It is curious how we take for granted simple pleasures, like laughter, and how their absence can eventually be disregarded, like a chronic ache to which we have become accustomed. Prior to this story, I had spent some time laughing heartily, gobbling up any joy likely to come my way, as a famished man will consume more than his fair share, when finally given the opportunity. The world seems to shrink, when you laugh. It becomes easier to navigate, less hostile, and you become less of a stranger to those within it.
You probably remember me as MacInnes, the neurotic and over-worked King’s courier, the sick man burdened with an abundance of self-importance. I have tried my best to quit that life. Though my neuroses do occasionally flare up from time to time, I have learned to recognize them for what they are: symptoms of a disorder which I had allowed to run un-diagnosed for far too long. For many years, I tried to justify this state of affairs as being the result of some grand purpose which transcended my meager needs. Any illness visited upon me was simply one half of a transaction which I paid willingly, in order to serve society at large. However, I have since been made aware of a harsh truth: small people will often attempt to inflate their self-worth through the use of fictional narratives. They will concoct purpose where there is none, or invent, out of thin air, formidable enemies which only they can defeat. This, of course, is the antithesis of greatness, as greatness is always readily apparent. It does not require that one advertise. I was a very good royal courier, and the role I fulfilled remains to this day to be vastly necessary, but I was no grand savior of the people. I was merely one of many parts which, collectively, made up an intricately complex system, one which can (and currently does) operate without me.
In order to change, I had to die. Metaphorically, of course. I had to kill that part of myself which most needed protecting; to rip off the flimsy scabs of ego and false pride, exposing my wounds to the open air, in hopes that I may some day build a new life upon the slowly-developing scar tissue of the old. It was very hard, but ultimately worthwhile.
True meaning is not easy to obtain. While it may be hidden in plain sight, it is still no more accessible than an undiscovered land with no map by which to guide your search. I am trying to become the cartographer of my own fortune, and I pray that you will forgive me for any miscalculations I am sure to make along the way. I am new at this.
I never actually resigned from my post at the castle. Not officially, at least. There was a period of a few days, after my final, bizarre mission, during which I entertained the idea of returning to my work. It was, after all, all I knew. But once I re-entered the castle grounds, I knew my career as a royal courier was finished. I gazed at all the mechanisms of communication: the hand-cranked conveyor belt which moved the letters from station to station, the gigantic sorting cauldron, the wax seal inspector’s desk, and all I could see was an apparatus. Whereas before I felt like a natural part of this large organism, now I could not help but view it as an outsider, a sort of unwelcome, cancerous lesion. I had changed, become separate, become other.
My supervisor, Hamlish, was off for the evening, and, truth be told, there were not too many other people in the castle who would take notice of my presence. I had not made very many friends among my coworkers. So, I simply turned and walked out, leaving the work to those who could still do it.
I now had nothing to hold me to this place. My tiny dormitory room in the castle keep showed hardly any signs of life; I rarely ever stayed there. I had no relatives, and, as I just explained, no friends. I had lived a frugal existence, so my savings were substantial to last me for many years. Now that I think about it, I do not know what I had been saving up for. Perhaps a part of me always knew this day would come, and, unbeknownst to my conscious mind, had opted to be prepared for it. I packed a bag with some clothes and provisions, gathered my savings in my satchel, and left the only home I had ever known.
For a time, I was aimless, a pebble being kicked down whichever road I happened upon. I met people I had never even known existed, folks who had no real need for royal couriers, as their communities were their entire lives. Many of them couldn’t even read, but that did not stop them from partaking in meaningful, intelligent existences. They lived by a simpler set of rules, one which valued happiness and friendliness above status and intimidation.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time among these kindly people, but nature also has the often inconvenient tendency towards symmetry, and I met more than a few envious souls who could not help but look up at those more fortunate and shake their fists. One’s personality, I have learned, is not unlike a plant. It grows based on many different criteria, such as the nutrients you feed it, and the light you shine upon it. Poverty, unfortunately, is rather infertile soil, and any seed planted within requires all the more care if it is to flourish. It is forgivable (though irritating) if those living under such circumstances tend to grow up crooked, dry, and bitter. My heart goes out to these people, even if I have no idea how to remedy their situation.
Some three lunar cycles into my transient lifestyle, I happened upon an inn with the obscure name of “The Bellowing Rhinoceros,” or “The Rhino” for short. The beds were soft and the cider strong, so I settled in, planning on staying for roughly a week. On my third night there, however, a brutal storm came to town and refused to budge for nigh on a fortnight, making me a more permanent fixture of the establishment than I had anticipated. I developed a rapport with the innkeeper and his family, which consisted of his lovely wife and two identical twin boys. You could find me at the bar, drinking cider and eating steak sandwiches, at all hours of the day.
Which is where I was on this particular night, when the door opened, allowing in violent gusts of wind and heavy, icy drops of rain, followed by two shady-looking individuals in black hooded cloaks. They closed the door and sat at a table, taking no apparent notice of anybody already inside. They briefly held each others’ hands, across the table, as a sort of ceremonial ritual, and then called for pints of lager. “And keep ‘em comin’,” one of them said. “We’re in mournin’.”
I turned on my stool to face them. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said. “May I ask whose death you mourn, so as I may show the proper respect?”
“The Duke of Nakamoto,” the man replied, raising his tankard.
“To the Duke of Nakamoto,” I said, raising my own glass of cider. “My he find peace elsewhere.”
“Thank ye, sir. Yer too kind. Too kind.”
Feeling a brief pulse of shame for prejudging these gentlemen, I asked permission to join them at their table. They obliged. “I must admit,” I said, having sat at the head of the table, “I have never heard of the Duke of Nakamoto, but he must have been a good man, to inspire such sadness at his passing.”
“Aye, that he was, that he was. A good man.”
“And wise, too,” the other man said.
“Aye, wise, too,” his companion replied.
“My name’s MacInnes,” I said, “but once people get to know me they tend to call me Mac, and I must say, it has grown on me. What are you gentlemen called?”
“We have no names,” the man on my right said.
“No names?” I asked.
“That’s right,” said the man on my left. “When you name somethin’, you make it real. Can’t be expected to do what we do if we had names.”
“And what is it you do?”
“Don’t got a name for that, either. Guess you could say it’s like breathin’, or thinkin’, but it’s bigger than any one of us, and you can’t put yer finger on it.”
Something about this explanation resonated with me. “So you are cogs in a societal machine, you could say?”
“Aye, you could say that. You could surely say that.”
“Now, that’s something I can understand,” I said, taking a sip of my cider. “You see, until very recently, I was a royal courier.”
“You mean like one a’ them mailmen?” the man on my right said.
“Exactly!” I said. “I too was part of a machine much larger than myself. But those days are gone, and now I try to only be.”
“You lost faith in yer work?” said the man on the left.
“In a way, yes, I suppose I did. I still have great respect for the job, but I could no longer find the motivation to do it.”
“Yeah, you saw through the lies, is what you did.”
“I suppose you could say so,” I said. I had not thought of it that way.
“You do a lot of supposin’ for someone who seems to be on top a’ things.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.” All three of us laughed, and some of the mournful tension dissipated. Barney, the innkeeper, brought us another round, on the house. I took a couple healthy sips and said, “Something’s just occurred to me.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” the man on my left said.
“You two claim to have no names, yet you are mourning a man with not only a name, but a title.”
“The Duke’s the only name anybody knows,” said the man on my right. “And no one’s even sure if that’s his name a’ birth. Not sure if anybody’s ever even met him.”
“Oh,” I said. “Now, good sirs, I do not wish to make offense, but now I have another question.”
“Yer gonna ask how we know he’s really dead, if nobody knows who he is.”
“Precisely.”
“Word gets around pretty good, among us ain’t got names. Maybe you’ve seen the posters, hangin’ up all over the place. The ones with with the butterfly on ‘em.”
“It ain’t a butterfly,” the other man said. “It’s somethin’ more exotic, like a wasp, or somethin’.”
