Cost of a Crown (Book 3)
Two Heirs
Chapter Eight: Back at the Sinister Castle
Malkyn awoke with a start, his adrenaline pumping. The last thing he remembered was being attacked. He called his Havoc Staff to him. Reaching his arm out, hand open to catch it.
But the moment he extended his arm, the limb erupted with pain and Malkyn found himself pulling the arm back, holding it against his chest and curling in on himself instead.
The Havoc Staff bonked against the side of the bed then clattered impotently to the floor.
Taking deep breaths, Malkyn noted his surroundings. He was in a bad. A very soft bed. A feather stuffed mattress, high thread-count cotton sheets, and more pillows than any one single person could ever possibly need. It was his own bed. His bed in Snake Mountain. He was home. He was safe.
Calming down, Malkyn sat up and looked at his injured arm. Someone had cleaned and dressed the cut. He looked at the bandage that covered most of his arm, from the wrist all the way up to the bend of his elbow. Malkyn didn't even remember successfully sending out a call for help. But here he was, safe at home, his wounds tended to.
Leaning over the edge of the bed, he picked up his Havoc Staff.
He had so much to do! He had to get to Zalesia and check on his grandfather. Malkyn was leaving Zalesia when he was attacked. What if they went to the ruins after they were done with him and attacked the Faceless One? Malkyn needed to know his grandfather was alright.
And he needed to check on his Power Relays to make sure they were still in place and his Impossible Plan wasn't ruined. If he had to start over this early, it wasn't that great a tragedy, the Plan was meant to take years. But it would be annoying. He put a lot of work into those Power Relays.
After that Malkyn would need to figure out what his attackers were doing with him. He had a vague memory of them using his blood, and the air cracking like glass. He was a little delirious from blood loss by that point, but Malkyn was pretty sure they broke open the barrier between dimensions and something came through the fractured hole. If there was a faction somewhere out there using the blood of Grayskull to break open the universe and summon monsters from other dimensions, he needed to stop it.
Malkyn stood.
And immediately felt light-headed.
He sat back down on his bed, remembering that he was recovering from severe blood loss. He needed to move slowly and not overexert himself.
Someone had taken his com out of his pocket and placed it on his bedside table. He reached for it and typed out a quick text to Keris and Noodle that he was awake, and he needed an update on how long he was out and what had happened while he was unavailable. He was sure to type it out carefully so that Keris' screen reader could read it out loud for her without any embarrassing auto-correct fails. Malkyn didn't realize he was typing in the wrong group chat until his com started vibrating with too many texts coming in at once.
Not just Noodle and Keris, but Odar, Missile Toe, Mer-Man II, Saw Tooth, Tung Lasher, and Slob Boar. All sending him conformation texts that they were glad he was awake, or that they were confused as to why he was telling them he was alright, Dowager-Queen Evil-Lyn said he was just sequestered doing 'king stuff'. Apparently, he texted all of his Warriors instead of just his two closest confidants, and half of them didn't even know he was injured in the first place.
Of course, his mother would have wanted to conceal that he was weakened and vulnerable. Malkyn should have thought of that. He was usually so good at considering angles and planning contingencies. Malkyn lowered his face into his hands. Wow. Severe blood loss really made your head dumb.
In a vain attempt at damage control, Malkyn texted the group again, [lol nbd]. Hopefully that would downplay the attack and his injury enough. But just to make sure, he sent another message, [lmfao stop freaking out guys]. That should do it.
No sooner had he put his com back down than Beastman entered the room, carrying a tray with a steaming bowel of some kind of stew and a mug of tea. "I heard you're awake."
"What's the situation like?" Malkyn asked in the closest approximation of a 'serious and commanding King' voice that he could manage at the moment.
Beastman set the tray down on Malkyn's vanity to free his hands, then he scooped Malkyn up off his feet and laid him back in bed.
"The situation is, we found you alone and half-dead in the desert." Beastman told him. He took the tray and arranged it across Malkyn's lap. "So, you're going to take time to recover. Here. Snake stew with potatoes."
