The Everborn (36 page)

Sometimes,
sometimes
, a tragedy occurs in which an Everborn is unable to continue the cycle which enables him to be reborn anew and human once again. These beings retain the fetal-like shape of their final physical appearance before each rebirth, to join others who suffered the same fate and to become Watchers once more and forever. Some of them feverishly attempt to find a way to return to the human genetic gene pool, addictively drawn back towards the emotional satisfaction of
being
human and living among man as one of them, spiriting away helpless human hopefuls and subjecting them to a myriad of reproductive experiments. Others simply continue the ages-old tradition of watching over the concerns of the earth.

And then there are still others who elect to do their own thing.

Together, they exist in anticipation of the myth of the original Sacred Ones’ return.

And they have learned to exist as long as they remain Everborn under the guardianship of select human female companions, ones who have had bestowed unto them powers and internal attributes necessary to insure their Everborn’s sustainment from human lifetime to lifetime.

These once-human female beings have come to be called Watchmaids, for they are the inter-dimensional protectors of their own assigned Everborn.

And each carries with them a price if they fail to protect them.

This price is banishment from all that they once were, from the confines of their status as Watchmaids, from contact in any substantial shape or form with the physical realm, from their own humanity that once was.

These banished Watchmaids have come to call themselves The Magdalene, in mock reference to the Mary who could’ve been Jesus’ wife but couldn’t possibly be what she longed for because He was so very far
beyond
what anyone ever fathomed, and that wasn’t
her
fault.

From within this methodology there arose a certain Magdalene who has grown to not only influence but outright jeopardize the ambitions of the Sacred Ones and the sacred inner intentions of every surviving Everborn and of all the Watchers that as fate would have it, reclaimed their ancient names.

32.

The Tale of the Magdalene Queen

This is a tale that the Watchmaids know. It has been passed down through the centuries since not very long after the events of the tale occurred and became a thing of history...a thing of history undisclosed to a significant majority of mortal Man, stuffed and duct taped inside one of Time’s infinite shoe boxes and the Watchmaids would just as well let it remain that way.

But because for them it cannot be forgotten and has been told for so long, others have been allowed insight into the tale. There are reasons for this beyond coffee table nostalgia, reasons meant to invoke awareness and forewarning and preparedness for impending doom.

This tale has been handed down with a purpose.

The purpose for it being told here; however, is so that others who read it can
understand
.

And this is the fashion by which it has been told:

Once, long ago, there was a Countess, who to satisfy her appetite for power and by selfish means, eliminated all other successors to the throne of her small impoverished country and proclaimed herself Queen of all she surveyed. She proved her worth to the people by establishing order and economic recovery. She constituted radical changes both politically and socially and appointed across the board a new court of choice figures to suit her will.

Her outward deeds had earned her immense praise throughout the land and devotion by her people unto death. She swiftly executed any opposing radicals within her country’s borders, and raised a mighty army, largely civilian, to protect and defend against the uprise of imperialistic nations which threatened not only her own country but the lands which surrounded it.

In retaliation to those distant threats, which grew ever nearer, she sought to conquer the surrounding lands. Her tactics were mediated at first through simple political negotiation, but the governments beyond her borders did not approve of her insistence that they become one country with hers...they sought for an alliance, whereas she wanted total domination and rule.

They all knew that despite the genius that she was, there was within her an intense fixation for security in ultimate power that her own people could not see.

Her proposals rejected, she publicly began to place blame upon the governments of the surrounding lands, that they were at fault for the conditions of her own country before she came to rule and rectify them all.

This propaganda was to these surrounding governments an outrage, but before they found ample opportunity to act against her, and with the impending oppression of the distant empires growing less distant with every country they conquered, the Queen made the decision to strike against them.

She would have her way.

And, through a short but bitter war, she did.

One by one, the lands submitted to her rule through much bloodshed. The peoples of these lands began to think twice, mostly out of cowardice, discerning that it would be better to submit to her than to the outside conquering empires, thus relinquishing their morale to her whimsical and imposing conditionings.

Her army more than tripled in size and likewise so did her country’s borders. She executed any of those who chose to oppose her still.

But in the land to the west of her, there grew rumors of unyielding defiance.

These rumors spoke of a certain opposing soldier who could not be stopped, could not be killed, but in opposition had killed over two hundred of her men.

Frankly, she scoffed at the rumors, and referred to her soldiers as being incompetent, for any one man can certainly be killed when pitted against odds far greater than himself. Unless he be a sorcerer.

“Is that so?” she mused. “And what do you consider your talents to be, that you are capable of committing such reportedly outrageous acts as to have slain so many of my men?”

“I am uncertain. I can’t quite put a finger on it, but I suspect I’m blessed with a curious charm. Why don’t you indulge me, and we can find out together right now?”

The Queen stared upon him blankly. Then she laughed and laughed. This man appeared to possess no more strength than enough to squash a bug. He was scrawny. He was dressed in rags. And there he was, standing before her, shrugging his shoulders.

“I am a storyteller in my village and a writer as well,” he continued. “I also serve as a political advisor and I use my writing to voice my opinions in letters submitted to my lawmakers and the lawmakers take them as wisdom. I suppose I use the right words to persuade them and I’ve proven myself worthy. I advised them to oppose
you
.”

