What did he do to earn a name like that?
Gwyn suddenly felt compelled to look northward. There was a cube suspended by dozens of jagged, black spires that seemed to call to her in the distance. A white mountain lorded over the structure; black snow slept at its summit.
"Yes, that is his 'house' so to speak... um… well… we barely managed to exile him ninety years ago."
Ren was shy, or maybe embarrassed.
Gwyn couldn't tell which.
"Am I supposed to kill this… thing? The King of Terror?"
"Yes, well… kill probably isn't the proper word in this situation," Ren mumbled incoherently between thoughts. "At one point, before the King of Terror, most Chosen Ones had nearly unlimited resources."
Before?
"What about me, Ren?" Gwyn's desperation grew. "Don't I have unlimited resources?"
Ren's guilt was contagious.
"Well…"
"What about me… Ren?"
He forced a smile.
"You have a lovely one-bedroom dormitory!"
His rehearsed enthusiasm wasn't reassuring in the slightest.
Gwyn's jaw nearly fell out of her mouth. This was a joke. A sick joke. An absolutely disgusting, unfunny joke. The worst stand-up routine she has ever been to.
The Head Whisperer looked wistfully into the distance, towards the large cube. The King of Terror's domain. His hands were in his pockets. He whistled in the breeze. When he stopped, he asked her an odd question.
"Fish… Do you like fish, Chosen One?"
"Fish? I mean… It's okay, not my favorite, but—"
"Well, earlier, I and one of my… um… underlings. We had a conversation about a fish."
"What does a fish have to do with me right now?"
He took a deep breath.
"Remember how I said we summoned a creature every one hundred years?"
"Yes, you just said that a few minutes ago."
Gwyn was torn between being patient and throwing herself from the platform.
"Well… far before your time. Maybe the… twentieth, twenty-first Chosen One," his mouth moved as if he was trying to think of the correct word, but couldn't. "It doesn't matter. Point is… one of our Chosen Ones we summoned was a fish, a half-man, half-fish, actually. We just called him 'the fish', you see."
Ren was sweating bullets, again, not helping the anxiety bubbling within Gwyn's stomach. She had no idea where this conversation was going.
"What happened to him?"
"Oh!" Ren laughed hysterically. "He died."
"He died?!"
Gwyn repeated, not believing her ears.
"Yes, then we ate him. Well." Ren reminisced about his salty, ocean-y flavor. "Half of him. Because the other part was like us and that part…" he shivered. "Much too gamey."
Gwyn couldn't help but wonder which half was the fish. She then shook her head.
"Why did you do that?! Why didn't you save him?" She backed away from him. "Are you going to eat me?"
"No, no!" He laughed. "You don't have much meat on your bones anyway." He looked a little defensive suddenly. "And we tried to save him, but you know, he was a fish. Fish die, it would be a waste not to… eat him."
Ren gave Gwyn a gesture as if what he said wasn't a big deal or completely abnormal behavior.
Gwyn felt the sudden urge to run away.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Ah, yes… the uh, moral of the story. Those are important."
Ren nodded approvingly of his conversational skills that only he didn't seem to realize were lacking.
"Before we could help him, we could sense the power he emanated. If he could've breathed our air or if we had given him a bucket of water or something… There is a future where he could have saved us, truly. An amazingly powerful, delectable, fish-man."
"But you ate him instead."
"It really isn't that big of a deal."
"I think it is…"
"Well, all of that to say. Your aura… it seems that you have less power than this fish. Which was…" He shook his head. "…is my biggest concern, truly. That a dead, yet delicious fish-man had more potential than our new and final summon."
He really knows how to make a lady feelwelcome.
"Final summon? You mean that I'm the last one?"
Ren nodded.
"Seeing how our people are pooling our resources together just to hold back The King of Terror, which is no small task, mind you; the Great Eight isn't too thrilled about helping outsiders any longer. The best I could negotiate with my fellow council members was that your life be spared if The Summoning was successful."
A feeling of shock overcame Gwyn.
"My life…" she said under her breath. "Well… you'll at least teach me the ways of magic, right? Of your people? I must have some potential within me?"
Ren looked away from Gwyn.
"Unfortunately, I am and have never been a 'good' teacher."
She made a concerned expression.
"Well, surely someone will teach me."
Gwyn pleaded, trying to speak directly to him, but he seemed to turn whenever the Chosen One confronted the Head Whisperer.
"Well…" the hesitation continued. "You'd be hard pressed to find a single elf that would mentor any of the Chosen Ones now… and… well…"
"Spit it out."
"There's a slight chance that if you aren't useful to us…"
Ren looked away from Gwyn. She was actually beginning to wonder if he was even capable of looking at her anymore. The anticipation was killing her.
"What are you saying?"
Can he just get to the point already?
Ren had gambled—and lost—his hopes for a future with bonnets and someone more powerful than the twenty-fourth had been shattered.
"Remember when I said we wouldn't kill you?"
Ren regretted his decision to spend years trying to convince the Great Eight that one more Chosen One couldn't hurt.
Gwyn backed away from Ren.
"Yes…"
"If you don't kill the King of Terror within five years…" he shifted awkwardly. "Which… I feel is a decent amount of time… I mean, you can accomplish a lot in five years!"
His tone: optimistic. He looked away from the Chosen One.
"The other members of the Great Eight decided this. Not myself, personally. Even though I am a member, of course."
Ren rambled on and on; his guilt, mixed with his exhaustion, made him a pretty pathetic sight. "You may or may not, but most likely may… I mean… definitely may. Probably… Yes. You will. You, as in… Gwynevere Grim, our latest—"
Gwyn's heart was pounding relentlessly.
"What are you saying?!"
Ren forced a smile.
"Yes, let me get to the point, as I have been."
He took a deep breath. The words left his mouth so quickly that you would've thought there was a fire somewhere.
"You will ever so slightly be executed if you fail to eliminate the King of Terror in five years…"
He paused and held out his hands, gasping, as though just finishing a strenuous musical performance.
"Which is a lot of time!"
Gwyn blinked, then blinked again.
"What?!"