by K A Riley
“Only it wasn’t flour,” Llyr says with a conspiratorial, behind-his-hand whisper.
“Right. It was Irish warriors. But Efnysien came to the rescue.”
“Efnysien?” I ask. “Brân’s evil half-brother? The one who killed the horses?”
“Yes. What can I say? People change. He figured out the trap and went from bag to bag, crushing the skulls of the warriors hidden inside.”
Cardyn says, “Marvie!” and Brohn reaches past me to give him a light whack on the shoulder with the back of his hand.
“So the Irish army started using the magic cauldron to restore their dead warriors, who then prepared to kill Brân and all of his men. Only, Efnysien came to the rescue.”
“Again,” Llyr adds.
“He pretended to be one of the dead Irish soldiers. When the Irish threw him into the cauldron to ‘revive’ him, he destroyed it from the inside, thus negating the enemy’s advantage of immortality.”
“It was too late for Brân, though. He’d been terribly wounded in the fighting. Before he died, he instructed his men to cut off his head, bring it back with them to Britain, and bury it in the White Hill facing France as a warning to anyone who would dare try to invade the kingdom.”
Penarddunne and Llyr both lean back in their seats. I realize my back muscles are tight from leaning forward during their story.
Terk says, “Wow!”
“And that brings us to us,” Llyr says, wagging his thumb between himself and his wife.
“To you?”
“In a roundabout way, yes,” Penarddunne smiles. “You see, Brân’s parents were Llyr and Penarddunne.” She points over to her daughter. “His sister, the one who everyone was fighting over, was Branwynne.”
“The spellings and pronunciations have changed over the last seven-hundred years, but that’s us,” Llyr beams. “We come from that story.”
We all stare at them.
“Well, our names do, anyway!” Penarddunne clarifies, laughing along with her husband. “Trust me. We’re not immortal.”
“And the ravens?” I ask.
Llyr stares off at the ceiling. “Some say it starts with Brân the Blessed. Since his name means ‘raven,’ it’s been said that our nation has been protected by ravens ever since his time.”
“Some say it’s from when ravens decided to hover about to watch Anne Boleyn and Lady Grey get their heads hacked off.”
“And there’s the story of Charles the Second refusing to relocate the ravens around the White Tower after his astronomer—”
“John Flamsteed.”
“Right. After John Flamsteen tried to shoo them off on account of they were getting in the way every time he went to look through his telescope.”
“Sure. Total bollocks, that.”
“Anyway, those are just some of the handful of myths, legends, superstitions, and the whole whack-ton of daft guesses, total mistakes, porkies, Chinese whispers, and just plain ol’, outta yer arse rubbish.”
“So what’s the truth?” I ask.
“All of it, I suppose.”
“How can—?”
Penarddunne sets her tea down on the round wooden table between her and her husband’s armchairs. “Just because something’s a myth doesn’t make it a lie.”
Llyr nods his agreement with his wife. “You’ve made it this far. Something tells me the five of you might just make it far enough to figure that out.”
“That, and a whole lot more,” Penarddunne adds, tapping her heart. “If you have the strength for it.”
“We’ve got plenty of that,” Cardyn boasts, reaching over to slap a hand onto Terk’s bulging shoulder.
“Not that kind of strength,” Llyr clarifies. “We’re talking about the strength to see a universe of possibilities beyond your own.”
44
The Real Reason
I catch Branwynne giving me a funny look out of the corner of her eye. I don’t know what to make of it, but before I get a chance to figure it out, her parents are practically dragging us back up to give us a tour of the tower’s interior.
“We don’t get many visitors,” Llyr apologizes as he takes his wife’s hand in his.
“And without practice,” Penarddunne says, “even manners fade.”
Llyr shoos me away from the cups and the teapot. “Leave the tea. We’ll clean up when we get back.”