“A cicada?” I ventured. I had in fact seen one of these posters, about a block away from the Rhino, out on a walk during a brief lull in the storm, earlier that morning.
“Aye, that’s it! A cicada.”
“What does that signify?” I asked.
“It means the Faceless Treasury is unguarded. Never happened before. Could only mean the Duke’s kicked the bucket.”
“The Faceless Treasury? What’s that?”
The man on my right reached into his cloak and took off a necklace: a string attached to a gold coin which had been rubbed clean of any identifying marks. He handed me the necklace, and both men stood up. “You seem like a good man, Mac. No greediness in you. In the wrong hands, the Faceless Treasury could mean the end a’ the world as we know it. Find the Duke, and you’ll find the Treasury. Keep it safe. Or destroy it. Either one. Our time is up.”
“But you said the Duke is dead. How am I supposed to find him?”
Neither man responded; they simply walked to the door and folded themselves back into the storm.
“Wait!” I cried. “What do you mean the world will end? How do I find the Duke? What is this?”
But they had gone.
I had great difficulty falling asleep that night, despite the uncharacteristically large quantity of cider I consumed after the two hooded gentlemen had left. I spent many hours pacing the floor in front of the bed, mumbling aloud my sporadic thoughts, rubbing the smooth gold coin I had received in between my thumb and fore finger. I re-traversed my conversation with those enigmatic figures countless times, unable to glean any new information, no matter how painstakingly detailed I forced myself to be in my recollection. They had somehow managed to convince me of the severity of their problem, while offering me nothing of substance from which to begin in its disposal. They mourned a fellow with the title of Duke of Nakamoto, yet they had never met the man. It seemed this Duke had been the steward of a vast sum of money, known as the “Faceless Treasury,” and now, upon his demise, it was up for grabs. That was all the information I had to work with, and it most certainly was not enough.
The body always wins eventually, however, and though I was thoroughly intrigued, my physical exhaustion finally overpowered my curiosity.
I do not know if the transit was immediate or if it took several hours, but I eventually arrived in the realm of dreams. I found myself in a dark, snow-dusted clearing in a forest, a clearing which I recognized instantly. This was where my final mission as a courier had begun in earnest, upon the death of my unknown correspondent. In truth, I had dreamed of this place several times before, as I felt it to be the setting of my descent into (for lack of a better word) madness. Though it took my conscious mind some time to catch up, my life changed forever in that tiny clearing in that tiny copse of trees. This dream, however, was slightly different from the ones I normally had.
Usually, upon arriving back in the clearing, I would relive this poor soul’s death, with his blood gushing out of his chest in considerably greater quantities than it had in real life. Then I would wake up, drenched in sweat and feeling light of mind. This time, I remained with the fellow, as I had in reality, and watched him expire, as he gazed up at the sky for the final time. I closed his eyes, as I had on that fateful night, and placed two gold coins upon his lids. In the dream, however, the coins were rubbed plain, like the coin the hooded fellow had given me. Once this was accomplished, I heard a repetitive, deafening whooshing sound, which the slightly lucid part of my brain attributed to the storm still raging outside my window. This was no storm, however, but the beating of gigantic wings, their noise rising up in a ruthless crescendo as their owner approached.
I awoke just before the cicada could level its attack.
The next morning, as if in deference to my new-found quest, the storm moved on and the sun made its first appearance in weeks. The road in front of the Rhino, once a hard-packed dirt trail suitable for humans and horses alike, was now a gelatinous river of mud and debris. By the time I made it to the poster plastered on the side of the armorer’s shop, I had defiled my trousers up to the knees. Thankfully, the poster was intact, and already starting to dry out in the sunshine. I made a quick search for any spying eyes, as I was not certain that my actions would not be frowned upon, and, seeing none, I ripped the poster from the wall.
Back at the Rhino, I made use of Barney’s oven to expedite the drying process. The paper, when dried, regained its original aspect, excluding the wrinkles brought on by the rain. It was not, from what I could tell, especially high-quality. Definitely not what one would expect from a ducal pronouncement. It was rough and pulpy, seemingly pressed together by someone in a hurry. The ink used, a course, maroon substance, had smeared and bled considerably, denoting a lack of professionalism. Altogether, the poster made one think of a lone individual, barely more than a novice, creating a piece of art in his spare time. And yet this was not the only poster in existence. My friends from the night before had insinuated (and I had no reason to disbelieve them) that there were many more of these notices posted around the kingdom. This was a contradiction which I found difficult to reconcile. The only logical answer was in itself improbable: this poster was the result of a kingdom-wide coalition of individuals, somehow in contact with one another, but unable or unwilling to share resources.
In order to get to the bottom of this conspiracy, I would have to locate its nearest conspirator. However, not being native to this region, I naturally was at a loss as to where to begin my search. I employed the help of Barney, who, to my great surprise, took one look at the poster and proclaimed to know exactly from whence it had originated.
“Oh, that’s gotta be from Nimbleton Farm.”
“Forgive me, Barney, but how could you possibly ascertain that from one quick glance?”
“See that little bit a’ pulp, right there beneath the creature’s wings?”
“I do,” I replied.
“Well, you may not know it, but you’ve been drinkin’ quite a bit a’ that recently.”
“All I have been drinking, Barney, is your delicious cider. And that blemish is a dark black, not the shiny red of the common apple.”
“Right you are, Mac. Right you are. But, as you so generously put it, my cider is delicious, and that’s owin’ to the fact that I don’t use your common red apple. I use the famous Nimbleton Black, renowned all over for its dark skin and especially sweet flavor. Only grow on Nimbleton’s Farm. I’ve been goin’ to Chuck Nimbleton for my apples as long as the Rhino’s been standin.’ That’s apple skin, I’d bet my life on it.”
“Very astute,” I said, “But couldn’t the creator of this poster simply have been sloppily eating a Nimbleton Black at the moment of pressing?”
“I suppose so, but ole’ Chuck’s not the most enterprising fellow in the kingdom. Part a’ what makes his apples so well-known is how few people he lets buy ‘em. I’m the only pub within a hundred leagues uses ‘em, and that’s only because he was once married to my second cousin, Roberta. You’re not likely to find another Nimbleton Black anywhere around here.”
“Well, I suppose that’s as good of a lead as any other I have at the moment, so I shall investigate it. Would you care to join me on my quest?”
“Ah, no. Well past the questin’ age, me. I’d just hold you back. But listen: Chuck doesn’t let just anyone on his farm. Part a’ his mystique, I figure. So, when you get there, show ‘em this order form, tell ‘em you’re there on my account to get a shipment. That should at least get you past the gates, and you’d be doin’ me a favor, as well.”
“Thank you, Barney. You have been most helpful.”
To ensure my cover-story remain believable, I borrowed Barney’s apple cart for the journey to Nimbleton Farm. It was many miles away, rather farther than one could normally be expected to travel for apples. But Barney’s cider was sufficiently flavorful, so I supposed it was worth the trip. On the road, I passed the occasional modest grouping of establishments, but nothing that would qualify as a village or town. This seemed to me to be a lawless place, where one was left to his own devices, as opposed to being able to rely upon the law-enforcing systems of the kingdom. I felt uncomfortably exposed, in this strange land, upon this tortuously slow apple cart. I tried reminding myself that Barney (a man who, despite his many admirable qualities, could not me described as “intimidating”) drove this road, alone, every time he needed new supply for his pub. But he had been doing so for many years, and he was probably well-known among the conspicuous characters who populated the route. I, being a stranger, did not have the luxury of familiarity, and the faces I encountered on my trip to the farm left me unwilling to introduce myself.
But they ultimately kept to themselves, allowing me safe (if anxious) passage to Chuck Nimbleton’s estate. There was indeed a gate barring entrance to the approaching avenue, and two young men were stationed there, presumably to ward off any potential miscreants or spies. I produced for them Barney’s order for twelve bushels of Nimbleton Blacks, and they looked at me skeptically, as if I were about to reveal from my cart an army of saboteurs, like the fellows from that ancient story. Finally, they seemed to accept the legitimacy of my arrival, allowing me to pass through the gates, towards the store house. There, they explained, I could pick up my twelve bushels and get out, post-haste.
