So young, so full of life and spirit…to have it be cut short of its bright potential…this was something only Wenceslas could muster up the gall to do. The young man lay upon a bed of soft fragrant pine needles, slipping in and out of a delicious sleep. He wondered idly whether the Shaddai-Trusters of the Hinterlands hated the King of the Lands. After all, when one looked upon how much the King had persecuted their people, he would not blame the good outcast folk if they harbored a burning rage and hatred against the King. Indeed, he would commend them if they despised the King with all of their being as he did. The memory of his dear young wife’s piercing groans as the King’s men, loud and vapid and crude, beat her to death before his horrified eyes would never fade from his mind, and he somehow did not wish it to. Her screams reminded him of who the King really was, what he stood for. A spineless, mindless brute who did not have the pluck enough to come out and face his people himself. Always it was his sinister advisor Melchior who did his talking for him, rubbing his long thin fingers together nervously, forever a secret treachery blazing behind the mocking ask he had forced his eyes to be. What madness it all was.
And yet, the Hinterlanders seemed not to hate the King as they should have, by rights of justice; instead, the man had heard strange testimonies of the Shaddai-Trust finding it within their powers to forgive the King of his wrongdoings against them. This was by far madness above anything the ex-soldier could fathom. “We are given a new life when we serve the True King,” the old healer had said. Surely they did not mean Wenceslas the Second, the confused man had asked a they healer spread a healing poultice across his raw and bleeding back. “No indeed, not that King,” the healer had cackled. “The only true King, our beautiful Redeemer. Rest now.” And she had melted into the shadows. It was all still very strange and mysterious to him. Yet if these good people, who had done no wrong and yet were persecuted merely for living in the way they thought best, could find peace in such turmoil and shocking chaos that had overtaken the bulk of the Lands, he was willing to attempt his soul to accept anything in order to partake of it.
Slowly he drifted back into a restless slumber, his wife’s screams eventually fading into a thankful oblivion.

“My King.”
Wenceslas looked up into the malicious eyes of his advisor, Melchior. He had his silver cloak wrapped tight around him as if shielding himself from anything that sought his harm. It was a strange security, the shimmering silver cloak which Melchior always wore, but it, like his shadowed icy blue -gray eyes, hid what really occurred the depths of his treacherous soul.
“What is it, advisor?” the King asked. He was fiddling in his throne, beads of sweat standing out on his brow, his hair hanging damp in his eyes. His cloak was twisted around him and the small golden crown lay upon a side table, forgotten or the moment in which Wenceslas sought repose from daily are and toil. Truth be known, he was a fat lazy little man who did not deserve the title King. Everyone in the Lands knew it at one time or another, but so well-crafted was Melchior’s speeches and so wicked the motives that lay beyond and behind Wenceslas’s heart that the Lands-people could be slain for thinking that he was anything less that a deity, a true brave and noble king, someone to be feared and something to give their very lives to. Indeed, they were labeled traitors and dirty outcasts if they refused to live a public sacrifice of their souls to the King, a treaty for their lives…a maniacal twisting of their once-happy spirits.
“I…I really cannot be bothered with all that unpleasant fawning just now,” the King went on. He took up his dinner napkin, which he had stuffed inside his doublet during the midday feast not ten minutes ago, and dabbed at his greasy forehead. Melchior was a bit surprised at the sudden loss of dignity in his king. Wenceslas sat quivering and pathetic in his throne, not caring if his advisor saw his obvious weakness,
“My lord and precious King,” Melchior purred, coming to kneel at the King’s fine glittery sandals and hating that he must beg at his heels like a beast, “what is it that trouble you so his fine afternoon?”
Wenceslas gulped a couple of times, his cheeks sweaty and red. He could not even remember if he had ever had dignity before in his life. Everything was running together like so much soup in his brain. He felt stupid, worthless and pitiful, which was exactly how Melchior pictured him all the time.
“Did…did you know, Melchior my advisor, that the exiled duke is my…is my…” The words had to be forced from his lips with a convulsive shudder. “The exiled duke who hated me and tried so many years ago to overthrow me is my master. What…whatever did you know of this, Melchior?”
Melchior broke into a sneering grin, his teeth long and white and sharp like a wolf’s. Ah yes, that was what Wenceslas was reminded of whenever he saw the long gray hair and dangerous eyes, a wolf.
“So. So, you have met my true master at long last, oh King.” He addressed his royal title with a mocking snarl. Wenceslas gave a startled cry and leapt from his throne, towering eye-to-eye with his advisor, a bit of the old ferocious self back in his veins. “What is the meaning of your words, sirrah?” he shouted. Melchior merely stared him down with his frozen blue-gray eyes. Wenceslas sank back down into his throne with a gasping moan.
