Darkling Fields of Arvon

by James G Anderson

  It is all on account of Aelward, whom I met on the very day of my arrival here. To his keenness of mind and wisdom I owe the first glimmers of understanding about all that has befallen me and my people. The discussions that my companions and I have had with him are like sharp shafts of sunlight cutting through dark stormcloud. So much has become clearer to me.

  As to Ferabek—himself rising like a black and boiling stormcloud that covers the sun's face and turns the natural light of day into an unnatural perversion of night—Aelward has told me that recent report has reached his ear telling of the quick and successive rout of the last few quarters of resistance in Arvon immediately following the fall of Lammermorn. The Boar now holds sway, ruling by law of martial might through that puppet pretender to the throne of Arvon, Gawmage, over every lowland and marchland county, over every keverang of the Calathros Peninsula, and over every highland clanholding. Arvon has been pressed into the Gharssûlian League, which has spread like a dark blight, almost entirely obscuring the face of Ahn Norvys, consuming before it both life and hope. Aelward says that, as recently as five days ago, news arrived telling that Ferabek trumpets Gawmage's triumph and the assertion of his right to the throne. The Boar himself makes for Dinas Antrum, there to hold council and to parade through the streets of the capital his prize and trophy, the Talamadh.

  My heart misgives me at this news. Hope seems like an ethereal and elusive thing, flitting amid the twilight shadows of evil that enshroud Ahn Norvys. But Aelward offers sage counsel, ever drawing my heart and my mind away from the terrors that lie to the left and to the right of the path that stretches before my feet, ever drawing my attention back to what first and foremost needs be done—to find the rightful king.

  Of principal importance to this task is what Aelward has discovered in his travels, namely, the origin of the puzzling heraldic device, that of the sun in eclipse, worn by those who abducted Prince Starigan as a babe in the arms of Queen Asturia. This emblem, he has found, belongs to the Order of Sarfeks, a cohort in the hidden service of the Lord of Kêl-Skrivar far to the east. According to Aelward, the Sarfeks style themselves Knights of the Five Towers or the Order of the Black Sun, but beyond that, little is known of them other than that they are very dangerous, men of great martial skill. Nor is much known about the Lord of Kêl-Skrivar himself. Even his name is elusive. Aelward, however, ventures to suppose—and that with a spirit most grave—that he is a formidable figure. It is Aelward's impression that Kêl-Skrivar is far more to be feared than Ferabek and may well wield arcane powers in secret—with a pernicious cunning that would make the Boar himself seem of little threat to the peace of Ahn Norvys. Although he remains a vague figure, his influence seeps out of Kêl-Skrivar, pervading the Shadowedland and the eastern parts of Ahn Norvys like an icy winter mist. Aelward believes it likely that Starigan will be found somewhere in Kêl-Skrivar, the heart of this mysterious power's dominion. I am chilled to the quick by this unknown and unplumbed menace that threatens to break upon an already fragile world, and into whose domain it seems I must venture.

  During the days that preceded my arrival here, Aelward puzzled over the reason behind Ferabek's keen desire to lay his hands on me before ever Wilum made me Hordanu by Right of Appointment. In what way, Aelward asked himself, did I, as a Wright, figure into the motives underlying Ferabek's invasion of the Stoneholding? He realized that, on the surface, the Boar was spurred by reports of my strange resemblance to the portrait hidden away in Owlpen Castle, that of King Colurian as a young man. He also became convinced that the real key to unlocking this secret lay hidden in the manor rolls of the Stoneholding, these having only recently received their seven-year amendment. Why else had the Boar felt a dire compulsion to obtain this record of those who have resided in our clanholding through the ages? By a stroke of good fortune, the rolls were saved from his depredations and conveyed to Aelward's Cot, along with The Chronicles of the Harmonic Age. Aelward, aided by Broq, whom Aelward evidently treasures as he does his right arm, pored over the rolls, paying particular attention to the several generations of my ancestors.

