THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 2 - Charles E.J. Moulton (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📗

He was still at the Danish Channel, trying to find a solution for the savagely ruined harbor. Ulfaas was impossible, so the messages from the king read. What was worse was that the rumor of Alexander’s block punishment in March had spread across the nation and now people were very skeptical toward the king. Nothing he said was good enough. He was no longer popular.
The fact that Lance, Fabian and Henry had just disappear out if sight in May was devastating Sieglinde. She had always tried to be practical, see all affairs in the eyes of reality. But the amount of damage her adopted country was experiencing was too unreal. She rarely alone sat in the chapel and prayed. Today, she did.
Sieglinde held a rosary in her hand. She looked down on it, crying, and a silvery tear dropped on the beads.
"Bantrard ..."
The man stopped playing his harmonium. "Yes , your majesty !"
"You can go home now, friend! You need some rest ..."
"As you wish. Good day, your majesty!"
"A very good day to you!"
There were rows of seats that stood next to the octagonal stone pillars with coats of arms of important families of the country. On each side of the altar were statues of Gabriel and Michael on the left and Peter and Paul on the right. Sieglinde remembered how full this church used to be in earlier times. Today, there had been nine people, including the Archbishop.
At the left side of the church, in the left aisle were small chapels reserved for three graves, Sieglinde's, Alexander's and Belinda's, at the end. Sieglinde had always been against reserving places for her own grave and let alone for some child who had not been born yet. But now she was beginning to see why. People were dying fast. Belinda had never known that the one closest to the door was meant for her when she once parted company with life.
“God, I hope nothing happens to her” Sieglinde silently told herself, surprised at the sound of her own voice echoing softly in the chapel.
Beyond that was a closed door leading to a half open house by the name of the memorial chapel. It was always a peaceful place. It was obvious to anyone that the queen needed to be alone. She was rarely disturbed. When she was required to assist Belinda, Steven and Zedrick in their throne room work for Alexander’s benefit, she did. But Sieglinde knew as well as they that she felt that her time as reigned ruler had to be given over to the young. She often gave advice. But the last half year she had lost interest in a country so torn apart. Her prayers would help. What worried Sieglinde was that Belinda did not show any interest in religion any more.
Sieglinde walked into that space now. She needed that place for reflection.
Rolf had not cleaned it up, so through the open windows leaves had flown in onto the sarcophaguses. There was Queen Lucia's mother, Baroness Luisa Zarzuela y Imargues, whose hardnosed critique of the Prosperanian regime for just annexing parts of Hispania was legendary and renowned. But still she became such a friend of the family that she herself chose to buried here.
There was Gertrude's grandfather, Lieutenant Erick Silverstatt, whose love of children made him open a hospital for children outside Clurafar was still existed today.
There was Sieglinde own cousin who had died in 1409, two years before the dreadful kidnapping, outside the capital of Margetania, supposedly by a Nocturanian band of raiders. And there was Erica and her child and a memorial stone for the disappeared children and their dog. Next to it Morgana Winsletenna and then Patrick, Patricia and Richard.
The light that appear over Erica’s grave at first made Sieglinde jump, blinding her eyes. Soon enough, she saw that it had white wings that flapped slowly sort of like the winds of a gigantic dove. It was androgynous and had yellow, flaming hair. She should've been afraid, but was not.
Nothing else existed. Time stopped.
"Hello, Sieglinde!"
The creature spoke with a deep voice whose soul seemed endless and whose timbre seemed richer than wine and more eternal than mother nature, the most compact and lively sea of spirituality she had come across.
"My name is Michael."
Sieglinde dropped down on her knees, hurt them but didn't care, slapped both hands on her mouth and let out a wide-eyed muffled scream of disbelief. The angel touched her knees and stopped the blood, caressed her cheek and kept on speaking.
"I have something important to say to you ..."
Sieglinde stuttered . "Who are you?"
“Who do you think I am?”
“You look like an angel.”
The angel nodded, smiling gently, closing its eyes.
"And ... and ... and ... you ... come to ... me?“
The angel laughed in such a way that made Sieglinde, in spite of her troubles, out of instinct laugh, albeit only letting out a nervous chuckle. "Remember, Sieglinde, that you are important to us." The archangel spread its wings and nodded to her. “You have a firm hand.”
She looked at her hands.
The angel smiled.
”I am not speaking of that. I am speaking of your soul. You do not fall for temptation.”
Sieglinde kneeled down at the angel's feet. "No need for that." She started to cry. "Stand up, child, and listen to me..." She looked up, like a Mary Magdalene to Jesus with widely desperate and exultingly adoring eyes. Michael had seen that look before for it was the same soul looking at him as so many years back. She stood up. The archangel spoke: "I come to warn you. This is more than an earthly war, my queen. This is a divine feud.“
“I don't understand ..."
"Then I shall enlighten you.”
She nodded.
“You are all in danger of losing everything.”
The Prosperanian Queen gently listened walking slowly next to an archangel among the graves like next to an old friend. Michael told her everything. The Morning Star and The Evening Star. The first one, Lucifer, plucked down as a pioneer passing the test and growing up and the latter, Michael, joining him as best blood brother.
He told her of how Lucifer could not be a brother among brothers and felt neglected by God and Michael and how alienation caught his vanity and how it lead to God's separation of the Evil from the Good but how Lucifer had found its diamond in the original cave and misused it to separate himself and kill his Good side and how it was now lying waiting for a solution in that cave.
He told her of the duel, the millennial imprisonment and the denomination of Lucifer. He told her of Adam and Eve and Rebecca and of Lucifer's empire in Hell, of his confrontations with Jesus. And he told her that God had split evolution into separate realities just to exclude Lucifer from the one. He told her that things were quite different here because Lucifer could actually intervene behind the scenes in the reality where Sieglinde did not live.
More dangerous in a way was that bad and good was in everyone. Medatlantia was Europe there and Prosperania was called The Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality, reigned by the Habsburgs. Margetania was Poland, Neapolonian Italy. But medicine was not homeopathic and life was shorter because a lack of roman infrastructure. Infrastructure was as bad as hygiene.
He told her how the devil's reentrance into Prosperania had been dated 1106 A.D, when Prince John broke away from the Wandiffian Militia. He told her that Lucinda was Lucifer's last try to gain control over the alternate realities. This was the last feud between the original brothers and Alexander and Lucinda were actually their advocates over here.
"Most importantly, I am here to tell you two things to save you. You are all in grave danger of losing life as well as land. Your country is dying. First of all, always look into your own light. Never let that light disappear. Let your own light guide you. Second, follow your intuition. Don’t let temptation crush you like it did Morgana and Patrick." The angel smiled bitter sweetly. “I leave you now and send you all God's blessings. I shall return."
They embraced and the angel floated back up.
Sieglinde stood alone in the chapel of the ancestors, hearing the calm summer wind whine and wail past the corners and the leaves rustle, moving slowly across the graves.
Her expression was one as vacant as the emptiness of the forest beyond the chapel and her mind could just not grasp fully what St. Michael had just said. She was part of a divine feud.
As she walked through the church some minutes later, she was still thinking about the angel's words.
“I have to tell Belinda!”
As she opened the door she was ready to turn right into the main hall of Iuventus with its mahogany stairs and although she wanted to she could not for the beast was there. The creature was as large as the other one. But it wore horns and had a tail. It stretched out its tongue, playfully flicking it at her like a snake waiting to gulp down a newfound victim.
"Hello, Sieglinde!"
Petrified, the Prosperanian Queen backed against the door and bump into it.
The creature slowly approached her and there was nothing she could do but wait to die or wait to breathe or wait to hope. And on her neck the creature breathed a silence, giving the Queen her long awaited message of eventual sleep.

