Location: Fubar, Capital of Orkney
Timeline: Sixth Age, 52nd Year, Winter to 53rd Year, Spring
Ramssee moved through the bowels of the palace, his form blending into the soot-stained shadows of the servant corridors. The placed smelled of tallow candles and unwashed bodies, a stark contrast to the perfume courts of the upper floors. The viperz moved with a predatory grace, his boots making no more sound than a ghost’s footfall on the basalt. He did not go to his own chambers to wash the scent of Kaoz’ villa from his skin; he went straight to the King’s solar, fueled by the dark thrill of the Massacre of Monthaven he’d just learned of and the new plans he’d had to create as a result.
Inside the royal solar, the heat was stifling. A massive fire roared in the hearth, casting long, dancing shadows that looked like grasping hands against the tapestries. King Diked was slumped amidst his pillows, buried under thick, plush blankets of sable and fox. The twenty-something man looked haggard and pathetically small, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with a yellowed exhaustion. The consort Monnik was nowhere to be seen—likely bored of the King’s cyclical whining—leaving him alone with a half-empty carafe of sour wine and a paralyzing fear of the dark.
“Diked, I see you are relaxed” Ramssee began, stepping into the circle of firelight, and purposely forgetting to use his royal moniker. His voice was a masterclass in manipulation, dripping with a false, heavy-hearted sympathy that sounded like honey poured over a blade.
Diked jumped, nearly spilling his wine. “Ramssee! You… you were gone so long. The shadows, they’ve been moving. The wind sounds like—”
“Peace, boy,” Ramssee interrupted, moving to the edge of the King’s opulent nest. “I have spent my night in the cold gutters of this city, listening.” It was an lie, of course, but Diked ate up every word. The viperz continued, “And I have heard troubling news from the streets. My agents—men who hear the heartbeats of the taverns—tell me the people are whispering. They have given you a new name. They call you ‘Diked the Doomed.’”
Diked stood up, the heavy furs sliding off him like a shed skin. His face was a mask of frantic, sweating terror. “Doomed? What? Who says this? I am the King! I have the divine right of Fubar!”
“The people don’t care for divine rights when their bellies are empty and the winter feels cursed, boy,” Ramssee snapped, the mask of sympathy slipping to reveal the cold condescension beneath. He loomed over the smaller man, his shadow swallowing the King’s. “They say your union with the merchant girl from Pennal is a blight. They the Monsters of Akka are proof that the gods have abandoned you. They save your line is cursed because… well, because of your ‘condition.’ And the rumors don’t stop there.”
Diked’s breath came in shallow, jagged hitches. “My condition… they can’t know. No one knows but us!”
“And yet, rumors are like the Great Gale; they find every crack in the stone,” Ramssee whispered, leaning closer. “There is worse. The gossip has turned venomous. If this reaches the High Lords—and it will—they will use it to strip you of your crown and exile you before the first spring thaw.”
“What do I do, Ramssee?” Diked pleaded, his voice breaking into a sob. He reached out with trembling hands, clutching the Regent’s heavy velvet sleeve. “Help me! You always know what to do!”
“For starters, we must send Lynsy away,” Ramssee said, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial murmur that seemed to vibrate in the very air. “We still have time to turn the narrative to our favor. We tell the public that you have discovered the girl’s impurity and you rejected her. We announce that, in your grand royal mercy, you are sending her back to the Pennal rather than executing her. It saves your face, Diked. It makes you the victim of her deceit rather than the cause of the curse. It shows you benevolent. The public loves that kind of story. We can then spread a rumor that two of the chambermaids are pregnant with your bastards – that should prove your virility. ”
Diked nodded frantically, his head bobbing like a puppet’s. “Yes! Let’s do that. I love the gossip when it benefits me. And send Lynsy back – even tonight! Get her out of the city before they see her again!”
