Silver Silence by Joy Nash

lad’s assumption, Rhys lost his hold on his illusion.
    Penn’s eyes went round. “Why…ye are not a merchant at all! You’re hardly even a grown man! How —”
    “Magic. Illusion. I’ll explain later. “Now move, lad!” Rhys gave the lad a shove in the direction of the forest. “It will not be long before those two bastards realize that denarius is nothing more than a bit of glass.”
    “Sorcery!”
    Bishop Dafyd’s eyes blazed with zealous light. Hisflaccid jowls trembled. The priest’s ranting showed no sign of abating, even though the twilight glow in the chapel’s narrow windows had long since faded to black. He punctuated each sentence with a rap of his hooked staff against the flagged stone floor. Rhys’s knees, protesting their long contact with the cold stone floor, had long since gone numb.
    “Sorcery is the gravest threat to man’s salvation. The power of the sorcerer is unnatural. Perverse! It is the might of demons. Seductive, its talons sink into a weak man’s soul, bringing disease and infection of the spirit. The miserable mortal becomes Satan’s instrument on earth—”
    Dafyd’s oratory was compelling; he held the larger part of his audience entranced. Kane’s expression was rapt. Floyd’s eyes were glassy, as if he had fallen into a trance.
    “—magic fouls all it touches, and sends even righteous men into the embrace of the dark prince. Yes, my sons, beware the sorcerer, and his whore, the witch. Their souls are black, fit only for agony in the fires of Hell—”
    Rhys slid a glance in Trent’s direction. The small man’s face was a careful blank. Howell, in contrast, wore an outright scowl. At a subtle nudge from Trent, the giant ducked his head.
    Rhys wondered at the audacity of the bishop, to condemn the very power he himself possessed. Was Dafyd afraid one of the monks, or a nobleman, might rise up to undermine his authority with his own magic? If so, he needn’t have worried. Rhys was the only other Druid present in the chapel. He noted with some relief that the bishop did not glance his way. If Dafyd were sensitive to Druid auras, as Rhys was, his gaze surely would have been drawn to Rhys.
    The air in the crowded room was almost unbearable. At dusk, the monks had lit scented torches on the altar. They did not burn cleanly. Sweat and other, fouler bodily odors melded with the stink and smoke of incense to fill the chapel with a thick haze. Rhys imagined the miasma rivaled the foulness of the Hell the bishop described with such passion.
    How much longer could the man go on? Surely this had to end soon.
    “—the righteous man must be vigilant against evil, for Satan bears many faces—”
    Rhys shifted his gaze to the tall monk who stood just behind Dafyd’s left shoulder. While the other monks wore brown, this one alone wore black. The man was never more than a few steps from the bishop.
    “—beware the murderer, the fornicator, the adulterer. The thief. Those who do not honor the Lord’s church—”
    Of all the monks, only the black-cowled acolyte had not dropped his hood. The edges of the thick fabric drooped forward, shadowing his face.
    “—my sons, you must not rest your vigilance, not even for an instant! Guard against lust, against the sins of the flesh, for evil so often comes to a man in the guise of woman. The female soul is weak. She is easy prey for Satan, who ever seeks to drive men from the path of righteousness. She is the devil’s handmaiden, eager to snare a man’s soul for her master—”
    The bishop’s words were like insects tracking filth over Rhys’s skin.
    “—temptress. Woman is ever eager to defile a holy man’s soul. For this reason, God has given man dominion over woman. A woman may reach salvation only through the guidance of her lord and master. A man must guide a woman under his care with a firm hand. He must chastise her often, and sternly, if she is to have any hope of seeing heaven—”
    Gods. Rhys felt like plunging into