‘What is he doing?’ the young man asked.
‘Be silent!’ hissed Ruad.
The old woman gasped and stepped back, her hand over her mouth. The meat in the bowl began to writhe and darken; white maggots appeared, and the stench of corruption filled the room as the ham grew slimy, edged with blue. Maggots crawled over the old man’s fingers.
The young woman’s face seemed less translucent now, and her cheeks showed colour. Gwydion’s hand slipped from her brow and, as he toppled, Ruad caught him and carried him to the fireside, where he laid him on the goatskin rug before the hearth. ‘Get a blanket!’ ordered Ruad. The old woman brought two and covered the sleeping Healer with one, making a pillow of the other which she eased under his head.
‘Ahmta!’ cried the young man, as his wife’s eyes opened.
‘Brion,’ she whispered. ‘I have been dreaming.’
The young man’s eyes filled with tears and he leaned over the bed, taking Ahmta in his arms. Turning, the old woman began to weep. Ruad patted her shoulder and moved to the bedside.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked the woman.
‘Tired, sir. Who are you?’
‘Travellers, passing through. Sleep now. In the morning you will feel better.’
‘I doubt that, sir. I am dying.’
‘No,’ Ruad told her. ‘Tomorrow you will wake and rise, and all will be as it once was. You are cured.’
The woman smiled, disbelieving, but faded into sleep as Brion lifted the blankets around her, then rose.
‘Is it true?’ he asked, his face still wet with his tears.
‘I do not lie. Well… not often. Gwydion is a Healer, a great Healer.’
‘I have no way to repay you. I… do not even own this cabin. Food is short. But what I have is yours.’
Ruad grinned. ‘A roof for the night and, perhaps, a little breakfast. I am afraid the ham is ruined, and I should take it from the house before the stench reaches us all.’
The young man took the decomposed meat from the house and hurled it into the undergrowth. When he returned, he offered Ruad a goblet of water. ‘We have no wine or ale,’ he apologized.
This will suffice.’
‘Are you truly men?’ asked Brion.
‘Yes. Do we look so strange?’
‘No, not at all. It is just… you are an answer to prayer, and it comes to me you may be… gods?’
‘If I was a god,’ said Ruad, grinning, ‘would I have made myself so ugly?’
Ruad lay beside the sleeping Gwydion on the floor by the fire, his thoughts sorrowful.
Gwydion had cleansed the cancer from the woman, Ahmta, but to Ruad the scene was only a grim reminder of the malignancy eating at the heart of the realm. And Ruad knew that he, as the Armourer Olla-thair, had helped that cancer to grow. Despite his wisdom — perhaps even because of it — he had fallen victim to the god of Folly — Pride.
When the new King, Ahak, fresh from his triumph in the Fomorian Wars, sent word to Ollathair of the world beyond the Gate, it had seemed the answer to prayer. All his life Ollathair had sought to excel — first to impress his father, Calibal, and then to be the greatest Armourer in the long history of the Knights.
He could still recall with total clarity the night the King’s messenger brought him the letter. A visitor had come to Ahak, claiming to be from a land called the Vyre; this land was beset, said the messenger, by great evil. They needed the legendary Knights of the Gabala to come to their aid. In return they offered gifts of medicine and knowledge that would eradicate sickness and disease, that would bring a new era of peace and contentment to the Gabalan people.
At first Ollathair had been sceptical, but the King sent a silver mirror imbued with a magic more powerful than anything Ollathair had ever experienced. Using the mirror, he could focus on any part of the realm and see it clearly. More, he could pierce the mystic curtain between the worlds of the Gabala and the Vyre. And he found, as the messenger said, a land of great wonders: a white, many-towered city, peopled by angelic beings, was surrounded by impenetrable forests in which dwelt creatures of nightmare. It was the jewel of Paradise, set amidst the horrors of Hell.
Ollathair made contact with a man named Paulus, a councillor of the Vyre Elders. Paulus begged the Armourer to send his Knights and Ahak also urged the Armourer to respond.
For Ollathair this was an opportunity his pride forbade him to ignore. He had the chance to outdo his father, Calibal, and to earn his place in history as the greatest Armourer. He had called Samildanach to him, and the Lord Knight had questioned him until dawn. If Hell surrounded the Vyre, how could they survive? How could they combat the screaming demons with their long talons? How could they return, once Ollathair was no longer with them?
He answered all questions with promises: he would make finer armour, he would create swords that would never dull, he would re-open the Gate between Worlds at prearranged times, beginning one month after they had passed through. And he would stay in contact with them, using the magic mirror.
Samildanach was enchanted with the idea, and with the gifts promised by the Vyre. He longed to be the Knight who brought an end to disease and despair.
Ollathair had opened the Gate on Midsummer’s Eve six years ago and Samildanach had led the Knights through — never to return.
Ollathair had hurried back to the Citadel and taken up the mirror, but only his reflection stared back at him. He tried the Colours: Black under the moonlight; Blue under the sun; Red with his own blood; but the mirror had lost its power.
Fear began to gnaw at him and he tried in every way to breach the Gate with his spirit, but it seemed that a wall — invisible and yet impenetrable — had been set before him. He contacted the King, to see if the messenger was still at Furbolg, but the man had returned to his own land. Ollathair was beside himself; all his powers wer useless.
He had one great hope — Samildanach, greatest of warriors, finest of men. A descendant of kings and the most complete Knight Ollathair had ever known. Whatever perils lay beyond the Gate, the Armourer was sure Samildanach would overcome them.
The days drifted by with agonizing slowness until the month had passed and Ollathair cast the spell that opened the Gate. Screeching creatures of nightmare gathered in the darkness beyond, but the Armourer’s powers hurled them back. Of the Knights there was no sign.
Night after night Ollathair conjured the Gate, until his powers were spent, his strength wasted.
Finally he had travelled to Furbolg. The King had greeted him like an old friend and had entertained him royally for several weeks. But then he had been asked to create weapons of power for the monarch and he had refused. As the Armourer of the Gabala Knights, he was not under Ahak’s rule.
The King had ordered him arrested, claiming his refusal bordered on treason. For days he had suffered torture — his eye burned from his skull, hot irons scorching his flesh. Then he had feigned death and been hurled into a shallow pit outside the city walls.
He had escaped, but it was almost a year before his strength and power returned. Then he had taken the name Ruad Ro-fhessa and moved to the north. And for three years had explored every means of breaching the world beyond.
At last he was forced to the inescapable conclusion that the Knights — his Knights — had been slain.
Samildanach, Edrin, Pateus, Manannan, Bersis, Cantaray, Joanin, Keristae and Bodarch — all dead. Ruad Ro-fhessa carried the blame like a burning coal in his heart.
Yet now, here on this wooden floor, the pain was worse than ever before. For the King had embarked on a reign of terror and had gathered to him other Knights, dread warriors strengthened by sorcery. And the world needed the true Knights more than ever.