"No. She meant to trick Quayle, to insinuate herself back into the Imperium's inner circle, to gain his trust and bring about England's utter destruction."

  "For Christ's sake," Phin cried in angry frustration, "isn't that what we've just accomplished?"

  Kane cleared his throat and caught the red-bearded man's attention. "You've brought about England's defeat. I think Morrigan wants it completely decimated, laid waste forever. A permanent scorched-earth policy with a vengeance."

  Phin's lips curled skeptically. "How can a mere slip of a blind girl manage that?"

  "Remember the old legends of our land's history?" Fand asked. "Where the Firbolgs came from?"

  Phin thought for a moment. "They came from an isle that sank during a cataclysm. They were supposed to be half-breeds, mixtures of animal and human, created as a slave race. Some scholars think the selkies were mixtures, too, and they came from the same place as the Firbolgs. Atlantis."

  Fand nodded curtly. "They may have come from an Atlantean colony, what we know as Lyonesse. Like Atlantis, Lyonesse used an element known in ancient texts as orichalcum as an energy source... the power of the sun harnessed inside tiny balls."

  "The fire stones?"

  "Exactly. The selkies explored the risen isle and described a dark vault filled with thousands of small spheres. They brought one back to the Priory for examination. Morrigan made the connection that they were the firestones that supposedly brought about the destruction of Atlantis."

  "And if they are?" snapped Phin. "So bloody what? Can we use them?"

  Fand shook her head. "Without the machines the Atlanteans built to properly harness the energy, they are like miniature thermonuclear warheads, awaiting only detonation."

  She took a very deep breath and said in a rush, "If they are detonated, the atmosphere in this part of the world will heat, right up to the stratosphere. Not quite hot enough to cook everything, but the temperature will rise to the point where every organic thing will perish, every bit of metal will heat to melting, all sea life boiled alive, the soil scorched through till nothing

  It can grow again. That is what Morrigan has planned for Britain."

  While Phin struggled to digest Fand's declamation, Grant rumbled, "How can she be so sure the same thing won't happen to Ireland?"

  "She can't be, nor can she be certain that all of Europe won't be affected, either, regardless of the precautions she takes. I'm not privy to all the details of her plans. Once she took me into her confidence and I lodged an objection, she refused to speak further of the matter. I'd hoped she changed her mind. But when she vanished from the Priory citadel, I knew where she had gone and why."

  "Her hatred of the Imperium is that strong?" asked Grant.

  "Aye," Fand answered sadly. "Like me, she is the issue of a rape. In her instance, a dragoon upon her mother. During her years as a Priory spy, she was forced to stand idly by while atrocities were perpetrated upon the Irish. She pretended to approve of them. Her guilt, like her hatred, is deep.

  "Morrigan will not find satisfaction in the mere defeat of the Imperium. By her way of thinking, as long as one Briton survives, the empire could rise again."

  She paused and added, "This is far worse. This is hell rising to consume the entire world."

  Kane ran a hand through his hair. "The firestones react to solar energy?"

  "That's what the old texts say."

  "Morrigan probably persuaded Quayle they would be a decisive weapon against your people. Mebbe she's hoping to have him return here to England, then somehow arrange for their detonation."

  "That's what I fear, as well," Fand agreed. "We must stop them, either before they set sail from Northstar 40 or during the voyage to Lyonesse."

  Phin released his breath in an explosive sigh, crossing himself. "Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why can't even a damn war be simple?"

  Grant chuckled, but there was little humor in it. "I ask the same question all the time."

  After a few minutes of discussion, some of it heated, the four people developed a plan. A number of boats were still anchored in New London's harbor, and Phin stated he would round up as many volunteers with maritime experience as he could find. They agreed to set sail no later than midnight, which should put them in visual range of Northstar 40 shortly before daybreak.

  "One other thing," put in Kane. "The dragoon prisoner you took today, the kid, Harper?"

