The Dark Thorn

by Shawn Speakman

  Grasping onto the more real image of Elizabeth like a safety line, the life Richard had forgotten came swirling into him with painful clarity. He fought against the stirrings of his blood, awakening to what had been done to him; he wondered for a second why he sat in Pioneer Park with Elizabeth as a rising past threatened to tear him apart. Then it all came flooding back—his quest in Annwn, Bran Ardall and the Dark Thorn, the Queen Morrigan and her war, the dragons, the fairy, Philip and John Lewis Hugo.

  The death of Elizabeth.

  “I want you,” Elizabeth said from the bench. “Give me your knight’s weapon so I may understand your work better.”

  Anger like a flooding fire burned away any confusion that remained. Arondight flared to life in his hands. Lusty greed filled Elizabeth’s eyes at sight of the blade, a dark need he had never seen her have in the time he had known her. All of the people around him ignored the sword as if it didn’t exist.

  “No,” he defied.

  Her blue eyes, once so inviting, turned as hard as stone.

  “Give it to me,” she commanded.

  Richard stood, lifting the weapon once ordained to him but no longer his. He did not hesitate. As part of him screamed resistance, a scene he had replayed over and over in his mind for years but had never come to terms with came to the fore, falling out in agonizing slow motion.

  Not again!

  Elizabeth grabbed for the hilt of Arondight.

  Richard reacted on instinct.

  Rage at what had been done to his mind drove him as he plunged the long blade deep into her chest, all of his strength and weight behind it.

  Shock fell over Elizabeth as Arondight disappeared into her body, driven deep by righteous wrath—the hilt coming to rest against her breast, the blade exiting her back, slicked in crimson.

  Pioneer Park and Seattle wavered like a mirage and vanished.

  The light in the blue eyes he had loved so much grew dark, changing to emerald and elongating to a foreign facsimile of the woman he had loved, even as the Caer Llion dungeon became clear, cold, and real. Arondight changed to the Dark Thorn, which lay driven through the dead body of a thin korrigan in simple green forest garb, the staff’s light accenting the battered iron shackles that chained his wrists and ankles to the stone of the castle in which he was imprisoned.

  “Witch,” an unseen man growled.

  The Cailleach, who had also been similarly hidden next to a lone Fomorian giant, placed her spotted hands to the stone of the wall, mumbling archaic words Richard could only guess at.

  The walls of the cell glimmered white.

  The Dark Thorn disappeared instantly from his grasp.

  “The tablet is restored,” the Cailleach muttered.

  “Leave us,” John Lewis Hugo ordered, stepping from the shadows. The ancient witch frowned darkly before giving Richard a lurid wink. She left through the cell door.

  “I told Philip you would not submit,” John Lewis Hugo said, his ruined face glimmering red in the wavering torchlight. “Told him you would not succumb to the wiles and illusions.”

  “Give the staff back,” Richard said. “And I’ll prove you wrong one more time.” “You are not worthy,” John Lewis Hugo snickered. “Have never been worthy.”

  Richard hung from his chains. “You think I don’t know that.”

  “Still, it is remarkable you possess the Dark Thorn, the weapon of the Unfettered Knight,” Philip’s advisor observed. “How did you come by the staff? I was under the impression it was meant for the boy, not you. Not you at all.”

  Richard wanted to laugh. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Did the wizard err, I wonder?” John Lewis Hugo said.

  “Hasn’t he always.”

  “Killing your wife the way you did, killing the love of your life with the sword carried by Lancelot, arguably one of the most romantic and heroic men history has ever recorded,” John Lewis Hugo prodded, grinning. “Poetic tragedy, would you not agree? Even the wizard would agree in his own false sense of irony.” “I didn’t know it was her,” Richard said, mostly to himself.

  John Lewis Hugo stared hard at Richard. Memories from a day long gone but all too fresh stabbed the knight’s chest. A korrigan similar to the one that lay dead on the cold dungeon floor had slipped by him. It had taken him hours to track it down to just outside of the apartment building where he lived with Elizabeth. Sneaking upon the creature with the lethal calm the knight had embraced, he slew it with Arondight before anyone on the street had an inkling of what had happened. Before incinerating the small korrigan to ash as was his custom, he knelt to watch the embers of life dim unto death.

  But as he watched, the features of the fey creature melted away, revealing a human woman beneath. Panic seized him, tearing at his heart. Nothing would be as it had been. The glamour that had fooled him dissolved completely.

  It was not a fey creature Richard had run Arondight through.

  It had been Elizabeth.

  “That is the problem I have with your world,” John Lewis Hugo drawled. “Its degradation. Its unaware peoples. Its lack of moral compass. You did not know because you killed first to ask questions later. Wisdom has never been successful in such ways.”

  “What do you know of wisdom?” Richard growled.

  “You are at the heart of that wisdom, puppet.”

  “You intend to invade Seattle then,” Richard said, hanging his head. “I have seen your army. I have seen the desire written on you.”

  “That I will not tell you. You will discover quite soon enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You will either join the king in his efforts and lead his army with the Dark Thorn at its head, relinquish it to my authority, or be ultimately destroyed by years of torture,” John Lewis Hugo said. “I hope for the second of course.”

  “Kill me then,” Richard offered. “I will not help him or you.”

  John Lewis Hugo frowned, only one side of his face moving. He then turned and grabbed from the shadowy alcove one of the leather packs, bringing it into the light. Liquid sloshed within and John Lewis Hugo made sure it did so.

  “Those things are blasphemous!” Richard said.

  “No! They are providence!” John Lewis Hugo shot back, nodding to the Fomorian. “They are the means to end the sin that has populated your world since my leaving!”

  The Fomorian pulled on a massive chain behind him that led into the ceiling. A hidden mechanism running in the walls pulled the chains binding Richard taut, splaying him wide open.

  “The Holy Grail was never intended for destruction!” Richard yelled. “The Word would neve—”

  “What written Word have you read, Sir Knight?” John Lewis Hugo drawled. “The Word punishes the wicked. It has ever been so. He lends His power to those who possess His truest intentions. Your world has become a rotten egg, now split open and spewing its putrid ilk upon innocence and virtue. The Graal will wash away those who have become an evil on the world.”

  “You are screwing with powers you cannot even possibly comprehend, let alone control, you ass,” Richard spat. “The Grail has never been a tool of conquest.”

  “Not for humans, no.”

  A sinking feeling overcame the knight, one he could not ignore and knew to be suddenly true.

  “No,” Richard whispered disbelievingly.

  “Yes.”

  John Lewis Hugo stepped in front of him, his face a cold, twisted mess. The knight looked into the heart of the black eye that sat in the malformed remains of his enemy’s face, and a red light blossomed to expand into an iris of inferno. Long interred malevolence stared, holding him fast, showing him the truth; it was a sinister intelligence far older and much greater in scope than any man could possess, even having lived eight centuries. The smell of rotting mulch, mushrooms, and old death embraced Richard.

  John Lewis Hugo was not in control but an entity far more ancient and dangerous.

  “You see the truth, Knight of the Yn Saith.”
>
  “Arawn,” Richard said in fear for what it meant, the realization damning. “You are the one—”

  “Who sent the korrigan,” the fey creature residing within the human body sneered. “John Lewis Hugo died the moment he tried to imprison me. I turned his magic against him—and Philip Plantagenet. You as well, since it was I who brought you here, who has controlled your life, who put your wife beneath your blade. How do you think I crippled you in Dryvyd Wood? I have been watching you for a long time, my Knight of the Yn Saith—and make no mistake, you are mine.”

  The implications bore Richard down in a fast spiral. John Lewis Hugo no longer existed. Not in a way that mattered. Arawn lorded at Caer Llion, and Philip Plantagnet, like Richard, was more than likely a puppet as well. The fey lord that stared with fury at Richard had once ruled the Tuatha de Dannan with an iron fist, kept the Seelie Court together through will, and helped thwart the initial efforts of Philip to take over Annwn. Powerful beyond legends, the loss of Arawn centuries earlier had crippled the Tuatha.

