The king was reflecting. Presently, he was reflecting on what he should reflect on for the next half hour. If he had been a less disciplined man, he wouldn't have reflected at all, but reflection was in the schedule for today, so he sat and reflected. You don't get to be king by avoiding the things on your schedule.
At this thought, the king decided to reflect on how he became king. It was a good story, which he told himself often to remember how very clever he had been in becoming king. He always talked to himself out loud when he told himself the story. It went something like this:
Many years ago, before I was a king, I was lord over the modest city of Roskilde. Though the people of my fair city where relatively happy under my lordship, I desired better things for them, and set about building that future. Through my wisdom, we developed a water management system, that allowed us to generate three times the crop yield we had in previous years. I surveyed the land and found good places to open mines for silver, copper, and iron.
The construction of an iron mine proved my greatest stroke of genius, as it allowed my people to construct weapons of unparalleled power. My city became the industrial center of the region. My people labored tirelessly, producing unbreakable armor, longspears, and iron chariots.
Some the other cities in the region began to fear me, for they knew that at a whim I could crush them under my heel. But I was both wise and and merciful, and using my skill in diplomacy, I instead invited the other cities to unite with me and form my first kingdom. (Naturally I would be king, for who else had the wisdom to to govern such an alliance?) All the cities gratefully accepted my offer, and we began to build a consolidated force.
We expanded quickly for some time, with more and more cities joining our kingdom. Eventually, we met the borders of other kingdoms, and I graciously allowed them to ally themselves under me, as I had with the cities before. But these people where proud and stiff-necked, and they spurned my grace and killed my emissaries. So, of course I sought to discipline them, because though I did not know them, I loved them, and wanted them to experience the bounty and peace of my reign. I was like a father to them, disciplining children whom he loves.
There were many wars with many nations after that, and I lead my troops fearless from the front, slaying thousands with my own spear. My cunning strategy and raw courage lead my troops to stunning victory after victory, and soon my kingdom stretched from the Western Sea to the Eastern Sea, and from the Southern Desert to the Northern Wastes.
Of course, one cannot discipline a nation in the same way he disciplines a single person. Because I loved them, I burned many of their cities. And some men I slew in battle, and others I had executed, and still others I disfigured. Though the discipline was painful for them, I know it did them well, for now they are my loyal subjects.
Of course, it would be dishonest of me not to admit that those conquered peoples benefited me as well. The treasures those lands had horded from other conquered peoples, I redistributed to the benefit of my entire kingdom. I built a spectacular palace with gold from the East and gemstones from the West so that all who ventured to my capitol might appreciate the splendor of our kingdom.
I collected beautiful virgins from every town in my kingdom for my harem, so every city and village could be represented in my children. The women were exceedingly beautiful, and I took much pleasure in them, and indeed, they were my prized possessions. I cannot imagine how much they adore me, after I rescued them from their families' mud huts and hopeless futures in farming towns, introducing them instead to a life of fine food, silk clothing, and gold jewelry, with no work to do whatsoever, bearing children to the king himself. Many of them do not speak our language, but I can see their worship in their eyes. Suddenly the king was greatly troubled, for he began to reflect in earnest. He recalled the former days, when his harem pleased him, so that whatever troubled him in the managing of his kingdom during the day could be soothed away by evening. As the king thought, though, he realized that now he went to bed anxious, sleeping little and waking early.
And yet, he thought,
the management of the kingdom goes well, and there is less strain on my leadership that in the old days of constant war. I have brought peace to the world and yet I am less at peace than when the world was at war. Could it be that I have lost the strength I used to have? Am I growing old and weak? The king shook his head of such notions. Was he not still strong enough to fight in war? Surely he had not weakened. Perhaps it was his harem that was no longer as soothing as in the old days. That seemed to make sense. He remembered his first wives being more beautiful than these new women they were always sending him. Not that he didn't still have the pick of the crop, but they were what he thought of as commonly beautiful. It had been many years since a woman's beauty had taken his breath.
Yes, he concluded,
it was seem that women of great beauty are harder to find these days. Perhaps I shall have to attend to this issue.At the evening feast, he dined with the generals of his Northern Armies. The king heard many strange tales from them. It seemed a group of rebels or savages had taken refuge in the Great Forest in the far North, for no patrol that went into the forest ever returned. Only a few weeks ago, a company of several hundred men had vanished mysteriously into the forest. One of the generals darkly suggested the rebels might have a sorcerer.
