“And she has it right enough,” Keegan said as he came back in. “My mother is calling the rest of the council, and will tell them what I need to do. I won’t wait for them to debate and argue and drag it all out to do what I need to do.”
“You’re taoiseach,” Marg told him. “Your duty’s clear.”
“Aye, it’s clear. I ask you now to be council in the valley, to hold that trust sacred, to swear it. To swear to speak truth to me as you know it, to stand for the law. To stand for Talamh. You’ve already sworn,” he said to Marg, “but I ask you to swear again.”
“And so I do.”
As he went around the table, Breen felt the doubts want to rise up. But he met her eyes, waited.
“I swear it.”
“In the Capital the council has representatives from every tribe.” On a hiss, Keegan dragged a hand through his hair. “I can’t take time for that at this moment, but will deal with it.”
Out of long-ingrained habit, Breen raised a hand. For a moment, Keegan just stared at her.
“This isn’t a bloody classroom. Speak if you’ve something to say.”
“I’m going to say you have the blood of all tribes in you. You, Harken, Aisling. So, it could be said you represent all.”
Now he frowned, even as Harken gave her a nod of approval.
“I can work with that,” Keegan decided. “Politics is bollocks half the time, and that I can work with. But for now we start with the maps of Talamh, and its portals. Then the maps of other worlds, the outside, and theirs.”
He took a map from the server, unrolled it on the table.
Breen’s first thought was that it was a beautiful piece of art, surely hand drawn and lettered with the dragon banner flying over it. Beautifully detailed as well, as she recognized places she’d been.
The Capital, of course, with its castle and bridges, the sea, the forest, the village, to the Far West and the wild cliffs and stone dance.
Then Keegan laid his hands on the parchment, and it glowed under his palms.
When he lifted them, she saw that markings had appeared. Small circles in dragon’s-heart red that shined with light.
“Here are the portals of Talamh, each named for the world or place it leads to and from. There are twelve. There are more worlds than this, of course, and some of these worlds have portals that lead to other worlds as well. A traveler may pass through two, even three to reach the one desired—and approved.”
“There’s another.” Sedric laid a finger in the center of the dance in the Far West. “It’s a kind of door, but inside only. Entering here, you can travel to any place in Talamh. It needs precision and care to use, as without that you might come out in front of a galloping horse or, as I did once as a boy, on a crumbling cliff ledge in a high wind.”
“It could save considerable time when it’s needed,” Keegan considered. “I’ve never heard of this.”
“It was rarely used even when I was a boy, and its location closely guarded. As I was told more than one who used it in long times past came to harm, even death by not calculating with accuracy. And as it closes behind you, you have to make your way back by other means.”
“One-way trip,” Breen mused. “That wouldn’t help Odran, as he’d not only have to know about it, he’d have to be inside Talamh to use it.”
“Yseult may know.” Marg frowned at the map. “And may have found a way to use it to move freely in Talamh.”
“If so, she won’t find it free to her now. We have the base there, so will keep close watch.”
“There was another.”
“Was?”
Sedric nodded at Keegan’s question and stood to bend over the map. “It lost its light before my time, before the time of the old wizard who trained me in the portals. It may have been lore more than truth, but somewhere in the forest in the Capital. Here, I was told, held the fourteenth portal of Talamh. There may have been more in the long past, but I never found them. And I looked,” he added with a small smile. “In my adventurous youth. Though I never found this one, as told to me, I felt some echo of what had been.”
“Where did it lead?”
“I don’t know, nor does anyone, to my knowledge. I found nothing written on it, no song, no story, no legend other than what I was once told. What I once felt.”
“We have those traveling outside, and even without that, we don’t seal the other portals. If Odran’s planning to use one to attack, he’d know. While he doesn’t, we have an advantage. Mahon, we’ll need guards, trusted and seasoned ones, for each portal.”