Chapter 23
There's a time of change coming. I can smell it in the air. There is turmoil and confusion ahead. One era is ending and another is waiting to begin. I know, for I have seen it happen before. The last time ushered in my reign of power; this time, it shall bring my end. This is right. This is as I expected, and as it should be. My time is ending, but the world will continue without me.
In the manuscript I found within the temple of my people, Alander had written these words of wisdom: "We have inherited a universe that is ever-changing and inconstant. It is the nature of all things to change, human beings most of all. You who shall come after me, know this: you cannot create a perfect world where all wrongs are righted forever. Anything you build will not last long past your death, and usually not even until then. One day, a day not as distant as you believe, the effort and struggles and triumphs of your life will be no more than a memory and a legend. Make it a good memory, then; make it a legend which might in some small way encourage the world to be better, long after you are gone."
And this is the very reason why I have written of my life, sparing nothing, not even the most intimate details. I have held no delusions that my empire would last, indeed have been preparing for its safe and secure dissolution since almost the beginning. Like Alander before me, this document, this story is my legacy, not my kingdoms or my crown.
There is very little left to tell. This is how the War ended and how I gained my lofty throne. This is my great secret and shame. The time has come at last to write of it all, and then be done.
In the end it was not armies or military tactics that brought our victory against the Archbishop and his supporters, but at the time such things were all we had and all we thought about it. Emboldened by our victory at Carmathen and the addition of the giants to our host, we swept northwards into Broxbourne with the fury of the righteous. Eventually, when the conflict was over, the separate factions that had united to form my army would struggle to work together, competing for my attention and for the limited resources of our post-war world. But for the moment, at least, all of my people, whether of Fermanagh, Carmathen, or Broxbourne, whether male or female, whether rich or poor, whether Veruvian or Tharonite, whether human or giant, all were united in our cause.
The journey marked one of the most terrifying and yet, I think, happiest periods of my life. The days were filled with hard travel, mixed with meetings with my generals, difficult decisions, overseeing of the million details that make an army possible. The lives of my soldiers weighed heavily on my conscience. Each skirmish with the enemy brought casualties. I found myself hoping (with some prescience, perhaps) that there would be a way to bring the conflict to an end without a violent confrontation. Ultimately, I wanted simply having an army to be enough without ever having to truly use it. Such an outcome I learned (as you will will, mysterious reader) is possible, but the price is heavy indeed.
My nights were given entirely to dear Pavel, my little Pasha who had come to mean so much to me in his own way. He was no longer the brash young man driving himself to the greatest excesses of pleasure, as I had first known him. Every day in a hundred ways he showed himself to be maturing, capable of deep introspection and maturity. I began to take his role as my clerk, which had been an indulgent formality at first, more and more seriously until he was intricately bound up in how I ran the affairs of my forces. He earned the grudging respect of my generals, including even Gavril and Stepan, his father, all of whom had once seen him as no more than my favorite who I kept close so that I could take him to my bed. Well, he had become that, of course, but they could see that he was much more than just their leader's toy. He was a respected leader in his own right, one that would become a respected force in my government, a position he maintains to this very day.
Every moment was filled with so many pressing concerns and distractions that I could almost forget the pain and emptiness that losing Alek had marked into my heart, if it had not been for Jelena. It seemed that every time my mind wandered too far from how I had failed my friend, she was there, saying nothing but staring accusingly with red and puffy eyes. It was common knowledge that Pasha now shared my bed, and I always felt that in Jelena's stares there was the implication that she felt I had in some way betrayed the love I felt for Alek. Madness, of course. I had all but given him to her, renounced all claim so that he would be free to take and marry her, as he had claimed he wanted. How then could she blame me for finding solace in another? I tried to convince myself that it was my own guilt that led me to such thoughts, not her. And yet she was always there, and I could not shake the feeling. I tried to speak with her a few times, at Pasha's urging, but there was nothing either of us could think of to say. We had loved the same man, intimately, and the knowledge of that fact left us both awkward and without words. She had little enough to say except canned promises to serve me, clearly unwilling to speak her mind. Not at all like her usual self. I did my best to push her from my thoughts, and on the days where her presence particularly upset me, I would make love to Pasha all the more passionately that night.
