The Rise and Fall of Geldegarde
Monotoli: Prologue
The Taint of Mani-Mani
The room swirled around him like fog. Thick, blinding fog, pushing him in every direction. Though uncontrollable tears rendered him speechless, he managed a wounded moan. He felt like an animal, on all four hands and knees, crawling towards his desk. The mighty Geldegarde Monotoli, once the kingpin of the metropolitan Fourside, no longer had the strength to stand. A miasma of incurable shame and guilt permeated every cell of his mind, only driving him closer to the handgun he kept locked in the drawer beside his chair. Salvation was so close, yet felt a million miles away. But soon, it would be over. All the pain would finally disappear, all the memories finally be forgotten. Like a faithful priest, the handgun would exorcise the demons, freeing him to an eternity of blissful nothingness.
A loud
noise boomed across the sky, causing Monotoli to
shake. Thunder. Followed by a flash
of lightning, then a downpour of rain. Soon, the sound of thick
raindrops pounding on glass could be faintly heard. But the external darkness
of the stormy night only complimented the internal pain. A dim desk lamp
glowed, illuminating his desk like the Star over
He reached into the jacket pocket of his blue blazer, feeling for a key. Soon, he reaffirmed, it would soon be over. His fingers brushed over metal, and he soon thrust the tip into the keyhole. With a shaky hand, he twisted it, and heard the click of a lock being released. As one hand brushed away the tears, another steadied himself to a kneeling position.
A knock to his office door shattered the old man’s concentration. Feeling his body jolt, he feared a heart attack would take him before the bullet. Where was his secretary? He had specifically requested no appointments or interruptions. Even if he was loathed and reviled by the voting population of Fourside, and expected to soon resign in shame, he still held a sliver of authority within his own office. Even his secretary now spat on his diminished pride, not allowing Monotoli the final request of an isolated death.
“Please, please leave!” Monotoli’s voice quaked, and he feared that he wouldn’t be heard past the thick, oaken doors.
“Geldegarde? Sir, are you in there?”
“I asked you to leave!” Electra, you don’t want to be here!” It was his maid, a faithful, young blonde whose forthright honesty had impressed a mayor surrounded by political yes-men. He began to panic, cursing his luck. If there was one person in the entire building who would ignore his pleas for privacy, she was rapping the doors to his office.
“Sir, with all due respect, I’m not doing that right now. Now let me in.”
“I’m fine, now get out of here. Please!”
Monotoli heard a jingling noise, and then the sound of something pressing against the door. Her key to his office! “Geldegadre, I’m coming in!’
His attention turned to the handgun that lay clenched between sweating fingers. He had to hide it! As the only person who had stood by him during the damning tidalwave of scandals, she shouldn’t have to watch this. He had hurt everybody else in his life, from bankrupting his parents to driving his fragile wife to suicide. His one final act of redemption lay in protecting Electra Marsh.
He scrambled to plop the gun back in the desk as he heard the door open. The feminine gasp from behind told Monotoli that he had once again failed. He turned to her as the keys hit the ground.
“What are you doing!”
He studied her worried face, her mouth twisted in agonized shock. Blonde hair poked out from her ears, her baby-blue maid’s uniform horribly disheveled, and her eyes appeared to be glazed from weariness. But despite her obvious concern, Electra had no right to interfere. She brought this pain upon herself, when it would have been so much easier to abandon him as all others did. Why did people so foolishly waste their energy worrying about others, whose lives they couldn’t fix?
“I told you to leave,” Monotoli retorted. There was no point in hiding the gun, which he now had pressed against his crooked necktie.
“Are you insane?” Electra’s voice began to crack, disbelief permeating every syllable. Monotoli couldn’t tell if it was out of concern for her boss’s life or fear for her own. But if she tried to interfere, would he turn the gun on her? No! How could he even think that? He couldn’t hurt her, not this precious girl, who was young enough to be his daughter. But she still had no right to be here!
“Leave! Just go to hell!” Monotoli clutched the gun against his bloodred necktie. He felt like a small child protecting his teddy bear from an impending bully. Because he was, in a sense. He was protecting a precious ticket to freedom from the forces of self-deluded concern. Even if she was such an otherwise sweet girl.
“Give me the gun.” Her voice was firm, yet scarcely above a whisper. Monotoli scanned her face, employing his political background to determine just how determined she truly was. Her hands shook, but in her eyes was a fire burning with conviction. She was testing him.
A small smirk flashed on the old man’s face, dramatized by another bolt of lightning illuminating the blackness from outside. The darkness, which he felt in his own soul, now illuminated only by a spark of adversity. Electra’s resolve had become nothing more than a game to him, a challenge to be won or lost. Could he manipulate her into leaving, even convince her of the nobility his death would constitute? He was vastly intelligent, and certainly a maid could not compare to the power struggles he had won with millionaire tycoons. This last spar would possibly be his most fun..
