As a bachelor, and with his parent's death in his youth, Roderin had little more to do in the capital than meet colleagues and friends. With the excuse of planning his next expedition, or reveling them with tales of the latest, they lazed around in the city's cafés, where intelligentsia and miserable, ailing poets —and literati — gathered alike; as flies towards the decadence of the city's Asphodeli street. A beautiful avenue gardened with the most grandiose new-imperial styles, clasicalia, gold boned halls, theaters, tributaries flanked by flowering blossoms to the largest and most prestigious academies and universities in the continent; arches and fountains with immense pagan sculptures, grand domed plazas once painted by the greatest masters of the Era Solar. Depicting myth, wars and death, and creation and love, in the most transcendent medium imaginable. The divine cathedral of the Hellian, of the Ethereal, among other names; with the Iðunn gardens behind it; then, after their length, The Palace… And, of course, cafes, innumerable cafes, filled to their necks with the most interesting characters of the times; in short, the Zeitgeist.
Seeing this lavish glory, and the buzzing of the city's blood, Roderin imagined not how Alphonse feared so assuredly about the kingdom's future. Sure, the intelligentsia criticized him as a heavy handed, blood-thirsty troglodyte, the papers picked apart the bones of his reign, while they fought wordly battles with his loyalists and the more royalist academics, as well as sections of the beu monde; however, such was the case in any reign, of course, except his Great-grandfather's, but such an era was without equal and not really a point of logical comparison. There were also those who called for reform —as were there in any other era— who, recently, had gained strength and voice. Even then, it was, taken in its whole, a peaceful era of prosperity, built on the back of Alphonse's mad wars —which close to none dared to call as such now— that, no one could deny.
A few months had passed since his arrival, and, except spending a few days in the King's villa, he had not seen him again; in part, of course, because of his offer. A headache, truly. Roderin dreaded such a position; he was a free soul! To be shackled to such a dreary post... He sighed, even a flicker of anger towards his old friend forming in his heart, as he knew of his nature, and yet asked, pleaded to him, making him, to an extent, chose between his friend and his nature… Yet, he understood, his friend's fears were, even if resembling the imaginations of a mad paranoid, a thing the king truly weighed and deduced; Though he played the part of the cold warmonger, Roderin knew, Alphonse was a tactician at heart, a schemer, no slouch as a monarch; and, if such a strategist feared a future… he would at least have to consider it.
A growing headache did not help his mood, improving ever so slightly from his constant visits to café Roumbidón. Slight tinnitus plagued him, and the visions, dreams, nightmares… whatever they may be, increased in duration, intensity and frequency. He thought again of that little detail he had hidden… a fragment —the size of a book's cover— of a thangka, hand painted in a most beautiful, divine style by a Bogpän revered master. The fragment, still vibrant in color, depicted some sort of syncretic deity, both Yama and Yamāntaka, sitting atop a blue lotus, myriad-armed, with coiling flames, skulls, gold, suffering masks and copper serpents draped over its being, its skin as fair as snow, its hair out of platinum, a pair of horns; its eyes… like two star-wounded sapphires…
At first, his desire to keep the painting, he mused, was merely because of a growing liking to it, however, he could just as simply have bought it, kept it and placed a bounty order, well, anything, really… This did not explain his obsession with hiding it, keeping it unseen by other eyes, or the fact that it seemed to whisp—
"So, Roderin, did you hear?"
"Hmm, yes?"
A friend, Mikael Komasi, asked him, stifling his previous thought.
Komasi looked besides himself at another man, who sat cross-legged and smiling.
"Frederik here was telling me they found old professor Zielinski dead, a couple of days ago."
"Good riddance I say!" The man called Frederik declared, to Mikael's glare.
"It is in bad taste to speak ill of the dead." A third man, seated to Roderin's right, responded with a sigh, looking over the edge of the newspaper he, until then, aloofly read, while sipping from a cup.
"I'm not speaking ill of him, Anton, I'm celebrating his death; its different…" He said, shrugging with a slight laugh.
