Author's Note: As of June 27th, 2016, the entire fanfic has been rewritten. That means this chapter, all that came before it, and all that follow it now contain different content that they did previously. You are strongly encouraged to go back and reread the entire fanfic from the beginning, as the revised continuity may confuse you if you jump in part of the way through.
Fone walked through the caverns of Tanen Guard, retracing the path he took five years ago to the Crown. The air was thick with ash. Fire blazed at the edges of his vision. Everywhere he looked, the formless devourer ate at the landscape of the cavern. No. Not formless entirely. It was almost in the shape of a face, but he couldn't see who or what it belonged to. Despite the ash, he noticed that the floors were more slippery than usual. He looked down at his feet, and an elongated trail of blood stretched out in front of him and around the corner like a crooked smile. He followed it, and emerged in the main chamber, the housing of the Crown of Horns.
He walked up to the eldritch object, and noticed that something was amiss. He turned around him, and the entire cavern was littered with the dead and dying bodies of the human inhabitants of the valley. Wendell, Euclid, Gran'ma Ben, Taneal and her brother, the Venu monks, and Mermie and the dreaming masters all lay dead on the ground, blood running from their noses and burns on their bodies. Horrified, Fone turned back around to see Thorn, with blood trickling out of her nose, lying at the base of the Crown. He rushed over to her. She opened her eyes for a fleeting instant before closing them again. Before her breathing stopped, she uttered some words. They were laced with malice.
"You need to stop them, before they kill the entire dreaming and waking world. Make this right. Make what you did…" Her head fell against the stone. Fone leapt back, reeling in shock. Then he heard a crunching sound. He looked up at the Crown, and saw cracks forming along its entire length. Before he could make a sound, the Crown burst. For a brief instant, there was a flash of golden light. Then all of existence went black.
Fone Bone shot up in his bed, still trying to process what he had just seen. Flames, obscured faces in the flames, the Crown of Horns, everyone dead, all his fault. The dreams were getting worse, and now the Crown was involved somehow. Whatever was about to happen was worse than he thought. He looked out the window of his small, wooden room and realized it was a few hours after first light. He got out of bed, gathered his things, and went down stairs. Wendell was serving a sparse few customers at the counter.
"I've got to get going Wendell. I should really get to the capital as soon as possible." Fone headed for the door.
"I understand." Wendell chuckled. "You haven't seen her in five years, anyone can see that the separation's been eating away at you. Just make sure you get over there before she gets married off so some other guy." He winked.
"Wendell!" Fone's face went flush. "That is… not entirely why I came back here." He paused and turned to face Wendell. "I also needed to make sure the Valley was safe."
"Safe? How do you mean?"
"I've been having dreams. The Valley in flames, everyone dead. I learned a long time ago not to ignore the importance of dreams, so... I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that something big and destructive is on its way. And if that's true, I don't want it to catch everyone off guard like the Locust did. If something is heading toward the Valley, everyone needs to be prepared."
"How can we prepare?" Wendell suddenly became concerned. Normally he would have laughed at this sort of superstition, but after the Locust, he became mush more accepting of Venu philosophy.
"Honestly I don't know. My best guess would be to keep watch on the mountains and pray nothing comes through. If something does, send Ted to get me. I'll bring help. Hopefully I'm just being needlessly cautious, but you never know."
"I'll keep it in mind. In the meantime safe travels."
"Thanks." Fone left the Barrelhaven Tavern and walked back to where he parked his car. He remotely started it, and climber into the cab. Driving off, he looked back at the town one last time. He got the feeling that, if he did nothing to prevent whatever great inferno was poised to strike the Valley, this would be the last time he would ever see the town again.
He drove for several more hours, going slower than in the desert to avoid the trees, before he finally found Tanen Guard. He opted to go around it. This took surprisingly less time than he thought. When he finally reached the other side, he felt that something was off. Someone was watching him. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw something most surprising and delightful. The Great Red Dragon. Fone instantly got out of his car and ran to meet his old friends and protector.
"Dragon! It's good to see you again! I didn't expect to find you. I thought you'd be in Deren Guard. But now that I think about it this is dragon territory too." Fone rambled. "Anyway how've you been?" The dragon didn't answer. He just stood in place, stoic, like a wall. "What's wrong?"
