BOOK TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Who are you then?” the Prince asked his teenage mom.
“Your mother. A part that we’ve kept separate for years. The unstained part. The part that loves you.”
“I don’t understand. Are you an “I” or a “We”?”
“Both. We made the decision together to remain separate. But, things have changed. I used to have a say in things, and she gave up control every now and then, but I haven’t been let in for ages and she… She’s changed. And she knows it. That’s new. That she knows it.” A strange intensity took over the girl. “She’s complicit in this. In what I ask.”
“Well, I’m not yet. What are you asking exactly?”
“Beyond these doors lies a person beyond help. A person who can never again be…” The Princess couldn’t choose the proper word. Despite this, the Prince grasped her meaning completely. Understanding in this place required no language, he remembered. Essentially, the word was happy.
“Why do you say she’s complicit?” Instantly they were transported back to the temple. The Queen sat alone in the bedroom she had claimed for herself staring off. The Prince observed this rare hour of self-reflection invisibly, listening to loud thoughts. It won’t mean anything, the Queen thought. She imagined herself overpowering Zeus with the North Star. It won’t make anything good. Together, they defeated all her enemies. No one can be redeemed. But more enemies came along, new people, other gods. Especially me. She defeated everyone who came her way, until there was no one left alive on Earth. But I can’t stop. Tears filled her eyes. Why can’t I stop? She had done it all wrong. I wish I could go back. She wept. Choose a different path. She made a fist and hit her thigh. Stop being such a woman! The room melted away, and again the Prince and his Princess mother stood in a grand hall.
“If you do as I ask, you’ll grant her wish. We’ll have a fresh start.” The Prince doubted his ability to kill anything. “It may be easier than you think. She cannot fight you, and, as I said, it’s what she wants deep down.” What were his other options?
“I’ll try it my way first.” Anger flashed in the Princess' eyes, revealing the woman he knew.
“Fine, when that doesn’t work, you know my terms.” With that, she evaporated.
The Prince opened the door, wondering what to expect. Perhaps he’d find his mother as she appeared now, or perhaps as the dragon-woman he saw from afar at Holder’s Deep, or maybe it would be something entirely different, his mind reeled with possibilities. When he opened the door what he saw went far beyond his worst imaginings.
It was an abomination – a hulking, breathing mass of tissue and texture barely resembling human or dragon. He recoiled at the sight. It lay in the middle of a trampled field, littered with half-buried fossils. He would not have seen its face had its eyes and mouth not opened, forming an expression of pain and blame and horror and rage, and emitting an equivalent sound. It tried to turn away from him, but each lethargic movement demanded a Herculean effort. That was the twins doing, the Prince knew, keeping her docile. When he felt he could stomach it, he spoke, “You know why I’m here.”
“You’re here to kill me,” the monster said with a disturbing double-voice.
“No. No, I came here to ask for your help.”
“You did not. You came to force me to help you.”
“If you agree to help, I won’t have to force you.”
“Typical double speak. The choice is mine as long as I choose right. I always feared one day you would become one of the liars. Always ready to sacrifice someone else to satisfy your own needs. I won’t help you. You’ll have to use force.” The Prince thought this was a fairly strong stance for someone who supposedly desires her own demise.
“But why? Saving everyone is the right thing to do. Surely you see that.”
“Then let me do it. Call off your goblins and let me wield the Star.”
“I know you won’t do as we ask.”
“Then you’ll have to force me.”
“No, I can convince you to do what’s right.”
“The right thing to do is to create a world where the gods do their job. Where they don’t simply watch us from a mountain in the sky, laughing at our misfortunes and permitting injustice after injustice. That’s how I’ll save everyone. If you allow those children to let me do what I came here to do.”
“You honestly think you can create a just world?”
“I can do better than them!” the thing spewed out.
“You? You!? You who never looked at another person but to see treason. You who punishes all crimes with death. The whole world would die by your justice.”
“Why don’t we find out?”
“You won’t succeed. Sasha’s seen it happen already. You try to use the Star on him, and Zeus kills us all.”
“Now that I know that, I can be faster.”
“And if you’re not, you die along with the rest of us.”
“So? What becomes of me otherwise? I return to the throne and rule as if none of this ever happened? How long till I’m executed?” The Prince hadn’t thought what might happen after all this. He had only ever focused on the fight, not what would happen if they won. “You’ll be King, I assume.” He hadn’t been thinking about that, but now that it was presented, he didn’t really see another option. Suddenly, the Prince questioned every motive he’d ever had. Was this all just a power grab? No! No, he had to stop thinking like this.
“You won’t be executed,” he vowed.
“Imprisoned, then.”
“I don’t know. We’ll work something out. Something beneficial to us all, I swear…” A bad taste filled the Prince’s mouth. He spit a black loogie that grew legs and crawled away.
“A lie,” the monster laughed. The Prince tried to think of the next tactic he should take. Empty promises were out. So was reason. Should he appeal to her soft side? Make a bargain? Beg? Threaten? The creature tried to move; the stress of it caused its flesh to expand and contract in various places, folding over and under itself in a living Gordian knot of putrid, boneless muscle, stretching and ripping from the friction.
