Incline 48: Don of All Below

One of my guards leans away from the dividing glass, a nod to his head, "My Don, we are almost there."

My weary, aged brow rises, and I nod back. My attention slips down to my drink and I watch it swirl. The surface-imported liquid glows a feint chrysoprase green. Though the merchants and those around me insist it must be any of the thirteen emeralds. It is no such thing.

This bottle of Lsaorraine, bottled Thirty-Hundred Seventy-Six E.A., is a fine bottle. Just not that fine, as they like to say. Would be far too expensive a commodity to bring something from the base of the Wind-Mountain underground. Never mind the fact my elderly body would not be able to handle such raw, potent wine. The ice cube within cracks, breaking away to the first of many petals mixed in with it.

Another sip reaches my lips and the multitude of grapes used in the wine crosses my tongue. Aelenvari-tended crop along with stuff the work of the wind-people. A border to the land of the Claymen is so close to Lsaorraine, too. No doubt the ancient of ancient peoples played their part in its brewing.

One leg crosses over the other and my trophy escort shifts her body about. I give it a sleazy peek, but otherwise leave her to her business. Whatever it is she's doing. I'm not coming this way for her or on behalf of any of my made-men. There are no favours, no nothing.

This is personal business. 

Something I've not had to handle in a very long time. A very long time indeed. I almost forgot what it was like, really. Getting up and going beyond my normal routine for something.

My youth saw my territory expand and expand, and I've secured nearly all my assets. Outside of an odd bit of trouble with clueless police officers and vendettas from strangers. I am absolute. I have all but earned the right to be referred to in the mirror of kings by my personal guard. 

Still...

"My heart quivers for the truth." I almost want to sing in my native tongue as memories of the part of the underground I am from play through my head. My grandmother's love was sweet, but not nearly enough. She most certainly never wanted for me to become a member of the Ovskabino. Mafia folk.

She never wanted it for me, but my prized weapon certainly made it all but inevitable. Ivahstar. Terror of the Dark. A hitman without equal and one whose name built my empire. As the ghost writer soars the young rockstar to his decadent future. He was my general, and I was the lawmaking emperor backed by his armies.

At least, until I had to be rid of him through circumstance. And now, I seem to have finally got what I want. Only I need to see it with my own eyes. I must see the dead man. Feel his cold, claying flesh. Smell his dry blood and feel the magic leave his body.

Hear the echoes of the Pack of Seven as they howl in on a new soul for their master.

I cough firmly into my fist for no reason. Going away into it and coughing a final closing time. My cane comes back down, sinking into the soft, plush floor of my limousine. A car bought with the money Ivahstar's feats of assassination brought to me.

Whatever time saw us as close as brothers, it was a necessary loss. Ivahstar wanted out, but he wanted it in the wrong way. I needed assurances he was unwilling to give. So I had to take him out, only I failed on that night.

I've not slept well a single night since then. Marriage might tie me to a woman, my blood-made family tying me closer. But my mind cannot stand any of them. All I can handle are vague, unknown prostitutes and whores of a carefully curated kind. Not until I am able to sleep well.

Soon... I might be able to. Yet, I am finding myself filled with a new kind of despair. From what I have been told about the operations here, they were nothing special. A man as proud in his history as Ivahstar and he dies on a smuggler's route in some nearly forgotten fight.

Surface-circumstances certainly drew my attention this way. But the leak from my mole in the Agadton Police Department's Forensics Division only caught it whole. Talk of blood wasp honey. Weapons made using it as a core ingredient in two incidents so professionally close to each other. 

I'm lucky to have even gone anywhere with the information. Crossing into another don's territory like this is too brazen a move, even for me. I only have so much influence with my name in lands such as these. Still, I'm sure the local don will be more than accommodating.

The shaking of the limousine eases up and I glance up. The sound of smooth road fills my ears and I glance out through the one-way glass, across the chamber. My army of mobsters spread out, gathering up what they can and securing the area. My car pulls up on a laid velvet carpet, white and gold as a statement to the filth of the world about us.

The men in front leave the car and open the door. I glance out and twist, my aged body taking its time unlike many years ago. My cane settles down and I groan myself upright. A guard comes in from behind, covering my back with my fur coat and my head with my hat.

My shoulders shake, settling the wealth into order, and I march ahead. Flanked by two full columns of troops who only happen to work under a mafia banner. They come to a halt, presenting arms in an ornate arch for me to pass under. The opulence might have no onlookers, but the dead man I am about to visit is owed as much. 

The staff I've hired for identification purposes approach, silent as they are professional. I look them over, taking in their work attire and the potent stench of clinical clothing. One presents a stone tablet and I take it up. Information about Ivahstar is not public, the only proper records are in my vaults. My libraries.

"Mmm... No. I must see with these." I say, bringing up a ring-covered hand to point out my two eyes. They nod and step aside, waving a hand the direction I need to go. Whimpers soon fill my ears and a kneeling line of every mobster involved in this affair awaits me. My trusted honour guards right behind them, bayonets at the ready.

