PART 3
And so he returned to that place he had long left behind. The lake still rippled and glistened below him, the sunlight still struck with furious strength. But Rego cared not for the memories this place offered him. His attention was focused on his anger. Nothing could distract him from it, for it simmered with a heat unrivalled even by the sands surrounding him.
He was here for the Oracle and the Oracle alone. He was here to make her remorseful. She had lied to him, and corrupted him. Just as before he jumped and broke the stillness of the lake. Just as before he swam to the opening in the rock. He entered and the light was left behind. Time had washed away any recollection of the tunnels, and he struggled to find the way. With each moment Rego wasted, his anger grew. Still, he thought, the Oracle liked to steal his time. Still she liked to deceive.
Finally he reached the door leading into her hall. It was lighter than he remembered, and it clattered as it clashed against the stone. He walked in without pause. The Oracle sat in the same place, remaining in shadow.
This time though, it was Rego who spoke first:
‘I don’t suppose you are surprised to see me, Oracle? You see everything, don’t you? Every decision and move a man will make: your eye misses nothing. But you can do more. You can influence the future unlike any other being in this world. And yet, despite these powers, despite your apparent greatness, you refuse to help me. You’re directions have not led to where I asked to go. The prize you offered me hasn’t appeared. So I am beginning to wonder, Oracle, whether you actually have any powers at all. Perhaps your great eye is blind. Perhaps you are a fraud: a freak who couldn’t even foretell nightfall.’
The Oracle met his words only with quietness. At length, she began to reply. ‘There is nothing wrong with what I told you, Rego. It is you who have failed with your interpretation.’
Her response enraged Rego further. ‘Failed with my interpretation?’ He replied. ‘I travelled the world to unravel the meaning of your words. And then I travelled the world again to find your forces and conquer them. Perhaps you cannot see, Oracle, what I have achieved? I climbed the mountain that was built to go unclimbed and I did not falter. I challenged Air and it yielded. I travelled to where Water ran its’ wildest and it could not defeat me. I found Fire and its’ impossible heat was conquered. You sent me out there to find the forces that shape the world. I found them. I am Lord of the Elements. Yet here I stand, without the crown you promised me, still not King. And so I come here, Oracle, to ask you: why did you lie? Why am I not King?’
‘You are not King, Rego, because you have failed to understand the World.’ The Oracle said, her voice still smooth and unyielding. ‘The forces you have mastered do not shape the whole world, only the natural one. They shape the world of mountains and seas and forests and deserts. But the world is more than that. It is far more than that. You forget about the world of mankind.’
‘And what is this force that shapes man?’
‘This force cannot be found, and so there is no reason to go looking for it. It finds you.’
‘Tell me this force. I shall not wait for it but seek it out.’
‘I did not tell you the forces the first time and I will not do so now. One who cannot understand the forces that shape the world cannot lead it. If you cannot find this force that shapes man, then you will never be King. And the powers you ask for will remain absent. But you will never find it by searching, Rego.’
‘And how do I defeat this force that influences the actions of man?’
‘Just as before, Rego, you must overcome its effects.’ The Oracle answered.
Rego turned and left. The Oracle watched him go. He returned to the surface, and the desert. The Sun was as high and hot as when he had entered the darkness. He left the lake behind and staggered towards the distance. The rage continued to rise within him. Still, he thought, still the Oracle demanded more. Still she pushed him into the world without direction to watch him stumble and achieve nothing. Rego promised he would have his revenge for her lies and deceit. When he became King, he swore he would punish the way she tormented him. He disappeared into the horizon, muttering of how he would have retribution. But the Oracle was right. He would never find the answer in the way he wanted.
So he travelled the world once more, searching for the force that shapes the actions of man. He retraced his ways, visiting countries and cities old and new, seeking out the wisest the world could offer. He didn’t stop in his pursuit, refusing to slow down until he had the answer in his hand and the crown on his head. But the same problem that vexed him then plagued him now: each answer he received was different. And each answer he knew was wrong.
