A tall figure stood on the other side. A crown reflected the sunshine falling on his head in a brilliant dazzle. A smartly uniformed vigilant player was on either side of him, at attention.

The face of one of these players summoned an old memory to my mind, and I felt like someone had prodded a naked wound in my heart. It was Zan, one of my attackers, whose nightly visit had forced me to flee the town of players. His trademarked pencil moustache was unmistakable.

“I am crossing to their side,” Sam said to me. I blinked at him in understanding. Nobody should know that he was my brother.

“Go,” I said.

Sam trod along the bridge. In a minute he was by the elf king. They had a short exchange. The elf king nodded, and Sam moved to the back where the crowd of players had gathered.

The elf king then raised his hand and signaled me. He and his guards came striding for the middle of the bridge, where the discussion would take place. I took a brief glance behind to check that Kiara was standing in an obscure spot amongst the multitudes of Skhites and Hornies. She had a green scarf on her head, and could easily be mistaken for a female Hornie.

“Let’s go,” I said to Bono. The two stone giants stepped to the bridge. The first time Bono placed his foot, the bridge swayed. The elf king and his guards caught the ropes on the sides, but did not exhibit any panic.

“Are you sure this thing will not break?” Bui asked.

“Well, if it does, we will simply fall into the river. Won’t be very hard to get out of it,” Bono replied relaxedly.

The two of them took careful steps. Ultimately, we didn’t want the bridge to break or the elf king to drown. In five minutes we were face to face with the elf king.

The elf king did not utter any word for a while, nor did I. It was not exactly a warm meeting. A cold wind complimented the mood, blowing the long strands of the elf king’s hair all over his feminine face.

The elf king had no beard and his features might be soft, however, his body was very muscular. He carried a staff, topped by a fabulous jewel. I wondered what kind of powers the staff possessed. No doubt it could do some serious damage.

While one guard was regarding me with a curious face, his companion, Zan, wore a hard frown of contempt. He had recognized me.

“Who are you?” the elf king asked me.

“I am the king of the Skhites and the Hornies,” I answered, even though I was aware that he was really asking about my implausible dual existence as a human and an evilun. The elf king did not press his question.

“So, you seek peace?” he said. I approved that he was getting to the main point without wasting time.

“I am tired of my monsters dying,” I said, “I do not want my monsters to bathe in the blood of players either. I just ask that we monsters should be left alone. At least the ones under me. We want to grow evil crops and live off that eivilese instead of falling to violence. There have been times in the past when our peaceful farms were discovered by players and destroyed. We do not want this to repeat.”

“I understand your point of view,” the elf king said with a nod. “I agree with you. Your intentions are well meaning. I think we should sign some papers so that we can settle this for permanency.”

So this was going to be as simple as that? I was almost disappointed at the lack of any resistance towards my proposal.

The elf king extracted a parchment from his pocket.

He showed this to me. I read through the parchment, printed in near unreadable cursive. The top section of the parchment guaranteed that the elf king would bar any of the players from ever attacking the eviluns that were under me, and had room for his signature. The second part of the document sought my promise to prevent monsters from partaking in violent activity towards the players. Here, I had to sign.

I glanced at the elf king. He had accurately understood what I wanted from him.

“All fair?” he asked.

“It is fair,” I replied.

“Let’s sign it and seal this agreement.”

With some clumsiness arising from the extravagant clothes that he wore, the elf king knelt down on the bridge, withdrew a quill from his pocket, and using one of the planks of the bridge to support the paper he duly signed his part of the document.

And then he passed me the quill. I too knelt down on the bridge to sign. It felt surreal that the matter should be sorted out so simply.

I had barely begun my signature, when I noticed something which sent the alarm bell ringing in my head.

“Is there a problem?” The elf king queried in ever so innocent a voice.

It was an asterisk.

I had mistaken it to be a random dot on the paper because it was so tiny. But it was an asterisk nonetheless. It was on my part of the document.

“Is there any problem?” the elf king repeated his question. I shot a look at Bono and he caught my eyes, understanding that something was amiss. I spoke to the elf king.

“Your majesty, is there something more to this document?”

He did not reply. He just kept staring at my face, and I could see in his expression that he had hoped that I wouldn’t spot the asterisk, and that the matter would end frictionlessly. There was some anger in those feminine elf eyes of his and a good deal of disappointment, and just the slightest trace of confusion, which vanished soon after.

He spun around, and raised an arm at the hordes of players on the town side of the river.

The next moment I went airborne, so did the elf king, his two guards and my two stone giants.

I barely had time to register what was happening or if I should even let out a cry. I hit the water of the river so hard that instantly a quarter of my health was wiped away. I realized finally that the bridge had collapsed and all of us had fallen.

I sank many meters below the river surface. A hand grabbed my neck and tugged me. It was the elf king and he was pulling me towards the river bank. Even in the midst of confusion I noted that the elf king was dry despite being in the water. Did he have some spell on himself that made him waterproof?

“So this is how a king behaves?” I croaked as he threw me on the river bank. My stone giants had fallen in awkward positions on the river, and they were having a hard time getting up.

“If you want I can still fix everything,” the elf king promised me, “I will get my players to never kill monsters, but you must sign the parchment.”

“There is something very wrong with that document of yours,” I retorted. The elf king slapped me on the face. His hand was like a block of ice and I fell to the side, my health dropping further. I took out one of the health vials I had and hurriedly drank it, so that immediately new strength gushed into me.

But just then a pair of strong hands picked me up from behind. The guards of the elf king. They put their hands into my pockets, removed the last two health vials that I had left, and drank them.

Marvellous, I thought. I had no way of replenishing my health, and I was well aware with the way the elf king was glaring at me that my health would be steeply dropping in the time to come.

“So you have access to health vials too?” the elf king asked me. “Did you get them from players you killed?”

I did not answer. The elf king grimaced.

“Quick!” he told his guards. “We need to get him to the castle!”

The elf king waved his hand in a nuanced manner, and a hole magically appeared on the ground. There was light of some kind emanating from the hole.