2 Atlas's Revelation

Three years earlier...

"GET READY EVERYBODY, IT'S GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF OUR CIRCUS! Are the monkeys ready? What about the lion? It is still healthy right? Hey, you, come here, make those peacocks practice their feathers again. We cannot make even one mistake! The Prince of Zyka is coming to see if our circus is good enough. Which it is...we are going to be RICCCCHHH!" Rick trotted through the rush and sweat of the back stage clapping his hands and his chest puffed with pride. His mustache bobbed up and down as he chatted with the trapeze artist and simply nodded at the mime who was practicing.

Sam was at the end of the stage, next to his room. He fiddled with this thumbs as he listened to his father rambling on backstage. A monkey wrapped its tail around his leg. He bent down and put the little thing on his shoulder. It looked at him with pitiful eyes and Sam couldn't help feeling sorry. He dug his pocket for a banana and gave it to the monkey. It was actually for Kayden, who loved bananas, but Sam decided to get one for him later. The monkey chomped on it happily, not taking its eyes off Sam. Sam scratched his chin, laughing.

Rick reached his son and tapped Sam on his shoulder, "My boy!" Sam nervously smiled back tying his hands behind his back, out of habit. Sam was 6 foot 2 and still he had to crane his neck to look up at his father who looked like an olden time pro wrestler, back when rough competitive sports existed.

"We warm the heart of our Prince, and the license is finally ours! We'll be going on world tours, kid! World tours!" Rick beamed and let out a hearty laughed that sounded like the stomping of an elephant when it jumps into water after standing in the hot sun for an entire day. "You do good, Samuel and get that friend of yours to behave himself tonight."

Samuel rolled his eyes and placed the monkey on the floor and saw it jump off to meet his fifty other friends. "Kayden's my boyfriend Abba."

Rick was about to turn around but the forbidden word stopped him short and his glare cut daggers into Sam's skin, "Say that again."

"Say what, Rick?" a happy voice floated towards the father and son from behind. Sam looked past his father and saw Kayden standing ignorantly, a soda can popped open in his right hand. Rick turned around to face Kayden in three big heavy steps.

Sam shook his head frantically at Kayden, trying to tell him to not get involved. Kayden ignored him and stared head on at Rick.

The circus artists slowly started to abandon whatever they were doing and several heads quietly turned towards Rick and Kayden, the otherwise noisy backstage slowly fell over in a hush, like someone had decreased its volume.

"None of your nonsense will be accepted today, boy," Rick boomed. And the rest of the artists knew exactly what Rick was talking about. Kayden had been in the circus for ten years and every year, he had not escaped the wrath of the Circus Master for 'improvising' the show. If you would call renting hundred elephants more than necessary or throwing peanuts at allergic kids as improvising that is.

Kayden looked down and pushed his long hair back and smirked as he looked up back again, "Can't show what this circus really is in front of the Prince can you, old man?" Rick proceeded to say something and stopped when Kayden lifted a hand, "Don't waste your precious time with me," Kayden said, laughing at that, "I don't give a damn about whether if that worm of a Prince approves this or not," he nodded towards Sam, "I'm here for my boyfriend."

Sam smiled at him and Kayden beamed back. Maybe some of the girls who walks the rope swooned at them both, too bad they didn't swing their way. Rick huffed and walked off, trying to show his disappointment but that had gone unnoticed when Kayden and Sam walked off into the room together, chatting like nothing happened.

Rick found his assistant soon. He was a thin frail man of thirty four. His transparent skin stretched over his nerves so thin that you could see the blood running through his axons. He grabbed his assistants hand ever so slightly and pulled him into the dark, only a single ray of light illuminating the assistant's fine mustache and the lower rim of his glasses.

"Gustav."

"Yes, sir."

"Keep an eye on Kayden. He shouldn't cross the line between the main stage and back stage, understand?"

Gustav nodded curtly, "Yes, sir."

And the sly conversation was over.

….

Trumpets were blown and confetti was thrown as the Prince of the doomed city marched on the red carpet, a dozen escort ladies by his side and double the number of guards scattered all around. Naïve girls screamed their ruler's name. A few boys too.

Those who had come for the circus were only people who came to have a good day so thankfully, no riots broke out. No movement leader attempted at a revolution against the young throne. Rick made sure none of his crew stepped out of line...but about Kayden, he wasn't sure. That boy was a kite flying without a string.

Prince Atlas simply looked forward and walked where his secretary was leading him. His secretary was another lady, but a fine one at that. She had an electronic glass tab clutched in her hand as she led the way to the Jowamen Hall for Cultural Talents. Atlas and his secretary occupied the only two VIP seats in the hall, specially built by Rick for the occasion.