“Is that so?" she responded, her amusement turning to insult.

With nothing further spoken but for a purposeful nod, she summoned the soldiers who brought him there to seize him and execute him.

They no sooner had drawn their weapons when a whirlwind force magically materialized, encompassing the man who, within the eye of this force, stood perfectly still and serene. The bronze-colored limbs of a she-demon surfaced from beyond the blur-seamed drapery of transparent void surrounding the man, as though invoked to protect him by an unspoken incantation.

And protect him it did. Not merely
that;
one by one, the she-demon brought the soldiers down and to their grisly deaths. Upon the final soldier’s demise, the tumultuous vision vanished and the she-demon with it as instantly as it had appeared. The man stood alone and unharmed, lowered his gaze upon the thrashed and flailed carcasses of the soldiers around him, then raised his gaze up at the bewildered Queen.

All that remained in their company, the spectators, the members of the court, the attending guards, were overtaken by silence and gorged with fear.

The man spoke to the Queen, his voice echoing and haunting. “Now you see what happens when my life is suddenly threatened. And I’m still uncertain what that was. You have any idea, Your Highness?”

“Don’t shower me with sarcasm,” the Queen shifted uneasily. “You possess a magnificent power. How did you obtain it, may I ask?”

The man was at once impressed with the manner in which she distanced her fears to maintain her dignity. On the other hand, the pedestal upon which she placed her consuming pursuit of power was high enough to account for her dull reaction to her own soldiers’ deaths, high enough to provoke fascination and awe rather than horror at the macabre theatrics that brought their lives to such an end.

Already she wanted to know the secrets behind the power.

The man smiled. “Maybe, given time, I’ll show you.”

***

The Queen ordered the man to be imprisoned. The guards, understandably, were reluctant in carrying out this order, fearing for their lives. When the Queen made it clear that no harm would come to them as long as no harm came to him, they escorted him away, albeit retaining a safe distance. With this, the man was quite cooperative.

He could be captured, he could be imprisoned, but he could not be killed. These, observed the Queen, seemed to be the rules.

So far.

The Queen completed her conquest of the surrounding lands and appointed officials to govern those lands and establish her new order. A greater part of her days, however, were spent in contemplation over this mysterious and powerful,
sorcerer
-like man.

A greater part of her days,
and
nights.

There were serious risks involved in keeping him there, for the man’s awesome power posed a conceivably hostile threat to all of Her Majesty’s interests. There was no telling what more he was capable of, no telling what the mounting consequences of holding him at bay might be or what he held up his sleeve.

She saw to it that his stay remain comfortable for a prisoner. His confines were referred to as bed quarters and were no where near the cold, rank dungeons where any rat or disease could give cause to another disastrous episode. He was granted a large degree of privacy, though twenty guards were posted at all hours outside the exterior perimeters of his room. He was provided three meals a day fit for a queen.

It hardly took any time for the Queen to decide what to do with the man. Her mind was set almost as instantly as she put him away: she would let him live and live well, in both confinement and certain observation. Even if it was found within her the stubborn supposition that he could be killed, the Queen wasn’t going to test her limits. She wasn’t about to conspire with a trusted guard to attempt to shoot an arrow through the man when he wasn’t looking. All hell would erupt if the plan was unsuccessful and the man would lose valuable trust in what he’d come to expect of his captors. Especially when the most prominent of his captors was eager to know his secrets.

So when the Queen made her first visit to him inside his bed quarters, the guards stood fast and sure not to let her in on the rumors going around about her seeing him. The consensus was that she was trying to pamper and seduce him into revealing those all-powerful
secrets
.

And they were right.

And they were afraid.

They dared not speak of her nightly liaisons with the man, nor of what they supposed the two were doing behind closed doors. This was enough to be afraid of, for the Queen would quite possibly have their heads if she became aware of such gossip.

Truth or not.

The truth was, while all along the Queen was under the assumption that she was having her way with him...
he
was having his way with
her
.

How could that not be? As far as the soldiers reasoned, any man with the powers of a god knew what he was doing.

And he was using the Queen even more than the Queen was thinking she was using him.

This was what the soldiers feared most:
their queen was being set up
.

Then came the rumors that the Queen was with child.

***

It happened very late one night, when the Queen went to visit the stranger for the final time. More than five months had passed since the night she’d made her last visit, but to the watchful sentries she appeared as a woman would appear on the verge of labor.

And, indeed, she
was.

When she arrived, she commanded the latches and locks of his vaulted cedar door to be opened, and afterwards entered the bed chambers of the stranger. Disappearing into the room, she left the command that the door be shut behind her, and it was.

It shut behind her with a foreboding
thu-ud
, and when it did, the Queen found herself at once isolated within the corner cold candlelight of her captive’s room. She held herself close, her bedclothes hemming her evening gown like peasant mantle decor as she clutched her elbows bitterly and gazed out into the bed chamber’s opposite corner.

In this opposite corner was the bed, and upon the bed sat a figure in a likewise flowing evening gown of crimson red which reflected and sparkled amidst the rampant flickering of the several surrounding candles.

The figure rose; when he did fully, his stance was elfin, as though his height had remained the same as when he sat upon the bed.