Gustav Zielinski, a professor all the men at the table had —despite their varying ages— shared, was both revered and detested, for a number of reasons… justified? Perhaps.
"Hmmm." Roderin hummed, once again, as if thinking.
"You look troubled, Roderin… did Zielinski's death shake you so…?" Frederik asked sarcastically, knowing none of them would really mourn the old professor.
"No, no… I've come across an… employment opportunity, let's say. It is quite the post, and taking it would greatly help a friend. However, not only do I fear it to be above me, too taxing really, it would bar me from freely traveling for quite a while."
"You'd die soon after, is what you're saying…"
The men laughed.
Mikael looked thoughtfully at Lamartine.
"Well, if it's not an immediate decision, sit on it a while, perhaps you'll get a reason to accept or deny it, who knows?"
"Follow your nature, I'm sure you already know whether to take it or not…" Anton stated, once again taking his eyes away from the paper.
"Take it, I say. It'd be funny to see the vagrant Roderin finally anchored like a true gentleman…Maybe marry, have some kids… The illustrious house De Lamartine needs an heir for God's sake!" Frederik said with feigned outrage.
The archeologist sighed with a smile.
"Who knows… we'll see."
Café Roumbidón was buzzing at this hour, the sound of animated chatter drowning his tinnitus in comfortable white noise. The men talked until the afternoon.
*
The days passed, and during one visit, Roderin found himself, at teatime, conversing with Marenisse. Alphonse had to leave them for a moment, even with his kingly duties offloaded, much to his chagrin; asking his friend to entertain the young woman. Well, in reality he was the only one drinking, a supple and delicate silver needle tea, while Marenisse tried to convince the maids and servants, quite unsuccessfully, to allow her a ride on her favorite horse; a beautiful, invaluable pale breed, typical of the steppe —a gift from Alphonse. The now visibly pregnant, rosy-skinned woman was coddled, day by day, by maids and nurses. Even if she was the third consort, and the child the youngest prince, tradition and the immensely noble blood of both parents, including the king's insistence, led to the current arrangements. Finaly defeated, the woman sat on one of the prairie-chairs, besides Roderin, and lamented with a tsk.
"Can you believe it Lamartine? My mother hunted, side by side, with my brothers and father while pregnant! With! Me! On horseback of course… By the Gods I'm pregnant, not crippled!"
"Your Maje—"
The woman glared at him. He chuckled.
"Marenisse, I know it must be quite bothersome, however… It will just be a couple of months, endure it, for the child, and to calm Alphonse's nerves."
She sighed. And, suddenly changing temper, smiled, as if forgetting the previous ten minutes.
"Rather, Roderin, tell me of your latest expedition. I'm curious."
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He knew this was a topic he could use to calm the woman, not dissimilar to how men once tamed wild, hungry wolves with meat.
"Hmm, hmm… Where to start…"
He thought for a second.
"You see, this expedition started as a joint project between the department of history and archeology of Vanus University and myself. I had proposed a travel after catching wind, via an informant, of a possible resting place, a mausoleum, for an ancient Shophet. So, after some letters, verification, scouting…"
The woman looked bored.
"Yes, yes… this and that, but tell me about the actual travels." She sighed, exasperated.
"Well, it was, actually, almost exactly 3 years ago that I left… Sailing towards the east is easier — not easy though— than towards the New Continent, or, worse, southwards… However, I was able to catch a beautiful sight of the black-pitch."
"Ohhhh, you did?" Marenisse smiled, surprised.
"Yes, it's rather rare, even for someone like me. This would be… the third time I've seen it? Its… grandiose… Like if a knife had cut out a piece of the sea."
"Gods… Is it as terrifying as they say? Do the voices of dead sailors rise from its depths?" The woman said, while waving her hands, feigning fear, laughing.
Roderin smiled back.
"Hmmm, well, if you know what you're doing it is not that terrible, as for the voices of sailors long dead… you see…"
The archeologist, about to continue his tale, was stifled, as both him and the young queen consort noticed a pair of armed, white-red-gold guards, trotting toward them, with strained expressions on their brows.
