The Dark Thorn

Richard strode through the darkness, Bran a mere step behind.

They had been walking for half an hour, the lay of the land easy to navigate even in the night. The last remnants of the day’s insects sang, the only witnesses to their passing. It was a gorgeous evening, the last colors of the sunset behind them, but Richard ignored all of it for the most part. What was to come sat tantamount in his mind; what was to come would require every magic ability he had learned over the years.

The memory of the attempted kiss by Deirdre distracted him, though, like a terrible thought that would not go away. The woman annoyed Richard. It had nothing to do with her specifically. Deirdre had shown herself to be an asset when it came to navigating Annwn, possessed of a keen intellect and a desire to see her future unfold as she wished, not what others wanted. Feisty in a way that Richard had lost with age, she hadn’t backed down from any fight. She could have any man she wished.

It made no sense that she would want him.

But mostly Richard hated how she made him feel wanted when he deserved nothing from anyone ever again. Not after Elizabeth. Not after her death.

He focused on the moment, growling inwardly at the whole situation.

“What are you thinking?” Bran inquired beside him.

“Mind your business,” Richard said, more harshly than he intended.

“About the kiss, right?”

Richard stopped and turned to Bran. Even in the failing light he could see the jealousy burning in the boy’s eyes.

“That’s right, I saw it,” Bran said defiantly. “Sent me to pack our things just to get some free time with her? How noble, knight.”

In a rush of anger, Richard stepped before Bran, desiring nothing more than to bloody the idiot. It had been long in coming. When Bran didn’t back down, the passion in his eyes not diminishing and almost pushing for a fight, Richard shoved him sharply aside and continued onward.

“I will only say this once,” Richard snarled, striding away. “I am not interested in Deirdre. Not now, not ever. I am here to do a job. As you should be. Not to find a wife. Not to find a girlfriend. Not to make a new friend. Bring this up again and we are going to have a go of it. Seriously.” He stopped and looked deep into Bran’s eyes. “Understand?”

“Then stay away from her,” Bran said with conviction.

Richard stalked away. “Youth knows all follies,” he said under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” he replied, shaking his head, as the boy followed. “Just ensure you are focused on what is to come. Thinking about her will not aid us this night. Philip Plantagenet does not care about her, and he certainly doesn’t care about your feelings. Or about how you feel about me. One distraction can lead to our deaths. Make sure that does not happen.”

After several tense minutes where neither of them spoke, Richard stopped. Caer Llion loomed before him, the outline of the enormous castle blacker than the sky around it. Richard felt impossibly close, exposed, the reality of his plan all too near and far too real. The bustle from the army camped to the north drifted to him, a thousand different sounds more than willing to end his life. If Bran kept his head about him and Richard could keep them hidden long enough, the chance that they would succeed increased from dismal to marginal.

“How are we going to get into Caer Llion?” Bran asked, breaking the silence.

“There are many ways into a fortress. Now is as good a time as any to find one,” Richard said, stopping to call the Dark Thorn. “I might as well learn how to do this. We know Philip has some kind of seeing glass that aided him in going after you. I will focus on that.”

“A glass, huh?”

“Yes, likely a mirror. Very powerful though.”

“And finding it will show you where Philip is?”

“I don’t know what I will do if face to face with him,” Richard admitted. “Now be quiet. Let me do this.”

Richard gripped the wood of the Dark Thorn, assured by its warmth. He had no idea what he was doing but failing to try would lead them nowhere. He drove the staff into the grassland and, with both hands wrapped about its might, Richard closed his eyes and concentrated on what he knew, bringing forth images of a nebulous reflective surface bearing awesome power. He focused on it to sense what was hidden. It didn’t take long. As he did so, a part of the staff’s magic met him halfway and tugged at him, answering his call, aiding his need. Richard trusted it, went willingly, and flowed out of his body. The magic carried him away from Bran. Drawn like a lodestone, he zoomed over the land in silence, speeding toward the western side of Caer Llion.

With the path discovered, Richard let the magic die and came back to himself.

“There,” he said, pointing. “Some kind of opening into the castle, into its depths. Water. And a tunnel near the back of the castle. That’s all I saw.”

“What? Now?” Bran said. “But it’s night!”

“Best time for us to attempt this.”

“But we can’t see!”

“Yet,” Richard said. “Ready to learn a bit of magic?”

“Are you serious?”

“Focus on the ground and what you cannot see there,” Richard ordered. “Just like you call Arondight into being, believe you can see what is there.”

Bran concentrated. “I am.”

“Stay focused on that and repeat after me—yn argel.”

“Yn argel,” Bran said once.

A flush of heat passed through Richard just as he knew it did Bran. It was gone just as quickly. The darkness drew back, as if a bright full moon had suddenly risen to highlight the world in silver. Every detail of the night sprang into sharp relief. When he looked at Caer Llion, even the darkest areas were in view.

“See now?” Richard asked.

“Wow,” Bran murmured.

“You just called your first spell into being,” Richard said, already striding toward the castle in the distance. “Simple but effective. Now let’s get this over with, boy.”

Richard hurried forward with Bran chasing behind, the new vision etching the night in relief. Caer Llion loomed and grew larger the closer they got, the walls stretching toward the stars as if trying to encase them. The sounds of drunken revelry, the clinking of armor, and the smells of cooking meat grew stronger, all too close for comfort. But no guards met them; no warning shattered the night. A rhythmic pounding reverberated through the air and ground, and Richard realized it was the crashing of waves against the rock of Annwn.

As they grew nearer the castle, the ground softened and muck sucked at their boots. A rivulet of trickling water soaked the sod, disappearing over the cliff edge.

“We follow this?” Bran whispered.

“Look.”

A small half-circle opened in the castle wall where a grate emitted the sluice of water from Caer Llion.

“In we go,” Richard directed.

After looking for security spells or curse tablets created explicitly to keep people out, Richard tore the grate off, flung it aside in distaste, and crawled inside the gaping hole. Bran climbed in after him. The ceiling was low, the wall of Caer Llion thick. Water cascaded over his feet, icy as it soaked into his boots; their sloshing footfalls made the only sound. After a few steps they broke through the wall into a shallow subterranean cave, worn down by water, the air chilly after the long day of humidity. They pulled themselves carefully upward over a gently rising slope of damp, slippery rock and moss, the grade simple but the way difficult. Richard repressed a shiver. With the star shine absent, the darkness was far more complete. Without the spell, they would not have been able to see anything, let alone a way in.

The cavern meandered into the bowels of Caer Llion, twisting as Richard and Bran ventured deeper. The knight was unrelenting, moving ahead with a purpose that left Bran struggling to keep up.

