Cost of a Human Mind

Come, my darling child, and let me tell you a story. Yes, get comfortable. Snuggle into the warmth of your chair—or don’t. Don’t listen to me at all, if it suits you more, I suppose. You have free will, after all. Our hero, on the other hand, did not.

Well, not exactly. Pacisor was a fine gentleman. He was the picture of perfection. If I may, I’d say he was also incredibly cunning. He had everything a man could want. He had knowledge greater than even the king’s advisor. His riches ran like syrup down his stairs. But, oh, his blood ran even thicker. In fact, he was bound to his family. Bound to his legacy. His large stone manor, cold as it may be, was the only place he’d ever stepped. 

And the only place he ever would. 

Or as the legend told. But our dashing hero didn’t believe in ‘legends.’ Now, you’ve probably been told fairytales as a child, of princesses and knights and the way they seem destined to find each other. Pacisor had grown up with stories, too. Less pleasant, but stories nonetheless. Stories of blood oaths and curses entwined with his lineage. Stories he couldn’t escape. Not that it stopped his trying. 

One day, quite fed up with the torments of his lonely life, Pacisor traced his fingers along the brick interior of his mansion. The walls seemed to speak to him—or perhaps it was only his sickened mind playing with him. Pacisor didn’t care, either way. He had no other contact. 

“Aren’t oaths such a lovely thing? Unoaths, made not by you, but your ancestors, prince.” 

Of course, I never mentioned Pacisor was a prince, did I? I apologize, beloved. My mind isn’t quite what it used to be. Yes, the Prince of Nothing, you could say. A fitting title. I should explain, shouldn’t I? Pacisor’s father, and his father before him, and so forth, had always been princes; never kings. Generations before our protagonist entered the scene, a peasant ancestor went to Fate with a proposal. ‘Fate, O Fate,’ he’d said, ‘hear my plea.’ He’d asked for protection from the hoards of villagemen calling for his head. The town of Claustra had no king nor a ruler, but it did have a castle. Long abandoned, I’m afraid, home only to mice and vermin. Fate took such pity on this man, that she granted him the castle, promising he would never be harmed again. 

(I’m sure you’re asking, my most lovely reader, ‘what ever did this man do to upset the townsfolk?’ The answer is quite simple. He’d married the wrong bride. Fate, to be specific. He’d married Fate. And to a town who believed in no such thing, his lies deserved a proper execution.) 

Fate swore he would never have to set foot beyond the manor doors ever again. What a lovely trickster, that Fate. And so with a drop of blood from both’s hands, it was so. Townsfolk would never so much as see the prince, nor would the prince see his subjects. 

But back to Pacisor. He strained to listen to the whispering of the walls and floors. He watched the candlelight put on shows for him. Despite how Fate had long ago split apart from any aspect of his family, refusing to accept the truth of her mistakes, she didn’t exactly bury the empathy she hid for the princes. She let the eyes of paintings linger on Pacisor as he passed. She wanted her descendants to at least live in comfort. 

But Pacisor never found her enchantments comforting. He hated them. They left him dizzy and breathless, questioning his own mind’s soundness. This day, as he walked beneath a portrait of his father, who’d died five years past, the prince cursed Fate and her little games. His father’s eyes reflected scenes of a younger Pacisor and a youthful princess, Pacisor’s mother. All gone now, times past, leaving only the weak and vengeful Prince of Nothing. 

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. SWOOSH. 

Pacisor spun, face to face with a beautiful figure of grace. With paper-white skin and misty hair, the woman before him grinned. With every blink, the woman changed—now a dark fog of mystery, then a deadly pale rain of lies. Pacisor stepped back, thick, cold adrenaline coursing through his veins. Fuzzy white clouds filled his skull, though he couldn’t tell if it was natural, or an effect of the radiant spirit. 

The prince rubbed his eyes. 

It’s amusing when people do that, don’t you think? As if their eyes could ever conjure up such a striking image, such a life-like thing. No, the human mind is capable of many things, but this is not one of them. Close, perhaps. I would know. But Fate appearing before you? 

No mortal could ever imagine such a thing. 

When the figure didn’t dissipate, Pacisor let out a shrieking scream. A hand flung to his mouth. 

“Is it so hard to stay quiet?” Fate placed a hand on her hip, striking a charismatic pose. “You poor souls, so pathetic, aren’t you?”

Pacisor pulled away from Fate’s grip. “Do you only speak in questions? Who are you? How—how did you get in here?” he squeaked. 

“I speak in questions? Is that so? And anyway, you already know who I am, no? Was it not you who called me here, spitting my name like sour greens from your mouth?”