Danehamn Harbor – Saturday, September 6th 1427

Alexander was in his tent with Ulfaas. They had now been here a month now. A large piece of parchment was laid out upon the table, showing them how the losses of the war up north and how the budget could be refilled to rebuild the area. The two men had contemplated for almost an hour now what strategic move would be best to rebuild the harbor.
Alexander knew that his country was dying and in the back of all their heads a demon was prowling. "One for the weapon..." Outside the tent, they now heard galloping hooves approaching. There was a skidding of a horse and the stallion, for it was a stallion, neighed. The man stepped off the horse and tied it to a tree. The two men at the table did not turn around when the man came in. He just stood there for a while and waited. Then Alexander noticed the patient silence behind him and turned around. He smiled, although the smile was vacant, sleepless and bitter.
"Theo, my boy!" He had not seen the boy for three weeks now. He had been with his mother in Clurafar on stand-by if anything came up. Apparently something had. "One day I will repay you for all your traveling." Theo noticed how old the king looked. Bags under the eyes, beard half-gray now, a bitter expression in his eyes, uncombed hair. Ulfaas stood beside him, sad, saying nothing. His shirt was open and he looked old, rugged and melancholy. Sweat was running down his chest. It was unbearably hot.
Theo knelt down on his right knee, took his sword and put it in front of him, head down. Alexander walked up, put his hand on his tired head and said: "Theo, what is the matter?“
Theo stood up and his eyes were wide now. He looked worried. "Your majesty ... I have rode many days and nights to tell you this. I have lived on grass just to get you this message ..."
The two most powerful men