Nine Kingdoms: Dreamer's Daughter Part 21

Aisling's finger was quite suddenly alongside his face.

"There," she said, pointing to the right.

Rnach couldn't see anything at all for the sun, but Iteach at least seemed to agree with her. His horse began a slow, downward spiral. Rnach would have accused him of showing off for that lovely filly, but the reality was, he and Orail were no doubt simply sparing Aisling's father any undue distress.

Rnach looked over his shoulder yet again-he'd lost count of how many times he'd done so during the night-but saw nothing. He was still turning over the possibility that Sglaimir couldn't hide himself thanks to Bruadair's magic not being willing to allow it. He didn't want to count on that, but even just the thought of it was almost enough to allow him to take a deep breath instead of endless shallow ones. To have such an advantage might mean the difference between success and failure.

a.s.suming Bruadair didn't decide that he deserved the same treatment.

He realized Iteach had landed and exactly what that meant only as he found himself dismounting and staring in astonishment at the sight in front of him. He collected himself enough to give Aisling a hand down from their horse, but that was the extent of the courtesy he found himself capable of at the moment. Her father could no doubt see to himself.

"Oh," Aisling said quietly.

He couldn't have agreed more. He supposed he should have taken a bit more time over the past few fortnights to at least come up with expectations about what a dreamspinner's palace might look like, but he doubted that even his wildest imaginings would have prepared him for what he was facing.

Admittedly, he was used to a fairly limited range of buildings. Buidseachd was surely a seat of power and only a fool would have approached it without a great amount of either deference or power. But while it was definitely immense and intimidating, it was not precisely beautiful.

Seanagarra was another vision entirely, immense but giving the impression that it was nothing more than a handful of beautiful gardens surrounding an admittedly fine collection of lovely chambers, halls, and kitchens.

The keep at Ceangail was a wreck, but he seriously doubted anyone expected anything else when they made a visit there. Tor Neroche, Leige, even his favorite place of Chagailt . . . they were each beautiful in their own way, but all were, in the end, simply buildings.

He wasn't quite sure what to call the thing in front of him.

It was enormous. He craned his neck to try to demarcate where the roof ended and the sky began, but that was more difficult than he would have expected. The glade they stood in was less a glade than an enormous expanse surrounded by mountains and forests set at the perfect distance to provide a stunning backdrop yet not interfere with the perfection of the creation in front of him.

A place that looked as if it were made solely of gla.s.s that only existed because his poor mind demanded that dreams take some sort of solid form.

He felt Aisling grope for his hand, but since he was groping for hers at the same time, he supposed he couldn't be accused of any unmanly weakness.

He looked at her father, who had come to stand on her other side. "Are we at the right place?" Rnach managed.

Bristeadh nodded, looking perhaps less overwhelmed than he might have if he'd had a modic.u.m of compa.s.sion. He clapped Rnach on the shoulder briefly, then turned a gentle look on Aisling. "Here we are, daughter. I hope you'll find it to your liking."

Aisling looked as though what she would have found to her liking was to bolt. Rnach recognized the expression. It wasn't, of course, that he shared the thought fully. He was just having sympathy for her, no more.

She looked at him uneasily. "What do I do now?"

"Well, our horses seem to think you should press on."

"Alone?" she asked in horror.

"I'll come along behind you with the horses," Rnach said promptly. "At least a dozen paces behind, perhaps a score. Not to worry."

She looked at him in surprise, then her eyes narrowed. "Coward."

"I'll take the horses," Bristeadh said with a smile, removing Iteach's reins from Rnach's hand. "You two go ahead."

Rnach looked at Aisling's father seriously. "I wonder when might be the appropriate time to discuss my intentions with you-if Aisling will permit it, of course."

"I would accuse you of stalling, but I imagine you've more courage than that."

So he hoped. He took a deep breath. "I thought I might run the idea by you before I attempted to approach any potentially less corporeal ent.i.ties with my plan."

Bristeadh smiled. "I'll consent to the match, though I daresay Aisling doesn't need my permission. Bruadair, however, is another story entirely and Sorraidh will have its own opinions beyond that." He shrugged. "The dreamspinner's magic will slay you if you cross the threshold unworthily. Or it doesn't like you. Or you're catching it on an off day."

Rnach pursed his lips. "I wish I thought you were having me on."

"Try it and see, I suppose," Bristeadh said.

"How is it you're so comfortable?"

"I'm not the one thinking to marry the First," Bristeadh said with a shrug. "Not this time. I'm just bringing in the horses. You two go ahead. I'll wander off to the stables and leave you to your comfortable breathing. Or not, depending on the hall's preference, I suppose."

"Is everything sentient here?" Rnach asked in surprise.

"Everything," Bristeadh confirmed. "But considering where your mother was from, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise."

