Ilsa

One could remember that sunset. With Ilsa, I would have. The lingering threads of starlight envelop a world so drawn, unremarkable, and lacking. These stars, which guided us here, carried messages from even more remarkable beings whose names we do not speak.

It was always this way: a flourish, resolutions, and feverish activity—from learning languages to making alliances. With whom? I hardly looked anymore. My mouth formed words that meant nothing to me. The northern provinces demanded grain while the merchant guilds clamored for lower tariffs. I had balanced their needs once when Ilsa's wisdom helped me see through their machinations. Now, their petitions blurred together like rain on glass.

The needs of my subjects constantly turned my heart to mechanical or incidental things. I yearned for something to rekindle my life apart from such trifles. That was the beginning of my undoing.

Then Ilsa was murdered. All the elders came as supplicants to offer homage. They arrived with whatever possessions and family they dared to bring; their heads bowed in an obeisance worthy of my attention. They sought to mollify me for my loss, yet I saw through their hypocrisy.

They found meaning in a name, a description of a mighty being's last visit, and the tokens of gratitude that they had given. Demetrius was my closest advisor in those golden days. He soared far and high, a beacon of hope, an example of strength and compassion. His counsel had always come with that characteristic smile—half-warrior, half-sage—as he guided me through the labyrinth of power. How strange that I would seek him for such different purposes, my hatred burning as their bowed heads lifted, lips drawn in smiles at the knowledge that among them lurked Ilsa's killers. 

"Let the ancient one set everything right!" they chanted. Little did they know what they asked for. The ancient ones were never spoken of for a reason. I closed the curtain on them.

What came next? Certainties and quantities, projections and understanding. I sighed as I lay flat and let breathing, thinking, and mourning continue. It was not my place to interfere with what must be. Ilsa, my love.

She goes on while I fade away. The dead live while the living echo a dying refrain. The drumbeat of life, so called by those least qualified to understand it. Through my darkening eyes, only her memory remains.

As night claimed me, I slept, and it felt like an awakening. In the familiar realm of dreams, Ilsa waited for me, taking my hand. Her soft hair flowed elegantly, wrapping around me like a silken embrace, while her robes were fragrant with spice. She smiled, and her voice was slow and insistent. "Know you not that I would die for you? It hardly matters, for love transcends all. You will continue with me."

How could I answer an angel? I swam in her eyes, willing my frozen heart to whisper. "Ilsa, dearest, you live on while I merely exist. Have you nothing to impart?"

She demurred, and I sighed as the weight of my words spawned a wind that carried her high, her substance too light. As she disappeared, I wept, and through my tears, I remembered that fatal day when my angel fell. Though they wished to slay me, they offered her tender body to knives, a willing sacrifice, her dappled cloak sprouting crimson flowers that wept.

Is this what it must be? Can death subsist with purity? How was it that even as her attackers struck, she called for me? I, engaging in frivolity as monarchs do, unknowingly celebrating the end of everything. My inattention to my duties was my second mistake. For my subjects were owed all that I could give.

I recalled how Demetrius once spoke of vengeance. "Every ruler," he said, his blue eyes gleaming with hidden knowledge, "must know when mercy weakens and when justice will prevail. Yet justice must be tempered with humility, or we all could be condemned." I had dismissed this as unnecessary severity back then, but those words now filled my thoughts.

On that fateful day, when my servants found me, their cries of horror left no space for minor details. Only the desecration of our sacred place—our holy, wondrous life, sundered for all to see with one severed cloak, borne with reverence in Mara's hands, a relic of Ilsa's martyrdom.

Each day was the same. I would visit this garment daily, which rendered hollow my gracious decrees, audiences, or anything else of value. Nothing else mattered. It hangs in a place of honor, saluted and adored—my Ilsa's last end. I had no time for anything else. My subjects grew restive and clamored for me.

Yet I imagined that they did not care. My servants would seek Mara daily, who would do what he could. His shrill voice tried to quell the storm of a riotous city or a rebellion in the provinces.

Then came the day when Mara's voice quavered in profound uncertainty. He entered directly into my bedroom. This was most unusual. "Rise, master! Take your place! Will you not pity us who live with unrequited dreams?"

"Unrequited dreams?" I snarled as I arose to ready myself. "What do you know of it? You cannot govern; you are all like dull oxen, unfamiliar with power. You turn the wheel while others stoke the fire."

Mara bowed his head and wept. My servants seemed anxious. There was no soft music, only the shouts of distant voices, which only increased my fury. "I exist amid the flames, my spirit rising like smoke from something consumed, like a ghost welcoming the underworld, where death is all that remains!"

Mara then lay prostrate on the floor, his arms above his head, entreating me with words I refused to hear, though I wept with him, feeling unsteady as I went to him.

"Mara, you honor a life spent where just one day brings certain destruction. Such harsh recompense! Are you the one asleep while I live in bonds of decay? Look to yourself! For a fallen ruler carries down the weight of worlds!"

