The Monster and the Saint

By Jay D Evans

      In long forgotten days, many eons past, I was a king. I ruled over many millions of subservient subjects that would live and die by my words. With the wave of a hand a man could lose his life or gain land and title. I was a god, worshiped and praised. Without thought or concern I would rule my people. Justice was meted out swiftly and without mercy. I was a tyrant.

     In those years of my rule, two millennia long, my governance went from one small kingdom, lesser in size than most modern day cities, to an Empire that made Rome seem small. It’s been said that at one time the sun never set on the British Empire. This is true in that Britain held lands scattered across the globe, but there was no continuity. My Empire was almost the entire continent. This was a time before time when the world was only one large continent and one ocean.

     I was not alone in my rule. As I conquered I found one that could be, was, my equal. I conquered his kingdom yet he stood before me with pride instead of fear. As he raised his sword to strike me, I looked up at him on his dais and laughed. Not to humiliate him but in mirth. The unmitigated gall of this man to stand up to me, a god, was immeasurable in honor and courage. Instead of striking him dead, I offered a partnership. We would rule together. He with his wisdom and courage, me with my might and savagery. Strength to weakness, weakness to strength. I was chaos and terror, he was order and justice.

     My armies lived to follow my every command. Either that or they died by my hand and my hand alone. Fear, respect, loyalty. All were demanded of every soldier from the lowest footman to the highest ranking general. No matter what the order it was to be carried out immediately; whether to conquer another, weaker, kingdom or to execute his wife, a soldier followed his orders without question and with hast. To tarry would mean death to him, his family and most likely his entire village. I was a monster

     A tyrant and a monster was I before Salai and his fairness. His temperament softened my ferocity. In matters of court, decisions were made on hard evidence, not just hear-say or the word of the accuser. If, in our eyes, the accused was acquitted of the charges against him, his accuser was sentenced for the crime. In this way there were no false accusations against innocent people. Land and title were given to the most loyal and deserving, whether from royal blood or commoner. Extortion, bribery, treason, theft and murder were dealt with instantly and mercilessly at the end of a sword. It was by my hand that thousands were executed before violence ended and peace came to that barbarous land.

     As we rode among our people they would bow down before us. Our people adored us as much the monster as I was. Salai had softened the edges and placated the people. None were hungry nor were they living in poverty. Even the women and children could walk at night without fear of being accosted by another. Our people were protected better than any other ruler had ever protected them. The only thing they had to fear was me.

     As our reign came to an end after two millennia, our Empire began to crumble. With my advanced age I was weak. I could not travel as I had as a younger man so others thought to occupy our far-off land. Salai, also, was far weaker than he had been. We secluded ourselves in our fortress venturing out only when desperately needed.

     First to be overthrown was the far south. Furthest from our home it was least protected to this kind of action. As a younger man I would have sailed the seas or rode across the land and crushed anyone that attempted to take my lands but, as time had been a predator and finally had clutched my life in its’ massive jaws, I could not make the journey and our people cried with anguish as they were overthrown. Rape, murder, arson and theft of property was the life this former peaceful land would now endure until a different time when more peaceful rulers would come and conquer the savages.

     Next was the far north. The people of this land separated into several different tribes to protect themselves from the conquering forces. Faring better than their southern neighbors, they fought the good fight and continued on as guerrilla warriors against those that would unjustly rule them. Hunger and poverty, fear and anger were what was left as this land fell from our Empire.

     It took another millennia for our Empire to completely crumble into what it started as; a small kingdom settled into a valley in the far west, protected by high bluffs and the ocean. Our armies, nothing more than an assembly of militia with broken swords and no armor, would be massacred if attacked. Our palace was no more than a shack among the other broken down dwellings of those closest to us. With no defenses, no weapons and weakened beyond caring we lay in our bed, shadows of the gods of the glory days. The Fates had caught up with the gods and laughed as we lay there, debilitated, unable to even reach for the chamber pot to relieve ourselves.

