The tower of the tyrant, p.44
The Tower of the Tyrant, page 44
Some of the storm within him—worry, grief, regret—must have shown on his face. Fola stood and reached out to him. He let her place a hand on his arm.
‘This is far from hopeless, Llewyn,’ she said. ‘Dangerous, yes. Uncertain, very much so. For now, we have to work together to end the nightmare here in Parwys, and not only for Siwan’s sake. The past has clawed its way free of the grave and would sooner tear this kingdom down to the bedrock than be buried again.’
Fola took a breath, bracing herself. ‘But when that is done, she will have to come with me. I know you do not trust me, or my people, but I promise you the City is good. She will be more than safe there—she will be happy. Free to develop her talents, to be who she wants to be. I want that for her as much as you do. And the day may come when she chooses to stay in the City of her own volition.’
‘That day never came for Afanan,’ Llewyn said, feeling brittle and sharp.
Fola smiled softly. ‘She carried the City with her, Llewyn. I didn’t know her well, but that much was obvious to me.’
Grief washed through Llewyn. A sudden breaking of a dam he had not known existed. He remembered their last conversation, before the coming of the Huntress. He had said things … horrible things. Raising the notion that the Grey Lady had been right to want Siwan’s death. And Afanan …
‘She wanted Siwan to go with you,’ he said, his own voice sounding thick in his ears. ‘She would want her to help you, too, I think.’
Fola nodded, but before she could speak he caught her by the arm and held her tight, so that she would feel the weight of his next words.
‘That child is the best part of me,’ he said, hardly making sense. ‘And the best part of her. You will keep her safe.’
Fola took his other arm and pulled him into an embrace. His tears flowed hot, wetting her hair.
‘I will, Llewyn,’ she whispered, and he felt, for the first time, the kindling of an ember of trust in her. ‘I swear it, I will do all that I can.’
The Old Stones
YC 1189
In their hubris, they wield powers they can never understand, and suborn themselves to the whims of those who have abandoned them.
Wari the Younger, Pedagogue of the Mortal Church, First Declarations, YC
While he thought it a preposterous excess of industry and courage, Torin had little grounds to insist that Orn stay behind. Though young, he was a knight of the Mortal Church in his own right. And, as Orn pointed out, he would be needed to identify the fae folk in Fola’s company.
Torin wondered if perhaps the boy were subjecting himself to harm as a way to prove some kind of point. No one doubted his zeal, but—given his unfortunate morphology and all the ignorant prejudice it must have attracted—it seemed that Orn still felt the need to demonstrate it. So it was that the three of them rode out with the punitive army Parwys had gathered.
Though Orn’s wounds were far from fully healed, his virtue of perseverance would keep the pain from debilitating him in a fight. The force Prince Owyn and his loyal counts had gathered—some five hundred mounted knights, two thousand foot, and fifty hand-cannoneers—might serve as a parable of excessive caution. Far more than enough force to quash one rebellious county. It would have been better to ride at speed with fewer soldiers, in Torin’s opinion, and stand a better chance of catching Fola and her little band of faeries and merry troupers on the road.
They left the tree-devil woman in the care of the castle gaolers and the queen regent, who had made one last attempt to join their host that morning while the knights and nobles gathered in the courtyard.
‘You need my guidance in this, Owyn,’ Torin had overheard her say, wielding the virtue of honesty to attend her conversation with the prince at a distance. ‘There are powers at play beyond your understanding. Very nearly beyond mine.’
‘What guidance could I need?’ the prince had rebuffed. ‘If Ifan is guilty, we will execute him and raze his house to the ground. If he is innocent, then so be it. Another answer to the question of the haunting will be found.’
‘Owyn—’
‘You are the queen regent, Mother. Yours is to rule in my stead until I am crowned, yes? That is what I need from you. We will be back within the fortnight for the coronation.’
