The Wandering Fire (31 page)

They turned north on the highway to Rhoden. A number of people were coming to see them off: Aileron, of course, and Na-Brendel of Daniloth. Sharra was coming as well; she would return to Paras Derval with Aileron and wait for her father there. Teyrnon and Barak, he saw, were deep in conversation with Loren and Matt. Only the latter two were sailing; the younger mage would stay with the King. They were spreading themselves very thin, Paul thought.

They didn’t really have much choice.

Not far ahead he saw Tegid bouncing along in one of the Cathalian war chariots, and for a moment he smiled at the sight. Shalhassan had proved human, after all, and he had a sense of humor. Beyond the fat man rode Jaelle, also alone. He thought briefly of catching up to her. He didn’t, though—he had too much to think about without trying to apologize to the Priestess. He could guess how she’d respond. A bit of a surprise, her coming, though: the provinces of Dana came to an end at the sea.

Which led him to thoughts of whose provinces began and of his statement to the Council the morning before. “I think I can deal with that,” he’d said, in the quiet tones of the Twiceborn. Quiet, yes, but very, very rash. And they would be counting on him now.

Reflecting this, his features carefully unrevealing, Paul saw that they were turning west again, off the highway onto a smaller road. They had had the rich grainlands of the Seresh hinterland on their right until now, but, as they turned, the land began to drop slowly down in unfolding ridges. He saw sheep and goats and another grazing animal he couldn’t recognize and then, before he saw it, he heard the sea.

They came to Taerlindel late in the day and the sun had led them there. It was out over the sea. The breeze was salt and fresh and the tide was in, the white-capped waves rolling up to the line of sandy beaches stretching away to the south toward Seresh and the Saeren mouth.

In front of them lay the harbor of Taerlindel, northward facing, sheltered by a promontory from the wind and surf. There were small fishing boats bobbing at anchor, a few larger ones, and one ship, painted gold and red, that would be
Prydwen
.

Once, Loren had told him, a fleet had anchored here. But the last war with Cathal had decimated the navies of both countries, and after the truce no ships had been built to replace them. And with Andarien a wasteland for a thousand years there was no longer any need, the mage had explained, to sail to Linden Bay.

A number of houses ringed the harbor and a few more ran back away from the sea into the sloping hills. The town was very beautiful in the late afternoon light. He only gave it a brief glance, though, before he stopped his horse to let the last of the party pass him by. On the road above Taerlindel his gaze went out, as far as it might, over the grey-green sea.

They had let the light flare again from Atronel the past three nights, to celebrate and honor the spring returned. Now, toward evening of this fourth day, Leyse of the Swan Mark walked, in white for the white swan, Lauriel, beside the luminous figure of Ra-Tenniel, and they were alone by Celyn Lake gathering sylvain, red and silver.

Within the woven shadows of Daniloth, shadows that twisted time into channels unknown for all save the lios, it had never been winter. Lathen Mistweaver’s mighty spell had been proof against the cold. For too long, though, had the lios gazed out from the shifting, blurred borders of the Shadowland to see snow sweeping across the Plain and the barren desolation of Andarien. A lonely, vulnerable island of muted color had they been, in a world of white malevolence.

No longer. Ever bold, Ra-Tenniel took the long, slim hand of Leyse—and, for once, she let him do so—and led her past the muting of Lathen’s shadows, out into the open spaces where the river ran into Celyn Lake.

In the sunset it was a place of enchantment and serenity. There were willows growing by the riverbank and aum trees in early leaf. In the young grass he spread his cloak, green as a vellin stone, and she sat down with him upon it, her arms full of sylvain. Her eyes were a soft gold like the setting sun, her hair burnished bronze by its rays.

He looked from her to the sun, to the aum tree overhead, and the gentle flow of the river below them. Never far from sadness, in the way of the lios, he lifted his voice in a lament, amid the evening drone of bees and the liquescent splash of water over stone, for the ravaging of Andarien a thousand years ago.

