As Drosta spoke, Annon felt his mind growing thick and foggy. He was weary. More weary than he had ever been in his life. Glancing to the side, he saw that Erasmus was already asleep, jaw open. Hettie’s chin was bobbing as she struggled to stay awake.
Drosta grabbed Annon’s shoulder and squeezed with his powerful fingers, digging in to invoke pain. “It concedes nothing! You are a Druidecht as well. The spirits have told me that you are faithful. You must listen to me. The Paracelsus in Kenatos are trapping spirits, binding them into service. The lamps of the city do not create smoke. They do not create heat. Their light is borrowed by spirits, who are enslaved for a season. The terms are odious to them. They are slaves! They are compelled to serve because they were captured. The Cruithne learned the craft. We created the Paracelsus order. Stay awake!”
Annon’s eyes drooped shut and he blinked furiously. His arm throbbed with pain. But even that was beginning to subside.
“The weapon only serves one master at a time. It will only serve one. It will seek a powerful man and subvert him. When he is dead, it will seek out another. This is the Iddawc’s hunger, its terrible power. It kills and has power over death. One cut from its blade severs the life’s string. It was commissioned by the Arch-Rike as a weapon for his most feared protector, the Quiet Kishion, but it was never used as such. Tyrus of Kenatos arranged to have it stolen. To be hidden from the world without claiming more victims.”
“Can it be destroyed?” Paedrin asked. He was down on one knee, gazing intently at the huge man.
“Never,” he replied. “The Iddawc cannot be unmade. It will exist until its length of service has expired. That is well beyond my lifetime or even a dozen lifetimes. It was bound for ten generations. We are only in the second right now. It cannot be destroyed and must be hidden and safeguarded. It has no master but seeks one. I can hear it right now, and it disgusts me because even I crave it. I, who created this evil thing, in my foolish vanity I brought it into existence. A weapon to conquer death.”
The final words were slurred and Annon felt his head bob. He struggled against the sinking oblivion of sleepiness. “Be wiser than I. Those of Kenatos are treacherous and claim to preserve knowledge. They preserve slavery, the slavery of beings that they cannot even see. What sympathy exists in a kingdom that enslaves others? When a civilization quietly submits to such a practice, you will have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong that will be imposed upon them. I have spent my days attempting to redress the damage that I inflicted on the spirits of Mirrowen.” He gripped the talisman around his neck, tears bulging in his eyes. “They know my heart and they trust me. I was once their greatest adversary. Now I am like you. A humble Druidecht.” He leaned forward, his voice husky with emotion. “Tyrus knows this truth as well. He and I are brothers in mind. We are likeminded. Remember this. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Forgive him for abandoning you. It cost him greatly. But there is so much at stake. So very much at stake.”
Annon heard the mumbling bass of Drosta’s words, felt the pain recede in his shoulder as he floated into the invisible threads of slumber. The horrors of the mountains faded. The chill night air was replaced with a comforting warmth. He thought he could smell flowers, not night jasmine but the heady scent of hyacinths and roses. There was a trickling of water, the soft lapping sounds carrying him away.
Remember.
Remember.
Remember.
“I once caught a young Rike tearing a page from an ancient book. I chastised him severely and rebuked him for violating his sworn duty to preserve knowledge. He said the page contained blasphemy and that it should be destroyed by fire so as not to taint the minds of men in the future. After a scolding and a thrashing, I told him that if the truth cannot bear the scrutiny of candlelight, what will it do if exposed to the sun? He apologized profusely for his error and swore he had only destroyed three such pages out of one hundred books. The Arch-Rike assured me that he would be assigned to a stewardship other than the Archives. The young make so many mistakes. They lack wisdom.”
– Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos
Sleep enveloped Annon like a shroud, burying him beneath layers of warm blackness. There were voices murmuring in the stillness, the faint whisper of the breeze rustling branches. The patter of rainfall, or was it a brook? Everything was hazy and tangled. But the sleep ended when a hand clutched his shoulder and jerked him hard.
“Annon!”
He was confused, snapping out of a forgotten dream and realizing that sunlight came in streamers through a copse of thin yew trees and half-blinded him. The smell was different, not the heady scent of pine and thin mountain air. Now, it was a lowland smell, thick with the pungent smells of grasses and weeds and brush.