  But Arawn had never been evil. Not like this. If the ancient fey lord went along with Philip’s plans—raising one of the largest armies ever conceived—he did so for his own gain. The motives of Arawn were a mystery, but Richard knowing what he did about the thought-dead lord of Annwn, revenge had to be part of it. A plan that longstanding and intricate did not bode well for Richard, Bran, or the two worlds they hoped to protect. And Arawn had drawn Richard into it, killed his wife, and ruined his life.

  Anger filled Richard with fire.

  He strained his shackles, enraged, trying to call the Dark Thorn to avenge the death of his wife and end the menace standing before him. Nothing happened. The giant Fomorian took a lumbering step forward as if not trusting the chains that bound Richard but he stopped once he saw the knight was powerless.

  “Why did you kill her?!“ Richard roared.

  “To prepare my way into your world, of course,” Arawn said, his eyes lightning. “Weakening the Seven, even if only one or two of you, gave me the opening to soon return home and set wrongs of old right.”

  “Then you killed the Heliwr Charles Ardall too!”

  “No, no,” the fey laughed. “Ardall did not matter. Not to me, anyway. He was an idealist with a pure heart. Having everything, he had want for nothing. It is difficult to bribe people of that nature.” He paused. “His son, on the other hand. His son, has spent his life wanting. He will be easier to persuade.”

  Richard wanted more than anything to be free to rend the fey lord with his own hands. “Bran Ardall is too stubborn and too smart to join you.”

  “We will see,” Arawn replied, grinning darkly. “We will see, my dear knight. If he survives. It was a grievous wound dealt his hand in the bowels of Caer Llion. Even right now, as we speak, Philip is with the lad, making him an offer. When the lad agrees, I will gain Arondight. Think on this. You should join the side of victory, not slaughter.”

  “Then you do want what Philip desires,” Richard said. “Dominion.”

  “Not his father Henry II’s call, but my own.”

  “Does the Morrigan know of this?”

  “Shades, no,” Arawn guffawed. “The Tuatha de Dannan know nothing of my plan. They would not even be able to comprehend it. They want to be left alone in their precious Annwn. But as I learned when we fey left the Misty Isles, your human world will forever keep intruding on our sovereignty. War will continue until one side wins. That time has come by my hand, using Philip to gain entrance to Rome and the relics it contains. The Tuatha de Dannan will be all powerful, with me as their returned leader.”

  “Why tell me all this?” Richard asked.

  “Because after what is about to happen to you, it won’t matter, I think,” Arawn said, stepping aside and offering Richard to the Fomorian. “You see, I have no further use for you if you will not grant me the Dark Thorn. Therefore, I give you Duthan Loikfh.”

  The giant lumbered forward, a grin splitting his boulder of a head. Arawn sunk back into the shadows, eagerly watching. With meaty hands the size of roasts, the giant gripped Richard’s left forearm in bark. Gritting his teeth, Richard knew what was coming and waited for the inevitable.

  “My Fomorian is deaf as any good torturer should be. And more effective for it,” Arawn said darkly.

  The Fomorian snapped both hands in opposite directions.

  Searing pain lanced up Richard’s entire arm and into his body, the broken bones grinding against splintered ends. The agony was excruciating as black dots danced in his vision. It was only the beginning, he knew.

  When the giant stepped back, the knight’s arm hung at a crooked, unnatural angle, the momentary shock wearing down to a full-body throbbing ache.

  Arawn stepped forward with the bag. Water suddenly danced against Richard’s face, cold and inviting. The droplets infiltrated his mouth, wetting his tongue and lips. Swallowing, he fought through the haze of pain. But as he did so, the crooked arm knitted itself, straightening by a power unseen by the world for more than fifteen hundred years. The other wounds he had received while in Annwn also healed. The memory of what had been done to him remained, but after a few seconds, no pain existed in his body.

  “It will get much worse,” Arawn said with an evil smile.

  “Kill me and be done with it.”

  “I do not think so, knight,” the burned figure countered. “I, with the aid of the water in that basin, can keep you alive forever—and visit excruciating pain upon you the entire time. It will drive you mad, like this body has driven me mad. Bequeath the Dark Thorn to me, and I will end you quickly.”

