Chapter 13: Steals the Focus

The bell strikes noon. It’s resounding clang echoes around the empty corridors of the abandoned fortress. The grey, cold stones send the harsh noise reverberating through chambers and hallways. You let go of the bellrope and make your way up the tower, climbing the cool spiral staircase. You reach the top and a warm breeze rushes through your hair as it makes its way from archway to archway. Circling the great bell, you look out at the panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. There are fields and trees, a couple of small villages scattered about. It’s a very simple yet pleasant landscape. You filter them out of your focus as you begin to search for movement. 

You begin to notice figures of people both walking and riding on horseback across the verdant land, and horse-drawn carriages on the dusty roads drawing up dust clouds behind them as they grow nearer and nearer to the fortress. You smile and begin the descent back down, making for the entrance to meet and greet everyone as they arrive. 

You have spoken to the members as they have arrived, making polite conversation. But despite the news that they are sharing, you are secretly scanning the room for a particular figure. But it is too busy. Too many people hustling and bustling and you give up. He will be made known soon enough. You join the stream of people and enter the great hall where everyone is taking their ascribed places at the long table. You are nowhere important. Just near the end with everyone else of little consequence. Near the top of the table is GRP, the current leader. Around GRP are those who have served the longest, those with most to contribute and him who takes the minutes. 

Looking up and down the table, most of the faces are familiar, there are some new ones. New recruits. But out of all the faces, one of them lifts out, steals the focus. He is sitting just a couple of spaces down the row from your own seat. You watch him. He catches your eye and he smiles, a little nervously. You look away. The GRP rises and everyone sits up a little straighter in anticipation of his opening words. “We shall commence the meeting after the society song,” he announces. Everyone stands and begins to sing in unison.

This world is cast in gloom,

Sits in the hand of impending doom.

Roaring clouds of death and pain

Approach, approach across the dying plain.

We need to fix this land,

Pull it out of the toxic quicksand.

We need to save this world

Before further evil is unfurled.

We hear the kingdom’s bells a-ringing!

We know to gather, our news we’re bringing.

The fate of all rests upon our story,

Us revolutionaries will find our glory!

For this reason, to stop this blight,

We, the Crowners of the Light,

Will save the world. This will be our crowning glory!

As everyone else sits down, the GRP remains standing. “Prior to any item on the agenda, I shall hand over to one of our newest recruits. Over to you, Reeder.” GRP sits down and you stand up.

“Good afternoon, Crowners. I find it a great privilege and, indeed, a pleasure to be welcomed so warmly by you all and I look forward to continuing work with you. However, I must inform you that within my short time here, I have uncovered a mole.” You pause for effect as everyone around the table gasp and shift uneasily in their chairs. “Through a series of letters, I have learned much about a rival group called the Keepers of the Crowns whose aim is to undo all our hard work. This information came to me by one of its three members, who is here with us today.” Everyone around the table looks at each other suspiciously. You look to GRP, who is listening with intrigue, stroking his chiseled chin. “I have the letters exchanged between the two of us with me here.” 

From your satchel, you withdraw the letters and hold them up for all to see. “A few choice phrases for you,” you say, thumbing through the paper leaves. “ ‘Very early on in the history of the Crowns, a secret society was created. They called themselves “Crowners of the Light”, which makes me personally feel sick; they could not be any less stereotypical of a secret society.’”. There are noises of disgruntled Crowners from around the table. You go on: “ ‘They open with a ridiculously cringeworthy song.’” The sound of disgust grows in its volume and intensity. “ ‘I have infiltrated the Crowners of the Light for seven years now, enough time to be trusted and be fully made aware of their ultimate plans.’ The letter is signed: Sam,” you conclude, placing the wad of letters on the table before you. 

Heads turn to the man who smiled at you just minutes before. But there is no smile on his face now. Just sheer embarrassment. He looks at you. You stare back, coldly. Sam stands up, his head now bowed. “Thank you, Reeder,” GRP says, gravely. You nod your head respectfully and sit down. “Your contribution is much appreciated. As for you, Sam, have you anything to say for yourself?” Sam shook his head slowly. “You have violated the code of the Crowners of the Light, and betrayed the very essence of our being. The pain for your crime is death. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Sam says, strangely strongly.

