THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (ereader that reads to you .txt) 📕

You must forget Lucinda. Once you have done that, beat your vanity.”
”I chase Lucinda’s reverence instead of my subject’s love?”
”Whatever. It just illustrates how bad vanity is … for you.”
Mark took a long look at Alex and there was a moment there when Alex looked at the torches and armouries and weapons and realized that nothing was worth while if you didn’t follow your intuition.
Alex shook his head, smiling and spoke:
”So, a lion has confidence.”
Mark chuckled. “Told you that you know it. And what is confidence?”
”Patience and control.”
“Yes, and the grace and benevolence to allow people to think they’ve stepped on you. Anyone, who has ever stepped on you, tell yourself this about them: you had the benevolence to make them believe that they won. You gave them some confidence. You felt so sorry for them that you wanted to grant them the illusion of victory. Then you can head home and laugh, only because you are walking home with loads of gold in your sack and they are … what?”
“Poor souls?”
“Yes. Poor. They need to jig, amble and lisp. Poor beings walking blindfolded and chuckling
toward the edge of a ravine are destined for madness. Yes?”
Alex nodded. “I have never seen it that way.”
”But you should see it that way. You should. The people having to use unfair games to win are going to loose in the end, Sire. There is always a time for man to put the books on the table and pay up. They will never ever be able to account for what they have won, because they have aquired it unfairly. You on the other hand have played by the rules and get to keep everything you own. So, who is the winner? You or them? In other words, you are making them believe that they have won, because you know better. The truth will free you. Be honest. Be benevolent.”
“The lion has patience and control and plays by the rules of the game. Doesn’t cheat.”
”The main word, Alexander, is control.”
“Control. A king has great quantities of control.”
“Well put, Alex. Well put.”
“What is control?”
Alexander smiled. “An attitude. A mindset. It is patience.”
“Exactly.”
The prince stood up. It was then that Alex realized that it was himself as he had been or presently was in the real world. At his present state, Alexander Winsletenna was a young man, strong, longhaired, constantly wellshaven. He was almost an archetype. It felt strange not having to shave.
The hall seemed larger now. Prince Mark’s presence made it bigger somehow.
He had made it bigger by standing up.
“You received a humane heart from Matthew” he said and walked over to the bible on the table to the left and picked it up in both hands. Mark looked at the bible in his hands, caressed it as if he was caressing a child. It was a book one foot by one foot and rather well crafted. A huge cross had been handcrafted into the cover and painted red. Around it were gold eagles on each of the corners on a silver canvas. The rest of the book was in blue.
“I will give you patience …”
It was a very beautiful bible.
Mark handed him the book.
“Sire, read …”
Alexander opened the book and leafed through it.
It was written in Wandiffian.
It was a language that Alex spoke because it was a transition between Latin and Prosperanian.
“You read the language of your forefathers, don’t you?”
Alex nodded. “Oh, yes. My father taught me. His father taught him.”
“Read the initial sentences of St. Mark.”
The poignancy of this moment was incredible.
He could almost feel the bells of heaven ring and the a choir emerge from the clouds.
Why? Because he had over thirty years tried to cope in being a good king. Because he had only thought of Lucinda’s possible return. Because he tried to live the righteous life of a king only to cover up that he feared most how his sister would return. It was the waiting game.
In this castle, he received the benevolence of lions.
The symbol of St. Mark stood outside the castle roaring in the wind and the men and women of his country waited in cages above hell.
Waiting for him to alone make sure that they were free at last.
He started reading.

“As it is written in the prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

Alex looked up at Mark in whose features he really saw himself.
“These people had waited thousands of years of the Messiah” Mark said.
“Now that is patience” Alexander remarked contemplatively.
Mark laughed. “Be as calm and ripening as a fine wine. Grow, Alex. Grow and prosper patiently. God will lead you. You are his child. You always have been and always are and always will be. No matter how much you think the dark side is there to get you. They won’t. Neither anyone you love. You are safe. Just be patient, controlled and benevolent. That is all you need, Alexander.”
Alex looked down on the page.
“Read verse six, Alex.”
Alex read.

