Muse (Tales of Silver Downs Book 1) (28 page)

We reached Crow's Nest shortly before dusk and claimed a well-worn bedchamber in an inn called The Midnight Traveller. The bedclothes were threadbare, as was the rug, and the door didn't quite close. Nevertheless, the floor and furniture were dust-free, the dresser bore both an oil lamp and an almost-new candle, and I was thankful to not be spending another night outside.
 

The dining room was full of the heady smells of fresh bread and good soup. My stomach grumbled in eager anticipation. The pub's dilapidated appearance belied the quality of the cook's meals for the food was just as good as the aroma promised.

"Well, Diarmuid," Owain said as he broke off a large chunk of bread and soaked it in the thick barley soup. Brown droplets splattered his shirt as he lifted it to his mouth. "What will you do?"

Wiping my bowl clean with the last of the bread, I felt their eyes on me. Even Bramble, delicately lapping at her bowl, waited for my response.
 

"I'll think of something," I muttered.

They waited. I was very much aware of the other patrons slurping their soup, crunching crusty bread, and asking for more ale.

"I thought you had a plan," Rhiwallon said. Her bowl was mostly untouched for she ate little enough to leave a sparrow hungry. "I thought you knew what you were doing."

I had never said I had a plan, but I suddenly found it hard to meet her eyes. "I have no idea what to do. I know how to fight a little but not against a creature like Ida. Physical strength will not be the solution; if it was, I would have no fear for Owain is surely stronger than any three men. I think this will require cunning and craft and trickery of some sort. But exactly what, I have no idea."

"Have to find her first," Owain said.
 

"And she may not want to be found," I said.

"Do you think she knows you are coming?" Rhiwallon asked.

"Probably. She knows how I think, how I react, as intimately as I myself do. She knows I will come after her. She probably already knows exactly what I will do. And she will know how to escape me."

"And if you fail?" Rhiwallon's voice held a challenge and she looked me right in the eyes. "What then?"

I stared down into my empty bowl and despair flooded through my body. "I don't know. I don't think anyone else can stop her. It has to be me."
 

They waited, three pairs of eyes fixed on me. Owain and Rhiwallon's faces were still fatigued from our time in the fey tunnels. Bramble's ears were lowered, a certain sign she was unhappy.

"She will destroy us all," I said. "One village will not be enough. Once there is nothing left there to amuse her, she will move on to the next village. Then the one after that, until she has destroyed everyone and everything."

"But why?" Rhiwallon asked. "Why would she want to destroy everything?"

I shrugged. "She is evil. I created an evil being and released it into the world. There is no reason for what she does other than that she wants to."

"If she knows you so well," she said. "Perhaps you also know her."

A small glimmer of hope rose within me. "Perhaps."
 

In an attempt to change the topic, I ordered another round of ale. I could not voice my most secret fear about Ida: that I had created evil because
I
was evil. We sat in silence for some time, sipping our drinks. I was absorbed in my thoughts when somebody slammed half a dozen mugs down onto our table.

"Hello there," said a cheery voice. "Mind if we share your table? I'm buying."

Owain tipped his mug at the two men who stood beside us. "Sit down, friends. It's a mighty thirsty night."

The men settled themselves at the other end of our table. Mugs clattered as the speaker passed them around. He had shaggy dark hair, ruddy cheeks and an air of merriness. "I'm Braden," he said. "This here is Drust."
 

Drust barely glanced at us. He was a skinny man with hunched shoulders and red hair. A mist of misery hung over him as he toyed with his mug.

Owain introduced us. I wanted to plan for tomorrow, and enjoy the company of my friends on what might be my last evening, not make small talk with strangers. But the inn had filled while we were eating and our party of four was using only half the table. I could hardly tell them to go away, but Owain didn't have to be quite so friendly.

"What brings you to Crow's Nest?" Braden asked

I froze. I couldn't explain my journey to strangers. Owain and Rhiwallon didn't offer any explanation either. The silence stretched a little too long and eventually Braden laughed.

"No matter, friends." He drained his mug in little more than a swallow and reached for another. "You don't want to talk about why you're here, that's fine with me. Must be a secret quest, eh. Off to save the world?"