This was my first real indication that there was something more going on at Nimbleton Farm besides an overly-secretive apple growing operation. Had they been friendly, I might have considered Barney’s theory of the origin of the cicada poster to be mere speculation, a musing of a man who for years has been conditioned to see apple skins wheresoever he looks. However, the suspicious behavior of these two sentries to me implied shady doings of a more insidious nature. I assured the two young men of the purity of my intentions, while inwardly resolving to have a look around.
About a quarter of the way down the avenue, I flashed upon what I considered to be a fairly clever idea. I stopped the apple cart in the heavy shade of an elderly tree and removed the supporting bolt from one of the wheels, ensuring its structural failure by the time I arrived at the store house. This would afford me the time I required to participate in espionage, while the field hands busied themselves with the repairs. This transpired as planned, and in the ensuing commotion brought upon by the resulting crash, I slinked away from the crowd, now free to investigate at my own leisure.
The first few minutes of sneaking proved fruitless, as I only happened upon a horse stable, a wood shed, and an outhouse. I did not know how long it would take for the workers to repair my cart, and, assuming it would be even sooner that they realize my disappearance, I resolved to take one last quick glance at the property before returning to the store house and once more adopting the role of innocent apple buyer.
About a furlong behind the wood shed, there sat a well, as inconspicuous as can be. I took no real notice of it until I got within but a few yards of the structure and heard a familiar noise. It was the noise from my dream, that of the whooshing wings, though not nearly as loud. Naturally, I took this to be nothing more than an odd coincidence, as it was unlikely that there was a gigantic cicada living beneath a well on a famously private apple farm. But, coincidence or no, I had to admit that the noise now emanating with greater volume was not what one would expect to hear if one were to listen to an innocent store of supplementary water.
Peeking into the well, I saw that it was indeed dry, and not more than fifteen feet deep. The rope, which I had incorrectly assumed was attached to a hanging bucket, was knotted at intervals conveniently spaced as to allow a descent into the tunnel which appeared to run underneath the ground.
The old me, MacInnes the courier, probably would have turned tail at this moment and left the mystery alone. Not out of cowardice, mind you. I encountered more than my fair share of danger on the job, as all couriers do, and I had never fled from the risk of injury, should the mission call for it. But therein lies the crux of the issue. Chief among the courier’s attributes is the ability to mind one’s own business. Ours is not to question why, but to deliver the letters as instructed. There is something to be said for the loyal soldier who puts his trust in the decision-making capabilities of his superiors. Quite often, those in power have proved worthy of their status, and they truly are the most qualified to make judgments of great impact. However, I know firsthand that there is also security in subservience, and one can just as easily be convinced to stand by, complicit in the evil done in this world, simply because no one has asked him not to. Perhaps whatever had happened to me on my last mission had made this trait recognizable to me, as I did not require very long to persuade myself to swing my legs over the stone sides of the well and lower myself to the tunnel beneath.
The noise was much louder here in the tunnel, but now it was less the whooshing of wings and more akin to the sound a craftsman makes when planing a length of wood. At first it seemed to originate from a single source, but the further down the tunnel I ventured, the more separate instances I could distinguish. Somewhere down here, there was presumably a room of people participating in a similar action.
The tunnel was lit only sporadically, with but the occasional torch, so I had not much more than the growing cacophony to inform me that I had reached the end. I stepped through a door into what amounted to a large factory floor, not all that unlike my former workplace in the castle keep. There was a grid of tables set up, each with a worker toiling away at something, seemingly unaware of the world around them. The noise which I had attributed to the cicada’s wings was in fact the result of whatever task these drones were a party to. I briefly feared for my safety, as though I could not discern the purpose of the room, I had an oblique feeling that it was a secret that certain characters would kill to protect. But I needn’t have worried. No one took any notice of me. They simply kept at their work, which, even in full view of the operation, I could not see clearly. The longer I remained unchallenged in the room, the bolder I became in my actions, until I decided I would simply walk up to one of the work tables and see for myself what was going on.
I chose a table at random, approaching from the front with my hands up as to denote my lack of lethal intentions. The worker held in her hand a tiny hankie of steel wool, and she was worrying at something in between her thumb and fore finger with monomaniacal attention. After a few moments, she stopped and took out the object of her labor: a gold coin which she had successfully rubbed clean of any markings which may have distinguished it as legal currency of one realm or another. It was exactly like the coin my hooded friend had given me, which I in fact was wearing around my neck at just that moment.
The worker did not appraise the coin, did not critique it at all; she simply added it to a little stack she had started on her desk and pulled a new, un-erased coin from a different pile. Before she began her task anew, however, she took a tiny horsehair brush to the surface of her work space, as a barber might sweep up the fallen hair after the cut is completed. I did not understand, so I leaned close and peered into her business. I thought that surely this encroachment of her personal space would elicit some response, but still she seemed not to acknowledge my existence. I had to get very close indeed to the table before I could recognize that she was collecting the trace amounts of gold that had fallen off the coin during her rubbing. She pulled from her tunic a small aubergine bag, sweeping the minuscule gold shavings within. Was this her pay? I wondered. It did not seem like much at all, but perhaps, after a full day’s work, it amounted to more. I opted to question her before she began work on the next coin.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” I said. “My name is…um…Jeff. I’ve been sent here to assess the happiness of you workers. How are things, down here in the trenches?”
The woman looked at me for the first time, and I noticed that her eyes were blank. No pupil or iris, just a solid field of a single color: a deep, rich blue. She did not respond to my question. I was unnerved, but I had to understand the nature of this operation. “Is that enough, do you think? The shavings, uh…we provide you?”
Finally, she spoke, though in a dead, unconvincing monotone. “It adds up.”
“Of course. Do you enjoy your work?”
“It adds up.”
“Have you been made aware of the grander purpose to all this? What I mean is, do you know why exactly you and your companions are here, defacing this gold?”
“It adds up,” she said, one more time, before starting to work on her next coin.
I decided to quit pressing my luck; surely Barney’s apple cart was nearly fixed by now, and in all likelihood the field hands would be searching for me, if for nothing more than to give me my twelve bushels of Nimbleton Blacks. Hurrying back to the door to the tunnel, I glanced at several other workers, whiling away at their own little stacks. Every one of them had, like the woman I had questioned, a less than cogent demeanor and blank eyes of a deep, rich blue.
I left the farm, apples in tow, wholly unaware of what I had witnessed. Was that the Faceless Treasury? The name seemed to affirm this hypothesis, as the workers were indeed taking coins of the realm and stripping them of their identity, but the idea seemed somehow incomplete. The hooded fellows had explicitly told me that the Treasury, whatever it proved to be, was currently unclaimed by any one person. Surely, Chuck NImbleton could make a fair claim to the gold being manipulated beneath his land, and, unlike the fabled Duke of Nakamoto, Chuck Nimbleton was still very much alive. And what of the poster which had led me to NImbleton Farm, the one which was supposedly but one of many? No, what I discovered beneath the well may have been ancillary to the Faceless Treasury, but it was not the Faceless Treasury itself.
I headed back to the Rhino around dusk, though I was too engulfed in my own thoughts to worry about any possible attack. That the world hung in the balance had yet to be made clear to me, but something was transpiring beneath Nimbleton Farm, something I couldn’t put my finger on. Something that felt like it could prove to be very important.
The attack on the castle took place the following night. Even on the other side of the kingdom, we could see the fire’s light from the front door of the Rhino. This was clearly no mere accident, as the keep’s fire department is one of the most efficient organizations I have ever encountered, including the office to which I once belonged. For a blaze to burn with such unfettered fury, it had to be a deliberate act.
