I came from a wealthy, caring family. Our estate was located on a rare patch of soil, untainted by the poisons that normally contaminated so many parts of the kingdom; valuable, the envy of its neighbors and the pride of all who called it home.
Our family fortune was based on our orchards, and what we made with them. It required skilled workers to make the high quality cider, and tend and pluck from the trees. I remember also how the gentle breezes from the property's lake would rustle the apple trees, and how every branch would bend in the same direction in a synchronized motion like the arm movements of graceful dancers. We had one vital tree in particular in the very center, and from that tree's apples came the most delicious of the orchid's fruit; the most exquisite ciders and brandies. That wan sunlight shining through the leaves of that tree was what I most remember. That same light haunts my pleasant dreams and colors all the times of my life when I was most happy.
It's all gone now, of course. The last I heard the estate's new owners brought down the trees so that the wood could be put to other uses. Vast swathes of them hacked down. What trees remained were left for the hordes of burrowing insects; their fruit was left unharvested and the weight dragged down the limbs.
My family lived in a three-story manor constructed a hundred years before I was born. We had all the amenities; some galvanic illumination for dark nights,, heated water that was relatively free of pollutants to bathe in, and best of all, a mechanical lift built by some mysterious ancestor in my family line ages past. It was immensely helpful in the lifting of heavy furniture from the first floor all the way to the attic when we needed it. It was also something that we enjoyed showing to our few visitors and guests. When my father became virtually bedridden later in life, I was told that the lift made his movements through the manor easier. The thought still gives me some comfort; that in his final days he found some relief from the illness even in a small way.
Of all of the manor's one hundred and twenty-three rooms, my favorite was the library, where the walls were covered from floor to ceiling by shelves packed nearly to overflowing with volumes. I recall the many times when I was young how I would use the tracked stepladder, with its brass wheels, to glide around the circumference of the great domed room. I made a game of it. I would close my eyes, and gripping the ladder I would let it slide around the room; where it landed, I would open my eyes and read whichever book my eye lay upon. I realize that it may now sound strange, but as I said I was young and foolish then.
The profits from the orchards paid for my education at the university, and after graduation I sought employment at the palace as a scribe, only for me to be offered the position of assistant to the Chancellor himself.
I recall the day with some clarity. I was staring out the window in my quarters, that had been newly freshened and prepared after the endless years of studies at the University. After having done so much, learned so much, at such a frantic pace for so long, the return to the calm estate seemed to place me in a malaise. I felt unsure of myself, asking myself constantly if there was anything more that needed to be done. I needed tasks to occupy my restless mind. During the weeks wherein I awaited reply from the numerous businesses that I had sent my applications and credentials to, I attempted other means of filling the endless hours. Often I would go down to the first floor, seeking out the house servants and offered to help them in the cleaning of the silverware. I went to my father and asked if he needed help with organizing his ledgers concerning the family business.
"Grumper," my father said. "When you were away for ten years, we managed to survive. And you've always been a little too short for harvest work, you know that. We're all proud of what you've already accomplished, and now is your chance to rest."
Sighing, I returned to my room, and the writing desk it contained. I opened a favorite book and began to copy phrases and passages that intrigued me. It helped keep my penmanship sharp and kept my intellect keen. It was then that I was alerted by one of the servants' bell; the one used only when important mail had arrived.
Running downstairs, I took the sealed envelope marked with the yellow crown seal from the waiting manservant. Ripping it open with a single rip, my eyes scanned the document and with every word my heart rate increased.
It informed that due to my outstanding academic performance, that I was to prepare immediately for travel as I was to begin my duties in the service of the Chancellor and His Royal Majesty as soon as I arrived. My travel and housing had already been arranged. The letter stated that my offer for employment would be immediately accepted after an interview with the Chancellor, as well as the presentation of certain genealogical records. The letter made it clear that I was to bring originals, not documents copied by hand.
Thrilled, I made my departure plans immediately. Unthinking in the excitement I located the requested documents in the manor's library, and took them with me in my satchel along with several books that I had been meaning to read. As I awaited the arrival of my transport, I plucked an apple or two and placed it also within the satchel, thinking that should I grow hungry on the way I would have sustenance.
They sent a carriage for me, and it arrived two days after I had received the letter. It was a grand thing of gilded wheels and chromed roof. Tiny galvanic lights set within ornate lanterns hung from each of the carriage's four corners. The driver was attired in the motley garb of the Royal Guard, and he opened the door to an interior of oxblood leather and polished, scintillant wood. The beast of burden was a fine creature, much larger and healthier than the lean and skinny creatures that we used on the estate for the tilling of the soil and the transporting of fruit. Its haunches were muscular, the sheen of its scales was lustrous as though they had been polished, the ivory of its curling horns was gleaming. It was a proud creature, it snorted with gusto, and eyed me as though I were an insect.
Who are you, little man? It seemed to say. Who am I that I should bear you to where you are going? I was bred for the mighty, not the miniscule.
I stood there, awestruck. I must have looked foolish to the driver, who gestured again for me to enter. Snapping out of the stupor, I stepped into that interior and rode in the carriage to the palace where my life's work would begin.
The ride seemed go by quickly, though it must have been half a day at least. I stared out the window at all the glorious landscapes and settlements that made Oriana the greatest kingdom that the world had ever known. I had traveled a bit as a student, but now I saw it all as with new eyes: the Windmill Forests, the Prismatic Labyrinth stretching for miles in all its bewildering complexity, the Water Fields where every surface was a puddle, the town of Topaz where it was said that the statues spoke, the Plain of Misdirection. Each place had its uniqueness, and its beauty.
Yes, my confessor, on the outside Oriana is very beautiful.
I remember getting my first look of the Palace. It stood barely atop the mountainous block of stone known as the Throne, a golden ornament clamped on a stone pedestal. It is said that the fortress was raised so high upon its bastion of rock that it stood above the very clouds themselves. Not true, of course. The smog that was Oriana's air still lingered there, surrounding it like a ring of mud but due to the fortress's great height, most of its environs stood in the direct sunlight for most of the time. Still, the air around the Palace is cleaner, fresher and less filled with particulates. Afflictions of the lungs is almost unheard among those who call the Palace home.
There was only a single road ran from the bottom of its bastion of rock to the front gates, and it was a shallow cleft that meanders up the side of the mountain, zigzagging at barely reasonable angles. It was this cleft that formed a crude spiraling path for the carriage I was in to ascend the mountain, providing just enough traction for ascent.
I recall the bounce and shake as that shining-silver carriage rattled up the winding road. The driver snapped the reins; the beast of burden screaming in protest. Just out the window was the rocky chasm; if hooves had slipped, the carriage would have tipped three thousand feet down.
Finally the carriage stopped and I stood before those gilded gates that I saw only in books before.
The Palace of the Throne of the Kingdom of Oriana. It was the center of our nation, the center of our world, the center of power and authority since recorded history had begun.
The Palace, the center of everything!
And it was there, at the center of all things, where occurred the most tragic events of my life.