‘The man who gave you this,’ I said, ‘was he tall, and slender, dressed in flowing purple robes?’Yes, yes, that was him.’Give it to me!’The man pulled it clear, tossing it across the clearing. Catching it by the string I dashed it against a rock. The crystal shattered, the stone splitting in half.
‘What was it?’ asked Jarek Mace.
‘A simple Find-stone. The sorcerer places a spell upon the crystal and no matter where it is carried he can always locate it,’I am sorry,’said the man,’but they have my. . .’Corlan moved behind him and his words were cut off by a sharp knife slicing across his throat. Blood gushed from the wound and the dying man’s eyes opened wide. Then he pitched forward to his face and lay twitching upon the grass. Corlan wiped his knife on the dead man’s tunic and rose.
‘We will do as you say, Sorcerer. We will close the roads. We will be the Men of the Morningstar. But if you play us false it will take more than a spell to save you.’I ignored the threat. Fear had risen too fast in me to risk any speech.
‘When do we meet – and where?’ Corlan asked.
‘When the time is right,’ said Jarek Mace. ‘And we will find you.’Corlan nodded and strode back into the forest, his men following. Wulf and Piercollo dragged the corpse back into the undergrowth and returned to the dying fire.
That was impressive, Owen,’ said Mace, squatting down beside me. I said nothing, for I could not pull my gaze from the blood upon the ground. ‘I don’t know how you knew he was a traitor,’ he continued, patting my shoulder, ‘but you did well.’I did not know what to say. Yes, I had suspected the man. Something in the eyes, perhaps, the sheen of sweat upon his brow, the trembling of his hand as he accepted the illusion of fire. But the truth was hard. His guilt had betrayed him, and the mere fact that he had felt guilt showed he was at heart a good man. And I had seen him slain, probably dooming his family.
Did I do well?
I still recall his face and, worse, the look of relief that touched him as the knife released his soul.
For several weeks we journeyed through the high country, stopping at lonely hamlets or small villages, passing through more open areas where dry-stone walls dotted the hills like necklaces and crops grew on ploughed fields.
Ilka travelled with us – though none, I think, invited her. She helped Piercollo with the cooking and stayed close to me as we walked. For a while her company disconcerted me, for whenever I looked at her I found her eyes upon me, the gaze frank and open. But without language the meaning was lost and I found myself hating anew the brutal men who had robbed her of both her childhood and her voice.
Sometimes in the night she would suffer tormented dreams and make sounds that were more animal than human, her mutilated tongue trying to form words. I went to her once in the night, and stroked her hair to calm her. But she awoke and waved me back, her eyes full of fear.
I think she was content in our company. Piercollo liked her, and when he sang she would sit close to him, hugging her knees and rocking gently to the music.
Slowly we worked our way north-west. We did not have any set destination that I can recall; we merely wandered, enjoying the sunshine, moving from town to village, village to town. Occasionally I entertained villagers, offering them the Dragon’s Egg, the Tower of Rabain, and various other well-known enchant-tales. Often I would ask for requests from the audience. The further north we travelled the more the villagers asked for tales of the Elder Days, the great wars of the Vampyre Kings, the heroism of Rabain, the enchantment of Horga.
These tales were not as popular in the south, where the Angostins wished to hear of their own heroes, but the Highlanders loved them. It took me time to learn to fashion the magick images of Rabain and Horga. I practised nightly by our camp-fire, with Wulf and Mace staring intently at the ghostly forms I created.