The Story of the Virulent Crown

The Story of the Virulent Crown

 

By Andre Ricardo

 

There once was a king in the land of Vouyanne whose name was Etienne. Terrifying visions plagued King Etienne III. He saw his kingdom fall, his long and proud line extinguished, and invaders from across the Northwest conquering all his forefathers had made. To quell these visions, he had to act. He married young, quickly producing many potential heirs, chief among them was his eldest son, whose name was also Etienne, a big brute like his father. His next child was a daughter, Vivienne, whose singing voice was like the birds. Following Vivienne was another daughter, Clarice, who found peace in books. Lastly, there was Antoine, who was blessed with aptitude in the magical arts. 

With the line of succession secure, Etienne was proud, yet terror continued to plague him. He saw the crown of Vouyanne cast to the ground, bent out of shape. The king decided to never take off his crown. He wore it at all hours of the day, even at night while he slept. Yet still the terror grew and grew. He saw the invaders sharpening their blades and readying their siege machines. He saw archers loading crossbows and battlemages practicing their destructive spells. War was coming, and Etienne had to stop it.

And he stopped it by causing it. Etienne gathered his armies for war. He took half the men from all the villages and towns and made them soldiers. The blacksmiths worked day and night, sleeplessly forging the implements of King Etienne III’s great war at threat of death. Etienne unleashed the Vouyannais upon the Northwest. 

King Etienne III’s great war was fierce and brought great sorrow to the land. Yet still he had no peace and continued to see the crown fall in his dreams. He saw his children kidnapped by the hidden spies of the invaders Etienne had made war with. Thus, King Etienne III locked his children within the four towers of his palace. None could enter, and none could leave. The children were brought food and drink by pulleys at the top of their towers. 

Yet still, even after sealing away his heirs and waging war on his enemies, King Etienne III saw the crown not just fall, but shatter into a thousand flecks of gold. The King had to protect his crown. He ignored the queen’s passing. He neglected to attend her funeral. He even paid little attention to his war. All he focused on was protecting the crown, even from his own allies, who he believed would betray him and take his crown.

And his allies did betray him. They sought out the Coven of Pet-Derwelyn. These sorcerers, witches, summoners, and liches of the Coven were adept in the old ways. Their magic was the same as that of the old Verntic shamans from before the Sorillian Empire ruled the Northwest. The Vouyannais begged the Coven to punish King Etienne III for his wickedness. After being touched by the Vouyannais’ plea, the Coven agreed to help and came to an agreement as to what to do. The crown. The source of all King Etienne III’s fears. 

Late in the night, King Etienne III awoke to a great pain. The greatest pain. He felt bitter cold seep into his bones and bite at his fingers while also the sensation of burning fire flowed across his entire body. He felt his teeth ache, his bones break, his skin flake, his eyes bake. He felt his hair pull, his heart lull, and misery in his soul. He felt his toes smashed, his stomach gashed, his fingers gnashed, his back lashed, and his shins bashed. Every kind of pain was felt then, and worse yet, it didn’t stop. 

The King burst from his chambers screaming wildly and flailing across the palace. At last, he tripped and fell down the stairs, knocking his crown from his head. The king was soothed, rid of his pain. For a moment. The crown lay bent upon the ground. The king was drawn to it. It pulled him closer. He took the crown up in his hands and bent it back into shape, then returned it to his head. The misery returned. The king shouted of curses. Of witchcraft. Of sorcery, and trickery, and foul deeds. The king mounted his steed and gathered his royal guard. They were to attack the enemy immediately and without mercy until they could answer for the king’s woes, for which they surely were responsible. 

The battle was bloody and short and soon the king and all his royal guard lay dead in the mud. News of the defeat reached the king’s palace. His horse dutifully returned home, with the crown of Vouyanne hanging delicately on the horse’s stirrup. It dropped to the ground at the feet of the palace guard. With King Etienne III dead, King Etienne IV took the throne, and the crown. Released from the tower, he spied the gilded circlet on the ground and placed it on his head, immediately entranced by it.

 And King Etienne IV felt proud and ready to take on his father’s work, as well as a toothache. He barked commands at his vassals, directed his father’s war, and had physicians from abroad examine him every day to treat his growing ailments. A new pain sprung up in him each day, and each day afterwards they worsened. Yet so too did King Etienne IV’s ambition and terror of befalling the same fate as his father. 

The war must be won, but King Etienne IV could not fight it himself, lest the enemy slay him and steal his crown. He hid himself away in his chambers, never leaving. He grew afraid of the sun and nature beyond his windows and soon found himself living in a wardrobe. His pains and fears grew stronger. He screamed for his servants and physicians to leave him, refusing treatment and food. After a long time hiding in the wardrobe, King Etienne IV’s screams fell silent. His sister, Vivienne, found him dead in the wardrobe as a skeletal husk. Queen Vivienne was next to take up the crown. 

Vivienne, who already had the singing voice of an elf and a fairy, sang lullabies and melodies of even more outstanding grace but also felt a bitter cold descend upon her. She dressed in cloaks and furs even when Summer ruled the year. From the palace she sang for the people of Vouyanne, accompanied by a great fire to keep the Queen warm. 

Over time, she cared little for the war, her vassals, or any other official business. Her sole desire was to sing to her people. The cold worsened, and even on the Summer Solstice she wore furs across her entire body and kept a roaring fire behind her while she sang to the people. The only exposed part of her was the top of her head, graced by the crown of Vouyanne. During this concert on the Summer Solstice, Queen Vivienne grew so cold that she walked into the fire. The flames latched onto her furs, eating through until the Queen’s singing ended, and she was but a crisp. The bonfire burned out, and all that was left was a pile of ash and the glittering gold crown of Vouyanne. 

