Pokemon Brick Bronze: Return of the Shadow

by 2b2tEternalLegend

After two thousand years, the Dark Lord has escaped his prison, amassing evil forces to destroy the world. His parents kidnapped, Bronze Tercano sets out on a journey to defeat Team Eclipse, a sinister organization with demonic backing. Only Bronze, his friends, and the Pokedex Holders can stop this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a modern world dominated by science. (IN-DEV)

27. The Muster of the Gods

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The Muster of the Gods

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"I hope I never have to do anything like that again," said Tess to Cobalion, still hugging his neck, but a small voice at the center of her demurred. That voice suggested that she could not wait to do something like that again. And it was cold, that voice.

Lily caressed Bronze's head as a mother might carry a baby, crying softly. Cobalion pulled away and began to walk slowly toward the Guzzlord, which now lay on the ground with its stubby knees up. From within it came a series of muffled gasps and gurgles as its strange guts continued to slowly run down. He stood by the creature, looking down at it with an expression of pity and wonder.

Hello, foe, he thought. Hello, old friend. I never believed in your kind, Ultra Beasts, not really enough to ask Uxie. I believe Terrakion does, and I know that Virizion does: she believes in nearly everything, but I am the hardheaded one. I thought you were only a tale for the young brightlings, another wind that blew around the zephyrs of knowledge in the libraries of Deep Heaven, a jabbing tale from another universe that was never shown to me in the Great Dance. But you were here all along, another refugee of the old times, like the dead City of Caves at the bottom of the gorge and the old gods like me. Did the Old People that survived the ancient wrath of the Logarians fall to your power? I do not know, and will never know in a thousand years, but Arceus makes me think that answer is right. Yes: and then I came with my friends, my deadly human friends and students, who are becoming so much like my deadly old friends, the Golden Company. We came, weaving our magic circle around the island and around everything we touch, strand by poisonous strand, and now here you lie, at our feet. The world has moved on again, and this time, old friend, you have been left behind.

The monster's body still radiated a deep, sick heat. Parasites were leaving its mouth and tattered nostrils in hordes, but they died almost at once when deprived of the heat from the creature's internal swamps. Waxy-white piles of them were growing on either side of the Guzzlord's head.

"What is it, Cobalion?' asked Tess. "Do you know?"

"Yes." the god's voice was slow with amazement. "I thought they were all gone, must all be gone, if they ever existed outside of the outer wilds in the first place."

"Whatever it was, it was crazy," said Tess,

Cobalion looked at her and smiled a little. "If you'd lived four or five thousand years, you'd be one crazy mother, too."

"Five thousand!"

"'Come and look,'" Cobalion quoted from the Legends, "'and I will show you a wonder from latter days.'"

Bronze was still crying, wiping the tears from his face with his sleeve and praying in soundless gasps. Tess looked at his ruin and thought he never had looked more kingly. Something long concealed from her had fallen away, something that no longer needed to be hidden. There was a clear smell coming from him that overpowered the dirt: royal Logarian spices, emitting from Bronze and Robert both. And, above his bowed head was a delicate, faintly visible complication of silver strings shaping into a hazy crown. She blinked away her own tears and saw rings on his fingers; a sword of gold was girt on his side and threads of amber over his chest and back. The boy fell away and was replaced by the hidden king, a man in the fullness of his strength. Then Bronze wailed as he looked up to the sky and this vision was broken, though the noble scent and silver crown remained.

Bronze's hand was clamped so tightly on Lily's arm that she was momentarily afraid he might snap it in two, but his grasp was firm and tender all at once. His throat bulged; his Adam's apple rose and fell as he struggled with speech. And suddenly he yelled at the sky in a fair, strong voice:

"To Him alone who does great wonders," he screamed, choking on the next word, "ALLELUIA!"

Then Bronze found himself involuntarily speaking though his voice was broken and his eyes dimmed. "Do not move away, do not raise me up," he said. "I have never before seen a man or a woman. I have lived all my life among shadows and broken images. Oh, my Father and my Mother, my Lord and my Lady, do not move, do not answer me yet. My own father and mother I have never seen truly. Take me for your son again. I have been alone in my labors for a great time."

"Robert and Lily Tercano, Stephan of Anthien," said Cobalion in a deep voice, "we are going into battle for the fate of the human race. The victory rests on the prayers and valor of the saints of Arceus. As you fear the Lord, pray for righteousness, pray for the power of the Third One to come into you. Pray that the enemy will be vanquished and the Earth and all her righteous delivered. Bronze's old companion, Jake Albans, has fallen prisoner. He will be delivered through your prayers. Be a comfort to Bronze your son, steadfast in defense to all. Raise up the feeble and defy the Shadow. This duty is entrusted to you by Arceus, who wrote the fate of the universe in the days before days when the world was young. Do you accept?"

Lily knelt beside Bronze. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to keep crying, she wanted to sing; there was a burden and a power deep within her. She clasped her shaking hands together there upon the sand, bowed her head, and began to pray.

There had never been such a prayer in the world. The words flowed forth from her deepest soul, an outcry on behalf of Arceus's people, a plea for power and victory over the Djinn, a prayer where she and Bronze and Robert all cried thanks to the names of the Man Jesus and Yahweh, a binding of the evil forces that were trying to take the very world. Names and faces cascaded before her mind's eye and she interceded for all of them, pleading before the throne of Elyon for their safety and salvation. She prayed for the strength of the Host of Heaven and the healing of her son's hurts; she prayed that he would be able to sleep at night. She prayed and prayed and prayed till even Cobalion began to shudder with weeping, each of his silver tears more precious than if the whole world was a giant pearl.

Tess tried to keep her emotions down, but she began to quake with weeping, and the tears ran down her cheeks. Oh, I'm making a fool of myself, she thought. But this was altogether different. Her thoughts exploded and she prayed for the very first time along with them.

...

"So it is done," said Cobalion. He raised his head and roared, "Now it is time!" Then louder, "Time!" Then so loud that it could have shaken the stars, "TIME!"

Cobalion leaped from the earth. He exploded into cherubim form in a burst of wings and light. The ground dropped away and the island became green below him as he shot over the sea like a comet, piercing the spiritual darkness like a fiery arrow, illuminating the whole northern world like a prolonged lightning bolt. He climbed, he circled; his wings and eyes were a blurred flurry of jewels.

