First of all, the King of Mages was murdered by his closest friend. It was a tradgedy throughout the whole kingdom and many countries with whom he had made strong friendships... but the details of it all, are a story for another time because at this very moment, his soul was on its final journey in death. Somehow, somewhere, his spirit was rising up from the depths of a thick, dark void. It wove in and out of twisted, strange stands, it’s form barely resembling the person he once was, and barely able to conceive of what had just happened.

He could still feel the point of the jewel-encrusted dagger surging through his back with such force that it cracked his ribs in half… just before sucking all the magic out of his heart and turning his whole body cold, and heavy. He could still hear the voice of his friend as he faded from the world… but he didn’t know what was said. It was all nonsense now.

I guess I’d better find a way to turn into a vengeful ghost and haunt that bastard, the King of Mages thought wistfully as he continued to drift. That was the dagger I gave him at his wedding… what a foul thing to do- enchanting it to murder me. The very nerve…

For some reason, he wasn’t quite able to get as angry as he wanted- the pressure of the world he was slowly traveling through was strange and made him feel unsteady- and yet he could see light ahead of him… over him. It bent and danced as if it shone from the surface of the water. The King reached up for it, and saw his hand for the first time- it was transparent, like a thin veil, and looked strangely thin. He pulled it back and looked around again. Shouldn’t something happen in the afterlife? He thought to himself. After all, he spent his whole life to get here- what was it all for? What's next?

He heaved a sigh and moved closer to one of the strange, long strands of thick… seemingly plant-like tangles to investigate- when the sound of a splash startled him. He flinched and turned immediately to look up at the light above.

But how could this be? He saw what looked like a child in a worn out dress swimming above him!

No, wait… she wasn’t swimming.

She was flailing and barely able to keep her head above the water!

I might be dead, but she isn’t! He felt his soul tense somehow- not quite like having a body, it was more of a shiver than real strength. Though he wanted to swim up towards her and lift her out of the water as she splashed in a panic, her legs kicking and her arms grasping at lilypads, the King found himself pulling and pulling at the water as well. He didn't move an inch. There he was, anchored to the bottom of the water like a lead weight... Just as the small child was drowning above him, he had no power to rise any closer or even touch her.

Please! He begged himself, trying to feel the magic he once had before dying- but it didn’t respond at all- he had never felt so terribly cold and empty, and hopeless! Please! I have to help her!

“There’s no need to do anything,” came a voice from behind the king. He turned quickly and stared at another transparent being, whose form was deteriorated and far more hollow than his own, and seemed more to be a glimmering spector, than a person. 

“What do you mean?!” The king demanded, stealing nervous glances back up as the little girl continued to tread water poorly. He had no idea how long she could keep that up, even as one of her shoes came off and sank to the bottom of the pond where it settled in the muddy roots of the water plants. “Who are you? How can you just sit still when she’s going to drown?!”

“You’re an altruistic type…” the spector said and seemed to lean on a large stone with old writing so worn away that it might as well have said nothing at all. “But just wait- I know her maid will turn up in a moment to save her… She's never far behind.”

“Her maid?” The king sighed and looked up- and sure enough, a pair of young arms reached in to pull the little girl out. “Oh, at last…” he sank to his knees and watched as the reflection of the child distorted and through the waves on the pond surface, the two ghosts watched as other figures appeared and surrounded her. It was painfully hard to tell what was going on- but the King could ‘breathe’ again, knowing she was rescued. “Now I know how you could stay so calm. That must be the rest of her party then- come to comfort her. Thank the power for that.”

“Oh, no,” the spector’s wispy voice chided, “Those aren’t all her friends or any comfort at all… Aside from her maid, That’s Penthia and Cleome… Her cousin and her cousin’s maid.” The Spector shook it’s faceless head, “Those two are the ones who pushed her in just to watch her struggle.”

The King’s rage finally started to reemerge- something he had thought he would feel about his own death, but now he had rediscovered it for the little girl’s sake. “And you just sit there and do nothing then!?”

“What is there to do?” The spector shrugged. “I’m long dead… as are you. I lost too much of my power too long ago to even leave this stone of my own volition. I’ve been tied here like a dog since teh day I died so even if I cared to help anymore… I could only comfort her body when it sank down to meet us.”

“That’s…” The king all at once wanted to be angry and sad, and terrified. He felt the emotions well up- almost as if someone had pulled a plug holding them back, and now they were flooding back into him altogether. “UGH! That’s horrible!  So that’s what’s become of me? After everything I did- and now I’ve been trapped at the bottom of a grimy fish pond?!”

“Hold your tongue!” The spector snapped. “This is the Royal Fountain. It’s my grave! I died here- and I take pride in what it… used to be.” He laid back and shook his head. “Nevermind- you’re right. It’s a grimy fish-”

The Spector stopped and stared up from where he lay, prompting the king to look up as well. He could vaguely hear the muffled voices above getting louder, and though the sight was chopped up by the water’s ever-moving surface, he could see the aggressive movements of the figures above. Someone shouted then- and all at once there was another splash-

In went the little girl again!

“DAMN IT!” The King gasped, watching as the child was drifting unintentionally away from the edge of the stone-rimmed pond. “What horrible people she lives with!” He clenched his fists and waited. “Where’s that damn Maid?! Someone has to jump in to get her! Quickly!”

“Oh dear…” The spector sat up and watched. 

