A Greater Kingdom Read online

A Greater Kingdom

  a tale

  Tom Hampson

  PART 1

  No one quite knows why the little girl wanted to know about the impossible King. Nor does it matter. All that is important is that one night, in a desert city long ago, she came to ask about Kings. The Grandfather and the Grandmother of this girl had answered her questions as best they could, even though they were many, even though each question became more elaborate than the last.

  Then, after a moment of quiet, she asked this one:

  ‘Why has there never been a King of all the World?’

  Now, unlike the others, this was a question that was not met immediately with an answer. Instead the Grandfather sat up in his old chair, and looked across at his wife, who looked back.

  ‘Like a God?’ He asked the little girl.

  ‘No, like ordinary people, like you and I.’ She replied. ‘A King like us.’

  The Grandfather closed his eyes and then re-opened them. ‘I shall tell you why, extraordinary child,’ he said smiling. And so he began:

  * * * * *

  Years ago, two brothers stood on a wall and watched the sun fall into the horizon. They watched as the desert glimmered and shifted with the fleeting heat, and they stared as the sky turned from a bright blue to a deep red and finally to darkness. They had seen this many times before but still it made them go quiet. For though the desert was a deadly place, at this late hour nowhere in the world was more beautiful.

  Yet the younger brother, Rego, was not content. Even as glory lay in front of him, his heart was not happy. Instead, it held a grief of the worst kind. He was trapped by love.

  For he knew she did not love him. Mira did not love him.

  Who was Mira? Mira was girl more beautiful than any other, more soothing than the rare rain. Rego loved her more than he had ever thought possible, more than he had loved anyone or anything before. He had witnessed her humour and intellect; he had experienced her charm and friendliness, and she had mesmerized him. When they’d talked, she had made him laugh, and smile, and feel so contented. When she had contested something he said, she had done it with such warmth and wit, and intelligence and speed, that he had become infatuated and thought himself a winner even as he lost. He didn’t know when he had fallen for her, but he had. And he had descended in totality.

  But she would never love him back. How could she? He wasn’t good enough for her. She was a girl with so many qualities to her character that it cast him in plainness. He knew there were more worthy men out there for her: men with money and power, men with everything in the world. His love may be precious, but it meant nothing in the market; it didn’t have the weight of silver or the lure of gold.

  Yet Rego loved her regardless. He was forever hoping for a better ending even as he thought of the dull truth that lay beneath his sparkling dream. Mira could have so much more than he could provide.

  His brother noticed Rego was quiet, and turned towards him. He asked what was wrong. Rego didn’t want to tell him because he knew what he would say. He would tell him he was foolish for wanting such things. He would try and finish his dream, drawing hope from it like breath from a dying body. Not because he didn’t love him, but because he didn’t want to see him hurt. But even as he thought of how his brother would respond, even as Rego sensed the impending, he could feel the secret crushing his insides. It was a pressure that built every second he did not speak up. He knew what he would hear, but he couldn’t bear to live silently and face it alone any longer.

  So Rego made a decision. He told his brother of Mira, and his dream of being with her. His brother listened quietly as Rego spoke, letting everything fall out without interruption. When Rego had finished, he began: ‘Rego, you know what I must tell you. She’s not the one for you. The sons of leaders and generals speak of her with the same admiration and aspiration as you, and she can choose any from them she wants; boys with money and power of a scale you and I couldn’t imagine. You know the world, Rego. The powerful win every race- even the one to a girl’s heart. Forget her.’

  Now Rego was hurt by these words; more so than he had thought he would be. They punctured his spirit and they calved at his hopes. But he had said the same to himself so many times before, on long nights when he tried to restore himself to sanity. And since each of these times he had failed, he knew he couldn’t heed them now; they couldn’t affect him anymore. The more someone told him that Mira wasn’t to be, that she was destined for elsewhere on distant paths he could not tread, so the more he wanted to walk them and find her.

  Rego left his brother, disappearing into the shadows of the city, wanting to be alone. He knew his brother would be watching him go, pitying him, worried for him. He didn’t want pity. Rego followed the alleys around. The yellow stone was lit by the pale moonlight, and it had become cold. He walked on for a while, thinking.

  With each step he considered and listened to his heart. He loved Mira. He knew that. But she was destined for another, someone of different qualities, better qualities, someone who would make her forget him. Someone powerful and rich, someone who could give her anything she set her eyes and heart upon. This was the truth, he told himself. Indeed, he kept reminding himself: over and over again. But it was to no avail. He couldn’t let her go. She wouldn’t leave him. Even as he knew she wasn’t to be, even as he thought that a girl as beautiful, as clever and funny and smart as she would never want him, still she remained. Still she plagued him and still she taunted him. She willed him to keep seeking her. And he couldn’t refuse. How could he refuse Mira?

