The Wandering Fire Part 28

In a way it hadn't been much at all, and in another way it was everything. But then, Paul remembered thinking, they had not come here expecting to return.

Metran would be doing two things, Loren had explained with a terseness alien to him. He would be pouring the vast preponderance of his enhanced power into building another a.s.sault on Fionavar. But some of his strength he would be holding back to form a shield around himself and his sources and the Cauldron. They need not expect to find many guards at all, if indeed there were any, because Metran's shield-as Loren's own, that had blocked the Soulmonger-would be guard enough.

In order for Loren to have any hope of smashing the Cauldron, they had to get Metran to lower that shield. And there was only one thought that occurred to any of them-they would have to battle the svarts. Not those being used as sources, but the ones, and there would have to be a great many, who were there as support.

If they could create enough chaos and panic among the svarts, Metran might just be moved to turn his defensive shield into an attacking pulse leveled at the South Keep invaders.

"And when he does that," Loren said grimly, "if I time it right and he doesn't know I'm with you, Matt and I may have a chance at the Cauldron."

No one said anything about what would happen when Metran's might, augmented by the svart alfar and the inherent power of Cader Sedat, hit the South Keep men.

There was, really, nothing to say. This was what they had come to do.

And they couldn't do it. With the wily caution of years of secret scheming, Metran had forestalled even this desperate stratagem. There were no support svart alfar they could attack. They could see the shield, a shimmering as of summer heat rising from fallow fields. It covered the entire front of the Hall, and all the svart alfar were behind it. Only an occasional runner, like the winebearer they had killed, would make a darting foray out from the Hall. And they couldn't mount a threat against so few. They couldn't do anything. If they charged down onto the floor, the svarts would have a laughing time picking them off with arrows from behind the shield. Metran wouldn't even have to look up from his book.

Frantically, Paul scanned the Hall, saw Diarmuid doing the same. To have come so far, for Kevin to have died to let them come, for Gereint to have hurled his very soul to them-and for this, for nothing! There were no doors behind the screen, no windows over the dais whereon the Cauldron stood, and Metran, and all the svart alfar.

"The wall?" he murmured hopelessly. "In through the back wall?"

"Five feet thick," Diamuid said. "And he'll have shielded it, anyway." Paul had never seen him look as now he did. He supposed he appeared the same way himself. He felt sick. He saw that he was shaking.

He heard from just behind them Cavall whimper once, very softly.

His sudden memory from the dark corridor came back. Quickly he looked past Diarmuid. Lying p.r.o.ne beyond the Prince, gazing back at Paul, was Arthur. Who said, a whisper of sound, "I think this is what Kim brought me for. I never see the end, in any case." There was something unbearable in his face. Paul heard Diarmuid draw a sharp breath and he watched Arthur move back from the entrance so he could rise without being seen. Paul and the Prince followed.

The Warrior crouched before his dog. Cavall had known, Paul realized. His own rage was gone. He hurt instead, as he had not since he'd seen the grey dog's eyes under the Summer Tree.

Arthur had his hands in the scarred fur of the dog's ruff. They looked at each other, man and dog; Paul found he could not watch. Looking away, he heard Arthur say, "Farewell, my gallant joy. You would come with me, I know, but it may not be. You will be needed yet, great heart. There... may yet come a day when we need not part."

Paul still could not look at them. There was something difficult in his throat. It was hard to breathe, around the ache of it. He heard Arthur rise. He saw him lay a broad hand on Diarmuid's shoulder.

"Weaver grant you rest," Diarmuid said. Nothing more. But he was crying. Arthur turned to Paul. The summer stars were in his eyes. Paul did not weep. He had been on the Tree, had been warned by Arthur himself that this might happen. He held out both his hands and felt them clasped.

"What shall I say?" he asked. "If I have the chance?"

Arthur looked at him. There was so much grey in the brown hair and beard. "Tell her..." He stopped, then slowly shook his head. "No. She knows already everything that ever could be told."

Paul nodded and was crying, after all. Despite everything. What preparation was adequate to this? He felt his hands released into the cold again. The stars turned away. He saw Arthur draw his sword in the corridor and then go down the five steps alone into the Hall.

The one prize that might draw the killing force of Metran's power.

He went quickly and was most of the way to the dais before he stopped. Scrambling back with Diarmuid to watch, Paul saw that Metran and the svarts were so absorbed they hadn't even seen him.

"Slave of the Dark, hear me!" cried Arthur Pendragon in the great voice that had been heard in so many of the worlds. It reverberated through Cader Sedat. The svart alfar shouted in alarm. Paul saw Metran's head snap up, but he also saw that the mage was unafraid.