“Reeder,” GRP says. You rise. “Would you do the honours?”

“I beg your pardon.”

Somebody passes you a broadsword.

“Reeder, kill him,” GRP ordered.

You step out from the table, as does Sam, resigned to his fate. You stand before each other, staring. You stab Sam. He winces and staggers back, falling to the ground. You watch Sam die by your hand. “Thank you, Reeder. You have done good."

The bell strikes one.

Chapter 5: Through The Darkness

Alert! Pass on to other Crowners. Spread the word through the darkness. Soon we shall be illuminated and crowned in light as we ourselves crown the light.

A potential Crown has been located in the town of Bridgeside in Kingdom Faithful.

The Crowners will move.

The Crowners will strike.

The Crowners will be victorious.

Chapter 3: I Held Her Hand

Angus’ funeral took place a month ago today. Autumn is setting in, the cold chill in the air, the leaves now bronzed red, orange and yellow by the summer sun and beginning to carpet the ground. Everything seems to be dying. 

I suppose that might be a bit melodramatic, but I can’t stand it! Every day Angus’ corpse haunts me. Every night, the crowned skeleton lunges at me. It’s driving me mad. I’ve been working long shifts at the blacksmith’s, hammering away long into the night. Anything to keep away from her. Working keeps me sane - I can lose myself in the rhythms of the process, sounds mad, doesn’t it! I think the townsfolk think I’m mad. Everyone tries to chat to me, but it sounds patronising and forced, even from my own mother!

There was a knock at my door and I was disturbed from my diary. I bade entry, and Jennifer, a friend of mine that I had grown up with, opened the door. “Hi Maj,” she greeted. I could pick out the tone that gave Jennifer away as being uneasy to be with me. I suspected my mother had forced her into this situation.

“Hi. How are you?”

“I’m fine thanks,” Jennifer replied, politely but automatically. “Everyone’s worried about you, you know,” Jennifer then blurted out.

“They shouldn’t worry. I’m fine.”

“Nobody blames you.”

“Ok.”

“So stop blaming yourself.”

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

Jennifer leaned against the window sill. I could tell she was staring at me, but my gaze was fixated upon the floor. I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if Jennifer would understand. It was going to be complicated. “I didn’t just find Angus down there,” I began, teasing her into it.

“That’s a start. What did you find then?”

“A woman.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She gave me her crown and that was what made her die. Like her life was part of the crown.”

Jennifer started to leave. “Stop playing games.”

“I’m not,” I protested, but not whiningly.

“Then what are you saying?” she demanded.

“That, well… It was sort of, like, magic.” I hated the words I was saying. They sounded ridiculous.

“Grow up, Maj! We’re not kids anymore!”

“I’m not making this up! I have the crown, and I have the book that she had too!”

“Show me.”

I reached under my bed and pulled them out and placed them in front of me on my bed. The setting sun that shone through the window caught on the crown and sent beams of light around my room. I shuffled back. Jen stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at the objects I had produced. “Ok.” She took a long pause, and I felt it best not to interrupt. 

After a minute or so, she commenced. “So what does the book say?”

“I haven’t read it. I haven’t even opened it,” I admitted. I was too scared to open it for fear of what universal secrets may be revealed to me. “Do you want to?”

She hesitated. “Not sure.” A pause. “What do you think it’s about?”

I shrugged. “It could be a book of magic,” I suggested.

“Or a religious text,” Jen proposed.

“Or a history of Kingdom Faithful.”

“Or it could be a cook book.”

Another pause.

“Go on, open it,” I said, pushing the book in her direction.

Jen inhaled and picked up the book. Slowly, she opened the front cover. It was a tense moment. And then suddenly she scoffed. “Idiot,” she muttered to me. She showed me the inside of the book  and I saw carved into the pages a pocket, inside of which was a hipflask. “So you saw a drunk down there?” Jen laughed.

