My return to the city of Gower was made with little fanfare. The people at the gate stared at the big stallion more than they did the young twenty-one year old man on his back.
That all changed when I reached the palace, and announced who I was. I was ushered into the same reception hall as the one where I had met King Kenneth on my last visit. Before long the King himself burst into the room. I had a shock in store when I recognised who came running into the room with him ... it was Mom.
"Sean!" they both cried.
The King was certainly acting very differently to the arrogant man that I had encountered on my last visit. He seemed genuinely delighted to see me. I wondered if Mom had anything to do with that?
"We were told that you were dead!" said my father.
"And who might have told you that?" I asked.
"Hassan."
"Well, that figures!"
I proceeded to tell both of my parents what had happened to me over the past three years. My recounting summarised and glossed over some of what Hassan had said to taunt me, but I made sure to cover the high points.
I was watching the reactions my description brought, trying to use them to tell me how much of what Hassan had said was true and how much had been her cruel invention.
Neither parent gave much away however, and they encouraged me to continue my story through to the end.
Once I had finished, I couldn't contain myself any longer and I demanded to know where Brenda was and what had happened to her. Now I did get a reaction from them and it wasn't a good one. Both of them looked away from me. It took a few moments before Mom answered.
"Much of what Hassan told you is nonsense, Sean. As you can see both your father and I are in perfect health. As far as I know, Linda Thomas is also cancer free."
I could sense a 'but' coming.
"What about Brenda?" I asked again.
"Well ... I'm afraid that she didn't lie about that, Sean. Brenda has married Aiden and there is a son. John, I believe they have called him."
The hope that I had rejoiced at, the hope that I had nurtured so carefully and that had spurred me on to make my escape from the dungeon, was suddenly and cruelly extinguished.
It is hard to describe the pain I felt at that moment. Somehow I had convinced myself that Hassan had been lying about this. My hope had been rekindled, but now I knew that I had lost my love after all, just as the poisonous wizard had claimed.
Mom tried her best to comfort me but I was beyond that. She spent hours in my quarters with me, trying to get me to talk and to find a reason for carrying on. She encouraged me to commit to remaining in Gael and to be named as King Kenneth's heir.
"Mom, why have you suddenly changed your tune so dramatically? Why are you so hell bent now on me helping the King? I get the impression that you have never loved this man ... if I had to guess, I'd say yours was an arranged marriage."
A sad look appeared on Mom's face, and a tear leaked from one eye. It rolled slowly down her cheek and then dripped onto her blouse, leaving a dark stain in the fabric.
When she spoke it wasn't what I was expecting. Instead of explaining anything about her marriage or why she was urging me to defend Axon, she asked me a question.
"When did you discover you were a cross-over, Sean?"
That was the last thing I was expecting from her. At home in the Midwest, I'd asked her to tell me what I was and she had claimed she had no idea. How was it that she could talk about me being a cross-over now?
"I thought you said you didn't know what I was?" I asked.
"I don't. Oh, I know little bits and pieces but the one thing I can't forget is what being a cross-over means. My mother was a cross-over, and it changed my whole life.
"It's very unusual I believe and for some reason it's considered dangerous. My mother managed to keep it hidden until after I was born, but then it was discovered and we were banished from Gael.
"My own father banished us to the 'other-world'. I was only two-years-old then. What little I know of lore was learned through the stories my mother told me as I grew up. That's how I know about dreamtime and things like the succession of kingdoms. She even taught me some spells.
"It seems that my father married again quite quickly after we were banished. He had a son who grew up to be healthy and strong. The son was told about his father's first wife and the fact that she had been a cross-over."
Her story was spellbinding and I was hanging on every word.
"The son decided that one way of turning the odds against his father's enemies was to have a son of his own who was a cross-over. He left Gael and tracked down his father's first wife and his half-sister.
"Now do you see, Sean? The reason it appears as if I have no love for your father is that we should never have been married in the first place. It was sinful in the eyes of The Mother, as we are brother and sister!"
This was mind blowing. I had asked Mom to explain why she wanted me to commit to Gael, but I hadn't been expecting something as dramatic as this.
"You mean that King Kenneth actually planned to have a son who was a cross-over? He went to all that trouble to track you down, he knowingly married his half-sister so that he could father a cross-over?"
"Yes. I've never really understood it, but it was very important to him. When you said that you had taken Brenda into dreamtime I knew that he had succeeded. What it means ... I'm still not sure."
I shared what Charles had told me with Mom, explaining about the perfect balance between 'royals' and wizards and how that would be upset if one person was born with both sets of abilities.
"A cross-over removes the checks and balances of the system, that's why they are considered so dangerous. Charles said that there had only ever been two ... your mother must have been one of them.
