The Dark Thorn

by Shawn Speakman

  “Stay focused on that and repeat after me—yn argel.”

  “Yn argel,” Bran said once.

  A flush of heat passed through Richard just as he knew it did Bran. It was gone just as quickly. The darkness drew back, as if a bright full moon had suddenly risen to highlight the world in silver. Every detail of the night sprang into sharp relief. When he looked at Caer Llion, even the darkest areas were in view.

  “See now?” Richard asked.

  “Wow,” Bran murmured.

  “You just called your first spell into being,” Richard said, already striding toward the castle in the distance. “Simple but effective. Now let’s get this over with, boy.”

  Richard hurried forward with Bran chasing behind, the new vision etching the night in relief. Caer Llion loomed and grew larger the closer they got, the walls stretching toward the stars as if trying to encase them. The sounds of drunken revelry, the clinking of armor, and the smells of cooking meat grew stronger, all too close for comfort. But no guards met them; no warning shattered the night. A rhythmic pounding reverberated through the air and ground, and Richard realized it was the crashing of waves against the rock of Annwn.

  As they grew nearer the castle, the ground softened and muck sucked at their boots. A rivulet of trickling water soaked the sod, disappearing over the cliff edge.

  “We follow this?” Bran whispered.

  “Look.”

  A small half-circle opened in the castle wall where a grate emitted the sluice of water from Caer Llion.

  “In we go,” Richard directed.

  After looking for security spells or curse tablets created explicitly to keep people out, Richard tore the grate off, flung it aside in distaste, and crawled inside the gaping hole. Bran climbed in after him. The ceiling was low, the wall of Caer Llion thick. Water cascaded over his feet, icy as it soaked into his boots; their sloshing footfalls made the only sound. After a few steps they broke through the wall into a shallow subterranean cave, worn down by water, the air chilly after the long day of humidity. They pulled themselves carefully upward over a gently rising slope of damp, slippery rock and moss, the grade simple but the way difficult. Richard repressed a shiver. With the star shine absent, the darkness was far more complete. Without the spell, they would not have been able to see anything, let alone a way in.

  The cavern meandered into the bowels of Caer Llion, twisting as Richard and Bran ventured deeper. The knight was unrelenting, moving ahead with a purpose that left Bran struggling to keep up.

  Gaining the slope from where the water trickled, Richard froze.

  The chamber he peered into was enormous. Stretching in a circle, a flat lake of black water spread like an ice rink made of obsidian, the bottom lost beneath its reflective surface. No ripple broke its stillness. The only interruption to the placid plane was a pyramid of stone in the middle of the cavern, erupting from the depths. Yellow light from a breach opposite where they stood flickered sentience, a promise of guards or worse.

  An object of some kind glimmered from the pyramid of stones in the lake, too far away for Richard to discern it fully.

  Richard shot Bran a raised eyebrow before moving on. He kept next to the wall where footing still seemed available, the water soaking through his boots. Bran followed. As they grew closer, Richard could make out a shore littered with worn boulders beneath torchlight and, past them, a passage vanishing upward into Caer Llion.

  On their right, another tunnel disappeared from the lake, one that had been carved deep into the rock of the world.

  Having circumvented the lake, Richard stepped to the gravelly shore on cat’s paws.

  He yearned to call the Dark Thorn.

  “Where to now?” Bran whispered.

  Richard searched the gloom, perplexed. The vision from the Dark Thorn had been completed and yet he saw no mirror or other device in the cavern. He was about to express as much when faint breathing stopped him.

  “Who…is there?” a ragged voice croaked.

  Richard suppressed calling the staff and lashing out as the lump of rock at his feet moved. An emaciated face camouflaged in grime shakily lifted toward him, eye sockets deep pits, their orbs removed forcibly at some point. The figure reached blindly for him, as if asking for aid.

  “Get back!” Bran roared, spinning around.