Medrith had watched them go from the castle balcony, clutching her staff, its leaves budding anew. That she spun plots of her own was obvious. Torin would not distract himself with wondering at them, however. What a horrible little country this was, where mothers and sons schemed against each other. These people needed the enlightenment of the Agion, and swiftly, or they were likely to descend into an orgy of pointless violence.
A thought that cast Torin’s mind back to the gaol cell, the tree-devil woman, and the little shameful thrill he had felt putting a knife in her eye.
The memory of her taunting, after, dampened that thrill.
Just before noon, as they rode east across the fertile plains towards the Windmarsh, a subtle thrum pulsed through Torin. A vibration like the first note of a grand orchestra. His message had reached Templar Unwith, then, whose own messages had spread to waken their agents and prepare the cleansing of Parwys. If he attended to that sensation, he could almost feel lines in the air. Threads of power that bound him to the nine medallions Unwith’s agents had carried to the far reaches of the kingdom, enclosing it within a ritual circle.
One tension drained from him like water; another flowed in to take its place.
‘It is ready, then?’ Orn asked, ever observant, though the pain of his injuries showed on his pallid face.
‘Should we need it,’ Torin confirmed. ‘And that is all we ought to say.’
Anwe grunted, but grinned.
‘Do not let your readiness for violence become eagerness,’ Torin chided. She only rolled her eyes.
Nonetheless, the knowledge that he held such power was a relief. At a moment’s invocation of the nine Agion, he could burn out the infection that gripped this kingdom, should the need to do so arise. Yet such disruption would invite a chaos perhaps worse than the disease. Civil war, certainly, which might necessitate a crusade, the armies of Tarebach and Alberon sweeping in to restore order.
Better if the cleansing came at Prince Owyn’s request, and the structures of power in the kingdom could be preserved, simply suborned to the Church and elevated to virtue, as they had been in Alberon. A disappointment, of course, for Eurion of Afondir. Torin looked to where the count rode at the head of the column, just behind the prince and his housecarls, as though he were still a loyal servant to the crown. Torin had hoped Owyn might take action against Afondir, but the prince had proven more willing to trust a treasonous subject than a well-meaning foreigner. A product of prejudice that might have been comical if it were not a step on the tragic path towards war.
* * *
The looming branches of the great oak of Bryngodre filled the sky when orders to halt filtered back from Owyn. Foot soldiers put down their packs and began digging for trail rations. The hand-cannoneers set to oiling their guns against the humid air of the Windmarsh. Torin cast about for a decent spot to dismount and stretch his legs. Difficult on the cramped road, and he preferred staying in the saddle to wetting his feet and trousers on the damp marshland. Anwe had already dismounted, loudly announced her need for a piss, and set off to find a hill or a rock to squat behind. Orn eased himself down from the saddle and gently stretched his spine, bracing his hand against his wounded side.
‘Anakriarch!’ a messenger called, just as Torin spotted a yet unclaimed bit of raised earth off the road. ‘Prince Owyn would see you at the head of the column!’
Torin rode at a slow walk through the milling host towards the prince’s banner—the crowned bear in red, black and gold. Forgard’s warship, Afondir’s gilded tower and Cilbran’s mailed fist fluttered beside it, held a handspan lower in deference. Though—and this may have been only Torin’s imagination—it seemed Afondir’s bannerman kept his a finger’s width higher than the banners of the other counts.
‘Here he is.’ Owyn welcomed Torin with a sweeping gesture. ‘Now we can proceed.’
‘Your Highness,’ Cilbran said quietly, ‘I do not see why the churchman should witness this. It is sacred—’
‘I hear you, uncle,’ Owyn interrupted. He fixed Torin with a slow, taunting smile. ‘But the anakriarch has been so generous in demonstrating his powers to us. It is only fair that he know what magics we command.’
‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ Forgard muttered, and deftly wheeled his mount towards the gates of Bryngodre.
‘Highness, I do not myself see why any of this is necessary,’ Afondir said as they rode beneath the simple stone lintel. ‘We have more men than Ifan can hope to field at such short notice, to say nothing of Forgard’s hand-cannon. Even if the druids’ circle in Glascoed is sympathetic to Ifan, they will not interfere and set themselves against the circle of Bryngodre.’
