Louis Hannibal Nez
It was life cycle one thousand three hundred and twenty-five.
U’Prot awoke with a start, as he did every morning, lying on a comfortable bed inside a spacious round chamber. Ashwood planks covered the floor, and beyond them an opening onto a terrace admitted Küny’s powerful morning light. The morning was warm and oppressively humid; rain had fallen a short while before. The heavy, hot air promised more rain, perhaps a storm. U’Prot was agitated, sweating profusely despite being completely naked. Worry had left unmistakable marks upon his face: dark circles and sleep crusted with tears of inevitable sorrow. Though still young, he looked prematurely old.
Once again, he had suffered a traumatic dream—or perhaps a nightmare—and it had wrenched him awake with his heart hammering. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last. Now that he was awake, the name V’Vota kept rising unbidden to his lips like a timid dawn. His agitation slowly subsided; his chest no longer heaved beyond control. Sweat cooled and dried upon his skin, leaving him feverishly cold despite the heat. It was time to rise. He sat up in the comfortable bed. Beyond the terrace and its wide-open shutters, dawn painted the sky with color.
He barely noticed it. His mind was in disarray. Once on his feet, he walked to the middle of the chamber, where a fountain poured abundant fresh water. The palace in which U’Prot lived possessed hundreds of towers like this one. Yet his was not merely one among many: it was the tallest and the most heavily guarded. His chamber occupied its highest level. He did not remember that clearly; indeed, he had little sense of anything at that moment. The nightmare filled his mind. Meaning to wash, he approached the fountain and, already naked, stepped into the water. He cooled and cleansed himself.
The heat intensified as Küny climbed toward its zenith. When U’Prot completed his ablutions beneath the fountain’s fresh water, he dressed in a white tunic edged and stitched in deep orange. He put on sandals woven from woolen threads and set a crown upon his head, then left both chamber and tower. He walked directly toward the eternal promenades of the Crovinistas citadel, where, by a divine grace he could not even remember, U’Prot had become absolute monarch. Upon reaching the splendid marble-paved walkways, he encountered, as in every cycle, a multitude of residents.
They filled every visible part of the landscape. People ran, walked, even leaped everywhere. U’Prot did not pass unnoticed. The moment they saw him, they greeted him, smiled, worshipped him, and tried to press gifts upon him. He accepted none. Despite the crowds packed around him, he managed to walk some two hundred paces toward his destination. There, a very cheerful man intercepted him. Lacking either grace or charm, the man pushed close enough to fix his gaze upon U’Prot’s eyes. His smile emerged under strain; with equal difficulty, U’Prot managed a faint smile in return.
“Supreme Pontiff! Good morning!” the man called with the customary ceremonial greeting, empty of affection.
The residents’ happiness might have infected anyone else in magnificent Crovinistas, then capital of the kingdom bearing the same name, but not U’Prot. He had just dreamed a traumatic dream, too brutal for his wounded heart and too painful for his exhausted body. Those nightmarish images could not be shaken from one moment to the next. The man before him nevertheless insisted on appearing cheerful.
“How are you, Kriiba?” U’Prot offered in a hurried greeting. He kept looking around at the residents surrounding him. No one seemed willing to let his presence go unnoticed. He wanted to be rid of the man.
“Well now... easy, Vakroy. That is not the king I know. What is wrong? Tell me...” Something sparked inside U’Prot—inside Vakroy—and kindled a fire in his chest. Even so, he tried to be his usual courteous self.
“I am in a hurry, S’Krach. I must go.” He resumed walking and quickened his pace. Kriiba was forced to hurry so as not to fall behind his beloved sovereign.
“S’Krach? I am Kriiba. Truly, tell me.” He reminded him without ceasing to walk beside U’Prot.
“I am in a hurry,” Vakroy warned without stopping.
