The Return of the King
The Slann council were in session.
Each telepathically linked to every other, they discussed the events occurring in the Realms below in their orbiting Temple-Ship.
"The Conqueror has escaped," murmured Lord Azquotl, the eldest Slann present, in his mind, "And sooner than expected. This poses a serious threat to our plans."
"Although we cannot see the Conqueror as he is no longer corporeal, we can prevent him from returning to the physical world," spoke Lord Ouboratl.
"We have but one course of action," Lord Azquotl resolved, “Have our Saurus cohorts more meticulously supervise the Fourth Race populations here, and kill any who are performing a ritual. We cannot let the Conqueror return."
The assembled Slann all nodded slowly in agreement.
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“Boy, do you hear me?”
Khadir woke suddenly as he heard a loud voice rumble this question.
He peered around the darkened room of his little house in the burgeoning town of Lybalma, but he could see nobody sufficiently awake to have spoken to him just now, only his wizard Master,Abazzar, snoring loudly in his own bed across the room. Thinking it was all a dream, he settled back down to sleep.
“You are trying my patience!” The voice rang out again, jolting him awake once more.
This time Khadir spoke a question of his own, suitably quietly to avoid waking his master.
“Who are you?”
“You dare to ask the True King his name?” The voice growled loudly, before reluctantly quietening down and commenting, “At least, though, it seems you have a voice after all.”
It sounded as if it was coming from... inside his head. Was he surethat this wasn’t all just a dream? Well, regardless, he had to play along, because the voice would continue to shout at him all night if he didn’t.
“I am... most sorry, True King, sire,” he replied courteously, “But I didnot expect to become host to your fine company at this time of night.”
“You have an eloquent tongue on you,” the King of Kings commented, “An especially desirable trait for a Grand Vizier.”
“Grand Vizier? I can never hope to reach such a position,” Khadir confessed humbly.
“You will not if you continue to study under that wheedling old fool,” The True King commented with reference to Abazzar, “But if you assist me I will reward you with everything you could ever want. I am in need of someone to assist me in an especially complex ritual. I chose you for the task because I sense boundless potential in you. I am giving you a chance to escape the monotonous destiny currentlyin front of you, and to build a better one for everyone here. The choice is yours.”
Khadir had never really enjoyed learning under the cranky old Abazzar’s tutelage, and if there was ever a chance that he could berid of him, this was it.
“Yes, I will help you, my liege,” he eventually thought.
“Good. Now, there are many magical ingredients I need you tocollect. Do not fret if you have never used them before, I will guide you with my ancient wisdom...”
The True King then proceeded to rattle off so many names of chemicals and substances that Khadir just couldn’t stay awake, and the young apprentice fell asleep with the booming voice of the True King echoing and fading, as if into the distance.
The next morning, Khadir was rudely awoken by Abazzar hollering into his ear at the top of his irritating voice, his usual wake-up call. He couldn’t hear the True King anymore - maybe he had dreamed it all in the night.
“What are you doing still lying about here like a drunken camel?” The wizard screeched, “I got started in my work three hours ago! Come on, come on!”
Hurriedly the apprentice flopped out of bed and got dressed into his robes, with his master chivying him on all the time.
“Finally,” Abazzar breathed, “Now, before you begin your studies today, you will need to pick up the following ingredients from the market...”
The wizard proceeded to list a quantity of substances that Khadir was prompted to write down, before shoving him out of the door and slamming it shut before he could realise that he even had a job to do. Sighing, the apprentice then turned to the left and trudged along the sandy street that led to the town square. Already there were quantities of people who had arrived to buy and sell goods at the market. Stalls with awnings that were as colourful as the clothes of the folk who manned them were dotted all around the plaza and the great golden statue of Sigmar that stood proud at its centre. Khadir had no idea about who Sigmar was, only that he was revered by the majority of the town. Around the statue there stood several Saurus, strange lizard-folk from another Realm, as motionless as the statue itself. Khadir noticed one particularly bulky Saurus turn its cold-blooded gaze onto him, its vertically-slotted pupils looking as if they were able to search his very soul for the secrets he kept from the world.
Presently he arrived at the stall owned by Bashir, the resident apothecary. The portly gentleman sat contentedly in a chair that barely supported his weight, enjoying the heat of a particularly pleasant patch of sunlight that teased its way beneath the awning.
“Ah, Khadir!” he welcomed in his booming voice, “come for some more of my fine produce, eh?”
“Hello Bashir, that was my intention,” the young apprentice replied curtly as he rifled in the pockets of his robe for the list of potion and spell ingredients that Abazzar required. After a minute or so he found it unfolded it and examined it.
“First I would like some dried Maw-Krusha Claw,” he read out, before a deafening roar suddenly burst its way into his mind.
“What are you doing?” The True King growled at the top of his voice.
Great, it hadn’t been a dream.
“I was just...getting the ingredients you required for the ritual, my king,” he replied in his mind hurriedly.
“Do not think you can sway me with little white lies, boy!” The True King reprimanded, “If you had been paying attention to my requirements last night, I think you will find the first ingredient was Carrion Sinew!”
“Perhaps, my liege, it would be prudent to purchase the ingredients my master requested in addition to those you wanted,” Khadir thought hurriedly, “It would help to prevent the arousal of suspicion.”
“Very well,” the True King relented after a moment of contemplation, “But make sure you purchase every single substance I personally required, as we agreed. I do not take kindly to dissention.”
“Are you all right, young man?”
This next question brought Khadir back to the physical world. He looked up and saw Bashir with a concerned look upon his face, holding the pot that would serve to hold Khadir’s purchases.
“Yes...yes, I’m fine, thank you,” he replied, before asking, “The next thing I would like is some Carrion Sinews.”
