Luc's Hope - Prologue pt.2

By the time they returned the palace, Lucias was absolutely livid.  He stormed to his suite at the west end of the palace, and refused all summons and visitors for the rest of the day.  He was sure the servants already knew all about his humiliation, and probably the nobles staying the night after the funeral.

He could not think, he was so angry.  To be manhandled like that… hauled to the carriage like a willful child!  He wanted to have those footmen thrown into a dungeon… or at least have the chance to punch them both in the mouth.

A servant came to his door to bring him to dinner.  Though Lucias’ stomach was alive with hunger, his anger hurt him more and he sent the servant away.  Not five minutes later, his door opened again.  Lucias grabbed the empty pitcher from his vanity and turned to hurl it at the intruder.  “I told you to go!”

It was not a servant, but Rupert, still wearing the black mourning garb of his adopted nation.  “I sent a servant as you ask.  Why do you not come?”

Lucias lowered the pitcher and gritted his teeth.  “A prince does what he wishes,” he growled.  “And I wish to be left alone.”

Either Rupert did not understand, or he chose to ignore his stepson.  He stepped casually into the room.  Behind him, Lucias could see his bodyguards: three dark, surly men from his native island who had followed him everywhere for as long as Lucias could remember.  They did not follow Rupert into Lucias’ chambers, but stood at the opening door glaring like predators at the young prince, as though daring him to make a move toward their master.  Lucias hated them more than he hated his stepfather and stepbrother.

“I wish to apologize for your anger,” Rupert said, sitting down on Lucias' bed and making himself quite at home.  “After losing Rosa, my heart has been heavy and sad.  I had forgotten that your heart would be sad as well.  I did not wish to make your heart feel worse.”

For some reason, the apology only made Lucias angrier.  “Don’t pretend to have any sympathy for me,” he sneered, turning toward the wall.  “I lost Mother when you married her and turned her against me.”

“We both know this is false,” Rupert said calmly.  “Rosa and I have always loved you.”

“Stop saying ‘we’!   Stop saying ‘Rosa and I’!” Lucias shouted.  “We were fine.   We didn’t need you.  You’ve ruined my life, old man.  Stop pretending you did it out of love.”

Lucias turned away again, his heavy breathing the only sound in the tense air.  Finally, Rupert stood up.  “You need to eat,” he said quietly.  He had the same tone Edwin used whenever Lucias struck him.  “Please, come to dinner.”

“I’ll eat later, without you.”

“My family…” Rupert whispered, as though he had not heard, “I am losing my family again.  Something must be done.  Something must be done.”

Lucias felt the pained words sink into his mind, but when he turned back around, Rupert was gone.  For a moment, he felt awful for lashing out at the old man.  But if it weren’t for him, none of this would have happened.  It was arguing with him every night that made mother sick.

Arguing about me.

~
Prince Edwin glanced up when his father reentered the dining hall.  Lucias had not come down.  Edwin hadn’t really expected him to… but he had wished.  For twelve and a half years, he’d done very little else.

Edwin had been a motherless child from an hour after his birth, until his father had married Rosa.  He’d had two older brothers, both of whom had drowned before he was born.  His father had taken him to Lorasia – a safe, coastal kingdom where they could live near the sea, but find safety from storms and the storm-blown waves that could crush houses and kill families.  All his life he’d known only Lorasia, the Lorasian language, his father… and finally, his new mother and brother.

Rosa had been so wonderful to him that Edwin often suspected his father of using magic to find them the perfect new mother.  He’d never voiced the opinion aloud… Lorasia had a bad history with magic, and it had been outlawed for several centuries.

Besides, Rupert’s magic was powerful enough that, if he’d been a mind, he could have found Edwin a much better brother.  Lucias had hated him since the day they met, and that hurt more than Rosa’s death.

“He’s not coming down until we’re gone,” Edwin said when his father sat down.

“As he has said,” he sighed.

Rupert had a look that Edwin knew well – a tired look that had come over him often when Edwin was young.  Reaching over and squeezing his father’s arm, Edwin asked, “What else did he say?”

“There is nothing, my son,” Rupert tried to assure him.

“Don’t give me ‘there is nothing.’  I know Luc.  He said something stupid again, didn’t he?”

There was no one dining with the king and his son tonight, so no one to see Edwin rise and put his arms around his father’s neck.  He’d just lost his mother, Rupert his second wife.  They needed each other to get through this, and Lucias was getting in the way.

“I wish that boy had never been born,” he muttered.

Rupert gave him a half-hearted swat on the shoulder.  “Do not say so.  He is your brother.”

“Brothers don’t hate each other,” Edwin retorted.  “Lucias hates me.  He doesn’t want to be my brother.  And frankly, I’m tired of trying to change his mind.  Why can’t we just ignore him?”

“Because,” Rupert replied, “then he will not only lose a mother, but everyone he has.”

“Good,” Edwin blurted.  “If he doesn’t want anything to do with us, he should find someone he will open up to.  It’s not like we’re doing him any good.”

Rupert was silent a moment, then his shoulders slowly straightened, and he rose from his seat.  Edwin looked up to see his father’s dark eyes go wide and bright, and for the first time in weeks, a smile unroll across his lips.

“Edwin,” he said quietly.  “I believe you have inspired me.”
~
Lucias slept fitfully that night, the slightest noise rousing him from whirling, incoherent dreams of his mother.  And, less often, his father.  They cosseted and scolded him by turns, and in one dream he saw the face of his father, but he knew it to be Rupert in disguise, and he took a sword in his hand to face him.

