Chapter XX - Maddening Truth
The Legend of Leanna Page: Vol. I
You’re reading The Legend of Leanna Page, the page-turning mythopoetic queer literary fantasy. *Click here for the Table of Contents and start of Volume I*
Previously: Leanna was rescued from the dungeons of Pavoline by Kennedy and her friends and is safe - for now - in Alquoria. It seems the royals of Masor are determined to keep the wool over their eyes. Will Leanna be able to make them see the truth and stop fighting the fairies? Will the Masorian lagifs accept Madrick as their primary leader? Will Isolda? Read on!
While King Madrick Oxbien II lay recumbent on his bed, his unconscious kept him from restful repose as it fluttered from one of his kingdom’s disasters to another. His stomach churned as he hunched his shoulders inward and jolted his posture to the right, seeing thither, before dreaming eyes, vast fields of burnt wheat disintegrating beneath a red sun. Turning from the sight, he spun to the left and the visions followed thence, bringing the king to stare down a village well whose dry walls had long begun collecting dust. At last, in a paroxysm of discomfort, he sprawled his heel to the foot of his bed and forced both shoulders back into the mattress, raising his chin to the ceiling. His dreams now displayed the sharp silhouette of his baleful neighbor king standing above him, an ensanguined luster hovering around the malignant figure which stood framed entirely by a blood-red Sky. Madrick near woke from fright, but he remained in the dream to observe as the hue of the Sky was slowly infiltrated by a touch of purple. It was then periwinkle, and then blue, and during the change the figure silhouetted before the light was altered as well from the menacing, broad-shouldered, frame of Guiomar Ranzentine, to a shorter frame, touched by youth, which held out a merciful hand. A calm began to overtake the king and he accepted the silhouette’s hand, using the aid to stand and entering, for his first time, the cerulean dreamscape so often frequented by his new companion.
“Leanna,” he said.
“Hello, my liege.”
“What dost thou wish of me now?”
To say aloud, Leanna finally accepted the tears that now streamed down her cheeks. “My father is dead,” she said.
Madrick hid his sympathy behind his anger. “Already?” he asked, and she nodded. “Didst thou know when he was to be executed?” She nodded once more. “Then there was never hope of saving him!”
“I was nearly there. I was at the castle. I was thither! and yet not there where it could make any difference.” She took a breath and wiped the tears away. “Guiomar had me, behind bars again, now on the charge of calumny against the king. I was to be executed, but the fairies rescued me and stole me away.”
He stood aghast. “It has been only a day, that is impossible.”
“What do you know of what is possible, King?” she retorted, and he fell into silence.
“I am sorry,” Madrick said at last.
Leanna nodded. “As am I.”
Fairies, Madrick thought, shaking his head. “Thou sworest I would never see thee more.”
“I said so if you wished it, and, if you wish it, it can be so still. This is naught but a dream, and I do naught to keep you hither, wake up if you in truth despise me so.”
Sparks of fury flamed, then vanished, in Madrick’s eye, and, with a sigh, his visage fell to melancholy and fatigue.
“Wherefore didst thou pretend such loyalty?”
“‘Twas no pretend, your highness!” Leanna avowed.
“Thou dost consort with fairies! The murderers, who forced me to be king before my time, that is who thou choosest as thy playfellow.”
“There is so much you do not understand.”
Madrick scoffed. “Do not pretend such wisdom. Thou art nothing but a servant, and a child.”
She grimaced. “You sound like the princess. She never did care for me.”
He looked to her a moment and considered. Speaking softly, with only awe, he replied, “Maybe she knew what you really were.”
Leanna’s eyes grew wide. “I am simply a servant.”
“Leanna Page,” he sighed. “You are walking in the dreams of a king. I shall no more pretend to know what you are, but I can say with certainty that it is not, nor has it ever been, a simple servant.”
They paused, remembering one another.
“You must know I would never betray you, Madrick.”
“How could I know?”
She hesitated, the distrust in the king’s eyes straining a resolution, but Madrick spoke on and recalled her to her purpose.
“Why hast thou come to me, Leanna?”
Finding her strength of heart, she answered, “The time is long overdue for you to learn the truth.”
“The truth?”
“Yes. I was sworn by my parents to keep it hidden so we might continue as a family, but now—” She left it unsaid, and painfully went on. “Your hatred of the fairies has to end.”
