Carse swore. He rounded on the Sea Kings. “You’re warriors, not serving maids. Use your wits. Has my body mouldered in a tomb for ages? Am I a dead thing walking?”
Out of the tail of his eyes he saw Boghaz moving toward the dais and here and there the drunken devils of the galley’s crew were rising also, loosening their swords, to rally to him.
Rold put his hands on Emer’s shoulders and said sternly. “What say you to this, my sister?”
“I have not spoken of the body,” Emer answered, “only of the mind. The mind of the mighty Cursed One could live on and on. It did live and now it has somehow entered into this barbarian, dwelling there as a snail lies curled within its shell.”
She turned again to Carse. “In yourself you are alien and strange and for that alone I would fear you because I do not understand. But for that alone I would not wish you dead. But I say that Rhiannon watches through your eyes and speaks with your tongue, that in your hands are his sword and scepter. And therefore I ask your death.”
Carse said harshly, “Will you listen to this crazy child?”
But he saw the deep doubt in their faces. The superstitious fools! There was real danger here.
Carse looked at his gathering men, figuring his chances of fighting clear if he had to. He mentally cursed the yellow-haired witch who had spoken this incredible, impossible madness.
Madness, yes. And yet the quivering fear in his own heart had crystallized into a single stabbing shaft.
“If I were possessed,” he snarled, “would I not be the first to know?”