The Wandering Fire Part 26

Then he saw the Hunt split in two as four went with the child who had been Finn in wild, airborne pursuit of the army of the Dark. The other kings, and Owein was one of them, stayed by Adein, and in the evening light they began to kill the lios and the Dalrei, one by one.

Dave Martyniuk screamed. He leaped from his horse.

He began to run along the riverbank. "No!" he roared. "No, no, oh, no! Please!" He stumbled and fell in the mud. A body moved under him. He heard the unleashed laughter of the Hunt. He looked up. He saw Owein, grey like smoke on his black, shadowy horse, loom above Levon dan Ivor, who stood before his father, and he heard Owein laugh again for purest joy. He tried to rise; felt something give way in his side.

Heard a half-remembered voice above all the noise cry, "Sky King, sheath your sword! I put my will upon you!" Then he fell back, bleeding and brokenhearted in the filthy mud, and heard no more.

He woke to moonlight. He was clean and clothed. He rose. There was no pain. He felt his side and, through the s.h.i.+rt he wore, traced the line of a healed scar. Slowly, he looked around. He was on a mound in the Plain. Away to the north, half a mile perhaps, he saw the river glitter silver in the moonlight. He did not remember the mound, or pa.s.sing this place. There were lights off to the east: Celidon. No sounds in the night, no movement by the river.

He put a hand to his hip.

"I have not taken it back," he heard her say. He turned to the west where she was, and when he had turned, he knelt, and bowed his head.

"Look at me," she said, and he did.

She was in green, as before, by the pool in Faelinn Grove. There was an illumination in her face, but muted, so he could look upon her. There were a bow and a quiver on her back, and in her hand she held out Owein's Horn.

He was afraid, and he said, "G.o.ddess, how should I ever summon them again?"

Ceinwen smiled. She said, "Not ever, unless someone stronger than the Hunt is there to master them. I should not have done what I did, and I will pay for it. We are not to act on the Tapestry. But you had the horn from me, though for a lesser purpose, and I could not stand by and see Owein unchecked."

He swallowed. She was very beautiful, very tall above him, very bright. "How may a G.o.ddess be made to pay?" he asked.

She laughed. He remembered it. She said, "Red Nemain will find a way, and Macha will, if she does not. Never fear."

Memory was coming back. And, with it, a desperate pain.

"They were killing everyone," he stammered. "All of us."

"Of course they were," Green Ceinwen said, s.h.i.+ning on the mound. "How should you expect the wildest magic to tamely serve your will?"

"So many dead," he said. His heart was sore with it.

"I have gathered them," Ceinwen said, not ungently. And Dave suddenly understood whence this mound had come, and what it was.

"Levon?" he asked, afraid. "The Aven?"

"Not all need die," she said. She had said that to him before. "I have put the living to sleep by the river. They sleep in Celidon as well, although the lights burn. They will rise in the morning, though, carrying their wounds."

"I do not," he said, with difficulty.

"I know," she said. "I did not want you to."

He rose. He knew she wanted him to rise. They stood on the mound in the clear moonlight. She shone for him softly, like the moon. She came forward and kissed him upon the lips. She motioned with a hand, and he was blinded, almost, by the sudden glory of her nakedness. She touched him. Trembling, he raised a hand toward her hair. She made a sound. Touched him again.

Then he lay down with a G.o.ddess, in the green, green of the gra.s.s.

CHAPTER 16.

At midafternoon on the second day, Paul caught a certain glance from Diarmuid and he rose. Together they went to the stern of the s.h.i.+p, where Arthur stood with his dog. Around them the men of South Keep manned Prydwen with easy efficiency, and Coll, at the helm, held their course hard on west. Due west, Arthur had instructed, and told Coll he would let him know when time came to turn, and where. It was to an island not on any map that they were sailing.

Nor were they sure what lay waiting there. Which was why the three of them, with Cavall padding lightly alongside on the dark planks of the deck, now walked together to the prow where two figures stood together as they had stood every waking hour since Prydwen had set sail.

"Loren," Diarmuid said quietly.

The mage slowly turned from staring at the sea. Matt looked around as well.