Rnach supposed there was no point in listing all the things he found surprising, mostly because in the end, none of their present business was about him. He watched Aisling's father walk off with the horses, then looked at her.

"How are you?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm not sure." She paused. "I suppose this is it, isn't it? I'll either walk through the doors and continue to breathe or I'll walk through the doors and I'll die on the spot."

"Somehow, my love, I don't think you'll find yourself slain."

She didn't move. She simply held his hand and looked at the palace in front of them. He supposed he could understand that very well. Everything she had learned about herself, everything she might become in the future, indeed the future of her country rested on what happened to her when she walked across that threshold.

She looked up at him. "The moment before battle is the hardest?"

He brought her hand up and kissed the back of it, then continued to hold her very chilly fingers with his. "It is."

"Does it get any better?"

"After a few paces, aye."

"You won't really walk twenty paces behind me, will you?"

"I'll walk wherever you want me to," he said quietly, "but I have the feeling, my love, that you'll eventually need to walk ahead."

"Briefly."

"If that suits you."

She took a deep breath, then nodded. He watched her put her shoulders back and steel herself for the short journey. He would have had more sympathy, but he was worried enough for his own d.a.m.ned self. He could think of many unpleasant ways to meet his end, but he suspected that peris.h.i.+ng on the threshold of his betrothed's . . . well, whatever it was- He took his own deep breath. He didn't want to die. He wanted to wed the woman next to him, have a handful of children who had her eyes, and spend the rest of his extraordinarily long life not walking twenty paces behind her. If that suited her.

Aisling looked at him once more and smiled faintly. She looked more confident than she had before, which was rea.s.suring.

He only wished he could find that same rea.s.surance for himself, because he had no idea whether or not he would manage to cross the threshold of those ma.s.sive gla.s.s doors and continue to breathe.

And he'd thought facing Acair would be the true test of his courage.

Thirteen.

Aisling walked up the handful of smooth, wide steps and paused before she put her hand on the enormous doors to what had to have been the largest building she had ever seen. It looked less like a palace than it did a cathedral. She had seen a building very like to what was before her within the walls of the university at Lismr, though that had been a fraction of the size of the hall she faced at present. Beul had a cathedral, though she'd never been inside it. It had been shuttered for as long as she could remember.

Perhaps there was a good reason why.

The structure before her was so large, she wondered how human hands could possibly have constructed it. She looked up but couldn't see the spot where the roof terminated. She supposed even the doors were three times her height. She considered the heavy golden doorhandles, each perhaps two feet long, attached vertically but somehow looking as if they simply floated in front of the gla.s.s that was not cloudy but rather infused with something that was impossible to see through.

Magic, she supposed.

She looked for Rnach and realized he was standing on the step below her, his hands clasped behind his back, simply watching her. What she wanted to do was turn, fling herself into his arms, and whisper in his ear that away would be a good direction to take at present. He lifted his eyebrows briefly as if he understood exactly what she was thinking. Then, d.a.m.n him, he stepped backward onto a lower step. She shot him a warning look because she didn't dare tell him aloud not to go any farther.

He only inclined his head as elegantly as he would have to his grandmother the queen of the elves. Then he simply looked at her, beautiful elven prince that he was, and waited.

She wondered if he would catch her and hold her once more if she soon found herself breathing her last.

She turned back to the doors because there was no time like the present, she supposed, to find out if your life was going to end or not. She reached out to touch the golden doorhandles, wis.h.i.+ng her entire arm wasn't trembling so badly, but before she could touch anything, the great doors swung inward all on their own.

Something rushed through her she couldn't identify: terror, dread, or perhaps even relief. Doors opening was a good thing. Then again, perhaps even wells of evil extended their welcoming embraces to those they wished to smother. She dropped her arm to her side and forced herself not to clench her fists. She knew she should have been looking up, as Weger had shouted at her so often to do, but she thought that might be slightly beyond her courage. It was one thing to step across a threshold; it was another thing entirely to look up as one did so while fearing that death might be lying in wait there.

She kept her eyes on her boots as she stepped forward, then continued to look down as she ventured another pair of paces. Then she stopped, but it wasn't from feeling her life being taken from her.

It was because of where she stood.

She supposed that she might look back on that moment at some point and be able to relive it without having so much invested in not finding herself slain or offending whomever might have been there watching her walk into a hall that wasn't hers. At the moment, though, all she could do was look at the floor.

It wasn't gla.s.s, but it was like no polished stone she had ever seen. It was very dark, giving the impression of being solid while at the same time reflecting the depths from whence the stone had been hewn. There was also somehow a faint layer of something that seemed to contain each footprint that had pa.s.sed over it, particular to the souls making those footprints. She was part of history, yet standing to the side observing it.

Then she blinked, and it was simply a floor. It was, however, a floor she suspected Uachdaran of Leige would have salivated over.