“I see now. You have been aiding Northumbrio all this time.” Melchior continued smiling grimly. He was loving this. Wenceslas shook with a spasm of pain and gripped his temples. “And it was YOU who helped him to gather such strength that he can now pry into the minds of rebels and burn out their Outcast thoughts with pain and pure power.” Wenceslas sighed heavily as the pain slowly melted away from his mind. How the searing pain had purged his rebelliousness! Yet now hi head spun and he felt quite sick to his stomach. What a horrible thing power could be. And yet…and yet he wished that power for himself! HE wanted to gain such fear and awed respect from his people! He had finally come in contact with such power as exceeded his own and he despised the thought of him bowing to it. The pain filled his being once more and he screamed with its fierceness, but somehow he liked knowing that the pain had come because he was brave enough to think thoughts against the power greater than him.
Melchior stood to one side, watching the King’s rebelliousness in silence. It thrilled his being to watch the inner turmoil of he one whom he had been forced to “adore” and “love”; in truth he hated the King. He loved Northumbrio, the new master. True power was being revealed in him.
Finally, Wenceslas thought of the Shaddai-Trust. They were rebels, outcasts of the Lands, cursed to be persecuted and played with until the persecutor grew weary of their agonized screaming. Surely he could never bring himself to have such low standards. During one last burst of pain, he acknowledged Northumbrio’s greater power. The pain left and a milky soothing peace filled his soul, like butter dripping off bread or moss growing within pool. The new master was pleased with him! This filled his heart with such an odd, morbid joy that he leapt up and danced around the throne room as Melchior looked on in disgust. It felt so right to his own heart, the weak heart of the king of the Lands. It looked right in his own eyes. This was the worst thing of all, yet he did not know this. He could only dance with false, weakling’s joy and praise Evil. For Evil was Northumbrio.
Melchior leaned insolently against the wall, trying to forget his own crude conversion to the darker recesses of Life. “My King,” he snarled, impatient to get on with business, “there is a matter of importance that you must attend to in person, in the town square.” Wenceslas stopped his dancing and tugged his small crown onto his lank hair once more. The crazy joyousness he felt could overcome anything now.
“Lead on! What be the trouble?” Wenceslas walked with swift, long strides from his throne room, through the feasting room and out into the sickly gray sunlight. His heart had been fired with an unhealthy Life; he felt ready to face and conquer whatever saw fit to come his way and the mushy peace within his heart grew warm and wrapped his very soul in a cloud of disillusioned power. Weak power, unbelief.
Melchior paused in the feasting hall, his long spidery fingers resting on one of the marble tables, and his piercing gaze caught sight of a little boy, a page, running from the room with the air of someone who has somewhere of importance to travel to. The advisor fought down suspicion -Timothy was only a child- and walked on beside his king.
“The outcast Skerry, rumored to be part Fairy and past resident of a hollow tree on your highway with his healer-sister, has refused to be drafted into your illustrious armies, Wenceslas.” The advisor no loner treated he King of the Lands with respect due to one of greater power than he. They were equals, serving Northumbrio. He enjoyed this new position considerably better.
Wenceslas spun around and stared at the wolfish man grinning before him. “WHAT!” he shouted into the crackling winter air. “He refuse the honor he cold possess by refusing my…our…offer of legal and just service and protection of the Lands-army?” Wenceslas bellowed. Melchior, still grinning, nodded and led the King into the inner courtyard. He called for a horse to be harnessed and readied for both for them. A frightened squire stared at the King; Wenceslas had never made it a point to make his presence visible amongst “the smaller folk” of the village-kingdoms.
“Yes, friend, he has,” Melchior spat. The gall of that boy. Annoyed with Life in general, he turned around and screamed at the open-mouthed squire, “What are you waiting for? A hose, you little fool!” The squire deftly dodged a clout to the side of his head and scuttled into the stables.
“We must assure in public that he will not recant his rash decision.”
“And if he does not?” snapped Melchior as three stable hands wrestled two sleepy steeds out of their warm stables and handed the bridles to the King and his advisor. Wenceslas mounted in a grim silence and he and Melchior galloped from the courtyard in the direction of the town square, leaving the three stable boys staring after them in wonderment.
Wenceslas’s mouth was set in a hard tight line as he looked through the mud at his advisor.
“If he will not recant this preposterous notion that has crept into his mind…” His thoughts were lost for a moment beneath the furious pounding of hooves. “Well,” he finally shouted, “he WILL recant it.”

Timothy hid behind a heath furze and watched the two horses spurred fiercely on for the center of Crescent, sweeping the road bare with their wild shaky legs. Melchior’s silver cape fluttered out behind him like a great sparkling wing. A fear gripped the young page’s heart, fear the brother of the beautiful Fairy-like girl who had healed his bruised knee with peppermint. He thoughtfully stroked his knee where the bruise had been. Dare he? Then he recalled the brave story of the outcast boy on the night of the party, and how he had smiled at Timothy’s small defiance against the King. Nodding with purpose, he struck out over the heaths in a wild run, towards the Hinterlands. Towards his people.