I had to help. Though I no longer lived there, I owed much to the capital city, and I could not simply sit by, sip my cider, and allow its citizens to suffer. Not while I was able to do something. I tried to settle my bill with Barney, but he waved me off, as if accepting any money from me would be preposterous. I was touched and more than a little flabbergasted, as I knew Barney to be in dire straights, indebted to a ruthless lord. But he would have none of it, saying only that I had paid the bill already with my friendship. Hearing this, I made my exit with all the more urgency, so as to avoid breaking down in tears right there on the floor. Making friends has never been easy for me, so I still tend to get caught off guard when it happens. But now I had more pressing matters to resolve, so I bridled my horse and rode off, keeping the castle in front of me, a guiding star of burning timber.
The fire had been put down by the time I arrived, though things were anything but calm. The blaze had been localized in the castle’s central bank, and everyone in the area was justifiably concerned about their own finances. Many of the keep’s merchants had no real money to speak of, only letters of good standing from the kingdom’s official financial institution. These letters had presumably burned up in the fire (which was, I realized, probably the point), and nobody knew what the implications of this would be. Now that it was in disarray, would the bank demand tangible satisfaction from these people? Or would they take this opportunity to start over, effectively offering all the King’s subjects a clean slate? Tensions were high in the streets, and any trust once shared between neighbors was eroding quickly.
I was in the process of mediating an argument between two now destitute apothecary’s apprentices when I heard my name called from a few buildings away.
“MacInnes! Is that you?” Though I had never before seen him so mobile, I recognized the man running in my direction to be my old boss, Hamlish. I was happy to see him.
“Yes, sir!” I said, forgetting the two apprentices and their petty squabble almost immediately. “Reporting for duty.”
“You’re about three months late,” Hamlish said with a huge grin on his face. “And boy am I glad about that.”
“Um, yes. I’m sorry I never said goodbye.”
“Not at all, not at all! Dereliction of duty is a serious transgression, you know. So unlike the MacInnes I knew to do such a thing. I’m very proud, my boy. How have things been?”
“Honestly? They’ve been great. I’ve been meaning to thank you, Hamlish.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“You were right all along. My devotion to my job was thoroughly unhealthy. You tried to convince me of that, and I wouldn’t listen. You were, I think, my only friend, and I was never kind to you. I’m sorry.”
“Only friend? I’m offended,” said a voice behind my back. I almost didn’t recognize it, as it seemed so unlikely to be here. I spun on my heels with a speed even I did not know I possessed.
“Danni!” I exclaimed. “It’s you!” Without thinking, I threw my arms around my friend and one time co-investigator. She hugged me back, though she did seem rather shocked.
“Hold on a second,” she said, once the embrace had concluded. She reached into a tiny pouch hanging from her belt and pulled out a small, fractured piece of chalk. With practiced dexterity, she drew a rune on the sleeve of my tunic and rubbed it clean.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“Old runic method of exposing doppelgangers. There’s no way you’re the Mac I met just a few months ago.”
“Very funny, but it’s me. And I know you don’t believe in doppelgangers.”
“Well,” Danni said, laughing, “you’re giving me a reason to question my beliefs.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Challenging one’s flimsy philosophy is your job. And, as you can clearly see, you are quite good at it.”
“Aw, shucks, Mac. I think I like the new you.”
“You know what, Danni? So do I. It’s good to see you. You too, Hamlish. But, getting down to business, what is going on here?”
“We’re not entirely sure,” Hamlish said. “I suppose you came to help in the relief efforts.”
“Naturally,” I said.
“Figured as much. And we’re glad to have you, but I was actually sent to find Mayor Danu.”
I gasped and turned back to Danni. “Mayor? You did it! I knew you would!”
“Thank you, kind citizen. Your vote means much to me, but your happiness means much more.”
“Huh?” Hamlish said.
“That was my campaign slogan. Rather effective, though, running against that buffoon, it proved unnecessary. I could have put up posters that just said, ‘Vote for Danni, who is a different human being from the one currently in charge’ and I would have won. But Burnsley said it was important I stay on message.”
“And how is Burnsley?” I asked.
“He’s good. I finally convinced him to move out of that horrid volcano and into the mayoral mansion.”
“Move into the mansion? With you? You mean…?”
“Something like that,” Dani said, blushing slightly.
“I’m so happy for you,” I said.
“Thanks, Mac.”
“I hate to go all ‘boss’ on everybody,” Hamlish said, “but we really do need to get back to the castle, now that I’ve found you, Danu.”
“Call me Danni.”
“Okay, I shall. You should come too, MacInnes. Truth be told, I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “We’re good friends. And, Hamlish?”
“Yeah?”
“Call me Mac.”
We relocated to a medium-sized banquet hall inside the castle which had thankfully been saved from the blaze. Seated at the table was a man whose reputation preceded him: Count Stewbrand, the King’s chief adviser. Short of the monarch himself, Stewbrand was the most powerful person in the entire kingdom. A master strategist, acclaimed scientist, and prolific purveyor of the arts, it was said that no aspect of modern existence was lost on him. He was notorious for his wit and sense of humor, though he seemed rather dour at the moment. He drank from a goblet of red wine, making no attempt to keep the errant drops from the circuitous strands of his long, gray beard. When we approached, he simply nodded and motioned for us to sit.
I did not dare speak. I had not been invited to this gathering, so I did not want to intrude any more than I already was. I assumed the purpose of the conference was to determine the cause of the fire, and to develop any possible plans of action going forward. But why, then, was Danni here? Hamlish I understood, as he was in charge of the kingdoms postal service (and, I had long suspected but had never confirmed, also the director of the castle’s spy agency), but Danni was the mayor of a relatively small village at the base of a volcano some four day’s walk away. What could she possibly add to the relief effort?
Stewbrand downed the remainder of his wine and let out a short, percussive burp. Then, to my surprise, he looked at me and smiled. “MacInnes,” he said. “I was not aware you would be joining us.”
My jaw dropped. I had never met Stewbrand before, and he surely had no reason to know of me at all, let alone recognize me on sight. I tried and failed multiple times to respond, until I finally gave up altogether and waited for him to continue.
“Yes, I know we have never met. But Hamilsh has told me much about you, over the years, and I make it a habit to ‘check in’ on our star citizens from time to time. I’m rather impressed with your career, I must say. Shame it ended so soon, but I’ll never be one to advocate doing a job which no longer resonates within your soul. I’m glad you’re here, and I gladly anticipate your opinion. Welcome to the King’s Council.”
I must admit that I had difficulty, in the moment, absorbing everything implied by Stewbrand’s words. It appeared that the kingdom was spying on its own citizens, including myself, and I honestly to this day do not know if I find this practice appalling or admirable. After all, I still care above all else about the safety of the kingdom and its inhabitants. It seems only logical that for such a large organization to operate in the most efficient and moral manner, it should be aware of the goings-on within its own walls. Yet it does feel like an invasion of some sort. In truth, I had enjoyed my anonymity, while I had it. I do not feel that a citizen of the realm should have to display his life to the authorities in order to reap the benefits of society’s institutions. The kingdom exists to protect all of its people, private and public alike. It is a problem that I cannot even define, let alone hope to solve on my own.
But it was the adviser’s final statement which really caught my attention: “Welcome to the King’s Council.” How was I to interpret that statement? Though it seemed highly unlikely, I eventually decided I was to take his words literally. “King’s Council?” I asked, meekly.
“That’s right,” Stewbrand said. “We are the power behind the throne, so to speak. And now, ‘we’ includes you.”
“But, but, b-b-b-but…but…” I said.
“Breathe, Mac,” Danni said. “I know it’s crazy, but he’s telling you the truth.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I exhaled, I felt better prepared to face my situation. “Okay…okay. King’s Council. Is it just the four of…us?”
“I’m afraid so,” Stewbrand replied. “There were more, yesterday, before the fire, but some of them, sadly, were lost. And some of them, despicably, have abandoned us. For the time being, it is we four who rule the kingdom.”