“Not tonight. We need the theater of it. A small, official caravan,” Ramssee said, a dark, predatory glint sparking in his eyes. He paced toward the window, looking out at the jagged peaks that rimmed the icy city. “But, Diked… the road is a treacherous beast in the deep winter. Even if we wait until travel is possible, the storms will have left the passes slick with black ice and prone to landslides. If Lynsy’s party were to suffer a tragic… ‘accident’… well, it would be a merciful end to a tragic story. And no one would ever be able to question the parentage of a child that never was.”
Diked stared at him, the weight of the words sinking into his mind. It was the final, bloody solution to the problem of his ego. He looked at the fire, his eyes reflecting the flames until he looked like a man possessed.
“An accident,” Diked whispered, the words barely audible over the wind. “Yes. Tragic. A landslide… or perhaps brigands. The North is so dangerous, right? That’s why the people need a strong king like me to protect them.”
“Indeed,” Ramssee sneered, reaching out to pat the King’s hand with a cold, dry palm. “Nevertheless, leave all the details to me. I shall start the rumors myself—that it was your ‘mercy’ that sent her home. And later, when the news of the tragedy returns, we will ensure the people know that you were the sovereign who was twice-wronged: once by her betrayal, and once by the cruelty of the mountains. But that, in your strength, you have withstood these storms and will carry one – like any grand king would.”
“Thank you!” Diked smiled. “This is grand indeed. I must find Monnik and tell her the good news.”
As the king scampered away further into the interior of his apartments, Ramssee let himself out of the royal chambers. As he walked the halls, he felt the thrill of the trap snapping shut with a satisfying click. He had the King’s permission to erase the girl, he had the king himself as his future scapegoat for the city’s woes, and he had a plan to get rid of Kaoz too.
Fubar was about to get a new master – again.
Good News
The next day the heavy oak doors of the tower apartment where Lynsy and her maid lived swung open, not with the terrifying, bone-shaking crash of a Myz’s entry as they continually feared, but with the measured, rhythmic thud of royal heralds. The sound echoed through the stone-vaulted chamber, vibrating against the fine tapestries that depicted the bleak history of the North. Behind the guards stood Ramssee, The Royal Steward draped in midnight-blue velvet that seemed to swallow the firelight. His face was a mask of solemn, fabricated kindness, though his eyes remained as cold and calculating as the frost on the windowpanes.
Lynsy and Tiffania stood together by the high hearth, their hands entwined so tightly their knuckles were white. The sudden intrusion made them flinch—a jagged, instinctive reflex ever tied to the blood and mud of the Northern road they’d tread to get here. It was a trauma that no amount of silk sheets or warm baths could ever truly erase; to them, a turning key still sounded like a snapping bone.
“Lady Lynsy,” Ramssee began, bowing low with a practiced elegance. His voice was smooth as polished bone.. “I bring news that I hope will finally begin to mend the wounds of the past few moons. His Majesty, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, has reconsidered the union. He realizes now that a Southern bird cannot sing in a Northern cage. He has decided to release you from your vows.”
The silence in the room became absolute, heavy enough to drown the crackle of the logs in the fireplace. Lynsy’s heart hammered against her ribs so violently she feared it would shatter. She stared at the Regent, searching for the trick, the hidden barb in his words.
“Release… us?” she whispered, her voice a fragile, trembling thread.
“Indeed,” Ramssee replied, the shadow of a thin smile playing on his lips—a look that never reached his predatory eyes. “As a result of your father’s request – and the gold he promised to send – the King has declared the betrothal void. You are no longer the future Queen of Orkney. You are t–“
“Father is alive?” Lynsy looked from Ramssee to Tiffania and back again, overjoyed that her constant prayers had been answered.
“As I was saying,” The Steward continued, “You are to be sent home to Monthaven immediately. A small, private escort is being prepared in the courtyard as we speak. You shall leave at dawn, before the next blizzard closes the mountain passes for the season.”
A jagged sound escaped Tiffania—a half-sob, half-laugh of pure, unadulterated joy that broke the oppressive tension. She fell to her knees, clutching Lynsy’s velvet skirts, her face buried in the fabric. “Your father has saved us. I told you he was ok. We’re going home, Mistress! We’re going home! The nightmare is over!”
