By Mario Fan
I.
Night is a reckless thing. It pumps and courses like black blood through the veins of the world and stirs the hearts of men to wrath. Flesh, muscle, bone, all are made manifest in the strength of wills when a cry sounds out in shadow and finds no answer. These are the flashes of reality in the slums of the Mushroom Metropolis, where hope is absent and filled with the void of despair.
A silent and hooded figure sat at a table in the Hangman’s Lime. It was a dimly-lit bar in an alleyway far off the main streets and thronging with the half-dead denizens of the darkness. Clouded with blue pipe smoke and the smell of acrid beer, the lower room was filled with crooked silhouettes gathered in groups of twisted haze as they counted out the seconds of death like the cards in their hands.
Cold, calculating, the lone form was wrapped in a black cloak and sensing all that went on around him. A pair of thin glasses coated in mist hid the scales of his young face and peered from under a pointed hat. Of particular interest to him was the ensuing conversation at the next table, where three Mushroomers were meeting with a well-dressed Koopa from the administration district.
They’re avoiding the transaction, the man in the dark robes mused. Suspicion, then, even in the deepest levels of this abyss. Whatever he has to offer must be more significant than I thought.
“I am an aid to the ambassador from the Kooparian Republic, as your employer has no doubt informed you,” the Koopa started anxiously, his voice a mere whisper. “The target is high-profile, but the data in these files will make the operation relatively simple. We just need someone else to carry it out, someone outside the interests of the public eye.”
“How big-wigged are we talking about?” asked what appeared to be the leader of the other three. His face was ironed over, wise from experience, and without room for compromise. “We’ll want the details up front, before we name our price.”
“The ambassador is fully prepared to provide you with that information,” the Koopa said, mopping the sweat off of his forehead with a white cloth. “Please take some time to review the papers and let me know what you think.”
“Calm down, Pops,” one of the more muscular Mushroomers said. He had a black patch over one eye, and the left side of his face was seared by a curving scar. “We won’t hurt ya as long ya stay cool. Just don’t give us any reason to get fidgety.”
“Don’t be smart, Rev,” said the one in control, reaching out to take the file. He opened it up and skimmed over the contents. “Awful lot of jargon here, Mr. X. Trying to cover up something?”
The Koopa nearly jumped out of his suit, but managed to regain his composure. “N-no, sir, no tricks. The ambassador is only making certain that you feel secure in the contract. We’re willing to stick by whatever offer we make, provided you complete the objectives outlined in the briefing.”
“I don’t like it, Nate,” said the scarred Mushroomer uneasily, his neck bulging out of a wide body. “It’s too prissy, too political.”
“For the last time, shut up,” the leader said calmly. “You don’t know anything about politics, and your sister was never prissy enough for you to know about that either.”
“Sorry, Boss,” Rev said guiltily, chewing his bottom lip.
The cloaked figure at the other table noted that the third Mushroomer hadn’t spoken a word. He was shorter and less muscular than Rev, and his face was older, more consumed with the horrors of life in the gutter. What he contributed to the group of assassins was unclear, but the dark-hooded man considered him more lethal than the others in some unspeakable way.
“Ten-thousand coins,” the head of the Mushroomers said without hesitation. His pale eyes stared across the table at the pathetic Koopa. “We won’t take any less than that. This job’s too risky for petty cash.”
“Ten-thousand is quite steep,” mumbled the aid, sweat now pouring down the sides of his face. “Perhaps you would consider—”
The third Mushroomer started suddenly, and with a flick of his wrist he sent a silver knife plunging into the edge of the table where the Koopa sat, less than an inch from piercing his gut. Frightened beyond all rational thought, the aid began to tremble and tried unsuccessfully to open his mouth.
“What was that, Mr. X?” said Nate, showing a grin like a crescent moon dipped in grime. “I don’t think Jango heard you clearly.”
“Please, sir, please don’t kill me,” stuttered the Koopa. His yellow scales were drained white, and he couldn’t bring himself to say another word.
“I grow impatient,” said the leader again, his face now grimly serious. “Do we have a deal or don’t we?”
Shaking, fearing for his life, the aid nodded desperately and felt himself unravel from the inside out. “I shall tell my employer it will be taken care of. T-thank you for your... for your…”
“Our cooperation,” said Nate, smiling even wider. “You can leave now. Just be careful out there, eh? You never know who you’ll run into.”