One night, days away from the city of Broxbourne, Jelena vanished. I received the news with some surprise, since she had often professed her commitment to my cause and to me. However, it was not so strange that she would long to be with Alek, but I had thought she had more sense than to run off after him alone. I could do little except pray for her safety and hope that she would be well when we finally took the city.
Which, it turned out, would be no small feat. Though our numbers outmatched the enemies three to one by the time we reached Broxbourne, I quickly discovered why the city had never fallen to an enemy. I remember my first sight of the city and thinking how well it lived up to its reputation. Accompanied by Pasha and my closest advisors, I climbed a wooden observation tower that had been erected to survey our preparations for the siege. Nestled into the mountains on one side and its majestic, thick stone walls on the other, they city seemed truly impregnable, but even more daunting was the heart of the enemy's stronghold, the palace of the Archbishop himself. Built midway up the mountain, it looked as though it had been carved out of the rock by the hand of a god. From where we stood observing, there did not seem to be any way to reach it short of flying like a bird.
"We cannot expect the Archbishop to relent easily," one of the Broxbournean generals under my command said, "The city is designed to withstand a long siege. We could be here a very long time."
"We have the men and the fighting power to succeed in a frontal assault," Gavril pointed out. "The addition of the giants makes that sure."
"But even with them, the loss of life would be staggering. It would be like lining up men to be butchered," replied the general.
Gavril sniffed but said nothing in reply. The others could not understand, as I did, how little a Tharonite such as Gavril cared for his own life when weighed against a cause he thought just.
For my part, I would not have allowed a single man to shed one more drop of blood on my behalf if I could prevent it. The Archbishop was the key. Removing him would melt away all resistance, as removing Valessa has won us the city of Fermanagh. My eye passed over that seemingly impossible fortress looming over the city and my heart sank. There did not seem to be any way to reach the man if he was holed up in there.
And yet.... there was one way. I knew it in the back of my mind. I could almost hear Damon laughing once again, was suddenly certain I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. With a sudden start, I whirled to face him but found nothing there. In the exact moment that I turned, however, there was a sudden rush of air as something soared through the exact spot I had been standing, thudding with a sudden jolt into the person who had been standing behind me. Into Pasha.
My young lover tumbled backwards, and with all the sudden commotion it took a few moments to notice the shaft of the crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder, his shirt stained with blood around it. He had gone pale, but his eyes were open and looking around in shock. Still alive. I finally took a breath, not realizing until that moment I had been holding it.
"He is well, he will live," said one of the soldier who was inspecting the wound, but I pushed him away and knelt to cradle Pasha's head in my hands and stroke his sweat-dampened hair.
"Ouch," he said with a wince and a smile.
"I am so sorry. It was meant for me."
"This?" he said, "Oh this is nothing. You've caused me far worse pain than this in your time."
I kissed him and turned him back into the care of the soldiers, already calling for a medic - how I wished Jelena had not left! My eye traveled back to the Archbishop's fortress, and then the anger came, burning first in my belly and then slowly expanding until every part of me shook with rage.
"We caught the would-be assassin," Gavril said. I had not noticed him appear at my side. "It seems you've well and truly frightened the Archbishop."
"He does not yet know what it is to be afraid," I muttered through clenched teeth, "I will show him."
Enough was enough! I would end this, once and for all. No more battles, no more bloodshed, no more wrangling over power. "Take me back to my tents. I need to be alone. Now!"
As I had expected, the moment my guards had left me in my tent, Damon appeared, naked and as beautiful as he was the day I had first freed him from his prison.
"The time has come, Markis," he said, "The eve of your final greatness. Have I not always told you that you would go far? And look at you now. Look at how much you have changed from the frightened boy who fell into my tombs and into my care. Your legend will never die. You will outshine Alander himself, now."
"Enough," I said, trying to hide my fear of him in my firm voice, "I have one last need of you. After today, after this battle, we are through. For all you have done to aid me, I thank you. But I hold no illusions that there is any love between us. You are loyal, because you need me to obtain the glory you crave, but your goals are not mine, and your values are not mine. I will not become your pawn, I will not let you make me into a monster. I will feed you again, one final time, and then it will be over. You'll need to find another `master,' do you understand?"
