Revelations
The burial procession the next day was grand. Most of the whole village walked to the palace in a long thick line trailing and bending around the village, some women wailing and some men snapping their fingers over their heads. Some rolled in the sand, grieving over their King, the old men just kept shaking their heads with folded arms, as the well built servants lifted the adorned body on a platform and carried him into the palace grounds, in which had been dug a hole that it would be put. King Greda and his mother, Queen Shere were covered from neck to ankle with the burial gown made of the most undesirable plant material to be worn, Goja, because of its tendency to easily attract dust and because it had an ugly sag on the body of its wearer. The Queen was sobbing and Greda supporting her with an arm, because she was weak.
His mind was rupturing over things he could not understand; his father’s death, and his loss of memory for 11 fortnights. He had been asleep since he had recovered from the incident, up until the morning of the burial, when the news was broken to him. It took him some time before he could understand anything anyone was saying, because he felt like he had been asleep since his coronation. King Mogg’s body was lowered into the hole and covered.
That was when Greda broke a small tear.
“Your highness, I swear by the gods, I knew it wasn’t you. I just knew.” Fonjam had told King Greda the next day.
King Greda didn’t respond. He was still thinking, trying to make proper sense of the past three days.
“My King?”
“Yes, I am listening. I just can’t understand –“
“Well, that is what I am here to tell you, my King… this thing I am about to tell you, please, take it as calmly as you can. It is about your father.”
“Please”, he paused, sighed and looked at Fonjam, “tell me, my friend.”
Fonjam suddenly lost his courage, but he had already bitten deep into King Greda’s attention.
“Your fa… err… King Mogg, he was…” he swallowed, “He was controlling your mind.”
“How?”
Fonjam sighed deeply, buying the time to put his words right this time.
“He cast a spell on your crown, in order that you lose your will to his.” It did not seem enough.
“Somebody saw him and heard his conversation with Bantaik before Bantaik died and found –“
“Bantaik is dead?”
“It is a long story, your highness.” He paused, in order not to rush so much of the story all at once.
“I knew it! I knew my father meant evil in some way! Ah! I just did not know that he would go this far.”
Fonjam, now surprised that even the vain effort to make himself clear had sunk in, continued the story, now looking into King Greda’s eyes. Fury was growing in them, but it was controlled.
“Perhaps he had intended to hide something from you –“
“And he has done quite the opposite. He has shown that he is a liar, and does not regard his very own as worthy to be King. That is just what it logically means.”
Fonjam had no opinion about that. But he went ahead to narrate the full story; what Tandoop had seen and heard at the shrine and how Rubinto and Edongo were involved with helping to undo the curse. He tried to calm King Greda down, but to no avail. It got to a point, Greda could not bear to hear anymore, and without saying a word, he got up from his throne and stomped to his room, leaving the crown on the throne. He did not come out for hours.
The Queen had grown bags beneath her eyes from crying and lack of sleep, and the way her face wrinkled in just a few days was worth years of hardship. Even though things were many times not smooth between her and Mogg, she had remembered days when things were better, and it hurt to remember, because he was gone. They had spent many years together with no child and they seemed to stand stronger even then, than when he had taken the child from that evil place; that child, whom all his love had been given before he had his own son.
It was a place she had only imagined, but just the thought of it shook her to her bones. King Mogg had told her the story when he came, with the dread and terror of evil so strong in his eyes and his voice, so much that it made him sick, and because he had desired to forget it himself, neither of them mentioned it for years. She was soon going to die, and the best thing for her to do to give King Greda, her son, a better life and reign than he had, was to tell him who his father, King Mogg, was.
His mind was rupturing over things he could not understand; his father’s death, and his loss of memory for 11 fortnights. He had been asleep since he had recovered from the incident, up until the morning of the burial, when the news was broken to him. It took him some time before he could understand anything anyone was saying, because he felt like he had been asleep since his coronation. King Mogg’s body was lowered into the hole and covered.
That was when Greda broke a small tear.
“Your highness, I swear by the gods, I knew it wasn’t you. I just knew.” Fonjam had told King Greda the next day.
King Greda didn’t respond. He was still thinking, trying to make proper sense of the past three days.
“My King?”
“Yes, I am listening. I just can’t understand –“
“Well, that is what I am here to tell you, my King… this thing I am about to tell you, please, take it as calmly as you can. It is about your father.”
“Please”, he paused, sighed and looked at Fonjam, “tell me, my friend.”
Fonjam suddenly lost his courage, but he had already bitten deep into King Greda’s attention.
“Your fa… err… King Mogg, he was…” he swallowed, “He was controlling your mind.”