“No! I know what I saw!”

“Maybe you had some of this, and thought you saw what you claim to have seen.”

“Jen, please.”

“Right, I’m off. You’ve successfully wasted my time.” She picked up her woollen scarf from the end of my bed and wrapped it around her neck. “And I’m taking these away from you. It’s for your own good. It means you can put this whole business behind you, ok?” I didn’t have a say in the matter, because whilst she was speaking, she was scooping the book and the crown into her arms.

“Don’t wear it,” I advised. “The woman told me that wearing the crown could destroy you.” I could see myself from Jen’s point of view - ridiculous, crazed and paranoid. She didn’t even say goodbye, she just marched out the door. 

__________

Rosa was about six years old, a sweet child. She had platinum blonde hair that was plaited every morning by her mother, and the biggest of blue eyes. She was the girl that all the other mothers hated because she was prettier than their own children, but always say how adorable she is in public. To some she was an adorable princess, to others she was sickly sweet, and to most she was both. 

She was also Jen’s younger sister. They shared a small room above their parent’s grocer’s shop. Jen resented this, as Rosa was constantly mimicking her fashion sense, her delivery of speech, the general things that older sisters begrudge their siblings for. And one of the things that Rosa had a habit of doing was going through Jen’s belongings and trying them for herself. You can see where this is going.

It was two days after Jen had taken the crown and the book from Maj, and she had shoved them straight into a drawer, with no desire to deal with them. They would have to wait until one of those big clear-out days. And so, ever so predictably, Rosa stumbled across them in the drawer. I say ‘them’, she didn’t notice the book, just the shiny, pretty crown. Out of the drawer it came. Rosa looked at it carefully, grinning at its beauty. And then she placed it on her head. Now she would be that pretty princess.

“Hello there,” a voice said. Rosa jumped and turned around. Standing behind her was a woman. She was tall and beautiful, with deadly pale skin and wonderful brown eyes.   Her hair was strawberry blonde and tumbled about her shoulders. “It’s very nice to meet you, Rosa.” Her voice was sugared. The little girl stared.

“Who are you?” she eventually asked. “Are you a princess because you’re very beautiful?”

The woman laughed. “I’m not a princess, just a normal person. Do you want to play?” Rosa nodded enthusiastically. “Me too. Take my hand,” the woman said, stretching out her hand. Rosa took it and they walked hand-in-hand out of the room and out of the grocer’s into the main street of Bridgeside. 

Rosa looked up at her new hero. “Can you make me look as beautiful as you?”

“Maybe when you’re older.”

Rosa smiled, excited for when she would be that old.

“Rosa!” A voice rang across the street. The little girl turned around. So did the woman. Jen was running towards them. “You’ve been going through my stuff again! Why did you take the crown?”

“Because it was pretty.”

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“To play.”

“Mum said not to leave the house. What made you think you could?”

“I held her hand.”

Jen, angry, snatched the crown from her younger sister’s head. Rosa collapsed in a crumpled heap on the dusty road. Jen looked in anger and annoyance at first. “Get up, Rosa. Rosa?” And then the irritation shifted to fear. She knelt beside her sister. “Rosa!” But Rosa’s spirit had departed from this world. 

Chapter 1: I Hugged Death

“Wait, Angus! Wait for me!” the little girl’s voice whined.

“No! You have to run faster if you want to be on this treasure hunt!”

“Yeah, Joan!”

“Shut up, Courage!”

The three children were running across the familiar, verdant countryside of their home in the Kingdom Faithful. Angus was the eldest at eleven, his younger sister Joan was barely five. And Courage was the Mayor’s son, a tag-along if ever there was one. They were from the town of Bridgeside, named for the bridge that crossed the River Full at that place. It was the only bridge for miles either way along the river.

“We’re nearly at the waterfall!” Angus shouted back to his devotees. He rounded the curved corner of the adjacent forest and there was the waterfall, the great gushing of water tumbling over the grey-white rocks. Angus had seen this waterfall many times over and no longer appreciated its unique beauty. He stopped before it and looked at the scrap of paper in his hands. “There’s a cave near here apparently,” he murmured. 

