The Wandering Fire (30 page)

Matt had told her the tale in the Great Hall at Paras Derval. Before she went riding and found the lios alfar. Before Galadan had, in turn, found her and given her to the swan.

Westward, they walked now, through the miracle of this spring, and everywhere Jennifer looked there was life returning to the land. She heard crickets, the drone of bees, saw a scarlet-winged bird take wing from an apple tree, and then a brown rabbit dart from a clump of shrubbery. She saw Matt drinking it in as well with his one eye, as if slaking a long thirst. In silence they walked amid the sounds of hope until, at the edge of the forest, Matt finally stopped.

Every year, he had told her, the Council of Mages would curse Nilsom at midwinter when they met. And every year, as well, they would curse Aideen—who had broken the profoundest law of their Order when she betrayed her mage—even though it had been to save Brennin from destruction, and the Tree that lay within this wood.

And every spring, Matt had said, he and Loren would bring the first flowers to this grave.

It was almost invisible. One had to know the place. A mound of earth, no stone, the trees at the edge of Mórnirwood for shade. Sorrow and peace together came over Jennifer as she saw Matt kneel and lay his flowers on the mound.

Sorrow and peace, and then she saw that the Dwarf was weeping, and her own tears came at last from the heart that spring had unlocked. For Aideen she wept, and bright Kevin gone; for Darien she cried, and the choice he had to make; for Laesha and Drance, slain when she was taken; for all the living, too, faced with the terror of the Dark, faced with war and the hatred of Maugrim, born into the time of his return.

And finally, finally by Aideen’s grave in Kevin’s spring, she wept for herself and for Arthur.

It lasted a long time. Matt did not rise, nor did he look up until, at length, she stopped.

“There is heart’s ease in this place,” he said.

“Ease?” she said. A weary little laugh. “With so many tears between the two of us?”

“The only way, sometimes,” he replied. “Do you not feel it, though?”

After a moment she smiled as she had not done for a very long time. He rose from near the grave. He looked at her and said, “You will leave the Temple now?”

She did not reply. Slowly the smile faded. She said, “Is this why you brought me here?”

His dark eye never wavered from her face, but there was a certain diffidence in his voice. “I know only a few things,” said Matt Sören, “but these I know truly. I know that I have seen stars shining in the depths of the Warrior’s eyes. I know that he is cursed, and not allowed to die. I know, because you told me, what was done to you. And I know, because I see it now, that you are not allowing yourself to live. Jennifer, of the two fates, it seems to me the worse.”

Gravely, she regarded him, her golden hair stirred by the wind. She lifted a hand to push it back from her face. “Do you know,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear, “how much grief there was when I was Guinevere?”

“I think I do. There is always grief. It is joy that is the rarest thing,” said the onetime King of Dwarves.

To this she made no reply. It was a Queen of Sorrows who stood with him by the Godwood, and for all the earnest certitude of his words, Matt knew a moment of doubt. Almost to himself, for reassurance, he murmured, “There can be no hope for anything in a living death.”

She heard. Her gaze came back to him. “Oh, Matt,” she said. “Oh, Matt, for what should I hope? He has been cursed to this. I am the agent of the Weaver’s will. For what should I hope?”

Her voice went to his heart like a blade. But the Dwarf drew himself up to his fullest height and said the thing he had brought her there to say, and there was no doubt in him for this.

“Never believe it!” Matt Sören cried. “We are not slaves to the Loom. Nor are you only Guinevere—you are Jennifer now, as well. You bring your own history to this hour, everything you have lived. You bring Kevin here within you, and you bring Rakoth, whom you survived. You are here, and whole, and each thing you have endured has made you stronger. It need not be now as it has been before!”

She heard him. She nodded slowly. She turned and walked with him back to Paras Derval through the profligate bestowing of that morning. He was not wrong, for the Dwarves were wise in such things.

Nevertheless.

Nevertheless, even as they walked, her mind was turning back to another morning in another spring. Almost as bright as this, though not so long awaited.

There had been cherry trees in blossom all around when she had stood by Arthur’s side to see Lancelot first ride into Camelot.

Hidden among the trees on the slopes north of them, a figure watched their return as he had watched them walking to the grave. He was lonely, and minded to go down to them, but he didn’t know who they were and, since Cernan’s words, he was deeply mistrustful of everyone. He stayed where he was.

Darien thought the woman was very beautiful, though.

“He is still there,” said Loren, “and he still has the Cauldron. It may take him time to put it to another use, but if we give him that time, he will. Aileron, unless you forbid me, I will leave to take ship from Taerlindel in the morning.”