“How?”
Fonjam sighed deeply, buying the time to put his words right this time.
“He cast a spell on your crown, in order that you lose your will to his.” It did not seem enough.
“Somebody saw him and heard his conversation with Bantaik before Bantaik died and found –“
“Bantaik is dead?”
“It is a long story, your highness.” He paused, in order not to rush so much of the story all at once.
“I knew it! I knew my father meant evil in some way! Ah! I just did not know that he would go this far.”
Fonjam, now surprised that even the vain effort to make himself clear had sunk in, continued the story, now looking into King Greda’s eyes. Fury was growing in them, but it was controlled.
“Perhaps he had intended to hide something from you –“
“And he has done quite the opposite. He has shown that he is a liar, and does not regard his very own as worthy to be King. That is just what it logically means.”
Fonjam had no opinion about that. But he went ahead to narrate the full story; what Tandoop had seen and heard at the shrine and how Rubinto and Edongo were involved with helping to undo the curse. He tried to calm King Greda down, but to no avail. It got to a point, Greda could not bear to hear anymore, and without saying a word, he got up from his throne and stomped to his room, leaving the crown on the throne. He did not come out for hours.
The Queen had grown bags beneath her eyes from crying and lack of sleep, and the way her face wrinkled in just a few days was worth years of hardship. Even though things were many times not smooth between her and Mogg, she had remembered days when things were better, and it hurt to remember, because he was gone. They had spent many years together with no child and they seemed to stand stronger even then, than when he had taken the child from that evil place; that child, whom all his love had been given before he had his own son.
It was a place she had only imagined, but just the thought of it shook her to her bones. King Mogg had told her the story when he came, with the dread and terror of evil so strong in his eyes and his voice, so much that it made him sick, and because he had desired to forget it himself, neither of them mentioned it for years. She was soon going to die, and the best thing for her to do to give King Greda, her son, a better life and reign than he had, was to tell him who his father, King Mogg, was.
Greda
“Your highness…?” The old woman called out after knocking on Greda’s door.
“Mother…”
“I am coming inside.”
“Do.”
She pushed gently and entered head-first, then she sat on his bed, moving close to him. His mind was already engaged on the discussion that was coming, though he did not know what it was about.
“You can always take a quiet walk outside the palace as you please if you need to ease yourself from all the stress of the past few days.”
No response.
“I thought you would be asleep… to fully recover from your illness.”
“Hmm”, Greda puffed without opening his mouth.
She paused and looked into her son’s eyes, but he avoided hers. She couldn’t find a smooth ground to land her words, even as a mother to a son. She sighed and said what she had kept from saying immediately earlier on.
“I know how this feels for you. But I know that you are strong, and Gardutkar has not seen better. You will be a great King. Even more than your father…” She said these words with hope as she began to feel awkward talking to Greda; he was not answering.
“And…”
As soon as she started her next sentence and stopped – her voice breaking in the process – the atmosphere seemed to change and she continued, “…there is something I must tell…you, so that I can join your father in peace.” Her breathing was getting hard. So was his. “I’m afraid it is something very dark… a secret I have kept for –“
“Is it about my sickness?” He finally opened, putting emphatic stress on the word ‘sickness’. She did not seem to understand. “The curse that your beloved husband put on my crown during my coronation as King?!”
At that moment, she stood, and a bleak realization like a cold wind blew over her body, sending shivers down her spine and almost knocking her to the ground.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, mother, you don’t! My own father cursed my crown and tried to control my mind and –“
“I believe you.” She cut him off, tears falling down her cheeks. Her arms were trembling. “I was afraid his character would burst out of control, and I took it too lightly.” Then she started to wail, but he held her and tried to make her sit down, but she wanted to sit on the ground. It broke him.
“Mama, please, stand up. Don’t cry!” The title ‘Mama’ came from a side of his mind he did not know existed, because he could not remember ever calling her that way. It was an ancient and intimate way of referring to a mother, especially for a royal family, which he had learnt from the late King Mogg.
“No! Let me die now! I can’t bear the hurt darkness has brought to this house everyday! I can’t bear it any longer.”
“Mother, please calm down. Stop crying. You will keep wearing yourself out like this.”
Sobs and more sobs, then she eventually calmed down after a few minutes.
“This land, this place, Gardutkar… this is just one of the many sides of existence.”
“I don’t know what you are saying.”
