by Craig Davis
Chapter IV
Boulder to boulder, Begietan’s feet chose their path skillfully beneath the mountains. The place glowed with familiar satisfaction for him, pulsing still with his first kill years ago. Bow in hand, he reflected upon his brother Hatan’s face, pasted over with dumb-founded shock, and chuckled in thoughts known only to himself, and that only a little.
“The best attack begins in surprise,” he congratulated himself.
He sat like a Barbary despot upon his dirt patch, like a proud babuin, lounging with his back to one of the great rocks.
“I’ve got Hatan. It doesn’t really matter what Father thinks now; he can’t withstand the three of us. Finally, I control the orchards — as I was born to, after these years working that wretched dirt. To think dear old Mother opened the door to my ambition. This couldn’t be working out better, and soon I’ll have as much as I want to take.”
Begietan whistled between his teeth and surveyed the landscape, one leg propped up on a small stone. The faraway blue sky slowly faded ashen. To the left in the distance he could see the island’s thick forests, the Ocean Heofon peeking through gaps in the tree line. To his right the sheer face of the mountain range erupted, domineering, into the open heavens, stark shadows cast within deep crevasses. In the corner of his eye a slight movement on the escarpment crept into notice.
A lean figure zigzagged slowly along the dangerous descent. Begietan’s quiet amusement rose into suspicion as he watched the man make struggling progress toward him.
“Begietan Feohtan, I believe?” it said finally, once close enough for talk, perched upon a shard some twelve feet above.
“You’ve come a long way to tell me what I have long known, stranger,” Begietan replied with a frown, wondering how the man knew him.
“Yes, indeed obvious, to me,” came the retort. “I’ve seen you here before.”
Begietan’s frown dropped, and he uneasily shifted his position. The stranger’s claim stung his bold heart with misgiving. He had always considered this spot his, separated to him from the rest of Feallengod by virtue of hubris.
“Your family tends the orchards for the community, does it not?”
Begietan settled fully on his suspicions now: This gaunt vagrant wanted a handout. “Oh, we have the orchards, all right, but not long for the community. Today we take it for ourselves, so don’t come around begging anymore.”
“You all agree?” He bounced, agitated, upon the balls of his bare feet.
“We’ll agree, certainly we’ll agree.”
“Cunning finds comfort in its own conniving deliberations.”
Begietan, unsure what the man meant, tried to brace his confidence, spinning a fallen leaf deftly between finger and thumb. “I made sure we’ll agree, even my father and brother.”
“And where did you leave your brother?”
“In the orchards.”
“Not the brother I speak of.”
At once terror shook Begietan to his core, and he dropped his leaf. Did this man know about Astigan? In his heart Begietan hoped the question merely attempted a trap, not realizing that would be all the same. Just a moment, and he replied, “Forget about my brother — I don’t know what you talk about! What concern is it of yours? What kind of trickery do you attempt?”
“Do you think you hide from me, man of Feallengod? I am Domen of the mountain.”
“Domen?” Begietan tilted his head to the side and considered the man carefully. “No!” Years carefully scanning the upper reaches of the mountain had never borne him the reward of seeing Domen. Along with most all of us upon Feallengod, Begietan thought of Domen as only a bogeyman invented by parents for recalcitrant toddlers, but then again a fear had always remained that perhaps he wasn’t. “Are you really? What do you want with me?”
“I want you.”
“What do you have to do with me?”
“More than you suppose, son of Feohtan. The orchards make a wonderful possession, now that you cover them within your cloak?”
“Yes, the orchards and the terraced fields. All belong only to us. The garden spot of the entire island.” Begietan repeated a family joke, so old and tired it no longer aroused any reaction; this moment proved no exception.
Domen leapt to Begietan’s level with one sudden bound. “Would you believe you can lay claim not just to the orchards, but the entire island?” He took on a more amiable tone as his words ratcheted on, and made so bold as to sit on the rock that had been Begietan’s footrest.