"Listen, then," cried Cobalion, singing the ancient melody. "Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift their voice; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord!"

And then they saw it.

Cobalion sounded the first trumpet blast, and the call went forth like a shock wave to shake the heavens. It echoed across the sea and back again, and back again, and back again, circling the entire world. With wave after wave it washed over the ground, it deafened the demons, it soared down the streets and rumbled through the alleys, it rang in every ear with volley after volley of notes, building higher and sounding longer, and the still, thick air was shattered with the sound. Cobalion blew and blew as he soared over the north of Roria, his wings flashing, his eyes glowing. And other horns came in answer.

The moment had come.

Now their eyes were dazzled by the sudden appearance of one lone angel tracing brilliant streaks of light across the sky above them. Suddenly tiny bursts of light appeared all over the sky far away, flashes that did not dissipate but remained and grew brighter. At first the sky darkened rapidly as if a storm was approaching. The wind picked up. Then stars thickened and grew in numbers and density. Wherever the blackness in the sky remained turned to red and then white. The sky was on fire; it was disappearing under blinding myriads of tiny lights, as numerous as grains of sand.

The battlecries began at the center of the cloud and rippled outward across the layers upon layers of white orbs: "The Host of Heaven! The Host of Heaven is come to Earth!"

Thunderous shouts began the moment Cobalion raised a blazing sword from amid his wings. The whole continent of Roria and the oceans around it had erupted into brilliant stars. From the buildings, streets, alleys, sewers, lakes, ponds, vehicles, rooms, closets, nooks, crannies, trees, thickets, and every other imaginable hiding place, flaming stars shot into the air.

The Aredians saw it, Antarah saw it, Ryan saw it. Quentin fell out of his rocking chair and praised God. The Chairman collapsed under the power of it. In Sinnoh, the Hisuians sang hymns and Yanase laughed under the morning stars. The Un-Cypress saw it and cringed. Jake did not see it. The cities shook and rumbled with the sound. The Draconids mounted their Pokemon and flew in celebration. The Rorians of the hill tribes and forest tribes beat their plowshares into swords, knowing that the old gods were coming. On that Sunday, throughout a thousand churches, the congregations stood up, put away their songbooks and began to dance. Men were dancing all over the world and there seemed no reason for it except that it was good. And after the rush of joy was bitter anger that the people heard in the fell voices of the Host of Heaven and in the thunder that followed the red lightning which the swollen clouds emitted in huge waves. And last of all, high in the north were two great constellations that shone brightly: as a challenge to the Enemy was set the crown of seven mighty stars to swing, the Drepani ton Theon, the Sickle of the Gods, a sign of doom and the wrath of Arceus. And with it was Orion with his shining belt, the hunter who forebodes the Last Battle that shall be at the end of days.

As the blue fire of the Sickle flickered in the mists above the borders of the world, the doom of Celebi was spoken in the tongue of the gods. The ear-rending roar of their voice of the Host of Heaven filled it the world, echoing in the canyons of Orre, resounding in the ice-floes of Sinnoh, causing glaciers to cave. It bellowed up the slopes of Athras and scattered herds of Pokemon in the fields of Kalos. It shattered glass in the cupboards of Johto and thundered into the sewers of Anthien. There was not a being on Earth that did not hear it.

"Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth! The Enemy that hath accused our brothers in Deep Heaven has been thrown down, so therefore rejoice, ye people of the heavens and skies! But woe to the earth and the sea; with great fury the devil has come down to you, knowing he has only a short time, and he wears the form of a man."

"Fear God and give Him glory," said the voice of Cobalion, "because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship the Original One who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters."

Then a second god followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is the power of the Djinn, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of his immorality! Let the Djinn come forth! Let the Mbelekoro come forth! Wrongly has he made war against Arceus. Yield him up, o Earth, and let justice be given. Let him give recompense for his evils and depart forever, or be destroyed. Come forth!"

A third god: "The King of Logaria has returned and claims this land for his own! Let all evil things leave it or be yielded to destruction! Look for your king, o people of Roria, for he will come among you glorious and victorious, the eyes and head of Southernesse, shadow of Arceus, immortal soul. See hither a king with the hands of a warrior and healer. Lo! See the king chosen by the King of Kings!"

And last of all: "Woe to the Djinn and those who worship his image! Now your judgment has come. The Host of Heaven has come in the favor of Arceus to defend the Morning Star which the Lord promised to those who conquer; this is the center of worlds. Till now, all has waited. But now the trumpet has sounded and the army is on the move. Blessed be He!"

Before their eyes the stars glowed brighter, hazing into one another as they shaped into signs: a silver crown and a red lion, the emblems of Logaria so that all might know the powers of Heaven had come to war.

...

And when it was done, and the light of the gods dimmed and went out into the day's glow, everyone knew that something had changed.

"What was that?" people asked. "What could cause such a thing?"

But the gods did not speak again.

...

The Djinn screamed. It began with alarms in every Eclipse site, just a few at first, but more and more joined the cacophony. Fire alarms, tornado sirens, buzzers, whistles, and thousands upon thousands of vehicle horns, all blaring a single, furious wail, and it was still not enough. Now every speaker on every Eclipse device came to life, letting out the same shrill feedback, and around the world men and women and monsters who had their hearts corroded away fell to their knees with their hands over their ears to shield themselves from the deafening din, but nothing would assuage the Djinn's fury and despair.

...

When he saw the crown of stars, abruptly, as though he had found a necessary key, Bronze's mind climbed another notch in awareness. He felt himself clinging to this new level, clutching at a precarious hold and peering about. It was as though he existed within a globe with avenues radiating away in all directions, yet this only approximated the sensation. He felt powerful.

He felt powerful.

He felt the heat and cold of uncounted wars.

He knew names and places, experienced emotions without number, reviewed data of innumerable unexplored crannies. There was time to probe and test and taste,but no time to shape.

He saw them in such swarms they could not be listed, yet his mind catalogued them. And now he saw that he had a wealth of data few such minds ever before had encompassed. But he felt that something must shatter. It was as though a clockwork control for a bomb had been set to ticking within him. It went on about its business no matter what he wanted. It recorded minuscule shadings of difference around him: a slight change in moisture, a fractional fall in temperature, the progress of an insect across the sand, the solemn approach of midday.

