Empire on Ice #48:

Death's Ambitions

Part the Third of:

The Quest for Emperor Josh

This week! Thanatos has ideas about who should be the new Emperor, and Afiach has her hands stuck in some chewed-up gum. But things take a turn for the worse when DeLatia and the others show up with an unexpected guest in tow.

[By night, with the clouds covering the sky, Afiach's tranquil cob cottage in the woods is surrounded by total darkness. Two of the windows glow with an inviting orange light.]

[We see an arm extend from off camera, draped in black robes that vanish against the tiny amount of light escaping from the windows into the utter night. At the end of the arm, a hand, which presently KNOCKS gravely on the front door, three times, heavily and slowly, and, then, a fourth time, even lower and deeper, thus completing the first bar of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.]

[Cut to Afiach's living room. She's sitting in her big puffy armchair, next to a nice fire in a stove not so different from Gregor's. All around her are the adornments of her bardic life: instruments displayed proudly on the walls; songbooks lining the shelves; and many nonmusical knickknacks and bric-a-brac, including a fancy chisel displayed proudly on the mantle, together with numerous abounding houseplants. Spinach, her horse, is standing nearby, on an oriental rug, hanging out.]

[Afiach herself is dozing merrily, snoring lightly. Her hands are bound together by an enormous globular mass of chewed bubble gum.]

[The dramatic KNOCK startles her awake.]

Afiach: [To Spinach.] Oh my. That sounded like Fate knocking at my door.

[She stirs to go answer the door, but then looks down at her hands and remains seated instead.]

Afiach: Oh, right. [Then, more loudly.] There's no lock! Come in!

[The door slowly, dramatically swings open on its hinges, of its own apparent accord. THANATOS, long-suffering tax accountant, enters. A DRAMATIC CHOIR heralds his entry, and a chill gust sweeps through the cottage. He is in fine form tonight.]

Thanatos: Wrong, my child. It is not Fate who visits upon you this night, but DEATH.

Afiach: Hi, Thanatos! ^_^

Thanatos: Um...er...hello.

Afiach: I haven't seen you in a while.

Thanatos: Indeed. I was biding my time, lurking in the shadows, gathering my strength.

Afiach: Ooh! I do that too, whenever I have to fix the lawnmower.

Thanatos: Y-you, what? Never mind! For three long years now, there has been a gaping void in the Empire. Ever since His Majesty Josh vanished, tax law compliance has withered and fiduciary obligations lie in tatters.

Afiach: You sure are using a lot of italic words!

[Thanatos is vaguely annoyed at her insolence. He looks upon her for the first time, if only to look down on her, and notices her hands are bound in bubble gum.]

Thanatos: What happened to you?

Afiach: That's a big question. I don't remember much from right after I was born, and certainly not from before then, but—

Thanatos: What happened to your hands?

Afiach: They got stuck in bubble gum after all the math.

Thanatos: The...math...???...? Never mind! God, you're weird. I have come to you tonight as a portent of your destiny!

Afiach: Oh, wow! Let me guess! You're going to declare yourself Emperor and you want me to compose a coronation song!

Thanatos: By Pluto's Beard, never! If I, personally, assumed the throne of the Sovereign Empire, it would fulfill one of the four symbols of the Imperial Apocalypse. I'd really rather not have that on my hands.

Afiach: Ah! So it's a little bit like bubble gum.

Thanatos: No. It is absolutely nothing like that. Now, we must hasten, for midnight beckons!

[He gestures grandiosely to a nearby mantle clock. It reads 11:57.]

Afiach: I'm afraid we don't know that.

Thanatos: What do you mean?

Afiach: I only run my clock when I need time to move forward.

Thanatos: Wat?

Afiach: For sure! No sense wasting it.

Thanatos: That...is not how that works.

Afiach: You'd be surprised how little in our lives actually needs time. Mostly I just turn it off.

Thanatos: o_O

Afiach: For example, I made bread tonight—

Thanatos: Which smells delicious even now.

Afiach: Thank you! And it didn't need any time at all. It rose in no time, and then cooked spontaneously. In fact, I haven't had to run the clock in a few weeks.

Thanatos: But...if time isn't moving forward...then weeks...argh! You spoony bard! That hurts my head in more ways than one.

Afiach: To be honest, I don't even have any clue what time it's "supposed" to be out there. The only time I keep is musical time.

Thanatos: First of all, it's actually, really 11:57. It's what my watch says, and, for that matter, your clock is plugged in and running normally.

Afiach: Oh, then I must need it right now.

Thanatos: Second of all...no. Just no. You can't do that. You can't ignore time. You can't bake bread instantly—save in the fires of atomic immolation!

Afiach: But I've done the math to prove what I've so clearly observed in reality. That's how I got into this advanced proof. [She lifts up her hands, wadded together in the bubble gum.]

Thanatos: I...I...don't even know how to begin...to speak to that...