Tense sound rippled through the Council Chamber. Paul saw the High King’s brow knitted with concern. Slowly, Aileron shook his head. “Loren,” he said, “everything you say is true, and the gods know how dearly I want Metran dead. But how can I send you to Cader Sedat when we don’t even know how to find it?”

“Let me sail,” the mage said stonily. “I will find it.”

“Loren, we don’t even know if Amairgen did. All we know is that he died!”

“He was sourceless,” Loren replied. “Lisen stayed behind. He had his knowledge but not his power. I am less wise, far, but Matt will be with me.”

“Silvercloak, there were other mages on Amairgen’s ship. Three of them, with their sources. None came back.” It was Jaelle, Paul saw. She glittered that morning, more coldly formidable than ever before. If there was an ascendency that day, it was hers, for Dana had acted and the winter was over.

They were not going to be allowed to forget it. Even so, he felt sorry for his last words yesterday evening. Hers had been a gesture unlikely to be repeated.

“It is true,” Aileron was saying. “Loren, how can I let you go? Where will we be if you die? Lisen saw a death ship from her tower—what mariner could I ask to sail another?”

“This one.” They all turned to the door in astonishment. Coll took two steps forward from his post beside Shain and said clearly, “The High King will know I am from Taerlindel. Before Prince Diarmuid took me from that place to serve in his company, I had spent all my life at sea. If Loren wants a mariner, I will be his man, and my mother’s father has a ship I built with him. It will take us there with fifty men.”

There was a silence. Into which there dropped, like a stone in a pool, the voice of Arthur Pendragon.

“Has your ship a name?” he asked.

Coll flushed suddenly, as if conscious for the first time of where he was. “None that will mean anything,” he stammered. “It is a name in no language I know, but my mother’s father said it was a ship’s name in his family far back. We called it
Prydwen
,
my lord.”

Arthur’s face went very still. Slowly the Warrior nodded, then he turned from Coll to Aileron. “My lord High King,” he said, “I have kept my peace for fear of intruding myself between you and your First Mage. I can tell you, though, that if your concern is only for finding Cader Sedat—we called it Caer Sidi once, and Caer Rigor, but it is the same place—I have been there and know where it is. This may be why I was brought to you.”

“What is it, then?” asked Shalhassan of Cathal. “What is Cader Sedat?”

“A place of death,” said Arthur. “But you knew that much already.”

It was very quiet in the room.

“It will be guarded,” Aileron said. “There will be death waiting at sea, as well.”

Thought, Memory
.
Paul rose. “There will be,” he said as they turned to look at him. “But I think I can deal with that.”

It didn’t take very long, after that. With a sense of grim purpose, the company followed Aileron and Shalhassan from the room when the council ended.

Paul waited by the doorway. Brendel walked past with a worried expression but did not stop. Dave, too, looked at him as he went out with Levon and Tore.

“We’ll talk later,” Paul said. Dave would be going north to the Dalrei, he knew. If there was war while
Prydwen
sailed, it would surely begin on the Plain.

Niavin of Seresh and Mabon of Rhoden went by, deep in talk, and then Jaelle walked out, head held very high, and would not meet his glance—all ice again, now that spring had returned. It wasn’t for her that he was waiting, though. Eventually the room had emptied, save for one man.

He and Arthur looked at each other. “I have a question,” said Paul. The Warrior lifted his head. “When you were there last, how many of you survived?”

“Seven,” said Arthur softly. “Only seven.”

Paul nodded. It was as if he remembered this. One of the ravens had spoken. Arthur came up to him.

“Between us?” he said, in the deep voice.

“Between us,” said Paul. Together they walked from the Council Chamber and down the corridors. There were pages and soldiers running past them in all directions now— the palace was aflame with war fever. They were quiet, though, the two of them, as they walked in stride through the turmoil.

Outside Arthur’s room they stopped. Paul said, very low so it would not be overheard, “You said this might be what you were summoned for. A while ago you said you never saw the end of things.” He left it at that.

For a long moment Arthur was silent, then he nodded once. “It is a place of death,” he said for the second time and, after a hesitation, added, “It would not displease me as events have gone.”

Paul opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He turned, instead, and walked down the corridor to where his own room was. His and Kevin’s, until two days ago. Behind him, he heard Arthur opening his door.

Jennifer saw the door open, had time to draw a breath, and then he was in the room, bringing with him all the summer stars.

