"The relations I nurtured wither away at the first drought;
The deeds I performed wash away with the first flood.
With no fame to recall my face,
Without treasures to record my name,
What is a mortal man to do with this fate?
As heaven laughs at my mundane woes,
I, transient in all my ways, heartily laugh back."
Raed Kening, former alchemist and healer, put down the pen and closed the book before the ink could dry. The pages would stain and the writing might become illegible, but it was enough that he wrote the words down.
"You done?" Came the hoarse bark of one of the palace guards, his face fully obscured by the standard issue silver helmet.
Raed did not reply to the gruff guard, choosing instead only to place the plain leather-bound book atop another stack of similar volumes.
Taking offense at Raed's silence, the guard slammed his steel gauntlet against the cell door, creating a loud bang that echoed across the stone walls. "I said, are you done?" The guard barked, even louder.
"Please, I'm sure the respected alchemist Raed was just finishing his work." Came a rich and authoritative female voice from atop the stairs to the dungeon.
Immediately the guard bowed his head and changed his behavior from one of brusqueness to one of meekness.
"Your Royal Highness," He said.
The woman descended gracefully along the dungeon stairs, her finely crafted jade heels clicking against the granite stone steps. Her violet and gold silk dress was tailored perfectly to avoid contact with the floor. When she reached Raed's cell she stopped one meter from the door. With her hands clasped in front of her waist, she called out to the man inside.
"Raed," she said through her full, faintly rouged lips.
The man sitting at the table in his cell, still clothed in his simple linen shirt and trousers, raised his head. His messy brown hair that resulted from days of neglect partially covered his steely gray eyes, and a hint of a beard grew around his chin.
"Queen Galesia," He said, rising from the rickety wooden chair.
"Leave us," the Queen ordered.
The two guards that accompanied her promptly withdrew back up the stairs out of sight. The one guard who was assigned to watch Raed remained unmoving, head still bowed.
With a subtle impatient tone to her otherwise composed voice, the Queen said, "I told you to leave. The cell door is locked is it not? And even were it not I highly doubt that I would be in any danger with the Alchemical Thaumaturge to defend me."
The guard sputtered a quick apology before he too rushed up the stairs, closing the door after him.
Once the door shut and the two were alone in the dungeon, the Queen softened her expression and relaxed her posture, stepping up to the cell door and resting her arms over the horizontal steel bars. She leaned forward. The unblemished fair skin of her face almost touched the cold metal.
"I'm sorry for the treatment, Raed, but if the courtiers knew that I gave you any special consideration they would use it against both of us."
"I'm not blaming you," Raed replied. His tired gray eyes looked into the Queen's similarly fatigued green eyes. He picked up the book he had moments ago finished writing, and walked toward the door of his cell, stopping close enough to see the Queen's chest move up and down with each breath. He passed the book through the spaces between the bars of the cell wall, and the Queen clasped Raed's hand in both of hers.
"I suppose this would be my parting gift, or resignation letter, or whatever you prefer, Queen Galesia," Raed said, releasing his grip on the book.
The Queen's grip on both book and Raed's hand remained firm. Raed felt the warmth in her palms.
"I'm still Azriya. Just like how you are still Raed, and always were," she said, a wistful look crossing her youthful visage.
Raed returned a consolatory smile to Queen Azriya. "We have the same enemies, you know that."
"I do," Queen Azriya said, her grip still tight around Raed's hand. "How did it come to this, Raed? Would that I were not the Queen..."
"Then I reckon I'd still be here, talking to a different ruler," Raed said. "Whether I would prefer you or that other hypothetical ruler, we will never know."
Queen Azriya giggled. "Oh you, so you can still make jokes even now? Might I have been worried for naught?"
"What else can an ordinary person do but make merry of destiny and laugh at fate?" Raed said.
"Chapter twelve, 'Sailing Across the Western Sea'. From Zeng Kong's song before his final duel." Queen Azriya said, the recognition seeping through her memories.
"So you remembered that."
"How could I not?"
Raed smiled, his eyes looked past the top of Azriya's head, past her golden hair and platinum crown to a distance not limited to the granite wall behind her. "I really thought we could change things," He said.
"So did I."
"The weightier the crown, the fewer the freedoms?" Raed quipped.
"No truer words have I heard," Azriya returned, "Although my ministers, advisers, and courtiers have never said a true word in my presence, so that is not saying much."
"I assume they're the ones behind tomorrow's spectacle too?" Raed asked.
Queen Azriya suddenly sobered up from her skittish reminiscence. In a more somber voice, she said, "Unfortunately so. I tried to appeal on your behalf as best I could without complicating matters further, but it seems my words hold no meaning to them."
"So what did they say about me? I've only heard bits and pieces from rumors and papers. Surely you have all the juicy stuff?" Raed asked.
Queen Azriya gave him a worried glance, and remained silent.
Seeing that the Queen was not responding, Raed said, "Here, I'll start. Tell me if you've heard these ones before.
"The vile turncoat Raed is a traitor to the Kingdom of Galesia; the cowardly serpent Raed has attempted but failed to assassinate Her Royal Highness the Queen Galesia; the accursed necromancer Raed has made a pact with demons to subjugate the kingdom; the wretched sorcerer Raed is spreading pestilence and plague among the commoners. And my favorite one: The demonic sovereign Raed is the incarnate of Primeval Venomous, who has deceived all the kingdom with his human skin and pernicious poison. I think there were some more but they were so grammatically incorrect and filled with neologisms that I can't remember them too well. I can try to reproduce some of them. I warn you though, there'll be profanity."
