Author's Note: Some people (you know who you are ;)) have demanded a new, good chapter addition in order to make up for my long absence. Hopefully, this will meet your needs for installation 10. I just got to Florida yesterday, and am visiting family, so yay! Have fun with the new chapter, and I'll have fun at Busch Gardens ;)
For a while after the King had withdrawn His visage from her sight, Lily continued to talk to Him, and He answered gladly. Their conversation was animated for quite a while, but then Lily started to trail off, and the King with her. After a couple of hours, they sat in silence. With the disease overcoming her and there being no image of Him to jog her memory, the King was soon pushed to the back of Lily's mind. She began to feel bored, and started to drum her fingers on the bars, grumbling that she'd like to be let out. The King, unaddressed, remained silent.
Every once in a while, one of the monstrous guards would walk by, and she'd flatten herself against the opposite wall of her cell, trembling in terror. They, for the most part, ignored her. The odd one would leer at her, or growl something that was probably derogatory in a language that she couldn't understand. The guttural squealing, barking, and hissing made her skin prickle and her limbs tremble. The King, unasked, did not alleviate her fear.
Just as Lily was starting to fall asleep, a guard with the head of a badger, the body of a man, and the claws of a scorpion pulled a key from its belt and unlocked her cell door. Lily leapt up, and shrank back fearfully. The thing stashed its key, and grabbed the chain between her wrists, and jerked her unmercifully forward. White hot complaint shot through her arms and she bit back a wail. The thing swept along at a pace Lily couldn't keep up with. It ended up dragging her, and not even seeming to notice the dead weight hanging from its arm. A heavy deadbolt was dragged back on a door, and it was jerked open. Lily was unceremoniously flung outside. She could feel new bruises developing where the old ones had been healed by the King's touch.
Before her eyes even had a chance to adjust to the new burst of light, she felt something soft and blanketlike being draped around her shoulders, and a strong pair of arms embracing her tenderly. Assuming that it was the King, she didn't pull away. A soft voice was cooing, "It's okay, you will be safe now. Don't be afraid, my darling." This voice didn't belong to the King, but the voice was so kind, and the hug was so warm and comforting...
Lily began to sob as memories of last night assaulted her again like a spiked club. The arms encircling her tightened, and gentle fingers caressed her back and hair. "You're safe now," the voice said again softly, full of comfort and honey. "I'm going to take you to a place where nothing like this will ever happen to you again." Suddenly, slight pressure was on her wrists. Lily's eyes bulged, and her earthshattering shriek split the air. "Sorry, I'm so sorry," the voice said desperately, and its owner let go of her quickly and backed up. Lily's eyes were swimming with stars and tears, so all she could see of him was a vague misty outline which went from one silhouette to two as her head spun with pain.
"Here," he offered, and his fuzzy image held out its hand, with something in it. "Eat this, it will make you feel better." A tiny part of Lily's mind wondered if she should trust this man enough to eat his food. He had only hugged her, after all. That didn't make him a good person. But then, it was a very tiny part of Lily's mind after all. She reached out and took the offered food. Wincing as she moved her arms, she ate it.
Her vision cleared, her pain dulled, and her heart rate returned to normal. Lily sighed in great relief, and took another huge bite out of the fruit. Her worries fled, her painful memories of the past departed, and her fear disintegrated. Smiling and laughing, she ripped another section of the fruit. A sense of adventure entered her, and she felt a longing to ride the tiger, to fence with Death... to do something wonderously daring and dangerous, and then laugh it off as if it had been nothing whilst within her heart treasuring the delicious rush of flirting with danger. She looked up at the man, eyes wide with thrill. She leapt to her feet, laughing and dancing.
The man watched, smiling and laughing also. "I am glad to see that you enjoy my fruit," he said, watching her cavort. "It is one of the many delightful fruits we grow in my palace. We grow them in great quantities."
"I would greatly love to see your palace, sir," Lily said smiling as he rose gracefully to his feet. He took her in his arms again, and kissed her forehead.
