by Terry Brooks
He ran his big hands through his coarse, dark hair and down over his face, wiping away the tears that streaked his cheeks. “I want to believe that. I want to believe what you tell me. But something … something keeps me from doing so. Doubts I cannot shake. They haunt me. I see you with him. Then I see you with Sider.” He shook his head once more. “It drives me half mad. I can barely function. That’s why I didn’t come sooner. I couldn’t make myself.”
She put her arms around him and held him. “Something is very wrong here. Something more than what has happened to me. Something has infected the whole village. It hasn’t felt right here for days, but I had dismissed it until I was imprisoned. We have to find out what it is. You and I. We have to remember who we are and what we mean to each other. You are my husband, and I love you. Sider Ament is dead and gone, and the past is gone with him. You and I are the present. But we are threatened, Pogue. Our home is threatened. Glensk Wood and our friends and neighbors, too. Can’t you feel it?”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve wondered.”
“Have you sent anyone to defend Declan Reach yet? Has there been any word from Esselline?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t even thought about Esselline or the passes. Skeal Eile said …”
He trailed off. She looked in his eyes and saw the confusion and uncertainty mirrored there. This wasn’t like Pogue—nothing like him at all. He was strong and firm and decisive. He would never equivocate as he was doing now.
“Go to the council and ask that I be brought before them to answer to the charges lodged against me,” she begged. “Ask that I be given a chance to defend myself. Please.”
He nodded slowly. “I will, Aislinne. I will do that.” He sounded stronger now, less uncertain. “I should have done it before. I’m sorry. I didn’t want any of this to happen to you.”
He bent forward, this big man, and kissed her softly on the forehead. The gesture was hesitant, almost as if he thought she might break under the weight of his touch.
Then he turned and went over to the door, calling loudly for the guard to come let him out.
THE RAGPICKER, who had been listening outside, stepped away quickly and headed back up the stairs to the council chambers. The guard hadn’t noticed him; the ragpicker had used magic to make certain of that. He had suspected that it would be wise to listen in on Pogue Kray and his wife when he had heard the latter announce to Skeal Eile his plan to visit her. The council leader wasn’t a strong man when it came to his wife. Even as subverted as he was by the ragpicker’s magic and as convinced by Skeal Eile’s insistence on his wife’s infidelity, he was influenced more by his love for her than by anything else. The ragpicker had known that at some point his hold over the big man would weaken and his plans would have to change.
As he departed the building and went out into the midday sunlight, he was already considering his choices in the matter.
First, he could kill the woman. He could make it look like suicide, and once she was dead she wouldn’t be able to dispute anything. On the other hand, it would likely mean the end of any hold he had over Pogue Kray and a possible collapse of his larger plan for the village and ultimately the boy who carried the black staff.
Second, he could let the woman have her chance to dispute the charges and rely upon his own “witnesses”—compelled to say what he wanted them to say—to convince the council she was lying. That was a big gamble. The woman was strong-willed and well respected in the community, and there were already those who were questioning the decision to lock her away.
Third, he could put his larger plan into action right away and remove all possibility of disruption.
Deciding which choice to select was surprisingly easy. The ragpicker already knew which one it would be.
He walked on through the village to the home of Skeal Eile and without bothering to knock walked through the door. The Seraphic would be home. He had given him instructions to stay there until he returned from spying on Pogue Kray. These days, enmeshed as he was in the machinations of the demon and convinced that his participation would eventually yield results favorable to his own ambitions, Skeal Eile always did what he was told.
The Seraphic came down the stairs from his second-floor lodgings and looked past the ragpicker quickly, checking to see if someone had followed him. The ragpicker smiled. Skeal Eile was still worried about appearances when appearances were the last thing he should be thinking about.
“Was he persuaded by her?” the other asked quickly. His sharp-featured face looked troubled. “Did he listen to her?”
“He will ask the council to allow her to speak in her defense. He will ask that she be allowed to confront her accusers. We will have to produce the witnesses we claim we have. Unfortunate, but it can be done.”
The Seraphic stepped away, shaking his head. “I don’t like this. Aislinne Kray is dangerous. It would be better if we simply killed her.”
“Would it?” The ragpicker frowned. “I notice you haven’t done so before this. What makes it any wiser to kill her now?”
“We have her charged with a crime and imprisoned. It would be a simple matter to arrange her death. Suicide. Guilt and the ensuing depression over her betrayal led her to take her life, we would say.” He shrugged. “Pogue would be upset, but he would get over it. He doesn’t love her all that much.”
The ragpicker shook his head. Idiot. He loves her more than you think. “It creates problems we don’t need. It would be easier if everyone simply forgot about this woman. It would be better if they had their attention focused elsewhere.”
The Seraphic looked at him with renewed interest. “You have something in mind?”
The ragpicker paused, thinking how best to word what he wanted to say so as not to alert the man to what was coming. It was time to end this charade, but he wanted things to go smoothly.
“I think we need to consider moving ahead more quickly with our plan for you to take control of your followers—as well as those who might be persuaded to become your followers. A demonstration of your strength is needed. An example must be made. The woman is an obstacle that needs removing, but first you need for all the people of Glensk Wood to recognize that you are the proper person to lead them. That as Seraphic of the Children of the Hawk, you are the logical choice—not Pogue Kray.”