"What it means is that I have the strength, speed and endurance of a royal, but I'm also able to use strong magic. If you're right, that's what the King was looking for to give him an advantage over Scania. So far he hasn't had the satisfaction of knowing that his plan has worked. I kept my magical ability a secret when I visited here before with Brenda."
To my knowledge I was the only male cross-over and it seemed I had been blessed with exceptional strength and magical abilities. King Kenneth was about to get what he had planned for twenty-one years before...
"You know, you think you hate your father, Sean. The thing is, you don't really know anything about him. If it wasn't for Kenneth, Scania would have ground Axon beneath its heel long ago.
"King Malcolm and all of his brood are evil to the core. If you think Hassan was bad ... you've yet to meet her brothers and sisters! Are you going to stand by and watch this fair land be raped by Scania?"
Always I had had that affinity with the soil and nature. I shivered now as I remembered the desert that was Scania and the dead feel of the soil there. I imagined the lush countryside of Axon being turned to dust and it made me shudder.
"If you give up now, Sean, then Hassan will have won the day. Kenneth has no heir and when he dies the kingdom will pass to Hassan's father, Malcolm of Scania.
"I don't think you should let that happen. Perhaps it's time for you to take your rightful place after all?"
It seemed surreal that she was suggesting I should play the Prince now. Her words conjured up the memory of Hassan's taunts however, and I could feel the bitterness inside me at what she had tried to do to me. But, try as I might to function normally, the pain of losing Brenda was still crushing.
King Kenneth also tried to shake me out of my depression. He had a more selfish reason perhaps than Mom did. He started after questioning me further about how I had made my final escape from Hassan.
"Sean, tell me again about how you killed and disposed of Hassan? There is danger here. If King Malcolm of Scania suspects you have killed his daughter then we could have a repeat of what happened three hundred years ago!"
"You don't need to worry, father. I flew from her dungeon and took her with me. They have a saying in the 'other-world' - Hassan 'sleeps with the fishes'. I flew over the sea and dropped her really far out. Her body won't be found."
"What exactly do you mean when you say you 'flew', Sean?"
"I'm sorry. I was being literal. I flew. There's no other way of describing it really."
"But that's impossible!" cried the King.
"Lots of things that at first seem impossible become possible when you are dealing with a cross-over," I told him.
His head snapped up and his eyes were almost bugging out of their sockets.
"You mean..."
"Yep. You got exactly what you wanted. You've managed to produce a cross-over, I hope you're happy. You must have wanted it really badly to force your own half-sister to marry you."
At least he had the grace to hang his head in shame at what he had done. It was a mark of how obsessed he must have been and still was however, that very quickly he was studying me again.
"What abilities do you have?" he asked.
I couldn't resist tweaking his tail a little.
"I'm a very good gardener, the best in the Midwest actually. What special ability were you born with, father? From what I've learned, we're all born with one."
"I have the power of 'sight'," he answered. "That's why I searched for your mother in the first place. I was shown a vision of how to save the kingdom from the Scanians and I knew that your mother and I had to marry."
"That must be very useful. I have also been blessed with the ability to talk to all of The Mother's creatures. You will know that the eagles were the first to acknowledge me, but I can communicate with others too."
"For me it was the black Leopard that first acknowledged my birth, but I certainly can't communicate with them."
"Oh, and I'm probably the strongest 'royal' that has ever emerged," I now decided to add.
"I sensed you were strong when you threw me to the floor on your last visit, and that was before you had even 'emerged'."
"Yes, and my magical abilities are probably as strong as my link to 'the power'."
That certainly caught the King's attention. It was that he had planned for all those years ago after all.
"You can do magic?"
In reply I sent a burst of energy to crackle round his head. He ducked instinctively. When he recovered himself, I could see the excitement in his eyes.
"What else can you do?" he asked.
The King was eager to know everything, he was almost childlike in his excitement and I described for him the kind of things that I had already been able to do. His excitement wasn't contagious - more's the pity.
My depression refused to lift. If anything it grew deeper and darker as each day passed. I saw Brenda in so many everyday things. A look or a gesture from one of the women at court would remind me of her. A hundred memories were brought to mind by the smallest things: a smell, a taste, a feeling. I heard her name in the sound of the wind. I just couldn't escape from Brenda crowding my brain.
Eventually, finally, I had a breakdown.
I left the city and wandered aimlessly. Time meant nothing to me and the world around me receded, as I staggered around Axon's wilderness in a fog of despair. I wasn't aware of it, but Mòr Dubh followed me around to protect me. Aquilaire and his lieutenants caught me food at regular intervals, otherwise I'm sure I would have died. I wanted to be dead, there was nothing to live for now.
