As the top of the hour approached, Thron sat on the high dais of the throne
room, ceremonial sword and scepter resting crossed over his chest, composing
himself for the coming confrontation, making his face as impassive as possible.
In his head he was thrilling with mordant pleasure. The chill of the morning
had passed, and long warm bars of light slanted in through the round golden
windows of the Sun Tower. They illuminated not only his seat high at the top of
the stairs that broadened from his feet to the floor below, but the right-hand
row of the statues of kings, heroes, and sages that lined the aisle on either
side. He had made Teq and Wesmer do what they could to make the lately unused
room as impressive as possible at such short notice, lighting scented braziers
to drive the cold and must from the great hall, but his bones still felt frozen
and he noticed with displeasure the dust that lay like a mantle on the
shoulders of the Morgish champions.
No matter. He clutched the sword
and scepter tighter in his hands as the great gong struck the hour, and tried
to hold himself as still and imposing as the stone figures below. As the last
stroke faded, unseen guards outside, by order, pulled the great entrance doors
grumblingly open. After a brief hesitation the slight figure of Korm came
halting in, his ridiculous furry cap in his trembling claws. He jumped as the
doors shut behind him with a boom, and turned back nervously, eyes goggling at
Thron sitting silently on the throne above.
"Approach the Dais,"
boomed Teq from the shadows behind the high seat. Thron had to give it to the
young Morg: he could get an impressive sound out of that barrel chest of his.
Thron watched as Korm came creeping forward like a beetle across the chamber
floor, then pause before dropping uncertainly to his knee at the bottom step.
Only then did Thron move, rising without a sound to his full height. The
squires stepped forward, and he handed the sword and scepter off to them, and
took his black cane from Wesmer. He knew Korm would know the symbolic
significance of those regalia: the scepter for official actions, the sword for
punishment, and be wondering at their presence. The squires laid them on the
throne, and took their place one step behind the king as Thron began slowly,
deliberately, descending one ominous step at a time towards the quaking scholar
below.
Half-way down they paused by
design, Teq barked "Rise!" and Korm struggled to his feet. Thron was beginning
to regret his plan; his ancient body was wracked in every joint with pain, not
only from this strained descent and facade of strength, but from the struggle
he had had getting to the top in the first place. His right leg was burning
white-hot, a vein of fire crawling through a dead log. But he was not going to
show weakness before this little taddach. He took another step, inhaling
deeply to cover his pain. He gazed off into the middle distance, his eyes under
his craggy brows shadowed by the light overhead, refusing to look down at the
uneasy Korm below him.
They finally reached the bottom
stair, and Thron let himself feel a fraction of relief. He need go no farther.
"You may cover yourself," Wesmer announced in his reedy, adolescent
voice, which, try as he might, was never as convincing as Teq's. Thron turned
his head slightly towards the boy in calculated disapproval, and in the
confusion of mixed signals Korm uncomfortably fumbled his ridiculous hat back
onto his head. Thron grinned inside at the scholar's obvious insecurity about
the action.
"Master Korm," he
announced, breaking his silence before the other could regain any sense of
balance. "Master Korm," he went on more pleasantly. "I
understand you play a good game of chess." The other gaped at him in
consternation. "Come, let us enjoy a match or two, while I speak to you on
a few matters of historic consequence, which have been much on my mind of
late." He rapped the cane sharply on the floor. "Gentlemen! Fetch us
chairs and the royal table! My councilor and I shall play!"
"But, sir," Korm
started to babble, bowing, clutching his green tunic nervously, taken aback by
the unexpectedness of the invitation. "It has been some time since I last
had a game! I fear my skills are rusty by now; it's been so long ... "
"Then we shall sharpen each
other's skill. I, too, have not had a good game in quite a while," Thron
said firmly. This was true, but a little cunning; all his recent partners had
been far below his level, honed as it was by decades of experience. Teq came
bustling up behind him with the Lower Throne, an ivory chair used on less
formal occasions, and the old Morg sank gratefully into its embrace. Wesmer
appeared behind Korm with a fancy stool, and under the squire's persistence
could not help but sit. Between the two of them, the squires carried in the
ornate chess table and began setting up the delicately carved men.
"You will forgive me, I
hope, if I claim the right to play white," Thron said suavely. "If
you will examine the set, I think you will see why."