Then he awoke with a jolt, hitting the floor as though his bed had vanished beneath him.  Before he could react, something pinned his head to the floor, something that seemed to be the paws of an enormous dog, though it would have to be a much larger dog than any of the royal hounds.  Tiny hands quickly scurried over him, and Lucias was put in mind of a large rat.  He squirmed and shouted in vain, because the rat-creature bound him in his own bed sheets too quickly for him to make a sound.  Finally, a pair of huge claws picked him up and set him upon the dog’s back.

And then they were off.  The dog galloped with a speed that would turn the fastest steed green with envy.  The fisted claws dug into his shoulders and kept him pinned to the dog.  The cry of an eagle all but shattered his eardrums.  The rat-creature clung to his shirt and uttered a series of short, high-pitched cries like nothing Lucias had ever heard.  Only the dog was silent; Lucias could not even hear its paws touch the earth.

The wind that rushed by was cold, and gradually began to smell of seawater and rotting seaweed – smells that not even the crown prince could be ignorant of in this kingdom.  He squirmed his neck about until he’d freed the top of his head from the sheets and looked down.  And then he screamed.

The dog was running over the sea.

Lucias closed his eyes again and tried valiantly not to faint.

It’s a dream.  It’s a dream.  Mother, please, help me!

After what seemed like hours, the pace quickened, and their trajectory suddenly turned upward.   Lucias opened his eyes before he could think better of it, and saw to his horror that they were running up the side of a cliff.  He howled again, and the rat-creature stuffed a handful of bed sheet into his mouth.  Lucias moaned and squeezed his eyes tight, sure that any moment he was going to be sick.

But before he had a chance, the world suddenly righted itself again, and the three animals dumped him in a heap on a damp stone floor.  Lucias panted a moment, then struggled free of the torn sheet.  He was in a cave, one that had been cleaned by human hand, strangely.  There was not a smell that was less than fresh, nor a speck of sand or mud.  A mild incense was burning in the corner.  There was quite a bit of furniture, all of it finely wrought bronze.  The place was well lit by twelve brass lamps.  And he was not alone – standing in the middle of all this was Rupert and Edwin.  The black dog stood at Rupert’s right, the huge eagle on Edwin’s left, and the third creature – a monkey – climbed onto Rupert’s shoulder and stared into Lucias with penetrating black eyes.

No one said a word.  Rupert stared at Lucias calmly, his back straight, his hands behind his back.  Edwin looked less comfortable, and kept shifting his weight as if waiting for Lucias to bull-rush him, or step backward and take a fatal plunge into the sea.  The animals were motionless.  Finally, Lucias found his voice.

“Where am I?”

Rupert stepped slightly forward, out of the glare of the light.  “I have made this place as comfortable as I could.  I realize it could be a long time before you find the way out.”

“Way out?  What are you talking about?”  Lucias looked over at Edwin.  “What’s he talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” Edwin admitted.

“Well, he’s off his rocker.  I don’t know where you’ve taken me, but I want to go home.”

“You are not going home,” said Rupert sternly.  “Tomorrow, I will have it announced that you have been sent to Rome until such time as you have proven worthy of the crown.  I fear the court and our servants will consider you gone for good, but I am hoping this will not be so.”

Lucias looked back and forth between his stepfather and stepbrother.  He heard what had been said, but he was having trouble understanding it.  “Is he making you heir apparent?” he asked Edwin.

Edwin glowered.  “That would be your first thought.”

“Well, don’t get too comfortable, boy.  You can’t keep me in Rome forever.”

“I don’t intend keeping you in Rome at all,” Rupert replied.  “You will remain here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Here?   That’s a laugh, old man.  Just what do you think will keep me from leaving this pit?”

The old man raised his right hand.  “This.”

He began a slow, monotonous chant in a language Lucias had never heard before.  The flames in the lamps leapt upward and brushed the ceiling, the light blinding him briefly.  When he could see again, the animals had vanished and Rupert’s three surly bodyguards stood in their place, glaring at him with their cold, black eyes.  They rushed him suddenly and took him by the arms and legs.  Lucias panicked and began screaming, trying to kick them away but finding them as immovable as mountains.

Swirling, writhing green lights had filled the cave.  They sought out Lucias’ flesh under his nightclothes, and burned where they touched him.  Lucias cried out in pain as well as fear, so loud he could barely hear Edwin call out his name.

Finally, the pain and everything else vanished into blackness.
~
Edwin re-lit one of the lamps and examined the creature that moments ago had been his brother.  “Father, what have you done?”

“I have taken those things on which he has depended for himself,” Rupert said as his servants gathered around him again.  “The word for it, I believe, is enchantment.”

“I believe the word for it is overkill!” Edwin exclaimed.  “Giving the little brat the silent treatment would have been one thing.  This is going to kill him!”

“Not so,” Rupert replied.  “Inside, he is the same boy.  He has the power to break the curse, as I have the power to remove it.  The journey back to his old body will be a hard one, and it will make him a much better person.  In the end, he will gain from this.”

Edwin looked back down at his brother.  He looked so pitiful lying there in a torn linen nightshirt and a mass of blue and red fins.  “What made you choose a sea-monster?”

“In this body, he will find better air from the sea,” Rupert explained.  His voice was quiet, faraway, as he regarded his stepson.  “He can breathe on land for a while, but it will be better for him to be in the water.  He will not drown, as did my sons before.”

Edwin knelt beside Lucias and placed a hand on the strange, rigged shoulder.  “I don’t know about this, Father,” he murmured.  “But I trust you.  I just wish I didn’t have to be here when he wakes up.”
~