The Heart of the Emperor

“I want to go home, Barry.” Parris said.

The skirt that snapped around the woman’s ankles was a waterfall. Patched fabrics, dyed in every colour a child could dream, folded and tumbling over themselves. Whirlpools of bronze hemmed its edges, catching gentle torchlight thrown from private corners of the common room. The dulcimer could barely be heard above the sound of the woman’s romping, bare feet slapping against the boards of the wooden stage. And whatever noise she did not make the people took upon themselves, thumping fists on tables, boots over stone. Metal mugs slopped and rang as they were tipped against each other and throats raw with laughter wet themselves.

“Nine Moons. Two Kings. Go on, Harri.” Timeas slid his squares into the pile with his knuckles, then snapped scarred fingers under Harrison’s nose. “Eyes on the wood, yer old goat. Fold if you will.”

The dancing woman spun nimbly into the air and landed with a flourish on a stout chair. Harrison’s chin slipped from his hands with much less grace. “Whose old?’” he muttered, but flipped his cards and shoved them aside all the same.

“Dice.” Barry threw the pair of wooden dice across their table, sequestered against the wall. Neither torchlight nor the notes of the dulicer seemed to touch this place. Timeas lifted slightly from his seat as the two spun.

“Barry.” Parris said again, “I want to go home.”

The dice settled and Timeas flipped his chair leaping up, “Barney’s bones! You see that? You see that, Parris? Mila? Luck of the King is with me tonight!”

“Barry.” Parris insisted.

“Shut him up, would you?” Mila growled, throwing back the dregs in his pint.

“I would too, Parris.” Barry proffered a tight smile, the split in his lip widening, “If I had the luck you’ve had night. ‘Nother round?”

“I think I could manage a little more weight.” Timeas patted his pockets, “Court rules, once more?”

“Damn your Court rules, is that candied wine in your cup?”

“Home,” Parris’ fingers clenched his knees. “I must go home.”

“Parris.” Barry hissed.

“We are to ride into the Wild Wood tomorrow and he speaks like this?” Mila barked. Harrison’s eyes were fixed upon the twirling dancer, but his hands were twisted in his lap, his face blank, “I am to place my life in his hands come sunrise? He’s lucky I don’t gut him.”

“Don’t speak like that, Mila.” Harrison muttered, “He’s one of ours, a good one too. He knows what side he’s on.”

Parris’ head dropped, “Home.”

“Then why’s he speak like that!'' There was a dagger in Mila’s hand now and his voice carried across the common room. The strumming of the dulicer hitched and the dancer stumbled but did not stop as heads turned. “Shut him up, Barry or I will!”

“His heads a little loose, is all.” But Barry was on his feet, tugging at Parris’ arm, pulling him away, “He’ll get it right before tomorrow. Common Parris.”

“I want to go –”

Screams flew into the air about the common room as Mila lurched across the table, scattering cards and squares, and shoved Parris backwards in his chair. Both men landed hard upon the floor, Mila on top, wicked dagger pressed up against Parris’ chin.

“Don’t care what the King says.” Mila said in dangerous tones, “Don’t care that Barry likes you. Don’t care if you look boy enough to be my sister's son. I know what you are. How many Guardians you kill for us ain’t gonna change that. And I mean when I say that you're lucky I don’t gut you.”

“Mila!”

“Oi! You two! Steel away or outta my house!”

Parris looked up over his own brow, ignoring the way his Adam's apple rubbed against cold metal, and blinked at Barry, at the portly innkeeper lumbering towards them, the waterfall dancer staring wide eyed. “Nine Moons and Two Kings.” he croaked, “That’s a lie. There’s only one king.”

“Mila, get off him. That’s enough.”

“Only one king.” Parris smiled as Barry shoved at Mila’s shoulders and yanked Parris out from under the larger man. Smiled like a viper as he was ushered through the Common Room door, “Only one king.”

