The Dream of the Lion King

by Tappei Nagatsuki

  None of this gave him any affection for a person who aligned herself with the Argyles.

  “Spare me the small talk. Where’s Lady Crusch?”

  “—The master is waiting. If you’ll follow me…”

  For an instant, the maid looked as if she were holding something back before she answered. She hadn’t answered his question, but when she turned and entered the house, he followed her, knowing he had no other choice.

  A rotten stench drifted through the dim hallway. Undead warriors were posted inside the mansion as well; they produced a variety of scratching sounds. With no one to attack—Ferris and the maid were not their targets—they stood stupidly or slumped down against the wall, giving no real sense of being alive.

  Ferris’s eyes roved here and there as they moved through the house.

  “Feeling nostalgic?” the maid asked him. She seemed to have misunderstood what he was looking for.

  With no small irony he replied, “Not especially,” and shrugged. “I don’t remember this place well enough to feel nostalgic for it. And even if I did, there weren’t any corpses walking around the last time I was here.”

  As he spoke, Ferris gave an experimental poke to the shoulder of one of the zombies that stood motionless in the hallway. He half expected it wouldn’t respond no matter what he did, but when it realized he had touched it, its eyes turned toward him.

  “I’m amazed you can bring yourself to touch them,” the maid said.

  “Dead bodies are nothing new to me. I’ve seen plenty of the heavily wounded, too. But I didn’t come here to chat.”

  “—”

  The maid gave no response. Ferris had replied to her because he didn’t want to simply ignore the woman, but he was not in the mood to talk. He had felt a twisting in the top of his stomach from the moment he entered this house. He recognized it for the psychological phenomenon it was, a testament to how deeply he despised this place.

  After Ferris pointedly broke off their conversation, the maid led him in silence to the second floor. She knocked on the door of the reception room, calling out, “Sir, I’ve brought him.”

  A man replied quietly from within. Ferris didn’t remember the voice, but it sent chills down his spine. Neither his mind nor his body recognized it, but his soul did.

  “—You made it back, Felix.”

  When Ferris entered the room, he was confronted with a large, bearded man. Ferris looked up at the man’s face, and finally something flickered in his memory. The man had the same chestnut-colored hair and yellow eyes as Ferris—those were almost the only things that marked them out as parent and child, but he grew more and more sure that it was the same face that had loomed even higher above him nine years before.

  “Yeah…I guess that is what he looked like,” Ferris whispered as he finally managed to line up his memories with the face of his father, Bean Argyle. Emotionless words for a reunion with his own father. The maid, overhearing them, furrowed her brow, but her reaction was overshadowed by Bean’s much more grandiose one.

  He took Ferris by the shoulders with his large hands and said, “I’d like to ask how you’ve been…but first I have to ask what in the world you’re wearing. You’re so thin—and you’re in women’s clothes? I hope the Duchess of Karsten’s perverse views on gender haven’t rubbed off on you.”

  “—”

  “Your complexion is good enough, but your arms and legs are so slim… What a terribly cruel sight!” Bean contorted his face in grief, raising a cry over his grown son. Ferris watched him expressionlessly, though with a tremendous chill in his eye.

  This outfit is a sign of my bond with Crusch, and I’m thin because of almost ten years of abuse in this house. It’s cruel, all right, but whose cruelty is it?

  “But very well! Let us set this aside! You’ve come home. As your father, that brings me joy.” Seemingly oblivious to Ferris’s chilly expression, Bean broke into a smile and tried to give his son a hug. Ferris nimbly avoided his embrace, sliding to one side as Bean stumbled forward.

  Ferris quickly scanned the room, but he let out a breath when he could find no sign of Crusch.

  “Enough talk,” he said. “Give back Lady Crusch. Then I hope you and this house just disappear.”

  “What a way to greet your father! Don’t mistake me, Felix. I’m overjoyed that you’re safe, but I’m not so generous as to indulge your impertinence. If you think you’re on equal footing with me because of what happened in the past, you’re wrong.”

  “—! As if I would think that!” He met Bean’s angry outburst with one of his own. What had been done to Ferris in this household, he would never take so lightly as to use it for leverage.

  Ferris had possessed his animal ears from birth, and almost immediately after he came into the world, he was locked in that basement room. His mother and father had been regular humans, so the presence of his cat ears was taken to imply infidelity on the part of his mother.

  Although confined in the dark underground chamber, Ferris had been afforded a minimal education. But once out of infancy, his treatment grew worse and worse. After the age of five, he was forced into another underground room even smaller than the first, and he spent five years there doing nothing but waking and sleeping. He spent his life in darkness with no reason to be alive nor any meaning to the life he had.

  It was Crusch who had brought him out from that place—Crusch, who had been gallant since childhood. She led Ferris out into the sun, and he became human.

  It was thanks to Crusch that Ferris gained humanity for the first time.

  “Without Lady Crusch, I wouldn’t be who I am! So give her back to me—now! I don’t care about mistaking you! I don’t care about fathers! I’m not joking around!”

  Ferris’s sweet face was twisted with rage; he bared his teeth and stamped the floor. He brandished his own arms at Bean.

