http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/szodliget-hungary-mist-cabin/

Water lapped quietly at the pale grey boards of the small dinghy as it plodded over the still patch of river. Its two occupants rowed with steady strokes that, had any observers been present, could easily be seen to lack gusto. The younger of the two glanced over his shoulder more than once as the fog slowly revealed their destination.

“Creepy as I remember,” he said in a voice that he intended to sound calm, conversational. But fog did strange things to voices, and it came out flat and hollow and foreboding.

“Yes,” came the older man’s succinct reply.

The younger man chose not to speak again until they’d reached land. For the next few minutes, the only sound the young man could hear was the soft slap-swish of their paddles in the water and his own increasingly labored breath. When he got back, he had to start training again. He was hardly twenty years old. This heavy breathing wasn’t at all seemly.

Finally the dinghy’s bow bumped into the low shoreline. Together, they used to oars to pull the boat parallel to shore. The young man grabbed a long rope and hopped out. He secured it to a sad, sagging bench that faced outward, offering a view of… well, fog. Knot done, the older man followed him ashore.

“I was just a kid when my father brought me out here,” the young man admitted. “I don’t remember, exactly, how-“

“No matter. I shall bring forth the dead. You shall seek counsel,” the old man interrupted. He walked to the small shed with the red roof, said a prayer at the door, then entered. He emerged just a few moments later carrying three large ceramic jugs. Fat corks plugged their openings.

“How long will I have?”

“It varies.”

The young man nodded, which soon morphed into a shake of his head. “For someone with ‘speaker’ in his official court title, you aren’t particularly loquacious.”

“I facilitate the words of the dead. I am not required to speak myself,” the man answered, as he poured from each jug. A sand-like substance came from each, and soon there were three about equal piles in a line on the grass. They were arranged in order according to color – tan to the left, brown in the middle, black on the right.

“Your symbol?” the old man said, half question and half reminder.

Digging his hand into his sweat-and fog-moistened shirt, the young man extracted a thin iron chain. On the end swung a small pendant. A carved piece of stone that was once an elegant three-pronged crown. It was very old by the time it came to his possession and looked only nominally like a crown. He referred to it as the Blob of Power, but only to himself.

“Do you know which…” the young man paused, unsure if he ought to ask. But he wanted to know in advance if his father would be the one called. “Which one will appear?”

The old man shook his head. “The word welcomes the help of one who can give it. Could be any of your predecessors.”

“Alright.” The young man took a deep breath, fiddled with the pendant at the end of the chain.

“For what it’s worth, which isn’t much,” the old man added, realizing some calming words might be required given the circumstances, “I’ve never heard of anyone having to speak to the one that came directly before.”

“Ok,” the young man said, trying to sound removed from that piece of information. But the old man saw his shoulders relax, just a little.

“Ready?” he asked the young man who nodded in response.

The old man pulled out a box of matches. He lit one and, very carefully, set the small flame to the top of the tan pile. The little kernels caught, and with a shallow crackle kicked up into a tidy little fire. The man counted aloud to thirty as a line of smoke grew up from the fire. He blew the smoke toward the young man, and whispered one word, one very old word, of welcome.

Suddenly, on the second bench where moments before there was only air and fog, sat a woman. Her form was ethereal, but only just, and dressed in clothes that made her look like she lived 500 years ago. Which, of course, she had.

For a few long, awkward moments she sat still as a statue. Then, she must have realized she was no longer in whatever world exists beyond the veil of death. She stood and turned, and her bearing was so regal, the movements so smooth and graceful, it was easy to picture her in front of a throne.

“Which of you is,” then she looked down and saw the crown pendant on the younger man. Her shoulders deflated, and she shook her head in disappointment. “The king,” she finished in sad understanding.

“What?” the young man said, instantly incredulous.

“Nothing.”

“I had to row all the way out here. Couldn’t wear the royal robes for that, could I?”

This was, evidently, the right thing to say. She turned to the older man. “You’re the Death Speaker?” He nodded. “And you made him row?” Another nod.

“It’s required, isn’t it?” the young king said, still bristling at her greeting.

“I rowed out here every single time. But I’ve been called a few times since my death, and each of those fools had some lackey do the rowing.”

“And you still gave advice?”

“I did, but I think it was pretty clear to them it was done in protest.”

The king looked over his shoulder at the Death Speaker, shooting him a dark glare. For his part, the old man didn’t react other than to tap his wrist.

“Ok,” the king said, trying to reset. “Ok, let’s just get on with it.”

“What year is it?” she asked. When he answered, she nodded. “So it’s been almost two hundred years since last I was called.”

“The Steppe Wars?” the king guessed.

“Yeah. We win?”

“A hundred thousand dead, croplands that were barren for decades, two houses of nobility completely wiped out, who knows how many towns on both sides burned and never rebuilt, and a thousand year old temple that the people of the Steppe built without complex machines or, you know, a written language,” the king rattled off, sounding disgusted. “And in the end, we got some land, they got some land, everyone was unhappy, except not really everyone because most people were dead.”

“Hmm.”

“No one won,” the king said. “Do they ever?”

The queen smoothed her dress and bore a look into the King like no one had done since his mother died. He was certain he’d blown it. He could just imagine her vanishing now, walking off into the fog, becoming one with it, and he wouldn’t get the help he desperately needed.

But then she smiled and motioned for him to come around the bench and sit down next to her. Once he did, she sat beside him. They looked out over the still, fog-draped water.

“It’s good that you rowed yourself. The point is to humble the king or queen on the way out. A reminder that no good solution comes without a price.”

The king rubbed a sore shoulder, and understood immediately.

“Helps being tired too,” she added. “People tend to take less crap when they’re worn out.” She winked here, and he thought that perhaps her initial reaction to him was cunning rather than genuine disappointment. And in that moment, he decided he was glad she was the one who’d come forth from the world beyond.

