“Where’s Klin?” Orenda asked as she pulled the tray from the oven and began picking the piping hot cookies off onto a plate. She had half of them moved before someone answered her.

“I reckon he never come up,” Mary Sue said cautiously, “still down in the wine cellar if’in I had to guess.”

“He is,” Sarya said, “I can feel him. Helluva mage you got there, Rendy.”

“We haven’t time for him to get this drunk!” Orenda proclaimed as she picked up the half full plate and stormed down the stairs herself without looking at them.

She didn’t need to look at them. She knew what they were thinking. They were thinking that their queen had lost her mind- and it was very likely she had. Madness ran in her family after all- her mother had been delusional, her father a raving fool, and her uncle wore his madness proudly. He had earned it, and so had Orenda. She didn’t need to be told that which she already knew.

She did not know the layout of the underground portion of the castle. It had been the only thing she had not helped to design; the only thing still standing after the earthquake that had toppled the original. She realized as she walked through the cool, dank, air that she had, perhaps, never been down there.

She was in a place reserved for food storage, but she knew the underground held many things- there was a wine cellar somewhere, and even beyond that a dungeon, a prison of sorts. She hadn’t used any of those things, hadn’t planned to make use of any of those things.

She opened a door in the back of the cellar and came out into a long hallway lit with those strange bulbs Junior had supplied them with. She wasn’t sure how they worked, but he had somehow harnessed lightning in a bottle, and now that her head was clearing a little, she thought that he had figured out a way to scry without magic, that perhaps that was what he was trying to tell them. But she had no idea where she was going, so she gazed out into the strange, underground place, not with her physical eyes, but with the eyes of a mage, and she saw the swirling green light as bright as the sun; the dancing pattern of Klin’s soul.

She followed it until she heard the sobbing, then she paused to collect herself.

He cried with such frequency, and every time she witnessed it it filled her with rage.

But the rage would do her no good. She couldn’t kill him; she had tried. The sword he had slammed back into the stone would not allow her, and no other sword could penetrate the armor. She had to live with him, had to keep him under control, under constant surveillance. The Emerald Knight had conquered most of the world at one time, had destroyed entire civilizations. He was as immortal as she was, had a very similar situation, and if he took a mind to revert to his old ways she was not sure she could do anything about it. They had been at a stalemate, and she had found no way to defeat him.

She opened one of the many wooden doors and gazed upon rows and rows of shelves that reminded her very much of a library, except the light was too dim to read by, and they were filled with bottles of wine turned on their sides, rather than books.

Klin was sitting on the floor several shelves in as if he thought he was hiding, as if he was under the impression his soul was not bright enough to light the room for any mage. Orenda closed the door softly and followed the blinding sheen.

When she finally saw him he was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest and his face buried in them, his small body heaving with the force of his sobs; another empty bottle had rolled away from him on the stone floor, as if turning to face him.

“Klin,” she said.

“I’m sorry!” he begged, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, your majesty!”

“What are you doing?” Orenda asked.

“Our land not steeped in darkness,

Instead this blinding sheen

The light that pierces heartless

The knight in blazing green

We’ve angered our own savior

The holy one we need...

Please listen to our plight

The people who sit helpless

Below the Emerald Knight.”

“You’re drunk,” Orenda accused.

“You can’t,” Klin sobbed, “Can’t nobody… You ain’t never… You ever… fuck somethin up so bad it can’t be unfucked? I… she’s… Xandra was the only one who…” He threw both arms over his head and Orenda was amazed how small he could make himself. She thought that curled up as he was he could have slid into the bottom shelf and disappeared.

“Klin,” she commanded, “stop it.”

“You killed my wife!” he sobbed, “She didn’t kill yer daddy! I did! Why… why Xandra… why not… it’s me! I’m the one y’all… I’m the one all y’all… I did it! I did everything! And I know… I know everybody hates me but… you’re so little and… I did…” His head snapped up and he stared into her soul with those huge blue eyes, “I did everything. I did. I told you not to touch it! I knew this, right here, all of it, I knew it would happen! I told… I warned… you can’t… everybody hates you! You think they hate ya’ on account… because a’... fuckin taxes? ‘Cause a’ economic bullshit? You a blind-ass youngun! You barely twenty! You don’t know nothin about nothin!” He stood on shaky legs and proclaimed, “They hate you cause you killed their parents! They think you killed their parents… but you didn’t. You didn’t crush all them nobles to death. I did. Just tell um! Just tell um what I am! Let um hate me!”

“You’re drunk,” Orenda repeated.

“Kill me!” Klin demanded, reached into the shelf and produced another bottle of wine with so much force the entire shelf rattled and Orenda was afraid it would fall. “You killed Xandra! You killed Xandra you could kill me!”

“It has struck me as odd,” Orenda said, “that you call Xandra ‘Xandra’. I admit that I am not overly familiar with relationships, but I find that to be a rarity. If a name can be shortened, it normally is when one is familiar, isn’t it?”