His face was blank, his lips tight, but he nodded. "I understand perfectly."
I drew a deep breath, then nodded, submitting to his power. It was the signal he awaited. Faster than I could have thought possible he had disrobed us both, pushing and pulling me with an inhuman strength. My mouth hung open and I trembled in fear. He had always played the passive part, allowing me to control, allowing me to dominate, even as he drew my life essence out of me. That pretense was gone now that I had angered him. He forced me to my knees, bent me forward and entered me, as only Alek had before, and I could not have resisted. My pleasure crested almost immediately, filling my entire body with a kind of unearthly euphoria so intense I could feel my eyes rolling back into my head and thick strands of saliva dripping out of my mouth. Slowly, bit by bit, I felt my strength draining out of me and into him, until I was empty, and when I felt empty he drained even more, until I could almost expect myself to deflate completely and be left on the tent floor a flaccid bag of skin, no more. He cried out in triumph, and at last I was pushed away roughly.
The tent was bathed in his light so brightly that I could not see, and instead clenched my eyes closed so that I would not go blind. Outside I could hear the shocked voices of my guards, who could apparently see it too. In a few seconds they would enter to investigate. But in a few seconds, it was too late. We were gone.
With Damon inside me, controlling me, I was unstoppable. None saw us pass out of the camp, and the massive closed gates into the city could no more keep us out than if they had been made of straw. Where we passed, men saw nothing or else did not live long enough to know what they had seen, let alone raise a cry of alarm. Like a whirlwind, Damon and I, one being, passed through Broxbourne like an arrow aimed directly at its heart, at the Archbishop himself. Once, months earlier, I had forbidden my followers from attempting to assassinate the Archbishop, sure that doing so would rob our movement of whatever moral high ground we possessed. Now, in my rage, I cursed myself for naivety and wondered how many lives could have been spared if I had only taken it upon me to do what clearly had to be done. One man dead by my hands would spare thousands more. I did not know if these were my own thoughts or Damon's. There was no way to tell when he stopped and I began.
Finding our way up to the mountain fortress was easy, but took a long time. There are lifts installed to make the ascent easier, which I have always used since first I took residence here, but they must be worked by one at the top. There were some limits to Damon's power, and we felt it easier to take the endless stairs carved out of the mountain. It was near evening by the time we reached the fortress proper, but though we had been climbing most of the day we did not feel weary in the slightest. There was work to be done.
We stalked the halls of the Archbishop's palace like an angel of death. Generals, officials, and high ranking clergy of Broxbourne's twisted religion died before they knew they were in danger, and each death seemed to swell us with power and satisfaction. Never before had Markis gloried in taking the life of others, but now together it seemed the sweetest thing imaginable to us. After all, these men were no more than bugs before us that we had to step on to reach our prize. They were barely worth thought other than the reassurance their weakness gave us of our own strength.
Finally, we rounded a corner and found ourselves face to face with that last person either of of us could have expected. Jelena let out at a scream when she saw us. Our silver blade was drawn, dripping with blood, and our fingers twitched at the sight of her as though we might attack. No, she was useful. She might have information.
"Markis!" she hissed, "What are you doing here?" We regarded her coldly, and she blushed.
"I am a prisoner," she hurried to explain, "or, well not a prisoner exactly. More like a servant. But I can't leave. I turned myself in, you see. It was the only way I could get close to Alek, or try to, and I thought they might kill me but Valessa seems to enjoy using me a servant. She knows about Alek and I, she uses it to torture me.... Are you alright, Markis?"
"Take me to the Archbishop," we said. Our voice did not sound much like Markis, we noticed. It was colder. Oilier. Jelena eyed us in fear.
"He's in his council chambers," she said, pointing the direction. "Valessa is with him. Markis, you can't go there, he'll call for the guards. How did you make it this far?"
We swept past, ignoring her, leaving her to follow sputtering in our footsteps. There was no time for chat, we had a purpose to accomplish. The door to the council chamber was guarded by two soldiers, but they were dead before they had time to blink. The thick wooden door itself could not stop us. Our power flew out of us and our kick turned it to splinters.