Afiach: Oh, dear. I'm being rude, aren't I? Here I am, getting all caught up in my exploits, my point of view. You're a guest in my house, and you must have come here for a very important reason, Thanatos. But, if it's not to take over the Empire, what is it? Make yourself comfortable and tell me all about it! ^_^

[Thanatos slumps down in a recliner opposite Afiach. Spinach is right next to him, and glides his big head over to check Thanatos out.]

[Afiach, sitting back down in her own armchair, smiles.]

Afiach: You can give Spinach a pat if you like. He loves that.

Thanatos: Uh, yes. Well...

[He awkwardly pats the horse.]

Thanatos: What's the horse doing in...no, you know what? It doesn't matter. I came here tonight to tell you that the time has come for a new Emperor. The world must have leadership!

Afiach: I suppose...though I wish we could all just live in peace and goodwill.

Thanatos: An understandable dream, child, but a naïve one. The human race without a ruler is a ship without sails upon the high sea: drifting. Stagnating. Quarreling. Dying.

Afiach: Ooh...I really like your italics. You put such gravity in your words when you do that.

Thanatos: Thank you.

Afiach: But, if not you, then whom?

Thanatos: Is it not clear? I mean for you to be our new Emperor!

Afiach: Me?

Thanatos: You were Emperor once before, when Josh and some of the others left for the Imperial frontier to deal with Gorshoth the Impune, Profaner of All, when he escaped from his cinder-shackles in the molten depths of the Maligfear Agony Caves.

Afiach: I was only Substitute Emperor, and only for a couple weeks.

Thanatos: You solved sickness, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, pollution, Internet trolling, and tax fraud. You earned my esteem on that occasion, Afiach Bard.

Afiach: It was all rather obvious. I think anyone could do it. I put the unemployed to work building houses for the—

Thanatos: Never mind the details. No verbal recounting of your feat is worth anything to me. The deed speaks in a tongue unto itself. Tax evasion is as certain as the sunrise, yet under your rule it fled like the shadows before the rising sun. You achieved the impossible!

Afiach: [Coyly.] If I achieved the impossible, then why don't you believe I needn't run my clock all the time?

Thanatos: Let's just say you're a special one. Sometimes that means greatness and destiny...and sometimes it means the short bus.

Afiach: I'd really rather not be Permanent Emperor.

Thanatos: But you must. The civilized world won't last much longer without a worthy ruler in Joshalonia.

Afiach: If we have to replace Josh, I think the obvious choice is Silence for Emperor.

[The front door bursts open, and Silence walks in, arms spread wide. Her grin is also wide. Behind her are DeLatia and Gregor, all sopping wet and huddling to their jackets against the cold.]

Silence: Now that's the kind of welcome I like to walk in to!

Thanatos: Guards of Galavar! What are you all doing here?

Afiach: [To Gregor.] You're here for your piano lesson, aren't you?

Thanatos: [To himself.] He is clearly not...

Gregor: My piano lesson?! Great Scot, I forgot about that. It was weeks ago.

Afiach: Nope! [Looks at her clock.] It's in two minutes!

[Thanatos facepalms.]

Silence: So what's this about me being Emperor?

DeLatia: [To Silence.] Don't even think about it. [To Afiach.] We're on a quest to find Emperor Josh!

Afiach: Ooh! I like that idea even better.

Thanatos: You fools! He's been missing for three years. That can only mean one of two things: Either he's gone to Flodden grey to dance at Branxholm Lea, and we'll never see him again—

DeLatia: I don't know what any of those words are.

Afiach: I think "dance" means—

Thanatos: —or he got lost in his own Hall of Trophies and we'll definitely never see him again.

Silence: It's probably the Hall of Trophies one.

Gregor: I thought they checked?

DeLatia: They sent a thousand sentries to search for a thousand days, which means they didn't even scratch the surface.

Afiach: Besides, I don't think he's there.

Silence: Ah, I knew it! That's why I brought us here. Do you have an idea where he might be, Afiach?

Afiach: I probably shouldn't say.

DeLatia: Why not?

Afiach: Because of that mate pointing a gun at us.

[The others all turn suddenly around, toward the front door, where DAVE is standing, with a cruel and crooked grin. He is indeed pointing a gun at them, and not just any gun...]

DeLatia: Dave!

Dave: That's right. It's me. I'm so pleased you could all get together to welcome me.

Gregor: You can't shoot us all at once, Dave. [Aside to DeLatia.] Is that really his name? "Dave"?

Dave: Oh, but I can! For this is no ordinary gun. This! Is the Freedom Ringer 1776, with Poly-Directional Radiobarrel Assault.

[The gun has seven barrels, all pointing off in random directions.]

Dave: More than enough gun for the likes of all of you. [To Afiach.] It's time to sing, Bard.

[A dramatic chord plays!]

TO BE CONTINUED...

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