For the holy tombstone of a woman who once represented the entirety of mankind, Maribel’s Rest was surprisingly free of even the most minuscule of time-relative structural faults.
It was as decrepit as it should have been, a sign of bygone times when the folklore of old forced a spew of terrible lies down the throats of countless unknowing generations. They thought the resting place a site of utmost sanctity, when even its identity as a cemetery for the revered ancestor was called into question by a great many modernists, who in turn thought themselves the harbingers of “actual” and “absolute” civilization.
Whatever “actual” civilization is supposed to entail.
Nonetheless, the blind faith had gradually retreated a long ways into villages with not a cow to call their own. Nowadays, all one could call to imaginable thought when envisioning the ancient pillars bordering Maribel’s Rest would be an infestation of terrible green moss; the type that sticks to walls as if it had vowed to never allow the pillars to fall and reunite with the rubble blanketing the ancient warrior’s mythical corpse. The moss snuck into tiny little crevices etched onto the white marble, and in some of these little holes one could witness life taking shape. Perhaps a woodpecker that had failed to find a suitable tree catering to its kids in a structure of pure marble, or a growth of maggots gnawing on some poor rat’s face, the shiny white skull bone peeking through a morbidly stretched out forehead.
This damned cemetery was the stuff of nightmares.
In the middle of absolute green, however, stood a tall tower approximately fifteen feet in height. It popped out quite a bit more than some of the rarer forms of architecture in the vicinity of the tomb. Its roof curved out like a hat, the type that slagged back onto one side of the face, in this case not necessarily a slag but a slight hunch. Windows were spread like thin wrapping paper across the fragile granite base of the tower- From brittle cracks along the outside layer to a noticeable lack of a glass window, the tower belied its age by the state of its most fragile components.
The letter.
Yes, yes, the letter I had so inconveniently received about five weeks prior, expecting a grand adventure or perhaps an escapade into the wild, but instead being met with a dreary environment, a barren habitat. Even then I had maintained hope for the littlest amounts of sun- something I had the pleasure of experiencing in the prior morning, during a most wonderful breakfast in the luxurious Central Point train station.
Long story cut terribly short, there was no distinct ray of sunlight showering my face. And all of this thanks to damned swampy foliage covering every inch of the sky from naked sight.
Tragedy besides, It was certainly a hard living up north. The ruthless winds, for one thing, constantly blew away at my oversized breeches as I trudged through lakes of gooey mud.
You’d think the Maker would spare the swamps of another overwhelmingly inconvenient nuisance, but no- forget over moisturized flora and dimly-lit surroundings, They had dared to even hasten the winds running through the cursed habitat.
Thoughts juggled around within my turbulent mind; Couldn’t let them by at a time when a fruitful life could not have beene guaranteed merely through persistence and perseverance. As the letter so elegantly put, there was an air of change amongst the realms of the Unknown World, and a severe human crisis was approaching the conflict-ridden lands. The letter also refused to elaborate on said “severe human crisis”, which I found to be slightly perturbing.
On a brighter note, the letter also described the decaying tower in explicit detail, notifying me I had at last reached my destination. A dreadful journey it certainly was, for miles upon miles of wet rainforests had stood in my way to the tower. They were treacherous lands, filled to the brim with reptiles and mammals accustomed to slimy moisture stuck to their skin since birth. They bit and barked at the natives who I had hired to guide me through their seemingly uninhabitable homeland, even killing a few of them. Creepy crawlies bringing with them a violent purge were a concern as well, hordes of blood-saturated mosquitos and inbred fruit flies spilling over the top of this jar we call environmental constraints.
Little Metzo’Ha’s body, bloated beyond belief, floating in a river of mosquitos as the little demons siphoned away his life blood drop by drop. He was so young too, barely over five summers old and already bold enough to venture out into this cruel habitat he called home with the men and women of his tribe. Well, his love for all things moisturized never did him good. He ended up a victim amongst the thousands that laid in rest inside Maribel’s Forest.