Inside, Valessa was strewn across a massive wooden table, naked, and the fat fleshy body of the Archbishop was mounted on top of her, thrusting eagerly. Her moans of pleasure became screams of terror when the door exploded and revealed us standing as calm as death itself. The Archbishop's heart seemed to stop, he might easily have died in that very moment at the sheer sight of us. He did not have long to live as it was.
"This war is over," we said, "It ends today."
"You!" The Archbishop finally managed, stumbling backwards. His manhood, rapidly dwindling, flopped wildly with his every movement. "Guards. Guards!"
"The guards are dead," Valessa whispered. "Don't be a fool."
Nothing would stop us from obtaining our goal. We strode forward with stern purpose. The Archbishop backed away, taking deep breaths of terror.
"Stop, please!" he shouted, "There must be some arrangement we could come to."
"You were right, you know," we said, "To become Alander's Heir requires force of will. It takes strength."
The once proud man who had watched me tortured was now a babbling, naked creature who could not even form a single word in defense of his own life. Tears and snot tumbled down his face, but we felt no pity. We did not even know what pity was.
"You were not strong enough," we said simply. A swipe of the blade fueled with inhuman strength took off his head.
Valessa screamed in terror and collapsed against a wall, all her beauty and dignity gone. For what she had done, she deserved a slower and more painful death, but there was no time. We turned to her, intending to leave her head rolling on the floor along with her co-conspirator, but abruptly Alek was there in between us, sword raised and face twisted with conflicting emotions.
"It's over," he shouted, "The Archbishop is dead and you won. There's no need to kill her."
We raised our blade into a ready position. His face twisted with confliction and pain.
"Dammit, Markis. I beg you, for the love you once bore me, to spare the Queen. I... I could not live without her. Please."
Deep inside of us there was pain, a pain so strong tears fell from our eyes before we could stop them. "You should not have mentioned the love I once bore you," we said, bitterness twisting from our words, "You might have lived another day."
My sword flashed at him, quicker than he must have thought possible for he only brought up his own blade to deflect at the last minute in a clumsy motion. I pressed the attack further, allowing no reprieve. At once Jelena was there in the doorway, shouting, begging, and pleading, but we did not heed her words any more than we heeded Valessa's wailing from the corner.
It was not a long fight. It was not epic and drawn out as when Markis had fought Jacek in the burning temple. That had been a struggle between two equals, two human beings who remembered well the love they had once had for each other. There was only one human here. There was only one who remembered love. For our part there was only bitterness. Jealousy, rage, and bitterness. Nothing more.
Jelena came between us, but I pushed her to one side. Alek's eyes grew wide. Seeing her put into danger drew something of his true self out of the power Valessa still had over him.
"Stop!" he shouted, "I love her! I love her!"
And these words hurt most of all.
"We know it," MarkisDamon said, and we stabbed him through the heart, barely pausing to watch him sink dead to the floor. We turned to Valessa and ended her miserable life with a casual, almost contemptible flick of the blade.
Now there was only Jelena.
Eyes wide with shock, shaking with pain and grief, Jelena crawled away from our approach. "No! Noooooo!" She wailed. "This can't be... Markis, you are not yourself. Something is wrong. What has happened to you?" She found her feet and ran from me to the other side of the table. "You loved him. I know you did. You loved him as much as I. You would not do this."
Wordlessly we rounded the table. Shuffling away from us in terror, Jelena grunted as her back suddenly struck up against the corner of the room, and she knew she was trapped. She began to speak faster, desperate tears burning across her face.
"Markis, whatever has happened to you, I know you are still in there somewhere. Somewhere inside of you there is still the man that Alek loved, the only man that Alek loved. The man who loved Alek so much that he let him go to be with me. You must spare me!"
We raised the silver blade. One more swing and it would be over. We would be a King greater than Alander, and all who had wronged us would have received their just reward.
"Spare me, Markis! I carry his child! I carry his child!" She went on and on, shouting it over and over.
