Once upon a time
there was a prince named Lucan. He wasn't a good prince; he was an
excellent one, known throughout the kingdom for his humility,
generosity, and kindness: he did not shun the dirty work of peasants,
but was himself the kingdom's finest shepherd. He did not scorn
beggars or others who came to him for aid; instead, he always gave
them money and a meal, which he fixed with his own hands. He did not
terrorize the peasants or lash out at others with angry words. On the
contrary, he was the first to bring the peasants food or clothing,
whatever their needs may be, and to those around him, noble or
peasant, he always spoke with courtesy and respect. One shouldn't
assume, however, that Lucan was a coward because he was so gentle;
far from it. When there was war, he was the first to volunteer, the
first to fight on the front line beside his older brother, and the
last to retreat or yield. Nor could anybody truthfully say that he
was weak-willed. If he ever saw injustice, he would address it and
put it right in an instant. When he was sure he was in the right, a
rolling boulder couldn't budge him. Thus, the whole kingdom,
including his father and older brother, praised him and often
declared its love for him. So Lucan, though only being a second son,
had already made a name of goodness for himself at age sixteen.
Furthermore, he was handsome as well as good, with almond-colored
hair, blue eyes, and a fine-featured face, and it wasn't long before
he attracted the eye of a nobleman's beautiful daughter named Mella.
Lucan returned her affection and their attraction blossomed into
love. When Lucan was twenty, they plighted their troth to each other.
Their fathers approved and so, Lucan and Mella planned to marry after
the wedding of Lucan's brother, who was already engaged. Soon
afterward, the whole kingdom was busy preparing the feast, games, and
musical performances for the joyous occasion. This was the happiest
time of Lucan's life. He was serene and giddy at the same time.
One night, as the
festivities were being prepared, Lucan took a walk in the palace
garden to gaze at the stars. The air was fresh with the scent of
flowers; the moon was a beautiful, milky white; and the stars winked
and twinkled at Lucan, as if to say, “Life is sweet, is it not,
Lucan?” “Yes, stars,” Lucan sighed, “life is sweet. All is
well. I am the luckiest man in the world: both my brother and I will
soon be joined in marriage to the women of our dreams; both my father
and my brother love me and are proud of me; the kingdom is pleased
with me as well. Indeed, life is a happy dream for me. I have nothing
to complain of.” After this happy reminiscence, Lucan turned to go
back into the palace and help with the preparations - but stopped.
His brother's fiancee, Juna, was in the garden with him. She had
followed him. She smiled at him. Lucan smiled back, but he felt
uncomfortable. There was a look in Juna's eyes that reminded him of
the look in a fox's eyes, when it tracks a hare. Still smiling, she
came very close to him and said “Well handsome, I'm glad to catch
you here alone.”
Stunned, Lucan
gaped at her for a few seconds, but then composed himself and asked
her why. Juna laughed. “There's no need to be so nervous, Lucan.
Your brother isn't here; nobody's here. You know,” she said,
lowering her voice to a whisper and putting her hands on his
shoulders, “I think your fiancee is a lucky woman. Very lucky,
indeed. Let me show you just how lucky.” With that, she embraced
him and tried to kiss him, but he pushed her away from him. She tried
to embrace him again, but he pushed her away again. When she still
held on to one of his shoulders, he rushed past her and out of the
garden, his white cloak torn off his shoulders in her hands.
Lucan hurried to
his room, shocked and frightened. He didn't know what to do. He
didn't want to be a tale-bearer, but neither did he wish to keep
secrets from his brother. After several hours of pondering, he said
to himself,“I guess I'll just have to talk to Juna in the morning
and explain to her that such a thing can never happen again, or else
I'll have to tell my brother.” This plan still meant hiding a
secret from his brother, so he didn't like it much; but he couldn't
think of a better one. So he then went to bed. Unease and foreboding
plagued his dreams.
A furious thudding
on his bedroom door woke Lucan up. He got out of bed and opened the
door to find a furious brother and father standing with armed guards
standing in the doorway. His brother was holding a white cloak in his
hand – the cloak that Lucan wore in the garden last night.
“Brother, what are you doing with my cloak?” Lucan asked.
“Don't you do
dare call me brother!” was the red-faced reply. “Juna told me
that you tried to kiss her in the palace garden last night.”
“Juna told you
that?” The question mumbled out of Lucan's mouth from his blank
mind.
