Chapter 7: Swans for the King
In the cold loft of the barn, Derek held his lantern closer to the pages. King William's handwriting was smaller and more uneven than that of his daughter, forcing him to read more slowly. Derek tried to swallow the feeling that this was somehow sacrilegious. He was reading the private notes of a king—a king who, little more than a month later, would be dead. But whatever information was in these pages, Odette had wanted it to fall into his hands. He had to believe that, or everything he and Bromley had risked to get this far would be for nothing.
The journal of King William II of Cymdros, April 27th, in the 30th year of his reign
Why am I cursed to rewrite these memories every other night and burn them afterward? All of this was more than eighteen years past. Is it not enough that I am robbed of sleep over my kingdom's current woes?
It was Councilor Andreas who warned me of Baron Von Rothbart's plan to usurp the throne. I had always thought Andreas a paranoid hardliner who saw demons and assassins everywhere, but in this case his suspicious instincts proved correct. We attacked the sorcerer's stronghold at night, on a lake on the island of Nefynmor. His defenses were weak—presumably because he had drawn almost all his magic into one focused attack on the heart of our kingdom. We won because of surprise, I think. Rothbart did not have time to redirect his magic toward the soldiers at his gate.
Once we had the sorcerer and his servant in chains outside, Councilor Andreas and my captain, Sir Josiah Langley, both urged me to burn the fortress to the ground. But here I advised restraint. I would congratulate myself for that decision weeks later—and then lament it bitterly.
Rothbart was not a wizard, but a warlock. He had stolen his magic by tearing an eldritch curtain and awakening forces better left undisturbed. When we severed his ties to the Forbidden Arts during the ambush, we thought the power simply dissipated or retreated back from whence it came. We were wrong.
Barely a fortnight later, strange reports began to come in from all six islands in our kingdom. Trees and crops had turned white and were bleeding black sap. The white wood refused to burn. Even the soil had turned to white chalk. Eerie faces were emerging in the bark of some of the trees. Some of the locals swore they heard whispers, though they never saw the faces move. A cryptic symbol appeared in the bark above each face, like an upside-down trident. Nearly a quarter of the kingdom was suffering from an otherworldly blight.
Even more chilling were reports of children with black marks on their feet, marks that matched the strange three-pronged symbols on the trees. The children, they said, suffered waking nightmares during the day and would sleepwalk for hours at night. They complained of itching arms and scratched them until they bled. Some tried to leap off rooftops, as though they thought they could fly. Twelve children were found with the marks—two from each island.
I wish I had not been so quick to banish the warlock. But by the time the full scope of the curse reached my ears, Rothbart and his servant were long gone. So I returned to the warlock's fortress on the lake.
From the shore I could see the magical tear he had rent, giving him access to the cursed eldritch magic we now call the Forbidden Arts. It hovered above the lake, a wispy strand of orange-gold, mocking me. I turned away and entered the abandoned keep. After over an hour of ransacking his library, I found something like the mysterious mark on the cover of a heavy blue tome titled "The Eldritch Balances."
Leafing through the book, I saw the branching symbol on multiple pages, with slightly different variations. Its root form seemed to signify a transition, or a reunion. Finally I found the version that had appeared on our trees and the feet of our children. (Why did I ever think it was an upside-down trident? Why did I not see it then for what it really was?)
Beneath this paragraph, Derek saw, King William had sketched a copy of the mark. It showed a single line that branched off into three at its base. Holding his lantern closer to the page, he continued to read the stolen entry from the king's journal.
Beneath it, I read the following:
"The Forked Current. When an eldritch force is split between multiple living beings, it creates a magical tug of war between them. The resulting conflict will consume them, until only one living host remains and the power can be made whole once again. Usually, but not always, the wisest host will emerge victorious. Only a very strong enchanter can keep the warring powers at bay."
They were paired, I realized, the children and the land. In the chaos of destroying Rothbart's connection to the Forbidden Arts, we had shattered the magic and the fragments had scattered across our kingdom, latching on where they would. Children were wiser than plants, so they were better able to withstand the magical conflict. Our land was dying so our children could live.
