The Wandering Fire Part 15

Even at a distance, Loren could see the other pale, and there came a low murmuring from the Mormae. For an instant Audiart was motionless, her eyes on Jaelle's face; then she stepped forward with two long strides and, cupping her hands beside the horse of the High Priestess, helped her dismount.

"Continue," Jaelle murmured and, turning her back, walked through the gates of the Temple to the red-clad Mormae. One by one, Loren saw, they knelt for her blessing. Not one of them, he judged, was less than twice her age. Power on power, he thought, knowing there was more to come.

Audiart was speaking again. "Be welcome, Warrior," she said. There was some diffidence in her tone, but she did not kneel. "There is a welcome in Gwen Ystrat for one who was rowed by three Queens to Avalon."

Gravely, and in silence, Arthur nodded.

Audiart hesitated a moment, as if hoping for more. Then she turned, without hurrying, to Aileron, whose bearded features had remained impa.s.sive as he waited. "You are here and it is well," she said. "Long years have pa.s.sed since last a King of Brennin came to Gwen Ystrat for Midsummer's Eve."

She had pitched her voice to carry, and Loren heard sudden whisperings among the hors.e.m.e.n. He also saw that Aileron hadn't realized what day it was either. It was time to act.

The mage moved up beside the High King. He said, and loudly, "I have no doubt the rites of the G.o.ddess will proceed as they always do. We are not concerned with them. You requested aid of the High King, and he has come to give that aid. There will be a wolf hunt in Leinanwood tomorrow." He paused, staring her down, feeling the old anger rise in him. "We are here for a second reason as well, with the countenance and support of the High Priestess. I want it understood that the rituals of Maidaladan are not to interfere with either of the two things we have come to do."

"Is a mage to give commands in Gwen Ystrat?" she asked, in a voice meant to chill.

"The High King does." With time to recover, Aileron was bluntly compelling. "And as Warden of my province of Gwen Ystrat, you are charged by me now to ensure that things come to pa.s.s as my First Mage has commanded you."

She would, Loren knew, want revenge for that.

Before Audiart could speak, though, the sound of high thin laughter came drifting to them. Loren looked over to see Gereint swaying back and forth in the snow as he cackled with merriment.

"Oh, young one," the shaman cried, "are you still so fierce in your pa.s.sions? Come! It has been a long time since I felt your face."

It was a moment before Loren realized that Gereint was speaking to him. With a ruefulness that took him back more than forty years, he dismounted from his horse.

The instant he touched the ground he felt another, deeper, surge of physical desire. He couldn't entirely mask it, and he saw Audiart's mouth go thin with satisfaction. He mastered an impulse to say something very crude to her. Instead, he strode over to where the Dalrei stood and embraced Ivor as an old friend.

"Brightly met, Aven," he said. "Revor would be proud."

Stocky Ivor smiled. "Not so proud as Amairgen of you, First Mage."

Loren shook his head. "Not yet," he said soberly. "Not until the last First Mage is dead and I have cursed his bones."

"So fierce!" Gereint said again, as he'd half expected.

"Have done, old man," Loren replied, but low, so no one but Ivor could hear. "Unless you can say you would not join my curse."

This time Gereint did not laugh. The sightless sockets of his eyes turned to Loren, and he ran gnarled fingers over the mage's face. He had to step close to do so, so what he said was whispered.

"If my heart's hate could kill, Metran would be dead past the Cauldron's reviving. I taught him too, do not forget."

"I remember," the mage murmured, feeling the other's hands gliding over his face. "Why are we here, Gereint? Before Maidaladan?"

The shaman lowered his hands. To the rear, Loren heard orders being shouted as the hunters were dispersed to the lodgings a.s.signed them in the village. Teyrnon had come up, with his round, soft face and sharp intelligence.

"I felt lazy," Gereint said tormentingly. "It was cold and Paras Derval was far away." Neither mage spoke nor laughed, nor did Ivor. After a moment the shaman said, in a deeper voice, "You named two things, young one: the wolves and our own quest. But you know as well as I, and should not have had to ask, that the G.o.ddess works by threes."

Neither Loren nor Teyrnon said a word. Neither of them looked to the east.

The ring was quiet, which was a blessing. She was still deeply drained by the work of the night before. She wasn't sure if she could have dealt with fire again so soon, and she had been expecting it from the moment they crossed the first bridge. There was power all around her here, she could feel it, even through the green shield of the vellin on her wrist which guarded her from magic.