“Yes, Lucan, she
told me. She came to me in tears telling me about how you tried to
kiss her and then ran off like the yellow-livered, slinking, cowardly
weasel you are when she refused to kiss you back. You would have
gotten away with it too; you would have left me still believing you
to be the faithful, loving brother you masquerade as; but you left
this,” his brother held the cloak to Lucan's dazed eyes, “as
proof of your crime. You two-faced dog!” With that, he laid Lucan
out on the bedroom floor with a blow to the face.
“I am deeply
disappointed in you, Lucan,” said his father, picking Lucan up by
the shoulders and shaking him. “I never thought you capable of such
cowardice, such indecency, such betrayal! You seemed so innocent, so
gentle, so loving; ah, how guileful man can be! But mark my words,”
his father's eyes bored into him, “you won't escape punishment
because you are my son. Death is what you deserve. But neither your
brother nor his fiancee wish to go to the marriage altar stained with
your blood; and I do not wish to kill one of my own sons, no matter
what shame he brings to me. But you'll feel the sting of your crimes
alright.”
Lucan's father then
struck him in the face also and ordered the guards to seize him.
Lucan was dragged from his bedroom, out of the palace, and to the
public square, his protests of innocence and attempts to explain
ignored the whole way. The king ordered the guards to tie Lucan to a
pole in the center of the public square – the pole where they had
public hangings or floggings. On the king's command, one of the
guards stripped Lucan to the waist and scourged him twenty times.
Afterward, the king had Lucan tied to a horse and led to the border
of the kingdom. Along the way, the people of the kingdom came out and
glared at Lucan as he passed, muttering about “wolves in sheep's
clothing” and how “Goody-two-shoes finally showed his true
colors”. By the time he was at the border, people were spitting,
jeering, and throwing vegetables at him. There, the king made a
public decree that Lucan was banished from the kingdom forever on
pain of death. The guards untied Lucan and thrust him into the river
marking the border of the kingdom. Despite his bleeding, sore back,
Lucan somehow swam safely across the river and climbed up its bank
onto a path that led straight forward.
Lucan sobbed as he
started to hobble along the path. He couldn't understand why his
father and brother wouldn't listen to him, why they chose to listen
to a fiancee instead, why they had banished him on the word of a
fiancee. The whole thing just didn't make sense. After a few hours of
walking and crying, Lucan's head spun from loss of blood. He needed
to bind his wounds. He sat down and, being still shirtless, he began
to rip pieces of cloth from his pants when a rock hit his right eye.
Lucan looked up, his eye smarting. There, leaning against a wall five
feet higher than him, was a beggar with a nasty smirk on his face.
“Sorry there, Prince Blubberface,” jeered the beggar, “did I
hurt your poor wittle eye? Poor wittle prince, all alone, don't have
his jewels and fancy clothes anymore. Don't even have a shirt. Here,
here's a gold crown for ya.” The beggar threw another rock at
Lucan, hitting him in the shoulder.
Lucan bristled and
steeled himself to give the beggar a sound beating to teach him about
cruel blows and cruel words. However, before he even stood up, two
hooded men appeared over the wall, stretched out their arms, and
pulled the unsupecting beggar over the wall to the other side. Lucan
blinked and then started to hobble towards the wall, but stumbled to
a stop. He had been too preoccupied with his grief and the the
beggar's cruelty to recognize the wall at first. Now he realized it
was the wall of the ruins of a long past kingdom called Edessa. Ruins
where for over two hundred years the wraith of the last queen of
Edessa had been rumored to abide. No one tried to live in the ruins;
travelers stayed as far away from it as they could on the road. Now
fear began to creep through Lucan's bones and he wanted to run away.
But the beggar...he may have been a cruel man, but Lucan couldn't
just leave him in the hands of the hooded men. Who knew what they
were doing to him? So Lucan limped over to the wall and jumped. His
fingers found the edge of the wall, and he strained to pull himself
over, but his back screamed with pain. For a moment, he was afraid he
was going to let go and drop down on the hard ground. But two more
hooded men grabbed his wrists and pulled him over the wall. They
dragged him for several hours through the remnants of various
buildings into the courtyard of what had once been a palace. Here,
the first two hooded men Lucan had seen were holding the tied and
frightened beggar. Lucan's captors halted and waited.
