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Enjoy the latest short story from J. S. Brooks! You won't be sorry!
Turning of the Wheel by J. S. Brooks
by J. S. Brooks
Spectacular as always, King Quatyl Ket thought. Although the first light of the new day barely crept over the eastern horizon above the high mountains, not yet touching the jungle below, the king noted with approval that his government functionaries already bustled among the imposing buildings housing their offices. Standing on the palace balcony, turning first to the east and then the west, Quatyl Ket swept his gaze across the long green sward of the central plaza. His eyes rested briefly on the temples of sun and moon at either end. It will not be long now before the stately wheel of the ages, rolling implacably in its course, brings the sun rise directly over its temple, reminding all who see it of the eternal ascension of this kingdom and the might of the god-king who rules it!
A flash of green and gold glittered, drawing the eye of the king to the grounds of the ball field beyond the first rank of structures lining the plaza.
The best of my men play the time-honored game with a perfection none has ever matched!
Finally, to the west he lingered on the smaller, yet somehow more graceful temple, that always spoke to his soul of the end of days. Looking from one to the other, Quatyl Ket felt reassured of the constancy of things. What arises declines, only to rise again with the turning of the celestial wheel by which we mark time and know the ages.
Everywhere bursts of color--white, red, green, black and sparkling gold--blended in a most pleasing way as dawn’s first light touched them. “Everything I see speaks of my power!” said Quatyl Ket.
A repetitive tap, tap, tapping sound intruded on the king’s reverie. At first, he could not place the sound. Then he smiled. That sound proclaims the royal sculptor’s return to work, creating the stela that will immortalize my tale in living stone.
The king sighed.
“It is good to be a god!”
“Don’t let the press corps hear you say that. They’ll have your head. And get away from that window. You know what Fred will say if he finds out you’ve been standing there again!”
With those words, the vast jungle empire dissolved, replaced by the view of the Mall in Washington, D.C. as seen from the second story of the White House on a frigid January morning. Shaking off the strange images, dismissing them as a vivid, pleasant dream, President Philip Ramone came away from the window, moving toward an equally pleasant reality. His wife was sitting up in bed, grinning at him.
“It was the most amazing dream,” Ramone said as he sat down beside her on their bed. “I was god-king of a Mayan city state!”
“Was I there?”
“No, Alicia,” he said, “just a sexy, young social climber from the provinces willing to do anything to be queen!”
With that the President of the United States was knocked to the floor by a pillow-wielding first lady.
“Argh. Assassin! Treason! Call Fred! Call security!”
Chuckling, Philip and Alicia Ramone began their day.
Dressed and ready, President Ramone called to his Personal Data Assistant, which had been hovering dutifully in the corner of the bedroom. The clever little orb floated over, stopping a predetermined distance from the President’s eyes. Ramone briefly checked his schedule, then turned to matters of greater interest.
Peeking over his shoulder, Alicia said, “Is that it?”
“Yep, the State of the Union address. Jerry’s polishing it now.”
As Philip watched, sentences changed on the screen, tightening, creating the quotes for tomorrow’s news.
“Watching Jerry Milbourne work is always a pleasure. He’s a real wordsmith,” the President said.
As he spoke, Romane briefly heard the faint tapping of the sculptor’s hammer again, as if coming from a great distance. While a little disconcerting, the phantom sound was not nearly so unsettling as the look on his wife’s face.
The first lady’s brow furrowed. Raised with a family of Ivy League professors for whom debate was an evening’s entertainment, Alicia was never one to pull her punches, especially with her husband.
“If Jerry’s so good, why can’t he write anything with substance? Why won’t you let him give you some concrete statements on real issues instead of this pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps crap? This nation has some real problems, Phil, so why don’t …”
Before Alicia Ramone could really get started, the PDA beeped and flashed the first appointment of the day. It is a pre-breakfast meeting with Senator Les Mourtes.
“Sorry dear, I have to run. Can we take this up at breakfast?”
Alicia Ramone scowled at her retreating husband and his ever-present PDA. The Presidential Seal on the back of the device winked at her just before it disappeared out the door. She was sure Philip had someone program the little beast to interrupt as soon as they began to argue. Alicia worried about her husband. He was a good man and he meant well. But, he was also a party man, borne and bred. He followed the party line that brought him up from New Mexico’s congressman all the way to the top, missing so much of what is really going on in the process.
Saved by the bell, Ramone thought as he strode out of the room. I love my wife and daughter dearly, I’d probably die for them if it ever came to that, but God save me from their liberal politics and endless debate!
