THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (ereader that reads to you .txt) 📕

years deterioration and one year on the road. Three, two, one. It is now, vision wise, 1430 and you are on your way home. Be clear about that this journey on to the heartland of your sister’s cave might be harder than you think, but you are ready for hard work. You never have been more ready than now.”
Alex took a couple of spoonfuls again and then wiped off his mouth with the handkerchief that lay next to the bowl.
“But tell me your story, Alex. Tell me what has moved you.”
Alex nodded. “Yes, I told you facts and figures, didn’t I?”
The man nodded. “What I am interested in is your story.”
Alex drank the last of the soup and put the bowl down, wiped his mouth again and saw that the man had done the same at the same time.
The soup had tasted good. It was filling. He was full.
He started to speak.
“I was so young when it happened. I am on a journey to reclaim what was stolen from me back then because my sister avenged what happened. I was young and angry.” He looked up and awaited a response. The kind man nodded. “Had I dealt with it back then I would not be here today trying to reclaim something that never would’ve been taken from me.”
“What happened?”

(Lucinda running through a burning house)

“I can still smell the smoke as if it were yesterday. I can still feel the wounds on my skin.”
“She burned the mansion down, didn’t she?”

(Screams and wails from two sisters crashing through the ceiling down to the floor and dying)

“My family was devastated by death that day and soon my servant joined the ancestors.” Alex could not help but feel pain spread in his soul like wild fire. “I lost my senses, I guess.” He looked into the man’s eyes and gave him a bitter smile. “For years, Lucinda had practiced black magic in her room down the hall. My father was too weak to protest, my mother was too sensitive. I was the strong one and I knew that Lucinda was blackmailing me with her knowledge of me being quite a ladies’ man in my youth. So, I kept quiet. My father was very conservative and I was really afraid that he was going to find out. He was weak, but he would stop speaking to me for months at a time if I did something he did not like. I knew what Lucinda did in her room. And she was harassing my sisters and my eldest daughter Maria on top of it all. Lucinda was 16 years younger but oh how mean in manners.”
Alexander watched the flames in the fireplace crackle and sway.
“When she burned the summer mansion down and then was responsible for the death of five people, my heart was so enraged I expelled her and she ended up living on roots and bugs in the Nocturanian forest for years. Before she left she said she’d be back to ruin my country in thirty years. But it only took her nineteen to steal my daughter. I had to send a troop after her to get her back. Belinda still suffers from that memory.”
“How did you feel?”
”My life was stolen from me. I lived in fear for thirty years. That number has haunted me as it did back then. Lucinda would make up rhymes about what would happen in thirty years. I kept wondering what she meant when she started reciting these small little improvised poems. When she spat the final words out as I locked her in the carriage, I understood what she meant and what all of that was about.”

(Thirty years a magic spell
Wedding bells can never tell
How a coming visitor
Turns Clurafar into a whore)