     After two thousand years of glory and godhood we were alone, save for the ghosts that haunted our memories and tortured our souls. Small and afraid, we begged for death to take us. Lying there, cold and filthy, we begged Death and he laughed. It was not to be that easy. Another half millennia passed before there was nothing left of our kingdom except our humble shack. Ruins all around, uncovered windows allowing the cold and the rain to enter, no door to keep the wolves at bay made our pitiful ending even more pitiful. It was then that Death decided to come and take us. As he carried us across the dark divide he laughed and recounted all my failures and vices. He told me of my crimes against my people and those that I conquered. I had paid the price of being the tyrant and the monster and now it was time for my eternal rest. Hel welcomed me home into her realm of the dead and I accepted my fate.

     Hel told me once again of all my transgressions but she added in all the good that Death had left out. The best, and worst, thing that I had done was entice Salai into ruling with me. He was my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. Hel understood that he had been the other half of a divided whole. It was not until I had bargained with him to rule with me that I had become a whole ruler, a whole man. Salai, also, had been only a half. He was too kind with his subjects; I, too strict. Together we became great leaders, well rounded and well loved.

     Because the ruler of the Underworld could see that we needed each other, that together we comprised a whole but apart we were but shades, she blessed, and cursed, us both. She cursed us to an eternity of life and death. Until we could love each other as we had in our lifetime as kings, we would be sentenced to living and dying over and over. During each life both of us would find the other and we would become the team we had been, with one great exception; our future lives would be filled with hurt, heartache and betrayal. Salai would be cursed with the ego of a god while I was cursed to endure his idiosyncrasies until he would once again be the man, the partner, the other half that he had been. Only then would our sentence be served and we could pass from this world to paradise, never to return to the earth to roam as men. We would be free from the bonds of life and death.

     The dark Lady of Death further sentenced me with Salai not remembering our life together while he was in mortal form. He would rebel against any idea of our past or future together. Only vague shadows of moments long past would haunt his subconscious but he would dismiss them as dreams or fantasy. It would be up to me to nudge the past into his consciousness and the memories long forgotten to re-emerge and bring him home. Through it all his deep love for me would be hidden from him, surfacing then going back into hiding.  He would be easily misled by others that would want him for his beauty, physique and charm but not for who and what he was.

     There would be times we would be inseparable and others when we would be torn apart. Neither one truly living happily unless with the other but not realizing that is what it would take. Hardship would hound us through the ages as would strife and war. As long as we remained together there will be nothing that could stop us but apart our lives would feel incomplete and misery would invade where happiness should be. It was to be my task to bring this to fruition. Salai will be the clay for me to mold into what he once was.

     This was my time in Hel’s realm. Torture to say the least. To lose my soul mate was bad enough but to be told that I would live until the end of time, over and over, to find him and lose him was more torturous than living in the darkness never seeing him again. To know that it was him, yet not, over a thousand million lives was almost unbearable. To risk reaching out to the one that is my life and knowing that he knows, but doesn’t, that I am what he needs was heart wrenching to say the least. Hel said it would not be an easy labor but would be worth enduring in the end. Salai would, at last, become the man he had been and see with clear eyes. It would be then that we would rule again gloriously and then finally come to our eternal rest in Paradise.

     Salai fared far better than I. He was taken into Paradise to spend his time until he was reborn in another place and time. His had been a far better life than mine and for his suffering alongside this tyrant, he was given a gift beyond compare. The gods took mercy on him and took the memories of the suffering from him. All he remembered was the good, the glory, the honor. It was his just reward for what I had forced upon him. I felt no bitterness for I loved him as a brother and more. We had spent several lifetimes ruling as gods. He the god of justice and me the god of chaos. Until we returned in another time and place, he would repose in Eden, not knowing our future. All was as it should be until that time we were reborn into the world.