In the Oval Office, with his feet propped up on the desk once used by Ronald Reagan, Philip Ramone reviewed his schedule once more with his Chief of Staff, Alan J. Smyth. A good friend who served both Philip Ramone and his father, Senator Armonde Ramone, before him, Alan Smyth was a tall, almost gaunt man with big hands, an impressive mane of gray hair, and a long face best suited to doleful expressions. A professional worrier, always fussing over the details, Alan never missed a thing. But the worrying is killing him. Romane thought sadly.
“As you can see, Phil, all your meetings end by mid-afternoon. Plenty of time to go over your speech. Be sure to go over the new material a few times. You don’t want to stumble over your ‘most quotables’ after all.”
“Stop worrying, Al. I won’t need that much time to practice. The speech will be fine. I’ll be fine. ‘America on the rise, on the move, prosperity for all with the nerve to grab it.’ I was raised on that speech! It always gets the job done.”
Alan Smyth glanced at his watch.
“Well, I think we’ve let him stew long enough. Ready to see the esteemed Senator from your home state?”
Philip Ramone composed himself in proper Presidential fashion, “Yeah, let the old fart in. I want to get this over with and move on to breakfast.”
Senator Les Mourtes entered the Oval Office with a strained smile. He’d endured these early morning meetings before. He and Philip Ramone vied for this office, which had angered Ramone mightily. In little ways, the President never let him forget his presumption, messing with the plans of the Ramone family dynasty. Well, despite the ludicrous hour, he still had a meeting and benefactors to please. They paid his way; he did them favors. Today it was the Realtors’ Consortium. And Ramone, despite his personal animosities, usually followed where his party led.
The Senator crossed the room in the slow, careful way of elderly men. The president rose and shook his hand. The Chief of Staff would not take the proffered hand. After an awkward moment the President and Senator sat. Alan Smyth left.
After a few mildly barbed pleasantries, Mourtes came to his point.
“I want your support for my legislation, Mr. President.”
“Let’s see, that would be a bill granting states the right to take private land for any use deemed fit to advance the economy of said state. Is that about it?”
“Not without a generous payment to the property owner for lands purchased. In many cases, these are lands left fallow for generations . . .”
As the aging Senator warmed to his subject, speaking in his trademark hypnotic rhythms, the room blurred before Ramone’s eyes. His hands gripped the arms of his chair hard. He wondered if was having a stroke. Yet, Les Mourtes droned on unaware as the President’s mind left the room and the twenty-first century.
****************************
Quatyl Ket glanced around his audience chamber, hands gripping the sides of his throne hard, briefly disoriented by strange, fearful thoughts of something called “a stroke.” A chill climbing his spine bone by bone as he noted to himself that this chamber had all the trappings of power of the Oval Office. What was the Oval Office? he wondered, while having the unpleasant feeling he ought to know.
Sweat beaded his brow as he wondered if the gods were speaking to him. They never had before – although he’d never let the high priests know that! More likely, he was bored with the morning’s petitions and this time his spirit was making a more frantic attempt than usual to take flight, leaving affairs of state behind.
As he mulled over these unhappy thoughts in the temporary silence between petitioners, the faint tapping of metal on stone drifted to him. Work on the stela continued. The sound calmed him. He sighed with satisfaction, glanced to his left at his faithful bodyguard, a stolid fellow he’d known since childhood.
A commotion from the corridor shattered the silence. His bodyguard moved in front of the royal dais.
Into the chamber burst three figures: a small, intense peasant man of muscular build, face dark with rage, shoving aside the priest who moved petitioners into and out of the chamber in orderly fashion with enough force to lift the rotund man off the floor, hurling him out of the way, and, behind this angry man, a tall and stately figure, one of the kingdom's wealthy lords. The king knew the third man well.
Clear of the priest, the burly peasant strode across the chamber, straight at the king. Quatyl Ket watched as his bodyguard raised his lethal club in defense. The lord moved as well, at a slower pace. The calm, almost sleepy look on his face proclaiming this to be much fuss over nothing.
To his bodyguard, the king said, “Wait, I know the lord and the other seems familiar to me.”
Raising his voice, Quatyl Ket said, “If he stops where he is, leave him be. Otherwise, strike him dead for this offense!”
The king smiled as both lord and peasant froze at the ambiguity of his order.
The frozen silence lasted a moment only, like the bright flash of parrot plumes glimpsed through the jungle, a fleeting thing soon lost.
The peasant broke the silence of the moment.
“Great King, this creature steals all I have! For six generations my family has cultivated the farmland his family owned. My ancestors lie at rest beneath my house. I won final right to that property as reward for my services in the last war! I conquered vast territories for you and for him my King. He agreed to your decree that the lands my family farmed would be turned over to me forever. He took the newly conquered land in the west. Now this thing would take back mine!”