Korm blinked his brown eyes and
leaned in, looking closer where the squires were busily setting the men up. The
delicately carved ivory of the white pieces were made to resemble Morgs,
arrayed in their appropriate garb from silver-crowned king to foot soldier, and
the rooks were marvelous reproductions of the Sun Tower of Morg City itself,
inlaid with pure gold. In contrast, the ebony side of the board was less
detailed, more brutal, but with a sinister elegance. Ruby eyes gleamed from the
Black King.
Korm swallowed, and smiled
weakly. "You have the better side, my lord. One cannot but hope that
you'll win."
"It's just the fashion of
the board," Thron said carelessly. "I hope you won't play any the
worse for it. I expect no less than your best effort." The last piece was
now in place, and Thron waved the hovering squires away. "Leave us. Wait
outside until I call." Teq and Wesmer shared a sidelong glance behind his
back, then bowed, chanted "Yes, my Lord," in unison, and retreated in
step to the outer waiting room.
Once they were seated there, and
safely out of earshot, Wesmer turned to Teq.
"What about lunch?" he
asked worriedly. "Do you think he wants to be told when it's lunch?"
Teq sighed. "I don't know. I
suppose we'll just have to guess." He massaged the knot on his skull he
had received from the steel knob of Thron's cane last week for suggesting
before the court that the tired King might wish to go to bed early. "And
we'd better hope we guess right."
Inside, Thron coolly moved his
first pawn forward.
"As you know, I cannot be
king forever," he began. Korm looked up from the board where he had been
concentrating on the move, startled.
"My Lord ...," he
started to protest, but the old king waved him to silence.
"It is simply a fact, and we
must face it. What has been bothering me ... " He watched as Korm made a
timid move. "Is who should replace me when I am gone, and how he can be
picked. So what I need from you is..." He swooped in and took the scholar's
piece deftly, advancing a knight. "An overview of the process in the past,
who has been selected and why, and so forth. As you may know, I was chosen as a
war king myself, but we have had peace for two decades. If I were to pass away
now ..." He hooded his eyes as Korm moved out one of his wizards. "If
I were to pass away now, I fear that a peace king may be chosen, who will then
almost certainly face an attack by Norda." He warily moved another pawn,
then looked up straight into Korm's face. "So I'm thinking that going over
some precedents might give me an idea to whom I could lend my voice, as it
were, from beyond the tomb. It would be my final act to try to protect the
City."
"A very wise move,
Lord," Korm said, returning the look and making a distracted move. Thron
reached forward, and with a click Korm's wizard was gone. The scholar gaped at
the loss of the powerful piece.
"I look around," Thron
continued evenly, "And I don't see anyone in the Great Houses that I would
say had even the makings of a good warrior. What do you think, Korm?" he
said, watching the younger Morg's eyes darting around the board. "What
would happen if someone like, say, General Taryn was proposed for King?"
Korm jerked his head up, eyes
boggling. His long brown beard set the pieces on his side rocking on their
base.
"I... I... I do not know,
Lord!" he stammered as Thron sat back, scrutinizing him over folded hands.
"A Man on the throne of Morg City! There is no precedent!" He
paused, mind racing. "Although I suppose ... if enough of the Great Houses
supported him ... and the need was great enough ... it could not be ruled out
... " He spluttered to a stop. "I am an historian, my Lord, not a
prophet, or a lawyer. Such a question is beyond me."
Thron hooded his eyes and smiled.
He had voiced his suspicions in a veiled manner and shaken the fellow up, and
now Korm would know that he knew what was in the wind.
"Ah, well," Thron
sighed theatrically. "Let us go over the History then, and the members,
such as we have, of the Great Houses. Perhaps we will yet find some hope there."
He bent down over the board and awaited Korm's next move.
The game went even more poorly
for the scholar then, as he was kept on the hop between Thron's tactical moves
and his distracting questions. Since the old Morg had no real interest in the
answers, he was able to keep his attention focused on the board, taking piece
after black piece from the field. Thron had lost only a handful of pawns, and
Korm was down to three men, and the King was growing bored with the match. It
was really all over already; he had accomplished his purpose, and there was
only the easy humiliation of his opponent to be played out. His mind started
trying to recapture a fugitive memory, something about his father's house and
an apple orchard, and he was wondering about lunch, when his startled ears
heard the word, "Check."