Shock rippled across our consciousness. Slowly, I became aware of two thoughts: one of complete apathy, bloodthirsty still despite this revelation, and the other one of shock and horror. Two thoughts, for two separate entities. And even more slowly, in the tiniest part of one second, I realized which entity was me, was Markis, and which was my enemy. I gathered my strength and in one last attack I pushed with all my might at that Other than had taken residence inside of my own mind. It squealed in anger, it clung with all its might, and at last it slipped away and was gone.
A sudden breath. I was myself again. My sword ran with more blood that I could have imagined, blood more precious than any treasure in the Archbishop's palace. Jelena had sunk to the ground before me, cringing in expectation of my blow, weeping for her lover and her child more than for her own life. In the corner of my eye I could see Alek's crumpled body, and then I truly knew what I had done.
The Prince's Blade of ancient Anatheria clattered to the floor. I sank to my knees and howled. ____________________________________________________________________________
Heaving for air, my legs and lungs burning, I pursued Damon through the quiet hallways and corridors of the mountain fortress, never seeing another soul. I never even caught a glimpse of Damon, but I could sense him just out of reach, just around the corner, always gone just as I got there. I had little strength, for he had taken it all, but my fuel was rage and pain and hatred, not just for the creature I chased but for myself above all. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so blind? From the first moment I had freed him, Damon had slowly been growing in power and darkness, seeking the destruction of all I loved so that I would have nobody but him and no choice but to pursue the course he desired. The signs had been there, and I had ignored them. He had preyed on my every weakness, showed me what I wanted to see, told me what I wanted to hear. I had been a fool, and now I had payed the ultimate price. The Archbishop was nothing, a madman with delusions of grandeur. I had carried my true archenemy with me since the beginning.
I stopped to lean against a wall and catch my breath. "I will destroy you!" I shouted. Distantly I could hear his echoing laughter. It came from somewhere up ahead, somewhere above the level I was on. He was ascending. Nearly stumbling over my feet, I explored nearby rooms until I found a long, spiraling staircase. I began my climb, one slow step at a time. "You can't run from me forever," I shouted, gasping for air.
"You were nothing when I found you," his voice echoed back, "Nothing! Look how far you have come with my aid. Look at what you have achieved!"
In my exhaustiation I failed to raise my foot enough to clear a step, sending me sprawling to the stone and skinning my arms. I quickly scrambled back to my feet. "But at what price?"
"At what price?" he mocked, "You are weak. You have always been weak! Such power, such glory is worth any price!"
I merely snarled in response and reached angrily for my sword. Only then I remembered that I had left it on the floor in a pool of blood near Alek's body. I was defenseless and alone, as I had been the night I was exiled. It did not matter. This was not a battle that would be fought with a blade. I continued upwards, one painful step at a time. At last I found myself on a balcony of the fortress that jutted outwards from the mountain face beneath the open, starry sky. The sun had set, but I could still make out the wide expanse of the valley below, the flickering lights from the city and from the camps of my forces beyond. None would die in a lengthy siege. With the Archbishop dead, a truce would be negotiated eventually. I hardly cared anymore - such concerns seemed to belong to another life, another man.
He was waiting for me there, a bemused smile on his perfect face. Unable to keep going any further, I collapsed to my knees in front of him.
"You are a lie," I spat out in between ragged gasps, "Your beauty, your power, your promises. All nothing but a lie. You are a monster."
He threw his head back and laughed with real mirth. "You are wrong as always, master. I am nothing but the truth, the truth you have always tried to hide. You have never allowed yourself to truly accept exactly who and what I am. Shall I explain it again to you? Shall I show you my true form?"
I shook my head, afraid. I knew. Somehow, deep inside, I had always known. Once, in the darkness of the tombs on the first night of my exile, his form had revealed a secret that I had kept hidden even from myself. Now I feared what his physical shape might yet uncover, and for good reason. I would have covered my eyes if I could, but in my weariness I could barely move at all.
His body rippled, shifted slowly into something new. He now took the image of another young man, not too tall, not too handsome. There was not one hair on his head, not even eyebrows, and in his eyes was the pain of one who had recently experienced a horrifying, total loss. I was looking at myself as I had been on the eve of my exile.