“If thou dost attempt some trick—”
“This is no deception! For once, open thy sense to reality.” With the king shocked into silence, she went on. “Your parents were taken by no fairy’s hand, but by the same hand that extinguished all hope my family might be reunited.”
The king could not believe it. “Their wounds were clearly from a magical weapon.”
“Yes, a bolt-spear, stolen from a warrior, and wielded at the time by Guiomar Ranzentine, now King of Pavoline.”
Madrick stared into the eyes of his friend, the servant, the part-fairy, the traitor, or the wrongly accused, unsure now what to believe. Could the figure of his recent nightmares be the cause of his longer grief? It would make the kingdom’s conflict no longer one of politics but one of deep prejudice and vengeance. It would require a retaliation, one they could not now endure after their defeat, unless, if she spoke true, Leanna’s gifts – perhaps even her friends in the Fairy Nation – could be turned to their advantage. Could a weakened Masor defeat the forces of Pavoline, even with the Jewel in play, if they also had magic as an ally? It was all far too absurd.
“It cannot possibly be true,” he said.
“I can show you, Madrick,” Leanna replied, and instantly the dream-sky began to close in around them, revealing soon a misty reflection of the stones and draperies of a royal bedchamber: the apartment of Guiomar Ranzentine. At a sign from Leanna, the king turned to the corner behind Guiomar’s writing desk and, thither, in blazing glory, was a spear whose head was a translucent blue and sparked like a contained lightning storm. Madrick could feel at once that this was indeed the weapon that ripped his parents from the world.
He sat up in bed, wide eyes staring in the darkness and his nightclothes sticking to him with sweat. Hatred like he had never known encroached his heart and forced his hand as he tore the covers away and bolted from the apartment, screaming to every knight in the hall, waking the entire castle. He found himself fuming in the throne room and looked up at length to see Princess Isolda rush hurriedly into the grand chamber, pulling her robes around her. She halted in the doorway at the sight of her brother, the King, in wrinkled, wet nightclothes, leaning against the throne, while the knights and servants kept to the walls. Madrick clenched his fist around the chair’s arm to maintain his uprightness, and his crazed eyes turned red around the lids.
“We must to war,” he croaked.
Isolda straightened her spine with a curious expression and spoke steadily. “Calm yourself, brother. What hath occurred this night?”
“I have seen it, the object of our parents’ destruction, the magic spear that struck their hearts; it lies in the chambers of that murderer, of Guiomar. Guiomar was the destroyer, no fairy!” He trod to her, imploring her belief with temperament as much as with words.
Murmurs filled the edges of the hall but all kept their voices low so they might hear the calm response of the vice-crown.
“How could this be, Madrick?” She asked.
“We know of his wickedness. He hath extinguished his own father as well, Masor’s only Pavol friend! Must thy mind stretch so to see it?”
The princess shook her head. “I speak not of Guiomar – nor do I inherently offer the beast any doubt – but I concern over you. How could you have seen the weapon?”
Madrick forgot any hesitation of delicacy. “Leanna hath displayed the image to my sleeping eye. The page was right! The fairies are our enemies only in that we have made them so though unjust accusation and persecution. Leanna was right. Leanna hath been right all along.”
“Enough!” Isolda roared, the name of the treasonous page ringing hard on her royal ears. “Hear yourself, brother. You are king, and all this you do on the word of a traitor.”
“She is no betrayer. It is we who have betrayed a loyal friend of the court, a friend who hath shown us the truth at last!”
Princess Isolda stepped back from her brother who raged so as she had never yet observed. Her sight drifted to the throne that rested centrally across the room, then fell back upon the maddened glare of her brother, the same glare that all in the hall could well see.
“What action do you wish Masor to take, King?”
“Pavoline is now led by a monster,” he began. “Leanna’s father has been killed, and the child herself, after reaching Pavoline, only narrowly escaped his deathly grasp, so hopes that they might turn his people against their mendacious king are for naught. —” Isolda was certain now her brother had lost his wits, but she did not wish to further aggravate the king. Not tonight. “— Masor has suffered under his destruction enough to believe his own people are no longer safe in their own state, so long as it is ruled by this Ranzentine. It is our royal obligation to take it from him.”
Maintaining a cool demeanor despite her shock, Isolda inquired, “You mean to overtake Pavoline?”
“I mean to remove its king,” Madrick affirmed.
She gazed around at the inhabitants of the castle who still stood watch. She let out a worried breath. “Considering all the factors, Madrick, this is a risk in which we are obliged to confer with the gentry. Might you resist your war-orders until we may hold court in the morn?”
