“What I’ve yet to tell you, as the news came from the valley before I could, he plans a ritual sacrifice to Odran on Samhain.”
Keegan whipped around. “He would dare?”
“He would. They’ve stolen a child, a little girl, have her under a sleeping spell, locked in the bowels of the round tower. They plan to offer her up to Odran once his soldiers come through. To help keep the portal open. She’s to be burned at the stake in the last hour of Samhain.”
“And this is what they deem worship.” Keegan slammed his tankard down, shoved up again. “How did you come by this?”
“Two of ours, elves, slipped in and, one with the stone walls, heard clearly. I can tell you, with confidence, Toric has no more than a score with him.”
“There’ll be others across Talamh. Others here in the south as well who don’t wear the robes. How many guard the girl?”
“None.” Mahon shook his head. “Such is their arrogance—or what they call faith. She sleeps and deep, and is locked away.”
“Let’s be sure of that. We’ll send elves back in to watch over her until tomorrow, when we’ll get her to safety. To take her out now reveals too much. Toric and those of Odran’s who live through the night will be taken to the Capital for the Judgment.”
“They pray. I heard their chanting prayers for peace and bounty when I spoke with Toric. What makes them think burning young girls and slaughtering Fey is the way to peace?”
“Their peace means power over all. They won’t have it. I need the air.”
“Keegan—”
“And I want to walk through the village, the markets, pay a visit to the Prayer House.” So saying, Keegan covered his face with his hands.
His hair went gray and sparse, his face lined, sagging at the jowls. On his chin grew a small, pointed beard.
Amused, Mahon gestured with his ale. “Your face will work right enough, but there’s the rest of you.”
“Ah, so there is.”
His body thinned to gaunt; his shoulders stooped. He wore roped sandals, a cloth cap, patched trousers, and an aged tunic. His sword became a crooked cane.
“All right, Old Father, we’ll get some air. I’ll say, should anyone trouble to ask, you’re an old friend of my family, newly arrived in the south for the sea air.”
Keegan rubbed a hand at his throat so his voice came out in a wispy croak. “Sean, it is. A holy man and hermit who’s come to spend his final days by the southern seas.”
He had to remember to slow and shorten his gait as Mahon walked with him through the village known for its pretty fruit and fresh fish. Those who bartered had a cheerful air. Many came south, he knew, for holidays.
To take to the water or sail boats over it, to watch their young ones play in the deep gold sand of the beach.
They came, he thought, without knowing a battle would rage in little more than a day.
There could be no warning, or the dark would skulk back to its hole. So he could only protect, defend. And fight to bring those who invited that dark to justice.
He studied the roll of the sea, as lovely as any he’d seen in any world. He heard children laughing, watched lovers stroll along the surf, smelled the sea and the fish and sweets fresh baked.
The world, his world, was a bright and peaceful place, full of joy and plenty. And even now a young girl slept, bespelled so she could be sacrificed to one who wanted dark and blood.
“Do you want to rest, Old Father?”
“I have a thirst, boy, but I would pay respects to the Pious before I slake it. I would add a prayer to theirs for the peace of Talamh and all the worlds.”
Keegan hobbled his way from the village proper and its markets, from the balm of the sea air, away from the near woods to where the tower and the Prayer House stood on a rise.
There, they’d pledged to devote themselves to the needs of any who came, to spend their lives in prayer and good works while they rose over the village, the sea, the farms, the boats.
Eian, and the taoiseach before him, and Marg, and the taoiseach before her, and all for more than six hundred years had honored that pledge. They’d given the Pious who had no part in the persecutions, and those after them who put on the robes, this place in the south to worship in peace.
And he, Keegan thought, would be the one to end that peace.
He climbed, windily, up the steps in the hill even as his eyes—sharp behind the clouds of great age he’d added to them—scanned robed figures who worked gardens or walked with hands clasped under the sleeves of their robes.