Jared decreed the ritual was no longer mandatory, but could never deny it to anyone within his realm. After the following years of performing the ritual, he never understood what Wrant divined from someone's death that decided how they should live.

The fool, to think that he was obeying a higher power when the blood-rite said “KILLED BY THE CROWN” of a newborn. In reality, because the man existed and had fear of traitors and murderers, he took his toll on the fate of nearly children in his lands for the last ten years. Though he likely didn't know, he caused their fates. Even if that death sentence had existed without the old king, it certainly could have been referring to the king commanding them to a war, or by serving the crown-bearer any number of ways. Jared voiced this to his advisors in the early days of his reign.

“My king,” Arclay, the fattest of his council began with hesitation, “Not all infants that were named with that fate died following the ritual.”

King Ironborne's brow furrowed, and he prompted Arclay to continue. Arclay was sweating through his robes and eyed the rest of the council. Jared didn't feel that the temperature of the keep had ever warranted sweat, but Arclay was probably the largest man he had ever seen. “Your majesty. You were not killed at birth.”

“But I was told by my father that my death would be that of SACRIFICE. You and the entire court were there to bear witness.”

“Your father lied. You were born when the Crown deaths came to fruition, and your mother had tried to run away with you when you were born. Your father reined her in and brought you both before us. When the blood-rite confirmed you were among the crown deaths, she begged to take your place. The council asked what her death was, and -”

“SACRIFICE.” Jared said with a voice of stone. He tried to rub the grief off of his face. He wanted to move on. “Without the deceased king around, the crown deaths should stop -” he eyed the councilman's indecisive faces. “The blood-rite is absolute, and they were only to die because the man existed, misinterpreting what 'KILLED BY THE CROWN' could mean.” The silence grew thick. “Am I wrong?”

Jared was right. The years that followed brought no more crown deaths, but his people still followed the tradition that Wrant started, though it was no longer required. Seeing each innocent infant's eventual end of their life during the blood-rite depressed Jared. He understood the heavy weight of the crown as more years flew by, and how the old king gained an apathy for it. But the crown was second in his thoughts. The first was the fate of his son, and how his blood seemed to turn the old king cannibalistic. The head rolled down the stairs of the throne's dais, over and over in his dreams, the eyes still rolled white. Over time, he began to see his own face.

During Prince Talarn's childhood, his father kept a close eye on him, watching for unusual behavior, and keeping him from any form of blood loss he was available to prevent. His wife assumed that the old king simply acquired a hunger for flesh after years of drinking his kingdom's blood, and made no extra-special care to prevent the child's harm.

Talarn grew fond of hunting in his adolescent years. On one occasion, he and his father traveled deep into the lands outside the kingdom not yet subdued by civilization. The expanse of close-knit forest held no interest for anyone save for the prince. After making camp with the horses in a damp, mossy clearing, night fell starless and void. Torches were set on the black perimeter of the low craggy trees, and the kings-guard that accompanied them roasted a handful of rabbits on a makeshift spit. Talarn listened to their jokes, understanding less than half of the merriment but enjoying the company regardless.

Branches snapped and splintered, and trees bent out of the way to a large silver bear, its bony back as tall as a man as it bolted towards the group on all fours. The fire held no fear or wonderment for it, and it tore into the spit, eating the cooked meat and even the wood that ran through it. The king flew out of his tent, but waited there as to not scare the beast into attacking. Please, he prayed to gods he wanted to believe existed and listened. Please don't make me witness his fate.

A few of the scattered guards slipped in close to retrieve Talarn from the ground, only a few feet at its side. The prince was frozen, staring up at the bear. The guards' hands made Talarn cry out as they took hold of his arms, and the bear took notice of him, matching his transfixion. A coal popped out of the fire and burned the beast's paw, and it charged away faster than it appeared. It dropped the remains of their dinner into the fire.

Talarn took a blazing branch out of the fire and ran after it. The kings-guard were too slow to catch him in their plate mail. Jared ran. He carried no light into the woods after his son, but saw a dwindling flame not far in front of him. His son was sitting leaned against a tree, bleeding in an arc from shoulder to navel where the jaws of the beast had closed on him.

“It was afraid of me.” He said through labored breathing, yet his face showed no trace of pain in the shadows of dying firelight. He was in shock, Jared knew. His father knelt in front of him and wrapped his torso tight in his insignia cloak. Talarn watched as Jared handled him like he was the beast himself, avoiding his son's blood as if lava flowed from the wounds. “It looked upon me the way you do now, when it eyed me by the fire.” He coughed blood, and pain had shown on his face then, but it wasn't from his physical wound. “I surprised it here as I ran to follow it...ran into it. But once it held me in its teeth, it flung me and fled again.” The arm that hung below the bloodied shoulder was limp and lifeless.

Before Jared could respond and offer words of reassurance, the beast emerged from the shadows and bowled him over. Talarn screamed as loud as he was able with half of his chest rising and falling.

“No! Stop!” Jared scrambled back towards his son as the bear had halted. It stood on hind legs, and though the light had died then, Jared saw. It had blank white eyes.

* * *

The prince survived that night, but was permanently scarred with a paralyzed arm, and a crushed lung leashed him from sprinting the halls of the castle ever again. His new pet more than made up for it in his mind. Over the years he became known for his bear companion. The Ironbear, the Bear Prince, Talarn Bear-Scar, and so on. His father did not approve of the beast being within the walls of civilization, and especially not within the castle, and the guards approved even less when the prince and his bear would come and go from the keep's lifts.

