Stones Of Power - The Last Sword Of Power Part 10

'Blue and clear.'

'Describe blue - as you see it,' she said.

He stopped and thought for a moment. 'Have you ever felt silk?'

'Yes. I had a dress of silk for my last birthday.'

'Grysstha once had a small piece of silk and it was wondrous soft and smooth. Blue is like that. Just to look upon it fills the heart with joy.'

'A sky of silk,' she whispered. 'How pretty it must be! And the clouds. How do you see the clouds?'

'There are few clouds today, and they float like white honeycakes, far away and yet so clear you feel you could reach out and touch them.'

'A silk and honeycake sky,' she said. 'Oh, Cormac, it is so beautiful. I cannot see it, but I can feel it, deep in my heart.'

'I would cut off my arm to let you see it,' he said.

'Don't say that,' she said. 'Don't ever think that I am unhappy because I cannot share your visions. Take me further up the mountain. Show me flowers that I can touch and smell. . .

and describe them to me in silks and honeycakes.'

Each morning, when his arduous training was completed, Cormac would take Anduine walking through the woods - into hidden glens and hollows and often to a small lake, cool and clear beneath the towering mountains. He would marvel at her memory, for once having walked a path and found landmarks she could touch - a rounded boulder with a cleft at the centre, a tree with a huge knot on the bark, a V-shaped root - she would walk it unerringly from then on. Sometimes she could judge the trails by the gradients or, knowing the hour, by the position of the sun as it wanned her face. Once she even challenged Cormac to a race and all but beat him to the cabin, tripping at the last over a jutting root.

The youth came to love these walks, and their conversations. He joyed in describing the flying geese, the hunting fox, the proud longhorn cattle, the regal stags. She in turn enjoyed his company, the warmth of his voice and the touch of his hand.

Only on the days when he had failed in tasks set him by Revelation did she find his presence unsettling, feeling his anger and his hatred charging the air around her with a tension she had no desire to share.

'He does it only so that you will improve,' she said one damp morning, as they sat beneath an oak waiting for a shower to pa.s.s.

'He wants to see me fail.'

'Not so, Cormac - and you know it. He trained your father here and I would imagine he felt as you do.'

Cormac was silent for a time and she felt the emotions soften. His fingers slid across her hand, squeezing it gently. She smiled. 'Are you feeling yourself again?'

'Yes. But I do not understand the man. In the Circle he told me to kill you should the demons break through. They did so - but he did not try to kill you. Then he brought us here in a flash of light. Why did he not do it at the start? Then we would not have had to fight the demons at all.'

'For me that is what makes him great,' said Andu-ine, leaning in to Cormac and resting her head on his shoulder. 'He was right. It would be better for me to die than to aid Wotan with my soul. But that is the strategist speaking. When it came to the battle, it was the man who fought it - and he would give the last drop of his blood before taking mine. As to coming here, he could not while the demons lived. All the enemies had to be slain, so that none could mark our pa.s.sing. Had we run here at the start, then they would have followed.

As it is, Cormac, one day they will find us.'

He put his arm around her, drawing her to him. 'I too would die, before allowing them to harm you.'

'Why?' she whispered.

He cleared his throat and stood. 'The rain is stopping. Let us find the orchard.'

They discovered the lake on Midsummer Day, disturbing a family of swans, and Cormac splashed into the water, hurling his tunic and leggings to a rock by the waterside. He swam for some minutes, while Anduine sat patiently beneath a towering growth of honeysuckle.

Then he waded ash.o.r.e and sat beside her, revelling in the warmth of the sun on his naked body.

'Do you swim?' he asked.

'No.'

'Would you like to learn?'

She nodded and stood, untying the neck of her pale green dress and slipping it over her shoulders. As it fell to the floor Cormac swallowed hard and looked away. Her body was ivory-pale, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s full, her waist tiny, her hips . . .

'Follow me into the lake,' he said, clearing his throat and turning from her. She laughed as she felt the cool water on her feet and ankles, then waded further.