Gaining the slope from where the water trickled, Richard froze.

The chamber he peered into was enormous. Stretching in a circle, a flat lake of black water spread like an ice rink made of obsidian, the bottom lost beneath its reflective surface. No ripple broke its stillness. The only interruption to the placid plane was a pyramid of stone in the middle of the cavern, erupting from the depths. Yellow light from a breach opposite where they stood flickered sentience, a promise of guards or worse.

An object of some kind glimmered from the pyramid of stones in the lake, too far away for Richard to discern it fully.

Richard shot Bran a raised eyebrow before moving on. He kept next to the wall where footing still seemed available, the water soaking through his boots. Bran followed. As they grew closer, Richard could make out a shore littered with worn boulders beneath torchlight and, past them, a passage vanishing upward into Caer Llion.

On their right, another tunnel disappeared from the lake, one that had been carved deep into the rock of the world.

Having circumvented the lake, Richard stepped to the gravelly shore on cat’s paws.

He yearned to call the Dark Thorn.

“Where to now?” Bran whispered.

Richard searched the gloom, perplexed. The vision from the Dark Thorn had been completed and yet he saw no mirror or other device in the cavern. He was about to express as much when faint breathing stopped him.

“Who…is there?” a ragged voice croaked.

Richard suppressed calling the staff and lashing out as the lump of rock at his feet moved. An emaciated face camouflaged in grime shakily lifted toward him, eye sockets deep pits, their orbs removed forcibly at some point. The figure reached blindly for him, as if asking for aid.

“Get back!” Bran roared, spinning around.

Before Richard could even respond, a flurry of steel ringing to life screeched through the cavern as four soldiers detached from the shadows, confronting them with weapons drawn. They wore Templar Knight garb and sneers of hatred. A leather bag hung like a backpack from each set of shoulders, a tube running from the pouch to within inches of the warriors’ mouths.

The Dark Thorn flamed to life in his hand, sudden light flooding the chamber even as Bran called Arondight.

“Surrender. There is nowhere for you to go,” a grizzled soldier ordered.

Richard gave his answer. The fire of the Dark Thorn exploded into the midst of the Templars, white hot and angry. The magic burned like an animal unleashed, casting three of the warriors aside like a battering ram as their leader leapt away. The men flew through the air to crash against the cavern. Bones snapped. Screams of pain followed. The leader shielded his face with his forearms as he rolled to bring his sword against the knight.

Angry that they had been discovered so easily, Richard parried the blade, and with the deft motion of someone who has warred for a lifetime, he spun and jabbed the end of the Dark Thorn into the guard’s throat, shattering his larynx. The man toppled over backward, clutching at his neck and at a tube that lead into the leather bag on his back.

“Where do we go?” Bran hissed.

“This is where my vision told us to go!”

“Well, try again! Now! Before more guards come!”

Just as Richard was about to drive the staff into the shore, the soldier he had just bested regained his feet, sucking on the tube. Surprise filled the knight. The man should have been dead but instead he appeared whole once more, his throat healed.

A tight grin spread across his face. He raised his sword and charged again, screaming hate. The other warriors who Richard thought were shattered against the stone of the cavern also struggled to their feet, their bodies working as though no damage had been done to them, each man sucking down the contents of the bags on their backs.

Putting it all together far too late, it dawned on Richard suddenly what the glimmer in the center of the lake had been.

They were in great danger.

As were two worlds.

“What have you done, Plantagenet?” Richard breathed.

Bewildered, Bran sent the fire of Arondight into the soldier ranks. It burned at their clothing, but the men beneath were untouched, fighting through the hot affront as though the flames were merely a warm wind. Still sucking on the tubes, they raised their weapons to attack.

Within moments, Richard and Bran were put on the defensive, fighting for their lives.

“My pretties,” a voice cackled loudly. “Ye’ve returned to me.”

The Cailleach emerged into the cavern from the glowing passage, covered in filth. “Came back to me, ye did,” she laughed and made a lewd gesture. “Want what dat wife could not give ye, eh knight?”

Richard maintained the Dark Thorn despite the guilty memories rising to greet him.

“Best ye stay put,” the Cailleach intoned, her hands weaving.

Richard found he couldn’t take a step to confront the witch. Ice crawled from the damp shore up and into the waterlogged boots about his feet, crystallizing him into stasis. The same happened to Bran.

“Richard!” Bran screamed.

“Now, now, younglin’, no need to worry,” the Cailleach purred. “I want ye alive!”

As Bran fought to free himself, Richard sent the fire of the Dark Thorn over his boots, hoping to free himself, but the ice of the witch barely melted. The warriors bore down on the two companions, surrounding them with steel. Both Richard and Bran sent their magic into the soldiers but they weren’t fazed by it, the flames washing over them as the contents of the bags kept the Templar Knights from any harm.

Two of them fought Richard to the ground, binding him with sheer strength, punching the breath from his lungs and leaving him gasping.

The Dark Thorn disappeared from his fingers.

As the knight struggled, he watched the boy fight like a tiger. Bran sent fire into the faces of the warriors, slashing at them with his rune-encrusted blade. It did no good. The soldiers grabbed at him, also bearing him down to the cavern floor, but he didn’t stop fighting, stabbing. Snarling rage, the youngest of the soldiers who had been impaled by Arondight brought his broadsword down on the prostate Bran.

“No!” Richard screamed.

The boy howled in pain, his left hand severed at the wrist. Arondight vanished instantly.

The soldiers swarmed Bran to the hard rock of the cavern then, the young knight gone mostly limp, sobbing and cradling his ruined arm.

“Do not damage them much, me pretties,” the witch said gleefully. “The play-king will owe me a few children for dis.”

“Leave the boy be!”

A sharp cuff on the back of his head sent Richard spinning.

He could not believe what he had discovered. What Philip Plantagenet had done. It no longer mattered though. Darkness wrapped its nets over him, tightening about his awareness as it pulled him down, stealing every care he ever had, until even the fact he had failed fled him.

“Dis will be over soon, cully,” the Cailleach crowed.

Unwilling to believe what Philip had done with the most important relic in the history of mankind, Richard fought his slide into the unknown.

Until he became one with it.





Wet Seattle in his nose, Richard enjoyed the sudden sunshine.

The squalls of the late afternoon moved east, leaving patches of baby blue sky among blackened thunderheads broken apart by the setting sun. Smith Tower, its square heights glowing white, stood across the street from Richard among a backdrop of more modern skyscrapers reaching to the heavens. People bustled by, running after buses and cabs, their workday finished. Night came upon the Pacific Northwest with a fast glove.

He breathed in the damp air, exhilarated. It felt like a long time since he had been this happy, and he whistled it into the early evening as he waited.