Skeal Eile nodded eagerly. “I agree. But the people will not choose me over Pogue. They accept me as leader of the sect, but not of the entire village. How am I to change that?”
“Can you not simply persuade them?” The ragpicker’s voice was sly and insinuating. “Can you not use your oratorical skills and your nascent magic? How can you lead if you cannot command?”
The Seraphic flushed. “This is your idea,” he said petulantly. “Instead of questioning my abilities, shouldn’t you be advising me? You have the experience and the magic. You are the demon!”
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and terror filled his eyes. “I didn’t mean … I was just making a point that …”
Whatever he intended, it came too late to save him. He must have seen it in the ragpicker’s eyes because he tried to turn and flee. But he was an ordinary man and no more, while the ragpicker was exactly what the other had called him and much too quick to be denied. The demon seized the Seraphic’s wrists and locked his fingers about them. Skeal Eile’s face twisted in pain, and he struggled desperately to escape, flailing wildly and hauling back with all the strength he could muster to break the ragpicker’s grip. But strength of the sort the ragpicker possessed far surpassed that of the Seraphic, and the latter’s attempts were in vain.
Slowly, inexorably, the ragpicker dragged his prisoner close—so close that they were soon eye-to-eye with almost no distance between them.
“I fear you are losing control of yourself, Skeal Eile,” the ragpicker whispered. “I fear you are incapable of holding your tongue. You seem content to let your emotions rule your common sense, even when you should know better.”
/>
“No, please!” The Seraphic was still fighting, but the fear in his eyes told his captor he was already beaten. “Let me go! I won’t say another word to anyone! I’ll leave! I’ll go away! Far away! You won’t ever see me again!” Tears began streaming down his hatchet face. “I’ll do anything you say! Anything!”
The ragpicker smiled. “All true. Every word of it, Seraphic. Even if not in the way you intended.”
Skeal Eile tried to scream, but the ragpicker’s bony hand flashed to his neck and pressed against a bundle of nerves and muscle buried beneath his skin. There was a sharp pain, and suddenly he could no longer speak. He resumed fighting, but it was a weaker, resigned effort. His spirit was broken, and he saw his own end.
“Hold steady, now,” the ragpicker whispered, eyes bright and predatory as he leaned close. “This will only take a moment.”
SKEAL EILE TRIED to fight against what was happening, but he was powerless against the creature that held him. He knew it was a demon he fought against, and he understood what that meant. He even understood in general terms the nature of his inevitable fate. He was going to die. He had crossed a line, and he was going to pay the price. At some point, he had lost his perspective completely by allowing this creature into his life, by embracing its cause as his own, by accepting it as an ally. Always so careful before, always making certain that he was the master and not the slave, this time he had forgotten himself.
He thought suddenly of Bonnasaint, whom he had not heard from since the other left on his hunt for Panterra Qu. What had become of him? No word at all, and nothing to suggest whether he had done what he was supposed to do.
He thought of the Drouj, Arik Siq, and found a sudden, perverse satisfaction in the fact that he would return with his people, and they would decimate the valley. What difference if he died now? The end was decided for all of them.
He thought of Isoeld—vain and ambitious and foolish—now Queen of the Elves and thinking herself safe. Perhaps she was, for the moment. Perhaps her stepdaughter would come to a bad end, just as her husband had. Perhaps she would find a way to make that happen. Perhaps she would even find a way to escape the Drouj. But sooner or later, she would find herself on the receiving end of a long knife, dying in the same way her husband had, an expendable pawn in someone else’s schemes.
Then, suddenly, something was happening to him. He could feel himself being turned about so that he was facing away from the demon. He could feel the other pressing against him from behind. The pressure was intense, and then it was excruciating. He was being crushed. He tried to scream, but his vocal cords had been silenced and no sound came from his open mouth. He gasped and panted and drooled as the pressure increased to a point beyond bearable, and all he wanted to do was to make it stop.
“Good-bye, Seraphic,” he heard the demon whisper.
He experienced a strange sense of invasion, as if the other were reaching inside him to make room for himself. His body seemed to widen and stretch to allow for this, his organs pushed aside and his bones broken and shattered. He shrieked silently, but he could only hear the sounds he was making in his head. He begged for it to stop, to be over. He fought to keep himself together, but he was already beginning to disappear. His thoughts scattered and his mind lost focus. Everything began to close down and turn fuzzy. The pain eased slightly, and a strange sense of listlessness replaced it. There was nothing left for him. Nothing.
At some point, he could feel the demon’s thoughts begin to intermingle with his own, as if the demon had gotten inside his head. In a few brief seconds, all of the demon’s dark memories were revealed to him. All the years spent hunting down humans, all the killings and destruction witnessed and perpetrated, all the terrible ravages that had led to the destruction of the old world—they were there in his mind.
He thought he would go insane, but before that happened his brain simply quit working and his world went dark.
