Briefly he thought it hadworked.The fever-lights in Fen’s eyes warmed to gold.He waslaughing softly when he took Cai into his arms, and his kiss was sothorough and carnal, the push of his tongue so deep, thateverything else faded away.Then he pulled back.He kept a warmgrip round Cai’s shoulders, but he was pale in the tapestriedpatterns of the marram-grass shadow, his profile set and fierce.“Well, it hasn’t happened yet.But my people—the Torleik men,Sigurd and Gunnar and all my clan—believe in it.That’s why themonastery raids have been so unrelenting.But this is the island ofFara, right here.”He got up, letting Cai go.He took up positionon the dune’s western ridge, the light wiping out his details frombehind, leaving only a black silhouette, the ageless shape of awarrior.“I will find the amulet.Then Sigurd and Gunnar will cometo me, and they will find it inmyhands.And the world will change.”
“I thought… I thought you’ddecided your brother was dead.”
“What if he is not?”Fendidn’t move.He might have been cast in bronze there and left as awarning, a memory of fear.“What if he lives, and…he ditched mehere, like a dog or a broken shield?Like a thing?”
“He wouldn’t have.”Caisprang up.The faceless statue spoke like a man, a living soulstricken to the core by something far worse than Cai’s sword.Caiclimbed up to join him, took his hand—more like a child than alover this time, folding his fingers tight into his own.“He lovedyou.You told me so yourself.”
“He lovedpower.”
“Fen, come on.Never mindancient treasures and fantasies.Lay me down here and show me whatI’ve been missing.”
Fen tore his fingers free.He gave Caione look—half-anguished, half-amused, as if Cai had come up withthe one proposal that might have slowed him down, diverted him fromhis purpose.Then he turned away.He set off down the slope of thedune, his long stride devouring the ground.The lowering sun struckblood-scarlet lights from his hair.
“Help me,” he yelled backto Cai, not glancing round.“I’ll lay you down later, and you’llnever forget it.But for now—we’re going to find this damntreasure!”
Cai couldn’t sleep.He was dirty andbruised, and darkness had fallen too suddenly for him to go andbathe in the sea as he’d wanted to do.Addy, sharing with them afireside supper of scurvy grass and salmon, had warned them againstventuring too far from the cave in the night.The devils wererestless then and prone to hunt, their weakened eyes more effectivein torchlight than under the sun.The old man had seemed differentwhen Fen and Cai had returned.His air of distracted hospitalityhad vanished, and he had eaten in silence, watching them gravelyfrom his own side of the fire.
The cave was barely wide enough toaccommodate the three of them, and Fen had offered to take a watch,although Addy had assured him that wasn’t necessary.He wascrouched outside in the cloudy moonlight now, his tense, powerfulshape just visible.Cai was relieved not to be forced into closequarters with him.He felt as if some kind of padding had beenstripped off his nerves, leaving them naked and vibrating to Fen’sslightest touch.In the boathouse that morning it had been wildlypleasant, and now…
Now he was afraid.He’d gone with Fen,and he’d done his honest best to help him find the secret of Fara.All afternoon and into dusk they had quartered the bare littleisland.He had turned over rocks, followed streambeds to theirsource.He had met Fen coming up to meet him a dozen times, hisface a baulked blank, frustration coming off him in waves.A dozentimes he’d told him to give it up, and a dozen times beenignored.
To say that he wasn’t the manCai knew would be absurd.What did Cai know of him?Shiftinguncomfortably on the cave’s rocky floor—how luxuriant even his ownthin mattress at Fara, by contrast—Cai remembered a beautiful houndhis father had traded for and brought into the hillfort camp.Theseller had been evasive about the beast’s ancestry, although herupswept yellow eyes ought to have given her away.She’d been goodfor a while, herding Broc’s cattle and sleeping at the foot of hisbed, and then one full-moon night she had plucked up a baby by itsnappy rags and trotted away with it into the unknown.A wolf in thefold,Brochad fulminated for weeks afterwards, damning the trader to ahundred gory deaths, never seeming to realise that he’d opened thegates to the sheep-fold himself and let the creature in.