The velvet-lined box bearing his promise waited in his jeans pocket.

“Rick, why do you always wait for me?”

Richard turned. In the day’s final sunshine stood a woman of medium height with flawless skin, her black hair accenting a face of high cheekbones and blue eyes. She smiled at him; it was inviting in its simplicity.

It felt like he had not seen her in years.

“That’s easy, Elizabeth,” he said, and kissed her.

She returned his kiss after her initial surprise, her lips soft, her tongue warm and inviting as he breathed her in. It was a simple pleasure but one he hadn’t grown tired of over the last two years, one he knew he would never grow tired of.

Elizabeth broke the kiss off reluctantly and stared into his eyes. “How was your day at the store?”

“The same,” he replied, their fingers interlocking to begin the walk down into Pioneer Square. “Tourists looking for the newest best seller. Merle would make more money if he began selling novels seen on the New York Times list—like those by Stephen King or Terry Brooks. The old books he sells don’t garner much interest, especially from tourists.”

“Do you think he honestly cares about making money from the store?” Elizabeth asked, laughing.

Richard grinned back. He guessed not. Being a wizard had its benefits. When one could sense the future, adjust stock market money in the present, and know the outcome, there was no shortage of funds.

Over the Puget Sound the day ended, the sun sinking toward the Olympic Mountains, casting the sky in pinks and ever-darkening purples. Pushing his anxiety down and hoping what he planned would go smoothly, Richard stared at the sunset, perplexed. Déjŕ vu tugged at him. He could not remember the last time he had seen a similar sunset, but he could not shake the feeling he had already seen it.

“A beautiful evening,” Elizabeth said.

Richard nodded, not sure what to say. With his other hand he wrapped his fingers about the box. A light nervous sweat broke out over his body.

He was a knight, but he had never been so scared in his life.

The slope flattened and the couple entered Pioneer Square, the century-old buildings of red brick illuminated by the soft glow of yellow lamps flickering on. Richard tried to nonchalantly guide Elizabeth where he wanted to go—not back to their shared apartment but to the odd little triangle where Yesler Way and First Avenue met, at the heart of oldest Seattle. He floated as if above himself, his feet barely touching the sidewalk. As he grew closer, Richard could feel the portal beneath his feet less than a block away, thrumming with the magic that bound both his world and Annwn together.

When they came to the triangle, with its large iron pergola, Tlingit totem pole, and towering ancient maple trees, he gestured to one of the benches that offered tourists and the homeless a place to relax.

“Let’s sit.”

“Okay…?” she agreed curiously.

He sat next to her, his palms damp. He suddenly felt oddly solid again now that he was sitting. “This is where we met, remember?”

“Doesn’t seem so long ago, does it?”

“Feels like yesterday.”

She cast him a worried smile. “Is everything all right?”

As he slid off the bench onto his bended knee, he stared into her eyes and pulled the jewelry box from his pocket.

“I have loved you from the moment we met, here in this very place, a grad student giving directions to a new girl in town,” Richard said, the practiced words spilling out of him “When you said yes to a drink, I had no idea how lucky my life was to become. Now I do, and I want that luck to last to the end of my days.”

He paused, regrouping his shaky voice, and opened the box for her to see the glimmering diamond set in a simple band of polished white gold.

“Will you be my wife, Elizabeth Anne Welles?”

The glow from her cheeks spread over her entire face. Eyes shimmering with tears that were threatening to fall, she nodded vigorously.

“Yes,” she said, smiling brighter. “Yes I will, Richard McAllister.”

Fumbling in pleasurable panic, Richard took the engagement ring and slid it over her finger. Almost before he had finished, she pulled him up by his shirt and kissed him tenderly, joyful tears now staining his cheeks as well as her own. The dampness that had broken out over his body gone, Richard embraced the moment and the love of his life, the fear he had had replaced by giddy completion.

As the colors of the sunset faded to black, the two intentioned just sat and reveled in the moment, watching people lost in their own thoughts and dreams walk by.

Elizabeth stared at the ring. “It is odd, not having any family to call and tell.”

“I am your family now.”

“Merle will want to know, I’m sure.”

Richard looked away, toward where Old World Tales presented its wares to the public. Merle had warned him about falling in love, marrying, trying to have a family. The life of a knight in any age of the world was difficult, made more so by connections to loved ones put in danger by the close proximity of creatures that would see the knight and those close to him dead. Merle worried about the growing relationship between Richard and Elizabeth and how it would put her life at risk, but it was ultimately Richard who had made the choice to marry. Merle could do nothing to prevent it.

“You would give me anything, right?” she asked suddenly.

Richard nodded, hearing the earnestness in her voice. “You know I would.”

“Well, I’ve always wondered…”

He smiled. “Yes?”

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to hold the weapon you carry.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Richard said, suddenly serious.

Elizabeth leaned closer to him, her blue eyes mesmerizing, hypnotic. She smelled like lilacs and vanilla, intoxicating. Fire stirred in his loins like he had never felt before, electric and passionate. He grew dizzy, lost deeper in her eyes with every breath. The triangle and greater Seattle dropped away, fading into a gray soup. Only Elizabeth remained, needful of his full attention, and he desperately wanted to give her anything and everything her heart desired.

He had never felt like this before—drunken yet functional, wanton but paralyzed.

The power of her eyes compelled him, made him want to obey.

As soon as he was about to answer her request and draw Arondight from the ether, caution screamed. Something was wrong. The memory of Merle warning against allowing anyone to touch Arondight surfaced and stayed his hand, fighting his impulse to give her what she requested. It dampened the power of her gaze, cleared his mind enough for him to think about what he did. If anyone other than Richard could take the sword away from him, it would no longer be his, his tenure as a knight ended.

“Darling, give me the weapon you possess,” she purred. “It is time for me to understand what it means to be you.”

The same compelling force rose again, fighting his will.

He wanted to make love to her.

He needed to do all things for her.

The warning in his heart disappeared, and he brought his hand up to call the weapon that bound him in knighthood.

But as he began to bridge the worlds to call it, the face of another Elizabeth superimposed itself over the heat and need of the Elizabeth sitting next to him. The new Elizabeth had the same eyes, but they were loving and lacked the passionate fire that accosted him. Somewhere in his depths, the memory of a girl teasingly smiling at him amidst hundreds of stacked books on her day off coalesced and woke a part of him that had been swept away.

None of the avarice or commanding nature pummeled him; she was pure and clean and everything he remembered about her.

Remembered? Past tense? But she is right here.

“Elizabeth?” he murmured.