Though the other generals shushed him, the king noticed that they all had similar expressions of fear when the forest was mentioned. Feeling in a gracious mood, the king ordered that the Northern forces be doubled, and that the realm's best magicians be sent to assist the generals in stamping out the rebellion. The generals seemed relieved to have avoided punishment, and the king smiled at his own benevolence.
That night, after the feast, the king ordered that some of his first wives be sent to him that night. Usually, the king preferred the younger women, but he hoped that night he would be able to see again the beauty that stole his breath so many years ago.
The king was disappointed, in his memories, his first wives seemed to be some of the most glorious creatures he had ever seen. When they were brought to him, he reeled in shock. They seemed... common. Undoubtedly their features were faded with age, but even so, they did not seem to have any remnant of the splendor he remembered from his wedding nights.
The king slept restlessly that night and awoke early the next morning. For the first morning since his youth, the king did not want to get out of bed. He hid under the covers, fearing he knew not what until his attendants came to dress him for breakfast.
The king maintained a jovial facade through the following days and weeks, insisting that he was doing better than ever, but the ulcers forming in his stomach told another story. The king woke each morning in a despair that he only covered up for the shame of it. He went through each day in a fog of anxiety, becoming increasingly disconnected from the events in his kingdom. He slept less and less.
The court magicians and doctors were unable to help the king. He took to heavy drinking, but gave it up because of the terrible hangovers. The managers of his harem did everything to attempt to send pleasing women, but the king was no longer amused. He took to spending a great deal of time on the roof of the castle, pondering questions which he could not articulate.
Even so, the king kept his schedule rigorously. It is the mark of a great man: to keep his schedule rigorously, regardless of whatever personal storms he may be enduring. The king applauded himself for his endurance. Indeed, such pride was one of the few joys left to him.
One afternoon, he had scheduled to be entertained by one of the court storytellers. Originally, the king was bored with the story, which was a tragedy about one of the Northern Kingdoms he had conquered a decade or so ago. This particular kingdom had been easy to conquer because the entire royal court, including the king, had suddenly vanished. The storyteller recounted a myth of their disappearance.
The tragedy began with the death of the queen of the realm. The king in the story was so distraught by her death that his counselors feared he might take his life. In desperation, they encouraged him to go on a quest to tame a a fabled spirit. It was said this spirit inherited the beauty of every woman when she died, and, for the man who could tame it, would become the most beautiful and loving woman in the world. Should the king be able to tame the spirit, not only should his grief over his deceased wife be assuaged, but he could take the spirit as his wife, and her power would bring great blessing to the realm.
However, the spirit was guarded by some unknown creature or force. No one knew what guarded her, for none had ever encountered it and lived. Some suspect the spirit had an army of loyal followers, others thought a dragon or some worse beast, others a warlock and still others some kind of fell demon or spirit. All that is known is that those who go seeking her are found dead with no injury whatsoever, without weapons drawn or any sign of danger except an expression of shock and horror on their face.
And while the story of the king who sought the most beautiful woman in world lagged on, stopping for an adventure here or a soliloquy there, that was his eventual end as well. Eventually he tracked down the forest she was said to hide in, went in, and was never seen alive again. Months later, a search party found his body and the bodies of all that were with him, untouched by animals or decay, uninjured, but dead. Surrounding them were hundreds of other bodies of other adventurers who had set out to find the woman.
The king was on the edge of his seat by the end of the tale. He questioned the storyteller in detail about every aspect. The storyteller was able to provide little more detail, except the say that the forest the spirit resided in was about a month's ride from the city of Bera, and that it was large enough to be mostly unexplored.
That night, during the time scheduled for the king to study in his library, he pulled out a map of the region of Bera, and using a compass, drew a circle encompassing the ground that could be covered in a generous estimate of a month's ride. The story said the royal party had passed thorugh numerous small towns and country but made no mention of any large cities, so the king systematically eliminated all routes from Bera that passed through a large city or exclusively through wilderness. He worked quickly, with fervor like a man possessed.