The lord swept past the increasingly agitated farmer. Speaking in confidential tones, the lord said, “This man has lost his mind. My family has owned the land he farms since time immemorial. Why should I ever agree to give up any portion of my holdings? These peasants know they farm at our indulgence …”
To this the peasant said, “Your indulgence, my ass! We farm as your slaves! We fight your battles, feed your ever growing families, and pay higher crop tributes every year. You leave us nothing. FAMILIES ARE STARVING BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU BASTARD!!! YOU TAKE ALL THAT IS MINE, ALL THAT WAS GIVEN TO ME!!!!”
Quatyl Ket, stunned to silence, watched it all unfold. He waited for blood to flow. Surely his guard would sweep this all away with a single blow. It never came. The king turned to his bodyguard, his neck creaking on tightening muscles, and saw a look of pure hatred on a face that never revealed anything in front of petitioners, a look directed at the lord, not the angry farmer.
Wheeling toward the silent king, the farmer spoke in lowering, pleading tones.
“My King, you know me, you were there. I am your valued lieutenant Atez Vay, the one who saved our left flank in the final battle, the man who took the blow meant to kill you and dispatched your assassin in pieces straight to Hell. Surely you remember …”
The voice trailed away. The King watched this man’s anger evaporate into despair even as he dropped his work shirt to reveal a ragged scar running from his left shoulder deep into his heavily muscled chest.
And the king remembered. He thought: In battle this is my most trusted warrior. A highly valued soldier I am always glad to see take the field. Yet, dressed as he is, I dismiss him as a mere peon. He saved my life! I did give him that land, a large sward from city’s edge to the mountain’s crest. With that wound, I never expected him to be able to work again. His sons were to farm the gifted land. In time his family was to rise to lordly power themselves. In exchange, this lord received three times the land gifted from the conquered city-state to compensate him for the loss.
The King said, “I know you. I remember what you did.”
Turning to the haughty lord, the King said, “I granted those lands to this man, Lord Platoc. You were well compensated for them. Explain yourself! Why do you thwart my will?”
Shock spread across the lordly face. This man, unused to being questioned by anyone, did not respond. His silence was deafening.
To cover his confusion and prevent him from killing the silent lord in a rage, Quatyl Ket bellowed for the priest skulking in the back of the room.
“Send the high priest of justice and a detachment of guard to this man’s home. Verify his claim and return to me. Lord Platoc, I will deal with you when ...”
A rough hand fell on his shoulder. The king jumped, startled to see his guard staring down at him and shaking his head.
“Not the high priest, sir. Send advisor Mapf Paz. He will tell you the truth.”
In a hoarse voice, the king amended his order with the fading impression of his guard’s heavy hand still on his shoulder.
When the chamber cleared, the King’s bodyguard knelt before him, his lethal club held out to the king.
“Strike me dead for my insolence.”
“Dead, you can’t explain why you acted as you did. Even in my divinity, I cannot see into your heart. Speak!”
The guard left his club on the foot of the dais, sighed, and said, “The lords own the land. The lands nearest the city, now almost to the foothills of the barrier range surrounding the city, are almost barren. The farmers working the land now must venture far to reach fertile fields. They are gone for days on end, missing their families, unable to attend rituals or events in the evenings. With fewer crops, the lords demand more for themselves, even as the men who provide for them near starvation.”
“If this is so, why do my citizen soldiers not refuse such unfair demands. They are fierce enough in battle to strike fear into the lords, are they not?”
The guard face reddened. He spoke with rising anger.
“No sir! The lords own everything! If a family rebelled and refused to work, the lord owning that farmer’s land would have his personal guards throw the family out of their home, or worse, and then would give that land to another. Also, the farmer’s family is always at risk, and the farmer knows it. While the men and older boys are away in the fields, the lords rape the women. They are often violent.”
“That is a most serious charge against the lords of my land, Atzel Jok.”
Through gritted teeth, the guard replied in a carefully measured tone. He said, “It’s true! My family also farms. The women in my family suffer. And nothing can be done or you know I would have done it! As you are well aware, the sentence for killing a lord is death to the murderer and his entire family.”
In a controlled rage, Atzel Jok said, “Still, had I thought you were with me, I would risked death and struck Lord Platoc dead for his insolent silence and been glad of it. But …”
The King interrupted, his voice weakening.
“But I need the lords’ allegiance to run this kingdom, so I believe what they tell me and never check their stories. But tell me, Atzel Jok, why do I not see the suffering and wasted land from my balcony every morning. And why did you want Mapf Paz to go instead of the priest of justice?”
