The Dark Thorn (31 page)

Snedeker shrank back, tugging on Bran’s shirt, frightened.

It was all Bran could do to not to run.

—Human—

The scratching sound of the fey’s voice hung like an anvil upon the night air.

—Do not fear me—

Bran hesitated but remained crouched low, illness permeating the air.

—Come to me, lad—

The repulsive sickness left Bran; in its place was a desire to stand and touch the being in the meadow. He stood, suddenly unafraid, aroused by something he could not define. The heart in his chest quickened; the blood in his veins raced. The smell of his own sweat and rotting oak leaves filled his nose, left him dizzy and confused. The world shrunk, reduced to only the two of them. He lost his memory and identity; the will he owned vanished.

In a flickering moment none of it mattered. Calm patience in the other replaced the fiery madness Bran thought he had seen, the peace he found in the burning eyes stretching millennia and would continue to do so.

He grew flushed as he did when riding with a redhead he couldn’t remember. To join the centaur and creatures at its feet meant a lifetime of terrible desires fulfilled in the shadows, fear lost forever. He had to but join the Erlking and become one with darkness.

Something screamed in his ear but he did not care.

He was about to step into the clearing when his right hand began to burn, warm at first but growing in intensity until it engulfed his entire arm in a conflagration.

Looking down, a fairy ring about his finger shone with argent light, blinding in its pure radiance.

Memories returned at once.

Bran stopped but did not retreat, his courage bolstered.

—A fairy ring. Clever. There is no reason to fear me as the stink of the bodach is on you. You are already dead. The bodach will slay you before the Dark Thorn reenters the world—

Cernunnos laughed darkly then.

“It failed earlier tonight,” Bran uttered willfully. “It will fail again. Next time, it will not be so lucky.” Not knowing why, Bran raised the fist bearing the Paladr.

The crimson eyes of Cernunnos dimmed; the animals below him mewed lowly.

—The Seelie Court, my long lost brethren, is broken. You will join them—

With a dark look at the hand holding the Paladr and before Bran could gather courage enough to reply, Cernunnos shimmered and vanished. The beasts at his hooves lost their feral, manic appearance and faded from view in all directions. The sense of poisonous foreboding disappeared and true night resumed in the forest.

“What were you
doing
?” Snedeker chastised angrily.

“Where did he go?”

“Away, thank the Lady!”

“That was
the
Erlking of the Unseelie Court?” Bran asked.

“The Shadow King, yes,” the fairy answered. “Safe we are. Those of the Unseelie Court lie in the space between sunlight and darkness. Rarely are the shadow seen. They
hate
humans, more than anything. Except perhaps my kind.” Snedeker shivered again.

Following the jumping pull of the Paladr and trying to calm his racing heart, Bran turned from the meadow and continued along the narrow trail through the trees, wary of even the stars peaking at him through holes in the forest canopy. Nothing was ever what it seemed in Annwn. The Erlking of the Unseelie Court knew of the confrontation with the bodach and, like the beast, wanted Bran dead.

One aspect of meeting Cernunnos remained fresh in his mind though.

The Erlking of the Unseelie Court had been afraid.

Afraid of the Paladr.

The trail steepened. Soon a brook bubbled along his right, the water a slow moving black ribbon. Mist not born of the Nharth twisted like vapor snakes, reaching for Bran while the air grew chillier. Above, the half disc of the silver moon highlighted the craggy white extremes of the Snowdon and pooled thick shadows around Bran. With every step he took, the sound of water falling against obstinate rock became clearer.

After what seemed like hours, Bran and Snedeker broke through the thick wood into an expansive opening beneath the stars, a carpet of thick grass spreading toward exposed rounded rock. The waterfall he had heard tumbled from a cliff face a short distance away to shake under his feet, the water a pane of glass before bouncing into the eddying pools of the brook. Copious ferns and moss grew along the rocky bank while fog stirred sluggishly above the water, the old trees surrounding the glen extending their limbs out over it as if to ward away the darkness. The waterfall captured the moonlight, diamonds twinkling and given the ability to fly.

Nothing else moved. All was serene, a magic suspended over the land, infusing Bran with every breath he took.

“Beautiful,” he breathed.

Snedeker said nothing, mesmerized and hovering at his shoulder.

“What’s wrong with you?”

With one shaking, leafy arm, Snedeker pointed at the falls.

The silver shimmer on the falling water detached and floated forward, the reflection of moonlight given substance and freedom. The lights floated near the water like large fireflies, hovering as if waiting on the two visitors.

“Lightbrands,” Snedeker murmured in awe. “What are they?”

“The fairy servants of the Lady,” Snedeker whispered.

“What happened to your clan being favored first?”

Snedeker said nothing but instead dropped his head in respect. Five of the fairies separated from their brethren and floated upon the cool, wet air, their inner light brightening the shadowed shroud of the glen. Unlike Snedeker, who was made from bits of green leaves and peeled bark, the Lightbrands were smooth and naked, human-shaped figures glowing like celestial bodies freed from the stars. With wings fluttering like a blurred rainbow, they flew toward Bran unhindered.

“Where did they come from?” Bran hissed.

“Everywhere. From the water and light.”

In moments, the fairies floated before his eyes in a line. Up close, they took on more human characteristics—high cheekbones, pointed ears, sharp chins and even toes. Three females and two males stared at Bran with blue eyes like oceans, white hair floating about their heads like silky halos. Wrinkled like a prune, the lead fairy came first, his long beard and wizened expression earnest.

Bran barely breathed. Snedeker sat prostrate on his shoulder, eyes averted in reverence.

The fairies began speaking then.

“Courageous young knight.”

“Overcame fear for what was right.”

“Protected the innocent.”

“Despite possible harm to self.”

