Tom shifted awkwardly until he found a relatively comfortable position. "You're an educated man. You know about the Celtic myth cycle?"
"A little. Some reading at university - "
"That's where it began. The secret history, locked in a few stories and passed down the years so man would never forget the suffering and the terror."
Church struggled to remember, but it had seemed such an insignificant part of his studies that the details had not remained. "There was the Tuatha Dé Danaan," he began hesitantly.
"The name the Celts gave to them. The people of the Goddess Dana, the last generation of gods to rule before mankind's ascendence. When they arrived in our world, they brought with them great knowledge and magic from four marvelous cities - Falias, Gorias, Finias and Murias - as well as four talismans: the Stone of Fal, which screamed aloud when touched by the rightful king; the Sword of Nuada, their High King, which inflicted only fatal blows; the Spear of Lugh, the sun god; and above all else, the Cauldron of Dagda, the Allfather of the gods, source of life and death and healing."