Warding away such thoughts, I made my way to the tower’s decomposed entrance. The front lawn was overgrown with weeds of all colors and kinds, so much so that they had broken through even the paved pathway leading to the front door. Feeling wet algae creep around my ankle, I abandoned my leisurely pace and speed-walked through the front yard, ending up at the front door. The door was missing some key mechanism, such as a whole top hinge that usually kept the contraption in place for a convenient push-and-pull motion. The coating of organic brown paint was peeling off at the fringes as well, revealing an altogether disconcerting juxtaposition between wood-lacquered outer skin and steel-framed innards. Loud creaks and high-pitched screeches encompassed the entirety of my world for the second I had dared to push open the ancient door. At that moment, a grumble echoed through my heart from the unfairness of it all; an adequately skinny man would be able to squeeze in through the ancient gap left between the door and the jack stud, unlike my own stocky self.
Perhaps like a certain somebody I had gone through all this grimy and at times fatal trouble to discuss a few menial topics of concern with. Evidently, the sincerity in effort was not reciprocated.
Ears ringing, my hands tried to grab hold of a wall to lean over, vertigo overtaking me in a fit of dizziness. Perhaps I should have heeded Mrs. Arroula’s sage advice; always pack up some medications for the road, especially when you’re venturing out into an ancient God’s supposed deathbed.
The dizziness was staggering; it was uncharacteristic for an active diplomat, a grizzled war veteran such as myself, to be susceptible to a trivial lightheadedness. I waited for it to subside.
It took a good ten minutes before I had regained control of my bodily functions, tilting my head up just to realize I was gazing at nothing but inky darkness. At this point, I was past all the formalities; My soul felt weary, my body was in pain, and my mind stopped at nothing to recall the tasks allotted to me prior to this dreary escapade. Grabbing hold of the hard granite wall yet again, I slowly made my way through the narrow hallway descending down into complete darkness. Well-constructed granite walls became rocky and uneven fairly quickly, and a flight of stairs became visible as the bright orange of the torchlights illuminated the surroundings like a candle in the dead of night.
Marble-engraved stairs, they belonged in an aristocrat’s abode, to be cared for by the most upstanding of maids. And yet they were here, dust accumulating along the corners of each stair, looking like they had been mopped to the side by someone not too keen in leaving their busy work for menial chores. But whoever had mopped away the dust, wiped out the pesky spider nets, driven away the feral rodents, certainly cared enough to involved themselves in the cleanliness and hygiene of their shelter.
Two steps at a time, I rushed down the staircase, keen on concluding this sorry affair once and for all, for I could declare with utmost confidence that the man in question, the skinny clean freak living deep down below the surface of the Earth, would comply with any demand I impose upon him. He would have no choice other than to obey the commands of those who will weave the fabric of tomorrow’s future, who will shape the world into a mold most favorable to them and more importantly, their interests.
It really was a pitiable situation. To be made a mere plaything of those with a vision, to be reduced to a mere speck amongst the billions of others. And the man was young too, only a few years older than my own daughter.
I suppose I couldn’t declare with confidence my own state in this entire ordeal either. After all, I was simply a messenger with a little more sway in the situation than your typical mailman.
Going down the stairs I envisioned a great many realities befalling me at the end of this path:
Poorly-lit corners, but the grime and the dirt could not be hidden to the naked eye, archaic books infused with a sort of slimy dew, as if the entire basement was but a swampland. In the middle of it all that juvenile frog barreling his way through a few sheafs of white papers, resembling a scholar with the utmost theocratic belief in the concept of ‘practical’ science.
Or perhaps a congregation of like-minded intellectuals willing to submit themselves to near-slavery in the pursuit of all-consuming knowledge. Hacking and slashing away at bodies too bloated or crumbled to be physically researchable, but the men and women gathered around the middle- looking down at their latest test subject, a burnt specimen with a few too many characteristics resembling a hotly charred mummy of a child- bite and bark one another away with a graze of their gaze, too consumed by putrid desire. Chaos would overpower the solemn peace, blood splatters will overshadow the dim light, limbs in motion would replace unspoken thoughts, indigestible opinions will be grossly underserved in the face of a convoluted addiction to academic prowess.
Escape was a distinct possibility. A fair deal too, considering the wilderness promised far less mind-crushing dangers than the bothersome issues that materialized out of seemingly thin air when an affiliation with affluent society became too immersive. In that case, It would’ve been much wiser of me to simply turn my back on the assignment and make a run for that ephemeral swampy living.
Impossible, that’s what day dreams were. Absolutely irrational, for why else would you desire them to such a limit that your own psyche couldn’t help but bend to their sweet lulls?