My breakdown lasted for several months and would certainly have ended tragically, but for a strange and challenging set of events.
My wandering had taken me across the plains and into the foothills of Axon's Gapian Mountains. The sun was beating down on me. My mouth was parched, and my lips were dry and cracked. Months of wearing the same (now ragged) clothes meant that I stank and creatures could smell me approaching from miles away.
I had had no conscious thoughts for some time and the lack of food and water must have combined to make me delirious. That was all that could explain what I encountered.
The valley I was walking through angled in on both sides until it narrowed to a point barely wide enough for a man to pass.
"STOP! What manner of man are you? What kind of pathetic creature have the gods sent for me to play with today?"
I tried to focus on what was making the noise - not even recognising it as speech yet. A bolt of high-energy lightning struck the ground at my feet, and I was thrown into the air, landing with a thud.
At last I managed to get my eyes to work properly and I saw him. At first it seemed that I still had some double vision. Then I realised that he did actually have four arms and he was standing almost eight-foot tall.
"Aren't you going to get up and fight like a man is supposed to?" he taunted me.
As I managed to get my knees under me, his boot thudded into my midriff, knocking the wind from me. If there had been food in my stomach I would have spewed it up there and then. Instead I could only wretch and heave then grab my stomach as cramps and the pain of his boot finally managed to register through the fog in my head.
"Many better men than you have tried to pass through the valley of perils and none have succeeded. I don't think you're even good enough to enter. Look at the state of you, you're pathetic!"
Another blow struck me, this time on the side of the head. Strangely, instead of stunning me, this knock seemed to clear my head even more. The pain got through, and I was beginning to realise for the first time in weeks that I was alive.
Groaning, I rolled over and tried to keep my eyes on the giant who was attacking me. He was circling, looking for an opening to land his next blow and in my condition he was likely to do me serious damage.
My senses told me there was power all around me and it was almost as if I was linking to 'the Road' for the first time again. The energy started to seep into me, but my poor physical condition meant that it did so slowly.
Even that realisation had made me lose my concentration and I felt another boot landing in my side. I really felt the pain of this one shooting through my ribs and I was starting to feel my anger gathering. Why was he attacking me? What had I done to deserve this?
"Come on, little man! Fight back! Fight back or I'll simply crush you where you lie in the dust."
Another kick landed on my head and something inside me snapped. I had lost control of my power on two previous occasions, but both had been before I 'emerged'. This time there was much more to me than the 'youngling' that had pulled up some weeds, or the petulant boy who had flown off in a bad mood.
This time I was the strongest 'royal' that had ever emerged and I felt myself sinking into the seething cauldron of power that was 'the Road'. I could feel energy crackling within me and it threatened to leap spontaneously from my fingertips.
I bounced onto my feet and took a better look at him before I lost control altogether. He was wearing plain clothing - the only remarkable thing (apart from his four arms) being the fact that he had four swords hanging from his belt.
His height was matched by the width of his shoulders and he carried himself like a man who was confident of besting any he came up against.
There was a blood-curdling scream, which echoed off of the walls of the narrow valley around us. It took me a moment to realise that the scream was my own and then the power consumed me.
The giant must have realised that he had awoken more than he had bargained for and in the next instant all four of his hands were holding a sword. My own sword had somehow found its way into my hand and for a second we faced each other.
As can often be the case, his strength was also his weakness. His size meant that he was slow. His four arms mean that his movement was awkward. With the power raging within me, I danced around him, stabbing and slashing in a whirlwind of movement.
The ring of steel meeting steel rang out repeatedly, as he sought to ward off my blows. The power wasn't to be denied however, and my blade began to find a way through his defences.
Time and time again my sword opened up gashes until one by one his arms began to fail him. Still I raced around him in circles, my movement appearing as a blur to his eyes.
When I did eventually come to a stop, the rage had calmed, and I was back in control. My sword was embedded in his chest almost up to the hilt and there was a surprised look in his eyes. Stepping back, I pulled my blade from him and his blood gushed from the wound, quickly soaking his shirtfront.
The giant fell to his knees before me. I saw the life leave him, as he toppled over to lie on his side. Uncaring, I wiped my blade clean on his trouser leg and returned it to its scabbard. So much for Charles telling me not to use 'the power' when I fought!
The giant's words came back to me now. He had said that better men than me had tried to pass through the 'valley of perils', but that none had succeeded. I had no idea what the 'valley of perils' might be.
My depression was still with me and, without my girl, I had little reason to carry on living. It seemed like a perfectly natural thing therefore to step over the dead giant and squeeze through the narrow passage into the 'valley of perils' ahead.
Edited By TeNderLoin