Then, when prepossessing Audiart spoke of Midsummer, the part of Kim that was Ysanne, and shared her knowledge, understood where the power was coming from.

Nothing to be done though. Not by her, in this place. Dun Maura had nothing to do with a Seer's power, nor with the Baelrath either. When the company began to break up-she saw Kevin ride back into Morvran with Brock and two of Diarmuid's men-Kim followed Jaelle and the mages to the Temple.

Just inside the arched entranceway, a priestess stood with a curved, glinting dagger, and an acolyte in brown, trembling a little, held a bowl for her.

Kim saw Loren hesitate, even as Gereint extended his arm for the blade to cut. She knew how hard this would be for the mage. For any follower of the skylore, this blood offering would be tainted with darkest overtones. But Ysanne had told her a thing once, in the cottage by the lake, and Kim laid a hand on the mage's shoulder. "Raederth spent a night here, I think you know," she said.

There was, even now, a sorrow in saying this. Raederth, as First Mage, had been the one who'd seen the young Ysanne among the Mormae in this place. He had known her for a Seer and taken her away, and they had loved each other until he died-slain by a treacherous King.

The lines of Loren's features softened. "It is true," he said. "And so I should be able to, I suppose. Do you think I could stroll about and find an acolyte to share my bed tonight?"

She looked at him more closely and saw the strain she had missed. "Maidaladan," she murmured. "Is it taking you hard?"

"Hard enough," he said shortly, before stepping forward after Gereint to offer his mageblood to Dana, like any other man.

Deep in thought, Kim walked past the priestess with the blade and came to one of the entrances to the sunken dome. There was an axe, double-edged, mounted in a block of wood behind the altar. She stayed in the entrance looking at it until one of the women came to show her to her chamber.

Old friends, thought Ivor. If there was a single bright thread in the weaving of war it was this: that sometimes paths crossed again, as of warp and weft, that had not done so for years and would not have done, save in darkness. It was good, even in times like these, to sit with Loren Silvercloak, to hear Teyrnon's reflective voice, Barak's laughter, Matt Soren's carefully weighed thoughts. Good, too, to see men and women of whom he'd long heard but never met: Shalha.s.san of Cathal and his daughter, fair as the rumors had her; Jaelle the High Priestess, as beautiful as Sharra, and as proud; Aileron, the new High King, who had been a boy when Loren had brought him to spend a fortnight among the tribe of Dalrei. A silent child, Ivor remembered him as being, and very good at everything. He was a taciturn King now, it seemed, and said to still be very good at everything.

There was a new element too, another fruit of war: among these high ones, he, Ivor of the Dalrei, now moved as an equal. Not merely one of the nine chieftains on the Plain, but a Lord, first Aven since Revor himself. It was a very hard thing to compa.s.s. Leith had taken to calling him Aven around the home, and only half in teasing, Ivor knew. He could see her pride, though the Plain would wash to sea before his wife would speak of such a thing.

Thinking of Leith led his mind to another thought. Riding south into Gwen Ystrat, feeling the sudden hammer of desire in his loins, he had begun to understand what Maidaladan meant and to be grateful to Gereint, yet again, for telling him to bring his wife. It would be wild in Morvran tomorrow night, and he was not entirely pleased that Liane had come south with them. Still, in these matters the unwed women of the Dalrei took directions from no man. And Liane, Ivor thought ruefully, took direction in precious few other matters as well. Leith said it was his fault. It probably was.

His wife would be waiting in the chambers given them here in the Temple. That was for afterward. For now there was a task to be done under the dome, amid the smell of incense burning.

In that place were gathered the last two mages in Brennin, with their sources; the oldest shaman of the Plain, and by far the most powerful; the white-haired Seer of the High Kingdom; and the High Priestess of Dana in Fionavar-these seven were now to move through the shadows of s.p.a.ce and time to try to unlock a door: the door behind which lay the source of winter winds and ice on Midsummer's Eve.

Seven to voyage and four to bear witness: the Kings of Brennin and Cathal, the Aven of the Dalrei, and the last one in the room was Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior, who alone of all men in that place had not been made to offer blood.

"Hold!" Jaelle had said to the priestess by the doorway, and Ivor shivered a little, remembering her voice. "Not that one. He has walked with Dana in Avalon." And the grey-robed woman had lowered her knife to let Arthur pa.s.s.

Eventually to come, as had Ivor and the others, to this sunken chamber under the dome. It was Gereint's doing, the Aven thought, torn between pride and apprehension. Because of the shaman they were in this place, and it was the shaman who spoke first among that company. Though not as Ivor had expected.

