The Hoot of an Owl

“Everything you build will crumble, and everything you cherish will be ripped from your clutches at the hoot of an owl.”

Those were her last words, the final offering of a fallen queen before the broadsword swung and the transition of power was complete. To say that it shook the prince - now king - is a grave understatement. Imagine him standing there, armored in haughty superiority and adorned in shining triumph after a six-summer campaign - and the final act is blemished by the venom of a headless snake.

“The hoot of an owl. What in the fifth hell does that mean?!” he bellowed at his mages and advisors time and time again.

The archmage himself ensured that no enchantment had been woven; no curse had been wrought as the royal scarlet soaked the earth. But the prince - now king - had sensed it. He had felt the subtle tilt of the axis as his sword fell - and he just knew that while the knights and ladies would be sowing their bellies with mead and bastards that night, that the war was still far from over.

There were so many hunts - so much manic paranoia dressed up in festive livery as every tawny and barn owl in the kingdom was fitted with an arrow. So many hunts that enabled the true vermin to flourish. So many hunts that yielded no satiety as the grain stores slowly bled dry and the deer and boar fled the countryside.

Despite the hunts and despite the many wards his mages cast, a winged specter still visited the prince - now king - every night. Some nights it would only swoop past his window, wing strokes rippling over his psyche and starling him from even the deepest slumber. Other nights it would camp on his sill for hours; a quilled gargoyle - his own silent sentry.

He eventually stopped summoning his mages. Each one claimed to never witness the dark wraith, and their radiant flares of tourmaline or silver only cast the owl’s shadow into sharper relief. Instead, the prince - now king - withdrew to the dungeons for reprise. But even there every shadow had a beak, and every sound rustled like feathers. More and more time he spent in reclusion, only venturing outside of the keep to attend his sister’s untimely funeral and to greet a passing lord. It was noticed each time (by everyone) that his searching eyes rarely left the sky, his brow never unfurled, and his bones rattled with tremors.

So haunted was he that when his mages offered no panacea, he sought it elsewhere. Mystics, priests, necromancers, potions masters - he paid them all handsomely but none prevailed. He paid them before his advisors. He paid them before his mages. He paid them before his knights. He paid them until the vault stood barren, and then he paid them from his debts. The prince - now king - took no counsel, heeded no warning as those who loved him slowly melted in the heat of his feverish passion. Imagine him standing there - bent by the weight of an omen and gutted by the ghost of a queen.

The vermin in the streets hoarded pestilence like the prince - now king - hoarded promises. A scourging plague arose, sweeping though the populace and claiming many in the keep as well. The ranks of his army fell to desertion and all but his most loyal family fled. The hands of the great clock were ticking ever faster - he could sense it - and he hunkered down to await the strike of midnight.

Then finally, one night, it happened. Fear can fuel a man for years, but it cannot sustain a kingdom. The owl hooted, and the starving, ravaged people heard. The owl hooted, and the flames of discord arose. The owl hooted, and the king fell.