Paparazzi tried their level best to get a shot like their life depended on it, but the guard was strong and they blocked everyone except Rick who after identifying himself made his way into the VIP deck while adjusting the ironed lapel of the only reed coat he owned.

"Your highness," Rick sung and Atlas turned his neck to look at his subject.

"Lift your head, so that I may see your face," Atlas spoke—a reptilian voice. The secretary was busy checking out her list, her straight long black hair acting as a curtain to cover the classified information.

Rick followed and attempted at a wide smile of a jolly man but any sane man would have guessed, he failed at it. Atlas, though just 14, spoke with the air of a three hundred year old man, "This performance better be good. Don't waste my time."

Rick mumbled something which was out of the limits of comprehension and back tracked out like a rat in front of a street cat.

Once Rick was out of hearing distance, the secretary looked up at Atlas and sighed, "Seriously, Atlas? Why do you have to make him so nervous? I thought you wanted to see the circus."

Atlas looked down upon the bright stage. He saw a boy in a bright orange shirt walking through the seats asking around the audience in a professional manner. He had a notepad in his hands too, writing down something now and then. The boy's brown hair was long and hung above his eyes, the ones of a kite without a string. Atlas was slightly, only slightly, impressed. The circus had its very own waiter.

"I did not intend to scare him," Atlas justified, coldly looking at his secretary.

She gasped pointing at him, his eyes, "See! See that! You look at people like that! You should stop doing that."

She tucked the glass board in her bag and clicked it close, her eyes resting on the empty red curtained stage.

"I'm a Prince of a renowned country. You cannot order me around," Atlas countered, not really angry but he liked to make his stand.

The secretary waved him off nonchalantly, "Whatever, whatever," she sat up straight when she saw the curtains slowly open, "Oh, the show is starting! The only circus in the district. This will be good."

A few seconds passed and circus music started playing. The audience slowly started filling the area and by the second act of the lion, the hall was packed.

"Do you know why I wanted to see the circus, Ryoko?" Atlas asked, studying the lion who seemed to know exactly what its master was saying.

"You haven't seen one since you were six," Ryoko replied.

"Yes. With my mother. The very next day my father was murdered."

Ryoko looked at the prince. She tried to figure out what was going on in his head like she had tried to do that past three years, but she ended up with nothing. She sighed once again, more mockingly this time, "You'll turn even a circus into a black and white picture."

"Ryoko," he called and she shifted uncomfortably to look at Atlas and his blue serious eyes, "I don't know why my mother killed him. He was a nice man."

Ryoko didn't say anything, just waited. This all happened eight years ago, why was he digging up that same grave?

"I have always wanted to find out." Only Atlas and Ryoko knew that it was the Queen who had killed him. Atlas had seen it with his own eyes. The bloody knife emerging from his father's chest where his heart had been. Its handle held by the person who gave birth to him.

The country thought their King had died by an animal attack when he went to check the forest resources. The Guards thought it had been done by his brothers. Atlas should have asked why that day. But he was so young. He probably thought it was normal for mothers to kill fathers in their sleep.

Ryoko looked down at her lap, "The past is in the past, Atlas," she whispered, not wanting the guards to catch even a snippet of their conversation, "You should forget about it, you have a country to rule, Atlas."

Ryoko wanted to bite her lips tight and never open it ever again. Webs of guilt started sprouting from her heart and head and spreading until it had conquered her entire body. She should tell him...no, not now. The strange monsters had come from almost nowhere. The people had named it the Raken because the way it looked and the way it moved sent chills through even a wrestler's spine.

The killings were happening around the palace and then spreading out. There were even rumors that they were enhanced killing machines made by Wintra to kill the last living drop of Zyka royalty...poor Atlas. She will tell him...soon. Even though he was just a boy and incapable of handling this kind of pressure.

She placed a hand on his broad shoulder feeling the thick skin beneath the gold, "You're going to become King. Stop having these thoughts…."

Atlas shook her hand away and looked back at the stage, no, above the stage, at the tightrope girl. "I've tried...Ryoko....."

"Yeah?" she asked, giving up on convincing him. She had already seen it in the set of his face, there was no stopping him from thinking.

"I've found a way to talk to my mother," he breathed.

Now Ryoko knew that Atlas needed counselling. She had been thinking about it actually. Ever since last month when he seemed to spend more and more time in The Prince's Tower. A lone tower few yards from the palace built for Atlas when he was born. "B-but, she's dead, Atlas. She got the Mars fever the year I came, don't you remember?"

Atlas nodded, "Yes, Ryoko, I do dammit, I'm not suffering amnesia. Listen to me, secretary," his voice went thick, "I've found a way to talk to her," he repeated, this time pressing on his words, because his face gave away no expression. Ryoko's head went through two seconds of re arranging words before she realized what she was hearing.

Oh God, she thought, Atlas was going to talk to the dead.