Barry didn’t speak the entire trek to the soldier's apartments. In silence the two walked, past drawn curtains and empty cobbled squares. It was many hours past twilights on a winter night that sent cold hands running along Parris’ back and even those without a roof to call their own had stolen some shelter. In a way that ached, Parris envied them, that freedom to sleep in the open night under burning stars.

“I thought it’d be nice.”

Parris gave a start, tripping over his own toes as he realized they had come to the apartments and Barry had stopped, thick brow furrowed.

“Just one night. With friends. I thought it’d help.”

“I know, Barry.” it really did ache. So sharply it was hard to catch hold of any thought besides, “But I want to go home.”

“You’re home now.”

“I’m not.”

Barry dropped a heavy hand on Parris’ shoulder, “You’ll forget. Tomorrow we’ll march, and we’ll fight, and it’ll all be okay.”

Parris gripped Barry’s hand. There was a forest growing in his head.

Barry sighed, “Go to sleep, Paris.”

“My name’s not Parris.”

Barry had already turned, already walked half the length back to his own room, before he answered, “I know. You’ll forget.”

....

The problem of course, was not forgetting, but remembering.

That night, Parris dreamt of the day the King caught him. He’d been running then, in the moonless dark. With the river, with the wind, with the deer.

Then there was the man. On his knees, sobbing into earth. Parris – who was not Parris yet – went to him, even as his brothers crowed, no! He stroked the man’s hair.

“My heart.” the man had sobbed, “Oh my heart. It’s gone.”

It had been a trick, of course. When the sun rose the next morning, he was called Parris and it was his own heart that was gone. The man held it now, the King. And he twisted it with thin fingers until it was a wooden crown, and placed it on his human head. Led Parris on a leash back to his City.

“Do you see the river?” the King had whispered to Parris as they’d walked through underbrush back to stone walls, “Do you see the deer? The trees? You’ll burn it all for me. The Wild Wood.”

“I want to go home.” Parris whispered back as his brothers cried.

....

The apartment was still draped in night when Parris jolted up in bed, slick with sweat as if he’d just swam the length of the river. His window was open and a breeze played with his sheets, kissed Parris’ cheeks. Her skirt was a waterfall.

A barn owl perched at the end of Parris’ bed, its brown feathered back facing him. As Parris watched, the owl’s head swiveled, slow as lazy bairns, until yellow eyes blinked into his own.

“You’ll kill us all, brother.” the owl said.

Parris drew his knees up to his nose and shuddered, “I know.”

“Do you remember me today?”

“Not yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow.” his knuckles bulged white under his nose, ghastly bones showing underneath, and his stomach turned, “These hands, this flesh. That is all I remember. But … but I ran with you, owl. I know that.”

“You ran with us all.” the owl ruffled, “Now you kill us. We bleed.”

Throwing his sheets aside, Parris scrambled up the bed to kneel before the owl, nails digging into the footrest. “I cannot help it!” he hissed, “He wears my heart, the King. He points and I burn, I can do nothing else.”

“Brother.”

“You must fly.” Even closer, Parris pulled himself, “Tomorrow the men march into the Wild Wood. Tomorrow our kind will die again. Take what you can and fly far. Do not look back.”

With a cry the owl threw out its wings, beat the air and lifted into shadow. “You are no brother I know, to say such words.” it seemed to scream, “The forest does not run! The forest stands!”

“Stand it may!” Parris yelled back, “Fall it will!”

Like an exhale, the owl deflated, falling out of flight, settling on the foot post once more. Parris sank back to his sheets as well.

“No matter.” the owl said, “It ends. Brother, the Wild Wood Emperor has been captured.”

Parris could not remember an Emperor besides the King that wore his heart, but the owls’ eyes were grave, and he felt fear between his own ribs.

“They will bring him to you tomorrow.” the owl continued, “They will ask you to take his heart. To turn him black with ash, as they have done to you. That will be the end, brother. If they turn his strength back upon us, we will end like a star.”

“Like a star.”

“Kill him, brother. When they bring him to you. Kill the Emperor. Before he kills the Wild Wood.”