“But what about his Majesty the King?” I asked.
The other three, all taking great pains to avoid looking in my direction, grew ominously silent. I felt a morose atmosphere take hold of the room, not unlike when those two hooded figures had first arrived at the Rhino on that stormy night. Except they, of course, were in mourning.
I almost fainted. “Oh, no! Is the King…dead?”
“Um, no,” Hamlish said. “Not exactly, no.”
“Not exactly? What does that mean? Did he or did he not perish in the fire?”
“No, he did not perish in the fire.”
“Did he--oh my gods!--did he abandon the kingdom?”
“No, Mac. He did not.”
“So where is he?” I demanded.
“Mac,” Danni said. “There, um, there is no King. Never has been one, apparently.”
I could not believe it. No King? It made no sense. How could we have a kingdom, complete with all the trappings, and no King? And how could such a secret possibly remain hidden? “But, I’ve seen him. When he gave his speech commemorating the Battle of the Golem’s Left Shoe, last celestial cycle.”
“That was me,” Stewbrand said. “I dyed my beard and stood upon a blacksmith’s anvil so as to give the impression of youth and stature. That balcony is so far above the public square, the ruse did not have to be sophisticated to be successful. I know this is hard news to bear, especially today, but it’s true. Your King is a myth.”
I barely had enough air to form words, but I had to know. “So, what, my entire life, it’s been you, ruling the kingdom?”
“Yes,” Stewbrand said. “But not only me. Hamlish, for example, has been on the Council for almost as long as I have, and there have been many others through the years.”
“But why?”
“It’s better this way, Mac,” Hamlish said. “You know better than most how much more effective a cohesive team is than a single individual. A King can be crazy. Or stupid, or evil, or any combination of the three. And a King’s power is absolute. Those who serve him are expected to follow orders, not takin’ into consideration how idiotic or immoral those orders may be. It’s luck ‘o the draw, with Kings. You may get a good one, and many places have. But you should know that a good King, who is intelligent, caring, and effective, is more an anomaly than a sure bet.”
“You make a convincing argument, Hamlish, but if that is that case, why lie? Why let the kingdom think they have a sovereign ruler?”
“Well, that makes sense, don’t you think, Mac?” Danni said. “All that stuff Hamlish just said, about absolute power and whatnot, that’s not a good way to rule a country, but it is a strong idea with which to maintain order. If we come up with some plan, we have to convince the people to go along with it. It’s much more likely that they’ll agree with a decree from their King than some brainy notion thought up by the four of us.”
“Again,” I said. “A convincing argument. But it feels wrong. Danni, don’t you think this feels wrong? To lie to the people like this?”
“Tell you the truth, Mac, I just got here a little bit before you. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, as a form of government. But we have to do something to help the kingdom, and we can’t wait for a constitution. We have to act tonight. Honestly, I’d rather be home tonight, planning my town’s harvest festival with Burnsley, but right now we’ve got to do something.”
I took another deep breath. Danni was right. Now was not the time to debate the ethics of a system which had been unknown to me just a few hours prior. For better or worse, I was now on the King’s Council, and we had a problem to solve. “Okay, you’re right. What are we doing about the fire relief?”
“Oh, I have people working on that,” Stewbrand said. “Don’t worry. The basic amenities of the castle keep are not to be missing for long. The bigger problem than the fire is the party who started it, as they are as of yet unknown, and this attack feels to me like a prologue to a much greater work.”
“We have to find who did it, Mac,” Hamlish said. “Find ‘em and bring ‘em back here, so we can know what they’re planning next.”
In the chaos, I had all but forgotten about what I had seen at Nimbleton Farm. It now seemed likely that that mysterious operation and the attack on the castle’s central bank were related. I relayed my story to the other members of the Council, who reacted with considerably less surprise than I had expected.
“Yes, we had heard rumblings of some scheme taking place under the orchard, but we had not yet recruited any agents to investigate,” Stewbrand said. “Once again, Mac, you prove to be an impressive ally.”
“Thank you. What about the Duke of Nakamoto?”
“Well, I’ve heard the name before, but not in any context that made sense. A little bird whispered the news of his death to me, and I myself have seen one of those cicada posters, but Hamlish and I were admittedly unable to connect the dots as you have.”
“It was actually Barney, the innkeeper. He recognized a bit of apple skin in the poster, and figured it had been made there.”
“My, gods, really?” Hamlish said. “He sounds brilliant! You must go recruit him.”
“Don’t count on it, Hamlish. He’s old and content. A potent combination, if you ask me, not one to be easily swayed.”
“True.”
“But Danni,” I asked, “why are you here? Your town is quite a trek away.”
“Yes, it is,” Danni said. “But now I’m even more glad I made it. Seems your story and my story are connected.”
“How so?” Stewbrand asked.
Danni unfastened the top of her tunic and removed a necklace. It was a gold coin, rubbed smooth just like mine, attached to a leather strap. “See? I got one too. Though mine wasn’t given as much as confiscated. Starting a couple weeks ago, Burnsley and I began to notice an increase in tourist traffic coming to the volcano. Not entirely unusual, seeing as it is the only active volcano for many miles. But none of the supposed tourists were actually climbing the mountain. They would all pay admission for a guided tour, but, once they got their tickets, they would turn around and head to the town’s largest pub, the Catgut Raconteur. Again, not too weird. It’s a great pub. It’s got private rooms you can rent out for parties. I didn’t think too much of it, but Burnsely said it smelled fishy. He went to the Catgut one night, and he saw, through a gap in the door leading to one of the party rooms, a bunch of people-- the tourists-- sitting at a table, putting small slips of paper on top of tiny glowing cubes, about the size of a human fist.”
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Yep,” Danni said.
“What do you mean, ‘oh, no’?” Hamlish asked.
“It’s an invention of Burnsley, my…city manager. Mac and I were tasked with locating Burnsley, some few months back, in order to use his alchemical skills to decipher a bizarre message. That mission ended up being kinda useless, but it did result in Burnsley showing us this cube he had created. Basically, the cube acts as a conduit of information, relaying the results of his laboratory experiments to whomever is in possession of one. He gave one to every villager, as an act of good faith. People have since figured out how to connect the cubes to one another, so they can communicate without having to go through Burnsley’s lab. Burnsley also fears that they have built other, hidden labs, where they can share and store information without his knowing. It seems pretty clear that whoever this Duke of Nakamoto was, he was disseminating his orders through this illegal system located in the Catgut Raconteur.”
“Illegal?” Stewbrand said. “Forgive me, Mayor Danni, but how can such a new and unspecified act be considered illegal?”
“I specified it as such. I am the mayor, after all.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” Danni asked.
“I think what the Count is trying to say,” said Hamlish, “is that such a stance sends the message that these cubes, which are supposed to improve the lives of the villagers, are in fact units of control rather than instruments of free expression. The villagers are allowed to use them as they see fit, as long as their interests align with those of the government. It does not seem entirely fair.”
“Say the guys who rule an entire kingdom by spying on and lying to their citizens. Look, this is all very new. Not just to me, but to everybody. We’re in the deciding times, right now. It won’t be long before people figure out how to make their own cubes, and then it won’t just be a village issue anymore. This Council is going to have to rule on them soon enough, and I’d rather start strict and loosen my stance as I go than end up having to clean up some free-for-all down the road. I mean, the tourists actually were planning to attack the castle.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Stewbrand said. “The two events may still prove to be unrelated. But if Burnsley had developed some way to monitor the information being sent between the cubes before he gifted them to the village, we might now have more to work with, and the other citizens, the innocent ones, would not feel threatened.”
“So your criticism isn’t with my stringent policy, but with how trusting I was to begin with? That I didn’t infringe upon my constituents’ rights until I had cause to?”
“I…uh…well,” Stewbrand said.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “You don’t want to get into a logical argument with her. She’s very good at them.”
“Thanks, Mac,” Danni said to me, though she was still glaring at Stewbrand.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to steer the conversation from the rhetorical back to the practical, “what happened after you learned of the tourists’ actions?”