  “Look at these skinny arms! I can’t wield a sword! Can’t hold a shield! I’m her knight, and these worthless arms can’t even fight for her! And my legs are no better! I can’t run fast or jump high… I can’t do anything! All I want is to protect her, and I can’t even do that!”

  Once Crusch had taken him out of this house, and he had been given his role as her attendant, Ferris had done everything he could to be an asset to her. He had tried to take up the sword and be a knight. But he had been left without the body to make good on that duty.

  “You stole it from me! You stole it from me and left me empty… Lady Crusch gave me my way of life, my way of being!”

  He had been left with nothing, but Crusch had encouraged him to live the way he did now. He had been derided as a hopeless case, ridiculed for having “strange proclivities,” but the only thing that meant anything to Ferris was what Crusch had asked of him. And, here of all places, would he turn away from that?

  “And after all you’ve done, you still want to keep taking from me! Will you steal from me again, something I value more than my own life?! You won’t, damn you…! Damn you!!”

  If he could have, Ferris would have cut down the devil that called itself his father then and there. If he could have, he would have burned him up with magic and thrown the ashes in a river.

  But Ferris couldn’t do either of these things. He didn’t have the power.

  “—”

  Bean stood silently as Ferris lambasted him. The boy’s emotions washed over him, and he regarded his child with a masklike, emotionless face. His eyes weren’t quite human; they didn’t seem to be focused anywhere.

  “…Have you said all you have to say?” he asked finally.

  “H-huh?”

  “If you have something to say, then let it out. I’m your father. I can overlook a childish tantrum. There must be a good deal to get off your chest after all these years apart.”

  “—”

  Ferris was shocked into silence.

  He had bared his heart and soul—and Bean considered it nothing more than a fit of temper?

  But at the same time, he
understood. It made all too much sense to him.

  There was nothing to be gained by seeking a dialogue with this man. He should have known that from the start.

  —Should have known that he had left nothing at this house.

  He let out a breath. It wasn’t despair or even disappointment he felt. He had simply realized how things were.

  “Could you stop calling yourself my father? It’s making me sick.”

  “I’ll even forgive your defiant attitude. A father and son need not stand on ceremony at their reunion.”

  Ferris saw that Bean had no intention of actually listening to him. He couldn’t recall ever having conversed with his father before—and it nearly made him laugh to realize this was the man Bean was. His own father was more deeply flawed than he could ever have imagined.

  “Or is this rebelliousness a sign that you want to be treated as a man? I could be moved to entertain the idea. If we’re both equal adults, then there’s another way to handle this discussion.”

  “…And what’s that?”

  “Working out our respective views in order to get what we want.”

  Bean ran a hand along his beard importantly as he circled around to the far side of the sofa. He set his hands on the backrest, leaned forward, and looked at Ferris.

  “I’ve called you here because I have business with you.”

  “You could have just sent a letter. Although I would’ve torn it up.”

  “I’ll admit this was a roundabout way of doing things. But it was necessary. I had to test the Sacrament of the Immortal King—and your powers!” He was practically spitting by the time he finished.

  “So that’s it…” Ferris finally grasped why he had been summoned. Bean wasn’t interested in Ferris’s physical capabilities. “You needed my magic…”

  “Exactly. But don’t be disappointed. The aptitude for water magic that lies dormant within you—it is the greatest proof that you and I are connected by blood. A proficiency with water magic has been passed down through generations of Argyles. No illegitimate child could possess it!”

  “Well. Aren’t you lucky. Congratulations.” Ferris gave a slow clap. Bean could prove all the familial connections he wanted. Ferris was far too alienated to care.

  But Bean drew closer to Ferris, as if this were the most important thing of all. “Here’s where our conversation as equal adults starts. If you want something from someone, you must be prepared to offer something of similar value in return. Yes?”

  “—”

  “But what do you know of that? Nothing. So I’ve taken the liberty of figuring out the price for you. If you give me what I want, I’ll return your precious duchess to you. That’s the deal.”

  “You don’t think that’s all kind of illogical?”

  “The logic is flawless. There’s nothing strange about it.”

  So Bean had gone to these ridiculous lengths just to play the tyrant. He had taken Crusch hostage not to get Ferris to listen to him but merely to bargain with him.

  “It’s so stupid that it breaks through the other side and becomes logical again, I guess… So, what is it you want me to do? Want me to call you Daddy?”

  “What I want is simple. And with your abilities, it should be quite easy—You!” Bean ignored the jab with a triumphant look and shouted at the maid, who had been standing quietly in the corner.

  She nodded at him. “Shall I take him? Or would you like to accompany us?”

  “Hmm… Very well. Show us both there. It’s been so long since Felix last took a little walk with his father. I’m sure he would like it. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Ha-ha-ha. You’re funny.” It was a fine joke. Ferris and his father had never taken a walk together.

  At this point, Ferris recognized that Bean was mentally unstable. It was only natural that his conversation didn’t quite seem to make sense. If Ferris pushed back, Bean would probably just destroy him. Better to play along and wait for his chance.

  But he was still worried about Crusch’s safety. With Bean the way he was, there were no guarantees Crusch was all right, even if he claimed she was.