The power was unbearable. Knowing how the clockwork had been set in motion made no difference. He could look to his own past and see the start ofit: the training, the sharpening of talents, the refined pressures of sophisticated disciplines, even exposure to the Coda at a critical moment, and lastly, Logarian genetics. It was a terrifying thing to see at last where it all pointed.

I'm a king! once voice said.

I'm a monster, went another.

He found that he was pounding the beach with his fists. (The implacable part of him recorded this as an interesting emotional datum and fed it into computation.)

"Bronze!"

His mother was beside him, holding his hands, her face a gray blob peering at him. "Bronze, what's wrong?"

"You!" he said.

"I'm here, Bronze," she said. "It's all right."

"What have you done to me?" he demanded.

In a burst of clarity, she sensed some of the roots in the question, said: "I gave birth to you."

"Let go of me," he said.

She heard the iron in his voice and obeyed. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong, Bronze?"

"Did you know what you were doing when you trained me?" he asked her and Robert.

There's no more childhood in his voice, she thought. And she said: "We hoped the thing any parent hopes; that you'd be superior, different."

"Different? You didn't want a son! You wanted an Emperor! You wanted a Logarian!" She heard the bitterness in his tone. "Hope on then, woman! Do I not know you? Your hope is to rule behind my royal seat, to stand behind every throne, north, south, east, or west. I have read your mind and its plans. So! With the left hand thou wouldst use me for a little while as a shield against the Enemy, and with the right stroke my hair with your fingers as if supplanting me! But I will not be your tool. I am king of the house of Tar-Elrosi. I will not be a puppet under the regency of my mother and father. Never will I bow to ones so lacking in dignity and subtlety!"

She spoke out of the bitterness of her grief. "Whatever you think, Bronze, we had never wanted to rule for you."

"But not the training," he said. "Not the things that...awakened...the sleeper."

"Sleeper?"

"It's here." He put a hand to his head and then to his breast. "In me. It goes on and on and on and on and..."

"Bronze!" said Tess. She had heard the hysteria edging his voice. "You have to calm down. Can't you see what just happened? Theres..."

"I see it!" he repeated.

She heard madness in his voice and didn't know what to do. But he spoke again, and she heard the iron control return to him: "I am the sword of Arceus, of Logaria. But where is my empire? I am Logarian, yet I am without a kingdom. From the blood of barbarians shall Logaria be reborn. So it is said."

"Said by who?" said Cobalion, touching down on the strand. "Bronze Tercano or a demon of lies? You are not the sword of Arceus, the warrior who must bear the struggles of heaven and earth. That is for others."

"Spirit, who are you?" demanded Robert.

Bronze remained silent, his entire body strained, his lips tightly together, his eyes bulging out. He was taking frantic, short breaths through his nose. His eyes were bleary crimson. He suddenly saw how fertile was the ground into which he had fallen, and with this realization, the terrible purpose filled him, creeping through the empty place within, threatening to choke him with grief. "No...no...no..." he whispered again and again. "Not a spirit."

Then: "I'm going insane!"

"Do you have it?" demanded Robert. Ignoring his son's raving he reached into eh boy's bag and drew out the Bronze Brick. Robert held out the Brick and shook it under Bronze's very nose, as one might hold a torn garment beneath the nose of a feckless puppy that has chewed. He shook it so hard that one end of the necklace string tumbled free.

"You're a fool," his father said. His haste was gone now; he looked haggard and old. He sat down heavily on the sand, looked at the relic he still held, and dropped it between his feet. "You're a fifteen-year-old fool, and that's the worst, most desperate kind." He looked up, angry all over again, but Bronze didn't mind; anger was better than that look of weariness, that look of age. "I've known since you toddled that you were no genius, but I never believed until now that you were an idiot. To let the Djinn drive you like a cow in a chute to him in Anthien as you followed the gyms! God! If Arceus hadn't saved your hide then, you'd be dead! Admit it!"

And that sparked the boy's own anger. Everything he had done he had done with Arceus's power firmly fixed ii his mind. "That's not true!" he shouted.

"It is true, you whelp! Foolish whelp! Say your atonement or I'll strip the skin from your very—"

"I'll end that treacherous monster's life by my own hand, if you aren't man enough to help me, then at least stand aside so I can finish the work!"

Bronze looked at his father, shocked and amazed. Robert looked back, saying nothing for a long time. But now he wore the face Bronze remembered from earliest childhood: calm and sure. The weariness and the look of half-distracted fury had passed away like last night's thunderstorms.

At last his father spoke. "I was wrong in what I said, and I apologize. You did not forget Arceus or me, Bronze. But still you were foolish: you allowed yourself to be driven on your quest by one far slyer than you will ever be in your life. It's only by the grace of God and the working of His angels that you have not been killed, one more true warrior out of Cypress's road, out of Emrett's road, and out of the road of the creature that rules them." He stood and held out his arms. "If I had lost you, Bronze, I should have died."

Bronze got to his feet and went to his father, who embraced him fiercely. When Robert Tercano kissed him first on one cheek and then the other, Bronze began to weep again. Bronze stood and Tess saw clearer than ever before the silver crown above him. His dark hair was thrown back, and he seemed to be clad in mail, and a star shone on his breast. It seemed that the light in his eyes fell on her from afar and pierced her heart.

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It was four days later when the Company came to Murkwater City. At first appearance, it seemed only a negligible scattering of moldy green huts by a bay of greasy unwholesome water. But a little way on they came to the mouth of a grotto where the bay of water had eaten away the cave's surface. In breadth, the bay looked to be no more than two or three thousand feet at the widest point. How far it stretched away into the darkness they could not see in the failing light, but its far end was no more than half a mile from where they stood, and at the sides of the stony ridges that enclosed the cavern walls together, there was a rim of open ground.

When they came to the northernmost corner of the bay they found a narrow creek that barred their way into the cave. It was green and stagnant, thrust out like a slimy arm towards the sea. Cobalion strode forward undeterred, and found that the water was shallow, no more than ankle-deep at the edge. Behind him they walked in file, threading their way with care, for under the weedy pools were sliding and greasy stones, and footing was treacherous. Tess shuddered with disgust at the touch of the dark unclean water soaking through her boots and socks.