Danni exhaled sharply. “I had them all killed.”
“What?” Stewbrand, Hamlish, and myself all exclaimed at once.
“Oh, really,” Danni said, rolling her eyes. “I simply evicted them from the pub and confiscated their cubes. I handed the devices over to Burnsley, who was able to retrieve each one’s final transmission. They were addresses, some inside the village, some far away, and what turned out to be amounts of money. The tourists were operating their own makeshift economy, underneath the noses of both my village and the kingdom at large. No taxes, no records, no nothing. Even rubbed off the ‘King’s’ face, so nobody could tell where the coins came from.”
“My word,” Stewbrand said. “That is….”
“Genius,” Danni said. “I know.”
“And that coin? How did you come to be in possession of it?”
“I went to one of the addresses inside the village that Burnsley had recovered form the cubes. The person who lived there, a sickly old woman, had used the network to procure some medicine she needed dearly, but was too expensive at the local apothecary. She felt the need for anonymity, for fear that the apothecary would attempt to bring legal action against her if he knew she had gone elsewhere for the elixir. Apparently, it is common practice among those who use this secondary economy to keep their first ‘Faceless’ coin, as they call them, as a sort of keepsake. I took hers in order to aid my investigation.”
“And what happened to the old lady?” I asked.
“Thanks for asking, Mac,” Danni said, her eyes softening. “I know you’re a caring fellow. I had Burnsley whip up a lifetime supply of the elixir. She’ll never have to pay for it again. And, maybe more importantly, she won’t have to do anything she’s ashamed of.”
“I apologize,” Stewbrand said. “You are a much better ruler than I gave you credit for.”
“Apology accepted,” Danni said.
“Well, Stewbrand,” Hamlish said, “after what we just heard, I think it’s only logical to conclude that these ‘Faceless’ coins and their distribution are indeed connected to the incident at the castle, wouldn’t you say?”
Stewbrand sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It would appear that these individuals are attempting to circumvent the central economic institutions of the kingdom. The fire would only help them to achieve this goal.”
“I agree. That makes sense, as far as anything I’ve seen in the past week makes sense,” I said. “But I doubt the operations at Nimbleton Farm and Danni’s village are the only ones. It seems to me like these people have a fundamental philosophical problem with how the kingdom’s money has historically been handled. A reasonable person can therefore conclude that this new economy would lack a single, authoritative hub, favoring instead a coalition of smaller, more expendable stations.”
“An incredibly cogent statement, Mac,” Stewbrand said. “Hamlish, you told me he was devoted, but you never informed me of how intelligent this one is.”
“The smartest ever to be in my employ,” Hamlish said. I knew that they were buttering me up, that their flattery was merely an attempt to soften my defenses against whatever task they were about saddle me with, but I must admit that I still was not immune to such notions of vanity, no matter how much better I now was at recognizing them. Not that I needed much encouragement, but their compliments effectively drafted me to their cause. I did not, however, intend to allow them to think me so easily manipulated.
“Danni,” I said, “it seems to me that these two are about to ask something of us, don’t you think?”
“That’s certainly what it looks like,” Danni said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Though they seem to think more highly of you, so I don’t know if they want me to go with.”
Hamlish started to compliment Danni on her caring and logical governing style, but Stewbrand cut him off. “Yes, yes. You are great too, Mayor. And you’re right. We do have a task for you. Both of you, as you seem to have quite a rapport, and apparently a history of partnership that even I was previously unaware of. Funny how things work out sometimes.”
“Whaddya say, Mac? Wanna go another round?” Danni said.
“It would be a pleasure,” I replied, rising from my seat.
“Wait,” Hamlish said. “You don’t even know your mission yet.”
“Well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” I said. “You want us to find whoever was responsible for the fire. Either return with intelligence of their next attack, or stop the entire operation by ourselves.”
“Well, yes. That is correct.”
“Great. Danni, you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s get going.”
“Real quick, before you head off,” Stewbrand said. “How do you intend to begin your investigation?”
“Simple: we find out who killed the Duke of Nakamoto.”
Danni knew better than to ruin such a perfect exit, but I could tell she was anxious to learn what I had meant by my last statement. Once we arrived at the royal stables, I finally told her.
“All I have to go on is the testimony of the two hooded figures I met in the Bellowing Rhinoceros, but I believed them when they said that the Duke of Nakamoto was a good man. Granted, they had never met him before, but he clearly had a magnanimous reputation. They seemed truly crushed that he had passed, and they lamented the idea that the Faceless Treasury was no longer under his control. I think this whole thing has been a coup, Danni. Someone didn’t like the Duke’s peaceful ways, so they killed him in order to take the Treasury in a more radical direction.”
“Makes sense to me,” Danni said. “But what did they mean when they told you to ‘find the Duke’? How can you find a man who has been murdered?”
“I think you’ve answered that for us, my friend. Those addresses you and Burnsley recovered from the tourists’ cubes are the key. Nobody’s met the Duke, but it stands to reason that he was active within the Treasury’s network. One of those addresses must be his, and I think we need to figure out which one if we are to learn who is now calling the shots in this underground economy.”
“Since when have you been so strategically minded, Mac?”
“It’s a relatively newly acquired skill,” I lied. In truth, I have always been capable of critical thinking of such magnitude; I simply did not require it of myself when I had others to do the thinking for me. Looking back, I find this to be a much less forgivable offense than simply being stupid.
“Well, I won’t stop you now,” Danni said. “Where do you think we should start looking?”
“How far away is the most distant address you have?”
“About six day’s walk from the village, which would make it two days from here. Why?”
“Such a solitary individual, I imagine, would want to remain as isolated as possible. I think we should go there first.”
“Works for me.”
As we prepared our horses for the journey, I took a look around the still chaotic castle keep. It was as if a dragon had laid siege upon the kingdom, as people seemed more stunned by the implausibility of the fire than by the fire itself. Hamlish and Stewbrand were right about that; the attack was effective because it made one question what would happen next. I could already see the citizens’ minds working, creating their own unlikely scenarios about which to worry.
At least they still had their King to help them through these trying times.
For a brief moment, I considered revealing the Council’s secret. It would not be difficult. I could scream, at the top of my lungs, “There is no King!” and more than a few people would hear me and take my message to heart. Or, probably more effectively, I could simply walk up to a citizen, chosen at random, and ask something like, “Say, how come the King’s not here to help us out?” or “Where is the King? You’d think he would have made a public statement by now.” That would get the wheels turning. My questions would beget more questions, which would spawn more, and more, until the monarch’s absence would be utterly impossible to ignore. Stewbrand would eventually have no choice but to confess.
But what would that accomplish? A King, as a man, may help or hinder his domain. But a King, as an idea, can do so much more. As an idea, a King can empower his subjects, give them the confidence to make difficult but necessary choices. A King is a cushion, a safety net, a buoy in the ocean, a powerful figure you can count on to have your back. He need not be real to be beneficial.
No, the people needed their King, now more than ever, and I would not be the one to take him from them. Maybe some day, after the dust had settled, we could retire the King and tell the people the truth. But for now, the truth would only be another item on a long bill of suffering.
Danni seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Weird, isn’t it? Knowing that we’re now the ones in charge,” she said.
“That’s one way to put it,” I replied. “’Incredibly unsettling’ would be another.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I just didn’t want to be a bummer.”
We left the castle at once, despite the late hour. There was no time to waste, and there were plenty of inns along the royal highway, should we require rest later in the night.
We rode until dawn, taking full advantage of the empty roads to make excellent time. We were now just shy of one day’s ride away from the address Burnsley had deciphered from the confiscated cubes. Though Danni and I were fully prepared to ride nonstop, our horses eventually made it known that a break was in order. We could not blame them, as we had ridden them as if the gods themselves were on our tail. We stopped at an inn (really more of a woman’s house with a couple spare cots in the cellar) and paid for half a day’s stay and one meal each. The old lady who ran the place clearly thought Danni and I were a romantic coupling, but seeing as she voiced no objections, we decided it would be easier to let her think what she wanted.
