Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (65 page)

           
The night was light, the moon full,
its radiance offsetting the shadows cast by the bulking walls of the river
canyon so that the surface of the Idre shone like velvet spun with webs of
silver. Winter’s snows were long melted, though the runoff from the forest
country to the north still raised the level of the river, sending her hurrying
swiftly southwards like some watery lover anxious to meet her paramour. The
flood tides of early spring were ended and Rycol had counted on the great
waterway lowering gradually from his walls, the races ceasing to permit a
resumption of normal river traffic. What he saw brought a frown of
misapprehension to his lean features, for he had never seen its like before.

           
From the north came a surging wall
of water, foam lining the crest, creamed by the moon’s light, the waves that
buffeted the rocky walls confining the river filling the night with angry
sound. Rycol’s warning shout was lost beneath the liquid cacophony, though
fortunately the sight alone was sufficient to send the observers darting back
from the riverside. Fortunate because the surge overlapped the banks, spilling
waves knee high across the flagstones, drenching boots and dress hems, toppling
several of the less agile on their rumps. The fort’s boats were tossed like
corks, three filling and sinking, two others hurled ashore by the sheer force
of the wave. Rycol heard it slap the stones and felt the wash over his feet,
heard the fishing boats and ferry craft of the town below his citadel crash
together and against the docksides, heard the shouts of alarm that rang from
his own people. He doubted what he saw, for he thought that within the wave he
discerned a shape, the behemoth outline of a massive creature that swam the
Idre, creating the unnatural wave with the speed of its bulky passage. He shook
his head, staring into the darkness as lights abruptly burned in the town, the
folk there rushing to assess the damage. He could not have seen what he thought
he saw: No such creature existed; it must surely have been a trick of the
light, wave and moon combining to fool his eyes.

           
He turned to his wife and saw her
stooping to wring the soaked skirts of her gown. “Did you see it?” he asked.

           
“How might I miss it?” demanded
Marga, her tone somewhat irked. “I am drenched.”

           
“What did you see?” he wondered.

           
Marga let fall her skirts and looked
at her husband, frowning. “I saw a wave. A great flood-tide wave. What else?”

           
“Nothing,” said Rycol, shaking his
head, wondering if age began to cloud his vision.

           
“Nothing would not put that look on
your face,” Marga said. “Tell me what you saw—or think you saw.”

           
Rycol turned to stare at the river,
its surface still marked by the swell-tom aftermath, but settling now,
smoothing, so that the silvery meshing of moonlight again set a patchwork
patterning on the darkness. Wavelets still slapped against the quay, but their
sussuration was the small irritation of disturbed water rather than the furious
roaring of that mighty wave.

           
“I thought,” he said slowly, taking
her arm to escort her over the slippery flags, “that something moved within the
wave. A shape—I am not certain, it was so far out—huge.” “A log?” she
suggested. “Disturbed by the river?”

           
“No.” Again he shook his head. “It
was too large. I thought it created the wave.”

           
“There is nothing that big in the
Idre,” Marga retorted pragmatically.

           
“No,” Rycol agreed, “it was probably
a trick of the light.” Thoughts of dark magic crossed his mind and were
dismissed. Kedryn and Wynett had defeated the Messenger, mehdri had brought
word from Andurel of their victory over Taws, and with the mage gone, the
usurper Hattim Sethiyan slain, the Kingdoms knew peace from Ashar’s fell
machinations. Not magic then, he decided, merely some natural occurrence. A
late spring tide, a melting of snow from the mountains that bound the Beltrevan
to the north, perhaps some log jam higher up the river; no more than that and
an imagination rendered excessively fertile by the events of the past months.

           
“Probably.” His wife’s voice brought
him back from his musings. “But meanwhile I am wet and the night is chill;
shall we find dry footwear and a fire?”

           
“Aye,” he nodded, and gave orders
for the watch to stand down.

           
His doubts, however, lingered and
the signalers in the great towers were ordered to send word across the water to
Low Fort, from which Fengrif, the Keshi commander, returned his surmise that
some snowy plateau must have slipped to create a tidal wave. Discreet
questioning of his men revealed a similar opinion, and even those who, like
Rycol, had thought they saw something could not be sure what. The next day he
made a personal inspection of the town, taking the opportunity to question the
folk there. They concurred with the majority of the garrison that the
phenomenon was of natural origin and that whilst several boats had been wrecked
when the wash drove them against the wharves, neither Ashar nor the woodlanders
could be held responsible. Finally he allowed himself to be convinced and
inscribed only a brief mention of the occurrence in the log he kept, not
bothering to send word downriver to Andurel.

           
Gerat, Paramount Sister of Estrevan,
closed the leathern covers of the book she held and set the slim volume on the
simple oak table before her. The spring sunlight that filled the tower room
shone on the worn bindings, lightening the blue so that it assumed a shade to
match the color of the gown she wore. She stroked the smooth surface as though
reluctant to give up its touch, assessing the thoughts that filled her mind,
seeking to impose order on them.