All but Jango laughed darkly as the Koopa scrambled from his seat and forced his way through the tobacco fog and the tight crowds of people massed around the doorway. With a yelp of terror, the aid finally made it past them and stumbled into the dankness of the alley, footsteps pounding down the cobblestone.
Like a reaper in the season of dark harvest, the hooded figure stood up from the table beside them and drifted out of the bar as the final breath that blows the candle out. Eyes glowing fiercely, enigmatically, he vaulted from the street to the roof of the building and dashed across it. There below him as he came to rest against a block of stone was the Koopa clutching at his stomach and wheezing as he wandered towards the street.
So the Koopas will be the first to strike, he pondered, claws already ruffling in the folds of his robe. It must not be kept a secret. Open conflict will breed the chaos we desire, the birth of a new age. Let the structure fall with this, the first of the slaughter.
Without another thought, the figure leapt over the edge of the skyline and landed before the ambassador’s aid. He silently withdrew a long wand and pulled back the hood that covered his face. There was the tall hat of the Magikoopa, the lifeless eyes of a race so ancient and merciless that their very name struck fear into the minds of men.
“No, no,” the Koopa blubbered, tears streaming down his face. “Go away!”
“Be still,” said the Magikoopa, wand held out and thrumming with a chill red light. “I am called Kamek, and you, friend, will be the impetus that begins the Reformation. Count yourself among the Stars.”
The aid fell to his knees, hands clenched at his face, begging. “Please let me go! No! Don’t kill me!”
An explosion of energy shot from the wand, and the upper-half of the Koopa’s body was instantly shattered into a trillion atoms.
The Magikoopa pulled his hood back over
his hat and disappeared down another, darker alleyway. Thunder groaned
overhead in the grayness of dawn, and heavy rain fell over the pavement
in the streets of the city like a shower of cleansing blood.
II.
Mushroom Metropolis was the crown jewel of the United Monarchy, self-proclaimed ruling government on Plit and mass producer of the world’s top industries. Only recently had its reign started being challenged by the nationhood of the Kooparian Republic. Apparently, the inhabitants of Kooparia grew weary of preferential trade agreements and secondary power in the United Senate, so their lands were made separate and independent under the people’s majority.
For a time the partition had been treated indifferently, but as the Republic began to demand more lands for its recent influx of immigrants, new crises developed. Viceroy Paccar of the Western Highlands near modern-day Land’s End had a meeting with King Toadstool the very next morning concerning the upcoming negotiations.
“Your Highness,” the viceroy said, bowing deeply. He was young with a long green robe and turquoise spots covering his white head. After waiting a period of time officially considered to be respectful, he rose and addressed the king directly. “As you know, President Auffenburg is requesting conciliatory annexation of several U.M. provinces sympathetic to the cause of the Republic. So far, the list includes Chai and Easton of the Sarasalian Region, Isle Soshi in the Tropacine Islands, and the countries east of the Vanilla Dome in Dinosaur Land.”
“They’ve added Isle Soshi?” asked Toadstool. The ruler himself was relatively youthful and only showed the slightest signs of aging in the gray hairs of his mustache. “That’s surprising, considering it’s a wasteland. Basically one big active volcano and miles of ash-covered rock.”
“Doubtless, they hope to harvest the underwater iron ores without boundary disputes. We don’t necessarily need the extra resources, but the principle of the matter remains.”
“Precisely,” said the king, his right hand already formed into a fist. “They’ve won autonomy for their own lands and are still not satisfied. Where are we supposed to draw the lines?”
“You have my full agreement, sir, and I am glad you have chosen me to head up the proceedings,” said Paccar as graciously as he could manage. “Ambassador Camber and his aid arrived last night aboard the K.R. Liberty. You see, they’re already spreading the propaganda of rule by mob.”
“Then let us hope they drown in obscurity before we must take military action,” said Toadstool, heaving a sigh to calm himself. “In any case, you have my permission to offer them Isle Soshi, but they will not be allowed to take the other lands. They are ours as long as the United Monarchy stands.”