The bitter laugh that escaped Parris lips that he could not help. How low must he sink? How much blood must run through these hands he did not recognize? But he nodded all the same, and the owl ruffled thick feathers as it turned to the window.

“Wait!” Parris burst and the owl did, “I … I want to go home.”

“Your heart, brother.” the owl cooed, ‘You must take back your heart.”

“He flaunts it everyday.” blood thumped behind Parris’ eyes, “The Man King. On his wrinkled forehead it gleams and he struts before me.”

“Take it back. Kill the Emperor.” the owl hooted, “And stand with us once more.”

….

Although it felt as if it might not as some parts of the night, the sun did rise the next day, and when it crowned the sky, Parris stood in its glow, warmth on brown skin, singing men around him, dancing men around him.

There Parris stood. In the center of a swarth of rotted forest.

Skeleton trees, sticky black as if doused in ink, rabbit carcass, deer carcass, broken leaves crushed besides split branches. It reeked of fear and of the unnatural. They had been trying to rally; the creatures, the forest. A Guardian had even come to their aid. But in the end, Parris had killed them. Pressed hands to the soil and let the rot spread. He looked at those hands now, clean besides a few dark smudges. Once, flowers had burst from between his fingers, he thought. Entire lives born beneath his heel. If he could only remember.

“Parris! Oi, Parris!”

Barry was waving frantically across the way. He’d broken from the circle of rollicking men, the soldiers they’d marched with into the wood that morning. The hardest of the King's men, they liked to call themselves but look at them now. Swigging from canteens they’d snuck in their saddle bags, spinning like children around the body of the Wood Guardian. Parris tried not to let his eyes wander over the Guardian's form. As big as a mountain she was, black hair falling like vines down an angular, blue body smooth and molded like a human woman. She was broken now, hair splayed like a cobweb, eyes glassy. Parris had broken her. Had he run with her too, once?

“Don’t look so glum!” Barry grinned, “You did fine! I told you that you would, didn’t I? It's fine now, isn’t it? Come over now, the boys won’t bite.”

Brother should have listened to him, was all Parris could think as he shuffled over to the men, ignored the way their singing faltered and wary gazes darted to his hands. But there was nothing for it now. All there was left was to kill his Emperor.

….

They had left the forest for the city soon enough, and Parris had only to spend a few silent hours in his room before Barry was at his door.

“The King wants you again, Par.” the man said. There were circles under his eyes, dark and blue, “Better be off.”

Down cobblestone streets, Parris was led, through stone archways, down stone halls. Too much Parris thought, above and below. You couldn’t breath in its cold grey palm, couldn’t see past it to the sky. He wondered, once he killed the Emperor, if he’d come to love the stone like the humans did. Maybe once he’d destroyed something, destroyed beyond repair, maybe then he’d understand.

“King Gawen.” Barry dropped into a deep bow.

The Hall of Thrones was long as it was wide, coloured by the light thrown from stained glass windows that lined the empty room. Empty, that is, save for the company of guards stood in torchlight before the lonely, wood lacquered chair at the end of the hall. The seat in which he sat.

“Parris!” Gawen beamed. The wooden band sat firm upon his forehead, “It’s been so long. Come closer, so I may see you.”

The King was young, by human standards. The Boy King, Parris heard them call him, and the King seemed to think the name clever. He grinned under a smooth face and hard eyes as Parris’ steps echoed on stone and he came to the foot of his seat.

With a jeweled hand, the King patted Parris’ head, tucked hair behind his ear, smoothed a tangle at the nape of his neck. Then abruptly he stood and swung around his throne, going to the one clear window that sat in the wall.

“Come Parris.”

Parris did, staring past glass to the city spread below and the Wild Wood beyond. That blackened forest of skeleton trees, mounds of Guardian corpses visible even from this distance. The smell of death could almost be seen, shimmering in the air. “Look at what we’ve done, Parris.” the King breathed, “Could you ever have imagined, the day we first met, what we might accomplish?”

Parris said nothing. He wanted to go home. Maybe once he’d killed the Emperor, he would understand.