“What?” Courage hyperventilated.

“A cave. Near here.”

“Do you think it’s behind the waterfall?”

“Like in the fairy tales!” Joan piped up. “The storyteller from the fair told one about the girl who got lost in the land behind the waterfall and then the nymphs bullied her and she cried. And the nymphs turned her into a statue but you can still hear her crying and her tears and stuff.”

“Whatever,” Angus said dismissively.

“They’re just stories, Joan,” Courage sneered.

“I know!” Joan protested. “But I liked it, and it’s about stuff behind waterfalls! I was right, wasn’t I, Angus?” But Angus was walking forward now, towards the waterfall and the cliff. He pressed himself against the cliff and looked behind the wall of water. “What are you doing?” Joan asked.

“There’s something back there.”

“But you’ll get wet!”

“Some things are worth getting wet for, Joan.”

Courage sniggered.

“Grow up, Courage,” Angus ordered.

“Yeah, Courage!” Joan repeated.

Courage sulked. 

Angus started to move along the cliff towards the waterfall and then started to sidle along a small ledge. Joan started to follow. “No, Joan. You stay here. It’s too dangerous for you. And Courage, you’re too large really.” Courage sulked even further. “I won’t be long.” And Angus disappeared behind the cascading water. 

_________

I had run down with everyone else as soon as the news had hit the town, and half an hour later, there was a great commotion rippling through Bridgeside. It seemed as though half the town had turned up to see what had happened at the waterfall. Angus’ mother, Madeline, was in tears and being supported by her husband, Angus and Joan’s step-father, Agrinn. The Mayor was there trying to keep everything in some kind of order. The baker’s wife and the baker’s apprentice were there providing hot buns and pies for everyone. The blacksmith, Nigel, my master, had gone behind the waterfall to see what he could find. Everyone was on edge waiting for the verdict. 

Finally Nigel returned through the water with his lantern. “There’s a small cavern back there. It’s tiny and very dark without a light. There’s a hole in the ground. It’s quite narrow. I wouldn’t fit down. I suspect that Angus fell down or climbed down and got stuck. I couldn’t see him or really hear anything, but the noise of the waterfall would drown out any sound down there so there’s no reason to start worrying.”

“Right, so we need someone to go down,” Mayor Naize announced. “Someone of a slight build, and old enough to know what to do.” 

“Might I suggest my apprentice, Maj?” Nigel said. 

My heart fell. Much as I wanted to know what had happened to poor Angus and to be able to contribute, I wasn’t particularly prepared for what I might find. My family was close to his, and I had watched him grow up since I was six and he was born. Eleven years I had known Angus and I dreaded to think. I had an image in my mind: blood and water and black hair soaked in the stuff and contorted angles and white eyes. The thought was sickening. But I was old enough to be responsible and slender enough, it seemed, to fit down this hole.

Somebody slapped me on the back, encouraging my good sportsmanship, and I stumbled forward into the gap that had emerged around me. “Good on you, Majesty,” the Mayor said. And I was officially elected without even volunteering as a candidate. Good old democracy.

Five minutes later I found myself edging along the stone ledge and under the cascading water, clutching a lantern and with a rope around my shoulder. Nigel was right behind me. 

The cavern was indeed very small. It was damp underfoot, and I could feel cold drips of water falling from the ceiling, but the waterfall had soaked me enough already so I didn’t much care. There in the middle of the cavern was the hole. In the lamp-light it appeared as a black void. It was like the entrance to the afterlife. I admit, I was scared. “Maj! Tie the rope round your waist!” Nigel shouted to me over the roar of the waterfall. When I was safely harnessed up, I started to clamber down the hole with the blacksmith holding the other end of the rope, keeping me safe and alive.