I retired to my cot and slept for six hours. I was more exhausted than I had been willing to admit. When I awoke, I went upstairs to the kitchen, where I found Danni talking to the proprietress. I took my seat, which already had a plate of sausages waiting for me, and ate. It was a very satisfying meal.
Leaving the inn, I saw, lurking behind a shed just to the side of the stables, a man adorned in what was unmistakably the hooded cloak worn by the Duke of Nakamoto’s men. I tried not to let on that I had seen him, but I believe he saw through my ruse, as he shuffled around the shed’s corner once I faced his general direction. I started to run towards the shed, but the fellow burst onto the road on horseback before I even got close. I thought him lost, until I saw Danni zip by me with the speed and grace of the accomplished rider she so clearly was.
She caught up to the spy rather quickly, but could not get him to rein in his horse. What followed was a perilous contest of wills, neither one acquiescing to the other’s speed, despite the treacherous nature of the road. Danni was finally able to grab a hold of the man’s cloak, but, instead of stopping or falling off his horse, the man appeared to pull on a thread up near his neck, resulting in the removal of the garment. Danni, understandably taken aback by this, slowed her pace, looking at the formless wad of cloth in her hands, allowing the fellow to escape in just his underclothes. She came back to the stables and dismounted her horse.
“Well, that was bizarre,” she said.
“Quite. It would appear, from what I could see, that his cloak had a built-in escape mechanism.”
“Yeah. And check this out: it’s heavy. Like, really heavy.”
She handed the cloak to me, and I found that it was indeed heavy, more so than any piece of cloth had any cause to be. This was not plate armor, though it was not significantly lighter. “What do you make of this?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s--”
“Wait!” I interjected. “Feel this. Something has been sewn into the lining of the cloak. Many somethings, in fact. That’s why it’s so heavy.” I laid the cloak on the ground and pointed out the peculiarities. There were many chunks of metal hidden between the layers of wool. Even before we tore the cloth open, we both knew what we would find within. “Coins. Gold coins of the realm.”
“Rubbed Faceless, no doubt,” Danni said. “So those creepy guys must be the distributors. Looks like we’re on the right track. Let’s go.”
There is a legend, in our kingdom, of gigantic, fantastical creatures which once roamed the planet. Some walked on four legs, and were kind, using their unbelievably long necks to strip vegetation from the tops of trees, but holding no malice to any flesh and blood entity. Others walked on two legs and were cruel, ripping the meat from the bones of the meek with their teeth as sharp as diamond blades. They supposedly ruled the world for millennia, until the gods flung a moon from the heavens down on top of them, killing them off and making way for humans, a species of animal not all that more sophisticated. This story enthralled me as a child, but I had long-since lost faith in its validity, to the point where nothing short of physical evidence would convince me.
The final act of this tale is, among other things, about just that very thing.
The distant address on Danni’s list was a hole in the world. It was not immediately obvious, however, as it looked from afar like any other medium-sized town. But it was built upon a crater, as we would discover shortly after our arrival.
Nobody lived on the surface. At first, it felt like our previous mission, where, upon entering the village Danni would eventually come to rule, we encountered no villagers. But there had been signs of life, then, little clues that told us the place was not abandoned but merely anti-social. This town, however, was not anti-social, but non-social. It was a counterfeit town, with counterfeit buildings, not intended for actual use. It was itself a hooded cloak, and the wearer was thousands of feet underground.
The supposed “earth” upon which the village was built immediately revealed itself, once we set foot upon it, to be a fairly simple arrangement of wooden planks covered with sod and loose dirt. It rang hollow beneath our feet.
“There’s something down there,” Danni said, looking around for an access point to the void.
“Yes,” I replied. “This is like the well on Nimbleton Farm, but of a much greater magnitude. I imagine this is where much of the work of this Faceless economy is done.”
“So much for ‘no central hub,’ huh?”
“Quite.” It did not take long to walk to the center of the city, whereon we located the fake office of government.
“If there’s a way down,” Danni said, “It’ll be in there.”
“Why do you say so?”
“It seems to fit these people’s controversial natures. What better place to plan the destruction of government but in a government building?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Destruction of government?” I asked. “I thought the Duke’s men were simply trying to create a new manner of wealth distribution.”
“Yeah, Mac. That’s exactly what they’re doing. But think for a second. The economy and the government are intrinsically linked. They rely upon one another. You can’t topple one and allow its compatriot to remain standing. The Faceless Treasury is nothing but the first step, the laying of a foundation for a completely new way of life in the kingdom.”
She was right, of course. She was always right, even when it proved inconvenient to be so. All my life, even as I had been a willing participant in the ruling structure, I never fully grasped how strong of a grip money had on human society. In fact, I had never, not once in my existence, been wanting for anything money could buy. My debts were more ethereal shortages of such intangible things as happiness and purpose. I served the government, but I had never relied upon it for survival. Through my travels, I have learned that there are those (many in number, in fact) who do. Every day. Such should be the purpose of a kingdom, to ensure the survival of its citizens. But I could no longer ignore this one fact: the government had failed. Through malice or ineptitude, I did not know, but it was clear that those who needed the most help, the vulnerable, the uneducated, the injured, were simply not getting it. The kingdom ignored their appeals for opportunities to make something of themselves, opting instead to hand them scraps while publicly berating them for being lazy. I do not know if I would call it unjust, but it certainly wasn’t right.
And now I was a controlling part of that government. I felt suddenly a great conflict well up inside of me. I found myself, to my own horror, sympathizing with this Duke of Nakamoto, or whoever had taken his place. Maybe it was time to try something new. Maybe we should retire the King in one night.
But not like this. Many people had died in the fire at the castle, innocent people who had committed no injustice. I was finding myself open to the idea of the Faceless Treasury, but not with its methods of dissemination. Violence is what weak-minded men turn to when they find themselves outclassed in the arena of ideas. Any philosophy extolling violence is flawed from the start. I realized that I was in an utterly unique position. I, along with Danni, presumably, could put an end to the Treasury’s terrorism and then put into practice some of its more noble tenets.
It was Danni who found the portal to the underground, hidden beneath the floorboards of the central lobby of the facsimile office building. Instead of a knotted rope, like on Nimbleton Farm, there was in fact a stairwell leading to an intricate array of wooden scaffolding, upon which hooded figures climbed, coming and going through smaller, better concealed doors. None of them paid us any attention, positive or negative. Now that we had discovered their lair, they seemed to view us as irrelevant. It was no matter, as neither Danni nor myself had anything to say to these fellows. They were, as we had discovered, merely the couriers of the coins, not important enough to make decisions of strategic or logistical significance. They wouldn’t have any better idea than we did concerning the location of the next attack. We needed to find their boss.
We descended the stairs for what felt like hours, taking in the impressive nature of the operation as we went. There were desks, located precipitously close to the edge of the makeshift wooden structure, where individuals received and deciphered letters. These letters were more than likely bills or receipts, written in some code that was illegible to anyone on the surface. Once decoded, the hooded figures would know precisely where they were to travel, coins sewn into the heavy cloaks on their backs.
Finally, we reached the bottom of the wooden structure. It ended in a floor of thick, blue stained glass with a trap door just wide enough for one person at a time, which someone had generously left open for us. I descended first, then waited for Danni before looking around. The bottom of the crater was a pool of water emanating a soft green light just bright enough to illuminate the surrounding area. There was no shore, so we had no choice but to wade into the water up to our knees. It was surprisingly warm.
“Mac, this is a vision pool. Like in Burnsley’s lab.”
“It sure seems like it. But what is it to show us?”
“The truth,” a voice sounded, from somewhere between the water and stained glass above us. “It is going to show you the truth.”
“Who are you?” Danni asked. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, please,” the voice responded. “You know who I am.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I do,” I said. “You’re the Duke of Nakamoto. Or whatever’s left of him.”
