Location: Fubar, capital of Orkney
Timeline: Sixth Age, 52nd Year, Winter
The iron gates of Fubar’s inner sanctum groaned shut, sealing the merchant’s daughter and her maid away from the wind. and the horrors of their journey north. For Lynsy and Tiffania, the transition from the wagon to the palace was a dizzying blur of sensory overload, though they were in no state to understand half of what was going on around them.
When Kaoz had first delivered the good – he brought the girls out of the wagon with a brutal jerk of their rusted chains. Lynsy and Tifffania, so weak from the journey, immediately collapsed in the courtyard. They were a sight that defied imagination. Skeletal and shivering, their skin had turned a translucent, sickly grey from weeks of starvation and cold. Their feet, bare and purpled, were a roadmap of jagged scabs and blackened toes. The heavy, blood-caked furs of the Myz’s road victims clung to them like a curse, emitting a stench of rot and old sweat that made even the gritty palace guards recoil.
Ramssee stepped forward first, The Royal Steward’s eyes narrowing as he adjusted his heavy velvet robes. He didn’t look at the girls with pity, but with the cold irritation of a merchant who had received damaged goods. He turned a sharp, burning gaze toward Kaoz.
“You animal,” Ramssee spat, his voice a low, dangerous hiss. “I told you to bring the girl, not a pair of half-dead corpses. Look at them! They’re barely breathing. How am I supposed to secure a ransom for a wedding for a woman who looks like she’s already been buried?”
Kaoz didn’t answer; he simply bared his razor-teeth in a mirthless grin, his black-void eyes fixed on the Regent. “And?” He threatened.
“Be gone.” Ramssee waved the Myz away.
After a tense moment, Kaoz silently complied – unhitching his war horse and leaving the scene – for which everyone was grateful.
Meanwhile King Diked stood paralyzed. He well remember Lynsy Finch from his prior visits. She was always a vision of light and beautfy. Now, seeing the wretched, filth-strewn creature trembling in the mud, he was visibly repulsed. He took a half-step back, his hand rising to cover his nose, his face contorting in a mask of disgust.
“This… this is Lynsy?” Diked stammered, his voice thin and high. “She’s a monster. She smells of the grave! Ramssee, I cannot be expected to… to touch that.”
The only one who seemed to take pleasure in the sight was Monnik – the king’s consort. She stood slightly behind Diked, her eyes bright with a triumphant, predatory gleam. She looked at Lynsy’s ruined state—the matted hair, the hollowed eyes, the raw skin—and felt a surge of wicked satisfaction. She leaned toward Diked, her voice a poisonous honey.
“Oh, Dee-Dee,” she purred, her eyes never leaving the shivering girl. “It seems your ‘Southern Rose’ has lost quite a few petals on the road. She looks more like a stable-drudge than a queen, doesn’t she?”
Monnik’s laughter, sharp and silver, echoed off the cold stone walls. She relished the moment, knowing that as long as Lynsy looked like a broken animal, her own position as the King’s favorite was more than secure.
“Get them out of my sight,” Ramssee barked, breaking the moment. He gestured frantically to the Royal Physician and a group of frightened maids who stood waiting. “Take them to the North Tower. Wash them, feed them, and pray to whatever gods you worship that they don’t die before morning!”
Days passed.
The apartments that Lynsy and Tiffania were eventually given were worthy of a princess. High, arched ceilings were supported by pillars of polished stone, and the floors were covered in thick, plush rugs that swallowed the sound of their footsteps. Silk sheets of midnight blue replaced the jagged splinters of the grain wagon, and a steaming copper tub, filled with water scented with pine and expensive oils, replaced the freezing chills of the road.
Yet, both of the girls knew this “sanctuary” was a lie. The silk felt like spiderwebs against their raw skin. Every time a maid entered to tend the fire or bring a tray of broth, the girls recoiled with a violent start, their breath hitching in a synchronized panic. The horrors of the road—the sound of Kaoz’s butchery, the cloying scent of Inanna’s musk, and the sight of those void-black eyes of the monster leering in the firelight—all these and more haunted their minds. They both suffered from nightmares that no warm bath could cleanse – every shadow in the corner of the room was a Kaoz or worse and every flicker of the hearth was another one of the monster’s victims crying out in agony.
