The Queen Of All Strange Things

10

I still had half of the book to complete by the time I got up the next day and I woke up late so I had to rush downstairs for breakfast. Andrew and I didn’t speak a word during breakfast. It was easy for me since I had my nose stuck on a book as I slowly chewed my pasta. I guess today’s theme was Italian. Most of the time, I get so occupied in a story that I forget to care about whether or not those people around me thought of me as a total nerd or a complete showoff.  Andrew too minded his own business and ate as if there was no person as Amethyst Stone. But to both or our annoyance, Zeus materialized in of the seat wearing his old grandfather kit, but without the hat.
‘Hm… Italian,’ he said as he helped himself with a dish or two. Neither of us spoke at all. I was sort of guilty about what happened yesterday. It was bad manners to enter into someone else’s room. I should have left it alone and suggest him to tidy it up. Besides, I am not even minutely related to him and so I didn’t have the right. I spent a whole fifteen minutes staring at the same page as I thought about it. I looked up from my book; Andrew was playing with his food.
‘I-I’m sorry about your room,’ I whispered so that Zeus will not hear.
‘Hm,’ he grunted.
I think that apology was enough for my conscience to clear itself and I went back to my book. Yet, still it didn’t feel right.
‘Look I_’
‘Sorry I yelled,’ said Andrew.
‘It’s_’
‘That room was a mess,’ he said. He looked up at me. ‘Next time, tell me when you go inside.’
‘Uh, okay,’ I said.
I won’t ever go in that place again even if there was a dead body inside.
And I think everything sort of settled. Finally Zeus looked up from his food and tossed something which looked like a newspaper at us.
I was closest to it as I reached out for it. Its title read, “THE DAILY INVISIBLE”.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You have newspapers as well?’
Andrew shrugged. He helped himself with some Italian pizza. I looked down at the headlines and almost dropped the paper. Andrew pulled the newspaper off my hands and stared at the front cover.
‘What is this? HISTORY REPEATS AMONG ENCHANTER SIBLINGS? What do they take us for.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And what does it mean about history repeats?’
I snatched the paper away from him.
‘Hay!’
‘Eat your pizza.’
The front cover had the picture of me and Andrew glaring at each other at the corridor; it was a very close shot. How did they even get this photo? I sear there was nobody there yesterday when we fought.
I couldn’t imagine this going on in Television. Below that were a long article and old Egyptian style wall painting of a girl and boy with all of their arms and legs visible (they draw people strange that way) and the girl was scowling while the boy behind her who was pointing his tongue at her. The girl had short chopped hair with the Egyptian braided design and golden crown, wearing a chiton like dress. The boy only wore a skirt like thing. I read the article; my eyes grew wider with every sentence I read.
‘What does it say?’ said Andrew. He snatched the paper back while I was distracted. He took a while to read it.
‘They are comparing us to Princess Quara and Prince Quaron?’ he said.
Zeus nodded, almost beamed.
‘Who are they? I get they are the two in the picture.’
‘The last Enchanters in the Royal bloodline,’ said Zeus.
I looked at the picture, brother and sister. The girl looked older. I see why they were trying to compare them to us. ‘I see they fought a lot.’
Zeus nodded. ‘Caused havoc back in the days.’
‘But why compare us to them?’
‘They have a theory that we both might be their reincarnations,’ said Andrew. His face was rather pale. There were dragons behind the boy in the old wall paining, horses behind the girl. I stared at Andrew. ‘You and that Prince are enchanters who were good with dragons,’ I said.
‘Quara was a Horse Enchantress,’ said Zeus.
‘But Amethyst enchant fairies,’ said Andrew.
‘True, but the world does not know that yet.’
‘This is crazy,’ I said.
‘This is perfect!’ cried Zeus. ‘It will be more the reason for you to be Heir to the throne. Imagine this, two Enchanters reincarnate to serve their duty to rule Sightless, how is that?’
‘Wouldn't that mean we would want to get revenge from you as well?’ said Andrew.
