CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In Pomperaque, several years had passed since Manguino's marriage to Eckma and although they had indeed produced children of normal looks and awareness, they never lived passed a couple of months.
Since the marriage, Manguino hardly ever involved his mind with the affairs of Halls, or of Phoride.
During the rains, very large glass tubs of water were collected then taken to Manguino's bed chamber and poured into a huge glass pool, and there the ArchBishop indulged in violent sex relations with Eckma, to the point of drawing blood from one another.
In the few years after their marriage, the physician Polis had discovered that Manguino suffered from a venereal cancer and there was a fear of death, but Manguino told Polis to search for the answer in Brook's machines.
"My cure lies somewhere within those gadgets, Polis! If you value your own life, find it!"
Manguino threatened him.
Polis spent entire days going through the mechanism in his search for the answer and then he found something. It was a formula to retard aging. He wondered if it would cure his master and thus took it to him.
Lacking trust, Manguino ordered the injection to be given to Polis first and then to Eckma.
The aged Polis's hair took on its once younger hue of auburn and Eckma lost her open sores and rheumatic nose, as well as gaining hair on her head while losing it on her body.
Seeing that Eckma now looked like a normal, yet still fat woman, and even somewhat appealing, he had several shots given to him every day until Polis devised a capsulate form of taking the drug.
With the new found youth and beauty, in himself and Eckma, Manguino indulged in the pleasures of the flesh with his wife, which now was indeed much more pleasurable for him.
Eckma became pregnant again, and Manguino was certain that his child would be the ultimate, due to the drug that both of them were taking.
Minding the rule of the state and church, was the Cardinal Allen's eldest son. He, too, was now a Cardinal. His name was Orren and he was the child born to Allen, and some forgotten mother, around 3034 C.E.
Now he was twenty-five and he managed the kingdom for Manguino, while Manguino indulged in his debauchery with Eckma, and also with others of both sexes.
Orren took over for the deceased Cardinal Tohm who had gone to visit the barbaric Palatkans, the lepers, to entice them to join Phoride as an advance army in case there was an attack from the north. With their agreement to do so, they ate him, so bonding the contract with Pomperaque.
As in many times before, in periods of crisis and great tension, Jessuum Benitar appeared in Pomperaque to give its ruler a word of foreseen troubles.
Jessuum had not approved of the ArchBishop, of what he was, or what he had become, but it was his duty to give warning to those rulers of Phoride, whether they were good or evil, and all prophecies were given in dream parables and these frustrated Manguino.
In the eighth month of Eckma's pregnancy, she and Manguino still
carried on in the glass pool of rain water and since the great
ArchBishop wanted to converse and play at the same time, he summoned
Jessuum to his chamber.
Jessuum stood majestically over the pool of water, keeping his chamois robes from being fouled by the water, while watching the crazed ArchBishop fornicating with his now better than homely wife.
The sight was the most disgusting abomination to this ancient and noble man, who could see into the future.
"I must leave soon, Manguino. I must go from this place — so would you please consent to take it out and speak with me?" asked Jessuum.
"I will finish soon my trusted Seer. Have food and drink, and I will be with you soon." answered Manguino paying little attention to where Jessuum was.
"I have not eaten for a fortnight and I will not eat, nor drink, till I leave here. I cannot foul my body or my spirit by the uncleanness of this place. I shall wait for you in the chapel for one hour — but no more! It will be your own choice whether or not you hear what will be." said Jessuum then turned and was gone.
Uneasy, the water no longer had an affect on Manguino and so he climbed out of the pool and put on a surplice and headed down to the chapel, leaving a trail of water behind him while Eckma circled the pool and drank some of the scum from the surface of the water.
When Manguino reached the chapel, there was a line of monks parading through the halls and chanting a hymn exhorting the spirits of the passed dead monastic men.
He came upon Jessuum Benitar looking straight into a small group of young boys who were sternly placed on their knees for prayers, undoubtedly as a disciplinary action by some higher cleric teacher.
"What have you to say to me, Seer?" demanded Manguino.
"Don't speak to me in such a tone, Manguino. In a spit you could be no more and there is no one who would grieve." Jessuum responded. "You have been given, and you have taken, many wonderful things that you have never given thanks for, to the one true, Living God."
"If you were not the Seer for me, for my father and his father, I would not permit you to speak so in my cathedral." stated Manguino in an angered voice and Jessuum grinned.
"Do you feel better, now that you have made a threat — so petty, as it was?" Jessuum put Manguino in his place and gave him the feeling of being a child. "I do not like you, Manguino and I do not approve of that for which you stand. I despise your crude manners and even cruder methods." Jessuum backed away from the stench of the ArchBishop's body; the stench that was caused by the over-use of the same filthy rain water. Jessuum resumed. "Should the people of this great land lose their fear of you, my son, no one would be here when you needed them, to fight for your precious stick of flesh. Not a single citizen would kneel to kiss your fruit for the redemption of their sins."
"What have you to say for our tomorrow, Seer? You tire me with this worthless palaver about my indulgence." ordered Manguino, scratching at his manhood.
"Very well, impatient god of these ignorant people. This is the final time that you shall hear words from my dreams, given to you. Hear this and hear it only once, and remember! Commit it to paper if you will but remember it. Tell the court of the Prominants, if you will, but never ask it to be repeated to you, for on that day when that request is done, so should it be the end of your rule in Pomperaque." Jessuum's eyes glowed with the fire of wisdom and the light of knowledge. His brow poured forth an anxious sweat while Manguino stood by smiling with less than no faith in what he was told — even if he cared to think of the meaning behind it.
"Four great elements, ride on high
Come from the greatest fears inside.
All suspicions end with feast
Of gilded skins and threaded beads.
Foul water there is all to drink
And wine does burn with chocking stink,
Of dying corpses bleeding free
And refuge cut off, from the sea.
And where to run with hearts that tare
Leave not your sight, from the air.
Black feathers from his shoulders peer
As promised by that Holy Seer,
Shall come and take his place that day
And rule the city where he once did play.
The great one falls in the bloodied sand
And is soon forgotten in the land.
The bones of his body are never found
But his breathing body yet is sound."
Manguino stared at Jessuum for a moment then sneered.
"What do I make of that? It was quick and as senseless as all your other dreamy riddles. How could my fore-fathers trust you?"
"Do you remember those words, Manguino?" Jessuum asked him.
"Yes, but what should I care?" Manguino asked.
"Then … repeat it to me — once … if you can!" demanded the great Seer and Manguino did indeed repeat every word to no great avail of knowing their meaning.
"You play alone, now, Manguino!" said Jessuum and he bound out of the chapel.
Manguino ran after him to question him on the meaning but Jessuum
Benitar was gone.
Manguino, in a maniacal craze ran about the teaching rooms and ordered the scribe-vicars to make copies of the words, and he recited the puzzling riddle until he found every word copied onto paper, then he returned to his bed chamber and saw Polis give to Eckma a capsule of the age retardant drug, and she drank it down with the water from the pool in which she was still wading.