AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Like a knife along slate, the scrape of that familiar voice burned along Brendan’s bones, turning his blood to ice. Squaring his shoulders, he bowed his way beneath the doorway, allowing no glimpse of anything less than perfect confidence to cross his face. Máelodor wanted a groveling, terrified prisoner. Instead he’d find a mage as skillful and determined as himself.
Brendan entered the gloomy room, a sulking fire burning to a few dull coals in the hearth, shutters drawn over the narrow window. The stuffy warmth caused sweat to bead upon Brendan’s forehead and cling stickily to his back.
His host rose stiffly from an armchair. Leaning heavily upon a staff, he stepped out of the shadows.
Son of a bitch! Bile chewed its way up Brendan’s throat as he tried not to show by even the flickering of an eyelid his complete repulsion. Was this the price for manipulating the forbidden magics? Would this have been his fate had he continued to work the dark arts?
It had been less than a year since he’d last seen Máelodor, and in that time a horrible change had overtaken the master-mage. As a Heller, he had always possessed the ability to call upon the power of his fetch animal—even to take
on certain characteristics of that animal—but as the Unseelie magic consumed him, the line between animal and man was blurring in unspeakable ways.
He’d lost all his hair, his scalp and forehead rough and crusty, except for the patches that had been replaced by glistening gray-green scales. His nose had flattened so that the nostrils were mere slits on either side of a narrow bump of cartilage, his mouth no more than a lipless grinning slash. His eyes protruded beneath scaly ridges that must have once been eyebrows, the slitted irises bearing a fevered intensity.
Yet, the trade-off was obvious. Máelodor’s power throbbed the air, his personal wards impenetrable. If he’d been strong before, now he was damn near invincible. The strength needed to bring him down would need to be equally formidable.
“No greeting for an old ally, Douglas? A man you once called comrade? Friend?” His eyes blazed. “Uncle?”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Brendan replied smoothly. “Father may have honored you with his friendship, but you were always just poor old Simpkins to the rest of us. A dreary functionary with a flair for the dramatic. I see nothing’s changed.”
The backhand rattled his teeth in his head. Disgusting and disgustingly strong. A bad combination.
“Respect your elders and your betters, boy. A shame your father didn’t beat that lesson into you along with all the others. He might still be alive.” His hand shot out, grabbing Brendan’s chin, squeezing hard as he turned Brendan’s face this way and that. “You’ve more and more the look of Kilronan. The favorite son, weren’t you? How he loved you, the deluded fool.”
Brendan wrenched away, coming up hard against the servant Oss’s chest.
A slow, ugly smile parted Máelodor’s mouth in a black gape. “Touched a nerve, have I? Do you grieve for the old man still? Do you wonder how he died? I can tell you if you ask nicely. I can tell you how they all died. All but you . . . and me. Sole survivors of Amhas-draoi vengeance.” His voice dropped to a cold, snaky hiss. “The only two left who dared to dream for all Other and were punished for their vision.”
“It was madness, and you know it. Any war begun by the Other will end in our destruction.”
“Is that why you betrayed us?” Máelodor pushed himself into Brendan’s face, the grotesque snake-man features stomach-turning. “Or was it to save your own cowardly skin?” Clutching Brendan’s shirt at the shoulders, he ripped it away, exposing the crescent-and-arrow tattoo sloping down over Brendan’s collarbone onto his chest. “You were one of us. Trusted. Valued. A leader to those who envied our abilities. And you threw it all away.” He shrugged away with a flip of his fingers. “A shame in the end your treachery earned you nothing. And now you’ll lose everything.”
Oss’s fist shot out with inhuman speed. The kidney punch exploded along Brendan’s nerves. With a cry, he landed on his knees, his gut on fire. The follow-up kick to his ribs knocked him onto his back, the air driven from his lungs.
He slammed his mind shut before the retaliatory crack of power seared the air between them. He’d not fight back. Not while Elisabeth remained in danger. He’d bide his time. And hope there was enough left of him when the moment came to make Máelodor regret laying a finger to him.
The albino stood over him in readiness for another blow.
“Enough, Oss,” Máelodor demanded. “Where are our manners? He’s a guest.”
Oss dragged Brendan by the shoulders into a chair, where he fought back the wave of cold nausea rolling his insides. Forced himself to meet Máelodor’s gaze with a stoic, measured stare.
“Isn’t there someone else awaiting an audience? Douglas, you’ll be interested to meet him as well, I believe.”
Oss stalked to the door with a gesture to someone lurking about in the passage.
Rogan entered, his eyes searching the room, lighting for a moment upon Brendan with a grimace before settling upon Máelodor in his chair. He was not as successful at hiding his shock, but it was a reaction quickly schooled, though Brendan noted the harper’s gaze never rested squarely on the master-mage; rather, it darted here and there in nervous agitation.
Máelodor ushered him forward with an imperious wave of his hand. “I’m told you’ve brought us a gift.”
Rogan nodded as he pulled a leather pouch from his coat pocket. Turned it over in his hand to shake it. Into his palm dropped the Sh’vad Tual.
Its facets shimmered at first silver and ivory and palest gold, deepening to amber, then bronze then orange and coral, and finally black. Light flickered within it, a rippling, angry movement as if something fought to escape. The faint ringing of bells stirred the heavy air of the room, a chime deepening to a sonorous tolling that throbbed Brendan’s temples.
Images flashed through his consciousness. A hidden glade. A toppled stone. A man with hair like flame. A sky dark as blood. And always a constant overlapping of voices in a language like music or running water or the earth as it cools in the night.
Rogan hurried forward to present the stone to Máelodor, whose smile now stretched to his ears—which, like his nose, had receded into his skull until they were but holes on either side of his head. “Arthur’s return is finally at hand. The race of Other will once more hold a place of authority and respect. No more will they be treated like creatures of the devil and chased into the corners of the world like vermin.” He looked down on Rogan as an emperor upon his subject. “For such a treasure, you have my eternal gratitude and may ask any price.”
Rogan swept a deep, theatrical bow. “You are generous to such a humble foot soldier as myself. I would rejoice to see that glorious and celebrated day.”
