CHAPTER NINE: THE DANCE OF THE PUPPETS

"The rusted chains of prison moons are shattered by the sun-

I walk a road, horizons change, the tournament's begun-

The purple piper plays his tune, the choir softly sing

Three lullabies in an ancient tongue for the court of the Crimson King."

-King Crimson

The palace was old, with walls of thick corewood painted in green and red and laminated by years of weathering, that sat over ancient stones dug deep into the swamp dirt, gleaming from the purplish pond-scum. The whole palace was settled in an enclosed alcove, high stone cliffs giving a natural protection to match the artificial walls of the palace.

Within the walls was a great bulbous tower, nearly as tall as the clock tower those many miles back. It looked like a giant wasp's next, except for its rippled exterior and stripes of green paint – a sign of Deku workmanship.

The combination of mannish walls and a Deku inner palace was confusing to the boy, until Kynoh spoke up – "They say this was once a colony, hundreds of years ago. Built a castle or some sort of estate out here, with those great walls you see. Kept out the swamp creatures nicely, until the scrubs came – seeing as they could fly, it wasn't long until the men got turned out. They tore down all the interior buildings, planted gardens, and built that monstrosity there-"

"The old castle was the monstrosity," their captor said – "The old king did it a justice by building the throne room – all his advisors called for it to be put to the torch, but he kept it for a prize. Now these walls hold more dignity than apes such as you could ever know."

"I'm sure we shall never know its breadth," the Salesman said, his grin not faltering – "but surely we might see the interior, that we may instead report that what we see is unreportable."

"That will be known shortly," the scrub said. He prodded the Salesman with the barrel of the thundergun – "Walk on. His Grace awaits you."

The path to the castle walls was over a length of floating wooden pathways, gently rocking in the light currents of the moat – footing was slippery but solid, and they made a brisk pace toward the palace, even surrounded by the royal guard.

As they walked, the Deku Butler spoke to the three of them, still polite even as every other scrub kept a weapon trained on them – "On the subject of His Grace, it is time you heard the protocol for keeping his audience. Upon entering, each of you must present yourselves and bow, and address him 'Your Grace'. If His Grace deigns to speak to you, you will thenceforth address him as 'sire' until your discussion is finished, at which point you will once more bow and address him as 'Your Grace'. It will be no offense if you continue to refer to him as 'Your Grace' through the course of your discussion, however."

"Oh, of course," Kynoh said, his anger clear – "Wouldn't want to offend his lordship."

They had reached the walls now, and passed between a pair of guards who kept the door, one standing at rapt attention, the other – the one with red leaves for hair – slouching and breathing heavily, his face twitching steadily and the light in his eyes fading.

The butler went on – "If His Grace makes a demand of you, you must obey at once, no matter how strange or foreign the order may seem. If he demands of you some item of yours, you must give it up at once, and I advise you to make not even the smallest protest. I promise you, if-"

He chose his next words carefully – "…if the nature of the king's business with you allows that we may speak again, see me after His Grace retires and I promise you, we shall pay you full recompense for your alms."

"Oh, it's no trouble," the Salesman said – "it would be an honor most high to assist the great Deku King." There was only sincerity in his voice.

Here the butler stopped in his tracks, eyeing the Salesman strangely… he gave a peculiar chuckle, and looked to Kynoh, a weary dry humor in his tone – "Study how this man handles himself, sir. You should learn much from him about how to deal with a king."

He then looked to the boy – and behind those orange pupilless eyes, the boy could read pain, one that burnt slow and ebbed like a tide, but seemed now to come to the surface. There was something about himself that caused the butler's pain, he could tell…

The butler nodded – "You should do well no matter how this goes, I believe. Only keep your silence."

"Oh, don't worry," the Salesman said, leaking a little dryness into his voice even as he grinned – "He's good at that. I daresay the very best."

The butler nodded again, and led them deeper into the palace, down an open grassy pathway between close, painted walls, to the throne room hallway.

He was panicking.