“I’ve brought something for you, Parris. A friend. Would you like to meet him?”

There it was. Parris did not flinch as the King slapped his hands together and doors to the Hall of Thrones slammed open once again. Two men entered, each holding the end of a silver rope which ended around the neck of the barn owl. The owl hung limp as it was dragged behind them.

Parris staggered, “Brother?” They will bring you the Emperor.

“The River Spirit!” the King skipped, almost gleefully, “Another of your kind, imagine the luck. “Pity we couldn’t swindle him out of his heart like with you, but mother always said you can’t have it both ways. No matter. We have you. And you’ll take its heart for us, won’t you Parris?”

Yellow eyes blinked open, round as plates, and the owl spoke, “I am…the Emperor.”

“Oh,” Gawen’s face twisted, “Do all of you talk? That’s going to get rather annoying.”

With slow steps, Parris went to the owl, “Brother?”

“I am the Emperor.’ the owl rasped.

“Does the River Spirit hold onto fantasies of grandeur?” What humour had been in Gawen's voice was gone now, vanished quickly as the summer rain, “I’ll fix that soon enough. When I wear its heart.”

“Are you the Emperor?” Parris whispered to the owl. It was bleeding, he realized, “Brother, are you the Emperor?”

“The man king tells no lie.” the owl muttered, wings twitching, then it locked eyes with Parris, “I am the Emperor.”

“Alright, now it's making me mad.” Parris could hear the snarl on the Boy King’s lips, “I don’t like liars, River Spirit. Give me its heart.”

“You don’t remember brother, but we used to run together.” the owl murmured, “Side by side we ran. How you loved to stare into my face. How you wondered at your reflection.”

“Reflection?” Parris repeated.

“It’s heart, Parris!” Gawen roared.

“Look, once more, brother, at the rivers in my eyes.” the owl blinked, “Wonder one last time.”

It was easy as sinking in swallowsand. Into the owl eyes, Parris let himself fall and he almost laughed out loud at the rolling ribbon of white he found there, a joyful river rebelling against muddy banks, youthful and old in the same. Down into those frothing currents he peered, brows lifting as the water smoothed beneath his gaze, settling into a calm as unbroken as glass. Unbroken as a mirror.

Suddenly, from upon the stone floor, the owl flared as if it were made of fire and fury instead of feathers. As large as the hall it grew, yellow eyes terrible, wings spreading, throbbing. The Guardsmen screamed and cowered. Gawen collapsed against the wall.

“I AM THE EMPEROR!” the Great Owl bellowed, and as soon as the words left its beak, it was over; the Hall of Thrones filled with nothing but shadows once again.

No more than a heartbeat could have passed, but Parris’ face was wet, sodden with tears as if he’d cried a thousand years. The owl was gone now, and in its place lay a long white dragon, scales catching whatever light the room held and throwing it back in fragments, thin mustache draped over loose lips that held crooked fangs back.

“I am the River Spirit.” the dragon murmured. Parris lowered a hand he had not realized he'd held over his mouth. And he spoke the words he had screamed alongside his brother, as he’d stared into the River Spirit and beheld his own reflection.

“I am the Emperor.” Parris said.

“No!”

Gawen was at his side fast as thought, black cloak billowing about his frame as he dropped to his knees before Parris and backhanded him across a cheekbone.

“You are Parris, boy!” the King hissed, “You have never been anything but Parris, hound of the King, Wood killer. Parris, you hear me? As long as I wear this crown you are Parris!”

“Ah,” the River Spirit sighed from below, “So that is your trick. It’s not his heart you wear.”

The dragon twisted, slit like pupils spreading inside ice blue, “It is his name.”

“What?” Gawen growled.

“Brother!” Parris breathed but the dragon only grinned with its wide mouth.“Emperor. This is why I came. It is hard to find what you do not know.” the dragon closed its eyes, “Take your heart, brother. Take it back.”

