High Deryni (16 page)

“So I'm not certain how many I killed: four or five, I suppose. I wounded several more. But when Gorony tried to knife me, I grabbed him for a shield. I don't think it even occurred to me that he was also a priest until I was half-way across the room with him. Alaric was in a bad way, had killed at least one man that I know of, and I had to protect him. Gorony was my surety until I could get Alaric to the door and out of that place. And of course, the whole shrine was burning.”

“That was when you revealed that you are Deryni?” Cardiel asked.

Duncan nodded slowly. “As Alaric tried to open the door, we realized that it was locked from the outside, and that this was
Warin's
surety. Alaric and I both had used our powers to unlock doors before, so I knew that it could be done, but he was in no condition to even attempt such a thing.

“I had a choice to make, and I made it. I used my powers to get us out of there. Gorony saw the whole thing, of course, and shrieked it out. And then Warin started screaming about blasphemy and sacrilege.

“That was when we left. There was nothing we could do about the burning shrine, so we got to our horses and rode away. I think the fire was what saved us, in the end. There was no pursuit. If there had been, I am almost certain we would have been taken. Alaric was very weak.”

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, trying to shut out the memories, and Cardiel shook his head in amazement.

“What since then, my son?” he asked gently.

MORGAN'S
voice had regained its customary crispness as he finished his confession, and he dared to look up at Arilan again. The prelate's face was serene, thoughtful, but Morgan almost thought he could detect a note of admiration on the handsome face. After a moment, Arilan's gaze drifted to his hands folded in his lap, to the bishop's ring flashing fire there. Then he stood up, turning away slightly, his voice matter-of-fact.

“Alaric, how did you manage to get into Dhassa? Your garb when you were first captured indicates that you must have divested some of Thomas's poor monks of their habits. You didn't harm them, did you?”

“No, Excellency. You'll find them sleeping off a Deryni spell in the vaults beneath the main altar. It seemed, I regret, the only way to accomplish our purpose without doing them real harm. I assure you, they'll suffer no ill effects.”

“I see,” Arilan said. He turned to stare thoughtfully down at the kneeling Morgan, then clasped his hands behind his back and looked up at the high window.

“I cannot grant you absolution,” he said.

Morgan's head shot up, a hot retort on his lips.

“No, don't interrupt,” Arilan interjected, before Morgan could speak. “What I mean to say is that I cannot grant you absolution yet. There remain certain details of your story that I must investigate further. But come; this is not the time to talk of such matters. If Cardiel and Duncan are finished,” he crossed behind Morgan to ease the door open, then pulled it wide, “and I see that they are, we should rejoin them so that further actions may be considered.”

Morgan scrambled to his feet, studying Arilan quizzically as the bishop passed into the larger room. Duncan was sitting in the window seat, his eyes downcast, and Cardiel had retreated to another window, head resting against a forearm thrust across the window jamb. Cardiel looked up as the two appeared, and started to speak, but Arilan shook his head.

“We'd best talk privily, Thomas. Come. The guards can stay with them.”

As Arilan threw open the doors, the guards streamed in, hands on the hilts of their weapons, but at Arilan's gesture they drew back, merely stationing themselves around the room to stare apprehensively at the two prisoners. As soon as the doors had closed behind the departing bishops, Morgan moved slowly to the window seat, keeping his bound hands well in sight of the guards, and eased himself down beside his cousin. He could hear Duncan's light breathing beside him as he leaned his head against the glass panels behind and closed his eyes to concentrate.

I hope we've done the right thing, Duncan,
his mind whispered in the deadly silence.
Despite our good intentions, if Arilan and Cardiel didn't believe us, we may have signed our own death warrants. How do you think Cardiel took it?

I don't know,
Duncan replied after a long moment.
I really don't know.

“SO,
what of Morgan and Duncan?” Arilan asked.

The two rebel bishops were standing once more in Cardiel's private chapel, the doors closed and barred from within, and an anxious escort from Cardiel's household guard waited outside. Arilan leaned casually against the altar rail to the left of the center aisle, idly fingering the cross and chain around his neck. Cardiel, restless with nervous energy, was pacing the marble floor and carpet before him, striding back and forth in the narrow transept and gesturing expansively as he spoke.

“I simply am not sure, Denis,” he said perplexedly. “Though I know I should be more cautious, I am inclined to believe them. Their stories are plausible—much more so than many I have heard. And aside from the differing points of view, they even agree with what Gorony told us on the day it all happened. Frankly, I don't see how they could have done any differently and still lived to tell of it. I probably would have done the same thing.”

“Even to using magic?”

“If I were capable, yes.”

Arilan bit on one of the links of his chain reflectively. “An interesting observation. Thomas, you surprise me. It appears that the question is not so much
what
they did, but how they did it. The real issue is magic, and the wanton use of it.”

“Is it wanton to defend oneself when attacked?”

“Perhaps, if one uses magic to do it. At least that is what we have always taught and been taught.”

