XI – A Kingdom Called Lepontia #3

He ascended to the loft and closed the door. He was soaked through with rain and sweat from having run the entire distance between the old Oak of Brimmon and the entrance to Old Minister.

He fetched clean raiment, stripped with haste, and rent the sheet from the bed to dry himself. His trembling hands made it difficult to fasten his belt buckle. He felt weak. The hazy memory of the evening was fraying his nerves and tensing the muscles in his neck.

As he paced back and forth across his chamber, upon his return, he took a jug of liquid from a shelf and sniffed it to discern its contents.

He tipped it into a bowl and then plunged his hair into it.

With his eyes closed, he rubbed his face; an intense burning sensation forced him to look.

The burgundy water revealed that the cut was deeper than he had suspected.

He rummaged through the shelves crammed with books, inkwells and bottles until he found his comb.

He turned to his right to look at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall.

He struggled to recognise himself, disfigured; a gash ran across the skin of his right cheek, exposing bone and muscle.

He recoiled in terror as he tried to piece together the memory of the prayer:

'Ogkahom… of destiny,' he said aloud, 'torl, no. Torllihä… fall.' He scratched his head as if rubbing the memory from among his hair. ' Pehaskajam… our saviour.'

It was in vain; fragments were missing, he was not sure if it was Leighill or another language, and, overcome by helplessness, step by step, he moved away from his reflection.

With eyes brimming with tears and his jaw clenched in fury and pain, his back slammed against the wall right next to the skylight.

He cast his gaze into the courtyard. Gwion, immaculate, as if the sunlight were spotlighting his every step, was making his way toward the main entrance.

'Could he possibly be any more perfect?' he thought, and he stubbornly refused to acknowledge what he felt.

With a cry of rage, he kicked the table before him and, in a chain reaction, vials, liquids and papyri scattered across the room.

He picked up one of the shards at his feet and made a small cut in the palm of his hand. 'Forgive me, master,' he murmured softly. Forbidden magic, blood for blood, and the memory of Maltón seemed to stand before him, ready to rebuke him, when his hand, raised to the height of the wound, glowed.

He endured the pain until only a thin reddish thread remained as a trace of the laceration. He combed his stony hair to hide his crime and went forth to meet Gwion.

From without he thrust in the fallen objects that hindered him from shutting the door, yet left it unlatched, spurred on by the sound of Gwion climbing the stairs.

He intercepted him upon the landing of the first floor:

'The horses are ready,' Gwion told him with a smile as he shook his hand. 'I hope you are in the mood for a chat; I desire to be the first to hear how the experience went.'

The two warriors were setting forth for Ubberia, as Narg had commanded them.

The clang of metal anklets striking one another echoed through the stairwell and alerted Cheas.

He hastened to hide behind the wooden banister on the first floor overlooking the entrance hall, right next to the hourglass.

Crouched low, he beheld them depart through the foremost portal, unawares that Gregor drew nigh upon his right.

He blew softly into his ear and the slender warrior’s reaction was instantaneous. In a single movement, he stretched out his leg and kicked him in the knee to bring him down; then he sat upon him and held the blade of his golden dagger to his throat.

'Have you had mead tea for breakfast?' he said, flustered as he recognised him.

'What plot do you hatch, lurking like a harpy?' he retorted, his brow furrowed.

'Simple. After finding no trace of Halfdan’s formal visit to Old Minister, Balder denied me his blessing, and I spent the night awake, searching through the few belongings I have left of my father. I found nothing, so I waited at the library door until Tros arrived. I needed to speak to him alone.'

Cheas loosed his comrade and assisted him to his feet. Both adjusted their crimson waistcoats and cloaks, and proceeded upstairs.

'He told me he kept only two things of my father’s,' he said as he re-tied the dagger to the small sheath upon his forearm. 'That he would not give me one because I had neither the knowledge nor the curiosity to understand it. As for the other, it is this.'

Cheas opened his hand and showed him a small, silver-coloured key, somewhat rusty, with a red thread tied to it.

'Did he tell you what it opens?'

'No, he has not. But we shall discover its purpose if you accompany me and cease gazing in that fashion.'

'I beseech your pardon, lad, I know not what hath unsettled me more—Narg’s words, or the fact that I passed by Windar’s chamber last night and she was not there.'