“You mean — me?”
“I mean — me. As prince of this island, I intend to take possession of it. I already claim it, and I must enforce my rule. I need men, men like you, not afraid to think, not hesitant to obey. I need an army again, one to follow my orders. The island bows to its prince — so has he said. I will take it, I will!” At this point Domen spoke more to himself than to Begietan.
“You should take it. Anything would be better than clambering upon that mountain in hiding.”
“Hiding?” Domen hissed like a snake with a sore throat. “You think I hide upon the mountain? Only by my good graces have I not already rid this rancid land of you vermin. I know all upon my high places! I own all, all the mountains, and the forests, and your little garden plot, son of Feohtan! I own all, and I will claim it as my kingdom!”
“What about the king, Ecealdor? The old fables say he will return.”
“Piss and spittle! Damn old foolishness! Has he come back? No, and he won’t. The excrement of old wives’ heads means nothing. What lays before your eyes, Begietan Feohtan, only that matters. I stand here, taking power. I claim Ecealdor’s authority. So what say you? Will you take hold of Feallengod with me, or will you sleep satisfied with that tiny weed patch your family holds so dear?”
“It’s the finest land on the island,” Begietan’s parochial vanity rose in protest.
“Why settle for one teat when the rest of the cow comes attached? Why barter the orchards’ produce, too timid to take the peoples’ goods for nothing? Don’t you see, you blind man, food upon tables makes only a means to an end. Food can feed the body, or stoke the might of the will. Sell it, withhold it; either way the transaction is power, the right to do as you wish. Lay up dominion for yourself, and you’ll never lack for anything.”
Begietan knew well the exhilaration of imposing his will, born of cruelty, fulfilled in excess. He felt it the first time he hid away in this very spot, partaking of his defiant kill; he visited it again avenging his desires upon Astigan. It smiled over his shoulder just hours ago, looming over Hatan. He hesitated.
“Why should I serve you? I could make myself lord of the island.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps you think you can. But do the men of Feallengod still wonder what lies in the meadowlands? Whose blood calls out from the ground? So you see, son of Feohtan, you should never have spoken to me.”
Begietan again flinched at the accusation. His warm recollection of terrorizing his brothers now stopped his heart with fear. The clever schemes of man and nature often have their own ideas. I once observed a spider toiling about in her web. Deftly she spun her silk about her victims, sucking dry the life of some and leaving others to dangle and contemplate their end. Then a greater spider appeared, larger and blacker, who enveloped the first in loving threads to smother out her being. She too dangled upon the fates before her life was required. How often, I wondered, do pits dug only ensnare their designer? I wonder no longer. The card Begietan had played to intimidate Hatan had now turned against him.
So even Begietan could see Domen had the upper hand – he had to throw in with the only appetite on the island bigger than his own. “Very well then. If you will deliver a share of your kingdom to me, then I am your servant. What would you have me do?”
“You already have done so, fool. Keep the yield of the orchards to yourself, and you will serve rightly. Think of yourself only, and you will serve me well.”
“Many will resist you. Many still claim loyalty to
Ecealdor,” Begietan said. “I see why you need men prepared to fight – that will feel good. How will you build your army? Will you seek out others and persuade them as well?”
Domen sneered. “The followers of Ecealdor cling to him only by their fingertips. Once the wheels grind and turn, I must needs seek no one — they will come to me.”
In his mind the people of Feallengod groveled upon their knees before Domen, begging his favor, and his thoughts turned to a time past when many desired his attentions. He had been the most beautiful to behold, the most noble of the whole host. The court in its entirety acknowledged his exalted position, longed for his company, hungered after a gracious word from him. Dearly they held such a word, and dearly it came.
His tortured brain could not bear thoughts of that time, and yet neither could it prevent them. Night upon night anger wracked his hours; bitterness and venom poured out from his soul as his memory thumbed through events of the last days in the courts of Gægnian. His head throbbed under the recollection until even the light of the slowly glowing stars seared his eyes.