Bruadair was a strange place.

She realized there was a pathway there, a part of the floor that was a less blackish blue than the rest of the floor, as if it knew she had come and wanted her to reach the other end of the grand hall without undue trouble. Or anyone blocking her path, apparently.

She looked up and realized that such might be more of an issue than she would have expected.

The hall was full of people, people who were all looking at her. She who had done her best over the course of her life to simply disappear and escape scrutiny was apparently the focus of their attention.

She flinched a little, then stepped backward, though fortunately not over the threshold. She glanced over her shoulder to find Rnach standing where she'd left him, outside the hall, his hands still clasped behind his back, an expression of utter seriousness on his face. She was tempted to go hide behind him, which she supposed he knew. He simply watched her, silent and grave, as if he wanted to give her the support of his presence but leave the rest to her.

Which she knew was his intention, d.a.m.n him anyway.

She took a deep breath, nodded just the slightest bit, then turned back to the path. She put one foot to it and it began to glow above and beyond what it had done before. She was tempted to look around herself and see who else the floor might be welcoming, but she didn't have to. Everyone in the hall was looking only at her.

She took a deep breath, then walked a dozen steps forward. She counted, because that seemed to help. There was a dais at the end of the path, so she supposed that was as good a place to make for as any. There were people standing on that raised bit of the hall as well, but she didn't dare look at them too closely lest they think poorly of her. She would know soon enough who they were.

She looked over her shoulder one more time to find that Rnach and her father were standing at the doorway, obviously following her. Well, if things totally unraveled, she supposed they might at least offer her sympathy on her way out of the world.

She could bring to mind any number of other ridiculously long pa.s.sageways she'd traversed over the course of her life, mostly ones finding themselves in the Guild. She had slunk down them, keeping to one side, shrinking as far as possible into herself that she didn't garner the notice of anyone in authority. She had perfected the art.

Only now, that art was useless to her.

She knew, based on too many evidences to deny, that the souls in that glorious hall were looking at her. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to, nowhere to go but forward. She also knew, with the same sort of resonance in her soul, that the choice was hers to either accept a birthright she hadn't asked for or to walk away from it. The world would continue to turn, no doubt, and the Nine Kingdoms along with all the other undiscovered places that didn't crave a seat on the Council of Kings would continue to march doggedly along as they had for millennia before she'd been born and would no doubt for millennia after she was dead.

Only they would do it without dreams.

Unbidden, she caught the faintest glimpse of just exactly what she could do if she continued forward.

She looked up at the vault of the ceiling above her and felt herself sway slightly as the realization struck her. She had spent the whole of her life locked in the Guild, trapped in a large chamber with an unwholesome number of looms and weavers, but never in her life had she imagined that the world could be any bigger. Her life had been in that room, her task the very small one of continuing to weave endless reams of ugly cloth, her future nothing but more of the same. It hadn't occurred to her that her life could be made up of something else.

Something like the place she was standing in.

She continued forward, then hazarded a glance at the people flanking the path she was traversing. They all looked different, true, but there was something about them that was hauntingly the same. It took her a moment or two to realize what it was, but when she did, she found herself less surprised than she would have thought.

They all had the same look in their eyes, as if they saw things that perhaps just weren't visible to others.

She continued on her way to the dais, comforted by knowing that the choice to continue on was hers. She could have stopped, turned, and then walked back down that beautiful, faintly sparkling path, out the door, and back to an ordinary life. It would have been safe, perhaps. It also would have even been comfortable, if she looked at it in the right way.

But it would have been small.

Now that she had stepped out beyond the Guild, stepped into the dreamspinner's great hall, she knew that taking a step backward was simply unthinkable, no matter where her steps forward led.

She thought about that until she was a score of paces away from the dais, then she looked to her right at the souls lining that side of the path. She blinked in surprise, for she recognized more of them than she would have thought possible.

Ceana was there, the king of Neroche's spinner. The woman whose chambers she'd used in Cothromaiche, leaving her a spinning wheel made of sunlight in payment, stood there as well though Aisling didn't know her name. She recognized a dwarvish man who had loaned her a wheel in Durial, and she wasn't entirely sure she didn't also see an elven maid she had almost run into bodily in Trr Drainn.

She looked to her left. She didn't recognize any of the men and women standing there, but she suspected they all had one thing in common.

They spun.

She looked up at the dais. There were several people there, six, seven perhaps. She didn't know any of them, yet they seemed familiar, as if she had seen them lingering at the edge of her dreams for years. They were watching her gravely, then a thin, white-haired woman stepped from behind one of them.

Muinear.

Aisling almost wept.

Muinear walked down the pair of steps and drew Aisling into an embrace. She said nothing, she simply held her so tightly, it was almost painful.

"You came," she said, finally.