He circled all forests along the remaining routes and then pulled out reports on these lands from his library. He carefully eliminated forests that were regularly hunted, traveled, or used for timber, supposing that the forest in question must be largely unexplored. After his work, only three forests remained as possible candidates. Two lay to the south west, about ten miles apart, moderate in size, but large enough to hide an army or a dragon. The third composed the entire northern boundary of his empire. Pondering this, he realized this was the same forest in which his patrols were regularly disappearing due to a rebellion on the northern perimeter.
He disrupted his schedule to send urgent dispatches (for which a disruption in the schedule was allowed) to the effect that his generals report immediately on the success of the new army against the rebellion, that aggressive measures be taken to quell the uprising, and that a thorough survey of the two southwesterly forests be undertaken at once. Impressed with his efficiency, the king dined briefly with a few of his noblemen, and retired for the night.
He slept well for the first time in many months, dreaming of the peace and joy that would be brought if he could tame the spirit into a woman and bring her home as his bride. He imagined a glorious battle against a formless dark enemy, which he heroically conquered to free a woman of unspeakable beauty, who fell into his arms, overcome with gratitude and longing for him.
A few weeks later, a dispatch returned, reporting that the northern generals had sent a contingent of cavalry to map out the two southern forests as ordered. Companies had been sent in to probe the Northern Forest at 10 mile increments across a 150 mile line, and all of them had gone missing. The generals had now consolidated all their forces into an army of more than a hundred thousand soldiers, and intended to move into the forest in one well defended blob. Furthermore, the soldiers were to leave a wide path of downed trees to indicate their progress, and deploy a group of scouts every day to report where the army made camp. The king replied that he was pleased with the decision.
The king received reports regularly that the move into the forest was encountering no resistance, nor any evidence that anyone was living in the forest. They occasionally came upon perfectly preserved dead bodies, as seemed to be the magic of the forest, but all of them seemed to be dressed as in ages past, and none wore a soldiers uniform.
On the tenth day, the army came upon the camp of one of the companies sent into the forest previously. Unlike previous camps they had come upon, this company had their weapons drawn, and seemed to have formed a line of defense against the beast. There were arrows lodged in tree trunks near where the beast seemed to have approached, and the magician who had been with them had left scorch marks on the ground where he had landed spells. Still, all the soldiers were dead, without any sign of injury or decay. The colonial in command commented that it appeared all the soldiers had been frightened to death.
On the fifteenth day, no scout was dispatched to report on progress. The command outside the forest sent cavalry in to check on the army, and found they had been massacred in the same way as all the others, except that this time it seemed that some had tried to flee, and had gotten many leagues before the beast had caught them. As before, many had draw their weapons or fired arrows before their death. Furthermore, some of the more powerful magicians were still alive, but seemed to be in a deep sleep, from which it was impossible to wake them. The cavalry had returned with the comatose magicians and were awaiting further orders.
The king declared a state of war against the “rebels” in the North, allowing him to muster the entire army of the Empire, which he ordered to rally at Bera. He himself departed from Roskilde, taking with him his Imperial Guard, and arrived at Bera ahead of his armies. He gave further orders that every magician in the Empire, whether battle trained or not, was to meet the army at Bera and join in the war.
Numbering more than a million infantry and a hundred thousand cavalry, with additional knights, paladins, elephants, and siege weapons, and army of the empire took many months to organize. During this time the king spent many months with his counselors and magicians, analyzing what type of beast the army might be facing. After much effort, they were able to awake the sleeping magicians and hear their report. It went like this:
We sensed a presence approaching us through the trees. It was more magically powerful than any entity I have ever encountered. We alerted the commander, who gave the call to arms. As the entity drew closer, a certain awe seemed to fill us, a mixture of fear and a strange affection. We could not turn away from it once it got close enough. The men fired their arrows to stave it off, but I do not believe it has a physical body, so the arrows did no damage. We began to cast spells at it, but they seemed to have no effect. We continued to try different spells, hoping one would drive off the spirit. There were very many of us, and the trees obscured the view of the whole army. As soon as a soldier saw the entity, they froze on the spot, seized, and died. The troops in the rear broke ranks and fled. We watched the army collapsing like grain at the harvest before us, and we pooled out strength, casting the most powerful spell we knew. The strength of the spell was such that some of us died, and the rest of us fell into a coma, face down. I believe that is why we survived, because we never looked at it face to face.
The king's counselors were deeply troubled, and they encouraged him to to abandon the effort, but the king was reassured.
