How About Eve?

It doesn't take long for Malachite to destroy the rows of unmoving, patient zombies. He stands in the middle of the long closet and stares down at the decaying flesh. His right hand holds Karthos, but his left hand strays unconsciously down to the pouch at his belt, where he can feel the. . . the thing throbbing as if it were alive. Or unalive, he thinks bleakly. It's corrupted. I don't know if it can ever be cleansed. But if it can. . . His fingers brush one chiseled edge and he feels power and clarity surge up his arm. When he touches it, he feels like the king of the world; he instinctively knows that everyone will believe his crudest lie, and everyone will obey him, and everyone will serve him. When he touches the gem he has power incarnate, and he can eat his fill.

It was less than twenty hours ago that they had stood around the corpse of the Ivory King, carefully watching to make sure that it didn't heal or reform. They had watched the fungus-white flesh begin to liquefy. Malachite would never forget the sound the ribs made as they dissolved, or the smell of the liquid fat trickling out of the bottom of the corpse.

And through all that rotten and profane meat, he had caught a faint gleam of emerald light. Ironic, that, or maybe a sign. The heart of the Ivory King.

Unclean! he thinks, and snatches away his hand. Perhaps he and Mara should never have dug it from the Ivory King's chest. Perhaps he shouldn't be carrying it at all. I'm so tired, he thinks. I just want this to be over. I just want it to end, and be done with, and for someone else to make the decisions for a change. Everyone's lives depend on me, not just here but back in Corsai and across all of Spira. I shouldn't have to shoulder that burden. I can. I have. But enough is enough, and I'm ready for a rest.

He sighs, and rubs his forehead. I can withstand this temptation, this test. I've withstood enough in the past. Gritting his teeth, Malachite flips open his bag of holding and carefully lowers the fist-sized emerald heart down into the depleted mix of pemmican and hardtack. It sits there and glimmers at him, as if taunting him to take it up. He considers. . .

...and closes the bag. For a little while at least, the whispers cease.

"I've sealed away the gem we got from the Ivory King's body," he thinks over the mindlink. "I couldn't trust it."

"Fair enough," thinks Agar. "Say, what about Soder's daughter? I've told her who everyone is, but I'm kind of at a loss as to what we're going to do with her."

Standing next to the halfling alienist, the girl cocks her head and stares at him. "You're communicating mentally!" she says to Agar. She looks oddly pleased.

Agar starts in surprise. "You can tell?"

"Oh, yes. There's a number of tell-tale signs. For instance, the mental energy in the third lobe of your brain flexes in a characteristic way. It sort of," she gestures quickly with delicate fingers, "bulges and twists forty three degrees."

Agar's mouth purses. "You can see that?"

"When I want to. Sure, can't you?"

Agar blinks rapidly. "No, not really."

"Oh, I'm sorry for you." She thinks for a few seconds. "Shall I join in?"

"What? No!" His voice rises a notch, keeping pace with his anxiety. On his shoulder, Proty thrashes multiple legs in agitation.

The girl looks confused. "Why not? It should be simple to pierce your mental network. It's not like you have any traps built in."

"Err, please don't do that. It would be an invasion of our privacy. Hey, don't you have a name?" he asks in an attempt to change the subject.

She shrugs. Agar still hasn't decided how old she is; her translucent and unwrinkled skin may make her look fourteen, but her eyes and her speech belie that assumption. "I've never been given one. The princess never has a name." She points to Malachite's back. "He's Charming, I expect."

"Only sometimes," answers Agar. He raises an eyebrow. "You're a princess?" She nods hesitantly, wispy blond hair drifting across her large eyes. Agar sticks out a hand. "Again, my name is Agar Smoketallow. It's nice to meet you."

The girl's smile lights up her face. "I haven't forgotten, but nice to formally meet you, Mr. Smoketallow. I've never had visitors before who I wasn't supposed to kill or experiment on."

Agar's grin falters.

"We need to find a name for you," says Mara as she walks closer. The girl glares at her.

"Are there any that you like?" asks Stone Bear.

"No," says the girl slowly, shifting her gaze. "Not really. I don't really know any proper names. Why don't you have any eyes?"

"Hungry pets."

"How about Agnes?" asks Mara innocently. "Or Enid? Or Eunice?"

"Or Kerblippit," suggests Burr-Lipp over the link.

"Or Seldarathaprinthilin," says Priggle. He freezes when everyone stares at him. "What?" he asks weakly. "It was my mother's name."

"It's a very nice name, Mr. Gembreath," says the girl politely, "but not really me."

"How about Eve?" asks Velendo. Everyone stops, considering.

"Eve," muses the girl. "I've read about evenings. They're the time when the 'sun' goes away and things start fresh for the night." Velendo nods, and the girl glances shyly over at Malachite leaning against the doorway. "I think I like it, and I know Nana likes it."

Velendo looks puzzled. "Nana?"

"My nanny." The girl lifts a crystalline rock out of her pocket and displays it proudly.

"Yeaaah," says Velendo, as everyone exchanges furtive glances. "Of course."

The girl is still staring at the Knight of the Emerald Chapel. "What do you think, Sir Malachite?"

"It's fine," he snaps. "I'm rather fond of evenings." He pushes himself off the door frame. "We need to get moving. Soder is gone, and we can loot later. We have a cyst to find and seal."

"Then I'm Eve," says the girl proudly, not minding his outburst. "Thank you. I've never been someone before."

"Well, you are now," says Velendo as he shoots a disapproving look at Malachite's back. Annoyed, the old cleric pats Eve's arm awkwardly. "It's a nice change."

"We need to finish this," says Malachite over his shoulder as he strides out of the room. "Let's go." Eve stares at his back in mute adoration, and Velendo shakes his head.

"My find the path says it's in here," says Velendo. "Under the throne." The group stares into the Ivory King's throne room. A massive chair of bone and gem and sinew squats like a toad atop a raised dais. Trophies of bone, gold and silver glitter on the shadowed walls around them. There are two dozen sprawled corpses in the chamber, all ghouls who didn't escape the ascension of The Dark Hunger. The air is foul with decay.

"Who wants to bet?" asks Galthia.

"Not me," says Mara. "It's evil."

"AND undead," reports Karthos from Malachite's side. "Predictable."

"Shall we hit it before it can hit us?" asks Agar.

"An excellent idea," agrees Velendo. As one, the Defenders of Daybreak unleash a firestorm of sunlight and searing flame upon the late Ivory King's throne. The chair screams in a way no human could duplicate, and a tongue of sinew and sharpened bone lashes out from the seat and into the cluster of heroes.