“When Mapf Paz returns, have him take you to the palace roof. Do you remember how much it angered your father every time you went up there? He always expected to find you in a heap on the plaza below. From that higher vantage point, Mapf Paz can show you that all I have said is true. And, unlike the high priests, your boyhood friend is not in league with the lords. As your oldest friend, he is one of the few people here you can trust.”
With those words, the audience chamber faded away. The Oval Office returned and Chief of Staff Alan Smyth sat where Senator Mourtes should have been. From the look on Alan’s face and the tone of his conversation, Philip Ramone could only guess that he had covered himself well … in his absence. At least he hoped so.
The president groaned. The first tendrils of what he hoped was only a headache crept in behind his eyes. What's happening to me? Am I ill? If so, it isn’t apparent to anyone around me. Am I hallucinating? Do hallucinations include sight, sound, smell, touch … everything in such detail? And how did I ever dream this up? I've never studied the Mayans, even though my family descended from them. There has never been time for that or profit in it.
Just then, Smyth interrupted his black musings.
“Phil, Give Mourtes what he wants and he’ll hand all the best land in New Mexico over to his wealthy friends and benefactors. Nobody’s family homestead will be safe. And he'll start with mine. Our families have hated each other a long time Phil, for a lot of reasons I don’t care to discuss. But give him that bill, and all hell breaks loose. And it’ll start right here.” Alan said, thumping the arm of his chair with his large fist.
The similarity between the issues that king of old faced and Mourtes bill further unsettled the president. After hastily dismissing Alan with a few placating words, Philip Ramone made his way to the cozy corner of the White House kitchen his family reserved as their breakfast nook and hidey hole from the world. Every presidential family had their quirks and the kitchen staff found this one endearing and flattering.
Ramone needed to discuss these unwanted visions with his wife, to let her help him decide what, if anything, needed to be done about them. Arriving, the president found the table set – his PDA had gone ahead and alerted the staff to his imminent arrival – but no first lady to join him. Instead, he was left with breakfast, his daughter’s PDA, and a note from his wife. He was both disappointed and concerned – he hadn’t thought the most recent round of oblique references to their opposing political ideologies and his hasty retreat worth the cold shoulder. Downcast, Philip Ramone picked up the note. As he read, a sickening mixture of anger, confusion, and fear knotted his stomach.
The note read, While off White House grounds, our daughter has been doing some digging in the world news nets. She claims you can’t get straight news in here. She found some very disturbing items you need to see. I know what you’re thinking Phil, but she did this on her own. I’ve taken her off on a day trip to try to calm her down. She thinks you are directly responsible for what she’s found. But, I can tell you, and I will tell her, that you're not. Still, you’re being lied to or worse! Read these clips and do something fast, while there’s still time. Please, believe me. I’m not being dramatic to make a point. If these reports are true, and I believe they are, all hell is about to break loose. But, whether you believe any of this or not, don’t tell anyone else. I don’t know who you can trust.
This wasn’t like Alicia at all. She never believed the wild rumors that floated through the White House like pollen in Spring. To have her shaken told Philip Ramone a lot. That she removed herself and their daughter from the White House compound told him more. Worried, breakfast untouched, the President began scanning headlines.
The articles, from both large news syndicates and small special interest groups, told the same story. Environmental disintegration; fundamentalist factions in the Midwest and Deep South driving all scientific teachings from the public schools; education increasingly tailored to the demands of business everywhere, four out of five high school age children unaware of the classics, art, music, or history; a dwindling middle class suffering ever increasing workloads and stagnant pay scales, ever increasing taxation, diminishing quality of life across the spectrum with no time for entertainment, relaxation, or their children. In their frustration, the middle and lower classes were at each others’ throats, families and communities torn apart by violence. The wealthy were living in armed conclaves, separate and apparently inviolable.
In Ramone’s home state of New Mexico, leaks concerning Senator Mourtes land bill were inspiring serious talk of secession from the Union among the landed gentry. Although not vocal, the silent majority of New Mexico’s middle class sided with the gentry; gun sales in the state went through the roof.
In rising frustration, over one million Americans were currently planning a march on Washington, a march timed to reach the city as the State of the Union message was presented. Violence was expected.
Philip Ramone felt sick to his stomach. None of his briefings, none of the news available on his PDA mentioned any of this. Worst of all, in almost every story, he could see his own hand at work. Little compromises in large bills, small concessions to special interests with tiny legislative packets so bizarre nobody thought they would amount to anything. Yet, each twisted legislative seed he once thought barren had proved viable, bearing strange fruit across the land. This is all so frighteningly familiar, so like the issues in those visions!