‘Why_’
‘He killed them,’ said Andrew in a matter of fact.
I gaped at Zeus. ‘You killed them? How?’
Zeus’s face turned red. I guess it was cold blooded. But he composed himself. ‘If we can convince everyone that Amethyst is in fact a Horse Enchantress…’
‘I don’t think that will work,’ said Andrew doubtfully.
‘But if we can pull it through!’
I banged the table and both Andrew and Zeus jumped.
I turned to Zeus. ‘I definitely am not going to be some piece in your stupid political game until I know the exact reason why I’m here.  Why are you so hell bent to make me queen?’
‘Well,’ said Zeus with this “it’s all my fault” look. ‘I did a mistake three thousand years ago by getting rid the world of Enchanters, I plan o fix that.’
I snorted. ‘Really? Zeus with a guilty conscience? It’s the first time I have ever heard of it.’
Zeus looked rather taken aback.
‘For once, she does make sense,’ said Andrew.
‘But why did you kill them in the first place anyway?’
‘To be the king of Sightless,’ said Zeus. ‘We Greeks conspired to take the throne but it didn’t work that well…’
‘How long were you king?’
‘A century or two perhaps.’
‘Just a century or two! Sure. Then who became the Ruler of Sightless after that?’
Zeus stood up from his chair and walked to the verandah, staring out at the Nile River. ‘The death of the last heirs of Sightless was a disaster. A lot of Deities fought over each other for the throne. The Greek, the Romans, the Norse, Indians, Celtic…  It was utter chaos. The war went on for more than two thousand years with no permanent ruler. To settle matters in Sightless, the Council was created where democracy took over the kingdom once it became wide spread in the world. But it will not last long. To keep history from repeating itself, Deities were declared not to have any right to the throne. Now there is a debate to allow Seers to bear the right since the Enchanters were extinct.’
‘Until Andrew,’ I said.’
‘Yes. But it does not mean that the Seers in the council will not try to gain power. It the Council denounces the Enchanters from holding the right to the throne, the right will be passed over to an ancient Seer line and there are many ancient Seer families as well. It will be a cold war in Sightless over the throne.’
‘Oh,’ I said, finally understanding the situation here.
‘We cannot allow any Seer to be a ruler,’ said Zeus.
I looked at Andrew.
‘I have to agree with that,’ said Andrew. ‘The seers in the council are a nuisance. Not all, but most.’
‘Only the power hungry will seek the throne,’ said Zeus. ‘Humans are materialistic. They only have the sight in the visible world. They are not fit to rule the Visibles. But you two being too young, they Council might name a Seer to be ruler until you both come of age, but I doubt you will ever get the throne after that.’
‘I doubt me being the ruler will make much difference than allowing some Seer to rule. Even worse, I might destroy this place.’
‘You will do fine.’
‘What it means is that you are so easy to manipulate,’ said Andrew.
I exchanged glanced at both of them. What Andrew said is true, I am easy to manipulate.
‘Either way, you are the oldest,’ said Zeus. ‘With you around, Andrew’s chance is slim unless you die.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ I said.
‘And remember to keep your wits about. There is a lot of aiming for your death now.’
‘I heard.’
‘Andrew can take a breath off from security.’
Andrew snorted. Great, now I’m the prime target.
‘But I don’t want to be queen!’ I croaked again.
Zeus ignored me. ‘By the way, I found a gnome roaming about in the hallways?’
‘Trevelyan,’ I sighed.
‘He said he knows you.’
‘He lives in my house.’
‘Is that so,’ said Zeus. ‘Anyway, if people see fairies trailing around you they will start to believe you are a Fairy Enchantress. All Evidence of you being one should be eradicated!’
‘Sure. Whatever.’
‘Make sure that there are no fairies around you.’
Zeus looked at my hair.
‘And get those braids off your hair.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘They just braid them whenever I’m asleep.’
‘I can keep fairies away,’ said Andrew.
