Warlord and the Enemy

This is a record of a forgotten history, in a forgotten world. Written by an invisible writer, a forgotten writer.

Warlord Steins sat lazily on his chair situated at the balcony of his castle. Beside him stood one of his trusted generals—one of the few—bearing a grim and morose countenance.

“I assume,” said Steins, swinging his wineglass in a circular motion, “That they lost?”

“They did,” curtly answered the general.

“As expected,” muttered Steins, taking a sip from his glass of wine. “I had planned their defeat from the very beginning. General Marctosh was a valiant hero, but he was naïve, and too difficult to control. He was the perfect sacrifice. Now, the rebel forces will think we no longer have an ace up our sleeve. When they strike, that is when we reveal our real cards.”

“Brilliant as ever sir,” lauded the General whose name never made it in the history books, but he was called River.

Warlord Steins stood up from where he sat, his military jacket dangling loosely behind him, strapped at his neck by a single button. Warlord liked wearing his uniform this way, informal, chaotic, warlike, and monster-like. He leaned on the railing with his sleeveless forearm and right elbow as his right hand held the wine-glass.

Before him was the setting sun, diving down into the vast unknown horizon, the darkness slowly creeping in from behind, and as it were, swallowing the whole palace in the shadows. The moon was early today, it had already graced the evening even before the evening came—just like Steins. Just like me, he thought.

Steins graced the Empire even before the Empire came to be. It was prophesied, as told by stories in the streets, that the son of two great monarchs would unite the world. A world divided by blood and feud, by poverty and wealth, by hunger and satiation. But to do that… to do just that…

“I have to destroy this world,” blurted the Warlord, smirking gently at the sunset.

“There is only one way to change this world and that is to destroy it.”

General River, ever so rigidly, like the trained dog that he was, walked toward Steins, stopping beside him. He did not dare lean on the same railing as his master, no, he was too smart for that.

“What do you mean sir?” questioned the General a bit hesitatingly. “Do you mean literally?”

“You,” sighed Steins, bowing his head in disappointment. “What do you think I mean?”

“Literally.”

Warlord laughed, he laughed and guffawed like a fool about to break his jaw in laughter. Then he threw the wineglass onto the floor. The glass broke violently while the little wine that was left in it splashed all over the floor together with the glass’s broken shards.

“I am going to destroy it like that!” screamed Steins. “Like a fragile glass I will destroy it! Rules! Rules! It is but glass! I shall break that illusion. In order to do that I shall destroy the world, the whole world. Literally! Yes literally! I will destroy not the people but the world they live in!”

Steins patted General River at the back again and again…and again. “You are quite perceptive!” cried the Warlord, “You are perfect for this job River, perfect!”

“You jest sir,” respectfully replied River, “for I know you know I’m inadequate.”

“I jest,” Steins smiled, “I truly jest. It is in jest that I tell you the truth.”

 Steins spread his arms wide as if embracing the horizon…or maybe, the whole world.

“You see, the reason the poor are poor is because the rich take everything. The reason why people are suffering is because others are not! I shall—and all the proceeding Emperor, henceforth—control everything. I will make it even, everything! I will destroy the world as it currently is! I shall make it even, I shall take from the rich what they have and distribute it to the poor, and—Yes! YES! I shall live in poverty too! Holy poverty! Loveable poverty! For my people!”

Warlord Steins convulsed like a madman; he thrashed his body all over the place—at the corner of the balcony, at the center, on top the table or the chair. Then he unexpectedly threw himself to the wall—crazy! He’d gone insane! The man was insane!

“But before I could accomplish my goal,” he said, finally calming down and heaving a sigh. He sat down on the floor, cross-legged. “I need to kill him. My one enemy. The Enemy. That bastard who keeps slipping through my fingers.”

Yes, the Enemy. The sworn enemy of the Warlord. He was the well-known leader of the rebel forces. He was known by many, yet not many knew him—so to say many a man knew the Enemy’s mask, but no one knew who he was behind it. Steins was certain, absolutely certain that whoever the Enemy was, he was among the wealthy. But he had already spent days and nights laying traps for him but—nil, nothing, no results. He could not catch that pesky vermin, that rat, that one obstacle which stood between him and the realization of his grand vision.

Unbeknownst to Steins however, the Enemy had been born among the poor. His father died when he was eight, and his mother left him when he was only ten. He grew up in the streets, being an only child and with no relative or anyone close to take him in. There, in the harshness of the city-streets, he was hardened. Friends died before his eyes, his lover, his best friend, his companions, an old man who used to give him sweets and meals, an old lady who would regularly give him baked goods, and many, many more…. All of them, everyone, dead.

He was in the midst of despair, he was going to curse the world, to rise up as its ruler. He dreamed, he desired, he willed to someday lead a group of rebels against their rulers. He had the same vision as the Warlord, he wanted to rule over it, to break it, to destroy the world (but not its people) if only to build an even better place.

But everything changed when he met a lovely woman, a noble—truly she was not only a noble by heritage but also by heart. He fell in love with her and came to know her gentleness and kindness.

***

“Why do you think there are those who suffer poverty and hunger?” Lily asked. She looked at Pace then smiled at him. She noticed his hesitance to answer her. “Go on, don’t worry, there are no…”

“Wrong answers?”

“No silly,” she giggled. “I was meant to say that there are no wrong answers that can’t be corrected.”

“And that’s supposed to encourage me to open up, how?”

“Oh I’m not encouraging you. It’s a challenge.”

 “By Grodmocker, you had me woman! I dislike this part of you.”

“Just tell me.”

“Because it’s uneven,” answered Pace reflectively. “The uneven curvatures of this world makes it hard for people to meet.”

“And you suppose a plain will connect people?”

“Absolutely! It’s the answer to all our problems.”