He was me.
"No," I said.
"I told you from the beginning, master," he continued in my own voice, "I have no form but that which you give me. Everything I am comes from you. I am your ambition. I am your envy. I am your selfishness. I am your hatred, your bitterness, your rage. All I have done, I have done because secretly it was what you wanted."
"No!" I shook my head stubbornly, whispering denials over and over as if they could form a kind of catechism to protect me from his terrible words.
"It was you that wanted power over your former brethren. It was you that wanted Ambassador Hollis out of the way so that you could face the Council of Carmathen directly. It was you that wanted a new tongue so you could speak again and revel in your own righteous superiority over those you found lacking. It felt good, didn't it? Yes, Markis the orator, Markis the noble idealist. You always have the perfect thing to say, the right speech, the acts of nobility and courage to show off for all the world. Displaying your wisdom as you walked the fine line between the extremes of self-denial and self-indulgence. You would have the world believe you strong, brave, perfect, all the while knowing that inside you was still just a boy severed from all he had ever loved. Am I monster, Markis? Perhaps I am. Perhaps WE are. But we are the monster THEY made us into."
I covered my face with hands, horrified and ashamed. "My people..."
"They exiled you! They treated you as less than nothing, and left you with a void inside your heart so vast that nothing could fill it, not all the power, all the glory, all the love in the world. I am that void. And now, we have destroyed them utterly! We broke their traditions, split them into factions that will never reunite, ruined their line of succession and pulled them from their smug isolation. We have had our revenge!"
I sobbed. "And Alek..."
"The worst of all, who got no less than he deserved. He betrayed us again and again, he was capable of nothing but betrayal. We loved him, and he spurned us. He rejected us. He chose another."
"But I... I had accepted that. I had let him go!"
Damon's smile (my smile) made me shudder. "Are you so sure?"
"I did not wish him dead! Never that!"
Again that terrible, evil smile spread across the reflection of my own face. "You do not know your whole self as well as you think. You never have."
My stomach felt so twisted up with guilt that I believed I would start vomiting blood at any moment. I looked away, at the sky, the stars, the distant light of my army, the ground, anywhere but at him. Anywhere but at the truth.
"No, Markis!" he snapped suddenly, "Look at me. Look at yourself. Look at what you truly are."
Slowly I raised my eyes until we were staring at each other, barely blinking.
"Now what?" he whispered, "Now that you have seen the truth, what will you do? Will you run away, like Alander did before you? The fool thought that by hiding away in the forest and starting a life of spiritual contemplation he could make up for all he had done, and in doing so he started his descendents down the path that would eventually lead to you and your exile and all the pain it has caused. Will you repeat his mistake? Or will you accept your destiny, accept your true nature and become the greatest monarch this world has ever seen?"
He turned slightly to look at the nearby precipice, the sheer edge of the rooftop that lead to a drop all the way to the valley floor, far far below. "Or will you choose another way out?"
And for a moment indeed I wanted nothing more in the world than to do as he suggested, throwing myself over the vast drop, a quick rush of the fall before all my pain would end immediately, forever. For all I had done, there could be no forgiveness. Worse, my followers thought me noble and brave and admirable, a thought so unbearable I did not think I could survive it, as though my body would stop all its functions out of sheer horror. Death was all I deserved, the last noble act left to me. It was time to end it.
Of all the ironies that I have faced in the strange journey of my life, none was more potent than this: what saved me in that moment, what drove me to spare my own life, bringing one tiny spark of light into the darkness that had consumed me, wer the teachings of my people, the very teachings that had led them to reject me.
Despair, I had been taught, was ignorance. It was a willful denial of all the good that had been provided for mankind. It was spitting into the very eye of God. I clung to that thought, even though I no longer even believed in the same notion of a Creator as once I had so fervently. Instead, in my thoughts I was transported back to the evening when my mind had transcended the visible world and peeked into eternity, when the curse that had been laid upon me had finally been broken. My vision of eternity had shattered and reformed me, left me shaken and weak and yet somehow stronger. It was that strength that suddenly appeared now, in my darkest moment.
