The Tale of Onora: The Boy and the Peddler of Death (11 page)

“But you are,” the boy said.

“They are one in the same,” the man responded. “It matters not what choices you make, some will perceive you as a hero, and others as a murderer. But I suppose ‘tis better to be alive as one of those than to be dead as something else.”

“But you were alive as king,” the boy said.

The man raised his chin slightly. The look in his eyes owned up to the accusation.

“Why did you do it then?” the boy asked. “Why did you give up our wealth and power?”

“I didn’t give it up,” the man replied. “I gave it back. Our wealth was accumulated over centuries through theft, cloaked under the guise of law and justice. Our power was amassed by the unwitting consent of a population whose minds were drowned in an ocean of fear. The theft began under the Royal Family’s rule and then it continued under your grandfather’s rule. No man who lives in such a manner can be free, not even the ones on the right side of the equation.”

“Not everyone sees it that way,” the boy responded.

“Someday,” the man said. “When everything you love is gone, when the ways of life you cherished have been destroyed, you shall discover that you cannot eat wealth or power. I endured such terrible realizations. It would be wise of you to learn from my past.”

Silence filled the room again. The man approached the window. The wind outside haunted the landscape. He watched it dance with the powdered snow. “Even now, it calls us.” He glanced back and saw himself in his son for the first time. His demeanor softened. “Do you want to know a secret?”

Surprise washed over the boy’s face. The man raised his brow as if to ask the question again. The boy gave him an eager nod.

“You saw that my mother was a Nord,” the man continued. “Do you know what that means?”

The boy shook his head.

“It means you can refuse to wear the clothes that the gods wove for you,” the man boldly stated. “You can decline their invitations because nothing other than you shall decide your fate. That’s how you were able to make it here alive.”

“Because my grandmother was a Nord?” the boy asked.

“It’s in your blood. You can brave the elements,” the man replied.

His posture became dignified. His tone grew passionate. He tapped the window. “That storm is your life. You can slap nature in the face and walk out into it bare-arsed if you’d like. Sometimes the gods shall test you merely to see if you have it in you to do it.”

“Why?” the boy asked.

“Because it is in those moments that you honor your creators most,” the man replied. “You make it known that you are free, that the garments of fate shall not adorn you. In confronting the gods, you honor them with your rebellion, for they created you for it. By doing so you choose to return to them, and thus you show them that they are worthiest of your greatest declaration, the declaration of your independence. It is in this moment that you prove yourself worthy of all their efforts.”

“What if they punish me for being foolish, for knowing it’s not safe and doing it anyway?” the boy asked.

The man sat back down in his plush chair. “Life is not safe, nor was it ever meant to be. Safety is predictable. Safety is nothing more than boring theatre. It is when you discard the illusion of safety and step outside the realm of comfort that life truly begins. This is what it is to be a man.”

            The boy mustered his courage. “I want to know why you left me. I don’t want to see it in a dream. I want to hear it from you.”

            “But I didn’t,” the man replied. “I have you right here, along with everything I ever wanted. My wife and my beautiful children… all of them healthy. You are healthy, are you not?”

            The boy nodded.

“Your mother and I had an arrangement,” the man continued. “She wanted it this way. You were insurance for her and your people, that I would not invade her kingdom because she knew I would never risk the life of my son.”

Confused silence painted a blank stare upon the boy’s face.

“She helped me kill the King,” the man continued. “Did she not show you the blood on her hands?”

The boy shook his head in shock.

“Funny how the whole truth is never convenient to one’s designs,” the man said. “The only things I left behind were a way of life that did not resonate with me and the toxic people who enabled it. Had I not done that, I would not be here with you.”

            “You cannot possibly know that,” the boy said.

“I know it because it is,” the man replied. “You cannot know otherwise because what you think could have happened, did not. Right now is the truth. You and I, here, are the truth.”

The boy softened.

The man could not tell if the boy felt defeat or if forgiveness was creeping into his heart. “A power structure that spread nothing but death and debt ruled the earth. Good people yielded their minds and souls to this power structure's iniquitous illusions and false promises. They tricked us into believing that heaven was far away so that we’d forget we were actually there. They divided us with imaginary lines and imaginary beliefs.”

The man sank back into his seat. They sat in silence as the fire popped for attention. It crackled when it received glances, but hissed when it did not.

The boy felt himself about to address someone for the first time in his life with this word. “Papa?”

The man heard the boy acknowledge him with the only title that ever mattered. It caught him off guard. The boy waited for him to say something, but the man could only muster a melancholy stare.

“Are you upset with me?” the boy asked. “That I came looking for you?”

“Do you know what evil looks like, son?” the man responded.

The boy shook his head.

“It's one thing to be aware of the evil things out there,” the man continued. “To be able to recognize them and think that because you do, you are fit to lead, or rule as you put it, is a grave mistake. At the end of the day all of our troubles start and stop with us. Evil hath no face but our own.”

“How are we the evil ones?” the boy asked.

The man pointed to the silver coin in the boy’s lap. “My father’s people helped sustain the illusion of a banking system that stopped using those. But even that was only as powerful as those who were willing to sign on to their debts. If individuals did not take their loans or their handouts, then they never would have yielded their power to them.”

“But my mum owns banks,” the boy said.

“Aye,” the man replied. “The entire western world is dependent upon them. They play a dangerous game of musical chairs. The only difference is that those left without a chair become slaves.”

“What is the solution?” the boy asked.

“If you don’t hold something, you don’t own it,” the man responded. “Before I was king, no person had allodial title to his property outside the ruling class. Enabling that right for everyone was my greatest achievement for freedom. It was instrumental that all property be allodial once it was paid for. You have freedom in Caliphweald because you do not answer to a government or its tax collectors. You answer to no man but yourself.”