It took most of the morning for Khadir to procure not just Abazzar’s requirements, but also those of the True King. To make it easier to hide the latter from Abazzar, Khadir had Bashir place the True King’s requirements into a separate pot, saying that those ingredients needed to be stored in an especially dry place to disguise their actual purpose.
On his way home, Khadir once again walked past the Saurus lurking around the statue of Sigmar.
“I’d advise you be especially wary of these creatures,” The True Kingspoke into his mind, “They will kill for reasons that are both beyond and below the understanding of you and even I.”
When Khadir got back to the house, he quickly gave the impatient Abazzar the jar containing the ingredients he needed, but was careful to hide the other pot beneath his bed, while his master was fussing over his newest acquisitions.
“Wait until after dark before performing the ritual,” The True King commanded, “I will guide you.”
So Khadir did just that, continuing his studies under Abazzar throughout the rest of the day, and waiting until his master was sound asleep the following night before making his move. When he did so, he quietly lifted the pot full of ingredients out from beneath his bed, and left the house as stealthily as he could. The marketplacewas empty. Relief welling up inside him, Khadir quietly made his way over to the plinth upon which the statue had been installed, picked out each of the ingredients from the jar and laid them out in front of him on the stone steps, before reciting the words that the True King had told him to speak.
“Great King of a world now lost, and humiliated by a traitor’s hand, by Ptra’s eternal judgement, I grant you a second chance!”
At these words, he used all his power to summon magical flames to consume each of the commodities laid upon the dais. Each flamethen was drawn by some force into the statue.
As this occurred, pillars of blinding light surrounded him and many Saurus immediately materialised, brutal-looking clubs in hand, but even as they closed on the young apprentice, the statue’s metal features began to meld and change. The representation of Sigmar’s mighty storm-hammer elongated and transform into a blade at the business-end. Primitive-looking robes warped into a far grander tunicand wrappings, and Sigmar’s bushy beard melted away, a thin, pointed beard replacing it at the end of his chin. The face of the statue became sharper and more gaunt. Lastly, the golden construct began to move, raising one great leg off its podium and stepping onto the ground, before doing the same with the other. Initially it moved in erratic jerks, as though it struggled to get its joints working again after standing still for so long, but soon it moved more smoothly as it bellowed a terrible roar and swung its blade into the ranks of Saurus, bisecting several in an instant and causing them all to fade into stardust. The others all surrounded the great statue, but it lay about them unperturbed, crushing some with its giant feet and smiting more with its blade, which burned with a searing white light.
Amidst the commotion, terrified townspeople emerged from their houses to see what all the noise was about, and fled when they sawthe colossal statue moving. The only person who did not run was Abazzar, who stood before the statue defiantly.
“Melt at my words, O great calamity, for metal breaks its bonds at every syllable of my speech!” The wizard yelled, but the statue did nothing of the sort, and with a frightened squeal Abazzar was crushed beneath one gilt foot.
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Lord Azquotl was becoming ever more concerned.
“The Conqueror has awoken. Our cohorts are powerless against him,” he murmured telepathically.
“Return our cohorts to the Temple Ship, there is only one thing left to do,” he instructed the lesser Slann in his audience, and as they did so, he reached out into the cosmos, and used all his strength to dowhat the Great Plan dictated him to.
“Not even the Conqueror will be able to resist the unbridled might of the heavens,” the Fifth Generation Slann intoned confidently.
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The True King was perplexed when the puny reptilians he was crushing now disappeared into thin air before he could kill them, an act of cowardice against all the rules of warfare he had learned when ruling his kingdom in the World-That-Was.
Now, however, he had more pressing matters to worry about. Cries of fear from the townspeople prompted him to turn to the direction in which they were pointing. A meteorite was descending from the sky, straight towards Lybalma. If it hit, innocents from miles around would perish.
The great statue turned and hefted his blade, awaiting the comet’s arrival and chanting prayers in a voice nobody but himself could hear.
“By Ptra, by Neru, by Tahoth, by Khsar, by Djaf and by Usirian, give me the strength to protect my new kingdom!”
As the comet passed through Ghur’s atmosphere and surged downtoward the True King, the statue stood firm. With a roar the statue swung his weapon back in both hands, channelled all his energy into it and...
...deflected the great comet back up into the skies, with a deafening boom that forced Khadir and all the other townspeople to cover theirears and crouch low to the ground, and an impact that hit the True King so hard that it knocked the statue to the ground.
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Lord Azquotl was astounded - never had he seen such strength in all his millennia of existence. Yet his astonishment turned into, for the first time in his life, a hint of fear as the comet, on its new course, approached the Temple Ship hovering in orbit, and obliterated it in a massive explosion.
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After the cloud of dust faded and the townspeople all got to their feet again, the statue could be seen rising from the ground, and slowly advancing his way over to them in heavy footfalls.
“I know you may feel fear when you look upon my godly form, but as long as you prove your loyalty to me, none of you shall be harmed. I will show you that I am a far superior ruler to the Star-Lizards.”
He now turned to Khadir.
“This young man risked his life to return me to the corporeal world, and in return I give him everything I promised.”
The statue held out his hand over Khadir’s head, and intoned ancient prayers in a tongue the apprentice did not recognise. When he had finished, Khadir was now dressed in an outfit so fine even Abazzar would have been green with envy, and in his mind he felt knowledge and wisdom he never could have dreamed of now taking up residence.
“Thank you, my king,” he said gratefully.
The statue then turned back to the crowds, and made them a promise.
"I assure you, good people, that I will bring you unmatched prosperity and strength, for I AM SETTRA, KING OF KINGS, AND I NOW RULE THIS REALM!"
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