He looked down, rheumy eyes wide
with disbelief. Somehow the scholar had managed to tie down his superior forces
in a tangle so bad that no matter where he moved his men, the king must fall.
He felt the veins in his neck stick out like ropy cords, brows knitting in
anger, and watched the pleased expression drain out of Korm's foolishly
triumphant face. Thron's muzzle pulled back in an animal snarl, showing jagged
yellow teeth, and with a bellow he grabbed the table and hurled it to the side,
scattering the black and white pieces broadcast like wheat across the floor.
For a moment, age fell from him
and he was a warrior again, facing his foe. Korm backed away in terror from his
berserk rage. Thron swung his cane like a club and came lunging at the scholar,
the silver crown flying unheeded from his head with a clang, and it was all the
poor younger Morg could do to avoid the blows that fell on either side of him,
the steel head striking sparks where it hit the stone floor. Thron screamed
again in frustration, and Korm turned shrieking and fled, seeking shelter
behind one of the nearby statues. The old king brought the cane down blindly on
the stone figure, seeking Korm's skull; there was an almighty crack, and the
stick fell from Thron's stinging hands.
Thron stood for a moment,
stunned, the red mist clearing from his vision. He found himself looking into
the stern stone eyes of Mog Gammoth, First King and Lawgiver of the Morg race.
His blow had broken off the top of the gilded words from the Tablet of Code in
his right hand. He bent down and picked up the shattered piece with trembling
fingers. He read: ... HE IS THE FATHER OF ALL; THEREFORE WE ARE BROTHERS.
JUSTICE IS DUE ... After a moment, Thron set the fragment gently between the
feet of the statue. He bowed his head, and with slow steps walked back to the
bottom of the dais. He struggled, and after a moment was able to set the game
table on its feet again.
"Come, Master Korm," he
called tiredly. "I believe I owe you another game." The scholar
emerged from where he was still cowering behind Mog Gammoth's pedestal and saw
the king stooping, slowly gathering up the chess pieces. He approached
cautiously, eyes on Thron's movements, but the fight had gone out of him. When
Korm came to help him pick up the chessmen, the old Morg motioned for him to
sit while he finished the task himself, setting up each piece as he found it.
The last thing he took up was his crown. The silver dome was dented where it
had hit the floor. He set it aside with a sigh, then sat in his ivory chair.
"The first move is yours," he conceded.
This game was almost the opposite
of the first. Thron played wildly, carelessly, and every time he sensed Korm
was going to make a move out of pity, he grunted and shook his head sternly.
Now Thron was the distracted one, ashamed of his weakness, his rage. Even so,
after a while, and with his men melting away, his fighting instincts kicked in,
and he began to play furiously, hoping to at least fall without too
embarrassing a loss. He was deep in the game when Teq's voice called him
cautiously out of it.
"My lord," he said
quietly. "General Taryn is outside; he wishes to see you on a matter of
some urgency to the City. He claims it is quite important. Shall I show him
in?" Thron rubbed his aching head with one clawed hand, saying nothing,
eyes on the board, but waved with the other hand for the squire to show him in.
Teq retreated, and in a moment the great doors rumbled open again.
Thron looked up. There was Taryn,
approaching with youthful ease, almost swaggering up to the throne, his Morgish
stooge Roth stumping along in his wake. With him were two more young humans,
bumpkins by the looks of them, undistinguished except for the old-fashioned
sword one carried by his side, the other by a dull battered medallion bouncing
around his neck. He turned back querulously to his losing game, wondering what
possible importance this motley lot could be in the face of the greater fate
hanging over the white towers of Morg City.
Notes
And the story ends just where Thron's section in Goldfire takes up. I did further stories about Thron, about his younger days and adventure with Belmok in Eye of Darkness, and with a second-hand account of his death in What Grampa Did in the War. He appears as a statue of himself in The Strange Wooing of General Roth.
I based the statue of Mog Gammoth in the throne room on that drawing above, which I did while still in high school. Unusually for me, it was done in ink, and free-handed at that. The drawing is of course done as Mog (rhymes with dog) as a living, semi-divine being. The statue lacked that fiery nimbus and wasn't holding a sword by the naked blade. Mog Gammoth (sometimes written Mog-Gammoth) developed quite a bit as well over the years.
