Page 13 of Zel (The GriMM Tales #2)
“You will enjoy this then,” Ulrich said, pouring some for each of them from a pitcher into porcelain cups, “for the best coffee is balanced. I thought it would be nice to eat out here this morn. There is a better view of the sunrise.” He nodded toward the lone window, for it faced the direction of the rising sun, which looked lovely brightening the kingdom, even if much of the land was suffering from the Great Famine.
Like last night, Zel contemplated that if they were not surrounded by past and future deaths, this would have been a nice way to spend time with a betrothed. Also like last night, everything about the meal was wonderful, especially the coffee.
But Zel had a duty. He must learn all he could.
“My lord, may I ask how and when you were… the worst?”
Ulrich smiled thinly while sipping from his cup. “Have you not heard tales of the Immortal King before your current Queen?”
“You mean, you’re…”
“Have you had enough to eat?”
“I… I would not say no to more of this exquisite coffee.”
“Then keep your cup while we take a walk.”
“We are going outside? I am not dressed—”
“Not outside the tower. Not today. We will be taking a walk through time and memory.” Ulrich stood, and when Zel stood after him, the porcelain cup of coffee he held was suddenly refilled without the tip of the pitcher, and the rest of the food and the table and chairs vanished in a swirl of color.
Once more, Ulrich led Zel to the magical door.
“Give the key a full turn.”
ULRICH
T he door opened not into a dining hall but onto a balcony. Rather than a view of the neighboring kingdom, like outside Zel’s bedchamber, this balcony looked upon the past.
“Where is this?” Zel asked, moving slowly to the balcony’s railing with an expression of ravishing awe. Such beauty, even while clutching a cup of coffee. Maybe more so for the domesticity added to Zel’s profile.
“My homeland to the north, many, many centuries ago.” Ulrich moved to stand beside Zel and waved his left hand, showing the passage of time in his home country rapidly over many changes of the seasons.
What started as a distant view of rolling hills and farmland became the building of villages, cities, and finally, a shining castle to make it a kingdom.
Ulrich paused the plunge through time around when he was a boy.
“You were an elf,” Zel said, as the view zoomed in like they were traversing the kingdom in a flying carriage instead of remaining stationary on a balcony, and it became clear that the people who walked the city streets all had pointed ears and an elegance only elves possessed.
“ Are , I mean.” Zel cringed with the correction.
“I am, and I am not. Past tense is a fitting choice.” Ulrich waved his hand again, and the view moved them through the city down a dark alley, where Ulrich as a boy was but a slim and bedraggled mortal, his dark hair shorter and in tangles, and his skin closer in color to a warm, ruddy brown rather than ashen and indigo.
“I was an orphan,” Ulrich continued, “a nothing in the eyes of most people. All elves have some magic, but mine was limited and useless when what I needed was food and water.”
As he spoke, the scenes continued to play, at first showing him as a beggar, trying to earn coin for pity by creating illusions to dazzle a mostly uninterested audience.
“Needs and wants are different though. Greed is for the wealthy, who step on others to get more when their needs are already met.” Some of those wealthy were shown tossing coins at him while sneering and complaining about his presence in their streets.
“Envy is for those with little or nothing, but can be just as destructive given time, feeding into a hunger for revenge when the belly is starving.
“I wanted more than to be like the wealthy and powerful I envied. I wanted to take all they had and put them in my place instead.” Ulrich’s young face showed it all with the way he sneered back at those who dropped their coins as soon as they were no longer looking.
“I would have given anything to achieve that, and so I decided one day that I would give everything.”
The scenes rapidly changed as Ulrich filtered through dozens of unimportant memories, pausing to let Zel witness the gathering of his fellow orphans to better share resources, and the mentors he began to acquire.
There were five others around his same age who became closest to him.
In Ulrich’s displayed memories, and not with any conscious effort on his part, they each had a haze about them of a specific color.
It was easier to remember them as shades than people with names, for to think on them more deeply might stir inklings of remorse too belated to explore.
A boy shrouded in red who could blend with the shadows and dazzle with sleight of hand.
A girl tinted orange with an affinity for animals, who was often more comfortable in their company than with people.
Another girl bathed in yellow, much larger and stronger than the rest and quick to defend or fight.
A third girl in shimmering green who could captivate anyone with the stories she told.
A boy awash in blue was perhaps the frailest among them, but his desire to help others made him an optimal healer.
Last of all was Ulrich, exuding almost the same violet color as he did now, who even as a boy was a determined natural leader and could better than any of them infuse his magic into items, however minimally at the start—and eventually into sustenance, which was the precursor to his garden.
He often looked back on these memories in his solitude.
The spell was like a living journal, but he could not interact with any of it.
He could not change anything that had come to pass.
He could only bear witness, and there were certain events he had not relived since the days when he still dreamed.
“I suppose I built something quite like your Thieves Guild at first, so those of us with nothing could start to build up something of our own. I also began trading in whatever I could get my hands on to learn more magic and spells, ones from far off kingdoms. Ones forbidden. Ones called evil. By the time I had enough power to pull myself up from the slums, I no longer cared who got crushed by my ambitions, just like the powerful had never cared about me.”
Zel gaped when an adult Ulrich, ruler of his legion of the downtrodden, killed one of his followers simply for speaking against him.
In the memory, Ulrich warned others that they would suffer the same fate if they dared similar transgressions, and his five closest friends stood by his side, unbothered by their leader's display of cruelty.
Present day Ulrich watched Zel’s reactions to the scene, thinking the young thief looked sorrowful and sympathetic but not condemning.
Zel saw Ulrich’s actions for the unfortunate necessity Ulrich had believed of them too.
Once. But although most of Ulrich’s other followers remained loyal after that, growth of their underground and magical abilities eventually drew attention from above.
Ulrich showed the battle that erupted soon after, leaving many dead, while he and the others were forced to the borders and barred from returning.
He could almost feel the heat from the fires lighting up the streets and smell the sweat and blood from those fighting as his people retreated.
As they left their home. He knew Zel must feel it too, for the hairs on Zel’s arms would prickle whenever someone used a spell, from ice swaths misting the outer walls of homes to the reconfiguration of inanimate objects, like swords becoming limp lengths of rope, or clothing transforming too large or too small to trip up its wearer—a rainbow of mystical carnage.
Yet still, Zel watched with rapt attention, never judgment or revulsion.
“My remaining followers and I were driven out by others we were not yet powerful enough to best.” Ulrich moved the scenes swiftly through their travels until ending at a more familiar kingdom, although not yet as built up as the one Zel knew.
“Falchovari was young and innocent then and easily awed by traveling elves with magic tricks to distract them from their purses.”
The sequence of a growing kingdom began again, only this time Ulrich was already strong, and he was part of what built rolling hills and farmland into villages, the city, and finally, the shining castle that truly made it a kingdom.
Ulrich was its first and only king.
“In life, if you have ambition, you make friends easily. When you start to gain enemies, your friends aid you. When some of your followers doubt you, you are already too powerful and control them with fear. When you make the choice to pursue power for the sake of subduing others rather than for self-betterment, it becomes your sole purpose, and those who remain with you become more like you, continuing the cycle of cruelty and dominance.”
It had with his companions, and he showed Zel as much, for those original five were just as corrupt as Ulrich by then, taking what they wanted and sneering at those beneath them.