  Richard snorted. “Then bring your worst, you asshole.” Arawn lost his smile. He nodded to the giant, who then pulled free a hot iron poker from the stoked red coals of the fire and approached Richard with a malicious look.

  Richard tightened, snarling with rage.

  The first scream made him hoarse for those that followed.

  Bran fought free of nightmares trying to anchor him forever to the darkness, feverishly sweating, his left hand throbbing fire.

  He came groggily awake. He lay sprawled in a cell not much larger than his bedroom in Seattle, the stone floor leaching what warmth he still had and a lone torch offering none. The straw beneath him presented little cushion. As he sluggishly moved to push himself up off his moldy makeshift bed with both hands, he immediately fell back to the cell stone, pain the likes of which he had never known shooting up his left arm.

  He realized an icy cuff bound his right wrist to the wall behind him. His other arm needed no such manacle.

  Bran had lost his hand.

  The memory of the strike cut through him like a razor blade. He sat up and nearly passed out. The Templar Knight had severed the hand at the wrist. He had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious but the stump still oozed blood. The hand felt as though it were there, being stung by hundreds of fiery bees.

  Weakness washed over him. He fought it. He knew if he did not get medical attention for his arm soon, he would bleed to death or die slowly from an infection.

  Wrapping his arm in his shirt, Bran closed his eyes to think.

  Richard had been right.

  Bran should not have trusted Merle.

  The realization maddened him. As he fought the darkness threatening to overwhelm him, he took a deep, steadying breath. The Cailleach and her Templar Knights had caught Richard and Bran with magic. Somehow the warriors, with the bag contents they had carried on their backs, had been invincible against the power of the two knights. Bran had been arrogant to believe he could handle Arondight and anything Annwn sent at him.

  Richard had warned him.

  And Bran had paid a steep price.

  He wondered suddenly what had become of Richard and what would become of him if he didn’t try to escape.

  Not wanting to wait and find out, Bran tried calling Arondight.

  Nothing happened.

  He reached across the space he had become famil
iar with, seeking the sword and its power. Nothing again. Fear filled his soul. Arondight had come so easily before. He probed the void that connected him to the magic, knowing something must have been done to him. He encountered it immediately. It was as if there was a wedge between him and the sword, a thick iron plate preventing him from drawing Arondight. He fought it, forcing what will he had left to break through or get around it, to call the power and escape.

  But it was no use.

  The magic was beyond him.

  Bran sat against the wall, as defenseless as a child. The iron chafing his wrist left him cold and alone. He fought tears he hadn’t shed in years on the streets.

  He looked around the cell, trying to discover anything that could be helpful. The room only contained a three-legged stool out of his reach and an alcove with a series of empty shelves. Nothing was hidden in the straw. The stone wall was mortared fast where his chain was attached. Through the bars of the cell door window, the yellow light of a torch down the hallway flickered, casting its light of unattainable freedom. No sound other than his own breathing and the slow drip of an unseen water source met his ears; he might as well have been in Limbo, frozen in time, reduced to nothing more than a discarded afterthought.

  “Help me,” Bran croaked to the universe.

  “Do you indeed wish it, young Ardall?”

  Startled, Bran looked up.

  Beyond the bars of his cell door window, a redheaded man bearing a close-cropped beard and hard eyes stared at him. He disappeared as the locking mechanism of the door rattled, clicked, and allowed him entrance upon squeaky hinges of rusted disuse. He was tall with a square jaw, serious demeanor and, wearing all sable from neck to boot. The silver insignia of a lion blazed across a broad chest; at his hip, a broadsword of simple, elegant design rested within a scabbard displaying a jewel in its curved hilt. He had the look of one who was never denied—and if challenged, always won.

  “Well? What say you?”

  “Who are you?” Bran asked. “Why am I here?”

  “Ahh, questions. When I was young, my mentor taught answering a question with more questions shows a shallow mind unworthy of proper discourse. Of course, I did the same when I was around your age.”