The Dark Thorn

by Shawn Speakman

  It was, of course. Philip turned back to the sunrise. There was still a part of him that resented leaving his war unfinished, putting individual happiness before completing his father’s commandment. A man had his duty first; what came after was his alone. Over the eight centuries of his war, many women had enjoyed the pleasure of his sheets, all of them broomed from his royal suite just as quickly. None had produced children. John blamed it on use of the relic: such a potent magic rendering Philip impotent. Stoppage of its use—or so John believed—would lead to the heirs his long family line required.

  Philip did not question his advisor. But his purpose in Annwn was yet to be finished, and it remained a festering wound to his honor.

  “What did Gerallt’s daughter say?” he asked finally.

  “She is angry, as is usually the case with arranged marriages,” John said. “Yet she knows her obligation to Caer Llion, and it will lend her the strength to do what is right.”

  Philip wondered. If he did marry Lord Gerallt’s daughter, Mochdrev Reach would become a powerful new asset to his empire. The breadth of Annwn he had already conquered was vast but the populace sparse, particularly in the south. The men and women of the Reach were the descendents of the first humans to enter Annwn, coming to the sacred isle with the fey long before Philip had been born. He knew his history. He also knew countries could not be conquered without consolidation of force, and that meant bringing the Reach into his army and plan. John was right. The best way to do so was through marriage.

  “My king,” John said, hands folded before him. “Gwawl, son of Clud, requests an audience. He can wait if it pleases you.”

  “Are the preparations complete for Annwn’s newest visitors?”

  “They are,” his advisor answered. “Master Goronwy and his hounds will lead a large company of Templars to the portal. The Cailleach has agreed to go for her normal price, of course. It should be enough.”

  “The hag should be more than a match for the knight,” Philip said. “You are sure the boy and knight will enter Annwn?”

  John did not answer but instead stepped to the middle of the room where the Cauldron of Pwyll sat upon its granite pedestal, the water in its silver mouth flat like ice. The rest of the study was much as it had been for most of Philip’s life—a refuge for the High King of Annwn. The room held many of the possessions he brought with him from London, but it had also become a journal of his time in the Sacred Isle. On one wall, opposite the world map of his birth, a map of Annwn hung, its breadth exposed for easy viewing. Shelves lined the other walls, filled with tomes from the library at Oxford, his own personal writings, and the combined knowledge of the dead rebel druids from the university at Caer Dathal. Rugs, ornate chairs, an oak desk buffed to a deep gloss, and acquired magical artifacts filled out the room.

  “You look tired,” Philip said.

  “The cauldron…taxes me, my king,” John said, touching the silver lip of the wide bowl. Philip observed the ruined mess that was the left side of John’s face, as it had been for centuries. The unpolluted childhood friend of Philip had vanished long before, the sad consequence of imprisoning one of the most fearful and powerful fey lords. “I am but a shadow of my other’s former self,” John admitted.

  “You have given much. It is not in vain, I assure you.”

  “Thank you,” John said. “What of the Lord of Arberth?”

  “I care not about Gwawl,” Philip said, disinterested. “He is as demanding as he is ugly. Why has he come, especially at this early hour?”

  “He would not say, my king.”

  Philip gazed at the burgeoning morning. He had far more urgent items of interest to cater to. The demon wizard had acted as the witch had estimated. While Philip hated using fey creatures to lure the unsuspecting knight and boy, it was a necessary evil. Plans he and John had orchestrated were nearing completion—and it was time to reap the reward.

  “Let him wait,” Philip commanded. “The day I have wanted for centuries has finally come, and it deserves my attention fully.”

  “Yes it does, my king. Our efforts now begun, however, cannot be stopped. Separating a knight from his portal is a battle won, but I worry if the boy gets free, it could cost us the war.”

  “I know your apprehension. Action has ever been the doctrine of my father’s vision, and its time is now, John, after all of these centuries. Whether the boy lives or dies, it will be to our benefit. Are you not confident in the portents of the witch? In your own auguries?”

