The Fallen King
A Fantasy Story
He fled. He hadn’t known what else to do, so he fled.
The dank dirt walls were close around him. Thankfully, he had the peace of mind to grab torches, which provided the only light.
He and four others made their way through the secret passage, a feature he had installed not out of paranoia, but out of perceived necessity. He never dreamed he would need to use it himself.
The castle was lost, overrun by the rebels. His own men were divided, pitted against each other amidst questions of right and wrong. He assumed that, out of the entire royal guard, exempting the ones currently with him, the rest were either dead or turncoat.
The passage cut under the castle, and from above, the sounds of rebellion could be faintly heard. As they hurried, his thoughts raced as he tried to pinpoint when exactly he had lost touch with the pulse of the city, its inhabitants, when his grip on power began slipping. He had thought his hold on his conquered territories was as strong as ever, his policies fair, his reign firm yet kind.
Up ahead, the two guards in front of him stopped, waiting, listening, allowing the others to catch up.
The king sucked in a breath of stale air, and addressed his soldiers. “We shouldn’t be far now.”
The two soldiers hardly looked winded. “Should we wait for the other two?” one asked.
“Yes, Goffrey. They aren’t too far behind.”
“Where does this end, sir?” asked the other.
“If Banfold followed my instructions correctly...” The king paused, leaving a silence to raise an ear, confirming what he knew. Two sets of steps approaching. “The others are almost here. I want to discuss with all of you what we will do next.
Just then, two men rounded the bend and into view. One was adorned in the same polished gold armor as the other two guards. He was supporting the other man, who looked to be as old as time. His beard was wispy, long thin strips doing little to hide his sallow face. His gaunt disposition was poorly hidden under his robes. He stumbled as he rounded the bend, and the guard was the only thing keeping him from falling down.
As they approached within earshot, the king began talking.
“A little farther down, this passage comes to an end. It leads to the sewers. From there, I want you three,” he looked at the guards, “to take Metrel to the surface and protect him with your life.”
He didn’t give the guards time to protest before what he said next. “I want you to denounce me, and say that you lost track of me as you pursued me.”
“Like hell we’d do that!”
“My liege, we can’t!”
“We want to fight for you, sir!”
The king raised his hands. He moved close to the man supporting Metrel, and laid a hand on his shoulder-plate.
“Gwendol, you have a wife and son waiting for you up there. My honor is not worth your sacrifice, or theirs, for mistakes I’ve made.”
He walked over to the other two, and continued.
“Goffrey, your little brother is up there. You are the only family connection he has left. And Lintz, I know you’ve been sneaking off to see someone lately.” Lintz blushed with shame. “You all have obligations to those people. Don’t throw them aside for a fool’s crusade.”
All three of his men looked troubled. Goffrey was the first to speak. “What will you do, sir? Surely you don’t mean to turn yourself in to the rebellion.”
“All my life, I’ve fought,” sighed the king. “I do not intend to lay my life down easily. We could attempt to fight them, a desperate last stand. But a wise man once told me,” his eyes locking with Metrel’s, “that retreating is an invaluable strategy in a warrior’s toolbox.”
Metrel burst into a wheezing, croaking laugh that turned into a cough.
“I may no longer be a king, but I will not stop living, nor fighting for the right to live. Exile is my only option.” The sounds of rioting, arguing, screaming, and destruction grew louder with every second. “Let’s not waste any more time. I fear the mobs may tear the castle to the ground.”
The dead end was, in fact, a door, a well-camouflaged one halfway up a stonework wall of the old sewer. Goffrey and Lintz leapt out first, followed by the king, into murky, foul-smelling water that came up past his boots, as high as his shins. Like a battlefield, if the smell was captured in a cave, he thought while suppressing a gag. He turned and helped Gwendol carefully lower Metrel down from the door, then supported him while Gwendol hopped down.
The king pointed down the gently inclining slope of the tunnel. “Head that way, you should find a place to get out along there.”