Then the River Spirit burst, as if the creature were made of taut plastic instead of flesh, and fresh water sprayed outwards, a waterfall over the Hall of Thrones, drenching Parris and the Boy King and his guards.

Parris sputtered, tongue wet and slightly salty with the taste of tears. The dragon was gone, his brother, but Gawen crouched before him still. The wooden crown upon his head was fractured and as Parris watched, it shattered, falling past the Boy King’s slack face and clattering against the stone floor.

Silence gripped the air in an unforgiving fist, broken only when Gawen breathed, “Paris?”

“I am the Emperor.” the Emperor said.

Just as the reflection in River Spirit had done, the Emperor grew, dark feathers falling piercing fragile human skin, wings unfolding from spindly arms, nose pulling into a beak, yellow blooming in his eyes. The Great Owl Emperor rose from the body of the man named Parris, and burst the stone roof of the Hall of Thrones, shattering that cold grey cage the humans had built. The sky was above him now, flush with its dying colours.

“I want to go home.” the Great Owl called, “I want to run again!”

Up and down he beat heavy wings, fighting against the air, head tilted to the bleeding sun. He heard screams as he began to rise, from beyond just the Hall of Thrones from the courtyard and the streets, but the Emperor did not care. He was soaring, into crisp air. Up above the stone city until the Great Owl hung like a bloated star many miles above. He could see all form this height, the people and the streets.

And the Wild Wood. Black and throbbing with puss. The miasma of death. Death from his hands. The Great Owl hissed, air escaping, and fell back to earth, down through stone, to land again in the Hall of Thrones.

He was human again when his feet touched stone, with freckled skin and ghastly bone beneath. He had been Parris too long, it seemed. Gawen knelt in the rubble, arms over his head.

“Please, Parris.” the King sobbed, “Please. My heart. My heart.”

With a steady hand, the Emperor placed a finger to Gawen’s forehead. Flowers burst from the King's mouth, eyes, nose. He fell with a thump to his side, dead.

In that mound of destruction only one thing remained standing. At the end of what was once the hall, Gawen's throne squatted, untouched by fallen stone. The Emperor stared at it, and saw it for the first time. Now that the King no longer held his name, he could see it.

“My heart.” he murmured, and stepped across the field of demolition to the throne, lowering himself gingerly into its embrace. His heart cupped him gently, perfectly, and the Emperor fell back into it.

“Parris.”

The Emperor’s eyes snapped open. Barry knelt there, one leg trapped by the rubble, a line of blood trailing down his temple.

“That’s not my name.” the Emperor said.

“I know.” Barry coughed, dots of blood splattered, “What now?”

“The King no longer wears my name, but neither do I.'' The Emperor grieved the cracked wooden crown. “What I was, I am no longer. I have no legs left to stand with my brothers. The Emperor is dead.”

From the wooden throne, fingers began to outstretch, roots that dove into stone and spread like waves. The ground heaved. The Emperor’s eyes were closed but he could hear it – that breaking. Humans were screaming out in the Stone City. Wood inched over the Emperor’s face, pulling him back home.

In the center of Man's City, the Emperor’s heart grew, a wondrous tree, over-towing cobblestone, collapsing houses. Spreading into a copse, then a forest. Sagging willows and wrinkled oaks, bulbous mushrooms and greedy vines. Rock was swallowed. A Wild Wood grown in the King’s Kingdom. And the Emperor had thought himself too old to feel wonder.

“What now?” Barry was sobbing under an apple tree, “What now?”

“Perhaps,” It was getting harder for Parris, the Great Owl, the Emperor, to talk, “Perhaps I had one leg left to stand after all. Perhaps the Wild Wood has one day more. It may fall one day, Barry. Yes. And it may fall by your hands. Or your son's or your daughter's. But now?" the Emperor smiled a crooked smile, "Now, inside your Stone City, by the heart of the man who was once the Emperor, We stand.”

The leaves of the Emperor's heart rustled in the light of the dying day. The Great Owl once named Parris sagged and took his last breath.

“Home, Barry.” was what he said with it, “Her skirt was a waterfall.”