by Craig Davis
Chapter XXI
Mine is not the story I tell, and yet so it is. The scratching quill falls still; it mocks my sanity. The scratching imputes my blessing, and my penance. I remember no more.
All of Feallengod returned to the community. Everyone who had taken the brand of the lion had swept into Domen’s downfall, his final calamity imposed. There in the square, the people fell upon the golden lion and tore it to pieces, casting each shred into the great furnace of the branding place. I, myself, stoked the fire, and fanned the flames until the molten gold dripped out upon the streets and into the cracks between the cobblestones.
A thousand pairs of hands dismantled the hearth, the bricks put under heavy millstones and ground into dust, then scattered unto the four winds. The platform came apart board by board, and the wood taken to the ash heap and burned until only dead embers remained. The brands themselves plunged deep into the Ocean Heofon to rust and waste away. Waves lapped gently at the shores, and warmth like spring poured from the heavens upon bones newly dressed in the health of flesh.
Our happy task done, the people of Feallengod congregated in the town square. In the midst of us all, crouching low to the ground, we placed Domen.
The men and women cast an unwavering gaze upon him, our narrow eyes set to contemplating the ruinous weight he had brought upon our families, upon the island. I wondered at my own lack of understanding, as surely did many others, when we had considered him benevolent, or innocuous. At last we saw – his power had reigned over us even when we believed not in him, as the words of the law wore away. Now, the strength and authority of Coren exposed Domen as nothing more than the unwitting, disabused victim of his own lust for destruction.
The wickedness and folly, the foolishness and bile roared in desperation within what heart Domen had. Madness erupted from his mind. “Damn your eyes!” he spewed, pointing his accusation at us. Directing his diatribe at Coren, he screeched, “These! You see your enemies before you — every one! Every one fails you!” I feared that he might hear Domen’s words and believe, for surely I would lead those wrathfully turned away by my exceeding beloved, and rightly so, but condemnation arose only from my own weakness.
Domen’s anguished screams echoed into oblivion. “Ecealdor made me thus! You will not take up my cause! You and the king conspire together, always the same!”
“You will submit in silence,” said Coren. “You will no longer accuse these, for I have chosen them, and they have agreed. You never held authority to affix judgment, for these stand on my side; they have sought out mercy, and they have persevered against your attacks.”
“I accuse you! You brought it upon them, and upon me!” Domen’s voice rasped. “You and your king!”
“So then you accuse me? Yet who is there to judge me? I have borne the lowly raiment of these my people, but no more. Today I dress them in my own robes. Your time has passed, Dægræd-El. You once did abide in the courts of Gægnian as the most favored. You gathered splendor and eminence unto yourself, bedecked with every precious jewel, anointed with the greatest honors. You have in your day been found wonderful in your beauty and bearing and wisdom. Yet you reviled your high office.
“We found you blameless, until you manifested violence in your ways, as well pride, and you took up the cause of your own will. By reason of these things, you have corrupted yourself. Your conceits worked less for yourself than against the king. You dared elevate yourself to Ecealdor’s majesty; you vainly considered that you could be as he is. But have you not only served him? For these purposes we placed you upon Feallengod, and this people as well, and our intentions against you have been fulfilled. I have seen you cast out of the courts of favor, and now cast out of the dust, to the end of utter destruction. This very people whom you sought to destroy I have taken unto myself and made them the instrument of your defeat. See, I lay you before kings, that they may behold you in the totality of your ruin.”
And then Coren turned to face us, his glorious face alight, love beaming from his countenance. “Or did you not know you would judge princes?” looking directly to Beorn.
“I have ached for you these many years, but my heart refused,” his voice glazed with sweet regret.
“Had you not fallen away, I would never have given my life for Feallengod, and never defeated Domen.”
The people of Feallengod stood silent for a moment, as Domen shrank under our scrutiny. He lay before us stripped of clothing, stripped of covering, stripped of power. The taut muscles of his arms and legs convulsed beneath his skin, diseased and wasted; his ribs and the bones of his spine etched grotesque patterns; dried blood caked heavily upon his knuckles. His sneer transformed into a miserable, wailing grimace and back again. A question swelled in my mind, what he was now, what he had ever been. Quietly, voices arose as we looked upon him, first one, then another, then more.
“Is this the man?”
“Is this the man who made the whole island tremble?”
“Is this he who shook the very foundations of Feallengod?”
“Could this man truly wring our wills and so imprison us?”
“Is this really one so bold, so proud?”
“Is this really one who dared challenge Ecealdor?”
“How could this lone man be the greatest evil of all the ages?”
And we gaped upon him.
“This man made not the king his strength, and trusted in the abundance of his arrogance, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.”
These judgments, brought by those he hated and abused, left Domen writhing in the ashes, clenching his fists and teeth in futile rage. The peace that embraced us, the reverence Coren commanded — deserved without question, received in natural grace — our staring eyes probing the depths of his failure: All these offenses now did seize Domen’s entrails, twisting violently about in the bitter hatred of his mind, enraging him beyond anything he had ever felt. “Damn your eyes!” he screamed.
“You will cease. Power in Feallengod lies no longer in your hands, to choose when you will speak or accuse,” Coren measured his voice. “The robes of the government of Feallengod now hang upon my shoulders. You have never gained anything except what the royal counsels of Gægnian allowed in our unity. All your victories counted no more to you than defeat, for they only drew you closer to this moment. Your sands run out, Domen. Your time of dominion upon Feallengod fails, forever past. As for now, the dungeons of Gægnian will take hold of you.”
***
The overhead door of the cell, the pit, slammed shut with a ringing, metallic bang. Domen crouched, confined to the cold and dank, to the darkness he always had coveted. “Curse him,” he said.