Cai dropped into exhausted sleepat last, and dreamed restlessly of a man with golden eyes whofollowed him into the dunes, brought him down with one breathtakingpounce and began to tear him apart.The dismemberment was painless,the rip of sharp incisors a shuddering delight, and when heprotested—painlessly bleeding, dying—the wolf looked up at him andsaid,Butyou let me in, you fine man.You lay down with me.You let mein.
He woke up, throat convulsing in achoked-off howl.The cave was full of cobweb light, delicate aspearls.Every detail of the scene before him was perfect, so lucidhe would take it with him to his grave.Addy was lying flat out onhis back.His mouth was open, his long, thin frame nothing but aloose collection of bones beneath his cassock.And, rising up froma crouch of dreadful, virile beauty beside him—Fen, a fisherman’sknife clutched savagely tight in his fist.Before Cai could move ormake a sound, he was gone, silent and swift, dissolving into thesea mist that had come in with the tide.
Chapter Nine
Cai knelt by the old man on thecave floor.He couldn’t breathe, not even to let go of thehorrified sob wedged tight in his chest.He didn’t know where totouch him.His throat looked intact, but there were a dozen placesin his cassock’s folds where the wound might be concealed.You’re adoctor,hetold himself fiercely, but it was no good.All hope was gone, alllife long fled from a face like that—ravaged and hollow, grey asthe dawn.
The sob tore free.Addy snortedhimself awake at the sound, opened his eyes and stared up at him.Abeatific smile spread across his face, as if he had expected thismorning all his life, anticipated everything and awoken full of joyto find it fulfilled.“There’s a good boy,” he said, lifting a bonyhand and patting Cai’s face.“There, you see?Don’tworry.”
Cai leapt to his feet.He cracked hishead off the cavern’s roof, but the pain was meaningless.The thingthat got released in men’s bodies in extremity, the heat in theblood that made them fight or run away like deer—he could feel it,raging through every vein.His heart would rip out through his ribsif he didn’t move.He gave Addy one last look and half-fell out ofthe cave.
The beach was empty, swathed in mist.No Fara devils seemed to be around, but God help them if he foundany now.One line of footprints faded off into the distance.Theblood-heat in him pitched, and he took off, heedless of the stoneson his bare feet.
Fen had got far enough to let Cai runoff some of his terror-born rage, but he was still throbbing allover in the grip of it when the lean figure emerged from the mist.Fen was motionless, his head down.He didn’t flinch or glance upwhen Cai tore across the last stretch of beach betweenthem.
The knife was still in his hand.Caiknocked it free, and it sailed end over end to bury its blade inthe sand.He crashed to a breathless halt beside Fen.“What wereyou going to do with that?”he yelled.When Fen didn’t stir, hegrabbed him by the jerkin.“What were you going to do?”
Fen animated.He shoved Cai’s handaway, and Cai got ready for a fight.Instead Fen fell back a fewpaces.His eyes were wide, a lostness draining their amber fires togrey.“This… This is all your fault.”
Cai swallowed hard.The mist wascatching in his lungs.“Mine?”
“Yes.You, with yourblasted Christian ways—your doctoring, and your healing, and yourdamned compassion.With your body that makes me feel as if my owndoesn’t belong to me anymore, and yours does, so that I feel yourpain more than my own…” Fen paused for breath.“So that I feelanother man’s pain before I inflict it!Damn you—I cannot evenraise a knife to a useless old man!”
“Am I meant to besorryfor that?Fen—youmurderous bastard…” Desperately Cai choked back the laughter thatwas trying to rattle out of him at Fen’s discomfiture, his baffledrage at not being able to commit cold-blooded murder.“Why the hellwould you have wanted to?”
“Can’t you see?That oldlunatic knows about the treasure.He’s hiding it somewhere on thisisland, and the only place we haven’t looked is inside that cave,the place where he sleeps.He’s defending somethingthere.”
“Don’t be so stupid.There’s nothing in there but damp.”
“At the back, in theshadows where we couldn’t see.And you heard what he said abouttunnels.Don’t look at me like that, monk—I wasn’t going to torturehim for what he knows.Just kill him and get him out of theway.”
“Oh, is that all?Whydidn’t you say?”Horror and laughter were winding themselves aroundin Cai like drunken serpents.What was he doing, out here on abarren island with this creature?Why did he want to take him inhis arms?“My God.He’s just a poor old man.”
“I know that.Look, you’vegained your point.I haven’t harmed him, have I?I…Icouldn’t.”
