Chapter 34 #2
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.
‘By right as Abal’s heir,’ Owyn said, with the faintest tremble in his voice.
‘A right proven by blood,’ the druid said.
The prince took a flint knife from the altar and made a shallow cut on the back of his arm.
A fat, red droplet fell onto the smooth surface of the stone.
Or … Torin had thought it smooth. He risked a step closer and felt a redoubling of disquiet.
Indeed, the stone was flat as a mirror. Yet the blood flowed in an outward spiral, then into curved branches, as though following the contours of a fine engraving.
As the rivulets of blood reached the edges of the altar, the druid placed his palm in the centre of the spiral pattern.
He raised his arm, and the blood reversed its course, flowing back towards the centre.
The strands became solid, red-tinged crystal, braiding themselves together as they followed the druid’s hand upwards, becoming the haft and head of a war hammer.
Owyn took the hammer by the hilt and drew it away from the stone.
‘Without attuning to the stones, it will be no better than a lump of iron to you,’ the elder druid said through slow, steadying breaths. His skin had grown paler, his face drawn tight.
‘It is more than that,’ Owyn murmured. He hefted the hammer, testing its weight.
‘It is a symbol. A reminder to Ifan of who I am and what disloyalty means.’ He lowered the weapon and looked to Torin.
‘And a reminder to these churchmen that Parwys is an old country, with old powers, and more than able to defend itself—from threats within and without.’
Torin dipped his head, affecting as much calm as he could muster. Yet the prince’s words struck him with weight to rival the hammer in his hand. Old powers indeed, and buried deep in this strange, elusive tower, beyond the reach of virtue.
Perhaps war was inevitable. Perhaps Torin had been too swift to turn on Afondir.
If the druids’ magics could not be excised, they would have to be suppressed.
Whatever tensions existed between Prince Owyn and his mother, the boy was unlikely to turn on her ways entirely, and certainly not with the ruthlessness required.
Better a faithless king loyal to nothing but his own power than one who had been birthed and suckled by a druidess.
With the ritual complete, they followed the younger druid back through the brick hallway and the oaken door out into the open air.
Torin had half feared that the power of the cleansing ritual would not return, but it was there the moment he left the impossible dimensions of the tower.
He glanced backwards, but nothing had changed.
The squat cylinder of green stone and the looming oak tree remained, far too small for the space they contained.
Torin rubbed his horse’s flank and nose, more to comfort himself than the animal, then pulled himself back into the saddle.
As he wheeled around to return to Anwe and Orn, Afondir walked his mount past, neither leaning nor looking in Torin’s direction, as though he were passing by mere accident in the churn of men and mounts.
‘You ought make your move sooner than later, churchman,’ he murmured, just loud enough for Torin to hear. ‘That weapon is Parwys’s last line of defence, and the blade the king holds over all our necks.’
He rejoined Owyn and the other counts as they rode back to the head of the column.
Disgust washed through Torin. Not that he disagreed with Afondir in principle—it would certainly be best to scour the kingdom of magic while the prince’s weapon was outside the protection of the green tower.
He had tried so hard to find a way to save this realm from the ambitions of its lords, and now he saw no path forward but to elevate this most distasteful, vicious of men.
When he returned to his place in the column, he found Anwe and Orn in heated conversation. Anwe squatted beside her horse, running a whetstone down the length of her sword, letting its slow, steady rasps punctuate her arguments.
‘We waste time with all this worrying,’ she said. ‘The City-witch and the fae child are all that matters. All these affairs of local politics … Well, they’ll matter not a whit in short order, eh?’
Orn, pale and holding his wounded side, snorted in disgust. ‘How likely will the people be to embrace the Agion if we plunge their land into civil war? You think with your blade, Anwe. If you had command …’ He trailed off, seeing Torin’s approach, and dipped his head. ‘Anakriarch. What news?’
Torin considered the two of them. One wounded and made overly cautious by it, the other’s appetite for blood well whetted by her recent bouts with the City-witch’s mercenary and the tree-devil woman.
Imperfect tools, as all but the venerated Agion were imperfect.
It was important to keep his own imperfections in mind.
His tendency to let compassion overrule, to the point of viciousness.
Perhaps better understood as a deficiency of courage.
The tremors that still threatened his hands and the hollow fear in his stomach testified to such a weakness.
He said nothing for a time, not trusting himself.
It would not do for his fear to infect Orn, nor spur Anwe to brutal, decisive action.
When the column resumed its journey he rode in silence into the afternoon, considering, weighing possibilities, occasionally returning his attention to the constant thrum of the cleansing ritual to reassure himself.
It may not purge the druids from the kingdom, but it would cripple Fola at the very least, and would surely burn away the wraiths she had come to bend to the City’s will.