The pinpoints of light blurred, then sharpened, and blurred again. Shining reflections danced, faeries upon pools and fountains of living water. Jewels shone upon fields of precious metal bright as stars, black as onyx. Light floated through the firmament upon the golden dust of Gægnian, the courts of Ecealdor.
Tall spires of white marble tickled the clouds, and ferocious sculptures of exotic beasts adorned every building. Windows shone platinum. On a clear day, the sky put on crystalline blue; when the rain fell, she draped herself in silver sheets, the drops hanging luminescent and playfully jumping upon the glistening paving stones. Without fail, without affectation, visitors from across the greater kingdom adopted a stately demeanor of pride and grace as they walked the streets of Gægnian.
In the center of the city, in the circle of the square, stood the most striking building of the courts, the castle of Ecealdor. Towering columns without number lined the outer walls, supporting huge cedar beams and rafters, intricately carved and inlaid. A large, semicircular foyer received guests under a 30-foot ceiling, breaking off into hallways like spokes from a wheel. A maze of twisting hallways joined the palace’s many rooms. The stoic, glinting armor of great warriors past stood silent guard along every wall, their silver and gold set against glistening cut stone and windows of richly stained glass. Only the inner chamber remained always closed to visitors, Ecealdor limiting entry to this most sequestered room to himself alone, and indeed his time passed there more often, more quickly, than any other place. Far from withdrawing from his subjects, when Ecealdor sat within the inner chamber, all of Gægnian rejoiced to know of his hallowed solitude.
Like rolling a boulder uphill, Dægræd-El and Gelic-El pushed open the castle’s massive doors, a gaping maw into the foyer. A whispering voice blew through the halls, like wind in leaves, “This day a son comes into travail.”
“The inner chamber has again swallowed Ecealdor,” Gelic-El said, and he grasped his companion by the arm and shook him teasingly. “We’d best inquire of him from one of the servants.”
Gelic-El, tall and broad in the shoulders, rested his other hand upon the hilt of his sword. White robes flowed from the bottom of his golden breastplate — a crest of six wings finely hammered and etched upon its front — and rested lightly upon his sandaled feet. He gazed with a serious brow tempered by a disarming smile. One of Ecealdor’s most steadfast and valiant knights, still his grandeur could not match that of Dægræd-El.
“No matter. What I must tell him, requires I see his face,” replied Dægræd-El, turning unexpectedly sullen, and he went for one of the hallways brash as a sailor on bawdstrot.
“My friend, you must not joke. You know we must not violate the inner chamber. The king seeks solitude for his counsels. You must not seek him out. You can not even know where the inner chamber lies.”
“You, perhaps. I have made it my business to know,” said Dægræd-El. “Now silence yourself and follow.”
The jocular Gelic-El dropped all, now suddenly deadly serious. “Dægræd-El, we must not. Ecealdor has so forbidden.”
“Gelic-El, I bring you here for a reason,” said Dægræd-El, still walking. “If you want audience with Ecealdor, who better to acquire entrance for you than me? He has endowed me with all greatness.”
“We must not, Dægræd-El, I will not.”
Dægræd-El stopped walking and with naught but his gaze pierced his companion. “Gelic-El, who do you all say is most glorious? Is it not I? By your own words you confess it. Now the time arrives. You call me most wise, most beautiful, and so also I. I am just as he is. I will take his place in Gægnian. Are you with me?” His words raped and shamed the echoes within the passageway.
Gelic-El took hold of him by the forearms. “Dægræd-El, I beg you, turn from this. You desire rebellion against the king. I will go no further.”