The last article proclaimed that President Philip Ramone was either the handsome puppet of special interests running America or the biggest, blindest fool this nation ever elected.
“Damnation!”
Ramone desperately wanted to believe these were all lies, malicious twistings of the truth. Yet, the facts meshed all too well with what he knew and how he governed. He excused the dirty work and nasty late night tactics as the ordinary sausage making of any government. He allowed himself to be blinded to darker forces at work. Everyone around him assured him that Philip Ramone worked for the people. Now, confronted with this evidence, the President could no longer convince himself he worked on the side of the angels. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Out of a well honed, life long habit, President Ramone began reviewing his options. Despite the growing certainty of these stories' truth, Ramone began building his defense against them, rummaging through his imagination, looking for a way to justify his actions to the public, to his colleagues, and most of all to himself. The process was familiar and comforting. Ramone might have worked on this defense for some time.
However, his eyes fell on a final, overlooked line of text on his wife’s handwritten note, crushing his hastily erected defenses. Madeline, his beloved daughter, wrote in an angry scrawl, Which is it Daddy, are you a puppet or a fool?
Philip Ramone squeezed his tear-filled eyes shut. As darkness surrounded him, a terrified moan escaping his lips. He felt a jungle breeze caress his cheek, carrying with it the faint sound of metal striking stone, and he sobbed.
“Not again.”
In the darkness behind his eyelids, the King first heard the tapping of the diligent stonecutter. Snapping his eyes open, Quatyl Ket found himself on the flat roof of his palace with his lifelong friend and trusted aide, Mapf Paz, just back from his mission. Swiveling his head, the king saw the open trap door through which they had come behind them, one of many leading to the roof. Those trap doors provided quick access to the roof for either water carriers defending against fire, or for archers to defend against invaders. Looking at the gaping hatch, the king had a sudden premonition that those hatches would be needed soon. Quatyl Ket turned his head away quickly, gazing out over the land from the dizzying heights of the palace’s broad, flat roof, his favorite childhood perch.
It was late in the day, the sun low and red in the west. Mapf Paz had pushed himself hard to get back from the city’s perimeter so soon. He looked gray with exhaustion. The Imperial soldiers who had gone with him would not return until tomorrow, when things were settled between the farmer and the lord.
To cover for his disorientation – Quatyl Ket felt this should be early morning and he ought to be in a kitchen – the king said, “It is hard to believe my father worried that I would fall from here. There’s no chance of slipping; you’d either have to be an idiot or you’d have to be pushed …”
Mapf Paz interrupted, “Fathers are supposed to worry … and your father may have had good reason to think you would be pushed!”
A sidelong glance showed an expression more grim than the King had ever seen on his friend's face. Before the King could respond, Mapf launched into the tale he’d brought Quatyl Ket up here to hear, a story, while not entirely unfamiliar, he never before imagined to be true. Before today, the king, and his court, dismissed all such tales. Hard to believe a simple trip to the roof proved how wrong they were.
“The average citizen is living a much harder life now than ever before. You and your father have been ambitious kings, expanding your empire by guile and force.”
“And our people have profited. Our populations have grown. We have never been attacked at home during my reign nor during my father’s.” Quatyl Ket snapped.
“Pretty words my friend but the citizen soldier is called to arms for every threat.” Mapf continued, ignoring the king’s knee-jerk defense. “He’s always on call and when he’s gone his family must shoulder his load as well as their own. Our soldiers are our farmers and our laborers. The more our kingdom grows, the more hungry mouths there are to feed. Our farmers' fields of many generations are exhausted. Our laborers work longer hours to meet endless demands for new housing, new products. Every time you move to expand the empire, you risk their lives and increase their workload. As they see it, only you and the lords win in this arrangement!”
Mapf pointed. Hardscrabble paths stretched across what had, the last time the king had looked, been green fields with abundant crops. Now a wasteland surrounded his city. The farm fields now ranged far off in the more distant foothills and mountains.
“The mountain land is less fertile, harder to work. The farmer is lucky to return home once a week. His world has been reduced to fieldwork and travel. Have you wondered why common folk never attend the games, don’t frequent their old haunts, why public houses devoted to their simple pleasures have closed? ... And, while he is gone, who protects that farmer’s family? No one. A lord with a particular itch finds the women ... and some even the children ... to be within easy reach. Should a farmer protest this abuse of his family when he returns home...”
“I know,” the king interrupted, his voice miserable and hollow. “My body guard explained, the lord casts that farmer’s family from the land and installs other, more compliant folk.”
Mapf continued, “The man who reached you today, the last war’s hero, spoke the truth. That particular lord is a violent man who abuses every farmer’s wives and daughters on his lands. Lord Platoc keeps a standing guard, some say a small army, to prevent real men like that hero from seeking vengeance on him when they return.”