There were the soldiers he found sitting outside their barracks on a sleepy afternoon. They had turned angrily when he disturbed them to ask his question. When he had done so, the soldiers had looked at each other, before one turned to Rego and said: ‘War shapes the actions of man. It makes people afraid, makes people move and makes people die. That’s why we should be paid more.’ But as Rego walked away he knew that war was not what he sought, for war was ephemeral, and so didn’t primarily shape the actions of man.
So he had continued, venturing across nations, passing through borders and territories by the day. He came to a large city filled with temples and towers of carved marble. In one room there, a group of men were making speeches. Rego interrupted them and asked his question. The men smiled and looked at each other, before one stood up, closed his eyes and in a booming voice said. ‘Man is shaped by politics. And therefore by we politicians.’ At this, the men began to smile even more, looking to one another and muttering their agreement. But Rego knew they were wrong. Politics shaped so little of the everyday; it was behind so few decisions made by most. No, it was not the primary force that shaped the life of man. So he kept going.
And then he came upon a priest who was walking the same road. Rego asked him what was the main force that shaped the lives of man. The Priest took a moment to realize he was being spoken to. His face became expressionless. He pointed to the sky, and said ‘God’ and went on his way, praying under his breath. Rego went on too, still without the answer he needed. Each step became more desperate. Each moment Rego felt his dream of becoming King slipping further away.
He went to a poet who liked to write whilst looking out to the sea. Rego asked him his question: What force shaped the lives of man? ‘The force that shapes life?’ the Poet replied. ‘But it is the other way around. Life shapes the living.’ Rego didn’t understand. The poet continued: ‘Life itself is the great force. For without it, life would not exist.’ Now Rego knew that life was responsible for making people live, but he didn’t think it was responsible for shaping life thereafter. So he had thanked the poet and left without the answer to his question. He returned to the road.
He walked on. Anger mixed with desperation within him. He was angry because he was still walking these roads that he long should have left behind. He was angry because the Oracle had made it so difficult for him, hiding the truth, obscuring the light that would illuminate his way to the throne.
He kept going, telling himself to use the anger that raged inside to make his body move forwards. Yet it was a desperation to achieve the power that he had long sought that was even more an incentive to push onwards, for though he was angry at the Oracle, he was more fearful that he had spent his life in pursuit of misdirection. To him the idea of waste was worse than the idea of failure. It strengthened his resolve to achieve the ultimate Kingdom. Fear made him angrier. He became so angry for he was so fearful.
But then he realised something. He was unsure when he realised it, and for a long time he refused to acknowledge his realisation. He realised that he didn’t even know why he was so desperate for such power. Deep down, Rego realised that he almost didn’t want to be King anymore. Sometimes, often when he was lying beneath the expanse of the night sky, he would consider giving up his dream. He realized that it had slowly broken his spirit and soul.
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sp; But then he would think of all he had gone through to get this far, and in fear that he had wasted so much of his life, he would renew his pledge to find the crown. He would think of all he had invested to reach here, and how much that was to surrender, and keep going. He kept trying to imagine an inspiring throne even as it gleamed less and less brightly in his mind. He just couldn’t bring himself to give up, for that would sentence his life to the realms of futile.
He visited a woman in the desert whom he heard had the answer. She lived in a small house near an oasis that provided enough water for her and her alone. He asked her his question: what force shaped the lives of man? She took a drink from a leather flask that hung around her neck but her throat was still dry when she began: mankind is shaped by memory, she said. Rego asked her to explain. Decisions are made, she replied, using that which we already know as a guide. Memory shapes the present and so shapes life. Rego listened as she spoke, but all the time he also had to listen as his head told him that this woman was wrong. Because memory couldn’t shape new lives since they had no memories. No, memory was not the ultimate force that shaped the lives of man.
He left the woman, and went into the desert alone to consider. But he couldn’t think clearly anymore. His mind was opaque, his thoughts muddled, his spirit sunk. Still he had nothing. He had given up so much searching for this power and still he had nothing. There was no crown on his head and there was no throne in sight. He couldn’t even find the force that shaped mankind.
He had failed.