After ten minutes
or so, a chill blew through the air and then a door opened and
closed. Lucan couldn't see who had opened the door at first. Then a
pair of starved brown eyes stared at him from the shadows. The leaves
lying on the floor rustled, as if by footsteps. The brown eyes
started moving towards him. As they neared the edge of the shadows,
the outline of the arms, legs, dress, hair, face, and mouth of a
woman began to appear. The closer the eyes came, the more the body
came into view. By the time the eyes were in the center of the
courtyard, Lucan saw a thin, pale young woman with long white hair
wearing a royal robe that had lost its color a long time ago and an
once golden crown. Her skin was so transparent that Lucan could make
out the white bones underneath her limbs and the white skull covered
by her face. Lucan shuddered and tried not to look very hard. Here
was the Wraith-queen of Edessa. “Well, well,” came the voice of
the Wraith-queen – a shadow of a voice that three hundred years ago
was deep and strong. “What pleasant surprise do we have here?”
She didn't sound either pleased or surprised.
“Trespassers in
your domain, Your Majesty,” said one of the men holding Lucan.
“That one over there,” he pointed towards the beggar, “was
skulking around your wall. We pulled him over and then this one,”
he kicked Lucan, “tried to climb over the wall after him, so we got
him too.”
The Wraith-queen
turned towards Lucan, eyebrows raised. “You tried to come after
him, eh? Is he a friend of yours?” she asked.
The word “no”
rose to Lucan's throat, but he clenched his mouth on it. The beggar
was white and sweating with fright; Lucan didn't want to see him
punished. Lucan took a deep breath and, gazing into the
Wraith-queen's eyes, answered, “He's my servant, Your Majesty. As
you can see, my back is hurt. So I sent him to search your domain for
herbs to heal it. He was looking around the wall for them when your
men seized him. Naturally, I'm duty-bound to go after a loyal
servant, so I did. Please,Your Majesty,” his blue eyes pleaded with
her lifeless brown eyes, “do not punish obedience. I am his master.
I am responsible for his crime. Punish me as you will, but spare him,
I beg you.”
“Is this true?”
the Wraith-queen asked the beggar. Eyes wide, the beggar nodded, his
head bouncing faster than a drum stick. The Wraith-queen turned back
towards Lucan. “Very well. You sent your servant to trespass in my
domain. You are the offender here. You shall receive your just
deserts.” She stretched her arms out towards Lucan and began
walking towards him. Lucan shut his eyes, shivering. In ten seconds,
she would be upon him. One, two, three, four, five – there was a
scream. Lucan's eyes snapped open. The Wraith-queen was moving
towards the beggar, not him. The beggar was shrieking for his life,
protesting that he was innocent, that Lucan had sent him into the
domain, that Lucan had said so himself; all in vain. The Wraith-queen
kept walking towards him. Then she placed one hand on each of the
beggar's cheeks. The beggar's face, already white, yet grew whiter
and whiter until it made snow look black. His shrieking died down to
gasping. Finally, his lips stopped moving, and the men holding him
let him and hastened to the edge of the courtyard. The Wraith-queen
released his face, and he fell to the ground, eyes still wide open.
Never to move again.
The Wraith-queen
turned back towards Lucan, who was speechless with horror. “Your
life is spared,” she said, “but you will serve in Our domain for
the remainder of your lifetime, to do whatever it pleases Our
Majesty.”
“Madam,” gasped
Lucan, “why do you spare me and not him? I told you, I sent him
into your domain to get herbs for me. That alone would make me as
guilty as he, but I also tried to climb your wall to go after him.
That makes me doubly guilty. Why not kill me?”
“My dear boy,”
chuckled the Wraith-queen, “you can stop trying to lie to me. You
don't execute trespassers for two hundred years without picking up a
few things, you know. When I asked the beggar if he was your friend,
he looked at you with fear in his eyes, as if he was expecting you to
denounce him. When you told your story, laying all the blame on
yourself, there was surprise and relief in his eyes. He clearly
wasn't expecting you to say that. When I seemed to be about to kill
you, there was no concern for you in his eyes. There wasn't even
gratitude. Only relief and an urge for me to kill you instead of him.
Obviously then, he was not a loyal servant wanting to help his
master; he was an enemy who had injured you. Yet he let you risk your
life for him, without lifting a finger to help you. He sold your life
to keep his; therefore he lost his life. You sold your life to keep
his; therefore, you kept your life. Don't worry, Lucan,” she
grinned at him, “in a short time, you will most likely wish you had
died with him. And now, my new servant, tell me your name and your
story – how you come to wander near the infamous, haunted domain of
Edessa.”
Lucan told her his
story in a daze, numbed by everything that had happened to him. The
Wraith-queen listened without interrupting, all the while staring at
his face. When he had finished, she continued to stare at him for a
few more minutes. Then she spoke to her henchmen, “Treat his wounds
and bind his back. And give him a shirt. He's going to need it for
the cold nights here. As for you,” she said to Lucan, “when my
men are done with you, come to this courtyard and start cleaning it.