I helped him to get up, though his sorrow was too great to bear.

"Ilsa came to me too, master," he cried between sobs. "Let me try to bring an end to this. We may yet find her killers."

Rage overcame me—his words were futile. With one hand, I dismissed him as my servants ran away. An angry mob had gathered outside the palace gates. He followed protocol to his end, bowing at the door and not showing me his back, his hands busy with thoughts of what would be.

I laughed. It amused me to sink to my bed. Too late, I realized the wreck I had made of my life. I recited a foolish ditty from my childhood:

Upon this wreath of earth, I sit, my gob satisfied with spit and spite—my life, my fate, my unappreciated plight!

I could hear the palace guards barring access as heavy metal doors shut. I must prepare. Long ago, a single man listened as his executioner asked, "What is truth?" He did not answer. Then, upon a tree, they hung him. Will this be my fate?

The time of principles and high ideals is past. Now, a blank canvas of opportunity awaits those who know and understand only what they can seize, manipulate, or destroy. Ah! How those who are innocent will grieve! Nicholas, the just! Nicholas, the kind! What happened to him? A curse? They will weep when their granaries burn and their precious trade routes close. They will curse the ground they walk on when their sons march off to endless wars. Let them taste the bitter fruit well suited to those who harbor Ilsa's killers!

Demetrius, come to me!

He arrived as the ancient ones always did—suddenly, his steely eyes filled with scorn, his robes billowing around him like storm clouds. This was not the Demetrius who had taught me statecraft and wisdom but the one I had glimpsed in rare moments when justice hardened into vengeance. He sought only a purpose, and in my darkness, I finally understood why he had always kept one foot in shadow. "Have you finally learned," he asked, his voice carrying the weight of years of waiting, "that a king's mercy must have limits?"

I stood before him, dumbfounded. Demetrius was lustrous and alive, his arms extending to me. "Bid me know what befell Ilsa?" he asked, as one who already knows everything.

But there were no words before the ancient ones. I tried to speak, but only tears watered the furrows of my face. A ruddy grin like that of a clown answered in my place.

Demetrius stood tall, unfolding, terrifying. "Enough!" he roared. "How is it that all desire mercy for themselves when vengeance is wreaked on others? Now, your subjects must pay for your inattention to your duty."

He thundered as he took flight, shaking the ground beneath my feet. Rising to a great height, his mere appearance caused nearly all who opposed me to flee. Watching my subjects engage in combat was heartbreaking. Some stout men, taking fallen weapons from the palace guards, shouted and vied with each other for the chance of glorious combat. They imagined that songs would be sung of them fighting an ancient one. Yet they were defeated before they knew what befell them.

Meanwhile, something drew near me when I had nearly wholly despaired of anything being set right. At first, I thought it was a servant girl who had lost her way and needed help. But through the dust and debris of the shaken palace, a woman of noble birth was approaching. She wore a shining white robe and a gold crown so bright it was difficult to see her without shielding my eyes.

"Ilsa?" I asked.

I did not wait for an answer. I ran to her, so rapt with joy. It was Ilsa! Ilsa, my love! But she had lost her way.

"I am here!" I cried. "Do you not see me?"

She stumbled past, looking this way and that, her eyes unfocused and vacant. Then she stopped and looked around her.

"It's not too late," she murmured, her voice fading. Then she hesitated, as if realizing something. "Nicholas! Are you not here?"

"Of course I am here!" I shrieked. I was so near that I could touch her. But I refrained, realizing, to my great disappointment, that she was not flesh and blood. How this made me rage inwardly. I had no reason to expect Ilsa to be returned to me, yet it still seemed possible now when the ancients were near.

"My love," I began. "Did Demetrius send you? Why can you not see me?"

Her expression remained unchanged, yet it was her turn to speak.

"Do not this thing for me!" Ilsa pleaded. "What is there to be gained? Forgive your enemies! Call back Demetrius and accept your fate! Rather live or die as a beggar than destroy your people!"

I turned away from her. Demetrius had done this to me. He was my real enemy, so I called for him.

Somehow, I found the words to speak. “Why do you treat me thus?” I demanded after he swooped down from the sky, blackened and weary. He was most serious, choosing his words carefully.

“I treat no one differently than they deserve.”

From that day, a pestilence wracked me. Demetrius finished what he came to do and took his leave. Poor Ilsa, thrust between life and death, a phantasm, alone yet seeking me, wandered from the palace, still in search of me. In my last spasm of hatred of everything, even life itself, and to save her from needless pain, I thrust Ilsa into the recesses of my mind. She fell, her final scream my agony. Thus, did she die at last.

They say that truth is in the beholder's eye. I say no. Truth, if true, is beyond our craven lives. Ilsa did right. Upon her breast lay her bloody flowers, never to be denied. As for me, I seek hell, where blood is fuel for fire.