My Kingdom, My Wife, and the Darkness

Part 3

 I don't know if I can die. My grandfather did; my father's scythe ripped him apart. But when my brother returned him the favor, it wasn't to the same extent. My brother certainly tried to kill him. After defeating our father he spent a long time devising different ways of destroying him. None worked and so now my father waits below in the endless pit. Of course it's entrance is in my realm. The pit and the Fields: neither of them my brother likes. He likes the fact that his enemies suffer, but he does not want it to touch his happy world. Instead they reside down here with me, and I the cruel one for their tortures.

This is not how I wanted it. I don't want them here, but it was a losing battle from the start. All the others are with my brother, they do not want the Fields up there with them either. Better to be with me where they never have to lay eyes on it. None of them come down here and in return I do not go there. There was a time when my brothers and I were side by side in everything. Now, I am not wanted. They keep council without me and spurn my presence, but I have come to terms with it. I have my kingdom, my wife and the darkness.

I came to the pit of my father not long after leaving the boat by the river bank. It's strange how your memory gets warped in the span of.... however long it had been. I had thought you could see my wife's gardens from here and the castle. This is not so. I always have an urge to look down into the pit and see where it goes, but it is bottomless. I dare not lean too far in, but the Kindlys flying above have told me it is impossible to see the end of it even with a straight-on view. The rare instances when my brother sends Hermes, once every few years, he always checks on the pit first. As if he would have been able to discover if its inhabitants had left by looking at its sheer walls. The wreckage of my kingdom would have been more of a tell. Is that what happened in my absence? Did old enemies crawl out to carry their vengeance? Except that would have caught my brother's attention and this place would not be as empty as it is. The only souls I have found were roving spirits, seemingly lost. Where the rest of them went, I do not know.

I pass the pit and move on. My castle became visible in the distance, rising above the rest of the terrain. Whenever Hermes came he would say that it was too large. Nothing stood above the spirits but the withered trees and even those were barely taller. My castle was a large black hump on the horizon, by far dwarfing all else. It almost scraped the rocky sky of my realm.

There were ashes around my feet. I noticed them curiously and reached down, sifting them through my fingers. Dark, like the rest of my kingdom. And then, as I was turning it over, a flash of red caught my eye. I squatted and sifted for it again. Another flash of red and I plucked it from the grays of the crumbling ashes. A single leaf, bright red once I had brushed off the soot. It was a burning, passionate red. The color of a sunrise, or forest fire, or blood of the masses before their death. It was bright color and there was only one place in here with that.

I stood and glanced around at the ring of ash. I strode over to another spot and leaned down to sift. It took a few minutes before another bright leaf appeared in my hand. Then came a petal and a piece of a stem. Had it been here? Had this spot in uncounted time ago been my treasure? The single star among the dark heavens.

Have I cried before? I truly don't know. Time flows in and out, it is impossible to keep track of it all. I am inclined to believe I have never, for not much I could think of could move me to it. Salt water is my brother's domain. It has no place with me. I am, as you know, lord over punishments and tortures. It is possible, however, that as I left the ring of ashes a single drop of salt and liquid may have fallen behind me to stay with the dead leaves while I could not.

I broke into a run. My cape billowed out behind me, catching on stale air. The shape of my castle grew from a lump in the distance until it was looming above me. I didn't stop running until I was before the door and grasping at the handle. It did not give way easily. Did anyone use the door anymore? Was anyone within at all? I pulled it open and stepped inside.

Welcome home.

It was not any darker than the outside, but it was closer together. Cozier. A chandelier hung low from the ceiling of the entree hall, all its candles out. A stairway led up, and up. Several passages led into adjacent rooms. The walls seemed to whisper to me as I stepped forward to the foot of the stairs and looked up. Would the Kindlys still be here? Would Thanatos? Would my wife?

Welcome home.

It could not be my imagination. The walls were whispering. I had never had my walls whisper to me before, at least I didn't think I had. Perhaps whatever had wrecked my home had inhabited the castle. Perhaps it was a new addition my wife had made to fend off those who might wander in. I went up the steps slowly listening to the chorus of whispers and hisses.

Welcome home.

And they did sound welcoming. I realized who it was that was speaking. It was the voices of the dead, those that had inhabited my kingdom before my disappearance. The men and women, workers and beggars, lords and servants that populated the memory of the realm I once ruled.