Grasping onto the more real image of Elizabeth like a safety line, the life Richard had forgotten came swirling into him with painful clarity. He fought against the stirrings of his blood, awakening to what had been done to him; he wondered for a second why he sat in Pioneer Park with Elizabeth as a rising past threatened to tear him apart. Then it all came flooding back—his quest in Annwn, Bran Ardall and the Dark Thorn, the Queen Morrigan and her war, the dragons, the fairy, Philip and John Lewis Hugo.

The death of Elizabeth.

“I want you,” Elizabeth said from the bench. “Give me your knight’s weapon so I may understand your work better.”

Anger like a flooding fire burned away any confusion that remained. Arondight flared to life in his hands. Lusty greed filled Elizabeth’s eyes at sight of the blade, a dark need he had never seen her have in the time he had known her. All of the people around him ignored the sword as if it didn’t exist.

“No,” he defied.

Her blue eyes, once so inviting, turned as hard as stone.

“Give it to me,” she commanded.

Richard stood, lifting the weapon once ordained to him but no longer his. He did not hesitate. As part of him screamed resistance, a scene he had replayed over and over in his mind for years but had never come to terms with came to the fore, falling out in agonizing slow motion.

Not again!

Elizabeth grabbed for the hilt of Arondight.

Richard reacted on instinct.

Rage at what had been done to his mind drove him as he plunged the long blade deep into her chest, all of his strength and weight behind it.

Shock fell over Elizabeth as Arondight disappeared into her body, driven deep by righteous wrath—the hilt coming to rest against her breast, the blade exiting her back, slicked in crimson.

Pioneer Park and Seattle wavered like a mirage and vanished.

The light in the blue eyes he had loved so much grew dark, changing to emerald and elongating to a foreign facsimile of the woman he had loved, even as the Caer Llion dungeon became clear, cold, and real. Arondight changed to the Dark Thorn, which lay driven through the dead body of a thin korrigan in simple green forest garb, the staff’s light accenting the battered iron shackles that chained his wrists and ankles to the stone of the castle in which he was imprisoned.

“Witch,” an unseen man growled.

The Cailleach, who had also been similarly hidden next to a lone Fomorian giant, placed her spotted hands to the stone of the wall, mumbling archaic words Richard could only guess at.

The walls of the cell glimmered white.

The Dark Thorn disappeared instantly from his grasp.

“The tablet is restored,” the Cailleach muttered.

“Leave us,” John Lewis Hugo ordered, stepping from the shadows. The ancient witch frowned darkly before giving Richard a lurid wink. She left through the cell door.

“I told Philip you would not submit,” John Lewis Hugo said, his ruined face glimmering red in the wavering torchlight. “Told him you would not succumb to the wiles and illusions.”

“Give the staff back,” Richard said. “And I’ll prove you wrong one more time.” “You are not worthy,” John Lewis Hugo snickered. “Have never been worthy.”

Richard hung from his chains. “You think I don’t know that.”

“Still, it is remarkable you possess the Dark Thorn, the weapon of the Unfettered Knight,” Philip’s advisor observed. “How did you come by the staff? I was under the impression it was meant for the boy, not you. Not you at all.”

Richard wanted to laugh. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“Did the wizard err, I wonder?” John Lewis Hugo said.

“Hasn’t he always.”

“Killing your wife the way you did, killing the love of your life with the sword carried by Lancelot, arguably one of the most romantic and heroic men history has ever recorded,” John Lewis Hugo prodded, grinning. “Poetic tragedy, would you not agree? Even the wizard would agree in his own false sense of irony.” “I didn’t know it was her,” Richard said, mostly to himself.

John Lewis Hugo stared hard at Richard. Memories from a day long gone but all too fresh stabbed the knight’s chest. A korrigan similar to the one that lay dead on the cold dungeon floor had slipped by him. It had taken him hours to track it down to just outside of the apartment building where he lived with Elizabeth. Sneaking upon the creature with the lethal calm the knight had embraced, he slew it with Arondight before anyone on the street had an inkling of what had happened. Before incinerating the small korrigan to ash as was his custom, he knelt to watch the embers of life dim unto death.

But as he watched, the features of the fey creature melted away, revealing a human woman beneath. Panic seized him, tearing at his heart. Nothing would be as it had been. The glamour that had fooled him dissolved completely.

It was not a fey creature Richard had run Arondight through.

It had been Elizabeth.

“That is the problem I have with your world,” John Lewis Hugo drawled. “Its degradation. Its unaware peoples. Its lack of moral compass. You did not know because you killed first to ask questions later. Wisdom has never been successful in such ways.”

“What do you know of wisdom?” Richard growled.

“You are at the heart of that wisdom, puppet.”

“You intend to invade Seattle then,” Richard said, hanging his head. “I have seen your army. I have seen the desire written on you.”

“That I will not tell you. You will discover quite soon enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“You will either join the king in his efforts and lead his army with the Dark Thorn at its head, relinquish it to my authority, or be ultimately destroyed by years of torture,” John Lewis Hugo said. “I hope for the second of course.”

“Kill me then,” Richard offered. “I will not help him or you.”

John Lewis Hugo frowned, only one side of his face moving. He then turned and grabbed from the shadowy alcove one of the leather packs, bringing it into the light. Liquid sloshed within and John Lewis Hugo made sure it did so.

“Those things are blasphemous!” Richard said.

“No! They are providence!” John Lewis Hugo shot back, nodding to the Fomorian. “They are the means to end the sin that has populated your world since my leaving!”

The Fomorian pulled on a massive chain behind him that led into the ceiling. A hidden mechanism running in the walls pulled the chains binding Richard taut, splaying him wide open.

“The Holy Grail was never intended for destruction!” Richard yelled. “The Word would neve—”

“What written Word have you read, Sir Knight?” John Lewis Hugo drawled. “The Word punishes the wicked. It has ever been so. He lends His power to those who possess His truest intentions. Your world has become a rotten egg, now split open and spewing its putrid ilk upon innocence and virtue. The Graal will wash away those who have become an evil on the world.”

“You are screwing with powers you cannot even possibly comprehend, let alone control, you ass,” Richard spat. “The Grail has never been a tool of conquest.”

“Not for humans, no.”

A sinking feeling overcame the knight, one he could not ignore and knew to be suddenly true.

“No,” Richard whispered disbelievingly.

“Yes.”

John Lewis Hugo stepped in front of him, his face a cold, twisted mess. The knight looked into the heart of the black eye that sat in the malformed remains of his enemy’s face, and a red light blossomed to expand into an iris of inferno. Long interred malevolence stared, holding him fast, showing him the truth; it was a sinister intelligence far older and much greater in scope than any man could possess, even having lived eight centuries. The smell of rotting mulch, mushrooms, and old death embraced Richard.