The boy had reached for his flamepipes, the ones that had been taken from him somewhere back – finding them gone, he instead place a hand around the grip of the knife that they had let him keep – and all this in a blind panic, so quickly he hadn't even felt himself do it.

He still had seen none of the throne room, the great blocky figure of Kynoh blocked it from sight as they shuffled down the long hall – but the tight wooden walls of the hallway and the stench of torchsmoke planted a biting fear in him, one that pulled his breath from him in short gasps.

The reason was simple enough, and he knew it immediately – he had done this before. Many times. It was an act ingrained in his being, a legacy set by his ancestors so deeply that it came as reflex – but every time just as harsh and potent as the first.

And the first time had not been so far removed from this – it had been deep in a forest, one with a green sprite-filled haze hiding the sky, and the chirping of birds and clicking of babas echoing through the green in the day, replaced by crickets at night. A place peopled, but in accord with the surrounding nature, not opposed to it or attacking it. Somewhere peaceful and serene – in short, the place he'd least wanted trouble to visit.

It had been dark and wooden the first time, just like now. There had been scrubs. He had had a sword then not much bigger than the knife he kept now. These were small similarities to think about – but he did not think about them here, he felt them here, strong and immediate, and all in one moment – there was no chance to think.

This place he went into now was no different than any other dark and dusky grotto he had traversed, no further than the first or the last or any of the ones between. If he closed his eyes now – and for a moment he did, but it was too much to bear – it would feel just the same.

There was a word for these places, one that called down to him through time and summed the quaking terror that welled up from within him, one he had spoken about with the few friends he'd kept, who'd listened with patient and caring silence but without comprehension.

The word was this: "Dungeon".

And the throne room of the Deku Palace was the most terrifying dungeon the boy had ever known.

They emerged into the room, and the boy felt no ease from looking at it straight – empty cages lined the walls, made from tall stalks and branches and lashed with vines. A fire pit blazed in the room's center, the smoke rolling up to the far ceiling and escaping through gaping molded portals.

The scrubs in the room were both layfolk and royal guards, the former huddled in the room's sides, the latter at attention before the royal dais – which was draped in the snowy white pelts of the swamp monkeys, freshly tanned on the skin-side. These rolled over the edges of the dais and were stacked to the left side of the throne – to the right side were piled the skulls, in a heap six feet high, some freshly taken.

The king himself was seated on a throne that seemed grown from a live tree, clutching a flowering scepter. He had the same stout body as most of his kind, excepting the giant bulb atop his head, a man's length across, that shadowed his face and made his eyes gleam from a small darkness.

He was all red – there was not a trace of green shrubbery left to him. He seemed uneasy in his seat, and as the three of them neared the throne, the boy thought he could hear him humming.

The Deku Butler at once assumed a place beside the throne, on the pelt side, and spoke – "Gentlemen, you have the esteemed honor of an audience with His Grace the King Deku, the Just, sixteenth in his line, Lord of these southern swamps and protector of all Deku-kin…" The next title came with just a moment's hesitation – "…and victor over the traitorous apes. Long may he reign."

The butler made a subtle downward motion with his hand – Kynoh, the Salesman, and the boy took a knee. Kynoh and the Salesman said the words – "Your Grace." The boy stayed silent, his fear still too great.

The king's scent was the strongest – a smell like a carrion-flower, so potent it kept flies buzzing around the king's head. This was not a kingly scent – this was loss, and fear, and rage.

The boy had not loosened his grip on his blade, and did not mean to. This was the first peopled dungeon he'd ever traversed – they were always near towns, but never inside them, and always empty of reasoning creatures except the rare business scrub, and a few jarred fairies. It was no comfort, having company – any one of these scrubs could turn on them, and in an instant the three of them would be gone.

This was the source of the boy's terror – the truth of the matter was, dungeons were better handled alone.

The king made no sign that he recognized the three of them, and only went on tapping his scepter and bobbing his head – but as the butler reached to put a hand on his shoulder, he sprung from his throne and moved to regard them. He strutted the dais for a few long moments, eyeing the boy in his terror, and regarding Kynoh's cautious anger and the Salesman's unfading grin.