  Before Richard could even respond, a flurry of steel ringing to life screeched through the cavern as four soldiers detached from the shadows, confronting them with weapons drawn. They wore Templar Knight garb and sneers of hatred. A leather bag hung like a backpack from each set of shoulders, a tube running from the pouch to within inches of the warriors’ mouths.

  The Dark Thorn flamed to life in his hand, sudden light flooding the chamber even as Bran called Arondight.

  “Surrender. There is nowhere for you to go,” a grizzled soldier ordered.

  Richard gave his answer. The fire of the Dark Thorn exploded into the midst of the Templars, white hot and angry. The magic burned like an animal unleashed, casting three of the warriors aside like a battering ram as their leader leapt away. The men flew through the air to crash against the cavern. Bones snapped. Screams of pain followed. The leader shielded his face with his forearms as he rolled to bring his sword against the knight.

  Angry that they had been discovered so easily, Richard parried the blade, and with the deft motion of someone who has warred for a lifetime, he spun and jabbed the end of the Dark Thorn into the guard’s throat, shattering his larynx. The man toppled over backward, clutching at his neck and at a tube that lead into the leather bag on his back.

  “Where do we go?” Bran hissed.

  “This is where my vision told us to go!”

  “Well, try again! Now! Before more guards come!”

  Just as Richard was about to drive the staff into the shore, the soldier he had just bested regained his feet, sucking on the tube. Surprise filled the knight. The man should have been dead but instead he appeared whole once more, his throat healed.

  A tight grin spread across his face. He raised his sword and charged again, screaming hate. The other warriors who Richard thought were shattered against the stone of the cavern also struggled to their feet, their bodies working as though no damage had been done to them, each man sucking down the contents of the bags on their backs.

  Putting it all together far too late, it dawned on Richard suddenly what the glimmer in the center of the lake had been.

  They were in great danger.

  As were two worlds.

  “What have you done, Plantagenet?” Richard breathed.

  Bewildered, Bran sent the fire of Arondight into the soldier ranks. It burned at their clothing, but the men beneath were untouched, fighting through the hot affront as though the flames were merely a warm wind. Still sucking on the tubes, they raised their weapons to attack.

  Within moments, Richard and Bran were put on the defensive, fighting for their lives.

  “My pretties,” a voice cackled loudly. “Ye’ve returned to me.”

  The Cailleach emerged into the cavern from the glowing passage, covered in filth. “Came back to me, ye did,” she laughed and made a lewd gesture. “Want what dat wife could not give ye, eh knight?”

  Richard maintained the Dark Thorn despite the guilty memories rising to greet him.

  “Best ye stay put,” the Cailleach intoned, her hands weaving.

  Richard found he couldn’t take a step to confront the witch. Ice crawled from the damp shore up and into the waterlogged boots about his feet, crystallizing him into stasis. The same happened to Bran.

  “Richard!” Bran screamed.

  “Now, now, younglin’, no need to worry,” the Cailleach purred. “I want ye alive!”

  As Bran fought to free himself, Richard sent the fire of the Dark Thorn over his boots, hoping to free himself, but the ice of the witch barely melted. The warriors bore down on the two companions, surrounding them with steel. Both Richard and Bran sent their magic into the soldiers b
ut they weren’t fazed by it, the flames washing over them as the contents of the bags kept the Templar Knights from any harm.

  Two of them fought Richard to the ground, binding him with sheer strength, punching the breath from his lungs and leaving him gasping.

  The Dark Thorn disappeared from his fingers.

  As the knight struggled, he watched the boy fight like a tiger. Bran sent fire into the faces of the warriors, slashing at them with his rune-encrusted blade. It did no good. The soldiers grabbed at him, also bearing him down to the cavern floor, but he didn’t stop fighting, stabbing. Snarling rage, the youngest of the soldiers who had been impaled by Arondight brought his broadsword down on the prostate Bran.

  “No!” Richard screamed.

  The boy howled in pain, his left hand severed at the wrist. Arondight vanished instantly.

  The soldiers swarmed Bran to the hard rock of the cavern then, the young knight gone mostly limp, sobbing and cradling his ruined arm.