Contrary to previous belief, the ends of the stairway were quite well lit. In addition, the front door was structured in such a way it was indeed quite obviously apparent that the construction of this building had begun with a single goal in mind; protection against the most absolute of enemies. The door comprised of a total steel layering on the outside with god-knows what reinforcing it from within. A simple key lock lied on its right side, with a keyhole the size of my entire hand. Surprisingly, the door was slightly open, letting out a slit of brilliant white light- this was no mortal source of light. It seemed like the young researcher had illicitly brought along a few of his precious tools with him, built something a tad bit too advanced for someone of his supposed skill level.
Indeed, the higher-ups hadn’t chosen him for his keen intellect, but rather for a special gift only those of his temperament possessed- well-polished intuition. Or well, he was the only one with this gift who had sufficient technical skills to even help the plan began with fruition.
I felt a certain anxiety prickle my thoughts as I made my way down the last few sets of stairs. I suppose it struck me point-blank, for the first time in an excursion so determinedly followed till the end, that I was there to discuss a matter of serious consequence, one that involved the many and forced the unwilling to tighten a noose around their necks while the orchestrators played with the ends of the ropes at will.
Representing the diplomatic faction of my association didn’t mean jack; they were still a bunch of slimy leeches keen to betray the next man without a single tear shed, and I was not one to trust crooks of such double-faced caliber.
But the thought of confronting this young man worried me to no end. Putting apocalyptic consequences aside, his technical prowess was unsatisfactory in filling in the gaps for his troubling childhood, and no typical sort of trauma had roused the monster from within him; ‘passive’ and ‘aloof’ symbolized the entirety of his portfolio, along with trivial pursuits of a daily basis. He was simply sheltered to the point of ‘mental vacancy’, housed in a little shed in a land of expansive grasslands in the middle of nowhere- lifestyle in a cycle of redundant formalities, he was a monster in his own right.
Inching open the dungeon door, my eyes peeked through the narrow slit into a land of blinding light. Flinching a ways back, I cursed out a little storm of my own and peeled open the door in hasty frustration. And oh, what beheld me at the end of this sorry journey, you wouldn’t dare believe.
Unbelievably square. Almost like an unseemly corporate office, if only the electrical hiss of magical white light settled into its dim surroundings, and the ringing whoosh of geriatric fans streamed out the room to join a cacophony of total silence, and the acidic smell of neatly flayed carcasses melded with the smoky fumes of torches long overdue of a proper oiling.
The room was impossibly sterile- chairs were assorted in a square manner, floor smacked clean with not a speck of grub left, table platforms stuck to the walls wiped down to the tender black marble beneath. Bodies of all shapes and sizes- reduced to a mere abdomen, fleshy head, and perhaps a limb or two- laid on these platforms, vehemently rubbed with strong alcohol and spread out in an impossibly symmetrical layout.
The middle was relatively bare, empty except for a plastic table and an untucked chair. Paper and relics of all sorts cluttered the table, forming an almost picturesque image in one’s mind’s eye- where do you find the time to make use of such incessant amounts of paper? What could all this relentless research, the pursuit for knowledge in a room so obviously sheltered from the outside world, be of any remote use?
“You should be mindful of the sensitivity of my work here, old man. I cannot be taken by surprise at a time like this.”
I had been so entranced by the morbid sterility of the room that I had completely ignored the bloodied young man working behind me on a rather…undone specimen.
“You seemed preoccupied, is all,” I blurted sporadically, trying to save face in some way.
The boy didn’t seem convinced. “Perhaps I would’ve believed you if I was any more invested in my work, stranger. Fortunately for me, it seems as if another test subject has presented itself to me, only alive and in mood of trouble.”
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A knife in one hand and a pair of mean-looking tweezers in the other, the boy slowly trudged his way towards me, a sharp glint in his eye. He couldn’t be so delusional now, could he?
“H-hey, I think there’s a misunderstanding here! Calm down son!” I backed away at his gradual approach, the edge of his blade gleaming menacingly in artificial white light.
