The Dark Thorn (9 page)

“What do you mean, Mother?”

—What would you know of me, Child—

Deirdre paused, unsure how to proceed. In death, there were events hidden from her mother, both past and future. Never had she pronounced such a dire prediction. The dead also rarely spoke linearly—a question could lead to a wholly different avenue of discussion—the riddles maddening to unravel.

“Who wants me alive? What harm?” Deirdre pleaded anyway. “Mother, do you mean Philip Plantagenet? John Lewis Hugo? Who?”

—A lord of shadows is in the world once more, stirring evil—

“A lord? I don’t understand!”

—I know not, Child. It is not for me to know. Or you—

Deirdre frowned, thinking.

“What am I to do about this marriage proposal?” she asked instead, hoping for the help she had come for.

—You will love, Child. It will be the love of your life—

She almost laughed. “With Philip Plantagenet?”

—The lives of the Outworlder King and my Child are intertwined like vines, to be cut at the harvest—

“No…that cannot be, Mother!”

The Rosemere hissed at her vehemence. The dead did not like being angered once called. Deirdre stood her ground. They could not harm her, not unless she disengaged from the pool or stepped within its boundaries to enter their world.

Deirdre took a deep breath.

“I refuse to believe I will be with Plantagenet,” she said. “That is not my destiny.”

—A destiny is dark until the present sheds light on it—

“Mother, what am I to do?”

—Nothing you desire will come to be. Only what you fear will come to pass—

“You are saying I cannot prevent what comes?”

—Look here. Death—

In her mind’s eye, she saw a vision. Smoke blew across a battlefield littered with bodies of the dead and dying. The scene possessed no sound, but Deirdre imagined wailing on the air. Bloodied twisted creatures milled among bodies of men and Tuatha de Dannan alike, their limbs unnaturally angled by savage intention. She was in the battle, being pulled away from a fire that was being swallowed by darkness. Then an unknown man cradled her, but his attention was drawn to the sky where a brilliant fire burned the heavens.

—Death—

The vision changed.

Darkness surrounded her, suffocating her, until she realized she was in the depths of a great mountain honeycombed with labyrinthine passageways. She was not alone, though. A creature stalked her, its baleful red eyes fixed on her but also not fixed on her, its body as insubstantial as smoke but deadlier than any beast Deirdre had encountered or read about. She ran but it chased, impossibly fast, until the very stone walls collapsed and true night suffocated her scream.

—Death—

It changed again.

In warrens beneath a domed castle filled with art more ornate than any she had ever seen, caskets in walls housed the dead. The dank smell of ages mixed with the sweet odor of nearby water, where magic coated the air. Two old men wearing priestly robes wielded swords to defend all they knew. Whether they survived the Templar Knights attempting to kill them or if they failed, she knew it did not matter; the other world burned, and it spread into Annwn, consuming Mochdrev Reach, her people, and all she loved.

Unbidden tears stung Deirdre’s eyes.

The vision blackened to nothing. Deirdre opened her eyes and looked at her mother as she peered back. Her gray orbs seemed to be mirrors into Deirdre’s soul.

“What does this all mean?” she asked, trembling.

—My time has come. Follow your heart. No matter your choice, Child—

“No, Mother. Don’t go.”

Deirdre wanted to reach out. The apparition instead slipped back into the Rosemere, her figure disintegrating like ash in water. The pool stopped churning. The smell of decaying life dissipated. As the day brightened about her, the buzzing of bees and the songs of birds in the Merthyr Garden returned with stunning clarity.

With sunshine warming her, Deirdre stood staring where the shade of her mother had vanished. It happened just that quickly. She already missed her. She also knew little from the meeting. The riddles her mother spoke rarely came to fruition the way Deirdre expected, even if there was a bit of truth in them. More questions swirled inside her than when she had called the shade. With whom would Deirdre fall in love? How did the false king play into the future of her life? And how would the visions she had been shown come—or not come—to pass?

She had no answers.

The one thing she did know was that the life she knew was drastically changing, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“I thought you would be talking to her
forever
!”

Deirdre spun.

Sitting on the soft blossom petals of a nearby rose bush, Snedeker stared at her, stick arms crossed, a frown tugging at his wood and moss features, his gossamer wings irritably fluttering.

“You should not be here!” Deirdre hissed, angry all over again. “I told you to stay out of sight until the sun set. If John Lewis Hugo caught you here—”

“Yes, yes, your father would feed me to the cat,” Snedeker opined. “What he doesn’t know is I’d kill that cat with three quic—”

“And kill the rest of us!”

“Boghoggery, settle down, Red!” Snedeker grumped, launching from the rose blossom and flying toward her. “I won’t
actually
kill the cat.”

“Wait right there,” Deirdre said, observing her fairy friend closer. “You are entirely too happy. And your little pack looks to be a burden. What do you have?”

Guilt crossed the fairy’s wooden features.

“Nothing!”

“You lie,” she said. “I can always tell when you lie.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a witch?”

“Out with it!”

Annoyance crossing his face, Snedeker pulled a ruby the size of a thumbnail from the sack on his back.

“Where did you get that?!”

“From the coach that brought that pompous burned ass! It was encrusted with them and other jewels.” He hefted the ruby. “This one was mostly loose anyway, Red. Mostly. Isn’t it beautiful, how the sun…”

Deirdre ignored the rest of what the fairy said. It was the only way she kept from throttling him. If the High King knew a member of the Tuatha de Dannan was within the Reach, it would spell certain doom for them all. She might be bringing war to her father’s kingdom, but at least it would be on her terms and not that of a thieving fairy.

“You must put it back. Now.”

“I think not,” the fairy said quickly. “They are leaving. And besides, I have merely borrowed it.”