You will work until midnight, and you will rise at dawn to work until
midnight again. That is how you will spend your days for the
remainder of your lifetime. Now go.”
One of the henchmen
holding Lucan growled, “Why should we play nurse to this whelp
here? He's a servant; he should tend his own back.”
The Wraith-queen
turned to the henchman. “Machen,” she said, “you're one of my
servants too. Do you think I really care about your feelings
concerning my orders to you?” She smiled as she said this, but her
skeletal figure now showed through her skin and clothes as if through
clear glass. Lucan could see the grinning skull holding her eyes
beneath her smiling face.
Machen seemed to not find it a pretty
sight, for he stammered in a gulping voice, “Er – no, Your
Majesty. Sorry, so sorry.” The men hurried then off with Lucan
The henchmen did as
their queen ordered, treating Lucan's back and giving him a shirt.
Lucan, back still aching, limped back to the courtyard. He buried the
beggar, who had been left there, and marked the grave. He then
started to clean the courtyard by cutting down and digging out the
brown grass, ivy, and black tree branches thickening in it. He worked
until midnight. But even then he did not go to sleep for many hours.
For he had discovered bones in the courtyard. Human bones. The bones
of men, women, and children. Some recent, some old. Some unmarked, as
if they had been killed by only a touch – the touch of a wraith.
But many others twisted, broken, hacked, and cracked, as if they had
died horrible, gruesome deaths. With the bones burned in his mind's
eye, Lucan finally slept a slumber full of nightmares.
Thus, for many
months, Lucan spent his days as a servant for the Wraith-queen. While
he occasionally did small services for the henchmen, such as fetching
water, his main task was cleaning up whichever structure was
assigned to him. Each day of servitude was a miserable one. For the
first few weeks, he had to fight the pain of his flogged back. Even
after his back healed, working from dawn to midnight was not easy. He
couldn't comfort himself with friends; the henchmen were malicious
souls who worked for the Wraith-queen out of both fear and an
enjoyment of seeing her punish trespassers; not the sort of company a
good man like Lucan could enjoy, or who would enjoy him. As for the
Wraith-queen, he did more than once catch her watching him, sometimes
melted into the background so much that he only saw her eyes. But she
only spoke to him to give him an order, and he was rather glad of
that. Nevertheless, it wasn't the work or the solitude that
dispirited him; it was the constant discovery of human remains. Every
day, at one place or another, he found either whole skeletons, or
various skeletal parts, which were either disfigured or without a
mark. The disfigured ones he found by a hundred a day, the unmarked
ones by a dozen a day. And so, his nights were a succession of dreams
full of bones, death, and the Wraith-queen.
His soul groaned
groaned at first as he imagined the terror and agonies of the owners
of the bodies; then after two months it flared up with anger, for he
began to suspect that these had been victims of the Wraith-queen.
Those whose bones were disfigured she had killed while she was still
a living, human queen. Those whose bones had no mark she had killed
as a wraith. “That monster may as well be the wife of the devil
himself,” Lucan gritted through his teeth. “So she'd kill the
beggar for selling my life for his, eh? Well, it's a pity someone
didn't kill her more than two hundred years ago for all the lives she
sold for Her Royal Beastliness's pleasure!” From then on, he put
away any thoughts of escape; it was not fair that he should escape
slavery to the Wraith-queen, when so many others hadn't escaped death
at her hands. He then decided to give those bones rest. He couldn't
bury them all, so as he cleared tree branches, grass, and ivy, he
gathered the vegetation into a pile and carefully put the bones on
the pile. He set the pile on fire, burning the bones. Then he dug a
hole, put the ash in the hole, covered the hole, and marked it by
laying three stones next to each other on the hole. And from then on,
he always burned the bones he found, dug a grave for the ash, and
marked the grave. He would sometimes have to dig a very large hole,
but he would dig it nevertheless. He was going to give those people
some dignity after they had been lying around like debris for so
long. Nobody stopped him: the henchmen, though cruel and hardened,
did not enjoy the company of bones and were glad to see them
disappear; the Wraith-queen watched him more frequently and for
longer periods of time, but she didn't interfere. Thus, Edessa became
a little more pleasant: the air became cleaner and less heavy with
fear; green grass and flowers grew on the graves; silver and brown
saplings grew instead of black trees; and the henchmen grew less
hardened and more respectful to Lucan. Lucan wasn't happy, but
neither was he numb or frightened any longer.