"Here we are," said Bronze, "the haven of Murkwater made by the Logarains in years past. Either I will stand or fall."

"And here is where I will leave you," said Stephan. "I had hoped to be a member of your company so long that danger might lie along the road to the city, but now I see that it is open for you to enter. I am not yet bound to you by fate."

"If you must go, then remember that the Chairman will want to learn my location," said Bronze. "Do not mention anything of it to him."

"Be it so," laughed Stephan. "The Chairman in Anthien will hear nothing of your business in Murkwater."

"Then hail, Gym Leader," said Lily. "May you find your city again."

"Hail, king!" said Stephan to Bronze. "May thee find the holy mountain of your crowning, and may thee climb it to the top!" And then he was gone with Braviary, a lone speck dwindling into the west.

They went along the cave's mouth and into the dark, hugging the walls wherever they could to keep away from the foul water. There were lights in the distance and boats set in the harbor. Old fishnets and a smell of rotting weed stank up the cave however far they went. There were remains along the walls of graffiti that had only been recently washed away. Bronze looked back through the tunnel and saw the sky as through a spacecraft's viewport, the sea growing wine-dark as the dusk began to get on. He realized that the Host of Heaven's armies would have made the view look like a celestial warp.

More rickety houses sporadically lined the road now, most of them still deserted. They passed a tiny graveyard with moldy, leaning wooden slabs overgrown and choked by the rank grass. Perhaps five hundred feet further on he passed a chewed sign which said: MURKWATER. The ain't was flecked almost to illegibility, and further on there was a second sign that could not be read at all.

Eventually the gravel was replaced by a sickly-colored boardwalk that led to a city of perhaps three or four streets and a hundred buildings at the far end of the cave. Hangings of sodium-yellow electric lights were stuck to the walls. There were people on the streets, but not many. Three ladies wearing black slacks and identical high-collared blouses passed by on the opposite boardwalk, looking at him with pointed curiosity. Their faces seemed to swim above their all-but-invisible bodies like pallid balls with eyes. A solemn old man with a straw hat perched firmly on top of his head watched him from the steps of a boarded-up mercantile store. A scrawny tailor with a late customer paused to watch him go by; he held up the lamp in his window for a better look.

Bronze nodded. Neither the tailor nor his customer nodded back. He could feel their eyes resting heavily upon him; but then he realized that Cobalion was still in physical form. A young boy, perhaps thirteen, and a girl who might have been his sister crossed the street a block up, pausing imperceptibly. Their footfalls made wet sounds. Here in town most of the streetside lamps worked, but they weren't electric; their plastiglass sides were cloudy with congealed oil. Some had been crashed out. There was a livery with a just-hanging-on look to it, probably depending on the Gym for its survival.

As they hesitated outside in the gloom, someone began singing a merry song inside a tavern, and many cheerful voices joined loudly in the chorus. They listened to this encouraging sound for a moment and Bronze heard the satisfying plonk-plonk of piano keys. The song ended with a final chorus of some nonsense jig and there was a burst of laughter and clapping.

"We stop here first," said Cobalion. "Robert and Lily will wait with me outside. Bronze, you and Tess must go in alone."

...

Too tired and unwilling to start a dispute, Bronze opened the door and went into the dim depths of the tavern. Yellow lamps glowed sunkenly through a babel of voices and haze of smoke. Tess went forward and nearly collided with a short, fat man with a red face. He had a white apron on, and was bustling out of one door and in through another, carrying a tray laden with full mugs. On both of his shoulders were a single Weedle.

"Can we..." began Tess.

"Half a moment!" the man shouted over his shoulder before vanishing into the fog. In a moment he was out again, wiping his greasy hands on the apron.

"Hey yourself, young masters," said the man, looking at them with yellow-tinged eyes. "What's you be wantin?

"I've got a girl here and need a room for her and myself," said Bronze.

"Good for you."

Bronze flicked a heavy, unevenly milled gold piece into the semidark. It rang on the old, chaff-drifted boards of a table and glittered.

The innkeeper came forward, bent, picked it up, and squinted nervously at the boy. His eyes dropped to the Poke Balls and he nodded sourly. "How long you want to be put up?"

"A night or two. Maybe longer."

"I ain't got no change for gold."

"Didn't ask for any."

The innkeeper went away muttering about shoot-up money while Bronze and Tess went into the big common room of the inn. The piano was plinking some other new ballad. Voices murmured like broken threads. A plank bar crossed the room with gummy mirror behind it, reflecting the piano player, who wore an inevitable piano-stool slouch. The front of the piano had been removed so you could watch the wooden keys whonk up and down as the contraption was played. The gathering was large and mixed, as Bronze discovered, when his eyes got used to the light. This came chiefly from a blazing gas-fire, for the three lamps hanging from the beams were dim, and half-veiled in smoke. A Logarian man, pureblooded by the look of him, was standing near the fire, talking to a couple of black Alolans and one or two strange-looking men. On the benches were various folk: men of the mainland, a collection of local Association workers charged with maintaining the Gym, a few more Alolans, and other vague figures difficult to make out away in the shadows and comers.

As soon as they entered, there was a chorus of welcome from the tavern-goers. The strangers, especially the ones that looked Rorian, stared at Bronze curiously. The landlord introduced the newcomers to the town folk, so quickly that, though they caught many names, they were seldom sure who the names belonged to. The Men of Murkwater seemed all to have rather Orreian names, like Allie, Snakeyes, Charlie, Johnny, Redmond, and Hogan (with an occasional Rorian name such as Khavad.) The city folk were, in fact, rough, friendly, and inquisitive, so Bronze soon found that some explanation of what he was doing would have to be given. He was not yet ready to reveal anything openly, for some men were looking at him with ill-favored squints.

