James watched his army move out.

  There were the Goblins, armed and armored like dimestore hoplites in slightly too shiny equipment that a keen observer could tell was homemade and had never seen real action. James felt slightly nervous about them. They were the most numerous component of his army besides humans. His sense was that this group had great potential to grow and develop, but he also knew all too well how easily under-leveled Goblins could be killed.

  The humans were still the most overall powerful and Skills-diverse part of his army by James’s reckoning. As they proceeded past James, he simply smiled. He was much less worried about how they would perform in combat without his direct leadership. The majority of this group was already hardened from the Battle of the Haunted Forest, and many of them now carried the Blessing of the Fisher King as a result.

  Next the flying squirrels and bats marched past. They were lightly armed and armored, with slings, daggers, other small weapons, or nothing at all besides what nature had gifted them. Only a small contingent of them were moving out with the army. Besides scouting, James expected that their role would be largely symbolic—he imagined that they were just there to show that their Races were happy, contributing members of the Fisher Kingdom.

  The alligators followed behind them, and they made a clear contrast. Where the flying creatures were marching dutifully, the reptiles looked downright eager for battle. Their tails moved back and forth—wagging, was how it looked—and their jaws snapped open and shut as if they were imagining rending enemies to pieces. Samuel, in the lead, gave James a wink as he passed. The Fisher King didn’t need telepathy to know what the former Sewer Alligator Monarch was thinking. He was eager to tear into the Fisher Kingdom’s unsuspecting victims.

  And the wolf pack brought up the rear on all sides. They formed a sort of protective ring around the rest of the body of troops, a little reminiscent of sheepdogs herding cattle in James’s mind. These monsters were some of his most reliable followers, and their leader, Luna, gave him a silent reassurance as she passed. She turned her right-side head, looked James in the eye, and sent a quiet telepathic message for him only: Do not worry, my king. I will keep them safe.

  James simply smiled and nodded back at her.

  I know you will, he thought.

  But it did make him feel better. He had never truly embarked into aggressive warfare before, only responded to requests for aid or threats appearing at his borders. He knew he would feel the losses from this expansion, perhaps a bit more keenly than he usually felt the deaths of his citizens.

  Mina appeared at his back and looped her arm around his elbow. Her head leaned against his bicep, and despite the height difference—he was over a foot taller than her as a result of Race Evolution—the smell of her hair wafted up to him.

  “You found your old shampoo?” he murmured as the army got further away..

  She shook her head. “Carol.”

  Right. Carol found it, of course. The Dungeon had solved a number of material problems for his young country. As if summoned by this thought, several streams of children emerged from the apartments that encircled the central courtyard. Today was the first day of school, and the children wore backpacks that held their papers and pencils contained within. Those supplies were provided courtesy of the friendly neighborhood Dungeon.

  James smiled down at the kids. A few of the little ones looked at him with a modicum of curiosity, then just kept walking. When older ones who actually recognized who he was looked at the Fisher King and his Queen, James could tell they knew who he was based on the slightly intimidated expressions on their faces, before they quickly averted their eyes.

  Undoubtedly the rumors, myths, and frankly even the factual stories about the Fisher King would only grow in the future and make James more and more unapproachable.

  He didn’t let the prospect bother him. He sensed intuitively that this was what being a king meant—probably what it had always meant historically.

  The apartment door opened behind James and Mina, and a small shape rushed out. Without needing to look, James knew who it was.

  “I can’t believe I’m late!” Abhi exclaimed as he burst through the door.

  “Slow down, no one cares if you’re late on the first day!” James said almost without needing to think.

  You’ll be very late if I have to heal your sprained ankle, he thought.

  “Okay,” Abhi said. “Thanks, bye!”

  He rushed past James and Mina without looking back at them, but he had slowed his pace below a run now.

  James imagined the little boy rolling his eyes, then realized that Abhi’s voice had been completely sincere. He must be at that age where he took authority figure’s words as Gospel truth, wise and inviolable.

  The Fisher King’s eyes shifted to follow Abhi as he ran to class. For a moment, he smiled. Then he noticed another object of interest in motion.

  The masked man. ‘Bear.’

  He was still far off, but now that the army was gone, the man in black was slowly but surely working his way towards James.

  “I’ll go and get the little ones,” Mina said just below James’s ear.

  “Huh?”

  “So they can go to daycare, skapi?”

  “Oh, right.” He had forgotten for a moment that the daycare had opened right next to the school. This was where Yulia was working, and it would hopefully help further unlock the Fisher Kingdom’s productive potential. James and Mina would also be free to train, with the children safely stashed in daycare. Though it felt odd to send James, Junior and the other young ones to be cared for by strangers all day, James felt a bit better about it knowing that Yulia would be there. “Sure, go ahead. I’m going to just take a walk.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Mina looked at him curiously for a moment. She must have caught something in his tone. Then she simply nodded, choosing not to question it. James felt her pull away and heard the door open and close as she went inside their apartment.

  He looked to where Bear stood again. The masked man had maneuvered himself closer once more. James locked his gaze on where he imagined the man’s eyes must be under his featureless mask, and he tilted his chin toward the area that had once been the Haunted Forest. Bear nodded.

  They both began walking toward that still-forested space, taking parallel paths rather than meeting so that no one would realize they intended to speak with each other.