"Seer of Brennin," Gereint said, "we are gathered to do your bidding."

So it came back to her. Even in this place it came back, as had so much else of late. Once, and not a long time ago, she would have doubted it, wondered why. Asked within, if not aloud, who she was that these gathered powers should defer to her. What was she, the inner voice would have cried, that this should be so?

Not any more. With only a faint, far corner of her mind to mourn the loss of innocence, Kim accepted Gereint's deference as being properly due to the only true Seer in the room. She would have taken control if he had not offered it. They were in Gwen Ystrat, which was the G.o.ddess's, and so Jaelle's, but the journey they were now to take fell within Kimberly's province, not any of the others', and if there was danger it was hers to face for them.

Deeply conscious of Ysanne and of her own white hair, she said, "Once before, I had Loren and Jaelle with me-when I pulled Jennifer out from Starkadh." It seemed to her the candles on the altar shifted at the naming of that place. "We will do the same thing again, with Teyrnon and Gereint besides. I am going to lock on an image of the winter and try to go behind it, into the mind of the Unraveller, with the vellin stone to shield me, I hope. I will need your support when I do."

"What about the Baelrath?"

It was Jaelle, intense and focused, no bitterness to her now. Not for this. Kim said, "This is a Seer's art and purely so. I do not think the stone will flame."

Jaelle nodded. Teyrnon said, "If you do get behind the image, what then?"

"Can you stay with me?" she asked the two mages.

Loren nodded. "I think so. To shape an artifice, you mean?"

"Yes. Like the castle you showed us before we first came." She turned to the Kings. There were three of them, and a fourth who had been and would always be, but it was to Aileron she spoke. "My lord High King, it will be hard for you to see, but we may all be sightless under the power. If there is anything shaped by the mages, you must mark what it is."

"I will," he said in his steady, uninflected voice. She looked to the shaman.

"Is there more, Gereint?"

"There is always more," he replied. "But I do not know what it is. We may need the ring, though, after all."

"We may," she said curtly. "I cannot compel it." The very memory of its burning gave her pain.

"Of course not," the blind shaman replied. "Lead us. I will not be far behind."

She composed herself. Looked at the others ringed about her. Matt and Barak had their legs braced wide apart, Jaelle had closed her eyes, and now she saw Teyrnon do the same. Her glance met that of Loren Silvercloak.

"We are lost if this fails," he said. "Take us through, Seer."

"Come, then!" she cried and, closing her eyes, began to drop down, and down, through the layers of consciousness. One by one she felt them come into her: Jaelle, tapping the avarlith; the two mages, Loren fierce and pa.s.sionate, Teyrnon clear and bright; then Gereint, and with him he brought his totem animal, the night-flying keia of the Plain, and this was a gift to her, to all of them-a gift of his secret name.

Thank you, she sent; then, encompa.s.sing them all, she went forward, as if in a long flat dive, into the waking dream.

It was very dark and cold. Kim fought back fear. She might be lost down here; it could happen. But they were all lost if she failed. Loren had spoken true. In her heart a brilliant anger burned then, a hatred of the Dark so bright she used it to shape an image in the deep, still place to which they had come, the bottom of the pool.

She had not prepared it beforehand, choosing to let the dream render its own truest shape. And so it did. She felt the others registering it, in all their shadings of grief, anger, and hurting love for the thing marred, seeing that clear image of Daniloth defiantly alight, open and undefended amid an alien landscape of ice and snow.

She went into it. Not to the light, though she yearned for it, with all her heart, but straight into the bleak winter that surrounded it. Driving with all her power she reached back for the strength of the others and made of herself an arrow flung from a bow of light hurtling into the shape of winter.

And broke through.

Very black. The image gone. She was spinning. No controlled flight now. She was going into it and very fast and there was nothing to hand, nothing to grab onto, no- I'm here. And Loren was.

And I. Jaelle.

Always. Brave Teyrnon.

Still dark, though, and going into it so far. No sense of s.p.a.ce, of walls, nowhere to reach, not even with the others there. They were not enough. Not for where she had come, so far into the workings of Maugrim. There was so much Dark. She had seen it once before, in and out for Jennifer-but now there was only in and so far yet to go.

Then the fifth one was there and spoke.

The ring. She heard Gereint as if he were the voice of the keia itself, creature of the night, guardian of the way to the world of the dead.

I can't! she flung back, but even as she formed the thought, Kim felt the terrible fire and there was a red illumination in her mind.