“You know the rules, I take it?” she asked. “No questions about the afterlife, about cheating death or anything like that. If you don’t stay on task, I have to book it.”

“I know,” he answered. “I came out here once, when I was a little kid.”

“With your father?” He nodded in reply, and she shook her head. “Scary thing for a little kid.”

“Right? I’m twenty and a king, and it’s still scary.”

“Well, at least you’re doing something right.” She settled a bit more into the bench, adjusting her very outdated but still elegant clothes. “So what can I help you with?”

For the next ten minutes, the king spoke quickly and precisely, outlining his problem. Tensions in the cities of the coast were boiling over. It was a very complex problem, and the king tried to pare it down to its base elements. The long and short of it was that crime, both random and organized, was on the rise. The citizens believed they were no longer safe, and they blamed their dukes for that.  By proxy, that meant they blamed the king.

In the middle of the explanation and quick list of incidents, the Death Speaker lit the brown pile. It burned a little brighter, and a little faster, than the tan pile. Just as the king got to the latest incident, the one that had brought on the decision to seek counsel of the dead, the old man coughed quietly to draw attention.

“About halfway there,” he announced. The king nodded in thanks.

“Something happened to bring you here?”

“Murder, unfortunately,” the king said. “Two policemen were killed while on patrol.”

“Was it organized?”

“No,” the king said. “Single guy. Mentally unstable, spent most of his adult life in jail, but found just enough time while he was out to put a sword through the partners while they were occupied taking a statement at a routine questioning.”

“You catch him?”

“Yeah.”

“Kill him yet?”

“Well, trial first,” the king said. “But there are witnesses and also he’s not really sorry about it. He’s been raving in jail for two days in what can only be described as the pride of the insane. He’s all too happy to confess, often and at length.”

The queen digested and processed all the information with both speed and ease. It was easy to see why she’d been one of the ghosts recalled more than once during this ancient ritual.

“With the dukes making a mess of it, you feel you have to inject yourself into the miasma?”

“It’s not exactly the crown’s problem,” the king noted, “But it’s only getting worse without my involvement. There doesn’t seem to be any solution that will unite both sides.”

“Of course there is,” she answered.

“Wait, there is?”

“Throw everyone in jail that isn’t you.”

“That seems impractical,” the king noted.

“Sure, but that’ll unite everyone in a hurry.” The queen gave a mischievous grin.

“Yes, but in rebellion against me.”

She shrugged. “Well sure, but you said you want a solution that unites both sides.”

“I don’t want to have to provide any kind of solution, but it’s my problem now.”

“Well that’s your own fault.”

“How so?”

“You became king.”

“Ok…” The king clenched his fists, bites back his mounting frustration at this circular talk. “I get that. Now I’m asking for advice on how to, if not solve the problem, at least bring the temperature down. Otherwise I’m going to have a war in the streets, which I’ll have to stop with the army, and those kinds of things often end with a king’s head on a spike.”

“Don’t I know it,” the queen said. “In my third year of rule, a northern duke got tired of paying all the crown taxes. His ports had opened up trade to a few newly rich towns overseas, and business was booming.”

“So he wanted to stop paying taxes even though he was already making more money?”

“Of course.” The queen looked at the king, daring him to figure it out. And while young, the king was already getting the hang of dissecting problems. Certainly he had enough of them on his plate.

“Because without the taxes, he’d be making even more than the already-more money.”

“He was charming, but he was dangerously ambitious,” she explained. “He’d started to organize local forces, and I was given to understand he’d march against me by the time the snow melted.”

“What did you do?”

“Got lucky,” she said with a shrug. “His wife died.”

“And the duke, overcome with grief, abandoned his plans of revolution?”

“Nah,” the queen admitted. “The duke, newly single and desirous of a crown, got one.”

The king looked at her agape. “You married him?”

“Yep.”

“How’d that solve your problem?”

“In one day, I went from facing a civil war to earning a region’s undying loyalty. And no one died.” She lifted her hands, palms up, in mock surrender. “Marriage didn’t seem so high a price.”

The king nodded. Belatedly, he realized she was making a point for him.

“I shouldn’t be looking for nuanced solutions, or trying to account for every little grievance.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

“But if I marry the police chief, I gotta imagine his wife’s going to be pissed,” the king quipped, and the queen let loose a hearty laugh.

“Your solution isn’t one that answers each specific issue at hand,” the queen explained.

“It closes the deep and ragged gap that separates the two sides,” the king finished the thought.

She nodded back, then added, “Or at least starts to.”

“I just need to get the distrustful citizens to trust the nobility, and the armed nobility to not kill quite so many unarmed citizens.”

The queen pinched her face like she smelled something awful. “Yeah, that’s not going to be easy.”

“Nope.”

“Still, kings with far less brains than you have done far more, kid.” She stood, and the king popped up reflexively. He realized time was just about up.

“I don’t know how this is going to shake out, Your Majesty,” the queen said, and the young king actually had to fight off an unexpected tear of fierce pride. Kings and queens say a great deal in their lifetimes but referring to anyone else by the royal formality was never one of them. It was an enormous sign of respect, even from a woman a few centuries dead.

“But you came with the right attitude. Being in charge isn’t about having all the answers all the time. You need to inspire people to fix their own problems. You need to remind them that even the darkest night has a sunrise at the far end. In short, you need to lead.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And if that fails, start building jails and a very high wall around your castle.”

The king laughed, and finally felt some of the weight on his shoulders dissipate.

“Thanks,” he said, soft and genuine.

She smiled, warm and reassuring, as the outline of her body began to thin. For a few moments, he watched her go from almost-there to barely-there. And then the black pile burned out, and she faded into the fog.