“That would indeed be bad, since you seem to believe the host can be dismissed if only you find the right page. If the records were gone, you would have no reason to stay.”
After a moment I said, “Fortunately, it seems nothing was burned. Some smoke damage, that was all. Not a real fire. Something else.”
“This is Whistling Tor. It is not like the outside world.” She stopped in front of a tall bronze mirror, hung flush with the stone wall.Verdigris crept across its surface like a spreading canker.
“In many ways that is true,” I said. “But Whistling Tor exists in the outside world; it cannot be forever isolated, keeping only to its own rules. Without Magnus’s trips down to the settlement and the readiness of those folk to send supplies back with him, this place could not keep going. Now the Normans are coming, and Anluan is going to put up a fight for his lands. He has gone into that outside world, Muirne, and he’s made a pledge that he’ll confront the threat bravely, he and the host together. Times are changing.”
Muirne had her hand flat on the wall beside the bronze panel. There was a small frown between her neat, pale brows. “You’ve never really understood, have you?” she said, and the mirror swung away from the wall to reveal a shadowy space within, and steps going down. “Anluan is down there. Come quietly.”
The hairs on my neck rose in unease.There was something deeply unsettling about this hidden entry, a menace, a wrongness. I hesitated, warning bells ringing loud in my head.
“Afraid?” Muirne said softly, her hand on my sleeve. “It’s quite safe. Come, I will show you.”
Something in her eyes led me down the steps after her. At the bottom a heavy iron-bound door stood ajar.We halted. Lamplight shone from within. The chamber was deep in the ground; there would be no windows here.
I took a breath to ask what the place was, but Muirne’s cold fingers were suddenly against my lips, rendering me silent and still. Her eyes moved from me to the gap in the doorway, and when I followed her gaze I saw that Anluan was within the chamber. He sat on a bench, quite still, his back to us. He was staring into a mirror. I wondered why he had not immediately seen our reflections and turned.Then I glimpsed a swirl of movement and color on the surface before him and realized that this was another of Nechtan’s artifacts, showing something quite different from what stood before it. I should not be here watching. I should retreat or make a sound to alert him to my presence. But I couldn’t. The images that held Anluan there were plainly visible, and they gripped me as it seemed they had him. Beside me, Muirne stood quiet as a shadow.
This was a mirror of glass with a reflective surface behind it, an object such as one would find only in the wealthiest of homes.The images within it were as clear as if seen through a window on a sunny day.There was Anluan astride a tall black horse, riding fast along a dappled forest pathway. He sat straight, his shoulders square, his head high and his flame of hair streaming out behind him. A sword hung at his belt, a bow was slung over his shoulder.Two sleek hounds ran at the horse’s feet. Behind him a company of men-at-arms rode two by two, one of them bearing a banner: a golden sun on a field the hue of a summer sky.
The image wavered and changed. I saw the same group of men, dismounted and at ease in a forest clearing, with the horses grazing nearby. While some of the warriors tended a camp fire and others rested under the trees, most stood in a circle watching a wrestling match—Anluan and another young man, half naked and locked in a tight bout, strength against strength. I saw at a glance that the Anluan of the vision had two strong arms, two strong legs, a stance that was straight and even, a perfect balance. He was in every respect a fine example of healthy manhood. For a moment he seemed to look straight out into the subterranean chamber, and I saw that his features were quite regular, with no trace of the odd lopsidedness that afflicted the real Anluan. It was so well balanced a face that it was completely lacking in character.
This was wrong. I should not be spying on the man I cared about most in all the world. I made to turn away, and Muirne put her hand on my shoulder. I started; I had forgotten she was there.There was a powerful, silent message in her touch:
