It may have done so already.
A dark thought.One echoed by a thin peal of laughter.A voice his mother seemed not to hear.
‘They are able to scheme against us because we are weak,’ his mother pressed on, like a tongue pushing at an aching tooth.‘Because your father and his father could not shoulder the inheritance of Abal’s line.They let fear cripple them, and died afraid.A truth your father made final proof of in death.’Her voice hitched at those words—genuine grief, or a ploy?‘But in you, Abal’s line is refreshed with the hard, enduring blood of Cilbran.My father’s blood.The blood of men who stand against frigid, flesh-killing winds.Who fight beasts of the winter fog.Who fear neither man, nor fae, nor any other power in this world.’
The queen lowered herself until their eyes stood level.She would never kneel deeper than that, Owyn knew.Everyone around him—the anakriarch, the Count of Afondir, his mother—pushed and pulled, manhandling him.He was only a means to their ends.A path towards securing their own ambitions, whether by leading him into some trap or error, or by twisting him into a useful tool.
He thought of Ifan, standing where his mother now stood, swearing to bring an end to the rebellion.That, too, had been a lie, and from the one mouth Owyn had thought he could trust.
Were kings permitted friendship?Or would the rest of his life be this constant fencing, the whispering paranoia, a second meaning sought in every word spoken in his presence?
Again, that thin, distant laughter.Followed, now, by a muted sob.A howl that might have been buried in his own throat.
‘The magic of the land is weak, as your father was weak,’ his mother told him.‘That is why this haunting has boiled up.Old ghosts long buried, unearthed by the crumbling of ancient power.You can seal them away again.You can heal the kingdom.Put things right.Cow these rebellious counts.Cast the Church and this sorceress and any other interloper from our lands.You need only go to the altar of the Old Stones and take what is yoursby right.’
He heard the echo of thunder.Could almost see the flash of lightning.The crane bursting apart in a cloud of flame.His father, burned and bloodied, falling into the dark.
He blinked, and the vision faded.
Elbrech had been weak.Had chosen death over this burden, and left Owyn to bear it in his stead long before his shoulders were broad and strong enough.His mother was right.Vultures circled him—circled the kingdom—as they circled a weak and sickly foal.
He would not fall into the dark.The dead would not have him, yet.If he must be either his father’s son or his mother’s, he would choose his mother’s.Choose strength.Choose a future, even if one bathed in his own pain and blood.
‘I will go to Bryngodre on the way,’ Owyn said.‘I will show them Abal’s Hammer, and Abal’s Scar.’Confidence built with every word.Some of the fear bled away.‘Let them all remember how this kingdom was made, and see in the Beast-King’s fate their own.’
His mother smiled and touched his face with an uncommon tenderness.But the warmth of it was muted beneath a sudden chill and a voice—laughing, weeping and howling in turns—in a language he could not speak.
An Invitation
YC 1189
The halls of the Library are fifty paces across and seventy spans high.Shelves line the walls from floor to ceiling.Some are a single span in height, others ten, to accommodate volumes of various dimensions.The desire alone to retrieve a volume from a high shelf is enough to summon one of the strange wheeled ladders, which move of their own volition.In much the same way, if one wishes to retrieve or transport a volume of such physical mass as to defy even the strongest arm, the Library’s strange, silent Servants will retrieve it on one’s behalf.I can think of no greater evidence than this that the First Folk did, indeed, intend for us to plumb its labyrinthine depths.A rare example of their ignorance, then, that they assumed we would be able to read their script.
Archivist Qu Anselwa,An Initial Observation of the Labyrinth,YC99
The seat of County Glascoed stood on a bluff overlooking the First Folk Road.Timber-framed structures and a few older, weathered buildings of red brick or grey stone spilled down the slopes and encircled the base of the hill.The city’s defences amounted to a handful of stone towers and a palisade wall of thick logs.Boards of pale ghostwood inscribed with intertwining knots hung over the lintels of the gates, which Fola took for some druidic spell.Through her loupe she saw a lattice of energies entwining each, though discerning to what end—and how effective the spells might be—would take some time and attention to unravel.Time she could not afford to spend.
Glascoed’s propensity for timber-frame construction left a worried tickle in the back of her mind.Finding an explanation for the haunting would do little good if she could not exorcise it.Necromancy required an anchor for the memories of the dead.It was easiest when the ghost was fresh, the corpse not yet decayed to dust and dry bones.Artifacts could serve nearly as well, but only those that held particular significance to the spirit one wished to conjure.
People in the world beyond the walls tended to place their identity in their belongings nearly as much as their bodies.A meaningful piece of jewellery.A treasured childhood toy.The foundation stones of a home built by one’s own hands.It was difficult to predict whether the timbers of a structure that had been rebuilt dozens of times in the last few hundred years would hold that same resonance with the memories of the dead.
They drew more eyes in Glascoed than they had in Parwys—not, it seemed to Fola, because of Damon and Colm’s unusual morphologies.Horns and extra limbs were common enough.Most out-of-the-way communities simply had an aversion to visitors.Unlike Parwys—court seat of the kingdom—there was little cause for folk to come to Glascoed from afar.Doubly so folk with little in the way of baggage.Triply so when the most eye-catching member of their party was sporting a recent amputation.
‘Quaint little town, isn’t it?’Colm observed as a group of washerwomen with laden baskets on their backs glared at him, muttering together.‘Wonder if they’ve an inn with enough rooms for the lot of us.’He shifted in Rusty’s saddle.Harwick and Fola had both insisted he ride, given his injuries.To the horse’s credit, Rusty plodded along just as stolidly as ever, despite Colm’s bulk and his feet dragging in the dirt.
‘We played Glascoed a few times,’ Damon said.‘The Cracked Ladle has a big common room, and an enthusiastic crowd once they’ve a few mugs in them.Or, if you want something more out of the way, there’s the Robin’s Perch.’
‘We won’t need an inn,’ Fola said.‘Unless Count Ifan proves particularly inhospitable.Does that seem likely from what any of you know?’
The troupers exchanged looks and uncertain shrugs.Spil chuckled from his place in the saddle and stroked Mable’s neck.‘The Silver Lake Troupe might have been the finest theatrical production to travel the kingdom, but I’m afraid that fact had yet to reach the ears of the gentry.We had little exposure to lords and ladies.’
‘You don’t even know the man’s reputation?’she pressed.
‘Young,’ Harwick answered.‘Melancholic.Never really came out of mourning for his father, rumours tell.’
‘I could see all that clearly enough from a glimpse of him,’ Fola muttered.‘I suppose we’ll have to hope curiosity overrides his caution.It would be better if I had arrived at court after him and he’d heard the herald announce me.A little official recognition goes a long way with nobility, in my experience.’
‘You’re experienced with such folk, then?’Siwan asked.In the plodding boredom of their journey, Fola had told her a few tales of her travels and of the City.Little things, with no mention of the dangers she had found in places like Tarebach, Kar and Ulun, meant to spark the girl’s curiosity about the wider world and the wonders of the City of the Wise.And Siwan was curious.Attentive and inquisitive in a way that reminded Fola a great deal of herself.She could easily see how the Silver Lake Troupe had come to embrace the girl, despite the risk presented by her magical affliction.
