Pockets for a Reason

Days passed, and weeks. The king did not emerge from his throne room. He no longer held court. Messages were sent via servants and courtiers, smuggled through the narrow door. Those courtiers who were summoned emerged changed, grey-faced, eyes full of secrets.

Llaneth stood outside the big double doors. Normally, there were guards here, but today, there were none. She stared at the places where they usually stood, one on each side of the door. Their absence was like an outline in her mind, part of a greater pattern that she could not perceive. The corridor was silent. She pressed her ear to the keyhole and heard her father's voice, muttering. She leaned against the door and felt it crack open just a little. It was not locked. Silently, she slipped in through the narrow gap and pushed it closed behind her.

She had heard that father had ordered several chests of gold to be brought up from the crypt, but she had dismissed the reports as rumour. Now, she saw the truth of it. The empty chests were piled in a corner. Her father had tipped the contents out onto the floor and mounded up the gold and jewels to make a sort of low seat. He sat there now, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

"Father?"

His trouser legs had rolled up a little, and she could see his hairy ankles. Something about this upset her more than all the rest of it. Worse than all the whispering and the secrecy was the fact that her father did not look like a King.

His face broke into a toothy smile as she entered, and the mound of gold clinked as he sat up to greet her.

"My daughter," he crooned. "My beautiful daughter, Dove of my heart! Come! Come, have a seat with me."

There were no chairs in the room apart from the high seat, so she tucked her legs underneath her skirt and knelt on the polished floor in the place he had indicated. She arranged the folds of the dress amongst the black and white squares, aligning the creases with the corners of the tiles until the pattern made sense to her.

"Father, who were you speaking with?"

The old man looked puzzled. "Speaking? I don't believe I was speaking."

"I was outside, father. I heard you talking with someone."

"Well, now, let me see. Perhaps it was a servant?"

Llaneth glanced around.

"No one is here, father."

"Oh, there are ways for a servant to come and go my dear. The castle has hidden paths. A man may go where he wishes. Down to the chasms, up to the bedrooms. Up, up up into the little tiny bedrooms." His voice became scratchy, and he broke into a fit of coughing, holding the back of his hand to his mouth, retching and gasping for air, eyes red and watering.

Llaneth did not look at him. She allowed her gaze to run along the checkered marble patterns on the floor. Black white, black white. So many ways to arrange them. She adjusted one corner of her dress that was not quite aligned correctly.

"What have you got in your pocket?" she asked, casually, fiddling with the fabric.

The old man’s eyes glinted. “Nothing, see?” he held up his right hand as though to prove it.

"Your other hand father."

The old man swapped hands, putting his right hand in his pouch and holding up the left. He giggled like a little girl.

"I have no pockets, can you see?

My love, no pocketses for me."

"Father, you must give it up. It is hurting you."

The old man stared at her, grinning. Showing teeth.

"Meriviel will take it from you when she returns."

"Oh, take it, will she?" said the old man. "How will she take what isn't there? Will she take the breath from my lungs? The spring from my step? The butterflies from my hair? Will she try to take all my summers, like the darkling tried to do? I offered him three days of summer for the horse, you know?"

His voice became shrill, then broke, and he fell into a coughing fit again.

When it was over, he sat quietly and spoke with his own voice once more.

“You look just like her, you know. Such soft hair." He leaned forward and brushed a curl that had fallen across her cheek.

Llaneth smiled. She barely remembered Mother, just a vague impression of warmth and comfort that warmed her more than the flame whenever he spoke of her. Her father's expression softened.

"Come, come, sit with me. You must forgive an old man his foibles. I am excited, that's all. Excited for your sister's homecoming. Excited and babbling. Meriviel will be home soon, and then we will all be together. We could have a picnic in the grove, would you like that? You always used to like that. "

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He drew his knees up, making a space for her to lean. Coins and cups tumbled and clattered across the marble floor.

"Your mother never wanted you to be stilled, you know? 'Let this one remain whole', she said, and so we did. That's why your sisters have armour, and you have a bracelet. Now your sisters are warriors, and you are - just yourself. She was never stilled either. Perhaps if she had been, she would still be with us today. But no matter. I have you, and that is consolation enough. Come sit by me."

Llaneth leaned back against him, letting him play with her hair.

"Consider this," he said. "What would you say if I asked you to give me your bracelet?"

She fingered the narrow grey band that ran around her wrist. There was no clasp. It was bound to her.

"I need it," she said.

The old man nodded, stroking her hair. "See, you will not give it up. It is your connection to the Flame. Your sisters are stilled. They have no need of a bauble, but you need it. A king needs a connection, too. The thing I hold is my connection. It gives me strength. Would you take it from me?"

"It's not good for you, Father. It makes you act unlike yourself."

"Perhaps you are right, little one. Perhaps you are right. I could give it to Meri when she comes back from the plains. Would that make you happy? Perhaps I have no need of a connection."