Luckily, once he said he was here for the Gym, they did not press on with their questions. When someone brought up the glowing sky and the words of doom from God, a chorus of voices rang out. Obviously this had been the main conversation starter in Murkwater, and probably the whole world, for the past few days. The people were mostly talking of distant events and telling grim tales of the war and evil happenings that were now becoming all too familiar. There was trouble with the Alliance and Association everywhere, and it seemed that the supernatural forces in the world were on the move. Some folks from the mainland were fleeing Eclipse-controlled countryside and heading for Murkwater, where they intended to stay. The city folk were sympathetic, but plainly not very ready to take a large number of strangers into their little land. One of the travelers was foretelling that more and more people would be coming to the island in the near future.

"If room ain't found for them, they'll find it for themselves. They've a right to live, same as other folk," he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the prospect.

"Ye don't get it," said another. "These are the last days, never fear 'at if ye be Arcean. It's unnatural and ye all know it, may it do ya fine."

"Billie, I'll whale you, for god!" a rooster of a man named Kennerly yelled. "Ain't seen nothing but some bright lights and ain't heard nothing that can't be faked! It's the Association behind it all, tell ya sure. Boy!" he shouted at Bronze. "You bite 'is tale?"

"I don't bite," said Bronze pleasantly, "not till I see what I'm chewing."

"It's coming to Last Times, young master," said Billie. "You know how it says in the Book. Children won't obey their parents, and a plague'll be visited on the multitudes. You only have to listen to the preacher to know it."

"He's naturally gawky, boy," said Kennerly. He looked at Tess, grinned, sowing a few sociable teeth. "What's th' girl for? She wild? She a devil?" Bronze saw the intentions in his eyes quite clearly, and although he did not fear it, he marked it as a man might mark a page in a book, one that contained potentially valuable instructions.

"Did you say something?" asked Bronze remotely.

Sudden terror dawned in Kennerly's eyes, like twin moons coming over the horizon. He put his hands behind his back like a naughty child caught with the sweet-jar. "No, mister, not a word. And I'm right sorry if I did."

"Go to hell, Kennerly," said the tavern keeper. "How long you been screwin' your sister?"

There were raucous laughs all around. "Sure have been," Kennerly cried happily. He cringed again, hating, fearing, wanting to please. "Any girl can be pretty nice if she wants to be, eh?"

"Get out of here," the tavern keeper yelled, and there were plenty of men to help Kennerly along. The pureblood Logarian walked away from the Alolans by the fire, took his collar, and threw him out the paddleboard door. Outside they heard Kennerly make a screeching noise like a rusty screen being dragged over rocks. Then it turned into noise, an inarticulate babbling. He sounded like a man being drowned in a bucket of mud. Then there was a loud splash from the direction of the bay and that was the end of it. A call for apple liquor went out and everyone went back to talking.

"Fool must have run into Cobalion," Tess muttered. "He's a horrible man, but I hope he didn't die."

"He probably got a good talking-to," said Bronze, "but don't count on him being alright."

"The devil has come," the pureblood Logarian began saying in a cultivated voice. "Did you not hear the worlds of our Lord? It is the Djinn, the Djinn who came to Tor and Embla as a snake writhing on its belly in the dust. He's always been there, my brothers and sisters. But I don't know his mind. And you don't know his mind. Who could understand the awful darkness that swirls there, the pride and the titanic blasphemy, the unholy glee? And the madness! The gibbering madness that walks and crawls and wriggles through men's most awful wants and desires?"

"Blast you, Khosrow," someone cried. "Ye sound like a fool straight outta some book!"

"It's him that will return when Last Times come on the world, and they are coming, my brothers and sisters, can't you feel they are? The Eclipse-men and Association serve him both. It's him that will come as the Antichrist, a crimson king with bloody eyes, to lead men into the flaming bowels of perdition, to the bloody end of wickedness, as Star Wormword hangs blazing in the sky, as gall gnaws at the vitals of the children, as women's wombs give forth monstrosities, as the works of men's hands turn to blood! And only the king that was prophesized can save us! And I know he will come just as I know Arceus will cast out the unrepentant from His palaces and into the place of burning darkness beyond the end of the world! And I know that this king is among us right now!"

"The lights made this one go nutty!" a woman named Pittson grumbled.

"You're nutty fer not see'n the signs in front of us all," said Billie. "And if you done fornications, or gambling, or drugs, or sins, then ye better—"

"Screw you and the horse you rode in on!"

"Whose that?" Bronze asked, when he got a chance to whisper to the landlord, Sheb Kart. "That Khosrow fellow, the Logarian one. I don't think you introduced him?"

"Him?" said the landlord in an answering whisper, cocking an eye without turning his head. "I don't rightly know. He is one of the Logarian folk as ye guessed; we call them tarkul. He seldom talks about anything but the Last Times: not but what he can tell a rare tale when he has the mind. He disappears for a month, or a year, and then he pops up again to scare the hell out of everybody. He lives alone, hardly ever sees anybody. Only comes out to serve up the hellfire. His right name is Khosrow Paravez, real ancient sounding. He's crazy, but he's got the hoodoo on them. They like it that way. It suits them; though with everything going on and the fireworks half a week ago, there might be something to his talk."

"Do you know where he goes?"

"Goes? Goes? Aye, he goes about at a great pace on his long shanks; though he don't tell nobody what cause he has to hurry. But there's no accounting for East and West, as we say in Murkwater, meaning the Rorians and those that live in the jungles, begging your pardon. Funny you should ask about him." But at that moment Mr. Sheb was called away by a demand for more ale and his last remark remained unexplained.

Bronze found that Khosrow was now looking at him, as if he had heard or guessed all that had been said. Presently, with a wave of his hand and a nod, he invited Bronze and Tess to come over and sit by him. As Bronze drew near he threw back his hood, showing a shaggy head of dark hair necked with grey, and in a dark stern face a pair of keen brown eyes.

"I am called Khosrow," he said in a low voice. "I am very pleased to meet you. Master Tercano, if old Sheb got your name right. And Miss Woodhall as well."

"He did," said Tess stiffly. She felt far from comfortable under the stare of those eyes.

"Well, young masters," said Khosrow, "if I were you, I should stop walking about and start telling everyone about yourself. Drink, fire, and chance-meeting are pleasant enough, but, well...this is wartime. There are queer folk about. Though I say it as shouldn't, you may think," he added with a wry smile, seeing Bronze's glance. "And there have been even stranger travelers through Murkwater lately."

