The King's Great Fortune - Aether MugThe King's Great Fortune

Marco Giancotti,<br>July 16, 2026

Marco Giancotti,<br>July 16, 2026

Cover image:<br>Death and the Flower, Akseli Gallen-Kallela

There was, a long time ago, a small kingdom, and in that small kingdom was a prince who deemed himself just. This Prince reveled, above all else, in subjecting his people to the most peculiar trials. In his Princely youth, he enjoyed making his servants go about their chores while hopping around on one leg, or while tied to a dozen dogs by as many leashes. He often ordered his history teachers to perform their lectures without using the letters "O" and "L", or while singing them in rhyme. Once, the Prince even convinced the King, his father, to announce an edict on his behalf: for a whole week, all citizens were to halt whatever they were doing and remain perfectly still when the Prince was in sight. Seven days the Prince travelled, from morning to nightfall, in the city streets and the country roads, marvelling at the spectacle of his kingdom frozen in time, all acts interrupted in mid-course, all fields scattered with bent scarecrows, all markets silent with crowds of statues.

Seeing his subjects strain and struggle to go about their lives with new strictures filled him with mirth and laughter. And he deemed himself just, for he also subjected himself to the same limitations: he would avoid using "L" and "O" during lectures—by remaining silent; he would do chores hopping on one leg—if only he had chores to do; and he obediently followed his father's edict, never moving when he himself was in sight—which, given that he had had all mirrors removed, never happened during that memorable week.

One day the old king died, and the Prince ascended to the throne as the new monarch. He had been waiting for that day with impatience and doubt in equal parts. Without his father turning down his most creative ideas, he now had free rein to enjoy his pastime. But he had lived long enough to grow bored of his own usual exploits. He no longer drew any satisfaction from seeing his subjects wrestle with mundane restrictions. He experimented with giving them impossible tasks that no one could ever accomplish, but the victims responded by surrendering without even trying, which wasn't at all interesting. Furthermore, he aspired to something more suitable to a King than a lowly torturer. He considered himself a fair sovereign, and did not want rumors to spread that he was violently killing innocent people: his were exercises, diversions. Thus he had run out of ideas.

On the occasion of the King's coronation, a foreign emissary from an eastern land visited his court to convey her sultan's compliments. Although she was there in the role of a diplomat, the Emissary was also the sultan's most trusted advisor, and was famous for her incredible cunning and her genius for unorthodox solutions to royal problems. Curious to test the Emissary's intellect and eager to find new outlets for his craving, the new King sought the diplomat's counsel. He explained the frustration that afflicted him, and asked if, in the East, the regents had grand, interesting ways to keep their subjects occupied.

The Emissary pondered on the question for a while, then spoke.

"What you crave, Your Highness, is seeing the perseverance of hope. Impossible tasks won't do, because they crush hope at its roots. Easy obstacles won't work either, because they are overcome in the blink of an eye. Instead you need to give your citizens something that is possible, yet almost impossible.

"May I suggest you build a labyrinth? Then send your citizens in with directions telling them precisely where to turn at each bend in the corridors. Give each of them different directions, pieced together randomly: most directions will be wrong, each in a different way, but one of them may just happen to be right—and on that possibility will hinge the light of your people's hope. Such is the way of a just ruler.

"Then watch them enter the tortuous halls of your labyrinth with their mendacious directions, hopeful to soon be out on the other side. Watch them wind up in dead ends, convince themselves that they must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, and retrace their steps to try it all over again."

With that, the Emissary showered the King with praise for his ambitions, and left the castle the following day.

The idea of a labyrinth mesmerized the King. He summoned his best architects and artisans, and ordered them to build a vast, intricate structure where a thousand paths led nowhere, and the exit was hidden in the most anonymous of corridors.

For months and years the construction went on. The King awaited its completion impatiently, inquiring every day about the progress and punishing anyone he thought was slowing down the works. A whole city district next to his palace was razed to accommodate the new edifice. The masons and the carpenters toiled day and night, and many of them, to the King's...