  Here they discovered something very much out of the ordinary. They found that, in the year 2705 H.R., more than three centuries ago, an outsider, a fellow named Reonyk, settled in the Stoneholding—an unusual occurrence made all the more odd in that no place of origin was inscribed into the rolls for him, although Reonyk is a common-enough name in the highlands, indeed, fondly overused in the Stoneholding. Reonyk was a wheelwright by trade and went by the surname Wright. Four years after his arrival, he married a local woman, and from this union was directly descended Frysan Wright, my father. Aelward's interest was stirred by this listing. Reonyk's arrival in the Clanholding of Lammermorn came at a time of momentous reversal in the history of Arvon and its high kingship, for it was the previous year, 2704 H.R., that had witnessed the end of the Seaheld Throne with the shattering Battle of Flitterholt.

  Garso was the High Bard during this time. It was near the outset of the many years that he was to fill the office of Hordanu. He was a man of great hardihood and is still remembered for his wisdom. With just reason. In his foresight, taking to heart the uncertainty of the times, he caused a copy to be made of all the manuscripts in his care in order to ensure that this vital record of Arvon might survive the prevailing unrest and upheaval. By way of precaution, he had these copies sent to this very place, what would become Aelward's Cot, where they remain to this day. In this set of copies, it was one of Garso's last entries in the Chronicles that caught Aelward's eye, causing him to delve further. It is dated the 15th day of wane-autumn's month, 2706 H.R., and because of its importance in the account that follows, I give it here in full:

  "It has been more than two years since the blood-riddled Battle of Flitterholt. While it marked the final tragic demise of the Seaheld Throne, its ill effects still linger in Arvon, potent and festering, like a poison that the body has not purged. Because the times remain perilous and unsure, I have made bold to do what, to my knowledge, no other Hordanu before me has done. I have had single copies made of the ancient store of manuscripts in my keeil and will send them away for safekeeping. This arduous task is near completion, and, within the year, the chronicles and cultic texts of Ahn Norvys will be safely preserved outside of Wuldor's Howe. That times should become so perilous, so minacious to that which is good and true and right, as to make this contingency necessary, is almost beyond thinking. It puts one in mind of ancient and prophetic passages of the holy Criochoran, of Hedric's bodeful soothspeak of the end of things. Is this, then, the time of the Howe's harrowing? Is it the time the Hordanu's exile? Does death march long-shadowed across the face of the world, and Ahn Norvys become the unquiet grave?

  "How much woe and unravelling can arise from one man's blind pursuit of passion, even though he be a good man and evil be not his intent! So much more so when that man is High King, as Corinnis was, when in his heart were sown the seeds of love for the Princess Tyhlana, seeds watered by the tears of her shrewish discontent, the bitter fruit of which became the Seaheld Throne. Let my short account stand as a cautionary tale for those who may come to read this in future years.

  "The reign of Corinnis began auspiciously enough in the year 2599 H.R., when, at the age of twenty-one, upon the untimely death of his father, he was crowned High King of Arvon, as tradition demands, at Templevney Edge. Even as a young man, he had always been fond of ships and sailing, an only child who savoured the solitary freedom of wind and wave. Thus inclined, he made it his praiseworthy task to refurbish and expand Arvon's small fleet. Soon he was given to long absences from his royal capital at Dinas Antrum, plying the waters off the coasts of Arvon as he oversaw the building of his navy.

  "One fateful day, three summers after his coronation, he put into the harbour of Tarkhuna with the flagship of his fleet. [At that time, the seaholdings of Melderenys and the Oakapple Isles were a single kingdom held in fealty to the High King of Arvon. Only in later years, as a result of civil war after
the fall of the Seaheld Throne, did the Isles divide into two realms. Tarkhuna was the seat of this kingdom of Ogasny-enesou, as it was then called. ~ K.W.] The vassal king of Ogasny was Stonostyr, doting father to the Princess Tyhlana, a young woman whose surpassing beauty was matched only by her willful self-absorption. Falling thrall to her comeliness, Corinnis found himself deeply in love and pressed his suit. They were soon married in Dinas Antrum in a ceremony so grand that it became the stuff of legend. There they lived but a few months after the wedding, until, lonely and homesick, the Queen grew more and more disaffected with life in the capital. With woeful pleading and dreadful shows of temper, she overbore her husband, until, at length, the royal pair made their way back to Tarkhuna, for a season it was agreed at first. Season, however, soon gave way to season, and seasons stretched slowly into years, until, at last, it was clear that Queen Tyhlana would never return to Dinas Antrum.

