King Drios on the Surface

	At noon King Drios emerged from the tunnel, out onto a barren plateau where grains of sand blew into his face and light assaulted his eyes. Immediately he stumbled back into the shadow of the tunnel’s entrance and nearly fell back down the slope inside, which he had just labored to climb, but he steadied himself by pressing his white hands against the stone walls.
	Soon he settled into a crevasse where he could sit without tumbling into the blackness below, and there he waited as the sun rolled behind the mountain the cave opened onto. But while sitting, Drios only glanced twice at the light outside, and each time he winced and looked back down into the well of his tunnel immediately, as if snapped back by some spring. The sunlight stung his mind with guilt.  He ground his teeth and waited for the emblem of his crime to pass below the horizon.
	But was that really what happened at the end of the day? Drios wondered and puzzled to remember; he had spent fifteen days of his whole life in the sunlight, and those were two hundred years past. Did the sun pass below the horizon, as he thought he remembered, or did it remain at the edge during the night, half below and half above, as if undecided? After fifteen days in the world his subjects had completed his palace, and he retired into it for the same reason he hid in the shadow now. In the Chamber of the Stars no sunlight could penetrate, not deep at the center of his palace of stone, not through the deep blue walls of that room to his throne.
	Now Drios closed his eyes and tried to sleep as the cave’s mouth’s shadow inched across the plateau. He failed, but eventually he opened his eyes and found the sun had passed from the sky. On all fours he stumbled out of the tunnel’s mouth and into the starlight. 
	The stars overhead seemed so far away to Drios who had seen only his decorations of stars for two centuries. But in number and brightness they seemed perfectly similar to the Chamber of the Stars, and the forgotten king relaxed in familiarity.
	In his throne room King Drios had sat until his palace sunk into the ground, as his visitors came less frequently and finally vanished as phantoms, as the air inside became ever more stale and wet, and the rooms outside his Chamber hotter. For two centuries he sat and stewed in his thoughts, ever farther under ground, blaming all his subjects for failing to follow him. As the King of all Humans, Drios expected allegiance, expected his subjects to follow him down in his palace, but none had. But he had come up from the depths to face his guilt and clear his name. He lay open to the Earth’s air on the mountain, on his back with his arms outstretched, gazing at the stars. For moments he even smiled, an unstable smile, shaking like a butterfly.
	Then he winced and stood up. His duty here above was not to lie under the stars, but to face himself, to be forgiven, so all the guilt would be over.
	He stumbled to the plateau’s edge and found a spot where there seemed to be a path down the mountain, but trying to climb down it he tripped and rolled like a tumbleweed, rock and dry bushes pummeling him as he slid. Now he was at the mountain’s base, and he saw that it had been not more than a hill, albeit a jagged one. Drios stood up once more and brushed red earth off his formerly white robes. Down here the world was carpeted in green, soft to his feet. Grass, which grew from the sun’s light, he remembered being told by a subject. Drios trembled. 
	Now what? he wondered. Now he would find some people and tell of his repentance. Then he would be their ruler again, and they would follow. Through ice, fire, and darkness he had climbed up from his buried mansion; they would recognize him and his glory would flourish again.
	He remembered those four weak ones who had spat at his feet. His last visitors. They called him traitor, having stabbed King Fortenswa in the back so long ago, but Drios had no idea what the word “stab” meant, and when he told them that they spat upon his feet again, as if that was all they could do.
	“Sar Drios, it is too much that you would deny it altogether. Of course you didn’t stab him. Before we came to this world from the empty land of mists, of course you couldn’t have stabbed anyone. There weren’t even knives. No, there weren’t even rocks to hit him with, but you know what you did,” the one in black had said.
	“And look! My friends, our ‘King’, this Ar Drios, sits in this room of night. He can’t face the sun. He can’t face where he threw Fortenswa! He’s ashamed, and a coward, and a fool,” spat another, in green, his face turning red. These were new creatures. Not of the original seventy-three in the land of mists. These had never seen Fortenswa in his throne in Aydhafel, only heard of it. Drios now trembled, recalling their presumptuousness. They had not seen Fortenswa’s glory; they had hearsay alone.
	The second King of all men, Ar Drios, now advanced into the green plains in the night. A few patches of trees could be seen in the periphery, clinging near to each other for warmth. But did these trees need warmth? In fifteen days under the sun, Drios had seen few, and had no idea if they could be cold. He should have ordered a report on them while he still could.