Lynsy felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, a sudden rush of blood to her head that made the room tilt. Home. The word tasted like sweet wine. In an instant, she pictured her father’s kind, worried face, the emerald boughs of Arbola swaying in a warm breeze, and the safe, familiar smells of her bedroom. She reached for Emcorae’s locket, her thumb stroking the cold silver surface with a frantic, rhythmic gratitude. You won’t have to come for me, Em. I’m coming to you. Mannah has heard my prayers.
“Pack what you need,” Ramssee added, his eyes tracking the girl’s radiant joy with the detached, clinical interest of a scientist watching a moth fly toward a killing flame. “But do not tarry. The mountains are unforgiving in the deep winter, and the King’s mercy is a fleeting thing. Every tallow you let burn is a candlemark the weather has to turn against you.”
As Ramssee turned to exit, he nearly collided with Monnik. “What are you doing here?”
The raven haired consort was leaning against the doorframe, casually sipping from a golden goblet. “Just curious.”
The Steward chuckled as he walked away, but not before they shared a look of dark understanding—a silent communion between two vipers. After that, Monnik stepped into the room. Her presence immediately sucked the warmth out of the air.
“Oh, look at you both,” The concubine purred, her violet eyes bright with a vicious, glittering amusement. “Practically glowing with ‘good fortune.’ It’s enough to make one weep for the sheer, touching sentiment of it all.”
“You can’t ruin this, Monnik,” Tiffania said, standing up and squaring her shoulders, her voice emboldened by the intoxicating prospect of freedom. “Your poison has no power here anymore. We are leaving this ghost-city behind forever.”
Monnik laughed—a sharp, silver sound that didn’t reach her eyes. She began to walk a slow, predatory circle around the massive bed, her silk skirts hissing against the rug like a snake in the grass. “Leaving? Yes, I suppose you are. But tell me, Lynsy… do you really believe in fairy tales? Do you truly think the ‘Doomed King’ lets go of his treasures so easily? Or that Ramssee gives gifts out of the goodness of his blackened heart?”
Lynsy’s smile faltered, the coldness of the stone floor suddenly seeping through her slippers. “The Regent gave his word. The King has signed the decree of release. It is law.”
“The King signs many things,” Monnik whispered, leaning in so close that Lynsy could smell the cloying, suffocating scent of lilies and wine on her breath. “But the road to Pennal is long, dear. The cliffs are sheer, and the ice… the ice is so very thin this time of year. A carriage can be such a fragile, clumsy thing when the wind catches it just right on a hairpin turn.”
She reached out, her long, manicured nail tracing the line of Lynsy’s jaw with a touch as cold as a needle. “Be careful on the heights, love. Things are rarely as they seem in Fubar. One moment you are dreaming of home, and the next… you are just another frozen ghost in the pass, forgotten before the snow even covers your bones.”
Monnik winked, took a long, leisurely sip of her wine, and sauntered out of the room. Her laughter echoed down the stone corridor long after she was gone, sounding like the clinking of chains.
Lynsy stood frozen in the center of the room, the heat of the hearth suddenly feeling like a cold draft against her neck. She looked at Tiffania, whose joy had been replaced by a flickering, uncertain dread. Outside the narrow, barred window, the winter stars shone down on Fubar—cold, distant, and utterly indifferent to the tragedy about to unfold.
Hope Springs Eternal
As it turned out, Lynsy and Tiffania did not leave ‘on the morrow’ as Ramsee promised them. In fact, the iron-chilled winter was so bad that the new year was already two moons old — and well into the month of Thaw—before the mountain passes of Orkney were deemed even remotely passable. For Lynsy and Tiffania, the delay had been a slow, agonizing torture, a psychic erosion that felt more permanent than the ice outside. The palace of Fubar, with its weeping stone walls and drafty corridors, became a tomb of “what ifs.”
