Grailstone Gambit

“Even so,” Conohbar said softly, “I think we should be very careful around him.”

They fell into step with the others, walking across the moonlit moor. The drums struck up a slow and solemn beat as the procession marched away from the stone circle.

Eyes flashing with resentment, Eleyne hissed, “That little slut Rhianna…she might as well be naked. I hope she catches the croup.”

Conohbar thought Eleyen had spoken in the faintest of whispers, but he saw Myrrdian’s shoulders stiffen. Ducking his head, he kept his gaze fixed on the cowpath at his feet and remained silent for another hundred yards.

When he dared to glance up again, the group was strung out along the field. Rhianna and Lord Myrrdian were far out of earshot.

“All I’m saying is, you don’t know what you’re dealing with here,” Conohbar whispered. “Or who. I didn’t like the way he looked at you.”

Eleyne’s lips quirked in an arch smile. “Jealous, Conohbar? I thought you’d gotten over that.”

The armored man didn’t answer her. He had seen the light of triumph in her eyes at the thought of being the cause of his worry. He bit back the response that it had been a while since any man in the group had cared to have her, including himself. Eleyne might have been pretty twenty years before, but now she was fat and dumpy with thick ankles and a triple chin.

They reached a footpath just as the Moon was setting. The path skirted a thick wood and curved down between embanking hedges. The retinue crossed an expanse of meadow blanketed by heather and bracken and entered an area where cultivated fields intersected with marshland.

Rhianna led Myrrdian into a small village full of thatch-roofed cottages. Cattle and horses stirred restlessly as the group made its way past. Only a few of the houses had lights showing through the shuttered windows, the cook fires banked for the night.

The village spread out across a shallow valley for at least an eighth of a mile. The cottages were scattered in no particular order from one end of the vale to the next. The areas between the buildings were cluttered with small, fenced gardens, two-wheeled carts and hobbled ponies. The group quickly dispersed under the stars as Rhianna led Myrrdian to a timber-walled great house up a side lane.

It was a fortified place, surrounded by a stockade of sharpened logs. Several of the group seemed inclined to linger, but Eleyne shooed them away with brushing motions. She and Conohbar pulled the heavy plank door closed behind them.

The interior of the council lodge was cavernous, with an earthen floor strewed with flattened reeds, straw and sand. A high-backed chair with armrests carved in the form of dragons occupied a raised dais against the far wall. Beside it was large sideboard laden with cold meats and white bread.

A fire reeking of fish oil sputtered in a massive hearth. The flames cast a flickering radiance over masses of piled and jumbled objects spread out on a pair of heavy trestle tables.

Myrrdian rushed to the nearest table and pawed through the collection of silvery wheels, golden buckles, helmets, metal rods and artifacts that were completely unidentifiable to the people in the council hall. All they knew was that they were relics of the Tuatha de Danaan, of an ancient time that should have been long dead, but in this part of the world, the past still breathed.

Eleyne strolled to the hearth and stood with her hands behind her back, watching as items fell from the table and clattered to the floor.

“Where is it?” Myrrdian hissed. “Where?”

Rhianna, standing near the door, paused as she slid one arm into the sleeve of voluminous robe. Her eyes reflected confusion. “My lord?”

“The harp!” Myrrdian snapped. “I don’t need this other ruck to unlock and activate the grail, but I do need the harp! Where the hell is it?”

“Rhianna never found it, my lord,” Eleyne stated matter-of-factly. “You should have never charged such a silly chit of a girl with a task so important.”

Moving with amazing speed for a man of his years, Myrrdian whirled to face her, his cloak swirling about him. “It was a simple task—I told you where it could be found!”

He gestured to the collection of relics with a contemptuous sweep of his staff. “You found this garbage, did you not?”

Rhianna opened her mouth, groping for something to say, but Eleyne said boldly, “The girl did not find it…but I did.”

Eleyne brought her hands out from behind her back. Resting between them was an object about two feet long. It resembled a lopsided wedge made of iridescent gold. The leading edge was elongated, like the neck of a glass bottle that had been heated, rendered semimolten and stretched. A set of double-banked strings ran its entire length.

Myrrdian smiled, showing the edges of his teeth. “Clever, clever girl, teasing your master. Give it to me.”

He reached for the harp, but Eleyne stepped back toward the hearth. “Not so fast, my lord.”

Conohbar’s eyes widened, his face draining of blood. “Eleyne—no!”

“I know what I’m doing.” She smiled at Myrrdian defiantly. “I found this when your favored harlot could not. I was the one who crept through the vaults laid down by the Priory of Awen. I risked much for you and now I demand a reward.”

“You risk death now,” Myrrdian intoned. “A very painful one.”

“I think not.” Eleyne laughed mockingly and thrust the harp over the fire, holding it over the flames. “Shall we put it to the test?”

Myrrdian stepped toward her, and she moved as if to toss it into the hearth. He came to a halt. “Flames cannot harm it, you stupid bitch,” he growled. “It was crafted by the Danaan.”

“Make up your mind, my lord,” Eleyne challenged. “My arm is getting tired.”

“What do you want?” Myrrdian demanded in a whisper.

“When you find the Grailstone, the Cauldron of Rebirth, I want to be one of the first to benefit from its restorative powers. I want to be young and beautiful again.”

An expression of surprise crossed his face. “That’s all?”

She nodded. “That is all I ask.”

He chuckled, a sound like dry bones rattling in a tin cup. “My dear, you didn’t need to go these lengths. I would have offered the cauldron to you in return for your many services to me.”

The mocking smile on Eleyne’s face became a relieved simper. “Oh, my lord…I should have known. You are kind and caring. Forgive me.”

Myrrdian extended his left hand. “The harp, if you please.”

She moved toward him, handed him the object and curtseyed. “Forgive me,” she said again. “And when I have regained my youth and beauty, I will give you much pleasure.”

He grinned and said softly, “You will give me much pleasure now, you treacherous bitch.”

She gaped up at him, first in shock, then in uncomprehending fear. The forepart of his helmet swirled, then it formed a cone and stretched out a pseudopod, tipped by the sphere. Like an eyelid, the metal peeled backward, revealing a round gem that pulsed with a cold white light. A shimmering blue nimbus sprang up around it. Between one heartbeat and another, the radiance turned a deep, deep red.

Eleyne opened her mouth to scream but no sound came forth. A blood-colored spear of energy jetted from the orb and shot between the woman’s jaws. For an instant, her body swayed. Then her hair burst into flame and her flesh bubbled like wax, falling away as semi-liquid sludge, splattering the floor. Her skull burst open with a sound like a handclap. Her headless body toppled backward. The smell of roasting flesh hung thickly in the air.

Myrrdian spun to face Conohbar. The sphere no longer glowed red, but rather with a steady blue-white radiance. “Get rid of that cow’s carcass!”

Conohbar, sweating and terrified, only nodded.

Myrrdian turned toward Rhianna. “Bring me food and drink.”

With the harp tucked under one arm, he stamped toward the rear of the council hall and the chair.

Rhianna and Conohbar exchanged stricken, terrified looks.

“What now?” the girl whispered hoarsely. “How could she have been so stupid?”

Conohbar bent over Eleyne’s smoldering corpse. “I’ll attend to this while you distract him. I’ve got to figure out a way to send word to the priory without alerting him.”