Chapter Four

In which the King has an idea

The aging King had two other sons, twin brothers Alix and Viktor. The King then had troubles anew to keep him awake at night, for how could two kings rule as one after he had gone? It could not be so. He had not worried over this before, as he knew the Crown would pass on to Eldras in its natural lineage. Others had tried, though murderous plots and schemes, to usurp the throne and cast the princes out but they had all failed and now none dared try. Darwin had no need to worry over that; but twins, now...what was a dying monarch to do?

He could have them fight to the death, but Darwin loved all of his sons with as much strained affection as his dusty heart could muster. He did not wish to turn his sons on each other, and so a contest of skill it must be but he did not know what to set as the competition. Darwin supposed he could leave it to his sons to figure out and not fret over the matter at all, but he felt that this would be his last act as King, the final obstacle he must clear for Death to claim him.

Thinking so hard he could not entertain the possibility of sleep (which, throughout his entire reign had not once occurred), Darwin descended from his rooms and roamed the hallways on shaking legs, two guards at a respectable pace behind him. More than once he nearly fell to the floor, shaking off and cursing whichever man would step forward to help. It went like this for some time until the King reached a room with a door slightly ajar, spilling warm light into the drafty hall. As regally as he could manage in his nightclothes and robe he stepped in without knocking.

It was the sickroom of Eldras. The fire blazed, making the room uncomfortably warm, and the air was cloyingly sweet from the herb bundles that hung in bunches from the ceiling.

The King blinked his eyes rapidly in attempt to regain focus in the smoky room. Shadows danced furiously on the walls as if to conjure a healing for the ailing prince. It had been nearly two months since the return of Eldras, and Darwin had yet to see his son more than once. Even that had been the briefest of visits, merely a visual confirmation that the prince was indeed still alive.

The King knew that his eldest son was sick. He had not been to see him, but he had heard enough to know that the patient was not regaining his health. There had been a slight glimmer of hope when Eldras' mania had subsided, but their relief turned quickly back to worry when the fever came upon him. One ailment took place of the other before the prince himself had a chance to rejoice in his own recovery.

Darwin had received the updates regarding the prince's health, yet he was completely taken aback by the appearance of his son. Eldras' frail body barely caused the blanket to rise from the surface of the expansive mattress, making it appear as though his head were resting alone on a large pillow above a neatly made bed. His face was gaunt, his intelligent and inquisitive eyes pulled back within the hollow sockets of his skull. A strong young man built solidly, lean from days spent in the hills and in the forests was now shivering in an overheated room and barely causing the bedclothes to rustle.

The King stood staring at the dying man in the bed, a breathing skeleton that had taken the place of his heir. Eldras was sleeping, his ragged breaths irregular, and Darwin considered backing out of the room as silently as he had entered. He had not even been aware that this was where his son now slept, and now that he'd cast his eyes on Eldras he had no wish to further prolong the visit.

Just as he'd turned to leave, the nurse on duty who had fallen asleep on a chair near the door startled awake. She was further startled to find the King before her, a King not in his finery but a mere man wandering through rooms in his pajamas.

“Your Highness!” she gasped after a moment, sliding from chair to floor in genuflection.

In doing so her skirt upset the tray of medical supplies she'd left next to the chair, setting off a clattering that woke the sleeping prince. The nurse cringed, folding in on herself and awaiting the punishment for her clumsy mistake.

Eldras stirred in the bed and coughed, a wet sound like drowning that shook his rickety frame.

“What is it you wait for?” the King barked at the young girl still on the floor. “Gather yourself up and help him!”

The nurse scrambled to her feet and had halved the distance to the bed when Eldras regained his breath and faintly twitched his head from side to side.

“No...need...” he rasped, managing a feeble smile at the girl. She ducked her head in assent as she changed course to the wash stand near to the bed. She produced a cloth and went to the prince's side, mopping at his waxy face.

All of this the King watched uneasily, dimly aware that he was in a room in which he did not belong. This was not a foreign sensation to Darwin the man who was often ignored at social gatherings and snubbed by women. As Darwin the King who owned every room of the castle and was master of all he could see, the feeling was not unlike that of a familiar but ill-fitting garment that one has just found at the back of the closet and been forced to try on again, just for old time's sake. A coat, two sizes too small, one that he had thought himself rid of. The King stood immobilized, staring into the fireplace as he listened to his eldest son fight for breath.

'It should not be like this.' he thought to himself, gazing into the dancing flames, 'A parent should not be made to watch his child die. It is unnatural.'

These thoughts the King would never utter aloud, for they were far too close to self-pity and weakness. He must not show weakness, could not give himself over to sorrow because that would be their way in. That would be their way to the Crown, and this was simply unacceptable. No, Darwin would relinquish his �" yes, His �" Crown only in death, and then only to his son. He had convinced himself that his family was of a royal lineage, that theirs was an inherent and inscrutable power. Deep down Darwin truly believed that if his descendants retained the throne he would in some way live forever. Darwin did not believe in any prophecy;he knew that each man made his own path. His had been to the throne, and no one, nothing, not even his own grief would take it away from him.

So his son would die. He turned the words over in his head, as he had on a daily basis since Eldras had first fallen ill. Eldras will die. My son will die. My son is dead. Each time it was repeated the mantra made a stone in his heart, making him cold and more distant. If he could make the pain constant, he could numb himself so that when Eldras did pass, it would be as though he already had gone. No tears then, no grief, no mourning. No cracks for the usurpers to infiltrate. His stone face would protect the family birthright that he had rightfully taken so many years ago.

