Beyond the Highland Myst(399)

Silvan sat in pensive silence after his son had gone. Her story was nigh impossible to believe. How was one to countenance someone knocking upon one's door, claiming to have spent time with one in one's future?

The mind summarily rejected it—it was too chafing a concept for even a Druid to wrap his mind about. Still, Silvan had swiftly run through a few complex calculations, and the possibility existed. It was a minuscule possibility, but a good Druid knew it was dangerous to ignore any possibility.

If her story were true, his son had cared for the lass so much that he'd taken her maidenhead. If her story were true, she knew Drustan had powers beyond most mortal men and had cared for him enough to both give him her virginity and come back to save him.

He wondered how much Gwen Cassidy truly knew about Drustan. He would speak with Nell and have her casually mention a few things, observe the lass's reaction. Nell was a fine judge of character. He would spend time with her himself as well, not to question her—for words were without merit, lies easy to fabricate—but to study the workings of her mind as he would study an apprentice. Between the two of them, they would discern the truth. Drustan was clearly not demonstrating a levelheaded response toward the lass.

His eldest son could be so stubborn sometimes. After three failed betrothals, he was so blinded by doubts about himself, so hell-bent on wedding, that he was unwilling to entertain anything that might seem to threaten his upcoming nuptials. He was going to marry, and tarry not in the process.

Although Silvan knew they needed to rebuild the Keltar line, he suspected marriage between Drustan and the Elliott lass would entail a lifetime of deception that would inevitably result in misery for both of them.

A wee bampot, was she, this Gwen Cassidy? Silvan wasn't so certain about that.




* * *





Chapter 16




Besseta Alexander fumbled above the mantel for her yew sticks, dread coiling like a venomous snake in the pit of her stomach. A deeply superstitious woman, her charms were as necessary to her as the air she breathed. Of late she'd taken to scrying daily, frantic to discover what threat was moving ever nearer her son.

When she and Nevin had first moved to Castle Keltar, she'd been thrilled to return to the Highlands. No flat-lander was she; she'd ached for many years to return to the misty caps, shimmery lochs, and heathery moors of her youth. The Highlands were closer to the heavens, even the moon and stars seemed within reach atop the mountains.

Nevin's post was a prime one, priest to an ancient and wealthy clan. Here he could live out his life in security and contentment, with no risk of the kind of battles in which she'd lost her other sons, for the MacKeltar housed the second-finest garrison in all of Alba, second only to the King.

Aye, for the first fortnight she'd been elated. But then, shortly after their arrival, she'd cast her yew sticks and seen a dark cloud on her horizon rolling inexorably nearer. Try as she might, she'd been unable to coax her sticks or her runes or her tea leaves to tell her more.

Just a darkness. A darkness that threatened her only remaining son.

And then, the last time she'd read them, the darkness had extended to one of Silvan's sons, but she'd been unable to determine which one.

Sometimes she felt that great sucking darkness was reaching for her, trying to drag her into it. She would sit for hours, clutching her ancient runes, tracing their shapes, rocking back and forth until the panic eased. Vague fear had been her lifelong companion, even as a small lass. She dare not lose Nevin, lest those shadows gain substance and tear at her with wicked claws.

Sighing, she smoothed her hair with trembling fingers, then cast the sticks upon the table. Had she cast them with Nevin in the hut, she would have gotten yet another tedious lecture about God and His mysterious ways.

Thank you very much, lad, but I trust my sticks, not your invisible God who refuses to answer me when I ask Him why He gets four of my sons and I get only one.

Studying the design, the coil in her belly tightened. Her sticks had fallen in the identical pattern they'd formed last week. Danger—but she had no way of knowing from what quarter. How was she to prevent it if she knew not whence it came? She dare not fail with her fifth and final son. Alone, that hungry blackness would get her, carry her off into what must surely be the oblivion of hell.

"Tell me more," she beseeched. "I can't do anything until I know which lad presents the danger to my son."

Despairing, she gathered them, then suddenly changed her mind and did something a good fortuneteller rarely risked lest evil forces, ever attuned to fear and despair, cunningly ply a false design upon the limbs. She cast them again, a second time, in quick succession to the first.

Fortunately, the fates were inclined to be gentle and generous, for when the sticks clattered upon the table, she was granted a vision—a thing that had happened only once before in her life. Etched in her mind's eye, she clearly saw the eldest MacKeltar lad—Drustan—scowling, she heard the sound of a woman weeping, and she saw her son, blood dripping from his lips. Somewhere in the vision she sensed a fourth person but couldn't bring that person's face into focus.