“And John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;”

The calm in both their faces was refreshing, because at once Alexander knew that he was not a pupil anymore.
“You don’t need a robe to be a king. You need a lion’s heart.”
“The clothes you wear do not make you a king.”
Mark nodded.
“Exactly.”
These words had now made him, Alexander, a mentor.
“Who is the king of the wilderness?”
”The Lion is the king of the wilderness.”
Mark pointed at the bible with his right index finger and Alex at once recognized his own ring at Mark’s finger.
“A patient king.”
The ring he had worn on Belinda’s wedding day was on Mark’s finger. He had brooded, because he had lost it back then.
There was a long pause, where Alex looked up at Mark.
“My ring! I’d lost it!”
”The hermit said that you would find everything that you lost! This ring will be yours when the real world commences. But the ring is unimportant. You heart is vital. Now read verse 15.”

“The time is fulfilled and the kingdom God is at hand; repent ye and believe the gospel.”

Alexander looked up, closed the book, walked up, put it down on the table and turned around.
He walked up to Mark, who was smiling.
“Patience. Use it to fight Lucinda. You need the word of God to fight her.”
Mark and Alex embraced and the warmth between them felt fantastic.
“You will do well, my friend!” He was glowing in the warmth of everyone he knew and everyone he had ever loved and cared for in his life. “Be well!”
Alexander went down on his knees and kissed Mark’s ring.
Mark put his hand under Alexander chin and as he looked up he felt a power raising him from the ground. He was levitating. Four light rings surrounded him. Rings of gold, waist size. The rings spread into each other and formed a golden aura. Alex spun a couple of times and landed on his feet.
Mark was standing there and smiling.
“Look at your finger!”
Alex raised his hand and found the ring on his finger. The lion’s head that had been engraved into the gold plate roared just as the statue did outside.
He looked up.
”Thank you, Mark!”
”Retrieve you land and return safely and soundly away from the haunted kingdom.”
“I promise!”
With that, Alexander Winsletenna walked down the red carpet, slowly toward the door, opened it and left into the open. He closed it behind him, feeling the rings of his aura glowing and mounted on a horse that had eaten for a half hour from a barrel with no bottom.
Alexander rode down the hill, a smile on his face, being lead to salvation by only two dancing lights. Inside the castle, Mark was smiling.
Inside the hut, a spirit named Matthew soared silently about the furniture and thanked the Lord.


CHAPTER TWO
THE LAST EVANGELISTS

The two dancing lights were leading the way forward, but it was very hard to see where to and the reason for the hardship of sight was the wind.
The wind? No. This was not a wind. It was far more.
This was a storm.
The few trees that he saw along the meandering road were bending in this … wind.
He had left the castle so happy and patient and was using this to keep his heart calm.
“A benevolent king is as patient as a lion” Alexander Winsletenna told himself.
Now he was fighting to stay alive, patience or not.
After riding down that hill again and continuing on the path that he had been riding on before, he found himself back on a curving road that seemed to want to confuse its traveller. Up and down, left and right, through a forest and then out into the open. Left and right there were hills and these hills seemed to act as a tunnel that made the upcoming wind even stronger.
Even Mercutio, full of the food from the endless barrel, seemed tired.
Alex tried to transport some of the patient heart he had received from the two souls onto his stallion. It seemed to work, although both Mercutio and Alexander were somewhat straining to cope, bending in the wind just as much as the trees were.
They saw the lights, the elves as Mark called them, flying in front of them toward a dawning sky, dramatic and romantic, with dark greyish blue clouds upon a mid blue sky. The moon was still up.
It was then that the wind increased in power. At one time, Alex almost fell off Mercutio and it was with utmost power that he could stay on the horse.
Mercutio was suffering as well.
There was another hill, a small raising more than a hill. It lead to a cave.
He looked to his right and saw a man standing by that cave and holding on to a tree. He was waving at Alex. The man was dressed in a brown robe and was clutching it to his body. His long grey hair was blowing ferociously in the wind.
Knowing he would not be able to make it any further, he dismounted and lead Mercutio by the hand up the hill. Leaves flew past his vision and a branch crashed down from an oak in front of him.
He was just twenty feet away from the man and was walking up the sandy path, when he heard him yell: “Come in and find shelter here. Sire. I have made a campfire. My ox will keep your horse company and me? I will keep you company.”
Alex came up to the man and took his hand.
“Thank you, my good man.”
“Come in, by all means.”
“Oh, dear,” Alex shivered, “this is hell.”
The man shook his head. “No, hell is different.”
He was speaking as if he knew.
“You might be right about that. What a storm.”
Alexander turned around and took one last glance at the storm outside. It looked dark and sinister and quite frightening. Leaves were being tossed and turned back and forth