“Oh, my love,” she said and her voice broke, after all. “I need you to forgive me for so much. I am afraid—”

She had space for nothing more. A deep sound came from within his chest, and in three strides Arthur was across the room and on his knees, his head buried in the folds of the dress she wore, and over and over again he was saying her name.

Her hands were cradling him to her, running through his hair, the grey amid the brown. She tried to speak, could not. Could scarcely breathe. She lifted his face that she might look at him and saw the tears of bitter longing pouring down. “Oh, my love,” she gasped and, lowering her head, she tried to kiss them all away. She found his mouth with her own, blindly, as if they were both blind and lost without the other. She was trembling as with fever. She could hardly stand. He rose and gathered her to him and, after so long, her head was on his chest again, and she could feel his arms around her and could hear the strong beat of his heart, which had been her home.

“Oh, Guinevere,” she heard him say after a space of time. “My need is great.”

“And mine,” she replied, feeling the last dark webs of Starkadh tear asunder so that she stood open to desire. “Oh, please,” she said. “Oh, please, my love.” And he took her to his bed, across which a slant of sunlight fell, and they rose above their doom for part of an afternoon.

After, he told her where it was he had to go and she felt all the griefs of the worlds return to rest in her. She was clear, though; she had spun free from Rakoth, and she was stronger for every single thing she had survived, as Matt had said. She rose up and stood in the sunlight of the room, clad only in her hair, and said, “You must come back to me. What I told you before is true: there is no Lancelot here. It has changed, Arthur. Only the two of us are here now, only us.”

In the slant of sun she watched the stars sliding through his eyes. The summer stars, whence he had come. Slowly he shook his head, and she ached for his age and his weariness.

“It cannot be so,” he said. “I killed the children, Guinevere.”

She could find nothing at all to say. In the silence she could almost hear the patient, inexorable shuttling of the Loom.

Saddest story of all the long tales told.

Chapter 14

In the morning came Arthur and Guinevere together out of Paras Derval to the great square before the palace gates. Two companies were gathered there, one to ride north, the other west to the sea, and there was not a heart among all those assembled that did not lift to see the two of them together.

Dave Martyniuk, waiting behind Levon for the signal to ride, looked past the five hundred men Aileron had given them to lead to the Plain, and he gazed at Jennifer with a memory flaring in his mind.

The very first evening: when Loren had told the five of them who he really was, and Dave, disbelieving and hostile, had stormed toward the door. To be stopped by Jennifer saying his name. And then, as he had turned, by a majesty he saw in her face. He could not have named it then, nor did he have words for it now, but he saw the same thing in her this morning and it was not transitory or ephemeral.

She left Arthur’s side and walked, clad in a gown green as her eyes, green as the grass, to where he stood. Something of irresolution must have showed in his face, because as she came near he heard her laugh and say, “If you so much as start to bow or anything like that, Dave, I’ll beat you up. I swear I will.”

It was good to hear her laugh. He checked the bow he had, in fact, been about to offer and, instead, surprised them both by bending to kiss her cheek.

“Thank you,” she said and took his hand in hers.

He smiled down on her and, for once, didn’t feel awkward or uncouth.

Paul Schafer came up to join them, and with her other hand Jennifer claimed one of his. The three of them stood, linked so, for a moment.

“Well,” said Dave.

Paul looked soberly at him. “You’re going right into it, you know.”

“I know,” Dave replied. “But if I have a place in this, I think it’s with the Dalrei. It . . . won’t be any easier where you’re heading.” They were silent amid the bustle and clatter of the square. Then Dave turned to Jennifer. “I’ve been thinking about something,” he said. “Way back, when Kim took you out of . . . that place, Kevin did something. You won’t remember, you were unconscious then, but he swore vengeance for what had been done to you.”

“I remember,” said Paul.

“Well,” Dave went on, “he must have wondered how he would ever do it, but . . . I’m thinking that he found a way.”

There was sunshine pouring down from a sky laced with scattered billows of clouds. Men in shirt sleeves walked all around them.

“He did more,” said Jennifer, her eyes bright. “He got me all the way out. He finished what Kim started.”

“Damn,” said Paul gently. “I thought it was my charm.” Remembered words, not his own.

Tears, laughter, and they parted.

Sharra watched the Aven’s handsome son lead five hundred men away to the north. Standing with her father near the chariots, she saw Jennifer and Paul walk back to join the company that would soon be riding west. Shalhassan was going with them as far as Seresh. With the snow melted, there was urgent need now for his additional troops and he wanted to give his own orders in Cynan.