“It will be as you say,” said the viceroy, bending solemnly to the ornate floor of the Convocation Atrium once more. “The negotiations will take place tomorrow at Parliament in one of the lower level conference halls. Intelligence is keeping the exact room number a secret, but the Republic is too docile to try anything at this early stage.”
“Yes,” laughed the king before Paccar departed. “And besides, who else is there to challenge our authority? The United Monarchy reigns supreme on this planet, our enemies bound before us.”
Beyond one of the tall stained-glass windows in the room and across the street, there was a commercial complex rising as high as the Royal Mushroom Palace itself. There on the roof waited Kamek in his swirling black robes, a pair of binoculars hanging limply at his side. Normally, the difficulties in hearing over such distances would have rendered his surveillance useless, but reading lips was among the least of his training.
With a subtle movement of his hands, Kamek brought out a radio tranceiver partially engineered by dark magic and flipped open the cover. After punching in the appropriate data, a hologram of another Magikoopa in a deep blue cloak appeared before him on the parapet. The figure spread its wrinkled hands impatiently and waited for a reply.
“Our informant proves trustworthy once more, Master Zarek,” said Kamek plainly. “Negotiations between the U.M. and Republic will take place tomorrow. Our key to discovering their time and location is Ambassador Camber.”
“Excellent,” replied the ghostly wizard, wavering as static emissions shot through the electronic image. “And how will you reach the Ambassador?”
“Through the connections I have already established,” Kamek replied, grinning. “The assassins he hired most likely have the details in the files they received.”
“Again, perceptive,” said Zarek, folding his hands back together. “Only make sure to intercept them before the ambassador has time to respond. Both governments must remain unaware of our presence. We are the substance of the shadow, Adept.”
The Magikoopa bowed his head, and the
artificial representation of his master retracted back into the transceiver.
Determined and anxious to complete his mission, Kamek pocketed the device
and ran along the sloping roofs of the city, shifting invisibly with the
winds.
III.
The Chanterelle Inn was the premier hotel of the Mushroom Metropolis and home to the lavish events of the wealthy and famous. Being a favorite tourist site and a frequent subject of postcards, though, the Chanterelle was also known for housing all of King Toadstool’s honored guests. Because the opulent lodge boasted the most luxurious aspects of the United Monarchy, it was no wonder that Ambassador Camber was made to stay there.
The distinguished official was more restless during that same morning than a Goomba at gunpoint, and so any thoughts he had of enjoying his visit were banished. Red-shelled and admittedly pompous, the Koopa paced about the room furiously and worried most of all that President Auffenburg would suspect his treachery.
“And now my point of contact suddenly disappears!” he said aloud, cursing, but a deep breath brought him back to reality. “Just calm down, Camber, and think about this logically. I sent Henry to meet with the assassins and close the deal as we were ordered, but he’s late in returning. Either he was betrayed by the scum and murdered, or he was delayed by other means. He could merely have been robbed and killed by a common street gang on the way back. Yes, that could be it. After all, the slums are dangerous for a coward like my despicable aid.”
A knock at the doorway to his hotel room jarred him out of his reverie. Taking a second to collect his thoughts, the ambassador hurried over and opened it. One of the porters from the lobby stood with a telegram in his left hand and the other held out for a tip. Angrily, uncaringly, Camber greased the young Mushroomer’s palms and ripped open the letter after he left.
His eyes widened as he read over the contents:
Mr. Ambassador,
It has been five weeks since your departure and still no response. Results are expected within the next six days. Any further impediments will constitute the immediate termination of our partnership.
N.R.U
There was now a clear division of interests.
He would either attend the negotiations and assume everything had gone
according to plan or abandon his obligations and risk his own “termination”.
The ambassador, of course, did not consider that much of a choice.
IV.
It was night again in drag town.
Kamek walked through the swinging doors of another sordid tavern in the slums of the city, black cloak wrapped around him in wide billows and face completely concealed by the dimness and overhang of his hood. Another leak had come through by the informant he knew nothing of and who apparently had access to both matters of the Palace and the streets.
Unless there are more than one, thought the Magikoopa. Traitors in high-level politics are not so surprising, after all, but what about common men? Which of the dogs is Zarek trusting to keep the secret of the Guild and its purposes?