'Where are you?' she called.

'I am here,' he answered, taking her hand. Turn to face the sh.o.r.e and lean back into my arms.'

'The water will go over my head.'

'I will support you. Trust me.'

She fell back into his arms, kicking out her legs and floating on the surface of the lake. 'Oh, it is beautiful,' she said. 'What must I do?'

Remembering the teachings of Grysstha in the river of the South Saxon, he said, 'Your lungs will keep you afloat, as long as their is air in them. Breathe in deeply, spread your arms and kick out with your feet.' His arms slid under her body, and he found himself gazing down at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her white belly and the triangle of dark hair pointing like an arrow to her thighs. Swinging his head, he fixed his gaze on her face. 'Take a deep breath and hold it,' he said. Gently he lowered his hands. For several seconds she floated and then, as if realising she was unsupported, she dropped her hips and her head dipped below the sparkling water. Swiftly he raised her as she flung her arms around his neck, coughing and spluttering.

'Are you all right?'

'You let me go,' she accused him.

'I was here. You were safe.' Leaning down he kissed her brow, pushing back the dark, wet hair from her face. She laughed and returned the kiss, biting his lip.

'Why?' she asked him, her voice husky.

'Why what?'

'Why would you die for me?'

'Because you are in my care. Because . . . you are my friend.'

'Your friend?'

He was silent for a moment, savouring the touch of her body against his. 'Because I love you,' he said at last.

'Do you love me enough to give me your eyes?'

'My eyes?'

'Do you?'

'I do not understand you.'

'If you say yes, you will be blind but I will be able to see. Do you love me that much?'

'Yes, I love you more than life.' Her hands swept up touching both sides of his face, her thumbs resting on his eyelids. Darkness enveloped him, a terrible, sickening emptiness.

He cried out and she led him to the sh.o.r.eline, where he stubbed his toe on a rock. She helped him to sit and fear swept over him. What had he done?

'Oh, Cormac, so that is the sky. How wonderful! And the trees, just as you described them.

And you, Cormac, so handsome, so strong. Do you regret your gift?'

'No,' he lied, his pride overcoming his terror.

Her hands touched his face once more and his sight returned. He took her in his arms, pulling her to him as he saw the tears in her eyes.

'Why did you return my gift?' he asked.

'Because I love you also. And because you looked so lost and afraid. No one has ever done for me what you offered to do, Cormac. I will never forget it.'

"Then why are you crying?'

She did not reply. How could she tell him that until now she had never understood the loneliness of darkness?

'His anger towards you is very great,' said Anduine as she and Culain sat in the sunshine.

Two months had pa.s.sed and now the cooler breezes of Autumn whispered in the golden leaves. Every day Cormac and Culain would work together for many hours -boxing, wrestling, duelling with sword or quarter-staff. But when the sessions were over the youth would turn away, his feelings masked, his grey eyes showing no emotion.

'I know,' answered the warrior, shielding his eyes and watching the boy gamely running on towards the stand of pine, high up on the mountain's flank. 'He has reason to. But he likes you, he trusts you.'

'I think so, my lord. But I cannot heal the anger. As I touch it, it recoils like mist before me.

Will he not speak of it?'

'I have not tried to speak to him, Anduine. There would be little to gain for either of us. I first met his father on this mountain and it was here that Uther learnt to love Laitha, my Gian Avur. Now the son follows. And still the world is at war, evil flourishes and good men die. I am sorry about your father. Had I come sooner . . .'

'He was an old warrior,' she said, smiling. 'He died as he would have wished with his sword in his hand, his enemies falling to him.'

'He was brave to refuse Wotan.'

'It was not bravery, my lord. He wanted a higher price for me. Wotan merely mistook greed for n.o.bility.'

'You miss very little, Anduine, for one who cannot see.'

'You are leaving today?'

'Yes. You will be safe, I think, until I return. I am sorry that the cabin is so bare of luxury.

