CONCLUSIONS

Over the next three weeks,

aware now that a creature akin

to the Hidden Queen

conspired against them,

King Xau and his advisors

drew the following conclusions:

Firstly that,

unlike the Hidden Queen,

the creature was as malevolent

as it was powerful,

manipulating men, women, beasts

like puppets on a string.

Secondly,

that since Xau could unmask

the creature’s minions,

the king should examine

as many people as possible.

(Every member of the palace staff,

every one of the palace soldiers,

every government minister,

every diplomat, every official

was duly brought to Xau’s presence—

three more of the creature’s minions

thus revealed, freed by the king.)

Thirdly,

that in order to possess

its victims in the first place,

the creature must fetch them to its lair

and touch them, skin to skin.

(This conclusion reached

after extensive questioning of Enlai

and of several former servants

of the Hidden Queen.)

Fourthly,

that the creature’s lair

lay somewhere in the Sumbrese desert.

Letters dispatched in haste

to every city in Meqing,

every border fort, every ally,

alerting them to search for spies

among any who had traveled

to Sumbral.

The creature’s foothold

in Meqing stamped out.

Within Sumbral itself, another story.

SINCE SUMBRAL

A quarter mile walk from his guest room,

a quarter mile promising himself

to neither beg nor weep,

then the entrance to King Xau’s study

where the king’s guards

searched him from head to toe.

The king rose from his desk,

bowed to Enlai,

who bowed back three times:

“Your Majesty. I’m sorry.

I’ll leave by noon—”

“Master Enlai.”

King Xau’s voice gentle.

“We are not asking you to leave.”

“You’re not? I thought,

I assumed, you’d dismiss me

because of last night.”

Last night a disaster.

Enlai’s first performance

since the—since Sumbral—

singing for servants,

for greasy kitchen staff.

Entirely predictable

what would please such a crowd,

his own heroic ballads about their king.

But by the first chorus, Enlai in tears,

the words he’d cynically composed

unraveling him.

(A bawling, blubbering debacle,

the cooks and pot-washers baffled.)

Mortifying to realize

he now believed his own verses

like a lowly laborer;

believed the king a hero.

“Master Enlai.”

That gentleness again.

“We had thought you would like

to perform, but it is not a condition

of your stay here. You are our guest.”

A moment before Enlai managed,

“Thank you. I’m in your debt.”

“No. We sent you to Sumbral.”

Shadows in the king’s eyes.

“The fault is ours.

The debt is ours.”

Enlai bowed, not trusting his voice.

A long pause before the king asked,

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“No. Thank you. Since Sumbral—”

He stopped.

Maybe he would have continued

had he been haunted by memories

of the monster’s other victims.

(Men, women, boys, girls,

infants barely old enough to walk,

tormented, tortured, trapped.)

Except it wasn’t their misery

that woke Enlai at night,

rather fear—terror—for himself.

That he would be recaptured.

Possessed. Persecuted. Punished.

The king did not force an answer.