“Xandra’s a… was a princess…” Klin said as he pulled the cork free, “I ain’t… wouldn’t nothin… stupid farm boy pesant.”

Orenda felt a bit of amazement with the speed at which he emptied half the bottle; he didn’t seem to breath.

“That doesn’t seem to be an inaccurate description,” she said.

“I’m so goddamn stupid!” Klin proclaimed, “If I could… that woulda fixed it, I think, ever’ bit of it. If I hadn’t been… if they’d’a just… found somebody that wouldn’t an idiot, ya know? Because the problem is that… the problem with smart people is that they ain’t right, they’re just smart. But they can make you think they’re right, on accounta they’re smart.” He said this as if it was some great wisdom he was imparting that had sat upon his soul for centuries, “Like… you ain’t right on accounta you can… articulate yer shitty points better.”

He took another long drink from the bottle and continued, “I think it was her daddy I killed. I’m pretty sure.”

“You can’t be this drunk,” Orenda said sensibly, “I can’t have this, Klin. I can’t have this right now. There are delegates from all over the kingdom looking to me- to us. I can’t have this.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t… I can’t keep it down like this,” he said as if it was an explanation, “magic it… it works on… it’s in the blood. I gotta… alcohol goes in the blood. It don’t… the stone don’t feel safe… on accounta everybody hates me. So it wants to jump up, protect me. I can’t keep it down. I gotta… it’s a secret to everybody. You want it to be a secret.”

He staggered on his feet, spun, and somehow found himself on the floor again.

“Sober up!” Orenda demanded.

“Part a’ me thinks,” Klin said, “That I oughta just… run off, ya know? Go hide in the Sacred Woods or… down in the bottom of the ocean. For all time. Ain’t nobody left to look for me. Ain’t nobody left that cares about me.”

“You can’t be shocked by that,” Orenda said, “after the life you’ve led.”

“I ain’t shocked,” Klin said, “I didn’t mean to say I was shocked. Did I say that? I just meant that… was somethin I could do.”

“I don’t trust you to stay there,” Orenda said.

“I wouldn’t trust me to do nothin if I was you,” Klin’s voice broke in the middle of the sentence with another sob.

“If… if she had ever… had that youngun…” he lamented, “that… would… would it be ok? Would it be alive? Would it… matter? I couldn’t… they didn’t even look like me, there at the end. I loved my daddy, when I was a youngun. He died… I was ten… in that fire. Bunch’a folk died. My stepmama too. She was like a mommy to me… I wonder about how different it woulda been if they’d’a made it…”

“What fire?” Orenda asked.

This was interesting to her; long ago she had learned in a history class that the night the Emerald Knight had emerged for the first time, it was in response to an attack on the royal family by fire mages. Orenda had never believed the history books written by Urillians, but it now occurred to her that Klin had lived it.

“That night,” he said to the bottle, “when I found that goddamn sword… or… when it found me… the house was on fire- the whole field… the whole world was on fire… burning ring’a fire… smoke everywhere, I just… I run; everybody run… this voice in my head told me where to go an’ I followed it and… it was Xandra; I know that now. I think I killed her daddy. I think… he looked like the face on the coins. Back when his face was on the coins. You probably didn’t never see them… Xandra though he was… he looked like he was gonna hurt her and I… I panicked… I was a little kid. If you can get yourself killed by a youngun that little you ‘bought deserve to die. What’s them things called like you got? Them metal things make that loud noise you load up with metal and shoot?”

“It’s a pistol,” Orenda said, “A type of gun. There are other kinds, I know now, better at hunting and such. The dwarves make them.”

“And that little rabbit feller,” Klin said, then took another drink, “It’s like… me. That’s what I am. I’m a loaded gun. And from the second I was born I just been goin off. Killed every single thing I love.”

“I can’t have you this drunk,” Orenda said, “stop drinking. Stop it!”

“Startin with my mommy,” Klin said, “The healers said it was carryin’ a baby with a different element. I guess Thesis had to choose between her and me and chose wrong. That’s why I can’t have kids. That’s why Xandra had ta use the studs. An’ then I just kept goin. I don’t even remember um all. What’s your daddy’s name? Garon? I told his ass to run. I didn’t wanna… I… oh god...”

He was so taken by sobs language seemed to have left him, so Orenda picked a cookie up off her plate and ate it slowly. She didn’t think it was quite as good as the cookies Susan made.

“His mommy wouldn’t go back an… I needed… I had to get down to the Fire Spirit. I had to bring that stone back for Xandra… she was trying… she thought she could save us an’...”

“Shut up!” Orenda demanded and kicked the bottle he held so hard it went skittering from his grasp and rolled down the long halls of shelves, leaving a thick, sticky trail that she thought may bring ants upon them. “I don’t care, Klin! I don’t care about your regret! I don’t care about any of it! I haven’t time for this! It amazes me that you would think that I did, that I had the capacity!”