He went to transfer Metrel over to Goffrey’s waiting shoulder, but a bony hand dug into his arm. Metrel looked at him with determination flashing in his milky eyes.
“I’m going with you, Keth,” he creaked.
A hundred memories flooded through his mind, battles, meetings, games, all rolling through his head.
“I can’t say no to my closest advisor,” he finally whispered, before realizing the three guards had hardly shifted from where they were standing. “But I can say no to you lot. Get moving!”
The three guards all bore troubled expressions, a hesitation in their step, so the king mustered up a voice he’d laid dormant for a time: the voice of a general.
“Men, you will proceed down that direction, and you will denounce me as king, and you will live.
This is my final order.”
A tear rolled down Gwendol’s cheek. All three of the guards’ faces were red as beets, yet they turned and started their trek through the sludge of the sewer.
Keth waited until his former guards made a sharp right, their torchlights making their gold armor glint and shimmer, before turning the other way with his arm around Metrel, his other hand on his torch. The old man was fairly heavy for someone who looked so frail.
“Never thought…it would…come to this,” wheezed the old man, as they trudged through the foul, murky water.
Keth sighed again. He was getting quite good at it. “I always figured I’d have to deal with an angry mob one day, but I never expected the people to be so resolutely against me.”
More memories flashed, a platform, a sword, a woman, resolute and grim faced. The crowd, roiling with rage, brimming with vitriol and desperation.
“Do you think it was…?”
“I tried to… advise you. You did… what you thought… was best.”
Keth grimaced against the pain of the reprimand. Even if it hadn’t sounded like one, he knew his teacher well enough to hear the faint note of disappointment in his voice.
They slogged along, both thoroughly soaked from the waist down. Somewhere, a dripping noise reverberated throughout the sewer, bouncing off the mossy stone, finding its way into every crack and crevice, the only noise in the sewer.
The old man was shivering, but given his age, Keth thought, it could very well be from his old bones as much as the cold water.
After a ways, the old man spoke, breaking the monotonous dripping sound. “Where do you… intend to go?”
In the darkness of the sewer, Keth cracked a grin. “Do you remember that small island nestled between the Slaughtership and Scaffold Reefs?”
Metrel laughed. “I do. I remember landing there. We found something there, didn’t we?”
It was Keth’s turn to laugh. “We never figured out what it was, remember?”
Their laughter played back at them from the walls.
“What did you… ever call that place?” asked Metrel.
“Dragsa,” replied Keth.
Stealing a boat was a simple enough matter, seeing as, it seemed to Keth, the entire city was currently rioting near the building that used to be his castle. Keth inwardly flinched when he thought about what they would be doing to the castle, its occupants, his soldiers, his servants.
When they emerged from the sewers, they were greeted with a sky the color of dull steel. The sound of rioting was a distant murmur that reverberated through the deserted streets.
They’d managed to procure a boat, a small fishing vessel that held the two of them and nothing else aside from a length of rope and the oars. There was no way they could lay low in Communo and get passage on a bigger ship, not with everyone looking for him. Keth had to ease Metrel in before undoing the mooring lines, hopping aboard himself, and setting off. Keth felt bad about taking a boat, robbing a civilian, someone who used to be his subject, but his self-preservation trumped his guilt.
The water was choppy, and Keth’s muscles burned from the strain, but the waves and the wind were at their back, blowing north-northeast, which was a rarity on the seas here. Keth wasn’t going to complain about good fortune. The city of Communo quickly became a line on the horizon.
As the city grew smaller, Keth weighed his options while Metrel gently snored across from him.
He had told Metrel his final destination was hopefully Dragsa, or the bottom of the sea, whichever came first, but the inhabited island of Gentri was on the way, and when the old man eventually woke up, they would discuss his getting off there. Keth was going to call in a favor he hoped would still be honored, assuming the news of the revolution hadn't yet made it to the island yet.
