The Sword and the Song

by C. E. Laureano

  Conor’s gorge rose at the implication. Somewhere he had the presence of mind to force it back down. Tied as he was, it would be an undignified way to die, drowning in his own vomit. Somehow the thought managed to be both horrifying and hilarious at the same time.

  “Interesting. Hysteria already? I didn’t take you for the type. Or is it some new effect of the rune?”

  Conor wrestled his emotions back under control. There was nothing funny about his situation. If Niall meant to torture him for information, he’d eventually break, and then the sorcerer would either stop or put him out of his misery. If he was merely testing the rune’s properties, there was no reason to quit until Conor was mutilated beyond all recognition.

  So this was how it all ended for him. Taken apart piece by piece in some Sliebhanaigh fortress, never to see his wife again, never to lay eyes on his child. At least Aine was safe in Ard Dhaimhin. Eoghan would see that she and the child were cared for. That was the only advantage to the fact that his best friend loved his wife.

  How long would it take for her to grow to love him back? Conor had already said Aine would make a fine queen. It would only make sense for her eventually to marry the High King.

  The thought of Aine in Eoghan’s arms, his hands on her, made Conor’s stomach twist. Of course Eoghan would bed her. Of course she would bear him children. It wouldn’t even be a hardship, considering what Eoghan could offer. And Conor’s sacrifice would be forgotten.

  His failure, on the other hand, would be immortalized by his absence.

  A tear trickled from the corner of his eye. Niall caught it on the tip of his knife and gave the blade a twist, nicking the skin of his cheekbone. “I’m disappointed. Tears already, and we haven’t even begun.” Niall waved a hand, and a blue flame danced on his palm.

  Conor swallowed and kept his eyes fixed firmly on the curved stone ceiling. He knew now that he wouldn’t be leaving this room. Nothing he said would change that. The only thing he could control was how he conducted himself in the minutes or hours or days before his death.

  But when the first flicker of unnatural fire licked his skin, he screamed.

  Drip. Drip. Drip, drip, drip.

  He woke to a stinging slap across the face and the sound of more water dripping onto the floor. Pain seared every nerve ending, surprising him with its intensity, surprising him that it didn’t dull the other sensations: the cold breeze against his face, the sticky wetness on his skin.

  Only then did he realize that the drip coincided with the hammering of his pulse. Not water. Blood. His blood.

  Footsteps scuffed along the stone floor. “This has been quite enlightening, don’t you think? It seems that the shield rune, as you call it, is effective against direct incursions of the mind and at blocking innate magic. But it is shockingly useless against physical attacks brought by magic. As, of course, you know.”

  Conor struggled to focus on the voice, struggled to hang on to consciousness, though he didn’t know why. It would be so much easier to embrace the cool comfort of darkness.

  “No, not yet. We’re not finished. And you need to be awake for this to work. Do you want to see what’s been done so far?”

  Conor shook his head with all the strength he could muster. Niall laughed. “Fair enough. That might sever the last tether on your mind, and I still need that engaged. What I wonder now is if the rune works both ways. You can’t contact your beloved Aine, but if she were told you were in trouble, could she contact you?”

  “No.” Conor moistened his cracked lips and tried to make his voice strong. “Better that she doesn’t know. I don’t want her to know.”

  “Then why don’t we save that for last? I think you’ll want to say good-bye in the end. In the meantime . . .”

  Conor didn’t hear the rest over the whoosh of blood in his ears. But when the pain again became too much, he stopped fighting and succumbed to the embrace of the dark.

  Flashes of light. The raspy sound of breathing. His own, he thought. Pain, but more distant now. Hard to grasp, slipping away.

  “Not yet.” Who was the other voice? He couldn’t remember. “You’ve been very helpful. We’re almost finished. And then you’ll have your reward. You can say good-bye.”

  The sound of sobbing came to his ears. His voice. He didn’t care. He was broken. There was nothing left of him to salvage. No pride. No purpose. He had failed in every way that mattered.