Even still, as another moon passed, physical recovery came for the women – for in truth both were just entering the prime of their lives and their bodies were still resilient even though their spirits remained wounded. Under the Physician’s sharp eye and the forced feedings of roasted venison and honeyed bread, the hollows in Lynsy’s cheeks began to fill. The firelight brought the color back to her skin, and Tiffania’s ribs began to knit beneath the care of bandages and rest. But the return of her beauty only heightened Lynsy’s dread. As her radiant features emerged from the grime, she felt more like a prize being polished than a woman being healed.
“We have to leave, Tiff,” Lynsy whispered again one dark night. They were huddled together in the center of the massive bed, the opulence of the room pressing in on them like the walls of a tomb. “I can’t stay here. I…still feel…the eyes of the m-m-monster even when he isn’t in the room. I can hear the wagon wheels and the screams every time I close my eyes.”
Tiffania squeezed her hand, her eyes darting toward the high, barred windows. Her trauma manifested in a silent, wide-eyed vigilance. “I’ve looked at the drop, Mistress. It’s a hundred feet to the jagged rocks. The guards change every few candle marks, and they never leave the hall. We are in a mountain, not a house. How can we ever leave?”
They spent their nights whispering in the dark like this, plotting escapes that were physically impossible but at least gave them something to do. They spoke of Monthaven with a desperate, aching nostalgia, longing for the simple village and the scent of the local bakery. Lynsy’s heart broke anew as she wondered about her father. She pictured Merrill sitting in his study, still holding out hope that he was alive. She imagined the chaos in the village, yes, but she also dreamed of the town’s rebuilding – surely Pastor Kastelli wouldn’t let his flock stay down for long, right? She refused to accept that Kaoz’ “Legendary Devastation” had left nothing but ash.
At other times, when her maid was sleeping, in the silence of the night, Lynsy would lay awake, her thoughts drifting south to the emerald boughs of Arbola. Emcorae, she thought, her fingers tracing the silver locket that was now her only tether to sanity. Where are you? Do you know I am here?
But she was torn in two by a cruel, psychological pincer. She wept for her lover’s touch, for the safety of his arms, yet she was paralyzed by the terrifying certainty that if Emcorae ever tried to enter Fubar, Kaoz would butcher him without mercy. She saw the Myz standing over this victims, snapping them like dry wood, and she would let out a soft, strangled cry.
“Don’t come, Em,” she sobbed into her pillow, the silk soaking up her tears. “Please, Mannah, keep him away. Let him think I am dead. Let him stay far away where he is safe.”
More time passed. Lynsy was a princess in a tower of ice and stone, while the weight of the Fubar winter pressed against the glass, reminding her that she was no longer a person, but a prisoner, without hope of ever seeing home again.
The Scandal
The transition from the brutality of the road to the refined malice of the palace was, in many ways, a more dangerous crossing for Lynsy. While her body began to heal, the psychological war commenced in the Great Dining Hall of Fubar—a cavernous room of cold shadows and flickering torches where happiness was unwelcome.
Lynsy sat at the long stone table, draped in heavy, dark robes that felt like a weight upon her soul. Beside her, Tiffania stood as her shadow, her face a mask of stoic endurance despite the lingering pain in her ribs.
Across the far end of table sat Monnik, draped in translucent silks and furs that defied the northern chill. She didn’t eat; she merely toyed with her food, her eyes fixed on Lynsy with a predatory intensity.
“You really are a remarkable creature, Lynsy,” Monnik began, her voice a silken purr that carried across the hall. “Most women of… merchant stock would have withered and died in that wagon. But you? You’ve bloomed. Though, I suppose a bit of dirt and trauma gives your skin a certain… ruggedness that your father’s coin could never buy.”
Lynsy kept her eyes on her plate, her fingers trembling. “My father is a man of honor, Lady Monnik. Something Fubar… seems to lack.”
Monnik’s laughter was like breaking glass. “Honor? Honor is a Southern luxury, darling. Here, we value survival. And look at you—clinging to that little silver locket as if it were a holy relic. Tell me, does the ‘Elf-boy’ who gave it to you know you’re currently being polished like a pewter mug for a King’s shelf?”
Diked, sitting at the head of the table, didn’t even look up from his chalice. He was physically present, but his eyes were glazed, lost in the shimmering purple mists of his obsession with Inanna. Still repulsed by the thought of marrying Lynsy, he had barely spoken to her since her arrival, treating her with the same bored indifference one might show a piece of furniture that had arrived in the wrong color.