His intentions screamed ill intent, his gait a slight hunch to the front, as if he was readying himself for a lunge. Bloodied all over with crimson blood all too human, white coat contrasting against that familiar ruby splattered across its monochromatic pattern, the boy cut an intimidating figure. His body language gave away life-long experience in the art of violence, urging me to pick out of the countless pockets in the inside of my mauve black coat the most suitable tiny weapon that would disable rather than neutralize, one inconspicuous enough to not be noticed in periods of-
“You look afraid, stranger. Anything the matter?” the boy drawled, amusement lingering in his tone. He made his way to the table, dumping his drenched tweezers on it with a loud Thunk and finally taking a proper look at my figure, most definitely wondering why a middle-aged city fellow had crossed the most terrible of forests to meet him.
“It’s nothing really. Guess I misinterpreted you, and your intentions,” I said, still taking caution in case the boy changed his mind.
The boy’s eyes twinkled in mirth, the corners of his lips inching upwards in a small smirk. “People do have the tendency to misinterpret my motives.” Turning his back on me, the boy took off his blood-stained lab coat and hung it on a wooden hanger just above one of the platforms.
“You do know why I’m here, right? I infer the mailmen are able to make their way to this godforsaken landmark.” I grumbled in annoyance.
That seemed to get his attention. “I sure hope they do, for their sake. And yes, I really am quite curious about your reason behind sneaking up on me like that. Let me clean up, and we’ll come settle this like gentlemen. Could I ask you to keep watch over my humble establishment?”
“Certainly, though I wouldn’t call this room anything close to an establishment. Seems a tad bit permanent for the likes of an abandoned tower from the warring eras…”
The boy scurried about the room, finding his bag full of dirty clothes and grabbing it by the little strap labeled Used garments.
“I do need to do laundry. Haven’t had the chance to for a while….” the boy began to mutter to himself, as if he was conversing with an entirely different person. He looked in all directions and stared at every little object of interest-particularly the packable group of human carcasses, his eyes glinting with satisfaction at the sight of his handiwork.
Slowly turning my back on the boy, I leaned myself against the flimsy plastic table, and contemplated on how I had ended up being some chump’s weekend security guard.
Even an entire bottle of vodka wouldn’t be able to relieve some of the constant frustrations I was subjecting myself to at the time.
And just when I thought I had grown as comfortable as I could afford to be, the boy proved me wrong, leaning in close to my shorter body, his stiff posture belying a certain disdain.
“Maybe learn how to act subtly, yeah? Whenever I think about some of those diplomatic types who like to venture out on their own because they believe it is a sign of self reliance, men like your inexperienced self are the only ones I can successfully call to mind.”
“Perhaps don’t dig around the insides of your fancy jacket in such a panicky manner, stranger. One day that carelessness would be the end of you.”
And thus the boy left me with my own jumbled thoughts and exhaustion arising from days of pure sleeplessness, a bright red smile streaking his face from cheek to cheek.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“You can call me Meir for now.”
Smoke wafted in front of my eyes, pouring out through my nostrils as I exhaled the haze out from deep within my lungs. The gassy clouds of smoke formed a blockade between me and the little scientist named Meir, whose face suddenly contorted in repulsion at the sight and smell of the gray goodness.
“If I hadn’t known that you had walked through all kinds of hell to get to me, I would’ve thought you had a grudge against me or something, Mr. Khai,” said Meir in annoyance, waving away the last vestiges of smoke lingering the air.
“Well, I believe I was the one who was wronged. You didn’t particularly care to see to my health and wellness when I stepped foot in here,” I said, more to kill time and attempt to preserve this good-natured atmosphere for as long as possible.
“You didn’t care to have an open mind when you barged in here without my knowledge,” said Meir. “And why do the kings of old send an old-fashioned, washed up diplomat such as yourself to discuss something so confidential in nature with a trivial little peddler like me?”
I could make out genuine confusion not only in that statement, but also in his general body language, which spoke of his ignorance on the matter- a concerning discovery, for the higher ups had spared no expense in keeping Meir informed of the happenings from outside the young scientist’s dreary cave.
Unfortunately, I was one of the unlucky ones to be serving the parliament as one of their obedient servants, and thus I was privy to every little secret the little boy had grown up with, from the playful antics of his uniform school life to the drab textbooks detailing the various spokes of complex machinery that he kept on nabbing from his father’s grand bookshelf.
Who was, well, killed by these “kings of old” for leaking confidential research to the enemy Republic.
And so the weight of confession fell upon my shoulders, and I couldn’t appease to the inevitable.