"What kind of snake?" Malkyn asked.
"The edible kind." Beastman assured him.
That did not actually supply Malkyn with the information he wanted to know. "Snake, or Snakemen?"
"Regular, non-bipedal, non-sapient ground snake." Beastman assured him.
Satisfied that he wasn't about to eat another intelligent being, Malkyn dug the spoon in and took a sip of the broth. Beastman must have cooked it himself. It was a tomato base with cumin for spice, a combination that Beastman used in all of his cooking (regardless of whether or not it worked for the dish).
"What efforts are being made to track and apprehend my attackers?" Malkyn asked between bites of stew. "I want them brought in alive to be interrogated. And I'll need a report on the rift they opened."
Beastman blinked at him. "What rift?"
"The one they used my blood to open." Malkyn explained, confused that the older man didn't know what he was talking about. Wasn't there a giant hole in the fabric of reality when they found him in the desert?
"Mal, the only other thing we found around you was your crashed skysled." Beastman told him. "But don't worry, we'll get those Light Hemisphere bastards for this! Your mother's not gonna let them get away! Smiling in your face one moment, then sending assassins after you the next!"
"What!?" Malkyn catapulted out of bed, spilling the stew and hot tea all over his sheets. His mother had the wrong idea, and she was about to undo whatever progress he'd already made on his own plans. "Where's my mother right now?"
Without even waiting for an answer, Malkyn pushed past Beastman and stormed from the room. He marched through the corridors of Snake Mountain looking for Evil-Lyn. So much for moving slowly and not overexerting himself.
Wearing only the loincloth he slept in, bare foot, no harness, no vest, and without his skull-helmet; people he passed in the corridors didn't even realize who he was. Some mixed-race Gar kid that was pissed off about something. Maybe one of Trap Jaw's brood? No… He was much too pretty to be one of Trap Jaw's kids. Besides, wasn't Trap Jaw's son a Snakeman, not Gar? No one realized that it was their King they were hastily jumping out of the way of.
He followed the aura of his mother's magic and found her in the briefing room.
She was holding a meeting with Trap Jaw, Tri-Klops, Mer-Man, Whiplash, and Clawful.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Malkyn was already shouting before he was even fully in the room.
Startled, everyone looked up at him.
Clawful was the only one who didn't recognize him without his helmet. "Uh, who're you-?"
"Malkyn!" Evil-Lyn snapped, cutting everyone else off. "You should be in bed resting! You're still recovering and need to conserve your strength."
"No." Malkyn argued back. "I need to make sure you don't undo all my hard work and ruin my Plans!"
"Your stupid Plans will never amount to anything." His mother informed him flat out. "You cannot work with He-Man and his lackies, they will not work with you. There's nothing to be gained from groveling to them."
"That's your opinion." Malkyn growled back. He decided to just skip over that 'groveling' remark.
It was not the first time his mother had told him his ideas were worthless and his plans were unrealistic and unachievable. But Malkyn was stubborn, a trait he inherited from her. He refused to give in. He didn't need his mother to support him, he just needed her to not actively work against him.
"I only want what's best for you." Evil-Lyn reminded him. "Why can't you ever just do what I say?"
"Because I'm not a child who has to take orders from his mommy anymore!" Malkyn snapped. "I am King of the Dark Hemisphere. I am master here! And I decree that no one under my command will attack King Adam or his allies unless I deem it necessary. If you disagree with that order, Mother, that's fine. You're entitled to your own opinions. But if you actively work against me, I'll have you removed from the capital. We can build you a nice villa and set you up with a comfortable estate, out near Zalesia where you can be out of my way."
"You're siding with the people who killed your father!" Evil-Lyn snapped.
"Am I?" Malkyn asked. "As I understand it, my father died as a result of his own hubris." A pause. "Both times!"
"They attacked you!" Evil-Lyn bellowed. So loudly that even servants passing by in the corridor outside glanced in, saw the Dowager-Queen was in a rage, and hurried by much more quickly. "You were alone. You were far from home. And they attacked you, Malkyn! I just- I can't- that can't go unchecked! They have to pay! They have to know that no one can threaten my- no one can threaten the Throne of the Dark Hemisphere and live!"