"Mog Gammoth is ‘everybody’s grampa’ (which is more or less the translation of ‘gammoth’) ... While kings (elected executives) among Morgs and the humbler office of Witnesses are obvious stand-ins for Mog himself, they are mere underlings or substitutes and liable to criticism." Mog is the Morgish equivalent of Adam, but 'in world' "there is more evidence that Mog Gammoth trod the world in the First Days than that your great-grandfather ever existed", as Belmok tells Korm at one point. And now it comes to me (as in a vision, but with more certainty) that while we have plenty of Adams, no other Morg has ever been given the name Mog, nor ever will.
They threaded their way down to the banquet table, the boy Wesmer going
before, gauging his pace by the tapping sound of his master's steel-shod cane,
opening the doors and announcing the King's progress to the castle guard, who
barked their unchanging noisy salutes as they passed. Teq followed a pace
behind and slightly to Thron's left, ostensibly to protect him from the rear,
but more and more these days (the old Morg knew) to guide him through moments
of thoughtlessness and catch him if his failing legs stumbled.
When they finally entered the
dining hall, Thron was greeted by the braying of brass trumpets and the
clattering rise of the assembled lords. He was reminded briefly of the sound in
his rapidly fading dream, but let nothing show on his impassive face. The old
Morg walked stiffly to his seat at the elevated table, turned, and stood
looking for an uncomfortably long moment at his court with grim eyes and drawn
brows, muzzle turning slowly this way and that. His squires stood breathlessly
on either side of him, waiting in suspense. At last he acknowledged "My
Lords," and sat back into his chair, his hands firmly grasping the arms on
both sides as if claiming his territory. The room broke from attention and,
after a murmured respectful greeting, sat down to eat. Teq took Thron's cane
away by its heavy knobbed head, and Wesmer began selecting the royal breakfast.
This was a simple task these
days. Although the table before Thron was piled with many rich dishes, it was
mainly symbolic, tributes from the cities throughout Forlan that owed his
kingdom allegiance. Fancy breads from the fields in the south, beef from the
plains, fish from the icy streams of the north and the salt sea to the east,
together with fowl, fruit, and fabulous culinary spectacles paraded before him,
along with a half-dozen bottles of wine from far and near. At his nod, Wesmer
brought Thron three boiled eggs, some butterless toast, and the highlight of
his meal, a bowl of honeyed gruel. A glass of cool milk (not too cold) was set
by his hand. The rest of the King's table would be doled out to the poor at the
tower gate as tradition dictated, a token of his bounty, and the old Morg gazed
at the feast before him and envied the sturdy beggar who could still enjoy such
largesse. He nibbled his egg and glanced yearningly at the forbidden pork pie,
swimming with gravy, that sat steaming in a golden pastry shell not three feet
away from him.
To distract his thoughts from
food, he looked up and surveyed his court. He noted with displeasure, and not
for the first time, that nearly half his council now consisted of Men. He
remembered the days when he had started to rule, when Morg City - hah! - had
been for the Morgs. It was his own fault, he ruminated. It had been his
brand-new policy to allow human refugees to swell his armies and settle in to
help defend the unconquered Sun Tower. By the time the Black Lord's Ogre troops
were soundly repulsed, the Men had been settled in for too long and were
unwilling to return to their own ruined cities. Thron's kingdom had benefited
greatly from their presence, but something in his heart still resented them. He
wanted things to be as they had been in the days of his youth.
Now they were everywhere, even on
his council and in the chain of command. He thought sullenly of Bronn, his old
General, who on his retirement had, in a surprising move, passed on his
position to Taryn, a human, placing him in the highest echelons of the City. He
squinted out at the crowd and noticed Taryn hadn't even attended the levy this
morning; he often didn't, pleading the press of business. And what possible
pressing business could he have in this time of peace? Thron cursed Bronn as a
traitor, then recalled with a guilty start that his old friend had lain cold in
the Hall of Heroes for twenty years now.
Everyone he had known and trusted
in the old days was dead. He looked out at the obliviously feasting court with
disgust. Somewhere in this rout was his probable successor, and the thought did
not fill him with confidence in the future of Forlan. Anyone whom he might have
felt to be slightly capable had passed away while waiting for him to die and
vacate the throne. He himself had been chosen as a wartime monarch, and his
popularity waxed and waned with the wars, supported when there was a crisis and
criticized in peace. Now this new generation of the lords of the Great Houses
had never seen battle, and the other statesmen - politicians, Thron
sneered to himself - were more like merchants than warriors. Forlan will need a
warrior, he thought grimly, when Norda moves again. And move it surely would.
