A Wish
Hoborg's crown. What a strange, marvellous object. Given to him by Quater, and called “his secret to life”.I have wondered many times about it. It sits idly on the king's head, and just as idly I watch it. Only watch. I am too much of a coward to want the crown for myself.
My brothers tell me of The Perfect Stone. They tell me that I, once, had the crown on my head, and it twisted me into something I hadn't been before. Something selfish. Something evil. But I remember not a second of that time, nor the twelve years I spent asleep.
I would ask about the crown more, about the secret, about the life-giving force, but I am shy and afraid. What if Hoborg learns that I wanted to know of it? What will the others say?
When Klogg was reborn, I didn't work up the courage to ask him before he was sent away. I regret it to this day, for he might have told me of the crown, things that no one else could ever know.
And then he was born. Fourth of four brothers, a burst of raven black hair under a chequered cap. Hoborg tried to call him Oddosey. It might have been odd and nosey put together, or it might have been that he said odd things. Or was it a play on Odysseus the traveller? His name was promptly changed to Metha. And I really can't tell whether it's a misspelling of meta, a wordplay on math, or a derivative of crystal meth, a volatile and illegal substance distilled in secret by some Hoodians.
I was at the history lesson where he asked questions upon questions upon questions. And each of them was a burning sting onto my skin: I had thought to ask that before, but I never had the gall.
At that moment, I wanted to speak with him in private more than anything.
But Hoborg asked me to show him to his room and then come back immediately. I don't know whether he was mocking me by the order.
And Metha slept, and Metha mumbled and moaned in his sleep, as I removed the open chest that he was forbidden to open from his room.
And so I never got to talk to him. As soon as he woke he began searching for his brother Kinslet, and in his frenzied search I couldn't offer any help, so he brushed me aside like the rest of them.
When Metha slept again, bad things came crawling upon him in his sleep. His howling was heard to all corners of the Neverhood. He only woke up for a second. He looked at his bloated, horrible hand, and he didn't even look surprised as he fell unconscious again.
It was I who received the order to carry him to his room, and I who was told to watch over him. By then Hoborg had noticed my concern for him and I was appointed as his guardian.
I asked him many things as he slept on the bed. What is the crown. How does it work. Why does Hoborg fall asleep without it. Why does it corrupt everyone else. He might have heard me. He did not answer.
I stayed at his side the whole day, and I only left when Hoborg summoned me. “The youngest might be a lot of trouble,” I said to him when he asked for my opinion.
While I was answering, Metha had left the room where I was supposed to guard him and he jumped down the drain. That silly one-day-old, who was in more pain than I had ever seen a Hoodian from the very first day of his life, ended his own existence on its third day.
Tragedy, they called it. But nine months later nearly no one cared.
What returned after a year called itself Martin and it was no longer the boy I wished to talk to. He reeked of fine alcohol and he mixed us drinks. He had the habit of listening but never asking. Not even one little question where there used to be so many before.
One night when his bar was empty, I got terribly drunk and I asked:
“What is the crown?”
He looked at me in surprise. Behind his black, black eyes I saw a spark of Metha. Of who he was when he was dying every day. The spark was quickly gone, but a wry smile remained.
“I had you piqued for one who was interested in it. But you never heard the voices, right? Good for you.” He inhaled slowly, breathed out slower. “What is the crown? It is a drug. Medicine for one, poison for the other. It is a door. But most of all, it is a wish.”
From that night on, he never spoke of the crown again.