  Phin cocked his head. "What about him?"

  "Clean him up and bring him along. Make sure he's got an entire uniform on him."

  "What good will he do?" asked Phin.

  "Mebbe none at all. Mebbe all the good in the world."

  Chapter 22

  It was mid-afternoon when Grant, Fand and Kane left the study and entered a big, high-ceilinged common room decorated in Victorian style with overstuffed furniture, polished tables and even a hearth. Grant and Kane had been there before, and knew four bedrooms faced off from the sitting room.

  "Let me fetch some materials," Fand told them, "and I'll see to your injuries."

  After she left, Grant shrugged out of his Mag coat and dropped into a chair with a sigh of relief. Kane did likewise, although removing the coat sent pain lancing through his shoulder socket. "I hope you're glad I don't like saying 'I told you so."'

  Grant gave him a glare. "The hell you're not. You're just more sneaky about the way you say it." Kane smiled mockingly. "I told you so."

  Rolling his eyes ceiling-ward, Grant said, "I'll concede that so far what you said in Cerberus is panning out."

  "So far?"

  Grant cast a look over his shoulder and lowered his voice. "There's more to this than Fand has let on. I can't figure out what she needs us—or you—for. Everything would have played out exactly as it happened whether we were here or not."

  ` "What are you implying?" Kane asked, an edge in his voice.

  "Whether Fand is sane now or not, that doesn't make her normal or her motives above question. You can't tell me you haven't noticed the way she looks at you."

  Kane shrugged, not wanting to discuss Fand with Grant, especially since he had raised a disturbing point. He dragged over a small table and propped his feet up on it. "Enlil's body is missing."

  Grant grunted in surprise. "Who would've taken that butt-ugly thing? One of the Irish?"

  "They didn't have the time, even if they wanted to touch it."

  "Quayle?"

  "Mebbe," Kane admitted. "But why? There's no reason for him to want the body. What use is it to him?"

  Grant waved a dismissive hand through the air. "Mebbe he plans to tour Europe with it and charge two tuppence a head to take a look."

  A sudden thought caused him to eye Kane reproachfully. "I hope you're not suggesting the goddamn thing was really alive all along, woke up after Strong- bow vanished and just strolled away?"

  Kane started to chuckle at the concept, then realized even the possibility wasn't very funny.

  Fand returned, bearing a tray with a jug and two cups. She had shed the bulky combat vest and the leather leggings. A thin shift of loosely woven cloth covered her from shoulder to mid-thigh, but it was apparent she was naked beneath it. Her braided hair fell below her waist, to the backs of her knees. The little golden balls Kane remembered so well were tied onto the ends and they clicked as she walked.

  From the pouch belted at her narrow waist, she removed a little packet and emptied its contents into the jug. It looked like chopped-up leaves, diced so fine they were almost a powder. After sloshing the liquid around in the jug, Fand dipped a soft cloth into it and gently swabbed at the lump on Grant's head.

  "You were injured before you came here," she said sympathetically.

  "Yeah," Grant replied brusquely, refusing to elaborate.

  She poured the liquid from the jug into one of the cups and handed it to him. "This is a herbal mixture, a natural analgesic and relaxant. Take three swallows."

  Sniffing at the thin brownish fluid in the cup, Grant asked, "Is this the stuff your mother gave me in Ireland?"

  "If you were injured, then yes, more than likely. Did it work?"

  "Guess so." He brought the cup to his lips, sipped, grimaced and took three deep swallows, drinking it off. He shuddered. "Yeah, it's the same stuff."

  He handed the cup back to her, then carefully probed the side of his head. "Doesn't hurt as much."

  "Soon you won't feel any pain. You should go and lie down now. You won't receive the full healing effects unless you sleep."

  Grant heaved himself to his feet and passed a hand over his eyes. "The first stuff I drank didn't make me sleepy."