  The two figures finally almost converged and entered the former Haunted Forest in a place where it was densely packed with tall trees. The day’s full brightness had not set in yet, so that the light and shadows played themselves across the environment and the two men’s bodies kaleidoscopically, ever shifting in strange patterns.

  It feels a little like a dream, James thought as he looked at Bear. It struck the Fisher King that he could, if he wished, convince himself that the man—or really the unknown entity—who stood across from him did not truly exist. That he was a figment of James’s imagination, or an illusion, perhaps the last of Sister Strange’s visions, as she played some trick on James from within him.

  What a strange thought. You’re not usually given to such flights of fancy. You already have your theories about who or what he is. Those are crazy enough, without trying to convince yourself that you’re hallucinating or something.

  Yet the short distance that separated the Fisher King from Bear felt like the gap between dream and reality.

  Then the masked man stepped closer, and the sensation was broken.

  “The time has come for me to take my leave of you, Fisher King,” said Bear in a formal tone. There was a slight hint of regret in his voice, James thought. Gone was the mockery that had occasionally characterized Bear’s interactions with James and Mina. This felt strangely somber.

  “I hope that you enjoyed your stay, and that you have accomplished all that you wished to,” James said, speaking just to have something to say. He had Skills for talking and exuding charisma and leadership, but somehow they seemed ineffective right now, in these woods with this odd figure.

  “I have sat in on your council meetings, given you counsel of my own, and seen how you operate. It was—” he waved a hand noncommittally—“satisfactory. My father will be satisfied that his assessment of you was correct. I would have done and seen more, but my time is not my own.”

  So, he’s a demigod? James’s running theory, based on what Anansi and his mother had said, was that Bear was a messenger for a god. James had no idea which one, but that was the only explanation he could think of for why his patron would urge him to listen to the masked man.

  “Who is your father?” James asked immediately. “Why the vague answers? Why all the mystery? Why are you wearing a mask?”

  “The mask is a device that disguises what I am,” Bear said immediately. “Beings above the mortal tier are not meant to occupy physical space in recently initiated universes. Were I even to speak my father's name under normal circumstances, I would catch the attention of the System that I have so effortfully avoided thus far.” He paused. “But I am already departing this place and this flesh soon. I am expending what power remains in this vessel to freeze time in the small space around where you wanted to have our meeting. Otherwise we would have had several interruptions by now.” He pointed. “Your mother is there, walking back towards the center of the Kingdom to meet with you, for instance.”

  James turned and dimly saw, around twenty-five feet away, that his mother stood frozen in place. She had been walking forward and now stood there, stopped in mid-stride. There was something else odd about the image, and he realized after a moment what it was. The light that played over her face was frozen, too, in an odd pattern that highlighted one eye and left half her face in shadow.

  He literally stopped time, which would seem to support my theory about who and what he is… Though even if he is the emissary of a god, perhaps a demigod or even the avatar of a god himself, it sounds like he can only do this within certain limits. I’d better get right to the point.

  “All right, son of a god,” James said affably. “What can I do for you?”

  “We want you to stop a terrible cataclysm—or at least delay it. Ragnarok is coming.”

  “Ragnarok,” James said quietly. He had not spoken the word in many years, since he had not read much Norse mythology after he had finished high school. Most of his mythology knowledge was old and grainy, with details missing. Most of his mythology knowledge had been either Greek mythology or old slave folktales in the first place, nothing to do with the Norse gods. He tried to recall what he knew about the Ragnarok concept while the masked man stood there waiting in silence.

  “Ragnarok is the Twilight of the Gods,” James said finally. That almost summed up his knowledge.

  The masked man dipped his head slightly and then simply stood silently, letting James process a little more.

  A number of the Norse gods die in this thing. If I can prevent or delay that somehow, they’d be pretty desperate for that help…

  “I guess I know why so many Norse gods have taken an interest in me now,” James said. “There was Hel interfering with events in my Orientation, Loki wanted to give me a blessing, and he actually blessed the Goblin King who immediately fell into my hands. Then Baldur sent Hilda to me expressly to help me out. What I didn’t know was why.”

  “The movements of Hel and Loki are their own affair,” the masked man replied immediately. “But yes, you may have an important role to play in the events to come.”

  Why me? James wanted to ask. But he skipped to the more important question for now.

  “What’s in it for me?” James asked, smiling shamelessly.

  He looked into the space where the man’s eyes would have been if his visage were not a featureless mask. The question bore asking.

  If I stop your apocalypse, does it really help me? Or mankind? What’s in it for us?

  The masked man looked slightly taken aback at the question. It was a small shift in his posture that seemed to hint at the surprised reaction.

  Then he chuckled quietly.

  “Human, you are amusing,” Bear said in a cold, unamused voice. “Are you truly asking what is in it for you if you save the Earth?”

  “I know Ragnarok is the Twilight of the Gods,” James said, waving a hand dismissively. “Does it have to necessarily be the twilight for humans, too? I question that. I question how closely our fates are linked. I question whether the Earth will necessarily be destroyed, and even if it is, I can’t help but imagine that there are ways that humanity would survive, given the power that now rests in our hands. So, yes, I am asking what’s in it for me if I help you.”

  The masked being’s body crackled with energy as James responded. He seemed to loom larger than he had before, and James recognized in the posture of the figure a distinct current of anger.