Read Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank for Free Online Page B

grandsire to any of you, who can tell?"
    This last produced no laughter from my suddenly sober-faced audience, and I nodded. "Let's be about it, then, before it starts to rain again or grows too dark to see. Clovis, come you with me for a moment. There is much of your father here in this small valley, and since you are my youngest son, I want to share it with you."
    I felt no qualms about the subterfuge as I led him away, leaving the others to dispose of the tasks I had set them. As soon as we were out of their sight, however, I changed direction, circling around behind the hut until we reached the hanging screen of roots, briars and creepers that concealed the entrance to Merlyn's hiding place. It took me mere moments to work my way around the hanging mass and rip away the living curtain to expose the narrow entrance, and I used my body as a brace to hold back their weight as Clovis eased his way past me into the interior. It was dry inside, and dark, but there was light enough to show us what lay therein: two massive chests and a long, straight-edged package that obviously contained a box, tightly bound in some kind of uncured hide that had been soaked, then stretched tightly around its contents before being bound with narrow leather thongs and left to dry in place, forming a hard, stiff casing. Clovis turned to me, his eyebrows raised in query.
    I pointed at the long, narrow package. "This one is mine, from Merlyn. Bring it when we leave here and place it with the other two bundles in the hut."
    He pointed a thumb towards the chests. "What about those?"
    "Those we destroy. They contain sorcery— real sorcery. Merlyn took them from two warlocks, many years ago. I helped him bring them here. He always intended to destroy them, but he was curious about the things they held and could not bring himself to dispose of them before he knew their secrets. I suspect he eventually forgot that they were here and only found them when he brought—" I stopped short, on the point of saying "Excalibur." "When he brought this other box to leave safely for me. By that time, he was too old and weak, too tired, to destroy them effectively. And so, in the letter that he left, he asked me to complete the task for him. We'll burn them when we leave, tomorrow. Right now, we have to empty them and scatter their contents on the floor here. But he warned me that they are more than simply dangerous: they all contain death, in one form or another, and in some cases, he insists, mere contact with the skin can bring about a painful end. So be careful not to touch anything that lies inside either of them."
    I opened the larger chest, then stood gazing in surprise at what I saw. The interior seemed to be a narrow, shallow tray, filled with leather thongs and surrounded on all four sides by wide, ribbed borders. It took me several moments before I saw that the "ribs" along each edge were the edges of a nested series of trays, each deeper than the one above, and that the leather thongs were handles, one pair attached to each of the trays in series. I folded back the thongs, draping them over the edges of the chest, then found those for the first tray, the shallowest, which had contained nothing other than the layered thongs. I lifted it out and laid it aside, revealing the tray below. It was twice as deep as the first one, its interior divided into rectangular boxes, some of them empty but many filled to varying degrees with what I took to be seeds and dried berries of many colors. All of them would be poisonous, I told myself, lifting out the tray and resting it on one corner of the chest. I gripped it by the sides and turned it over carefully at arm's length, scattering the contents on the floor of the cave before setting the empty tray aside and reaching for the third set of handles. This tray was deeper and heavier, with fewer compartments, containing jars and vials. Those, too, I tipped out onto the floor, using my boots to free the lids and tip the