Now, if he was able to procure safety for Metrel, there still posed the issue of how he would actually get to Dragsa. He would either have to chance the Slaughtership Reef, a stretch of ocean as treacherous and vexing as it sounded, or sail around the reef, near Wollover Isle and Malleous. Keth wasn’t getting captured without a fight, but he also wanted to avoid any conflict if possible. He’d already stomached a lifetime of it.
While he pondered, the iron clouds shifted to a darker shade of grey. Rain began falling, slow at first, but soon settling into a steady pitter-patter against the wooden boat. It felt cool on Keth’s face, washing away the stench of the sewer he had trudged through.
Metrel made a krrrrr-huk! sound and woke himself up.
“Storm’s-hic- comin,” he said.
“Let’s hope not,” replied Keth.
A little while later and the storm Metrel had predicted and Keth had feared was upon them. The ever-darkening skies turned as black as the moonless night, the only light from periodic flashes of lightning. The boat rocked and pitched with every wave, each one sending it in a strange new direction. It was a wonder the small thing hadn’t flipped over and spilled its occupants into the grasping, hungry depths that had already ripped the oars out of Keth’s hands. Rain poured in sideways sheets, slamming into Keth like a thousand freezing needles every second, roaring in his ears. His skin was numb and his clothes were soaked through, and he could only imagine how waterlogged Metrel’s heavy robes were.
Another flash of lightning showed Keth the frazzled, grim, yet determined visage of Metrel. Keth had only an instant to register his scowl, his stringy white hair plastered to the side of his face, the length of rope, one end tied to his wrist, the other looped and knotted around the seat. Then, like a candle being blown out, it was gone, and Keth was plunged back into darkness, left to fight without his sight as another wave swamped the boat, drenching him anew and leaving the taste of salt in his mouth.
He spat the taste out and went to call for Metrel, but his voice was drowned out by the torrent of water crashing down around them.
And then, amidst another flash of lightning, Keth found himself staring straight up at the vast expanse of inky clouds, the forked bolt dividing the sky into three. Metrel’s form was above him, airborne. The rope was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.
And then Keth began to fall.
He crashed into the churning water, his body battered by the shifting currents, sinking, being dragged down. He thrashed against the waves, to no avail.
Water began to creep into his mouth, filling his lungs, stealing his final breath.
Then everything was black.
A scaffold. A pillory. A woman. Eyes that once glanced with love now brimmed with defiance. A sword. The blade feels heavier than usual.
A crowd, irate, questioning, steaming, barely being contained by the soldiers.
He steps forward to address them, to try and convince them that he is just, and that he does what is best for the people, for the country. The crowd’s patience wanes, whispers turn to protests, and protests turn to screams. His own mouth moves, but no sound comes out, the blood roars in his ears, the sword raises, a final glance of solid determination, her determined to die, him determined to kill.
The sword comes down. The head rolls, and the crowd reaches its boiling point, surging forward, knocking down some of the guards, others assimilating into the mob, allowing them to get right up to the scaffold. He doesn’t notice as he walks away, wrapped up in his vengeance and his sorrow, how bad it felt, and how necessary he thought it was.
That had been three days ago, in the city square.
It was how you dealt with traitors in the military. Military reason was the only reason he knew when he was mad.
How wrong he was to go through with it. How right Metrel was to find another way. They could have worked out a different sort of punishment than the loss of her life, imprisonment, or something else.
His flashback suddenly changed.
He was in a large room, yet cramped, surrounded by boys, all of them at the age of not-quite-manhood. In front of them stood a tall, lanky man. A full, bushy, brown beard dominated his face. There was no mistaking the angular scowl, even covered by the beard. Metrel, a much younger Metrel.
“You fight on the battlefield to live. You never fight to die.”
Even in such a packed room, Keth felt like Metrel was talking directly to him.
“Fight like hell when you must, and do whatever you can to stay alive. Repeat after me: You fight on the battlefield to live.”
Keth couldn’t hear his own voice as he shouted it along with all the other recruits.
