AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Delvish shuddered. “An ill weapon. I wonder Andraste doesn’t destroy it once and for all rather than allow such Morkoth evil to linger on.” He stood, adjusting his jacket. Removing his spectacles to wipe them on his handkerchief. Replace them on his whipsaw nose. “I foresaw this happening, you know. Years ago. Tried to warn them, I did. But the true Fey are ever arrogant in their dealings with Other. Always believe they know everything. Ha, for all their wisdom, they didn’t see this one coming, did they?”
Cam came farther into the room, careful to step around the disaster underfoot. Who knew a page under his boot might not be the key to solving this puzzle? “What can you tell us of the goddess blade?”
Delvish moved to a bookcase, half the books gone or lying willy-nilly. “To create an Undying takes mage energy. And lots of it. But not any old magic will do. Oh no.” Running his fingers over the titles, he plucked one from the pile. Handed it to Cam. “It must be power derived from a living source. Not the stale energy of standing stone or barrow mound.” Moved to a shelved cupboard. Pulled first one, then another of the shelves out, removing a parchment. Tossed it to Morgan, who juggled the unexpected missile.
The pile grew as the old man moved through the wreck of his library, searching out tidbits of information. Scraps of knowledge from a past Cam hadn’t even known existed except in fable. Some were written in the same illegible handwriting of the earlier page. Others in ornate monkish Latin. Still more in an archaic cross of Gaelic and what read to him like a slightly odd version of ancient Greek.
Morgan had no trouble reading through the densely packed writings, but for Cam, only a few moments of study sent the room spinning, sent his stomach into his throat as if he’d had too much to drink. Before he humiliated himself by heaving onto the floor, he got up, stretched the worst of the nausea away. Moved to a window for a breath of air.
Morgan held at it, her head perched in her hand, her eyes scanning the pages, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration.
“She’s quite a woman.”
Lord Delvish had followed Cam to the window, his indulgent gaze fixed on Morgan. “She reminds me of her mother. A fiery beauty with the heart of a lion. She led young Davydh Bligh a mighty chase before she allowed him to catch her.”
“Was she Amhas-draoi?”
“Morva Bligh? No, though she could have been. She’d the soul of a crusader. More than likely where Morgana girl gets her spunk, though the Blighs are all fighters. They’ve had to be over the years. Times are never easy for Other. ’Tis a challenge walking that line between worlds.”
Delvish turned his gaze on him, creating a sensation in Cam of millions of fingers probing his brain. Millions of eyes piercing his thoughts. He gripped the sill as his vision narrowed, pinwheels spinning across his line of sight.
“You tread a similar line, Colonel, between the twin sides of yourself. The man you’ve been and the man you will be. A nudge in either direction could tip the scale.”
Some prophecy. Tell him something he didn’t know.
But curious, he motioned toward Morgan. “So if you’re so good at reading the future, what do you see for us?”
“You and my Morgana girl?” Delvish’s face tightened, his eyes going distant as stars. “I see grief. And struggle.”
His body strained to see images invisible to Cam, his pallor growing chalky white. Would he pass out? Pitch over dead? All because Cam wanted to know if he’d end in Morgan’s bed or not? He put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Tried jarring him out of his trance. “Forget it.”
But Delvish remained fixed upon some distant vision.
Cam tried again. A little more force behind his hand. “Stop. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter.” His movement caused a book to fall with a loud clap to the floor. Snapped Delvish awake. “I said forget it.”
His Lordship shook his head, dazed. Shaky. “I saw Neuvarvaan. And you. The great sword descending in an arcing slash of power.” His eyes widened into circles of alarm as he fought to swallow. “The creation of an Undying.”
Chapter 21
Morgan raised her head, eyes weary after so many hours shuffling through pages, but a new fear pricking her heart. “I don’t believe it. No one can use the Other like this.”
Caught dozing, Uncle Owen opened his eyes. “What’s that, Morgana girl?” Cleared his throat. “It’s old magic. Difficult magic. But anyone who can steal away one of the Fey’s chief treasures from under their noses is certainly up to this task.”
“But if he succeeds in puzzling out the Guenguerthlon text and taps into the mage energy lying within the city, he’ll have more than enough magic to call forth the spell of Undying.”
Resettling his spectacles, Uncle Owen sighed. “You’ve stated the case quite succinctly. And from what you’ve told me of this Buchanan fellow, he’s neither hindered by the strictures placed upon him by the Order of Amhas-draoi, nor does he seem worried about the penalties meted out by the Fey on those who betray them.”
“He sees Neuvarvaan as his route to rivaling the Fey. Becoming immortal. All-powerful. And with an army of unkillable warriors who’s to say he won’t do it.”
“Isn’t that why you’ve come? You and Colonel Sinclair? You’re the two who will see that Doran Buchanan is stopped.”
She stretched the kinks out of back and neck, her gaze sweeping the library. Speaking of Cam, where had he run off to? He’d been quiet for hours, seemingly lost in thought, but she’d never heard him leave.
Uncle Owen paused in the midst of rooting through the ruin of his desk. “Your colonel’s gone to rustle us up some supper. Ah, there it is,” he said, finding what he searched for.
“Not my colonel. We’re only working together. Though I can’t fight what I can’t track. And the fog of Other mage energy makes it impossible to pick up any one strand.”
Flipping open an enamel snuff