Madrick paused in confusion, having not thought for an instant of involving the nobles. “Do you wish Guiomar to go unpunished, Isolda? Our parents, unavenged, is that your wish?”
She scoffed. “Brother, think yourself not so dauntless. A foolish attack shall do naught but bring further ruin to our state, the same one our parents raised us to protect. I wish only to fulfill their dreams for us.”
Deflating, he sighed with a slight nod. “Very well.”
“Rest, dear brother,” the princess softened. “Sleep now, at least until dawn, and I shall arrange for the court to convene.” She placed a thoughtful hand upon his shoulder. “We shall find our path. Madrick II and Isolda shan’t be the Oxbiens to bring ruin on our family name, I will ensure it.”
He nodded once more, finding a faintness replace his calming rage. At Isolda’s direction, Kn. Degora offered her arm to Madrick and led him back to his chambers, where he returned to his troubled repose.
Despite the official order naming none of the cause for the gentry’s session in the castle, word of the king’s panic in the night had spread sufficiently from the guards to the locals lagifs to the lagifs afar who all convened thus the following morn, and who were increasingly anxious to hear the royal’s remarks. As the early sun seeped through the window-glass of the throne room, it fell upon the crowd of lagifs whispering to one another, and conferring with their fellows in the mystical glass, who now descended into silence as the grand doors were unclosed and King Madrick entered, in fresh royal raiment, donning the Masorian royal-purple cape with the Oxbien’s crest embroidered in gold upon the shoulder. Isolda followed in a gown of deep violet, silver trim shining from its edge. They marched to the throne, and each stood equal before it.
“Noble lagifs of Masor,” the king began, stepping in front of Isolda. He spoke on, with honor and strength, recounting the last two days’ events, disclosing royal wrongdoing on account of the fairies’ accusation, revealing all he now understood of Guiomar’s crimes and from whence he received the knowledge. The speech was deliberate and methodical. His argument for Masor’s occupation of Pavoline was artfully woven and well-planned during the many hours before dawn he spent awake in his bed. It might have had a dramatic effect on another audience, but the gentry this day could only take heed of the princess behind the king who maintained throughout his speech a demeanor of sympathetic condescension and disbelief, contrasting too sharply with the king’s furious control.
“This is a time of great need for us all,” he continued, nearing his conclusion. “The people of Masor – noble, peasant, and royal alike – yearn for the sustenance of body and spirit that this wicked sun, aiming down on us from Guiomar’s hand, hath decreed we must omit from our lives. With the resources from the Gwahanu, Masor will begin to remember its strength, but the tyranny of Guiomar Ranzentine must be ended for our world within these Woods to reach again a peaceful day. While meager, indeed, Masor does still maintain its forces, and with aid from the inhabitants of the Infinite Wood, we have a chance. Lagifs of Masor, as tradition states, a movement of this magnitude ought to have your support, and I ask it of you now. Might we have your acclamations to proceed?”
The court was noiseless. Few even dared take a breath. All gentry eyes turned to Isolda and, confounded, Madrick followed them, looking with full contempt upon the sight of the proud princess beside him. She stepped forth and more directly before the throne, compelling the king to step to the side.
“My concern, dear brother, is the vehicle from which these asseverations were originally portrayed to you. A fairy-type magic, and one unique to a traitor who, moreover, saith she hath traveled the length of our entire world in a single night! I fear she tells you lies.”
Murmurings in the chamber seconded the princess’s words, and shook the control Madrick kept over his countenance.
“Magic is a friend to her. Why are we to presume time presents its same limitations to her that is does to us? Leanna is worthy of our doubts in her favor. She hath long been a trustworthy ally.”
“Or hath she consorted with fairies since her youth to infiltrate the deepest heart of our castle so that they may pursue a larger goal?”
“That is absurd,” Madrick snapped. “What goal of theirs might there be?”
“Consider it, brother,” quoth the princess. “The fairies hold dominance over all the Wood, an infinite territory. All that stands between them and complete control is our own kingdom and that of Pavoline.” Isolda began to smile, her speech quickening, as she discovered what she now presumed to be the truth. “The fairies most clearly are using Leanna to manipulate us, turning the two kingdoms against one another. Of course the imposter-page spoke of Guiomar’s high crimes to our name; she wants you enraged and vengeful, just as you now are! To attack Pavoline as you suggest is precisely what they wish of us, and I shall not permit it to take place.”
