CORONATION OF THE THIRD FORCE

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The king, my father was, simply put, affrighting with fear as were his people since they could not fathom the cause of such uncommon deaths in the kingdom and is a kingdom of no magic or divinations were what happens is attributed to the permission of the spirits that rule the kingdom, they all mope for answers from within, that one day they will find out who is responsible for this. All the remaining noblemen were asked to have security around them, but the evil that afflicts them is unstoppable as I am. For even tonight I shall be out for the next kill until I am done destroying them all.

Tonight, the west was chill and the home of the fourth nobleman in my list was swarming with security men but I am not bothered at all. I flew in as a night bat and perched on the balcony of his doorstep and watch the security doze off. I came to the door and melted inside it to be in the room without a single sound. His first son was my age when my mother hid me in the Seventh Heaven. He is four years old and that alone could have evoked pity from me but I was forbidden to pity. So while the young lad slept amidst his mother I took him with my extended arm to where his sleeping father was and I woke him up. Since I am always in black, he saw the devil himself, and before he screamed I slam a palm on his mouth. I decided against questioning him and told him,

‘I am Prince Jokhara, you and your son shall die for the murder of the family of Ithaca.’ He never understood why the king’s son should be doing this but I have no time for him, with my sword, I pierced his heart and that of his sleeping son and left them bleeding to death. I flew out of the home the way I came in and I imagine the confusion that will arise after the discovery. The moment I arrived at the palace I saw the king alone pacing the palace grounds holding a light in his right hand and a staff in other making incantation to the spirits to intervene in the calamity that has befallen his kingdom. But I thought otherwise, the spirits don’t intervene when it is the just due of evil repaid and they will not until I am done.

I rounded up on the fifth noble as scheduled after a decent rest in the day time and measuring the pulse of the kingdom from the seemingly well-orchestrated murders of noblemen ongoing that leaves the kingdom prostrate. I searched out a secluded place and dug a hole for a grave for this nobleman and his son as I intend to bury them alive and leave their trace so to be found by his family. After the job that I accomplished by speaking to the earth to open up for me, I moved to the noble man’s home and it seems they have resigned to fate because the home was not guarded. I didn’t enter, I stood without the gate and extended my arms to have him and his son brought out to me and I marched them to where I have dug the grave.

‘Nobleman’, I said, ‘do you know me?’

Shaking from fear and his son, about twenty-something, was kicking but he is secured in bounds of cords, he answered, ‘No, are you the killer of nobles?’

‘Good you know, I am the destroyer of those who destroyed others. Can you remember who?’

‘I destroyed nobody neither did my son’, he protested.

‘No, no, your son is paying for your sins. It won’t be enough for you alone to pay for the wrong you were a part of.’

‘But I destroyed nobody, I never did. Let us go’.

‘No, I won’t. Did Ithaca commit any wrong for him to be so destroyed along with his family? You remember now?’ His face contorted for the revelation and he said,

‘It was all King Agorim’s scheme. He involved us through consent’, as he admitted complicity, his son searched his face. ‘Son, don’t think I have a hand in Ithaca’s death, the king wanted it to accelerate his kingship of the kingdom.’

‘All the same’, I said, ‘You all destroyed my family for your ambitions to flourish. King Agorim shall pay the most humiliating price at the end but you shall not be around to see it.’ And he started to plead for his life but said to him,

‘That is your grave, you shall go to it alive and the earth shall cover you as I wish.’

I dragged them to the grave and dumped them in and wished the earth cover them as a desire and that began to happen as they were covered up and I have their clothing dumped by the grave for easy discovery. I was finished with the south, tonight I am headed to the east for the two noblemen there, and I returned to the palace for rest. I have just one week left for me to depart for the Magic Academy of Flyers for my equipping for the combat challenge ahead of me. I heard that Prince Radia of the Sun kingdom and Bosakia of the Wind kingdom are having a swell time laughing out their rips when they heard Prince Jokhara shall be fighting in the combat challenge to be emperor. And it suits me for they will discover the Jokhara of their imagination and not the one they know who plays games with ladies.