“Greda, long before you were born, before your father was King, he fought a very dark war. It was men and spirits creatures against other men, though only few could see the spirits as they were gifted. I am sure you have heard stories about the rebellion and how your father conquered.” She did not wait for an affirmation, “Mogg’s father was the Spokesman, so he had learnt a little divination and how to manipulate abstract powers from his father, even though he was a hunter.”
Greda sat expressionless, attentive to the story.
“The child that your father rescued… he did not find it lying around after the war. He saw the baby and the mother just moments after it was removed from its mother’s womb.” She stood up from the floor and sat close to him again. “On the day the child was to be born, the spirit creatures from a mysterious place had taken the pregnant mother away in order to remove the child and use it for some kind of evil sacrifice… Mogg saw them enter their existence, their spirit land, through a hole they created at a hidden path way in the forbidden forest, so he found a way to get through to follow them.”
When Greda sighed, she waited, but when he had neither said nor asked anything, she continued, “That pathway… Is still there, but no one can see it unless they open it for the eyes to see –“
“You mean, there is a pathway that leads away from this village that we all believe is surrounded by mountain walls, depth and valley?”
“It is so. But there are two pathways, both in the same place and position, one is of this existence, the other is of another.”
Greda, leaning his right elbow against his right knee, put his thumb and index finger on his forehead, slightly shaking his head.
“It is one of the reasons it is forbidden.” She continued. “So Mogg followed them and just as they had cut the mother open to take the child, Mogg saved them and brought them home, sealing the pathway. The mother had lost much of her blood, so she died, leaving the child in Mogg’s hands. He loved the child so he took it.”
Everything sounded otherworldly to Greda, but for some reason, he was relieved to know that there was more than met the eyes.
“I am not proud to say that I hated the child; I did. And at that time, I had none to call my own that I had given birth to from my womb. Even after the people made Mogg King, I was given very little respect as a woman and as a Queen, and some people even considered it an abomination for the Queen to be barren. I was a mother to many, yet I had none to call my own. But the gods finally smiled on me and gave me you.”
Greda was frowning a hard frown and gritting his teeth, making his jaw to bulge. He folded his arms, as though waiting to vent his anger.
“That was when everything turned around. Because you were born, he had to go. He wanted the boy to be Oontab, but he could not since the King now had an heir to his throne. The gods instructed that he be sent away, and he was.”
She had clenched her fist before she was soothed enough to say her next words, “But he came back. At first, I noticed that Mogg was calling him ‘Oontab’, so when I confronted Mogg about it, I knew that it was the boy who had returned, and I don’t know why, but he chose to keep himself hidden. I tried many times to make Mogg send him away, but he was stubborn, so I did my best to avoid any clash with the boy. Till this moment, the boy is in the palace.”
“He is still in the palace?!” Greda jumped up. When she kept saying ‘boy’, Greda could not put the image right in his head, so he had to ask, “Tell me, who is he?”
She replied without flinching, “Kanaka, the chief palace guard.”
The next thing that happened led a long trail of events. It began when Greda, enraged, jumped up from his bed, crashing his hands into the seat beside it and shattering the bamboo window of his room with the legs of the now broken and torn apart seat. The Queen stood up, putting her hands on her head and yelling for calm when one of the bamboo sticks from the window bent towards her face and tore her cheek deeply. She fell to the ground and lay there, and Greda whose rage grew limitless had run out of the room without looking back to see that he had hurt his mother. He was looking for an object; any one in particular. The boy must go.
“Mother…”
“I am coming inside.”
“Do.”
She pushed gently and entered head-first, then she sat on his bed, moving close to him. His mind was already engaged on the discussion that was coming, though he did not know what it was about.
“You can always take a quiet walk outside the palace as you please if you need to ease yourself from all the stress of the past few days.”
No response.
“I thought you would be asleep… to fully recover from your illness.”
“Hmm”, Greda puffed without opening his mouth.
She paused and looked into her son’s eyes, but he avoided hers. She couldn’t find a smooth ground to land her words, even as a mother to a son. She sighed and said what she had kept from saying immediately earlier on.
“I know how this feels for you. But I know that you are strong, and Gardutkar has not seen better. You will be a great King. Even more than your father…” She said these words with hope as she began to feel awkward talking to Greda; he was not answering.
“And…”
As soon as she started her next sentence and stopped – her voice breaking in the process – the atmosphere seemed to change and she continued, “…there is something I must tell…you, so that I can join your father in peace.” Her breathing was getting hard. So was his. “I’m afraid it is something very dark… a secret I have kept for –“
“Is it about my sickness?” He finally opened, putting emphatic stress on the word ‘sickness’. She did not seem to understand. “The curse that your beloved husband put on my crown during my coronation as King?!”