  Fand didn't respond, busying herself shaking more ground-up herbs into the jug. When a reply wasn't forthcoming, Grant walked into a bedroom, smothering a yawn.

  Fand faced Kane. "Take off your shirt."

  He did as he was bid, pulling off his sweater and the shirt beneath. She winced when she saw the great blue-black bruise spreading from his shoulder and streaking down his upper arm to blend in with the splotches of discoloration caused by Jacko's violent removal of his Sin Eater.

  She touched him gently. "Are you in much pain?" "I can tolerate it."

  Fand passed the damp cloth over the bruised flesh. "And your inner pain," she said softly, "can you tolerate that?"

  "What do you mean?" he asked irritably.

  "Where is the woman who was with you before? The one Morrigan called your anam-chara? I sense you fear you have lost her, yet I do not sense grief as if she were dead."

  Kane's skin prickled as Fand's fingers caressed him. "She's not dead. She was seriously injured a couple of days ago."

  Fand's eyes glimmered strangely. "Yet you came when I called?"

  "There's nothing I can do for her." His voice sounded harsher than he intended. He forced a smile. "Besides, if I allowed the Western Hemisphere to blow up so I could sit at her bedside, she'd never let me hear the end of it."

  His smile vanished. "Presuming she ever wakes up."

  "But you feel guilty about not staying with her." Fand didn't ask a question; she made a statement.

  Kane groped for a response, even an unsatisfactory one. "Yes. No. Hell, I don't know."

  "Something happened between you, didn't it? The bond of the anam-chara was strained to near breaking."

  He sighed. "Yes. She blamed me for—" He broke off, shaking his head. He remembered her cutting words, as painful at this moment as they were when she'd first uttered them a couple of months before: "You're a cruel man, Kane, and the more I'm in your company, the more your cruelty contaminates me."

  He directed a level stare into Fand's face. "I don't want to talk about it. I'm here now and I'll help you, then be out of your life again."

  Fand's lips curved in a patronizing smile. "We'll never be out of each other's lives, Kane, not completely. No matter how many of them we live."

  "Please don't start that shit again," he said wearily.

  Her back stiffened. "As you wish.” She handed him a cup. "Three swallows."

  Kane raised it to his lips and drank the bitter mixture. To his surprise, he felt the intense pain seeping away, as if it flowed down his body and out through the soles of his feet, to be absorbed by the carpeted floor. "Good stuff," he commented inanely.

  Fand picked up her staff and touched Kane's shoulder with the egg-shaped knob. He flinched away, remembering all too well the painful shock it had administered upon his first meeting with her.

  Sternly, she said, "I channel my bioelectric energy through this, drawing upon the electromagnetic field of the Earth. It is not an unknown process, harnessing the Gaia power. I'll focus it on your injury to increase blood circulation."

  Kane gazed with trepidation at the staff, then at her, searching for any signs of duplicity. He nodded his assent.

  The knob grazed him and Kane experienced a flush of warmth, accompanied by a pleasant pins-and-needles sensation that spread through his shoulder. Fand withdrew the staff, a faint dew of perspiration filming her forehead.

  "There," she announced. "My bio-energy complements your own. Now you must sleep."

  A wave of drowsiness crept over Kane, and he swallowed a yawn. "Who'll wake me up?"

  "When it's time, I will. Have no fear of that."

  Kane arose from the chair and walked to a bedroom, the same one he had occupied as a guest of Lord Strongbow. Fand followed him, carrying his shirt, sweater and coat. As he stretched out on the canopied bed, she lit a small flare-topped oil lantern, suffusing the room with a soft, yellow-orange glow.

  The mattress was as hard as he remembered, but at the moment it felt like the consistency of a cloud. He closed his eyes. Right as he glided away into sleep, he heard Fand's faraway, loving whisper, "Sleep, Ka'in, my beloved Cuchulainn. Sleep...dream...and remember."