Then the king turned to the boy once more – "A fine catch, lad! These are the largest apes I've seen yet! How did you manage them?" He let off a loud and bellowing laugh, and his courtiers laughed with him.

Even in his insanity, the king handled human speech better than any scrub the boy had yet seen – he had none of the wavering snouted tone that the others had, and sounded much like a large, jowly man. His tone, though, was venomous, and it made Kynoh shift in his place and looked to the Salesman for support – he only smiled back.

The king tapped his scepter and went on – "Usually, I don't allow the likes of you in my royal chamber, but today is different! My scouts have come ahead of you, to bear you passage and relay your purpose here to me. You are… surveyors, was it not? Which of you is the chief surveyor?"

The Salesman strode forward – "Myself, sire. Namely, my scrub associate and I are the surveyors – he provides me with knowledge of the locale, and I perform my functions on behalf of Mayor Dotour. This other man we hired to give us passage."

"I see," the king said – "So the mayor still lives, even after the calamity? And he has designs on my swamp?"

"Only to cure its pestilence, sire. We shall ever respect the borders of your kingdom, but we will have need of your river's water – the great bay has dried."

"Yes, I know, we're not more than fifty miles from the bay – or what's left of it." He planted his scepter on the dais and leaned on it – "So you are a surveyor, coming to measure the sickness of my swamp on behalf of the mayor of Clock Town. Where then, surveyor, are your tools?"

The Salesman pointed to his own head – "Ah, all the tools I'll ever need are here. We aim only to make estimations-"

The king pounded the dais with his scepter – "YOU LIE! I have known surveyors in my time, ape – they always come with their measuring sticks and queerly-shaped bottles to measure my swamp's water or study its creatures. There is no estimation with these apes, they are exact!"

The silence that followed had as much presence as the king's voice. The boy was certain then that his terror was not unjustified.

The Salesman's grin reduced to a smile, and he turned his hands up in repentance – "You're right, Your Grace. I'm no surveyor, nor my assistant. Mayor Dotour lost his head to some lunatics a week or two back, and gave no such order – and just the same, I never met the man anyway."

The king seemed truly hurt by the Salesman's words – "Apish trickery! Just the same kind that took my daughter the princess! It is only the brashness of an ape that could lie to a king's face! An ape cannot speak the truth – the truth would sooner turn to a lie than side with an ape!"

Over calls of "Kill them!" and "Justice!" from the courtiers, the Salesman still calmly spoke – "But I did not lie when I said we came to fix your pestilence, sire. This is the truth, I swear it."

"And what good is the promise of an ape?" the king said – "Why should I hear another word of this?"

Before the Salesman could answer, Kynoh clamped a hand on his shoulder and whispered – "Boy, if you've just killed us, I will kill you before they kill me."

The Salesman shrugged his hand away and spoke – "Because I am no ape, sire – I am a man. In truth, men are not far removed from apes, but the difference is great enough for a man- a person as learned as you to tell."

"You presume to know my own thoughts?" The king laughed – "And how have you determined this?"

"Look around you, sire – look at yourself. You take mannish titles, speak mannish speech, sit a mannish throne in what was once a mannish castle. I say this not to credit man, but to credit yourself, and your line's wisdom to spot the… the distinctness of mannish culture over the loose cults of apes that roam the forest, and to do it justice by improving on it. A man is content to sit a chair, a scrub to hold a Deku flower – to take the best of both is true wisdom, Your Grace."

He gave the boy a nervous look after that – it wasn't hard to see he was grasping at straws.

The king waved a hand – "You say fifty things at once, and complement yourself as you complement me. We did not borrow from your mannish 'distinctness' – we used what was here. I take no mannish titles, and speak no mannish speech – my custom is the custom of the Deku royal family. Its origin matters not."