A drunken customer stumbled across his path and fell towards him, jarring him out of his troubling reverie. Without anger or contempt, Kamek pushed a hand against the Mushroomer’s forehead and stepped over the body as the man fell unconscious to the unclean floor. The densely packed crowd pressing in all around him did not notice, of course, and so he slipped through them with subtle manipulations of their movements.
Rev was sitting at his usual place with a broad stomach edging over the serving table, unaware that his favorite drinking place had long been documented by an unseen force, a fellow scum sold out to the highest bidder.
Searching over the disoriented faces of the other customers, Kamek glided across the room like an image of death and seated himself at the far end of the bar. Voices clogged in memory drifted in and out of the scene meaninglessly, measuring time slowly and forgetting the past. Two hours had gone by when the large Mushroomer walked away in search of the exit, only mildly inebriated.
As quietly as he had entered, the Magikoopa rose from the bar and followed Rev out into the filth of the streets. Rain fell softly over the cracked and muddy stone alley, but no thunder from the previous night’s storm remained. Only the crackle of the bent and rusted lampposts ahead pierced the vibrant hum of the precipitation.
The Mushroomer started singing to himself in a slurred fashion, issuing out verses that made Kamek wish he could ward off sound completely. Fortunately, the song soon ended, and Rev turned down 23rd Avenue towards the harbor at the east end of the city. They strolled along for another hour, predator and prey, until they reached a dilapidated warehouse near the wash of the Vista Sea.
Knowing that his chase had ended momentarily, Kamek vanished behind a disordered pile of empty crates and watched as Rev knocked on the metal roll-out doors of the building. Lights from the second floor switched on, and there was more waiting for a time as the Mushroomer sat down on a wooden pole that jutted out of the docks.
As if carried in the fog of the ocean, Kamek moved quickly over the wooden planks of the pier and stopped abruptly before Rev, glaring down at him from behind a veil of nothingness. Startled, the Mushroomer jumped up and tripped over the post he had been sitting on. Heat from the alcohol he had consumed and rage at the intruder’s presence sent a stream of redness through his face.
“What’dya want, ya creep!” he shouted, too quickly and nervously to be a question. “Get outta here before ya get pained, punk!”
Kamek floated back as a fist from the Mushroomer sailed before him and then stepped forward again, placing a kick in the gut of his attacker. Rev groaned and stumbled uneasily as his eyes turned up inside his head. With one hand clutching his stomach, he reached the other around the hilt of a knife and waved it threateningly at the face of the Magikoopa.
Kamek snarled and pulled out a long, thin saber from his cloak that gleamed under the pale moon and produced a metallic ring as he lifted it high into the air. Rev had just enough time to see a faint glimpse of the Magikoopa’s face—of his scales made gray in the darkness and his opaque glasses—before the blade sliced along his own neck and sent him rolling across the deck.
When the corpse collapsed to the deck in a spew of blood, the rippled door on the side of the warehouse slowly began to crank open. Light from the inside barely touched the hem of Kamek’s robe before he dashed back into the shadows and thrust his hands forward, flinging the body of Rev into the water with a push of invisible force.
Nate walked out cautiously, looking around and letting his eyes adjust to the night. The gentle lapping of the waves was the only thing he heard, and he grew anxious, hand hovering near the handle of his knife.
“Rev!” he yelled, with cold steam erupting from his mouth. There was no reply.
Not yet, Kamek told himself. I must make certain that they still have the files.
After the Mushroomer hurried back in, Kamek leapt from the side of the building to the inside ceiling and clung to a low-hanging rafter. Nate walked beneath him towards a set of stairs at the far end of the hangar and could see the floor above through a row of transparent glass straight across from him. Even from that distance, he saw the ambassador’s papers resting on a table in the room. Jango was seated in the far corner, waiting for the other Mushroomer to return.
Carefully maintaining a spell of transparency, the Magikoopa withdrew his saber again and severed a thick cable that ran along a steel beam beside him. The brightness of the heavy lights in the warehouse went out and left only a wide blindness, ideal for things that hunt in the hopelessness of shadow.
“Jango, activate the back-up generator!” Nate shouted from the darkness. “We’ve got company!”
Kamek heard the click of an automatic star rifle and dropped from the rafters to the cold concrete below. A second later, pointed dots of scalding energy exploded across the ceiling and brought down slabs of thin sheet metal and plaster. Moonlight from the outside slanted down through the holes in the roof and cast glowing patches across the floor.