John Lewis Hugo was not in control but an entity far more ancient and dangerous.

“You see the truth, Knight of the Yn Saith.”

“Arawn,” Richard said in fear for what it meant, the realization damning. “You are the one—”

“Who sent the korrigan,” the fey creature residing within the human body sneered. “John Lewis Hugo died the moment he tried to imprison me. I turned his magic against him—and Philip Plantagenet. You as well, since it was I who brought you here, who has controlled your life, who put your wife beneath your blade. How do you think I crippled you in Dryvyd Wood? I have been watching you for a long time, my Knight of the Yn Saith—and make no mistake, you are mine.”

The implications bore Richard down in a fast spiral. John Lewis Hugo no longer existed. Not in a way that mattered. Arawn lorded at Caer Llion, and Philip Plantagnet, like Richard, was more than likely a puppet as well. The fey lord that stared with fury at Richard had once ruled the Tuatha de Dannan with an iron fist, kept the Seelie Court together through will, and helped thwart the initial efforts of Philip to take over Annwn. Powerful beyond legends, the loss of Arawn centuries earlier had crippled the Tuatha.

But Arawn had never been evil. Not like this. If the ancient fey lord went along with Philip’s plans—raising one of the largest armies ever conceived—he did so for his own gain. The motives of Arawn were a mystery, but Richard knowing what he did about the thought-dead lord of Annwn, revenge had to be part of it. A plan that longstanding and intricate did not bode well for Richard, Bran, or the two worlds they hoped to protect. And Arawn had drawn Richard into it, killed his wife, and ruined his life.

Anger filled Richard with fire.

He strained his shackles, enraged, trying to call the Dark Thorn to avenge the death of his wife and end the menace standing before him. Nothing happened. The giant Fomorian took a lumbering step forward as if not trusting the chains that bound Richard but he stopped once he saw the knight was powerless.

“Why did you kill her?!“ Richard roared.

“To prepare my way into your world, of course,” Arawn said, his eyes lightning. “Weakening the Seven, even if only one or two of you, gave me the opening to soon return home and set wrongs of old right.”

“Then you killed the Heliwr Charles Ardall too!”

“No, no,” the fey laughed. “Ardall did not matter. Not to me, anyway. He was an idealist with a pure heart. Having everything, he had want for nothing. It is difficult to bribe people of that nature.” He paused. “His son, on the other hand. His son, has spent his life wanting. He will be easier to persuade.”

Richard wanted more than anything to be free to rend the fey lord with his own hands. “Bran Ardall is too stubborn and too smart to join you.”

“We will see,” Arawn replied, grinning darkly. “We will see, my dear knight. If he survives. It was a grievous wound dealt his hand in the bowels of Caer Llion. Even right now, as we speak, Philip is with the lad, making him an offer. When the lad agrees, I will gain Arondight. Think on this. You should join the side of victory, not slaughter.”

“Then you do want what Philip desires,” Richard said. “Dominion.”

“Not his father Henry II’s call, but my own.”

“Does the Morrigan know of this?”

“Shades, no,” Arawn guffawed. “The Tuatha de Dannan know nothing of my plan. They would not even be able to comprehend it. They want to be left alone in their precious Annwn. But as I learned when we fey left the Misty Isles, your human world will forever keep intruding on our sovereignty. War will continue until one side wins. That time has come by my hand, using Philip to gain entrance to Rome and the relics it contains. The Tuatha de Dannan will be all powerful, with me as their returned leader.”

“Why tell me all this?” Richard asked.

“Because after what is about to happen to you, it won’t matter, I think,” Arawn said, stepping aside and offering Richard to the Fomorian. “You see, I have no further use for you if you will not grant me the Dark Thorn. Therefore, I give you Duthan Loikfh.”

The giant lumbered forward, a grin splitting his boulder of a head. Arawn sunk back into the shadows, eagerly watching. With meaty hands the size of roasts, the giant gripped Richard’s left forearm in bark. Gritting his teeth, Richard knew what was coming and waited for the inevitable.

“My Fomorian is deaf as any good torturer should be. And more effective for it,” Arawn said darkly.

The Fomorian snapped both hands in opposite directions.

Searing pain lanced up Richard’s entire arm and into his body, the broken bones grinding against splintered ends. The agony was excruciating as black dots danced in his vision. It was only the beginning, he knew.

When the giant stepped back, the knight’s arm hung at a crooked, unnatural angle, the momentary shock wearing down to a full-body throbbing ache.

Arawn stepped forward with the bag. Water suddenly danced against Richard’s face, cold and inviting. The droplets infiltrated his mouth, wetting his tongue and lips. Swallowing, he fought through the haze of pain. But as he did so, the crooked arm knitted itself, straightening by a power unseen by the world for more than fifteen hundred years. The other wounds he had received while in Annwn also healed. The memory of what had been done to him remained, but after a few seconds, no pain existed in his body.

“It will get much worse,” Arawn said with an evil smile.

“Kill me and be done with it.”

“I do not think so, knight,” the burned figure countered. “I, with the aid of the water in that basin, can keep you alive forever—and visit excruciating pain upon you the entire time. It will drive you mad, like this body has driven me mad. Bequeath the Dark Thorn to me, and I will end you quickly.”

Richard snorted. “Then bring your worst, you a*shole.” Arawn lost his smile. He nodded to the giant, who then pulled free a hot iron poker from the stoked red coals of the fire and approached Richard with a malicious look.

Richard tightened, snarling with rage.

The first scream made him hoarse for those that followed.





Bran fought free of nightmares trying to anchor him forever to the darkness, feverishly sweating, his left hand throbbing fire.

He came groggily awake. He lay sprawled in a cell not much larger than his bedroom in Seattle, the stone floor leaching what warmth he still had and a lone torch offering none. The straw beneath him presented little cushion. As he sluggishly moved to push himself up off his moldy makeshift bed with both hands, he immediately fell back to the cell stone, pain the likes of which he had never known shooting up his left arm.

He realized an icy cuff bound his right wrist to the wall behind him. His other arm needed no such manacle.

Bran had lost his hand.

The memory of the strike cut through him like a razor blade. He sat up and nearly passed out. The Templar Knight had severed the hand at the wrist. He had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious but the stump still oozed blood. The hand felt as though it were there, being stung by hundreds of fiery bees.

Weakness washed over him. He fought it. He knew if he did not get medical attention for his arm soon, he would bleed to death or die slowly from an infection.

Wrapping his arm in his shirt, Bran closed his eyes to think.

Richard had been right.

Bran should not have trusted Merle.

