The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(8)
“Very forward, Seer,” said Arawn coldly. “You do not know your place.”
“No, I don’t. I’ve been told it’s one of my most endearing qualities,” Jackaby replied.
Arawn smirked in spite of himself. “One of your only,” he said. “Yes, there are cracks in any wall. Cracks can be mended. What you’re describing is something else entirely. It is laughable.”
“Humor me, then. Please.”
Arawn eyed Jackaby. “Very well, if it sets you at ease. Let us imagine the impossible. I will speak slowly. Do try to keep up.”
Arawn gave a casual wave of his hand, and the heavy oaken tabletop beside me shuddered. Before my eyes, the surface rippled and rose unevenly, forming hills and plains and sprouting miniature wooden towers with paper-thin pennants.
“Anyone intent on destroying the barrier would need to subdue my army first,” Arawn drawled.
As I watched, transfixed, miniature oaken figures rose out of the wood grain and snapped to attention, forming row after row of tiny soldiers.
“The Seelie forces are the most powerful army in this or any realm,” Arawn continued, “and they have one sworn duty—to protect the veil. A rebel king would need to rally a legion equal to my own, the likes of which has never been seen. The Unseelie, unlike my forces, are the most capricious and unruly creatures in the Annwyn. Preventing even a paltry horde of these brutes from tearing each other apart would be nothing short of extraordinary, and mobilizing an entire army of them toward a common goal would be nearly impossible.”
Chips and splinters had begun to peek out of the tabletop, circling the oaken army like wolves in the underbrush.
“But I am humoring you,” said Arawn dryly. “So let’s take this preposterous pretense a step further.”
The wolves attacked. Wave after wave of jagged monsters fell upon the soldiers. Toothpick javelins flew and wood-shaving shields crumpled. When the sawdust settled, the wooden army lay still. It had been a massacre in miniature.
“Supposing your would-be king could achieve the impossible and overcome my army, he still would not possess the raw power to bring down the veil. The magical potential required to unhinge the established enchantments holding the barrier in place would call for more focused energy than all of the strongest mages in my army could produce combined.”
The table rattled. Inch by inch, the wolfish shards and broken soldiers began to slide along the surface. Concentric circles formed as the armies were dragged across the wood in opposite directions, the bristly horde spinning clockwise and the fallen soldiers sliding widdershins. From the center of these orbits rose a solitary figure. A tiny jagged crown sat atop its wooden head.
“Supposing it could be done,” said Arawn, “unimaginable raw power would need to be focused toward a single goal, to be channeled through a single mind.”
The rumble of the tabletop had become an unsettling hum. It made my teeth hurt. The tabletop began to splinter at the edges. Around and around the circles spun, faster and faster until, with a crack, the figure in the center exploded into a burst of wood shards. I shielded my eyes with my arm, and when I looked again, the table had returned to normal, its surface smooth and polished, minus one rough gouge in the center.
Arawn leaned back in his throne. “It cannot be done. The veil is safe. The Dire King is dead.”
“Dead?” I said. “Then there was a Dire King?” Arawn’s half-lidded eyes flicked in my direction.
“There was,” he conceded. With slow, deliberate movements, the king rose and stepped down from the dais toward me. “Until there wasn’t. Do you want to know what came in between?”
I nodded.
“Me.” He drew so close I could see my own nervous face in the reflection of his circlet. “The Dire King was a formidable opponent, but he was outmatched. I have the wretch’s crown in my trophy room,” Arawn said. “Removed from his lifeless head as his corpse lay cooling on the field of battle. He’s dead.”
“His crown?” Jackaby’s eyes flashed with a sudden thought. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever met a fellow called Father Grafton?”
“The name is meaningless to me,” said Arawn. “Is he a mortal?”
“Decidedly mortal. Downright mort,” said Jackaby. “Shuffled off the old coil on our doorstep just this morning, as a matter of fact. He mentioned a crown right before he died. A spear and a shield, as well. He called them the harfau o Hafgan. Is that meaningless to you as well?”
Arawn’s measured calm fell away, a look of genuine surprise taking its place. “The instruments of Hafgan,” he said quietly. “I had almost forgotten that there was a time when he was called Hafgan at all. That name was once like thunder in these halls. Hafgan is the Dire King. Or he was. Those days are long past.”
“And you’re absolutely certain he’s dead?” Jackaby asked.
“His followers and mine both watched me kill him. Yes, I’m sure—as are a lot of other fair folk and oddlings from across the realm. The duel was a public spectacle, if you could call it a duel at all. It only took a single stroke to shatter his shield and pierce his heart. Ballads were written and paintings done. Most of them were awful, to be honest, but there isn’t a fairy in my kingdom who does not know the tale.”
Arawn gestured above our heads and I glanced behind me to see a tapestry hanging over the wide hearth. In it, a fair-haired figure with a bronze circlet and a purple cape stood gallantly in the foreground, his sword raised to strike. His opponent was wielding a spear of midnight black. Hafgan wore dark armor, and on his head was an obsidian crown, its edges tall and sharp and jagged.