He gave Arthur an unhurried scrutiny from beneath his white eyebrows and bony forehead. And, Paul thought bitterly, from behind the safety of his shield.

"I intend to hear you," Metran said tranquilly. "Before you die you will tell me who you are and how you came here."

"Speak not lightly of dying in this place," Arthur said. "You are among the great of all the worlds here. And they can be awakened. As for my name: know that I am Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther, King of Britain. I am the Warrior Condemned, summoned here to battle you, and I cannot die!"

Only an arrow, Paul thought fearfully. An arrow could kill him now. But the svart alfar were gibbering in panic, and even Metran's gaze seemed less secure.

"Our books of lore," he said, "tell a different tale."

"Doubtless," Arthur replied. "But before you run to them, know this: I command you now to quit this place on the hour or I shall go down and wake the dead in their wrath to drive you into the sea!"

Metran's eyes wavered indecisively. He came slowly from behind the high table. He hesitated, then said, sharp and brittle in the huge room, "It is told you can be killed. Over and over, you have been killed. I will offer your head before the throne in Starkadh!"

He raised one arm high over his head. There came a low sound from Cavall. Arthur's head was lifted, waiting. This is it, Paul thought, and he prayed.

Then Metran lowered his hand slowly and began, brutally, to laugh.

It lasted a time time, corrosive, contemptuous. He's an actor, Paul remembered, wincing under the laceration of that mockery. He fooled them all for so long.

"Loren, Loren, Loren," Metran finally gasped, overcome by his own amus.e.m.e.nt. "Just because you are a fool must you take me for one? Come and tell me how you eluded the Soulmonger, then let me put you out of pain." His laughter ended. There was a bleak malevolence in his face.

From the far side of the Hall, Paul heard Loren's voice. "Metran, you had a father, but I will not trouble his rest by giving your full name. Know that the Council of the Mages has ordered your death, and so, too, has the High King of Brennin. You have been cursed in Council and are now to die. Know also that we did not elude the Soulmonger. We slew him."

"Hah!" Metran barked. "Will you bl.u.s.ter still, Silvercloak?"

"I never did," said Loren and, with Matt, he stepped into the green light of the Great Hall. "Behold the staff of Amairgen for proof!" And he held the Whitebranch high.

At that, Metran stepped back and Paul saw real dismay on his face. But for a moment only.

"Brightly woven, then!" said Metran sarcastically. "A feat to be sung! And for reward now, I will allow you to stand here and watch, Loren. Watch helplessly, you and whoever you coerced into this voyage, while I move a rain of death from Eridu, where it has been falling for three days now, over the mountains into the High Kingdom.

"In the name of the Weaver," Diarmuid said, horrified, as Metran deliberately turned his back on Loren and returned to his table by the Cauldron. Once more the svart alfar resumed their cycling of the living and dead. Through it all Denbarra stood, his eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open, slack and soundless.

"Look," Paul said.

Matt was talking urgently to Loren. They saw the mage stand irresolute a moment, looking at the Dwarf; then Matt said something more and Loren nodded once.

He turned back to the dais and, raising the staff of Amairgen, pointed it at the Cauldron. Metran glanced up at him and smiled. Loren spoke a word, then another. When he spoke the third, a bolt of silver light leaped from the staff, dazzling all of them.

The stones of Cader Sedat shook. Paul opened his eyes. He saw Metran struggling to his feet. He felt the castle trembling still. He saw the vast Cauldron of Khath Meigol sway and rock on its base above the fire.

Then he saw it settle back again as it had been.

The shield had held. He turned and watched Matt slowly rising from the ground. Even from a distance he could see the Dwarf trembling with what that power surge had taken from him. And, abruptly, he remembered that Matt had sourced a shield against the Soulmonger that same day, and then a steering of all the worlds' winds away from them as they sailed to the island. He couldn't begin to comprehend what the Dwarf was enduring. What words were there, what thoughts even, in the face of a thing like this? And how did you deal with the fact that it wasn't enough?

Shaken but unhurt, Metran stepped forward again. "You have bought the death you came for now," he said with no trace of idle play in him any more. "When you are dead, I can begin shaping the death rain again; it makes no matter in the end. I shall grind your bones to powder and lay your skull by my bed, Loren Silvercloak, servant of Ailell." And he closed the book on the table and began gesturing in a gathering motion with his arms.

He was bringing in his power, Paul realized. He was going to use it all on Loren and Matt. This was the end, then. And if that was so- Paul leaped from the entranceway, down the stairs, and ran across the floor to Matt's side. He dropped to his knees there.