And pain. She did not know that she cried aloud in the Temple. Nor did she know how wildly the light was blazing under the dome.

She was burning. Too near, she was. Too far into the web of Dark, too near the heart of power. The flame was all around, and fire does more than illuminate. It burns, and she was inside. She was- A balm. A cooling breath as of the night breeze through autumn gra.s.ses on the Plain. Gereint. Another now: moonlight falling on Calor Diman, the Crystal Lake. And that was Loren, through Matt.

And then a goad: Come! Jaelle cried. We are near to it.

And Teyrnon's strength, cool in its very essence: Farther yet, I think, but I am here.

So on again she went. Forward and down, now, very nearly lost with how far she had to go. There was fire, but they were guarding her; she could endure it, she would; it was wild but not the Dark, which was an end to everything.

No longer an arrow, she made herself a stone and went down. Driven by need, by a pa.s.sionate longing for Light, she went into the Dark, a red stone falling into the secret heart, the worm-infested caverns of Maugrim's designs. Into this unplace she fell, having cast loose from all moorings save the one along which she could send back, before she died and was lost, a single clear icon for the mages to shape in the domed room so infinitely far.

Too far. It was too deep and she was going so fast. Her being was a blur, a shadow; they could not hold her. One by one she left the others behind. With a despairing cry, Loren, who was the last, felt her slip away.

So there was fire and Rakoth, with no one to stay either one of them. She was alone and lost.

Or she should have been. But even as she plummeted, burning, a new mind came to hers so far down into the Dark she could scarcely believe it was there.

The burning ebbed again. She could exist, she could move through the pain, and she heard then, as if in a memory of a clean mild place, a deep voice singing.

There was darkness between, like a black-winged creature, screening the other from her. She was almost gone. Almost, but not yet. She had been a red arrow, then a stone. Now she made herelf into a sword, red as it had to be. She turned. In this directionless world she somehow turned and, with the last blazing of her heart, she slashed through the curtain, found the other where he lay, and grasped an image to send back. She had to do it alone, for the mages were gone. With her very last power, using fire like love, she threw the vision back, unimaginably far, toward the sanctuary in Gwen Ystrat. Then it was dark.

She was a broken vessel, a reed on which a wind could play if there could be a wind. She was a twinned soul without form. The ring had faded utterly. She had done what she could.

There was someone with her, though, chanting still.

Who? she sent, as everything began to leave her.

Ruana, he replied. Save us, he sent. Save us.

And then she understood. And, understanding, knew she could not let go. There was no release for her yet. No directions existed in this place, but from where her body lay his chanting would be north and east.

In Khath Meigol, where the Paraiko had once been.

We are, he sent. We still are. Save us.

There was no fire left in the ring. With only the slow chanting to guide her in the black, she began the long ascent to what there was of light.

When the Baelrath blazed Ivor closed his eyes, as much against the pain in the Seer's cry as against the surging of red. They had been asked to bear witness, though, and a moment later he forced himself to look again.

It was hard to see in the punishing glow of the Warstone. He could just make them out, the young Seer and the others around her, and he marked the clenched strain on the faces of Matt and Barak. He had a sense of ma.s.sive striving, of almost shattering effort. Jaelle was trembling now. Gereint looked like some Eridun death mask. Ivor's heart ached for them, journeying so far in such a silent battling.

Even as he thought this, the chamber exploded with echoing voices as, almost simultaneously, Jaelle and Gereint and tall Barak cried aloud in despair and pain. For a moment longer Matt Soren was silent, perspiration pouring down his craggy face; then Loren's source, too, cried out, a deep tearing sound, and fell to the floor.

As he rushed forward with Arthur and Shalha.s.san to succor them, Ivor heard Loren Silvercloak murmur with numbed tonelessness, "Too far. She went too far. It is over."

Ivor took the weeping Barak in his arms and led him to a bench set into the curving wall. He went back and did the same for Gereint. The shaman was shaking like the last leaf on a tree in an autumn wind. Ivor feared for him.

Aileron the High King had not moved. Nor had he taken his gaze from Kim. The light was still blazing and she was still on her feet. Ivor glanced at her face and then quickly away: her mouth was wide open in a soundless, endless screaming. She looked as if she were being burned alive.

He went back to Gereint, who was breathing in desperate gasps, his wizened face grey, even in the red light. And then, as Ivor knelt beside his shaman, that light exploded anew, so wildly it made the glow from before seem dim. Power pulsed like an unleashed presence all around them. It seemed to Ivor that the Temple shook.

He heard Aileron cry, "There is an image! Look!"