Gravely she listened, laden with flowers, as he sang the long ballad of long-ago grief. The sun went down. In the twilight a light breeze stirred the leaves over their heads when, at length, he ended. In the west, above the place where the sun had set, gleamed a single star, the one named long ago for Lauriel, slain by black Avaia at the Bael Rangat. For a long time they watched it; then they turned to go, back into the Shadowland from where the stars were dim.

One glance Ra-Tenniel threw back over his shoulder at Andarien. And then he stopped and turned, and he looked again with the long sight of the lios alfar.

Ever, from the beginning, had the impatience of his hate marked Rakoth’s designs. The winter now past had been a departure, terrifying in its implications of purposed, unhurried destruction.

But the winter was over now and, looking north with eyes whose color shifted swiftly through to violet, Ra-Tenniel, Lord of the lios alfar, saw a dark horde moving through the ruin of Andarien. Not toward them, though. Even as Leyse turned to watch with him, the army of Rakoth swung eastward. Eastward, around Celyn, to come down through Gwynir.

And to the Plain.

Had he waited until dark, Rakoth might have sent them forth quite unseen for a full night’s riding. He had not waited, and Ra-Tenniel offered a quick prayer. Swiftly he and Leyse returned to Atronel. They did not send their light on high that night, not with an army of the Dark abroad in the land. Instead they gathered together all the high ones of the Marks on the mound at Atronel. As the King had expected, it was fierce Galen who said at once that she would ride to Celidon. Again, as expected, Lydan, however cautious he might be, would not let his twin ride alone. They rose to go when Ra-Tenniel gave leave. He raised a hand to stop them, though.

“You will have to make speed,” he said. “Very great speed. Take the raithen. It is time the golden and silver horses of Daniloth were seen again in Fionavar.” Galen’s eyes went blue, and a moment later so did those of her brother. Then they left to ride.

With the aid of those who remained, Ra-Tenniel made the summonglass come to urgent warning so that the glass in the High King’s chambers in Paras Derval might leap to life as well.

It was not their fault that the High King was in Taerlindel that night and would not return to word of the summonglass afire until the afternoon of the following day.

He couldn’t sleep. Very late at night Paul rose up and walked from Coll’s mother’s house down to the harbor. The moon, falling from full, was high. It laid a silver track along the sea. The tide was going out and the sand ran a long way toward the promontory. The wind had shifted around to the north. It was cool, he knew, but he still seemed to be immune to the cold, natural or unnatural. It was one of the few things that marked what he was. That, and the ravens, and the tacit, waiting presence in his pulse.

Prydwen
rode easily at anchor. They had loaded her up in the last light of evening and Coll’s grandfather had pronounced her ready to sail. In the moonlight the gold paint on her hull looked silver and the furled white sails gleamed.

It was very quiet. He walked back along the wooden dock and, other than the soft slap of the sea against the boats, his boots made the only sound. There were no lights shining in Taerlindel. Overhead the stars seemed very bright, even in the moonlight.

Leaving the harbor, he walked along the stone jetty until it ended. He passed the last house of the town. There was a track that curved up and east for a way, following the indentation of the bay. It was bright enough to follow and he did. After two hundred paces or so the track crested and then started down and north, and in a little while he came to sand again and a long beach open to the sea.

The surge and sigh of the waves was louder here. Almost, he heard something in them, but almost wouldn’t be enough. He took off his boots and stockings and, leaving them on the sand, went forward. The sand was wet where the tide had washed back. The waves glowed a phosphorescent silver. He felt the ocean wash over his feet. It would be cold, he knew, but he didn’t feel it. He went a little farther out and then stopped, ankle deep only, to be present but not to presume. He stood very still, trying, though not knowing how, even now, to marshal whatever he was. He listened. Heard nothing but the low sound of the sea.