“Be silent, Monnik,” Diked snapped suddenly, though his gaze remained fixed on the fire. “Your chatter is like the buzzing of a fly. Lynsy is a means to an end. But she is nothing compared to the Queen of Ramos.”
Diked turned his head slowly, looking through Monnik as if she were made of glass. “I saw her in my dreams again. Inanna. She calls to me from the South. When the snow clears, I will go to her. You are merely the placeholder for a goddess, Monnik. Remember that.”
Monnik’s face tightened, but before she could retort, a heavy silken sleeve swept across the table. Ramssee, who had been silently dissecting a piece of venison, slammed his chalice down with a controlled force that made the silver plates dance.
“That is enough of your nursery fantasies, Diked,” Ramssee rumbled, his voice cutting through the hall like a winter frost. He didn’t look at the King; he looked at his wine, the disrespect so casual it was breathtaking. “You are a King of stone, not a poet chasing ghosts in a purple mist. You will sit. You will eat. And you will stop insulting the woman who keeps your bed warm and your secrets quiet.”
Diked stiffened, his jaw working silently. For a moment, a flash of royal fire sparked in his eyes, but it died instantly under Ramssee’s cold, unwavering stare. Fubar’s ‘ruler’ slumped back into his high-backed chair, looking suddenly small, like a child being scolded by a tutor.
Lynsy gasped, her eyes darting between the Regent and the King. In Monthaven, her father’s word was law; she had never expected to se a monarch so utterly emasculated in his own hall. The realization that Ramssee was the true power behind the throne—and that Diked was merely his puppet—sent a new wave of cold terror through her.
Diked caught Lynsy’s look of stunned pity. His face flushed a deep, humiliated crimson. The embarrassment was a physical weight, heavier than his crown. Without a word, he shoved his chair back, the wood shrieking against the floor, and vanished into the shadows of the private corridors, leaving his half-full chalice trembling on the table.
Monnik didn’t watch him go. Instead, she looked at Ramssee with a shimmering, dark glee, then turned her gaze to Lynsy. She leaned forward, her lips curling into a triumphant sneer.
“See how it is, merchant-girl?” Monnik whispered, her voice dripping with satisfaction. “In Fubar, even the aurochs know when to bow to the tamer. Don’t look so surprised—pity is a very unbecoming look for a bride-to-be.”
Later that night, in the shadows of the arched colonnade overlooking the frozen moat, Monnik met with Ramssee. The Regent stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves, watching the snow fall.
“He’s becoming more unstable,” Monnik whispered, her voice with playful edge. “He truly believes Inanna is waiting for him with open arms.”
“Let the fool believe it,” Ramssee rumbled, his voice a low vibration of satisfied malice. “The more Diked obsesses over the Goddess, the more he neglects the ledgers. You are doing well, my dear. Keep whispering of the warmth in Ramos. Keep feeding his delusion. The sooner he and Kaoz departt for the South, the sooner the crown of Orkney sits where it belongs—in hands that know how to hold it.”
“And the girl?” Monnik asked, her eyes narrowing.
“She is a pawn,” Ramssee replied. “I still have a use for her. She’ll make us even richer, love.”
Yet for all the Steward’s conniving, trouble arrived the following morning – in the form of the Royal Physician. The man entered Ramssee’s private study, his face pale and his hands shaking as he clutched a leather-bound scroll.
“My Lord Regent,” the physician stammered, bowing low. “The… the examination of the Lady Lynsy is complete now that she is healthy again.”
Ramssee didn’t look up from his parchment. “And? Is she fit for the wedding? I want no more delays. The people need a spectacle to distract them from the grain shortages and the nobles are grumbling for more gold from Akka. Give me some good news, man!”
“My Lord… there is a complication,” the leech whispered. “A biological impossibility for the timeline we have presented.”
Ramssee paused, his quill hovering over the parchment. He slowly looked up, his eyes boring into the physician. “Speak plainly.”
“The Lady Lynsy is with child, My Lord. I have performed the tests twice. Based on the swelling and the humors of the blood… she is nearly three moons pregnant.”
The silence in the room was absolute. Ramssee leaned back, his mind racing through the implications. Three moon. That meant the child had been conceived in the South, long before Kaoz had even crossed the border. It was the Elf-boy’s brat.
