The Upheaval
Jade Strong
The fire was getting closer. The orange tongues hovering above the heads of the churning mob cast the ordinary fixtures of the village in a sinister light. The fronts of homes grimaced, and the shadows of monuments snaked their way through the gloom, leering at everything, and the trees loomed.
The king saw all this from atop his tower, where he had been standing for the better part of twelve hours, glowering upon the procession’s growing unrest.
“Rabble rousers,” he muttered before sweeping back inside.
In the cool, quiet opulence of his chambers, he was better able to consider his situation: a crowd of disaffected citizens marching toward him, believing it their solemn right to take his head. He thoroughly blamed the prophecy. Mysterious old seers running into town, claiming to have had some great truth revealed to them were the bane of any half-decent regime. It had been the death of his father and his father before. All someone had to say was that they simply knew that the man in power was not who destiny had chosen, and the mob would appear.
The empty-headed simpletons would believe anything that was convenient to them, the king groused to himself. He had worked hard to earn the crown. He had fought many, killed more. One had to do what one must to become king, he thought, and he was not about to give his throne up so easily.
Still, at times it weighed on him, the blood on his hands and the bridges he’d burned. At times like these, he wished he could go back and do his life over. Maybe he would be the sort of monarch who spoke sweetly and treated his subjects with kindness. He’d be the sort of king the people would never consider deposing. Or better yet, perhaps he wouldn’t have fought to be king at all. He could have become a farmer, a merchant, something without the crushing weight of prophecies that made each step feel like his shoes were made of lead. God, how he just wanted to sleep….
He shook the weak, childish thought from his brain. He had not gotten to where he was by thinking that way. He strode toward the small, raised platform where his crown was displayed on an ornate column.
“They’ll have to take it from my cold, dead hand,” he declared, taking the large, ruby-encrusted diadem and placing it on his head to assure himself.
No sooner had he set it on his sable hair than his head suddenly burned. With a shout of pain, he threw the crown to the ground. As soon as it clattered onto the stone floor, it glowed bright and melted before his eyes.
“You really ought to be careful what you say. Certain ears may itch.”
The king grimaced, turning toward the voice. A young man was sitting on the railing of his balcony, smirking at him. He was dressed in a long, shabby cloak with a hood that cast a shadow over his face. But even in the dark, he could make out the set of piercing violet eyes peering at him from the wolfish face inside the hood. Those eyes seemed to glow faintly, like they were reflecting the torches of the slowly approaching mob.
“And I suppose you are the one they have chosen to dispatch me?” the king said.
“Oh no,” the young man replied, shrugging, “I’m not here to kill you.”
“Then what are you doing here on the night I am ‘destined’ to die?”
“I’m merely here to make a proposition, your majesty,” he said, slipping off the railing and sauntering into the room. His steps were so light the king could not hear his footsteps on the stone floor.
“What sort of proposition?” the king asked.
“I would like to save your life.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“By killing you.”
The king looked at him with weary impatience. “You must be a sorcerer.”
“What gave it away?”
“Your insufferable insistence on the dramatic. Please, in plain language, tell me how you plan on saving me from a gruesome death at the hands of my own citizens.”
The young sorcerer laughed and doffed his hood, and the king was startled to find his own visage staring back at him.
“It is I!” he said, his voice now booming and harsh, the same sort of voice the king himself used when giving a particularly important decree. “The king’s long lost twin brother! I have been chosen by destiny to be your ruler. Now that I have killed my upstart twin, I am ready to lead this kingdom into a new era of peace.”
The sorcerer gave a bow, and his face once again resumed its original form. “I make a show of killing you in this form, the crowds cheer and crown me the new king, you immediately take my place, none is the wiser.”
“That’s the most convoluted piece of rubbish I’ve ever heard. No one would believe it.”
“People will believe anything that’s convenient. You know that.”
“And how do I take your place if you’ve killed me?”