And then, within himself, he felt a surging in his blood. He wet his lips. He waited; it came again. The third time he thought he had the rhythm, which was not that of the sea because it did not come from the sea. He looked up at the stars but not back at the land.
Mórnir
,
he prayed.

“Liranan!” he cried as the fourth surge came and he heard the crash of thunder in his own voice.

With the fifth surge, he cried the name again, and a last time when the sixth pulse roared within him. At the seventh surging of his blood, though, Paul was silent and he waited.

Far out at sea he saw a white wave cresting higher than any of the others that were running in to meet the tide. When it met the long retreating surf, when it crashed, high and glittering, he heard a voice cry, “Catch me if you can!” and in his mind he dove after the god of the sea.

It was not dark or cold. Lights seemed everywhere, palely hued—it was as if he moved amid constellations of sunken stars.

Something flashed: a silver fish. He followed and it doubled back to lose him. He cut back as well, between the water stars. There was coral below, green and blue, pink, orange, shades of gold. The silver fish slipped under an arch of it, and when Paul came through, it was gone.

He waited. Felt another pulse.

“Liranan!” he called and felt thunder rock the deep. When the echoes rolled away he saw the fish again, larger now, with rainbow colors of the coral stippling its sides. It fled and he followed.

Down it went and he with it. They plunged past massive, lurking menaces in the lower depths where the sea stars were dim and colors lost.

Up it shot as if hurtling back to light. Past the sunken stars it went and broke water in a moonlit leap; from the beach, ankle deep in the tide, Paul saw it flash and fall.

And then it ran. No twisting now. On a straight course out to sea, the sea god fled the thunder voice. And was followed. They went so far beyond the memory of land that Paul thought he heard a thread of singing in the waves. He was afraid, for he guessed what he was hearing. He did not call again. He saw the silver fish ahead of him. He thought of all the dead and the living in their need, and he caught Liranan far out at sea and touched him with a finger of his mind.

“Caught you!” he said aloud, breathless on the beach where he had not moved at all. “Come,” he gasped, “and let me speak with you, brother mine.”

And then the god took his true form, and he rose up in the silvered sea and strode, shimmering with falling water, to the beach. As he came near, Paul saw that the falling water was as a robe to Liranan, to clothe his majesty, and the colors of the sea stars and the coral fell through it ceaselessly.

“You have named me as a brother,” said the god in a voice that hissed like waves through and over rocks. His beard was long and white. His eyes were the same color as the moon. He said, “How do you so presume? Name yourself!”

“You know my name,” said Paul. The inner surge had died away. He spoke in his own voice. “You know my name, Sealord, else you would not have come to my call.”

“Not so. I heard my father’s voice. Now I do not. Who are you who can speak with the thunder of Mórnir?”

And Paul stepped forward with the retreating tide, and he looked full into the face of the sea god, and he said, “I am Pwyll Twiceborn, Lord of the Summer Tree,” and Liranan made the sea waves to crash around them both.

“I had heard tell of this,” the sea god said. “Now I understand.” He was very tall. It was hard to discern if the sliding waters of his robe were falling into the sea about his feet, or rising from the sea, or the both at once. He was beautiful, and terrible, and stern. “What would you, then?” he said.

And Paul replied, “We sail for Cader Sedat in the morning.”

A sound came from the god like a wave striking a high rock. Then he was silent, looking down at Paul in the bright moonlight. After a long time he said, “It is a guarded place, brother.” There was a thread of sorrow in his voice. Paul had heard it in the sea before.

He said, “Can the guarding prevail over you?”

”I do not know,” said Liranan. “But I am barred from acting on the Tapestry. All the gods are. Twiceborn, you must know that this is so.”

“Not if you are summoned.”

There was silence again, save for the endless murmur of the tide washing out and the waves.

“You are in Brennin now,” said the god, “and near to the wood of your power. You will be far out at sea then, mortal brother. How will you compel me?”

Paul said, “We have no choice but to sail. The Cauldron of Khath Meigol is at Cader Sedat.”