Lynsy had spent much of the late winter bedridden, her body frequently overtaken by the sickness of her condition. Morning after morning, she would find herself hunched over a porcelain basin, her stomach twisting with a violent nausea that left her breathless and trembling. It was a cruel irony; the life growing inside her—the only piece of her true self she had left—was the very thing sapping her strength, making her too weak to even stand at the window to watch the snow.
The loneliness was a physical weight. They were surrounded by servants who moved like clockwork automatons—silent, unblinking women who bathed them and fed them but refused to meet their eyes. To the court of Fubar, they were already ghosts, or perhaps just cargo waiting for a clear road.
“He’s never going to let us go, Tiff,” Lynsy would whisper into the dead of night, her voice a hollow rasp. She lay beneath layers of heavy velvet blankets that never seemed to provide quite enough warmth. “Every time the wind picks up, Diked probably smiles. He’s waiting for the winter to swallow us whole so he doesn’t have to keep his word.”
Tiffania, whose own spirit had been sharpened into a jagged blade of defiance, would sit by the bed, tirelessly rubbing Lynsy’s frozen feet. “He’s a coward, Mistress. Cowards love a contract because it gives them a script to follow. Don’t forget, Ramssee wants your father’s gold. And Diked wants to save face. They only get what they want if we go home.”
But doubt remained a persistent rot. They spent the dark months questioning every sound: the rattle of a latch was surely a guard coming to move them to the dungeons; the distant gallop of a horse was surely a messenger bearing news that the ransom had failed. Lynsy’s mind became a carousel of horrors. She pictured her father, Merrill, reduced to a beggar to pay for her, or worse—Diked changing his mind and marrying her. Or worse.
By the time the month of the Thaw arrived, the girls were shadows of their former selves. Lynsy’s petite frame was now visibly altered, her belly a soft curve that she guarded with a fierce, terrified possessiveness. They were weary of hope, their hearts calloused by months of false starts and broken promises. Each day the sun grew stronger, they didn’t cheer; they simply held their breath, waiting for the sky to fall again.
While Lynsy and Tiffania withered in their gilded tower, the rest of Fubar became a pressure cooker of resentment, superstition, and blood. The delay was more than just a seasonal inconvenience; it was a slow-motion collapse of Ramssee’s careful architecture.
King Diked spent the winter retreating further into a world of velvet and wine. Afraid of the people’s rumors and the land nobles knowing looks, the young king walked the halls of the palace like a phantom, jumping at every draft and avoiding the public eye. His obsession with Inanna and her far away kingdom of pleasure had turned from a romantic fantasy into a desperate mental escape. He would sit for hours staring into the hearth, murmuring to the Goddess of Lust, begging her to take him away from the “cursed” air of Fubar.
But the city wouldn’t let him go. Every day the departure was delayed, the rumors Ramssee had planted grew into towering monsters. The common folk, huddled in freezing hovels, began to call the blizzard the “Diked Wind.” They believed the King had offended the gods of the North, and that Lynsy’s continued presence was the anchor holding the storm in place. To the people, she wasn’t a princess; she was a witch-bride whose unborn “demon” was eating the sun.
Even Monnik found the winter particularly tedious. Her initial amusement at Lynsy’s misery had long ago soured into a restless irritation. She spent her days draped over Diked’s lap, using her special wiles to keep him pliable, but her eyes were always on the door. She wanted her secret lover Ramssee to wear the crown, and she wanted to be his queen – for that was the viperz promise to her – but she wanted to enjoy it in a city that wasn’t starving. She grew increasingly catty, often slipping into Lynsy’s chambers just to whisper that her father had probably forgotten she existed and planting seeds of cruel doubt to torment her rival.
