In a distant land where religion and spirituality helmed the lives of the rich,the poor,the beauty ,the beast,where every draft of air,every blade of grass were regarded to have a spiritual intention,the country of Delisum lay unconquered, flanked by religiousness and(for an outsider)blind faith.The Melorans were the royal family regarded by the people as the compounders of the coutry and their great king Melorum was the third king of the dynasty,under them were the ruling party ,mere minions headed by their chief Ser Therge.But the ligature that maintained the royal-commoner divide was their illimitable blind faith and superstition dictated by the chief priest Holy Boros , a close aide to the royalty.Although he wasn’t highborn,the whole country would kneel infront of his words for he was regarded as their bond with the Lord and he knew that very well.The country as such had witnessed nascent armed rebellions aided by the neighbouring kingdoms to abolish the hegemony, which were stifled, and used as a weapon to control the subjects.The fact that the chief king,Melorum the second and his queen Theora had no children and only stillborns,was disquetting and seeing the others’ children prosper and flourish under their rule while their cradles lay vacant stabbed them hard,they had tried all rituals but in vain,until, a prophecy from their worshipped deity Deltis (regarded as the custodian of humankind)unfolded and a mandate binding over the people of the land was propounded; be it a commoner or a highborn:’ For the protection of the humankind ,there should be no more descendents on this land until Goddess Corona,lord Deltis’ consort, has graced the royal family with a little princess(for the priest was audaciously confident) ,a gift of the Lords, lest the race would perish !!’.And for the stringent implementation of this mandate, comeuppance was to be meted out to the family bearing the child by publicly setting fire to the body of the newborn! .This is how frenzied they were and the ruling party was concerned by this action.
It was just a few months after this mandate was passed, and the river of Winis was flooded with charred corpses of infants and women floating around in the water, there was unbridled bloodbath that had cloaked Delisum and there was not a single person who was prepared to go against the tide,for they feared fortheir lives! And not far away from the capital, in a mole hole of a town,in a tattered hut , a young soul was born to a single mother Lara, and as she held him in her arms she knew that she would turn against the world if needed to protect that little baby. Fearing for her child’s life, she fled the hut and ran into the Formidable forest! And although the nanny was protective of her until then, she wasn’t to be trusted anymore, as every single person crumbled under the merciless reign and as expected ,not before long ,the nanny and the people of the town were after her! Lara was an intrepid,young woman ever since had lost her family in an arson two months ago and this had made her emotionally and mentally obdurate and she was headstrong about protecting her son ,thus began her journey.
(Meanwhile in the capital of Delisum)
There was clatter and chaos in the atmosphere, but was amusingly centered only to the capital, for the chief queen of Melora had given birth to a baby boy,and as per the prophecy ,this incident was to endanger the people of Delisum.And even though this meant that the chief priest was wrong, he ,as always, had a solution in mind.But the chief king, Melorum, the second,was an irreverent man,who feared no God and was prepared to wipe out any one who stood in his way,and he loved his family!To his father,Melorum he said “ Father, although I find this religious predisposition gratuitous ,I have never imposed otherwise but if any of the chieftains were to hurt my queen or my son citing superstitious reasons,I wouldn’t waste a thought before annihilating their lives.I hope you realise how much I love my family.” .But Melorum wasn’t agog at his words,for he knew how cantankerous and impulsive yet kind his son was.But he loved his son and he would do anything in his might to protect him.Later that evening he went to the temple of Deltis, knelt before the Almighty,he prayed and prayed and implored the lord’s mercy,He was being selfish and he knew that,but his family meant a lot to him and hence there he was wistfully inciting a response from God.Seeing this,the chief priest came to him and tried to console him over the matter.Holy Boros was a spiritual yet a witty and opportunist man but his fealty to Melorum and his family was unparalleled and genuine and he exploited his position as the trusted preacher to protect the scion of Melora,for he knew that the word wouldbe out soon and the people of Delisum would demand justice and he wouldn’t let a slip of his tongue ruin his king’s happiness.
Lara was lonely but she had faith in herself and she was aware that optimism was her only ally, she rummaged the forest for all the fruits and nuts she could find so that she and her little angel would be healthy, and she travelled day and night in search of a haven in hell, only that she wasn’t aware that the path she was travelling on led to the capital; for she didn’t get out her town much.She didn’t know that she had left a mare only to enter hell! All bad thoughts flooded her mind and she had an innate ominous feeling but she had no choice but to keep going. It was the largest forest in the country and the chilling fact was that it had no animals but just trees, trees and only trees and she knew it was safe in that way, but little did she know that the word of her son’s birth had reached the capital and the guards were in search of her. And one day, as she was traipsing through the forest, she heard trees rustle behind her, but it wasn’t a windy day and it was creepy, she stood still for a while and before she could act, a stallion came galloping and a man picked her up and sped away, with astonishment on her face, she looked back immediately and at a distance she found guardsmen pillaging the forest with great might and this muddled her,was she to be thankful to or dreaded by this mysterious person who wrested her and her son ? it was all a mare’s nest!!
The guardsmen along with the villagers’ search for Lara and her “pestilent” son had bore no fruit and this was an added difficulty for the royal family and the ruling party as the news of newborn of Melora which floated through as a rumor had snowballed into a humongous disconcertedness among the folks. Numerous inchoate rebellions were witnessed in various parts of the country and this battered the faith of the decrepit great king Melorum and the day was not far when they would be forced to provide a justification or face the wrath of anarchy, but what befuddled the citizens was the delay in justice from the lord himself, this not only fuelled their anger for the royalty but also blasphemous thoughts made their way into people’s minds, their faith was trembling and
schism was not distant. Anarchy had summoned its troops to amass their land of virtue and an ominous foreshadowing was in the offing.