	Off in the distance, Drios heard voices, nearly drowned in what little winds there were at the hill’s foot. The voices were singing, a practice that Drios knew well, since it had developed long before he had led those first Humans through the rifts in Aydhafel to this world. Uros, his companion, had sung frequently, but his voice had always angered Drios. He preferred the voice of Cuyves, but after his crime, she refused to sing, save sad songs that too angered him.
	This song in the night was one of those sad songs, although it seemed more complex than any Cuyves had devised. It was faster, and two voices sang at once, in different tunes from one another, that blended in wisps of harmony.
	These, then, Drios decided, would be the first to see him. These lovely voices would be the first to hear his confession; then it would be done with, and he would no longer have to fear the past. So Drios walked to where he thought he heard the sound, beyond a cluster of trees to his left.
	He stumbled along and thought of the part of his life now ending. Two hundred years sitting in fear and anger, now to be dissolved. Two hundred years, as opposed to 1050 days spent elsewhere in all his life, from the beginning in the misty Aydhafel. Under ground, he had time to count the days of his memory for numbers like that, and he could assign numbers to days in that history of his life. Day 344, Mir Fortenswa makes himself the first King of all those alive. Day 351, Ar Drios leads Mir Fortenswa to a rift in Aydhafel, leading to the Sun, and throws him into it, where to this day he is trapped. Day 352, Ar Drios assumes the throne. Day 1035, Ar Drios leads those loyal to him through a rift leading to this world. Day 1050 through Year 214, guilt, pain, and fear. Drios ran these numbers through his head. Now in Year 214 it would end.
	Now off in the distance, the music-makers were four traveling entertainers. One, the leader, had an enormous brown beard and considered constantly the idea of making people pay in food to see the performances. He was Eshentas, and he long ago had been one of the seventy-three. Those two singing were Cayaphos and Enlos, sister and brother, and they were singing the Vordhis fel·Fortenswa, or Theft of Fortenswa, which Jenas had written for them. Jenas was a third, a young but bald man who considered ways to draw symbols so he could pass his poems to his progeny, but who could never figure out a way to do it. As Cayaphos and Enlos reached the last stanza of their sad song, Drios burst from a bush near them.
	Drios’s skin was entirely white from two hundred years underground. He had a beard bigger than Eshentas’s that was just as white as his skin. He wore a white robe stained brown with dirt and had no sandals on his feet. On his head was a golden crown, but in the starlight it could not shine in glory, and the four thought that it was made of wood. 
	“Go away! Go away!” shouted Jenas, holding his arms up to his eyes. The appearance of this creature confused him more than it frightened him, however. 
	Cayaphos and Enlos stopped singing, and Enlos dropped his harp. “What in all the creation?” he sputtered.
	Eshentas did not recognize Drios for now. He worried more about Enlos’s harp and whether any strings had broken. 
	The apparition now stood there and trembled.
	“It’s a wanderer. We can take it to Eskafel and leave it there. Or maybe it can sing or recite verses?” said Eshentas, “We can use him as a show, maybe.” But now his thoughts were racing to place this figure he was sure had had seen before.	
	Now it shouted: “I am Drios the King!” and the four could understand at least that. But despite this, Eshentas could not place this apparition in his memory.
	“Oh! It is! My friends, please be very respectful. This is Ar Drios, whom we were just singing of! Well, share some of our food, Cayaphos,” feigned Eshentas.
	All of them knew that Eshentas was playing some sort of trick, but they followed him. And Drios followed the four as they traveled for the rest of the night, though he spoke with none of them.
	Jenas was mean-spirited to this man he thought insane, and constantly asked him if he was Drios as described in his various poems. “Are you Drios who long ago /stole our lives from us and forced us to go / from the sweet dark lands of curling mists / to this land of clenched and punching fists?” he would ask, “Or are you wrath-filled King Drios who fought / ‘gainst Thar Provìlias, and whom with rage were wrought?” But Drios never answered. “I guess you’re just a loony then!” Jenas concluded.
	Eshentas spent much time staring at Drios, but Drios himself avoided looking at him. But now as Drios looked backwards away from him he saw a sliver of light on the horizon.
	“The sun! The sun! Sol is rising,” he exclaimed, then he ran behind a tree.
	“The sun where Mir Fortenswa was cast / by his friend who sought a throne too fast?” Jenas mocked Drios.