  “I am, but Myrddin Emrys is…wily. He could have pulled wool over my eyes.”

  “The wizard is wily, indeed,” Philip agreed. “Like playing gwyddbwyll against the worthiest of opponents. And for your sake I hope you can see through that wool. If what you have seen is true, I have the advantage. The Heliwr is nigh to gracing two worlds again after almost a decade, and as he does so I will rule him.”

  “The Templar Knights are assembled in the northern courtyard, my king,” John reminded.

  “The cauldron then, one more time.”

  Without word, John placed both hands upon the cauldron’s rim and stared into it, furrowed concentration twisting his face. A ghostly film stole across both of his eyes, even as the depths of the bowl stirred with a brackish glow that illuminated John with wicked intent.

  “What do you see?” Philip questioned impatiently.

  John remained bent over the water. “I see a merlin, flying against the azure sky, its wings darkening the land beneath with shadows. Those shadows fall over Caer Llion.”

  “Is it Myrddin Emrys?”

  “Difficult to know, my king,” John replied, squinting into the light. “But I do not believe so. It feels not like the wizard. More… free. Less intelligent.” John paused. “I now see a seed sprouting from soil as black as midnight, growing into a warped tree of daggers and deep roots. It stands alone, powerful, unfettered—but sad, the forest encircling it unwilling to encroach upon its presence. Red eyes from the dark. Red eyes.”

  “The hawthorn tree. Am I anywhere near it?”

  “No, my king.”

  Philip darkened. It was not what he had hoped.

  “Night, as terrible as the dawn,” John continued. “It falls over the enormous dome in Rome where a raven sits upon a cross, lording over all from the gloom.”

  “A merlin. Now a raven,” Philip mused. “Do you at least know the raven’s significance?”

  “I do not,” John replied. “The raven is an animal of great power. A defiler.”

  “The Church is that defiler, needing direction,” Philip said. “Where is our prey now? The knight and the boy should be our focus.”

  John clutched the sides of the bowl with white-knuckled hands, beads of sweat springing to life upon his brow. “They will emerge within Dryvyd Wood when the sun rises and will be far from the safety of the portal by midday, my king. The Shield and the men of the Church who challenged them have not followed. A halfbreed intervened and caused great damage to them.”

  “Good. Good. Come back to me now, John.”

  The cauldron glow faded, leaving the advisor’s mismatched eyes clear but circled by dark exhaustion.

  “When the time comes, will you have the strength to blind the Vatican?” Philip asked.

  “It will not pose a challenge,” John answered, straightening.

  “I hope not.”

  “I could never dishonor your father and brothers that way.”

  Philip looked back out the window, the sun rising from its bed to paint the world in color. Those of his immediate family were dead long centuries past, their remains lost to antiquity, their desires dust with the exception of Philip. King Henry II of England had been a man of vision and power—one who sacrificed his family for gain. As a boy living in the trades quarter of London, Philip had not known his unique parentage. It was not until he had been brought before his true father and begun his secret education with Master Wace of Bayeux that he left his apprenticeship and embraced a greater calling, hi
s existence as an outsider made clear.

  The mantle Philip carried had finally ripened to fruition.

  “I want you to lead the Cailleach, the Houndmaster, and the Templar Knights,” Philip ordered. “I want the boy brought directly to the dungeons to begin his new life.”

  “What of the knight with him? He is a grave threat.”

  “He will be broken like the boy—and made an asset.”

  “He could also undo your plans, my king.”

  “If what you say is true, this knight is near broken anyway,” Philip countered. “He is the weakest of the Yn Saith.”

  “He is,” John said, looking away. “But I still feel—”

  “Your true feelings are known.”

  “The knight is not necessary,” John finished. “Kill him and concentrate on the boy.”