We all chuckled and if my laughter was hollow, I doubted Braden noticed.

"Drink up, Drust," Braden encouraged. "Not much point dragging you here to drown your sorrows if you won't drink."

Drust lifted his mug and took a half-hearted sip. "Happy?"

"Drust here's mourning the loss of his brother," Braden said.

"How did he die?" Owain asked.

"He's not dead," Drust said. "Yet."

"Is he ill?" Rhiwallon asked.
 

Drust shook his head.

We waited, confused, and eventually Braden elbowed Drust. "Go on, you'll have to tell the whole story now. They'll hardly believe it but it makes a good tale."

Drust sighed and fiddled with his mug.

"All right, then," Braden said, clapping him on the back. "You drink and I'll tell them. Drust's brother has been charmed by a witch. What do you think of that?"

I froze.

"A witch, eh?" Owain said, his tone cautious.

"Anything she says, he does," Braden said. "He's completely enamoured."

"What makes you think she's a witch?" Rhiwallon's voice was sceptical although she shot me an uneasy look.

"She's been making a name for herself here," Braden said. "If she tells you to do something, you do it. People say it's like they forget everything other than the need to obey her. She's made folk around here do awful things. So many families ruined. And now she's got Drust's brother."

"He doesn't
see
her." Drust's voice was barely more than a whisper. "I mean really see her. He sees the lovely figure and the long hair and those innocent smiles. He hears the sweet whispers and tinkling laughs. But he doesn't see what she does, how she destroys everything."

"Can no one convince her to leave?" I had to know what they had tried.

"Nay. Everyone's too scared to go near her," Braden said. "Nobody wants to draw her attention. People are fleeing rather than chance be her next victim."

"Have you tried to reason with your brother?" Rhiwallon asked. "Tell him he's been charmed?"

"I've only been able to speak to him once," Drust said. "His eyes go blank and he seems to stop listening as soon as I mention her."

"I suggested we hit her over the head and drag her away somewhere," Braden said. "But Drust won't be in on that."

"We wouldn't even get near her," Drust said. "She would know before we arrived."

"We don't know that," Braden said. "Not for sure."

"I don't want to be her next target. Not even to save my brother."

"Where did she come from?" Rhiwallon asked.

Both men shrugged.
 

"She simply turned up one day and never left," Braden said. "We thought at first she might be one of the fey. But then things got nasty and what reason could they have for such a thing? We lead quiet lives here. Nothing of interest to them."

"My brother has never wronged anyone," Drust said. "He's a good man."

"Drust here's given up. He's mourning his brother as if he was already dead."

"I don't see that there's anything else I can do," Drust said.

"Drink up then," Braden said. "There's a plan for you."

Braden changed the topic then and I stopped listening. Maybe they weren't talking about Ida. Maybe some other woman here was bewitching men and making them do her bidding, heedless of what chaos she caused. Somehow I doubted it.
 

We finished our ales and retired, leaving behind the two friends who were well on their way towards becoming exceedingly drunk.

As we left, I turned back to Drust. "What's your brother's name?" I asked.

He looked up at me blearily. "Davin," he said. "His name is Davin."

Diarmuid lives. At last, I feel him moving towards me once again. I still cannot explain his disappearance, and his reappearance is just as sudden. I hardly know what to think. My hands tremble and my heart shudders within my ribcage. His companions come too but not my beast. Perhaps he has killed it. That surprises me, for the beast in Diarmuid's tale did not die.

I am under no illusions as to his purpose, however I might wish it to be otherwise. He comes to destroy me, and that, I suppose, is as it should be. That is what the hero in one of his tales would do, or try to do at any rate.

I created him, one could say. All that he is today is because of me, for I whispered his every thought to him. Without me, he probably hardly knows who he is any more. He was a boy of ten summers when I flared to life in his head. He was hardly old enough to know his own name, let alone his mind. I influenced the man he grew up to be.

