Chapter 2 #2
He thought about letting her watch nervously and wonder, and then determined that while she might dislike him for what she would see as the accident of his birth, he was not going to be in the wrong.
He stepped out from behind the tree.
“Deidre,” he said quietly.
And still, he knew that he had startled her for she drew back, ready to fight. But seeing him, she closed her eyes for a moment and let out a breath of relief.
“Kylin. So, it’s true.”
“I’m sorry. What is true?” he asked.
“You dreamed of a cauldron,” she told him.
He frowned. What was going on?
“And you dreamed of this cauldron, too?” he asked her. “And somehow knew that I did?”
She smiled at that, leaving her place behind the tree to walk toward his horse rather than him. She extended a hand for Darragh to sniff, the appropriate thing with such an animal. Then she stroked his neck.
“Beautiful creature,” she murmured.
“Thank you. I think so. But I may be prejudiced since he’s mine, raised from a colt.”
She smiled again and then looked at him, possibly as puzzled as he was regarding the cauldron dream.
And the sword.
“There was more than a dream,” she told him. “When I woke this morning . . . there was a piece of torn parchment on the floor of my room. And it said, ‘Seek. Crimson days lie ahead. Seek the cauldron on the Hill of Tara.’”
“There was someone in your room?” he asked.
“No.”
“Can you be certain? Perhaps someone—”
“Trust me, no. My father is a kind and generous man, known among his people for being a great rí. But every soul knows that they risk life and limb to venture near his daughter’s door.”
And that was most probably true.
But a dream was a dream, ethereal, perhaps even magical.
A parchment was physical, a piece of material meant for writing.
Again, she let out a breath. “I’m not any happier about any of this than you.
No, that’s a lie. If I hadn’t been all but knocked dead, if I hadn’t seen the shimmering creature, I would not have found the sword and without it, I’d not be alive.
” She winced. “And, of course, if not for the help of you and your warriors.”
“We were both in the right place at the right time. And, of course, I understand legends—across the sea, people have their old legends, too, thinking that they can cast the runes and know whether or not their journey will be safe. But I have trouble combining ancient legends with what we’ve come to believe—”
“Ah, well, you should know my father. I mean, think about it! I’ve studied your father’s people, too.
They have Odin and Loki and Njord and others.
My father believes that a great being exists and that we all see them in different ways, but those who learn to practice simple virtues—kindness, peace and generosity—are taking different paths to the same place.
So perhaps the legendary creatures who have remained are a form of the angels we learned about from our great Patrick.
I don’t know how to question any of this.
I just know that the sword saved my life and that I’ve been asked—we’ve been asked, perhaps chosen—to do this bidding on earth. ”
“Your father is a wise man. And truth, I dreamed that I must come here and search for a cauldron. Your dream didn’t tell you what we were to do with it, did it?”
She smiled. When she did so, she was truly beautiful. Her eyes were as emerald as the island and they lit up brilliantly against the deep, dark red of her hair. She was slim, yet all muscle from training, and her features were both strong and elegant.
She was not the enemy, he told himself.
Just a young woman with a sharp dislike for him because of his background. She never saw what her father had known, that his father was also one of the most honorable men to be found anywhere in the world in which they lived.
“Kylin?”
“Sorry! No, in the dream, I was just to find the cauldron. And . . . ah, it seems to make little sense! A sword, aye, something to be used when attacked. But a cauldron?”
“Trust me. I needed the sword. We will learn what to do with the cauldron,” she assured him. “It’s just that . . .”
“I know. I sense it. Something very bad is coming.”
“An attack. Something major and coordinated.”
“Someone may well be out to usurp the ard-rí, combining men of éire and forces from the northern isles to do it,” he said. “Yesterday . . .”
“I know,” she admitted. “I hate it,” she added, wincing and pausing. “I don’t understand how people can go against one another!”
“Different areas, and different rulers,” he said.
“Different beliefs—and I’m not talking about gods and goddesses of any place, people or nation.
I’m talking about those who desire more power, who feel that most of the populace are lesser human beings, set upon the earth to serve, to die when expedient. ”
She nodded. “I am sorry,” she said softly.
