Chapter 164

King Philipon

Grief

The Crippling power of grief is something that cannot be fully described. It is a cancer of the mind and spirit that eats away the want and will to live. In some cases, it can cause even the mightiest of heroes to be brought low. Such was the case for King Philipon. He had watched how his beloved youngest daughter was slowly brought low to madness, then death.

He watched his youngest daughter slowly wilt away to madness. A madness that ultimately consumed her. A madness that he was powerless to stop. He had Telka, the best healer in the lands try to soothe his beloved Princess Larela. Yet even the great Telka was unable to heal the damage that slowly consumed her.

He watched as first her visions took her eyes, then slowly took her sanity. He would hear her muttering to herself in the dark. They would start as little things at first. The silent mutterings of a person in deep thought with themselves. Then as time went on, the conversations would get more animated. One night in particular, he remembered hearing his then nine-year-old daughter mutter curses and scream out in agony.

“Get out. Get out of my head. I don’t want you here anymore!”

That was the night, he and his guards broke into her room and tried an old-world exorcism. The methods used during that night were more akin to torture, as a Father, King Philipon found himself having to look away multiple times as the professors of the Academy conducted various rituals against her. Rituals that could at best be described as mild forms of torture, and at worse, well at worse they would have been described as cruel forms of delivering a confession.

Still, it had worked. At least that was what he had told himself and his wife. And for a time, it had worked. His daughter returned to him, for a week. Every day it was beautiful, he would go to his darling daughter’s room, and she would be there, his Larela.

After the week he dropped his guard, figuring the worst was past him. He let his guard down. He let himself get lost in the running of his country.

For a time, everything went well. Then things slowly began to deteriorate. He noticed the signs of her lapsing again. They were subtle. Far more subtle than the first time, when he had acted. He would see her muttering silently to herself in a corner. Or he would see her moving about the palace with an angry snarl on her face. A snarl that instantly went away once she realized he was in the area.

How she could identify him of all people, despite her blindness, was a miracle that was beyond him. He had tried to chalk up most of the odd quirks, to Larela just being a powerful Oracle. Yet, there was more to it. Far more than he was comfortable admitting. She was changing, as if rotting from the inside.

Slowly he watched his daughter, the girl who had the world at her beck and call slowly rot. The spark that had once shone so brightly, began to dwindle, and fade. Until finally it was completely gone, snuffed out like a candle that had burnt from both ends.

Worse, the advice she gave was often a poison pill to swallow. When he enacted her policies that she would propose, there was often an immediate benefit to the kingdom. She would offer things like increasing the irrigation processes of the kingdom. One way was to expand waterways through the kingdom that expanded the lands that could be farmed. This worked, increasing the overall fields by 10%. The only problem was this 10% came with a cost, one that was not noticed until far too late. As the lake that the water was being pulled from dried up within two years’ time. Then after three years, even with mages working around the clock to generate water for the lake, the western fields had to be abandoned, as they were brought to dust.

A good Oracle should have noticed this, at least that was what he was told by his advisers. The only problem was that Lorela was ten when she gave that vision. Should a ten-year-old really be able to foresee the way water usage will impact a limited resource? He had given her the benefit of the doubt, but part of him wondered if this was a direct payback for her exorcism.

There were of course other visions, but the dried lake incident was the most glaring example.

Then there was the night of her disappearance.

At first, he thought it was something sinister, that she had found a love and eloped. That was a hope of his at least, that she had found love. Not that anyone could love someone who was so broken as she was at that time. But he had hoped for there to be a glimmer of something.

He had taken the news in stride. At least he thought he had. He had his best knights and trackers look for her. They returned a little under two days ago with her body. She had been found at the entrance to a ruined city in the woods to the east. The lands where the supposed great forest spirit resided.

Her body had been battered and broken, as if it was a husk to be discarded.

He had been so lost in his own grief, that he failed to notice the men that were gathered outside the capital. Troublemakers who had been forced to relocate for a time, while renovations were being made to the lower district. The only problem was that these renovations were supposed to streamline certain processes, but the construction efforts were taking far longer than originally anticipated.

Of course, King Philipon had heard the growing complaints, but everything was so muted when compared to his own personal loss that he was feeling. Loss that spoke of how he could barely keep his own thoughts in order. Thoughts like when was the last time he ate? Did he sleep? Would he still see her when he closed his eyes? With thoughts like those running through his head, how was he to even consider worrying about the way citizens were being treated.

