Chapter 46
The Labyrinth of Power
Upon reflection, your accusation of chauvinism rings true, my friend. We of the City have little faith in the structures and powers of the wider world to produce such qualities as justice, equality and compassion. I, for one, would be delighted to be proven wrong.
Owyn had found his mother’s presence in Bryngodre surprising—almost surprising enough to draw him out of the fog that filled his mind.
The battle had been going his way. It had begun distastefully, with ousting common folk from their homes, the slaughter of those who resisted—at the hands of Afondir’s men, not his own, he continually reminded himself—and the burning of the city.
One did not put down a rebellion without showing, unambiguously, the consequences of treason.
So Glascoed had burned, and the sky had filled with smoke and the stomach-turning sweetness of charring corpses.
There had been fighting in those fire-lit streets, though he saw its aftermath as he rode slowly towards the gates surrounded by his housecarls and his counts.
Forms heaped and studded with arrows in the mouths of alleys.
Blood spray on the cobbles, like rose petals in a tapestry.
Screams of agony and shouts of triumph that heralded his gradual, cautious advance.
With discipline, one could numb oneself to such painful sights.
One had to, as king. He let his eyes touch and flit away, never lingering long enough to see more than shapes and colours in a smoke-stained blur.
To look for too long might break him, and he could feel the eyes of Afondir, Forgard, and even his uncle, the Count of Cilbran.
Watching, scrutinising, evaluating him as their would-be king.
He hated it. Wanted to throw down the hammer and ride away.
In a sense, then, the opening of the sky and descent of the wraiths was a blessing.
No one could judge him a coward or a weakling for fleeing when the eye of some dark, ancient god stared down, the dead walked the sky, and the sounds of battle faded beneath constant screams. His horse had reared, wheeled and run without any command, its eyes wide and rolling.
It did not slow until the fires of Glascoed were but a red glow on that dark horizon.
By then it was nearly spent, its body lathered and quivering beneath him.
Uli and the half-dozen housecarls who remained found him alone on the road.
They were as terrified to have lost him as by the nightmare unfolding overhead and in the forest. Time flowed like river rapids, from there.
Each moment tumbled into the next, chaotic, swift and unrelenting, yielding no chance to pause and think and orientate.
At a fallback rally point they found Cilbran and his personal guard.
Owyn listened, half-hearing, while his uncle and Uli exchanged words.
Then they rode, Owyn exchanging his spent horse for another—that of a housecarl, he would learn later, who meant to find his way back to Parwys on foot.
Voices in the night and glimpses in the shadows were one sort of horror; that great eye staring down, arms reaching out, voices howling in pain over the snap of breaking bones, was another.
Owyn would come to himself for moments, realise they had been travelling for hours, traversing leagues while he hovered in a fugue, then descend back into the fog.
It was too much. Too terrifying. Too great a burden.
‘We’re being followed,’ Cilbran observed while they crossed the span of the First Folk Road where it soared over Abal’s Scar, tracing the ghosts of hills long crushed and broken.
Owyn followed the line of his uncle’s finger. Seven riders followed, their mounts cutting wakes through the marsh.
‘More of ours?’ Uli wondered aloud.
Cilbran grunted. ‘Not a chance I would take. Though it is only seven, and riding fast. Get the prince to safety. I will keep a contingent here to meet these riders, and send word whether they be friend or foe.’
Owyn ought to have protested. They were making decisions for him, as though he were not their liege-lord.
Yet he found it did not matter any more.
Very little did. He understood his father well.
He was beginning to understand, even, the madness that had gripped Ifan and driven him to rebellion.
No matter the cost in blood and suffering, no matter the damage to his honour.
He had seen the horror that gripped his kingdom, and he would do anything, now, to end it.
So it was a relief when, after a night and two days of hard riding, he reached Bryngodre to find his mother already there, already with a plan.
* * *
She let him sleep for a few hours before they began. Only a few. He woke to learn that the anakriarch had arrived before him and been held as something between a guest and a prisoner. He learned, too, that his uncle had yet to reach Bryngodre. Troubling news, not yet his responsibility.