The chute was narrow, just like Nigel the blacksmith had said, but large enough for Angus to have fallen. I descended about ten feet until my feet hit the ground. “I’m at the bottom!” I called up. “Send a lantern down!” In the darkness, I surveyed the area. It was quieter down here, the roar from the waterfall was now a muffled gush. There were more waterdrops and echoes of waterdrops dripping musically from the ceiling onto the floor. A minute or so later, a lantern was lowered down the hole. I took it and held it up to illuminate the cavern I was standing in now. It appeared to be a long, cavernous tunnel that disappeared to the the right around a corner thirty feet away from where I was standing. I stepped forward and inadvertently kicked something. I looked down and found Angus’s corpse at my feet. 

I knelt down beside the body. The image I had imagined earlier was so much messier and noisier (for some reason there was noise in my mind - not any specific noise, just generic noise) than this. There was a pool of blood around his head, glistening coolly and evilly in the light from the lantern. The boy had cracked his skull open. “Oh Angus. You silly boy,” I remember muttering. Angus’ eyes stared gauntly at the wall, not white but full of the same colour, the same sky blue, from when he was alive. I swallowed and closed his  eyes gently and respectfully. “May you be protected in the afterlife.” 

I stood back up and called, choking, up the tunnel the news. And then slowly I tied the rope around the corpse and watched it ascend the cruel shaft that had ended the boy’s life. As I waited for the rope to fall back down, my eye caught a piece of paper that had been lying close to where Angus had fallen. I picked it up and held it close to the lantern. It appeared to be a map with instructions. A treasure map. “Maj?” Nigel called down. “Here’s the rope.”

“Tie it off to something up there. I’m going to explore this cave.” I ignored his protests and commands and started to tread down the tunnel. It occurred to me as I walked that beyond the noise of the dripping water, there was another sound. Quiet. But definitely there. A breathing, soft breathing. A whimper. “Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed horribly, reverberating off the cold walls.

I turned the corner and sitting in a simple, stone throne before me, in a bath of blue light falling from a pinpoint hole in the ceiling, was a person. It didn’t move or say anything. Indeed, it seemed to be dead, and that would have made perfect sense, having been stuck down here for eternity. It was a woman, I figured, with very dark eyes. She was wearing a simple golden crown, rich red gowns and gold shoes. I approached slowly, very aware of where I placed my feet. The closer to her I got, the more I noticed about her. Her body was skeletal, appearing as though someone had crudely stretched a sheet of skin over a bag of bones. Her once-jet black hair was thin, faded and old. And then I noticed that the eyes were not dark but non-existent. Just two empty sockets. And it was the water falling from the ceiling onto her face that created the effect that she was crying. 

But as I moved even closer, I realised that there was no water dripping from the ceiling here. She was actually crying. “Hello?” I repeated, in a gasp this time. “Are you alright?” Of course, the answer to that was obvious. “What are you doing here?” The woman didn’t reply. “A boy just died back there. Didn’t you hear him? Who are you?”

The woman’s head lolled forward and the eye sockets stared blankly at me. I stepped back, my stomach hugging my heart, so it felt. “Death.” Her voice was deep and moaning, cracked and full of despair. I shivered. The hairs on my arms stood on end and I came out in goosebumps. I didn’t dare reply. She continued eventually: “I have spent an eternity with death. I have hugged death. And so I am death and I hate death and I want death.” I was frozen, petrified with fear. “It’s been so long.” Her skin stretched thinly to accommodate her speech. She seemed to be near translucent. “Who are you?”

“My name is Maj.”

“Maj… How majestic.” There was the possibility that she smiled at that point, although I didn’t quite get her joke. So she added a suffix to my name. It wasn’t like anyone else had done that all the way through my life.

I stood in terror and in awe at this feat of nature. It was ridiculous. She could not be this old. She should have died hundreds of years ago. “A name like that deserves a royal title. Take the Crown,” she ordered me. “But do not wear it for you shall suffer great pain in the end.” She attempted to lift her arms to remove the garment, but she was either too weak or too old or both to do so. She gave up. “Take it.” I slowly approached with great caution, reached out and took the crown from the woman’s head. She sighed a glorious and pitiful sigh and her body disintegrated into dust, leaving a small skeleton in red robes bathed in blue light. 