Growing irritation was plain upon his face. Kriiba’s smile remained firm and imperishable, almost like the smiles upon Crovinistas’s marble statues, some carved by Old Plinius himself into the cliffs overlooking the Micminasz Ocean. Shepherds had called that coast Crovinistas in an antiquity when even Rdrilveria no longer existed—a Morguendis name meaning Citadel of the Winds.
“Come now. We are good friends, are we not?” Kriiba said, then released an uncomfortable laugh.
“Do not hinder me!” Vakroy snapped, sharp as a guillotine.
He considered the matter ended and quickened his pace further. Some of the smile vanished from Kriiba’s face just before he stopped, abandoned in the middle of the path. Vakroy crossed the promenade and continued as if nothing had happened. He tried to think of nothing, walking quickly with short steps and lowered eyes. He avoided looking at any resident who sought to greet or praise him, but whether he wished it or not, it was already too late. After another fifteen paces, the women in sight began singing a beautiful, sweet melody in the D’agam’anat tongue. Those who had been walking the paved avenues stopped.
They gathered around him as they sang, watching him with vacant, expressionless eyes. The bewildered king halted. He remembered his dream well—remembered what had happened to him in it. He would not allow it to happen in waking life. Vakroy looked left, saw a door, and immediately rammed it with his shoulder. It was made from Ironwood, so he knew he could neither break nor bend it; he meant only to force the lock. Three blows finally defeated the bronze mechanism. When the thick door yielded, he entered one of the countless houses in a Crovinistas district and slammed it shut behind him.
He turned and examined the interior. The women’s measured singing could no longer reach him. Only then did he discover that the house was not empty. A lone person stood no more than two paces away, watching him in fascination, wonder, and a little fear. A woman. To Vakroy’s astonishment, he knew her—knew her beyond any doubt. By sheer chance, the woman he loved more than anyone in all Zyllyön lived there. Emotion nearly dragged tears from him. He suppressed them. He could scarcely believe she stood before him.
“V’Vota...” he whispered, stunned.
His voice was so faint as to be nearly inaudible, no more than air escaping a deflating bladder. He stood transfixed before that impossible presence. The woman of his dreams—the most beautiful of all—was before him, gazing at him tenderly, waiting without knowing why. U’Prot felt her presence upon his own skin. It was as though he had always known he must enter that house through that door. He had found her at last; after so many thousands of dawns, he could see her again. He was relieved to hear neither the melodic songs outside nor the men’s rhythmic stamping.
“What are you doing in my house? Get out!” she cried. Her expression changed abruptly, and her pale cheeks flushed red.
“I do not remember the whole dream, or what happened after I saw you, but I know that I... I do not know... forgive me. It is confusing. Before something terrible happens, I know I will feel a very powerful, dreadful pain,” he confessed. Her face changed again. Now she looked concerned.
“What are you saying, Vakroy? You are king of Crovinistas. I do not know why you are here. This is the first time I have seen you in person; I do not know you at all. And yet, somehow... I feel that I love you intensely. Truly. It is so strange that I cannot explain it.” She stepped closer.
“That is not true,” U’Prot said, forcing a coldness foreign to him. With her, of all people, he succeeded.
“What are you saying?” she asked, startled and saddened.
“I love you, V’Vota. I do not know how that is possible, yet it is unavoidable. I love you with all my heart and spirit. Even so, I know—somehow I know—that loving you is dangerous. It is my agonizing end.” U’Prot struggled to review every event of his latest nightmare from beginning to end.
“That is not my name. My name is Augusta. I can see your aura,” she declared with obvious pride.
“Augusta? My aura? What do you see in it?” Vakroy asked, smiling for the first time since waking. His own words recalled a fragment of his nightmare.
“That you love me,” she answered simply. Embarrassment deepened the blush upon her pale cheeks.
“That is true,” U’Prot whispered, hypnotized by her.
“I see in your aura that you truly love me, sincerely and from the heart, and that you wish to be with me,” she continued, shyer than before. Her face turned as red as a tomato.
