Come Back

A struggle over royal power. Father and son, each seeking the other's death.

No one could say where it had all started. Perhaps it began in Ense's childhood, the day his father Redlichia led him, giddy with joy, up into the halls of God, only for the boy to look up and find his father's eyes filled with boundless disappointment.

Or perhaps it began the moment Yesael's innate gift first awakened, when the fate of brother turning against brother, blood against blood, was sealed.

But by now, none of it mattered anymore.

This farce had finally come to its close.

Thud!

Redlichia pulled his scepter free and flung it down, and the bone shaft struck the earth with a dull thud.

For an instant he swayed on his feet, and the guards at his side rushed to him in alarm.

"My king!"

"King of Wisdom!"

He gripped the guard beside him hard just to keep from falling, and only after several ragged breaths did he find the strength to wave a hand and order Ense's body carried away.

He turned back and looked to where the queen sat on the ground, her mouth open though not even a sob would come, and nothing filled his eyes but remorse.

To make a mother watch her own child die before her very eyes was a cruelty beyond bearing, and crueler by far that the one who killed him was her own husband, the child's own father.

"I am sorry!"

"Truly... I am so sorry."

Redlichia apologized on and on without end, though in truth he was faring no better than she was.

He gathered the queen into his arms and carried her away from the ruins.

His steps were labored, yet his arms held her with all the strength he had.

His back even bent beneath her weight, a posture he would once have thought unbefitting a king's bearing. Now he no longer cared.

"Come, let's go home!"

Every trilobite man inside and out knelt down to the ground. They could all feel Redlichia's grief, though his face showed no expression at all and he made not the smallest show of weakness.

The queen could no longer take in any food. She could not even swallow water, and little by little she slipped into unconsciousness.

"Ense, where have you run off to? Why are you not home yet?"

"Have you been off playing in the sea again? I told you that you were not to go."

"Boon, you have been making mischief with your big brother again. Today I will certainly not let you off."

In her dream she called out again and again the words she had spoken to her children in her younger days, the hopes she had voiced for them not long after each was born, the scoldings she had given her mischievous little troublemakers as they grew.

In those days she had still been young, and her children had gathered close around her, innocent and dear.

Redlichia stayed at her side the whole while, listening to her speak these words, holding fast to her hand.

Then, days later, the queen suddenly woke, her mind all at once clear again.

It was the flare of clarity that comes just before the end.

Redlichia understood it too. She had come to the very last moment of her life.

For an instant Redlichia's face turned unbearably grim, as though he stood on the very edge of tears. Then the queen opened her eyes and looked to him, and he forced the look away and squeezed out a smile.

"You are awake."

The queen sensed too that her days were nearly spent. Her mind was perfectly clear, and she looked at Redlichia, then down at his hand holding hers.

"There is no need to apologize. I do not blame you."

"I just... cannot accept it..."

"Why did Ense turn out this way?"

"How did everything come to this?"

The queen's voice grew fainter and fainter as she spoke. "When Yesael comes back, pass the throne to him."

"You are tired too."

"It is time... to rest a while."

Redlichia nodded, his voice catching, and said, "Yes."

"Yes."

A faint light still flickered in the queen's eyes, and it could be seen dimming little by little.

Her once-bright eyes slowly turned to a stony gray.

Redlichia watched the queen where she lay on the stone bed, her body stiffening by degrees, turning from the inside out into a statue of stone.

The queen was dead.

This blow struck Redlichia down all over again.

He had just lost two sons, and now he lost the one he loved most in all the world.

Just then urgent shouting rose from outside. Someone came rushing frantically in, and with them came a clamor of arguing voices, the guards holding back whoever it was that wanted to force their way through.

"Great King of Wisdom, are you all right?"

"How could Ense do such a thing? How could he kill Boon, and turn against his own father?"

"How could this happen? Has Ense lost his mind?"

Some spoke from genuine feeling. Others were only probing for an opening.

The remaining two sons and two daughters had finally returned as well, and with them came their own children, even grandchildren.

Redlichia did not turn around. He said only, "Let them in."

The whole great family poured inside, and the first thing they saw was the queen, dead. In an instant the clamor of voices fell silent.

It was a long while before anyone found their voice. "Mother?" one of them finally said.

Redlichia's eyes were full of the dusk of age, and he said to his children, "You have all come home."

"Take one last look at your mother."

"Say your goodbyes to her properly."

Then he walked slowly out of the room himself, around the collapsed Wisdom Palace, and on to a hidden chamber behind it, its walls carved over entirely with murals.

The stone door of the chamber swung shut, and he sat alone in the dark.

Redlichia lifted the Crown of Wisdom from his head once more and set to carving the covenant into it again, taking up the unfinished sentence exactly where he had left it.

Only his state of mind was utterly changed now. He had carved those earlier words with pride and satisfaction.

But now, all he felt was a bleak and bitter sorrow.

His life had not been nearly so complete as he had once boasted, nor was he himself so great as he had claimed. He had overlooked so much, and he had lost so much.

He simply had never noticed, not until now.

"God said."

"Redlichia, the chasm of desire is never filled, however much you pour into it."

"The mountain of resentment... the mountain... never wears away, however much kindness you show it."

The instant he finished carving these words, he could hold back no longer.

His face streamed with tears, and he buried it in his hands.

"God, did You already know, even then?"

"A pity that I did not follow Your guidance."

In truth, he had faintly sensed what God meant, even then. He had simply refused to believe it.

Perhaps God had known it too, and that was why he had sighed and spoken those very words.

It was a long while before he recovered from his grief.

His face showed no expression at all. He simply went on carving the Crown of Wisdom, bit by bit. He no longer wished to hear what was happening in the world outside, nor to concern himself with anything else at all.

All he wanted now was to finish carving the covenant between himself and the divine.

Many days later, Redlichia finally emerged from the hidden chamber. Someone at his side handed him his scepter and told him the funeral had already been arranged.

But Redlichia only said, "Wait a little longer."

He raised the Crown of Wisdom high, and his voice carried out across the sea.

"Yesael, have you found the Origin Site? If you have, then come back!"