Thron had had ambitions in the
early days of his rule, high hopes that he would be the one to finally destroy
Bharek and end his threat. Thron had crushed every incursion by those vile
armies, only to be stopped at the mountains, beyond which the crafty Black Lord
himself never ventured. Minions came and went, hordes were driven back or
decimated, but somehow the South could never muster the might to invade and
totally defeat that evil power. Thron was past hope now. The conflict seemed as
eternal and inevitable as the tides or the seasons. The sorcerous Bharek showed
every indication of outliving the old king, his demonic vigor undiminished
through the centuries. It was embittering. There seemed little hope of Morg
City enduring long after Thron, and he felt past caring. He would defend his
kingdom until death, then it would fall, and that would be that.
At least Thron wouldn't be around
then for that annoying wizard, Dunwolf, to tell him "I told you so."
What good had the old man ever done himself, despite all his meddling? He had
failed to preserve Rhavenglast in the Black Lord's latest foray beyond the
Knash; it was the king's forces that had penned the Ogres back into the
Northlands, although they came too late to save the city. The old trouble-maker
was always coming and going, stirring up Thron's people, making plots behind
his back, recruiting allies. Thron had dark suspicions that Dunwolf even wanted
to put Taryn on the throne; imagine it, a Man, king of Morg City! He coughed in
rage at the thought.
Several of the court looked up at
that, then went back hastily to their meal. Thron noticed one particularly
nervous countenance that caught his attention: the thin, brown-bearded Royal
Scholar of History, Korm, his worried muzzle made conspicuous by the tall furry
cap that swiveled with every movement of his head. That was another one of
those people close to him, he was fairly sure, who had been suborned into
Dunwolf's circle. He thought he recognized much of the wizard's words and
counsel parroted back to him by several advisors, and none so obvious as the
artless Korm. If the King did not so much value the opinion of his old friend
Belmok as to the scholar's historical prowess and veracity, he would have
expelled him some time ago. Belmok was dead, too, (thirty years!), but he had
saved Thron's life on one of their adventures together before he was even king,
and loyalty to the old teacher's memory made him reluctant to dismiss his
pupil. But let the little Morg put one toe out of line...!
The thought grew obsessively in
Thron's head as he stared at the scholar eating from his bounty with
such careless gusto, while inside most likely harboring another's plots and
designs. His slowly smoldering anger burst into determination as he watched. He
would put Korm to a little test, apply a sort of trial, and watch him twist. It
should even kill some time through the long dull hours of the morning. By the
end of the meal, when all had ceased feeding and sat awaiting the royal word to
go about their affairs, the old King had devised his own diversion. He chuckled grimly to himself as he rose to
his feet.
"My Lords, to your
business," he announced formally in the usual ritual, face carefully
neutral. But his next words rang out in a stern tone of command that silenced
the shuffling feet of the rising court. "Master Korm!" All stopped, some
looking up in surprise at Thron, some at the wildly gaping scholar who squatted
halfway in rising from his seat, frozen suddenly by the unwanted, unwonted
attention. "You shall attend me in the Throne Room in one hour!"
Thron turned with regal hauteur and swept out of the banquet hall before the
flummoxed historian could even acknowledge the command.
He didn't turn his head to watch,
but as he walked away he listened with dry satisfaction to the wondering
murmurs and whispers he left behind. That would show them. He was not simply a
stuffed figurehead to be propped up in the morning and evening and ignored in
the hours between. He was still alive. He had teeth. And Korm could hang in the
wind for an hour, wondering what the King would do, what he knew, what he could
possibly mean by the severity in his voice. Underneath the old Morg's gratified
amusement, a part of his mind wondered if this was an action worthy of the
victor of the battle of Gartus Wolnek. Thron locked that thought away
mercilessly. A thirsty man does not throw away present water for the memory of
past wine.