Her shoulders shook and her voice was tight. Malkyn blinked, suddenly realizing that this wasn't just the bitterness and hatred she harbored for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This was also a terrifying fear unique to parents. A fear Malkyn couldn't fully understand, but he'd seen it before. He saw it in her growing up every time he got sick or broke a bone. He saw it in Trap Jaw when they were younger after Keris' eyes were first maimed. He saw it in Stinkor once when a group of older kids ambushed Odar with deodorants and perfumes that it turned out were toxic to Pelleezeans. Or in Mer-Man when deep-sea predators massacred all his fry, leaving Mer-Man II as his only living child.
It wasn't just 'worry'. It was the base and primal -irrational- panic of a parent who found themselves unable to protect their child.
Malkyn didn't know how to sooth that kind of parental fear.
All he could do was correct her information. "The Masters didn't attack me." He told her. "It was Jitsu."
"Jitsu?" Everyone in the room echoed. But they thought he was gone. Defeated by Fisto and trapped in another dimension beyond their reach.
"And two other guys." Malkyn added. "I didn't recognize them. But one of them-" he paused, suddenly unsure how the others in the room would react "-their magic user seemed to be familiar with my father."
"Did you recognize the guy?" Asked Trap Jaw, sounding concerned but in an odd way.
"No." Malkyn shook his head. "Scareglow, maybe…? He had a skull for a head, but the bone structure was all wrong and he didn't glow." Malkyn shook his head. "They weren't Masters from Grayskull is my point. So attacking them won't do anything but ruin my plans! I forbid any of you from retaliating against them!"
Evil-Lyn opened her mouth to continue to argue.
So Malkyn cut her off before she could say anything more. "Now, someone call my Warriors and tell them I'm holding a meeting in the board room. And, Mother, you should check on Grandfather, make sure he's okay. I was leaving Zalesia when I was attacked." Malkyn turned to leave the briefing room, but paused at the door. "Uh… you can leave out Odar. His part of the meeting can be an email."
The board room was not well ventilated and Odar's smell was very thick.
Malkyn stormed out of the briefing room.
Beastman almost collided with him out in the corridor. He was carrying a robe and slippers.
"What's this?" Malkyn demanded as Beastman started draping the robe over his shoulders.
"You're still weak, I don't want you to get cold." Beastman explained. He kneeled down to put the slippers on Malkyn's feet, lifting his feet one at a time to slide the slipper on.
"I live in a volcano!" Malkyn snarled in irritation. Why did every adult in his life insist on treating him like some kind of invalid child that was incapable of taking care of himself? His mother he understood. Her life experiences had made her bitter and her bitterness and resentment made her irrational, and Malkyn was the only thing in her life she cared about.
But Beastman wasn't bitter or irrational, and he cared about many things. Beastman was just a caring idiot.
With a huff and a sigh, Malkyn's shoulders sagged, giving in to the care Beastman was trying to give him. "Thank you. If you still feel like doing something for me, I'm gonna need a new project board, two more packages of construction paper, colored markers, more pins, and some yarn."
"New project?" Beastman asked.
"I'm having a meeting in the board room." Malkyn explained. "Mother and the others are not allowed. But you can sit in if you want to."
Of all of his late father's Evil Warriors, Beastman was Malkyn's favorite. Unlike every other adult in Malkyn's life, Beastman didn't have an agenda. Beastman stuck around because he cared about the people around him. No ambition, no desires for petty revenge. He just wanted to help. He was a loveable idiot. That made Beastman Malkyn's favorite old person.
The board room was not, as the name would imply, a room set aside for meetings with a board of some specialty or another. Its name was much more literal. It was the room in which King Malkyn stored and worked on his project boards. A different board for every project. And Malkyn had many, many projects.
His experiment with using his blood to grow crops outside of the greenhouses had its own board. It stated his hypothesis and mapped out testing methods and schedules.
