The Lost King (Winter 2022-23)

            The Lost King ruled long and well. He was fair-minded, clever, a kind soul and a great wit. He never ordered his troops to battle over trivialities, was prudent with the kingdom’s treasures, and generous with his serfs. Across the kingdom his name was said without ire.

            One day the King fell ill. He slept for forty days and forty nights and when he woke he left half himself behind in dreams. The King’s physician ordered his soldiers far and wide to find a cure. At last they returned to the King’s bedside dragging a howling silver wolf in a cage.

             The King’s General announced, “This Shewolf says she knows what ails you and how to break the spell.”

            The King could only thinly reply, “Is this true?”

            “Yes,” answered the wolf, pacing the cage whose bars shivered in fear of her, “I know a cure. But I will not tell you unless every part of me is free to do so.”

             “Very well,” croaked the King. He had the wolf released, and sent all his men away.

            The wolf padded close to the King’s wan face, her last breakfast reeking in her teeth, and asked, “Dear King, what do you feel?”

            “I feel I’m swimming in a choppy sea with limbs made of butter,” whispered the King. “I feel my thoughts are wrapped in eider down. I feel a cliff has grown between my bed and throne which I am too small to climb.”

            The wolf pierced the King with her intelligent eyes. “I see. Here is what you must do. First, count the rain drops which turn your sword from grey to brown. Second, watch your royal cloak change from wool to fertile ground. Last, learn the age of every stone within your crown.”

            “Is that all?” yawned the King, “Our libraries can tell you that. Fetch my experts – ”

            “No!” barked the wolf. “You cannot find these answers in any book. You must live through each task yourself. Only then will you find relief. And if you try to come by this knowledge any other way, you will be cursed to live out your days as you are now: too ill to stand, too numb to rule, too weak to change your fate.”

            What could the King do? He thanked the wolf and let her go. The next day, he began.

            The King drew beside his chamber window and slid his family’s sword on the sill so the blade could catch the weather. It was hard to hold its hilt balanced on the threshold, and harder still to watch the blade tarnish in the gloom. But, to find a cure, he would do what the wolf had said. The King watched the sky for raindrops, and felt their tiny impacts shake the metal when they fell.

One, two, three, four, he counted.

Two hundred fourteen…

Three hundred thousand…

One million two…

The King spent the rainy season learning every shape a splash could take. He saw the hundred colors between grey and black, the thousand between black and brown. He felt the strength of water, and the flimsiness of solid things. He marveled that he’d ruled so long without this knowledge.

The wolf returned one day when the King’s sword was but a cratered metal plank.

            “The number of raindrops needed,” crowed The King, “to turn an iron sword to rust is –”

            “Hush,” yipped the wolf. “I do not need to know the number. It’s you who asked release from your spell. But I am pleased you’ve learned so much. See how it brightens your cheeks? I’ll find you again when your next task is done.” And with that, the wolf trotted away.

            The next day, the King began. Draped in his royal robe, he walked all day to the edge of his castle grounds. There, he pulled the fine fabric from his shoulders and placed it on the dirt. It was hard to see it on the mucky ground, and harder still to cover it with leaves, but the King would do what the wolf had said. He did not move from his spot for a year and a day. In Spring, bugs burrowed into the cloth. In Summer, birds chose threads for their nests. In Autumn, mold colonized its weave. The King stayed put right through Winter as he watched wool relax into earth. When the ground again began to thaw, the King saw that his cloak no longer held its shape. Its hue had faded from indigo to a tawny silt. What had been a token heavy around his neck was now a bed of loam where violets pushed up their tender heads.

            Meanwhile, the castle lords grew tense and jealous. The nobles began to scheme in the King’s absence, and the King’s daughter spurned her lovers, sensing that her father’s throne could soon be hers alone. But none of this concerned the King. Their games of politics now seemed silly. They did not help the crops to rise, or sweeten water in the well. His cloak was teaching him that richness lives in soil, not gold. And so, the wolf appeared once more.

            “Hello, dear king. How goes your work today?”

            “Splendid,” smiled the King.

            “Good,” she nodded. “You are ready for your final task. This will be the hardest yet and it will take you far from home. You must learn the age of every gem encrusted in your crown. You wear them on your head like plumes, but they’ve each lived more lives that your kingdom has ever seen. When you understand their span of time you will be cured.”

            With that, the wolf disappeared.

            The next day, the King began. He threaded rocks and necklaced them to feel each rolling on his chest as he walked. He spent a year peering through glass deciphering their geometries. Another year he memorized their salty, spicy, blood and ozone scents. In his slow pace, he traveled to lands far beyond his realm, up mountains, into caves. He walked on crackling lava plains, new obsidian hissing underfoot. He felt sandstone gather at the base of busy streams. He traced granite walls for fossil ridges and seams of silken metal. It was hard to traverse up and down such rigorous terrain, and harder still to lug along the fruits of his research. But this is what the wolf had said to do, and the King by now knew her to be wise.

Meanwhile, his nobles declared war vying for the throne. In a bloody victory, the princess crowned herself queen, beheading all detractors. She seized neighbor lands in vicious campaigns burning forests, fouling rivers, and killing generations of strong and hearty men. Then she rounded up every wolf in the expanded kingdom and slaughtered them to punish the one who betrayed her father, the lost king, with a foolhardy trick. When he heard all of this, the King was stunned that such cruelty lurked within his blood. But the castle did feel so far away, like a bad dream, something terrible and false.

            The King is still searching for the nursery of stones. His world, now, is slate and marble, chalk and coal and quartz. His heart has slowed to beat once in a season. His blood oozes through its yearly course. His fingers learn to feel the tides of continental drift. And while he does all this, the frenzied human world tears down its towers fast as it can build them.