'Fear not, Bartón must be keeping watch over her.

Let us trust Narg and discover whether my sire concealed aught that may prove serviceable to us.

Two matters trouble me, if I may summarise the jumble of thoughts within my mind at this moment.

First, what doth Narg recall of my sire that causeth him to regret his judgement?

And second, that he underwent an out-of-body experience without the aid of any magic, and whatsoever he beheld therein. '

They climbed to the top floor of the castle, then walked down a corridor until it narrowed, and at the far end, they halted before a rustic door.

'I refuse to barge into Owin’s chamber. If suspicion falls upon us, the darkness shall have prevailed ere we have even played a single card.'

'Do not be so thick, man,' said Cheas, perceiving Gregor’s astonishment.

'Forgive my outburst. We shall not violate his privacy, but in this room—the attic—was my father’s laboratory.

He spent more days here than in the house with me.

When they took him away under arrest, it was from here, so there might be something hidden left behind. '

'Was that when you came to live in the castle?'

Cheas shook his head and the hair tucked behind his ears fell across his face.

'I tarried a few months with Tros, which was not much unlike dwelling with my father—he was ever absent. Then I took my station among the troops.'

He paused for a moment, lost in thought, as he smoothed his hair back into place.

'I wonder if I truly deserved it, or if Narg merely desired to honour my father’s memory.'

'Firstly, absurd modesty is nothing but insecurity. Secondly, you have earned your place among the elite; you are the most agile and possess the best reflexes of the eight,' he chided him.

'Training was my sole pastime. They did not always permit me to go and play with Celtión and the Gerinsons, so I applied myself to improving what they expected of me,' said Cheas, feeling the door handle yield. 'There are no keys; Tyr guides our way.'

He contrived to open the door a crack with some difficulty; something was wedged in and blocking it. Cheas, being so slender, contrived to squeeze through. He pushed aside a pile of books that were leaning against the door and opened it for his companion.

'My word!' exclaimed Gregor, lifting the overturned table to make some space. 'Owin is not usually this untidy. Last week I came to ask him for some ointment for a soldier whose eyebrow I had split during training, and this place was a perfectly fitted jigsaw puzzle.'

For a time they wandered about the disorderly chamber.

They took up divers objects and shifted them to and fro.

Cheas, who had not slumbered all night, sat down somewhat vexed upon Owin’s bare bed.

He rested his elbows upon his knees, hunched his shoulders a little further and held his head in both hands—threading his hair between his fingers as he stared at the floor, striving to still his thoughts and make room for the memory of being in that very spot as a child, with his father.

A crack between the floorboards jogged his memory.

'Here, Gregor,' he announced, leaping to his feet with a sparkle in his voice.

He was worried, yes, but also intrigued, for the whole affair stirred a curious excitement within him that rekindled the heat of battle.

'In the hut wherein we dwelt,' he added as Gregor shifted the cot, 'my father was wont to conceal this dagger ’twixt the floorboards.

I inherited it from him, or at least I felt it mine after he was gone.

Therefore, if I am not mistaken, Maltón was given to concealing trinkets within the interstices of the floor. '

Cheas crouched and pried the dagger into the cracks to remove the loose plank.

He peered inside, but the light from the small skylight was not sufficient.

He reached in and managed to feel something.

He attempted to draw it forth, and, upon perceiving that it would not pass, he yanked out the neighbouring plank.

Gregor waited expectantly, somewhat concerned by the large hole in the floor.

It proved to be a rough, rusty metal box, with a seal upon the lid on its upper side. Cheas lifted it until it was at eye level for both of them and attempted to open it, but it was indeed locked. He turned it without finding a slot in which to insert the key.

'It is welded shut,' he declared with a snort.

He shook it and perceived that it was not a solid block of metal; the contents were moving and bouncing against the sides.

'Whose seal is that?' asked Gregor, pointing at the colourful emblem.

'If you do not know, I am afraid no one in this room does.'

Gregor took up the box and held it to the beam of light. With the tip of his index finger, moistened with saliva, he wiped the wax seal and perceived that the red and yellow shield shifted.

'This is not soldered; it is a thin sheet of brass held in place.'