I found myself two feet back from where I had been standing. I had jumped at spontaneous disintegration. The anonymous woman had finally been granted death at the removal of the crown. With no longer the life and will, the arms fell to the skeleton’s side and a heavy object fell from the folds of the robes. It hit the ground with a heavy thud that echoed through the cavern. I moved forward, still aware of the skeleton in case it should move again, and discovered the heavy object to be a book, the pages were gilded and crumpled, the hard cover, fraying. I picked it up and backed away from the body hastily, and as soon as I was around the corner, I ran to the rope and escaped the cave of death.

Prologue

A land of kings and queens, princes and princesses, suitors and pretenders, warlocks and hags, royalty and peasantry, heroes and villains. But above all these are the Crowns. Relics that have influenced and still influence our lives. Hooked yet?

Now the thing about crowns is that there are so many out there. You know, the ones that royalty wear. A circular headdress worn by a monarch as a symbol of authority. At least, that is what everyone is told.

I mean, there are crowns. And then there are crowns. You get me? A king could wear a crown and it would just be a lump of gold sitting on his head. On the other hand, the king could wear a crown and it would grant him the power of prophesy, yes? There are crowns, and then there are Crowns. 

The history of the Crowns is interesting and hazy. Myth and legend has, inevitably and irritatingly, had its way with the truth. And who can differentiate truth from myth? But this is what we do know: the Crowns were fashioned hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago for the children of the hag Hunn. 

The legend tells us that she had fifteen daughters and fifteen sons. They were going to a ball where betrothals and marriages were arranged for the royals and nobles of the land and Hunn wanted her children to look something special. Hunn and her children were, officially, of royal blood. Her father had been King Faithful (ironically named in my opinion) and her mother, the kingdom’s witch doctor, Phrellovane. Hunn was the offspring with her twin. 

The ball was a disaster for Hunn and her children and they were cast out. Furious, Hunn had each of the crowns enchanted over the year. The crowns gave Hunn’s children special abilities when worn. 

The next year, Hunn’s children returned to the ball wielding their new powers. But they were overthrown and imprisoned, their Crowns removed. Many were executed within the week. Those who survived were either too young, too innocent or too good at escaping. The story of Hunn, her children and the Crowns fades away here. Apparently, Hunn continued to live but retreated to a cave where she remained for the rest of her days. But throughout history and mythology, stories of individuals wielding powers and magical diadems echo down the ages. Somewhere out there, dispersed across the many lands and kingdoms, are twenty-nine powerful crowns.

Very early on in the history of the Crowns, a secret society was created. They called themselves “Crowners of the Light”, which makes me personally feel sick; they could not be any less stereotypical of a secret society. Each member is branded with the symbol of a crown on the left shoulder blade. They meet biannually in a secret basement under a deserted palace of old and they discuss what they have each found out about the history of the Crowns and the possibility of their present whereabouts. Oh, and they open with a ridiculously cringeworthy song. They have remained silent since the beginning (thank goodness because that song would truly violate the world of music), and so there is only the faintest whisper of a rumour of their existence on the street. But that is soon to change. They are about to risk everything in pursuit of their goals and this worries me. 

Me? Well, I am a scholar, and part of the Crowners of the Light’s antagonistic society, the Keepers of the Crowns (we at least attempt to set ourselves apart from stereotype). We have intended to protect the whereabouts of the Crowns. I have infiltrated the Crowners of the Light for seven years now, enough time to be trusted and be fully made aware of their ultimate plans. They intend to use the Crowns as a means of power and domination, and they will rule this world tyrannically (they prefer the word ‘nobly’ - pah!). They believe they know what is best for the world. Very few can know that. 

There are only three of us - Keepers of the Crowns. It has not been easy. Our goal now is to find the Crowns and to preserve them. So already there are at least two rival groups after the same thing. You can tell it’s going to be fun! Oh the joy (insert sarcasm).

But it will not be easy for any of us. It has not been easy. It’s been a minimum of a thousand years and none of us are any closer to finding the twenty-nine Crowns.