  AT FIRST, KANE WAS aware he dreamed. Images were formless and vague, but he sensed they were all connected in some mysterious way. Chaotic scenes and landscapes shifted and tilted around him, like clouds rolling and tumbling before a gale. Slowly, these settled into one distinct landscape, strange yet familiar. He received a dim impression of a greater strangeness than mere difference of distance—a hint of misty abysses and vast gulfs of aeons, of a time long forgotten.

  Kane watched as Cuchulainn arrived at the trysting place, the Strand of the Yew Tree. The quarter moon gleamed at its apex and the surface of the Boyne danced with reflected highlights. The long reeds and marsh grass undulated in the breeze. Here and there rose gaunt and gray monoliths, menhirs reared by nonhuman hands.

  Cuchulainn tugged the long cloak tighter about his body and adjusted the hood to cast his face into deep shadow, as if he were trying to conceal his identity from unseen observers. Only the long spear, Gae Bolg, marked him as the notorious Ka'in, Hound of Ulster.

  As though he floated high above the banks of the river, Kane aloofly watched Cuchulainn stride impatiently back and forth, twice circling the yew tree, ducking his head beneath the low spread of branches. He seemed agitated and Kane wondered why.

  Then, with the suddenness of thought, he felt himself drawn toward the man like a sliver of iron pulled by a magnet. He sped headlong down and into him, melding seamlessly with his perceptions. In a micro- instant, he was Ka'in, and he knew what he knew and felt what he felt.

  He was consumed with anxiety, anger and even a touch of fear. The sound of a stealthy footstep was almost inaudible, but to the wilderness-honed ears of the Gael, it was as loud as a trumpet call. Pivoting on a heel, leading with Gae Bolg, he saw a slender figure part the reeds bordering the riverbank, appearing to be disgorged by the shadows. Like him, the figure was draped head to toe in a hooded cloak.

  Lowering the spear, he strode forward aggressively, demanding, "Where were you today, Fand? I was censured by Conor himself—"

  Long, delicate fingers reached up and gently pressed themselves against his lips. "Hush, beloved. You did well on your own. You exposed the Firbolgs for what they are and Balor's complicity. You did not need my counsel."

  Ka'in pulled down the woman's hood to reveal a beautiful face that wasn't completely human. She had huge, slanted eyes, as big in proportion to her high- boned face as those of a cat. They were the sparkling blue of mountain meltwater, and he had always found them beautiful despite, or maybe because of, the feline pupils. Her lips were full and pouting, her skin a smooth alabaster with a tinge of blue. The thick wavy hair hanging loose along the side of her face bore tiger stripes of black and blond. Her small ears swept up and back to points.

  "We can no longer meet," Ka'in said in a pained whisper. "The rumors about us have put my credibility and honor in question. I cannot continue to hurt my wife like this nor you your husband. Twice he has sent assassins against me."

  Bright anger flared in Fand's huge eyes, then darkened to sorrow. "Yes," she said at length, in a hushed, faraway voice. "You are right. The Danaan are no longer pleasing in the sight of men. The time of my race has passed, our science and boons forgotten. The belief in the power of the White Christ will soon sweep us all away into history.

  "We have no choice but to stand aside and allow humanity to chart its own course, determine its own destiny. The Tuatha De Danaan will retreat into realms invisible, unseen by the eyes of man."

  She spoke without heat, without bitterness, but a palpable sadness underscored her words. Ka'in's heart jerked in pain, to a tragic sense of loss, yet he knew she spoke truly. The old world and the ancient ways were in wane, entering a twilight time, and the mad love they shared could not arrest the tide of change.

  A smile suddenly creased Fand's lips, as sudden as a shaft of brilliant sunlight bursting through dark cloud cover. "But still we have this night." Her fingers undid the silver clasp at her throat and the cloak fell away, slithering down her slim body. As always, Ka'in's eyes drank in the feline grace and beauty of her form. Her legs were the longest in proportion to her body as he had ever seen in a woman.

 

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