  "And so was established the era of the Seaheld Throne in Tarkhuna, for neither did High King Corinnis ever return to the royal seat of Arvon. Nor did his descendants return, for over a hundred years holding court in Tarkhuna and conducting affairs of state at a distance by emissary. With the passage of time, the merchants and guildmasters in Dinas Antrum grew more and more powerful, and insolent in their power, until their sway rivalled that of the High King himself. At long last, it was Beotwyn, of recent memory, the great-grandson of Corinnis and Tyhlana, who came to the realization that his very kingship was in peril. Thus, having sought and been given my counsel, he summoned his resolve and decided to return to Dinas Antrum with his queen, Caleta, and their three sons, the princes Rathad, Dystann, and Imdan, who were unwed but of age to be warriors.

  "At the same time, their taste for power whetted, and fearing its curtailment, the merchants and guildmasters fell into open rebellion. Having mustered an army, they sent it west to meet and depose Beotwyn, arguing that, by removing to Tarkhuna, Corinnis and his descendants had abdicated the throne of Arvon and no longer merited the High Kingship.

  "In turn, aware of the force that had been raised against him, and with a small host of loyal troops, Beotwyn and his family made landfall in the highlands and hastened east through the Radolan Mountains towards the capital. In the great forest of Flitterholt that covers the southern reaches of the marchland clanholding of Derowek, the two forces met. Although the army ranged against them was far larger, the royalist forces, augmented by a band of highland archers, carried the day. The cost of victory, however, proved very high. Not only was High King Beotwyn slain—may he walk ever with his fathers, kings all, on the peaceful shores of Lake Nydhyn—but so, too, apparently, were his oldest and youngest sons slain, although amid the terrible carnage their bodies were never found. Gossip persists that one or both survived, taken hostage by the guildmasters to provide themselves with a tool of leverage in their traitorous negotiations against the Throne. Though there has been no evidence to prove the veracity of this politick rumour-mongering, the merchant class remains a scarcely dampened force in Dinas Antrum.

  "Nonetheless, the Ardielid dynasty survived in the person of Beotwyn's middle son, Dystann, who proved his valour five times over, and again, on the field of battle. With his father lying in death, Dystann led the charge and, in his battle-rage, routed his enemies. He scoured Flitterholt for sign of his missing brothers, until, at length, he could in all justice do nothing other than presume them dead. He sent for me then, bidding me join him at Flitterholt. From the dire scene of royal victory in that blood-drenched woodland, he hastened with his retinue, and that of the High Bard of Ahn Norvys, to the Coronation Stone at Templevney Edge. There, for the sake of peace in Arvon, he let himself be crowned High King. I witnessed the Coronation; and I invoked Wuldor's benediction upon his kingship. When I returned to Wuldor's Howe, Dystann, now vested with his father's authority and that of every High King of Arvon since Ardiel himself, marched into Dinas Antrum and assumed the throne, finding it gravely weakened by a century of self-wrought exile amid the isles of Ogasny-enesou.

  "High King Dystann remains locked in an uncertain struggle with the merchants and guildmasters. They stand as an enduring threat to the line of Ardiel and to me as Hordanu, inasmuch as I am perceived to be of the royal party, the guarantor of his kingship. Because of this, I have taken the precautions that I see fit in the hope that, come what may, something of Arvon's glory and destiny may be salvaged from the growing shadows that fill me with deep foreboding."

  Thus ends Garso's short account of the Seaheld Throne and its immediate aftermath, written some two years after the Battle of Flitterholt.

  Aelward read and re-read the foregoing account with care and with no small puzzlement. He considered it now in the light of his discovery about my mysterious ancestor Reonyk, gleaned as it was from the manor rolls of the Stoneholding that he held ready to hand, their importance emphasized for the first time. Aelward told me later that he knew there was something more to the account than first met the eye. He grew certain that Garso was privy to some secret, that he was hiding some knowledge that bore on my ancestor, new come to the Stoneholding from parts unknown.

  Surely, Aelward reasoned, it could not be a coincidence that Reonyk had come to the Stoneholding so soon after the Battle of Flitterholt. So he combed the rest of Garso's writings, those that had not been a part of the body of copied texts with which Aelward was familiar, but which had been brought to the Cot along with the manor rolls, a part of the hoard of manuscripts that had accumulated in the Hordanu's keeil for the three hundred years following the end of the Seaheld Throne. These later writings of Garso's were many, since he went on to hold the office of Hordanu for more than a half-century after the Battle of Flitterholt, living to see the deep winter of his life settle its hoary shroud upon his head.