One day, in the
seventh month of his captivity, Lucan was cleaning up the palace. It
was the same as the rest of the kingdom; full of overgrowing
vegetation and skeletal remains. The bones, however, were the oldest
Lucan had yet seen. They were in the halls, the bedrooms, the court,
the ballroom, and the palace garden. In the garden, they were hanging
from the trees; and there were poles, some with bones hanging from a
crossbeam on top, some with piles of ashes around them. There was a
stone fountain that had dried up a long time ago. In the fountain,
there were bones tangled among the bushes growing in the fountain.
The Wraith-queen had made a horror out of everything that should be
beautiful and pleasant. Lucan cleaned up the garden like he had done
every other building. As he was clearing away some bushes at the
north wall, he uncovered a door. It was a very old door; the wood was
very rotten. Lucan tried to turn the latch and, when that didn't
work, broke a hole through the wood. He stepped inside, expecting to
see skeletons leering on chains from the walls around him. But there
were no bones. There was a spiraling corridor ahead of him, though,
that went downward. Using flint, Lucan made a torch from a scrap of
wood from the door and a piece of his shirt. He then went down the
corridor, expecting it to be very long and to lead to either a
treasure trove or a torture chamber filled with victims. However, the
corridor was hardly long; he was at the end of it in two minutes. And
it was a torture chamber, but there was only one skeleton prisoner
and only one instrument of torture; the skeleton of a woman and a
rack. The skeleton lay on the rack.
Chains had stretched its arms out of their sockets. “What woman
offended Her Royal Beastliness so much that she was tormented in the
torture chamber and not in a place more proper for such things, like
a garden?” asked Lucan dryly.
“Would
you really like to know?” said a voice. Lucan spun around. He bent
the torch forward. At the bottom of the corridor, the light caught a
pair of brown eyes. The Wraith-queen materialized into sight. “Would
you really like to know Her Royal Beastliness's reasons for that
skeleton lying on the rack? For the skeletons decorating her entire
kingdom, including her garden, which you have so kindly disposed of?
For these ruins of a once happy realm called Edessa? Would you like
to hear the story of the monster who never got her well-deserved
death?” Her voice both mocked and challenged Lucan.
Lucan
was afraid for a moment, but then anger at all the Wraith-queen's
horrible crimes he had seen evidence of replaced fear. He put his
hands on his hips, set his jaw, frowned into her eyes, and said,
“Yes.”
The
Wraith-queen stared at Lucan for a few moments. Then she crossed over
to the rack, sat on it, and said, “Very well. Here it is: more than
two hundred years ago, I was the first-born princess of this realm
and my name was Kila. I was beautiful, with long golden hair and deep
brown eyes. I was both talented and learned; I could play
instruments, quote literature and poetry, ride horses, compete in
archery, and play chess. And I was loved by all; my father loved me
because I was beautiful and respectful to him, and the people loved
me because I aided in charity and good works. All called me good. All
was well for me. But I had a younger sister named Tael. She alone did
not love me. For while all except her loved me, none, including me,
loved her. She, being ugly, was mocked at court. She bungled in all
the areas where I excelled, even though she worked hard and practiced
often. And so, both her teachers and Father patronized her. She then
became malicious to all, including me. Eventually, everybody hated
her. Compliments to me were often made at Tael's expense, with such
words as, 'Ah, if Tael were half as such and such as her sister, she
would not be such an object fit for ridicule.' Hearing these words
everyday, I grew to despise Tael and my heart took pride in its
morality, so superior to her wretchedness.
On
my twentieth birthday, after I had discovered that she had put bugs
in my bed, I scolded her, saying, 'Tael, every day I thank divine
providence for giving me such a pure heart, especially after I daily
see what a dirty little wretch you are.' To this day, I remember the
look on her face at my words; I swear that if she had a knife, she
would have stabbed me in every vein there and then. But she said
nothing, and just walked away. Ah, but not walking away to leave
alone. Walking away to a witch hidden in the city. Walking away to
buy a potion from a witch. A potion that made the person who drank it
more and more evil with each day. And made the person live forever
with their evil heart. The next day, my sister put the potion in my
wine before supper. That night, my thoughts were more wicked than
they were usually. And they grew more wicked each day. Soon they grew
to wicked words and wicked actions. In a month, I had murdered my
father for the throne. In a year, I was a hated tyrant.