  He reached her house. Rego knew she would be behind one of the windows, lost in sleep. But he also knew her dreams would be so different to the ones currently cascading through his head. So he turned and began to move away. There was nothing for him here, he thought. Forget her, he thought. Still, at points he would stop and turn, pretending that he had heard something, hoping that someone had run out to keep him from leaving. But no one came and he stayed alone so he turned again to leave.

  But then, as he walked away, letting the sand of the street rub against his sticky toes, letting his heart sit in a sea of numbness, an idea streamed into his mind. At first, it was quiet and subdued and he barely recognized its presence such was its absurdity. Yet it stayed regardless, refusing to leave, demanding to be heard. And in time, he listened to it a little more: but it was still ridiculous, still so foolish, still so unbelievably unbelievable that he continued to pay it little attention.

  And so he kept walking through the alleys. But this idea flickered on, never wavering, never disappearing. Until, eventually, he grew tired of ignoring it. He listened to this idea. He gave himself over to it. And how it gleamed! This idea that he had ignored was the answer to his problem: an answer so simple and yet so hard, so right and yet so wrong. But it was the sole solution: the one path to Mira and his heart’s contentment.

  Power, he thought. He had to become powerful. If Mira was destined for a powerful man, he would have to be that powerful man. He would have to become powerful.

  And so Rego found himself with a plan, a method to realize the madness of his dream. And that plan was this: he would do whatever it took to become powerful, for that was what was needed for Mira to love him. And that was all he wanted. But as he walked, this dream grew and his confidence swelled, and he decided he would not just become powerful, for that was not enough for Mira. No, instead he would go further, he would achieve more: he would become more powerful than any man had become before. He would rule seas and cities, control armies and navies, have deserts and forests at his dominion. He would hold sway over kings and emperors, he would write history and craft history, and all the world would honour him, bow to him, and call him the King of all. Yes, h
e thought, King of all.

  He would be King of all the World.

  So Rego returned home. He was now full of happiness, brimming with the joy of hope, certain in his conclusions. He went to his brother, who was up and waiting for him to return, and told him. He said he had found what he needed to do. Until, just as he was saying that, he realised he didn’t. He knew where he wanted to end up: powerful. But he didn’t know how to achieve it. The journey escaped him.

  His brother had looked at Rego worriedly as he talked of his plan. Though as before, he didn’t interrupt until he was finished.

  Now he spoke: ‘Rego be careful: You should not seek power without a purpose for it. Nothing good ever happens to people who do so. But if this is something that your heart is set on, I know what you can do. According to a story, there’s an Oracle who lives deep in the desert several weeks west of here. She can tell fortunes and futures like all other Oracles, but this Oracle is unique, for she can also help shape them. If power is what you truly want, she may be able to tell you how to get it. But Rego you must be cautious. I’ve heard about those who have taken her advice before. The roads she puts them on never lead to the places they want to go. Her answers are cryptic and they can misguide. Men have been driven mad by her.’

  But Rego had stopped listening almost as soon as his brother had mentioned this Oracle. He was thinking only of what she could tell him. He realised his brother had finished and that it was his turn to speak. But just as he was about to thank his brother, and turn happily towards the door and the coming journey, a thought startled him. For he had suddenly realised that he would have to sacrifice much for this power he wanted. He saw that he would have to leave home, and travel far for what he sought, for power always required great sacrifices: this much he knew. And he realised that he may never see his brother, his father or his mother again, for the sacrifices power demands are often those closest: he knew this too.

  And as the shock of this understanding rippled through him, and distress coursed into his body, tears stung his eyes. He realised he faced a choice. In one direction lay power and Mira, in the other his family and some happiness but not her. And yet, though the consequences of the decision were vast, and the sacrifices involved huge, he knew there was only one decision he could ever live with himself making.

  But his brother knew his decision before he had even replied. He said little, merely led Rego down to the city gate that faced towards the desert and the looming dawn. They stood together, in silence, and watched the fires of morning ascend into the sky.

  Rego watched quietly, then breathed heavily. It was his sign that he was ready to leave. The brothers embraced for a final time, and Rego turned and walked away into the desert. He couldn’t look behind him, knowing doubt would turn him if he did. No, instead he looked forward to the distance. Ahead of him the desert reached to the horizon and beyond. It lay open and free, and as beautiful as it had ever been. But as he looked and became lost in the sands, Rego began to think that this desert wouldn’t be free forever, for he needed to master the whole world if he was to win Mira. And as he looked at the sands, he knew he would manage it, for his heart was driving him, and his heart was burning stronger than ever before.