The sorcerer gave a condescending look. “I’m a shape-shifter who can teleport directly into your chambers. Illusionary magic is child’s play by comparison. I will make the people believe that they have your head in their possession. I will give them my speech, and as soon as their backs are turned, you will slip back into my shoes.”
The king hesitated. The plan was convenient, too convenient. “Why should I trust you? You come out of nowhere at the exact moment I would be most desperate for help, offering to give me my life back for nothing. I didn’t become king by trusting deals that are too good to be true.”
“And you didn’t remain king by looking a gift horse in the mouth,” the sorcerer said with a smile. “What’s the worst that can happen? I kill you? Mount your head on a pike and parade it through the streets? Because in a few quick counts of sixty, you are going to be given that same opportunity without the benefits.”
The king cursed, wracking his brain for another option, but no ideas were forthcoming. But maybe it wasn’t worth wracking his brain for another solution. Wasn’t this what he wanted? A chance to start again? Perhaps this time the prophecy and the mob could prove a boon to him….
“And what do you get out of this deal, sorcerer?” the king asked brusquely, though he could feel his resolve waning. “Who are you that you should care so much?”
“I’m simply a concerned citizen who wants what is best for the kingdom, sire. Nothing more.”
The chants of the mob were growing ever closer. They were practically at the gate. He had no more time to philosophize.
“Fine,” the king said shortly. “I agree.”
The young man bowed, and despite everything, the king felt a sense of relief wash over him that he hadn’t felt in the forty years since he took the throne. He allowed the man to guide him over to an armchair, and he sank into it like one slipping into bed after a long, hard day. He even managed to smile for the first time in decades as a faint glow appeared at the young man’s fingertips.
“And you won’t betray me?” he asked again, though even as he asked it, the relief of simply sitting down was so great that he found he didn’t truly care about the answer.
“Of course not, your majesty.”
“What do I have to do to make this work?”
“All you have to do,” the young man murmured, his voice sweet as cyanide as he walked toward him, “is trust in me.”
And then the sorcerer was upon him.
***
The land had been in a state of peace since the new king took over. The crowds had been astonished when they arrived back at the castle to see the old king’s head mounted on a pike and his twin brother heralding the arrival of a new age. The events seemed too good to be true.
But they couldn’t argue with the results. The marketplace was flourishing, famine was deteriorating, and they had made peace with all the neighboring kingdoms with whom they had had long-standing feuds.
Those within the court couldn’t help but remark how much the new king looked like his late twin brother. From every angle he appeared the same, from the way he trimmed his beard to the way he wore the new crown they had fashioned in the likeness of the old one. It was almost like an illusion.
Except this new king’s behavior was so remarkably different from the old one. He was much kinder to those around him. He spoke in sweeter tones to those who came to speak with him, even if the rag-clad beggars came pleading for nothing more than a moment of his majesty’s time. Even the way he walked was different. He had a spring in his step, as if his shoes were lighter than air.
This was how he walked as he entered the meeting chamber a week after his coronation. He smiled at the captain of his royal guard who stood at attention.
“My lord, I’ve news for you,” the captain said. “It’s about a search the old king ordered before you deposed him. He’d ordered an investigation into the seer who brought forth the prophecy that foretold his removal from the throne. You know, news travels slowly in times of unrest, and some of the guardsmen were away from the palace investigating and didn’t hear about your ascension to the throne and continued their search. They’ve just returned with some reports from someone who saw the seer. I know the identity of the man wouldn’t matter to you, but I thought you might be interested in knowing what he looked like at least.”
“Well, go ahead and tell me anyway. What do you know about the man?”
“They said that he was a young man, a violet-eyed sorcerer who dressed in a shabby, hooded cloak. I don’t suppose your majesty has seen such a man before?”
“Oh,” said the king, turning his face away so they couldn’t see his expression. “How strange. No, I haven’t.”
Jade Strong
Jade Strong writes novels, short stories, plays, and poetry and has recently had a short story— “Into the Sea”— published in the Journal of Experimental Fiction anthology, Polyphony. Along with writing, she also teaches high school English at Wheaton Academy in the west Chicago suburbs.