‘How are you going to do that?’
‘There is a deep revelry between fairies and dragons,’ said Andrew.
‘That’s even more perfect,’ said Zeus. ‘Since the creatures that most represents the enchanter most gets a stronger effect of the enchantment, your rivalry will be true and deep just like those two!’
This god is crazy!
‘Well,’ I said. ‘That explains why Andrew is so mean, grumpy and high and mightily all the time.’
Andrew scowled. ‘And you being annoying, arrogant and spiteful.’
But Zeus interrupted. ‘To be a Horse enchantress, you must be proud, stubborn and strong… I hope you can manage that. And associate a lot of horse related species.’
‘What if they don’t like me?’
‘We’ll see.’
Andrew and I exchanged glances. I had a very bad feeling about this.
Zeus left with a slice of pizza. ‘Hm…. This is very good.’
Once he was out of sight, I sunk deep into my chair. ‘How many lies must I live in?’
‘It won’t be hard for you,’ said Andrew.
‘Why’s that? I suck at lying.’
‘You sure?’ said Andrew. ‘I don’t know, fairies are supposed to be good tricksters.’
I frowned as I got up. ‘Being a fairy enchantress does not make me a fairy… and they don’t lie! That’s ridiculous. They was much good mannered than you will ever be.’
Once I reached the library, I found Athena waiting with her arms crossed. ‘You are late.’
‘Blame your dad,’ I said. ‘He has this crazy idea going on in his head.’
Athena shook her head in disappointment and started our lesson again beginning with African Mythology, which did not have better names than the Greek ones. At least they sounded good. They had gods for plagues, rain, the Mother of all and you get the idea. Norse was more interesting since the only people I know were Thor (the Marvel version), Sif (also the Marvel Version and isn’t she supposed to have golden hair? And oh, yeah she is the goddess related to Earth or sometimes fertility or something), Odin and Loki. I knew there were this nine realm talk in it but I never knew they were detailed. There was a realm for giants, a realm for elves, a realm for the gods, a realm for small folk like us, a realm of snow, a realm of more sort of things and this tree which connects it all and a giant squirrel guarding it (don’t ask). Then we jumped to Japanese mythology. The names were…. Well Japanese named were odd when you first hear them. I don’t know since I didn’t get to watch much Anime. I discovered that they had a lot of demons, spirits, deities and have a belief in grim reapers a.k.a. Shinigami. There were fox demons, cat demons, dog demons, alien headed bald guys who secretly enter houses and drink tea, snow women, and fish demons and so on.
I was waiting for Enof to rescue me and take me on tour. But no! Athena took the whole day and also started Indian mythology! She started with his romantic story about a queen who was kidnapped by this powerful king in a neighboring kingdom and about how the queen’s husband (with the help of the monkey king, not the Chinese version) rescued his wife by somehow declaring war. It was the Trojan War all over again.
‘My head is exploding,’ I moaned.
Then she told me about the blue skinned god named Krishna (who is the reincarnation of Vishnu) who appeared to defeat Kamsa (the son of a demon they say) and other deities along with the Great Brahma who was said to be the creator. There was also a deity with a head of an elephant named Gahna.
‘He is known as the god of Wisdom,’ said Athena.
‘You must get along well,’ I said with a yawn.
Athena gave a little scowl. ‘Not exactly.’
Then…. Even then she wasn’t done; she started with Chinese and Red Indian mythology! It was all about dragons and gods in the Chinese version and about creepy tales and animal spirits in the Red Indian ones. I was so sleepy that I could only remember the story about a girl falling down from the moon.
‘Now Celtic…’
‘Athena!’ I moaned.
‘Since you came from Britain, I think you know much about Celtic Mythology.’
I was yawning; it was eight in the evening. By the time I was finally dismissed, I was already asleep.
‘Amethyst!’
I got with a start and moaned again, went down to my room, slumped onto my bed and dreamt of dragons chasing me up to the moon on a top of a giant eagle.