He said to them, “Do you not understand? The power of the beast is fear. It is so fearsome that any who look on it die of the spot. But I fear nothing at all! I will be able to conquer the beast. Indeed, I am perhaps the only hero who can. I will lead the army from the very front. My courage will inspire the whole army, and we shall destroy the fell beast.”
That night the king searched his heart, to examine if there was any fear in him, but he found none. He did not fear death, for he knew a man as great as he should have a fine afterlife. He did not fear losing his kingdom, because life as a king had become so unbearable. All his hope for joy hung on finding the most beautiful spirit and bringing her home. Failing this, he had nothing to lose.
The army set out with the king in front. Entering the forest, they found an exceedingly old man blocking the path. He had almost no hair, with wrinkled skin that sagged all over his body. His knuckles were swollen and purple veins were visible across them.
Yet, the man wore richly colored robes, only a little frayed, with gold and silver inlaid into them. His staff was a nobleman's, inlaid with diamonds and rubies. With great effort, the old man raised his hand, palm outwards, toward the king.
“Hail to The King of Roskilde!” he called in a horse voice.
The king looked down from his horse, “Hail, stranger! Who are you, and why do you block our path.”
“I am the prince of the north, I come to warn the king of the south about the forest he is about to enter. I bear this message to the king: 'There are more dangerous things than fear.'”
The king was angry that this old man would presume to be a prince, but he decided to ask more questions before he killed the wretch. Yet, as soon as the old man had finished his message, he seemed to evaporate in a multi-colored mist, which drifted into the forest.
The men nearby muttered to each other.
“Just a magicians trick!” the king called out loudly, and lead his disconcerted men into the forest before there could be any further sign of mutiny.
Weeks went by of riding through the forest. Nothing happened. The men began to relax, the king grew tense. He wondered what could be worse than fear. All his being was bent into this last adventure to slay some great beast and win the woman who would finally bring him happiness. Each day of monotony hardened the king's resolve.
The forest was thousands of years old, with trees taller than Roskilde's turrets. Summer turned to autumn, and the forest seemed to blossom rather than die. The cool green surrounding the army turned into brilliant shades of orange, as though the roots of the trees drank in fire rather than water. Strange birds the men had never seen filled the skies. Berries and autumn flowers covered the ground.
All this was lost on the king, who forged ahead with the greatest possible speed to meet the beast, not stopping to look upon the forest. Eventually the forest became so thick they were forced to abandon the horses and go on foot.
Weeks turned into months, and the leafy trees turned into pine trees. The undergrowth was replaced by bare ground covered only with a thick blanket of needles. Fall turned to winter, and snow began to fall, first in occasional flurries, then in a steady pour.
The forest seemed to retain warmth, and the journey under the trees remained fairly comfortable. The trees were so think that almost no snow made it to the ground, rather, several feet of snow formed a ceiling above them. Little sunlight penetrated the snow, so it seemed the forest was in a perpetual dusk. The party began to make torches out of pine branches. The king felt they were exploring a cave.
It was dark, and the party was preceding only by torchlight. The king did not bother to carry a torch because he had good eyesight in the dark. He forged ahead of the company by about ten yards, his eyes casting about eagerly for any sign of the beast.
At first he thought it was just the torchlight flickering off the snow, but as he stared into the darkness he became more sure he saw a green light in the distance. Perhaps the eyes of the beast? Did it have green eyes? Perhaps a camp of rebels protected by the beast? The king took off towards it at a run.
The king crossed through the forest at a dead sprint for two hundred yards before the light seemed any brighter. He was no longer aware of whether his men were with him or not. He drew his sword.
The king went through a clearing and into the trees on the other side. Then he could see clearly that something emitting a blue green light was moving through the trees. The light glistened off the ice crystals on the trees and broke into a thousand different hues. It formed a slow rainbow on the snow above him, and he remembered watching the sun set over the ocean as a boy, with his father standing next to him.
He shook the memory from his head and ran on, but the beauty in the clearing continued to distract him. Trails of luminescent mist in ran across the snow ceiling like ants on the ground. It wrapped itself in spirals around the trees and pooled on the ground.
Suddenly he saw her. His sword fell to the the ground. He had never seen a woman so exceedingly beautiful. It must be true that the Spirit inherited the beauty of all the women who died. Her garments were translucent, and light shone through them so strongly it was difficult to look at her directly.