The original version of the Impossible Plan was first conceived on one of Malkyn's project boards. Even since upgrading to storing the exceedingly complicated Plan digitally on his EyePad, Malkyn still kept the original project board. It was shoved against a wall in front of two other boards that he rarely looked at anymore but refused to take down and repurpose because he hadn't solved them yet.
One was a board trying to solve the disappearance of his old blankie, which just vanished one day when he was ten. He was hugging it when he went down for a nap, and when he woke up it was gone.
The other was of theories surrounding how Keris' eyes were injured. Trap Jaw, Noodle, and Keris' biological mother were all present to witness the accident that maimed her, but none of them ever talked about it. It was a banned topic in their household, and continued to be a banned topic even after Trap Jaw's wife left and Trap Jaw and his kids moved in with Tri-Klops.
They kept the Impossible Plan company in the corner.
Saw Tooth and Mer-Man II were the first to arrive.
They stopped short when they saw Malkyn already in the room. Without his skull-helmet, long vest, or bone harness, they didn't recognize him as their King. With his face exposed, his long hair tumbling over his shoulders, wearing a light robe that parted at the collar just enough to show off his clavicle, and soft little slippers that were easy to pull off, he looked more like someone's concubine than their King.
"Oh, um… we're about to have a meeting in here…" Saw Tooth informed him. "You probably shouldn't be here if you don't have clearance."
Malkyn frowned at them. "I called the meeting."
Saw Tooth and Mer-Man exchanged a look, wondering if they were suffering from an innocent misunderstanding, or the victims of an embarrassing prank.
Then Danger Noodle and Keris entered the board room. Keris bumped her shoulder on a board near the door that hadn't been there that last time she visited the room, and she cursed an expletive in Garese.
"Seriously, Mal, you gotta do something about all your insane conspiracy boards." Keris informed him, speaking to the empty air in the center of the room. "It feels like every time I come in here, the room's gotten smaller and there's more stuff in the way. I can't memorize the layout in here because everything moves so much!"
"They're not insane conspiracy boards!" Malkyn snapped.
Missile Toe rolled in just as Malkyn said that and he announced, "King Malkyn's sanity is well within the median for a resident of the Dark Hemisphere. Which makes him eight percent saner than Tri-Klops II, but three percent less sane than the rest of you." He made a mechanical groan that was the robot equivalent of a sigh. "I keep your psychological profiles saved to my secondary hard drive."
"I don't like that." Saw Tooth announced.
"Don't worry." Missile Toe tried to reassure them. "I definitely won't tell anyone about your reoccurring nightmare about all your teeth falling out and then-"
Saw Tooth slammed a webbed hand over Missile Toe's speaker. "Nobody needs to know about that! King Malkyn called this meeting. We should be talking about whatever Mal wanted to say."
"We're still waiting on Tongue Lasher and Slob Boar." Malkyn informed them.
"Bold of you to assume Slob Boar will be on time for anything." Noodle hissed.
"You don't know that." Malkyn argued. "Statistically, he's likely to be on time at least some of the time on accident. Slob Boar could be walking through that door right now!"
Noodle opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off when the door to the board room opened again. Everyone looked to see if Malkyn was right, and Slob Boar was accidentally on time for once.
Tongue Lasher walked in with Ever Mean.
Tongue Lasher froze in the doorway. "Why's everyone staring at me? What'd I do? Oh, shit! Was I supposed to bring the snacks!?"
Ever Mean pushed past them into the room. "I was unsure what kind of meeting this would be, so I brought both the latest agricultural data, as well as some freshly cured indica buds."
"Ooh, it's gonna be that kinda meeting! I came in here with the wrong energy." Mer-Man II announced.
Malkyn clapped his hands to try and bring everyone's attention back to him. "Okay, so it looks like Slob Boar is gonna be late again, so I'm just gonna start."
"And you are…?" Asked Tongue Lasher.
Malkyn's shoulders sagged. "Seriously? I just went through this with Tooth and Mer."