During the day I go around in the palace chatting with everybody. The workers, servants and visiting the king and my mother and most times I have my breakfast with my father, share lunch with mother, and have my diner all alone because shortly after I will be going for my night adventure so I need be alone and not get distracted with the talk of the mysterious deaths of nobles in the kingdom when the perpetrator is the one sitting next to you. It happened that the noblemen first on my list eastward lives close to the river and I have him planned for firing with a rifle. I will tie him and his son on a stake and shoot them dead. And then get the second one and his son drowned in the river the next night.

The east is farther so I left earlier and I lounged at the river bank watching it flow through the quiet night as the few people who left the river late saw me but I was so heavily disguised that none would ever remember seeing anyone like me near the home of the nobleman. I waited for the full nightfall and visited the home of the nobleman as they share late dinner. What a sad time to visit one when he and his family are having a good time, but that they did to my family. I came in quickly and before they could ask anything had the major door to the apartment locked and the nobleman got up and asked,

‘Who are you?’ with impressive confidence.

‘You don’t need introductions nobleman; I have come for you and your son.’

‘What have we done, who sent you?’

‘I am the avenger who must avenge his family.’

‘Whose family are you avenging, that I should be a part of?’

‘The family of Ithaca you and your king destroyed for no just cause.’

‘King Agorim should be held responsible, not his nobles.’

‘Certainly, he shall be, but at the end, not until all the nobles who supported his evil deeds are gone from the earth.’

‘You can have me, but spare my son’, he pleaded.

‘It is my justice, and I will dispense it however I wish’, and with that, I extended my arms and took him and his son while the rest of the family, his wife, and three other children started crying and screaming. I took them outside, secured the rest inside, and took them to where I have prepared for their execution. I had them tied to two poles and have them shot mercilessly. I went back and released the rest family members and I walked away leaving them wailing.

The second noble on the next night I found waiting with heavy guards around him, but with all his arrogant preparedness I was not flustered at all.  He is the seventh and the seventh cannot prove himself innocent than the rest who are gone. My grandfather was right as they all confessed to their complicity. I thought of eagles taking out each of the guards leaving him confused and I will then pick him at that instant and soon a swarm of eagles descended on the guards creating confusion and I came out with my extended arm and picked him up and took him to my location leaving the guards wondering what happened to them.

‘Where is your son?’ I asked him in his confused state.

‘Who are you?’ he shot back.

‘I am the avenger of wrongs. I asked again, where is your son?

‘I know you; you are the killer of the nobles with their sons. You shall not have him, murderer’, he said vehemently, but I laughed a little.

‘I shall have him and both of you shall die new deaths.’

‘You shall not have my son. You will soon be caught.’

‘The son of Ithaca, an innocent man you destroyed, shall never be caught in avenging his family. By the way, know that I am Prince Jokhara’, and I removed my face mask, and he screamed and said,

‘Is this madness, or I am blind?’

‘You are neither mad nor blind nobleman, but reality has set in for you all who consented to that deed. Your king, now my father shall pay the last price’. I extended my arm down to his home and dug out his son whom he hid down a store in the underground of his home and lifted him and presented him before him and again he screamed and asked, this time shaking with fear,

‘Please who are you?’ but I was done talking, I took both of them, tied their feet on a log of wood I have positioned at the steep part of the riverbank, and pushed them headlong into the water while their feet are secured on the log on the shore. This way they will die since it takes an unnatural turn like what I just did for my people to die in the water. A short supply of natural air will certainly kill them. Before tomorrow morning they would have been dead and after watching and hearing faintly their screams of terror I left for the palace, left now with the nobles’ resident in the west, sit of the palace of the kingdom of Water. They all live a stone’s throw from the palace. I may just sit in my home and have them executed, but that will not be adventurous enough for me, I must visit them to look them in the eye before their deaths.

By now the kingdom is awash with the news of the continuous murders of nobles and their sons and typical of them they have since believed that it is an evil they have done afflicting them and rightly so. This murmured rumors gave the king no small worry, it is the anxiety of the guilty. The little moments we talked together I felt his guilt pounding inside his heart, the guilt one cannot admit to is often the most petrifying guilt and so he bore it all alone since his wife is no part of it, he will not let him into his little secret. But I feign ignorance of all that because I am on a mission made possible by his presence so I must not distort his reality but continue to be who I am not so I could become what I am destined to be. But I still have three more nobles to destroy and I set out to quickly do that in three days.