Unbound (70 page)

Tathal grinned, magic tingling in his chest and at his fingertips. “Innocent like Rylynn’s flower beneath the sweaty body of the man you failed to kill?”

No answer.

“Innocent like Rylynn’s loins as they mount
her
king?”

Nothing.

“Innocent like the children Rylynn
will
bear him.”

Rage in the deathly silence.

With the churchwarden bidden to protect his back, Tathal swept the tor and the interior of its tower, eyes scanning the darkness. Nothing. Elves were capable of hiding in ways that human eyes could barely detect. But Tathal knew his barbs had buried deep; the Elf would not hide for long.

Even with that knowledge, he barely had time to throw up his magical ward as a shadow darker than the sky fell from the heights of the tower.

Ruindolon Arl hit him like a boulder, snarling, both men crashing to the ground. Short sword slashing, the Elf was relentless. His shielding spell barely holding, Tathal fought the fey creature physically, unable to break free of the other’s grip. Only magic kept the sword from killing him. Panic he had not felt in a very long time crystalized the moment—the crumbling of his protective spell as his own strength waned, the green eyes of his assailant flashing hatred, the dewy smell of the grass they fought upon, the sounds each of them growled even as they labored for breath, and the human attire the attacker wore to blend in with his neighbors.

The killing would have been moments away if not for Peter Fursdon.

Tathal directed the churchwarden with a thought. Unable to ignore the command, the big man responded immediately.

Before the Elf could avoid it, a fist like a cinder block connected with his cheek.

And Ruindolon Arl crumbled.

Almost as quickly, unseen thick lines of magic chained the dazed Elf. Tathal regained his feet, wiping the indignity of grass and dirt off his clothing.

“Besides, there is no innocence
left
in this world.”

“You are wrong,” the Elf growled.

“Wait until you see what I have in store for you.”

Ruindolon Arl struggled against his invisible shackles. It would do the fey creature no good. If they could contain the elemental fury of a Praguian golem during World War II, the Elf would be no problem.

Tathal turned back to the tower and entered its hallowed walls. The floor lay exposed to the night air; it had once been dirt but had more recently been covered in stone. Stars twinkled cold fire through the tower’s absent roof. He could see with his wizard eyes the wards that ran through the walls, pulsing with a faint blue-white veil of magic created to imprison the death he sought. Tathal began his work. The spells came easily. Like a handful of other wizards in the world, Tathal had lived long enough to acquire an unimaginable amount of knowledge. He used it now. Spoken words of enchantment. Accompanied hand movements. Focused intent. Tathal calmed his mind from the heat of battle and tore strand after strand of another magician’s work away.

It took barely ten minutes to undo the magical jail. Glancing to ensure the Elf remained frozen, Tathal ordered the churchwarden to stand at the center of the tower.

And began the last part of his work.

Tathal unwrapped the sword. It had once been plunged into the chest of a father by an enraged bastard son. The wizard handed it to the churchwarden.

Peter Fursdon took the broadsword, resistance and hate in his eyes.

“Soon those eyes will look at me with more fury than you can imagine, Priest,” Tathal said, grinning. “But it will not be your soul within them.”

The churchwarden tried his voice. Tathal liked the silence.

“To my work,” he said.

Prison undone, Tathal beckoned the dead. Rather, he called for one fatal revenant. Ghosts inhabited the land everywhere, and summoning the wrong one would complicate the night. It did not take long to find the right death though. The wail started first, a hoarse scream that became a banshee from hell, its rage consuming the hilltop. Tathal focused on it, the sword the key. The weapon became a lightning rod, drawing the spirit from his hidden grave beneath the tower to the sword with which it had once dealt death. Ethereal emanations seeped from the floor and gathered about the young churchwarden, settling around him—entering him. Peter Fursdon screamed.

Tathal paid his pain no mind. The culmination of his plan settled into its new body even as the wizard witnessed a ghostly illumination of golden armor beginning to form about the once-churchman, invisible to all but those who knew magic.

As the armor coalesced, Tathal saw the rent in the breastplate where the killing stroke had fallen more than fifteen centuries earlier, the final result of the spirit’s attempt at overthrowing his king—his father—and taking his place upon the throne.

The anguished screams of the revenant and its new host died on the night.

“Speak,” Tathal said.

The man before him took a deep breath. He stood taller, prouder, replaced with stern steel not original in his making, chin lifted, regal and powerful. The soul that stared at Tathal was not that of the churchwarden.

It was a spirit far darker.

“What is the name your mother gave you at birth?” Tathal asked.

The flicker of annoyance crossed the other’s face. “I am Mordred, bastard of King Arthur Pendragon of Caer Llion.”

“And who am I?”

“You are Tathal Ennis, wizard of the Fallen Court,” Mordred growled. “And I will kill you, cur.”

“That remains to be seen,” Tathal said, admiring the revenant’s bloodlust. It would come in handy soon. “You are no longer Mordred. You are now
the
Mordred. My knight. My protector. An extension of my will. I have given you freedom from eternal torment. And whether you like it or not, you are mine to command. Yet I would not do so without giving you a gift as well—what you most yearn for.”

“And what is it you think I desire, wizard of the Fallen Court?”

“Revenge against your slayer.”

The Mordred frowned darkly, staring off into the night, thinking. When his gaze returned to the wizard, he had sensed what Tathal knew to be true.

“There can be no witnesses,” Tathal asserted.

“I understand.”

Tathal nodded. “A first test then.”

Sword gripped and invisible armor encasing his new mortal body, he charged Ruindolon Arl from the tower even as Tathal undid the Elf’s magical shackles. The fey creature was on his feet as quick as a cat, steady and strong in the way of the Seelie Court, his own short sword brought up in protection. The Elf would be more than a match for any human. It was time to see if the Mordred lived up to the history and legends of his previous life.

The two combatants met, steel meeting and ringing. No sound escaped the Mordred. Every step, every feint, every parry, and every attack was carried out with precise and systematic ease. The Elf had more speed—if barely—but his much shorter weapon lacked the reach that his foe possessed.

After several minutes of combat, though outmatched in almost every way, the Mordred swept the Elf’s feet from out under him.

And drove his sword into the chest of Ruindolon Arl.

Eyes big with surprise and fear, the Elf lay pinned to Glastonbury Tor, his blood a darkness upon the hill’s grass.

He took his memories of Rylynn the Beauty with him.

“Well done, my Mordred,” Tathal breathed.

The dead knight gave the wizard a dark look. Before Tathal could say something more, the Mordred pulled free his weapon and in moments vanished down the tor, an ancient ghost in a new, powerful body. It would take him several hours to reach South Cadbury, but when he did, the sword that Tathal had fought so hard to acquire would lay waste to all it touched.

Death would enter the town. And leave none alive.

“Now we will see, Myrddin Emrys,” Tathal hissed to the stars and moon. “You have your unfettered knight. But now I have mine.”

The night responded with the silence of the dead.

Feeling confident in his future once more, Tathal Ennis descended Glastonbury Tor, leaving the body of Ruindolon Arl behind. He cared not who found the Elf and what that would mean for the world. Instead, he entered the night that cloaked his passage. The Mordred would join him when he had finished his task.

When that happened, the wizard had two more places to visit, two more items to acquire. Then he would have his answers.

He breathed deep of the night and couldn’t help but grin.

The prelude of the world’s end began now.