Chapter 1 ~ “The chicken thing
was just a misunderstanding.”
It was his Last Day.
For any other person, that would have explained the lost-in-thought expression on his face as he sat alone in the quiet hall. But the thickest ruler of the world had only ever been “lost.” He gave other people slips of gold to do “thought” part for him.
He also didn’t know it was his Last Day. But that was about to change.
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“King Oren!” shouted the voice across the empty throne room.
The middle-aged king looked up from his gold and leather throne. He saw the old professor—white haired and squatty—enter into the long hall filled with windows. He had a way of perpetually trembling, Oren had noticed some time ago, which made this tufty hair quiver like an agitated skunk. Oren always liked skunks.
The afternoon sun illuminated the other professors that Oren employed as his advisors, as well as the High General and about a dozen soldiers in blue woolen uniforms who followed. Oren didn’t like the High General. Everything about him was too hard and gray, like a rock come to life, and it wasn’t happy about it.
Oren gulped.
“We all are here this day,” the professor gestured to those behind him, “to deliver our judgment and punishment, on the 47th Day of Planting Season, the year 317—”
“I know what day it is,” King Oren offered helpfully.
“—to announce to you that . . . what?” the old professor squinted.
“The date. You don’t need to tell me anymore. I figured out how to read calendars a few years ago, remember?”
“Did you hear that?” the professor announced to the men behind him. “Forty-four years old, and Oren now knows how to tell the date!”
“Right after I hired you, we spent several days going over the dating system,” Oren continued, not recognizing the sarcasm in his advisor’s voice. But Oren did realize that Professor Mal was trembling even more than usual. He seemed to always do that just before he’d start yelling. “We have four seasons, 91 days in each, and each year starts again in Planting Season, although I always thought it was in the middle of Raining, but—”
The professor, incredulous, turned to the High General. “Do you still insist he deserves my carefully prepared speech? Listen to him babbling!”
“—it does make more sense for the year to begin in Planting, since dogs—”
The High General, a hulking man in his fifties, sighed loudly. “Nicko, we went over this.”
“—although I’m sure the cats disagree—” Oren scratched his chin and lost his thought. The High General’s gravelly voice always made him forget what he was talking about.
It was cats, Oren suddenly remembered.
He like cats—not skunks.
Simple mistake. Both are the same size, same shape, just different coloring. It was easy to confuse a skunk for his cat lost in the mansion’s compound at night.
But do it four times, and the servants begin to complain.
“King Oren deserves to know why this judgment is being handed down to him.” The High General’s face tightened as the king raised his hand to say something.
“Whatever happened to my cat? Mal, I haven’t seen her around for—”
“Oren!” Professor Mal bellowed, his white hair shaking. “Shut up!”
The King of the World clamped shut his mouth and cowered on his throne. Mal never did like his cat.
Or maybe it was the skunk he didn’t like. The smell, Oren—don’t you notice the smell?! Mal had yelled that at him once when he wrestled the skittish, terrified cat into the mansion, only to realize he had the wrong animal. It was the smell of worry, Oren had thought. He knew that smell intimately. Surely his cat would feel worry, too—
Mal straightened his woolen jacket. “We’re here to explain to you why you’ll no longer be ruling our world nor occupying that chair.”
“This has to do with the market last week, right?” Oren squeaked, beginning to make his own scent of worry. “The silk cloak?”
“Among other things, yes!”
“Because I have that figured out now,” Oren said, trying to avoid the steady glare of the High General. Normally he enjoyed looking at all the shining medals, counting the stitched patches on his blue uniform, and admiring the silverwork on the hilt of his sword. But today the High General of Idumea’s army had an even harsher expression which refused to let Oren focus on his uniform.
“You see,” Oren started, “you explained to me that even though I possess the world—”
“That’s only what your grandmother claimed,” Mal reminded him.