Outside the walls, the horror only deepened. Kaoz was a still creature of the hunt, and the frozen woods of Orkney were his wild playground. Because the snow had closed the mountain passes, his “leisure” was confined to a more local area – this was a disaster for the King’s reputation. Missing persons —guards, woodcutters, low-born orphans, and occasionally a traveling merchant or noble—became a daily occurrence. Each time a mangled body was found, the rumor Ramssee had started about the “Gargoyle” payment became more believable. The folk whispered that Diked was feeding his own people to the beast to keep it from the palace gates. Kaoz didn’t care for politics; he was simply hungry and bored, and his art with the victims became increasingly macabre, leaving “forest shrines” of bone and sinew that petrified the local peasantry as the stories in the taverns made them the stuff of legends.
In the mountain of Akka, the gears of Ramssee’s ambition ground to a halt. The “Great Frost” had penetrated deep into the shafts, freezing the groundwater and making the rock too brittle to mine safely. The miners of Akka sat idle in their winter camps, consuming expensive rations and growing mutinous.
Ramssee was nearly vibrating with suppressed rage. His plan to find The Grim—the only thing that could get rid of Kaoz—was frozen in the earth. Worse yet, without the treasures from the deep, he couldn’t pay off the estate barons, who were now openly grumbling about Diked’s incompetence. Ramssee was forced to spend his winter playing a double game: publicly defending the King while privately fueling the “Diked the Doomed” narrative to ensure that when the thaw finally came, the people would be ready to tear the crown from Diked’s head themselves.
But at long last, the morning of travel arrived. It was a day of deceptive brilliance in Fubar; the sun was a bright, golden coin in a cloudless sky, and the air carried the sharp, sweet scent of melting ice and wet stone.
In the palace courtyard, a caravan of three well-equipped covered wagons stood ready. Lynsy, miraculously recovered and physically healthy again, was draped in a heavy traveling cloak of charcoal wool. Although hale, she still accepted Tiffania’s steady arm and the help of a sturdy footman to climb the steps into the wain. She was now five months pregnant, and her petite frame moved with a heavy, unaccustomed grace.
As she settled onto the cushioned bench inside the wagon’s hold, she let out a breath she felt she had been holding since she first saw the black towers of Fubar. “I just can’t believe it,” she whispered, her voice cracking with a sudden, overwhelming relief. She grabbed Tiffania’s hands, squeezing them until they throbbed. “We’re actually leaving, Tiff. We’re going home.”
The heavy canvas covering of the wagon’s roof was rolled back, allowing the spring sunlight to pour in, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. Tiffania grinned, though her eyes remained wary, darting toward the shadows of the courtyard.
“See? I told you there was nothing to worry about, fraidy-cat,” Tiffania teased, though her voice lacked its usual bite. She was looking for a specific shadow—a massive, slate-grey silhouette that had haunted their nightmares for months. “The beast isn’t here, Lynsy. Look. Only the King’s men.”
Lynsy’s eyes scanned the guards and the drivers. Her greatest fear was that Kaoz would be her jailor once more on the journey south. But the Myz was nowhere to be seen. There were no void-black eyes watching them from the driver’s box, no scent of musk and old iron. The relief was so sharp it was almost painful.
“He’s gone, Tiff,” Lynsy breathed, touching the silver locket at her throat. “Ramssee said he was… ‘disposed of.’ Oh, I hope Baal has taken him back to the pits.”
“Hey,” Tiffania said, leaning in close. “Before you know it, we’ll be back home with your dad and all will be well. You’re thinking about your father, right? I mean… there’s not anybody else you’re thinking about, neh?”
Lynsy’s pale cheeks flushed a radiant pink. She looked down at her distended belly, her fingers tracing the life growing within—the living legacy of the night in the forest. “I can’t wait to see Em again,” she sighed. “I wonder if he’s still waiting. I wonder if he’ll even want me, after everything.”
“Hush now,” Tiffania scolded. “Of course he’ll want you. Merrill has likely told him everything. Diked sent that messenger at the first thaw to arrange the ransom payment. Your father is a businessman, Lynsy; he’ll make back the gold. But he only has one daughter.”
The jovial moment was shattered by a shadow falling across the rear of the wagon. Lynsy’s smile vanished, her eyes fixing on a point behind Tiffania.