I hesitated. Perhaps for a while too long. His eyes held scrutiny. They demanded answers, the ones without any shred of deception behind their intentions.
“Just for a progress report, that’s all,” I drawled, uncertain on how to approach this situation.
Meir’s right eyebrow rose up in an inquisitive manner. “Well, if that’s the case, then I suppose everything is going well enough. I still need more supplies, but it’ll get done eventually. It always does.” he said with clear suspicion in his tone.
I had realized over the course of this futile conversation that the boy had grown increasingly suspicious of me. That much I had picked up from his put-off demeanor, as if my previous attitude had steeled him for a not-so-welcome visit.
Tension the consistency of moist butter permeated throughout the room. The table grew expansive, an chairs weaseled away an inch at a time. With them went the boy, the distance between us widening solely because I was so hell bent on avoiding the subject of matter.
“We have regularly tried to contact you, but you fail to pay off your dues without giving us a damn headache, Meir. Now humor me with this little question; do you have the slightest idea of how the world beyond this jungle is functioning right now? Do you know how much shit blokes like you are in? Because the higher-ups are all red and purple in the face, and even the public has managed to pick up on their nervousness. Shit is not being done fast enough boy,” I managed to growl out the last of my overarching concerns without a shred of difficulty. How easy it really ended up being, when I let go of my inhibitions and disregarded the lad’s obvious antagonization to such a sentiment.
Contrary to what I had predicted, the boy remained unfazed. In fact, a certain chill descended upon his vestige, as if he had donned a cloth of cool acceptance.
“I suspected that was the issue all along,” the boy turned his head to look at his gruesome handiwork, “The Aragot carcasses have been thoroughly drained of blood, and I’ve researched them to a sufficient degree already. All that is left is to utilize their blood in order to track others of their kind. I can start working on the tracking device right away, but I need an answer to my questions.”
There it was. The young researcher had requested an answer for his questions multiple times over letters, but the Council had routinely ignored his queries. Why wouldn’t they, when his questions alluded to an answer none had the courage to mull over even in quiet discussion?
“I fear you know the outcome of such a request already, boy. You know why this is happening. So do we. So does everyone who is even remotely aware of this operation,” I hated open secrets. They served no purpose other than to sow further chaos, provoking the curious to probe an unspeakable topic for further clarification.
The boy sighed a deep, reflective sigh. His head drooped in an almost unnoticeable fashion, conveying a bone-deep weariness stowed away behind layers of enigma. He stood up, tucking his chair into the table and walking over to his grimy white apron. Words failed to leave his mouth as he stood there staring at his long-lived, bloodied cloth of an apron.
For a short while neither of us uttered a single word- the silence was almost painful. I remind seated on a chair, thinking over my choice of words, why I had said what I had said.
The boy’s thoughts I couldn’t discern, but if I had to guess, the frigid chill lurking over him had finally breached his insides, spreading their frost all across the boy’s various systems, making their way to the final juncture- that wonderful brain of his.
“You know, the natives around here are quite the characters themselves,” the boy suddenly muttered, turning around to face me with that solemn gaze of his. “They enjoy the taste of human flesh. It might seem bizarre, but they quite enjoy its chewy texture, the smoky flavor so akin to a fully matured hog, even down to the brittle bones they believe contain the sacred life source that sustains all multi-celled species- the bone marrow.”
Bizarre, right? It is mad, horrifying, even deserving of capital punishment. But you see, they have developed quite the system to determine who can be consumed and who can’t. It’s simple to a fault really, something so genius we wouldn’t expect it from a backwards people such as these jungle natives,” the tinkerer approached me with a melancholic expression plastered on his face. The way his body moved and behaved mirrored the accumulated wisdom of men overdone by regrets too old to be rid of. It didn’t suit him. He was meant for a fate razor straight in culmination, a uniform life coupled with a smidge of regret for a less conventional route abandoned.
“They consume their dead, celebrating sacrifice of any kind. It does not matter who has passed on; whether it be a child-bearing mother too weak to handle the tribulation of childbirth, or a foreigner at the precipice of death, or even one of their own kin, victims of the swampy grave surrounding them in celebration and revelry.”
There is a strange sense of logic in that thinking, a rationality that helps tribal men and women keep their sanity intact.”