  He eagerly raced to meet the blackness.

  Conor. Conor, it’s me. Can you hear me?

  He tried to pry his eyelids open, but they wouldn’t move, sticky and encrusted with blood. At least the pain was less now. Or maybe there was so much of it he couldn’t distinguish one sensation from the other. The dripping had slowed too, slowed with the barely perceptible beating of his heart. He trembled with cold and struggled to focus on the voice.

  Tears seeped from beneath his eyelids. “I’m sorry, Aine. I failed. We failed. We were betrayed. I did my best, but—”

  Conor, listen to me. It’s not over. You have to be strong.

  “I’m dying, Aine. I love you.”

  No. You are not dying.

  “What’s been done—”

  Nothing’s been done to you, Conor. Open your eyes!

  “I can’t!” He meant the words to come out as a shout, but they came out as a croak instead. “He took them. Don’t you understand? I’m blind!”

  You are not blind. You are not being tortured.

  He turned his head away as if he could shut out her voice. What kind of cruelty was this? Did she think she could give him some comfort in his last moments? He had just one more thing to convey. “I love you, Aine. I always have.”

  He closed his eyes and drew what would surely be his last breath.

  “Conor!” Aine screamed his name aloud and pounded her fists against the stone floor. “Don’t die! Don’t give up! Do you hear me?”

  Eoghan gripped her shoulders. “You can get through to him, Aine. You must. If you don’t, he really will die.”

  She tried to still the beating of her heart, tried to regain their connection. It had to have been Comdiu’s voice that roused her from a sound sleep, and that meant she could still save him. She found his consciousness again, barely a whisper in the tunnels of Ard Bealach.

  Conor, listen to me. You are not dying. You are not being tortured. None of this is real. You’re trapped in a glamour.

  Why could he not die? Was it Aine’s fault? Was she the one holding him back from finding peace in the arms of his Maker?

  “I love you,” he mumbled. “Let me go.”

  Conor, listen to me. You are not dying. You are not being tortured. None of this is real. You’re trapped in a glamour.

  The words pierced the fog, even though they didn’t make any sense. “Please, just let me go.”

  No. I will not let you go. The sidhe are deceiving you. This is all an illusion. Don’t you remember Cwmmaen? Prince Talfryn?

  It seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn’t remember why. Cwmmaen was a Gwynn name. When had he been in Gwydden?

  That’s right. You were in Gwydden. The sidhe were keeping you there to prevent you from finishing your mission, just like now. Are you listening to me, Conor? You have to break free. You have to shake this off.

  “I can’t.”

  You can. You must. Otherwise, you fail. Isn’t that what this is about? You’re afraid that you will fail me? Seare? Now, think. Think about all the things that don’t add up. If you have the shield rune, how are we talking now? It blocks magic.

  That was true. It was supposed to block all magic of the mind. But how had Niall known what he was thinking, then? Unless he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

  No. It’s all a construct. You have to fight it. If you don’t listen to me now, it’s all for nothing. You’re a failure.

  A spark of anger ignited at the words. He was dying. How dare she.

  But the pain. Where was the pain? He flexed his fingers and realized his hand
was no longer bound.

  That’s right. You see? It was an illusion. Where’s your harp?

  By the tunnel entrance, wasn’t it? But how could he escape?

  Open your eyes now, Conor. Now! Do it! I promise you, you can see.

  But he remembered the pain quite clearly. The screaming.

  Just like he remembered the opulence of a destroyed Gwynn fortress. The kiss of a beautiful girl who wasn’t a girl. None of it was real, at least not in the way he imagined it.

  Aine’s voice sounded tearful now. Please, Conor, just open your eyes. If you love me, if you love your child, finish this mission and come home to me.

  Could it be true? Could she be right? Or was this all a hallucination born of blood loss and pain and madness?