The boy’s eyes drifted to the weapons on the wall.

“Those are no good either,” the man said. “They’re as dangerous as the crown.”

“But if we were to use them for good,” the boy started.

The man cut him off. “Is that what you saw in the Great War, weapons being used for good?”

The boy realized his own logic was flawed. “No.”

“Nothing is as dangerous as the blind ambition of the youth,” the man said. “Our military was only as powerful as the young men that were willing to sacrifice their lives for an ideal of freedom. It was your mother who taught me this.”

“You don’t want me to wear the crown,” the boy replied. “You don’t want me to wield a sword. You don’t want me to handle money. Shall I not be a man?”

“A real man recognizes when the power structure of his country is merely one group of people suppressing the progress of others. They sprinkle this faelen dust of lies upon you, or patriotism, or whatever other illusion is necessary to get you to sacrifice what's good and best for
yourself to their agenda. But ultimately the illusion empowers only the ones who create it. A real man becomes aware when a parasitical hex has been cast upon him, and that all power is derived off that hex.”

“But the power in itself is not held by the caster?” the boy asked.

“No,” the man replied. “It has to be siphoned from the real man, because all the power comes from within him. He doesn’t need to fight against the magi or overthrow one high-ranked group to merely replace it with another.”

“What does he do then?” the boy asked.

“All he has to do is walk away,” the man replied. “All he has to do is withdraw his consent, his capital, his ideas, his energy, his mana, his time, and his attention. Without his support, evil collapses. Starve the beast, and it cannot survive.”

The boy stared at the floor and pieced the puzzle together. “That’s why you did it?”

“Son,” the man said. “Look at me. I beg you.”

The boy’s eyes met the man’s.

“You will become a great man, but right now you are still a child. Children learn from what they see, and so I set forth for you an example of truth and action.”

            “The only truth I see is a father who was never there for me,” the boy replied.

            This did not faze the man, for he kindly extended his hand to the boy. “Come here.”

            The boy didn’t move.

            “Please,” the man begged. He beckoned the boy to come to him. “I shall not request anything so great of you again.”

            The boy jutted his jaw and pressed his lips together. His brow furrowed. He let out a deep exhale through his nostrils and swallowed his pride. He stared at the man’s open palm.

The man curled his fingers back and forth, inviting the boy to take his hand. His wistful eyes were sincere.

The boy’s anger towards his father melted away. He reluctantly approached the man and took his hand. He was not embarrassed to cry in front of his father. “It doesn’t matter what the circumstances were. You never should have left me in a den of thieves and murderers.”

            “I know,” the man replied. “There are no words to describe the loss of time I feel, or the burden of knowing my son is the last descendant of the man who took everything from me. I was selfish. Now that I’ve met you, I realize that you do not deserve to be punished for the past.” The man pulled the boy close and hugged him tight.

            “I prayed to the gods to get me out of there,” the boy said. “That they would lead me to you.”

            “I cannot ask you to forgive me,” the man replied. “I can only ask you to hold onto what is good. You are not like them. Hold on to what you must do in life, even if it is a long way from here, even if it is easier to let go of me. You have to look deep within yourself, far beneath your anger towards me and the hurt that I caused. You have to look deeper than the hatred in your heart, the jealousy you feel, and the self-pity you imprison yourself with. And then you must look even beyond that. That is where the dreams live, son. You must find yours. It’s the pursuit of that dream that shall heal you, just as the pursuit of my dream healed me.”

            “What was your dream?” the boy asked.

            “Onora,” the man said. “My dream was Onora.”

            Silence stole all sound yet again. The man had never been more proud of a statement in all his life. He looked at his son. Love flooded his heart and gratitude altered the frequency of his energetic vibration.

“It’s never easy to reach for your dreams,” the man continued. “Strength and courage were lonely friends of mine. If you find what you love, never give up on it. Don’t sit idly by allowing things to merely happen. Have the strength to make a stand. Have the courage to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away, for the distance between you and your dreams is merely action. Never hope. Hope will lead you nowhere. The greatest lesson I learned was that those who reach for their dreams walk in stardust. Trust me on this, for I have danced on the aether.”

            The boy looked at the boots with the golden-winged soles. The unnatural glitter on them twinkled in the darkness. He looked back at his father to face the man’s toothy grin. It brightened the room. He winked at his son. The boy felt the love for his father creeping into his heart at long last. In an instant, all was forgiven. The two stared out at the snowstorm.

            “Did you call this blizzard to prevent me from leaving?” the boy asked.

            “No,” the man replied softly. “I called it to keep you long enough so that I could muster the courage to tell you I love you.”

            The boy assessed his father.

The man was nothing but sincere. “You’d be foolish to surmise that there won’t be an envoy searching for your whereabouts. I can keep them away with this weather for as long as you’d like, but the longer it lasts, the more serious its repercussions shall be.”

“What do you think I should do?” the boy asked.

“Well,” the man replied. “You could wait for your ship to come in, or, you could remove the garments of fate and swim out to it.”

The boy grew determined. “What’s the name of the silver chalice?”

“
T’puuli Shanaal
,” the man replied.

The boy raised his hand towards the chalice. “
T’puuli Shanaal. Doer ulu ussa
.”

The silver chalice rose into the air and gently glided into the boy’s grasp. He raised his cup to the man. “To the truth… Even if confronting it is to confront my death.”

“Truth is the only safe ground one can stand on,” the man replied. “But the truth that frees people is also that which they fear to know.”

“To hell with it,” the boy responded. “I may never come this way again.”

He drank all the liquid in his chalice. The prickly sensation of the concoction flowing through his veins returned. The faceless, dark purple entities returned from the other side and observed him. His eyes ignited with shadowlight and stared elsewhere as he drifted away into another world.