Someone left through the doors and began to yell. The piano player who had been singing himself hoarse turned around to look at the disturbance. Billie, drunk nearly to the point of senselessness, intoxicated and reckless with his own continued existence, sat on the vacant seat and played with hectic speed, fingers flying like looms. Outside the voice kept screeching and hollering all the way down the road about haunts and demons.

"Better do something quick before they find out that a god is standing outside," Khosrow whispered in his ear.

Bronze jumped up and stood on a table, and began to talk. The attention of the screamer's audience was disturbed. Some of the city folk looked at Bronze and laughed and clapped, thinking that young Mr. Tercano had taken as much sweet apple liquor as was good for him.

As was his habit when making a speech he slipped in the ancient style of speaking. Quite unaccountable a desire came over him to vanish from the silly situation and be on his way to the Gym. It seemed to him, somehow, as if the suggestion came to him from outside, from someone or something in the room. He resisted the temptation firmly. At any rate it gave him no inspiration. He spoke "a few suitable words", as they would have said back home: "We are all very much gratified by the kindness of your reception, and I venture to hope that my brief visit will help to renew the old ties of friendship between the mainland and Murkwater," and then he hesitated and coughed.

Everyone in the room was now looking at him. "A song!" shouted one of the women. "A song! A song!" shouted all the others. "Come on now, boy, sing us something that we haven't heard before!"

"Alright," he said after gaping for a moment. "Pianoman, you know the tune to Shomali?"

"Yar," said Billie, "but that's an old one."

"I've got some new words for it. But I'll need someone on the flute, if you've got one."

"Old Sheb can play the flute," said Khosrow suddenly. "He might even be good, if he had any practice!"

There was a tremendous roar of laughter at this. Billie had begun playing the melody drunkenly in the middle of the noise so Bronze was at first thrown off. When it died down he was singing the second line of the song and just beginning to pick up speed. Here it is in full. Only a few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered.

...

"White as lilies was her face

When she smiled she beguiled

Quitting faith with foul disgrace,

Virtue, service thus neglected.

Heart with sorrow hath infected

When I swore my heart my own

She disdained, I complained;

Yet she left me overthrown

Careless of my bitter grieving

Ruthless bent to no relieving

Vows and oaths and faith assured

Constant ever, changing never

Yet she could not bе procured

To believе my pains exceeding

From her scant neglect proceeding!

Oh, that Love should have the art

By surmises, and disguises,

To destroy a faithful heart

Or that wanton-looking women

Should reward their friends as foemen!

All in vain is Ladies' love,

Quickly choosed, shortly loosed;

For their pride is to remove

Out alas their looks first won us

And their pride hath straight undone us!

To thyself the sweetest fair,

Thou hath wounded, and confounded

Changeless faith with soul despair.

And my service hath envied

And my succors hath denied.

By thine error thou hast lost;

Heart unfeigned, truth unstained;

And the swain that loved most

More assured in love than many

More despised in love than any.

For my heart, though set at naught;

Since you will it, spoil and kill it!

I will never change my thought:

But grieve that beauty e'er was born

Thus to answer love with scorn."

...

There was loud and long applause. Bronze had a good voice, and the song tickled the men's fancies. "Where's old Sheb?" they cried. "He ought to hear this. Sheb ought to learn himself the fiddle, and then we'd have a dance." They called for more ale, and began to shout: "Let's have it again, young master! Come on now! Once more!"

"Alright, don't get ahead of yourselves," laughed Bronze. "Get me the melody for Ronsarvollen and we'll have a go."

...

"Hey-ho to the keg! Hey-ho to the beer!

Hey-ho to the leg of a lamb or deer!

Hey to the barley! Ho to the ale brown

Hurrah to the finest inn in town!

Why travel to lands both far and wide,

to stoke your prowess or fuel your pride,

when all you need is found right here,

in this wonderful, frothing, dark brown beer?

Hey-ho to the keg! Hey-ho to the beer!

Hey-ho to the leg of a lamb or deer!

Hey to the barley! Ho to the ale brown!

Hurrah to the finest inn in town!

If you're lost among the pines,

wandering o'er the hills at night;

come and have a glass of wine,

sit with friends among the light.

When the weather's cold and damp,

and you'd rather feel more merry;

come and sit beneath a lamp

and drink a mug of perry!

Hey-ho to the keg! Hey-ho to the beer!

Hey-ho to the leg of a lamb or deer!

Hey to the barley! Ho to the ale brown!

Hurrah to the finest inn in town!

Who needs to wander, to rove and roam

when he's got a cozy hearth and home?

'Tis foolish to explore out there

when you've got a homely mug and chair!

Here in halls of blue and red,

what better way the time to pass

than telling tales of cloven heads,

and sipping jars of plum kvass!

Hey-ho to the keg! Hey-ho to the beer!

Hey-ho to the leg of a lamb or deer!

Hey to the barley! Ho to the ale brown!

Hurrah to the finest inn in town!

Think not of spiders, nor their brood,

but sing instead of this wonderful food!

Sing of the pastries, sing of the cake!

Our feasts are fine, make no mistake!

When the time is closing evening,

and all the foes are overcome,

still the friendly lights are gleaming

while we gather, drinking rum!

Hey-ho to the keg! Hey-ho to the beer!

Hey-ho to the leg of a lamb or deer!

Hey to the barley! Ho to the ale brown!

Hurrah to the finest inn in town!"

...

They made Bronze have a drink, and then began his song again, while many of them joined in; for the tune was well known, and they were quick at picking up words. It was now Khosrow's turn to feel pleased with himself. He capered about on the table with Bronze, and when he came a second time to Hurrah to the finest inn in town! he leaped in the air. Much too vigorously; for he came down, bang, into a tray full of mugs, and slipped, and rolled off the table with a crash, clatter, and bump. The audience all opened their mouths wide for laughter, and stopped short a gaping silence; for the door opened.

Robert and Lily came in first. The scarred and leathery look of the man and the shrewd, deadly eyes of the woman would have caused a small stir, but they were followed by the head of Cobalion. The doorframe was wide enough for his body but too short to make room for his horns, which left scratches on the paint even when he stooped. The scraping sounded like some great angel coughing. Heads swiveled to look at the three arrivals. There was a moment of near silence, except for the oblivious piano player, who continued to tinkle.