But worse than the scandal of the parentage was the shadow it cast on the King. It was a poorly kept secret among the inner circle that Diked was likely infertile—a helpless boy king in more ways than one. If a pregnant Lynsy was presented as his bride, the court would not see a miracle; they would see a cuckold.
“Three moons.” Ramssee repeated, a dark, dangerous smile spreading across his face. “The ‘Southern Rose’ isn’t just damaged goods, Physician. She’s a royal problem. Leave me!”
The doctor scampered away, grateful to still have his skin as Ramssee’s anger grew.
A King’s Fury
Later that night, after a long day with the royal books, Ramsse lay in his bed draped in crimson silks, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as if counting the gold he’d continue to pilfer from the king. Monnik lay beside him, her raven hair sprawled across the viperz’ chest like a silken net. It was she who had whispered brilliance into his ear—the solution to the “Lynsy Proble” – The Triple Dowry Scheme: ransom the girl back to her father for an exorbitant price. The consort knew full well Ramssee would claim the idea as his own, but she didn’t mind – anything to get rid of a rival.
“A masterstroke, my love,” The Steward’s fingers traced a path the woman’s back. “Why settle for a royal marriage to a merchant’s brat when we can make her father pay for the privilege of taking his saddled daughter back? Naturally we’ll tell Diked it was my idea, else he wouldn’t accept it. Either way, we win – we’ll demand Merrill pay triple the original dowry to compensate for the… poor condition of the cargo.”
“Of course.” Monnik purred, content with this turn of events. “And what’s next for us?”
Ramssee only grunted, his mind already calculating the weight of the extra chests. “It’s a cunning maneuver. We avoid the scandal by making it look like a royal rejection by Diked himself. Of course Merrill Finch is a man of vast resources; he will pay whatever we ask to see his daughter returned to Monthaven.” Excited by the idea, the viperz sat up, the furs sliding off him. “This is so good, I will present it to Diked as a way to salvage his manhood. The fool is so terrified of being a laughingstock that he’ll swallow any lie I feed him.”
“My hero.” The beautiful dark haired consort sighed contentedly as her lover left the room.
A candlemark later, the Steward was in the King’s Den. The hearth fire roared with a frantic heat, but Diked was shivering.
Ramssee stood by the fire, his expression one of calculated pity as he delivered the news of the pregnancy that rocked the king with the force of a physical blow.
“Three moons?” Diked’s voice was a high, thin shriek that cracked under the weight of his ego. “Three moons! And the leech has verified it? Why every detractor in this godforsaken city will do the math. They’ll look at my wedding date, they’ll look Lynsy… and they’ll surely know!”
The open secret of Diked’s infertility due to the injury sustained in his youth seemed to manifest in the flickering shadows. Diked recoiled as if struck, his face flushing a humiliated purple. To him, the pregnancy wasn’t a miracle of life; it was a public execution of his status.
“I will not be a cuckold to a village peasant!” Diked roared, throwing a crystal carafe into the hearth. It shattered, the wine hissing in the flames like a dying breath. “They will say I am the loser because I cannot even seed my own garden!”
“Oh, don’t patronize me with your tantrums, boy,” Ramssee snapped, stepping into the King’s personal space. “Pah! We don’t need to put on a show for the masses. I have already devised a solution to save your pathetic reputation.”
Ramssee leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. “You will not marry her. Instead you will declare her ‘impure’ and demand a triple ransom from her father for her return. With my plan it will be you who saves face by ‘rejecting’ her, and on top of that Orkney gets a mountain of gold. Merrill Finch’s wealth is nigh limitless, right? Surely he’ll pay to bury this scandal and get his beloved child back from your…unsavory clutches.”
Diked paused, his chest heaving. The idea of the gold was secondary to the idea of the “rejection.” But his advisor’s plan was solid – it clearly offered him a way to play the part of the wronged sovereign rather than the impotent failure.
“A triple dowry,” Diked whispered, his eyes narrowing. “Yes… yes, that would show them. I am not the one who failed; it was the merchant who sent me damaged goods.”
“Exactly,” Ramssee said, a dark, mocking smile playing on his lips. “Now, go off to your room. I have a ransom note to draft. We shall see just how much Merrill Finch values his little beauty.”
As Ramssee walked away, he left Diked to his delusions, both of them unaware that the man they planned to rob was already a corpse, and the gold they craved had already been burned to ash by the monster they’d foolishly sent to do their dirty work – and it was now time for those debts to be paid.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 