The Third Kingdom

“What was that knife?” he asked Vika in a flat, hoarse voice.

“The one he used to cut you with?”

Richard nodded, not wanting to have to summon his voice again if he could help it.

Vika leaned close to his ear so that he could hear over the rumbling thunder of the chanting. She watched Hannis Arc to be sure he was busy. He wondered if she did not want to incur his wrath for disturbing him, or if there was another reason.

“It’s a knife made by the Shun-tuk,” Vika said. “Lord Arc has several weapons made by the Shun-tuk. The Shun-tuk say that their knives can slay the dead.”

“They talk?”

“When they want to.”

Richard wasn’t quite sure that he understood what that meant—a knife that could slay the dead—but he judged it clear enough that he didn’t feel the need to press for an explanation. He spotted a number of those dead that had been brought back from their graves and pressed into service as guardians for the Shun-tuk’s underground prison. Now, they stood like stiff corpses around the perimeter of the cavern, their eyes glowing red as they watched the proceedings from the shadows. Richard knew all too well that if they wanted they could move with surprising speed.

He supposed that if they got out of control for some reason known only to the dead or the half people, having a weapon that could put them down would be handy, if not invaluable. Richard had fought the awakened dead. They were not easy to defeat. It was a difficult task, even with his sword.

He wished he still had his sword with him. He knew that in this place filled with the half people and the walking dead it wouldn’t be likely to do him a lot of good in fighting his way out, but it would still be comforting to have it at his hip.

If nothing else he might be able to be quick enough with it to hack the dead king to bits.

When he looked back to the altar just beyond Hannis Arc, Richard’s breath halted in his lungs when he saw the corpse take a breath.

A transparent, bluish, ghostlike form now lay in the same place as the king’s body. That filmy form began to stir. When it did, the body also stirred. The two, spirit body and dead body, moved as one. It looked like the corpse was possessed by a translucent ghost.

When the Shun-tuk saw the movement on the platform down at the center of the room, some of them howled in jubilation. Others cried out in what might have been fright. They were, after all, seeing a king who had the power to return to the world of life. This was not only a master to be honored, respected, and followed, but one to be greatly feared as well. Although this was something they had all wanted, the reality of seeing it actually happen was intimidating.

This was also a new beginning for them, a new era. After several thousand years of waiting, the gates to their land were open and at long last they had a real king. A king, Richard feared, who would lead them out through those gates on a mission of conquest and domination.

Richard could tell that Vika, even though she had played a role in helping it come to pass, was disquieted by what she was seeing.

Richard hated that he was the one, though, who had played the pivotal role in bringing this evil man back to the world of life. This was a man who in an age long past had rained death and destruction down on the world. Now he was back, and Richard didn’t think that his stay in the underworld had mellowed him.

Without Richard, none of it would have been possible. The Shun-tuk might have played a part, Vika might have played a part, and Hannis Arc had certainly played a part, but Richard was the one who had made it possible.

He had the potential for both in him—death as well as life. He was of this kingdom. He carried life and death in him. Good and evil mixed together. He was the one.

Richard was the leader of the D’Haran Empire. He had been named fuer grissa ost drauka, High D’Haran for “the bringer of death.”

He had just served in his role as the bringer of death. He had just helped spawn a great evil by bringing death back into the world of life.

He knew that it was up to him to find a way to bring it to an end. There was no one else who had a chance to do anything to stop this.

All he had to do, he reminded himself, was to escape the clutches of Hannis Arc, a Mord-Sith, and untold thousands of half people who could raise an army of the dead. After that, he only needed to end prophecy.

And, he had to keep himself alive long enough.

The glowing figure of the king sat up. The Shun-tuk gasped with excitement and wonder.

It was a terrifying sight to see a dead man awaken, even for them, but especially for Richard, and especially because of what it meant.