No! He couldn’t hurt another person! As if on cue, an image flashed in his mind. A purple skirt flowing around tanned knees. Monotoli stepping into his own living room. Her delicate eyes still opened, her blonde hair falling around her shoulders. Her neck held by a rope tied to a beam, a footstool knocked over beside dangling feet. His wife, the only love of his life, slain. To this day, Monotoli couldn’t prove it, but she must have found out about his affair. Tears welled in his eyes, and he noticed Electra take a cautious step towards him.
Monotoli crouched even further against his desk. “Please. Don’t make me hurt you. In the end, I’ll just hurt you again. So leave! Please, damn it, I’m begging you!”
Electra shook her head, her eyes focused on his gun. “I won’t. Not as your friend, I won’t.”
Friend? The image of his wife flashed back in his mind. But now, the skirt was pink, and was part of a dress. The atmosphere shifted, swirling as though in a hurricane. The carpet became tile, and the wooden front door became double-glass. He already knew where he was, who the body was, but he couldn’t register it, couldn’t admit it. Slowly, he looked up, into her face. But his wife was gone. Instead, it was a little girl’s, her blonde hair also falling to her shoulders. Hanging by the same beam, only now in his office. Paula Polestar.
“No!” He cried aloud. “I didn’t kill you! I let you go! I…”
Suddenly, her eyes popped open. Burning red pupils seared into his soul, and her voice seemed to penetrate his mind. She never once opened her mouth, but he could hear the words so clearly…
“You kill everyone you meet, Geldegarde. They may breath, but you are a perfect agent of death. Hopes, dreams, ideals. You killed me, Mr. Monotoli!”
“N-no.” Monotoli glanced at the gun. He couldn’t hide the evidence. His accuser had proof, all she needed to condemn him. Her glowing red eyes could see past the festering ego and into the disgusting state of his soul. Her gaze turned to the gun.
“You know what to do.”
“No…”
“Be the light, Geldegarde. You’ve hurt so many, but you can save Fourside. You can save it’s citizens. Be the sacrificial lamb, and put the city’s corruption to an end! Only when the root is eliminated will the weeds truly die.”
“I-I can change.”
“Your roots are evil. You can never change!”
“Please, spare me…”
“Join us in Hell, Geldegarde!” the voice began to squeal with sickening delight. While Paula’s face never moved an inch, her laughter swirled around him. In a flash, her faced changed. Her skin appeared to harden, encrusted in bronze. Her delicate features darkened, and her whole body soon shimmered with a metallic glint. Her ears shot out of her head, becoming horns, as her mouth receded into a small but determined indentation. He recognized the new creature, which still hung by a noose. The beam was gone, but the rope was still anchored to an invisible source. The background began to fade, and soon the only light came from Paula’s pink dress, which was no ablaze. But the girl was gone. In her place, that wretched statue hung suspended.
Mani-Mani.
Monotoli leapt to his feet. His office was gone, as was everything else. All around him, even above and below, was nothingness. He turned from the statue, prepared to flee. But his feet hit only air. He was freefalling. The statue followed him, that laugh still ringing in his ears.
“Welcome to Hell, Geldegarde!”
“No!” He covered his face with both hands, trying to block out the only other object still in existence. “Please, no…” Tears slid through the cracks of his hands, and he felt his mind losing its grip on consciousness. Soon, the darkness outside of him seeped into his eyes, and all went dark.
“Geldegarde?”
“Leave me, demon,” he mumbled, not even having the strength to yell.
“Geldegarde. Sir, are you alright?”
That voice. Another of the demon’s tricks. He clenched his fists, hoping to draw the gun closer to him. But he only felt flesh. His own hand. What happened? Was he dead? Slowly, he uncovered one eye. He almost jumped back, banging his head against something hard.
“Electra?”
Her face was moist, clearly showing that she had been crying. Her eyes shifted from his face to the floor, causing him to follow. His gun, only inches away. He was still closer to it than her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, as he grabbed it. “But I can’t endure the voices, or the guilt.”
She took another step forward, fresh tears cascading from her eyes. “No,” she pleaded. “You can’t.”
As her body moved, he couldn’t help but notice her golden-blonde. How it swayed to her shoulders. Like his late wife’s. Like Paula’s. Like his next victim’s? No! It was time to exterminate the root.
“Good-bye, and thank you…”
He raised
the gun up to his head. Electra Marsh lunged at him, just as Monotoli pulled the trigger.