I look the pitiful lot over. Petty thugs and young initiates out to prove their worth. All of them are nothing special. Nothing memorable and yet here Ivahstar supposedly is. Dead.

"Await my word and *only* my word." I insist to the nearest captain and he salutes and bows. He already understands the position he's in if he doesn't follow my word, but I feel the need to put emphasis on it. This is not something that happens every day. This is not something I ever felt I needed to do...

A paw comes to my heart, and I groan in pain as it aches. It thuds away, excited for a good night's sleep and terrified of what I will find of my old friend. I gasp for fresh air and take in what I can. I move ahead, finding a podium fit for a king in his final resting place. An abbey of much love and faithful construction.

I gesture for the servant to stop and I set aside the curtain myself. My features drop with depression and I almost feel a tear come to my eye. I linger, unwelcome, in the presence of this corpse. My eyes close and a nod takes me the extra step in.

"So we meet again, my old friend." I greet Ivahstar's cold body. I put a paw on his bloodiest hand and grip it tight. I hope to at least have my fur take some of this dried ichor with me when I leave. My eyes go over the wound and I frown at how clean it is. Right through the heart. His last daughter nowhere in sight to be found anywhere.

Whoever he was travelling with is long gone. Oddly, one of these details includes an osibindah, but I suppose that was the kind of man Ivahstar was. One who could no doubt tame a monster of the deep to his will! His beckoning...!

"And you die at the hands of petty thugs in some cave. Though you make a grand story of it, don't you? More than a hundred of my men dead in a single day. Dozens of cars and who knows what lost in material. You even handled a cabboth, my old friend." I say, letting the details fuel my imagination as I pat around for a handkerchief. I clutch the silly little thing, dabbing it on my eyes as a sniffle disturbs my nose.

My fist tightens around it and my cane.

"All you had to do was not be so stubborn that day. You just had to listen and I would've had no reason to target you the way I did. You knew full well it was not personal... Just business." I can't help but lie to myself about, assuming I even know the truth of it any more.

I can't tear my eyes away from the bullet hole. The clean puncture to Death himself. A life of such legendary making and it's undone by a... Common criminal.

I'm disappointed. All these nights of sleep lost and my old friend died not in a moment of glory. Charging my home for me as my honour guard went down, stopping him. No, he dies before he can even put his revenge into effect. 

All to save his daughter.

More tears flow from my eyes and I silence them with my cloth yet again. I pinch the bridge of my nose, leaning into the motion as I try to take it all in. It's all over... No, no, it is not.

The torch has simply passed down the family. Though I cannot say a thing of Ivahstar's daughter or his other companions. Anyone able to keep up with him so intimately is a danger worth considering. Especially when there's so little concern regarding the scale of what a don such as I entails. This is not some street war, some conflict that will be settled in a silent, reserved restaurant.

This is a vendetta, just like what I was hoping to extinguish.

"You deserved better than this... Ivahstar. A legend deserves a legendary end." I growl, bitter with disappointment that such a heroic labour never saw the knight come close to the dragon. To think of myself as such a creature is no insult. Dragons are fearsome things, born of might and magic. Anyone who can challenge such a tyrant lizard deserves songs and adulation across the centuries and more. 

I twist on my heels, coming right out of the tent with the fury of the gods behind me. I approach the mobsters who happened upon this incident. Standing before them with steel-melting wrath and enough contempt to lift the world should I choose. Those who were not trembling already certainly are now.

"What of the one who held onto Ivahstar's daughter?" I ask and only one man squeaks.

"H-He... He took a spike to the head, My Don..." he answers and my mood mellows with sorrow. It repeats to me, vicious as the beast deep below us now. He died not out of selfishness. Pride or arrogance. He was not simply old or cocky or anything... Ivahstar, my old friend. He died as he had lived for the past two decades. 

Loving his family.

I raise a hand, wiggling for something heavy and metal to fill it. A member of my honour guard approaches, handing me their sidearm. I hold the ornate thing close, taking in the story the soldier has carved into his weapon. My head bobs along and I raise it at the panicking line of men on their knees.

Their cries and pleas fall on deaf ears. There is no defying me. No contradicting me or going against me. Respect is universal in its definition. Compliance, admiration, fear. All of it.

"Send a message out now for all who will listen. A legend has died and I will ensure he is entombed properly... Alongside his family on my personal estate." I explain and my staff gets to work, preparing everything.

"My Don, how shall we...?" an honour guard asks and my imagination goes wayward as I hold back from pulling the trigger.

"Take me to Ivahstar's great deed before his death. Take me to the cabboth fight's end. These pieces of filth with us. I shall feed them to the pit and then the trapped beast!" I explain, hissing as those who survived the Terror in the Dark whimper and beg for a saviour from me. But, as they can see with Ivahstar...

There is no escaping Don Gamtambo.