	Drios now narrowed his eyes at Jenas, feeling an old anger returning. This one, like those four so long ago, was a new creature, born somehow in the world. What would he know? He would never listen, not seriously. Only Eshentas could listen, and he Eshentas obviously didn’t recognize him. Would this be the case everywhere?
	With the sun rising, thought Drios, now would be the perfect time to do what he came to do. Even if only to Eshentas. He darted from under the shade to Eshentas’s side.
 	“I remember you, Eshentas. You stayed to the west of my throne, with Eliel, and you remained loyal to me after I sinned. But I must repent. For two hundred fourteen years I sat on my throne as it sank away, and I was never repentant. But then I needed to be; I climbed through ice, fire, and darkness up to do this.”
	And then Eshentas realized who this was. It was indeed King Drios from those ages past! Eshentas’s body shook and he jumped back. Now how does one address his ancient liege? And one with a ferocious temper, to boot?
	“There are others more important to tell than I, Sar Drios. I don’t think I can do this for you. I don’t know. Look, we’re going to a town called Eskafel. You can tell people there.”
	“People won’t believe me. They won’t take me seriously, but I am serious in this affair. And whom would I tell? Who is left of us in this world? There are so many of these new men. I know not how they come to be, but they originate in times after we came to this world. They have no knowledge of what really happened. They only know your songs. Now who am I to them but the ‘killer’ of Fortenswa? Dreadful, traitorous, evil Drios. What shall I do?”
	“What should you do?”
	“I must clear my name! I must undo all that has happened.”
	“Sar Drios, the world is large. This world is large. The farthest person from your throne in Aydhabel was only how long? An hour away? Beyond that there were only the rifts. But in this world it takes weeks from town from town, or from person to person. Can you travel everywhere, Sar Drios?”
	“But even then, who would believe? Who now claims to be King of all?”
	“I am not sure, my lord. I’m not sure if there even is a king now. But last I heard it was Ar Uros.”
	Drios trembled, now feeling rage as he had before centuries ago. “So even those who were closest to me have forgotten me!”
	“Two hundred years have passed, my lord. Even the best memories give way to such times…”
	“But you, Eshentas! You remember!”
	“My lord…”
	“You remember who could have taken Eliel from you! Who could have killed you before anyone yet knew what death was! You remember where your allegiance lies!”
	“My lord, I do,” said Eshentas, but his memory of that time was clouded fogs and mists just like those that had actually been in Aydhafel.
	“Then you can stand with me! Aggainst my accusers, my betrayers, my false friends, everyone…”
	But now the sun’s gaze broke the horizon and met King Drios in the eye. And at Jenas’s prodding, Cayaphos and Enlos sang: 

	“Fortenswa who is in the sun
	that shines not when the day is done
	but in variably bright days:
	King Fortenswa there always.”

	Jenas’s chuckling punctuated the song, and Drios heard it while the sun blinded him.
	“No, Eshentas!” roared the dreadful, traitorous, evil Drios, “Even you are gone from me! You spread these lies, these songs! Eshentas, do you remember what I said? When you asked to be neutral against Provìlias? Do you remember!”
	“No, no, my lord,” said Ar Eshentas, nervous now, “I do not.”
	“Even you! You are the poison that spreads lies, and even you forget the truth! No, Eshentas, you can’t continue. Never shall you continue with my leave! The King of Aydhabel stops you here!”
	And with that Drios grabbed hold around Eshentas’s neck. But all that Eshentas felt was the terrible coldness of his fingers, and all he saw was the sun in his eyes. Drios wrestled him down to the grass, and his eyes flamed as he throttled him to his death.
	Jenas and the singing siblings rushed to grab Drios to pull him off their leader, and they succeeded. Enlos held him to the grass by his arms, pressing them into the green blades, whose offspring shadow daggers now pointed away. 
	Then as the sun once more entered his eyes, Drios stopped struggling. Fortenswa was there, in Sol, looking down upon him now. “No!” screamed the King. He had not changed. Eshentas lay beside the pinned Drios, struggling to breathe, and Cayaphos tended his neck with a white cloth.
	“Still murderous, are we, my lord?” said Jenas, standing by the King, feigning a bow. “We’ll tie you up! I have some rope. And you can be a prop, to act out the songs I write as those two sing. Oh, imagine, imagine, how far people will come to hear my songs and this new theater with them! Eshentas will love my idea. Come, Ser Cayaphos, fetch me the rope from my bag.”
	But Drios did not hear this. He forced his eyes open in the sun, his eyes meeting Fortenswa’s.

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