For the next hour, we walk up sloped lawns of bone-dry dirt and patchy weeds. We wind our way up exterior sets of wooden staircases—several of them far too rickety for my tastes—and amble along the lofty parapets and wooden foot bridges connecting the stone buildings of the complex, which the Auditor informs us, without being asked, can also be called a “Keep” or a “Donjon.”
“She always do that?” Llyr asks through an annoyed squint.
Terk sighs. “Unfortunately.”
“Fortunately,” the Auditor nips back, “I’m too sophisticated to get offended by that remark.”
Brohn laughs and shrugs our apologies to Llyr and Penarddunne as they continue to usher us along.
Parts of the Tower of London still rise up, nearly unblemished. Other parts are nothing but chunky piles of dirty stone.
Llyr and Penarddunne give us a non-stop lecture about the history of the tower, its additions, the moat…everything.
In the space of twenty minutes, they tell us all about William the Conqueror building the Tower in 1066. The construction of the White Tower after that. The tradition started by Henry the Third in the thirteenth century of whitewashing the tower. The three sixteenth-century queens—Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Grey—who were executed and buried here. And a story about two boys—twelve-year-old Edward and nine-year-old Richard—who mysteriously disappeared just when Edward was preparing to take over his father’s role as king.
“The two princes,” Penarddunne sighs. “Such a sad story.”
“It was their uncle Richard who killed them,” Llyr insists. “After all, with them out of the picture, he became king. King Richard the Third.”
“I like to think they escaped.”
“Tell that to the two skeletons those laborers found.” Llyr turns around in a circle before pointing to the part of the tower behind us. “Right over there under that staircase, back in 1674.”
Returning to just outside of the stone-walled room where we first started, Penarddunne points out onto the field of brown grass where the familiar bodies of the six ravens are casting long shadows over the uneven ground.
“And of course, it sounds like you’ve already met our six ravens, although I don’t think you’ve been formally introduced.”
Hand-in-hand, Branwynne’s parents lead us down the hill to where the six ravens are gathered.
Pivoting in place, Penarddunne points around to each one of the six black birds. “This is Eastcheap. That there is William. Over there are Mary and Goth. Leather and Lenore are up there on the wall.”
Cardyn says, “Neat!” and points to Leather and Lenore. “Those two are practically as big as Render.”
“They’re the current occupants—along with us—of the Tower of London.” Llyr puffs up his chest and straightens his red-trimmed blue-black jacket. “There used to be more of us. Now there’s two. We’re possibly the last of a long line.”
“Do you think you can help us find the other Emergents?” I ask.
Penarddunne shakes her head. “We can’t go with you, if that’s what you mean. We need to stay here.”
“Someone’s got to tend to the ravens,” Llyr says, reaching into a fat leather bag under his jacket and tossing some hunks of raw meat over to the birds. “At this point, they’re the only thing stopping the entire island from sinking into the sea.”
“Besides,” Penarddunne reminds us, “there’s no way to know exactly where the Emergents are.”
“Then, there are Emergents out there, right?”
“So we’ve heard. But the ones you’re looking for aren’t here. You need to get to Spain.
Valencia, to be precise.”
“Granden told us that, too.”
Penarddunne turns to her husband. “Nice city, that.”
“Not easy to get to, though.”
“True enough. Lots of places way worse than this between here and there.”
Cardyn says a very loud, very worried, “Whoaaah,” and clamps his hand onto my forearm. “This isn’t like back home. We barely made it out of Buckingham Palace. If it wasn’t for Branwynne and the Banters…I’m just saying I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to push our luck.”
“It’s not luck,” Rain responds. I can tell she’s trying not to feed into Cardyn’s pessimism, but her voice is strained with impatience. “We’re alive because we’re fighters. It’s what we’ve always been and what we’ll always be. Granden told us Emergents are all over the place and that we might need to track them down wherever they are. We knew Spain was on the list.”
“We also knew this wasn’t going to be easy,” Brohn adds. “We came into this with our eyes wide open.”
“It does seem safer here, though, right?” Terk asks.