"Loren, we must talk," the Prince went on, quietly still, but not without authority.

The mage stared at them for a long moment; then he said, his voice rasping, "I know. You understand that I break our Law if I tell you?"

"I do," said Diarmuid. "But we must know what he is doing, Loren. And how. Your Council's Law must not serve the Dark."

Matt, his face impa.s.sive, turned back to look out at sea. Loren remained facing the three of them. He said, "Metran is using the Cauldron to revive the svart alfar on Cader Sedat when they die."

Arthur nodded. "But what is killing them?"

"He is," said Loren Silvercloak.

They waited. Matt's gaze was fixed out over the water, but Paul saw how his hands gripped the railing of the s.h.i.+p.

Loren said, "Know you, that in the Book of Nilsom-"

"Accursed be his name," Matt Soren said.

"-in that Book," Loren continued, "is written a monstrous way in which a mage can have the strength of more than his one source."

No one spoke. Paul felt the wind as the sun slipped behind a cloud.

"Metran is using Denbarra as a conduit," Loren said, controlling his voice. "A conduit for the energy of the svart alfar."

"Why are they dying?" Paul asked.

"Because he is draining them to death."

Diarmuid nodded. "And the dead ones are revived with the Cauldron? Over and over again. Is that how he made the winter? How he was strong enough?"

"Yes," said Loren simply.

There was a silence. Prydwen rode through a calm sea.

"He will have others with him to do this?" Arthur said.

"He will have to," the mage replied. "The ones used to source him will be incapable of moving."

"Denbarra," Paul said. "Is he so evil? Why is he doing this?"

Matt whipped around. "Because a source does not betray his mage!" They all heard the bitterness.

Loren laid a hand on the Dwarf's shoulder. "Easy," he said. "I don't think he can now, in any case. We shall see, if we get there."

If we get there. Diarmuid strolled thoughtfully away to talk with Coll at the helm. A moment later, Arthur and Cavall went back to their place at the stern.

"Can he make the winter again?" Paul asked Loren.

"I think so. He can do almost anything he wants with so much power."

The two of them turned to lean on the railing on either side of Matt. They gazed out at the empty sea.

"I took flowers to Aideen's grave," the Dwarf said, after a moment. "With Jennifer."

Loren looked at him. "I don't think Denbarra has her choice," he repeated after a moment.

"In the beginning he did," the Dwarf growled.

"Were I Metran, what would you have done?"

"Cut your heart out!" Matt Soren said.

Loren looked at his source, a smile beginning to play about his mouth. "Would you?" he asked.

For a long time Matt glared back at him. Then he grimaced and shook his head. He turned once more to the sea. Paul felt something ease in his heart. Not to lightness, but toward acceptance and resignation. He wasn't sure why he found strength in the Dwarf's admission, but he did, and he knew he had need of that strength, with greater need yet to come.

He'd been sleeping badly since Kevin died, so Paul had volunteered to take one of the pre-dawn watches. It was a time to think and remember. The only sounds were the creaking of the s.h.i.+p and the slap of waves in the darkness below. Overhead, Prydwen's three sails were full, and they were running easily with the wind. There were four other watchmen stationed around the deck, and red-haired Averren was at the helm.

With no one near him, it was a very private time, almost a peaceful one. He went with his memories. Kevin's death would never be less than a grief, nor would it ever be less than a thing of wonder, of glory, even. So many people died in war, so many had died already in this one, but none had dealt such a blow to the Dark as they pa.s.sed over into Night. And none, he thought, ever would. Rahod hedai Liadon, the priestesses had moaned in the Temple at Paras Derval, while outside the green gra.s.s was coming back in a night. Already, through the net of sorrow that wrapped his heart, Paul could feel a light beginning to s.h.i.+ne. Let Rakoth Maugrim fear, and everyone in Fionavar-even cold Jaelle-acknowledge what Kevin had wrought, what his soul had been equal to.

And yet, he thought, to be fair, Jaelle had acknowledged it to him twice. He shook his head. The High Priestess with her emerald eyes was more than he could deal with now. He thought of Rachel and remembered music. Her music, and then Kev's, in the tavern. They would share it now, forever, in him. A difficult realization, that.