"We'll want three burgers and a beer, would it please ya," said Robert.

The locals stared in amazement, and then sprang to their feet and shouted for Brynn. After seeing that the door was staunchly blocked some got up to run for the back exit. Cobalion shook his head impatiently and yelled: "Don't talk trivialities. You're here with a king."

The runners stopped in amazement, and the few that had been trying to get out by the windows recoiled, their hands clasped as if to demonstrate to Cobalion that they had stopped trying to escape his ire. Then Cobalion laughed aloud; a fine, strong, untainted laugh that got more laughs in answer. He whirled around on the plankboard dance floor and faced them all, suddenly the center of attention. Billie faltered and subsided, leaving a cracked high note bleeding on the air. Sheb took cover behind the bar, grasping a wine bottle by its neck. They looked at the creature uneasily. Wind rattled against the sides of the building.

"Well?" Khosrow cried out. "What did I tell you? I had smelt that there was a god on the threshold waiting to take the unwary! And I knew the boy brought it with him! I'd tell him to keep up away from us, but now it's here! It's here! All you were looking down hell's front door when you rejected the signs, and now Arceus has sent his avenging angel to strike you dead! We're dead! Dead as anybody! Oh, god, you'd better—"

"It's all right," said Cobalion softly. "It's all right. Just wait."

The silence held, spun itself out. Tess's breath had clogged in her throat. They all looked at Cobalion and he looked at them. Then the laugh burst forth again, strong, rich, beyond denial. But there was now an unmistakable urge to laugh along with him.

"I will show you a wonder!" he cried at them. And they watched him, like obedient children taken to see a magician in whom they have grown too old to believe.

A storm was beginning; shadows followed each other, rising and falling on the darkening cyclorama of the sky that looked into the cave's slimy mouth. A man near the piano with a forgotten beer in one hand made a groaning, slobbering sound.

"Cobalion, what's this?" asked Bronze in a tight voice. "If you wanted to make a scene, then you ought to have come in earlier."

The connection that Bronze might have something to do with the terrifying being was not yet very strong in the minds of the city folk. They found out later that their memories of the event were always very weak; like a bee resting on a sweet flower only to lift off again. Cobalion grinned as he began to speak.

"People of Roria and Alola, my speech will not be aimed at stopping you leaving this place. As far as I am concerned, you may exit whenever you like, if the urge permits. You know that the times are moving on, but you may not know what you stand to gain or lose. I have come to tell you to appoint a king over yourselves like it was of old."

"What if we don't want a king?" said Khosrow, shuddering. "Listen to me! It was this boy's plan, I say, to inflame your hearts, to make you forsake Arceus and serve other gods." He pointed at Cobalion. "You! Tell them! Speak of what a king will do, and what he will claim as his right!"

The man named Hogan had bruised his knuckles on the hard edge of the table trying to stand, but he took no notice of that or Khosrow's madness. He swept off his wide-brimmed hat and held it to his chest. To Tess the hat looked as big as a bushel basket. "We bid ye welcome, Logarian!" he cried. "Welcome indeed! I thought all your kind had perished from the earth, so I did!"

"Be thee on a quest, boy?" said someone.

"So I am," said Bronze. "I thank you for your welcome."

Now she positively cawed laughter. Sheb ran to steady her as she rocked forward and backward in her dusty green shoes. She caught her balance on her own and made an imperious shooing gesture with one hand. Sheb retreated. "Be ye on a quest, boy?" Her green eyes gleamed shrewdly at him; the puckered pocket of her mouth worked in and out.

"Aye," said Bronze. "The girl and I go to reclaim the kingdom of Logaria."

The others only looked puzzled, but the old woman recoiled and forked the sign of the evil eye; not at them, Tess realized, but to the west. "I'm sorry to hear it!" she cried. "For no one who ever went in search of that black dog ever came back! So said my grandfather, and his grandfather before him! Not ary one!"

"God is my rock," said Bronze.

"Ay," she agreed, "black dog will of Arceus! Well-a-well; ye'll do as you're called, and live along your path, and die when it comes to it. Will ye break bread with us before you push on, heir? You and your band of knights?"

Bronze bowed. "It has been long and long since we have broken bread in company other than our own, Old Mother. We cannot stay long, but yes, we'll eat your food with thanks and pleasure."

The old woman turned to the others. She spoke in a cracked and ringing voice, yet it was the words she spoke and not the tone in which they were spoken that sent chills racing down Tess's back: "Behold ye, the return of the White! After evil ways and evil days, the White comes again! Be of good heart and hold up your heads, for ye have lived to see the armies of Arceus begin to move once more!"

...

"Men of Southernesse," continued Bronze once she had finished, and now the scent of the royal perfume and the shimmering crown above his head were obvious to see. On further consideration everyone decided they had always been there: how had they not seen it before? Tess realized it was the first time Bronze had actually spoken to any crowd of his prospective subjects. These would be harder to convince than the Aredians, she knew. The old stories of the desert that lingered from the ghost-days before the world moved on had prepared them for the king to come, but these northern Rorians had none of that, none of the conditioning. She tried to think of a word less loathsome to describe how the prophecies had dealt with them, and found out that conditioning rose up again and again like vomit.

"Let me begin, as is right, by answering you, Khosrow," continued Bronze. "I am indeed this king that was spoken of by the voices of the gods. This is what I will claim as my right: I will conscript your sons and make them serve with my army, and they will fight on the battlefield in many campaigns. Some I will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap the harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment in factories. I will draft your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers for the royal house. I will take the best of your estates and property and farmland and give them to my officials. I will take a tenth of your wealth and put it in the treasury. Your robot servants and the best of your Pokemon I will take for my own use."

"A tenth?" someone yelled. "A bleeding tenth? That's it?"

"Compared to the taxes running right now, it's about three times less than the going rate of what they're skimming off our wages," said Sheb. He replied in the patient voice of someone who realizes he is speaking to a mental inferior and must make allowances. "And if ye count the MedSafety cost, the gas and energy hikes, the welfare tax, and the basic income guarantee all being rid of, that about makes it about five times lower."

"If this be as fine as these devils are making it to be," Billie slurred.