He is more desperate to kill me than he should be, Kamek noted. He could already see through the folds of black and into the terrified eyes of the lead assassin. Have they been tipped off? I should have recovered the files last night instead of waiting to confirm their contents. Why would Zarek think the aid would have reason to lie, anyway?
Nate worked his way back to the staircase, his right hand fumbling over the copper rails and his left still gripped tightly around the rifle. Pressed hard against the corridor behind him, Jango waited with another gun and was trying to bring the power back online by fidgeting with multicolored wires stripped out of a compartment in the wall.
Kamek walked forward, making a slight sound as the heel of his boot scraped across a pile of coils. Alerted, Nate ran up the stairway and left Jango to deal with the lighting. The Magikoopa sent the remaining Mushroomer hard against the wall with a blast of energy and ripped apart all of the wires he felt, wincing as sparks showered over his head.
He went up the rest of the stairs and entered the second floor, but Nate was nowhere in sight. There were rows of makeshift tables and chairs with hardly anything on them. The files he was looking for were gathered and resting near the very end of the room. Because the Mushroomer had not taken them, Kamek knew he’d laid out a trap.
Not entirely brainless, thought the Magikoopa. But then I’d already surmised that at the bar. He’ll not be missed.
Kamek brought up his wand and shot a blazing globe of energy against the far wall. Nate, crouching near it, was caught in the fury of the explosion, and his charred body was thrown to the floor, enveloped in smoke. Slowly, the Magikoopa walked over and placed his foot over the Mushroomer’s neck, relishing in the final throes of death.
“You are a Magikoopa,” Nate rasped, the spirit already leaving him. “Rot in the Inferno!”
Only briefly shocked by the recognition, Kamek twisted his heel and felt the crack of bones. Someone had leaked information about the Guild. He had no doubt in his mind that it was the same informant who provided them with information about the meeting in the Hangman’s Lime. Who had outbid them, though, and for what reason?
The Magikoopa fingered through the papers while he thought, realizing nothing yet obtaining everything he needed. Sirens flashed in the distance, most likely attracted by the spurts of star rifle fire. He grabbed the files and ran back down the stairway, noticing that Jango had vanished only when he reached the outside and the chill spray of the harbor.
I should’ve understood long ago, he thought, looking around for clues of the Mushroomer’s escape. No wonder our informant knew the business of these assassins so well.
Gathering dark energy beneath him, Kamek
soared to the fractured roof of the warehouse and ran quickly towards the
inner sanctum of the city. It was no longer as simple as he had reckoned.
V.
It was morning before Kamek reached the Royal Palace, its towering spires and wide arches already glimmering in the early sunlight. Parliament met in the building adjacent to it, long and rectangular with Doric columns supporting the outer rim. He sat in a small waiting room on one of the lower levels with his head bowed and black cloak removed. The simple dark robes adorning his body made him appear to be nothing more than a clergyman from one of the city temples.
When Ambassador Camber arrived, a pair of honor guards met him near the doorway and ushered him into an opulent elevator near the leftmost side of the rear wall. After he had entered and the dial at the top began to move, they resumed their positions on either side of the sliding metal doors. Kamek rose from his seat and walked over to them, feigning blindness and holding out an alms cup.
“For the fellow brothers of the Fourth Temple?” he queried, dead eyes roaming over their faces. They looked at each other and reluctantly dropped in a few coins. “Thank you, my sons. Allow me to bless you.”
They leaned forward, and the Magikoopa touched his hands to their foreheads. Both stumbled drowsily and then collapsed to the floor, unconscious and their recent memories erased. After making certain no one else had entered the room, he grabbed one of the Mushroomer guard’s keys and activated the elevator. The dial over the doorway moved in reverse, and soon the transport opened up before him.
He saw Ambassador Camber at the far end of the hall, sharing pleasantries with Viceroy Paccar. Kamek could have exposed the Republic’s treachery then, but something caught his attention through the large window behind them. Someone was grappling to the outside of the building, barely hanging in view of the glass panes.
Immediately realizing his fortune, Kamek exploded the far window with a shift of his hand and dashed into a nearby room. With matchless precision, he removed his cloak from under his robes and furled it over his body. Meanwhile, the politicians had retreated into the conference room and were shouting for help, too frightened to make a run for the alarm.