“Oh, oh, no, no, no. Fate? Fate does not exist. Fate is a figment of imagination, created to scare small children from straying too far from their family’s farms. Fate is fake, simply.” But even as the prince said it, his eyes burned from gazing at an ever-changing image, and his head spun with all the ways to evade Fate’s tricks. 

“Then why haven’t you left your own family’s manor?” Fate quipped. She paced up to stand beside Pacisor, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. A hand shifting in size, texture, grip. 

“I… I can’t, I’m not able. The doors are always locked, the windows won’t open. My feet won’t… well, they won’t take me where I need them to go. But—”

“If that is not Fate, what is? Have you not realized you are destined to remain here alone until I bring you a wife, and then your children will remain here alone? Had you ever wondered who brought your mother upon the castle?” said Fate, annoyance flaring in her eyes. Behind the sparks were brighter flames of anger. Anger that Pacisor did not wish to unleash. 

“My father told me she just… stumbled in the door,” the prince mumbled. He walked backward, but after three steps his legs locked. Fate grinned wickedly. “I… no, I never wondered.” 

Fate sighed. She turned to a hazy mist. Pacisor twisted to find her. 

“If I offered you ungrateful sack an offer, would you take it? Or would you curse my name as you always have?” The voice came from behind him. Fate reclined in a chair leaning against the corridor wall. 

Pacisor considered this. He wrung his fingers. Finally, he spoke, carefully shifting through his options. “What is the offer?” 

Fate grinned and appeared at his side. 

Take it from me, darling child, her grin might be her fist, but her words are her sword.

“Would you like to leave your home? Escape your destiny?”

Pacisor’s eyes widened, and for a split second, his vision filled with translucent smirking faces. “Yes,” he said in one hasty breath. “Yes, of course, yes.”

Pacisor was a fool. 

Fate’s answer was only a nightmarish smile. Poor Pacisor’s face lit up in unbelievable and unexplainable joy. But he knew that this bargain would come with a cost. A cost always too high. A trick, perhaps, as Fate had always been drawn to. But Pacisor had the creeping feeling it would be higher than even that. Perhaps she would want his firstborn child, or chide him into doing her dirty work, or take years from his life. 

But, oh, not even I could have imagined what she asked of him. Dearest reader, when Fate shows up at your door, you mustn’t let her in. You will always have something she wants. And she will always have something of yours. But that is no reason to get involved with her. 

Leave her to freeze in the flurrying snow, pelted by hail, drowned in the pouring rain. 

Fate tilted her head and took Pacisor’s chilled hand. She took in the splendidly shocked face. “Prince, listen to me, yes? Do you understand I can never undo a deal?” 

“Yes,” he answered too quickly. He let his hand warm beneath Fate’s touch. 

Fate grasped his other palm, pressing both of his hands between hers, and quirked her eyebrows. “Are you sure you understand what I am telling you, my beloved?” 

Ignoring the endearment, the prince hissed an impatient reassurance. His hands grew hot. His face burned a shade of murder. “And what will you have in return?” he asked. “I can only assume it will be a great price.” 

Fate slipped her lifeless form away from Pacisor. Her eyes brimmed with a dark revenge, but her beaming smile caught Pacisor’s eye. “Would you do me the honor… of marrying me?”

Pacisor swallowed his grimace, hoping to keep Fate’s favor, however much he despised her. He couldn’t fathom marrying her—but his only other option would be to marry Fate’s chosen bride and live confined ‘til he died. 

And the Prince of Nothing would not let his title rot trapped in his brick castle. 

“Yes,” he decided. “I will marry you. And we will sail the world, yes?”

Fate pressed her fingers into her frothy dress. It occurred to Pacisor that she might not be able to answer questions, only ask them. But yet she did. Not with a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not with a nod or shake of the head, but by blinking a small pin into the cup of her hand. 

And with a drop of blood from both’s hands, it was so. 

Years passed, and still Pacisor was trapped in the house with his wife. His wife, however, was free to go wherever she wished. She came and went, bringing food and clothing and trinkets. As our handsome hero soon learned, besides Fate’s tricks and games, she wasn’t a terrible person. Pacisor even began to love her. It was evident Fate had always loved him. But he wasn’t satisfied with that, of course not. He still clutched to the promise she’d given him. Clung to it like a strand of string in the stormy sea. 

Let’s take this moment to reflect on Pacisor’s past up to this point. Firstly, his parents were lovely people. Trapped in the manor, too, of course, but seemingly content. They’d never told their poor child he would never leave, they simply forbade him from leaving. Secondly, when they died, Pacisor began experimenting with his limitations; he found his feet wouldn’t carry him how they should, his fingers wouldn’t unlatch the windows, his fists wouldn’t strike the doors. But he refused to believe magic, gosh forbid, Fate, could be responsible for it. Pacisor lived in denial. 