“Precisely!” the voice boomed. “And, as a reward for being so clever, I shall allow you to speak to me, face to face.” From the depths of the water rose what appeared to be the skeleton of a man, but upon further inspection was revealed to be a nearly incorporeal entity of light, seemingly held together by a system of featureless gold coins located at its joints. This Duke was no living man, but a specter from a children’s tale.
Danni, never one to be intimidated, looked at the creature in disgust and said, “You don’t look so tough. What happened to you?”
The Duke laughed. “No, I guess ‘tough’ is not how one would describe me, these days. Though I do envy your ability to cling so tightly to the false security of physical strength.”
“Gross, man. Is that how you talk to everybody you meet?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so, though I admittedly do not meet too many people anymore. Becoming conceptual seems to be a real detriment to one’s social life.”
“So is that what you are?” I asked. “A living idea?”
“I think I’m more like a representation of information resulting from the implementation of an idea.”
“That was a mouthful,” Danni said. “Glad to see you don’t need a body to be pedantic.”
“I’m getting the feeling you don’t like me very much,” The Duke said.
“Gee, I wonder why that is. Maybe because you set the castle on fire.”
“No, that’s not it. What happened at the castle was a tragedy. Last I heard, I think fifteen people perished as a result of the fire. Nothing to turn your nose at. But do you know how many die every day throughout the kingdom, from treatable maladies and blamelessly unfortunate circumstances? I don’t, but it’s a lot more than fifteen, I can tell you that.”
“Heartbreaking, to be sure, but that does not give one the right to kill,” I said.
“Doesn’t it? Actually, I don’t know for sure. In such an unjust system, one’s rights are not necessarily concurrent with one’s moral imperative. Rights, laws, and crimes tend to lose all meaning, when attempting to rebuild the world.”
“That’s crazy,” Danni said. “You’re crazy.”
“Probably. Though how are we to know what constitutes insanity? Look at what we have to compare it to.”
“That’s something a crazy person would say.”
“Yeah, probably. I’m willing to grant you that my mind might have been slightly scrambled during my transformation.”
“Speaking of,” I said. “How exactly did you come to be? I met some kind fellows who viewed you in high regard. They mourned your death.”
The Duke sighed. “And they were right to. When I was fleshy, I was a good man. I cried often. I looked around what should have been a happy kingdom, and all I could see was sadness. Sad people, confused and lonely, persecuted for no real discernible reason. But whereas they would often develop from this situation deep hatred or powerful anger, I could only manage despair. I became obsessed with discovering the cause of such suffering, entertaining every little theory I encountered, until the most blatantly obvious answer was no longer avoidable. It was money. All that separated the happy from the unhappy, the strong from the weak, the well from the sick, was money. Coin can’t buy happiness, but it can buy medicine. But as I looked, I found that the cost of such essential items was consistently rising, while the amount of money afforded to the unfortunate was falling. I began to understand. I began to develop the anger that I had realized was necessary for change. But still, I could not act. There was something stopping me from doing what I knew I must.”
“Yeah, that was called your conscience,” Danni said.
“That’s what they call it, yes. Now, however, I call it conditioning. I had been programmed to observe, not to act. My heart bled for these poor souls, but I could not make a difference until my heart died for them.”
“You killed yourself,” I said.
“Most of myself, yes. The human part. That’s the part they use against you.”
“It’s also the only part worth fighting for. You had already formed the Faceless Treasury. Why did you feel the need resort to such abhorrent methods?”
“I just told you. It wasn’t enough. It was a viable first step, but it would not run the race. Not until I submerged myself in these waters, melding with the infrastructure of the Treasury, was I able to see what had to be done. We had to start over.”
“Oh, this is a bunch of horse waste,” Danni exclaimed. “You didn’t start anything over. You took it over. You haven’t changed anything.”
This seemed to offend the Duke greatly. “You dare! You, who could not possibly understand, dare compare me to the treacherous rulling class?”
“Uh, yeah. What exactly is the difference between your network and the one you hate so much?”
“Mine is for the benefit of the people, not the advancement of oppression.”
“Benefit of the people, huh? What do you call those poor brainwashed folks erasing the coins, then? You have them enslaved underground, no existence except that of worker drone. Their entire lives are defined by your coins. And yes, they’re your coins. You think un-branding something makes it Faceless? Those pieces of gold are just as marked as before. They still bear the visage of their monarch, a man without a face. A blank coin for a blank King.”
“Those are not slaves! They are paid for their work.”
“Yeah, mere shavings. How much medicine can you buy with the gold you can rub off a coin? One drop? Two? You have turned those people, and all those who spend your coins, into commodities. Your problem was not with the monetary system, but who was running it. Or, more accurately, who was getting credit for it. You disgust me. It’s one thing to burn down a bank. Tell you the truth, if you had ensured that no people be hurt in the fire, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered to track you down. And murder, at least that I can comprehend. But hypocrisy is something I have never been able to tolerate. Isn’t that right, Mac?”
“It’s true, Duke. She hates hypocrites,” I said.
“Hypocrite? You don’t understand!” the Duke exclaimed.
“Don’t I?” Danni said. “You claim to detest money, yet you hoard it away. You have devoted your life, and the lives of countless others, to deciding where it goes. You are the head of an economy, man. Doesn’t get more money-loving than that. Look at whatever you are now, you perverted manifestation of my boyfriend’s science. You are a living idea, sure, but one that is literally held together by money. From every angle, you are the enemy.”
The Duke, for maybe the first time since his transformation, was speechless. Something in Danni’s retort had clearly struck a blow. I appreciated the lapse in conversation, as it afforded me time to absorb what my partner had said. Like always, her words did not make clear which philosophical path I should walk, but they did help me to analyze myself. I shall be honest: to this day, I do not believe I have ever been convinced one way or the other concerning the Duke’s fiscal policy. But it felt good, then, as it still does now, to know that when faced with this particular conundrum, I chose to value human life above all else. The Duke tried to counter the immorality of money by transacting a few lives for the benefit of many. This is inherently flawed. At least gold doesn’t pray for freedom, locked in a hole beneath an orchard. At least letters of good credit don’t scream out in anguish as they burn.
“She’s right, Duke,” I said. “Your heart was in the right place, when you had one. But look at how quickly you have become exactly like that which you despise. You have changed nothing. Money still rules the kingdom. You may have been speaking a different language, but the words, once translated, were the same.”
“It’s…it’s too late,” the Duke said. “What I’ve started cannot be undone.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. That is not for us to tell, at the moment. But what cannot be undone can still be curated, and you have the fortune of speaking to one half of the King’s Council. I give you my word: Danni and I will do everything in our power to help those in need. But I’m sorry, Duke of Nakamoto. Your role in this revolution is over.” I removed from my neck the blank coin I had received on that stormy night, only a few days before. I extended it to the formless Duke, and it seemed to be pulled from my hands, through no means of my own, eventually coming to rest inside his green chest.
“The King will never let you change the system,” the Duke said. “He has too much to lose.”
Danni removed her coin as well. It floated from her hands to the Duke’s head, stopping between his pulsing green eyes. “The King has nothing to lose,” she said. “And soon he shall lose even that.”
The Duke flickered a few times, before he vanished, the coins at his joints falling with a splash back into the water of his information pool.
We had done it. The Duke of Nakamoto had died for the second time. No second attack was imminent, as the Treasury had no figure to demand it. So why did our victory feel so hollow? Perhaps because we saw, Danni and I, the good in his arguments, and how it had become twisted. Perhaps because it was now more apparent than ever that fervor, even when born of morality, can turn good men sour; that anger, even when justified, can become an avenue to evil.
And yet, fervor and anger are necessary, if any good is to be done in this world. It is when fervor becomes radicalism, when anger becomes hate, that any cause, regardless of its initial content, becomes tainted. It is a fine line to walk, even for the most prepared of individuals, and sometimes it seems that which side you fall upon is to be determined by the flip of a coin.