"Tell me, Rufri, do you yearn to gamble with fate?" King Karga asked, tracing his finger over the rim of the empty goblet. "The treacherous lunatic never failed to starve my temptations."
"Dear brother, I believe we are both entirely cognizant of the fact." The court mage puffed and pushed the silver pince-nez along the bridge of his hooked nose.
The king tipped the vessel gilded in shimmering gold with a gentle nudge. A fragile silence reigned the air. However, the royal wolves exposed their set of crooked fangs, gaping their maws wider until they eviscerated ephemeral overlord with their hysteric howls.
"Well then, let's play another round with my dear friend. What does the wretch have in stored for me this time? Rufri, do the honor."
"You're as dauntless as ever. Sadly, this would be the last time we'll get to taunt destiny until we cull and burn some Behenium rascals." the mage said as he delved his pocket and extracted a small wooden box clustered with fine needles followed by a pouch of ashes. Karga erected the goblet. He unfurled his fingers, picking the needle of his choice. The king pricked himself, squeezing his blood into the goblet.
Rufri emptied the pouch into the vessel. Karga rose, stepping back. The mage spawned a flame on his rough index and hurled it into the goblet. The column of scarlet fire ascended, twisting into a figure imitating the king's, his torso impaled on a stake. Fiery daggers embedded into his chest as his hand crawled out. "Don't… leave… your father… " the words rung with a crisp plea. The display whirled into a blazing distortion, diminishing in a few swirls and left a curtain of smoke and ashes, prancing in the hall.
The brothers choked in smoldering aftermath.
"Ah, very amusing. A tragedy at its pinnacle." he snorted. The bald king's forehead wrinkled into a valley creases. "Don't flatten my expectations. I've been acquainted with worse."
"Divinations never lie. Be it mine or a shrew's, fates can't be altered." Rufri punctuated his words with a tremulous delay. "Not even magic can tailor a new route." The mage dampened his expression, concealing the ripples of fear that leaned to sculpt his face. Words bulged in his throat, words of a heretic taboo that might save his beloved ruler, but he couldn't. He calculated the apocalypse's arrival, the price to pay would be the most irredeemable move they could make.
The king relaxed his breath.
"Unless we intervene through the Eclipse. Like our late father."
He smacked his knuckles on the mage's shoulder and tightening his grip. Karga stared into his brother's eyes with the placid smile cleaved onto his face, defogging the unspoken traces of apprehension.
"Eclipse is closer than we know. A short trip to retrieve a handful of shard will not stand as a potential threat, I assume."
The younger brother averted his gaze.
"Brother… you don't mean…"
Rufri's skin mask slackened, his eyes beamed with a sliver of doubtful hope. "We can, but the odds may pose an indomitable counter. But it's your fate, I have no authority to interfere."
"Rufri, I trust you. I am, not in the least, worried about the process I must undergo nor the fiend betraying us. He won't. He can't. Even if he wants to."
"I appreciate your trust, dear brother." He sputtered with firm lips, breaking the wordless hiatus. "I hope those fetters didn't neuter all his potency."
***
They descended to the hidden catacombs, preserved within lowest depths of the castle's walls, guarded by the Rufri's enchantment. They crept in the causeway of dry, naked bones, guided by dying torches, fairly ablaze until an algae-strangled wall hinder their path.
Rufri unchained his fingertips, scurrying across damp, velvet surface. He kept pushing certain stones till one pushed back. The wall slid inwards, revealing a den shy of a dragon, riddled with cobwebs and stale miasma of the dead rats. There was one soul, however, whom death left untouched. His skin clamped onto his skeleton, bound in fetters. Stitches danced on his back.
"Cared for a visit? I've been waiting for guests. It's been a year, no maybe a decade. Desolation and patience truly reciprocates their feelings for each other. I guess I am their child." the man said, blowing the laces of ebony draping over his head. "Please, make yourselves comfortable in my humble abode, dear brothers."
"That's no way to treat His Majesty, scoundrel!" Rufri barked. "Know your position, Sagel."
"Now, now that's no way to treat your rightful king. Know your own crappy position in the first place, Rufri."
"Your sanity is still far from putrefying, to my dismay. We're aren't here to babble about that." Karga said.
"And I'm not stuck here to suck on your flaccid genitals, Karga. Hey Rufri, why don't you feast on his meat for a change?"
The mage glared at Sagel, hissing as his knuckles curled. However, he contained the wrath pumping in his veins.
"Sagel –"
"You mean King Sagel."
"Whatever, we've come to you with an offer of redemption."
"Spit it out already, Karga."
"The Eclipse is drawing in, we need you to retrieve some Omnitite shards for the Heavenly Bestowal."
"You, need me? I see your humor is dreary as always. That joke didn't sate me. Neither did these rats. Immortality's the bane of my life." he said, scratching patterns on the ground resorting to his overgrown nails. "Your slag of a mage conjured one of those visions again, didn't he? Moreover, you're not a suitable candidate."
Karga ignored him. "Listen, I'll release you from the curse as your reward."
"How, beheading me? Feed pack of wargs? Burn in me in a dragon's flames? Poison me? Tsk, all of your previous efforts drowned me in pain." He stabbed his left eye with a bare thumb. As he withdrew it, a white blob weaved into existence. A fresh, vivid smudge of blue painted the iris.
"I won't die, I just won't. There's no end in sight Karga. Even our mage here failed to conjure my death." He lamented, revealing the brand on tucked in his palm. It was a pair of dragons, each pursuing the others tail in circle.
"Your purification was perfect. And with perfection, pain will always follow. Anyways, I may not be viable, but you are. Tell you what, I'll remove the seal, then you can go court with death to your heart's content."
"Not enough to convince me. Let's play a game, shall we? Let's sever the most precious body parts to us and make a trade, as a contract. I'll be eager to cooperate with you if we can burn in the same conflagration."
"You have my word, Sagel."
The prisoner guillotined his tongue with his rows of teeth, honed like razors. It wriggled on the mossy earth. Sagel discharged a mouthful. He picked the tongue, placing the slithery organ on his palm.
"I guess it's my turn. Rufri, you were always precious to me unlike him." Karga said, with a cold grin, as his approached the hilt of his sword.
"Brother, your words always soothed my heart –"
Karga drew the blade out and butchered Rufri's nose with a graceful chop. Rufri sank to his knees, his face masked in his hands, hemorrhaging and bound in maddening groans. He stuffed the bleeding nose into Sagel chest.
"Well, or that could suffice, I hope." Sagel mumbled to himself with the fresh new tongue, inspecting Rufri's nose.
"You'll leave tonight. I'll have a vessel prepared for you. Mount Narko awaits."