“Well, perhaps we have been wrong.” Cardiel scowled. “It wouldn't be the first time. You know, if Morgan and Duncan were not Deryni, they would have been absolved by now, after coming to us the way they did—if they had even been excommunicated in the first place, that is.”

“But they
are
Deryni, they
were
excommunicated, and they have
not
been absolved,” Arilan pointed out. “You must admit that the first seems to have a bearing on the second and third.

“And yet, should it? Is it right to deal a different kind of justice to a man just because he happens to be born of the wrong set of parents, because of something over which he has no control, which he cannot change?”

Cardiel shook his head stubbornly. “Certainly not. That would be as ridiculous as your saying you're a better man than I because your eyes are blue and mine are gray—things which neither of us can change.” He stabbed the air with an emphatic forefinger. “Now, you may be better than I because of what you
see
with your eyes, or what you do with what you see. But the color of the eyes, or the fact that your mother had one blue eye and one green eye, hasn't a blessed thing to do with it!”

“My mother's eyes were gray,” Arilan said with a smile.

“You know what I'm talking about.”

“Yes, I do. But blue eyes versus gray eyes is one thing; good versus evil is quite another. What it comes down to is whether the good or evil of a man has anything to do with the fact that he happens to be born Deryni.”

“You don't think my analogy holds true?”

“I didn't say that. Thomas, I told you before that I was not convinced that all Deryni are evil. But how do you convey that simple truth—if, indeed, it is truth—to the common man, who has been taught to hate Deryni for the past three centuries? More specifically, how do you convince him that Alaric Morgan and Duncan McLain are not evil, when the voice of the Church has said otherwise? Are
you
totally convinced?”

“Perhaps not,” Cardiel murmured, not meeting Arilan's eyes. “But sometimes, perhaps we must believe in the uncertain. Perhaps we must take some things on faith, even in the real world, away from the metaphysics of religion and doctrine and subjects that we usually associate with what priests teach.”

“Simple faith,” said Arilan. “I wish it were that simple.”

“It
has
to be that simple. I know that
I
have to believe it, at least for now; that I
want
to believe it, desperately. Because if I'm wrong about the Deryni—if they really
are
as we have believed for all these centuries of hatred—then all of us are lost. If the Deryni as a race are evil, then Morgan and McLain will betray us, as will our king. And that will leave the way open for Wencit of Torenth, who is also Deryni, to ride over us like the revenging wind.”

Arilan stood with his eyes downcast for a long time, his manner solemn as he toyed with the cross on his breast. Then, with a resigned sigh, he beckoned to Cardiel and walked with him, hand on shoulder, toward the left side of the chapel, where a mosaic pattern in the floor awaited.

“Come. There is something you should see.”

Puzzled, Cardiel glanced at his colleague in question as they halted before the stark side altar. The white vigil light cast a silvery glow on the heads of the two prelates. Arilan's face was unreadable.

“I don't understand,” Cardiel murmured. “I've seen—”

“You've not seen what I would show you,” Arilan said almost sharply. “Look up at the ceiling there, where the beams cross.”

“But there's nothing…” Cardiel began, tilting his head back to squint in the dimness.

Arilan closed his eyes and let the words begin to shape inside his head, felt the tingle of the Portal beneath his feet. Pulling Cardiel abruptly against him in an iron grip, he reached out with his mind and wrenched the spell into being.

He heard Cardiel gasp. And then they jumped, and the chapel vanished, and they were standing in total darkness.

Cardiel staggered drunkenly as the darkness hit, arms reaching out blindly as he regained his balance. Arilan was gone from behind him, and he could see nothing in the blackness. His mind churned chaotically, trying to put some rational explanation to what he had just experienced, trying to orient itself to the darkness, the utter silence. He straightened in the blackness, cautiously, one arm sweeping the air before him while the other guarded his eyes. Finally, he got up the courage to speak, a terrifying suspicion growing in his mind.

“Denis?” he whispered meekly, almost afraid he would receive an answer.

“Here, my friend.”

There was a faint rustle of fabric a few yards behind him, and then a flare of white light. Cardiel turned slowly, his face draining of color as he spied the source.

Arilan stood in a soft glow of silver, his face framed in a silvery aureole, which waxed and waned and flickered almost as a thing alive. His expression was calm and serene in the silver light, the violet-blue eyes gentle and reassuring. In his hands he held a sphere of bright, cold fire whose quicksilver glow spilled sharp radiance on his face, his hands, and down the violet folds of his bishop's cassock. Cardiel stared at him in astonishment for perhaps five heartbeats, his eyes growing wider, his pulse pounding in his ears.

Then the room was spinning and the darkness was swirling around him and he was falling. He was next aware that he was lying on something soft yet unyielding, eyes tightly closed, and that a gentle hand was raising his head to put a cup to his lips.

He drank, hardly aware that he did so, then opened his eyes as cool wine trickled down his throat. Arilan was bending over him anxiously, a blown-glass goblet in his hand. He gave a wan, tentative smile as Cardiel opened his eyes.