‘You have taken on too much,’ his mother said, in the room of the inn she had prepared for him.
They sat on the bed, the silk of her gown cool and soft against his cheek, dampened by his tears.
He had enough control of himself to stifle the weeping, but not enough to dam it entirely.
Her hand cradled his head while she shushed and comforted him.
All the posturing for power, all the push and pull between her role as his regent and his as the ascendant king forgotten.
The sky had opened. Horror had rained down. What he needed, then, was not the respect due a royal, but comfort. And she had given it, and whispered her plan to put everything right.
For reasons he had never understood—and would never understand, now—his father had refused to attune with the Old Stones, and thereby refused a full awakening of Abal’s Hammer and the restoration of the druids’ power.
Owyn remembered this as a tension between his mother and father, simmering all the length of his life.
It felt a betrayal that his father had thrown himself from the tower before explaining such things.
Abandoned his son to navigate the dark waters of rule with only brief, half-remembered lessons for guidance.
Owyn would make a poor king. He felt this as surely as he felt the warmth of his blood. One glimpse of battle, and his courage had buckled. A crisis in his kingdom, and he had retreated into himself, following the guidance of first Uli, and then his mother, without question.
Maybe Ifan had known it, too. Had discerned Owyn’s weakness in some seemingly insignificant moment riding on the hunt, or tussling in the courtyard of Glascoed while their fathers looked on, or venturing out to the brothels of Parwys, encouraged by whisky and wine to seek those secret pleasures at the boundary of adulthood.
Maybe Owyn’s father had known. Had thrown himself from the tower in part because he knew the strength of Abal’s line was lost.
Thoughts that gnawed at the back of his mind while she led him into the tower.
He held the hammer. Felt the cold texture of it, like oiled glass.
It seemed to grow heavier as he traversed that strange hallway of red brick walls that connected the wider world to the eerie space within.
The druids of Bryngodre awaited them; one stood over a hunched figure on the far side of the circle of the Old Stones.
‘The gwyddien woman,’ his mother told him, noting his confusion. ‘Better not to leave her in the castle, I thought. Here, her power might be put to some use, if unwillingly.’
Uli Boar-arm moved to stand guard over her.
She sat wrapped in raw iron chains at the heart of a circle carved into the earth and filled with rose thorns.
Acrid white smoke trickled from her. Yet her face showed nothing—no agony, not even frustration, as though she had chosen to be bound.
Owyn shuddered at that, but said nothing.
He was past the point of questioning, determined only to submit himself to his mother’s purpose.
To be whatever kind of king Parwys needed, to the best of his capacity, knowing that it would not be enough.
At least no one—neither living, nor any historian of his kingdom’s fall—could point to Owyn son Elbrech and accuse him of cowardice.
Weakness, perhaps. Youthful incompetence, certainly.
But he would face down horror and rise, as best his mind and body could rise, to meet it.
The druids formed a ring around the Old Stones and began to chant in the secret tongue of their power.
His mother led him into the circle bounded by the Old Stones.
Her steps traced a winding path towards the altar, following the borders of a labyrinth he could not sense or see.
A scent of loam and thunder filled the air.
The scent deepened with every step. A weight descended on him, as though the Old Stones themselves were settling on his shoulders.
A low buzzing issued from the hammer. It trembled in his hands.
And then he began to tremble. His vision narrowed until he saw only his mother and the next step he had to take.
‘You are strong,’ Medrith whispered over her shoulder. ‘You are the scion of Abal the Protector.’
Owyn nodded and took another step. The trembling became a pulsing pain. Only prickles, at first, as though his limbs had fallen asleep. Then lightning burned through his muscles.
His jaw ached with the need to cry out. He tasted blood.
Another step. They were turning inwards, now, towards the altar.
Not much further. He could feel the gaze of the Old Stones, as though ancient eyes peered out from the runes and circles carved into their faces.
Considering. Judging. Deciding whether he truly deserved the gift and burden of their power.