Had he had a moment to consider the facts, he would have realized the topic of the displaced citizens would require more attention. The only problem was, had he realized who had posed the original idea in the first place, the king would have gone into another fit of depression. As the person who proposed the plan for renovating the lower districts of the city was none other than Lorela.

Such was the never-ending cycle of dread and depression that King Philipon faced. That was why, when he heard the words of death being carried on the wind to his ears, he at first panicked.

There on the winds, came the words of a ghost. One who spoke of revenge and vengeance. The man was one of the first bad prophecies of Lorela, another thought that caused his own mind to spiral. As King Philipon remembered how it was his own daughter who made the original proposal on releasing the man from his service. Then when he felt the most relieved from being freed, that was when the King would pounce, asking to have the third old-world law enacted.

At the time, it was a blessing. But now that blessing had become a curse, a yolk that threatened to pull and drag him to the very pit of the earth he had been placed in charge of. Every night he could feel the strain of his decisions weighing upon him. At first it was a warm feeling, one that he gladly accepted.

But the demands of being such a king soon weighed on him. Then the fact that he had to slowly watch his beloved daughter spiral out of control was too much. What was worse, was the fact that he had other children. Many other children who were all successful and healthy, yet he couldn’t stop but think of what could have been, with his Lorela.

He wondered if she had made pacts with evil spirits, that was when stories of the Yaga began to appear. More and more often the stories would speak of how the Yaga would choose a most talented youth to merge with, only to corrupt her before disappearing for some time.

King Philipon cursed the Yaga, thinking her the bane of his existence. And for a time, he was happy to do so, but that was just a short reprieve from what truly mattered. His daughter was gone. She was gone, and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. Worse, all the times he had hoped to protect her, had ultimately led to her being more guarded around him.

The once beautiful spark of his family was gone. With that spark gone, so too had so many things that King Philipon had once taken as miracles.

Thus, when he was summoned by the voice of one who he had wronged, he could not move.

Instead, he waited, and watched.

Then he felt the burning sensation flood his body as his connection to the land and his people was blessedly removed. Rather than feeling angry for having his leadership status revoked, he felt relieved. Relief, for the first time in how many years, was he able to take a breath without feeling the strain of responsibility hanging over him. How long had he suffered in silence as he felt part of his will to live slowly being dragged away by the need to do more for his people.

Even when he had nothing left to give, he knew he could and should give more. Yet, everything had gone so horribly wrong. Every action he took, brought him here. Every good deed was slowly eroded. He felt like he had the Midas touch, but in reverse. Rather than everything he touched turning to gold, everything he touched sparkled like gold. Like fools’ gold, then slowly lost its sheen and rotted. Maybe that was the real Midas curse. The fact that everything turned to gold, but then everyone realized the gold they had was worthless. That everything they thought they had wanted, was not good enough. Or would only lead to further ruin.

He had been a king for nearly twenty years, and these last seven were by far and away the worst he had ever suffered through. He had seen moments of great prosperity, be brought low by lack of foresight on his part. Still how was he supposed to foresee the minor earthquake that would split open the western lake and make it dry out into a vast expanse of nothingness.

How was he supposed to have known that expanding the sewer system below the lower city would lead to unstable foundations. Foundations that would then need to constantly be reinforced and reworked. So many things, had gone so horribly wrong. But right now, with his daughter’s corpse on display before him in a glass coffin, all King Philipon could do was sit back and wait.

When his elite guards came, to protect him, to drag him off he refused to move. Instead, he just stayed on his throne, and waited for the mayhem to reach his personal chambers.

He had managed to somehow keep his own people out of the war with the Azani. But he realized that in the future such achievements would go unnoticed, or unrecorded. In the end, he would only be noted for his many failures and projects that went over budget and underperformed.

Worse, he was okay with that being his legacy. His only concern was that he would not be able to pass on the yoke of leadership to his children. Then another thought came to him, as he was glad that his own children would not have to suffer as he had. That his own children would be asked to live in a world on their own merits, not on those of a legendary founder who was impossible to follow in the footsteps of.

No, today, the Sidherthan empire would end with him. What would be left tomorrow was for the next generation to sort out. As far as King Philipon was concerned, this was it.

When the first of the magic wielding hydra barged their way through his chamber door, a faint smile filled the King’s lips. He didn’t move, just stared on with hollow accepting eyes. Eyes that spoke of age and a spiritual weight that was impossible to describe. He stayed there and watched as a spear of ice was created and impaled him to his throne.

Two more lances of ice came, but he could no longer feel the pain of his body. The pain was too far away. Instead, all he could feel was relief.

Relief that his personal struggles and failures were over.