  “Do not damage them much, me pretties,” the witch said gleefully. “The play-king will owe me a few children for dis.”

  “Leave the boy be!”

  A sharp cuff on the back of his head sent Richard spinning.

  He could not believe what he had discovered. What Philip Plantagenet had done. It no longer mattered though. Darkness wrapped its nets over him, tightening about his awareness as it pulled him down, stealing every care he ever had, until even the fact he had failed fled him.

  “Dis will be over soon, cully,” the Cailleach crowed.

  Unwilling to believe what Philip had done with the most important relic in the history of mankind, Richard fought his slide into the unknown.

  Until he became one with it.

  Wet Seattle in his nose, Richard enjoyed the sudden sunshine.

  The squalls of the late afternoon moved east, leaving patches of baby blue sky among blackened thunderheads broken apart by the setting sun. Smith Tower, its square heights glowing white, stood across the street from Richard among a backdrop of more modern skyscrapers reaching to the heavens. People bustled by, running after buses and cabs, their workday finished. Night came upon the Pacific Northwest with a fast glove.

  He breathed in the damp air, exhilarated. It felt like a long time since he had been this happy, and he whistled it into the early evening as he waited.

  The velvet-lined box bearing his promise waited in his jeans pocket.

  “Rick, why do you always wait for me?”

  Richard turned. In the day’s final sunshine stood a woman of medium height with flawless skin, her black hair accenting a face of high cheekbones and blue eyes. She smiled at him; it was inviting in its simplicity.

  It felt like he had not seen her in years.

  “That’s easy, Elizabeth,” he said, and kissed her.

  She returned his kiss after her initial surprise, her lips soft, her tongue warm and inviting as he breathed her in. It was a simple pleasure but one he hadn’t grown tired of over the last two years, one he knew he would never grow tired of.

  Elizabeth broke the kiss off reluctantly and stared into his eyes. “How was your day at the store?”

  “The same,” he replied, their fingers interlocking to begin the walk down into Pioneer Square. “Tourists looking for the newest best seller. Merle would make more money if he began selling novels seen on the New York Times list—like those by Stephen King or Terry Brooks. The old books he sells don’t garner much interest, especially from tourists.”

  “Do you think he honestly cares about making money from the store?” Elizabeth asked, laughing.

  Richard grinned back. He guessed not. Being a wizard had its benefits. When one could sense the future, adjust stock market money in the present, and know the outcome, there was no shortage of funds.

  Over the Puget Sound the day ended, the sun sinking toward the Olympic Mountains, casting the sky in pinks and ever-darkening purples. Pushing his anxiety down and hoping what he planned would go smoothly, Richard stared at the sunset, perplexed. Déjŕ vu tugged at him. He could not remember the last time he had seen a similar sunset, but he could not shake the feeling he had already seen it.

  “A beautiful evening,” Elizabeth said.

  Richard nodded, not sure what to say. With his other hand he wrapped his fingers about the box. A light nervous sweat broke out over his body.

  He was a knight, but he had never been so scared in his life.

  The slope flattened and the couple entered Pioneer Square, the century-old buildings of red brick illuminated by the soft glow of yellow lamps flickering on. Richard tried to nonchalantly guide Elizabeth where he wanted to go—not back to their shared apartment but to the odd little triangle where Yesler Way and First Avenue met, at the heart of oldest Seattle. He floated as if above himself, his feet barely touching the sidewalk. As he grew closer, Richard could feel the portal beneath his feet less than a block away, thrumming with the magic that bound both his world and Annwn together.

  When they came to the triangle, with its large iron pergola, Tlingit totem pole, and towering ancient maple trees, he gestured to one of the benches that offered tourists and the homeless a place to relax.

  “Let’s sit.”

  “Okay…?” she agreed curiously.

  He sat next to her, his palms damp. He suddenly felt oddly solid again now that he was sitting. “This is where we met, remember?”