The realization maddened him. As he fought the darkness threatening to overwhelm him, he took a deep, steadying breath. The Cailleach and her Templar Knights had caught Richard and Bran with magic. Somehow the warriors, with the bag contents they had carried on their backs, had been invincible against the power of the two knights. Bran had been arrogant to believe he could handle Arondight and anything Annwn sent at him.

Richard had warned him.

And Bran had paid a steep price.

He wondered suddenly what had become of Richard and what would become of him if he didn’t try to escape.

Not wanting to wait and find out, Bran tried calling Arondight.

Nothing happened.

He reached across the space he had become familiar with, seeking the sword and its power. Nothing again. Fear filled his soul. Arondight had come so easily before. He probed the void that connected him to the magic, knowing something must have been done to him. He encountered it immediately. It was as if there was a wedge between him and the sword, a thick iron plate preventing him from drawing Arondight. He fought it, forcing what will he had left to break through or get around it, to call the power and escape.

But it was no use.

The magic was beyond him.

Bran sat against the wall, as defenseless as a child. The iron chafing his wrist left him cold and alone. He fought tears he hadn’t shed in years on the streets.

He looked around the cell, trying to discover anything that could be helpful. The room only contained a three-legged stool out of his reach and an alcove with a series of empty shelves. Nothing was hidden in the straw. The stone wall was mortared fast where his chain was attached. Through the bars of the cell door window, the yellow light of a torch down the hallway flickered, casting its light of unattainable freedom. No sound other than his own breathing and the slow drip of an unseen water source met his ears; he might as well have been in Limbo, frozen in time, reduced to nothing more than a discarded afterthought.

“Help me,” Bran croaked to the universe.

“Do you indeed wish it, young Ardall?”

Startled, Bran looked up.

Beyond the bars of his cell door window, a redheaded man bearing a close-cropped beard and hard eyes stared at him. He disappeared as the locking mechanism of the door rattled, clicked, and allowed him entrance upon squeaky hinges of rusted disuse. He was tall with a square jaw, serious demeanor and, wearing all sable from neck to boot. The silver insignia of a lion blazed across a broad chest; at his hip, a broadsword of simple, elegant design rested within a scabbard displaying a jewel in its curved hilt. He had the look of one who was never denied—and if challenged, always won.

“Well? What say you?”

“Who are you?” Bran asked. “Why am I here?”

“Ahh, questions. When I was young, my mentor taught answering a question with more questions shows a shallow mind unworthy of proper discourse. Of course, I did the same when I was around your age.”

Bran watched his visitor closely but said nothing.

“Yes, I know of you—and you me. I am the High King of Annwn, Philip Plantagenet, son of Henry II of the lion line and Eleanor of Aquitaine.” The king stared harder. “As to why you are here, you have that answer for me.”

Bran swallowed the distaste in his mouth. “If you know me, why am I in chains?”

“For a few reasons, by your own device. First and most pressing, you trespassed into my castle. I do, however, see that as a great boon.”

“Why?”

Philip moved the stool from the corner and sat upon it, his focus never leaving Bran as he kept his clothing from touching the dingy cell floor. “It saved me having to find you again. The moment you stepped foot upon Annwn soil became the moment I wished to speak with you at length. After you fled from the care of John Lewis Hugo, my only recourse was to find you once more. And now…now you have come to me.”

“I would hardly call how your witch dismembered and shackled me as care.”

“Well, both the Cailleach and John’s methods have grown darker over time, warranted, but they have ever obeyed my orders,” Philip said. He rubbed his bearded chin in thought. “And I do apologize for any misdeed by my Templar Knights that may have caused you harm. It was not my intention. Forgiveness will have to come in time for the loss of your hand.”

“So what was trying to kill me?” Bran asked. “An order or a darker method?”

The man laughed. “I would never try to kill you. You would be dead if I wished it but that has never been my intention. No, no, I have far grander hopes for you than death.”

“Then who tried to kill me in Seattle? Sent the bodach?”

“If a bodach was indeed sent after you, I marvel at your strength,” Philip said. “As to who tries to kill you, I do not know. When I discovered the son of the last Heliwr would be visiting Annwn, I knew I had to speak with you. Regrettably, I never imagined it like this, in one of my dungeons. But life sometimes teaches humility.”

“Well, as king you can have this chain removed,” Bran urged. “As king you can release me from this dungeon and reunite me with my companion.”

Philip leaned back. “Perhaps. Your power has been stripped from you, for the moment at least. I do not trust you, of that I will not lie. You planned a sinister deed by breaking into my Caer Llion, on some mission from that heretical wizard, no doubt, and in company with a very powerful knight whose doctrine states he should never leave his gate. I wish to know why you entered Annwn.”

“What has become of Richard McAllister?”

“The Knight of the Yn Saith recovers from his injuries,” Philip said. “I cannot say the same of you yet, sadly.”

There was something about how Philip mentioned Richard’s injuries—a glint in his eyes and a tone in his voice—that suggested a very different truth.

Then Bran figured out what bothered him.

It sounded like something Merle would say.

“You lie,” he said.

“I do not. He is being healed as we speak,” Philip said, the glint gone. “I repeat. What did you come here to accomplish?”

“We came to destroy some kind of seeing glass, an object you use to view my world from this one,” Bran said, deciding to play along and hopefully learn more about his situation.

“The Cauldron of Pwyll? But why?”

“To prevent you using it. That’s all I know.”

Anger darkened the king’s pale features. “What the wizard said is true, John does use it to peer into our birth world. But as is the case with wizards throughout time there is more behind the words of Myrddin Emrys than teeth. I may control the Cauldron but the Knights of the Yn Saith have the Fionúir Mirror, another such glass with similar attributes. It helps them view Annwn and keep it repressed.” He snickered. “Their audacity is astonishing. Using what the wizard knows of the future combined with the knowledge from the mirror, they twist events to suit their own desires. It is control Myrddin Emrys craves, to see his will done and his future come to pass. The knight aids him when that was never the function of his station.”

Philip paused a moment. “He and the knight said nothing of that, did they?”

Philip was right. Bran had not heard of the mirror, or thought of Merle and Richard as the worldly meddlers the king painted them to be.

Except when Richard warned Bran of Merle.

“I see they did not,” Philip commented. “They wish for you to remain ignorant, to keep even you under their control. And that is the very reason why I sit before you right now.”

“What do you mean?” Bran asked, feeling more lightheaded every moment.

“First, let us find a bit of trust. You are gravely wounded, having lost your hand,” Philip said. “The man who took it is dead. I do not tolerate such grievous incompetence when it comes to my commands. You have lost a lot of blood—it is everywhere—and I doubt you have much longer to live. Let us trust one another.”