“The people you need most to run this empire are abused Quatyl. They are exhausted, angry, and well armed. From where they stand, you abuse them. You rule this kingdom, send them to war, do nothing about conditions at home. How much more do you think they’ll take?”
“Why haven’t you told me all this before?” Quatyl Ket’s voice shook. He felt sick, trapped, betrayed. Below, the rapping of the stone under the artist’s hammer and chisel begins to sound like accusations, every blow chipping away at what the king’s fragile beliefs.
Mapf laughed bitterly. “I’ve tried many times! The priests, functionaries, and lords keep you distracted with endless meetings, dispatches, and ceremonies. They blind you with business and bind you to this pretty palace, this limited view. They tell you what to believe and keep you so busy you never think to check the truth. Never in the last few years have I had this much time with you alone.”
As Mapf Paz spoke, the sun slipped below the western horizon; darkness swept across the land.
The next morning, the stonecutter return to work but there were no petitioners for Quatyl Ket. There had never been a day in the king’s life when someone had not shown up with a dispute to be settled. Worse, the Imperial Guard sent off to deal with Lord Platoc were well past due. Despite his best efforts, the two events became inextricably linked in the king’s mind, creating a dark portent of evil to come. Much as he would like to go to the Imperial Gate behind the palace where the guard would assemble, that would be unseemly for a king. Ket awaited Mapf Paz with growing impatience. When his friend did arrive with news, Quatyl Ket wished he could just go on waiting.
Ashen faced, Paz reported, “Only three of the guard have returned. The rest are dead. Platoc’s personal guard attacked them, the farmer Atez Vay, and his family. It was a massacre. Peasants came running when they heard the uproar. Platoc told them you had ordered this. He said it was an example of the god-king’s wrath against the disobedient.”
“But it didn’t go as that bastard planned,” said one of the surviving Guard, interrupting Mapf Paz. Bloodied and bruised, he leaned in the doorway and continued. “There was a big surprise for Lord Platoc. The peasants wanted to kill him, whether he was carrying out your orders or not. Only Platoc’s guards discouraged them. The peasant’s left in a rage instead. Watch out, I don’t know what they believe, but they’re all soldiers, all armed. Very dangerous.”
A cold wind blew through the palace. Turning to a window, Quatyl Ket watched the sky was darkening quickly toward a violent jungle storm. Chilled to the bone, far colder than the wind could account for, the king felt himself a child again, caught out in some ghastly mistake. Part of his mind feverishly sought excuses to cover this mess, some way to save his reputation, some way to be the noble king of his stela.
Insinuating itself on his panic-driven thoughts, carried in the wind, Quatyl Ket heard a deep and distant groan, an angry, recognizable sound to a king who led men into battle. King Quatyl Ket recognized the familiar sound of approaching death.
Quatyl Ket next found himself on the speaker’s plaza in full formal regalia. He had no memory of dressing or arriving at this point. He strode across hard stone to the raised dais where all could see him. To his left, the well-muscled artist continued his work on the stela. The king was half tempted to stop the man. Before he could, a farmer ran up and spoke urgently with the artist. Quatyl watched the man’s body stiffen. His head whipped up and around. He fixed Quatyl Ket with a hate-filled look so penetrating, Ket felt it burn his soul. In the afterlife, he was sure that look would leave a brand on him for all eternity. Gathering his tools, the artist spit on the unfinished stela, turned his back on the king, and stalked away with the farmer.
Lightning split the skies. News obviously traveled fast. Government workers fled their offices on the mall below, many carried armloads of documents away with them. None looked toward the palace as they ran.
To their credit, Mapf Paz and Atzel Jok arrived at his side moments later, weapons drawn against all comers.
“Get out of here.” Quatyl said, hissing at them through clenched teeth.
“No, we’re with you.” Mapf declared.
“To the death.” His guard added.
“No!” Quatyl insisted. “I have listened to all the wrong people and sent my kingdom straight to hell. Now it’s my turn and I’m not taking you with me.”
They started to protest. The king saw movement at the far edge of the mall below, throngs coming through the street, past the markets and temples. They would be here in minutes.
“I order you to go. Follow my last orders now and save yourselves! Get to your families. Fight for them. Not for me! Go, damn it, go!” he yelled above the rising storm. For added emphasis, he shoved the men away. His motions were exaggerated to ensure the crowd, now crossing the mall, could see him rejecting these two. With luck, they would see it as one more arrogant act of a self-righteous leader who felt none could touch him.
