Steven George & the Terror
7
The Thief of Kings
ONCE UPON A TIME, at the birth of the nations, there was a man who would be King. It might surprise you to know that there was nothing special about him. He wasn’t born a king, nor was he of royal lineage. In fact, there was nothing about him that would distinguish him from anyone else you might have met at that time. He was completely ordinary.
His one defining characteristic was his fierce love of land. Not “the” land as in a particular country. Just land. He loved land. In fact, the area where he lived was much too crowded for him, so he packed up his meager possessions and moved away.
Far away.
He walked past the last farmhouse and continued on until he met no more people. When he had met no people while traveling for three days, he walked on another three days, just to be sure. At last, he began to look for a place to live. The place had to be rich in wild game and fertile soil. It had to have ready materials for building his shelter. It had to be high where he could see the terrain and defend it if that became necessary. You see, in all these things, he thought like a king.
Finally, he came to a high hill, clear on the side that faced out looking over a vast sea, and bordered on the other by a dense forest. All around him he saw fertile fields and plentiful game. There was wood and stone to build with and he was pleased. As he stood at the top of that hill, he looked all around him and shouted out at the top of his lungs, “I claim this land as my own! I am King of All I survey!” He took an axe and cut a tall sapling, stripping it and driving it into the ground at the center of the hill. To the sapling he tied an old shirt and proudly declared it the Kingdom of Allisurvey. Then he set to work.
One thing you must say for this young king was that he was industrious. In one summer, he built a strong shelter atop the hill, he planted crops, he set traps and fishing lines. He was certain it would be a long cold winter and was determined to be ready for it.
The winter came and he was snug in his house with plenty of food and a warm fire. He busied himself with tasks that could be done in the cold weather, like tanning skins and sewing clothing. And in the spring, he began again to plant and hunt and fish and build. It was not long before he had shelter enough for a family and perhaps even a friend. So, he decided to return to the town he had come from and entice a bride and perhaps a friend to return to his kingdom.
But before he left, he decided to fully survey the Kingdom of Allisurvey. He walked the perimeter of his lands as far away as he could get and still see the shirt flag that now flew from a pole atop his house. At this point he drove a stake into the ground and hung a small scrap of hide. And so he went, all the way around his land.
When he was satisfied, he reckoned that he had time for a journey to and from his former home to collect his bride and friend.
It was not a difficult journey, but it was difficult convincing anyone to join him in his new kingdom. And this was when he showed his true colors. Unable to woo a bride, he determined to steal one. He traded for the few supplies he felt he would need, and in the middle of the night, in the middle of the town square, the King of Allisurvey declared war on the town.
He stole into a home where he had seen a woman he desired enter, tied her up in her sleep, emptied her wardrobe and larder, loaded all he could carry into his cart, and left town. As he left the town behind, he turned to look back at it and announced, “I accept your surrender.”
Now you might think that a stolen bride is as good as no bride at all, but the thief King kept her bound to the wagon until he reached his homestead, by which time the poor girl was so lost, she dared not run away. He became progressively more kind to her and if she did not grow to love him, she grew to accept her fate and tolerate him.
Though it sounds strange to us in this age—barbaric—it was not an uncommon practice in that far distant past. May it never come upon us again!
Now, the work of two people on the land caused it to be even more productive, and before long there was a son in the house as well. Each year at the end of harvest, King Alli, as he called himself, would walk the perimeter of his kingdom, and move the survey stakes outward away from the flag ten paces.
One summer, a traveler approached the little kingdom and the King of Allisurvey went out to meet him, and offer him hospitality or a challenge, as seemed appropriate. It happened that the man was searching for just such a land as King Alli possessed. He saw Alli’s wife and how productive his land was, and he determined to possess it. But concealing his desires, he enjoyed the hospitality of the royal table and slept near the hearth.
Alli’s wife was both smart and ruthless—learning well from her husband. Weighing the possibilities of being a slave to one man or the other, she chose the evil she knew over the one she did not. She warned Alli that the traveler was not sleeping. When the traveler came to kill Alli and take his wife, she helped Alli throw a net over the intruder and subdue him. The visitor became a prisoner.
Alli gave the traveler a simple choice. He could remain, bound to a rock and in servitude to the royals, or he could be slain with his own sword. The traveler chose the former and entered into servitude to King Alli.
With an additional pair of hands—even bound to the rock that he had to carry with him everywhere—the Kingdom of Allisurvey prospered. Prospered in that there was plentiful food and shelter for all its residents. And each fall, Alli moved the stakes of his kingdom out another ten paces.
Realizing that he could no longer survey all his land from the hill top, he built his house taller and raised his flag higher.
I shan’t speak of all the ways that King Alli and his sons, and even, eventually, his servant, recruited more people to their distant kingdom. Suffice it to say that the little kingdom often declared war on the outskirts of another land and then accepted surrender, whether given or not, as they carried away more people and wealth. These foreign lands seldom knew they had been at war and lost.
And every year, Alli and his wife and his children would walk the perimeter of the kingdom and move the border stakes out ten paces—never more, never less. Every year, they built the homestead larger and taller, so the tattered flag could be seen from farther away.
When King Alli was very old, he built a great tower where he spent the remainder of his days looking out at Allisurvey.
Though King Alli founded a country, it was not so large as it is today; for each year, the spirit of King Alli is said to go to the borders and move the stakes ten paces farther out. So, the kingdom has grown to this day, stealing a bit from other kingdoms each year.
Some say the spirit has turned malevolent. Others say it has always been Alli himself who declares war on villages and carries away women for his harem. But the reigning King of Allisurvey, which is known today as Arining, knows that a new and darker force than the Thief of Kings is plundering his borders.
King Alli was always expanding the territory, but for these seven years, the marker posts have moved closer in. Now, it is the women of the villages of Arining who are carried away. Some new pretender is about, attempting to steal the kingdom and terrorize the people.
So, the King, today, has sent for a great Master of Dragons, to send him into the farthest reaches of the kingdom, there to master the Terror of Rich Reach, the wealthiest and most remote province of the country; for surely if he has mastered his dragon, he can master his terror as well.
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