"Your beacon in the dreaming is undulating, like a pillar of fire. And not like that of a Veni-Yan-Cari. It seems to be pulsating toward you, instead of away from you. What yours is doing now takes the cake as the strangest one I've ever seen, and I have been around since before the Locust was here. I think the only explanation is that the Dreaming itself it attempting to communicate with you." The Great Red Dragon responded.
"Ok… Right out of the gate with the depressing conversation." Fone rubbed his hands together. "I suppose if that's what you want to talk about, I might as well get this out of the way. I've been having dreams. Of the valley being destroyed. Of the Crown of Horns being destroyed, and everyone dying. I think something bad is about to happen, and I came back to help prevent it. Or fix things when it does."
"…" The Great Red Dragon cocked his head to the side.
"What? Why are you being so silent? It's really freaking me out."
"Now I can't make out what it is you came here in. I've never seen anything like it before either."
"It's a car. It's like a cart but it runs itself. I swear I've been like a broken record these past couple of days."
"Like a what?"
"Never mind. Listen, I was heading over to the city to warn Thorn. Do you think you could talk to the council of dragons and tell them to be on high alert? Something is coming."
"I don't think the dreams of one outsider are going to be enough to get them to take any action."
"You said my beacon was like nothing you've ever seen, right? That has to mean something. They'll believe you. If I learned anything from you and from this place it's that dreams carry a significance that can't be overlooked. The dreaming is telling me something. I think the dragons should start listening too."
"Ok ok. Fair enough. It was good seeing you. If things are as you say, I doubt we have the time to catch up, but if and when this whole thing blows over, we should talk. For old times' sake."
"You know, I never remember us talking casually much."
"Well, maybe after… whatever you say is coming has passed, it would be a good time to start." He turned around. As he walked off into the distance, he shouted back. "By the way. She still hasn't gotten married yet, so you still have a chance. Just thought you might want to know." With that the dragon bounded back into Tanen Guard.
"Oh come off it already!" Fone shouted back at him as he disappeared over the ledge. With a sigh, Fone bone got back in his car and continued driving. He reached the city in no time. An hour from the burial ground of the dragons, he stoop at the cusp of the great city Atheia. He was one wall away. One wall from seeing her again. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw the glint of a metal ball. He blinked, and it was gone. Nothing. Just a trick of the light. But all of the wishful thinking in the world wouldn't wish away the probe that had followed him straight to the city.
"Send the 5th and 7th tank battalions back around to the western forests, and begin fueling up every available jet. I want every troop not keeping our borders secure or engaging pockets of Glaian's forces to converge around the northern half of the city and to start evacuating the civilians. Send the riverboats to cut off their supply lines back to the North along the Bone River, and then place the rest of them just south of the city along the Eastern Nagratek River. Put artillery pieces on the hills on either side of the northern gate and set up a kill box, but make sure the artillery is concealed."
Phoney, Julius, Victor, and several other generals were gathered around a large monitor in the Mansion's war room, while Archibald stood in the back of the room. Julius and Phoney watched in awe as Victor barked orders to his subordinates, who relayed messages and issued commands to their various divisions.
For the past few hours, they had received a myriad of reports that painted a very clear picture. Glaian's army had incited revolts across the western, northern, and eastern provinces, trying to fragment the military, while simultaneously marching a vast ground force straight for Argus City. As it stood, only the central and southern military forces were available to fight, so the army was scrambling to set up defenses and battlements to slow Glaian's advance and turn him back before his army breached the city perimeter. Even amidst the chaos, Victor had managed to construct an almost impregnable line of defense around the city. With Victor's help, Phoney was confident in their ability to repulse Glaian's attacking force and bring peace back to the nation.
"Sir!" Shouted a lower ranked officer as he ran up to the General. "I just received word from the Admiral. Her forces have managed to establish a beachhead on the Western Coast, and are slowly driving the enemy forced back."
"Finally, some good news today." Julius snorted.
"Lighten up." Phoney admonished him. "Sure, we may have lost our best field agent, my Secretary of State may have tried to kill me, and we might currently be preparing for an all-out war, but we will still come out on top."
"You do realize that, even if Victor somehow manages to pull off a miracle and defeat Glaian's army, and even if we restore order to what is, at the moment, an essentially lawless country, that this crisis has guaranteed the National Party victory in the mid-terms, and probably also killed your chances at a second run." Julius retorted.
"You're worried about re-election at a time like this?" Phoney was almost shocked.