  Aelward felt Garso's writings might hold the key to the mystery that preyed on his mind, and his suspicions proved correct. It was on the evening of my arrival at the Cot that he finally found what he sought, a passage easy to overlook, since it was buried inconspicuously in one of Garso's lesser chronicle entries, a disjointed, rambling account of the seaholdings and their lore that Garso had made towards the very end of his years. It was clear that Garso meant for its wistful longwindedness to put off all but the seeking mind, alert to the words on the page. Aelward's grey eyes gleamed like smouldering coals when he read it to me as follows:

  "As is well-known by all folk of the kingdom of Arvon, after High King Beotwyn forsook his court in Tarkhuna to reestablish his throne in Dinas Antrum, the vassal kingdom of Ogasny-enesou was torn asunder, its fabric rent even more direly than that of Arvon, of which it was once the beating heart, so that the isles of Ogasny-enesou became two kingdoms in place of one on account of the war that broke out between Melderenys to the north and the southern isles. This great upheaval, this divorce of life from peace, happened when Valistor of Tarkhuna, one of Beotwyn's uncles, argued that, by leaving, Beotwyn had abdicated the Seaheld Throne and thus the throne of Arvon. Valistor himself laid claim, by violence of temper and steel, to the throne, turning the blade on all who opposed him, styling himself High King instead of Beotwyn. His opponents included Comatas, the vassal king of Ogasny, who was forced, for the safety of his person and his house, to take flight with his family to Swanskeld in the southern isles, the white pearl of the Arvonian Sea, and there take up arms against the usurping and villainous Valistor, warding off the latter's attempts to gather north and south into his power.

  "Now, alas, the sundering of Ogasny seems fixed, set unalterably by the longstanding years, the contesting realms acknowledging an uneasy truce that, by time and custom, has been woven into the fabric of a life braided by mistrust, suspicion, and enmity. Similarly, in Dinas Antrum, the power of the High King is hemmed and hedged beyond precedent, as if from time immemorial, by the merchants and guildmasters, who have pressed for the creation of the Mindal, which is to be a body of royal advisors who will, beyond any reasonable doubt, do little more than advance their own interes
ts at every turn, to their profit and to the detriment of both Crown and Throne, and the peace, order, and harmony which these betoken.

  "Still, as my life draws towards its tattered end, I am heartened by the hope that the dire plight of Ardiel's heir and his dominion shall not be ever thus. I cling with a ferocious hope to the slender thread of the ageless promise that there will be a mending. It is my boon companion, a fellow of this lakeland redoubt that is my home and home to Wuldor's Howe, now, alas, standing on the far side of the Birdless Lake—gil nas sverender, my friend of friends—who claimed, with a fey certainty, that all things shall be remade in years to come, that the warp and weft of peace and harmony shall, by Wuldor's hand at the loom of destiny, holding the shuttle of Ardiel's Scion, be rewoven long after both us have crossed the cold waters of Nydhyn. From personal experience, I trust him, for he has a mystic gift of foresight, a true gift that I have witnessed in the past in other matters which we have discussed together; even so, he is chary in its use, and, of the Holdsfolk, none but I have knowledge of it. Perhaps this gift may be attributed to his origins, for from the root does the flower draw that which sustains its colour, and it is the root which warrants the grace-filled gift of the flower's beauty.

  "Of the gentlest ancestry, a simple man possessed of an unassuming nature and with modest ambition who craved a peace far from the hurly-burly of the great cities and the connivances of their rulers, he fled to Lammermorn's mountain-ringed sanctuary as a young man to seek out the equally young Hordanu. He came, a broken man, not long after the great and fell clash of arms that rang amid the trees of Flitterholt, a battle in which, he said, an elder brother had fallen and his own peace lay cloven. He quickly shed his outlander's name and all traces of his accent, which ebbed, even as his joy was renewed, flowing afresh into his heart and limbs. It was his accent, long-lost, which marked him to me from the very first as one born and raised among the Isles and as one of station, for in blood is the second sight not infrequently to be found, especially on the part of youngest sons. To all eyes but mine, he was no more than a highlander, a Holdsman bred to the bone, solid of carriage, even to his name, a name which I gave him when he first bound me to silence."