Gemmell, David – Morningstar

‘You wear the ring,’ he said. The other two men had not moved and I switched my gaze to them. They shimmered and faded in the moonlight, and their heads remained shadowed within the hoods. ‘I am Gareth,’ said the first man, lifting his hand. I saw his ring then – the twin of the one I now wore, the white stone shining like a tiny moon.

‘I found it,’ I told him.

‘I know. It was at the Grey Keep.’My ring,’ came a hoarse whisper from my left. The shimmering figure raised its head and the moonlight fell upon a translucent face, the image drifting between flesh and bone. One moment his features were clear and human, the next, as he moved, the skull shone through. ‘My ring,’ he repeated.

‘It was not my intention to steal it,’ I said.

‘Yet you have it,’ said Gareth.

‘It was upon the hand of a dead man. Is that theft?’

‘You took what was not yours.’I could not argue against such logic and I shrugged. ‘I will return it if you wish.’You read the inscription?’Yes. Guard am I, sword pure, heart strong.’Did you understand it?’No.’Gareth nodded. ‘I thought not. The sorcerer who attacked you – he would have understood. Not enough to be fearful, but enough to wreak chaos. What do we guard, Owen?’I don’t know. Some hidden treasure? A holy relic?’We guarded the Three, lest the evil should come again. Now two have been found, and the third is sought. Where do you stand in this?’How can I answer? I do not know of what you speak.’The skulls, Owen.’Once when I was a small child I was playing on a frozen lake when the ice gave way beneath me. The shock of the icy water to my system was terrifying. Such was the feeling of dread that touched me now when Gareth spoke.

The skull at the keep. One of the Three. One of the Vampyre Kings.

‘Why do you guard them?’ I asked at last.

‘On the orders of Rabain and Horga,’ he answered. ‘When the Kings were slain, it was found that the skulls could not be destroyed. Horga took them and kept them apart. She tried to burn them in fierce furnaces. They were struck repeatedly by iron mallets. They were dropped from high cliff-tops, but they did not shatter on the rocks below, nor were they even marked. At last, defeated by them, Horga and Rabain ordered them to be taken to three secret locations, there to be guarded for eternity by the Ringwearers.’You are a thousand years old?’ I asked him.

He smiled then and shook his head. ‘No. Three families were chosen from among Rabain’s knights. From father to son they passed the rings and the secret. It was never to be spoken of, but the head of the family was pledged to guard the resting-place of the skulls, so that they would never again be brought together.’Why? What peril can come from old bones?’

He shrugged and spread his hands. ‘I cannot say. I do not know. But Horga claimed that if ever they were to be gathered to one place then a great evil would live again. The families were true to the promise of their ancestors. We lived our lives chained to the past, the Ringwearers . . . until ten years ago.’ He pointed to the furthest figure, who still had not moved. ‘Lorin spoke of the skull, and the word reached Azrek. You know of him, I believe?’Yes.’He sent men to the forest, hunters, killers. Lorin fought them off, slaying four of them, but they returned with Cataplas and Lorin died. But first they tortured him until finally he broke and talked of the Grey Keep.

‘Cataplas journeyed there with his killers. Kircaldy was there. He fought also, then barricaded himself upon the tower. Cataplas sent a spell of fire that burned the flesh from his bones, but Cataplas did not find the skull – not until you came and unwittingly made him a gift of it.

‘Now there is only one: the skull of Golgoleth, the greatest of the Vampyre Kings. Cataplas seeks it. Azrek desires it. It must be denied to them.’Do they know where to find it?’I think that they do.’How?’The Kings were joined by sorcery, and there are lines of power between the skulls. One was not enough to locate the others, but with two a skilled sorcerer will be drawn to the third.’What would you have me do?’Kircaldy and Lorin both died before they sired sons. Lorin’s ring was taken by Cataplas, but you have the ring of Kircaldy. Will you take on the responsibility of the promise? Will you become a Ringwearer?’There was no need for me to consider my words. ‘I will,’ I said.

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