"Your Majesty, Baronet De Lamartine, we must escort you inside." The rightmost of the guards said.
"Huh?" The woman puffed out, with a puzzled expression.
"What's the matter?" Roderin questioned.
"Please, we will inform you once inside. However, you mu—"
The sound of a musket firing resounded throughout the villa.
"Wha—"
Marenisse's question was snuffed out by Roderin. He took her by the arm and ran, though not so roughly, on account of her pregnancy, behind the guards.
Several screams and a couple more shots flowered, producing trembling noise, as they entered the villas' main building.
"Gods, what's happening?!"
"Your Majesty, a group of crazed men somehow found the villa. They're intent on breaking in, though unarmed and raving, there is quite a number of them." One of the guards spoke.
The other, with a frown assured.
"Please await here while the others deal with the men… Once all is clear we will contact his Majesty Alphonse."
Screams and a few more shots rang out, even inside, they could faintly hear:
"Kill it! Before it's too late! The End, The End! Go!"
Tension grew as the sounds, usually found only in war, invaded the villa, annihilating its once comfortable, languid air.
However, soon, all lay silent.
Minutes later, a group of guards entered the room with satisfied faces. Their leader, a tall, graying man of solemn looks spoke.
"Your majesty, they have been dealt with." He bowed. "We have even captured what we assume is their leader —if madmen like these have such a thing— we will contact his Majesty Alphonse now."
Marenisse spoke calmly, only a few words.
"Very well."
The trotting of booted soldiers hummed through the building.
*
When Alphonse got wind of the "attack" on the villa he was less than pleased. Roderin, remembered, as he looked at the pacing king now in front of him. The "Blood-Caped" stopped any interrogator or torturer from working on the captive, a well-dressed young man of roughly twenty-five. Lamartine did not catch sight of the youth, however, from the whispers of maids and soldiers, he had heard that, when the man's corpse was pulled out of the dungeon —what they thought was the body, at least— it resembled more a pulsing mass of red flesh than a human body, falling apart, like the tender meat of a roast. Roderin, accustomed to Alphonse's antics, had little reaction.
"I know that this is worrying… but, Alphonse, making yourself a mess of nerves will serve no purpose."
Roderin ran through the same questions and responses he had given Alphonse every time this topic came up, playing along, hoping to order his friend's mind and help ease his worries.
"I'm not anxious, I'm furious. I still cannot make sense of which imbecile would dare do such an idiotic thing…"
"You questioned the man yourself, so—"
"He said nothing, nothing of worth at least. A complete madman. "Kill it! End it! Before it's too late! The light!" And so on and so forth… He kept screaming this, nothing less nothing more."
"And from his identity?"
"Nothing much. An unknown painter living in some run-down slum down the south side. And the others? All artists, poets, scrip writers, actors… Did I offend the mad artists now? Hah!" Alphonse laughed an exclamation filled with frustration.
"If you can gleam nothing from them then there's no point in bothering, just keep your eyes open and calmly assess the rest… You know thi—"
"Yes, yes…"
"Also, this mood is not healthy for Marenisse, her due date is a month past, any day now—"
"I know… Haaa…" He exhaled. "I've doubled the guards stationed around her." The child's late birth also frayed his nerves.
"And the name for the coming prince or princess?"
Alphonse smiled, understanding his friend's desire to take his mind off what bothered him. And, although he was partially right, Roderin did want to better his mood, the archeologist could also not bother with a foul humored King, as he had been since the attack months ago. The dreams kept getting worse and worse, more vivid, more brilliant, more terrifying, —especially last night. It was dizzying merely trying to remember— even in waking, he saw phantoms of light behind his eyelids, plagued still with that dull tinnitus and a throbbing headache that did not abate. For some reason, the evident and obvious choice of going to a doctor, or even a mentalist, did not occur to him, as if blotted out from his perception by something. He was also quite good at hiding the pain, showing himself as perfectly healthy to others. The painting, the thangka, increased its thrumming, the sound of sonorous glass slicing the air, the drums, behind them, that whisper…
Alphonse lit a cigarillo, exhaling, again, to calm himself.
