The Wandering Fire (3 page)

He resisted the lure. The child was Jennifer’s thread in this weaving, and she was owed this much: he would not take that thread away by spreading word throughout the land of a son born that day to Rakoth Maugrim.

Darien, she had named him. Paul thought of Kim saying,
I
know his name.
He shook his head. This child was something so unpredictable, so truly random, it numbed the mind: what would be the powers of this newest of the andain, and where, oh, where, would his allegiance fall? Had Jennifer brought forth this day not merely a lieutenant but an heir to the Dark?

Both women had cried, the one who had given birth and the one who would raise him. Both women, but not the child, not this fair blue-eyed child of two worlds.

Did the andain cry? Paul reached down toward the still place, the source of the power that had brought them here, for an answer but was not surprised to find nothing there.

Pushing through the last swirling mound of snow he reached his destination, drew a breath to steady himself, and pulled on the chain outside the arched doorway.

He heard a bell ring deep within the domed Temple of the Mother; then there was silence again. He stood in the darkness a long time before the great doors swung open and the glow of candlelight spun out a little way into the snowbound night. He moved sideways and forward to see and be seen.

“No farther!” a woman said. “I have a blade.”

He kept his composure. “I’m sure you do,” he said. “But you also have eyes, I hope, and should know who I am, for I have been here before.”

There were two of them, a young girl with the candle and an older woman beside her. Others, with more light, were coming forward as well.

The girl moved nearer, raising her light so that his face was fully lit by the flame.

“By Dana of the Moon!” the older woman breathed.

“Yes,” said Paul. “Now quickly, please, summon your Priestess. I have little time and must speak with her.” He made to enter the vestibule.

“Hold!” the woman said again. “There is a price of blood all men must pay to enter here.”

But for this he had no tolerance.

Stepping quickly forward, he grabbed her wrist and twisted. A knife clattered on the marble floor. Still holding the grey-robed woman in front of him Paul snapped, “Bring the Priestess, now!” None of them moved; behind him the wind whistled through the open door.

“Let her go,” the young girl said calmly. He turned to her; she looked to be no more than thirteen. “She means no harm,” the girl went on. “She doesn’t know that you bled the last time you were here, Twiceborn.”

He had forgotten: Jaelle’s fingers along his cheek as he lay helplessly. His glance narrowed on this preternaturally self-possessed child. He released the other priestess.

“Shiel,” the girl said to her, still tranquilly, “we should summon the High Priestess.”

“No need,” a colder voice said, and walking between the torches, clad as ever in white, Jaelle came to stand facing him. She was barefoot on the cold floor, he saw, and her long red hair was twisted down her back in untended spirals.

“Sorry to wake you,” he said.

“Speak,” she replied. “And carefully. You have assaulted one of my priestesses.”

He could not afford to lose his temper. This was going to be difficult enough as it was.

“I am sorry,” he lied. “And I am here to speak. We should be alone, Jaelle.”

A moment longer she regarded him, then turned. “Bring him to my chambers,” she said.

“Priestess! The blood, he must—”

“Shiel, be silent for once!” Jaelle snapped in a wholly unusual revealing of strain.

“I told her,” the young one said mildly. “He bled the last time he was here.”

Jaelle hadn’t wanted to be reminded. She went the long way around, so he would have to pass the dome and see the axe.

The bed he remembered. He had awakened here on a morning of rain. It was neatly made. Proprieties, he thought wryly—and some well-trained servants.

“Very well,” she said.

“News first, please. Is there war?” he asked.

She walked over to the table, turned, and faced him, resting her hands behind her on the polished surface. “No. The winter came early and hard. Not even svart alfar march well in snow. The wolves have been a problem, and we are short of food, but there have been no battles yet.”

“So you heard Kim’s warning?”
Don’t attack, he’s waiting in Starkadh!
Kimberly had screamed, as they passed into the crossing.

Jaelle hesitated. “I heard it. yes.”

“No one else?”

“I was tapping the avarlith for her.”

“I remember. It was unexpected.” She made an impatient movement. “They listened to you then?”

“Eventually.” This time she gave nothing away. He could guess, though, what had happened, knowing the deep mistrust the men in the Great Hall that morning would have had for the High Priestess.

“What now?” was all he said.

“We wait for spring. Aileron takes council with everyone who will talk to him, but everyone waits for spring. Where is the Seer?” Some urgency there.

“Waiting also. For a dream.”

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Smile fading, then, with no levity at all, he told her: Arrow of Mórnir to Priestess of the Mother. Everything. Softly he gave her the name of the child and, more softly yet, who the father was.

She didn’t move during the telling of it or after; no indication anywhere in her of the impact. He had to admire her self-control. Then she asked again, but in a different voice, “Why are you here?”

And he said, “Because you made Jennifer a guest-friend last spring.” She hadn’t been ready for that—this time it showed in her face. A triumph for him of sorts, but the moment was too high by far for petty score-keeping in the power game. He went on, to take away the sting, “Loren would mistrust the wildness of this too much, but I thought you could deal with it. We need you.”

“You trust me with this?”

His turn to gesture impatiently. “Oh, Jaelle, don’t exaggerate your own malevolence. You aren’t happy with the power balance here, any fool can see that. But only a very great fool would confuse that with where you stand in this war. You serve the Goddess who sent up that moon, Jaelle. I am least likely of all men to forget it.”

She seemed very young in that moment. There was a woman beneath the white robe, a person, not merely an icon; he’d made the mistake of trying to tell her that once, in this very room, with the rain falling outside.