Rego fell to the ground. His legs had yielded. They were tired of his promises, exhausted from being driven to the edge and beyond by an empty fuel of anger and anguish. He felt so tired. His whole body felt limp and lifeless, like the spirit had been sucked out and just a skin remained. His vision blurred. The desert ahead merged into the sky until all he could see was a single shade of nothing. He felt sick. He felt directionless. His mind went from flooding with rage to emptying into an emotional tumult. Tears, thick and solid built in the corners of his eyes and dribbled down his face, becoming black as they licked up the grime.
Who was he now?
He stood up. He walked a few steps. He passed a single dune and tried to consider it a victory. But he couldn’t. His heart was closed to optimism for it had heard too much. It was immune; a medicine that had lost the ability to heal.
He fell again. He dropped to his side. The world turned with him. He couldn’t go on. He knew he couldn’t. He tried to think of the crown, looking for an image that would give him hope again, but his heart refused. He tried to think of power and the journey he had made, and of ruling the World, but he knew such desires were empty. They were just lies. They were stories. They were false and fiction. He could feel them draining away. He could feel them losing their power. He had experienced too much. He just wanted to be normal now, made the decisions others had. He wished he had done everything differently.
Who was he? Who was he before? He tried to think of his life back then, before the hunger for power had seeped into his life. But he couldn’t remember anything. He had become so focused on the world ahead, and his dark dreams, that his past had disappeared. His memories had gone untended for too long. There was nothing there but blankness. He was so tired and so exhausted and so alone. He had been abandoned even by his past.
He stumbled on. He cried again. He fell again and cried some more, until a tiny puddle of tears lay on the sand. It was sucked away by the desert.
The Oracle, he thought. She is to blame. She drove him here and did this to him. Look at what she had done to him! He would find her and punish her and make her remorseful. He would make her sorry for turning him into this. He would….
But then, as he lay there on the ground, as he lay deep in misery, he realised that no, no she wasn’t to blame. It was his ambition that had made him want to be King. Him who went to her even when he knew that she could deceive. Him who continued even when he knew how hard the path could be. It was him who had brought himself to here. It was all him. He was to blame and him alone. And all he had now was influence over the elements. He had never even wanted that. But what did he want? To be King, but why? Power, but for what? He had just wanted power. His was a failed dream. It was a deformed one.
Rego lifted his head. He let his neck drop and his face fell into the sand. He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care if sand fell on him and turned him to desert. He didn’t care if the Sun reached down and stole every last drop of moisture from his body. He didn’t care about death for he didn’t feel alive. He felt nothing. Just like the sand. He closed his eyes and looked into the blackness. He looked into the unknown and smiled because at least the unknown was interesting. He was so tired of the known. And then everything went quiet. And the blackness took him. And the unknown beckoned.
‘Rego.’
No. There was no one there. It’ll be over soon. Be still.
‘Rego.’
No. ‘Just let me be.’ He whispered.
‘Rego. Rise.'
He opened his eyes and cast them upwards. A girl looked down upon him, only he knew she wasn’t real. Her hair didn’t flutter in the wind, and her face was too radiant and perfect to be of reality. She looked familiar, but Rego didn’t trust anything his mind thought anymore. She was a trick of the desert. The desert was always cruelest at the end.
‘Rego.’ She said. ‘Rego, you must rise.’
She put out her hand and Rego reached out to grasp it. He didn’t want to stand, but she pulled him to his feet. She let go again. He swayed until he found his balance.
‘Follow.’ She said.
The girl walked ahead. She walked slowly, but he couldn’t keep up. She moved ahead, waving her arm to keep him stumbling forward, to keep him following. And Rego did follow. His mind was empty, and he did so purely from instinct. He couldn’t think now. The girl disappeared around a dune. Something told Rego that she would have disappeared when he rounded the corner, something deep inside him: a faint memory. But he turned around the dune and she was still there, slightly ahead, moving onwards.
Rego continued. His arms hung limply at his sides, his feet dragged sand forward as they barely left the ground with each step. More dunes came and went. The girl stayed near, bidding him onwards. And Rego followed because there was nothing else to do now. It was following her into the distance and into the desert, or dying. It was this or finality. And Rego, for the moment, wanted life. But he didn’t know why. Because life was cruel and at least death was fair: everyone was equal then. And yet still he chose life.