At that moment, she stood, and a bleak realization like a cold wind blew over her body, sending shivers down her spine and almost knocking her to the ground.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, mother, you don’t! My own father cursed my crown and tried to control my mind and –“
“I believe you.” She cut him off, tears falling down her cheeks. Her arms were trembling. “I was afraid his character would burst out of control, and I took it too lightly.” Then she started to wail, but he held her and tried to make her sit down, but she wanted to sit on the ground. It broke him.
“Mama, please, stand up. Don’t cry!” The title ‘Mama’ came from a side of his mind he did not know existed, because he could not remember ever calling her that way. It was an ancient and intimate way of referring to a mother, especially for a royal family, which he had learnt from the late King Mogg.
“No! Let me die now! I can’t bear the hurt darkness has brought to this house everyday! I can’t bear it any longer.”
“Mother, please calm down. Stop crying. You will keep wearing yourself out like this.”
Sobs and more sobs, then she eventually calmed down after a few minutes.
“This land, this place, Gardutkar… this is just one of the many sides of existence.”
“I don’t know what you are saying.”
“Greda, long before you were born, before your father was King, he fought a very dark war. It was men and spirits creatures against other men, though only few could see the spirits as they were gifted. I am sure you have heard stories about the rebellion and how your father conquered.” She did not wait for an affirmation, “Mogg’s father was the Spokesman, so he had learnt a little divination and how to manipulate abstract powers from his father, even though he was a hunter.”
Greda sat expressionless, attentive to the story.
“The child that your father rescued… he did not find it lying around after the war. He saw the baby and the mother just moments after it was removed from its mother’s womb.” She stood up from the floor and sat close to him again. “On the day the child was to be born, the spirit creatures from a mysterious place had taken the pregnant mother away in order to remove the child and use it for some kind of evil sacrifice… Mogg saw them enter their existence, their spirit land, through a hole they created at a hidden path way in the forbidden forest, so he found a way to get through to follow them.”
When Greda sighed, she waited, but when he had neither said nor asked anything, she continued, “That pathway… Is still there, but no one can see it unless they open it for the eyes to see –“
“You mean, there is a pathway that leads away from this village that we all believe is surrounded by mountain walls, depth and valley?”
“It is so. But there are two pathways, both in the same place and position, one is of this existence, the other is of another.”
Greda, leaning his right elbow against his right knee, put his thumb and index finger on his forehead, slightly shaking his head.
“It is one of the reasons it is forbidden.” She continued. “So Mogg followed them and just as they had cut the mother open to take the child, Mogg saved them and brought them home, sealing the pathway. The mother had lost much of her blood, so she died, leaving the child in Mogg’s hands. He loved the child so he took it.”
Everything sounded otherworldly to Greda, but for some reason, he was relieved to know that there was more than met the eyes.
“I am not proud to say that I hated the child; I did. And at that time, I had none to call my own that I had given birth to from my womb. Even after the people made Mogg King, I was given very little respect as a woman and as a Queen, and some people even considered it an abomination for the Queen to be barren. I was a mother to many, yet I had none to call my own. But the gods finally smiled on me and gave me you.”
Greda was frowning a hard frown and gritting his teeth, making his jaw to bulge. He folded his arms, as though waiting to vent his anger.
“That was when everything turned around. Because you were born, he had to go. He wanted the boy to be Oontab, but he could not since the King now had an heir to his throne. The gods instructed that he be sent away, and he was.”
She had clenched her fist before she was soothed enough to say her next words, “But he came back. At first, I noticed that Mogg was calling him ‘Oontab’, so when I confronted Mogg about it, I knew that it was the boy who had returned, and I don’t know why, but he chose to keep himself hidden. I tried many times to make Mogg send him away, but he was stubborn, so I did my best to avoid any clash with the boy. Till this moment, the boy is in the palace.”
“He is still in the palace?!” Greda jumped up. When she kept saying ‘boy’, Greda could not put the image right in his head, so he had to ask, “Tell me, who is he?”
She replied without flinching, “Kanaka, the chief palace guard.”
The next thing that happened led a long trail of events. It began when Greda, enraged, jumped up from his bed, crashing his hands into the seat beside it and shattering the bamboo window of his room with the legs of the now broken and torn apart seat. The Queen stood up, putting her hands on her head and yelling for calm when one of the bamboo sticks from the window bent towards her face and tore her cheek deeply. She fell to the ground and lay there, and Greda whose rage grew limitless had run out of the room without looking back to see that he had hurt his mother. He was looking for an object; any one in particular. The boy must go.
To be continued...
- Telsum Bini
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