“Your life was spent trying to escape agony instead of serving freedom. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“What have you learned since you left Iuventus Sacrum on March 17th last year.”
“I have learned to listen and work with the angels. I have learnt to trust in God. I have learned to trust in my soul. I have learned control and magic to balance my own needs with those of others. I have learned that following my own goals is more important for the wellbeing of others than making sure that they follow theirs. That is their job.”
His conversational partner stood up.
”You forgot something.”
The man took Alexander’s bowl and dished up another bowl of soup and handed it to him.
“What did I forget?”
“What did your journey teach you in whole?”
Alex took another spoonful of his soup for a bit as he was contemplating the question.
Then he put down his spoon and nodded.
“That who I am, what makes me human and humane, is as important as what my family and loved ones mean to me.”
“What makes you human?”
“Yes.”
“The love for your family makes you human.”
”So, why do you think that the Son of Man stands as a figurine above my door?”
“To remind me to remain human? To fight for what makes me human?”
The kind man nodded.
”Pick up your bible, Alexander.”
“Which bible?”
Alexander looked around.
“The one right next to you.”
He looked toward the right side of the table. It was a small new testament in latin that one of his scribes had spent a year working on. It was not big, but very beautifully crafted. It was then that he realized that he had not read it much on his journey over here the past year.
“Read the first two verses of the book of St. Matthew.”
Alexander began reading.
“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren”
Alexander looked up and smiled.
“This is a family tree, Sire.”
“Hence the soup, Sir” the man replied. “What did you say before?”
”That the love of my family makes me human.”
“So, let it be known to you that you first of all are a human soul. Everything else is secondary.”
”Human” Alexander responded, thoughtfully.
“Let it also be known that Evangelist St. Matthew’s symbol is the human being.” The kind man nodded at his own words. “You are a human being with all your faults and talents and love and sensibility. Remain humane. The house of your soul is the family and what it means to you. Stay with who you are, Alex. Don’t chase the unknown. Know that there are things beyond your reach. Some of them you will confront and conquer. Others you better stay away from.”
“Which ones are they?” Alexander asked.
“Search inside yourself and you will know who to confront and who not” the old man said.
Alexander stood up and the kind man did so as well.
As if on a given signal the two men embraced. He felt so close to the man now. More than before. He embraced him and he wanted to feel the fabric of his robe and the touch of his hand forever. Forever being his friend.
From the table, the kind man picked up the wooden spoon with which Alex had eaten the soup. He put the spoon into Alexander’s right hand.
“Whenever you eat with spoon, think of the heart of your home. Eat your royal food with the heart of a simple man. Don’t let royalty or vanity get to you. Don’t dress your body before you dress your soul.”
When he let go, he grabbed him by the shoulder with strong hands and smiled.
“Go and find your mark, Alex. Go and find the mark of kingly patience and control.”
He looked at the spoon and kissed it.
As Alexander Winsletenna walked to the door he felt the man remain with him. With his hand on the door handle, he turned around to the kind man and smiled. “Thank you.”
The man turned to him, having faced the fireplace just as before.
“I just led you to yourself, Alex.”
Alex smiled and nodded.
“It was my pleasure. And remember that home is where the heart is.”
“I will.”
With that, Alexander left the hut and put the spoon into the saddlebag, petted the horse and
mounted, this time lead by only three lights.
As he wondered where the fourth one had gone, he turned back and looked through the window and discovered that the kind man was no longer standing there by the fire and that the kettle was gone, as was the fire.
But he had brought something along with him from the house.
His own heart and a wooden spoon.

§

Three lights lead him around the corner along a river beside a mountainside.
He found himself riding alongside a ravine. The moon was out again and there were a few stars peaking out between the clouds. It was a marvellous scene.
He really could not see an end to the path that he was on. For as long as the eye could see the ravine to his left fall steeply beside him. So steeply he had to be careful not to fall down into the river under him.
He thought about the kind man and the heartfelt welcome that he had given him. He thought about the experiences that he had had in the inn and how they somehow fitted into the scenario of the hut. But now? Now he was heading where? He was sick of always being lead somewhere. He wanted to decide himself where to go. Not always worry what others thought was good.
He was only a mile away from the hut when he began to grow impatient.
It was then that he left the ravine and saw the path lead onto a valley again. A large abundant valley with green grass and flowers. The three lights danced, zig-zagged and sparkled in front of him, leading his way.
He rode down the hill and again found himself a rider on an endless path curving and meandering between rivers and over brooks, through a village and a forest patch and onto a path that seemed to lead upwards.
All the time he grew more impatient, not knowing why.
Where was this leading to?
Why could he not lead himself?
He felt like a victim of circumstance.
That was when he saw the castle.
The night still lingered, but the smells of the morning were at hand, dewdrops waiting to fall from the young grass. The path lead him past a hillside of flowers, around a stony corner onto a small road up a grassy way among green grass and flowers. There were oaks here standing among what he could see were white flowers, mostly daisies and the river further away.
Up on top of the hill the narrow, high castle seemed to dominate the entire area. He thanked the maker for at last arriving. It had only two towers and its large and strong architecture spoke silently to Alexander of calm and peace, of history in the making and of patience. As he approached he saw one big entrance and the two towers were both look-outs and high enough to see over the river and maybe on a good day across the lowest of the hills across of it. As he approached it he saw a strange sight.
The path ended in a small square that been arranged to fit what was standing there now. Maybe sixteen feet from the main door the large statue of a lion resided. Its mouth was open