The little girl began to sink from her tired thrashing- her feet trying to find support on anything at all, and finding nothing of hope. There were sunken logs, sure, and rocks and even the remains of an old stack of bricks- but each was far too deep for her shoet legs to find.

“Where is the maid now??” The King begged.

“She can’t swim,” the spector said, “I’m sure of it… Most people can't swim.”

This was too much! Waving his arms at the water again, the king tried urgently to swim up to her and finally, as though his prayer had been answered, the maid leapt into the water herself and let herself sink into the pond where she managed to find a log to stand on. Though she couldn’t reach the surface herself from standing here, she could push the little girl up and shove her towards the stone wall!

To everyone’s relief, the little girl was instantly pulled out this time by the other figures and dragged onto the edge of the pond.

“Yes!” The King cheered to the maid. “Now you go up as well!”

But something was wrong… 

It was as the spector had predicted; the maid didn’t know how to swim. Much like the little girl, she kicked and trashed and tried to go up- but she had no breath held, and she had no footing as her shoes slipped off the old, slimy log in her panic to get back to the surface.

The King hurried across the bottom of the pond to reach her as she drifted down and down and… yet it was too late, far too soon.

“This isn’t right,” the king shook, unable to help the young maid as she drifted right through his ghostly hands. “She was just a child too!”

The spector was silent, as though he either didn’t know what to say, or didn’t care to try.

“Well!? What happens now!? Are well all condemned to this sort of hell? Trapped in a pond or… I don’t even know how I got here! But is this what waits for the dead? We’re unable to escape or help or do anything at all? I worked so hard, my whole life to help my kingdom… I fought so hard… and now I’ve landed here…” He bent over the child and tried to pick her up again, in vain. “This is…”

He had so many thoughts, and no words at all to describe how he felt.

“This is what awaited you and I for one reason or another…" the spector said carelessly. "I think I understand why you’re here - there's no magic left in you is there? You have nothing to help your soul pass on to your next life. What a shame. But here's a little cheer for you," he said, "This isn't going to happen to her. I can promise you, being trapped is not what awaits this child.”

“What?”

It was the first hopeful moment the King had had since he’d been stabbed in the back.

“Most souls I’ve seen don’t stick around for long because the small bit of magic they all have is enough to carry them along… though to be fair, don’t see a great many dying at the bottom of this pond. It’s a weirdly popular place for innocent people to die though,” he said with a shrug. “Most of them move on to their next life easily… a few have a final request but I can’t help them. Sometimes I can answer a question or lie to them about doing something for them so they can find peace- and then they just... go.”

“What do you mean?”

The spector laughed a bit. “You ask more questions than most dead people... I guess that's fiar since you're going to be stuck here forever. Anyway- you'll see what happens to most soulds soon.” There was an almost ‘smiling’ sound to the spector’s thin voice then, as if he were becoming more lively than before. However, there was a pause as they both contemplated each other at a distance, and then the spector motioned to the body of the young maid, “Here she rises…”

“Rises?” The King turned back as well to see a light from within the maid begin to shine.It was beautiful and bright and as it emerged from her heart, her form too appeared and formed around that light. Unlike the spector, who was more crumbs than form, she was clearly there, and more sharply focused. Unlike the King, there seemed to be a weight to her and the water seemed to move her soul back and forth with a soft and comforting drift. Her long orange hair fanned out in the water and her eyes opened like glowing lights on a sad face that would have been rolling with tears if she weren't underwater. Her expression grew more and more pained as her brows knitted together and she pressed her hands to her eyes.

“No, no, no,” the maid’s soul whimpered. “Now who will protect my lady? She’ll be all alone… she’ll be so scared… she’ll be alone forever! I can’t take it! I- I-” a wail broke from her lips and she pulled her hair before her face. “I can’t die! I don’t want to die! I’m so scared! No No No! What do I do!? Please let me go back!”

The King had moved back a bit and watched her, filled with pity and pain for her as she started to realize she was beyond going back. He moved forward a bit now and put his hands on her shoulders, finding his fingertips tingled like they were asleep when they met her ruffled sleeves. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed- and then jumped with a start when her hands twisted up like claws and gripped onto his wrists with such a force that he could feel his very soul bending under her grasp.

“I CAN’T LEAVE HER LIKE THIS!!” The ghost of the maid screamed and pulled him close before collapsing to her knees and starting to wail again.

The king shuffled backwards again and felt his chilled wrists again. They were practically icy now! Glancing at the spector who was lounging about and being carelessly not helpful again, he tried to wave at it for some assistance. It didn't bat an eyelash (nor did it have any to begin with), so he turned his attention, unpreparedly back to the girl. “I would do anything to bring you back to life, he said awkwarly, "but there’s nothing left in my power to do… I’m so sorry…”

“Oh- You have something you can do actually…” the spector said, leaning away from his stone a bit.

“What?” Both the king and the ghost maid asked, their eyes pinned to his faded form like darts ready to be thrown. “What can I do?” The King asked. “I can’t bear to be so helpless! Stop lazing about and tell me what I can do!”

The spector sighed. “I had no idea you had such an urgent personality… but anyway… use your magic to send the maid back to the girl.”

The king groaned and let his face land harshly in his hands. “I have no magic! It was all taken from me when I died!”

“It was?” The spector asked. "Then I was right. I could tell right away you had none left! What an oddity."

“Thank you," the king growled, unimpressed. "Yes… it was drained form me by… my friend.”

The spector’s shoulders sank, and then he sat up again. “What a fun coincidence! I was killed by a close friend as well!”