"Stop, please don't," Azriya pleaded.
"Is it that bad?" Raed asked.
"You're facing capital punishment. The entire royal guard is going to be at the execution site to secure it. Yes, it's really bad."
"Sounds serious if the royal guard is guarding me instead of you."
Azriya gave a sad smile. "Enough of your joking around, this is serious."
"Obviously it's serious, that's why I have to joke right?"
Azriya sighed. "You never took life seriously since you came here, have you?"
"Can't say that I have," Raed admitted. "As far as I'm concerned, I was already playing with house money after taking down Primeval Infernal. That was life well-lived, and I was ready to go ride off into the sunset, to retire into a life of obscurity, dying alone with no one to know that I ever existed."
"That's not funny."
"Subjective, Your Highness. I do, in fact, find it hilarious that I will go down in history as a blank page!" Raed was about to go on until he saw Azriya's watery emerald eyes.
"Am I supposed to say something like 'I always took you seriously' now?" Raed asked, with a look of half-joking, half-not.
"It is a good thing that you did," she said in a jovial faux-haughty tone. "Otherwise I might have been inclined to perform the execution myself."
"Hey you still have a chance to do it right? Queen's privilege and all."
Azriya shook her head with a smile on her lips. "Don't worry about dying in obscurity. I will ensure that in place of a blank page, history will always remember you as being moronic to your last breath."
"I'm not dead, yet!" Raed contended. "Besides, don't I get a trial? Or at least, don't I get to hear the charges against me?"
"That really would make sense, like many of your ideas. But alas, it is not Galesian justice." And quietly, Azriya added, "Or rather, injustice."
Raed smirked with satisfaction upon hearing Azriya's addendum. "Ah I can tell that you will become a wonderful queen one day."
"I AM a wonderful queen, thank you," Azriya said in the joking pretend-arrogant voice.
"Would the gracious and amazing queen deem it fit to tell this lowly commoner what he stands accused of?"
The playfulness fled from Queen Azriya's face, replaced with a critical frown. "Raed, let me be clear, this was all constructed by the courtiers and passed along to the officials. Tomorrow, I will be present at your execution, where it is my duty to read what they have already decided."
"I'm going to be killed tomorrow for things I don't even know I'm accused of doing. Could you at least not let me die without even knowing that?"
Queen Azriya hesitated. "Are you sure? They are unkind words, and false. Even thinking about how I am forced to utter such lies makes me so angry I can't help but shake with every part of my being."
"You will have to announce this in public tomorrow and you can't show your emotions when that happens. Consider this some last minute practice then."
"Very well, Raed," Queen Azriya said, her voice changing tone from gentle to stern as she recited her lines.
"Raed of Silas Village, former alchemist hero and veteran of the Vanquishing War, you are accused of inciting rebellion against the rightful ruler of the Kingdom of Galesia, of forming heretical contracts with demonkind, of defiling and performing perverse rituals on the deceased, of intentionally spreading disease among the populace, and of willfully disrupting the natural order of the land. For these crimes against the crown, the nobility, and the commonfolk of the Kingdom of Galesia, and against all of humankind, you, Raed of Silas Village, are sentenced to death."
Queen Azriya shuddered as soon as she finished her recital. Her hands trembled and Raed felt her palms become colder, with sweat beginning to form in them.
"That was a great performance, Riya," Raed said to the Queen, placing his other hand over one of hers. He gave Azriya a soft squeeze over her hand.
"And it won't be the last one I give tomorrow," Azriya said.
"Am I hearing this right?" Raed asked.
"Tomorrow, there will be all twenty members of the royal guard present. Five at each side of the execution grounds. They are all highly trained and very skilled. You would be unable to escape them at their best."
"So you're saying they won't be in their best shape tomorrow?"
"Tonight, there is to be a feast in my honor, to celebrate your capture. All members of the royal guard will attend, as will most of the court," Azriya said. With a coy grin, she continued saying, "I will partake of the feast in moderation, taking care not to upset my constitution by only accepting drink. However, the guards will need to eat well to prepare for a strenuous day tomorrow. And as it happens, you taught me how long it would take for certain spoiled foods to take effect once eaten." She gave a wink.
"And you expect me to take this information and not attempt to use it to my advantage?" Raed asked sarcastically.
"What I expect," Queen Azriya said, "is that you will make a most daring escape, and for that, become the most wanted fugitive in the Kingdom of Galesia."
Raed chortled with jaded mirth.
Queen Azriya leaned in closer, not bothered by the metal bars pressing against her face. Her nose nearly touched the tip of Raed's, and her lips were almost close enough to brush against his. She whispered, in a delicate voice only Raed could hear, "What I wish, is that you survive. Conquer my kingdom if you must. But please, live."
The Queen pulled away from the cell wall, book clutched to her chest with one hand. She backed away to the one meter space between her and the metal bars. Standing straight once again, she said, "And if it would not trouble you to do so, might I ask that you save the...well I suppose I am no longer a princess anymore, am I?" She raised her free hand to her mouth and chuckled lightly. With a final smile mixed with nostalgia and hope, Queen Azriya turned away from Raed, ascended the stairs, and called to the other side of the heavy oak door.
"Guards, I am finished here." She said.
The door opened away from the steps. Two guards stood at attention on one side, and one remained at the door, one hand on the thick iron ring handle.
Queen Azriya did not look back as she glided through the open door. After she had passed, the door once more closed with a conclusive thud.
Alone in his cell with the flickering candle casting moving shadows in his cell, Raed sat down at the shoddy wooden desk. Opening an unfinished book, he took up his pen again, and started writing with what light remained.