Read Online Rescued (Book One of the Silver Wood Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel by Hazel Hunter - Free Book Online
Authors: Hazel Hunter
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power? When it comes from a source so ungodly as this?”
“We are at war, my boy. A war that spans so many centuries, and that has taken far too many of our brothers from us. It has gone on too long now.” Nathaniel touched his shoulder in a comforting gesture. “I know how repugnant it seems, when we have already devoted so much of our lives to eradicating the plague of the magic-users. But once we have the Tablet, we will finally have the means to end it. We will turn the tables on them, and use the pagans’ own devilish powers to scour all of them forever from the face of the earth.”
The door to the sparring chamber opened, and a short, bald human bowed respectfully toward Nathaniel. When the Temple Master nodded in return, the clergy aide hurried over to them.
“Master Harper, Steward Edmunds wishes to speak with you prior to the assembly.” Augustin Colbert didn’t spare Michael a glance. “He indicated that it is a matter of some urgency.”
“So it always is with Gideon.” Nathaniel gave Michael a rueful look. “I will see you at the noon assembly, my son.”
Michael bowed his head, but kept an eye on Augustin as the two men retreated. He knew the clergy aide despised him, and had been spying on him for some time now. While he was certain that the little man was interested only in what he could use to somehow disgrace Michael in Nathaniel’s eyes, he would not be above enlisting the help of Gideon Edmunds, Nathaniel’s steward, who had no love for anyone but himself.
Knowing Nathaniel would meet with Gideon in his private chambers, Michael left the sparring room through the maintenance access door, and descended down a dimly-lit stairwell into the equipment room that provided heating and air conditioning for the North Abbey sublevel. During his incarceration after the seventh Crusade, Michael had learned how to use his hands to pick up the vibrations of voices through solid walls and floors, something he was peculiarly sensitive to. He now employed the trick by placing the palms of his hands on the wall that stood between the equipment room and Nathaniel’s chamber.
Only to see if Gideon or Augustin knows more about Summer, he promised himself.
• • • • •
Gideon Edmunds stood before the plain mirror on the wall in the Temple Master’s chambers and inspected his reflection. He had not aged since attaining immortality, but he was changing in a strange fashion. He no longer bothered with sleeping, as that contributed to his unfortunate ailment, and a year spent entirely awake had added a permanent pinkish color to the whites around his black eyes. He also had a mild tic at the corner of his mouth that came and went; thus far he had managed to disguise it by chewing on the end of a cigar.
In the beginning he had not understood what was happening to him, and suspected he had been cursed. With great effort he had captured and secretly imprisoned an ancient pagan, and tortured him while demanding to know what he was suffering from, and why.
The old warlock had given him a ghastly grin, his teeth gleaming scarlet with his own blood. “Not all souls were meant to live forever. The path of eternity is littered with madmen caged by their own shattered minds.”
Gideon had enjoyed making the warlock suffer for weeks after that, until finally the old man’s higher brain functions had shut down and he became little better than a lump of twisted, burned, tattered flesh. He had finally tossed the living corpse into a furnace and let him burn to ash, but the pagan’s words clung to his thoughts like leeches, and had sucked at his vitality for the next five decades as he grew progressively worse.
Despite the pagan’s claims, immortality sickness was quite rare. It had struck only two Templars known to him over the centuries. Gideon could well remember one who had begged their temple master to decapitate him before the brain-eating spiders crawling inside his skull could escape and attack the
“We are at war, my boy. A war that spans so many centuries, and that has taken far too many of our brothers from us. It has gone on too long now.” Nathaniel touched his shoulder in a comforting gesture. “I know how repugnant it seems, when we have already devoted so much of our lives to eradicating the plague of the magic-users. But once we have the Tablet, we will finally have the means to end it. We will turn the tables on them, and use the pagans’ own devilish powers to scour all of them forever from the face of the earth.”
The door to the sparring chamber opened, and a short, bald human bowed respectfully toward Nathaniel. When the Temple Master nodded in return, the clergy aide hurried over to them.
“Master Harper, Steward Edmunds wishes to speak with you prior to the assembly.” Augustin Colbert didn’t spare Michael a glance. “He indicated that it is a matter of some urgency.”
“So it always is with Gideon.” Nathaniel gave Michael a rueful look. “I will see you at the noon assembly, my son.”
Michael bowed his head, but kept an eye on Augustin as the two men retreated. He knew the clergy aide despised him, and had been spying on him for some time now. While he was certain that the little man was interested only in what he could use to somehow disgrace Michael in Nathaniel’s eyes, he would not be above enlisting the help of Gideon Edmunds, Nathaniel’s steward, who had no love for anyone but himself.
Knowing Nathaniel would meet with Gideon in his private chambers, Michael left the sparring room through the maintenance access door, and descended down a dimly-lit stairwell into the equipment room that provided heating and air conditioning for the North Abbey sublevel. During his incarceration after the seventh Crusade, Michael had learned how to use his hands to pick up the vibrations of voices through solid walls and floors, something he was peculiarly sensitive to. He now employed the trick by placing the palms of his hands on the wall that stood between the equipment room and Nathaniel’s chamber.
Only to see if Gideon or Augustin knows more about Summer, he promised himself.
• • • • •
Gideon Edmunds stood before the plain mirror on the wall in the Temple Master’s chambers and inspected his reflection. He had not aged since attaining immortality, but he was changing in a strange fashion. He no longer bothered with sleeping, as that contributed to his unfortunate ailment, and a year spent entirely awake had added a permanent pinkish color to the whites around his black eyes. He also had a mild tic at the corner of his mouth that came and went; thus far he had managed to disguise it by chewing on the end of a cigar.
In the beginning he had not understood what was happening to him, and suspected he had been cursed. With great effort he had captured and secretly imprisoned an ancient pagan, and tortured him while demanding to know what he was suffering from, and why.
The old warlock had given him a ghastly grin, his teeth gleaming scarlet with his own blood. “Not all souls were meant to live forever. The path of eternity is littered with madmen caged by their own shattered minds.”
Gideon had enjoyed making the warlock suffer for weeks after that, until finally the old man’s higher brain functions had shut down and he became little better than a lump of twisted, burned, tattered flesh. He had finally tossed the living corpse into a furnace and let him burn to ash, but the pagan’s words clung to his thoughts like leeches, and had sucked at his vitality for the next five decades as he grew progressively worse.
Despite the pagan’s claims, immortality sickness was quite rare. It had struck only two Templars known to him over the centuries. Gideon could well remember one who had begged their temple master to decapitate him before the brain-eating spiders crawling inside his skull could escape and attack the
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