In a way, there is a method to their madness,” said the boy. “They manage to survive in such a land without any overt request for assistance, relying on themselves and the people around them to not just live through each day, but to thrive and grow as a society in this environment.”
He walked back to the chair, pulling it out of its confine under the table so he could sit on it. Fingers intertwined, he looked down at his hands, solemn eyes emitting vulnerability .
“It is an unfortunate living, and it seems morbid to an extreme, but there is a reason to their ways, a reason and purpose that us civilized city dwellers can’t comprehend or even attempt at replicating, ” the boy finished vocalizing his thoughts, settling into his chair and leaving me to register the correlation between his thoughts and the situation at hand.
Thus we fell into a deep lull, a comfortable silence that prevented us from reaching a terrible conclusion to this sorry affair. The boy’s words got me thinking- I had not known that the natives were a man-eating people. After all, my guides were an overly friendly bunch, sharing their hunts with my inexperienced self at a time when being overly picky with your food meant a quick death. Perhaps they would’ve eaten me as well, had I died in the forest all alone. Old Tnuk’Chala would’ve started off with something a little more gamey, the tongue or the fleshy throat perhaps, something that he could chew on while brooding about the weather or whatnot. I know for a fact that the twins would’ve cut open the stomach, taken out all the less savory bits and pieces and relished the taste and texture of the various ligaments and textures, and that petite Chahulu would’ve recited her hour-long prayers before my body, gorging herself on the limbs thereafter.
Perhaps the natives had also honored little Metzo’Ha in such a way. Perhaps his little limbs made great appetizers when sautéed with a few veggies on the side, and the stomach acid was detoxified and curdled into chunky bits of soup for moisturizing nourishment for all. Little brown eyes served as exotic side dishes to the main course that is the entirety of the abdomen, the more sensitive innards served up as lunch for the domesticated hounds.
I was certain there was an analogy implied beneath the lines, but I was much too tired from the goings of the day. There was not sufficient enough energy within me to ponder upon such radical terms, no time for me to change my entire way of thinking over a mission so grossly futile in its result.
A sigh escaped my lips. I looked up into the boy’s eyes, finding nothing akin to conviction and faith, “I have delivered my message, boy. I’m not someone you can just file your complaints to, thinking they are ever going to be acknowledged by the orchestrators of this sorry mess. Keep in mind that I’m not what I used to be- I’m nothing more than a messenger as of now. There is no point in explaining your grand mission to me.”
I made my way around the table and took hold of his shoulder, leaning down to look into his eyes and talking to him in earnest for once, “But you mustn’t let delusion tamper with your work, Muir,” I whispered in a desperate attempt to make my case known. “You are talented to an absurd degree, and young to boot. Do not throw away your life in a futile attempt to fight against ‘injustice’ or whatnot. I have seen too many fools die because they believed sacrifice would instill in society a strong faith in the change they sought. And yes, oftentimes they succeeded in their endeavors, but there is no point to sacrifice if you cannot be there to reap its benefits, if you throw away your only chance to live.”
Looking back at that instance, I realize the boy might’ve been agitated rather than resigned in his indifference to my advice. He shook away my hand from his shoulder, looking the opposite direction and avoiding my gaze, suggesting an end to the conversation as well to my stay in his not-so-welcome abode.
There wasn’t much more I could say to discourage him from the path he was choosing to take. In the end, he would suffer for his naiveté, and it would be up to him to determine if his rebellion was worth the pain and sacrifice required to fuel it. I walked away, turning my back on him, looking to exit the premises and embark on my way back home. The Inquisitor will not be happy, I brooded, but the boy had made up his mind- nothing short of death would change it.
Our paths split there and then, realization of our varying purposes and affiliations coming to light.
Never together, and never to be.
I sometimes wonder if we can ever let go of the past, you know. If we can lift this delusional cowl of rationality from ourselves, and realize that in the end it doesn’t matter who killed who, who maimed who. If we can just start anew, from a clean slate, and learn to enjoy the little things about tragedy. If we can just forsake philosophy, and reject human mentality, and learn to kill without grudge, love without restraint, think without limitation. But of course, we’re so above the animals who live for the sake of living, so above simply ‘surviving’.
I didn’t know what came to be of the boy as time went on, but from my understanding all who opposed the crown were preserved in the royal cellars till the Revival for ample consumption.