“Maybe,” said Lily, standing up from the windowsill she sat on. “But don’t you think forcing it would actually destroy everything rather than build it? Suppose I were to tear down a mountain range to flatten it, wouldn’t I destroy what had in it a semblance of beauty?”

“So are you proposing the poor should remain poor?”

“No, not at all,” she replied, a bit irritated. “I am proposing you don’t force it. I think the wealthy should help the poor to rise up from the quagmire of poverty but I don’t suppose any man should force that to happen. You can stretch an elastic band only so far, then it will hit you back. The reality is, in this life, not everyone can ever be truly equal if in terms of material possession. Some will be more beautiful than others, others wealthier and so on.”

“If that’s your supposition then we’ll get nowhere. The rich will always overcome the poor, they will take all the wealth in the world while the poor work hard for them just so they could share even a pinch of that wealth. That, that Lily, is injustice! The poor who work hard deserve the same wealth as the wealthy have.”

“And you want to force generosity to the wealthy? Have you gone mad? Force a murderer to be a peacekeeper and he will destroy your peace. You can lock him up, but you cannot force him to give peace unless he himself decides to do so. Lock the murderer to keep the peace, but never force him to keep peace. Teach him what is peace and maybe, hopefully, he will come to love peace.”

“So you’re saying we lock up all the rich?”

“No silly!” she giggled again, but this time it was due to exasperation. “I am saying to teach generosity and to show examples of generosity. But never force it. That is injustice too. If the just man gives to every man his due, then the just man should not steal from one man if only he could give to another. He should not deprive one man his rights, if only he could give rights to others.”

“You speak in riddles Milady,” Pace said, “maybe because of your education?”

“I know you get me! Stop feigning ignorance Pace just stop. You say to me that the uneven curvatures of this world makes it hard for people to meet so you want to flatten it? But flattening it would destroy the beauty of the uneven curvatures. No! Build bridges Pace, build bridges!”

Pace just stood there stupefied. He saw before him an unyielding and powerful woman. A woman he fell in love with. He could still remember the day when he had stolen her precious jewel (a gift from her late parents).

He expected that she would put him in jail when he got captured but instead, Lily saw something in him, something he himself could not see, and did the opposite.

Lilly used to call it: ‘Willingness to do well.’ He could not understand it then, and he still couldn’t understand it now. Lily hired Pace to work on her fields, an offer he readily accepted.

One day, Pace saved Lily’s life from two kidnappers; thankful of the said rescue, Lily decided to hire Pace as her personal bodyguard. Ever since that day, the relationship between the two of them began to grow—to something even more than friendship.

Then the day came when the Empire, led by the Warlord, attacked their kingdom—and to his dismay, Lily, his beloved, died during the siege, killed by the one person in this world with whom he shared the same beliefs. Ever since then, Pace decided to take a different path.

Pace then organized and led a small group of rebels, then the group expanded, then it devoured more and more people to its cause, poor and rich alike. Years passed and Pace slowly grew in reputation as the Enemy, the masked enemy of the Empire.

***

“I am going to destroy him. Murder him. Make him pay,” continued Warlord Steins.

Steins immediately stood up, wore his uniform properly, buttoned his military jacket up and walked towards General River.

“Today,” he said to River. “We will flush those rebel rats out.”

“A second Warlord,” River blurted out, stopping Steins in his tracks. “What about the glass?”

“Leave it be.”

“That was such a waste of beauty.”

When he had heard those words Steins immediately pulled his gun and pointed it at River. “What did you say?” he sputtered vehemently. “Say that again.”

“It was beautiful.”

*Bang*, Steins pulled the trigger and shot General River at the stomach.

River fell to the floor, coughing blood. He did not yet die, he was still conscious and capable of speech. “You figured that out too quickly,” laughed River. “Or did you shoot me because what I said annoyed you?”

“Both,” Steins iterated in disdain and scorn; “Who would have thought that you were under my nose all this time.”

River smiled. “You were careless. You gave your trust too easily.”

“And the deeds I made you do?” Steins asked, a bit frustrated. “The men and women (and children) I asked you to eliminate?”

“Alive,” muttered River. “I let them all live.”

“You asshole!”

Steins was about to fire another shot when suddenly he felt a sudden pain in the stomach and blood started pouring out of his nose and mouth.

“Bastard!” screamed Steins. “You poisoned me!”

River roared in laughter, he chortled heavily like never before. Then he coughed up blood, and more blood. “You’re going to die today Steins and your rein will finally end.”

Steins fell to the floor, flat. Steins' world was shrinking… he was afraid to… die. He felt the pain in his stomach increase, and his limbs could no longer move. He was paralyzed. At the edge of death, the memories of all the atrocities he had committed in his life suddenly faded away, and a single memory replaced them in his mind. A memory of a woman.

“I’m sorry Margaret,” whispered Steins, “I couldn’t keep our promise.”

Once upon a time Steins was an innocent young prince who fell in love with a poor maid. Before he became insane he had the same ideals as the Enemy, ideals of building roads to connect two different worlds, ideals that he shared with Margaret. But those ideals did not save her, if anything, those ideals got her killed. Steins’ royal parents ordered for Margaret’s death in order to unlock the potential viciousness in the boy’s heart, to unlock the beast—they thought the maid was holding him back. They did unlock it and the beast turned on them and murdered them.

On this balcony, on the evening of the first of Janurius, year of the Mantel-600. Two people collided. Steins, whose past resembled the present River—or should I say Pace; and River, whose past resembled the present Steins.

River coughed up blood for the last time before breathing his last.

Steins however stared at the roof of the balcony, tears dripping down his cheeks. He coughed up blood.

“Maybe…”

He coughed up blood again.

“I was wrong all along…”

…Maggy, I’m sorry…



Then Steins drew his last breath.