The chief king meanwhile had called for a counsel of the chief priest, his father, the chief of the ruling party Ser Therge, Queen Theora.They needed to trepan a way out of this miasma, but first , a question was posed to Holy Boros, by the chief king asking him as to how the lord had shown mercy to the royal family, bantering the religious beliefs, the chief king insinuated saying that, it was all a make-believe ideology, a hoax to feed upon the tenuous and so on, only to be stopped by Melorum, the priest then said” My King! The prophecy has it that the newborn is the prophesier of lord Deltis himself and this message has to be conveyed to the people of Delisum, before things get out of control.They trust the faith and (stressing the point very clearly, he says) it is our only chance at securing our new scion and no physical or financial power would surpass their wrath, and we must be prudent and quick in our acts.That is all. My king!”. Although the chief king was an atheist, he couldn’t ignore the fact that his family, his son was in need of protection and acting smartly was the only way out and he would do anything he can to save his family. Chief Queen Theora was a learned woman and though her faith lie in the almighty, she was sternly opposed to prophecies,but she was helpless on her own and she lay in submission. The counsel hence decided that the message of lord to the people of Delisum would be divulged the the very next day and hoped for peace.
And so came the onerous day, the members of the royal family and the ruling party had called for what seemed like a parley with the subjects , all the din died when The great king Melorum raised his hand and then the chief priest spoke loudly and numinously “Subjects of the virtuous land of Delisum! It is to our understanding that the suspicious concealment of the royal newborn and the seemingly unjust defiance of the sorcery has angered you.It is quite understandable and justified; but the faith has an answer to all the burgeoning questions in the holy minds of the subjects of this land. As per the mandate, any child ,highborn or commoner would be meted out with the same punishment, but our newborn here, the archangel , is in the Lord’s name , a prophesier.This cherub is Lord Deltis’ messenger and must be protected and nurtured until the right time;but it would be unfair for you good people to submit to fustian without any proof; which is why today our little prophet shall grace this occasion by surpassing the divine rite of passage of prophecy, today , I shall drop this divine messenger from the top of this castle and you shall see the little angel emerging unhurt!. A wave of disbelief overturned the minds of the people, the queen rose in revolt only to be stifled by the guardsmen,much to the people’s amazement the chief king and the great king Melorum had their hands clenched and were fainéant .
And so it happened, Holy Boros dropped the little wailing child from the top of the castle and there was huge gasp that loomed over the land as they saw the baby drop hard on the ground. A while later , the chief priest ascends and reaches out to the rubble where the baby was dropped, and he lifts an alive baby boy,the scion, and holds it out to the crowd, and a thunderous cheer masks the whole realm.Queen Theora, dumbstruck from the happenings falls into the chief king’s arms , the great king wears a look of guilt and wistfulness and signals the crowd upon which silence presides “The birth of the prophet is a sign of goodwill and holiness .The Lord has graced us with his presence in the form of our little scion and it took some time for us to divulge this prosperous information of the prophet’s birth but it was all in the Almightys demand.Tonight will be the celebration of our prophet’s birth.May the Lord grace our lands by his omnipresence !.”.
As miraculous as it seems,the whole act was a deception; a baby boy was no doubt dropped from the castle and it was an alive baby boy that the chief priest held out to the crowd, but what the people or the chief Queen Theora ,were unaware of was the fact that it was Lara’s baby boy that bore the brunt for their noxious ,superstitious predilections.In the Formidable forest, the man who picked up Lara on horse was none other than, the king Melorum the second, he brought Lara and her son to the capital and promised a pardon for her “felony” if only she agreed to leave her baby boy with them.She was told that, the royal newborn had passed on owing to fever and the Queen was distraught by this,(the Queen being unaware of this incident). Being a mother, Lara blindly agreed to this , for what could be more safer for her son than the king’s castle and what more would a mother want?.Later that day, while Lara took leave from the king with a heavyheart and welled up eyes, the guardsmen followed her and killed her near the Formidable forest,for they didn’t want any more troubles. All master planned by the “Holy” chief priest, for he very well knew that the rite of Prophecy passage was a ritual no person would deny or question and he exploited this in order to protect the grandson of Melorum!
Queen Theora was deranged from the incident and seeing her son alive in her arms was oxymoronic, she didn’t abet the truth behind all of it and even though she was an intelligent, learned woman, the mother in her was satiated by the sight of her baby boy alive in her arms.For, days she lied in her room, holding her son and crooning.The great king Melorum, passed away eventually and The chief king Melorum the second, faced his retribution when his second son turned out to be a still born!.As for the chief priest, he still lay in his “holy” temple, preaching and praying, for he saved one life by sacrificing the other and he never was graced with the joy of fathering one. He later lived his life as a reclusive old priest who was despised by the royalty.The members of the ruling party eventually divided from the Melora clan and forged a rebellion and conquered them when they were at their weakest!.
With the reign of the Ruling party ,idolatry was an aspect left for the people’s choice , while unscrupulous superstitious practices were kept in check.Education and communal harmony was made priority and endeavors were made to instill faith in the young and a better fate dawned upon the truly virtuous land of Delisum.
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