The Wandering Fire (32 page)

“You cannot bind a god in his own element, Twiceborn.” The voice was proud but not cold. Almost sorrowful.

Paul moved his hands in a gesture Kevin Laine would have known. “I will have to try,” he said.

A moment longer Liranan regarded him, then he said something very low. It mingled with the sigh of the waves and Paul could not hear what the god had said. Before he could ask, Liranan had raised an arm, the colors weaving in his water robe. He spread his fingers out over Paul’s head and then was gone.

Paul felt a sprinkling of sea spray in his face and hair; then, looking down, he saw that he was barefoot on the sand, no longer in the sea. Time had passed. The moon was low now, over in the west. Along its silver track he saw a silver fish break water once and go down to swim between the sea stars and the colors of the coral.

When he turned to go back he stumbled, and only then did he realize how tired he was. The sand seemed to go on for a long way. Twice he almost fell. After the second time he stopped and stood breathing deeply for a time without moving. He felt lightheaded, as if he had been breathing air too rich. He had a distant recollection of the song he had heard far out at sea.

He shook his head and walked back to where he’d left his boots. He knelt down to put them on but then sat on the sand, his arms resting on his knees, his head lowered between them. The song was slowly fading and he could feel his breathing gradually coming back to normal, though not his strength.

He saw a shadow fall alongside his own on the sand. Without looking up,
 
he said acidly,
 
“You must enjoy seeing me like this. You seem to cultivate the opportunities.”

“You are shivering,” Jaelle said matter-of-factly. He felt her cloak settle over his shoulders. It bore the scent of her.

“I’m not cold,” he said. But, looking at his hands, he saw that they were trembling.

She moved from beside him and he looked up at her. There was a circlet on her brow, holding her hair back in the wind. The moon touched her cheekbones, but the green eyes were shadowed. She said, “I saw the two of you in a light that did not come from the moon. Pwyll, whatever else you are, you are mortal, and that was not a shining wherein we can live.”

He said nothing.

After a moment she went on. “You told me long ago, when I took you from the Tree, that we were human before we were anything else.”

He roused himself and looked up again. “You said I was wrong.”

“You were, then.”

In the stillness the waves seemed very far away, but they did not cease. He said, “I was going to apologize to you on the way here. You seem to always catch me at a hard time.”

“Oh, Pwyll. How could there be an easy time?” She sounded older, suddenly. He listened for mockery and heard none.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. And then, “Jaelle, if we don’t come back from this voyage, you had better tell Aileron and Teyrnon about Darien. Jennifer won’t want to, but I don’t see that you’ll have any choice. They’ll have to be prepared for him.”

She moved a little, and now he could see her eyes. She had given him her cloak and so was clad only in a long sleeping gown. The wind blew from off the sea. He rose and placed the cloak over her shoulders and did up the clasp at her throat.

Looking at her, at her fierce beauty rendered so grave by what she had seen, he remembered something and, aware that she had access to knowledge of her own, he asked, “Jaelle, when do the lios hear their song?”

“When they are ready to sail,” she replied. “Usually it is weariness that leads them away.”

Behind him he could still hear the slow withdrawing of the tide. “What do they do?”

“Build a ship in Daniloth and set sail west at night.”

“Where? An island?”

She shook her head. “It is not in Fionavar. When one of the lios alfar sails far enough to the west, he crosses to another world. One shaped by the Weaver for them alone. For what purpose, I know not, nor, I believe, do they.”

Paul was silent.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

He hesitated. The old mistrust, from the first time ever they spoke together, when she had taken him down from the Tree. After a moment, though, meeting her gaze, he said, “I heard a song just now, far out at sea where I chased the god.”

She closed her eyes. Moonlight made a marble statue of her, pale and austere. She said, “Dana has no sway at sea. I know not what this might mean.” She opened her eyes again.

“Nor I,” he said.

“Pwyll,” she asked, “can this be done? Can you get to Cader Sedat?”

“I’m not sure,” he said truthfully. “Or even if we can do anything if we do get there. I know Loren is right, though. We have to try.”

“You know I would come if I could—”

“I do know,” Paul said. “You will have enough, and more, to deal with here. Pity the ones like Jennifer and Sharra, who can only wait and love, and hope that that counts for something beyond pain.”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but changed her mind and was silent. Unbidden, the words of a ballad came to him and, almost under his breath, he offered them to the night breeze and the sea:

“What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
”

”Weaver forfend,” Jaelle said, and turned away.

He followed her along the narrow track to Taerlindel. On their right, as they went, the moon sank into the sea and they came back into a town lit only by the stars.

When the sun rose, the company made ready to set sail in
Prydwen
.
Aileron the High King went aboard and bade farewell to his First Mage, to Paul Schafer and Arthur Pendragon, to the men of South Keep who would man that ship, and to Coll of Taerlindel who would sail her.

Last of all he faced his brother. With grave eyes they looked at each other: Aileron’s so brown they were almost black, Diarmuid’s bluer than the sky overhead.

Watching from the dock, unmindful of her tears, Sharra saw Diarmuid speak and then nod his head. Then she saw him move forward and kiss his brother on the cheek. A moment later Aileron spun about and came down the ramp. There was no expression at all in his face. She hated him a little.

Prydwen
’
s
sails were unfurled and they filled. The ramp was drawn up. The wind blew from the south and east: they could run with it.

Na-Brendel of Daniloth stood beside the High King and his guard. There were three women there as well, watching as the ship cast loose and began to slip away. One woman was a Princess, one a High Priestess; beside them, though, stood one who had been a Queen, and Brendel could not look away from her.