"Went through what?" Both Saw Tooth and Mer-Man II still looked confused and seemed unsure as to who he was.
"Are you somebody we're supposed to listen to?" Asked Tongue Lashrer. "Are you, like, Mal's boyfriend or something?"
"What are you talking about?" Keris asked. "Are you doing a bit? You know this is-"
She was cut off by her brother placing a hand over her mouth and pulling her close to him so he could hiss in her ear. "Shh, I wanna see how far this goes."
"Mal's too sick to get out of bed, so he sends his pretty little bed bunny to start the meeting?" Continued Tongue Lasher.
Malkyn brought his hands together, steepling his fingers, and sucked in a breath. "Lasher, I know I didn't hire you for your brains, but you're really testing me right now."
"I was hired by King Malkyn." Lasher continued to argue.
Malkyn just stared at him. He wondered if this was why Skeletor frequently blasted his Warriors with magic.
"Why're you coming at the poor bed bunny, Lash?" Asked Saw Tooth. "He did absolutely nothing wrong, except maybe exist and be prettier than everyone in this room."
"Yeah!" Mer-Man II added. "Why don't you light-up some of that indica Ever Mean brought and maybe you'll feel better!"
"Nobody is lighting up anything!" Malkyn snapped. "Ever Mean, put the buds away. This isn't that kind of meeting. I have things to do!"
"Aw… the little bed bunny's getting feisty." Cooed Mer-Man II.
"Who would have thought King Malkyn liked bratty bottoms." Added Saw Tooth.
Noodle burst out laughing. He couldn't take it anymore.
Malkyn pinched the bridge of his nose. Noodle or Keris could have ended all of this right away. They knew who he was and what he looked like without his helmet on. Well, Keris didn't know what he looked like, but she knew the sound of his voice. She knew he was King.
"I hate you all." He muttered.
The door opened again, this time it was Beastman bringing the items Malkyn asked for. He wheeled a brand-new cork board into the room, while also juggling the construction paper, markers, pins, yarns, and Malkyn's skull-helmet in his arms.
Beastman set the supplies on the floor and straightened to hand Malkyn's helmet to him. "I also brought this since some of your Warriors can't recognize you without it."
Grumbling some colorful words under his breath, Malkyn took the helmet from Beastman, gathered up all his hair, and slid the faux-skull over his head.
"Holy Goddess! Mal!" More than half his Warriors exclaimed in real, legitimate, not mocking, honest to goodness surprise.
"Unbelievable!" Malkyn snarled at all of them.
Noodle was laughing so hard he nearly collapsed to the floor. Keris had to hold him up.
"If we could just get started!" Malkyn shouted to be heard over Noodle's laughter.
It took a few more minutes for everyone else to calm down enough to pay attention. Nobody knew King Malkyn, son of Skeletor, had an actual face! They all just assumed the skull was his face. Like Skeletor before him. Who would have thought that it was just a mask, and under it he was prettier than Evil-Lyn in her youth!
Finally, the room simmered down enough for Malkyn to speak.
"I was attacked." He announced flatly. "I realize there's been a lot of misinformation floating around, so just to clear some things up: I was not attacked by assassins sent from the Light Hemisphere, we will not be retaliating against King Adam. I was attacked by Jitsu, whom used to be one of us back in my father's day."
Malkyn selected a sheet of red construction paper and wrote 'Jitsu (file photo pending)' on it before pinning it to the new board.
"He was accompanied by two others that I did not recognize." Malkyn selected two other colors of construction paper, a green and an orange, and pinned them up on the board. "I don't know their names, but one of them was a magic user-" he wrote 'sorcerer' on the green paper "-and the other had multiple limbs that could be detached and move independently from the body."
On the orange sheet of paper Malkyn started to write 'flying arms and legs' then crossed it out and wrote 'limb bender' then crossed that out and wrote four question marks, '?', then crossed that out too and just wrote 'nightmares.' with a period.