Queen Clarice was crowned the next day, but that was the last she was seen in the palace, for she delved into the libraries and the archives of Vouyanne to seek knowledge just after her ascent. She could read in ancient languages she could not read before and recalled ancient myths known to none. Soon, her mind raced with its newfound abilities, even finding she was able to take in the knowledge of a book first by touching it, then by looking at its cover, and lastly just by being near a book. To sate her appetite for learning, Queen Clarice summoned scholars from far and wide to bring her more to know. 

The joy of study Queen Clarice once felt had transformed into an obsession, and one that drove her to madness. She had to know more, yet the more she knew, the less satisfaction it brought her. She found she could touch even mere objects to attain their secrets, rather than just books. Clarice grew impatient and cruel, tearing into her people’s homes in the name of knowledge. She touched family heirlooms to divine the lore they held and wedding rings to learn the history of her subjects’ bonds to each other. She touched pots and pans to discover all the things they had cooked and brooms to know everything they had swept. She learned where every stone had been before it was a brick and the lineages of every man, woman, and child in her kingdom with just a touch. She touched animals to learn their names and streams to know where the water had come from and where it would go. She touched poisons to learn how they killed, but after being blessed with that final knowledge, Queen Clarice died.

King Antoine was the last of King Etienne III’s heirs, but after watching his family suffer and die, he was careful. His knowledge of magic compelled him to study the crown to understand why it had affected them all. After picking the crown up with a stick, careful not to touch it or get too close to it, Antoine performed magical experiments on it. After a few incantations, King Antoine discovered the seed of his family’s woe. A curse placed by the Coven of Pet-Derwelyn drove all who wore the crown to ruin, but that was not all. A much older curse compelled all who wore the crown to continue to wear it and protect it.

Antoine suspected the older curse to have been placed on the crown by one of his ancestors, one so devoted to keeping his descendants on the throne he cursed the circlet to ensure his progeny had the same fervor to hold onto the throne. What Antoine didn’t understand was why each of his relatives seemed to have had a positive effect from the crown’s influence. In the case of his father and brother both named Etienne, their willpower grew tenfold, as did their cruelty and paranoia. For Vivienne, she sang with even greater beauty yet felt compelled to be warmed by open flames to escape her biting chill. And Clarice, most impressively, gained the unique power to understand anything through touch, or even mere perception, but couldn’t resist poisoning herself in the pursuit of knowledge. Antoine suspected another curse, or perhaps a blessing, affected the crown. 

He wondered what might occur to himself if he were to wear the crown. It would surely lead him to his doom, but perhaps it would also increase his magical abilities, as each of his siblings’ enhanced traits seemed tied to their preexisting talents. If King Antoine could strip the crown of its negative curses and leave only the beneficial enchantments, he suspected he could become one of the most powerful sorcerers and influential rulers of all history.

The uncrowned king spent many hours of the day fiddling with the crown and casting spells on it, all of which were ineffectual. The entire time doing this Antoine knew that the crown’s influence was seeping into him but was unable to stop himself. He had to unlock the crown’s secrets and reform it into a beneficial heirloom for himself and his line, or else all his time was wasted. All of Antoine’s experiments, enchantments, spells, hexes, rituals, incantations, and conjurations failed.

Frustrated, Antoine didn’t know what else he could do. He had exhausted all his magical knowledge. While overcoming Sorcerer’s Fever after a particularly strenuous battle with the crown’s curses, Antoine came to a realization. He was simply not powerful enough, and there was only one thing that could help him. The crown itself. At first, he hesitated, aware that the crown had somehow placed that thought in his mind to bring itself to him. But the crown drew him nearer and thoughts of resisting faded. Antoine felt ghostly tendrils pulling him nearer like a cold draft against his neck. Antoine broke the trance and rushed from his study, locked the door, and pledged he would never again enter. 

But Antoine found no peace. While he tried to act as a diplomat and seek an end to the war with his neighbors, the crown’s distractions beset Antoine. So distracted was King Antoine that he fled the negotiations, leaving his enemies’ diplomats spurned. Visions of a crowned Antoine tickled his mind. The crowned Antoine spoke to the envoys with surety, easily brokering a favorable peace. When Antoine practiced his magic, he saw the crowned Antoine performing the same spells with twice the effect and half the effort. When Antoine failed to embolden his people in a royal address to the masses, he saw the crowned Antoine be celebrated to a jubilant ovation. Whatever Antoine did, he saw the crowned Antoine do quicker, do easier, and do better. 

In a sleepless haze, Antoine found himself in his study once more, the lock blasted off with a magical attack. Dust had overtaken the room, yet the crown sat unblemished. The crowned Antoine led Antoine toward the thorny ring of gold, and the two Antoines became one.

The peasants found the crowned Antoine at the bottom of his tower, dead, the next morning. When the royal guard inspected his study they found no evidence of a fight, only two sets of footsteps left in the dust, yet only one trail of footprints led to the now shattered window, and neither path led out of the room. 

Kingless, the Vouyannais were united under their first regent, Henri. Henri called for the blacksmith, who the regent blindfolded and instructed to use his tongs to pick the crown off the head of Antoine. Still blindfolded, the blacksmith washed the blood from the crown in a bucket of water and, lastly, carried it down to the palace dungeon. There, the Virulent Crown remained, never to be worn again. 

 

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Photo: Mike Birdy