Chapter 34: Chapter 34: The Secret Door

Guards searched the castle, the countryside, the village. Not a footprint, not a scuff mark on the branch of a tree, nothing was found of the archer who had killed Seer Murtagh.

All night Saoirse stared at the wooden ceiling in her room. Alyse had no words to comfort her.

The day wore on, Saoirse sitting at the window, waiting for the sky to darken, for the beast to come. I am dragon food. Doomed, doomed to a bitter end.

Aonair and the four men Lord Laoch had sent with him chose an abandoned barn with half a roof for their “lodging.”

“Best stay out of the caves,” Dara mocked. “Dragons . . . ”

Aonair slapped his friend in the head.

A grin played around Dara’s mouth. “Hey, just watching out for you. I mean, you've only got half a head as it is. I'd hate to see some dragon burn off the other side.”

Aonair dispatched the first messenger. “Arrived safely.”

When Dara's quiet snores and snorts serenaded the moon on its journey across the night sky, the dream came. The voice was so low it set up vibrations in Aonair's ears. And the stink, of rotten eggs and ash, perfumed the air. “How convenient, Aonair, that you have come to me.”

He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.

“Aonair!” his mother screamed.

He turned to jump. The flames touched him and cooked his right eye. And then her body hit his, and he was free of flames, but not the pain. His eye! His eye!

With a cry, he sat up. Instantly, the three with him were also awake.

“Master Aonair, did you hear something?”

“No, no. Go back to sleep.”

It was Dara's turn to hit him in the head. “You had to wake me. She had breasts . . . ” he complained, holding his hands up in front of him as if he was touching something large, and round, and wonderfully soft, “this big.”

Aonair lay down, turning his back to the others.

My eye.

He touched his right eye, his perfectly normal right eye. And when he closed his eyes a second time, the dream returned. He lay on his back in the shallow water and stars fell from the sky, healing his eye.

Before dawn, Aonair woke Dara.

“Are you daft? It's not morning!”

“Servant, get up.”

“Servant? I've been meaning to discuss that with you. Doesn't seem right to me. Just because your father is a lord and mine a drunkard . . . ” Dara continued in this fashion while Aonair saddled both Rith and Dara's mare. “I can read, know my numbers to fifty-two, and can recite the names of the past twelve kings—”

Aonair stuffed a roll in Dara's mouth. He took a bite. “Hmmm . . . Rory have anything to do with this?” He chewed. “Tastes a bit like parsley. And what . . . ?” He spit something into his hand. “Onion?” Two more bites followed in blessed silence. “Hey, this is actually good.”

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When he'd downed three rolls, he mounted and asked, “And where would we be going before the sun is up?”

They rode to the sea. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I'm not coming. Someone must tell your father that you're dead, that you drowned in the sea, that you were a fool. Of course, being a rather intelligent man, he probably already knows that . . . the fool part, that is.”

“I can swim.”

“And the sea monsters. Can you swim and fight?”

Aonair, took off his boots, stowing each in a bag looped around Rith's saddle. With a hand on each side of Rith's head, he leaned in placing his forehead against Rith's. “Take care of him, Rith.”

Dara ran his hand through his perpetually messed up hair. He frequently cut it to keep his head cooler when he was forced to wear armor. Light brown clumps of it stuck out at weird angles. He was shorter than Aonair, wiry and light on his feet. “You and that daft horse. You don't even know there is a door.”

Retrieving a bread roll from his saddlebag, Aonair bit into it.

“Do you?” Dara shouted.

“Everyone knows there's a door,” Aonair mumbled, his mouth full of bread.

“And yet, the castle has never been breached from the sea. Perhaps it's a rumor, started by Togair to throw off some would-be hero like . . . ,” Dara put his finger beside his nose and tilted his head as if he was pondering some deep thought, “oh, yes, like you.”

Aonair drank deeply from his waterskin. “I'll swim in with the tide. The sun will be at my back and hopefully, blind the guards. I'll have to wait until nightfall to return. I don't want to be spotted.”

“And I suppose you expect me to wait here all day for you.” Dara threw himself down onto the sand, lying on his back, his hands behind his head. “Perhaps some willing maid will wander by.” He looked left then right down the deserted beach, then raised his arms above his head. “Come, all ye fair maids. Lest I die of boredom waiting for a dead fool to return.”

Aonair winked at Rith and pointed with his head toward Dara. Rith nodded, walked over and licked Dara's face.

“Blac…” Dara pushed Rith away. “Damn horse.”

With a shout, “Wait here,” Aonair ran into the surf.

“And what exactly are you going to do when you find the door?” Dara shouted.

But his words were lost as Aonair dove into the waves. Only in the water was Aonair ever truly free of the nightmare. With strong strokes, he swam out until he was but speck on the surface. Turning, he swam toward Castle Togair, two miles away, perched high on a rocky cliff. The drift was with him, yet, he was almost two hours in the water before he neared the rocks.

Surely, if the sun rises much higher, I will be seen.

He swam hard toward land and the rocky cliff. Twice he was thrown against a rock, and twice he rotated, hitting the hard surface with his feet and pushing off. As he got nearer, and the rocks more numerous, the wild surf tossed him about, as if it was a juggler and he a ball.

I'll have to risk being seen.

He climbed onto a jagged rock. From there, he jumped from rock to rock until he reached the cliff, where he settled himself on an uncomfortable stone, his back against the cliff face, to wait for low tide to reveal the hidden door.

 

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