Llaneth nodded. "You could give it to me now, Father? I would drop it in the river, and we could all go back to the way things were."

He laughed a small laugh. "I think not little one. I need it just a few days more. It... it tells me things you see. It always speaks the truth. I know it makes me act a little strangely sometimes, but you must forgive me. I do it for the good of the land. I can use it to win the war, to mend the ways."

She saw the wooden tail of the hideous little thing poking out of the pouch on his robe. He was off guard. One hand resting on her shoulder, and the other brushing her hair. Slowly, oh so slowly, she reached for it. She could almost touch it, brush it with her fingertips.

He clapped his hand down over her wrist, and his grip was steel.

"A king had pockets for a reason, and a girl has no business in them."

She jerked away from him, pulling free. Gold clattered onto the ground. Coins rolled across the floor.

"Perhaps you have no need of a connection either." He said. His face was changed. His lips drew up into a snarl, all his tenderness evaporating.

He snatched at her wrist once more, and she scrambled to her feet, scurrying away across the floor, her grey skirts bushing the polished marble.

"Give the bracelet to me," he demanded.

She tried to run to the door, but he was already there, blocking the way. She ran back across the throne room, darting between the pillars, around the back of the high seat, trying to put marble between her and the man she called Father.

He was so tall. Tall and fast. She could not outrun him. He hunted her amidst the pillars.

"What need have you of a connection to the undarkened flame? What do you do with it? Do you strike? Do you kill? I've never seen you kill so much as a fly. Perhaps you would kill me, eh? Am I a fly? Buzz buzz."

He lunged around the back of the high seat, reaching for her. She ducked away and felt his hand brush the back of her bodice.

"A man has enemies, little one. Enemies without and within, oh yes, he does. A man must keep his pockets to himself."

She tried to run round him to the door again, but he grabbed at her and caught the hem of her dress. He pulled her to him, pinching her shoulder and squeezing, and oh, it hurt so much. She sank down beneath the pain of it, clamped her hand around the bracelet, shielding it from him. He scratched at her skin like an animal. His face was very close to her own. His breath smelt of sweet rot.

"Without and within little one, and who will keep the wolves from the door? Not a little girl who will not use her magic. What use is it, a daughter who is too soft to fight? What use when the wolves come. Wolves with hands and faces, my pretty. Hands and faces of children, and when they eat you, they hold you still, my pretty. Hold you still and take tiny little bites."

"Perhaps I should take some bites, eh?” He began barking like a dog. “Wow, wow, wow."

There were ribbons of her skin rolled up under his dirty nails. Blood flowed. The heat of the flame was rising in her.

I could kill him now, she realised. Kill him with a thought. Burn him away and watch his body fall to ashes and bones. She only had to let the flame go free. The power was there, waiting for her.

She bit his hand. The tendons squished against her teeth. He pulled away, grunting, took one step back, swung and deliberately struck her across the cheek. She fell. Her father had never once hit her. Her vision blurred, and she lay gasping on the cold, cold stone. Calm now, he walked around her to get a better angle, then kicked. She curled up, unable to breathe. The heat of the flame became confused and fractured into pieces. A golden coin lay on the floor in front of her eyes. It sparked and a whisp of smoke rose from it. The air above it blurred.

She could kill him, but she would not.

He walked around her again, quite calm now.

"The wolves and the bears and the little, little children."

He took aim once more and kicked her in the back. The pain was extraordinary. It travelled through her body like a hot knife in her stomach.

"I will not. I will not kill you," she growled through gritted teeth. "You are my father. I will not."

The flame snarled inside of her, hunting for a way to be free. The turning of the flame that burns forever in the heart of Erinthor.

It pressed against the barricades. It roared and raged. The bracelet glowed and burned on her arm, and the pain was golden bright.

The coin melted into a puddle of liquid metal and flowed away through the cracks in the stone floor. A pillar split open along its length, and pieces of marble were tossed across the floor like a handful of sand.

"I will not kill you," she whispered. "I will not do it."

A tapestry burst into flames. It fell, curling, castles and armies and kings all tumbling into ruin. She did not hear it. The flame sucked the sound from the room. Everything became incredibly clear. And there was the soft velvet sound of her father drawing his sword.

"Daddy," she whispered. "Please don't."

There was a soft thud, and her father fell next to her.

Through a confusion of smoke and heat and tumbling ashes, she saw a figure, the shadow of a figure. The Darkling gripping an ugly chunk of bone. Her father lay crumpled at his feet, a line of blood across his temple.

“Get away from him!” She screamed with everything she had, though her voice was weak in her ears, and the fists she made trembled like new-hatched doves in the nest. “You leave him alone!”

The flame still churned within her. In one desperate burst, she drew all the power that filled her and focussed it on one spot. The air rippled with heat. The stones burned, broke, and became liquid.

But the darkling was too quick. It fell into a pool of shadow and flickered away across the room, flowing through the cracks, and when the fire had passed, and she fell, hardly breathing onto the warm stones, the darkling had fled away.