  He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

  A flame, little more than a flicker, guttered from the torch on the tunnel’s gravel floor. His ivory charm—the one he’d counted on to protect him from the sidhe, the one he’d foolishly revealed—lay beside it. Slowly, he took inventory of his body. No blood, no pain except the throb of his neck where Larkin had throttled him. His eyes darted around the tunnel as the strength flooded back into his limbs.

  His men lay sprawled out as far as he could see into the dark, lifeless, limp. A few twitched or moaned. Were they undergoing torture as he had, or were they experiencing their own private torment?

  Embarrassment flooded him. All his worst fears had been laid out before him. Captivity and torture. Failure. Losing his wife and child—and losing them to Eoghan. All had been used to ensnare him and make him ineffectual. All used to cripple him so he couldn’t do the things Comdiu had sent him to do. Shame joined embarrassment now. These things onto which he held so tightly he had let consume him until they nearly destroyed him.

  Had he admitted the fears and given up and let go, they never would have been able to be used to deceive him. He couldn’t even put it into words, the depth of his shame and sorrow. How many times did he have to learn the same lessons? Today his stubbornness could have cost twelve lives for which he was responsible, including his own.

  Aine, I’m here. I’m going back for the harp.

  He could feel her relief. Thank Comdiu. Be careful, Conor. You have no idea how close we were to losing you.

  But he did.

  Aine let out her held breath before she realized it was the only thing keeping her upright. She would have collapsed had Eoghan not scooped her up beneath her arms and helped her to a chair. He hovered above her while he waited to see if she would stay there on her own.

  “I’m fine. I am. I just . . .”

  She became aware of the looks exchanged around the room. Somewhere in the minutes or hours that she had been linked with Conor’s mind but unable to break through the illusion, more of the brothers had arrived to stand silent watch with her. Eoghan. Riordan. Dal. Even Fechin. For the first time, she understood the unbreakable strength in the brotherhood, why they had fought so hard to keep it intact. Their support for Conor, who was no longer really one of them, was plain in their support of her.

  They remained quiet, leaving Eoghan to ask their question. He reached for her hand, then apparently thought better of it. “Is he free?”

  “He’s free.” The words seemed to sap the last of her strength, and her body sagged forward toward the tabletop.

  “Come, let’s get you to your bed. Riordan?”

  Gently, they slid an arm under each side and helped her to her feet. She would have protested, but she felt too weak to put one foot in front of the other. She’d never been linked so closely to another’s mind, had underestimated the effect on her. She had felt every moment of the torture, so intense that she almost believed it was happening, even knowing it was an illusion. Even worse had been feeling his agony and hearing the thoughts that ran through his head as he tried to escape something that just continued to grow worse. Eoghan had repeatedly pulled her out of the trance, forced her to drink water, made her focus on the reality around her lest she get pulled too deeply into the illusion herself.

  She felt a gratitude toward him that was altogether unsettling considering she understood what lay behind his concern.

  “Sleep now, my lady. We’ll have one of the women check on you in the morning.”

  She couldn’t manage anything but a weak nod as she climbed into her bed and pulled the coverlet to her chin. Only when Eoghan blew out the candle and the room drained of its inhabitants did she let her tears fall.

  Great, racking sobs for what Conor had experienced, for what she had experienced through him, and for the one thing she never thought possible, the one thing she wished she had never been able to see through his eyes.

  While Conor was in Gwydden, there had been another woman.

  Conor retraced his steps toward the tunnel entrance, praying that the harp was where he had left it. How long had he been trapped in the glamour? How long had he lain there, unconscious and helpless? It was all too possible that the men of the fortress were waiting for them, and if they weren’t, the minute he played the harp, they would be alerted to the Fíréin’s presence.

  The trip back took much less time than the approach, his steps picking up speed until he was almost running. His body was finally remembering that it was not dying, he had not been carved up and tormented until he wished for death, even if flashes of false memory still sent his heart racing. Later. He could deal with that later. Right now his men needed him. He still had to finish the mission.

