INT. FIRE CHIEF’S CHAMBERS—NIGHT
In an opulent darkened chamber, a sickly, aged TRANK lies atop pillows, wearing an old-timey nightcap with a big pom-pom on the end. RIPPLE sits at his bedside next to a nightstand loaded up with pill bottles and medical devices, looking sad and worried.
TRANK
You have been like a son to me. But now I will be one with history.
RIPPLE
This blows chunks.
TRANK
As my last act, I bequeath you…(coughs) all the power of my kingdom.
Across the room, the command console waits for its new owner, glimmering faintly in the shadows.
When Trank regains his balance, he goes on the offensive, slashing as Ripple dodges back, and back, and back.
INT. FIRE CHIEF’S CHAMBERS—NIGHT
RIPPLE bends over TRANK’s motionless corpse. He closes the fire chief’s fake eyes, and they snap shut with a satisfying click.
RIPPLE (softly)
Now it’s your turn to ride the dragon…
Ripple backs into the parapet at the roof’s edge, twists to look down at the dizzying distance to the street below.
EXT. SKY—DAY
Early in the morning, the two DRAGONS fly through the mist over the sea. The GREEN DRAGON has something in its talons.
INT. COMMAND HEADQUARTERS—DAY
RIPPLE manipulates the controls on the command console, gazing out a picture window at the seascape beyond.
RIPPLE
Gotta see you off right, pro.
Ripple whirls around and swings his hatchet. It connects. Blood flecks back across Ripple’s face.
EXT. SKY—DAY
The GREEN DRAGON hurls its bundle sideways into the air, and the YELLOW DRAGON ignites it with a sustained surge of flame.
CLOSE on the bundle—revealed to be TRANK’s dead body—incinerating. The flesh and bones char and disintegrate, and even the titanium implants melt away to nothing: only the thinnest scattering of ashes drifts down to the waves below. The Slay Boat floats by, still mysteriously undestroyed.
Ripple’s ax head glides through the air. It’s easier swinging it the second time.
INT. THRONE ROOM—DAY
King RIPPLE, now middle-aged, sits in a big leather easy chair with the command console glowing on a stand by his right hand. He wears glasses and signs several long, scroll-like official documents on his lap desk.
The ax flies up and down almost on its own, again and again, spraying blood in its wake.
INT. THRONE ROOM—DAY
King RIPPLE looks up to the portrait of TRANK from the Fire Museum’s lobby. It appears to gaze back down at him benevolently.
RIPPLE
You taught me well, pro. Here’s to another decade of peace and prosperity in our city.
Ripple finally drops the hatchet. He is standing over the gory, steaming, chopped-up mess of what was once a man. Trank is no longer a single entity; he is a substance all over the roof. The most recognizable piece of him is the bloody, slashed-up Tarnhelm at Ripple’s feet.
TITLE CARD: The End.
27
KINGDOM OF THE SKY
“I wish you’d eat something,” Sharkey says, watching Swanny from across breakfast plates topped with tundra moose fatback (not easy to come by) and fried eggs. She warms her hands around a mug of coffee, staring into the steaming blackness. Daylight doesn’t do her any favors. Her black eye is a penumbra of swirling violet, blue, and green, on skin as pale as a page from an unread book.
“I…I just don’t have much of an appetite, I’m afraid. I’m just so terribly exhausted.”
“You slept a little.” He can still feel her, heavy and warm against his shoulder, her breath coming out in little delicate susurrations. Nice and easy. Since she came to, she’s been anything but.
“Please don’t make me eat,” she says, and bursts into tears.
“What’s the matter with you? Why are you so scared of me all of a sudden? I killed your ma before we ever met. Nothing’s changed. Stop crying. I am gonna kill you if you keep crying all the time.”
This outburst does nothing to staunch her tears, which hiccup and bubble out of her uncontrollably. Sharkey throws down his fork.
“I’m gonna go make some chaw.”
“No, please, Howie.” She wipes anxiously at her eyes with a napkin. “Don’t be angry at me.”
“I’m not angry. I just want you to knock it off.”
“Yes. ‘Pull myself together,’ as you put it earlier. I am. I will. Mother always said I was far too high strung. A touch hysterical, that’s what you get from too much nitrous oxide as a child. Of course, I am also exhausted. Will you be angry if I say I think I have a broken rib?”
When Sharkey was a kindling, a stray cat used to follow him around. An orange one. The cat was missing an eye, so he called her Winks. He fed her little bites of whatever he found scavenging on the street and when her socket got too oozy, he disinfected it by throwing hooch in her face. Winks seemed to understand, or maybe she just liked the hooch. But one time Sharkey woke Winks up too sudden and Winks jumped up scratching and Sharkey kicked her in the ribs. In Torchtown, when you don’t have family, you fight to kill; that’s the very first thing you learn. And back then Sharkey never took off his steel-toed boots. The dent of his shoe in Winks’s guts is one of the images he least likes to recall. He used to dream about it all the time, before he started seeing the future instead of the past.
“There’s bandages in the bathroom,” he says, looking away. “You can tape yourself up.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for every little thing.”
“Would it be all right if I took the day off?”
“I didn’t expect you to work today.” Maybe this’ll scab over. He’s more patient than he used to be. Gentler too. She trusted him before. He reaches over to take Swanny’s hand; her fingers are like ice. “Look. Maybe you feel like you’re in some kind of nightmare right now, but you’re a smart girl. You’ll get used to it.”
Swanny nods, blotchy and swollen. “I suppose I shouldn’t keep you from your work.”
“I got some errands to run around town, but I’ll be back for dinner.” Sharkey gets up, straps on his holster. “Be good.”
Swanny lingers in the kitchen long after he leaves, in front of the gelid fatback and gluey eggs. After almost an hour, she takes a bite. For all her life, Swanny’s mind has been aflow with ceaseless internal narration, an authorial monologue of assessment and commentary on her current state of affairs. Now the voice falls silent. Sharkey’s reference to a “nightmare” seems apt. She feels frozen in one of those panic scenarios in which one’s open mouth proves incapable of emitting a scream. She wonders if she really does have a broken rib, or a cracked one; it’s difficult to prod the bone through the thickness of her flesh. All she knows is that it pains her when she sobs, and if today so far is any indication, that will make for a major inconvenience.
“Swan?”