           
Alaria had warned of so much and
explained so little, that often enough in terms of parable or near rhyme so
that certain understanding had become a nebulous thing, like the half-
remembered images of a fading dream. Yet that had been her intent, surely, for
the visions granted her by the Lady were dreamlike, and even with Alaria’s
talent for prognostication, not clear indications of the path to be taken, but
rather suggestions, warnings, hints. That was the way of the Lady— to allow
always the freedom of self-determination—and the very basis of the Sisterhood’s
philosophy. To define a clear path was to define the actions required, the way
to be taken, and thus to limit the freedom of choice that was the essence of
the Sisters’ faith. The Lady Yrla Belvanne had quit Estrevan of her own free
will, under no coercion, to go into Tamur where she had met Bedyr Caitin and
become his wife. That had been a matching of hearts that had produced Kedryn
Caitin, the Chosen One foretold by Alaria. And Kedryn, a stripling then, barely
come to his manhood, might without any loss of honor have refused to face Niloc
Yarrum in single combat. Yet he had chosen to do battle with the leader of the
Horde and thus halted the foresters’ invasion at the very portals of the Three
Kingdoms, forging afterwards a peace with the barbarians that was unprecedented
in living or written memory.

           
And Wynett, Gerat thought, she was
committed to the way of the Lady, dedicated to the celibacy that ensured the
continuance of her healing talent, yet she had gone willingly into the
Beltrevan with Kedryn. Gone farther with him, into the regions of the
netherworld, where together they had won back his sight and Wynett had seen her
destiny lay not in sole duty to the Lady, but in love of Kedryn. Without that
choice made they would not have celebrated the love that bound them, uniting
the two parts of Kyrie’s talisman that it might stand against the power of
Ashar’s Messenger and overcome his magics to restore unity to the Kingdoms.

           
All those choices had been made and
the Messenger defeated, Ashar’s workings thwarted that peace might reign, the
Kingdoms secure.

           
Is it then, Gerat wondered, ended?
Is the Text fulfilled? She relinquished her touch on the book and rose to cross
the small chamber to the closest window, raising eyes of a startlingly clear
blue to the sky. Larks swooped there, pursuing the insectile bounty the warmth
of spring raised above the city, darting shapes against the heat-hazed heavens.
Far, far off, the Gadrizels were a blur across the eastern horizon, darkening
even as she watched as the sun continued its westerly path towards its setting.
She let her gaze move slowly over the plain that ran from the foothills of the
mountain range to the walls of the city, seeing less with her eyes than with
her inner knowledge the burgeoning pasturelands and the farms that dotted the
fertile champaign. The senses that had made her

           
Paramount Sister welcomed the
emotions she felt emanating from those simple homesteads, where farmers were
content to till their fields and husband their animals, yielding slowly as her
eyes moved closer, looking down to encompass the rooftops and avenues of the
city men called sacred, to the busier emotions of the inhabitants. Here she
could feel the pleasure of merchants at a fair-struck bargain, and the delight
of clients in their purchases; the anticipation of good food prepared in a
comfortable home; the warmth of companionship; above all, the peace that was an
aura of almost physical intensity about the central buildings of the
Sisterhood, the very core of Estrevan, the focal point of the city’s growth and
being,

           
Perhaps, she mused, we have too much
peace. Perhaps we live too far from the daily workings of the Kingdoms. Yet
Sisters inhabited Tamur and Kesh and Ust-Galich; teachers and hospitallers,
those gifted with the sending powers and the far-sight, the prognosticators.
Bethany governed the college in Andurel, and in all the towns of the Kingdoms
there were others bringing Kyrie’s word and the succor of their individual
talents, and through them Estrevan was made aware of the worldly happenings of
mankind. And was it not important that one place should stand apart? A place
where those who sought it might find peace? They did not have to come—that,
too, was a choice made freely, both by those laymen and -women who came, and by
those who sought to develop latent talents in service of the Lady. Without
them—without the tranquillity Estrevan bestowed—would it have been possible to
interpret Alaria’s Text? To inform those needed in the Kingdom’s defense of the
choices that lay before them? Without Estrevan would the Messenger have been
defeated?

           
Perhaps I ponder overmuch, she told
herself. What is done is done and cannot be turned back; Taws is gone and
Kedryn wed to Wynett, as best I know hailed king. Young, admittedly, but of
unquestionable integrity, and gifted with wisdom. He has Wynett to advise him,
and his father, too, and Bedyr Caitin is a good man. And I have done all I can
to see the way Alaria foretold and guide Kedryn’s steps along the path.

           
So why, she asked herself as she
turned from the window to look westward to a sun preparing to go down in a
blaze of golden glory, do these nagging doubts linger still?

           
Why am I not sure it has ended?

           
Kyrie’s prophecies leave Gerat
filled with questions, but her questions are the most important she will ever
ask. Only time will tell how Ashar will manifest his wrath at last, but one
thing is certain: In the end Kedryn must face him, for the safety of all he
loves, and more important, for the fate of the Kindoms themselves.

           
The Third Book of the Kingdoms

           
The Way Beneath

           
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