Notes
Thron began his existence, of course, as the usual obfuscating elderly authority figure so familiar to us at the time in so many media, the 'Denethor', if you will, of Goldfire. Slow to take advice, suspicious of powerplays around him, of course doomed to be swept away in the general ruin and renewing of the world, he was 'the old order yielding to the new'. With nearly forty years more experience, I began fleshing out his rather cardboard character and finding more 'human' motivations for his actions.
It was John who came up with the name 'Thron', which is both a recalling of 'thrawn' ('contrary, ill-tempered, twisted') and a curtailment of 'throne'. ('Why do they call a king's chair a throne?' 'Because every time you come up to it, you get throne in the dungeon!' Zot!) And I just noticed that it is almost a backward anagram for 'north'. But that's neither here nor there. I should also note that this was easily a decade before 'Grand Admiral Thrawn' in the Star Wars mythos.
I’ve
decided that, for whatever reason, I’m finding a great reluctance to continue
with my ‘The Lord of the Rings: Chapter by Chapter’, so I’m going to take a
break this week rather than force the issue. Instead, I’ll post another Tales
of the Morgs tale, ‘King Thron’, in several parts.
The
Morg tales actually grew out my transcription of my brother John’s and my juvenile
effort at an epic fantasy in the early Eighties, that we called ‘Goldfire’
(this was before Stephen R. Donaldson’s Gildenfire). After nearly forty
years I thought it was time to finally put it in a more easily readable
document, and as a sort of relaxation as I finished A Grave on Deacon’s Peak,
I started the project.
I
had never been much of a ‘short story’ guy, but as I finished AGODP and ‘Goldfire’,
I found the tales arising quite naturally from the experience. I completed
about sixty short stories in the years that followed, breaking the record of
about seven for the decades before. I hope to return to LOTR by the end of the
week, at least to finish ‘The King of the Golden Hall’.
THRON
Thron was at his father's old
house, in the distant suburbs south of the City. He was relaxing in the
backyard, by the garden, thinking that he might finally harvest and eat the
apples he had been waiting for so long to ripen, when suddenly looking up to the
clear blue horizon to the east he saw a rising fire, like a flaming arrow or
fiery dragon, ascending heavily into the sky. He watched, a sick feeling of
dread growing in his stomach, as the fire turned and began to fall towards the
City on his right. He opened his mouth, trying to shout out a helpless warning
or cry of despair, but his voice was cut off, drowned by what sounded at first
like thunderous applause and then like hooves clattering by in panic haste. He
woke up, and found it was rain spattering on the metallic awning outside the
window.
Thron sat up in bed, rubbing his
sleep-smeared eyes and untangling his long dirty-white beard with trembling
claws. His mind tumbled into place like an unwilling soldier called to muster.
His first thought was that he had not been to the old house on Circle Street
since his father had died, almost a hundred and twenty years ago. Thron had
already been king then for -- what, thirty years? With that thought came the
crushing recollection that he was still king, and with that thought he
snarled and swung himself out of the nested coverlets.
The wind was blowing damp and
chill through the open window, and his body immediately twanged with pain,
especially his withered right leg, seamed up and down the calf with an old
wound, stupidly got sixty years ago on a completely unnecessary hunt. Kings
were expected ..., he thought ruefully, then his muzzle twisted into a
grimace. He yanked angrily on the bell-pull to summon his servants, snatched up
his ebony cane, and limped over in bare feet and nightshirt to close the hatch
himself. Last night when he had opened the window it had been too warm,
stifling; now the keen North wind blew in and seemed to be feeling out his
weakest spots.
He had just managed to fumble the
heavy shield-shaped shutter back into place, smashing his thumbnail in the
process, when the squires came rushing in. The pair, a young Morg and a human
boy, looked a little frowzy yet, and there was a waft of a breakfasty air that
followed them into the room. Thron turned on them in anger.
"Dolts! Sluggards!" he
barked. "Why do you not attend your King?"
"But you commanded us, Lord
..." the boy began, then stopped, terrified, as the Morg squire shot him a
frantic look. In a flash the lad realized he had been about to question the
King, an unthinkable act, punishable by disgrace and dismissal. In the same
moment Thron remembered that he had ordered them the night before not to
disturb him until he called. He had been having trouble sleeping through the
night lately, falling into a doze only in the last watches of the night and
then being awakened after a handful of hours at most. And he had opened the
window himself; they could not have known.