But why would the magic have latched onto children dozens of miles away? Why would it not have attached itself to me, or any of the soldiers who were there at the scene? Back then, I assumed it was some strange law of magical physics—the result of pent-up energy, perhaps, that compelled the magic to fly many miles over land or sea before settling on a random host. Now I know better. The magic was purposeful, and it was vindictive.
The passage in the book went on:
"To end the conflict, each host must give back their power by returning to the original site of the power's splitting and offering a piece of themselves. Only once the divided powers are reunited will the hosts be set free."
The answer appeared in my mind then, almost a whisper, gentle and kind. The power must be returned. Take the children to the lake. Send their power back through the eldritch curtain, and all will be made right again.
We returned to the sorcerer's lake on the night of a full moon. Superstition? Perhaps. But the ancient magics were always strongest when the moon was new. I wish we could have done this in broad daylight, but the tear in the eldritch curtain was so faint it was visible only at night—the same wispy, vaporous strand of orange-gold hovering just above the surface of the lake.
Fifty of us there were in the party. Myself, twelve families and a handful of soldiers. The oldest child was thirteen. The youngest was five. I remember all their names. Some of the older children looked excited at being so close to a sorcerer's keep. That I also remember well.
We brought with us every tree that bore the eldritch mark—their roots, stems and branches—loaded onto five enormous wagons. At a signal from me, the guards cut the ropes that held the trees in place. The thunderous cracks as they rolled into the water still echo in my mind. Yet even then I knew that was the easiest part. We still needed to cast something of each tree and child through the curtain itself.
Captain Josiah waded out into the lake first. He carried two burlap sacks with the bark and roots of every marked tree. When he held out both sacks to the eldritch tear, they vanished in his hands. But nothing else happened, though we watched for several minutes.
Then he snipped off a lock of his blond hair and sent it through the curtain. I followed, sending a lock of my own graying hair through as well. As I did, my fingers touched the glimmering orange strand. It felt surprisingly cold and harsh, like raindrops blown through a fierce wind. For a brief moment I glimpsed the world beyond the curtain—a lake like the one we had come to, but with no moon reflected in its surface, only starlight. As the wind rippled across the surface, the pealing of wind chimes almost sounded like whispers. But again, nothing happened. The hovering golden-orange tear still winked at us impassively.
Finally, Captain Josiah and I waved to the families on the banks. The children would need to be on the lake for this to work, or so I believed. Their parents had all clipped off strands of their children's hair to send through the curtain; I prayed it would be enough.
One of the older children sprinted across the water, sending up clumsy waves in his excitement. He brandished his own pair of scissors.
"I want to see through! I'll hand it over myself!" he announced. Captain Josiah rolled his eyes and gave a helpless half-shrug.
"Let the kid have a story he can exaggerate to his friends later," he said.
The older boy reached us, nearly slipping in his enthusiasm. Captain Josiah reached out an arm to steady the boy. He had a mane of shaggy dark hair and a cluster of dark freckles on his right cheek—may God forgive me, I remember all their names but not which faces go with them. After making an uneven cut, the boy handed a fistful of hair to me and made an awkward bow. In return I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring nod.
Captain Josiah stretched out his hand then, offering to toss in the boy's hair himself. I shook my head.
"Thank you, my friend," I said quietly. "But this has to be me." Trying to keep my hands from shaking, I offered a silent prayer to the sky and cast the boy's locks through the wispy golden veil. In that instant, I realized how fragile and vain my hopes truly were. I had no idea what to expect next.
The boy held his left foot in his hands. To my astonishment, the black symbol vanished before our eyes.
"It worked!" the boy shouted. "It's harmless!"
Harmless? The magic was intelligent, and patient. Now all the children entered the water. The older ones waded out on their own; the younger were carried in their parents' arms. Captain Josiah's men handed eleven more locks of hair to me, and I cast them into the curtain.
Nothing at all happened for what seemed like several minutes, though it might have been a mere thirty seconds. The last child to enter was perhaps ten feet from the shore when the misty tear began to pulse. Three, perhaps four beats? Then twelve greedy fingers of orange light raced across the lake, and twelve pearlescent whirlpools rose from the surface, enveloping each of the children.