“Yes, that was a lie,” he said, low and intense. The monster halted, attention piqued. “And this, before me, is not.” He took in the writhing, twisted thing before him and knew that this, this was how his mother truly saw herself. Her defenses were down, after all. “You are beyond help.” The air changed. A fire sprang up beside the Prince.
Sensing danger, the beast spoke, “Son, please, I’m your mother. I love you.” Pictures started flashing in the fire. The time the Prince and his mother covered the long wall of the great hall in canvas and painted the best/worst mural in history. The time he and his mother went sailing and they both got seasick and spent the whole trip playing cards below decks. The time he asked his mother if he could do something good for everybody, and together they organized a royal carnival that went town to town for years. The fire diminished. Sentimentalism was the key to the Prince’s heart, clearly. To hit it home, the Queen showed him the time she found him crying because one of the cook’s sons had been mean to him. She held him until he stopped.
“Oh, mother,” the Prince said in a voice she had never heard from him before. “Bad example.”
The flames rose again. A new scene flashed in the flames - two young boys, the cook’s son looking at his feet while the other listened tearfully. “My mum says I can’t play with you anymore. That it’s too dangerous.” An instant later the boy stood crying on the guillotine scaffold, and the child Prince sobbed from a distance as his friend got beheaded. The fire burned big and bright. An unlit torch appeared in the Prince’s hand.
“All my life, I worked so hard to counter the damage you did.” The flames showed one beheading after another; one hanging after another. “I blamed myself for not being able to keep you happy--on the days you were happy, no one suffered.” The flames recalled him apologizing to distraught families. “I see now trying to manage you was stupid and shortsighted.” The Prince saw the teenage version of his mother standing nearby, watching. “You’re right, it’s over for you. If I don’t do this, you’ll either be executed, or jailed for life. If I do, I can save people worth saving. If I kill you here…kill this part of you here, I’d be saving you, too. This is a mercy.”
“I am what I am, and I have the right to exist. Who are you to judge me?!”
“I haven’t, mother. You judged yourself.” He lit her on fire.
She screamed and tried to escape the heat. “You tell yourself that. You tell yourself that if that’s what you want to believe!!” The blaze grew, burning faster than something would in the real world. The roar was deafening, but underneath he could hear her final curses. “Murderer!! Murderer!!” He watched her turn to ash with a detached stoicism, deeply stunned by his own actions. The Princess came up beside him.
“Thank you,” she said. Her hand was on fire. “And here.” She punched him in the belly.
“Your mother. A part that we’ve kept separate for years. The unstained part. The part that loves you.”
“I don’t understand. Are you an “I” or a “We”?”
“Both. We made the decision together to remain separate. But, things have changed. I used to have a say in things, and she gave up control every now and then, but I haven’t been let in for ages and she… She’s changed. And she knows it. That’s new. That she knows it.” A strange intensity took over the girl. “She’s complicit in this. In what I ask.”
“Well, I’m not yet. What are you asking exactly?”
“Beyond these doors lies a person beyond help. A person who can never again be…” The Princess couldn’t choose the proper word. Despite this, the Prince grasped her meaning completely. Understanding in this place required no language, he remembered. Essentially, the word was happy.
“Why do you say she’s complicit?” Instantly they were transported back to the temple. The Queen sat alone in the bedroom she had claimed for herself staring off. The Prince observed this rare hour of self-reflection invisibly, listening to loud thoughts. It won’t mean anything, the Queen thought. She imagined herself overpowering Zeus with the North Star. It won’t make anything good. Together, they defeated all her enemies. No one can be redeemed. But more enemies came along, new people, other gods. Especially me. She defeated everyone who came her way, until there was no one left alive on Earth. But I can’t stop. Tears filled her eyes. Why can’t I stop? She had done it all wrong. I wish I could go back. She wept. Choose a different path. She made a fist and hit her thigh. Stop being such a woman! The room melted away, and again the Prince and his Princess mother stood in a grand hall.
“If you do as I ask, you’ll grant her wish. We’ll have a fresh start.” The Prince doubted his ability to kill anything. “It may be easier than you think. She cannot fight you, and, as I said, it’s what she wants deep down.” What were his other options?
“I’ll try it my way first.” Anger flashed in the Princess' eyes, revealing the woman he knew.
“Fine, when that doesn’t work, you know my terms.” With that, she evaporated.
The Prince opened the door, wondering what to expect. Perhaps he’d find his mother as she appeared now, or perhaps as the dragon-woman he saw from afar at Holder’s Deep, or maybe it would be something entirely different, his mind reeled with possibilities. When he opened the door what he saw went far beyond his worst imaginings.
It was an abomination – a hulking, breathing mass of tissue and texture barely resembling human or dragon. He recoiled at the sight. It lay in the middle of a trampled field, littered with half-buried fossils. He would not have seen its face had its eyes and mouth not opened, forming an expression of pain and blame and horror and rage, and emitting an equivalent sound. It tried to turn away from him, but each lethargic movement demanded a Herculean effort. That was the twins doing, the Prince knew, keeping her docile. When he felt he could stomach it, he spoke, “You know why I’m here.”
