Shadows of the Scriptures

TWENTY-ONE: His Reverent Majesty

“Who comes here?”

“It is I, your son the King.”

“Ah, Alain! Come on in, dear, come on in . . .”

Alain Khad turned the crystal knob and marched into the antechamber. It was filled with various gewgaws, all of them in pristine condition. Carnival glass, china, an alabaster statue of a wood nymph, a fancy ramekin, bits of colored glass shaped like the javelin sigil of Tilva Khad, and many a faerie mask.

He felt there was a different air to the chamber compared to the last time he had been here. Once he was inside, he saw the occupant had changed a ton as well.

Eoli Khad was standing with her fingers intertwined by her waist between the two stone lions which guarded either side of her bed. His mother had been bettering, by the looks of it. There was a radiance to her, a warmth that only seldom reached her eyes, eyes white as daisies, eyes duplicate of his own. The warmth was there now.

Her hair had been dyed black, and pulled into a fantastic braid. She was dressed in a paisley gown with a plunging neckline, glittering opals expertly scattered throughout the fabric. It looked quite exquisite. He had forgotten how exquisite his mother could appear when she made an effort to be.

“You seem in a right cheerful mood to-day, mother.”

“Indeed I am!” she said in a sunny voice he would never connect to her.

“And why, may I ask, is that so?”

Eoli blinked. “You’re having a baby. What is there to not be cheerful about?”

“Why the dress?” Alain queried, taking seat on the futon opposite the bed. “Going someplace special?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I am.”

“Where?”

“To the royal temple.”

Alain stared into the eye of a stone lion, said, “What for?”

“To conspire against you with that rebel. What was his name again?”

“Parush,” Alain said instinctively. His mouth felt bitter.

“Yes, him.”

“What for really, though?”

“Why does one go to a temple, dear? To pray, to worship, that’s why!”

 Only those who are not worth being worshipped themselves worship others, his father the late King Aryan Khad had told him. That a bunch worship men in the clouds and not those in their front should tell you the kind I rule.

“Well, tide well with that. I hope the Holder gets better along with you than he does with me.”

“You should start paying him his due obeisance too, Alain. You are about to be a father now.”

“Oh, yeah? And will he give me parenting tips, is that what?”

Unexpectedly, Eoli smiled. After a pause she said: “I prayed and prayed when I was pregnant with you, you know. Maybe that is the reason you’re King to-day.”

“If so, I wish you had never done it. This King business is no fit for me. I was better off as the second prince, the one everyone overlooked, the one who attended balls and skipped his lessons.”

“Think what you will, Alain, but you are perfectly sovereign.”

“There is no such thing as perfectly sovereign, mother.”

As soon as he said this he felt he had fed her a prompt to launch into talk about his father. About how awesome he had been, how immaculate in everything that he did, how his touch turned shit into gold.