There was another silence. It seemed to Carse that the very air was heavy, so that it weighed upon his heart.
He found that Emer had left silently. He turned and went out onto the little gallery, where he stood staring down at the sea.
“Rhiannon,” he whispered. “I curse you. I curse the night I saw your sword and I curse the day I came to Khondor with the promise of your tomb.”
The light was fading. The sea was like a bath of blood in the sunset. The wind brought him broken shouts and cries from the city and far below longships raced into the fiord.
Carse laughed mirthlessly. “You’ve got what you wanted,” he told the Presence within him, “but you won’t enjoy it long!”
Small triumph.
The strain of the past few days and this final shock were too much for any man to take. Carse sat down on the carven bench and put his head between his hands and stayed that way, too weary even for emotion.
The voice of the dark invader whispered in his brain and for the first time Carse was too numb to fight it down.
“ I might have saved you this if you had listened. Fools and children, all of you, that you would not listen!”
“Very well then—speak,” Carse muttered heavily. “The evil is done now and Ironbeard will be here soon. I give you leave, Rhiannon. Speak.”