That sums up his story quite well, actually. Should I have led with that? 

Regardless, our hero was hanging by a thread, dangling above the lion’s den. Until that one day. Pacisor could sense it in the air. Fate’s toes scraped the floor as she walked, without the usual bounce. The windows of the castle seemed the rattle with excitement. Or fear. The prince asked his wife why she seemed so nervous, faining obliviousness. 

“Why aren’t you?” she replied. 

Truth be told, Fate wasn’t exactly ecstatic over her husband’s apparent freedom. 

It was her ‘once upon a time’ to his ‘happily ever after.’ 

Night came, and the full moon slipped over the horizon as Pacisor pressed his palms to the chill glass of his windows. 

CRACK. 

He jumped back. Small glass shards stung his hands, but Pacisor didn’t notice. The window was broken and its frame pushed out. The window was broken. He carefully tiptoed towards it, cautiously holding his burning hand out. His arm hovered over the ground beneath the mansion’s third story. His arm was outside the window. Outside the castle. 

Pacisor nearly flung himself out of the room in joy.

Which would’ve unfortunately cut our story very short. 

The rest of the story goes simply: Fate and Pacisor stumbled out of the castle, under the guise of nightfall, led by the moonlight. They’d packed bags and bid a final farewell to their castle. The house whispered its goodbye back. They boarded a wonderfully dull boat and left shore, luggage in tow. Am I rushing the story? Perhaps. (I apologize, dear child, but I am very nearly out of time.) But truly, nothing much happened beyond that—oh, besides Fate. Yes, on a far away island, deep in the Mediterranean Sea, on his way through the Strait of Gibraltar, Pacisor decided to drop all his burdens away. 

To him, his hapless beloved was as much a burden as a blessing. Therefore, he left her. Less confusion, he told himself, trying to ease his conscious. The words did little. His dreams were still filled with Fate’s screams as he sailed away, forever dooming her to the small island’s forlorn isolation. 

I suppose I saw it coming. 

Years and years passed, and Pacisor traveled to many islands and inlands, through many seas and oceans. Eventually, he met a woman, one whom he truly loved, and who truly loved him. They married seven years after he’d abandoned Fate. That union required no blood, much to Pacisor’s pleasure. Greece became their home, and their small cottage was soon filled with all the laughter of three children. 

Pacisor was ever at peace with his life. But poor Pacisor was in for a rude awakening. One night, in search of his next meal, he lugged his rickety boat to the beach. He was to bring back a dinner of Fagri fish for his daughter’s eighth birthday, her favorite. But Fate had other plans. 

Gray waters churned and winds blew abruptly against his sails and the clouds mocked his lunacy, his foolishness. The Prince of Nothing went down with his ship that night. That might not mean much to you, dearest reader, but it meant plenty to the prince himself. He watched filtered starlight swim through the waves, greeting his eyes tauntingly. He felt his lungs rip from their place and his heart lodge against his ribcage. A terribly free way to go, isn’t it? Drifting through the open waters, not a care in the world. Our hero let the swirling currents pull him lower, lower, lower…

Pacisor’s eyes flickered open. Candlelight replaced the muddled stars. Oxygen flowed, not salt water. 

In front of him were four blurry figures. 

Three young children, and a shifting figure of elegance. Fate? The prince pushed himself up against a wooden headboard, tangled in the same crimson sheets he once left behind decades ago. Standing in the doorway was his wife, Fate, the one he’d abandoned on an island. And behind her his children, seemingly the same. 

“Go, now,” Fate whispered to them, gulping down horror. “Your father is not well right now.”

A small, short girl pouted. “Father is never well.” She frowned, defeated, and stalked off with her siblings in tow. 

Fate stepped up to the bed. She looked the same as always, ethereal, stunning. Controlling and burdening. But beautiful, like a sunset. Pacisor grimaced. His head throbbed, like a needle prodding his brain. 

The prince’s wife pressed a finger to his temple. “You are dying,” she told him. 

Not a question. 

He was dying. 

I am dying. I am sinking and sinking and sinking and drowning in my fantasies. I am burdened with lies I was told and the way I took them as truth. 

You see, dear, I suppose Fate was right. She can’t undo a promise. She oathed herself to my ancestors, trapped them in this castle. How was she to free me just as easily? But she could let me escape. Fate is resourceful. 

As is the brain. The human mind is capable of many things. 

Have I already said that? Perhaps. It’s true, isn’t it? It was my own mind that let me sail the seas—and fulfill the promise made to me by my wife. 

And now I am dying. I was always dying, we all are. Slowly. And one day we will die hastily. 

I close my eyes, drinking in the starlight behind them. 

The human mind can be a cruel place.