"You are on the grounds right now." he told her. He waved expansively at the area in general. Lily looked, and gasped. The area was gorgeous. Above them spread an enormous Banyan tree, with its strange yet wonderful aerial root system hanging down from the branches to meet the ground. Considering carefully, Lily estimated that it must spread for at least half a mile. The ground was covered in a damp spongy emerald green grass, interrupted by the occasional bush of bright tropical flowers or spray of fiery orange mountain lillies. A bright, glassy pond lay about a stone's throw to the right, full of cattails and surrounded by perfect sitting rocks. Between the Banyan tree and the pond, about a mile away stood a vast marble palace, which glowed golden in the setting sun. A nearby basil tree flavored the air with a delicious savory smell. A path made of mossy river stones went from the guard house to the palace. The palace's owner (a king, perhaps?) watched Lily closely, smiling at her awe at the beauty of his property.
"You enjoy my home?" he asked her. At a loss for words, Lily nodded as she took it all in. "Everything that you see here is my creation." he informed her calmly. "Even you yourself are my creation. I made you, and I love you."
Lily paused. "You made me?" she asked, bewildered. She thought for a second, looking around, and then turned back to him. "But- why can't I remember?"
"I'm afraid that the fruit doesn't remove all ill effects that you had before you ate it," he said apologetically. "You are still rather confused and forgetful, and at times have even hallucinated things. For example, you had some rather nasty illusions of terrible things being done to you yesterday." He paused, pain filling his eyes. He looked away from her. "You even hallucinated that I had done some of these things to you." Tears trickled slowly from the corners of his eyes, and Lily was touched, and exceedingly sad to have been the cause of his pain. She walked over, and spread her elbows to slip the chain between the manacle behind his head, the best she could do for a comforting hug. He wrapped his arms around her in return, and kissed her deeply on the lips. "It was heartbreaking," he said softly after the contact of their lips had been broken. "My dearest, most beloved creation stood screaming and weeping before me, pleading with me to stop harming her, or to get others to stop. You stood there before me, having violent visions which no one could stop, and nobody could comfort you or even make you see them. I took you outside the palace to see the city's best physician, and all the way we had to hold you down to keep you from hurting yourself. And you thought that we were forcing you to-" he broke off, as if it were too painful for him to continue.
"But I'm better now, right?" Lily asked fearfully.
"Mostly," he replied. "However, you are still prone to some mild hallucinations. My guards tell me that you were convinced that you were talking to someone in your bedroom. They were standing guard outside your door, and they heard you start sobbing, and then talking to someone. They were afraid someone had broken in, or that you were having another episode, so they went in and checked on you. You were wrapping your arms around thin air."
"So," she said reluctantly, "there's no King, then?"
"My dear," he said softly, stroking her hair with a sad expression, "I am the only king in this world. I have several officials under me, but the royal throne belongs to me alone. If you truly have met someone who calls himself king, then it is treason and he must be put to death."
Lily looked down quickly. "He was a great man," she said softly. "But He wasn't a man in the way that you are. He said that He was made of a substance called spirit. Spirit could touch, but not be touched unless it allowed the contact. He was perfect in love and kindness, and knew all things. He wrapped Himself in all of the light of the heavens. And wherever He entered in, all darkness perished."
"He sounds like a truly wonderful story," he replied. "But I'm afraid we have no such beings in this place. In fact, I would be absolutely shocked if they existed anywhere at all."
She kept her gaze directed downward. She felt a deep sadness in thinking that the One who had loved her, comforted her, and even saved her might not even exist after all. How much hallucinating had she done before this man, her creator, had cured her? She looked up at him. "Thank you very much for curing me, and then taking the time to explain things to me."
"Of course, my dear." he said softly, and hugged her tightly. He kissed her hair and forehead tenderly. "Come, let us go home."
"Yes," Lily said softly.
A shining being hidden from mortal eyes stood high up on the partition with crossed arms, watching as the woman and the rotting one in a tattered robe walked across the parched dead ground toward the fire-blackened castle.