Twenty years of sacrifice and service had come down to this futility. There was no feat he could perform or argument he could make to change his fate. Live or die the outcome was out of his hands.
Three ravens soared above the heights of the palace walls, surveyed the surrounding hillside and returned to the tower where Engle stood. He watched them land in perfect formation. They turned their heads toward him for a moment, unperturbed by his gaze. Perhaps they knew that he would not remain long. Ravens reigned supreme as symbols of the king’s longsighted wisdom; even occupying the central figure of the Lisseon crest. For these last twenty years they were Engle’s constant companions, bearing the word of both glad and evil tidings. No doubt they had always known that his presence at the palace was to be one of short duration. He did not ask and they did not say.
“What is to be the word from my lord?” He muttered to the sky.
One of the ravens inclined its head and squawked sympathetically while the others seemed to confer upon the point. For the length of a heart beat Engle thought he saw it transform into something else entirely-a four limbed creature as black as its feathers. But it was nothing more than a shadow cast by the dying sun. Reason intervened and returned his heart to its regular beat. The vision was the work of an old superstition told to him in childhood, the point of which was to keep him close to home and where his mother could see him. The image was so deeply entrenched in his mind that the passing decades could not dislodge it entirely.
The battlement stood at considerable height and that along with its southwest exposure was undoubtedly what first attracted the bleak creatures. When the castle was first completed the king occupied the chamber directly below. One night he emerged declaring he must quit the chamber because of the birds’ incessant noise. Attempts to drive them off were futile. So the king moved his residence in the east tower and leaving the west tower empty for many decades. It became of archive of forgotten writings and discarded, obsolete weaponry.
After ten years of living with the sounds aboard a ship such their squawks proved no hardship to Engle. He had often stayed in the chamber below and thought nothing of his father’s stories. The raven’s tolerated his presence well enough and acknowledged him as much or as little as any other of their kin. Engle came to refer to them as his advisors, a comment that may have influenced a rumor that he was fluent in the ancient practice of raven speak. Whether they spoke to him or not he respected they were privy to far more of what was happening than they deigned to reveal.
The sun slipped down touching the distant waters and turning them into a sea of molten gold. He shielded his eyes against the glare. It was nearly a hundred miles to the shores of Ogalon and those waters he sailed a lifetime ago. Behind him, were the forests of Duessa, land of his father but the sea had always been Engle’s true home. North of the castle stood the great white peaks of the Lisseon Mountains, its glaciers tinted purple in the dying light. If this was to be his last view in life, it was a remarkable one.
Before the last rays faded beyond the horizon, two guards came to escort him to the throne room. The wonderment was gone and his body ached. In his lifetime he had witnessed compassion and cruelty in equal measure. His body was the proof of it. In his hands and on his arms were scars of every kind. The violence of each injury told in the width of the scar and its coloration. Thin white lines were trifles easily forgotten. Wide slashes stretched in purple and red were the things he wished he could forget. The tapestry spread across his torso, where there were one or two marks that still gave him pain. If he survived the coming judgment what sort of scars would take up his story?
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