I did not see what transpired at first. But I heard the wordless cries, first of shock, then despair. It was the parents who had been holding their children; they must have been the first to understand.
The fierce wind I had felt when I touched the curtain now ripped free, spraying water drops on our faces like needles. When I finally could look up, I saw a bevy of swans suspended just above our reach, swept up by a wind from another world. They do not know how to fly yet, I thought. That is why the curtain sent the wind.
By now the tear in the curtain had grown into a throbbing arch. The wind shifted, drawing the birds that moments earlier had been children closer to the curtain. I remember the trumpeting wails that followed. I remember the black silhouettes of their necks and wings, how they stretched them out in a confused, desperate struggle to return to their parents' arms. They hovered in front of the portal another moment. Twelve swans backlit by the golden light, a cruel mockery of the sigil of my house. Then the wind pushed them through and the tear closed behind them. They were gone.
The next morning, every site that had suffered from the magical blight had returned to normal. Better, even. Local recordkeepers would later say that year, the once-cursed fields and orchards produced a better harvest than any in recent memory. Except one…except one.
A cherry grove on the eastern side of Nefynmor remained blighted, because I had held my own child back.
What manner of monster am I, that I would allow twenty-four parents to suffer a heartache I was unwilling to endure myself? I had no idea what would happen that night. But in some dark corner of my mind I must have suspected something, for I was unwilling to expose my own infant daughter to the unknown, though she too bore the three-pronged eldritch mark on her foot—the mark of a bird's foot, I now realized, how could I have ever thought it was anything else?
The whispers some local peasants spoke of came to me that night, and they have never left. I remember trying to bargain with them, back then.
Take me through your curtain, I demanded. I thwarted your servant. Transfigure me into a true swan king and leave my daughter alone.
A voice, soft and merciless, replied, No.
As I said, all of this was nearly eighteen years ago. In time, the mark on my daughter's foot faded, though the cherry grove never recovered. I began to hope that perhaps that was enough. A few dozen dead trees were a small price to pay for my only daughter and heir.
But now the blight has spread. In the last year, plants across the entire island of Nefynmor have begun bleeding black again. The trees are turning white, and their wood refuses to burn. The island's harvest was weak last year—weak? More like sickening. Some of our livestock fell ill and died after eating last year's grain. Others became rabid. Once the first report of half a village falling sick came in, I ordered the rest of the harvest thrown into the sea. It was a risky and deeply unpopular move. Our kingdom relies on the rich soils of Nefynmor for nearly a third of its food. We had enough stores to get us through last winter, but what about the next?
We have already relocated most families to the other five islands, where the soil remains unpoisoned. How long before we abandon Nefynmor entirely? Must our kingdom lose yet another island?
A moment, please—my daughter is knocking. She has begun hearing the whispers too. I have told her it is because she wandered into an eldritch mist two winters ago, chasing after the reckless prince of Chamberg. I fear to tell her everything I know, and yet I fear where she will search for answers if I do not.
I must remember to burn these pages. There is no fire in the grate tonight, it is too warm. My daughter calls louder now. Yes, Odette, I'm all right, just a moment—
Eighteen years ago, I sent twelve children through a curtain into another world. Hundreds more would have starved if I had not. And hundreds more may yet starve, because I was not king enough to make the necessary sacrifice. All this suffering, because I would not choose between my kingdom and my child.
I will burn these pages when I return.
The king's notes ended there. Derek turned the final page over, just in case there was another clue, but the other side was blank. Then he turned back to Odette's note and reread one of her final sentences: Find my pen and you'll find me.
He closed his eyes. The clues seemed so obvious now. Of course King William was the Cob King from Odette's earlier clue, scrawled in haste on a note from the University of Merduin. A cob was a male swan, and William the Second was the last Swan King of Cymdros. And a pen…a pen was a female swan. Derek sank to the sawdust-covered floor and began to laugh, not caring that Bromley was staring at him as though his best friend had lost his mind. He barely noticed when Bromley started shaking his shoulder and shouting his name. Derek laughed so hard he nearly cried.