Aileron was already up on his black horse, and she saw Loren the mage mount up as well. Her heart was beating very fast.

Diarmuid had come to her again last night by way of her window. He had brought her a flower. She had not thrown water at him, this time, and had been at pains to point that out. He professed gratitude and later, in a different voice, a great deal more.

Then he had said, “I am going to a difficult place, my dear. To do a difficult thing. It may be wiser if I speak to your father if we . . . after we return. I would not have you bound to me while I am—”

She had covered his mouth with her hand and then, turning in bed as if to kiss him, moved the hand away and bit his lower lip instead.

“Coward!” she said. “I
knew
you were afraid. You promised me a formal wooing and I am holding you to it.”

“Formal it is, then,” he said. “You want an Intercedent, as well?”

“Of course!” she said. And then, because she was crying, and couldn’t pretend any more, she said, “I was bound to you from Larai Rigal, Diar.”

He kissed her, gently and then with passion, and then his mouth began to travel her and eventually she lost track of time and place.

“Formally,” he’d said again, afterward. In a certain tone.

And now, in the morning light, amid the busy square, a figure suddenly pushed through the gathered crowd and began a purposeful walk toward her father. Sharra felt herself going red. She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing desperately that she had bit him harder, much, much harder. And in a different place. Then, in spite of herself, she began to giggle.

Formally, he had promised. Even to the Interceder who was to speak for him, after the old fashion. He had also warned her in Gwen Ystrat that he would never move to the measured gait, he would always have to play.

And so Tegid of Rhoden was his Intercedent.

The fat man—he was truly enormous—was blessedly sober. He had even trimmed his eccentric beard and donned a decent outfit in russet tones for his august mission. His round red face very serious, Tegid stopped directly in front of her father. His progress had been noted and marked by shouts and laughter. Now Tegid waited patiently for a modicum of silence. He absentmindedly scratched his behind, then remembered where he was and crossed his arms quickly on his chest.

Shalhassan regarded him with a mild, expressionless curiosity. Which became a wince a moment later as Tegid boomed out his title.

“Supreme Lord of Cathal,” Tegid repeated, a little more softly, for his mighty lungs had shaped a silence all around with that first shout, “have I your attendant ear?”

“You have,” her father said with grave courtesy.

“Then I am bid to tell you that I am sent here by a lord of infinite nobility, whose virtues I could number until the moon rose and set and rose again. I am sent to say to you, in this place and among the people here gathered in concourse, that the sun rises in your daughter’s eyes.”

There was a roar of astonishment.

“And who,” asked Shalhassan, still courteously, “is the lord of infinite nobility?”

“A figure of speech, that,” said Diarmuid, emerging from the crowd to their left. “And the moon business was his own idea. But he
is
my Intercedent and the heart of his message is true, and from my own heart. I would wed your daughter, Shalhassan.”

The noise in the square was quite uncontrollable now. It was hard to hear anything. Sharra saw her father turn slowly to her, a question in his eyes, and something else that it took her a moment to recognize as tenderness.

She nodded once. And with her lips shaped a “Yes,” for him to see.

The noise peaked and then slowly faded as Shalhassan waited beside his chariot, grave and unmoving. He looked at Diarmuid, whose own expression was sober now. He looked back at her.

He smiled. He
smiled
.

“Praise be to the Weaver and all the gods!” said Shalhassan of Cathal. “Finally she’s done something adult!” And striding forward, he embraced Diarmuid is the manner of the ritual.

So it was amid laughter and joy that that company set forth to ride to Taerlindel, where a ship lay waiting to bear fifty men to a place of death.

Diarmuid’s men, of course. It hadn’t even been a subject of discussion. It had been assumed, automatic. If Coll was sailing the ship, then Diarmuid was commanding it and the men of South Keep were going to Cader Sedat.

Riding alone near the back of the party, Paul saw them, laughing and lighthearted, singing, even, at the promise of action. He looked at Coll and red Averren, the lieutenants; at Garde and greying Rothe and lean, agile Erron; at the other forty the Prince had named. He wondered if they knew what they were going to; he wondered if he knew, himself.

Up at the front, Diarmuid glanced back to check on the company, and Paul met his blue gaze for a moment. He didn’t move forward, though, and Diarmuid didn’t drop back. Kevin’s absence was a hollow place within his chest. He felt quite alone. Thinking of Kim, far away and riding east, made it even worse.

Shalhassan left them in the afternoon at Seresh. He would be ferried across to Cynan, almost immediately. The mild, beneficent sunshine was a constant reminder of the need for haste.