A darker line against the sky formed in the distance. It was nothing significant. But the girl moved towards it, drifting over the sands. The line grew and lost its straightness. Edges stuck out from the top. A city. A gate loomed and the girl walked through. They walked through streets until they reached a square. A small tree stood in the middle casting shade beneath. The girl led Rego towards it. He slumped in the dimness.
The desert has finished its game, he thought. And in the shadow, it all ends. And in the shade, he slept.
He slept until something woke him: a shout from afar, the winds of the desert. It didn’t matter. Was this the beyond? He hoped it wasn’t. It felt too familiar. And he didn’t want eternity to be like the familiar. He looked around. The leaves of the tree rippled above him and the courtyard shone yellow. The sky was mineral blue and the Sun burned so bright that his eyes became stunned as it pierced his pupils.
There was someone with him. He sensed someone, though he could not see with his blurred vision.
‘Rego.’ The voice was that of a girl. ‘Are you back with the World?’ She asked. ‘Rego, you fool. Rego, I love you.’
Rego’s eyes began to clear. The little specks of white that dotted his vision were returning to colour. Who was this? He was right: she was a girl. But he couldn’t place her, even though she looked so recognizable and so like he did know her. What had she said? He drew his gaze slowly across her face, tracing h
er features until he reached her eyes. He looked into them hoping they would glimmer with truth and speak her name. But he found no answer. And so he looked deeper, into the heart of the black orbs that stood in their centre. And though they shimmered and flickered and danced in the light still they did not ring with the truth he sought. And so he looked past even these until it seemed he was looking straight into her soul.
And there, in the deepest recesses of her eyes, in the soul itself, he found himself. And he remembered.
He remembered her, and the effect she had wrought upon him. He remembered who he had been, and why he had set out on the journey to the crown. He remembered how he had been so desperate to get her to notice him. Mira. The girl was Mira. She stood before him. What had she said? She had said she loved him. Rego felt his heart beating, and his chest heaving. He was so confused. ‘But,’ he stammered. He found his breath, and managed to get words out. ‘But I thought you didn’t know me.’
‘I knew you,’ she replied. ‘Your brother told me everything: he told me that you had set out into the World to find a prize with which to impress me. And as soon as he did, I went after you. I wanted to tell you that I loved you just as you loved me. I loved you Rego just as you were. Maybe it seemed otherwise because I was so shy, but I always did. But when I found you in the tavern in that land of rain, and you couldn’t even look up at me, I knew this ambition had corrupted you. But I didn’t stop loving you. I knew you would eventually find the truth. I knew you would return and find the path once more and so I waited. And I was right.’
Rego looked up at Mira. He stood. He’d never known so much truth tumble out in a single moment. It had exhausted him, left him stunned. He felt weightless, like her words were imaginary, like she wasn’t real. But she was. Her words were too. He felt the Sun and the wind, and he knew he stood in reality. But he was still confused, still so removed from consciousness that his mind refused to function. He heard Mira speak, he saw her lips move but he understood nothing. What had she said? That she loved him? Had she loved him? Did she love him?
She had said that. He was sure she had. Yes, she had said that. Rego looked back into Mira’s eyes. He saw wisdom in them he could never hope for. They were bright and luminous, her smile wide and happy. She reached out and grasped Rego’s hand. ‘You’re home.’ She whispered. But still Rego couldn’t speak. Still he couldn’t move. He waited for Mira’s words to settle within himself, he waited to understand and appreciate them, for them to adopt significance and become comprehended. He thought about them quietly and quickly, so many thoughts and ideas hurrying about in his head, so much, so fast. She loved him. He repeated it to himself again and again. She loved him.
And then, finally, he felt them. And he heard her words anew. And they settled within him. And he believed them. She loved him!
Rego looked at Mira, this girl who loved him for him and always had, who had loved him and did love him despite his faults, who had waited for him to be restored to sense and never wavered, and he felt all the pain ebbing and the darkness paling, and he sensed his heart swelling, and his spirit rising and his life returning.