Walking casually along the garden path, his gold-trimmed robes fluttering in the breeze, was King Diked.
“I say, good man, hold that wagon train if you please!” Diked called out. He sounded overly polite, his voice carrying that familiar, thin veneer of royal courtesy that always made Lynsy’s skin crawl.
“No… no… no,” Lynsy whispered, her hands clenching tight. She instinctively pulled a thick fur blanket over her lap, shielding her pregnancy from the King’s sight.
Diked reached the wagon and leaned against it with a proprietary air, his arm resting possessively on the wood. He looked down at them, a strange, flickering light in his eyes.
“Well, well,” Diked said, his gaze lingering on Lynsy’s face. “I trust three carriages and a dozen of my finest guards will be enough to see you comfortably back to Monthaven? I wouldn’t want anything… unfortunate to happen to my former fianceé.”
“We’re happy you’re honoring your end of the bargain, Sire,” Tiffania said, her voice dripping with a sarcasm she couldn’t quite suppress. “For once.”
Diked’s eyes flashed a dangerous, bruised red for a split second, but he regained his composure, ignoring the maid. “I am a man of my word, Lynsy. The public decree has been made. Orkney knows you are… ‘infertile.’ They know your father is paying for the disgrace. My honor is intact.”
Lynsy didn’t look up. The “infertility” lie was the only reason she was being allowed to leave, a face-saving gambit for a King who couldn’t admit he was being cuckolded by an Elf-boy.
“Thank you,” Lynsy said quietly. “I wish you well, Diked.”
Silence stretched between them, awkward and heavy. Diked didn’t move. He kept his hand on the wagon, a silent reminder that until they crossed the border, they were still his property.
Finally, the lead driver approached and bowed. “Sire, the supplies are set. With your permission, we are prepared to depart.”
Diked looked at Lynsy one last time. He leaned in, a sudden, jagged smile breaking across his face—an expression so full of hidden meaning that a chill raced up Lynsy’s spine. It wasn’t the smile of a man saying goodbye; it was the smile of a child who had set a trap and was waiting for the snap.
“Proceed,” Diked said to the driver. Then, to Lynsy, he added, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out. But I have my kingdom, and I’m happy to have your father’s gold. I doubt I shall ever see you again… but then, I’m sure you won’t mind.”
He turned away abruptly, his robes whipping around his ankles as he marched back toward the palace.
“That was weird,” Tiffania whispered as the wagon began to creak forward. “I’m just glad to be out of his sight.”
From a high, arched balcony overlooking the courtyard, Monnik stood draped in ermine, swirling a glass of dark Arbor wine. She watched the wagons with the detached hunger of a hawk watching field mice. “Look at them, Ramssee,” she murmured, a cruel smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “They actually believe the sun is a promise. They have no idea that the higher they climb into the passes, the closer they are to the precipice.”
Ramssee stood a pace behind her, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He didn’t need to see the girls’ faces to know they were celebrating; he could feel the pulse of their hope from across the stones. “Hope is a useful fuel,” he replied, his voice a low, dry rasp. “By the time they realize the ‘mercy’ was a mirage, the ice will have already decided their fate. Everything is in motion, Monnik. The King is discredited, the girl is removed, and the North remains ours.”
Ramssee glanced toward the dark treeline beyond the city walls, where he knew the Myz was already stalking parallel to the road. “Kaoz is restless. He knows the ‘cargo’ is on the move. I told him he could have his fun, provided the wreckage looks like the work of the mountain and not a butcher. Let the girl dream of her father one last time—it makes the final scream so much sweeter.”
As the wheels began to turn in the caravan, Lynsy Finch pulled the blankets tighter around her. Despite the spring sun, she felt a sudden, bone-deep cold. She watched the black towers of Fubar recede, her heart pounding with a dread she couldn’t explain. The Myz was gone, the King had said goodbye, and the road home was open—so why did she feel like she was riding toward her own execution?
The Apocrypha of Azazel 