Lawhead, Stephen by Song of Albion 3 The Endless Knot

Author:Song of Albion 3 The Endless Knot
Language: eng
Format: epub

Page 100

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But for the two dead horses, sucked dry and cast aside like withered husks, I would have dismissed it as little more than whimsy. Clearly, there was nothing remotely fanciful about it. And Tegid stood before us solemn and severe.

"Nothing like this is known in Albion," said Scatha. "Nothing like this..."

"That is because the Island of the Mighty remains under the protection of the Swift Sure Hand," Tegid said. "It is not so in Tir Afian."

"What can be done?" I wondered aloud.

"Light is their enemy," the bard explained. "Fire is light-they do not like fire."

"Then tonight we will bring the horses within the circle of the campfire,"

Cynan suggested.

"Better than that," I replied. "We will build a circle of fire around the entire camp."

Tegid approved. "That will serve. But more must be done. We must burn the carcasses of the horses and the ashes must be scattered in moving water before the sun sets."

"Will that free us from the siabur?"

"Free us?" Tegid shook his head slowly. "It will prevent them from inhabiting the bodies of the dead. But we will not be free until we set foot in Albion once more."

No one was willing to touch the dead horses, and I had not the heart to compel any man to do what I myself abhorred. So we heaped a mound of firewood over the unfortunate beasts and burned them

where they lay. The carcasses gave off an excess of thick, oily black smoke with the same rancid cheese smell I had marked earlier.

Tegid made certain that every scrap of hide and bone was burned, and then raked the coals and gathered the ashes in two leather bags. After that we turned our attention to finding a stream or river into which we could strew the ashes.

This proved more difficult than anyone imagined.

Tegid considered the turgid seepage in the ravine unacceptable for our purposes, and we were forced to look elsewhere. Leaving Bran in charge of the camp, Tegid, Scatha, Cynan and I set off in the bright light of a dour, windswept morning in search of a stream or brook. We soon discovered that the hilltop we were camped upon was not a natural hill at all.

Scatha first tumbled to the fact that the plain on which we stood was strikingly flat for a natural plateau, and furthered this observation by remarking the peculiar regularity in the curve of the horizon. We rode a fair portion of the circumference just to make certain, and found as we expected that the rim of the plateau formed a perfect circle.

Despite this evidence, Tegid remained hesitant and withheld judgment, until he had examined the center. It took considerable effort just to find it, it was no simple matter to quarter a circle that large. But Tegid lined out a course and we followed it. After a lengthy survey we found what we were looking for: the broken stub of a massive pillar stone.

So immense was the thing, we had failed

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