  And with these thoughts, he left his city and brother behind. He vanished into the desert.

  He walked for weeks. He passed dune after dune, until the world merged into a single shade. He ran out of water, and thirst took him, and then madness did too. But he pushed on regardless, for he saw Mira shimmering in his eyes and he heard her name on the wind and it gave his legs freshness, his body energy and a resolve in his heart to find the Oracle.

  But the Oracle did not appear. Nothing could survive here.

  Soon Mira began to walk with him through the desert. She would rise up ahead, a pale imitation forged from air, and walk before him until disappearing. She did it again and again, and as his head lightened, she did it with increasing frequency. Each time he would be tricked. He would follow her, try to reach her, and she would not let him. She would fade, divided into sky, and he would be left alone.

  Once she did it and disappeared around a dune. As before, Rego followed. But when he came around the dune, he was confused by what he saw. Mira remained, but she was staring at a figure stood far away on another dune. Crowds of people looked to this figure, unmoving. Mira moved forwards and stopped. Rego walked behind her, and was about to turn to face her, when he instead found himself looking at the far figure. For it looked familiar, so unnervingly familiar that he found Mira had made flight from his mind. He walked towards it and left Mira behind.

  This figure drew closer, but with the position of the sun and the height, it was impossible for Rego to make out any features or details that might identify them. He climbed the dune, and left the crowds. The sand became thick, and his feet disappeared in the deepness. Eventually he reached the top. And now he saw exactly who the figure was.

  It was him.

  But this was impossible, Rego thought. The figure was him, but he was not it. He was himself. The figure, this him, was dressed in white, and wore a crown. He raised his arms, and the crowds began to shout in acclamation. But these shouts turned to fear, though Rego did not see why. Then he did. Far off, a wall of sand, a giant vortex had arisen, and twisting and turning across the desert floor, had started surging towards them. Rego could see the speed and the power with which it tore across the surface, ripping into dunes and spraying sands further than the eye could see. Rego had never seen winds of such immense power in his life. But then the crowds turned away from this sandstorm. Once more, Rego did not know why: did they not see this wall of sand coming upon them, about to surround them and steal the life from their bodies? Then Rego saw why they had turned. A wall of fire was raging forward from the west, burning with an intensity he had never experienced. Rego glanced across at the King. Or was it to himself? He hadn’t moved. His hand was still aloft, pointing into the sky, fingers splayed with his palm facing up.

  The crowds were panicking. They knocked into each other as they tried to escape the oncoming fronts. But there was no escape to be had. The storms had surrounded the crowds, and Rego and the King too. Still the King didn’t alter his position though, nor did he look concerned. Then he moved. He raised his other arm and turned his palms down. Next, swiftly, brutally, he brought both arms down to his waist in an even, triumphant arc. Sweat was now running down Rego’s face, streaming into his eyes, dripping onto the sand below, which had become muddy and dark. Rego noticed that the sand had become dark all around him.

  He looked up through the small remaining circle of sky not yet shut by the encroaching storms. Thick, brooding clouds of dense grey had replaced the deep blue of before. And from them huge raindrops were falling, hurtling down and slamming into the ground. They were plunging into the top of the storms, forcing them downwards. They faded quickly under the assault of such rain. It soaked everything, and small rivers formed in the sand, flowing downhill in mad torrents out to the distance. Soon only weak puffs of smoke whimpered from where fire had raged. The crowds had stood to watch, relieved of panic, in wonderment of the water.

  Rego turned back towards the King. He had dropped his hands and was looking at the crowd. They turned towards him again. And then they all fell. Together, the crowd fell to their knees. They leaned forward and bowed to the King; the one who had saved them. The one who had raised fire and then brought rain.

  Rego watched, relieved of thirst. He had seen the power he wanted.

  The waters guided him. He followed them as they took him further into the desert. He felt they were showing the way, and he always followed his feelings. He followed the waters for hours. He followed the waters as they diverged and flowed around dunes, he followed the waters as they merged and cantered over the rocky sands. He followed the waters until they reached a crater in the desert. The waters were dribbling over the sides, tumbling into a lake of crystal stillness. Rego looked down into this crater, knowing the
Oracle was near. He scanned the base of the lake and saw an opening in the rock. He sensed it was the way.

