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10
Manik
It is not a long journey from the exploded ice planet to Maniae. A matter of days at most. I am not entirely sure because I find myself unable to sleep. There is a sense of impending doom that dogs me at every turn. Lyssa’s plan is reckless, and likely to end in bloodshed. But it is a plan, and a plan is better than no plan.
“We have arrived,”the ship announces, drawing me from my doze in the captain’s chair.
Lyssa comes running from the back to see the wonders of my world. She looks at the screen displaying the place, and her face falls. “This is your planet?”
“It is.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Starting landing procedures. Please secure yourselves into thermally-shielded seating positions.”
Lyssa can tell from orbit that things have gone deeply and terribly wrong on my home world, that is how intense the destruction has been in my absence. Thick plumes of smoke rise from several factory installations and as we emerge from blazing hot reentry, we are caught in dark charcoal plumes of one of these factory cities. These did not exist when I was forced into exile. They are the dreams of the merchant class made nightmare.
I do not answer her immediately. I am too busy dealing with the realization that things are even worse than I imagined. I chose exile in some way. Yes, Enchante wanted her shot at power, but I could have tried harder to stop her. Instead, I allowed myself to be lured into a series of wars and battles that established my character as vicious and dangerous and as Lyssa calls me, psycho. The media who had once hailed me made me a monster. All suffering on Maniae was deemed to be because of me personally. I was a king without the favor or loyalty of his people, and perhaps worst of all, I was tired of myself.
“Poor governance will destroy the finest of worlds. The fields are ash and the waters are bitter and the people are starving.”
“Palace looks good, though.”
We are now close to the capital city, Pace. At the very center of the city is a spire, and the spire is attached to the palace which has grown since my departure, constructed tendrils reaching out to grasp at and choke the life out of the city. I look at this overdeveloped, overbuilt, overpopulated world and I yearn for the simplicity and solitude of ice and blood. There are too many problems here. There is too much suffering. And there is no way one soul, no matter how dedicated, can save everyone.
And yet the plan has been set in motion and there is no turning back. I am coming for my throne, and all the crushing responsibilities that accompany it, including the ever-present threat of assassination.
We land in the royal docks. Just as Lyssa surmised, using a ship aligned with the traitors allows us to gain entry without so much as a security screening. Enchante has turned this world into a bustling port full of comings and goings and absolutely full of security issues.
“We’re here,” Lyssa declares. “That was easy. Now. Are you ready for the next part?”
“I don’t know.”
She extends a trusting human hand to me and smiles up at me with a kind of secure knowing I wish I could share in.
“I learned this trick from a woman named Marjorie.”
“Who is Marjorie?”
“I really don’t actually know, but she taught me this, and I know it is absolutely devastating. Now. Show me the way to the very heart of this place. The throne room, if you will.”
Lyssa
This is working. I can’t believe this is actually working. Manik’s homeworld is very pretty and very chaotic. It sort of looks like a bunch of ancient construction overlaid with modern upgrades, one after the other after the other. Outside the palace, I saw a great many wonders. There are streets on top of streets, winding paths from here to there, an endless multitude of connections. It is almost like an ant-hill, or a computer, or perhaps even, a living mind. I am deeply impressed, and more than a little overwhelmed — though I don’t have time to give into that feeling.
“Remember, we belong here,” I murmur to Manik, who is executing my plan perfectly, striding through the halls with absolute confidence.
We walk into the throne room — just walk in. Manik’s reputation has clearly not faded here one little bit. There are all sorts of soldiers and officials and other sorts of fairly dangerous-looking and noble aliens about. They watch us with the same confusion I watched Marjorie walk into my life. I feel their slack-jawed stares in the very core of my soul. I know exactly how they feel. And I love it.
Manik takes the throne which sits upon a golden dais. The throne is gold and adorned with scaling which mimics his own form. It was clearly made to fit him perfectly. As soon as he sits in it, I can see the most perfect belonging before me. He wasn’t made for a solitary life being a monster in the woods. He was made to sit here in this great, grand hall full of past sculptures and present technology. He was made to be the madness at the core of mightiness. I am awed. I even feel a slight urge to bow.
He looks around the room with his golden eyes, his expression shifting from fierce to relaxed, the planes and plates of his face composing themselves as he re-accustoms himself to that hallowed seat.
There is a delicious awkwardness. A sort of silence punctuated with gasps and utterances of shock and horror, and maybe excitement. There are a few smatterings of what might be applause, or perhaps the cocking of weapons. I’m not sure, and I don’t care. What this moment takes is a supreme amount of nerve and nothing else.
Manik draws a breath, and finally speaks.
“Hello,” he says, sprawling casually in the throne. “I’m back.”