  “I do not care for your tone, John,” Philip said darkly. “Use of the cauldron has warped your logic. Imagine the power our army would acquire with the Heliwr and a knight of the Yn Saith at its head. Imagine the authority we would hold over the Church and its governments. The ability to end the Tuatha de Dannan and shape both worlds in the Godly image intended.” Philip paused. “One thing I have learned these great many years, my friend, is usurped power is power acquired. I mean to have it rather than lose it.”

  “I have to concede attaining the services of Arondight would be a great boon to your efforts,” John said. “But the risk remains severe.”

  “The sword of Lancelot is a prize beyond any I now possess,” Philip remarked. “Give the knight to Duthan Loikfh. The Fomorian is the best at what he does.”

  “And the boy, my king?”

  “He may not be as hard to persuade as you think, John,” Philip said. “If what you’ve seen it true, he is a wanderer, lost, looking for direction. He has never had the finery we have had for so long. He may join us willingly if given those things his life has lacked as a street pauper.”

  “Indeed,” John said. “I also still worry of the Tuatha de Dannan.”

  “What of them? I control Annwn.”

  “Right now, my king,” John pointed out. “But the fey have yet to be defeated.”

  “They are fractured, weak,” Philip said. “The strength of the Templar Knights has grown as that of the Tuatha de Dannan has diminished. If not for the Carn Cavall Mountains, Snowdon, and the Nharth who shield them both, the war would be long been over.”

  “Master Wace would preach caution. The Seelie Court—”

  “The various courts are broken, leaderless,” Philip countered. “But you are wise to fear the possibility. Caer Llion will not be left unguarded. Have faith in that, John.”

  “I do, my king. Our work is nearly finished.”

  “Not finished, John,” Philip said, already thinking ahead. “Only just begun.”

  John nodded stoically.

  “Be sure the Cailleach is given payment,” Philip said. “She will need fresh breeding materials for the army. No reason to anger her as before.”

  “A lowborn child from town will be given upon our return,” John assured.

  “Leave now,” Philip commanded. “And I’ve changed my mind. Take Gwawl with you. He would do well to witness our new strength, and what we do to our enemies—a little reminder for his rebellious nature. Include Evinnysan; Fodor, son of Ervyll; and Sanddev, along with some of the pets from the dungeons. Take the boy and the knight alive. I want their reeducation to begin in earnest and in health.”

  John nodded but lingered.

  Philip stared at him hard. “Something else?”

  “If the boy escapes, we will have to release the bodach to hunt him—to kill him. He and the knight cannot be left to their own devices. And releasing such a powerful tool weakens our burgeoning strength, no matter how slight.”

  “See that it does not come to that,” Philip asserted.

  “Your will is my will, my king.” John bowed low and left.

  Alone once more, Philip breathed in the warming morning air and gazed over the land. He was happy John had left. The marriage his advisor hoped for, while practical, did not interest him this day. Instead he thought of the trap.

  John had little cause to worry. The Cailleach would be a hardship the knight would not overcome. She was highly intelligent and too powerful, even for one bearing Arondight.

  The High King turned back to his table and the unrolled floor plans of the Vatican and its catacombs he had attained two centuries earlier. The ghost of a memory surfaced unheeded: his father, grown old from family machinations, standing in an altogether different crypt near a tiny royal sarcophagus. The buried boy—Philip’s older brother, William—had been murdered during infancy by evil banished from Britain centuries before. Sorrow trailed down the face of Henry II, moved to tears by a long-held angry grief. That day he proposed a life to Philip different from any other. With several heirs in front of Philip, Henry II decided to make a weapon out of a son who would never have vast amounts of wealth or significant title. The King of England offered him a new world, but one only a man with courage, conviction, and the Lord’s grace could attain.

  Philip lost the dwindling remnants of his boyhood that day. He had been thirteen.

  The classic and military education Master Wace gave Philip granted him the tools to enact what was needed—a wealthy world awaiting conquest, ripe with possibility.

  The sounds of the new day caught up with the sun, the town below his window and the castle around him coming to life.

  Philip smiled. After centuries of fighting, Annwn was his.