“Don’t get caught in the heart of rebellion, then, my friend, for the halls soon will flow thick with the current of it. Fully one-third of Gægnian conspires with me, those most loyal subjects of Ecealdor whom you so love, and they await outside the palace. As you entered with me, they received their signal, friend. In minutes they will storm the castle, and we will strike down the old man. This hour Gægnian sees its day of freedom! Will you choose to stand with me, or will you lie down with death?”
Gelic-El remained still, only his voice, only his gripping hand moving, as Dægræd-El tore away and continued down the hall. “Never, Dægræd-El!” the voice rang. “Never! Ecealdor will never fall!”
Deeper and deeper, invading the interior of the castle, Dægræd-El thrust into the confused labyrinth of turns and corners. Stopping to consider his bearings, he stepped into an unexpected, dimly lit niche and found a well-hidden door. Well he had plotted his coup, but beyond this door he knew not what lay. He squared his shoulders and tested the latch as Gelic-El’s voice still called him back from hallways distant in place and mind.
Cautiously he pushed open the door.
Inside the room only pitch black beckoned. Dægræd-El carefully stepped, slowly, keeping his right hand upon his sword and reaching forward blindly with his left, a beggar pleading for even the slightest hint of what lay hidden in the dark. He heard only the soles of his sandals scraping along the stone floor as he gingerly made his way. The time passed, certainly, but Dægræd-El knew no comprehension of it; regardless of how the sands did move, his vision could not adjust to the deep blackness. Finally his fingertips touched a rough surface: Dægræd-El had reached another door. He felt about the wood and eventually found a large metal ring. He pulled his sword, lifted the ring, and leaned at the door.
With a great motion of surprising ease, almost at the door’s own pleasure did it open, and a devastating flood of light stabbed at Dægræd-El’s eyes. Sunlight filled the inner chamber from a large overhead portal open to the sky, then poured through the open doorway like a rushing torrent. Light blared off the walls, gilt like mirrors. Directly beneath the blinding, holy stream sat Ecealdor on a low golden bench, upholstered in plush, scarlet velvet. Clothed in crystalline white, surrounded by long banquet tables and large scrolls of holy writ, he did not move.
Dægræd-El grimaced as he turned the back of his head into the light, shielding his eyes with both hands and arms. His sword clattered from his grip, and the shock and agony drove his knees to the smooth stone floor. Never had he endured such light; its hellish burning haunted him even still. His teeth and eyelids clinched at the blazing onslaught.
“I have expected you, Dægræd-El,” said Ecealdor. Dægræd-El detected a sweetly bitter fragrance hanging ghostlike in the air. “I have seen this day within you since your ascendancy. Your arrogance surpasses all things but your vanity.”
“Stand down, Ecealdor!” said Dægræd-El, still bowed and unable to see. “My time has come to take the throne. I will be just as you.”
“You, whose wisdom drapes him like the moss of ancient t
rees; have you shaved your beard? What then brings forth this insanity, Dægræd-El? The ways of a man seem right to him, but in the end lies destruction.”
“Silence your prattling, old man! Stand down, I say!”
“I grieve for you, Dægræd-El.”
“You misplace your pity, old fool!” Dægræd-El opened his eyes slightly now, but only to blink, for to see clearly would be to lay down his appetites. He determined to complete his mission, believing one in that room would leave dead. “Stand up from that blasted stool, Ecealdor! You mock me with your platitudes from on high. Come down and meet me in battle, if you insist! Let your sword stir my blood, if you desire to pity me!” His fingers explored the floor gingerly for his blade, but its silvery steel melted into the gleaming marble.
“You are defeated, Dægræd-El. So have I said.”
Outside the room a disturbance arose, as thousands upon thousands of running footsteps echoed in the corridor: Perhaps Dægræd-El might still claim the day. He turned to rally his insurgents, but in the outer doorway he glimpsed only Gelic-El, standing with his back to the inner chamber, dutiful not to peer in even as battle loomed. His right hand grasped his sword, his left a morning star, both which he swung like a mad windmill, growling and grunting at their weight. Before him the mob surged; behind him lay the mystery of the inner chamber — no one could pass. Dægræd-El made out a few faces of his jostling troops, all of them panicked and afraid, squinting into the brilliant light.
