IX – What Was and What Should Have Been

No servant dared to enter after Windar’s order. The king’s rest had to be safeguarded, so they kept the fire unlit to let the gloom prevail. Narg, not desiring to waste time, did not light it and struggled against the cold that threatened to declare itself master and lord of his chamber.

He could scarce walk without stumbling. The crescent moon lit his path white, that he might avoid what still lay scattered about.

As he passed the window without hangings, he took up the black feather which, as a gift and proof of his sanity, the messenger raven had left for him.

He beheld the morn give its final yawns and welcome the sable clouds which, driven by the wind, arrived in the realm uninvited.

He kindled the two candles upon the desk and hastened to write. He did not desire to forget it, yet the dream that had snatched him from the castle to bear him to the frontiers and beyond time was growing hazy.

He shivered, drawing the blanket he had brought more tightly about his shoulders, and let the quill clink against the lip of the ink bottle as he dipped it.

He laboured to reconstruct his dream, to sail the waves once more whilst fishing for memories.

He committed scattered words to the page, the ones that resonated most with him.

'Burning log,' he jotted down. That, and Celtión’s final expression, were the recurring motifs that ended every scene.

The traitor’s face, his gaze. 'Why?' he asked himself, and pressed the tip of the quill against the papyrus until a drop of ink stained it.

Confused, he grew angry with himself; if he had recognised him, he could not understand why doubts were clouding his reason or, perhaps, his mind was simply trying to protect him from the truth that laid his heart bare.

Stubborn, he set his mind on naming him again. 'Owin or Gwion, or perhaps Cheas. No—judging by his height, it is Gwion, or Owin,' he wrote, studying his own hand to ensure that later, at least, he would be able to make it out.

'The one with his back turned was Arwel,' he wrote. 'Or Gregor,' he hesitated and brushed the grey hair from his face. With his eyes closed, he endeavoured to rekindle the sensation he had felt upon recognising him, hoping it would reveal the truth, but it was in vain.

Was it a conspiracy, as Windar had said, and was the manuscript actually intended to drive him mad? How easy it was to push him over the edge—with a few simple lines they had provoked him to the point of nearly taking him out of the game.

Was Lerg privy to this plot? It was not illogical that he might have purchased the loyalty of his own folk to divest him of the crown. Was that the sum of it, or did he but simplify matters to avoid the truth concerning his beloved grandmother?

He concentrated upon searching for some token that linked her unto it, yet only Lepontia came to mind—the tip of the castle amidst the mountain ranges.

He recollected being within a cave, or was it two?

He could not fathom why on earth the dampness of that place remained so vivid in his mind, the particulars of the white, uneven rocks that formed the walls, rather than the traitor’s visage.

A fire tightened his stomach until a wave of nausea filled his mouth.

He stood up. Blinded, he knocked the chair aside with his right calf and made for the door.

He was ready to call the guard to arrest the council, all of them, when he passed the painting.

In his head, his own voice recited the accusation he would make: 'I, Narg Hugnork, sentence thee…

' and his heart stumbled, reopening the wound, the stifled grief of executing his great sorcerer Maltón.

'The council,' he told himself, and beheld his trembling hands, even as on that day when he crossed the realm’s gate with his face slamming against his knees.

He felt his body sticky, covered in blood, his racing pulse trembling with terror.

He heard once more the soldiers escorting him cheering his name: he alone, without the help of the ravens, had put down a rebel ambush.

Narg shook his head to avoid following that path, the one to the Kerkion plain, the one of the insurgents and the rock that had struck his forehead.

He smiled as he recalled the bond he shared with Maltón, who, with just a glance, had sensed what was happening to him.

He heard his own boots clatter as he entered the castle, throwing his feathered cloak over one of the armchairs by the fire, and thought he caught the eyes of Arwel, Gregor and Kuopio, as if to invite them to join him.

Once again, Narg felt as though he himself did not know whither he was going as he made his way up the stairs with his escort, as if drawn by some invisible, silent force.

He recalled that, upon reaching the first floor, he turned without hesitation towards the east wing along the narrow corridor, and how strange it felt to halt right in front of the small service door, which he pushed open with his shoulder.

By virtue of his fancy, a tickle within his nose, caused by the dust long trapped within, almost provoked a sneeze.

He beheld himself advancing through the dimness toward the little casement overlooking the courtyard and yanking the curtain aside.

He heard his body speak; how, with his eyebrows, his gaze and his arms, he gave instructions for them to help him move the hundred or so old objects to the sides.

