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

of the horror had been too horrible for the unreal. No one country can die so fast or in so many ways. They told me that they were actually in a waiting room for something else. It stood to reason. We had all been killed one by one.” Belinda threw in a log and the wood caught flames. “My mother said something smart after that. They had looked for an answer. One by one of the people that all had remembered dying came into the replica of Iuventus Sacrum. They were all people that had gone from here and appeared in there. It wasn’t heaven because it was too desolate for that.” The girl took her father by the hand and lead him back to his bench. She drank all of her wine in one gulp and poured herself another glass. She sat down and took her father’s hand. He noticed that her hand was shaking. He caressed it with his thumb. “It was Bantrard that actually had come with the idea. He remembered the potion that Nomed had given us all on the 23rd of September 1425. It was a potion for a supposed epidemic. Who knows how the epidemic got started. The fact was that it did and that Nomed provided the cure.”
Alexander looked up and the stunned awe in his face was obvious.
“You mean that...”
Belinda nodded, reassuringly. “Everyone of the 36 executive present at that meeting table, not counting you, died and was brought into some sort of replica of the palace. The rest of the present probably were cast into a no man’s land of some kind along with the rest of the world.”
”How did Bantrard find out?”
”Not hard. We’d all suspected what he said. Interestingly enough, he found that everything in the real world existed here but in a parallel world. So he found things that you had left in the other world, the one not real, and one day he found a list of all the guests at that party.”
”Not real. What do you mean with not real?”
Belinda patted his hand and took a sip of her muscatel.
“Here comes the reason for your drink. When we woke up Nomed was gone and we were cast into a sleeping world where a war started, an epidemic raged and hate conquered us all. I fought with the entire family and everyone seemed to die. The country died. We were all extinguished. But, and this idea came from me once we had sat for the twenty-third time talking about this, this world was asleep. We quickly gathered that you would never ever arrive, thus never die in this world and come to ours. Why? Because Lucinda wanted you for her own. She wanted to cut away everything and just have you alone. It was the only possible explanation for all of this horror.”
Alexander shook his head. It was an incredible story, but so very probable at the same time.
His heart said yes to this. He had always doubted the reality of the world around him.
“So what is this world.”
”We have all had dreams. At night, the bland world around us turned black for about eight hours resembling night. During one of those nights, Steven and me cuddled up in our bed, all of us 35 had the same dream. We all described our dreams very vividly at breakfast and this morning was a really big surprise. There was always food in the cellar, always. Something always wanted to keep us alive.” The bitter laugh that came from her lips spoke volumes.
“The dream that we had was so exactly real that it could be northing else than a sign. We dreamt about the 23rd of September of the fateful year when Nomed served us the potion, but we saw it from a different perspective. We saw how Nomed gave us the potion and how we fell asleep. We saw him turn into Lucinda and leave through the fireplace. We saw the seasons came and went and how we kept on sleeping. We saw how the clock on the fireplace of your throne room remained set at one single time and how the date never changed. Father, we are asleep. We are still sleeping, all of us. We are not living now on the 7th of March 1429. We are still asleep in a never ending dream in a time capsule. Yours and ours. The difference is that you are set in a world that entails the entire universe. What lies beyond ours is probably no more than nothing at all. Our Iuventus is all we have. You were spared to disappear from this illusion because you are the one that she wants to duel. The exile was so frightful for her that she wants to duel you alone. There is so much at stake for her that she wants to duel you at the cost of everything you have and are. You need to stay here and stay alive in this illusion, for there are forces that also want to destroy you and let you and everything sink into oblivion. Lucinda will keep you alive because she wants you to duel her. There is a great deal at stake here. Probably more than we know.”
Alexander stood up and circled the coffin, drinking the wine.
Belinda saw that look on her father’s face. It was the look of someone that had regained hope. There was new problem to conquer. The king was back. But the king was deeply worried. The problem that had arisen was a bigger obstacle than he had anything that ever faced.
He drank the wine, looked out the window, stopped, walked on, and scratched his head. This went on for ten minutes. Then he stopped and kneeled down. He took Belinda’s head in his hands and kissed her forehead. He smiled at her tenderly.
“You are alive. That is what is important” Alex said. She nodded. “Just tell me, Lindy: Nomed?”
She said, without any hesitation, so ruthlessly that it shook him:
”The awakened demon. He is who you think he is. You said so on the morrow after our awakening.”
He sat back on his knees and then fell on his bottom.
His eyes wide, he stood up with the help of his own hands.
He kneeled against the stone podiums that coffin was resting on.
Time was standing still, the thoughts were racing.
“Nomed Snekawa. Demon Awakens.” Alex grinned and closed his eyes. “It is typical of my sisters black humour. I should’ve seen it. But we all fell for it.”
Belinda embraced her father from behind and kissed him.
“We didn’t know and didn’t want to know. We didn’t think it could be real.”
Alex turned around and hugged his daughter.
They stood there for so long that they forgot time.
They stood there and thought about life and what might wait for them at the other end of this mess. Alex caressed her light brown hair, her left cheek resting on his robed chest.
“How were finally able to make the transition to me?”
She took her cheek off his chest and looked up at him.
“That is an interesting story.” She indicated at the bench and they sat down. “After the dream, we understood what was going on. It was me again that figured out something. I felt so near to you in the throne room and I kept on looking at the clock that Reland had given you on your birthday. It had the figurines of two brothers and it was obvious who these angelic creatures were. Blood brothers. I looked at it like you did at times and tried to think about what you were doing right at that moment. I was often there and cried and prayed. Then, one day, I was looking the clock that never ticked and it just came to me like a vision. Of course, that was it. This was so big to my aunt, your sister, because so much was at stake. She had halted time in its key area because you were actually brave enough to throw her out. She knew also that by throwing her out she wanted you to decide between good and bad. So she split realities and made an ultimatum: Meeting her in the illusion that she created to fight for everything.” Belinda sighed, swallowed and nodded. “I think that if you lose the fight of this game, the game that you must fight, then Lucinda will win everything. If you win, she is expelled from all realities for ever.”
”You mean that this game is the original war?”
Belinda smiled knowingly.
”This is it.”
”Oh, yes. My belief is that all of this stands to reason. I mean why go through all of this trouble because of an exile. That was just the catalyst. The brothers are fighting this. St. Michael is strong enough to make you his ally. But his brother is the fallen angel and has my aunt on his side. This whole scenario is the ultimate battle and you are completely alone with this. We need you to win, because the architect has designed you like that. It is the painted picture you have been created for, the actual image that you have won to protect.”
Alex stood up and he began to understand the way this world worked.
“This is all her illusion, correct?”
Belinda nodded. “Correct.”
”Then if I am right, I can use it to my own benefit?”
Belinda shrugged and nodded at the same time.
“If you so wish, Father.”
He shook his head and smiled. “Then what is my task?”
“There is a proverb behind the clock that Reland gave you. He told you about the fallen angel and the war in Eden. What he told me alone was that what had inspired him to make the clock after that image was an old leg Imprint

Publication Date: 06-10-2011

All Rights Reserved