"You're not?"
"I'm actually more worried about what happened in Rhumena yesterday. And I'm hoping Glaian wasn't involved."
"Well if he was, we'll probably know soon enough. One way or another." Julius muttered. Just then a radio somewhere in the room crackled to life.
"Sir!" Shouted the scout on the other end. "Glaian's army is coming into view!"
"Good." General Victor mused as he looked up from his thoughts. "He's a bit earlier than I anticipated, but at least now we can see what we're dealing with. Bring it up on the monitor."
An image flashed up on the big monitor on the far wall, and the entire room fell silent. The bones were an advanced civilization in the ways of war. They were the first of all of their neighbors from overseas to develop ballistics, steam engines, combustion engines, battleships, planes, tanks, jets, missiles, and atomic technology. But this was the first time any of the military experts in the room had seen anything like what Glaian's army possessed. Armored mechanized battle suits. Hulking forms with long arms and powerful three fingered graspers with guns in the grooves. Massive shoulder mounted machine guns and artillery cannons. Some even had ground to air and ground to ground missile attachments, and a few were sporting guns no one knew existed. There were around fifty in total, they looked strong enough to stop a tank shell without killing the pilot, and each had enough firepower to tear through an entire squadron in seconds. Nothing the Republic's had could stop all of them before they reached the city, and the navy still hadn't arrived.
"What are those things?" Shouted one of the various generals in the room. "Can we even put a dent in them?" Phoney instantly turned to Archibald.
"What have you got that can match something like that?" He asked. Archibald had, in just over a year in his position, developed dozens of prototypes for the military.
"Let's see…" He began pondering. "All of my new cloaking rigs were installed on the long range areal troop transports, so those are a no go, and tactical laser technology hasn't left the development phase… Oh, I know. My new plasma missile prototype. One plasma cascade and their fancy mechs will be piles of molten steel."
"Are you sure they'll work? They've never been field tested? What if they malfunction and explode over the city or our troops?" Retorted Julius. Everyone in the room was kept up to date with Archibald's latest military advances. It was one of the reasons he was hired in the first place.
"They'll work Mr. Secretary. You have my word. No conventional ballistics will pierce that armor, but my plasma missiles can rain substances on them so hot that the metal will melt around the pilot. Their army won't stand a chance. We only have a few dozen though, so you'll need to use them carefully."
"We can and will use every available asset provided to us. And I think Archibald here has more than proven himself trustworthy after he killed that spy Daniel." He turned to Victor. "General, how fast can you mount the new missiles on the artillery?"
"Just say the word." Victor responded enthusiastically.
"Do it." Phoney nodded. Victor turned to his subordinates.
"You heard the man. Get all available plasma armaments loaded and prepped for launch. As soon as they're in the killbox, we burn the whole area to the ground."
Everyone in the room waited, with bated breath, as the missiles were hurried out of storage and loaded up in the artillery cannons. The last one was locked into place just as Glaian's army entered the kill box.
"Fire." General Victor spoke into a microphone broadcasting to all the troops. He had to try to keep the glee out of his voice.
The missiles launched. Everyone watched the screen as the missiles flew toward their targets. Suddenly, as everyone in the room prepared to cry victory, the missiles all turned around in mid-air and locked onto the Republic's military emplacements. Before anyone realized it, the carefully hidden artillery emplacements the Republic had set up lie under a blanket of burning plasma, the tank battalions and the forest they were hiding in lay in ruin, and the grin on Archibald's face was made of pure, unadulterated, joyous evil.
As everyone's attention was focused on the disaster unfolding in front of them on screen, he pulled two guns from his belt and killed the secret servicemen guarding the room. Then he shot Victor. Then Julius. Then, one by one, he executed every single person in the room, save Phoney.
"Surprise surprise bitches." He said with a hint of disdain. Phoney stared at him, less and less shocked as time went by. He had gotten very good at accepting strange new situations.
"So Daniel wasn't the spy. He was the fall guy. To get us to trust you. To get us to use your weapons. So that you could destroy us from within." Phoney put all of the pieces together at once.
"Yup. Consider this my resignation." Archibald lined up his sights on Phoney's forehead and pulled the trigger before the president could react. A single shot rang out throughout the mansion. And then for a few minutes there was silence. The type of silence that only accompanies death. A cousin had died, and another was silently weeping.