"A shoulder might help," he said. "Lean on me."

Without a word, Matt did so, and, from above, Paul felt Loren touch him once in a gesture of farewell. Then he saw the Whitebranch lifted again, to point squarely at Metran, who stood now between them and the Cauldron. He watched Metran level a long finger straight at the three of them.

Then both mages spoke together and the Great Hall shook to its foundations as two bolts of power exploded toward each other. One was silver, like the moon, like the cloak Loren wore, and the other was the baleful green of the lights in that place; they met midway between the mages, and where they met a fire leaped to flame in the air.

Paul heard Matt Soren fight to control his breathing. Above him, he glimpsed Loren's rigid arm holding the staff, straining to channel the power the Dwarf was feeding him. And on the dais he saw Metran, sourced by so very many of the svart alfar, bend the same power that had made winter in midsummer directly down on them. Easily, effortlessly.

He felt Matt begin to tremble. The Dwarf leaned more heavily on his arm. He had nothing to offer them. Only a shoulder. Only pity. Only love.

Crackling savagely, the two beams of power locked into each other as the castle continued to shake under their unleashed force. They held and held, the silver and the green, held each other flaming in the air while worlds hung in the balance. So long it went on, Paul had an illusion that time had stopped. He helped up the Dwarf-both arms around him now-and prayed with all his soul to what he knew of Light.

Then he saw that none of it was enough. Not courage, wisdom, prayer, necessity. Not one against so many. Slowly, with brutal clarity, the silver thrust of power was being pushed back toward them. Inch by bitter, fighting inch Paul saw Loren forced to give way. He heard the mage's breathing now, ragged and shallow. He looked up and saw sweat pouring in rivulets down Loren's face. Beside him, Matt was still on his feet, still fighting, though his whole body shook now as with a lethal fever.

A shoulder. Pity. Love. What else could he give them here at the end? And with whom else would he rather die than these two?

Matt Soren spoke. With an effort so total it almost shattered Paul's heart, the Dwarf forced sounds out of his chest. "Loren," he gasped, his face contorted with strain. "Loren... do now!"

The green surge of Metran's might leaped half a foot nearer to them. Paul could feel the fire now. Loren was silent. His breathing rasped horribly.

"Loren," Matt mumbled again. "I have lived for this. Do it now." The Dwarf's one eye was closed. He trembled continuously. Paul closed his own eyes, and held Matt as tightly as he could.

"Matt," he heard the mage say. "Oh, Matt." The name, nothing more.

Then the Dwarf spoke to Paul and he said, "Thank you, my friend. You had better move back now." And grieving, grieving, Paul did so. Looking up, he saw Loren's face distort with wildest hate. He heard the mage cry out then, tapping into his uttermost power, sourced in Matt Soren the Dwarf, channeled through the Whitebranch of Amairgen, and the very heart and soul of Loren Silvercloak were in that cry and in the blast that followed it.

There came a flash of obliterating light. The very island rocked this time, and with that shaking of Cader Sedat a tremor rolled through every one of the Weaver's worlds.

Metran screamed, high and short, as if cut off. Stones shook loose from the walls over their heads. Paul saw Matt fall to the ground, saw Loren drop beside him. Then, looking up toward the dais, he saw the Cauldron of Khath Meigol crack asunder with a sound like a mountain shattering.

The shield was down. He knew Metran was dead. Knew someone else was, too. He saw the svart alfar, bred to kill, beginning to run with swords and knives toward them, and, crying aloud, he rose up and drew his own sword to guard those who had done what they had done.

The svarts never reached him. They were met by forty men of Brennin, led by Diarmuid dan Ailell, and the soldiers of South Keep cut a swath of sheer fury through the ranks of the Dark. Paul charged into the battle, wielding a sword with love running high in his heart like a tide-love, and the need to hammer through grief.

There were many svarts and they were a long time in the killing, but they killed them all. Eventually Paul found himself, bleeding from a number of minor wounds, standing with Diarmuid and Coll in one of the pa.s.sageways leading back to the Great Hall. There was nowhere else to go, so they went back there.

In the entrance they paused and looked out over the carnage wrought in that place. They were near to the dais and walked up to it. Metran lay flung on his back, his face shattered, his body disfigured by hideous burns. Near him lay Denbarra. The source had been babbling through the fight, with the staring eyes of the hopelessly mad, until Diarmuid had put a sword through his heart and left him near his mage.