  He jumped. The lake took him. He broke back to the surface and swam to the opening. A ledge of rock jutted out beneath it, which he clasped and dragged himself upon. He rose and looked into the gap. The sunlight only penetrated a short way. He entered the gloom, and followed the corridor that tunneled into the rock. He went down passages that led off, getting lost and discovering where he was again, feeling the rock for guidance. He went on like this for hours. His hand became sore, his legs tired. Eventually he came to a chamber alight with torches. A grand, wooden door stood in the rock. He pushed against it. It was stiff and heavy, but it opened.

  There was a long room in front of him. At the far end, only faintly lit by torchlight, sat a figure covered by shadow. A voice called out from where the figure sat, echoing around the hall.

  ‘Welcome Rego. I am the Oracle.’ The voice said.

  Rego was tense as he stepped forwards. The hairs on his arm stood like columns. He reached her but she remained silent. Rego concluded that she must expect him to begin. ‘I have come far, Oracle, for I need help. I need to know how to achieve what my heart seeks.’ He said.

  ‘And what is it that your heart pursues?’

  ‘I would have thought an Oracle would be able to answer that question without the need to ask.’

  ‘You look to me for the future, Rego, not the past.’ The Oracle’s words emerged from the gloom, and they rebounded around. Rego continued.

  ‘Oracle, I want to become powerful. More powerful than any man has become before. I want you to show me how to become King of the whole World.’

  ‘You wish to be King of all the World?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rego replied. ‘Can you tell me how?’

  ‘Of course I can. Any oracle can see the future, but I can craft it into anything too. To become King is simple. You simply have to master the forces that shape the World.’

  Rego thought about what that could mean. For now, he didn’t produce the answer.

  A thought that had been worrying him came back into his mind. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘has there never been a King of all the World before if it is as simple as you say?’

  ‘In time you shall see.’ The Oracle said. And that was all she said. She was finished, and she would say no more. So he left, and returned to the surface. The day had turned to darkness, and the air had turned chilling. But Rego did not feel it. His dream was all he could think of. It was closer than ever before. All he had to do was understand these forces of which the Oracle spoke. The dunes swallowed him and he was taken by the night.

  For weeks, he travelled. He searched for the wisest people the world could offer, looking for anyone who might help him decode the words of the Oracle and understand these forces that shape the world. He travelled for so long, and for so far, that everyone from his past life became a haze in his mind. Rego travelled to countries, crossed deserts, climbed hills, cut his way through dense forests and swam through rivers in his search. But each answer he received was different.

  There were the monks he found living in a monastery that seemed to float on a bed of mist. When he had asked the highest priest what force shaped the world, the old man had looked at him strangely, before stammering in an uncertain voice that came from living a life of silence that it was the Gods above who shaped the world. They sat on high and moved men like child’s play, throwing them into moments of danger, allowing love to blossom and bringing down damnation on any who dared challenge them. Rego had considered if the Oracle had meant the Gods when she told to him to seek the forces that shape the world, but then realised that she couldn’t possibly have done so. Because men could not defeat the Gods, and therefore Rego couldn’t possible master them to become King of all the World.

  So he had left the monastery on the mountainside still unsure and gone to a city where he had been told that the wisest gathered. In a library there, among stacks of old scrolls, he had found a group of philosophers arguing and asked his question. After much debate, one told him: ‘We have decided that you entire thesis is wrong. In fact, no forces do shape the world. Instead, the world shapes the forces in it.’ Philosophers, Rego thought, as he left.

  Rego had then found the scientist. She worked in a dim room, surrounded by bottles of glass filled with liquids of dazzling colours. He waited as she diligently wrote numbers in a heavy book, before inviting him to approach and ask his question. When he had, she told him that conquering these forces was impossible. ‘Reactions’, she said, ‘are what shape the world. Ore reacts to heat and becomes metal. Metal reacts to heat and is shaped into a sword. This sword meets another on the battlefield and a victor emerges to rule. And as you cannot conquer reactions, you cannot rule the world as you say.’ But as Rego knew that the Oracle’s words were true, and since he agreed that could not conquer reactions, he decided these forces of which the Scientist spoke were not those he sought. So he had thanked the scientist, who quickly re-opened her large book, and left.

  As he went, he began to feel angry: why, he thought, could the Oracle not be clearer? Why did she insist on such pretense and impracticality? He assumed she must be trying to stop him, to intervene and impede his rise.

  Eventually, after much searching, his spirits became deflated, his mind verging on defeated. He came to rest in a tavern, in a land that seemed to attract only rain. As it drilled down on the roof, and outside puddles littered the slushy earth, he began to think. What could these forces be? He asked himself. What forces were master of the World? He must have looked sad, and unhappy, because a girl who had been sitting nearby in the tavern approached him. ‘You look far from home.’ She said.

  Rego did not look up, for he was too busy thinking about these forces. ‘I am, but I need to be.’ He replied.