And in this same instant, he realised he loved Mira too. His love returned and burst forth with such force for it had been restrained so long. It soared to such heights so quickly that Rego almost fell. It instantly took him and changed him back into the boy he had been. He suddenly wanted to shout and laugh out of happiness as he remembered everything, all those feelings of before. Indeed, if it was possible, he loved Mira more even than he had. She had recalled him to life. She had given him meaning again.
Mira held out her arms, and Rego stepped forward. They met each other. They held each other. And suddenly the world didn’t matter to Rego. Nothing mattered but this moment. And in this moment, Rego finally felt the power of a full heart afresh with purpose. He felt the most powerful force he had ever experienced. He was in love again. And he was so happy. His thoughts had become blissful, the former shadows replaced by a boundless brightness.
And then, right then, the Oracle appeared. She entered the square and walked towards them. And she began to speak. ‘The throne is yours, Rego.’ She said. For the first time, Rego could see her, her features, her being. She stood beside a throne, grasping a crown of gold between her hands. Rego looked at the crown. It glinted in the sunlight. He had never thought he would see it and yet there it was.
But he realised he felt nothing towards it. It was nothing to him.
And Rego looked at the throne. It stood imposing and grand, and the light bounded from it. But it was nothing to him. And then he understood: there was just one throne. There was just one crown.
The Oracle spoke: ‘Love, Rego, is the most powerful force that man has ever known. It can make people do things unimaginable and unbelievable. It is behind the everyday and the extraordinary. It is sovereign over mankind.’
Rego knew. He could feel its power now. Think, he thought, of all the decisions made from love: so many everyday. Think, he thought, of how the farmer tills, and the parent works, and the partner labours, and the trader trades: all to provide for one they care about. Think, he thought, of how the child cries and the soldier fights and the priest prays: all for they love someone. All for love. Think, he thought, of how it lies behind everything. The Oracle continued. ‘When you mastered the elements, you remember what you had to do?’
‘I had to overcome the forces and show that they had no effect on me.’ Rego answered.
‘Yes.’ The Oracle responded. ‘Perhaps you remember you once asked me why there had never been a King of all the World before?’
‘Yes.’ Rego replied. He saw it all so clearly.
‘And you now understand?’
‘Yes.’ Rego said. ‘You have seen this moment, haven’t you?’
‘Of course.’ The Oracle replied. ‘I see all things.’
‘I renounce the throne. I will not be King. I choose love. Like everyone else.’
The Oracle was smiling. ‘You are right, Rego, no one will ever sit here. The Kingdom of the World is an impossible one: no one strong enough to master the elements and conquer the natural is foolish enough to forfeit love and master the world of man. And so this throne will always remain empty. Love is a force that no one wants to defeat. To succumb is to be blessed. To succumb is to discover a greater kingdom.’
Rego laughed. ‘You let me go through all that even when you knew I would never be King.’
‘Everyone must learn their possibilities by themselves. If they never do, they will never be content.’ The Oracle said.
‘What about the elements?’ Mira asked. ‘Are you not still in control of them?’ She was right. Rego looked at her and Mira nodded and he understood.
He turned back to the Oracle. ‘You have seen this moment too?’
‘I see all things.’
‘Then you know I renounce my control of the elements. Let them be free.’
Rego felt his body shiver as the elements left him. They rushed out and back into the wild. He sensed the world suddenly enliven. He knew there was a plain somewhere where the winds had recently rallied. He knew that there was a mountain that had once more begun to grow. He knew that there was a place where the heat and fires had just flared. And he knew that there was a river before a fall that was filling a valley once more with noise and mist and running water.
Rego took Mira’s hand and she leaned in towards him. ‘Now you can appreciate the beauty of this world, for it will be unexpected again. And that always makes something more beautiful.’ She said.
‘That is true.’ Rego replied, looking into her eyes. She had always been wise.
Together they left the square. They were walking into a life of uncertainty but they had no concern. Because they knew they had love within them. And that made them strong. And no darkness could harm them. For nothing in the world could defeat them whilst they had each other.
* * * * *
The Grandfather finished. Night had turn
ed to dawn.
‘What happened to Rego and Mira?’ The girl asked.
The Grandfather looked towards the Grandmother and both smiled.
‘They lived.’ He said. ‘They lived.’
The End
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