The Wandering Fire (19 page)

Kevin kept his voice level. “What do we know about the child?”

“Very little. He’s growing very fast. Obviously. All the andain do, Jaelle says. No sign yet of any . . . tendencies.” Paul drew a breath and let it out. “Finn, the older one, was watching over him, and so were the priestesses, through a girl who was mind-linked to Finn. Now he’s gone and there is only the mother, and it’ll be a bad night down there.”

Kevin nodded. “You’re going down?”

“I think I’d better. I need you to lie, though. Say I’ve gone to Mórnirwood, back to the Tree, for reasons of my own. You can tell Jaelle and Jennifer the truth—in fact, you’d better, because they’ll know from the girl that Finn’s gone.”

“You’re not coming east, then? To the hunt?”

Paul shook his head. “I’d better stay. I don’t know what I can do, but I’d better stay.”

Kevin was silent. Then, “I’d say be careful, but that doesn’t mean much here, I’m afraid.”

“Not much,” Paul agreed. “But I’ll try.”

They looked at each other. “I’ll take care of what you wanted,” Kevin said. He hesitated. “Thanks for telling me.”

Paul smiled thinly. He said, “Who else?” After a moment, leaning sideways on their horses, the two men embraced.

“Adios, amigo,” said Kevin and, turning, kicked his mount to a trot that carried him around the bend.

Paul watched him go. He remained motionless for a long time after, his eyes fixed on the curve in the trail past which Kevin had disappeared. The road was not only bending now, it was forking, and very sharply. He wondered when he’d see his friend again. Gwen Ystrat was a long way. Among many other things, it might be that Galadan was there. Galadan, who he’d sworn would be his when they met for the third time. If they did.

But he had another task now, less filled with menace but as dark, notwithstanding that. He turned his thoughts from bright Kevin and from the Lord of the andain to one who was also of the andain and might yet prove greater than their Lord, for good or ill.

Picking his way carefully down the slope, he circled the farmyard by the light of the moon and the glow of the lamp in the window. There was a path leading up to the gate.

And there was something blocking the path.

Anyone else might have been paralyzed with fear, but Paul felt a different thing, though not any the less intense.
How many twists for the heart
,
he thought,
are gathered in this one night?
And thinking so, he dismounted and stood on the path facing the grey dog.

A year and more had passed, but the moon was bright and he could see the scars. Scars earned under the Summer Tree while Paul lay bound and helpless before Galadan, who had come to claim his life. And had been denied by the dog who stood now in the path that led to Darien.

There was a difficulty in Paul’s throat. He took a step forward. “Bright the hour,” he said and sank to his knees in the snow.

For a moment he wasn’t sure, but then the great dog came forward and suffered him to place his arms about its neck. Low in its throat it growled, and Paul heard an acceptance, as of like to like.

He leaned back to look. The eyes were the same as they had been when first he’d seen them on the wall, but he was equal to them now; he was deep enough to absorb their sorrow, and then he saw something more.

“You have been guarding him,” he said. “I might have known you would.”

Again the dog rumbled, deep in its chest, but it was in the bright eyes that Paul read a meaning. He nodded. “You must go,” he said, “Your place is with the hunt. It was more than happenstance that drew me here. I will stay tonight and deal with tomorrow when it comes.”

A moment longer the grey dog stayed facing him; then, with another low growl, it moved past, leaving the path to the cottage open. As the dog went by, Paul saw the number of its scars again, more clearly, and his heart was sore.

He turned. The dog had done the same. He remembered their last farewell, and the howl that had gone forth from the heart of the Godwood.

He said, “What can I say to you? I have sworn to kill the wolf when next we meet.”

The dog lifted its head.

Paul whispered, “It may have been a rash promise, but if I am dead, who can tax me with it? You drove him back. He is mine to kill, if I can.”

The grey dog came back toward him to where he still crouched, on the path. The dog, who was the Companion in every world, licked him gently on his face before it turned again to go.

Paul was crying, whose dry eyes had sent him to the Summer Tree. “Farewell,” he said, but softly. “And go lightly. There is some brightness allowed. Even for you. The morning will offer light.”

He watched the dog go up the slope down which he had come and then disappear past the curve around which Kevin, too, had gone.

At length he rose and,
 
taking the reins of the horse, unlatched the gate and walked over to the barn. He put his horse in an empty stall.

Closing the barn and then the gate, he walked through the yard to the back door of the cottage and stepped up on the porch. Before knocking he looked up: stars and moon overhead, a few fast-moving wisps of cloud scudding southward with the wind. Nothing else to be seen. They were up there, he knew, nine horsemen in the sky. Eight of them were kings, but the one on the white horse was a child.

He knocked and, so as not to frighten her, called softly, “It is a friend. You will know me.”

She opened it quickly this time, surprising him. Her eyes were hollowed. She clutched a robe about herself. She said, “I thought someone might come. I left a light.”

“Thank you,” said Paul.

“Come in. He is asleep, finally. Please be quiet.”

Paul stepped inside. She moved to take his coat and saw he wasn’t wearing one. Her eyes widened.

“I have some power,” he said. “If you will let me, I thought I’d stay the night.”

She said, “He is gone, then?” A voice far past tears. It was worse, somehow.

Paul nodded. “What can I say? Do you want to know?”

She had courage; she did want to know. He told her, softly, so as not to wake the child. After he had done, she said only, “It is a cold fate for one with so warm a heart.”

Paul tried. “He will ride now through all the worlds of the Tapestry. He may never die.”

She was a young woman still, but not her eyes that night. “A cold fate,” she repeated, rocking in the chair before the fire.

In the silence he heard the child turn in its bed behind the drawn curtain. He looked over.