Cardiel blinked and peered at Arilan again, but the image did not disappear. There was no silvery nimbus around his head, however, and the room was now lighted by perfectly ordinary candles in many-armed candlesticks. A low fire burned in a fireplace off to the left, and he could make out the dim shapes of furniture around the perimeter of the room. He was lying on a fur of some sort. As he raised himself to his elbows, he could see that it was the skin of a great black bear, the head grimacing fiercely to one side. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, his eyes still wide with shock. Memory returned in a rush.

“You,” he whispered, looking slowly at Arilan with awe and a little fear. “Did I really see…?”

Arilan nodded, his face carefully neutral, and stood. “I am Deryni,” he said softly.

“You're Deryni,” Cardiel repeated. “Then, all of the things you said about Morgan and McLain—”

“—were true,” said Arilan. “Or else they were things it was imperative you consider before making a decision on the Deryni question.”

“You're Deryni,” Cardiel repeated, slowly regaining his composure. “Then, Morgan and McLain—they don't know?”

Arilan shook his head. “They do not. And though I regret the mental anguish I have undoubtedly caused them through my secrecy, they are not to be told. Only you, among humans, know my true identity. It is not a secret I share lightly.”

“But, if you're Deryni…”

“Try, if you can, to imagine my position,” Arilan said with a patient sigh. “I am the only Deryni to wear the episcopal purple in nearly two hundred years—the only one. I am also the youngest of Gwynedd's twenty-two bishops, which again puts me in a historically precarious position.” He lowered his eyes before continuing.

“I know what you must be thinking: that my inaction for the Deryni cause has probably permitted countless deaths, untold suffering at the hands of persecutors like Loris and others of his ilk. I know, and I ask the forgiveness of every one of those unfortunate victims in my prayers each night.” He raised his eyes to meet Cardiel's unflinchingly. “But I believe that the greater virtue sometimes lies in knowing how to wait. Sometimes, though the price be almost unbearable, and though a man's mind and soul and heart cry out in protest, even then must he wait until the time is right. I only hope that I've not waited too long.”

Cardiel looked away, unable to bear the blue-violet gaze any longer. “What is this place? How did we get here?”

“We came by means of a Transfer Portal,” Arilan replied neutrally. “The way lies through the floor design in your chapel. It is very old.”

“Deryni magic?”

“Yes.”

Cardiel eased himself to a full sitting position, turning that bit of information over in his mind. “Then, is this where you came after I left you in the chapel the other night? When I looked in a few minutes later, you were gone.”

Arilan crooked a hint of a smile. “I see that I was wise not to linger.” He sighed. “Thomas, I
am
sorry, but I cannot tell you where I went.” He held out his hand to assist Cardiel to his feet, but Cardiel ignored it.

“Cannot or
will
not?”

“
May
not,” Arilan replied sympathetically. “At least not yet. Try to be patient with me.”

“Implying that there are others with authority over you?”

“Implying that there are things I may not tell you,” Arilan whispered, a pleading look on his face as he continued to extend his hand. “Trust me, Thomas? I swear I'll not betray that trust.”

Cardiel stared for a long time at the outstretched arm, at the eyes slightly fearful in the long-familiar face. Then he reached out slowly to grasp Arilan's hand, letting the younger bishop pull him to his feet. They stood hand-clasped that way for several seconds, each reading what he could in the other's eyes. Then Arilan smiled and clapped Cardiel on the shoulder.

“Come, my brother, we have work to do this night. If you truly mean to receive Morgan and Duncan back among us, then they must be told, and preparations made. Also, there remains the matter of our recalcitrant brethren of the convocation, who will be wondering what makes us so long overdue. They must still be persuaded, though I suspect they'll follow your lead readily enough.”

Cardiel ran a nervous hand through steel-gray hair and shook his head incredulously. “You do move quickly when you want to, don't you, Denis? You'll pardon me if I seem to react a bit stupidly for a few minutes, but this is going to take a little getting used to.”

“Of course it is.” Arilan chuckled, guiding Cardiel back to the center of the room where a design embossed the floor. “And we might as well start by getting back to your chapel. The guards will be getting edgy.”

Cardiel glanced apprehensively at the floor. “The Transfer Portal you spoke of?”

“Indeed,” Arilan replied, moving behind Cardiel to place his hands on the other's shoulders once more. “Now, just relax and let me do the work. There's nothing to it. Relax and let your mind go blank.”

“I'll try,” Cardiel whispered.

And the floor tipped out from under him and Arilan in a soft, black blur.

IN
the next hour, Morgan and Duncan were told of the bishops' decision.

It was not a cordial meeting; all were too wary, too guarded for that. The former fugitives had been outcast from the Church for too many months not to feel some mistrust of a pair of that Church's most powerful prelates; and the feeling was somewhat mutual.

But the bishops' attitude was not hostile. It was as if the two were testing the penitents, probing their reaction to the decision. They had, after all, been charged with the spiritual well-being of these dissident sons of the Church.