  The world of his birth would not be far behind.

  When Richard stepped into the portal, the world of smell and touch disappeared.

  He could see Bran behind him, but the boy appeared translucent, concealed by blankets of mist. Arrow Jack was nowhere to be seen. Neither Richard nor the boy spoke, both fixated on the path before them, their footsteps silent as they fell on vertigo-inducing nothingness. Richard forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, hoping he had not made a mistake in coming. With the decayed odor of Old Seattle and the adrenaline from the gunfight fading, he fled from a past filled with pain into an uncertain future.

  All the while, the mysterious words of Merle haunted him.

  The gray lightened, a point as blinding as the sun growing in front of the two travelers, until Richard had to shield his eyes. As the illumination grew, the feeling of being pinched—of being reduced in physical size by a force more commanding than gravity— squeezed the air from his lungs. Just as he was in danger of passing out, a blast of light surrounded both men, and the shock sent Richard to his knees.

  He opened his eyes.

  The void and the crushing grip were gone.

  In its place, warmth and a verdant meadow spread around him, the dewy emerald grass sprinkled with clover and small purple flowers under a sun rising to the east.

  Behind him, a shimmer like heat rising over cooked pavement rippled in the air.

  Bran lay near him, shaking off what they had just experienced.

  “Is this…?” the boy asked.

  “Annwn,” Richard answered, standing. “The ancient land of the Tuatha de Dannan.”

  Richard had never been to Annwn beyond visiting the Isle of the great tree Achlesydd along with the other Yn Saith. Sky like he had only seen in the Rocky Mountains lorded overhead, clear and clean. Insects buzzed, a persistent hum amidst the twill of birdsong. Despite it only being morning, Richard knew the afternoon and early evening would be hot. The only blight surrounded the meadow like a wall: a forest grown unruly repelled the sunshine, its limbs twisted as if in pain, its depths dark like runny pitch.

  Richard felt akin to it, like an ink stain on clean cloth.

  “You okay?” he asked Bran.

  “I am,” the boy replied, also standing and smacking blades of grass off his knees.

  Richard grunted and looked around, getting his bearings. He had never seen the majesty of the massive range in the d
istance from this vantage; its jagged snow-encrusted peaks burst from the remnants of what looked to be an ancient era of previous mountain building.

  “Hope we aren’t going into those mountains,” Bran said.

  “They are the Carn Cavall, the newer spires, Snowdon,” Richard said. “Hard country, wild and still free. With any luck we will not be going there.”

  “Will the Church men follow us?”

  “Not if I know the Kreche,” the knight snickered. “They won’t get near the portal.”

  “Finn Arne took a punch from the Kreche that should have killed him,” Bran said. “How is it he is okay?”

  “You know I possess Arondight,” Richard said. Bran nodded. “The Captain of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard possesses Prydwen, the Shield of Arthur. It keeps him from harm, no matter the damage done.”

  “He is invincible?”

  “Yes,” Richard said. “Mostly.”

  “But I didn’t see a shield.”

  “Trust me, it is there,” Richard huffed. “Can we get going now?”

  Not waiting for an answer, Richard set off into the forest parallel to the Carn Cavall, his strides long with purpose. Bran hurried after. The plants and sounds were the same, the feel of the grass beneath his feet familiar, the world appearing no different than their own although summer now replaced fall. But something was off, a feeling of illness that traveled from his boots into the core of his being.

  Before he could think more on it, the shadowy forest enveloped them, the airy lightness of the day blocked like a thunderhead in front of the sun. Wrongness surrounded them, dank and stale, the trees sapped of life. No animals or insects stirred. The forest was a dead zone.

  “What a dismal place,” Bran observed.

  “Dryvyd Wood was designed this way.”

  “Designed?”

  “Well, designed probably isn’t the right word,” Richard said. “Allowed to grow terrible is closer to the truth. Don’t stray from me and do not touch the trees, at least not until I tell you it is all right. They are none too friendly.”