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“I can, aye, and will, despite the bloody headache that’ll give me. Did she tell you any of what she remembered?”
“All of it.”
“Then I’ll take more than the minute, and as much as you need to tell me. I’ll read it myself as well, but that’s a miserable process. Sit.” Now he picked up the ale. “Tell the tale.”
He didn’t sit while she related it as carefully as she could, but paced. Bollocks watched him for a while, then stretched out long by the fire for a doze.
He didn’t interrupt or speak at all, even when she paused to drink or to think through the next part.
“Then she gave me the book,” Breen finished, “so you could read it for yourself.”
“And so I will. Why, I wonder, has this tale never been told that I know of?”
“It’s my impression it’s only in that book, and one that was passed down in her family, as those children’s stories. It may be just that, Keegan.”
He shook his head. “It has the ring of truth in it. There are tales of Odran’s mother, and they vary. She was stolen and taken by force by a lustful god, or she gave another a sleeping potion and stole his essence to make her child. And all between those. But none have that ring of truth as this does.”
“But it ends with him being put to death.”
“And there you have the child’s story. The punishment for evil deeds, harsh and final. Not the half measures. And put to death he wasn’t, was he? Cast out, banished, stripped of the luxuries the gods enjoy. It may not be precisely what’s written in that book, but the heart of it—or lack of heart—that has the ring. Consuming the demon, and a maid at that.”
“It’s always a virgin.”
“Well, it’s a matter of purity, however unjust. An abduction, a rape, a murder—the gods are known to sometimes dally in those. But all of that, and the devouring of another? All for power?”
He shook his head as he paced to the window, back again.
“No, that’s beyond what could stand, be excused, be punished in small ways. And for power coveted over them, the gods, as well as all else. Aye, there’s the answer to that.”
“Okay, it has to be asked. Why don’t they stop him now? Or why haven’t they?”
“It’s for us.” As if it was the simplest of matters, he shrugged. “They’ve passed their Judgment on him. And it’s for us to pass oursfor his crimes against the rest. The worlds are separate now. Dorcas may be in the right that this was the beginning of that. But they’re separate, and while it may be the gods themselves will go at him if he destroys us, that’s for their own reasons. You’re the key, and that’s all they’ll give.”
“That’s stupidly shortsighted.”
“Or slyly, very long.”
She opened her mouth, closed it.
Or slyly, she thought, very long.
“I’ll read the story for myself when I’ve finished what I need to do yet. And doom some poor messenger to get it back to Dorcas safe tomorrow.”
“She and your grandfather had a one-night stand.”
“On what did they stand?”
“No, they were lovers, for a night.”
He looked sincerely horrified. “My grandfather?”
“Actually, there would be severalgreats there. An ancestor, great—however many—grandfather. She thinks his name was Owain. He was vigorous.”
He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I call on the gods of all goodness to spare me from such as this.”
She laughed until her sides ached. “She also says you’re handsome and she’s sure equally vigorous.”
“Sweet gods.”