Looking into Mapf’s eyes as he shoved him, Quatyl plead with him for understanding. His boyhood friend knew him well. A ghost of a smile crossed Mapf’s tear streaked face as he pulled at the faithful bodyguard. They fled.
The clouds burst. Rain pounded down, pummeling the king. Then fists and feet rained down as well. When both the sudden downpour and the crowd cleared, Quatyl Ket was atop the high temple of the rising sun, stripped of all his official trappings. Blood and bruises replaced them. As his mind cleared, the king took in the scene at a glance. His citizen soldiers surrounded him on the temple mount and filled the long, nearly vertical staircase leading to that dizzying height. Down on the temple skirt, surrounded by personal guards made up of mercenaries from conquered kingdoms, the lords and the priests who had deceived him watch. Clear on their faces, despite the distance, are contempt, hatred, fear, and triumph in equal measure. They are torn between the desire to stay and watch Quatyl Ket's downfall and to flee in fear of the commoners they will never be able to trust. Looking beyond them, the battered king saw his palace burning. No one fought the flames and no archers defended the palace from its rooftop.
From the surrounding crowd, a tall and powerful man stepped forward with a war axe. It is the stonecutter. He speaks only once.
“We who followed you to hell and back no longer believe in you or anything you stand for. We follow you and your kind no more!”
In a single fluid movement, staring straight into Quatyl Ket’s eyes, the man beheads him. There is a bright flash of pain, the world tumbles, but the king never hits the bloody, rain soaked stones. He is lifted high for all to see. Lightning flashes across the sky. He waits for his spirit to take flight, heading for the afterlife and certain punishment that awaits failed god-kings. It does not come. With rising horror, Quatyl Ket realizes he is trapped within his severed head, silent witness to all that happens.
A spear is jammed between temple stones. His head is slammed down on top of the razor sharp obsidian point. He clearly hears the dull thump of impact but feels nothing. Not the cold and pounding rain, not the hands lifting his severed head, the stump where neck met shoulders, nor the spearhead jammed deep into his skull. He feels nothing, smells nothing, tastes nothing. But he sees and hears all. He watches his people throw his body down the long temple mount staircase, sees others mutilate his cooling flesh. A large man with a twisted grin and a long blade approaches, ready to carve his head to bits. Quatyl Ket watches helplessly as the blade nears his unblinking eye. Before the man can gouge it out, he freezes, staring into dead eyes. He hesitates, looking deeper, then gasps and runs away screaming.
He saw me in here, Quatyl Ket thinks.
At that moment, deep within himself, Quatyl Ket felt the slow and ponderous movement of a monstrous wheel, an ancient wheel eternally turning. It was the cycle of time, just as his people had always portrayed it.
I am stuck in time’s wheel, a prisoner, trapped, damned. The god-king shrieked within his bony cage.
From his spear-top perch, Quatyl Ket watched the slow cycle of years roll onward, witnessing all that his mistakes had wrought. In the days and weeks following the revolt, the worst of the great lords of the realm vied for power, each struggling to become the new god-king. One by one, each man met violent death, some murdered by competing lords. Most contenders for godhood die in the rough grip of the common folk who will have none of their nonsense.
A year later, now trapped within a sunbleached skull, the horror of Quatyl Ket’s fate had melted away with his flesh, leaving him with an almost unbearable sadness. He finally knew what he had meant for his people and sees what they have become. The remaining lords of the realm no longer try for godhood; they no longer try to force themselves upon anyone. They live in fear, their mercenaries abandon them; they are no match for angry farmers and laborers who would as soon kill them as look at them. Somehow, the lords manage to hang on for another three hundred turns of the wheel.
As time passes, ambitious kings of other realms attempted to enter the valley and capture the once proud kingdom. Each time, the common folk rose up and dispatched them ruthlessly. No soldier from any realm was left standing when they are done. The power of the peoples' disbelief in organized government was far stronger than any army. In time, outsiders knew this place as the valley of death and none venture in.
Once the lords of the realm were gone, the common folk continued to farm the land and trade among themselves for five hundred turns of the wheel. Their numbers dwindled with each passing year as the land became ever more inhospitable.
In all that time, the king noted that none approach the once grand plaza, the great temples, or the ruins of his palace. None played in the ball field. No one conducted the ancient rites in the holy caves. His executioner was right, they no longer believed in kings, priests, or any organized power at all. Eight hundred turns of the wheel, eight hundred long years after Quatyl Ket’s execution, the last of the farmers left the valley he once misruled for more fertile grounds. With that, the fossilized spear shaft crumbled, the ancient skull fell and shattered on the crumbling temple stones, there was a brilliant white flash …
Philip Ramone gasped as he returned to the familiar surroundings of the White House kitchen. For a moment he reveled in the life of his body, whole and healthy, working steadily beneath his unsevered neck. Then a chill worked its way up his spine. He could still hear and feel that deep rumbling in his mind; time’s turning wheel was ground in him.
