Key To A Goblin's Heart

Magnus' POV

The skies were red and the rivers burned with flame. It is a most peculiar sight, I thought, isn't water supposed to repel fire? How is a blazing inferno lodged inside such a vast expanse of river? I would have liked to investigate, if only I were sane enough to do so. 

The pain felt excruciating, it seemed to arise from every molecule of my body. Wherever I touched, it hurt like hell….my body was completely sore but my mind felt no fog. A thousand thoughts ran through my head, agonising my mind while my body cried in pain. 

I was trapped inside a ruby, this much I could make out very well. Also, this is the most cruelest form of Dark Magic…. I was entitled to it for life now. My mind and body will be stuck in this perennial limbo until the end of time. 

The Queen said that I deserved it. Was she right? I can hardly tell, little did I know about such stuff. Do we often get what we really deserve? I wouldn't be stuck here if it were so. Instead, that man, who had made my life a burning hell even on the cognitive realm, would deserve this place. 

My nerves were on fire, but strangely I felt no rage. My body shot with an enormous amount of adrenaline, by heart seemed to beat so fast that I could feel it exploding out of my chest. I felt so hot, at the same time I was freezing…. I don't know how it were possible but I existed in a world much beyond the logic of normal mortal existence. 

Nothing about my life had ever been normal though, and perhaps the end as it is will also be extraordinary. Only, no one will be there to acknowledge it, no one will sing songs of praise to commemorate my sacrifice, no one will glorify my valour, there will be no books written about my pain and neither will the poets compose ballads in my name. 

Once, it had seemed like the only thing that would matter. But I wasn't so sure anymore. 

My mind became flooded with visions, a familiar place, a familiar hand upon my head. 

I was back to where it began. My little hut, at the corner of a long-forgotten village, inhabited by only the derelict and disabled. They called it "Hyniesvruth" an old Goblin term meaning "Land of the deserted". I only referred to it as home, because I had never been to anyplace else. 

There were only handful of people who lived in the village. Mostly, they were farmers, struggling to grow crops in the steep terrain that overlooked this small hilly village. The ground was so tough, that it would take weeks to simply plough them, and even without magic the task was never easy. 

Every little child that lived there would work in the fields, regardless of their age or sex, they would plough the fields. It took the whole day, but we had nowhere to go and nothing else to do. And, the only source of our food came from those fields. Sometimes, the crops grew, other times the yield wasn't so high and we were forced to starve a winter…. resorting to eating plain grass and killing animals that lurked in the forests. 

The King, they said, had no time for the likes of us. He was busy winning the war against Mafhaelore. Once the war was won, we would have plenty of food to fill our bellies, and loads of money to fill our coffers. The king had promised, so we didn't complain about our hard days, dreaming about the better ones to come. 

However, Mother would never allow me to go and work in the fields. Try as I might, I could never convince her and the villagers scorned us for our laziness. They called us ration-mongers, living off the hard work of others while we ourselves were of no help. 

"I could not allow you to work with these peasants! You have royal blood in your veins, Magnus, you are destined to be the King one day! What will the people say if they hear that their King used to plough fields?" Mother would remark sternly. 

"How can I be King, Momma?" The little me would say, "I am just a poor boy. The real King doesn't even know that we exist, and he has three sons already. They will be King, not I."

"Nonsense." Mother would cry, "You are the first-born and the crown is your birthright! Adynoeus loved me, he promised me that he will make me his Queen...but then, then that wretched Viena came and snatched everything away from me! But, she shall not have my pride, my extraordinary son...no, she shall not have you! You will rule one day, I know of it!"

Mother would often mutter about the vile Queen and her treacherous plots that had seperated her from her beloved, The King. Obviously, no one in the village believed her. 

"She is crazy in the head, that one. Driven mad by her secret love for the King, she has even made up a story about how that boy of hers is actually The King's son! What audacity, huh! As if the King would even look at the likes of her, in ragged dirty clothes, raving like a mad woman all day." The villagers would scorn. 

I would tell Momma, but she would only laugh. 

"They will see one day." She would say, "Then, the smirks will disappear from their faces as you, The King, will order their assasination." Mother would let out a cruel laughter while I would vow, to never do such a thing. I would never become a monster. 

I simply wanted live a normal life, to have friends, and perhaps...to know my father. 

But, no one in the village would talk to me, the kids my age would laugh at me and my mother's stupid rantings. 

And then eventually, they killed my Mother when she failed to pay her debts. 

But, why is all this playing out in front of my once again? I thought that I had left all these behind, the agonies of my childhood should no longer have the capacity to torment me. But, here they are, more vivid than ever and I was powerless against my mind as it deliberately played out my cruelest memories. 

I began to shout, then plead them to stop this torture, for I could bear no longer. I covered my ears, shut my eyes tightly because I didn't wish to see these visions again. However they persisted, even with all my senses blocked, I could still experience them clearly. I could see the villagers beating my mother to death, I could hear her cries as she pleaded them to spare her, I could hear her shouting... instructing me to run, I could see the little boy running through the vast fields, tears falling down his cheeks as he ran with all his might to protect himself from certain death. 

I could see that little boy, lying unconscious by a stretch of river, his feet calloused and bloody from hours of running. I could see a well-built man approaching the child, stopping at the sight of him, then carrying him in his arms to his house nearby. 

"Who are you, boy?" He would say, "And how did you land up here?"

But, the boy didn't speak. 

"I think he must be in shock. Poor child, here have some soup." The man's gentle wife would offer me. 

But, the boy would sit as still as a statue. 

Later, the boy would reveal his identity, but only in snippets, hiding the real truth. He would address himself as an orphan, willing to find his father who worked for the King. He would not tell the man what his mother used to say. He would not show them the ring that she had given him, as a proof for his Royal lineage. 

He would beg the man to teach him how to fight, so that he could join the Royal Army and find his Father. The man, who was a retired soldier himself, would gladly agree. The little child would then be adopted by the childless couple, to be raised as their own and he would grow up to be the man who had defeated Mafhaelore. 

Magnus, the man who would be one of the greatest generals that Arphoelus had ever seen, the man who still craved for his true Father. The man, who wanted to fulfill his mother's dying wish, to because The King one day. 

I could see hundreds of possibilities running by me. What would have happened if I had taken a different route in my life? What would have happened if I had not sought out the King? Perhaps my life wouldn't be as it is now. Perhaps, I won't be trapped in an orb, waiting for death. 

Pain has many components. Some of it is physical, but mostly it is psychological. I could feel all types of pain as I lay helpless inside this stone. I could see my life flashing by, I could see all the mistakes I had made, and more importantly I could see who I had become in the process. 

I screamed, unable to look at the transformation. I screamed as I realised, I had become the very thing I had always feared. 

A monster who had no one left to mourn for him.