“You’re here to kill me,” the monster said with a disturbing double-voice.
“No. No, I came here to ask for your help.”
“You did not. You came to force me to help you.”
“If you agree to help, I won’t have to force you.”
“Typical double speak. The choice is mine as long as I choose right. I always feared one day you would become one of the liars. Always ready to sacrifice someone else to satisfy your own needs. I won’t help you. You’ll have to use force.” The Prince thought this was a fairly strong stance for someone who supposedly desires her own demise.
“But why? Saving everyone is the right thing to do. Surely you see that.”
“Then let me do it. Call off your goblins and let me wield the Star.”
“I know you won’t do as we ask.”
“Then you’ll have to force me.”
“No, I can convince you to do what’s right.”
“The right thing to do is to create a world where the gods do their job. Where they don’t simply watch us from a mountain in the sky, laughing at our misfortunes and permitting injustice after injustice. That’s how I’ll save everyone. If you allow those children to let me do what I came here to do.”
“You honestly think you can create a just world?”
“I can do better than them!” the thing spewed out.
“You? You!? You who never looked at another person but to see treason. You who punishes all crimes with death. The whole world would die by your justice.”
“Why don’t we find out?”
“You won’t succeed. Sasha’s seen it happen already. You try to use the Star on him, and Zeus kills us all.”
“Now that I know that, I can be faster.”
“And if you’re not, you die along with the rest of us.”
“So? What becomes of me otherwise? I return to the throne and rule as if none of this ever happened? How long till I’m executed?” The Prince hadn’t thought what might happen after all this. He had only ever focused on the fight, not what would happen if they won. “You’ll be King, I assume.” He hadn’t been thinking about that, but now that it was presented, he didn’t really see another option. Suddenly, the Prince questioned every motive he’d ever had. Was this all just a power grab? No! No, he had to stop thinking like this.
“You won’t be executed,” he vowed.
“Imprisoned, then.”
“I don’t know. We’ll work something out. Something beneficial to us all, I swear…” A bad taste filled the Prince’s mouth. He spit a black loogie that grew legs and crawled away.
“A lie,” the monster laughed. The Prince tried to think of the next tactic he should take. Empty promises were out. So was reason. Should he appeal to her soft side? Make a bargain? Beg? Threaten? The creature tried to move; the stress of it caused its flesh to expand and contract in various places, folding over and under itself in a living Gordian knot of putrid, boneless muscle, stretching and ripping from the friction.
“Yes, that was a lie,” he said, low and intense. The monster halted, attention piqued. “And this, before me, is not.” He took in the writhing, twisted thing before him and knew that this, this was how his mother truly saw herself. Her defenses were down, after all. “You are beyond help.” The air changed. A fire sprang up beside the Prince.
Sensing danger, the beast spoke, “Son, please, I’m your mother. I love you.” Pictures started flashing in the fire. The time the Prince and his mother covered the long wall of the great hall in canvas and painted the best/worst mural in history. The time he and his mother went sailing and they both got seasick and spent the whole trip playing cards below decks. The time he asked his mother if he could do something good for everybody, and together they organized a royal carnival that went town to town for years. The fire diminished. Sentimentalism was the key to the Prince’s heart, clearly. To hit it home, the Queen showed him the time she found him crying because one of the cook’s sons had been mean to him. She held him until he stopped.
“Oh, mother,” the Prince said in a voice she had never heard from him before. “Bad example.”
The flames rose again. A new scene flashed in the flames - two young boys, the cook’s son looking at his feet while the other listened tearfully. “My mum says I can’t play with you anymore. That it’s too dangerous.” An instant later the boy stood crying on the guillotine scaffold, and the child Prince sobbed from a distance as his friend got beheaded. The fire burned big and bright. An unlit torch appeared in the Prince’s hand.
“All my life, I worked so hard to counter the damage you did.” The flames showed one beheading after another; one hanging after another. “I blamed myself for not being able to keep you happy--on the days you were happy, no one suffered.” The flames recalled him apologizing to distraught families. “I see now trying to manage you was stupid and shortsighted.” The Prince saw the teenage version of his mother standing nearby, watching. “You’re right, it’s over for you. If I don’t do this, you’ll either be executed, or jailed for life. If I do, I can save people worth saving. If I kill you here…kill this part of you here, I’d be saving you, too. This is a mercy.”
“I am what I am, and I have the right to exist. Who are you to judge me?!”
“I haven’t, mother. You judged yourself.” He lit her on fire.
She screamed and tried to escape the heat. “You tell yourself that. You tell yourself that if that’s what you want to believe!!” The blaze grew, burning faster than something would in the real world. The roar was deafening, but underneath he could hear her final curses. “Murderer!! Murderer!!” He watched her turn to ash with a detached stoicism, deeply stunned by his own actions. The Princess came up beside him.
“Thank you,” she said. Her hand was on fire. “And here.” She punched him in the belly.
To Chapter Twenty-Five...