"Hmm, I still do not know… Marenisse has no idea either… And yet it's to be born any moment now…"
Roderin made a gesture, asking for a pull of the tobacco. The king, slightly surprised, handed him the lit smoke.
"It's rare to see you smoke… very rare."
"It has been quite stressful for me as well, the past couple of months."
His friend laughed.
"Yes, visiting those cafés daily must be a momentous responsibility, I understand."
Lamartine smiled back. Pulling then a drag from the cigarillo, enjoying the aromatic taste.
As he exhaled, he couldn't help but mutter.
"This tobacco, it smells like… candied tomatoes… confit tomatoes?"
"Hmm."
A knock on the door made their heads turn.
"Enter."
A servant girl entered, bowing and quickly stammering.
"Your Majesty, M'lord… Her Majesty's water has broken, and it seems the child will not take long to be born."
Bot men's eyes' widened.
"Lead the way."
As they walked hurriedly along the halls of the annex, they saw as nurses and servants helped the strangely calm Marenisse. She was led into a spacious room and the door closed. When Alphonse went to enter an old woman blocked him, although she made way when a nurse hurried inside.
"I'm sorry your Majesty, I can't let you in, old custom, you already know. Just like with the other little princes and princesses" The plump accoucheuse said with a smile.
"Ha! You dare order your king?"
Taking the gentle tone a grandmother would use, she answered.
"Tis not an order Your majesty, just the way such things are… I said the same thing to your father, years ago, when I helped deliver you…" Ending with a melancholy laugh.
Alphonse looked at her tensely, then, laid his back on the wall, opposite to the room where his child would be born. The midwife bowed then entered.
Both The king and Roderin stood in silence with heavy minds, when, suddenly, the air stilled. Their hair stood on end.
The city, unbeknownst to all, except a sapient few, was cut by a silence no longer than a breath.
The clear, shinning blue air that covered the continent turned vitreous, and shimmered, divine, now iridescent, spread out, until it met the world's pitch-black ends.
Raining, as golden strands from the empyrean heights, the translucent, shining air mixed with golden light, settling as sediment over the sky, filled with droning chants.
From the rivers of the underworld, where the pooling and flowing of milky-white opal water rang out like lyres and harps, a pale cobalt blue mist, hewn by silver, rose from the depths, carrying the sounds of Elysium.
A few, blessed, cursed, whose eyes glowed with grand-sight beyond other men, looked up, and met the bloom of an opening heaven, the great maw of a dancing, divine beast. Soon, all went blissfully, forever-blind.
And those who died across the world in that stolen stillness, their souls did not scurry into their path, but rather, left their bodies like a perfumed breath, crossing walls and rivers into light.
Somewhere, the blue lotus flowered, once again.
A creaking rang out, so immense it went unheard.
Roderin's headache turned blindingly intense, as if a crackling magnesium light burned behind his eyes. Outwardly, however, he showed no reaction.
Just a moment after its closing, the door opened, and a meek nurse gave way to the two puzzled men. Surrounded by the mid wife, and a cohort of maids, a woman with sprawling copper hair, like strands of fire, cradled her child.
The accoucheuse spoke.
"A painless, expulsive birth, the quickest I've seen…" She then sighed. "However…"
The mother handed a bundle to a servant girl, who brought it to the nervous father.
Roderin, by his side, caught sight of the infant. His headache rose until it seemed to spill outside his skull, burning his skin and melting his eyes.
Pale alabaster skin and platinum tufts of hair, its misty eyes, colored already —rare for a newborn— shone, unusually pale, like two drops of aquarelle… like star-wounded sapphires, light blue and green-flecked, on a silent babe, who cried not a tear, but looked at the world with a curious glare.
A loud thud startled all those present. Lamartine had fainted, hitting the ground with the deep growl of a drum. A strand of thick blood seeping from his head.