The Forgotten King

“My lord,” and Montague’s demeanor flinched, “He held a smooth, rectangular tablet in his hands as he spoke, with letters or symbols engraved upon it. I could not read them, but they formed an outline of a White Eagle; and as you spoke just now, it recalled itself to my mind.”

“Can you remember what they were?”

“Yes, for they are engraved upon my mind as well.”

Montague began to trace what he had seen on a paper, symbols arranged in a box as if still upon the tablet. They were at once hieroglyphics and letters, and Gylain seemed to understand them. In a shaking voice, he read:

In the name of Uranos, by whom the trident of the nations will be sunk to the nether lands of Hades. The Pillars of Heracles has been sunk, and with it the gods of men. The Garden of Hesperides has been sunk, and with it the men of gods. Soon, the third and final remnant of the ancient world will be destroyed. Just as Eden was overrun by evil and sank, so will it be. Just as Atlantis was conquered by the Titans and sank, so will it become. The trident of the nations will pierce Hades.

Gylain was silent for a moment, then looked to the compass that sat beside the paper. “I cannot see the White Eagle,” he said, “But these figures have two meanings: one as symbols and one as letters; one as Egyptian hieroglyphics and one as Phoenician letters. It must come from the ancient race of strength, from Atlantis. Still, I can see no White Eagle.”

“Yet I saw it, and I drew it just as I remember.”

“What of the pyramids, if it is partly Egyptian?” Lyndon suggested, “Or of the temples of Ra?”

“Of course!” Gylain cried, making the connection. “For in each of those, each corner is placed precisely on one of the four geographic poles. Here,” he took the drawing and – using the compass as a guide – set it straight to the cardinal points: north, east, south, and west. The figures seemed to melt away, molded into a White Eagle with a lion’s head grasped in its talons.

Gylain fell into a pit in his mind. It was several minutes until he was rescued, suddenly, by a movement of Lyndon’s hand. The latter held a knife, with which he was carving idly upon the table.

“Let me see the knife,” Gylain said, and Lyndon handed it to him, though he also handed him a questioning look. The knife was a foot long, with half its length manifested in the handle, divided into ten rings or lines; then, upon the hilt, was an etching of a sky with ten stars. A small section stuck out on either side between the blade and the handle and on this portion was carved an ancient galley or ship of war.

Gylain held it in his hands and examined it minutely. After a time, and in a voice hardly audible, he asked, “From where does it come?”

“I found it on the beach of Hibernia, near my palace as I walked alone,” Lyndon answered. “It had washed ashore from the deep.”

Gylain opened his hand as the words lashed against his ears and courage. The knife came loose and fell to the deck, piercing three inches into the wood.

“So it comes,” Gylain paused, “The end draws near.”

“This is enough,” Montague slapped the table. “Can we fight if we fear to lose? Can we win if we think ourselves predestined not to? Look about us, Gylain, and see the forces which you master: there are two hundred ships in the fleet, each well-made and well-manned; there are above thirty thousand soldiers with us, as well as the five thousand already sent by foot. The rebels do not have even five thousand and the French are slow to come. Why do you fear destiny and fate when all that has befallen is a result of action, and that alone?”

Gylain expired into his chair and resumed his obsession with the sea. “How many times in the history of this warrior’s world have the few defeated the many? We have numbers, perhaps, but it is strength which wins wars. When the Israelites swept through Canaan, was it by their own strength? Were their voices truly strong enough to shatter walls, and their arms to part the seas? What God will do, he will do; and damnation to the man through whom he does things. Has it not been written, ‘The king will do as he pleases, he will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and will utter blasphemies against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined it must take place.’ And again, ‘At the time of the end, the King of the South will engage him in battle, and the King of the North will storm out against him, with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries, and sweep through them as a flood.’” Gylain moaned aloud, then continued, “Am I not the King of the South; and you, Lyndon: are you not the King of the North? And he ! Do we not know who he is? And will he not finish what he has begun?”

“Such it is,” Lyndon said slowly, “That weakness is destroyed. But who is to say that we are the weaker? If it is God whom we battle, can we not overcome him? You say the Titans destroyed Atlantis? If so, gods can be destroyed. Let us face him in open combat and put his strength to the test. The rebels cannot overcome us; neither can this God you speak of.”

“For once, I hear truth!” and Montague rose to his feet in a passion. “You have been persecuted by God, you say? And if a man slapped your cheek, would you not devour him? Or if a man poked out your eye, would you not strike off his head? Then who is God, that he is outside of justice? I say, if he has persecuted you, let us strike him double hard; and if his stake is held with the rebels we will overcome them in blood and in anguish and thus defile his name – more so than he himself can do! Woe to him who has set his heart against us!”

“And lo!” de Casanova also stood, “Does one persecute an old man, whose teeth have long since gone the way of his hair? Or does one besiege an old woman, in love or in war? No, but only those who have strength to overthrow. Is it not, then, an admission of your strength that God himself is against you? Do you not see, that you are what he fears. His only weapon is your own fear of him. Throw that yoke aside, and yours will be easy and your burden light.”

Gylain stood and paced the side of the deck, looking over the rail to the raging sea below. He groaned. His bones were as the wood of the ship. “You who has damned us with sin and evil, who has judged us before we left our mother’s womb, who has stricken us for the purpose of your own glory: let it be! You may hold their staff above their heads, that it might not fall; but, by God, I hold my sword above my own, and surely it will fall!”

Silence.

“Look, we draw near,” Montague called just then from the bow. “Thunder Bay approaches, and Lionel’s ship enters it even now. The rebel fleet opens their ranks to let them pass, but it closes again behind them. Now the Hibernian fleet approaches, now the Atiltian. The ships speed on, but will they engage them at once? Yes, they charge in a fever.” He turned to Gylain, “Now is the time for orders, my lord; now is the time for action.”

“Keep the course,” Gylain returned, and he paced to make his plans.

A few moments passed before The Barber came up to the rest of the fleet and joined their ranks. The mouth of Thunder Bay was a quarter mile wide and filled with a dozen ships, among them The King’ s Arm , the Marins, and now Lionel’s ship. Their decks were lined with a large force of archers and soldiers. Yet this was partly an illusion, for the Atiltian rebels – archers by birth – had been trained to be sailors; so, rather than a truly large force, they had men of many helmets. Behind this line spread Thunder Bay, the same in which the previous battle of the rebellion occurred. It was not more than a mile deep and had no bank or shore on either side but that facing the castle; the others were barricaded by living pikes: trees growing to the very edge of the water. The rebels forces were drawn up on a rampart abutting the shore and in the castle itself. The ships were only meant to halt Gylain’s advance and prolong their defeat until something should intervene. As The Barber joined the ranks, a file of men appeared at the far end of the plain. At first a few, they grew until a whole legion of soldiers marched forward, donning the colors of Gylain.

“It is time,” the tyrant called in his booming voice. “It is time for strength, for hate, and for victory!”

As he spoke the sky grew dark and the long accumulating clouds broke forth in rain. The battle had begun.

Chapter 82

It was growing late and the golden air was quickly dying to darkness. A large group was gathered in the glass-walled second floor of Milada’s castle, foremost among them the healthy nobleman himself: his limbs writhing and dancing and contorting themselves in pleasure. Beside him sat Alfonzo, his face drawn and his beard overflowing until it now covered his entire face. Then came Celestine, Cybele, Admiral Stuart, Meredith, Lorenzo, the Innkeeper, and the Fardy brothers.

“The counsels of war are counsels of madness,” Milada began. “Still, we hold them, even as history holds us.