A Crown Disowned by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-10T00:06:16+00:00

Epilogue

It is in the courtyard of the Fane of the Glowing that the Four Trees can be found. Oak, Ash, Yew, and Rowan, they, even more than the marble columns within, stand as tall symbols of the four ruling Houses of Rendel. Once Oak leaves carried blight; Ash drooped sadly, shedding leaves even during the period of growth; and even Rowan looked ill with some unknown disease, a few green leaves still valiantly struggling to keep the tree alive. Only Yew ever throve. For years no trace of the ills that afflicted the other three touched this one and people looked upon the Trees and wondered.

Now they wondered no more, for the Four Trees all stood straight and healthy, with fresh green buds replacing the blight and new growth extinguishing every other sign of ill health.

From its building there had been three small windows in the Fane, virtually hidden from all but the most inquisitive, that inspired vague feelings of dread.

For these windows changed with time, and no artisan's touch could account for the shifting. One of these windows depicted the hands and web of the Weavers.

With the advent of the thunder-star and the impact when it hit the northern lands hard enough to make the entire earth quiver and certain fire-throated mountains to awaken, this picture that had changed only a little from the oldest man's memory began to shift. Then the dark hands of the Weavers moved more quickly, and the web upon which they worked began to take on a different appearance.

The second window, which showed a Bog-lupper, also began to change during this time. The surface of the pool became disturbed, and a dark and fell creature emerged onto land.

But it was the third window that created the most unease. This mysterious window had ever shown a blank face, white and barely translucent. Its very lack of design made it uninteresting. Then something began stirring in its depths and it showed a creature more deadly, more horrifying even than the one still dripping from the Bog-pool as it emerged from a heavy, glittering snowstorm.

The Dowager Queen of that time, a powerful woman named Ysa, had destroyed this last window, and given orders that the other two be removed and the wall plastered over as if they had never been.

Quietly, unmarked by any, for people seldom ventured up to the balcony where the windows had once been set, they reappeared, only changed from their former design. Where once the white, translucent one had shown such a horrifying image that Ysa had been moved to smash it to splinters, now it revealed a beautiful, mountainous land, with a tall and fair castle looking over all. The window that had displayed a monster from the depths of the Bog now depicted a new city rising from the ruins of the old. The third was, perhaps, the least changed of them all. Now in place of brown old hands toiling, it showed a web with four familiar designs woven into it, complete and at peace.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.