Now, seeing his son fighting for a new breath when he clearly knew it would hurt, clinging to life when it was apparent how close the end had become, Darwin felt something other than early shades of grief. A young prince should be casting his eyes to the long stretch of promising future before him, learning the ways of governing his kingdom and turning his thoughts to his potential Queen. Instead Eldras was delaying death with each ragged breath, hard determination in his glassy eyes. This was the man that Darwin had preemptively declared dead in his mind. A man who clearly would not give up. For a moment, the King felt shamed.

But this, like so many emotions other than greed or pride, bounced from the stone wall around his heart and lodged somewhere deeper, somewhere forgotten and there it remained dormant and unrecognized as anything but weakness. The King turned to leave.

“Father,” rasped Eldras through his ordeal for breath, but the King had reached the doorway and had no intention of staying.

“King Darwin, you turn your back on your most loyal subject?”

The voice was commanding, it was clear. It stopped Darwin in his tracks and made the hairs on his arms stand to attention. He turned, expecting to see Eldras suddenly fully recovered. It had been the voice not of a dying man but that of a King, resonant and uncontested. The old King's eyes, however, met none other than sick and feeble Eldras, still a withering figure beneath a mound of blankets, his eyes burning like hot coals in a grate. He wore the same pained smile he had shown the servant girl.

“This may be the last time we see each other, Father. Have you nothing to say?” his voice was again weak, but his eyes burned with the same intensity he had possessed before falling ill.

Darwin stood in the doorway, considering what words would be most appropriate for a dying man. It was not a death on the battlefield, so he could not praise the valor of Eldras and commend his bravery and sacrifice, as he had for so many soldiers. Eldras had not been a priest or a monk, so the King did not think it fitting to speculate on how he was embarking on a great spiritual journey to be with his deity. He was at a loss for words and simply stood staring at his son.

“Very well, Father. Will you come and sit awhile, then?”

The King consented to this and moved to the chair beside Eldras' bed. The prince gently dismissed the nurse and asked that she shut the door behind her. When they were alone, Eldras smiled at the panicked look in the King's eyes.

“Don't worry, Father. I will not die while she is away.”

Darwin had repeated to himself the inevitable outcome, but hearing his child speak about his own mortality put a crack in one of the stones. Eldras saw this and his smile faded.

“So what brings and ailing King to the side of an ailing Prince at so late an hour?”

“I was unaware that this was your room, Eldras. Had I known, you would not have been disturbed.”

The Prince smiled again.

“A visit is not a disturbance, Father. I would much rather pass my time in conversation than waste it on sleep.” Eldras paused for another coughing fit, this one less alarming. The King stood, and Eldras reached out an arm that was not quite steady. “Please, stay.” he winced, as though the two simple syllables had been wrenched from his throat. He took several steadying breaths before he could continue.

“What vexes you, Father?” the King opened his mouth to protest that it was nothing as Eldras interceded, “And please, do not lie to a dying man.”

It was not in the King's nature to seek council; indeed, when he found that something was troubling him and a satisfactory conclusion could not immediately be reached, he would simply execute whichever person was in closest connection with the problem. Three head chefs had been slain before the court physician had found that Viktor's digestion could not tolerate certain fish from the river. This conundrum, however, could not be solved with the quick swish of an ax blade.

“I have no King to rule when I am gone.” he stated simply. Eldras smiled.

“Father, you have two sons equally suited to the task. Alix would be a kind hearted and gentle ruler, and Viktor would make a fearsome and protective king.”

Darwin nodded dismissively, already knowing this to be true.

“Yes, yes, two men. Not just one rightful heir, but two men born of the same day. Not one before the other as lineage would have it but twin brothers.”

“It would seem then that the trouble lies not in the absence of candidates but how then to choose just one.” Eldras stared for so long at the ceiling above his bed that the King had cause for alarm; at last, without returning his gaze his lips again moved. “I do not suppose you have considered asking the subjects what they might want?”

At this the King laughed as he had not laughed since his youth. He positively roared until he was out of breath and light-headed. He met his son's stony expression with streaming eyes, hastily mopping his face.

“Forgive me my son, but �"” he gasped, not fully recovered, “ask a common peasant who best to run matters in which they have no business meddling?” he shook his head, clearing his expression back into that of a serious monarch. “No, that would not do at all. It must be some sort of contest, but not to the death. I will not lose another of my sons of I may spare it.”

“It is then to be a contest of will, of strategy...” Eldras trailed off, his gaze again affixed to the ceiling. His feverish mind reached back to tales read to him when he was a child, stories of knights and dragons, of princes proving themselves worthy of praise from their fathers. Another story came to his mind then, and his next words Elras spoke without considering the ramifications.

“Why worry, Father? Soon an Empress will save us and you will be spared the trouble of selecting a new King.”

Darwin fairly growled in agitation.

“That damn prophecy! I tire of hearing about it! Why, if someone could just do away with it entirely...” the old King paused in thought, another unusual activity for him. He opened his mouth to propose an idea but, after a careful check that he was still breathing, found the prince to be asleep. Darwin stole from the room, bade a guard to go and find the nurse, and returned to his rooms to write out a proclamation of his own.

Far beyond the walls of the castle and hidden deep within the cool walls of a maze of caverns in the Great Room, a diamond fell into the bottom half of the Tracking Glass.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading! Reviews are welcomed!