"Please, sire, if I may explain. I am not attempting to ground your custom in mine, I am only saying that mankind is not apekind – we are as refined, learned, and intelligent as the Deku-"

"And you say this without proof! You could train any ape to bow to me, but it's no sign they're 'refined'. You must have proof, ape. If you wish to vault yourself among us, you must demonstrate that you have learned the refinement that is inborn to we Deku."

The Salesman grinned again, his confidence restored – "For that, I shall need my rucksack."

A few minutes later, a retainer came in with the Salesman's giant pack, dragging it over the floor from the weight. He set it before the dais, then bowed and began to back away, but the Salesman stopped him – "No, please, I shall need you to fetch my item. I keep weapons in the sack, and I would not want the king to feel outside of ease."

The scrub looked to the king for approval, and when he had it, he opened the flap and began to rummage through the pack, his whole head and arms fitting inside. The Salesman guided him – "only reach down into the pocket along the outside, and feel for something smooth and cold."

The retainer found what he was looking for, and pulled it out, holding it high.

Every scrub in the room gasped, the boy with them. The retainer had produced something he knew, something he had seen before but never thought he'd see again.

The first time he had traversed a dungeon, there had been a prize at the end, something granted him by a friend not long before he lost that friend forever. Its beauty had stunned him then in a way he'd never known before, and had carried him through the trials that came afterward.

It was a jewel, a round flawless emerald, nearly transparent but still deep in color, set in a loose golden half-frame.

It was unique, none like it in all the world – and yet, he had in his travels gathered a ruby and a sapphire to match its beauty, and brought the three to an ageless temple, and set them in places carved for them in the altar… and in the last moments of peace he'd ever know, he'd watched as a door never before opened slid back, clearing a path to eternity.

Its purpose had been great and awful, and when the boy's business in that land had finished, he'd hoped never to see that emerald again – but now the retainer had pulled it from the Salesman's rucksack, where it had rested next to the frying pans and spare shots, for months and more from the looks of things.

The Salesman saw the boy's shock – "Oh, don't look at me like that, lad. You weren't using it anymore."

The king bounded to the front of the dais and took the emerald from his retainer. He held it up, regarding it in the firelight – "I have never seen its equal – this is Deku craftwork, but the style is foreign to me. And I know not this maker's mark, these three triangles on the bottom. Still… its beauty is remarkable." He looked to the Salesman – "Where did you find this?"

The Salesman shook his head – "As you have just told me, Your Grace, the origin of refinement matters not - only how it is used is of import. And I hope you shall see my meaning in presenting this to you."

"Which is?"

"That I am no ape. I cannot speak anymore for all of mankind, only for myself."

Kynoh hid his face and whispered to himself – "Oh, you cheeky bastard…"

The Salesman went on – "Anyone could spot the beauty in a jewel like this, even an ape. Its color, its cut and design are a reflection of universal beauty. But surely, surely the fact that I knew the finest of all Deku craftwork, that I knew to hold onto it and to present it where it would be most admired, is proof that I am a man of refinement – that you and I both, Your Grace, are persons of refinement. Surely, we can now meet on the level."

The king fell back into his throne, setting the emerald down in his lap – "What is it you want?"

"Only what I have said. We have come to cure your pestilence. Rather, to kill its source – when this is done, I believe the swamp should clear shortly afterward."

"How do you mean to do this?"

"Surely, sire, your scouts have seen the creature that flies above the mount at Woodfall?"

One of the retainers, an aged warrior scrub, presented himself – "This is true, Your Grace. There is talk among the scouts that there is a monster that leaps from the mountain and flies as birds do, and pierces both fog and night with its orange eyes. Even the strongest and truest among us have sworn that they have seen it."

The king seemed on the verge of collapse, weary through – "And you believe this flying beast is the source of the pestilence?"

The Salesman nodded – "I would stake my life on it, sire. He has intimate knowledge of the secret sciences, of magic if you would call it that- he can toy with it as a child does with dolls. I know beyond doubt that he is responsible for the lately troubles in each corner of the country. He has dried the ocean, dropped the moon, and poisoned your swamp."

"How does he gather this power?" the king said, enraptured.