It will be hard for you.'

'I may just survive,' she said, smiling. 'Do not concern yourself.'

'You are a fine woman.'

Her smile faded. 'And you are a good man, my lord. So why do you plan to die?'

'You see too much.'

'You did not answer me.'

To ask the question means you know the answer, for the two are one.'

'I want to hear you say it.'

'Why, lady?'

'I want you to hear yourself. I want you to understand the futility.'

'Another time, Anduine.' He took her hand and kissed it softly.

'No, there will be no other time. You will not come back and I will never meet you again.'

For a while Culain was silent and she felt the tension in him ease away.

'All my life,' he said at last, 'all my long, long life I have been able to look at Culain and be proud. For Culain never acted basely. Culain was the true prince. My arrogance could have swamped mountains. I was immortal: the Mist Warrior, the Lance Lord from the Feragh. I was Apollo for the Greeks, Donner to the Norse, Agripash to the Hitt.i.tes. But in all the interminable centuries I never betrayed a friend, nor broke a trust. Now I am no longer that Culain and I wonder if ever I was.'

'You speak of the Queen?'

'Uther's bride. I raised her - here where we sit. She ran in these mountains, hunted and laughed, sang and knew joy. I was a father to her. I did not know then that she loved me, for she was a child of the earth and my love was a G.o.ddess of eternal beauty. But then you know the tale of the Witch Queen and her deeds.' Culain shrugged. 'When the battle was over, I should never have gone back. Uther and Laitha thought me dead; they were married then and, I believed, happy. But I found the last to be untrue. He ignored her, treating her with shameful disdain. He took other women and flaunted them at his palaces, leaving my Gian desolate and a laughing-stock. I would have killed him, but she forbade it. I tried to comfort her. I pitied her. I loved her. I brought her happiness for a little while. Then they became reconciled and our love was put away. She conceived a child by him - and all the past torments seemed forgotten.

'But it did not last for his bitterness was too strong. He sent her to Dubris, telling her the sea air would help her in her pregnancy. Then he moved a young Iceni woman into his palace. I went to Gian.' He chuckled, then sighed. 'Foolish Culain; it was a trap. He had men watching the house. I was seen and they tried to take me. I killed three of them - and one was an old friend.

'I took Gian to Anderita and then further along the coast, having got a message to friends in Sicam-bria. A ship was due to meet us and we sheltered in an old cave, safe from all - even the magic of Mae-dhlyn, Uther's Lord Enchanter.'

'How did they find you?' she asked.

'Gian had a pet hound called Cabal. Uther's horse-master, a crippled Brigante called Prasamaccus, released the beast outside Dubris and it trailed us all the way to the cave.

Gian was so pleased when it arrived, and I did not think - so great was her pleasure that it masked my intellect. The hound gave birth to a litter of five pups some time before Gian bore Cormac. A black and bitter day that was! The babe was dead, of that there is no doubt. But Gian left it with her Sipstra.s.si necklace and somehow the magic brought him back.

'But by then the hunters had found me. I killed them all and carried Gian to the cliff-top.

Uther was already there, sitting on his war-horse. He was alone and I thought of killing him. Gian stopped me once more - and I looked to the sea. There in the bay was the Sicambrian ship. I had no choice; I took Gian in my arms and leapt. I almost lost her in the waves, but at last we were safe. But she never recovered her spirit. The Betrayal of Uther and the death of her son became linked in her mind as a punishment from G.o.d and she sent me away.'

'What became of her?' whispered Anduine.

'Nothing became of her. She was dead and yet living. She joined a community of G.o.d- seekers in Belgica and stayed there for thirteen years, scrubbing floors, growing vegetables, cooking meals, studying ancient writings and seeking forgiveness.'

'Did she find it?'

'How could she? There is no G.o.d in the Universe* who would hate her. But she despised herself. She would never see me. Every year I journeyed to Belgica - and every year the gatekeeper would go to her, return and send me away. Two years ago he told me she had died.'