  “Doesn’t seem so long ago, does it?”

  “Feels like yesterday.”

  She cast him a worried smile. “Is everything all right?”

  As he slid off the bench onto his bended knee, he stared into her eyes and pulled the jewelry box from his pocket.

  “I have loved you from the moment we met, here in this very place, a grad student giving directions to a new girl in town,” Richard said, the practiced words spilling out of him “When you said yes to a drink, I had no idea how lucky my life was to become. Now I do, and I want that luck to last to the end of my days.”

  He paused, regrouping his shaky voice, and opened the box for her to see the glimmering diamond set in a simple band of polished white gold.

  “Will you be my wife, Elizabeth Anne Welles?”

  The glow from her cheeks spread over her entire face. Eyes shimmering with tears that were threatening to fall, she nodded vigorously.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling brighter. “Yes I will, Richard McAllister.”

  Fumbling in pleasurable panic, Richard took the engagement ring and slid it over her finger. Almost before he had finished, she pulled him up by his shirt and kissed him tenderly, joyful tears now staining his cheeks as well as her own. The dampness that had broken out over his body gone, Richard embraced the moment and the love of his life, the fear he had had replaced by giddy completion.

  As the colors of the sunset faded to black, the two intentioned just sat and reveled in the moment, watching people lost in their own thoughts and dreams walk by.

  Elizabeth stared at the ring. “It is odd, not having any family to call and tell.”

  “I am your family now.”

  “Merle will want to know, I’m sure.”

  Richard looked away, toward where Old World Tales presented its wares to the public. Merle had warned him about falling in love, marrying, trying to have a family. The life of a knight in any age of the world was difficult, made more so by connections to loved ones put in danger by the close proximity of creatures that would see the knight and those close to him dead. Merle worried about the growing relationship between Richard and Elizabeth and how it would put her life at risk, but it was ultimately Richard who had made the choice to marry. Merle could do nothing to prevent it.

  “You would give me anything, right?” she asked suddenly.

  Richard nodded, hearing the earnestness in her voice. “You know I would.”

  “Well, I’ve always wondered…”

  He smiled. “Yes?”

  “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to hold the weapon you
carry.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Richard said, suddenly serious.

  Elizabeth leaned closer to him, her blue eyes mesmerizing, hypnotic. She smelled like lilacs and vanilla, intoxicating. Fire stirred in his loins like he had never felt before, electric and passionate. He grew dizzy, lost deeper in her eyes with every breath. The triangle and greater Seattle dropped away, fading into a gray soup. Only Elizabeth remained, needful of his full attention, and he desperately wanted to give her anything and everything her heart desired.

  He had never felt like this before—drunken yet functional, wanton but paralyzed.

  The power of her eyes compelled him, made him want to obey.

  As soon as he was about to answer her request and draw Arondight from the ether, caution screamed. Something was wrong. The memory of Merle warning against allowing anyone to touch Arondight surfaced and stayed his hand, fighting his impulse to give her what she requested. It dampened the power of her gaze, cleared his mind enough for him to think about what he did. If anyone other than Richard could take the sword away from him, it would no longer be his, his tenure as a knight ended.

  “Darling, give me the weapon you possess,” she purred. “It is time for me to understand what it means to be you.”

  The same compelling force rose again, fighting his will.

  He wanted to make love to her.

  He needed to do all things for her.

  The warning in his heart disappeared, and he brought his hand up to call the weapon that bound him in knighthood.

  But as he began to bridge the worlds to call it, the face of another Elizabeth superimposed itself over the heat and need of the Elizabeth sitting next to him. The new Elizabeth had the same eyes, but they were loving and lacked the passionate fire that accosted him. Somewhere in his depths, the memory of a girl teasingly smiling at him amidst hundreds of stacked books on her day off coalesced and woke a part of him that had been swept away.

  None of the avarice or commanding nature pummeled him; she was pure and clean and everything he remembered about her.

  Remembered? Past tense? But she is right here.

  “Elizabeth?” he murmured.