Avenge My Kin - Book 5

CHAPTER ONE

1307

DEWAR OF THE SWORDS

A strangely different David Seton stood at the base of the huge grey Cairn in Kilmartin Glen. His head hair was virginal white but his facial hair was non-existent. The scar on his cheek, a relic from his battle with the Moors, had changed from red to celadon, a pale greenish blue. He could remember little of the cosmic eruption caused when he had inserted the red eye into the Resurrection Scarab and purposely allowed the count to exceed one hundred heartbeats. A hand strayed to the Messer around his throat and he knew it was only the relic of Saint Fillan that had saved him the fate of the hundred English soldiers that lay scorched and blackened in death all around the Hill of Credulity. An apt name, he thought, it was incredulous that he had survived. Even his hand had remained whole, blackened yes, but complete and able to grip the Golden Ankh, the only part of the jeweled Scarab that remained. The Ankh, the ancient symbol of life, he now kept in a safe place so that one day he would present it to Morag for her to use with the Healing Stone.

David stood at the second of a row of five Cairns that dominated the valley, but it was to this Cairn, Nether Largie North, he had been compelled to visit.

It had been ten years since he had last stood on this spot and where he had heard the voice of his deceased mother; she had shown him that the “sealing stone” at the crest of the cairn should be turned rather than pushed in order to gain entrance to the crypt below.

And yet he hesitated and his eyes drifted north to a stand of pine trees. He knew hidden from view was Kilmartin Castle, home of Sir Ian MacCailean of the Campbells of Auchinbreck, and his black soul-mate, Ebio, Prince Consort to Queen Anchieta of Nubia until the Temple Priests had cut out his tongue, and made him an outcast.

A fleeting smile crossed David’s face at the memory of Liam and the Faerie Glen where David had discovered the treasure hidden beneath the Tortoise Stone. All had shown initial disbelief of the location, and then came the wonderment of acceptance.

But he was stalling, and he knew it, and it took effort to place his foot on the first stone of the Cairn and heave his body up, and then the rest of the climb followed. Slightly out of breath he gained access to the windswept crest, and there before him was the spiral-carved circular red sandstone that acted as a seal to the crypt below. His hands gripped the sides of the stone and as before he turned rather than pushed. The sandstone spun back to expose the seven steps that led to the depth below.

His first surprise was that the four mirrors were still in position on the four corners of the granite vault, but his eyes were drawn to the wax-like figure dressed in a saffron robe that occupied the coffin-like recess on the floor. Was it dead – or merely asleep?