I
outdid myself in cruelty each day; no subject in my realm, whether
man, beast, woman, or child, was safe from my malice. Soon rebellions
and plots arose against me; the people of Edessa turned to Tael as
their new ruler and savior. She led the people against me, but I
brutally suppressed the uprising. I captured my sister. I hated her
more than I had ever hated anyone. For she had been the outcast and
now she was more loved by the people than I had ever been. I took her
to this chamber and tortured her on this rack. She died that night;
but before she died, she told me this through her pain, 'My beloved
sister, my pain will end tonight, and if not tonight, then someday.
But as for you, your pain will never end. You will live hated and
feared by all forever; and your evil will slowly wear you away until
you are no more than a malicious mind.' Frightened, I asked her what
she meant. She told me what she had done to me, how she had enchanted
me to be wicked. Horror overtook me, for sometimes I myself had not
been able to understand my evil desires; but now, I understood them
too well. And I understood my doom. My sister laughed and said these
words, 'Kila, tonight I thank divine providence for giving me such a
pure heart, especially after I daily saw what a dirty little wretch
you are and will forever be.' Then she died. Her pain ended that
night. In a few years, those subjects who were still alive fled the
kingdom. My servants, sick of being the instruments of my malice,
killed themselves. And so, I was left alone. I, knowing my curse and
wanting life no more, stabbed myself in the heart. Oh! The blood
flowed, the knife hurt! But I did not die. In desperation, I tried
all forms of death: hanging, drowning, starving myself. But all in
vain. Pain came to me, but not death. So I lived and wandered through
this kingdom. Sometimes I wandered a little out of the kingdom; I
agonized myself with the sight of others' happiness, which I still
had to see because I needed to remind myself of what happiness once
was for me; and I comforted myself with the sight of others' misery,
which did not comfort me long, for their misery ended while mine
would last forever. I started to fade, and I have continued fading.
In another century, Lucan, I will be what my sister said I would be.
A malicious mind and no more.”
The
Wraith-queen became silent and looked like she would cry if she
could. All the anger that had been in Lucan's heart changed to pity
and sorrow. He gently said, “I'm so sorry, Your Majesty. This could
have happened to anyone; you didn't deserve this fate.”
“Didn't
I?” laughed the Wraith-queen harshly. “Didn't I, Lucan? I may
have been truly good at first, but now I realize that I did good
works in my later years only for the praise that went with them, not
out of genuine good will. I had every advantage over my sister; that
was why people loved me and not her. Yet, instead of pitying her, I
scorned her. I was unkind to the one who needed my kindness the most.
Beastliness to one's own family, even if it just be one member of the
family, cannot be washed away by generosity to strangers. I did not
know what it was like to be hated, so my sister showed me. Besides,”
her eyes pierced through Lucan, “my heart couldn't have been that
incorruptibly good if it only took a potion to make it the heart of a
monster.”
Lucan
sat there thinking for several minutes. Then a horrible notion
occurred to him. “Do you think,” he slowly asked the
Wraith-queen, “that my brother and father were so ready to believe
my guilt, that they were so ready to cast me out because...they were
envious of me?”
To
his dismay, the Wraith-queen nodded. “At night, I have made visits
to your kingdom while you slept. I am able to be almost invisible if
I wish, a cold presence at most. This is what I have learned: your
brother and his lovely fiancee, or wife I should say, are not easy in
their marriage. Both know that Juna is at fault, but your brother is
unwilling to punish her. He is jealous and does not want to admit
that he lost his fiancee to his younger brother. Your father is tired
and does not sleep. He too, knows your innocence. But he punished you
because he knew you were a better man than him; he couldn't stand
that. The kingdom too knows your innocence. At dinner, families of
all ranks mutter and gossip about how you were such a white-faced
liar and deserved what you got; but their eyes tell plainly that they
know they have allowed the best man in the kingdom to be banished
from them. The whole kingdom knew your goodness; your true goodness,
that wanted no reward or praise for it. And it could not stand it and
will not have it back. Only one still remains faithful to you; your
fiancee, Mella. At night, more than once she's tried to escape out of
her house to leave the kingdom and find you. At dinner, she implores
her father to plead to the king on behalf of your innocence. When her
father denounces you, insisting on your offence against Juna, she
scowls and insists that Juna is a liar. When she goes to bed, she
weeps that she will never see you again. Mella is the only one who
truly loves your virtue, Lucan. You chose your sweetheart well.”
Lucan's
eyes had filled with tears as the Wraith-queen described his family's
feelings towards him. But he felt a warmth dry his tears when he
heard what Mella thought about him. “Your Majesty,” he asked,
“may I ask a boon? Would you – could you find a way to bring
Mella here? I must accept my life as a servant here; but it would
make it easier for me if Mella was here. This is not the best place
for a wife, I know. But if she knows what her future will be and is
still willing to have me, I would gladly take her into my arms.”
