Jonathan Dunn - The Forgotten King

“We are done here,” she said faintly and began walking to the stairs across the room.

“Then this is all?” asked Patrick in unbelief, “We have come on a mistaken whim? Time is not my lover, that I can safely forget it, and you are no different. Let us return to the action!”

“We came for Montague and have had him. But if it were not for our mistaken whim, you would yet be imprisoned; and a man is not always imprisoned without reason,” Willard said.

“What do you think? That I am a mere farmer’s boy and Lydia my youthful dame? Then I understand why you do not value my counsel.”

“You are more than a farm boy?” Lydia mocked him, her blue eye turned his way. “Are you a king simply because you inflamed the countryside to rebellion in order to capture my heart?”

“Her heart does not seem so much a prize,” de Garcia moaned.

“Do not blaspheme my god!” Patrick cried vehemently, “Do not mock my savior, my world, my Lydia! If she is contrary at times, it only accents her innocence at others. If a woman is always gentle, who knows and relishes it? But if she is foul tempered, her previous gentleness is praised. She is made perfect by her imperfections, so do not blaspheme my love!”

“How can you call a mortal your god, with what we have just seen?” Ivona asked quietly, as if in pain.

“All I have seen is a man. Lydia is more lovely than a mere man.”

“With eyes, they fail to see!” Ivona sighed.

“With minds, they fail to think!” Lydia mocked. “Poor farm girl, poor farm boy! Fools the both of them, but what can one expect?” she hissed at Patrick, who turned his head and closed his eyes.

“Fools!” Lydia continued, but her head turned and her hazel eye fell upon Patrick. “But all men are fools and their ways with them. If you are a fool, it is the crown of your manhood.”

The dawn broke out, the sky was lit, and the room was silent from its outburst.

“A man’s heart is revealed when he is given authority,” Willard said at length. “If you were a farmer’s boy, I was lower still; but if you are now a noble warrior, I will only see you as such.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Patrick McConnell, his passion subdued for the moment. “I am only an English peasant, though the people have followed me into rebellion. Yet I am only a boat which is pushed along by the tides; for I, myself, do not shape events. I fought for love,” he looked to Lydia, “And the rebellion came behind.”

“So it is for many.”

“They come,” de Garcia interrupted, running to them from the mouth of the stairs, where he had been standing in silence. “The footsteps have returned, my lord, and in greater numbers!”

As they became silent, the floor began to shake and the air to spin with the sounds of war. From the echoing stairway poured an onslaught of rumbling footsteps, followed by terrible screams and cries in an unknown tongue.

De Garcia alone voiced their thoughts. “They come, and there is no escape!”

Chapter 71

“Our fruitless quest damns us,” Patrick moaned, the horde growing nearer on the stairs even as he spoke.

“Nothing is without purpose,” Ivona said quietly, and she forgot herself in the dawn beyond the veranda.

“Theology is one thing, but escaping is quite another,” Patrick returned.

“Have you no ideas,” purred the blue-eyed Lydia, and her voice was a tiger in the savanna.

“My mind has become a hermit, my love. De Garcia, veteran warrior, what say you?”

“There is no escape,” and he looked over the side to the ground far below, hidden by the mists.

The stairs shook under the force of the coming horde. Drums were beaten, wails of agony resounded, and a droning, bumble-bee chanting floated up to the heavenly veranda. The stairway had no door, but opened directly into the room. The sound of their approach was the masked men’s only vanguard.

“We cannot escape,” Ivona said faintly, still staring into the dawn, “Yet there is no need.”

“Speak your mind, Ivona,” Willard said.

Ivona turned away from the rising sun, “We have no reason to fight them. No one has been wronged, and forgiveness’ mandate is not violence. Let us lay down our arms and meet them as friends.”

“I cannot let the destiny of my followers rest on the benevolence of a brutish mob,” Patrick cried. “How can we know what they will do?” and he ran to the door and peered into the darkness, struck across the face by the approaching chaos.

“How can one know anything, but through faith?” Ivona asked him. “You must have faith that either they will fight or forgive, so you cannot abdicate on grounds of reason. We cannot know, so let us have faith in what is good.”

“Faith, faith, the churchman’s wraith! I will not have it, when more than my own life is gambled,” he glanced at Lydia.

“They are not a brutish mob, as you say, according to what I have read. They are the Titans.”

“The Titans,” Willard repeated, and his blood shivered at the name. And it was the blood of the throne that filled his veins.

“The sons of Caan, the bastards of Uranos, the ransackers of Hesperides.”

And Willard trembled.

“The trident of the seas, the flaming sword of the garden.”

And Willard’s face became a waterfall.

“The destroyers of Olympus, the assassins of the Grecian gods.”

And Willard drew his sword and plunged it into the heavy air about their heads, partially cloud and partially sky. “I will destroy them,” and he rushed toward the the stairway.

“They draw near!” de Garcia interrupted, “I can feel their flaming breath upon my ears!”

Willard started down the stairs in a fit of madness, impelled by unknown remembrances of the ancients. But Leggitt stopped him, coming forward and grabbing his arm, forcing him back into the room.

“Be patient, your majesty,” he entreated. “For this is merely a matter of tactics: we cannot defeat them in combat, though they can defeat us. At the same time, they cannot destroy Atilta, for they have not the power of their ancestors; they cannot destroy Atilta unless we force them to destroy us. Therefore, we must do as Ivona says: yield and do not provoke them.” He paused. “If they were the judges of the past, their role in the realms of man is no more. We need not fear them.”

“You may not fear them,” de Garcia returned, his head protruding into the stairway, “But I cannot help it, for here they come!”

Willard looked to Ivona for a brief instant, then, “Disarm yourselves and move to the corners. I will meet them alone and in peace.”

Because the stair’s opening stood in the center of the wall, those in the corners were hidden by the angle. Willard struck himself to the floor, his golden armor flashing in the morning sun and his regal face unmoving. It was a mountain in itself. He did not have to wait long. The air danced in confusion and the various noises of the approaching Titans converged into a single, overpowering din. One moment the stair was empty, the next a man appeared. He was rotund, covered with venerably white hair and beard, and a cornered nose that came out straight and went back at an angle. He danced joyously with his arms – as if in an ancient tribal ritual – and let his feet fly from the stairs at every step. It was not until he crossed the threshold of the room that he saw Willard. He stopped, looked over his stalwart form, and smiled.

“You remain with us, friend?” he asked. “Since I see that you do: greetings. I am Zeus Agmannon, king-over-the-mountain.”

Willard returned, “And I am Willard, King of Atilta.”

“Truly? And so it is you I have to thank for this.”

“For what?”