The universe I had seen was limitless and infinite, capable of good and evil without truly being one or the other. And the universe, as infinite as it may be, was no more than a reflection of the human soul, or vice versa, or both reflections of something else, something eternal and unknowable and unobservable to mortal eyes. In my mind's eye my father appeared again before me, saying the words of wisdom passed down amongst my people since the time of Alander himself: "All that you could possibly want and need, you already have and are." To this pearl of wisdom, I suddenly realized another equally true thought could be added: "All that you could possibly hate and fear is already a part of you, is already inside of you." This Damon had proved beyond all doubt. As I meditated on this thought, some semblance of a calm settled upon me deep in the core of the self-hatred and hopelessness that still assailed me.
"What will you do?" Damon repeated, "Will you still seek to deny what I am?"
"No," I replied tonelessly, empty, exhausted, silent tears still running down my face. "I know you for what you are. You are a reflection of my own soul."
A wicked smile of victory spread across his face, causing me to wince.
"But not a complete reflection," I added, "Once, long ago, I told you that in every man good and evil co-existed in equal measure. In every man is the capacity for both. You are no more a complete picture of who I am than the image of the noble king and flawless spiritual leader many of my followers have made out for me. I am both and more. What will I do? I will accept you."
He flinched, his face grew dark and angry. "That is all?"
"I accept you as part of myself. I accept that I am my own worst enemy. I accept that I am a man capable of evil deeds, a man who has indeed done evil, a man who has done his best whenever he could but made terrible mistakes along the way."
"You accept it?" he sounded shocked, truly shaken by my response. "You accept that you killed the man you loved?"
My tears flowed all the harder. "Yes," I whispered, "I will spend the rest of my life regretting and suffering for it, but I accept it. I am what I am. I have done what I have done. That is all."
And inside me, my war with myself stopped. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, and as I released it I felt all the tension in my body begin to melt away. When I opened my eyes, Damon was gone. I have not seen him since then, though I have felt him near and will, I think, soon face him once again. With a long sigh, I collapsed into a heap and lost all consciousness.
Three weeks later I was crowned King of Broxbourne. ___________________________________________________________________________
There is little left to tell, since the rest is, as they say, history. For these past three decades I have sought to rule as wisely and as best I could. It hardly goes without saying that I have made mistakes. I have hurt people when I would have spared them. I have destroyed where I would have created. But I have done my best, which in the end is all a man can do.
Pasha (or Pavel, as he now insists on being called) shared my bed often in those early years. But to be the lover of the great king Markis, called by men the Uniter, the Great, is no easy thing. In the end, we grew apart though we have never lost that special connection that had first bound us together. It took many years, but he found another, and I am glad for him. Much of the good that I have accomplished during my years of reign can actually be laid at his feet. Together we have ended the persecution of both the Tharonites and the Veruvians, though both sects have dwindled as their adherents learned to be less enchanted with extremes and find their own middle way. There is little of the nervous, love-sick boy left in him, but he will always be my Pasha, to whom I owe my very life. May he have a long life, and a happy one.
Golmeir succeeded his father and united his people under his rule as I did mine. With his leadership, we brought a new age of peace and cooperation between our subjects, and now it is not at all uncommon to see giants in the cities of men. They are a long-lived people; I pray Gol will remain for many many years, and that his influence keeps the peace when at last I am gone and my empire breaks apart. He is wise and noble, and I was lucky to have known him.
As I predicted to Damon, not a day of my life has passed in which I have not remembered Alek and suffered for him. This pain has been mitigated in part, for the universe saw fit to give me one final, overwhelming chance at redemption. I went to Jelena, wounded and ill and traumatized by the whole experience, and told her everything, about Damon, about my love for Alek, how the darkness in me had taken on a life of its own and demanded his death. I asked for no mercy or forgiveness and she offered none. I never saw her again after that. She was fiercely proud and stronger than I think any of us ever realized, but she was only mortal and she had suffered much. Within a few months, I received word that she had struggled through her misery to bring her child into the world, and did not live long afterwards, leaving the son she and Alek had created with no guardian. Gavril brought the child to me along with his mother's final words, which still make me weep when I think of them:
"I do not forgive you for what you have done. But if you would truly seek penance for your sins, then let it to be to care for our child in Alek's place. Raise him well and love him as you loved his father, and we will welcome you with open arms in the world beyond this."