For in the midst, in an incredible display of strength, he set up the round table, made of ochre-coloured wood, sturdy and carved.

His hands, stained with dried blood, were still trembling when he removed his crown and sat down at that table which meant everything to him.

It had belonged to Alfredo, with two carved ravens adorning the centre.

That table, upon which his ancestor had once spread out the war maps to conceive the ideals he was trying to replicate, witnessed how, all around it, Narg founded the council.

For on that day, in that tiny hovel, he, together with Arwel, Kuopio, Gregor and Maltón, began the first meeting.

'Not a single day goes by that I do not think of you, dear friend,' Narg said unto the void.

He pictured Maltón sitting at his right hand, his clear gaze revealing the soul in his grey eyes, even as he had done from the day he had met him whilst concealing himself from his fears.

'If you were here, you would have already unravelled it.'

'Dreams sing melodies that few know how to hear.'

Maltón’s voice, within his head as if he were still at his side, comforted him.

With a smile, he took one of the candles from the desk and drew near the hearth.

He needed to behold his visage once more, lest he forget it or suffer his mischievous mind to distort it.

From right to left, he brought the light to the paintings hanging there.

It was one of the smallest paintings, yet how much magic it held.

The first council, in the boardroom, fifteen years agone, when the uneven walls of the tiny room were still crammed with odds and ends.

He observed the details the skilled painter had captured for posterity and scanned his face—that of Kuopio, Arwel, Gregor—before settling on Maltón.

That simple smile, which creased his cheeks and narrowed his eyes.

He had even been immortalised in his brown tunic, and he recalled with an amused snort how much he had refused to wear the waistcoat that distinguished him as a counsellor.

'Neither to a kingdom nor to a man—my life belongeth to light and knowledge,' he would insist whenever Narg tried to persuade him to wear the kingdom’s colours.

He took advantage of the curiosity that had taken hold of him to illuminate the next painting, positioned a little higher up on the left.

He and his wife were sitting in the sun on a bench in the maze, embracing little Celtión, aged nine, between them.

That long day, when they had to pose for hours, seemed so recent until he realised it would soon be thirteen years past. And grief struck his breast. How he yearned to dwell in that moment!

'We tend to paint our memories with magical watercolours that end up overshadowing the vivid colours of our present.

Remember me as radiant—but not so much as to cast a shadow over thy days,' he recalled his wife’s words, spoken when Maltón delivered the fateful news that there was no cure for her illness.

He reached forth his hand and caressed his beloved’s visage with his thumb.

How he missed her—her patience and her unconditional words.

'To me, thou art a simple man, and that is what connects thee to thy ancestors.

It is not the similarities that make thee special, nor thy great abilities, but the lack of some of their qualities.

Thou art not inferior, but more human, and that maketh thee unique.

' In his mind he heard her speak in that sweet tone of voice he could never forget, and he even recalled the day she had told him so, after one of his own outbursts at the weight of his surname, which filled him with insecurities and complexes.

And as the crown passed by, it drew his gaze to his left, where the memory of Windar stood beside the throne, her hand resting upon Nork’s right shoulder.

He brought the candle a little closer to his grandfather’s face—the black moustache, the puffed cheeks—and to see the details better, he took a step to the side; then, his foot struck the poker leaning against the mouth of the fireplace which, as it fell, domino-like, knocked over his Santiana sword.

But it was not the crash that stayed his hand, but the glint of the blade as it unsheathed itself upon hitting the floor.

In the dimness, a play of light formed a triangle—between the sword, the candle in his hand, and the knife lodged in the brow of Gwion’s image.

He reached forth to draw it out and, as he sought to adjust the canvas to conceal the rent, a peal of thunder—the sort that shakes the very foundations—brought him back to the present.

The painting, its eight smiling warriors, who regarded him with their swords pointed forward, at the ready, even as his own, gave him the certainty.

All that he had endured had brought him hither—his life, his annals, and those of his entire lineage.

He knew it, he felt it, deep within his breast. From Alfredo and his valiant desire that won him Odín’s blessing; to his grandfather, who ruled a kingdom adrift and steered it from shipwreck; to his grandmother, who bore life’s hardships and yet remained stoic.

He knew full well that it had been no coincidence that Maltón had crossed his path that day, after the tournament, and his gift.

That he had founded the council, chosen his loyal followers, that day, after the ambush, and his fear.

That Halfdan had denied him peace and declared war upon him, that day, after the albino raven had pecked at his window to wake him.

It was clear: he had not come thus far alone, and he ought not to traverse the remainder of the path alone either. He chose to trust.