"He wears a mask, one charged with all the ancient animosity of Termina and its menfolk." The Salesman said, his earlier intensity returning to his eyes – "I studied it for years, sought it for just as many – I know it and the force behind it better than any man alive. I had only just obtained it, and planned to bring it back to my homeland for further study when it was stolen from me. The mask is mine, sire – I aim only to reclaim my property. As for what is behind the mask, Your Grace… you may do with that what you please."

The king was leaning forward, spellbound like a child hearing a bedtime story – the butler and the king's men seemed uneasy from his demeanor.

The Salesman went on – "He is a skull kid, sire. You have no skull kids in this country, I take it? This land is better for it, then. They are thieves and cutthroats all, each more rotten than the last. They stink like death and wear patchwork clothes sewn from rat skins, and some even wear the beaks of large birds over their mouths – just why, no one can say. They are a scourge on my land, sire – and as we have all plainly learned this past month and more, just one can lay a land to waste with its scheming."

He stepped forward, and hammered his point – "They are apes, Your Grace. Apes beginning to end, and the worst kind at that. They have no pelts to take for a prize, and not even the barest sense of loyalty or community. You hate the apes that took your daughter, Your Grace, and rightly so – but this ape took your land, and your pride. Only let me have the mask, and I swear to you, you shall have a hunt like no other."

The king was seething with fury, tears rolling from his eyes, his whole body shaking, the stench in the air taking a musk of rage. He sprung from his throne and bellowed – "MUSTER THE SOLDIERS! WE SHALL HUNT TONIGHT!" He strode from the dais and vanished behind the throne into the interior of the palace.

The throne room fell into a general commotion, the retainers moving to fetch weapons and prepare the king's litter. From the disorder, however, emerged their captor, rage written over his face. He addressed the Salesman – "You toy with the king! You wink at him and feed him deception, and give him baubles to sate his wisdom!" And on like that.

The Salesman only smiled down at him, locking eyes with the scrub until the butler came and put a hand on his shoulder, sending him away to do his duty.

Now it was the butler's turn to speak – "Sir, I… I must say, I hope there is no deception in any of what you have said. I know the king is hardly what he once was, but he is-"

"The king is brash, and at the head of an army," the Salesman said – "This will serve me to fetch my mask. And there is no deception in that – the mask is mine, and I will have it back."

The butler bowed – "In that case, I bid you good evening. I must attend to His Grace, and afterward I shall hold the palace in his absence." He turned and followed the king into the inner palace.

The Salesman stood a moment longer, staring off into space – then he went to his rucksack, and fetched his shortsword from within, and set to sharpening it with one of the smooth rocks from the firepit. Kynoh went to join him, certainly to complain some more.

The boy released his grip on the knife, and felt the rest of his body unwind as well. All had ended better than he ever could've hoped for, and with designs to aim for something even better.

Perhaps, he imagined, their troubles might even be over soon. Perhaps they would slay the skull kid at Woodfall, and this confusion could be behind them.

One could hope. In fact, one could only hope.

And that's Chapter Nine. This one was even more fun to write than the last - it got a little shaky at a few points, but I stitched it together pretty well. I'm actually proud of it as a piece of writing, not just as fanfic - I have to say, I didn't expect to get this involved in the work.

Anyway, thanks for continuing to support this, and keep sending in new reviews. Let me know what you liked.

As for the piece itself, I think I should make it clear that even with all the fun I'm having, my updates might get a little more infrequent - it might get to the point where it's only once or twice a month. It's only that I'm going to be doing writing for school, other homework, my own original writing, and maybe that other fanfic I'm planning, but all of this is going to fall before the worst timesink of all next month. Namely, GTA V is coming out, and I'm going to forsake pretty much every social obligation I have to get into it.

Don't worry, though - I'm not one to abandon a piece when I get into it. I see it to the end, or not at all. It helps, of course, to know that you're still reading, and that you're getting other people interested too, so keep spreading the word, and keep reviewing and dropping me messages!

Till next time.