THE ARTIFACT (Part 12)

-A serialized story-

Whichever direction you take, the destination is always ahead of you

Chapter 1

“Man, he’s heavy, sun of a…”

“You’re always complaining about something. Everything bothers you.”

“I’m not complaining, I’m just stating how it is.”

“Fine, he’s heavy. So what? Are you going to leave him here and fail the task? It’s not like they’re making you solve math riddles, it’s just doing some physical work from time to time.”

“Dirty work, if you ask me.”

“Focus on the reward. The Queen will give us a candy. And maybe pat us on the head. That’s an honor worth a little torture, isn’t it?”

“You’re right, well said, by a hundred clown red noses.”

My legs have atrophied from sitting for so long. Numbed from being tied to the chair, during which I didn’t have the chance to move them even a bit. So now they have to carry me. Their problem. I didn’t want to make it easy for them in any way. I was coming up with a tactic. Supposedly, I’ll survive if their Queen likes me. That was set so randomly that I think the best way is to simply be myself. Maybe she’s insightful to such an extent that faking it on my part will be interpreted in a negative way. Anyway, the best way is to test the waters in the first few moments and see what to do based on that. With every new moment, I had a strong feeling that this would somehow be a turning point on my journey and ascent up Mount Sumtrа. If I survive this, I’ll go all the way to the end. Whether that was intuition subtly telling me it would be so, or just my empty ambition and desire, remains to be seen.

“Hey Ortoleon, we’re arriving soon. Don’t play smart. Keep quiet, speak only when the Queen asks you something. No stupid escape attempts. Trust me, you can’t escape, no chance, and the queen will explain to you why.”

“It’s not Otroleon, you fool, his name is Ortol and he’s from Virteleon.”

“Well, that’s what I said, don’t bore me with nonsense.”

 After a few seconds, I heard them knock on a door, followed by a sweet female voice “Come in, boys.”

The door opened with a creak, revealing my further fate behind it. The Queen spoke very quietly, as if to herself. “How exciting this is. I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”

They placed me on another chair and took off the blindfold from my eyes and the gag from my mouth. Instinctively, I met that with wide eyes, only to painfully close them. After about five or six openings and closings of my eyes, I finally got used to the light a bit. In that struggle of mine, the queen gave each of her two clowns a candy and patted them on the head. Not that I saw it, I heard them thanking her so deeply. It must have been because of that.

 The chair they placed me in was located in the middle of a massive oval room, at the end of which was the Queen’s “throne”. It was a swing held by two cables attached to a fairly high ceiling. The room was all mirrors, so the viewing perspective was very obscure. I saw multiple figures of myself and her from different angles while looking around.

The queen was dressed from head to toe in a one-piece black leather jumpsuit. White gloves hid her hands, and bright red high-heeled boots made her look taller than she was. Long blonde hair fell over her shoulders down to her waist. She wore a smiling clown mask. But it wasn’t an ordinary smile. There was something sinister in it, terrifying. Yet it gave off a sense of pleasantness and power radiating from every drawn line. It didn’t leave you indifferent. I’d say when you see her, you feel immense respect mixed with fear and… affection.

“So, you’re that famous Ortol, who was sent to me for evaluation. You know, they were so wonderful that they didn’t want to spoil anything for me. They just told me you’re an extremely interesting individual and that I might like you. But how rude of me. I’m Saman. They call me Queen, so that would be me. Please tell me your story, from start to finish. Skip nothing. We’re in no rush, are we?” – a booming laugh accompanied the end of her mini monologue.

Chapter 2

She remained silent for a long time after I told her my story in detail. I didn’t break the silence, respecting the clowns’ advice to speak only when requested. She took a deep breath, swinging in her swing-throne.

“There are so many fascinating details in your story, Ortol. I don’t know where to start, how to contemplate properly, what to think. It’s interesting that you mentioned parallel universes. Do you know about the theory that we live through all parallel universes until we reach the one where we achieve our maximum years of life and only then do we truly die. To simplify it for you. Let’s say there are a million parallel realities. Only in one do we live to be, for example, a hundred years old. In all the others, less. In one reality we die at, say, thirty years old, and everyone who is with us in that reality perceives it as us having died, that we’re no longer here. But we actually transition into another reality where we are still alive. And so on until we finally reach the one where we finally reach a hundred years and finally die. It is a bit of a complicated theory, but think about it. It seems very possible.”

 She stood up from her swing-throne and started walking around the room, making circles around the chair I was sitting on.

“You know, we’re not as bad and evil as you think we are. It’s true, many who crossed paths with us have died. There is a reason, a very good one, why they had to die. But, as I told you, they didn’t really die, they just transitioned into the next reality where they are still alive. So that’s not death or murder, just a transition. This seems crazy to you, I know. A kind of excuse, an alibi. But when you think about it a bit, it really is so. It must be.”

She paused for a moment, tapped her hand on a part of the mirror-wall that opened up. She pulled out an object, I couldn’t see which one.

“You’ll stay with us for a while longer. I know that seems like a negative thing to you. You can’t wait to continue your ascent. To see what is at the top. To find out what happened to your loved ones. The fact remains, however, that you’re stuck here with us. Trust me, you’ll soon understand why. I hope you will. That’s why I’m giving you this little notebook in which I wrote down my story. It might not be as fascinating as yours, but read it. Give it a chance. Right now you see me as a villain. When you read it, you’ll see that everything isn’t just black and white. There are extremes, but there is also a whole spectrum in between. And we’re all somewhere in between, striving toward one extreme or the other. I haven’t decided yet what exactly I’ll do with you. Unfortunately, you’ll have to be in captivity, since I don’t trust you to stay quiet and obedient. Only later will you realize why it’s important to be submissive. Take your time and get back to me when you’ve read my story. And for the end of this get-together of ours, I must tell you. I like you, Ortol. There’s something in you that tells me we’ll become friends. Besides, I haven’t told you the most important thing. We’ve already met. But, enough with the spoilers. Just read, it’s all written there.”

 With that, our meeting was over. Two clowns (the same ones from the beginning) carried me to a room I had probably already been in. This time they didn’t put blindfolds over my eyes or a gag over my mouth. Logically, how else would I read Queen Saman’s story. The room actually wasn’t bad. The chair was still standing in the middle of the room, bolted to the floor. Beside it, there was a bed and a large TV screen that was currently turned off. Laid on the bed was a device that I assumed was meant to control the TV screen. My main preoccupation right now was the notebook that needed to be read. The TV can wait.

-End of Part 12-