Chapter 13

The King is in danger!” Brynn proclaimed. Themon involuntarily took a step back, banging roughly into Brynn’s small desk.

“Ouch!” Themon cried out.

“Sorry, High Druid!” Brynn apologized. He wrestled away the blankets and stood up, causing Themon to retreat even more. The back of Themon’s knees contacted the small stool by the desk, and he unceremoniously sat down.

He glared silently at Brynn.

“I, uh, er, I …” Brynn stammered.

“What’s this about the King? And why aren’t you in Brightmyst?” Themon asked impatiently.

Brynn gulped. Then he shakily recounted his arrival at Brightmyst and Mayor Rhoddri’s request—no, his order—to repair the magical Fence. Next, he told him of the crows’ vision of the Darkness and the Far Forest. He mentioned Kodroth’s attack on the village, but did not dwell on it, only saying it was repelled. He remained vague about his travels in the Far Forest, leaving out his encounter with Seleeku and the elves. Then he described Grimcairn, and how the Darkness was released when he entered the edifice of stones. Which was true, sort of.

Finally, he explained how, to his great surprise, when he exited Grimcairn, he found himself halfway up the side of the mountain, Abon. As an afterthought, he added that as the Darkness left Grimcairn, he felt its thoughts turning towards the King. He was sure that the King was in danger, although he wasn’t sure how or why.

Themon listened to Brynn’s story with increasing incredulity plain on his face. When Brynn finished, he was silent for a long moment, taking it all in.

Then he banged a fist on Brynn’s desk. “What a ridiculous story! A simpler explanation is that you never left for Brightmyst at all, and you’ve been hiding out around Galdir the whole time! Were you afraid? Lazy? Bah! Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!”

He stood up and squeezed his way past Brynn and the desk. He paused at the door, and Brynn had the odd thought that Themon was worried it would exit to a field of mountain flowers. But he was merely waiting for Brynn to move out of the way so he could open it. Brynn dutifully stepped backwards to make room.

Themon went out into the hallway. “You’re lucky I don’t believe you, Druid Brynn. Otherwise, we’d have to detain you. This ‘Darkness’, or whatever it is you called it, it could have corrupted you, and there’s no saying what kind of damage you could have caused. We would’ve had to study you and find a way to cleanse it from you. Make up a better story next time. I will be speaking with the Council to determine what kind of disciplinary action will be brought against you.”

He stalked off down the corridor, mumbling to himself. Brynn caught the exclamation, “Unbelievable!”, but not much else. Then he turned around a corner and was gone.

Brynn closed the door and began to change out of his night clothes. Attendants had delivered him a new robe to replace his damaged, muddy one. On top of the robe was a necklace. A cold iron disc lay at the end of it. Stamped on the disc were the three mountains of the Trinity with an oak tree overlaying the mountains. The symbol of the Galdirian Order of the Druids.

He traced the embossment with a finger, somehow afraid that putting it on would immediately expose him for the exiled impostor that he was. Leaving it off would invite questions, however, so he reluctantly donned the amulet. It felt familiar, yet foreign. And heavy.

The morning bells were ringing. His stomach was already reminding him that he had missed a few meals. He smoothed down his robes and stood in front of the door. With a sigh, he opened it.

An attendant was standing at the entrance, holding a large tome out in front of her. He looked at it, confused. He hadn’t requested anything from the library. How could he have when he had been unconscious?

She looked familiar. She was wearing a wimple, which all the female attendants wore. It covered most of her head, including her ears. But her face …

“Seleeku!”

Seleeku shoved the heavy book into his hands, pushing him back into his room. She kicked the door closed behind her.

“What are you doing here?” Brynn cried out, nearly dropping the leather-bound volume to the floor.

“I followed you,” she replied, as if the answer were obvious.

She was standing uncomfortably close to him. Not that she had any choice. His room was cramped.

“When you left,” she continued, “I didn’t know what to do, at first, but then I decided I wasn’t going to use the mountain pass and die in some blizzard. So I tracked your path down the mountainside. Then the fog came in. I thought I’d never find you, but I was lucky enough to run into you—collapsed on the ground, nearly frozen to death. There was nothing I could do, so I searched around for help. That’s when I found the shepherd and his sheep.”

“I couldn’t let the shepherd see me, of course,” she went on, “so I tried to herd the sheep in your direction. Do you know how hard that was? Herding sheep while staying hidden from their shepherd? Even with a fog to help? Of course, the shepherd was confused about why they kept going in your direction. He kept trying to collect them and go back the opposite way.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Back and forth and back and forth, the sheep went. This way, then that way. Finally the shepherd gave up, I guess, and just followed the sheep where I guided them.”

“He almost didn’t find you even then,” she said. “I had to sneak over and place a biscuit by your side to entice the sheep go near you. That got the shepherd curious, and finally—finally!—he found you.”

Brynn stared at her, dumbfounded. “You saved my life,” he said slowly.

Seleeku rolled her eyes and laughed nervously. “Let’s hope I don’t have to do it again,” she said a little too loud.

“But why are you here, Seleeku? If they find out you’re an elf …”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

She was taking a great risk. If she were to be captured, the King would want to find out where the elves were hiding in the Far Forest. Brynn didn’t want to think about what they would do to her to get that information.

“You’re in danger here, Seleeku. You need to leave the city as soon as possible.”

“Remember when I asked you, if you were going to fight the Darkness, what would you do next?”