The Magikoopa recognized the ambassador’s terror was false, though, more relieved that the assassin had come. What bothered Kamek most was the personal pride with which Camber celebrated the arrival of violence, as if the plans it fulfilled were his alone and not in service to king and country.
Or president, Kamek corrected himself. Perhaps Auffenburg did not conceive the assassination attempt after all.
Jango swung into the room at last, shaken and looking out for whoever had destroyed the window. Before the Mushroomer could murder Paccar and collect his bounty, Kamek dashed past the doorway to the conference hall and confronted him, his saber already drawn. The politicians were locked in the soundproof room beside them, unable to hear their conversation.
“The Guild is more thankless than I thought,” said Jango, a glinting knife in each hand. “After all the information I provided, am I to be slaughtered like Goonies in a cage?”
“Scum!” Kamek growled. “You manipulated the briefing my master gave you to place yourself on the receiving end of the bounty. Did you not guess that we required insight into the situation only to disrupt it?”
“I considered it,” said the Mushroomer, and shrugged. “Though I could have handled either outcome.”
The sorcerer lunged with his sword and caught the crux of his opponent’s blades midway down the length of his own. Angered, he countered and struck again, baffled as the Mushroomer leapt away with surprising swiftness.
“Too slow, mystic,” Jango said contemptuously. “Are you surprised?”
“Not especially,” said Kamek. “You are not a Mushroomer. That much is obvious.”
They crossed blades again, equal, unbreakable. Jango twisted around and tried to bring his knives up into the gut of the Magikoopa, but Kamek blocked them and repelled his enemy with a push of transparent energy.
“Most perceptive,” said the assassin, materializing rapidly from a Mushroomer into a hooded figure without a visible face. Only blackness and two yellow eyes peered through at the Magikoopa before him. His robes were brown and a light tan, stripped of the gaudy colors of rank. “Yes, I am a Shaman—also an expert in shape shifting.”
“Still not clever enough to alter your name past a few letters, though. The illustrious traitor to a traitorous band: Jang’th’kahn,” said Kamek, grinning. “We thought you had vanished for good, the scorn of both guilds.”
“The lost sheep finds another shepherd soon enough,” said the Shaman, moving his knives in blinding patterns, each strike being met clang for clash by Kamek’s maneuvering. “I have been sent to destroy the cowardly ambassador by the very group he now serves. The Kooparian Republic is weak; we must push it into war.”
Our masters strive for opposite and equal results, thought Kamek. Is their purpose similar to our own? If we are to find out, he must live.
Resolved to compensation, Kamek finally forced the knives out of his opponent’s hand with a flurry of counterattacks and rattled the Shaman’s brain with a blow to the side of his head. Any sign of his doubt in being able to defeat the second-class sorcerer had been only a ruse, a distraction to allow him time for a decision.
With a final movement, Kamek planted the files in Jang’th’kahn’s robes and escaped through the high window even as the ambassador and viceroy came out of the conference room. He hung onto the ledge in the cold wind, waiting.
Paccar bent over the body, seeing it was still alive, and pulled out the files that were showing in its clothes. Recognizing them, Camber struggled to pull out his own pistol and fumbled with it for a second before aiming it at the viceroy. He didn’t know how or why, but his plan had been devastated by some hand of Fate, and now he only had blood as a promise of redemption.
“Camber! Have you gone mad? What is the meaning of this?!”
“Crazed assassin murders Viceroy Paccar,” muttered Camber, eyes darting frantically. “Brave Kooparian Ambassador barely escapes unharmed, managing to kill the same assassin in a courageous stand-off. He is honored by both countries as hero… Yes, yes!”
“Think about what you’re doing, Ambassador!” shouted Paccar, backing away. “Whatever you’ve done, it can be reconciled. Do not create an act of war on behalf of your own people!”
Knowing he could not reveal himself but realizing that he must intervene, Kamek sensed the pair of guards at the end of the hallway and used dark energy to blow the far doors inward. They rushed through as the ambassador whirled around, shocked by the sudden noise of heavily armed troopers rushing in.
“Put the gun down, Ambassador,” said Paccar gently, seeing that the Mushroomer guards already had their own weapons drawn and aimed. “You must cooperate with us.”