“The Lady speaks.”

The last words became a litany that slowly blended into a sustained hum as the fairies sped around Bran, flying in an unending circle. Snedeker twitched on his shoulder, curled up in a ball. The fairies flew faster and faster, a smudge of white arcing light like a halo, a dizzying pace Bran couldn’t keep up with.

The hum fell away altogether, leaving a beautiful warm voice.

—Do you accept knighthood, Bran Ardall, line of Perceval?—

The voice was unlike those of the fairies, soft and lilting but ancient and very far away, as if the speaker were muffled. It bore the wearied tenor of eons and wisdom, unconditional love given but burdened by hardship and pain. It struck directly at his heart, consoling his guilt with forgiveness. The world blurred as tears sprang to his eyes. The question waited, an answer needed. The Lady wanted him to become the Heliwr. He wavered for only a moment before the memory of Connal dying and being cast aside like bloodied fodder mingled with the fear that he would never amount to anything beyond a street rat.

The warnings of Richard fell away. Bran chose his answer with conviction.

“I will,” he said, and meant it with all his heart.

Just then, shadows detached from the gloom, slinking toward him, a menagerie of rabbits, ferrets, boars, and other animals, their eyes burning feral desire. The animal slaves of Cernunnos. Soon they had the glen surrounded.

Panic dampened the joy he felt being in the Lady’s presence.

Azure light blossomed behind Bran.

“Looks like you were wrong about needing help,” Richard said, moving to protect Bran’s back, Arondight a fiery swath. “You do have a knack for trouble, don’t you?”

Bran peered wildly around. Cernunnos did not appear. The beasts instead simply watched. It seemed the Erlking wanted to spy on what transpired but nothing more.

“I promise to keep them from you, whatever the cost,” the knight said. “Do what you must.”

Bran nodded and squeezed the Paladr tightly.

—Richard McAllister, my faithful knight, will you do what must be done to keep the office of Heliwr safe and see its duty carried out to fulfillment?—

Bran could feel Richard tensing behind him.

“I will, my Lady,” Richard said finally.

—My paladins, it is done—

Heat blossomed in Bran’s hand and then chest, dizzying and in a rush. When his head cleared, the Lightbrands whirling about him had slowed, become distinct creatures again. Once stopped, each bowed in midair, clearly exhausted, before flying back toward the waterfall and their waiting companions.

“Wait, I want answers!” Bran shouted, watching the Lightbrands disappear one by one like snuffed stars. “I don’t know what to do! What do I do with this seed? What happened to my father? Did he go through this? What do you mean by Perceval?”

His questions echoed in the night.

“Wait!” he roared.

“They are gone,” Richard said.

Bran wanted to chase after the fairies but suddenly found he could not move; his feet were anchored to the grass beneath him. Richard also began to struggle, similarly planted. Arondight vanished. Anger changed to dismay and then horror as Bran watched roots snake out of the ground and grip his boots; the tendrils did the same thing to Richard. They expanded until the two men were linked, the roots sprouting in various directions writhing up their legs as well as pushing deeper into the world every second that passed.

Bran tried to scream, but found his throat paralyzed.

Fighting his revulsion and losing, he became aware the heat in his chest pulsed also in the hand bearing the Paladr. He opened his fist. The seed winked silver at him as it invaded the skin of his palm, burrowing deep, vanishing into his body.

He tried to pry it free but the Paladr was inexorable.

A few moments later, it was gone inside him.

Snedeker yelled, frenzied, but Bran couldn’t understand him.

The heat increased throughout his body, the change begun at his feet continuing. What had been his two legs fused into one; what had been his two arms split into many. Broad shiny green leaves sprouted from his elongating fingers and transformed into gnarled limbs, while sharp black thorns like small daggers erupted along what had been his forearms. Both Bran and Richard grew tall and broad, branching out into the night and into the ground, feeling the life force of the world and all it contained.

He could feel Richard fighting the transformation too, but the two were intertwined, the knight pulled into the magic that transformed Bran.

The glen disappeared as azure light suddenly flared around him, blinding Bran to the world. The heady darkness of rich earth was replaced by the feel of cold fire licking his body, entering his soul, as if he had been plunged into the deepest crystal-clear lake and the water had infiltrated his very pores.

Help me
, he croaked. No one answered.

As despair born of uncertainty heightened, what had been his fingers suddenly grasped fiery blue steel, its strength resilient as it gave him inner strength, sharing with him a modicum of hope.

He gripped it tighter. It was solid and comforting.

It felt right.

It would always be there when he had need of it.

Comforting darkness cradled him, and he slept.

Standing next to Pope Clement XV, Cormac clutched a Bible over his red and white vestment as if it were a lifeline, fighting the anger threatening to overwhelm him.

The problem was he didn’t know if he wanted to be saved.

He wanted to laugh like a madman.

“To celebrate this solemn time, we are united in Christ, who died and too rose from the dead,’’ the pontiff said, his voice echoing in the low-ceiled tomb. ‘‘Cardinal Donato Javier Ramirez has now passed over from death to life through the blessings that he received in his association with Christ.’’

Cormac barely heard a word, the wheels of reprisal spinning. The closed coffin of Donato rested to the side of a hole chiseled into the rock far beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Cormac could not take his eyes from it. The Bible favored by Donato lay on the casket, and baptismal water the Pope had sprinkled shined in the candlelight. The Vigilo were deep within Vatican Hill in a series of secret rooms few knew existed, below even the Sacred Grotto where more than ninety Popes and other distinguished dead lay interred. The funeral was the first Mass conducted in these depths during his Cardinalship and the proper forms were being witnessed.

The Pope conducted the private requiem, beginning with the Introit and orchestrating each rite with the respect Donato deserved.