Malkyn capped the marker and pinned a sheet of bright green construction paper in the opposite corner from where he was lining up his three attackers. On the green paper he wrote 'King Malkyn, sorcerer, Master of the Dark Hemisphere, genius, very handsome'. Then in the middle of the board, he pinned a purple sheet of construction paper and wrote four questions marks on it, '?'.
"These three," he continued his explanation as he measured out lengths of yarn, "used my blood," he used one length of yarn to connect the three attackers papers to his own paper, "to break open a portal and summon something."
He used the remaining lengths of yarn to connect his own paper as well as his attackers to the purple paper in the center of the board. Malkyn tapped the purple paper with one of his markers.
"This needs to be our top priority, people! I have worked too hard and have too many plans for some extra-dimensional entity to come in and mess everything up! We need to find out who these guys are, and what they summoned, and how to stop it!"
Noodle raised a hand. "Was the conspiracy board necessary?"
"Yeah!" Everyone else echoed.
"It's not a conspiracy." Malkyn smacked the board with a flat palm. "This event happened, and I just told you about it! There's no cover-up!"
Keris raised her hand next. "Speaking as someone who can't see your conspiracy board-"
"Not a conspiracy."
"-did it actually provide any useful visuals? I mean, seems like the mission is just to get Jitsu and two other guys that nobody knows, and hopefully finding them will lead us to this other thing. Does your board have a map to their location with a big X marking the spot? Does it have photos of what they all look like? Are their addresses displayed for the seeing members of the team to read? If not, then I don't think the conspiracy board did anything but make it more cluttered in here." She put her hand on Noodle's arm. "Now, I'm gonna have my brother guide me out of here so I don't bump into any more dumb boards."
Everyone else moved as if to leave the board room.
"I haven't dismissed anyone!" Malkyn shouted.
Everyone froze where they were standing. Malkyn might be a little crazy, but he was still their King.
They waited to see if their King had anything more to say.
Malkyn sighed. "Meeting dismissed."
Everyone except Beastman filed out.
"This is why my father used to blast people with the Havoc Staff, isn't it." Malkyn muttered.
Beastman placed a paw on his shoulder. "Keldor never physically harmed anyone for disrespecting him." He assured Malkyn. "Skeletor would blast us with his magic just for farting too loud."
"But Skeletor was Keldor." Malkyn argued. He ran a hand over the head of the Havoc Staff, tracing the outline of the eye sockets. The staff was a relic of Zalesia traditionally wielded by the King of Zalesia, but thanks to his father the Havoc Staff was irrevocably associated with Skeletor to the rest of contemporary Eternia.
"Keldor was Keldor." Beastman insisted. "I don't know what Skeletor was. I don't understand magic. All I know was that Keldor was at the brink of death when Evelyn- when Evil-Lyn brought him to that cave on Anwat Gar. Maybe he already was dead. I donno. All I know is that the creature that rose from that pool might have had Keldor's body, but it wasn't Keldor. Skeletor was… it was like some kind of demon had taken control. He still remembered being Keldor, but he no longer held Keldor's ideals, or cared about the people Keldor cared about."
Trap Jaw talked about Keldor and Skeletor much the same way. That they were two different people. That Skeletor was no longer Keldor. That it was like Skeletor was just Keldor's body that had been taken over by some petty and violent spirit.
But Malkyn didn't actually want to talk about his father.
Instead, he changed the subject. "Do you think King Adam has to deal with this kind of insubordination?"
"I think King Adam is twice your age, has proven himself in battle more than once, and all his subordinates are mature adults like himself." Beastman answered in an uncharacteristic display of diplomacy.
"Hn." Malkyn made a non-committal noise to show he heard. "What about Dare? You think Prince Dare has to deal with friends like mine who are also his subordinates?"
Because when you were the King or the son of the King you didn't have peers, you only had subordinates, and it was hard to form friendships with your subordinates and still expect them to be subordinate.
"I think, worrying about how they do things over in the Light Hemisphere won't help you find your attackers, or whatever creature they summoned." Beastman told him.
"Right." Malkyn nodded.
It wasn't like King Adam and the Masters of the Universe would be interested in helping him anyway.
…