"In exchange for these things I will give you freedom that you have never known," continued Bronze, his voice strong with ritual intensity. "Under me your safety will be because of your own bravery and not because of the military. You may choose to be city dwellers or country dwellers and be civilized with good Logarian laws and customs. I will give you the right to make your commerce unrestricted, and enable you to exploit your lands undisturbed. Realize that instead of paying taxes to the Association, you will be able to decide what local fees you will give, aside from what the word of the good king prohibits. You that people from other regions will give you thanks and ask for safety and protection. There will be no need to vote for corrupt men who do not care about you or your family. All your leaders will live among you and fight at the head of battles. There will be made a new currency that will be managed well and not suffer from the inflation we have today. You and your sons and daughters will have the freedom to do whatever Arceus commands, and like the days of old, you will be governors, wealthy lords, and a noble people."

"I swear on the faces of all my longfathers and the name of Arceus that I will make this be, so long as I live. But I will die, and though I be of the strong race of Logaria, when those who are the in the womb grow old, so to will I grow old. When I die, though all of you will be dead yourselves and your great-grandchildren older than the age I am today, leaders of less wisdom and lineage may come. When that day arrives, which it must, your descendants will cry out for relief from the king that you have chosen, but Arceus will not answer you on that day. Here is my offer. Do what you will with it. As for what I hope to gain, that is only eternal salvation and the honor of my line. That is all."

...

There was a short silence where Bronze stood in the center of the room, unsure of what to do. Then a cheer broke out, so loud that the building's supports shook. The wind shrieked and howled and thrummed above the racket. A call for mead on the house was raised by Sheb. Over at the piano Bilie's hands worked faster and he laughed, loon-like, hunched over. He began to cough up phlegm, huge and sticky gobs of it, and let fly. Sheb roared approval and pounded him on the back. Billie grinned, one gold tooth twinkling.

"All right!" grinned Sheb. "All right, let's get down to it!" Then with supreme audacity, he took several grotesque strides over the floor, draped his right arm over Cobalion's neck, and held a half-finished glass of apple liquor in the other, sloshing it over the floor and his white apron. "All hail the king! FOR HE'S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW—"

Some fled the room. Others gathered in a loose ring around Bronze and Cobalion and started singing. Khosrow suddenly lunged across the dance floor, jackknifing over it in a smooth arc. It was pretty, like a flash of water. He caught himself on his hands, sprang to his feet in a twist, grinning, and went over again. One of the watchers forgot himself, began to applaud, and suddenly backed away, eyes cloudy with terror. He slobbered a hand across his mouth and made for the door.

"We'd better leave," whispered Bronze to Tess, trying to prevent himself from being crushed in the slough of bodies that were either trying to crowd around Bronze and Cobalion or break through the cluster of half-insane onlookers to make a run for the door or open a window. She nodded at his words and skirted around the looney-sane city folk, walking out the door with Robert and Lily.

Outside she saw Kennerly, sopping wet, pace around the general store and mutter about god. She heard the noises of revelry from inside and saw dark forms blot out the window light in frenzied motions. Then there was a final cheer, the loudest of them all and devastating enough to make Tess think her eardrums would bust like two shoddy balloons. The last strains of another round of "HE'S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW" had barely stopped when out of the doors stumbled Bronze and Cobalion, each stinking of alcohol and marked with liquor stains. Bronze stood panting by the boardwalk, his hands on his knees. Cobalion's hide glowed blue a moment and the stench and stains vanished. The insane laughter went on from the tavern and the piano played away.

"That went about as well as I was expecting," said Lily patiently. "If anyone's to blame, then it rests on Cobalion's four shoulders. Bronze and Tess had the room under control before he walked in and forced him to start talking."

"It was practice, and good practice at that," said Cobalion, as if that explained everything. "Bronze, you tried your best, but I hope by all the faces of your fathers that you'll be a little more convincing when it comes time for the League."

"With preparation, I'll manage," said Bronze, speaking low. "I hadn't decided if I was going to try to win them over or not. Our attempt seems to have broken their minds."

"Not broken," said Robert, "only some light cracks. They'll be alright."

"God ye may be, but below your hide you're but another foolish man," said Lily to Cobalion.

Cobalion bowed his head. "Beauty and the strangeness of Men have always made me foolish."

The noise from the bar was getting quieter. Khosrow came out the doors and set out through the town. The Logarian nodded to Bronze, and then saluted him with his arm outstretched and the fingers splayed. "Hail, king, and may your road be full of light. When called, I will fight under your banner." Then he went down the road by the bay and went into a church with a leaning spire—it was the Church of the Blood Everlasting.

"Look out for him," said Cobalion, his eyes turned cautious. "I don't know what it is, but we'll run into him again before we leave this town."

After Khosrow came a dark-haired woman wearing a dirty grey shirt. One sleeve was loosely held on with a safety pin. She looked Bronze in the eye, and she might have been very pretty when she started out, but the world had moved on since then. Now her face was thin and there a livid scar went corkscrewing across her forehead. At least there was no makeup; such adornment always attention to what it had been meant to camouflage.

"Tercano, you here for the Gym? I'll fight you tomorrow."

"Are you Brynn?" said Bronze, remembering the eighth and final Gym Leader that Aaron had called only B.

"Here's looking at you."

There was a slow, subtle shift in the woman's tone that smelt of trickery and deception. Tess felt that once this barfly had gotten cleaned up for the fight, she would be a different woman entirely, filled with a story that, like so many others, was hard to listen to but wouldn't rest idle. This was the last stop, the final ride before the League which even Tess knew would be apocalyptic. The world as it was only had a few more weeks to live. The Djinn would not let the god's challenge go unanswered and he would reply in a place where everyone would see and hear.

"You beat Aaron," said Brynn slowly. "No one beats Aaron if he tries."

"I beat him," said Bronze, shutting out the loved ones around him and looking steadily at the woman, "and I'll beat you. You're the last one and then I will havegotten my way."

"You need to win the League," said the woman with a king of doomed understanding. "You need the people to hear you."

"She speaks true," said Robert. "But we've got to sleep in our lodging. We'll be back."

"Not tonight, we won't," said Tess, helplessly tired. "I need to go to bed."