Jennifer’s eyes were clear and bright as she gazed after the ship and at the man who stood in its stern gazing back at her. Strength and pride she was sending out to him, Brendel knew, and he watched her stand thus until
Prydwen
was a white dot only at the place where sea and sky came together.

Only then did she turn to the High King, only then did sorrow come back into her face. And something more than that.

“Can you spare a guard for me?” she said. “I would go to Lisen’s Tower.”

There was compassion in Aileron’s eyes as if he, too, had heard what Brendel heard: the circles of time coming around again, a pattern shaping on the Loom.

“Oh, my dear,” said Jaelle in a strange voice.

“The Anor Lisen has stood empty a thousand years,” Aileron said gently. “Pendaran is not a place where we may safely go.”

“They will not harm me there,” Jennifer said with calm certitude. “Someone should watch for them from that place.”

He had been meaning to go home to Daniloth. It had been too long since he had trod the mound of Atronel.

“I will take you there and stay with you,” Brendel said, shouldering a different destiny.

Chapter 15

Before
and above everything else, Ivor thought, there were Tabor and Gereint.

The Aven was riding a wide circle about the gathered camps. He had returned from Gwen Ystrat the evening before. Two slow days’ riding it had been, but Gereint had not been able to sustain a faster pace.

Today was his first chance to inspect the camps, and he was guardedly pleased with this one thing at least. Pending a report from Levon—expected back that night—as to the Council’s decision in Paras Derval, Ivor’s own plan was to leave the women and children with a guard in the sheltered curve of land east of the Latham. The eltor were already starting north, but enough would linger to ensure sufficient hunting.

The rest of the Dalrei he proposed to lead north very soon, to take up a position by the Adein River. When the High King and Shalhassan of Cathal joined them, the combined forces might venture farther north. The Dalrei alone could not. But neither could they wait here, for Maugrim might well come down very soon and Ivor had no intention of yielding Celidon while he lived. Unless there was a massive attack, he thought, they could hold the line of the Adein alone.

He reached the northernmost of the camps and waved a greeting to Tulger of the eighth tribe, his friend. He didn’t slow to talk, though; he had things to think about.

Tabor and Gereint.

He had looked closely at his younger son yesterday on their return. Tabor had smiled and hugged him and said everything he ought to say. Even allowing for the long winter he was unnaturally pale, his skin so white it was almost translucent. The Aven had tried to tell himself that it was his usual oversensitivity to his children that was misleading him, but then, at night in bed, Leith had told him she was worried and Ivor’s heart had skipped a beat.

His wife would have sooner bitten off her tongue than trouble him in such a way, without cause.

So this morning, early, he’d gone walking along the river with his younger son in the freshness of the spring, over the green grass of their Plain. The Latham ice had melted in a night. The river ran, sparkling and cold, out of the mountains; it was a bright blue in the sunlight. Ivor had felt his spirits lift, in spite of all his cares, just to see and be a part of this returning life.

“Father,” Tabor had said before Ivor had even asked him anything, “I can’t do anything about it.”

Ivor’s momentary pleasure had sluiced away. He’d turned to the boy. Fifteen, Tabor was. No more than that, and he was small-boned and so pale, now, he looked even younger. Ivor said nothing. He waited.

Tabor said, “She carries me with her. When we fly, and especially this last time, when we killed. It is different in the sky, Father. I don’t know how many times I can come back.”

“You must try not to ride her, then,” Ivor had said painfully. He was remembering the night at the edge of Pendaran Wood, when he watched Tabor and the winged creature of his dreaming wheel between the stars and the Plain.

“I know,” Tabor had said by the river. “But we are at war, Father. How can I not ride?”

Gruffly, Ivor had said, “We are at war and I am Aven of the Dalrei. You are one of the Riders I command. You must let me decide how best to use such strength as we have.”

“Yes, Father,” Tabor had said.

Double-edged
,
Ivor thought now, looping back south along the western bank of the Latham toward where Cullion’s fourth tribe was quartered. Every gift the Goddess gave was double-edged. He tried, not very successfully, not to feel bitter about it. The glorious winged creature with its shining silver horn was as mighty a weapon of war as anything they had, and the price of using it, he now saw, was going to be losing his youngest child.

Cullion, sharp-faced and soft-eyed, came riding out to intercept him, and Ivor was forced to stop and wait. Cullion was young to be Chieftain of a tribe but he was steady and alert, and Ivor trusted him more than most of them.

“Aven,” Cullion said now without preamble, “when do we leave? Should I order a hunt or not?”

“Hold off for today,” the Aven said. “Cechtar did well yesterday. Come down to us if you need a few eltor.”

“I will. And what about—”

“An auberei should reach you soon. There’s a Council tonight in our camp. I’ve left it until late because I’m hoping Levon will be back with news from Paras Derval.”

“Good. Aven, I’ve been pushing my shaman since the snow started melting—”

“Don’t push him,” Ivor said automatically.

“—but he’s offered nothing at all. What about Gereint?”

“Nothing,” said Ivor and rode on.

He had not been young when they blinded him. He had been next in line, waiting at Celidon for years, before word had come with the auberei that Colynas, shaman to Banor and the third tribe, was dead.

He was old now, and the blinding had been a long time ago, but he remembered it with utter clarity. Nor was that surprising: the torches and the stars and the circling men of Banor’s tribe were the last things Gereint had ever seen.