“Take him! Strike him down!” Dægræd-El ordered, but though some of his soldiers tried to move, the narrow hallway and the men behind so packed them all together that they could brandish neither weapon nor shield, as Gelic-El wildly flailed his slaughter.
“The purposes of a righteous man avail much,” said Ecealdor. “See yourself, Dægræd-El, and consider Gelic-El. Will your army listen to the singing of steel, or to your nattering? Whom would you fear, were you in the hallway? You have brought so many to their doom.”
Dægræd-El indeed could see now, his eyes finally taking narrow measure of the light. Through his squinting he saw Ecealdor, blurred as if behind gauze. His sight caught Gelic-El, back still turned, blocking the entrance stalwartly, a single man against thousands. With no regard for himself, Gelic-El wielded his weapons with crunching, bloody abandon. The conspirators in turn saw their leader, the man who would be king, doubled down upon the floor before Ecealdor. In the far distance Dægræd-El heard the sound of running, voices raised in anger and desperation, then the metallic clashing of a great armored conflict.
“You have turned thousands against me, Dægræd-El,” said Ecealdor, his voice level. “But you have left me many thousands more, their might born of loyalty, while like a bed of squirming maggots envy eats away your strength. Even now your forces die or flee into darkness. You have spoken well, Dægræd-El: Your time has come, but not for the purpose you have imagined.
“Your probation is over. You have chosen rebellion, and into the darkest depths of your choice I cast you.”
Dægræd-El’s knees ached, firmly grounded before his king. He saw his utter weakness, his humiliation and foolishness. Spittle flew from his teeth as he seethed. Drawing to his feet, he caught a reflection in the gilt walls: his face? His face? He froze: No longer beautiful but twisted with hatred it was; he had never seen a being so grotesque. He took a halting, crawling step toward the image, lost in his revulsion. Only the eyes, the eyes alone he recognized — the same as his soldiers’, filled with fear. The eyes open into the soul, and Dægræd-El’s revealed a writhing coil of hopeless, scathing malice.
The clashes within the halls already turned quiet. Gelic-El still withstood all those at the door — those most bold souls who longed to join Dægræd-El’s side in triumph now drank most deeply of his defeat. Forces loyal to Ecealdor folded onto the rear flank in the far end of the hall. No escape offered itself to those who survived; only the most wise cowards had slinked away into the depths of black exile.
“My justice kindles against you, and my anger boils within me,” Ecealdor said serenely. “The struggle ceases, to wait upon another time and place. How you have fallen, Dægræd-El! Honored above all others you were, and you have cast away all. Those of your followers in custody, the dungeons will hold. You, Dægræd-El, I cast out of Gægnian, to wander the greater kingdom. You also forfeit your court name. No longer will my kingdom know you as Dægræd-El, dawn of morning, but rather you will carry a twisted name to match your twisted ambitions. You will call yourself Domen.”
“I cannot suffer this,” said Dægræd-El, his seething face forlornly gazing into the mirrored wall, no longer so brave about dying, but still weighing what future might yet be his. “To leave the courts of Gægnian for the vast wilderness, I will not survive. I beg you, gracious King, allow me a place to lay my head.”
“You seek mercy? That I do not offer, but I will allow you time. I grant you delay. You desired dominion; you will have it. For a season, you will walk the dust of your own realm. I banish you to my island Feallengod.”
“Am I cast down alone?”
“No, I will establish a people there also, a generation wise but frail. I will call them my people, to fulfill the purposes of my will. You will vex them, but they will vex you greater.”
Domen saw before him the thick-headed presence of Begietan. He saw beneath his feet the jagged grit and gravel of Feallengod.
“Curse him,” he said.