“He was up very late,” Vae murmured. “Waiting. He did a thing this afternoon—he traced a flower in the snow. They used to do it together, as children will, but this one Dari did alone, after Finn left. And . . . he colored it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I don’t know how, but he tinted the snow to color his flower. You’ll see in the morning.”

”I probably marred it just now, crossing the yard.”

“Probably,” she said. “There is little left of the night, but I think I will try to sleep. You look very tired, too.”

He shrugged.

“There is only Finn’s bed,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He rose. “That will suit me very well.”

A short while later, in the dark, he heard two things. The first was the sound of a mother crying for her child, and the second was the wind outside growing in strength in the hours before dawn.

The calling came. It woke Dari, as it always did. At first it felt like a dream again but he rubbed his eyes and knew he was awake, though very tired. He listened, and it seemed to him that there was something new this time. They were crying for him to come out with them, as they always did, but the voices in the wind were naming him by another name.

He was cold, though, and if he was cold in his bed, he would die outside in the wind. Little boys couldn’t go out into that wind. He was very cold. Rubbing his eyes drowsily, he slid into his slippers and voyaged across the floor to crawl into bed with Finn.

But it wasn’t Finn who was there. A dark figure rose up in Finn’s own bed and said to him, “Yes, Darien, what can I do?”

Dari was frightened but he didn’t want to wake his mother so he didn’t cry. He padded back to his own bed, which was even colder now, and lay wide awake, wanting Finn, not understanding how Finn, who was supposed to love him, could have left him all alone. After a while he felt his eyes change color; he could always feel it inside. They had changed when he did the flower, and now they did so again, and he lay there hearing the wind voices more clearly than he ever had before.

PART III—Dun Maura

Chapter 10

In the morning a shining company left Paras Derval by the eastern gate, led by two Kings. And with them were the children of Kings, Diarmuid dan Ailell, Levon dan Ivor, and Sharra dal Shalhassan; and there were also Matt Sören, who had been a King, and Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior, cursed to be a King forever without rest; and there were many great and high ones beside, and five hundred men of Brennin and Cathal.

Grey was the morning under grey clouds from the north, but bright was the mood of Aileron the High King, freed at last from powerless planning within his walls. And his exhilaration at being released to act ran through the mingled armies like a thread of gold.

He wanted to set a swift pace, for there were things to be done in Morvran that night, but scarcely had the company cleared the outskirts of the town when he was forced to raise his hand and bring them to a stop.

On the snow-clad slope north of the cleared road a dog barked, sharp and carrying in the cold air. And then as the High King, moved by some instinct, signaled the halt, they heard the dog bark three times more, and every man in that company who knew dogs heard frantic joy in the sound.

Even as they stopped, they saw the grey shape of a hunting dog begin to tumble and dash down through the snow toward them, barking all the while, somersaulting head over tail in its haste.

It was Aileron who saw the light blaze in Arthur’s face. The Warrior leaped from his horse down into the road and, at the top of his great voice, cried, “
Cavall!
”

Bracing his legs, he opened wide his arms and was knocked flying, nonetheless, by the wild leap of the dog. Over and over they rolled, the dog yelping in intoxicated delight, the Warrior mock growling in his chest.

All through the company, smiles and then laughter began to blossom like flowers in a stony place.

Heedless of his clothing or his dignity, Arthur played in the road with the dog he had named Cavall, and it was a long time before he stood to face the company. Arthur was breathing hard, but there was a brightness to his eyes in which Kim Ford found some belated dispensation for what she had done on Glastonbury Tor.

“This is,” asked Aileron with gentle irony, “your dog?”

With a smile, Arthur acknowledged the tone. But his answer moved them to another place. “He is,” he said, “insofar as he is anyone’s. He was mine once, a very long time ago, but Cavall fights his own wars now.” He looked down at the animal beside him. “And it seems that he has been hurt in those wars.”

When the dog stood still, they could see the network of scars and unevenly regenerated fur that covered its body. They were terrible to look at.

“I can tell you whence those came.” Loren Silvercloak moved his mount to stand beside those of the Kings. “He battled Galadan, the Wolflord, in Mórnirwood to save the life of the one who became the Twiceborn.”

Arthur lifted his head. “The battle foretold? Macha and Nemain’s?”

“Yes,” Kim said, moving forward in her turn.

Arthur’s eyes swung to her. “The Wolflord is the one who seeks the annihilation of this world?”

“He is,” she replied. “Because of Lisen of the Wood, who rejected him for Amairgen.”

“I care not for the reason,” Arthur said, a coldness in his voice. “These are his wolves we go to hunt?”

“They are,” she said.

He turned to Aileron. “My lord King, I had a reason to hunt before this: to forget a grief. There is a second reason now. Is there room in your hunting pack for another dog?”

“There is pride of place,” Aileron replied. “Will you lead us now?”

“Cavall will,” said Arthur, mounting as he spoke. Without a backward glance, the grey dog broke into a run.

Ruana chanted the kanior for Ciroa, but not properly. It had not been proper for Taieri either, but to the chant he again added the coda asking forgiveness for this. He was very weak and knew he had not the strength to rise and perform the bloodless rites that were at the heart of the true kanior. Iraima was chanting with him, for which he gave thanks, but Ikatere had fallen silent in the night and lay breathing heavily in his alcove. Ruana knew he was near his end, and grieved, for Ikatere had been golden in friendship.

They were burning Ciroa at the mouth of the cave, and the smoke came in, and the smell of charred flesh. Ruana coughed and broke the rhythm of the kanior. Iraima kept it, though, or else he would have had to start again: there was a coda for failing the bloodless rites, but not for breaking the chant.