Bran said nothing, unsure of what to say. Philip undid a water pouch at his side though, its contents sloshing like those on the back of the soldiers that had attacked Bran.

He undid the stopper and offered the pouch to Bran.

“Take a drink.”

Bran took it with his right hand. He realized for the first time he was thirstier than ever before, probably due to injury done him. He also knew Philip had no reason to poison him.

Bran drank.

The moment the water went down his throat, he almost spit it out, not from choking but from how he felt. Warmth spread throughout his body. It built from his stomach and spread through his chest out into his limbs, growing in heat until it felt like it would consume him with a well-intentioned tender touch. He ignored the taste of minerals in the water; there was something else mixed in that made him feel more alive, stronger, than ever before in his life.

Bran gained clarity, his mind clearing of the fog that had suffocated his thinking since waking. He looked down. The stump of his left hand, bloody tissue and fevered with purple veins, began to heal over, the skin knitting anew. He couldn’t believe it. The healing continued until only pink skin covered what had a few seconds earlier been a mortal wound.

“How did you…?” Bran managed, dumbfounded.

“It is not important, young Ardall,” Philip dismissed, replacing the stopper and pouch on his hip. “Now, to my proposition, one given me by my father and the Word.”

Still amazed at what had happened, Bran looked up from his healed arm to Philip. “What word? I thought you are the king and your word is gospel.”

“I am king. But my lordship does not extend over the Word.”

“The Word being…God?” Bran asked, almost laughing. “I think you are drinking the Kool-Aid or something even stronger.”

“I know not what that is but I can see you know nothing of me,” the king scoffed. “I am not the villain your friends have cut me to be. I follow the tenets of the Word. It is for that reason I came to Annwn all those years past. My father had a vision of sweeping the infidels from the world, cleansing it as Saint Peter decreed. The fey are an unholy evil. Soon they and the evil that fills the world of my birth will be undone—at my hands. I wish you to embrace that calling and be an ambassador of sorts.”

“But you said you couldn’t trust me…”

“I see strength of character in you,” Philip admitted. “You would not possess Arondight if you were not an honorable man, fighting evil. I want you to lead my armies, be my general, protect the innocent from the dastardly.”

Bran did not know what to say. Based on what he had already seen of the king’s rule in Annwn, he could no more trust Philip than he trusted a bully. Bran might not be able to fully believe or explain the intentions of Richard or Merle, but he knew he definitely could not take Philip at his word.

He would have to be as wily to be released.

“What would this entail then?” Bran asked carefully.

“When the sins of existence begin to outweigh the virtue of the Word, the Lord calls on those with extraordinary gifts to set His work aright. Saint Peter died to ensure his Lord’s faith took root within a pagan Rome. A sacrifice. In the fourth century, Christianity overcame those repressive pagan ways by the strength of a visionary emperor, Constantine the Great, who took the first difficult steps to allow Christian worship a safe place. Once again, sacrifice. King Edward the Martyr died to keep the Benedictine monasteries safe from the greedy nobles of England. Another sacrifice. Even my father fought against the eastern infidels, losing much of his power and wealth to maintain the integrity of the Holy Land. I carry on that tradition. And as the world spirals all too eagerly into its own excesses, I will bring the light once more and push the darkness back.

“I have ever been a student of history. I know I need strong people of faith and strong character, men who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good as so many have done before. I wish you to be a sort of ambassador, between Annwn and our world, to use your power to smooth the transition. I cannot do this alone, young Ardall.”

“I don’t think the army outside of your walls makes you alone,” Bran remarked.

“That may be true, but virtue is not always won with arms.”

“What do you really want?” Bran asked.

“I invite you, as a new knight, to use your power to help with that edict,” Philip offered. “Think about it, Ardall. You will have everything that you have ever desired. Food. Drink. Wealth. Land. A beautiful woman. All the pleasures that a life in my service would guarantee. It can be your own, if you but join me.”

Bran drew in a deep breath. What Richard had thought was true. Philip intended to attack the world, to return home with an army, to force people to embrace his rule.

The king also offered Bran all he had ever wanted and more.

It didn’t take long for Bran to come to a choice. Those material things would not matter. Because the war that Philip planned to unleash would destroy everything.

“If you attack the world we come from, Philip, and that world finds out about this one, which it surely will, Annwn ceases to be,” Bran said. “The power wielded by the governments will crush whatever you are planning. They outmatch anything you possess.”

Philip barked a mean laugh. “You think I care about Annwn.”

“I would think you care about your life.”

“You are a coward, if you are not willing to die for grace,” Philip said, frowning darkly.

“You don’t comprehend. Listen to me—”

“No! You listen to me!” Philip roared, standing, redness rising in his cheeks. “The world of our birth has become corrupt. It takes strong men, men who are willing to do what is right before what is popular to save the souls of those who are truly worthy.”

“Killing is not the answer!” Bran reiterated.

“Do not presume to know me, nor what I do,” Philip sneered. “People will die, of that I have no doubt. Those who live will come to know the Word through proof of His existence.”

“How were you ordained to do His will?” Bran questioned, growing angry. “Did you receive some kind of sign? You said something about proof?”

“I possess the Graal, the Cup of the Word.”

It took Bran a few moments to register what Philip had just said. Then the realization hit him. The Holy Grail. No matter how crazy the notion sounded, Philip was telling the truth. The warriors who had subdued Richard and Bran in the cavern had risen instantly, healed, sucking on some kind of liquid in bags on their backs. Bran had thought it some kind of magic but the truth was far more real—and chilling. It explained how the hordes of halfbreeds had survived their conception. It explained how the king had lived for centuries beyond his mortal death and how he could keep every man in his army alive, even during battle.

It explained how Bran’s arm had healed so quickly.

Lively arrogance danced behind the king’s eyes, a flicker of burning certainty. If Philip possessed the Holy Grail and used it to bolster his army…

“When the sinners realize the power of the Word upon the world, they will be moved to obey the scripture of the Word,” Philip continued, the snide assurance in his voice maddening to Bran. “Those who do not are evil, in the face of such truth, and killing them will be the Word’s work, through my blood, my sacrifice.”

“And those of your army,” Bran added.

“They are willing,” Philip said simply. “And worthy.”

Heat inside Bran grew into a blistering furnace. The conviction of the worldview Philip shared and his need to place it upon others scared Bran. It reminded him of people on the street who had nothing else to lose. It made them volatile, dangerous.

If he could have called Arondight, he would have torn Caer Llion apart, stone by stone, and brought it tumbling on top of Philip and his army.

“Will you join the power of Arondight to my own?” Philip propositioned.