"What's the time?" he
snapped, to cover his rue. The squires almost sighed, and visibly relaxed, but
not much. The old King would never apologize; this ignoring of the situation
and moving on was the best they could hope for.
"The first hour of the day
is halfway gone, Lord," the young Morg replied smartly, and Thron groaned
inside. So early? Even before he would have ordinarily been awakened. He
glanced longingly towards his rumpled blankets, but knew it was useless. He
might as well start the day; the only way back to bed was the long way around.
He ran his claws through his beard again, and pushed back his stiff, thinning
hair. He stretched his back, and it cracked painfully.
"Well, let's begin,
then," he growled, and started limping toward the privy room hidden behind
the curtains by the headboard. The boy approached the bed and began to make it
with nervously formal moves, and the young Morg opened the wardrobe with a
stately, self-conscious air. When Thron was safely ensconced behind the closed
door, they looked at each other worriedly.
"Another bad day, Teq?"
asked the boy, quietly.
"Looks like it,
Wesmer," said the young Morg, wrinkling his muzzle in a frown. He pulled
out a soft grey pair of shoes with silver buckles. "Better tread carefully
today."
Thron sat on the close-stool, his
night robe hiked around his hips, and tried to let his mind wander. A few
burning, begrudging spurts of urine had squirted out at first, then stopped,
and now there was a heavy load lurking reluctantly in his bowels. He had to
relax, he knew; but worry, the burdens of his throne and state, made him
clench. So let his mind wander he must: to the seat warming under his rear, to
the stream of cold air coming under the door into the stuffy room, to the
little fat-bellied spider spinning a web high in one corner. A distant observer
in his brain was noting with hope that relief was nigh, when a sudden memory of
his dream, along with its dread feeling, replayed itself in his waking
thoughts. The hoped-for release shot back up into his body, and he knew the
moment was lost.
Thron rose, robe falling to his
knees, and went to rinse his hands in a bronze ewer on the nearby table. What
could the dream mean? Was it just a jumble of memories, or did it forbode
something, like in the old tales? Somehow, in the sagas, the heroes were always
very sure about these things. The old Morg sourly meditated that a King's
dreams were supposed to be significant, but cold common sense said you could
only know for sure retroactively. He looked at his blood-shot eyes in the
mirror over the basin and tried to apply his weary mind to the details.
The fire had arisen in the east.
That made no sense. There was nothing but desolation in the east. Now if it had
come from Norda and the North that would have been obvious, or even from the
west and the Passes of the Knash, but from the east? Nothing had moved there
for three hundred years. Thron shrugged and dismissed it again from his
thoughts. Just an old, old life, playing with its memories and mixing them up
like the ingredients of an Autumn Cake. He sweetened his hands with a dash of
lavender, dried them on his beard, and left the room.
Outside, the squires had put his
chambers in order, and a fresh set of clothes were on the bed. He stood
stoically as they dressed him for the day in a heavy brocaded inner robe,
covered with the long sleeveless overcoat that was part of the royal regalia.
They thrust the seal of the City over the knuckle of his left forefinger, the
ruby ring of his coronation on his right, and put the massy linked chain of
office around his scrawny neck. Last of all came the conical silver crown,
ringed with emeralds, pressed gently but inexorably on his wrinkled brow. As it
went on he closed his eyes and sighed; when his eyes opened again, he was the
King.
"Let us proceed," he
announced.
Notes:
“I chose Thron as the main character for this tale (Oct
2018), since he is, of course, the last of the major Morg characters from the
original tales, and was able to weave details from MIGHTY MIKKU(Nov.2017) and
KORM'S MASTER (Dec 2017) into it - with Bronn who had been rescued by a young
Roth as the eventual General of Thron's army, and Belmok who oversaw Korm's
"college" education as Thron's old companion on the adventure that
cost the old Master his eye -- tying them all together into a neat knot, to the
point of the very day when they all intersect -- which I had no clear idea was
going to happen until halfway through the story.
“I really only started with Thron waking up from his dream to the sound of rain -- which was exactly my situation Wednesday morning. The rest just flowed and blossomed from there. I wanted to sort of explore the reasons for his crankiness and his gusts of anger, and the fact that he had really been a good king in his time. His habit of obsessively counting things in decades and his suffering from what I call the "Since Syndrome" and his emotional withdrawal from the world -- that was very familiar to me.” From an e-mail to John.
