Algernon Black

(Chapter 118) The Thousand Year Old King

Jared and Devane walked into the village as all the children ceased their activities to gawk at them. Devane to his surprise, saw many practicing magic, and at a higher skill level than he saw in just about any adult. The eldest looked to be no more than 13, and the youngest no more than four, but all clean and well dressed with the red cheeks of healthy youth.

The children started to whisper to each other of the adults' arrival. Two ran to the center of town, where a tree, thirty feet in diameter, had been turned upside down, and from its roots hung various types of fruit, growing without leaves but the ones on their stems.

Jared peered up at the tree, trying to recall why it looked so familiar when more and more children started to surround them. It had to be more than fifty gathered, all of drastically different backgrounds and appearances. He started to wonder who and how someone collected such a diverse group of children and most importantly what for.

From the upside-down tree, a door opened and a man came out. Clean-shaven with an appearance as pure as his linen white robes, the man was being pulled along by the two children to Jared and Devane. He smiled softly down at the kids telling them not to rush, but when his eyes landed on the grown men his gaze turned guarded.

The man seemed to be about 30, or 40, or 50. Jared couldn't tell because his face looked young, but his eyes looked like they held a thousand years of tiredness. He seemed to have no wrinkles, but at a certain angle, he seemed to have too many.

"Hello," The man received them with a bow, letting the strange large glasses he wore made of stained glass, fall to his chest with the chain attached to the rims. "May I ask what you are doing here?"

Oira hid behind Jared's legs, while the other children stepped curiously closer, one even daring to touch her braids.

"Are you perhaps a courier?" Jared asked, his restraint of time making him do away with caution and basic manners.

"No," The man replied. "Is that all you came to know?"

"No," Jared said, his heart dropping with the denial, but still he had to persist. "I came to find out abo-,"

"Is the king's diary here?" Devane demanded.

Jared stared at him in shock of his bluntness and then to the man whose shoulders dropped along with his heavy eyelids.

"You want the power of the gods." The man said evidently.

"No," Jared stated, truthfully. "I don't."

The man studied him with dubious eyes.

"I don't want it. And I especially don't want any other man alive to have it."

The man continued staring over Jared and saw the iron determination in his light blue irises. He smiled.

"Then welcome." He said, lifting his hands out to his sides. "To the kingdom of Direreve."

Jared turned to the surrounding group of starring wide-eyed children. And the longer he looked he noticed they were all different races, different ages, and speaking various languages. And they seemed to share nothing in common, except they were all children besides the one man whose age could have been anywhere from 20 to 50.

"What is this place?" Jared questioned once again, looking to the center gathering tree, which had twenty or so white clay huts circling it.  A river was to the left of the homes and the bottom of the cliff was to the right. It must not be a safe place, one that probably flooded easily, but everything looked perfectly fine. A calm serene paradise.

"Just what it seems." The man said, "Nothing more."

"An unmanaged orphanage?" Devane remarked, looking at the complete chaos of unmonitored children.

"They manage themselves." The man said, gesturing to a child using magic to pluck a pear from the roots of the tree thrifty feet above his head. "Quite better than the average person, if I do say so myself."

"You're teaching them magic," Devane remarked, his skepticism growing. "Are you planning to sell them?"

The man deflated in obviously sullenness. "I'm not teaching them, they are teaching each other, for whatever purpose is up for each to decide for themselves."

"Why would I believe that?" Devane accused, quickly becoming hostile with the thought he stumbled into a surveyor's nest.

"It must be hard for someone with your history to believe such a thing." The man said to which Devane went instantly silent. "But there is no child here that does not want to be here. And once that child decides for themselves it is time, they leave."

"So, you're raising children to learn magic just to send them off into the world," Jared said, skipping over the vague explanation in need of other answers. "But what does this place have to do with the king's diary?"

"Nothing." The man said.

"So, there are no answers here?" Jared asked.

"I didn't say that." The man replied, "But they may not be the ones you want to hear."

"Let me decide that for myself. Where can I find them?" Jared asked, starting to get frantic. "What do you know about the last good king?"

The man looked at Jared with the same knowing smile but shifted his eyes to his coat pocket. Jared felt a heat form against his skin. He reached inside to find the chisel with the engraving of a bird on the handle. He had all but forgot about it but brought it out now where it unmistakably vibrated in his hand. And suddenly Jared flashed back to a memory of the vague image of a king's portrait drawn out in a decaying textbook.

"Quite a bit too much." The main added.

Jared stepped back as his mind started to flood with an impossible understanding. "Who are you?" He asked with no air in his lungs. The man raised him a small smile before lifting his hand out for the chisel. Jared dropped it into his open palm.

"Thank you." He said, running his thumb over the bird and branch sigil etched into the handle. "I've been waiting for this to get back to me."

Jared stared at the man like he was losing his mind. Devane noticed his gapping but didn't yet understand what had him so confused.

"How are you alive?"

The man's smile fell. "I don't know. Perhaps in the same way the gods are alive." He paused to look around the small village of his creation. "Because man forces us into existence with constant longing and necessity."

Devane glanced between the two without a single idea of what they were on about.

"So maybe when the gods stop being needed, I'll stop being required and I'll finally be able to leave this world as well." His face turned towards the warmth of the sun like he was basking in the idea of it.

"What is happening?" Devane asked, "What are you on about?"

The man turned his smile to Devane, and the advisor felt it pull at a very distant memory.

"You've been working with kings for quite a long time now, can you not recognize one now?"

Devane stared back at him. The way he dressed resembled more of a wandering vagabond than a king, but there was a gleam to his gaze, a confidence that he only saw in rulers.

"This is," Jared halted to gape again, still unable to comprehend if what he was about to say was even possible, "This is King Leviathan."

Devane's sight wandered back to the man's youthful smile and eyes aged like they were a thousand years old.

"That's impossible," Devane said. "You couldn't be alive, not this long. Vessels aren't immortal."

"No." The last good king said, "Only gods are."

Jared and Devane stared at the man as his presence filled the air they breathed and turned their bones to stone.

"To my great displeasure." The thousand-year-old king added.