Klin didn’t respond, he was looking at his hand and mumbling, “Stay down, stay down, stay down.”

“Klin!” she demanded.

“Just kill me,” he begged, “just kill me. Let me die. There’s gotta be a way to get it out. I got it out… Maybe Morgan could get it out now… now that I ain’t got the sword no more… god, that itches like a motherfucker, don’t it? Does it itch you, not to have the staff on ya? I don’t know where stuff goes when we put it in here…” he motioned to the bag on his hip.

“Itch?” Orenda asked, “No, of course not. That’s why you’re itching? Because you miss the sword?”

“That sword is the only friend I got left, I reckon,” Klin said, “closest thing… but… I… it makes me feel… I think it was… tryin to manipulate me… I ought not’a listened to it long as I did… I oughta done a lotta things different. I’m glad I put it up. Ain’t nobody else what can get it out.”

“Would you like a cookie?” Orenda asked and tossed one to him.

It hit him in the face and bounced onto the floor where it split in two, but he picked it up and bit into one half without hesitation. Orenda was not surprised.

“That’s a solstice cookie,” Klin said, “It’s spring.”

“I can make cookies whenever I like,” Orenda said, and was going to say that this was because she was queen, but Klin mistook the pause in conversation for her having finished her thought and spoke.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “you’re grown.”

“I am, at that,” Orenda said.

“I’m gonna be the one what has to kill ever one of them nobles,” Klin said, “I can do it quick, get it out the way. Maybe ya’ oughta do it all at once, that ‘elected representative’ thing ya wanna phase into. We ain’t never gonna find out where these assassins are comin from- but eventually they gonna get too scared to take the job. Right now folks are fightin for a cause, but I reckon if ya just give it enough time, they’ll forget what the cause is. Course, I thought that before, too, an’ here ya are.”

He swallowed and said, “Them’s real good. I don’t… I usually have a real hard time eatin, when I’m drunk bitch cryin… ginger’s good fer your stomach. I mean, I reckon. I… I like plants… they got roots and you can take care of um and they just gotta stay there. You can pretend they love ya back.”

“Can you even stand?” Orenda asked.

“It wears off pretty quick,” Klin said.

“I can’t be the first person to try to kill Xandra,” Orenda said.

“You ain’t the first one to try,” Klin said, “I thought you knew that? You told me you knew Garon tried. You’re just the first one to get past me. Most folks… most folks don’t get past me. It just don’t happen.”

“I suppose I am not ‘most folks’,” Orenda said, “but then again… I certainly am. The only difference is that I knew where the fire stone was and knew how to find it, had the sterilite to get past the magical wards, and knew pirates to teach me how to get past physical wards like locks… I supposed I simply got lucky.”

“You make your own luck,” Klin said, “If it wouldn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all…”

“This isn’t luck, Klin,” Orenda said, “this is the result of your actions.”

“I just wish I could tell folks,” Klin said, “I want… I want um to be able to hate me like they ought to. I want um to… I wanna be punished. I wanna… it’s so… it’s so… I don’t know. It’s… amazing what you can tell yourself. It’s amazing how… ‘I wouldn’t have to do this if she’d just lead me to the stone’ or ‘I wouldn’t have to do this if they wouldn’t tryin to kill my wife’, you know? You think shit like that… you think a lotta shit like, ‘This is the last time I’m gonna have to do this. I just gotta get past this one and I won’t never have to do this again,’. But then you do have to do it again. And you get to the point where it’s about like… slaughterin a hog. I know folk wanna think that they’re special, but they ain’t- it’s just like… an animal. They look like animals too, on the inside. I mean, that’s why what you’re sayin about the humans makes sense- I never thought it didn’t, I just never thought too hard on it- but… elves; all the elves I killed, like your daddy, like your papaw, like all the others… they’re just animals. It’s just like guttin a deer. It ain’t… special. And that worries me, ya know? That really worries me. I feel like it oughta be special.”

“When I was a child,” Orenda said, “I frightened myself, because I found myself thinking things similar to that. I thought… I remember distinctly that I once had a thought that all the other children looked like dolls. And at that instant I stopped myself, and I said to myself, ‘No, Rendy. Rendy, you know that isn’t right.’ I shan’t allow myself to think things like that. You can silence thoughts, you know.”

“I can’t,” Klin said, “I tried that.”

“That is likely because you drink to excess,” Orenda said because she found it to be undoubtedly true, “were you able, you would be drinking every second you were awake, and I haven’t time for it.”

“I’d drink when I was asleep too, if I could,” Klin said, “I have real bad dreams. That goddamn sword won’t stay outta my head!”

“That strikes me as odd,” Orenda said, “I haven’t heard a word from the staff since we put it in your bag. Klin, I mean it, get up. I have to talk to those nobles and meet with the press about the attack on the tower.”

“We need real mages,” Klin said, “I sure wish all my friends wouldn’t dead… poor ol’ Ruvean… at least it was quick… poor Wyn… whole face just… melted...”