Beside him, withdrawn into the shadows by the high seat, another stood also. A dark figure, hooded and cloaked, its face concealed, its hands hidden in the wide sleeves of its robe.
“What means this?” cried Garach angrily. “Daughter or not, Ywain, I’ll not stand for such insolence!”
Ywain bent her knee. “My father,” she said clearly, “I bring you the Lord Rhiannon of the Quiru, returned from the dead.”
Garach’s face paled by degrees to the color of ash. His mouth opened, but no words came. He stared at Carse and then at Ywain and finally at the cowled, hooded Dhuvian.
“This is madness,” he stammered at last.
“Nevertheless,” said Ywain, “I bear witness to its truth. Rhiannon’s mind lives in the body of this barbarian. He spoke to the Wise Ones at Khondor and he has spoken since to me. It is Rhiannon who stands before you.”
Again there was silence as Garach stared and stared and trembled. Carse stood tall and lordly, outwardly contemptuous of doubt and waiting for acknowledgment.
But the old chilling fear was in him. He knew that ophidian eyes watched him from the shadow under the Dhuvian’s cowl and it seemed that he could feel their cold gaze sliding through his imposture as a knife blade slips through paper.
The mind-knowledge of the Halflings. The strong extrasensory perception that could see beyond the appearances of the flesh. And the Dhuvians, for all their evil, were Halflings too.
Carse wanted nothing more at that moment than to break and run. But he forced himself to play the god, arrogant and self-assured, smiling at Garach’s fear.