“All of that is true. You have seen clearly,” he confirmed, happiness swelling too large for his chest.
“It makes me very happy to know that,” she whispered.
“I can feel your energy,” he lied. She lifted her gaze, suddenly eager.
“I like that! What exactly do you feel?” she asked with overflowing anticipation, moments before disappointment struck.
“That you are not sincere,” he said. To her, it was as though gray storm clouds had suddenly swallowed the sky. A long pause opened between them, followed by silence as deep as an ocean trench.
“What did you say?” she stammered at last, hoping she had misunderstood U’Prot’s words.
“What I feel,” Vakroy replied with the simplicity his newfound coldness finally granted him.
“But... why do you feel that?” the young woman demanded. She could not believe her beloved would accuse her so.
“You must explain that, because I truly wish it were not so. I feel it powerfully, and I know I am not mistaken,” the man reaffirmed, not without visible sorrow.
“I will explain,” she promised, trying to soften him with smiles that usually melted him like hot lead. This time, they appeared to have no effect.
“I hope so.” He arched his brows. “If there is an explanation, I truly want to hear it as soon as possible.”
“Would you like some tea while I tell you?” she offered with kindness, grace, and elegance.
“Of course,” Vakroy answered innocently.
Despite appearances, he did not wish to hurt her feelings. Augusta turned away. With graceful hands, she prepared something on a table while keeping her back to U’Prot. From a dark corner, she retrieved a clay jar, set two handmade cups upon the table, and poured a very hot turquoise liquid into each.
“Do you sweeten it with honey?” she asked with a smile, though she already knew the answer.
“How do you know I take it sweet?” He was surprised. Almost no one knew his fondness for sweetness.
“Because I love you. A woman knows the tastes of the man she loves,” she said, simplifying everything with tender eyes that reflected transparency and true devotion.
“But we do not really know each other...” he reflected aloud, spreading his confusion to the young woman.
“Now you know me, and I will explain everything. Here. Careful—it is very hot. I would not want you to burn yourself, my love.”
She handed him a small cup of tea. He took it between his hands and felt that it was indeed hot. They looked into each other’s eyes. He was convinced that the true warmth lay neither in the cup nor in the liquid it held. It came directly from her heart: the heat, lust, and love she felt for him. In silence, she took small sips with her doll-like lips and smiled. That gaze, tender and lustful at once, drove U’Prot mad.
“Then you will tell me everything?” Vakroy asked before taking a large swallow.
“No. Not anymore.” She smiled after speaking. Her charm made him lose his senses, though the refusal still caught the bewildered U’Prot’s attention.
“What?” he asked just before the cup slipped helplessly from his hands.
The little cup shattered into dozens of pieces against the floor, spilling what remained of the tea across the stone. At first, U’Prot felt something like electricity erupt inside his stomach and spread through every part of his battered body. Then it unleashed its full destructive force. His muscles convulsed violently, seized by spasms beyond control. Despite the unbearable pain and the savage movements wracking him, he tried to keep his gaze fixed upon her. Vakroy fell to the floor as his skin slowly burned from within.
He writhed and shuddered beneath the Thermotrilitron’s invisible power. Blisters swelled across his skin until they burst. His body charred black. Sweat, blister fluid, and blood soaked his tunic and sandals. She took no pleasure in what she saw. She covered her eyes with both hands rather than witness the interminable destruction, while tears continued to stream from them. The convulsions ceased. U’Prot’s life was consumed to its final drop. When his body finally lay still, foul smoke rose unevenly from the monarch’s skin.
Men and women from Crovinistas burst into the house and found the corpse. They also found a horrified woman broken by violent sobs.
“He drank it! Damn you, automatons! Now honor your part!” she screamed, beside herself with rage and grief.
She was frantic, furious, stripped of the characteristic sweetness that had captivated U’Prot—the gentleness the dead sovereign had adored.
And so this man suffered again and again for entire centuries.