Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

CXIII. Angusʼ Aside: Let's Take A Howl At That Moon

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    Back in 1745, when Louisiana was Franceʼs w*t dream, same night those olʼ Jacobites died at Culloden and Vyolèt Domingoʼs plunder of the Seven Seas had just begun, they say a Scotsman and a Dane cast aside the greatest weapon known to man and forged it anew: a bonnie great sword that could cut down a Gujarati dow. They say they made it for a hunter, for men like us on horseback, after it was recovered from the mists of Ynys Afallach. It was designed to murder the Mad King.

Legend goes that from the hells whence the Scotsman roamed, the souls of Afallach's elves from where the Once and Future King rests, and the blessed by the lakeʼs Holy Thorn from whence the Dane drowned, the Scotsman and the Dane forged that blade anew, striking down any enemy from this world to the one below in thirteen blows.

    Before they disappeared, the Scotsman and Dane used the blade half a dozen times, scatterinʼ it to the winds.

    They say this sword can kill anything. Cut anyone, anything down, in the blink of an eye.

    Where the score was settled: before Adam and Eve, before creation and before mankind, before there was the Order and the Hellbenders and the Osirican Brotherhood with their Forty Thieves, before humanity, that blade stood. When Lucifer raised his rebellion against Men, when God blessed the Children of Lir – his prophets, the dabba, born of angels and devils – that weapon, forged from fire and sinew, was born of them. Oʼ their holy blood. And with their holy blood, gave that Mad King and all the kings before their insurmountable power.

    You asked me, Scotty, why the Italians call me one name, the French another, why I killed those babes, as you search for the men that cut down yʼer wee lad. I told you, boy, that the power of names are given by a manʼs birthright. And I told you that I have walked this earth in search of a king I was meant to kill. The Children of Lir, who gives him his wicked power, a slave to the night and all its terrors. By the blood of a brother and blood oʼ Christ, I gave myself to the night, bound to mʼ thaneʼs command, and to the vengeful promise oʼ breaking him. But I never told you why.

  I was the Scotsman who forged that sword from the fires oʼ hell. Excalibur. I was the hunter who made the sword that could kill anythinʼ and anyone. I donʼt know how, I donʼt know why, but you are blood oʼ my blood, bone cut from my bone – itʼs how you knew how I was and itʼs how I know you are the fabled hunter prophecized about. Whispered about. The purest bloodlines in humanity, tracinʼ back to Adam and Eve. To the Children of Lir. There will be killinʼ ʼtill the score is paid my boy, ʼtill the Lord Macbeth and his lady love are rottinʼ belly up in maggots for plaguing the earth with demon kind, and you are yʼur lady love take the Order back.

    So ask me again, Scotty what the stakes are here? Well, Virgil the babe was the first to the fire. Yʼer son was second, a sacrificial lamb for slaughter. The Marcella girl is next. And our king wonʼt stop, until his chin bathes in babesʼ blood. Until he regains his power.

    So feel what I feel Scotty, hear what I hear, taste what I taste.

    Letʼs cheat Death and take a howl at that moon together.