‘It is the symbol of the thing, Eurion,’ Owyn replied sharply. ‘A reminder to Ifan of what he stands against.’
Before Afondir could reply, they reached the base of the path that led up the hill. Atop it, the tower of green stone and the mighty oak loomed. Three druids—one bent-backed and leaning on his staff, one in the prime of middle age, the other a youth with little more than tufts for a beard—met them there.
‘Have you come at last to attune with the Old Stones, Your Highness?’ the middle druid asked, a hint of displeasure in his voice.
‘Not as such, Holiness,’ Owyn said. ‘Only to collect my due as Abal’s heir.’
‘Power without humility is a dangerous thing,’ the elder druid muttered—a point Torin had to agree with. The blind flailings of heathen belief sometimes, by pure accident, seized upon a kernel of truth.
‘Will you deny the kingdom its greatest weapon?’ Owyn snapped. ‘I do this not from arrogance, but in defence of the realm. If you oppose me, you are traitors.’
‘Where is Sister Medrith?’ the youngest druid asked.
‘My mother governs in my stead, as is her duty as regent,’ Owyn said. ‘Now step aside and let me pass, or I will have you moved.’
A surprising threat. These druids were the heart of Parwys’s magical power, ignorant and pathetic as it was. The counts, their housecarls, and the knights of the realm wore armour and wielded weapons forged of raw iron dug from the earth, which would give them some advantage against the druids’ spells, but there were few certainties there. A spell might still tear open the earth to swallow them all, for example, and pay little heed to the special properties of raw iron.
Torin suppressed a chuckle as he imagined the prince, the counts and their retinues shrieking and falling into darkness, their voices cut off suddenly as the fissure closed. Destroyed by the very heathen magics that had formed the foundations of their power.
A delicious thought.
Here was another window into the strange politics of this backward kingdom. A curiosity, but regardless of how things progressed, these heathen priests would be stripped of their power—magical and political—when Parwys was brought under the auspices of the Church.
After a moment of consideration, the eldest of the druids said, ‘Very well, Your Highness, but leave your mounts. All who approach the Old Stones do so afoot.’
Leaving their horses with the prince’s grooms, they followed the druids in a small procession to the tower. The town itself created an impression of age—built all of red brick or wattle and daub. Folk appeared in doorways to watch the procession in silence. Most were of common morphology, but there was a woman and child each with an extra set of eyes below the ridge of their cheekbones, a man with an elongated face suggestive of a bear, and another with a third arm protruding from the centre of his chest. All, even the child, dressed in the same brown habit embroidered with leaves or flowers in white thread.
Torin shuddered. It was far from the first time he had confronted heathen spirituality. One could hope to reason with people whose minds had been so thoroughly captured by delusional worship of the First Folk’s leavings, but once a life had been dedicated to a lie, the mind hardened itself against all argument. Anyone would baulk from accepting that they had wasted so many years in delusion. That they had, perhaps, done regrettable things because of it.
His gaze lingered on the four-eyed child. There might be some hope for that one. The rest … Well, better that the contagion of their beliefs be eradicated, though that eradication caused them pain, or required their deaths. Even the child, if it proved resistant to conversion. Another case where compassion had to be restrained lest its overindulgence lead to greater suffering.
As Torin approached the tower, his sense of foreboding deepened. It was cylindrical, windowless, and formed from uniform blocks of green stone whose mottled colour created the impression of slowly swirling shadows. Or … more than an impression. The longer Torin stared at the stones, the more solid those shadows became. It was like glimpsing the shapes of strange creatures swimming deep below the surface of a murky pool. The oak tree was more unsettling still. At a distance, Torin had assumed the tree protruded through the roof of the tower. Up close, he could see that its roots had anchored themselves to its walls, though it had not damaged the stone, as though tree and tower were one and the same object.
