Betrayals
Page 82

“And dangerous,” Gabriel said. “I could live without that part.”
“Without that, her life would not be nearly as much fun for her. Cn Annwn live for the adrenaline rush. We all do, in our way.”
“Which takes us back on topic,” I said. “Cn Annwn and deals.”
He waved at the bookshelf. “I suppose you’d like that route. It gets the adrenaline racing more than dry explanation.” He glanced at Gabriel. “Liv prefers a life fully lived. Fully experienced. That’s the lesson she’s teaching you, and I’m glad to see you’re such an apt pupil.” When Gabriel gave him a look of complete incomprehension, Patrick only sighed and waved his hand. “As long as you take the lessons to heart, you don’t need to recite them. Do I dare ask if you want to read one of my books?”
“What?” Gabriel’s composure and formality fell away in almost comical surprise.
“That would be a no,” Patrick said. “Liv dives in. You still need to test the waters. Ah well, it’s a start.”
Patrick handed me a book that was newer than most on the shelf. I’ve done enough work with Victorian original texts to recognize the binding style. It was a cloth cover, embossed in gold, simpler than many of the books I’ve worked with, with only a Celtic moon on the front.
It felt oddly light for the size. When I opened the cover, I saw why. Entire sheaves of pages were missing and others were burned, as if someone had set fire to the book.
“It’s in rough shape,” Patrick said. “That’s the problem with handwritten texts. I can’t just run out and replace it. That is one of a kind.”
I flipped through it. The pages that had been removed had been done so surgically. Even on some undamaged ones, entire paragraphs had been blacked out.
“Redacted material?” I said.
“Apparently.”
I lifted the book to examine it more closely. “It was intentionally mutilated, then.”
“So it seems. My theory is that the owners really would have liked to destroy it before it got into the wrong hands, but they couldn’t quite bring themselves to obliterate decades of work. The fire damage suggests one owner even got so far as to toss it into the fire before changing his mind.”
“Dark, arcane knowledge?” I said. “Unfit for the hands of fae or mortal?”
Patrick chuckled. “I wish. No, the contents are much more prosaic.”
Before he could continue, I began skimming, picking up what Welsh I knew. Two words, repeated many times, made it very clear what this was.
“It’s a history of the Cn Annwn,” I said.
“Yes.”
Patrick sat beside me, nudging Gabriel away, which was rather like nudging a stone block. He got a cool look for his efforts and, with a sigh, Patrick pulled up the ottoman and perched on it instead. Then he reached over and flipped through pages while the book lay on my lap.
“It appears that around the turn of the last century a Huntsman decided to compile a history of their kind. This is his life’s work. You’ll see it’s all in a single hand, the ink changing and …” He turned to the back, where at least twenty pages were blank. “Continued right up until his death.”
“Why the mutilation?” I said.
“Fae consider themselves a secretive lot, but …” He waved at his library. “Obviously that doesn’t apply to our books. It’s arrogance, really. We presume we can write what we like, and if any mortal finds it, he’ll think it a work of fiction. The Cn Annwn are far more careful. The thought that someone outside their community would find such a book …” He gave a mock shudder.
“So a Huntsman wrote it, and his pack found it after his death. They cut out and redacted the most sensitive information but couldn’t bring themselves to destroy his life’s efforts. Dare I ask how you got hold of it?”
He smiled. “You can ask. I won’t tell. And I would very much prefer that Ioan didn’t discover I have it.”
“Of course not. Once he got it, I’d never see it again.”
“Smart girl. All right, then, the information is a bit fragmented, particularly the parts on deals.” He turned to near the back of the book, where a section had been almost entirely redacted.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I’m surprised they didn’t just cut this out completely.”
“Mmm, I can understand their reluctance. In matters of business—as in law—it is helpful to be able to refer to a precedent. For our purposes, it’s good that they left the pages in, because while the words are covered, they still exist. You’ll notice jumps and jolts, but you should be able to get the general picture. You’ll want to start here …”
He pointed partway down the page. I began to read, translating the general gist of the text that remained.
The offering of deals is a difficult business. It allows the Cn Annwn to pursue justice in cases where they otherwise could not, and as has been previously explained, it is the pursuit of justice that drives us. Quite literally. It feeds a hunger that is never quite satiated. The actual pursuit—the chase—only takes the edge from that hunger. To see justice done temporarily stills that relentless drive. While exacting justice ourselves is best, we can take pleasure in the victory of others.
The danger, obviously, is the temptation to offer such deals as often as we can. Yet to do that, perversely, would nullify the effect. It speaks to the dual nature of our basic drives. We want justice, and we want it to be righteous. To accept deals for substandard reasons means we would also choose substandard victims—those where the righteousness of the punishment is questionable. We risk falling victim to our drives, a danger that faces anyone who vehemently pursues justice. At what point are we taking lives for our own pleasure rather than fulfilling our contract with the universe? Such a thought is abhorrent to the Cn Annwn and, therefore, we offer deals very selectively.