"Am I intruding?"

Paul glanced back and, after a moment, shook his head.

"Night thoughts," he said.

"I couldn't sleep," Coll murmured, and moved up to the railing. "Thought I might be of some use up top, but it's a quiet night and Averren knows his business."

Paul smiled again. Listened to the easy sound of the s.h.i.+p and the sea. "It's a strange hour," he said. "I like it, actually. I've never been to sea before."

"I grew up on s.h.i.+ps," Coll said quietly. "This feels like coming home."

"Why did you leave, then?"

"Diar asked me to," the big man said simply. Paul waited and, after a moment, Coll clasped his hands loosely over the rail and went on. "My mother worked in the tavern at Taerlindel. I never knew who my father was. All the mariners brought me up, it sometimes seemed. Taught me what they knew. My first memories are of being held up to steer a s.h.i.+p when I was too small to reach the tiller on my own."

His voice was deep and low. Paul remembered the one other time the two of them had talked alone at night. About the Summer Tree. How many years ago it seemed.

Coll said, "I was seventeen when Diarmuid and Aileron first came to spend a summer at Taerlindel. I was older than both of them and minded to despise the royal brats. But Aileron... did everything impossibly quickly and impossibly well, and Diar..." He paused. A remembering smile played over his face.

"And Diar did everything his own way, and equally well, and he beat me in a fight outside my mother's father's house. Then, to apologize, he disguised us both and took me to the tavern where my mother worked. I wasn't allowed in there, you see. Even my mother didn't know me that night-they thought I'd come from Paras Derval with one of the court women."

"Women?" Paul asked.

"Diar was the girl. He was young, remember." They laughed softly in the dark. "I was wondering about him, just a little; then he got two of the town girls to walk with us on the beach beyond the track."

"I know it," said Paul.

Coll glanced at him. "They came because they thought Diarmuid was a woman and I was a lord from Paras Derval. We spent three hours on the beach. I'd never laughed so hard in my life as I did when he took off his skirt to swim and I saw their faces."

They were both smiling. Paul was beginning to understand something, though not yet something else.

"Later, when his mother died, he was made Warden of the South Marches-I think they wanted him out of Paras Derval as much as anything else. He was even wilder in those days. Younger, and he'd loved the Queen, too. He came to Taerlindel and asked me to be his Second, and I went."

The moon was west, as if leading them on. Paul said, looking at it, "He's been lucky to have you. For ballast. And Sharra now, too. I think she's a match for him."

Coll nodded. "I think so. He loves her. He loves very strongly."

Paul absorbed that, and after a moment it began to clear up the one puzzle he hadn't quite understood.

He looked over at Coll. He could make out the square, honest face and the large many-times-broken nose. He said, "The one other night we talked alone, you said to me that had you any power you would curse Aileron. You weren't even supposed to name him, then. Do you remember?"

"Of course I do," said Coll clamly. Around them the quiet sounds of the s.h.i.+p seemed only to deepen the night stillness.

"Is it because he took all the father's love?"

Coll looked at him, still calm. "In part," he said. "You were good at guessing things from the start, I remember. But there is another thing, and you should be able to guess that too."

Paul thought about it. "Well-" he began.

The sound of singing came to them over the water.

"Listen!" cried Averren, quite unnecessarily.

They all listened, the seven men awake on Prydwen. The singing was coming from ahead of them and off to starboard.

Averren moved the tiller over that they might come nearer to it. Elusive and faint was that sound, thin and beautiful. Like a fragile web it spun out of the dark toward them, woven of sweet sadness and allure. There were a great many voices twined together in it.

Paul had heard that song before. "We're in trouble," he said.

Coll's head whipped around. "What?"

The monster's head broke water off the starboard bow. Up and up it went, towering over Prydwen's masts. The moon lit its gigantic flat head: the lidless eyes, the gaping, carnivorous jaws, the mottled grey-green slimy skin. Prydwen grated on something. Averren grappled with the helm and Coll hurried to aid him. One of the watchmen screamed a warning.