The King's Coffin

The remains were very similar in condition to the female bones in the Queen's coffin. There was some long dark hair still attached to the skull but not much else had survived time and tide.

The clothing that the King wore had also faded and degraded to grayish brown frayed rags that indicated nothing of its illustrious past.

Anh Hai stood there gazing down into the casket without saying a word. There was very little left of what was once a proud and noble king.

With shaking hands, he reached into the casket and lifted the skull out of the coffin. It detached easily from the remainder of the bones within the coffin and stared at him with its two black eye holes.

Anh Hai stared at the skull for some time before turning back towards the casket. From where the skull rested, there was the dull glint of something metallic. This was most likely the one indicator that a King had been interred here.

He reached in again and pulled out a thick band of heavy solid gold embedded with gemstones. It was obviously his crown from a previous lifetime.

Hefting it in his hand, Anh Hai felt the weight of the crown. It was both familiar and unfamiliar. He had been alive before, as he was alive now. The only difference was the context of the environment around him.

Anh Hai sighed and placed the skull and the crown on the ground beside him. Then, he reached into the casket again and began pulling out all the bones. These, he placed in a haphazard fashion in a pile near the skull and the crown.

He continued digging around the bottom, looking for something specific.

As his men stood watching, no one said a word. They had followed him all the way to this desolate place and fought alongside him so that he could obtain what he needed within this tomb.

As to what the object was, they did not have a clue. Anh Hai was the Master Overlord. Who were they to question what he sought.

Jasmine and Blake watched him desecrate his own tomb without saying a word. It was his tomb to raid and his prerogative.

In any case, aside from a few unidentifiable items that were buried alongside the body, there was nothing else of any worth.

The King had been buried without his usual bounty of wealth. The only thing that he had been allowed to keep had been his gold crown.

Anh Hai picked up his pick ax. With a grunt, he swung at the bottom of the coffin. The watertight casket of oak had preserved well under the banyan tree's protection and no doubt, also by whatever ancient magic that had kept it.

But the violent swing of the sharp pick ax broke whatever resistance it had been trying to uphold throughout the centuries it had lain dormant. The rotted wood split up into ragged pieces that revealed nothing more interesting than the bugs which crawled out from within its interior.

"There's nothing here. All the epitaphs were wrong about the existence of the power pieces." Anh Hai said as his shoulders sagged with dejection.

"Power pieces? What power pieces?" Jasmine's eyes clouded with confusion.

Anh Hai sighed. He stood up and lit a cigarette in disgust, which he puffed on with voracity until he had controlled his rage enough to explain to Jasmine.

"We were in search of the power pieces that were supposed to have been buried along with my body. I had few leads, and they were all long shots. One of those leads was you because I knew that you had been buried alongside the King, your spouse."

He lit another cigarette and took a long drag and then blew out the smoke in a strong quick breath.

"Of course, there was no way to know whether you knew of the gravesite location since you were already dead at that time. Still, I took my chances and got lucky."

He stared out into the distance.

"Your aunt, the nun showed up with perfect timing and handed me the trump card to this place."

"She even saved our sorry hides from those demons who had been put in place by someone better than me to guard my bones from being dumped out like so much garbage." He indicated the pile of old bones with his lit cigarette tip.

"But here we are, and there you see. Obviously nothing here. Just some fucking bones." He spat with distaste and took a final puff of the cigarette before flicking it away in disgust.

"What do the power pieces look like?" Jasmine stared at the skull still on the ground.

He stood there, searching the craggy hills as if trying to find a way to explain to her what he was searching for. Finally, he turned back to her.

"Let's just get back into town and on the way, I will explain."

Jasmine held up a hand.

"Wait. Let me rebury the remains."

Anh hai narrowed his eyes.

"Don't bother. We'll take the important pieces, namely the two crowns and the jewelry from your bones." He shrugged. "Besides, I've already destroyed my own casket." He indicated at the shards of wood on the other side of the bone pile.

Jasmine grimaced and walked towards him. With a careless thwack, she popped his stomach with the back of her hand.

"Move aside."

Anh Hai raised his eyebrows in disbelief that she would have the gall to do that to a Master Overlord like him.

Without waiting for him to step aside, she began picking up the long bones from the pile.

"What in the world are you doing?" He stared at her, his arms akimbo.

"What else? I'm reburying the King's remains."

Jasmine took the armful of old bones and went over to the Queen's casket. Carefully, she lowered them into the casket to join that of the Queen's remains.

"So we're truly going to be spending the rest of eternity stuck in the same casket." Anh Hai breathed.

Suddenly he chuckled.

And with that chuckle, he slowly moved towards Jasmine and began to help her reinter the remains of the ancient King to join with the body of the ancient Princess who had been his queen in death, if not in life.