Something insane and seething passed through the mind of Camber—his one fleeting chance at conquering history. It was the final act of a being in distress, in the ultimate cogitation of his own doom and denial. Fluidly, and with a smile that spread across his face, the ambassador lifted the pistol to his head and shot himself. He lay dead and sprawled over the polished marble of the hallway, cold blood pouring from the side his skull and saturating the floor.
Too close, thought Kamek, retracting his influence from the Koopa’s mind. If he hadn’t already been considering it, everything would have been ruined. I have to be more cautious next time, more prepared.
He dropped from the ledge onto a balcony below and from there leapt to another rooftop. There was much screaming across the street, but he knew how it would all play out and was not concerned.
The Chanterelle Inn shined in the distant
cityscape like an infinite pearl spike. Slowly regaining his confidence,
Kamek hurried towards it with little time to spare.
VI.
“President Auffenburg is already demanding answers,” said King Toadstool, the flesh under his eyes deeply sunken from too many nights without sleep. “The death of one ambassador, of one traitor whose treachery his government will not accept, has plunged us to the brink of war. The fool!”
“And we still are not certain that President Auffenburg did not support the assassination attempt and Camber’s involvement in it,” said Paccar, standing in thin moonlight as it let down through one of the tall stained-glass windows of the atrium. “The demise of the ambassador has destroyed all evidence forever. The Republic’s hands remain unclean.”
“So now he gives us an ultimatum: either surrender the lands they ask for or fight for them. Our dignity or the lives of our innocent people,” the king pondered. “What of the Shaman? Has he still not been revived?”
“The coma has gone on all day and shows no sign of ending,” replied the viceroy. “We might have been able to extract information from him, but that route seems hopeless now as well.”
“What about the attacker of the assassin himself?”
“Not a single indication of presence. The current explanation is a misuse of the Shaman’s own magic or something as self-sufficient as spontaneous trauma to the brain. Either way, there’s no possibility of confirming it.”
“No other ways to prove the rebellion of Camber, then. There isn’t anything, no clue, no merest scrap of saving grace. It is almost impossible to believe,” he said, slamming a fist against the arm of his throne in frustration. “What of his hotel? I thought they said a telegram was delivered to him.”
“It was, sir,” said Paccar, pulling out a report. “Apparently, it was not found in the room, anywhere in the hotel, or on the body of Camber himself. He very likely destroyed it.”
“Curious, though, this lack of everything we need, this convenient path to chaos,” said Toadstool, his brows creased in concentration. “Almost as if something beyond both governments is working against us.”
“An agent of chaos defies its purpose,” Paccar said quickly, dismissing the thought. “We have enough to deal with without succumbing to conspiracies.”
“Very well,” said the king, waving his hand. “Get back to the investigation. We shall try our hardest for peace, but if we are left with no option of it, then I will not hesitate to wipe the forces of the Republic from this earth.”
Above all the other catastrophes of
the day, Paccar considered that a very sobering thought.
VII.
For reasons that he didn’t feel like analyzing, Kamek went back to the Hangman’s Lime the next night, enjoying his brief time for meditation before he was assigned a new objective. Master Zarek had been congratulatory towards him and promised that he would soon attain a coveted position on the Guild Council if he continued to be successful. The Magikoopa, enclosed in his familiar black cloak and dense with thought, however, did not crave the promotion.
It wasn’t the obvious that bothered him, though. As he had been sure, Zarek agreed that Jang’th’kahn would not reveal any information when he awoke. The Shaman knew exposing the Guild would incur suspicion on his own organization and would most likely attempt an escape. From there, it would be easy to reclaim him.
Instead, Kamek fingered something in the folds of his robe—the telegram he had found in Ambassador Camber’s hotel room before the investigators arrived. It read simply and without a trace of hidden meaning, conceived by only two purposes: intimidation and secrecy.
But who are the N.R.U? thought Kamek grimly, his mind racing back through all of the things that had happened to him in the past few days. Thing are too complicated now, too clouded in the haze of ill schemes. I must not show this, even to Master Zarek. Perhaps he, too, already knows of it, another politician of sorts who moves his pawns just as deviously.
He had another drink and walked out, ethereal, a shadow among shadows.
The End
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