The king and his son grew even more distant as Talarn became a man. Though Jared hadn't told his son exactly what happened to the old king, he was sure Talarn had heard rumors and stories over the years. He swore everyone to silence that bore witness regarding his son's blood-rite, however, and even his wife was in the dark about it. She had asked recently what had all happened that night, and he said to her that Wrant simply turned feral, and no fate was announced for Talarn. His voice quivered. She then thanked him for not performing the ritual on him since he became the king.

Only a few days after that conversation, Jared's wife tried to kill him. They were in his bedchamber, and he had just mentioned his distaste for the bear. She carried his sword in its scabbard to hang it on its hook, and unsheathed it instead.

“Your loyalty -” She yelled as she swung the blade that would have cloven his head and arm if he hadn't bent over while undressing. “to the kingdom,” she chased him across the room at swordpoint, “to the ritual! Your family has always fell second to your loyalty!” She landed the point into his shoulder, through to the wall. “If I kill you, your half-truths, and destroy that cursed crown then maybe Talarn would...” The head of the kings-guard charged through the door and struck the sword from her hand. Jared held his shoulder and tried to stop him.

“Sire, the penalty for plotting the king's death is something that cannot be averted for anyone. It is absolute.” Though the head guard spoke these words, his tone reflected his doubt. Jared's face turned with a smirk, but there was a sadness in his eyes.

“If you only believed, realized that the blood-rite was never wrong, you would know that it is not your place to kill me.”

It was after the announcement of her sentence that the king and his son truly grew distanced. Her execution took place the next week, at dawn, in the middle of the village where it all began. The council recommended that the remaining Ironbornes should not attend, and instead stay within the walls of the keep. Jared found Talarn in the feasting halls with his giant companion in the afternoon. He led his son from there to the throne room, bear in tow.

“This is where it happened. Where the old king went mad and turned cannibal.” Talarn knew this was about him. About his blood. The bear sat and leaned against the sill of a brick-bordered window and sniffed at the air. “It's obvious that I put his life to an end. I'm the king because of it. Even the king before him drank Wrant's fate, and told him he would die by an IRONBORNE.” Jared wondered countless times over the years if Wrant knew that he drank death that night, in that old clay cup.

“You've never told me my fate, father, and denied me the blood-rite time and again, which is against the foundation of the tradition that you are sworn to uphold. You'll take the secret with you to your grave, I'm sure.” His son looked to the floor. “Will you not perform the ritual for fear that you would be as the old king was when he drank my blood?”

The king was caught off-guard.

“Who told you that?”

“Mother.” Damn that stubborn woman. He had loved her once. Since he became king, he only saw her at formalities and in passing over the years. She had wanted more kids, and he didn't want to risk another child of theirs onto the world without knowing what it was. Jared realized then that by speaking his concern of Talarn at that moment, he only fed her anger toward the ritual - and his loyalty. He remembered what she had said as she swung the sword. She must have squeezed one of the old nobles for the truth, but not hard enough to unearth Talarn’s fate.

“Son, you know as well as I do that I couldn't stop her execution. The penalty for attempting to take the life of a king before his time is a severe one, and not my own decision.”

“I know, father. It was her fate, I just wish...” So do I my son, so do I.

Jared sighed and walked to the bear at the northern window. It had its head rested with its nose sticking outside to catch the wind. He had never acknowledged the beast, or even touched it. He pet its shoulder and then slowly the top of its head.

“You named him Ganz. That's a word of the old tongue. What does it mean?”

“His full name is Ganz'Dai'Ganz. Blood of my blood.” His father's hand stopped on its head in mid-stroke. “I have a secret too, father, but I never wanted anyone to know.” Talarn guided the bear back to standing in front of them. “Feel his chest, feel his heartbeat.” Jared nearly had to stand on the end of his toes to reach, but could not find any movement or rhythm under the silvery fur. “He is dead, and yet he walks and does as I bid. My blood leaves death in its wake, yet the creature lives even in death.” Screams echoed through the keep, and the sound of steel unsheathing. “I believe that Wrant was feral just as Ganz was feral for your blood in those dark woods, but I was not old enough to command the old king.”

“So you control the dead then, is that the way of it?” Talarn smiled at his father, and swept his hand out the window, taking in the whole view of the villages. Jared knew his death was coming soon, but couldn't understand how. He could see movement all around on the ground, and shortly thereafter more screams, and metal clanging. Smoke and fire erupted from the thatched roofs. Jared looked at his son, blankly. “Those are all undead? You've been busy of late, my son.”

“Yes, I lead the dead. You'll join them, and I will have your crown, leading the kingdom under my blood.”

“But how will you kill me? I am to be KILLED BY THE CROWN.” Talarn responded by gesturing toward the precipice behind him. Jared saw it: a staggering corpse, seared and covered in black tar. It made its way to them. It moaned as it stood there, swaying.

“Take his crown. Take your revenge with it, mother, but be mindful not to ruin it entirely... I'm going to have need of it.”

As the bear held him while the corpse delivered blow after blow with the jagged crown, Jared thought of the army of undead that headed toward the keep, and took a tandem comfort in one thing: he got his way. Jared never told his son how he was going to die.