“You’re sorry? Um, for what, exactly?”
She looked away and grimaced. “My, um, thoughts, maybe? Both my parents are descended from people who have been here for hundreds of years—”
“And you know this how?” he asked her.
She frowned, turning to look at him. “Well, because . . . they have!”
“I think I understand, and you’ve seen how people who come may cause horrible death and destruction.
But while a man’s birth may influence his thinking, it does not make the man.
I know my father didn’t want to spend his life sailing the seas to attack others.
I know that he offered himself and his men to your father for acceptance and that he has kept that promise all his life and taught me that I must do the same.
My mother has a family like yours, and you know, because she came from a noble family to the northeast, one that your father knows well—he arranged the marriage. So, I beg you, quit doubting me!”
“We do need to find that cauldron,” she told him.
He was certain that she was intentionally ignoring any point he made. Maybe she just didn’t want to acknowledge him in any way at all.
“You believe that it exists.”
“So do you, or you wouldn’t be here,” she reminded him.
“How can two people have the same dream?” he asked, shaking his head.
She smiled at that. “Magic. They say that when the Tuatha Dé Danann came, they knew that they wouldn’t rule the island forever.
In their great wisdom, they knew that man would come, and thus they took up a life in the cairns and the caves, the air and the earth.
It’s said that they even respect Father Patrick, too.
Perhaps they rely upon him to allow their magic when it’s needed. ”
He grinned. “As you say, then. Let’s look for a cauldron!”
“Should we split up?” she asked.
Kylin hesitated. She was well armed. She knew how to fight, how to take care of herself. Yet he was afraid. Perhaps—
“I will be fine,” she promised. She smiled at him again. “I believe we can dare to do so in this immediate vicinity. Your horse will warn us when someone is here. He saw me.”
“All right.” Kylin nodded slowly. It was true. Darragh was a great guard; he had already proven himself.
There was no one close then, he knew, because Darragh was happily munching on the grass again.
He turned to head off toward the east, leaving Deidre to head in a northeasterly direction.
Areas of the land had often been all but stripped to allow for animals and settlements, but here the land was incredibly rich with greenery, bushes and tall grasses growing high between trees.
Occasionally, there were natural clearings where the grass was low—such as the area where Darragh awaited them.
He’d had the dream; Deidre had had the dream. She had been “given” the sword—or she had simply found it and imagined that there had been a shimmering body to direct her to the weapon.
No. He knew the truth. He’d seen the sword in action. And there had been something beyond the usual scope of man in its power that forced him to consider that maybe, sometimes, there was magic in the world.
Maybe when it was needed?
If there was a cauldron, she would find it. Certainly. She was the one who had been touched by the ancient legends. Except that—
He stopped dead, amazed.
Because he had come upon something of a clearing, an area barren of trees but scattered with bushes and high grass. And somehow in the middle of the incredible greenery there was something . . . metallic. And black.
He walked toward it, still disbelieving that any of it could be happening. But he came upon it. And there, in the grass, sat a cauldron. It didn’t appear to have been left rotting by any ancient civilization.
Rather, other than the leaves and grass that waved around it, the object was pristine. As if had been cast at a forge just that day.
And perhaps it had.
Except for the dream.
He needed to tell Deidre that he had found it.
But first he had to touch it. It was metal; yes, indeed, it was a cauldron. He could lift it and carry it. While it appeared heavy, as if it could contain a soup or porridge for dozens of people, it was light in his hand.
Just as Deidre’s sword is so incredibly light when she lifts it, wields it!
At least that made his next move easy enough. He hefted the cauldron into his arms and turned around, ready to head back, to find Deidre.
They had a cauldron. What were they to do with it?
He wound his way through thickets and trees back toward the clearing where Darragh waited.
When he neared the clearing, he saw that the horse was once again standing with his head high, as if he were listening, perhaps smelling the air. Someone was about. He didn’t believe that it was Deidre this time.
Carefully, he moved back around, watching the clearing. And as he did so, a sword-wielding man broke through the underbrush, calling to someone behind him.
“Find her! Find the bloody girl and get the sword from her first!”
How many are there? How do they know that Deidre came here? Perhaps she was followed, but then . . .