The Harrowing of Gwynedd (62 page)

Joram left her and moved to the North. The icy imagery of snow-encrusted pools came to mind as Evaine turned her concentration Northward—not the warm sparkle of sunlit showers—for she had long since guessed that her ultimate business must be with the harsh Lord of Earth rather than the Lady's mercy.

“Behold, the Mystery of Earth,” Joram whispered, a slight tremor in his voice betraying
his
recognition of that requirement, as he conjured the green fire that signified that quarter. “Even Uriel, the Stabilizing One, veiled in the gems and caverns of the deepest places, who callest all at last to the Nether Shore. Come, mighty Uriel, and grace us with thy presence and protection!”

Thunder brooded beyond the northern light, and the very air within the circle took on a heavy, charged, oppressive quality that tasted faintly of sulphur. Evaine caught a faint impression of a shifting, green-black mantle, iridescent as a magpie's wings, but Uriel declined to show a face. He was out there, though; she could feel it. And she would have to deal with him—as she had always known she would.

The hands she had crossed on her breast were trembling as she turned back to the East and bowed in final salute, completing the circle, and she had to press the top one hard over the one beneath, willing her heart to slow to its previous measured rhythm. She drew several deep breaths to calm herself, knowing the others were waiting for her to continue, and drew renewed strength and determination from the time-honored phrases that doubtless had been spoken in this very chamber for who knew how many years.

“We stand outside time, in a place not of earth,” she said, knowing that it was true. “As our ancestors before us bade, we join together and are one.”

She could feel the others binding into the link, making it so, and knew the further strengthening of that bond as Joram began the ancient invocation.

“By Thy blessed Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; by all Thy Holy Angels; by all Powers of Light and Shadow, we call Thee to guard and defend us from all perils, O Most High.”

“Thus it is and has ever been,” Queron continued. “Thus it will be for all times to come.
Per omnia saecula saeculorum
.”

The great
Amen
that they raised in affirmation of that prayer set the seal on their coming together, resonating with the strength and unity of their combined will, and the crosses they traced upon their breasts became as armor, proof against all but the Will of God Himself. Secure in that knowledge, Evaine raised her arms to her two compatriots, speaking the words of the
exortio
as a personal affirmation of their intent.

“Now we are met. Now we are one. Regard the Ancient Ways. We shall not walk this Path again. So be it.”

“So be it!” they replied, saluting her with right hands to hearts.

In response, Evaine crossed her hands on her breast and bowed to them before settling quietly on the little stool they had set for her in the south, fetching from beneath it a worn leather pouch containing ward cubes that had been her father's. These she upended into her lap as Queron moved into position at the head of the bier, his open hands resting lightly to either side of Camber's quicksilver hair, already settling into Healer's trance.

While Evaine separated the cubes, white in her right hand and black in her left, Joram withdrew to stand just to the left and inside of the light marking the northern quarter, hands resting quietly now on the quillons of a sword he had borne under similar circumstances many years before, the night a king died—ready to open a gate, as he had that other time, and probably with little more knowledge or awareness of what might happen when he did. Evaine pushed down a tiny twinge of remorse as she glanced up at him—dear, gentle, stubborn Joram, trusting her, even though he did not approve or understand—and prayed that he would not think too harshly of her after it was over. Standing there in the flickering light of the ward candles and the glow from the arch of the circle, his pale head bent over his folded hands, he looked very much like the man lying on the bier.

She made a tiny pillar of the black cubes then, stacking them in the center of a black square diagonally to the left of the one on which her left foot rested. The four white cubes she placed on the white square diagonally to her right. She drew a deep breath as she straightened, setting her hands on the tops of her thighs and holding the breath for a few heartbeats before letting it out slowly.

So. Before her was a glyph of what she had to do, childish in its simplicity—a symbolic rendering of the task for which all the rest had been but prologue, carefully crafted to bring her to this moment.

For by the power of her will alone, and for the sake of the man who had trained her to use that power of will, she now must make of those tiny, symbolic pillars the very real and solid Pillars of the Temple—the temple of the Inner Mysteries, whose corridors communicated with Divinity Itself and life and death, at levels only rarely given to mortals still bound by physical form.

Between these Pillars she must pass, in a very real sense, and even beyond the Purple Veil itself, if she had any hope of bringing that man back.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

Where is Uriel the angel, who came unto me at the first? for he hath caused me to fall into many trances
.

—II Esdras 10:28

Smothering darkness enveloped Javan briefly as he knelt at the feet of the Vicar General of the
Custodes Fidei
. It was only the hooded black scapular of the Order being pulled over his head, but it felt like a pillow, choking off his breath.

“Receive this vesture of our Order as a shield and a protection against the wiles of the wicked ones,” Paulin intoned—by which Javan knew he meant the Deryni. “Thus, if thou art steadfast against the enemies of God, thou mayest change it one day for a robe of glory.”

Robe of glory, indeed! As Secorim joined Paulin to free his head, adjusting the hood to lie smoothly down his back, Javan thought of little Giesele MacLean. That hapless innocent surely wore a robe of glory now, safe and secure in the hands of God, but she had been murdered by men who espoused the same dark purposes as the
Custodes
. And if Archbishop Hubert, watching so sanctimoniously from his episcopal throne, had
not
had a hand in her death, he certainly had been responsible for the deaths of other Deryni, and for founding the
Custodes
.

Javan hated the stiff, crimson-lined scapular of the Order, though at least it bore only the moline cross of a lay brother on the left breast, and not the full
Custodes
achievement of the haloed lion. Yet he was committing himself to wear it daily, indefinitely—and there was worse to come. Later in the ceremony, after he had made his vows, he would receive the braided cincture of crimson and gold to hold the scapular in place, symbolic of the binding of those vows. He hated that even more, because it profaned the colors of his House by what the
Custodes
stood for.