And thus I have done. The child has been my world these many years. He is a man grown, now, but to me he will always be my special one, my precious boy. My son, please know that it pains me to go, and forgive me that I must leave you.
And I must ask your forgiveness as well, my mysterious reader, for here I must leave you too. You have traveled far down this road with me. I have unburdened my deepest secrets and sins and laid them on your shoulders.. I pray you profit by them. Two things I would have you know before I rest my pen for the final time, two pearls of wisdom from a man who has seen and lived too much.
Know this, and do not forget it: there is a darkness in you. A darkness in us all. It would tell you to hate and to fear everything, it would separate you from all you love. It would have you believe you are unworthy of love, or that other people are. It would have you turn your back on the world and let it all burn. It is part of you, and it always will be. You cannot hope to destroy it, and will only make it stronger if you try. But all is not lost. This darkness will only have power over you, my friend, if you feed it.
And lastly, remember this: do not fear exile. Though you should lose everything you have ever known and loved, there is still cause for hope. So often it is true that it is only after we have lost everything, given up the stable, easy ground, that we can discover new and wondrous things. All I am could not have been without my exile, and now I go into exile once again, one I have given to myself. For that is what I know. That is who I am.
I am the exile.
(Translators note: the following postscript has been written on a separate page attached to the end of the manuscript, written in a different hand)
The archivist who discovered this could have destroyed it. Many of his peers would have. By luck, however, some sense of loyalty or, more strangely perhaps, a true devotion to the truth caused him to save these writings and bring them to me. They were discovered amongst the many possessions and records left behind when the Great King vanished, but even so, according to the archivist, their authenticity is questionable. Certainly the narrative contained within does not agree in many points with commonly accepted history. For that alone it could have been discarded as a fraud almost immediately. But I have read it all and I believe that it is true. I believe that Markis himself wrote it all.
He left us suddenly, and as he predicted his absence left a void that brought chaos and confusion. And yet, things did not go as badly as they could have. Perhaps it is because, as he claimed here, he had prepared for this very eventuality. The individual kingdoms and city-states fell back to their own rule eventually and with only small bumps along the way. And yet, the generation that knew the King and his peace is growing older, and the younger ones are restless. By the next generation, I fear, there will be war and strife again. And poverty and division. All he worked for will have vanished. When first I realized that inevitability, it made me sad, but now I see that he himself knew it would be so. It makes me feel a little better.
He was always kind to me, loving and devoted. Firm with rules and punishments for wrongdoing, but always there was love and a desire for me to truly learn from my mistakes. He taught me to love myself the way that he loved me. It was many years before I could really understand that he was not my father, though he never tried to say he was. Even once I knew that I came from another man's seed, I could not think of him as anything but Father. Before reading this, I never even thought of him as a man, he was larger than life and beyond all human flaws in my eyes.
Reading this story of his life, I now know the truth. He loved me because he loved my father. He loved me all the more because he had failed him. But he loved me too because I was his, and he was mine, and we had no one else. He made mistakes and committed evil acts. He was flawed. And knowing that I love him all the more, because I am too. I had not imagined we could be so alike. I was angry with him for a time for leaving us, for leaving me, but I think now I understand. He went to face his demons, to stand in final judgment for the actions of his life - as all men do in the end.
For his sake, and for my own, I will preserve and distribute these words. It is his story that matters. The man who brought me this manuscript thought he was offering no more than a strange curiosity, and interesting bauble. He has no idea the significance of the words written herein. For this I would have given up all I possess and love, as he did. Now that it has come to me, perhaps I can ensure that it lives on, that all who wish to may read it and learn what sort of man he was - and what sort of people we all are.
This write I, Alek, once ward in the care of Markis the King, whose memory already fades into legend. Read his words, for they are true. They are true.
(Here the manuscript ends) __________________________________________________________________________
****And at last it ends. Questions, comments, e-mail thephallocrat@gmail.com. Thank you all! ****