The King in the Mountain

[garentoft 8355]

The King in the Mountain

by

Lord Alban

Published 414 E.S.

 

For Adele.

 

In the centre of our Kingdom stands a great spire, built on top of a fountain pulsating with energy. This energy is hope, and that spire is the Spire of Heroes, where all the young and naive would-be heroes of our Kingdom travel to test their mettle at the hands of the prophetic and divine nature of this fountain. Indeed, it has always been so, that those who placed their hands in the waters of the fountain, and drank from it, would either become the noblest of heroes, or the most dastardly of villains.

 

Our story begins on one night, many hundreds of years ago, when King Ernst, who was then nothing but a Prince, the grandson of the current King, Ludvik II, who reigned with grace and pomp. Ernst and his truest friend, Anton, had made their way to the Spire of Heroes. The two friends, then aged seventeen and sixteen respectively, travelled day and night from the capital of Cehzburg to the centre of the Kingdom, through the Aranywald, over the Kossarzburk, and the marshes of the Stranniylifsto. Then, they finally arrived to stand before it, the Spire of Heroes.

 

The spire stood of shining marble, seemingly untouched by the burdens of time, everything else seemed so fleeting in comparison to this eternal spire. It possessed no door, only a bright archway, filled with the golden light that pulsed from the fountain within. The two, struck with awe at the sight before them, begna into the spire, and knelt by the low fountain.

 

“Are you ready?” asked Anton.

 

“We were born for this.” Ernst replied with an excited expression.

Anton’s hands delved into the waters, cupping up a small amount, “No, we were born for what comes next.”

 

Ernst snorted, nodding his head, “Yes, I suppose so,” his lips curled into the faintest of smiles, as he reached down to cup up a small portion of water, which he brought to his lips. As he consumed the golden waters of the fountain, and apparition of the future to him.

 

Darkness surrounded the spire. No light came from it, nor did any come to it. The dark spread. It took over the spire first, then the remainder of the Kingdom, until a lone mountain stood still as the last thing illuminated. And from that mountain shot a new beacon of light, and one could only wonder what was held within.

 

Ernst awoke from his vision, immediately plagued by rampant thoughts of what would cause his Kingdom’s demise. Was it a foreign Kingdom that brought war to his lands and left his Kingdom in ruins? Was it internal strife, a rebellion of the masses that turned the Kingdom to ashes? The options were plenty, and to consider each and every one of them would have taken the Prince a lifetime, yet the answer, unbeknownst to himself, became apparent at the very moment he looked to where he had last seen Anton.

 

Anton had already left, and Ernst was left alone to traverse through the marshes of the Stranniylifsto, over the Kossarzburk, and through the Aranywald, before he finally returned to the Capital of Cehzburg. Through the city gates, he wandered quickly through the bustling marketplace, where a Tryndian merchant was hassling the locals with his overpriced wares, and then he continued on through King Ludvik park, before finally entering through the grand golden doors to the Viktystadt. 

 

Twenty years passed, in which Ernst’s grandfather passed, and then his father too, and the King, who had now spent the past two decades pondering only the demise of his Kingdom, sat upon his lonesome throne. Anton had not been heard of since then, and in such loneliness the King had come to one simple conclusion, that he were to find his friend, or the future he had seen would come true.

 

But fate does not adhere to the machinations of the minds of men, indeed, where one man thinks that it is him influencing his fate, it is the other way around. Swayed by his destiny, King Ernst, who reigned as Ernst III, began his search for his old friend, thinking that such would circumvent the visions that he had seen, of a grim future where none belonged to him, which instead would prove to be the very beginning of the outcome he had sought to avoid.

 

But Ernst could not find Anton, such was not how it was to be. Indeed, it was Anton who had to find Ernst. For Anton had seen a similar vision, yet all the darker, in the Spire of Heroes. He saw a Kingdom, crumbled from within by a King who had no time to tend to it, instead plagued by paranoia. He saw that he was the one destined to remove the rot from this Kingdom, to reshape it into something new, and could only do so by travelling the world to assemble a following of mercenaries, unlikely soldiers, and other such outcasts.

 

And so, King Ernst and his army marched through the Aranywald, searching for any sign of Anton, they came to encounter nothing at all, except for leaves blowing in the wind. Leaves blowing in the wind turned to bushes rustling, trees rumbling, and eventually, an army sprung from within the shrubbery and the wilds of the Aranywald. The ambush was lethal, and Ernst’s army was decimated by that of Anton’s, which left few living, took most of the remainder prisoner, leaving only Ernst and a Knight by the name of Georg to escape.

 

Ernst and Georg barely made it to Cehzburg, where they called upon the citizens to gather up, for a great terror was to come upon them, and they must leave in a hurry. Anton’s army was close behind, and those who did come to join Ernst had to abandon most of their belongings to join their King and escape.

 

As Anton’s troops entered the city of Cehzburg, did King Ernst and his people flee westward, walling themselves within the cave tunnels of Zakiskburk, making a home for themselves within the mountain, until King Ernst and his line could one day return to the overworld and restore balance for what was lost.

[JoanOfArc 4586]

Father Temesch of the Lectorate ordered a copy from the northern Kingdom and placed the book within the Lectorate's library. He was never one for northern literature (not so much out of disgust but lack of time), but this story caught his attention. He intended to read it to his children within the week after giving it a read through.

 

"Lord Alban, I ought to meet this great author someday!" He briefly thought, followed by a memory of almost dying by the Queen's food that almost poisoned him to death. Maybe it was better for the two to meet in the next life.

[CopOwl 1668]

Adele Emma Ludovar reads the published work with while beaming. "Oh, Matyas-! Ea need to congratulate him again, this book he gave me is simply amazing!!" She squeaks, hurrying down from the noble apartments to find the author.