  “…At the very least, your friend hasn’t been harmed.”

  “Huh?”

  The whisper came like an answer to his very thoughts. The maid, who had spoken the words, made no further reply but headed out of the room to show them the way. Bean hurried her along from behind, and Ferris, the last to exit the reception room, was left puzzled.

  He was sure that maid was in league with Bean. She had no reason to spare him any help or hope. But neither did she appear to be insane.

  —Strangest of all, her words gave him a genuine sense of relief.

  “…Weird.” Ferris set the disturbing feeling aside, thinking it odd. Beside him, Bean continued in an upbeat tone. Ferris nodded and grunted but otherwise ignored everything the man said.

  At last, the mismatched trio arrived at the innermost room on the third floor.

  Bean stood at the door. “Do you know where we are?” Obviously, Ferris had no actual memory of the place, but this was the innermost room on the uppermost floor of a noble’s mansion. He had a pretty good idea.

  “The master bedroom?”

  “A precocious child. You happen to be correct.” Bean offered emotionless words of praise and then pushed open the door. An overwhelming stench of death rushed out. It was similar to the smell that pervaded the entire house, but here it was an order of magnitude worse. This was no fresh corpse.

  The source of the smell was just inside the room.

  “—My wife,” Bean said. “Do you understand, Felix?”

  Lying on the bed was the corpse of a woman, suffering still evident on her face. She had flaxen hair, and her face had been made up in death. For her grave clothes she wore a beautiful dress. She looked as if she had fallen asleep, never to wake.

  Bean had introduced her as his wife. Meaning that to Ferris, she was…

  “My…my mother…?”

  He couldn’t ignore the ache he felt in his heart as he realized who the corpse must be.

  11

  “With my magical abilities, I can only incompletely invoke the Sacrament of the Immortal King. Moving corpses are the best I can manage. But you, Felix, are different!” Ferris stood staring at the corpse of his mother as Bean pleaded. The man came up to the bed and stroked the sleeping face of his wife. “You have a special talent. Power enough to bring a girl back from the brink of death without so much as intoning a chant! With such powers, surely you can complete the sacrament! You can bring your mother back to life!”

  Ferris looked at Bean’s bloodshot eyes and realized what the man really wanted. He sought to bring his wife back from the dead through the Sacrament of the Immortal King. He had been gathering dead bodies to experiment and practice on them with his dark magic. He had probably been relying on the slave trader to help him collect the bodies. And the result of his work seemed to be the undead warriors who swarmed outside—how many corpses had he desecrated?

  And for all that, Bean still had not achieved what he really wanted and had been forced to recognize that he lacked the power. Then he’d remembered—he’d remembered the existence of a spell caster who shared his blood and was far more powerful than he.

  “You have true power! You are capable of this. You can restore my wife to me. I… I alone know! I am your father, and I grasp the brilliance of your abilities better than anyone!”

  Bean scratched his own cheeks so hard that blood ran down them like tears. Immediately, a faint light emanated from the wounds, which disappeared. He had harmed himself and then healed himself. It was the most unsettling use of healing magic Ferris had ever seen.

  “This is beyond me,” Bean said. “But it’s not beyond you. You are a genius! There is no parent who doesn’t take joy in the abilities of his child! You are the best son!”

  Bean was transported with joy, with wholehearted praise, and with expectation for the abilities of his boy. Ferris felt a wave of v
ertigo, followed by nausea.

  Was this—was this how profoundly twisted his family had become?

  “Look at this! This is a text describing the Sacrament of the Immortal King that has been passed down in our house. The description is incomplete, but I was able to use it. You, I’m sure, can discover what I’ve missed and perform the entire ritual!” Bean dug in his bag and pulled out a worn book.

  The book had been read so many times that it appeared to be covered not just in fingerprints but even in blood. It had been so thoroughly used that it seemed the slightest touch might cause it to crumble to dust.

  “Now, bring back my wife—bring back your mother! If you can do that, I’ll give you back your mistress. This is the deal I offer you as your equal, as a man!”

  Bean thrust the book into Ferris’s chest. The cat-boy took hold of it unsteadily. The cover was blotted with dried blood, and it felt heavy, as though it had absorbed the souls of the dead.

  The Sacrament of the Immortal King, a ritual with the power to resurrect the dead. Healer that he was, it would be untrue to say Ferris had no interest in such things. But whatever he may have felt as a healer, his sanity and basic humanity revolted against the idea.

  But if he didn’t look at the book and perform the spell, Crusch’s life might be in danger. And the woman lying in front of him—he had no more familial feeling for her than he did for Bean, but it was still the corpse of his mother, and that was not entirely lost on him. At least, if there really was a spell that could bring her back, he wanted to do it.

  “—”

  Ferris swallowed. He decided to put off the decision; instead, he turned the pages of the spell book. Some passages were obscure, and several pages were covered with fingerprints. Handling everything as carefully as he could, Ferris pored over his family heirloom, trying to get the spell into his head.

  And then…

  “…Should I go ahead and use the sacrament on this woman as soon as I can?” He deliberately avoided using the word mother, talking about her as though she were a stranger in order to maintain his equilibrium.