The Dark Highlander

Page 100

I love you, he mouthed to her across the chamber.
Chloe smiled radiantly. She knew that. Knew it more completely than she’d ever thought a woman could know. Since discovering what his “curse” truly was, she’d not wavered in her feelings for him, not for even a moment. What was inside him was not him, and she refused to believe it ever would be. A man who could withstand such a thing for so long was a man who was good to the very core. I love you too, she shaped the words soundlessly.
They fell silent again, returning to their work with quiet urgency. Though Dageus had not admitted his condition was worsening, both she and Silvan had noticed that his eyes no longer returned to their natural color. They’d discussed it earlier, when Dageus had slipped out to fetch Chloe some tea, and knew what it meant.
They took a brief break when Nell brought the midday meal down into the chamber. Shortly after Nell had cleared the dishes away, Dageus straightened abruptly in his chair. “Och, ’tis about blethering time!”
Chloe’s heart began to pound. “What? What did you find?”
“Aye, speak, lad, what is it?” Silvan pressed.
Dageus scanned the page for a moment, translating silently. “ ’Tis about the Tuatha Dé. It tells what happened when the thirteen were . . .” He trailed off, reading to himself.
“Read aloud,” Silvan growled.
Dageus raised his gaze from the fifth Book of Manannán. “Aye, but give me a moment.”
Chloe and Silvan waited breathlessly.
Dageus scanned the page and flipped to the next. “All right,” he said finally. “The scribe tells that in the early days of Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danaan came to the isle ‘descending in a mist so thick it dimmed the rising of three suns.’ They were possessed of many and great powers. They were not of man’s tribe, though they had a similar form. Tall, slender, entrancing to gaze upon—the scribe describes them as ‘shining with empyreal radiance’—they were graceful, artistic people who claimed to be seeking no more than a place to live in peace. Mankind proclaimed them gods and tried to worship them as such, but the rulers of the Tuatha Dé forbade such practice. They settled among man, sharing their knowledge and artistry, and so ensued a golden age unlike any before. Learning attained new heights, language became a thing of power and beauty, song and poetry developed the power to heal.”
“That much is similar to the myths,” Chloe remarked when he paused.
“Aye,” Dageus agreed. “As both races seemed to prosper by the union, in time, the Tuatha Dé selected and trained mortals as Druids: as lawgivers, lorekeepers, bards, seers, and advisors to mortal kings. They gifted those Druids with knowledge of the stars and of the universe, of the sacred mathematics and laws that governed nature, even inducting them into certain mysteries of time itself.
“But as time passed, and the Druids watched their otherworldly companions never sickening or aging, envy took root within their mortal hearts. It festered and grew, until one day thirteen of the most powerful Druids presented a list of demands to the Tuatha Dé, including among them, the secret of their longevity.
“They were told man was not yet ready to possess such things.”
Rubbing his jaw, Dageus fell silent, translating ahead. Just when Chloe felt like screaming, he began again.
“The Tuatha Dé decided they could no longer remain among mankind. That very eve, they vanished. ’Tis said that for three days after they left, the sun was eclipsed by dark clouds, the oceans lay still upon the shores, and all the fruit in the land withered on the limb.
“In their fury, the thirteen Druids turned to the teachings of an ancient, forbidden god, ‘one whose name is best forgotten, hence not scribed herein.’ The god to whom the Druids supplicated themselves was a primitive god, spawned in the earliest mists of Gaea. Calling upon those darkest of powers, armed with the knowledge the Tuatha Dé had given them, the Druids attempted to follow the immortal ones, to seize their lore, and steal the secret of eternal life.”
“So they really were … er, are immortal?” Chloe breathed.
“ ’Twould seem so, lass,” Dageus said. He skimmed the text again. “Give me a moment, there are no comparable words for some of this.” Another long pause. “I think this is the gist of it: What the thirteen did not know is that the realms—I can’t think of a better word—within realms are impenetrable by force. Such travel therein is a delicate process of … er, sifting or straining time and place. In their attempt to brutalize or coerce a path between the realms, the thirteen Druids nearly tore them all asunder. The Tuatha Dé, sensing the distress in the … weaving of the world, returned to avert catastrophe.