Brynn remembered all too well. “I would go to the Library, here in the College of Galdir, and research the writings of the Old Ones.”

“You may not be fighting the Darkness, Brynn, but I am. I think that I need to if I want to save my brother. So I snuck in here, hoping I could find something to help. It wasn’t too hard to steal a servant’s uniform and wander around the College.”

“How did you know where my room was?” Brynn asked.

She nodded to the blankets. “One of the stewards asked me to bring them to you.”

The tome was getting heavy in Brynn’s hands. He put it down on the table, glancing at the cover. He looked at it. Then he looked at it again. This was no hastily copied, heavily worn book used for research or teaching. The rich leather cover was gilt with a beautiful gold stitching. The quality was exquisite. The title was finely embroidered with the same gold thread. It was written in the Old Tongue, which translated to:

The Codex of Essus

Brynn carefully opened the book. The front page was colorfully illuminated on thin vellum. In one corner, human-sized rabbits wielding swords were attacking a cowering hunter. In another, a giant snail and knight were engaged in a ferocious battle. At the bottom of the page, a dog-headed man was kneeling before an altar. Floral motifs spread all around the margins. Red, yellow and blue flowers sprouted from graceful vines that wrapped around delicately drawn borders. The colors were so vibrant that the illustrations looked alive, as if they were trying to pop out of the page.

This tome was created by the Old Ones.

“Where …” Brynn was at a loss for words, “where did you get this?”

“I was tasked with delivering a sealed letter to a druid,” she replied. “The druid must be very important, because their office is much larger than this one. It had the most wonderful view of the city and the river, not like …” she trailed off for a moment, looking around Brynn’s room. Then she continued, “The druid wasn’t there, and I saw this book on their desk. So I took it, thinking it might help in fighting the Darkness.”

Brynn snapped the Codex shut, picked it up and held out in front of Seleeku. “You need to put this back where you found it. If they realize that it’s gone, the guards will conduct a search, and you’ll be the prime suspect.”

Seleeku eyed the tome, but made no effort to take it. “It may be too late for that. Just hide it for me, please. I’ll return when I can.”

She cracked the door open and silently slid out. There was a slight click from the latch as the door closed behind her.

Brynn stood there, still holding out the book, furiously trying to think of what to do. How could he hide such a large tome in his tiny room?

A loud reverberating knock made the door tremble.

Brynn quickly stuffed the Codex under his cot. It was the only place where it wasn’t immediately visible. He took a deep breath and answered the door.

Two burly guards stood at the entrance. They held truncheons in their hands.

“Druid Brynn?” asked the one to Brynn’s left. The one to his right gave him an intimidating stare.

Brynn was standing in his own room, dressed in his druid robes, wearing the symbol of the Druids of Galdir. Who else could he be?

“Yes?” Brynn replied uncertainly.

“Come with me.”

---

Darkness enveloped Brynn. He was in a cell, deep in the Dungeons of Galdir. There were no windows. There was no light.

Only Darkness.

The guards had brought him here. They didn’t search his room. They didn’t ask him about the Codex. Instead, they had walked him—publicly, humiliatingly—out of the College and to the Dungeons. They took him past the common cells, where the petty thieves and drunkards were jailed, deeper down, and then deeper still, to the cells where only the most dangerous and vilest of criminals were left to rot and be forgotten. He remembered them looking about apprehensively while the jailor slowly sorted through his keys, looking for the special one that would open the wrought iron door to his new home. This cold, damp, lightless cell.

That all seemed so long ago, dim images in his mind. Now there was only black. He heard nothing but the sound of his own breath. And his stomach asking for food. And the rats. They skittered about freely, without fear. This was their realm. He was so hungry that he spent his time thinking about different ways of trapping them for food. But the idea was crazy. How would he eat one if he succeeded? And besides, they had sharp claws and nasty fangs and would just give him a festering wound if he tried. He began to wonder if the rats thought of him as food, instead of the other way around.

Time passed.

His breath whispered.

The rats skittered.

His stomach grumbled.

Time passed.

The color of the Darkness changed, if only slightly. Was that light? It was! It flickered fearfully through the edges of the door, never truly penetrating the gloom. He heard footsteps. The sound of keys jangling.

The door slowly opened, metal scraping sharply on stone. Brynn was momentarily blinded by the lantern the jailor held, but the Darkness recovered, swooping in, surrounding it. The light dimmed.

A second jailor stepped into the room. He held a pair of manacles in his hands. “Stand up, prisoner,” he commanded Brynn.

Brynn stood up dumbly. The jailor turned him around roughly, took Brynn’s hands behind his back and locked them into the manacles. He shoved Brynn back to the floor.

Two people in shiny metal armor and swords belted at their sides crowded into the cell. They stared at the jailors, who both stepped to the side and then knelt to the floor. Then they stared at Brynn.

“Kneel, prisoner,” one of the knights said.

Brynn struggled up to a kneeling position.

High Druid Themon walked in. He looked at Brynn, expressionless, before stepping aside. He and the knights bowed as the last person entered.

King Jebran III, the King of Galdir, entered the cell.

Jebran wore an elaborately embroidered purple robe. Jewel encrusted rings adorned each of his fingers. The king was a young man who had recently inherited the throne, his father having been killed at the Battle of Elkfield a year past. He had the bearing of a man who always demanded obeisance and always received it.

“Why am I here, High Druid—” he stopped short when saw Brynn kneeling in the glimmering shadows.

“This man,” he exclaimed, his face full of surprise, “this man was in my dreams!”