“You are wrong, Isolda,” protested the king. “I saw the weapon, and my very spirit recognized it.”
“You saw an illusion,” she corrected.
“I saw truth! Wherefore dost thou insist on perceiving lies?”
As Madrick’s anger grew, Isolda inhaled and arched her back, staring down her nose at her brother-king. She spoke with uncanny composure, clearly projected for all the court to hear.
“It is not I who persists in untruths, Brother. I fear now more certainly what I suspected in the night when I saw you fearful, enraged; crazed. The mystic traitor, Leanna Page, hath obstructed your very means of comprehension. You are a danger to Masor, a puppet with strings held firmly by one who would steal our crown and see the very human race meet its end.”
Madrick emphatically shook his head. “It isn’t so!” he said, then, in near whispers, “Isolda, you know it is not so.”
She remained steadfast. “You are pure of heart and intention, my dear brother, but a canker of delusion hath overcome your senses in what I fear may be an irredeemable fashion.”
“Thou seek’st the throne!” Madrick vociferated. He turned aghast to the lagifs before him, a three-fourths agreement amongst them enough to declare him unfit to lead the kingdom, and felt for certain they were all against him. Twisting round again to Isolda, he scowled. “Leanna is certainly no traitor when set beside the likes of thee.”
“I suggest merely what is best for Masor,” Isolda said.
“No!” Madrick howled. “Thou wilt not remove me from my throne, not now!”
“That is not for you to decide, brother.”
“This is madness! The gentry wish thee for their queen, they will decide on what is best for their riches, not what is best for the kingdom!”
“Nevertheless, they will decide,” the princess declared.
Madrick lunged toward his perfidious sister and, at an instinctive signal from Isolda, was caught in the grip of two knights who restrained him by the arms, leaving the king panting, chin hanging below his shoulders, eyes trained on the princess.
Isolda suppressed a scoff. “Brother, you make the choice inevitable.” She turned tall to the crowd. “Lagifs of Masor, who will you have as your monarch? The son, whose madness multiplies in each moment; or the daughter of sense, the Oxbien of consistent honor?”
Without respite for thought, a chant clamored through the throne room, a unanimous acclamation: “Long live the queen!”
She smiled.
Madrick squinted toward her in disgust. “Thou wouldst be the greatest shame of mother and father’s eye,” he growled.
Isolda knelt to meet her brother’s gaze. “I do regret the necessity of this occasion,” she said. Pausing her speech, she rose and placed two graceful fingers to the brim of the king’s crown, lifting the diadem from his head and placing it atop her own. Then similarly, though with considerably more necessary force, she retrieved the ring engraved with their royal seal from his finger. “Perhaps one day, brother, thou wilt realize thy wrongs, and come, in time, to forgive me.”
Lifting himself up, Madrick took a deep breath, and shot spit upon the queen’s cheek.
Isolda nearly bruised herself with the force of her hand as it wiped away her brother’s saliva. She turned to the knights who held him.
“Take him to his chambers and see that he remaineth thither.”
“Wait, Sister, please—”
“When he is secured, find Leif and see them escorted across the River.”
“No!” Madrick bellowed, but Isolda paid him no heed, continuing her instruction to the knights.
“The stablehand is surely as entwined with the traitor as is their beloved. For the safety of Masor, I order them banished from the land.”
Nothing could subdue Madrick’s tears. “No. Please, Isolda, have mercy,” he sobbed.
“Above all, ensure close guard is kept on my brother’s door. He would endanger us all if he were to escape.”
“Yes, Queen,” said the closer knight, with a grand obeisance. The other nodded and both exited the throne room, forcing the struggling former king through a newly formed aisle in the crowd. All watched in silence as the former king’s pleas and vociferations faded into the hall beyond, but when the door was closed behind them, an exuberant sigh was shared betwixt the gentry and their new monarch, Queen Isolda.
“Fear not,” she assured them, her voice rising as the people cheered. “Neither fairies, nor maddened kings – be it Madrick or Guiomar Ranzentine – shall have their way on our land. I make now a solemn oath to you all that Masor will be what it once was, and we shall only grow stronger through the years!”
The Legend of Leanna Page is - and will remain - completely free to read for all its three volumes. If you’re loving it, please support the story by sharing it with your friends and tapping the like button on these chapters to increase visibility.