Bran couldn’t show his disdain for what the king offered.

That would likely mean his death.

“I will think on it,” Bran said noncommittally.

“John has informed me that the last regiments of the northern cities will join the army here at Caer Llion by tomorrow,” Philip said. “Once gathered under one banner and organized, I will march toward our destiny and the birth of a new world. It will be best when you realize who it is that holds the mercy.”

Bran nodded. There was nothing for him to say.

“When I lead my army from Annwn, I want you to be at my side, young Ardall,” Philip offered. “I will give you the night to think on it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“To let you roam free would be an egregious error,” the king said. “I cannot let that transpire—not from those chains and not in the release death would serve Myrddin Emrys and a new carrier of Arondight. You will remain here, shackled, until you come to believe what I say.” He paused. “Think what we could accomplish, Ardall.”

Philip turned to go then and without a look backward walked out of the cell. The door relocked with quick, firm turns, and the footfalls of his leaving faded to nothing.

Silence became Bran’s only companion.

While on the cusp of dozing, Bran thought of the Holy Grail. He still had a hard time believing Philip possessed the famous cup. Bran knew of it, knew of it from what Richard had told him and what he had read at Old World Tales. After the Grail left the Holy Land and made its way to the British Isles, it had come to King Arthur at Camelot. Wounded during the Battle of Camlann by his son and mortal enemy Mordred, Arthur sailed away upon a barge to heal in Avalon until Britain needed him once more.Ever since that time, men had hunted for the fabulous life-granting cup with no luck.

What if the reason the Holy Grail hadn’t been found was because it was not in his world? What if the Cup of Christ had gone with Arthur to Annwn?

And what if Philip had discovered it?

It all made sense.

“Wake up.”

Bran snorted from his reverie, opening his eyes as he huddled amidst the straw, looking around for the source of the childlike voice.

No one was in the cell; no one was at its door.

“Huh?” Bran grunted. “Who’s there?”

“In the cell next to your own,” answered a deeper voice of calm authority.

Bran looked to the wall of stone on his left. In three spots the mortar bracing the stones had been chipped away, leaving tiny gaps. He tried to peer through to the other side, hoping to see whoever it was that spoke to him, but he saw nothing.

“Lad, you there?” the deep voice questioned.

“I am.”

“Good, good, I am pleased to make your acquaintan—”

“Of course he is there,” a third, angrier man rasped. “You heard him, did you not, Uter?”

“Leave Uter be, Ambrosius,” the boyish voice squeaked.

“My apologies, Sir Wart,” Ambrosius mocked.

“How long have you guys been here?” Bran asked, suddenly happy to have someone—anyone—to talk to.

“Too long.”

“Indeed,” Uter agreed with Ambrosius. “Far too long. With any hope in the Lady, you will not be imprisoned for as long as we have been. Still, all those throughout Annwn under the boot of the false king are as we—in need of retribution from his ills and evils.”

“My sword Caledfwlch shall deliver more than retribution,” Ambrosius spat. “If I am freed, I will speak an oath on it!”

“You heard my conversation with Philip then?” Bran asked.

“We heard it,” Ambrosius growled. “Could not help but overhear that prat.”

“His time will come, Ambrosius,” Uter allayed. “As surely as our own will. Now is not the time for anger however. Now is the time for planning.”

Bran didn’t know what to think. The two men and young boy had obviously known one another for some time, imprisoned together. Uter seemed to be a highly educated man, possessing the calm demeanor of diplomacy. Ambrosius sounded the opposite, driven by emotions, an impatient warrior. Wart could not have been more than ten; why Philip had need to jail a youth was beyond Bran. He could not believe the three of them could fit comfortably in the shared cell if it was the same size as the one Bran occupied.

“Why have you all been imprisoned?” Bran questioned.

“For the knowledge we possess,” Ambrosius mumbled.

“How so?”

“Caer Llion is our castle,” Uter responded. “It was taken from us.”

“Your castle?”

“We saw the first stone laid, lived in it, lorded over it,” Uter answered. “The knights of my table were chivalrous and courageous, and the lay of the land respected the law of love. The false king stole it and Annwn when he brought his ilk here, quite uninvited. Plantagenet has ever kept us here, in his dungeon, to revel in his victory, I believe.”

“Damnable Plantagenet,” Ambrosius hissed.

Bran once again didn’t know who to trust. From what he had seen of it, Caer Llion was an ancient fortress. For Uter to have seen its creation meant he had lived for a very long time.

Then again, Philip had lived a long time.

“Philip took Caer Llion from you then,” Bran said thoughtfully.

“He is an ugly, ugly man,” Wart said a bit petulantly. “Not very nice at all.”

“True words, Sir Wart,” Ambrosius concurred.

“You cannot join with him,” Uter added. “He would use you as he uses all. With the power of Lancelot’s blade granted you by the Lady, it would increase Philip’s power a thousand fold. He will keep you alive as long as it suits him. Word and Lady willing, freedom will be your own and you can fight his evil once more.”

“And gain the pretty cup back,” Wart piped in with a tiny voice.

“Cup?” Bran asked, startled. “You mean the Grail?”

“Wait,” Ambrosius said sharply. “Listen!”

Bran did so, straining. He heard nothing.

“I hear noth—”

Then Bran did hear it. It was a sound but also a tremor in the wall behind his back, growing in intensity until the castle darkly hummed with it. It sounded like the great stone blocks of the castle were toppling above, as though a bulldozer drove through them.

“It comes,” the Ambrosius said.

“What does?” Bran questioned, bewildered by what could be happening.

“Freedom.”

The rumbling continued like an avalanche and became still. Shouts of bewilderment and pain followed. Outside his cell the manic voices of warriors echoed, the soldiers Philip had placed in the dungeon not far away. Whatever was going on up above had set Caer Llion ablaze with confusion, arousing the occupants of the castle into a frenzy.

The sounds of far-off battle filled the silence. And came closer.

Minutes passed.

Before Bran could figure out what was happening, the locking mechanism to his cell clicked. Suddenly the door opened.

No one entered.

Bran stood still, trying to get a glimpse out into the hallway, when an invisible vice encircled his forearm and held it in place.

Bran tried to pull away. “What the hell—”

“Relax, outworlder,” a voice smelling of beer growled. “Let me free you.”

“Ardall, you are alive! Amazing that!” Snedeker exclaimed, hovering at the cell entrance. The fairy watched the hallway, worry etching his features.

The shackle holding Bran’s wrist fell away.

“Who is there?” he asked.

The light before him shifted as if through a rippling prism. It cleared and Bran stared at a floating grizzled face with a smirking, unwashed smile.

Caswallawn stared right back.