miscalculated coming here. He must have realized that his kingdom was just one move away a full-fledged civil war.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Gwen stood on the sandy shore, as ocean waves crashed too close to her feet, huge, fierce waves, hitting her legs with enough strength to make her wobble. She stood there, losing her footing, as she watched the huge ship set sail before her, Thor standing at its helm, waving. On Thor’s shoulder sat Ephistopheles, who stared back with an ominous look that made Gwen’s blood run cold.
Thor was smiling, but as she watched, his sword fell from his waist and plummeted into the ocean. Oddly, he seemed not to notice, still smiling and waving, and she felt terrified for him.
The sea, so calm, suddenly turned rough, its waters turning from a crystal blue to a foaming black; as she watched, their boat was rocked violently, tossed about in the waves. Still Thor stood there, smiling and waving to her as if nothing were happening. She could not understand what was going on. Behind him the skies, clear just a moment before, turned scarlet, the clouds themselves seeming to froth over in rage. Lightning lit up the sky all around, and as she watched, a lightning bolt pierced the sail. In moments, Thor’s ship was aflame. The ship, on fire, gained speed, sailed away, faster and faster, sucked out into the sea on massive currents.
“THOR!” Gwen shrieked.
She shrieked again as the ship went up into a ball of flames and was sucked into the dark red sky, disappearing on the horizon.
She looked down, and a wave crashed before her, up to her chest, knocking her onto her back. She reached out to grab hold of something-but there was nothing. She felt herself getting sucked out into the ocean, faster and faster, the currents consuming her, as another huge wave crashed down, right on her face.
Gwen shrieked.
She opened her eyes to see herself standing in her father’s chamber. It was empty and freezing in here, nighttime, the wall lined with torches-too many torches, all lit up, flickering. In the room stood a sole figure, standing on the window ledge, his back to her. She sensed immediately that it was her father. He wore his royal furs, and, on his head, the crown. It seemed bigger than it had ever been.
“Father?” she asked, as she approached.
Slowly, he turned and looked at her. She was horrified. His face was half-skeleton, eyes bulging from the sockets, flesh decomposed. He looked at her with a look of horror, of desperation, as he reached out one hand.
“Why won’t you avenge me?” he moaned.
Gwen’s breath caught in her chest, horrified as she rushed towards him.
He started to lean back, and she reached out to grab his hand-but it was too late. He fell slowly, backwards, out the window.
Gwen shrieked as she ran forward, and stuck her head out to watch. Her father plummeted down into the blackness, falling and falling. The ground gave way, and he seemed to fall into the bowels of the earth. She never heard him hit.
Gwen heard a rattling noise, and turned and surveyed his empty chamber. There was his crown. It must have fallen off his head, and now it rolled, on its side, across the floor, making a hollow, metallic sound as it did. It rolled in circles, louder and louder, until it finally settled down. It sat there, in the center of the bare stone floor.
From somewhere, his words rang out again:
“Avenge me!”
Gwen woke with a start, sitting upright in bed, breathing hard. She rubbed her eyes and jumped from the mattress, hurrying over to her window, trying to shake herself of the awful nightmare. She took cold water from a small bowl by the window, splashed it on her face several times, and looked out.
It was dawn, and King’s Court was quiet, the light just beginning to break from the first rising sun. It looked like she was the first one to rise. The dream had been awful, more like a vision, and her heart pounded as she replayed it. Thor, dying on that ship. It had felt like a message, more like she was seeing the future than a dream. Her heart broke, as she felt with certainty that he would soon be dead.
And then here was that awful image of her father, the decomposed skeleton. His rebuke to her. The images were all so real, she could not go back to sleep. She paced her chamber and hardly knew what to do with herself.
Without thinking, she crossed her room and began to dress, way earlier than usual. She felt she had to do something. Anything. Whatever she could to find her father’s killer.
*
As he walked down the empty castle corridors in the early morning light, Godfrey was sober and alone-both for the first time in years-and it was an unfamiliar feeling. He could not remember how long it had been since he had gone a full day without a drink, or had spent time alone, not surrounded by his drunken friends. His feelings of loneliness, of gravity, were all new to him, and he realized that this is what everyday people must feel like as they lived their normal lives. It was terrible. Boring. He hated it, and he wanted to run back to the alehouse, to his friends, and make it all go away. Real life was not for him.
But for the first time in his life, Godfrey refused to give into his impulses. He did not know what was overcoming him, but watching his father being lowered into the earth had done something to him; since his death, something had stirred inside him. He was like a cauldron simmering on a low flame; he felt a sense of discontent, of unease, that he never had before. He felt uncomfortable in his own skin. For the first time he turned a harsh light upon himself, reevaluated who he was, how he had lived his life, and how he might spend the rest of it, and when he looked, honestly, in the mirror, he did not like what he saw.
Godfrey also looked upon his friends with fresh eyes, and could no longer stand the site of their faces. Most of all, his own. For the first time this morning, the taste of ale was rotten to him; for the first time in as long as he could remember, he had a clear head, a presence of mind. He needed to think clearly today, to summon all his wits. Because there was something burning inside him, something he did not fully understand, which was driving him to find his father’s murderer.
Perhaps it was his own guilt that drove him, his unresolved relationship with his father; in some ways, he saw this as his chance to, finally, gain his father’s approval. If he could not have it in life, perhaps he could gain it in death. And if he found his father’s killer, he might also vindicate himself, vindicate what had been thus far of his life.
Godfrey burned, too, with the injustice of it all. He hated the idea of his brother, Gareth, sitting on the throne. Gareth had always been a scheming, manipulative human being, a cold bastard, with no love for anyone but himself. Godfrey had been around shady types all his life, and he could spot one a mile away. He recognized it in Gareth’s eyes, the evil welling up and shining like something from beneath the earth. This was a man who wanted power; who wanted to dominate others. Godfrey knew that Gareth was dirty. And he felt certain that he had something to do with their father’s murder.
Godfrey climbed another flight of steps, turned down a corridor, and felt himself grow cold as he walked down the final corridor leading to his father’s chamber. Walking down it brought back memories, too fresh, of the approach to his father’s chamber; of being summoned by him, chastised by him. He had always hated walking down this final stretch to his chamber.
Yet now, oddly, it brought forth a different sensation: it was like walking the hall of a ghost. He could almost feel his father’s presence lingering here with each step he took.
Godfrey reached the last door, and turned and stood before it. It was a large, arched door, a foot thick, and looked a thousand years old. He wondered how many MacGils had used this door. It was strange to see it here like this, unguarded. Not once in Godfrey’s life had he seen it without guards before it. It was as if, now, no one cared that his father had ever existed.
The door was closed, and Godfrey reached out and grasped its iron handle and pushed it open. It opened within an ancient creak, and he stepped inside.
It was even more eerie in here, in this empty chamber, which still hummed with his father’s vitality. The bed