“Knowing you, you’ve borrowed it until its owners are long dead and dust.”

“Just so.”

Deirdre sighed. “The damage is done. Give it to a family with many children in town. Don’t let them see you. By giving it away, I hope you learn a lesson.”

The fairy didn’t budge, hovering in midair.

“Snedeker…”

“All right, all right. Swampmutton.”

As the fairy flew away, his shoulders a bit slumped, Deirdre looked up at the mountains that grew at Mochdrev Reach’s northern border and thought about what the shade of her mother had said. The line of jagged peaks known as the Snowdon burst from the older, rounded hills of the Carn Cavall, not unlike the emotions that swirled within her. Her mother had been a powerful witch before she died; she knew much of what was to come. The vision of the Tuatha de Dannan dead on the battlefield could mean only one thing—the fey had chosen to fight Caer Llion. And the man Deirdre would fall in love with? It couldn’t be Philip Plantagenet. But who? Another outworlder? The man holding her in the vision? And more importantly: when would this come to pass?

It no longer mattered, she thought. And it no longer mattered what the High King of Annwn, his advisor, or even her father wished. Deirdre knew she would rather die than succumb to a boot heel, particularly one from Caer Llion.

Because the Tuatha de Dannan felt the same.

Deirdre turned back to the Rosemere. Its waters were at peace but she was not. Those who knew her knew that when her mind was made up, nothing would change it. Stubborn like an ox bull, her father often said. He was right. No one was going to tell her what to do, especially a man who had proclaimed himself High King long ago and would use that power to steal Deirdre away from all she knew and loved.

She would not let it happen—come what may for Mochdrev Reach and those who lived within its walls. She had to stand and fight, no matter the consequences. No matter where that stand would take her.

Deirdre left to find her father.

Lord Gerallt would be the first to know.

With a cascade thundering behind him, Richard sat on the edge of the Waterfall Garden Park pool in contemplative reflection, waiting for the tourists and vagabonds to leave.

It would not be long now.

Mist from the falls swirled at his back, icy and persistent, but he barely felt it. The events of the previous night played over and over in his mind, lead chains weighing on him. The fairies from the portal had attacked Merle’s assistant, cajoling a cu sith into dastardly service. If Richard had not been there, Bran would have been killed. It had been the obvious culmination of an orchestrated plan, one set into motion specifically against the boy for reasons the knight could not fathom.

Richard had intervened and in the process had exposed his secret.

Now the boy knew about Arondight.

Why had the attack come against this new bookseller of Old World Tales? Had Richard made the right choice in not removing his memory?

The knight exhaled angrily. He only had an answer for the latter concern. It was necessary, of course. Bran retaining his memory meant the only ally Richard had in convincing the boy that Merle was a danger and not to be trusted.

Nearby the portal throbbed, a chilly reminder he was right.

The knight pulled his coat close. He knew one thing.

Bran was lucky to be alive.

As the cold wind captured vagrant leaves and sent them spinning outside the iron-barred walls of the park, a man wearing a black overcoat with collar held tight and a broad-rimmed hat entered the secluded Waterfall Garden and waited in the shadows. Richard ground his boot into the concrete, annoyed. He knew the man, hated him. Richard also knew the Churchman had found him for a reason and that reason went beyond coincidence.

Once the last straggler left the park, the man approached, his thick-fingered hands folded over a paunch that rarely missed a meal.

“Archbishop Louis Glenallen, find another soul to torment,” Richard said darkly.

Righteousness peered at the knight. “How unfortunate you yet live, McAllister.”

“Why are you here?”

“I know of the attack,” the Churchman said. “I know you failed. Again.”

“Here to gauge my faith, huh?” Richard questioned. “Want to offer me some absolution, some penance, in your hallowed box of confession?”

“Not at all,” Archbishop Glenallen replied. “I know, just as you do, that a lifetime of confession and Hail Marys could never erase the pain that erodes
your
soul. No, I’m not here to offer you salvation. I want to know how the attack happened, and why you didn’t do your job?”

“Your Church no longer holds power over the Yn Saith.”

“Ah yes,” the archbishop snorted. “The covenant the sorcerer made with the Seven. A more foolish man this world has never known. The truth is, the Church does what he, and you apparently, can no longer do—protect the world from evil.”

“Your arrogance and ignorance is startling.”

“Is it, now? There was once a young man,” Archbishop Glenallen began. “He carried right in his heart, accepted Arondight—the great sword forged by Govannon and later discovered by Lancelot of the Lake—and vouched with blood the safety of a city, of an entire world. This young man had a soul that was old. But he was idealistic and desired to have all that the world offered. Pride became his enemy. Going against the advice of his elders, against the wisdom of ages wrought, he married. He thought he could have it all—the duty that God had bestowed
as well as
the earthly treasures of the heart.

“Some might call that arrogant, McAllister. Some might say that man’s presumption is a grave ignorance of and above itself.”

“That man was a fool,” Richard said coldly. “And no longer exists.”

“You are right. He is lost.” The archbishop shook his head. “God only forgives those who repent their wrath, their sins.”

Richard said nothing. There was nothing
to
say.

“Nevertheless,” the archbishop continued. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t work together as needed now. Our roles are the same; we merely go about it differently. I maintain a large diocese with thousands of souls, but I am also responsible to the Vigilo for the portal, just as you are. I have no ulterior motive, no reason to lie to you. There is far too much evil in the hearts of men, but think how evil would spread if God-fearing people realized they shared the world with myth and fairy tale. That mankind was not alone and creatures not mentioned in the Bible existed. The Church and its knights
can
work together, as long as there is need. Right now, I believe there is such a need; your actions have made it so, I think.”