Cardyn takes a deep breath, and I’m assuming he’s going to calm down and come around, but then his eyes flash fire, and he tugs his arm out of Rain’s grip. “If we don’t stay put, I say we cut our losses and go home. Granden said there might be Emergents. He doesn’t know any more than we do. I say we go back and tell him we couldn’t find any others. If he’s not satisfied, he can send someone else. I’m sick of the crazies here trying to kill us. We’ve done what we can. It’s time to retire.”
Brohn grabs Cardyn by both shoulders and spins him around so the two boys are practically nose to nose in the middle of this open field. “Imagine if we ‘retired’ before San Francisco. Or Chicago. Or D.C.” Cringing, Cardyn stares down at the ground as Brohn presses on. “We’d be dead, wouldn’t we?” Cardyn meets Brohn’s gaze but otherwise doesn’t react. “Krug would be in charge.” Cardyn gives a barely perceptible nod. “And we’d be slaves to his insanity, wouldn’t we?”
This time, Cardyn looks up, his jaw as set as Brohn’s, his eyes flashing just as much fire. “Yeah. But Manthy’d be alive.”
Seeming stunned, Brohn releases his grip on Cardyn’s shoulders. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.
The moment of somber silence is broken in my head as Render’s consciousness melts into mine.
~ It’s time to tell them why you’re really here.
I nod. I don’t need any convincing. When you’re sharing an overlapping consciousness, sometimes no explanation is needed.
“What if we have another mission?” I interject. Everyone swings around, and I’m suddenly in the place I hate but need to be right now: the spotlight.
Brohn shakes his head at me, but I tell him it’s okay. “It’s time they knew.”
“Knew what?” Rain asks with a suspicious and slightly annoyed twang.
“Yeah,” Cardyn echoes. “Knew what?”
I pause to gather my thoughts before continuing. “Render’s been trying to tell me something. We’ve had easy times communicating in the past. And there’s been times when the gap between us is just too much, and I don’t understand what he’s saying at all. But this…this is different. He’s been fighting to break through to me on a…deeper level. I can feel it. He’s been…I don’t know…desperate to tell me something. Something important. Ever since Manthy died.”
Terk’s voice is soft and low when he asks, “What is it?”
“I think he thinks we can bring her back from the other side.”
Llyr swings his sweaty head from side to side and makes a sound like a slightly worried and unhappy laugh. “You can’t bring someone back from the other side.”
Red-faced, watery-eyed, and with his hands packed into tight fists, Cardyn swings around to stand in front of me, his voice cracking. “Are you serious?”
I don’t need to answer. He knows.
Bursting with energy now, he takes an almost threatening step toward Llyr. “I don’t care how crazy it sounds. If there’s even a chance—”
Penarddunne reaches over to put a calm-down hand on Cardyn’s arm. “Wait. My husband said you couldn’t bring someone back from the other side. He didn’t say no one could.”
“So wait,” I jump in. “Then there is someone?”
“No,” Penarddunne says. “There are two someones. And for something this impossible, you’re going to need them both.”
45
Primed
After we’re all back inside and seated again in a circle on Llyr and Penarddunne’s comfortable furniture, Branwynne raises her hand, and her eyes go dinner-plate wide. “Listen. Mum. Dad. You can’t send them there.”
“It’s their mission.”
“If they leave here—”
Llyr stops her with a raised hand of his own. “I know. They need to risk it.”
“Wait,” Brohn interrupts, swinging his head between Branwynne and her father. “What happens if we leave here? Risk what?”
Llyr and Branwynne both sit back in their seats, but Penarddunne leans forward. “There used to be a Processor right here in London. The En-Gene-eers took over the church years ago. Brought in their equipment. Turned it all high-tech. Lots of secret rooms. Security. Guarded it all up. They did their experiments. Then they left a few years back. Whoosh. Just gone. But they didn’t leave it unattended. Not totally. And they didn’t leave it empty.”
Cardyn’s eyes go as big as Branwynne’s. “Why? What’s there? What’d they leave?”