Not far from them, still smoldering, lay the thousand, thousand fragments of the Cauldron of Khath Meigol, shattered. Like a heart, thought Paul, and turned to walk the other way. He had to step over and around the dead svart alfar and the stones of the walls and ceiling dislodged in the final cataclysm. It was very quiet now. The green lights were gone. Diarmuid's men were lighting torches around the Hall. By their glow Paul saw, as he came near, a figure on his knees rocking slowly back and forth amid the devastation with a dark head cradled in his lap.

I have lived for this, Matt Soren had said; and had made his mage go into him for killing, uttermost power. And had died.

Looking down in silence, Paul saw then in the Dwarf's face, dead, a thing he had never seen in it, living: Matt Soren smiled amid the ruin of Cader Sedat, not the grimace they had learned to know but the true smile of one who has had what he most desired.

A thousand, thousand fragments, like a heart. Paul looked at Loren.

He touched the kneeling man, once, as the mage had touched him before; then he walked away. Looking back, he saw that Loren had cast his cloak over his face.

He saw Arthur with Diarmuid and went over to them. The torches were lit now, all around the Hall. Arthur said, "We have time, all the time we need to take. Let us leave him for a while."

Together the three of them walked with Cavall down the dark, moldering corridors of Cader Sedat. It was damp and cold. A chill, sourceless wind seemed to be blowing among the crumbling stones.

"You spoke of the dead?" Paul murmured.

"I did," said Arthur. "Spiral Castle holds, below the level of the sea, the mightiest of the dead in all the worlds." They turned. Another darker corridor.

"You spoke of waking them," Paul said.

Arthur shook his head. "I cannot. I was trying to frighten him. They can only be wakened by name and, when last here, I was very young and I did not know-" He stopped, then, and stood utterly still.

No! Paul thought. It is enough. It has been enough, surely.

He opened his mouth to speak but found he could not. The Warrior took a slow breath, as if drawing it from his long past, from the core of his being. Then he nodded, once only, and with effort, as if moving his head against a weight of worlds.

"Come," was all he said. Paul looked at Diarmuid, and in the darkness he saw the same stiff apprehension in the Prince's face. They followed Arthur and the dog.

This time they went down. The corridor Arthur took sloped sharply, and they had to use the walls to keep their balance. The stones were clammy to the touch. There was light now, though, a faint phosph.o.r.escence of the corridor itself. Diarmuid's white tunic gleamed in it.

They became aware of a steady pounding noise beyond the walls.

"The sea," Arthur said quietly, and then stopped before a door Paul had not seen. The Warrior turned to the two of them. "You may prefer to wait out here," he said.

There was a silence.

Paul shook his head. "I have tasted death," he said.

Diarmuid smiled, a brief flash of his old smile. "One of us in there," he said, "had best be normal, don't you think?"

So they left the dog by the door and pa.s.sed within, amid the incessant pounding of the sea on the walls.

There were fewer than Paul had thought there would be. It was not an overly large chamber. The floor was stone and without adornment. In the center stood a single pillar, and upon it one candle burned with a white flame that did not waver. The walls gleamed palely. Set around the room in alcoves dimly lit by the candle and the phosph.o.r.escence of the walls were perhaps twenty bodies lying on beds of stone. Only that many, Paul thought, from all the dead in all the worlds. Almost he walked over to look upon them, to see the faces of the chosen great, but a diffidence overtook him, a sense of intruding upon their rest. Then he felt Diarmuid's hand on his arm, and he saw that Arthur was standing in front of one of the alcoves and that his hands were covering his face.

"It is enough!" Paul cried aloud and moved to Arthur's side.

In front of them, as if asleep, save that he did not breathe, lay a man of more than middle height. His hair was black, his cheeks shaven. His eyes were closed, but wide-set under a high forehead. His mouth and chin were firm, and his hands, Paul saw, clasped the hilt of a sword and were very beautiful. He looked to have been a lord among men, and if he was lying in this place, Paul knew, he had been.

He also knew who this was.

"My lord Arthur," said Diarmuid painfully, "you do not have to do this. It is neither written nor compelled."

Arthur lowered his hands. His gaze never left the face of the man who lay on the stone.

"He will be needed," he said. "He cannot but be needed. I should have known it was too soon for me to die."

"You are willing your own grief," Paul whispered.

Arthur turned to him at that, and his eyes were compa.s.sionate. "It was willed long ago."

Looking on Arthur Pendragon's face in that moment, Paul saw a purer n.o.bility than he had ever seen in his days. More, even, than in Liranan, or Cernan of the Beasts. Here was the quintessence, and everything in him cried out against the doom that lay behind this monstrous choice.

Diarmuid, he saw, had turned away.

"Lancelot!" said Arthur to the figure on the bed of stone.