There was a veil over her face, but through it he could see her mouth. It twisted up in a cocky smile. “Why have you come here?” Her voice was high and breathy, full of concern.
The king's heart filled with joy. Surely, this was the trophy that would complete his reign. Surely he would please him beyond all the other women he had seen, and he would allow her to appear in his court on occasion, and other rulers would surrender cities for a chance to see her.
“I have come to make you my wife.”
“And what if I do not wish to be your wife?”
“I do not want to have to force you.”
“Oh, but you do want to.”
“Either way, you will not be able to resist me.”
“Why are you so sure, man, that you will be able to resist me?”
The king expected himself to laugh out loud, but instead he shuddered. Some hidden power displayed itself in the spirit's statement.
The spirit pulled on her veil, and her clothing tore noiselessly and fell to the ground. Her nudity was crushing. Though he had seen plenty of women, looking at this spirit being destroyed his will. He could no longer rule nations. He could no longer govern himself. He fell to the ground and groveled.
He would take her back to Roskilde. He would give her his kingdom. She would be queen and have all he could give her, and he would serve her until he died. It was not fitting that such an ugly creature as he should exist in the same world as she. He tried to tell her all this, but the speech caught in his throat.
All he managed was, “Your face is so beautiful.”
She laughed at him and a strange look came over her. “But, you have not seen my face.”
He looked her in the eyes and tried to ask the question, but he could not. As if in answer, she reached up and pulled on her nose.
The king watched in horror as her skin wrinkled before him. She aged eighty year in a few seconds. Her perfect skin blemished and paled. Her veins bulged out, and her back hunched. Her firm body sagged and bloated. Bruises appeared under paperthin skin.
She continued to pull at her thinning skin, and it stared to come off. With a tremendous but soundless tear, her skin slid off in one smooth movement.
Standing where the woman had been was something like a man in a robe. The robe seemed to be woven out of charcoal and flame. It shifted as though in the wind, and it was sometimes black and sometimes aflame.
Out of the darkness in the robe stared hundreds of pairs of eyes. The eyes would blink and become a different pair of eyes. And all the eyes were fixed on the king, who still lay on the ground. Pinned by wonder rather than fear.
And one by one his eyes locked with the eyes in the robe, and each time memories flooded into him. He saw the faces of women he had violated, saw them clearly for the first time. He watched again as he destroyed beautiful creatures and laughed at their misery. He saw the faces of the people he burned to death in their homes, one after another he watched their suffering, but this time, he loved them. With each death crushed him anew. He watched mothers grieving over sons and fathers over daughters. He saw a hundred years of history in an instant, as a whole city grew and struggled to survive and then burned at his command.
He saw the shame of stable girls he had slept with and never loved. He loved them now and sobbed as he saw them stoned in the public square carrying his unborn child. He watched people starve to death by the hundreds. People he had taken food from to finance his conquests. He felt their hunger and their love for their dying family and yearned to undo the evil he had done. The suddenly the thought occurred to him that all of this was set. It had already happened. The people he had killed were dead. The women he had raped were forever injured. There was no recompense possible.
The king felt pain beyond anything he had ever felt. He lay on the ground body intact, craving anything to stop the pain. He drew his knife to plunge it into his heart, but he locked eyes with yet another pair in the darkness of the robe. When he looked into those eyes he saw himself, dead by his own hand on the forest floor.
He saw the beauty in his own pale face. The nobility of his clothing stained with blood, and it was a wretched image of ruined beauty. He threw the knife from himself, unable to take his own life. Writhing in the agony of his wickedness. It did not get better. Image after image came to him, and he saw greater and greater beauty, and he loved the beautiful things, and he hated himself for the way he ignored it and the way he marred it. He lay moaning on the forest floor as his regret undid him.
After what seemed to be a lifetime, the man in the cloak spoke. His voice was no longer high and light. It rushed from him like a storm's wind among the trees or waves crashing on the beach, a thousand pitches in one terrible sound.
“What do you want.”
The king's mind was blank. Seemingly on their own, his lips formed words.
They said, “Show me your face.”
The man in the robe nodded, and he lifted his hood, and the king beheld The Most Beautiful, and he died.
“Moses said, "Please show me your glory." And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The LORD.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen." -Exodus 33:18-23
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