Llyr exchanges a look I can’t read with his wife and his daughter.
Branwynne lowers her head. “The twins?”
Llyr and Penarddunne nod in silent and what appears to be sad unison.
“Twins?” I ask.
“Emergents. A boy and a girl. We have a source on the inside. Our nephew.”
“Had.”
“Right. Had. Sorry.”
“What happened to him?”
“He saw too much. Knew too much. Cared too much. Not a good combination in a dictatorship.”
Penarddunne raises her cup of tea to her lips but puts it back down without drinking. “Last we heard from our other source, the twins were all that was left after the Processor got cleaned out. The twins and a good number of guards…just in case.”
“The other Processors are in Spain,” Llyr informs us.
“No. There are more,” Penarddunne assures us with a shake of her head. “Llyr doesn’t believe they’re still there, but I think they most likely are.”
“Granden knows about them,” I say. “The ones in Spain and Sardinia. Possibly Greece. Maybe a few other places. It’s why we’re here.”
“He didn’t say anything about a Processor in London, though,” Brohn reminds me.
“He wouldn’t know about it,” Llyr tells us. “It was shut down. Inactive. Abandoned.”
“But you said there are still people there.”
“There are. They’re just not supposed to be.”
“Whatever they’re still doing in there,” Penarddunne explains, “it’s beyond their original mandate.”
“Mandate?” Rain asks.
“They were tasked with identifying potentials.”
“Potential Emergents,” Llyr clarifies.
“Right. And then using the Processors to weed them out, train them up, and prepare them to help in the fight against the Eastern Order.”
I give Brohn’s knee a light squeeze. “Sound familiar?”
“They’re not with the Deenays like you have back home,” Penarddunne says. “They’re not even really with the En-Gene-eers. Not anymore.”
Llyr adjusts his jacket, which has gotten bunched up at the waist. “They went rogue on their own people. Started doing experiments even those evil sods hadn’t considered.”
“So…,” Penarddunne says. “No one’s there officially. No one goes in. No one goes out. It was over three years ago that anyone saw the twins alive.”
<
br /> Branwynne swings around to face us, her odd, nearly all black eyes shifting like obsidian marbles inside a closed fist. “It was me. Three years ago,” she says into the silence. “I’m the one who got out. I was the last person to see the twins alive.”
“She escaped,” Llyr boasts.
“By the grace of fate and the best of the British,” Penarddunne says.
“The only person to ever evade the Hawkers,” Llyr beams with pride.
“These twins,” Brohn says, his eyes lighting up. “You said they’re in a church?”
“Not just any church.” Penarddunne tells us. “St. Paul’s.”
My ears perk up at that. “Wait. St. Paul’s? The one designed by Christopher Wren?”
Llyr and Penarddunne look stunned, but I have to confess that I don’t really know any more than that. “One of the Banters…”
“All-to-Pot,” Rain reminds me.
“Right. All-to-Pot. She mentioned it.”
“Well, did she mention that it sits on London’s highest point? Or that its dome is three-hundred-sixty feet high?”
“Was,” Penarddunne tells him.
“Right. It was three-hundred-sixty feet high. Before the riots of 2025 and 2031. The Eastern Order attacks sheared off the dome.” Llyr makes a slashing motion with the blade of his hand. “Just like that.”
“The En-Gene-eers rebuilt it partway with that disgrace of a glass cupola.”
“Turned it into a Processor.”
“She didn’t tell us any of that,” I confess.
Llyr’s eyes glisten. He manages a sad, nostalgic smile as he stares at the ceiling. “Whole thing was nearly blown up in World War II. Prince Charles and Lady Diana got married there.”
“They don’t want another history lesson,” Penarddunne says, her hand on her husband’s forearm. “Tell them about the twins.”
“Oh, right. The twins.” Llyr stops and gazes around at us. He clears his throat like he’s about to launch into a big explanation, but then he stops, his eyes landing on his daughter. “Branwynne’s the only who’s actually seen them.”