Only after Dageus had retired abovestairs and the wee hours of the morn had filled his weary bones with disenchantment—by Amergin, he was three score and five, too old for such doings—did he admit that by now, he should have something to show for his work. He’d not been entirely forthright with Dageus.

He’d been devouring the old texts since the night Dageus had confessed and fled. Oddly, though he’d damn near torn the castle apart, he couldn’t find any documents predating the first century. And he knew they’d once had many. They were referenced in many of his texts in the tower library.

Yet he couldn’t find the bletherin’ things, and granted the castle was enormous, but one would think one could keep track of one’s own library!

According to the legends, they even had the original Compact that had been sealed betwixt the race of man and fairy. Somewhere. God only knew where. How could they not know?

Because, he answered himself wryly, when so much time passes that a tale becomes far removed from its origination, it loses much of its reality.

Though he’d dutifully told his sons the Keltar legends, he’d privately thought that the tales from millennia past were surely embellished a bit, possibly a fabricated creation-myth of sorts, to explain away the Keltar’s unusual abilities. Though he’d obeyed his oaths, a part of his mind had never fully believed. His daily purposes had been purpose enough: the Druid rituals marking the seasons, the care of the villagers in Balanoch, the education of his sons and his own studies. He hadn’t needed to believe all the rest of it.

The sad truth was, not even he’d really believed there was some ancient evil in the in-between.

How much we’ve forgotten and lost, he brooded. He’d scarce given thought to the legendary race that had allegedly set the Keltar on their course. Not until his son had gone and broken his oath, thus violating an alleged Compact whose existence had become far more myth than reality.

Well, he brooded darkly, now at least we know the old legends are true.

Little comfort, that.

Nay, his search had failed to unearth even an iota of useful information. Indeed, he’d begun to fear that the Keltar had been unforgivably careless in their guardianship of the old lore, that Dageus’s broken oath was merely one more failing in a long list of failings.

He suspected they’d quit believing centuries ago, pushing away the mantle of a power that exacted too high a price. For generations, the Keltar men had been growing increasingly morose, weary of protecting the secret of the stones, weary of hiding away in the hills and being regarded with fear. Weary of being so damned different.