The King and His Labyrinth (Short Story)

The king and his labyrinth

In the royal city of Azancia, during the third age, ruled the Fifth Thunder King whose passion for the mysteries of mind and life was beyond measure. Wise men came from across the desert bringing riddles and puzzles in a vain attempt to fulfill his hunger, but this only helped to frustrate the king more and more.

One day, in one of the very few royal walks the king made through his city, he noticed a poor craftsman who did not bow in front of him nor the court, and for this major offense, exaggerated inside the royal mind for the frustration and boredom, the king sentenced the old craftsman to be chained nude on an execution tower and his belly opened to the mercy of birds and the gods.

The craftsman’s son excused his father, claiming that the age forbade him to do the sacred genuflection, but the king ignored his begging until the craftsman’s son offered a bargain he could not disregard: to make a maze that no man could leave unhurt while inside one could spend every and each day of a life. The king, puzzled for such a challenge made by a simple-minded craftsman, blindly accepted. But if one hair of the royal beard fell of or a single drop of blood resulted from this challenge the craftsman’s son, along with his old father, would suffer the fearsome fate of having their guts eaten by the birds.

The days passed like the wind that hikes the mountains and the old craftsman waited inside the palace dungeon, until one morning the craftsman’s son arrived at the royal palace, he was received by the king bearing no more than a wooden box. The king demanded his maze and the craftsman’s son presented his box.

The king inspected the box; the bottom of which possessed a round hole and a small one at front. The craftsman’s son insisted that the maze was inside and, while the king inspected the interior, the craftsman’s son pushed the box with all his strength trapping the royal head whose words of confusion could be heard through the front hole, and the craftsman’s son said that the king was trapped in his maze

The king recognized the defeat and the wit of the craftsman’s son for honor to himself and the people bellow him since he was in a maze, albeit a very small one as his scholars affirmed and set the two craftsmen free while the he suffered through the years, becoming less adjusted to the light and sound while his firstborn, the Sixth Thunder King, became more and more powerful displacing him from the power, displacing him from the world.


The years passed as irregular rocks rolling down and the family of craftsmen left the kingdom beyond the mountains while the king suffered his prison inside his maze and forgotten by the rest of the world until one day, since he had lost his royal weight through the ages he managed to remove the box, but sadly, the king did this secret miracle alone in the royal gardens, was mistook by an old beggar and was thrown out of the palace.

Blind and deaf now was he, having lost the habit of sound and light, living without standing the sunlight nor the noise of the thriving city, wandering through the streets of his own unknown kingdom that resembled more of a labyrinth, lived and died along the lepers the Fifth Thunder King, receiving only an old forgotten coin with his face in it.

Great is the Father
Great is the Mother
Great are we
Their Rightful Children

Wow, that's a really good story Max! I like how karma comes back to the king. Serves him right.