EXCERPT continued
From Chapter 8: Out of the Shadows
Harlech brushed a bead of sweat off his temple. "But Master, won't yer enemies try some tricks to stop ye?"
"Tricks, mmmyesss. But I have something better than tricks. I have knowledge! Just as no one else in Avalon knows what I have built here, at the wellspring of High Brynchilla, no one else knows that Merlin's staff is still in Avalon."
"The true heir—"
"All right, he himself probably knows! But no one else. Not even the child of the Dark Prophecy, whose help I have long awaited . . . not even he knows about the staff. Unless, of course, he can read entrails as well as I can."
The mirthless laugh came again. "For you see, my Harlech, I have learned something just this morning, from a wild boar that one of my ghoulacas found in Fireroot. A boar whose bloody entrails told me what I have been seeking to learn for seventeen years."
He cracked his white knuckles in delight. "I know where it is, my Harlech. I know where the staff is hidden. "
