The Cure For Curie (Complete!)

Heavy is the Crown

"You incompetent moron!" He screamed as he tossed a chalice at the man's head. "How dare you betray a direct order from your king!"

"Please? Your highness, I beg of you!" The mage pleaded as he ducked out of the way, the silver crashing into the wall behind him. "It was not I who disregarded your instructions. Those in the caves are having problems adjusting to their conversion."

"That is not my problem!" He yelled, slamming his fist on the desk. The frightened mage flinched at the sound, worried of how he was to be punished. "You and your men are aware of the tenets of our queen. You claimed to have the loyalty of those you commanded before I took you in. Is this no longer the case?"

"No, sir. Not at all." He replied timidly. "It's just worshipping the holy mother is much different than what we are used to doing. Our arts require certain deeds be performed to evoke power. Bad habits are hard to break."

The king looked up from his desk suddenly, anger boiling in his gaze. He stood from his chair, and in a blink, was clutching the death black robes of the Arch Necromancer. He pulled the cloth until their faces almost touched, his breath reeking of corpse and rot. His eyes black, like those of a raven, piercing through to his very soul. He gritted his teeth, the ones he had left anyway.

"Murdering the innocent is not a bad habit." The king spoke with seething hatred. "You only exist because I allow it. Do not forget that."

"Do not forget, your highness, we are the ones who restored you." The mage said with flippant defiance.

The king, enraged, slammed him against the wall ripping the breath from his lungs. He hurled the waify mage across the room, sending him crashing into the desk. The clattering of silver and books exploding outward. He struggled to stand before his king, legs wobbling. Once he stood tall, the ruler of the undead spoke.

"You will not test my patience a second time, you understand?" He said, his voice calm finally. The mage nodded that he did. "You and the others know full well that her holiness will not grace our presence if our hands are dirty with the blood of innocents. She will only wake from her slumber if we remain pure."

"Yes sire, I remember the tenets well. I will, remind, our more obstinate followers of her wishes." He replied bowing in supplication.

"Good. I've waited too long, centuries now, to have her slip through my fingers again. She will awake this time. We will have everything. Now go." The king said waving his hand dismissively.

"As you wish, your highness."

Once the door to his office shut, the king slumped into his desk chair. Too long he had been searching for her. He would have her back soon. He dreamt of the day he could look into her face once more. Look into her quiet, still strength, that seemed to glow from her statuesque body.

He still remembered when he cast his eyes on her that first time, before his death. She had been perfect. He could see her true potential, see that she was indeed alive, in spite of what everyone else had said. He had been the first to see that she was something more, that she could give love, could feel.

He had convinced others of her true self and they had come to see it too. None though had felt the deep connection to the woman as he had. He had watched in the background as more and more worshippers had come to believe that this goddess had single handedly given birth to the world. That she was the mother of all.

The king had known that was not so, but he couldn't turn them away. So many hopeless wanders came to pray before her, each one left filled with new purpose. Each one stepped from her shrine, ready to change the world for good. To topple a tyrant, to stop a war, to thwart some demon. He was powerless to impede their cause.

They had come for over a century before the zealots had taken over. They believed that the holy mother deserved more than peasants and farmers. They had assumed power in the structureless religious order, laid down and enforced new laws, and finally closed the shrine off from the public.

He had seen it all unfold and could do nothing to stop it. They had imprisoned him, tortured him, demanded answers he could not give. When he couldn't speak, they had killed him. Carried his corpse into the bowels of the church to be locked away for eternity.

They had used him as a teaching tool for new supplicants. Given him a grand tale of terror and ended it with swift and righteous punishment. Those who broke the laws had been made to journey to his resting place and fetch the crown a top his head. It had been a rite of passage, an act of contrition, to be reaccepted among the order. If the offender died, killed by monsters or the Undead King himself, they were proven unworthy. A fine charade to keep the sheep afraid and the high priests in charge.

He hadn't learned of his fate until he had been reawakened by the mages. Foolhardy and brazen, the necromancers had stumbled upon ancient texts describing the old order. They were determined to find the Undead King and return him to wreak havoc on the world of the living. They had been so very foolish.

He had awoken with a fury. His body had been alive once more. His skin had begun to grow back, his organs filled with new vigor. It would take time to restore his body to full health, but something about his new life was completely different.

Being dead had changed him, added to him. He was powerful now, filled with magic he had never witnessed before. He could raise the dead to do his bidding. He was capable of bleeding the life force from his enemy and taking it in to himself. He hated it. Hated who he had become.

All that time in the dark embrace of death had warped his mind into something else. He had been good once. His sole existence had revolved around her, seeking her love, her validation. Now an untethered anger threatened to crash through his defenses and spill into the world. It took everything he had to quell it inside him. He needed to find her, to quiet the storm in his mind.

A tiny knock on the door pulled him away from the troubled river of his past. He spoke for them to come in. A small boy slipped through the entryway as he closed the door behind him. The king's dark eyes lit with excitement at the vistor. The child with his head held high strode to his desk with authority, the Eternal Son.

"Hello, young man. Are you settling in alright? They are doing everything to make you comfortable, yes?" He asked as the boy struggled to get settled in the large wood chair.

"Oh yes, but I'm more concerned with their progress in finding my mother." He replied, his voice filled with a glimmer of hope.

"Don't you worry. I'm keeping them on schedule. It's all going according to plan. We should reach her in a week's time."

"Oh, thank you!" The boy squeaked as he rushed to hug the man before him. "I can't wait for us to all be together again. Everything will be like it was."

"Yes. Yes it will." He replied as he stroked the boy's hair. "I'm going to make everything alright."

"You promise, father?"

"I promise, Shaun."