Consciousness was shoved back into him, and he awoke sputtering on a sandy beach. The hot sun beat down on him, but he was still thoroughly soaked from his ordeal. He took a second to get his bearing, confirming that somehow, some way, he was still alive. He had no clue how he had managed that.
He sat up and looked around. Given their course before the storm hit, they should have landed on the north shore of Gentri, but there were no signs of civilization anywhere. The next most probable place they could have ended up is Calypso, but if he were on the north shore of Calypso, then why did the water change color halfway out to sea.
Unless…
It was Dragsa.
Unbelievable, he thought. There was little chance that he had ended up on Dragsa. If he hadn’t been drowned, Slaughtership Reef should have ripped him to pieces with its coral and its treacherous, unpredictable currents.
And yet, the beach he sat on felt familiar, even though he had only ever been to Dragsa once before.
Unsteadily, he rose to his feet, and registered a dense forest at his back. Dragsa felt like the last place he could be, but the sand beneath his feet was very real. The forest was real. The ocean was real.
It was a miracle. An honest to goodness miracle.
And then he saw the boat.
It had come to rest a few hundred yards away, a figure slumped down next to it. Keth started to run, fell down, clawed himself out of the sand, and kept going. He sprinted across the beach as fast as his shaky legs could carry him.
He finally stumbled to a stop in front of the man, and he quickly turned him over. The first thing he registered was the rope around the wrist, frayed, but intact. There was no mistaking the angular, weathered face, the wispy beard, the gaunt, frail body which used to be lanky and spry.
“Metrel,” sobbed Keth. “METREL!”
Keth placed his fingers where there should have been a pulse, but found none. He was dead.
Keth reeled back from the corpse and collapsed into the sand.
How fitting, he thought through the tears, that my final casualty was my most trusted advisor, my teacher, my friend.
He buried Metrel where the beach met the woods.
Keth had thought about coming back to this place, but not under these circumstances. Metrel had given so much of himself to his positions, to the men under his command, to the people he had worked with all throughout his life. He deserved more than an unmarked, deserted grave.
Keth never stopped mourning, but he did find ways to keep himself plenty busy while he waited for a final bout with death. He used the boat as a lean-to until he could start proper construction on a shelter. He didn’t exactly have a good system for felling lumber, so he had to rely on what fell to the ground naturally.
If there was any game on the island, it steered clear of Keth, so his sustenance consisted of mostly nuts and berries, and the occasional fish when he could catch it.
He didn’t have much to do, other than survive. He began exercising, getting his body back into shape. He felt like he could fight in another war some days, or at least take on the mob that destroyed his reign as king.
Once, he ventured to the center of the island. He had been there once before, with Metrel and a few other men, and they had been around the entire island and still had no sense of understanding what lay at its center.
Keth pushed his way through the brush and laid his eyes on it.
In a clearing, the light hitting it perfectly, was a small fountain which ran with water so clear that, to Keth, it almost looked like it wasn’t running at all. It was the only thing on the entire island even suggesting it might have once been inhabited. Or maybe it had fallen from the heavens as a strange joke of the gods. Either way, Keth wasn’t messing with it. He would stick to what he understood, which was rainwater and the semi-frequent coconut.
He had a lot of time to think. He thought about Metrel. He thought about the woman he loved. He thought about the country he had loved more. He thought about his earliest memory, of a man whose face was the color of sooty ash, who firmly gripped his hand and said It’s a deal, then. Keth couldn’t remember for the life of him what the deal was, but he assumed it was just a dumb deal a dumb kid would make. He wasn’t sure why that memory stuck out.
Keth felt like he waited a long time to die. He tried not to keep track of days, but it got to a point where he felt like enough time had passed that he should feel like he was Metrel’s age, yet he felt even better than when he had first gotten here. Maybe he should slow down on the exercise routines.
He waited, and yet, he didn’t die.
Chance Rains is an English Major at Grove City College. When not studying or writing, he works on his family’s farm, raising Angus and Shorthorn beef cattle.
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