“I am the god-king still . . . The State of the Union address … all those glib, hollow promises and absurd reassurances! I am about to repeat deadly mistakes from the past! My past.” Ramone said in a hollow whisper.
With his heart pounding and eyes pulsing, Ramone checks on the speech on his PDA. It is unfinished, stopped in mid-sentence.
“Just like my stela!” Ramone moans.
“Who’s Stella?” Alan Smyth asks.
Ramone gasps, jumping half out of his skin.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that Alan!”
“Whoa! What’s wrong, Mr. President?”
“Why has Jerry Milbourne stopped working on the State of the Union address?”
“Don’t know. Last time I looked he was pounding away on it like always. Maybe he’s just off taking a leak.”
“I’ve got to find him, make him change it. The whole speech is wrong. It’s got to be scrapped, Alan.”
“What? Whaddya mean? No way! They’ve been fine-tuning that thing for weeks. Checking with focus groups, reviewing all the polls. The speech is fine. What the hell's wrong with you Phil? Stage fright? You’ve never worried about an address before. Now you look like you’re about to have a stroke! What’s going on?”
Philip Ramone snatches up his daughter’s computer and nearly throws it at Smyth.
“Read this! This is what’s wrong! We’re wrong. The nation out there is about to explode. Those old baby boomers and Gen X-er’s have no retirement money! Small farmers are almost extinct while food prices skyrocket. The states are more independent now than they were at the outbreak of the damn Civil War. And, this time they’re led by factions and radical groups that are out of their freakin’ minds! And now, that idiot Senator Mourtes is trying to ram a bill down my throat that steals private land and turns it over to the developers. And you ask me what's wrong?!
And, because I’m known to be party man, Mourtes thinks I’ll just run with it, no questions asked. And you know what, the hell of it is he was right to think so! Up to now, that’s all I’ve ever done. Followed the party line. AND, that’s what the people see when they look at us here in Washington, Alan! Look at those stories, Al. They don’t believe in us anymore. And if we don’t do something now, we’ll lose the whole nation, the entire shooting match.” Philip Ramone said, his voice rising as he went.
“No way, Mr. President. You can’t believe this radical crap. It’s not true, none of it! I’d tell you if it was!” Smyth said.
“Would you, Alan? And how would you know? When was the last time you checked? When was the last time any of us did?”
As Philip Ramone watched, he saw Alan’s face harden into an all-too-familiar mask of mingled hatred, contempt, and fear he had witnessed on the lords’ faces just before his other self was deposed. With rising horror, Ramone realized it is happening again, just like before. The rumbling in his head grew louder.
“It’s not true Mr. President. None of it!” Smyth said, snarling.
Ramone ran from the room, keenly aware of the stares from the kitchen staff.
Philip Ramone burst into Jerry Milbourne’s office just as the young man was shoving the last of his things into a cardboard box.
“Jerry, I’m glad I caught you.” Ramone gasped, out of breath.
“I’m not, Mr. President. I’m leaving, sir.” Milbourne said, venom in his voice.
“No, Jerry, don’t. I need you.” Ramone replied.
“The hell you do!” Milbourne exploded, all pretenses at respect gone. “You could give the same speech off the top of your head. It’s the same old song, the kind you’ve been dishing out every day of your miserable career. So, dish it all out again by yourself, ‘cause I not playin’ this game anymore.”
Philip Ramone grabbed Jerry Milbourne’s arm. “Jerry, what’s wrong? Tell me.”
“What’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. My wife is dying. She has some rare disease and she’s dyin’. There’s only one treatment left to try, one chance to save her. But, our insurance company won’t let her have it. Experimental, they say. Not worth the effort, they say. Those bastards are murdering my wife! They’ll get away with it too, all perfectly legal! And, because I don’t make enough money and they wouldn’t pay, my wife dies! I can’t even get a loan. The other treatments they wouldn’t pay for tapped me out! I’m broke; she dies! That’s what’s wrong, Mr. President. That’s why I can’t sit here and dish out this rosy crap any more. I can’t tell people everything’s fine while the insurance companies pick us off, one by one.”
Milbourne pulled away, leaving President Ramone alone, desperately seeking a solution. His head, his training, his staff all told him to stay the course; his heart, his family, and his recent experiences all demanded radical change … before it was once again too late. Rubbing his neck, Philip Ramone listened to time’s inexorable wheel turning, turning ...