We shared his head for nine summers. When Caedmon went off to war, I told Diarmuid he had no destiny of his own, not like Caedmon. When Caedmon married, I told Diarmuid he would never do the same since he couldn't even speak to a woman. He always believed me. His emotions fed me, fuelled my power. Jealousy, discontent, misery, loneliness. They bled into me and drip by drip, my power grew. So I continued to whisper and Diarmuid passed his youth in a daze of dispirited emotion, until the day I was strong enough to leave.

Perhaps once I left, he realised his thoughts had not been his own. It matters not whether he understands. All that matters now is that he comes for me. He will not succeed, of course, for my power grows every day. The more I cleanse this town, the stronger I become. I fear nothing, not even the queen of the fey. I could crush her, if I chose, crumble her into dust like last summer's bloom. But I have nothing to prove. Not to her, not to Diarmuid, not to anyone.

My current companion does not have a mind like Diarmuid's. I tolerate his ingratiating presence only because I crave company. After sharing Diarmuid's head for so long, my own thoughts are lonely. So I allow this mortal to stay here in my house and he amuses me somewhat, although already I tire of him. It is of no matter. There are companions aplenty here and I shall find myself another soon, as I did last time.

Morning dawned, cold and clear. When I drew back the curtains, the sunlight was so brilliant, it danced off the window pane. It seemed unfair such brightness should be darkened with what I must do today.
 

Breakfast was steaming porridge, creamy and thick with plump grains. My stomach threatened to refuse even such scant amounts as I forced myself to swallow. I had too many regrets, too many things left undone, unsaid for this to be my last meal.

Bramble lapped her porridge, her pink tongue swiftly emptying the bowl. My fingers itched to stroke her soft hair and I allowed myself to do so for the first time since I had discovered her secret. She stopped eating to gaze up at me with that unblinking stare. How I wished I knew what she was thinking when she looked at me like that. If only I had taken the time to notice she was more than she seemed. Even as a friend, I was a failure.

Owain finished his meal and turned to me. "Diarmuid, you have a plan now?"

The porridge turned to dirt in my mouth and I swallowed with difficulty. "I need to find Ida."

"And then?" Rhiwallon asked.

I couldn't meet their eyes. "I don't know. I'll talk to her, I suppose. Try to convince her that what she is doing is wrong."

"She won't listen," Rhiwallon said.
 

"I know. But I don't know what else to do. I don't have any idea how to destroy her."

"You need a plan," Rhiwallon said. "You can't go into something like this hoping you'll figure it out as it happens. She's probably already planning what she will do."

"I know." I pushed away my porridge. I couldn't eat any more of it now. "But I don't know how to stop her, how to destroy her. I've been trying to come up with a plan the whole way here, but I have nothing. I think my tales are the key but I don't know how they work. Not every tale comes true."

"Which ones did?" Rhiwallon asked.

"Only the one about Ida." I felt somewhat silly at the admission.
 

"Only one?" she said. "That's it? You've come all this way, just because of one tale that was probably a coincidence?"

"Every seventh son of a seventh son in my family is a bard who can bring his tales to life. But I don't know how the power works."

"How did they deal with it?" Rhiwallon asked. "The ones before you? Your father?"

"I never asked. I've never even heard him tell a tale. He stopped because they came true. I think he might have killed his brothers with a tale. That's all I know."

"Had you asked a few questions before you left home, we could have used that information today," Rhiwallon said.
 

Her words stung. "I don't have any choice now. I have to find her and destroy her. That's what I came here for. It's too late to worry about what I should have done." I hesitated, staring down at my empty bowl. I didn't want to say these next words but I had to. "You should all stay here. It might be dangerous." I corrected myself. "It
will
be dangerous."

"We will stand with you," Owain said and Rhiwallon nodded. A soft grunt from Bramble indicated her agreement.

"I can't ask that of you." I could have wept tears of gratitude and sorrow as I looked around the table, meeting their eyes: plain, simple Owain, a large man with a heart to match; Rhiwallon who glowered at me from across the table and who even now kept her secrets close; and Bramble who gazed at me with fear in her eyes. Would I live to discover the truth about her? Would I have the opportunity to repay their faith? I swallowed hard.