“What do you need?” she said.

His tone was crisp. “A watch on the child. Complete secrecy, of course, which is another reason I came to you.”

“I will have to tell the Mormae in Gwen Ystrat.”

“I thought as much.” He rose, began pacing as he spoke. “It is all the same, I gather, within the Mormae?”

She nodded. “It is all the same, within any level of the Priestesshood, but it will be kept to the inner circle.”

“All right,” he said, and stopped his pacing very close to her. “But you have a problem then.”

“What?”

“This!” And reaching past her, he pulled open an inner door and grabbed the listener beyond, pulling her into the room so that she sprawled on the carpeted floor.

“Leila!” Jaelle exclaimed.

The girl adjusted her grey robe and rose to her feet. There was a hint of apprehension in her eyes, but only a hint, Paul saw, and she held her head very high, facing the two of them.

“You may owe a death for this.” Jaelle’s tone was glacial.

Leila said hardily, “Are we to discuss it with a man here?”

Jaelle hesitated, but only for a second. “We are,” she replied, and Paul was startled by a sudden change in her tone. “Leila,” the High Priestess said gently, “you must not lecture me, I am not Shiel or Marline. You have worn grey for ten days only, and you must understand your place.”

It was too soft for Paul’s liking. “The hell with that! What was she doing there? What did she hear?”

“I heard it all,” Leila said.

Jaelle was astonishingly calm. “I believe it,” she said. “Now tell me why.”

“Because of Finn,” said Leila. “Because I could tell he came from Finn.”

“Ah,” said Jaelle slowly. She walked toward the child then and, after a moment, stroked a long finger down her cheek in an unsettling caress. “Of course.”

“I’m lost,” said Paul.

They both turned to him. “You shouldn’t be,” Jaelle said, in complete control again. “Did Jennifer not tell you about the ta’kiena?”

“Yes, but—”

“And why she wanted to bear her child in Vae’s house? Finn’s mother’s house?”

“Oh.” It clicked. He looked at slim, fair-haired Leila. “This one?” he asked.

The girl answered him herself. “I called Finn to the Road. Three times, and then another. I am tuned to him until he goes.”

There was a silence. “All right, Leila,” Jaelle said. “Leave us now. You have done what you had to do. Never breathe a word.”

“I don’t think I could,” said Leila, in a small voice. “For Finn. There is an ocean inside me sometimes. I think it would overrun me if I tried.” She turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Looking at the Priestess in the light of the tall candles, Paul realized that he had never seen pity in her eyes before.

“You will do nothing?” he murmured.

Jaelle nodded her head, still looking at the door through which the girl had gone. “Anyone else I would have killed, believe me.”

“But not this one?”

“Not this one.”

“Why?”

She turned to him. “Leave me this secret,” she said softly. “There are some mysteries best not known, Pwyll. Even for you.” It was the first time she had spoken his name. Their eyes met, and this time it was Paul who looked away. Her scorn he could master, but this look in her eyes evoked access to a power older and deeper, even, than the one he had touched on the Tree.

He cleared his throat. “We should be gone by morning.”

“I know,” said Jaelle. “I will send in a moment to have her brought here.”

“If I could do it myself,” he said, “I would not ask this of you. I know it will drain the earthroot, the avarlith.”

She shook her head; the candlelight made highlights in her hair. “You did a deep thing to bring her here by yourself. The Weaver alone knows how.”

“Well, I certainly don’t,” he said. An admission.

They were silent. It was very still in the sanctuary, in her room.

“Darien,” she said.

He drew a breath. “I know. Are you afraid?”

“Yes,” she said. “And you?”

“Very much.”

They looked at each other across the carpeted space that lay between, a distance impossibly far.

“We had better get moving,” he said finally.

She raised her arm and pulled a cord nearby. Somewhere a bell rang. When they came in response she gave swift, careful orders, and it seemed very soon when the priestesses returned, bearing Jennifer.

After that it took little time. They went into the dome and the man was blindfolded. She took the blood from herself, which surprised some of them; then she reached east to Gwen Ystrat, found Audiart first, then the others. They were made aware, manifested acceptance, then traveled down together, touched Dun Maura, and felt the earthroot flow through them all.

“Good-bye,” she heard him say, as it changed for her, in the way it always had—the way that had marked her even as a child—into a streaming as of moonlight through her body. She channeled it, gave thanks, and then spun the avarlith forth to send them home.

After, she was too weary to do anything but sleep.

In the house by the green where the ta’kiena had been chanted, Vae held her new child in her arms by the fire. The grey-robed priestesses had brought milk and swaddling clothes and promised other things. Finn had already put together a makeshift crib for Darien.

She had let him hold his brother for a moment, her heart swelling to see the brightness in his eyes. It might even keep him here, she thought; perhaps this awesome thing was so powerful it might overmaster the call that Finn had heard. It might.

And another thought she had: whatever the father might be, and she laid a curse upon his name, a child learned love from being loved, and they would give him all the love he needed, she and Finn—and Shahar when he came home. How could one not love a child so calm and fair, with eyes so blue—blue as Ginserat’s wardstones, she thought, then remembered they were broken.

Chapter 3

Paul, on lookout up the road, whistled the all-clear. Dave grabbed the post for support and hurdled the fence, cursing softly as he sank ankle deep in spring mud.

“Okay,” he said. “The girls.”

Kevin helped Jen first and then Kim to balance themselves on the stiff wire for Dave to swing them up and over. They had been worried that the fence might be electrically charged, but Kevin’s checking earlier had established that it wasn’t.