Which they would do very soon, be believed. By now, they had probably found one of the passes, and that was all the help they needed. An army of Trolls of the magnitude described by Sider Ament would be more than a match for the people of the valley. They would attack and they would crush any opposition, and that would be the end of everything.
He went down to the tiny dining room and ate dinner at the common table, but spoke to no one. When he was done, he went straight to bed. He would return to Glensk Wood and await word from Bonnasaint on his efforts to eliminate the boy. At least he could count on that much. Bonnasaint wouldn’t dare fail him again—not after failing him once already. Kill the boy, take his staff, and tighten his hold on the followers of the Children of the Hawk—that would put him in a better mood. It was bad enough when Sider Ament was still alive and walking the land. It was intolerable that this boy, Panterra Qu—a mere child—had taken his place and was already presuming that simply by virtue of carrying the black staff he could summon, rally, and lead the people of the valley. He had no right to make that assumption. He had no right to anything.
Once he was dead and gone, Skeal Eile would take over and the order of things would be reconfigured.
He slept late in spite of his uneasiness, and it was nearing noon before he left for his village. He borrowed a horse from a family he knew to be committed to his order and rode it hard all day and through the twilight hours. It was dark by the time he reached Glensk Wood, and he still didn’t have an answer for Isoeld Severine’s defiance.
But I wil have that answer before this is done, he promised himself.
He gave the horse to the boy who kept watch over the animals in his small stable and trooped up to the building where he made his home—a large, blocky structure with a meeting hall on the first floor, and his living quarters and offices above. There were no lights on or people about. The door was locked, but he used a key and was inside quickly enough. He stood listening to the silence, a habit he had developed over the years, an exercise in caution he had never quite managed to put aside.
He heard nothing.
He walked through the meeting hall and climbed the stairs to his living quarters. The door leading in was locked. He used another key, pushed the door open, and walked inside.
“I thought perhaps you weren’t coming back, Seraphic,” a voice greeted him.
He managed not to cry out, but only barely. He looked around, searching the darkness, but couldn’t see anything. He wondered for a moment if it might be Bonnasaint, since only he would be this daring, would risk violating his personal quarters by entering uninvited. But it wasn’t Bonnasaint’s voice.
“I’m over here,” the voice said.
A flame appeared, and a candle was lit. The candle sat on a table next to a padded chair, and a man sat in the chair. Skeal Eile could only just make him out—tall, thin, pinch-faced, and craggy. Old, and not in a good way. Weathered and worn down from the inside out. But not weak. Not vulnerable, for all his appearance might suggest. Skeal Eile could tell.
“Who are you?” he asked, managing to put some iron in his voice. “Who let you into my rooms?”
The response was mild. “No one. I let myself in. I needed to speak with you, and I saw no point in waiting outside like one of your supplicants. As for who I am, I leave it to you to determine that. A man possessed of your skills and singular talents should have no trouble recognizing me.”
He moved the candle off the tabletop and close to his face. Skeal Eile saw his features clearly, the same features he had made out before in the room’s dimness. The candlelight sharpened and defined those features, but did not reveal the identity of the speaker.
Some old itinerant dressed in ragged clothes. What was that next to him? A bundle of rags?
“I don’t know you,” he told the other.
“Look more closely. Look into my eyes.”
Skeal Eile almost didn’t. Something in the other’s voice told him that he wouldn’t like what he found there, that he might even be putting himself in danger. But he was still angry at the intrusion, and he wanted to reclaim the high ground in this confrontation, so he looked closely at the other’s eyes and watched with terrible fascination as they changed from something human to something that wasn’t.
He felt his throat tighten and his mouth go dry. He had some magic at his command and thus some insights into things that weren’t known by the average man and woman.
He had never seen a demon before, though he had heard about them in stories told of the old world, and he knew he was seeing one now.
“I do know you,” he said.
“I thought you might. Men of your sort usually do. They see themselves in me. Or something of what they wish they were.”
Skeal Eile swallowed hard. “Why are you here? What do you want with me? I didn’t summon you, so you must think I have something you want. But I’ve got nothing to offer you.”
“Perhaps you do,” the other said. “But more to the point, I have something to offer you. Would you like to hear what it is?”