A round door protruded from the wall half a dozen paces, framed by a tunnel of red brick just wide enough for two people to walk abreast. The middle-aged druid opened the door and stepped aside while the eldest and youngest led their small procession into the short tunnel. Each step added to the weight settling in Torin’s stomach. For reassurance, he set his attention to the thrumming power of the nine medallions that now encircled the kingdom, ready for his word and intention to begin the cleansing ritual and scour all this horror and foolishness away. Though he walked into the heart of corruption, he carried the light and certainty of the Agion and virtue with him.
They emerged into the tower proper, and a sudden silence descended, cutting Torin off from the power of the medallions. The subtle thrum that had been with him since that morning was gone. He nearly stumbled in his shock.
‘Surprised, churchman?’ Owyn said. He turned away to face the interior of the tower, which in his astonishment and terror Torin had yet to fully take in. ‘I was struck dumb the first time my father brought me here. Just stood and stared for what felt like ages.’
From the outside, the tower had seemed no larger than thirty paces across, and a mere three storeys high. Now, Torin faced a chamber that stretched further than the entire footprint of Bryngodre. The walls soared upwards, reaching to a peak that surpassed the uppermost reaches of the great oak that had seemed to grow from the top of the tower. A silvery mist hung high above Torin’s head, like wisps of cloud.
A steady, pale light filled the space, with neither torch or lantern to be seen. Like starlight, but brighter, casting every detail—of the space, of their bodies—in stark relief. It was as though they stood in a painting and the artist had spent a great deal more time detailing his human subjects than the background they stood against.
A terrible fear pierced Torin that the door they had entered through had vanished and left them stranded in this bizarre, impossible space. But it stood closed behind them, at the end of a short hallway of plain brick. An urge swelled in him to fling it open, to stand again beneath a natural sky where geometry and light held to the patterns and laws he had known all his life. To feel again that subtle, quiet thrum of the cleansing ritual’s readiness, and once again stand in a position of power over these people, this place.
There were old, dark powers at play here. He felt a paranoia that merely witnessing this heathen magic might corrupt him, and in that corruption, strip him of his virtue. He suppressed the urge to invoke the blessing of the Agion, to call upon his power simply for the reassurance that he still could. A foolish impulse, particularly here, surrounded by enemies and in the heart of their potency. Yet, the possibility remained …
No, he forced himself to believe. His paranoia was only an artifact of the strange dimensions of this place. The tower itself, and everything it contained, must be a First Folk artifact. There were other places such as this. Smaller shadow-worlds made to serve inscrutable purposes. Legend and rumour held that the hated City of the Wise was full of them. The moment he left the tower, his finger would return to the bowstring that Templar Unwith and his agents had prepared, ready to draw and loose the arrow to cleanse all of Parwys.
And he realised, in a moment of sharp horror, that were he to leave the tower and call upon the power of the Agion to scour Parwys free of the First Folk’s magic, this place would persist untouched. It stood beyond the natural boundaries of the world—therefore beyond the circumference of the ritual circle.
‘Let us be about the business, then,’ Cilbran muttered. He cinched his rimewolf cloak tighter about his shoulders. ‘This place reminds me too much of fae glamour.’
Twelve columns of black stone stood throughout the space, some taller than the external facade of the tower itself. Each was covered in a carved pattern of spirals much like the circle the druids had drawn to bury their king. Gemstones had been set in the midst of these patterns—opal, chalcedony, anatase. It made Torin wonder at the tower’s centrality to the power of the druids. There was more to this place, he suspected, than the prince’s purpose in visiting.
If this was the anchor for all the druids’ magic, would cleansing Parwys even be possible? He might invoke the ritual and scour the kingdom clean, only for heathen magic to sprout once again, like weeds with a deep taproot lingering in the soil.
The columns surrounded a flat-topped stone—a natural altar—which Owyn now approached.
The elder druid positioned himself across the altar from Owyn. ‘By what right do you claim this power?’ he said, with the practised cadence of ritual.