Before that indignity, however, came the prostration and litany—and before that, he realized, as someone put the silver bowl with his lock of hair in his hands, he must make an even more personal offering on the altar of the
Custodes
. Paulin and Secorim stepped apart to give him access, and Javan rose shakily, a hand steadying him under one elbow.

“
Introibo ad altare Dei
,” the assembled
Custodes
sang. I will go up to the altar of God, to God Who gives joy to my youth.

But there was no joy in Javan Haldane as he mounted the altar steps that afternoon. The painted eyes of the Pantocrator seemed to pierce him through the heart as he made his genuflection, and he wondered, not for the first time, how the
Custodes
managed to justify the atrocities they committed in His Name. Asking Him, he lifted the bowl briefly in his two hands, as he had been coached, bowing his head slightly in acknowledgment of whatever Higher Force there was that transcended the narrowness that the
Custodes'
God allowed. His prayer, as he set his offering on the altar, was simple:
Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies, and make me worthy to serve Thee
.

He kept those words in his mind and heart as he backed haltingly down the steps again, awkward on his lame foot, to prostrate himself where he had knelt before, arms outstretched in the attitude of crucifixion—a further offering of himself for the True God's use. After a long, long moment, when he could only hear the beating of his own heart, a choir began to chant an invocation to the Holy Spirit, and he let their words take him deep into his own meditation.

Closing her eyes, Evaine, too, set herself to sinking deeper and deeper into trance—controlling breathing, centering energies, slowly beginning to build the requisite images on the inner planes. In her mind's eye, she could see all as it was—the tiny cubes stacked where the great Pillars must rise; the bier beyond them, black-polished side reflecting her own image, pale face and hands and feet suspended against a reddish glow that was the Southern Ward, sitting straight and erect like some slumbering goddess of earlier times.

Atop the bier, the pale outline of her father's body seemed to float like a sea-borne wraith, the white drape across his middle spilling almost to the floor on her side. Queron was a cool, silvery pillar of strength and power standing at the head, energy already flaring around his head and Healer's hands—quiescent, ready. Beyond them, the shadow of Joram's head and shoulders, sober in Michaeline blue, loomed against the blacker background of the North. And
there
lay the challenge, beyond the Northern Gate.
There
lay the One she must face, if she hoped to bring her father back to the land of the living.

Drawing a deep breath and settling even deeper into the Otherness requisite for these sorts of workings, Evaine returned her attention to the Pillars, seeing them swell and grow, pushing toward the ceiling—certainly to the limits of the circle—stabilizing as the circle contained them. In the shadow world to which she now turned her concentration, she knew the Pillars to be as substantial as the floor under her feet, solid with a power which transcended the mere time and space of the physical world. A mist seemed to have intensified between the Pillars, even as the Pillars themselves solidified, and she stood up in her astral form to look more closely, rising out of the body that sat so quietly behind her.

Queron apparently sensed the movement, for he came physically to stand behind her physical body, laying his Healer's hands on her shoulders and linking with her physical functions to make sure she remembered to breathe, her heart to beat. She watched him curiously for several seconds, a part of her aware that she had never, even been so deep before, even when she used to work with Rhys.

Then she turned around and saw the Figure standing just beyond the Pillars. A faint breeze seemed to stir gossamer robes of citrine, olive, russet, and black, and just a hint of towering opalescent wings, lifting softly curling locks of titian hair around an achingly beautiful face. She thought it might be the angel of her dream of the rings, though she could not be sure. She did not remember the eyes being so intense—a yellowish, grass-green, like peridots, seeing through to her very soul.

Respect and honor to thee, Shining One, and to the One Whom thou servest
, Evaine breathed, daring to give the being salute, right hand to breast, as she would hail one of the Quarter Lords.

The being inclined its head in acceptance of the salute, apparently taking no offense, but not speaking, either. Instead of rings this time, the graceful hands held two silver cups. As one was raised and tipped above the other, the contents poured out in an unending, light-shimmering cascade of all the colors of creation, filling and spilling around the being's feet in a pool of living luminescence that neither grew nor diminished.

Thou showest me rainbows
, Evaine said.
The symbol of God's promise that He should never again destroy the world by water
.

Indeed
, the being spoke in her mind.
By water doth He bring the world salvation, both by holy baptism and by the rite which serves to save thy people. The one is for all to cherish, by many outward faiths, in many different forms; the other shall be of but a little duration, but shall save many
.

Revan's mission is but short-lived, then?
Evaine questioned, sorrow blunting her hope.
More innocents must perish at the hands of the Blind?

The Blind, too, shall see
—
one day
, the being replied.
Thy work shall not have been in vain, nor the sacrifices made by thee and thine. Thy soul's mate awaits thee, when thine earthly tasks are done. Thou hast served well. Naught further is required of thee
.

For just an instant, Rhys seemed to stand before her, as real as anything in the chamber, looking as he had in their younger days, green-clad and laughing, his Healer's hands held out to her in love and pride. She raised a hand to touch him, but he melted away before her eyes. And in that instant, the impact of the angel's
other
words set her gasping.

No! Something further
is
required! Why dost thou tempt me from the task I came to do
? She gestured toward the body on the bier, visible
through
the being.
My work will not be done until
he
is free!

The being looked a bit bemused by that, cocking its beautiful head wistfully as it brought the cups to breast level, still standing in a pool of iridescence.

Thy quest is known to me, Child of Earth
, the being said, after a slight pause.
And I know whom thou seekest. Where he doth dwell, thou canst not go
.

Do you hold him, then
? Evaine dared to ask.

Not I, Child of Earth, but he
is
held
.