The
Wraith-queen smiled at Lucan; it was the shadow of a loving smile,
but the sweetest one yet. “Gladly I will do more than this for you,
Lucan. I will find a way to get you back home.”
“But-t-t
Your Majesty,” stuttered Lucan, “why would you do this? You made
me your servant for life as punishment for trespassing; why would you
show me such kindness?”
The
Wraith-queen answered, “Well, you cleaned up my home rather nicely.
And you pitied my misery after I told you my story. As a matter of
fact,” she said, the shadow of sadness and regret on her face,
“you're the only one I've ever told my story to. Too long have I
caused misery to others. Before I fade away to a powerless mind, I
would like to do some good. So, Lucan, home you shall go if I can
help it. And from now on, it's Kila to you, not Your Majesty.” She
glanced at the skeleton on the rack. “You may as well lay my sister
to rest. She's waited long enough.”
Lucan
nodded, thanked Kila, and proceeded to deal with the remains of Tael.
He left the corridor skipping.
A
month later, a messenger from Lucan's kingdom rode to the wall that
Lucan had been pulled over. He blew a horn and announced that Lucan
had been invited to a banquet in the palace by his father, the king,
to dine with him, Lucan's brother, and Juna in hopes of
reconciliation. The messenger then rode away. At first, Lucan's heart
filled with joy, but suspicion soon clouded over it. He told Kila
about the message. She grinned. “I said I would get you back home,
Lucan. And it seems I have. For the last month, I've been haunting
your kingdom, particularly the palace. Oh, your darling family has
had many a sleepless night, I can tell you. First, I started just
appearing and then disappearing in their sight. Then I went on to
asking them about you: what had happened to Lucan, where was Lucan,
what did Lucan do in the palace garden, and other such questions.
That made them shake!” She chuckled. “Then I told them that you
were suffering, that you were living a living death. Oh, how they
moaned and cried! Then I kept saying 'Edessa', 'Edessa', 'slavery in
Edessa'. That had them begging for mercy! It looks like they've taken
the hint.”
Lucan
opened his mouth to scold Kila, but thought better of it. “So you
think they truly want to make it right?”
Kila
frowned. “I don't know. They certainly want to stop the ghost
visits. But if they're so penitent, why not come to you instead of
asking you to come to them?”
Lucan
sighed. “I suppose you're right. But I don't want to spoil it if
they are sincere. I'll just have to go.”
Kila
nodded. “I'll follow behind you,” she promised. “You may not
see me, but I'll be there.”
Lucan
thanked her and prepared to leave. He left through a hole in the wall
that had to be shown to him by Kila, since it was covered with
bushes. He crossed one of the two bridges spanning the river border
and from there, traveled all the way through his kingdom to the
palace on foot. Along the way, people stared and hid from him, as if
he were a ghost. He paid no mind to them; knowing their treacherous
hearts, he cared little what they thought of him. He went straight on
into the palace; the guards let him through without a word. He then
went into the banqueting hall. There his father, his brother, and
Juna were seated. Juna didn't look him in the eye. His brother
scowled. His father kept his composure with difficulty. “Welcome,
Lucan,” his father said. “Have a seat, please.”
As
Lucan sat down the doors closed behind him with a bang. The guards
closed the side doors, too. Something was wrong; at banquets, the
king always ordered the doors to be left open. But Lucan didn't
comment. He looked his father square in the face and said, “Father,
the messenger you sent said you wished for reconciliation. Here is my
answer: I have been severely wronged, Father. You flogged me for a
crime I did not commit without hearing me out. And then you banished
me from the kingdom still without giving me a chance to defend
myself. I have not seen my home for almost a year. I have been cut
off from all the people I love here, including you, Father, and you,
brother. However, if you ask for my forgiveness, I will forgive all,
including Juna's fault. We will hear no more of it. What say you,
Father?”
Whatever
Lucan was hoping for, it was not the answer he received. The king's
face turned crimson with rage, and he replied in a low, dangerous
voice, “So you've been sending ghosts after us, to make us roll
over and beg for mercy, have you, you miserable schemer! Well, now
you're here and your ghost isn't. Your ghost may haunt us this night,
but we'll finish with you first!” Then the king and Lucan's brother
seized swords that had been hidden under the table cloth and sprang
over the table at Lucan. Juna ran off shrieking to hide in a corner.