  The cold glimmer of moonlight shone through the tunnel’s entrance, illuminating the outline of his harp case. He let out a breath of relief. A quick look outside revealed that the moon had sunk toward the horizon again, an indication that a few hours had passed. Given the time it had taken to traverse the passage, he couldn’t have been unconscious for long. He reached for the case and then thought better of it and climbed through the opening to where the horse still waited. It tossed its head and huffed impatiently as if to ask where Conor had been.

  “I know,” he murmured. “But you’re going to have a long wait.” He retrieved a mallet, chisel, and shovel before climbing back through the tunnel opening and adding the harp to his burden. He hadn’t thought to see if the dead end was part of the glamour or a reality, and he wouldn’t have time to return for the tools if the passage really were blocked.

  He reached his men in no time, though he suspected that might have more to do with the residual fogginess than the actual distance to the end of the tunnel. He let the tools fall and set the harp down as gently as he could manage, then held the torch out. No, it had been no illusion. The tunnel was seamless rock, just as the outer entrance had been. Whoever had sealed the tunnel had been taking no chances. That worked in their favor. The men above would never dream that it could be so easily reopened.

  For a moment, he debated. If he had been so close to dying, the others might be as well. Playing away the illusion now would free them from the enchantment, but it would also alert the others above. What happened if they followed the sound and figured out they were being attacked?

  No, he couldn’t risk it. He picked up the chisel and mallet and began to carve the rune into the surface of the rock wall, just large enough for them to climb through. This time he only scratched the surface, relying on speed rather than thoroughness. The basic shape came together quickly, and Conor used the chisel to deepen the lines and double-check his work. Little bits of granite began to crumble at his feet. It had worked. Two strong thrusts of the shovel, and there was a hole big enough to squeeze his shoulders through.

  A light breeze ruffled his hair as he knelt beside the opening. He had definitely broken through to a chamber of some sort. Carefully, he leaned in and looked around. The soft glow of a torch from somewhere in the recesses of the space gave just enough light to see that it was empty—for the time being.

  Comdiu, please let this work, he prayed. He opened the harp case and drew out the instrument, the same plea circulating through the ba
ck of his mind like a litany. He could not fail. This had to work.

  He didn’t question the melody that came to him. If he trusted Comdiu to give him this gift, he had to trust Him to bring the right notes to mind as well. The music spread out around him, filling the dark spaces of the tunnel with sound, but the golden light he’d come to expect in his mind’s eye was absent, as if he were blind. Please, Comdiu, he prayed again. Let this work. Let this be successful. Bring them back.

  And then he heard the screaming.

  It was the sound of men in agony, as if they were being torn limb from limb.

  No, worse. It was the sound of souls being rent from their bodies.

  Conor’s fingers faltered on the strings, but the screaming continued, and he realized that it was not coming from his own warriors but somewhere in the keep itself. His stomach turned and his throat tightened, but he kept playing. It was only when he stopped, his eyes blurred with unshed tears, that he realized the shrieking had been silenced.

  Larkin was the first to push himself to a sitting position, his eyes wild. He scrambled back on his hands and feet until he hit the tunnel wall. “Where am I? What’s happening?”

  Conor replaced the harp into the case and moved to his side, but Larkin recoiled. “It’s all right,” Conor said soothingly. “I don’t know what you saw, but none of it was real. It was all an illusion.”

  “But you . . . you’re dead. I killed you. I—” Larkin shook off the thought. “That was all an illusion?”

  “Aye. Clearly, I’m alive.” He didn’t have the heart to tell Larkin he was remembering his own actions, that he had almost killed Conor. His eye once again caught a glimmer of white on the ground—the charm. The sidhe had used Larkin to remove the charm so Conor would be susceptible to their illusions. He palmed the necklace and surreptitiously slid it into his pouch.

  “What happened?” A voice rang out from farther down the tunnel. Everyone seemed to be stirring now, murmurs of fear and confusion filling the cavernous space.