WHEN IT WAS FINISHED, the ragpicker gave himself a moment to adjust to his new look. He hunched his shoulders and stretched his arms, testing the fit of his new skin, adapting to his new appearance. He walked over to the window and looked at his reflection in the glass. What he saw pleased him.
He was no longer the ragpicker. He was Skeal Eile.
But a better, stronger, more capable Skeal Eile, freed from the other’s mortal weaknesses and limitations.
The demon smiled. The Seraphic had served his purpose, but his usefulness was ended. What was needed now he could best accomplish on his own.
What was needed was an event so shocking it would bring the bearer of the black staff running right to him.
WORD TRAVELED QUICKLY, AND BY THE END OF the day people were flocking to the village square in Glensk Wood to gather for the address that the Seraphic of the Children of the Hawk had announced he would deliver. They came not just from within the village proper, but from miles away, traveling by whatever means they could. It would be an announcement of cataclysmic proportions, it was rumored—one that promised to be life changing. No details were offered, not even to Pogue Kray and the members of the village council. The Seraphic had declared that all present would hear the announcement together so that there could be no mistaking its meaning. Those who could not come at once might hear of it later, but by then it would almost certainly be too late.
But too late for what? No one knew. They pondered those words, every last one of them, and then each determined individually to be in attendance and began making their plans on how they would do so.
Although curiosity brought some of them, mention of the Hawk brought many more. For the fate of the Children of the Hawk and of the sect itself was at the center of what the Seraphic would reveal, the rumors continued, and all those who believed must be present when that fate was announced.
By sundown, the village was filled with people who had come from everywhere, all of them crammed together in the village square and spilling out from there into the side streets and pathways. There was never any question of attempting to get all of them under one roof; there was no building large enough to house so many. The Seraphic would address them out of doors—outside, where the Hawk had always wanted them to make their homes. All in attendance would be able to hear the Seraphic’s words, no matter how far away they stood, no matter how much noise interfered with their hearing. It was a promise given by the head of the order, and as such it was a promise that would be kept.
When the sun had sunk to just above the western horizon, fleeing quickly now from the dark shadow of night’s approach, the Seraphic ordered the torches lit. As the darkness engulfed the last of the sun’s fading light and the pitch fires of the burning brands were all they had by which to see, he mounted the wooden steps to the platform he had ordered constructed and faced the crowd.
The demon that had cloaked itself in the skin of Skeal Eile would have laughed aloud had it been possible to safely do so. They were like sheep, these humans—ready to follow, eager to be led, happy to be told what was needed. He could see it in their faces and hear it in their hushed voices as the crowd noise slowly diminished. He could feel it in the vibration of the night air.
They were primed and ready for something magical. They expected no less. And he would give it to them, while they, in turn, would give him readily and willingly what he would otherwise take by force.
Seated just behind him on a row of wooden benches, the village council sat watching. Centered in their midst was Pogue Kray. He had tried to talk to the man who appeared to be Skeal Eile earlier in the day, wanting to tell him that he intended to release his wife and allow her to face her accusers. The power of the magic that the demon had used to hold him in thrall had dissipated. He was a different man, no longer distrusting, believing now that his wife had been wronged. But his change of heart came too late. His fate was sealed. The demon had put him off with cautionary words, suggesting this was not the time, hinting that all of his concerns would be addressed before the night was over and those who had
transgressed or been accused of transgressions would find a lasting peace. For tonight, he promised, the Children of the Hawk would come into their own, and the village of Glensk Wood and all its people, believers or not, would be the better for it.
He kept it vague, but purposeful, and the leader of the council was turned aside.
Which was necessary, the demon knew. The council leader’s patience was waning, and the demon knew that if he did not like what he heard this night, he would stand and object. He would repudiate Skeal Eile and his sect in front of the people. He would try to turn those gathered against the Seraphic.
Oh, yes, he would try, even though it was a foregone conclusion that he would fail. Still, by failing he would serve a larger purpose.
The demon stepped forward, outwardly Skeal Eile to those gathered, the Seraphic of the Children of the Hawk. Heads turned and the din of conversation stilled.
“Friends! Neighbors! Believers in the Way of the Hawk! Fellow citizens of this valley home!”
His voice rose, echoing out across the square and down the side streets and pathways, amplified a dozen times over. There was no one who could not hear him, no one whose attention was not immediately commanded. All fell silent in the wake of his call to order and its reverberations through the branches of the trees. He lifted his arms high and then slowly lowered them, as if drawing those gathered to him, a shepherd summoning his flock.
“Today we begin the reclamation of our heritage. Today we commit to putting an end to the threats we have endured these past few weeks from those heathen that occupy the old world and would occupy ours, as well. They camp just without the walls of our valley. They seek to find a way to come inside. They would kill us and enslave us and put an end to all we have been promised.”
His hands lowered, but he kept them lifted slightly, palms up, still gathering them to him. “Five centuries have we waited for a sign. Our teachings tell us the Hawk promised he would send us that sign when the protective wall fell. He would tell us when it was right and proper for us to go out into the larger world and reclaim what was once ours. He would return to lead us, to take us to our new home, to give us back what was stolen from us. Do you believe this, brethren? Do you?”