  ‘Do you? Why?’

  ‘To become powerful.’

  ‘Why do you wish to be powerful?’

  ‘Because power will make me happy,’ was all he replied.

  The girl left. After a while, Rego did too.

  As he was leaving, slipping on the path that had become covered with a sheen of glistening mud, a great sound made him turn. To his left, on the opposite side of the slope, a mass of soil and mud and earth had broken loose and was falling down into the valley below. A woman walking in the opposite direction stopped to watch with him. She said the rain had made the slope unstable, and that it often happened in this land of rain. Rego continued, thinking. But then, unexpectedly, thankfully, he found himself amidst clarity

  The rain, he thought. Look at what the rain had done. It had shaped the ground. And then he stopped walking, and he felt the wind on his face, and he looked at how it blew and tore through the valley below, and he felt the earth beneath his feet, which was what gave shape to the world in the first place, and he realised that the Oracle’s forces were all around him. The forces she spoke of were the elements. He had to conquer the elements to become King.

  But how do you conquer the elements? They were everywhere. He thought long about this, and finally realised that though they were everywhere, they were each strongest in one place. But these places he knew not. So he went to see the Traveller.

  The Traveller was a man he had heard much about on his journey. It was his presence that had drawn Rego to this land of rain in the first place. The Traveller had seen the World and would be able to tell him where each element was at its height. Rego continued on the path, following the directions given to him. He came to the house of this Traveller. It was in a clearing, bordered by trees that covered all in shade. He went in.

  Inside was cluttered. On the back wall, a tapestry of strange shapes, a map of someplace unknown, hung. He approached it, and was about to reach out and trace around with his finger when a voice came from behind. ‘Behold the World.’ The voice said. Rego turned, startled. Stood there was a short man, covered in grubbiness. He walked forward and his features became clearer. He stuck out a dirty hand
and pointed at the map. ‘The World,’ he said again.

  ‘The Traveller?’ Rego asked.

  ‘I am, young sir. And who are you? A creature of the forest? Perhaps something from the wilderness of the mountains? What else would enter someone’s home uninvited?’

  Rego apologized, and explained why he had come. The Traveller just grunted, and sat down as Rego spoke.

  Rego finished: ‘Where,’ he asked, ‘are the elements at their most powerful?’

  Now the Traveller rose. He went to the map. ‘Well, what makes the elements powerful?’

  ‘The Air through wind, Fire through the intensity of its heat, and the Water by its weight and quantity. Each is the element, just more.’ Rego replied. At least this was what he thought made the elements powerful.

  ‘And the Earth?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Rego said, embarrassed.

  ‘Scale, young sir. You need the greatest mountain the world has to offer. That is where Earth is powerful.’

  Rego agreed excitedly. ‘And do you know where in the World these places lie? Where are the elements greatest?'

  The Traveller exhaled loudly, thoughtfully. He squinted at the map, and drew his finger along it. Eventually he stepped back satisfied. He pointed at four places on the map. Rego leaned in and looked. They were separated widely, distanced from each other. Oceans and all lay between.

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’ He said. ‘I shall reward you when I am King.’

  The Traveller laughed.

  ‘What is funny?’ Rego asked.

  ‘Nothing, boy. Nothing.’ He paused. ‘It’s just that you seriously think you stand a chance against the elements. You don’t. I’ve seen what they can do. I’ve seen them bruise and break and kill, rise to fury in moments, destroy in seconds. You stand no chance.’

  Rego felt an anger brooding within. ‘You are wrong.’ He said.

  ‘You are foolish.’ The Traveller replied. ‘Goodbye, boy.’

  Rego left. His anger had simmered further, fuelled by condescension, strengthened by doubt. He set off on the path. His mood began to turn darker, his sights set firmer. He would become King, and powerful, and make the Traveller, and any others who doubted him regretful. He promised he would.

  He left the land of rain, journeying far each day. He spent each one cloaked in a bitter mood, cursing the Traveller, raged against the doubtful. And as he fumed, it accelerated, and fury brewed fury.

  In the evenings, he would curl up under a sky specked with a spectrum of stars, but their beauty and might became only a reminder of how powerless he remained. They worked only to make him curse more. He would fall asleep annoyed and aggravated, his body and mind taut with anger.

  But, in sleep, he forgot about being King. His thoughts of day differed from his dreams of night. At nights, he began to dream of a girl. One who was familiar, yet in sleep unplaceable. She stayed in his head as he slept, but by morning, as Rego rose and remembered he was still not King, she was gone.

  Each night she returned to his dreams. Each morning she disappeared. It was as if his heart was trying to remind him of someone.