Lucan, falling back in his chair, got up and used it as a shield. It
was him and his family; the guards had left the room. His father and
brother hacked and thrust at him, but Lucan, fighting with the
strength of anger, now twice hot, defended himself well. He bruised
his father and brother, they pricked and cut him. The fight lasted
for several minutes, but finally, the brother found an opening and
stabbed Lucan deep in the side. He fell down. His brother and father
raised their swords to finish their work.
“Kill me!” Lucan
growled at them. “Kill me! I'd rather die than live with traitors
such as you for family!”
In
a few seconds, those would have been his last words. But then the
main doors opened and a chill blew through the room. There, standing
in full sight, was Kila and next to her stood Mella, who rushed to
Lucan's side. Just as it had done when Machen had spoken out of turn,
Kila's skeleton showed through her skin and clothes as if through
glass. But her face was not smiling; it was as set as stone; there
was death in her eyes. “Begone, foul traitors,” she commanded,
her gaze sweeping over the king, the brother, and Juna. “You have
shed innocent blood and betrayed your own kin. Leave this realm and
never return, on pain of being haunted in your dreams for the rest of
your miserable lives.” The king, the brother, and Juna, ashen faced
and shaking, scrambled to a side door and left, never to be seen
again. Yet Lucan was bleeding out; his wound was mortal. He was
dying.
Mella
held him in her arms and cried, “I tried to warn you, truly I did,
Lucan. But they had me locked up in my house. I only got out because
she,” glancing up at Kila, “came for me.”
“This
is true,” Kila said. “I found it strange that she was not rushing
out into your arms, so I took a quick peek at her house. There were
guards there, which made me even more suspicious. I scared the guards
away and asked Mella why they were there. She told me what was going
to happen, that your father, your brother, and Juna were planning to
kill you in the banquet-hall. So I came here as quickly as I could.”
Her chin quivered. “But I came too late.”
Kila
stretched out her cold hand and placed it out on Lucan's arm. As she
did so, her finger touched a little bit of the blood flowing out of
Lucan's side. Then a curious transformation happened: Kila's skin
lost its transparency; it covered vein instead of bone. But she
turned into a heap of dust. Lucan cried out in grief at seeing the
pile. “Oh, must I also lose one I love before I myself die?” he
groaned.
However,
right after he said this, the dust sank down into the ground, and a
few minutes later, a light shone in the room, blinding both Lucan and
Mella. It faded a little, and so, when they looked up to see its
source, they saw Kila. But not Kila the Wraith-queen: her skin glowed
with light; her hair was gold and shining rays of gold on the floor;
she wore a star-blue robe over a snow-white dress. This was Kila,
more beautiful than she had ever been two hundred years ago. Kila
walked over to Lucan and placed her warm hand on his side. The wound
closed; he was healed. As he gazed up at her in wonder, she smiled at
him and said, “What I didn't tell you was the hope my sister gave
me before she died. She told me that if I ever touched the blood of
someone who was pure of heart, who loved me, who I loved in return, I
would be freed from my curse by death. That's why I seized so many
bypassing travelers; I was looking for someone pure of heart. Ah, how
few there are who are blameless, Lucan! For if they were not
criminal, then they had wronged their family or friends in some way.
None before you were pure of heart, Lucan. But your goodness has
freed me; and so I have been granted the wish of my heart by Heaven,
to protect you and bless you as your guardian for as long as you
live. I have been a spirit of grief and terror for more than a
century; but at least now, I will be a spirit of blessing and comfort
for one lifetime. Look up at the stars. I will be among them watching
you. Now wed your beloved, and rule your kingdom. And tend to my
kingdom too. It has lain in death with me for a long time, but under
your care, it will blossom to life again. God bless you, Lucan.”
She kissed him and shot through the ceiling in a beam of light.
That
night, Lucan married Mella in the palace garden under the stars.
After he kissed her, they both gazed up and saw the brightest, most
blue-and-white star they had ever seen. They knew it was Kila. When
they took charge of the kingdom, nobody made a fuss, probably out of
both guilt and terror of the Wraith-queen; thus, Lucan and Mella
ruled long and well as king and queen. Lucan did not forget Edessa;
after toiling for many years, he was able to make it not only
habitable, but also pleasant to live in. He and Mella had many fine
children. Lucan never lost a war, nor was his kingdom ever wracked by
plague or any other disasters. And so altogether, he and Mella lived
happily ever after for the remainder of their lives, watched over by
Kila in the sky. When Lucan died, however, the sky lost much of its
light that night; for its brightest star, having fulfilled her duty,
left her post to join her ward in Heaven.
