‘I would have it no other way.’The village was almost unrecognizable from the sleepy hamlet where I had first seen Ilka and Megan, where I learned to cure meats and filled my days with the splitting of logs and the playing of the harp. There were canvas tents pitched all along the lakeside, makeshift shelters erected close to the trees. Hundreds of people had moved down from the mountains as word of the fall of Ziraccu spread through the forest.
Even as Mace and I emerged from the woods we could see a line of wagons on the far hills, wending its way down to the settlement.
People were milling around in the town centre, and such was the crush that Mace passed unrecognized within it until we reached the calm of Megan’s cabin.
The old woman was lying on her back, apparently asleep, an elderly man sitting beside her. It was the same man who had tended her in the village of Ocrey, when she was burned by Cataplas’ spell.
‘How is she, Osian?’ I asked him. He looked up, his pale blue eyes cold and unwelcoming.
‘She is preparing for the journey,’ he said, the words harsh, his bitterness plain.
Megan opened her eyes, her head tilting on the pillow. ‘The conquering heroes return,’ she whispered.
The room smelt of stale sweat and the sickly, sweet aroma of rotting flesh. Her face was grey, the skin beneath the eyes and beside the mouth tinged with blue. I swallowed hard, trying to compose my features so that the shock of her condition would not register. It was futile. My face was an open window and the clouds of my sorrow were plain for her to see. ‘I am dying, Owen,’ she said. ‘Come – sit beside me.’Osian rose, his old joints creaking, and slowly made his way out into the sunlight. I sat on the bed and took hold of Megan’s hand. The skin was hot and dry, the absence of flesh making talons of her fingers.
‘I am so sorry,’ I said.
‘Carleth’s assassin had poison upon his blade,’ she told me. ‘Help me upright!’Mace fetched a second pillow and I lifted her into position. She weighed next to nothing and her head sagged back on a neck too thin to support it. ‘I should be dead by now,’ she said, ‘but my Talent keeps my soul caged in this rotting shell.’ She smiled weakly at Mace. ‘Go out into the sun, Morningstar,’ she ordered him. He backed away swiftly, gratefully, without a word, and Megan and I were alone. ‘Like many strong men he cannot stand the sight of sickness,’ she said. Her head rolled on the pillow and her gaze fastened to mine. ‘Such heartache you have suffered, Owen. Such pain.’I nodded, but did not speak. ‘She was a good girl, bonny and brave,’ she continued.
‘Don’t say any more,’ I pleaded, for I could feel myself losing control. I took a deep breath. ‘Let us talk of other things.’Do not let your grief make you push her away,’ she warned me, ‘for then she would be truly dead.’I think of her all the time, Megan. I just cannot speak of her.’You won, poet. You destroyed the evil, you made the land safe. But it is not over.’The Vampyre Kings will not return,’ I told her. ‘They are gone – and we have the skulls.’And yet Mace will face Golgoleth again,’ she whispered. I shivered and drew back.
‘What do you mean?’Exactly what I say. With sword in hand he must cross the walls of the castle and challenge the Lord of the Vampyres. And next time he will not have you to send a shining shaft to his rescue. But he will have me.’Her eyes were distant, unfocused, and I could see that she was becoming delirious. I held to her hand, stroking the dry skin. ‘He will be gone from you, but he will return. I waited so long. So long . . . The circle of time spins . . . spins.’ She was silent for a little while, staring at some point in the past, some ancient memory that brought a smile to her face.