The Wandering Fire

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  She had not prepared it beforehand, choosing to let the dream render its own truest shape. And so it did. She felt the others registering it, in all their shadings of grief, anger, and hurting love for the thing marred, seeing that clear image of Daniloth defiantly alight, open and undefended amid an alien landscape of ice and snow.

  She went into it. Not to the light, though she yearned for it, with all her heart, but straight into the bleak winter that surrounded it. Driving with all her power she reached back for the strength of the others and made of herself an arrow flung from a bow of light hurtling into the shape of winter.

  And broke through.

  Very black. The image gone. She was spinning. No controlled flight now. She was going into it and very fast and there was nothing to hand, nothing to grab onto, no—

  I’m here. And Loren was.

  And I. Jaelle.

  Always. Brave Teyrnon.

  Still dark, though, and going into it so far. No sense of space, of walls, nowhere to reach, not even with the others there. They were not enough. Not for where she had come, so far into the workings of Maugrim. There was so much Dark. She had seen it once before, in and out for Jennifer—but now there was only in and so far yet to go.

  Then the fifth one was there and spoke.

  The ring. She heard Gereint as if he were the voice of the keia itself, creature of the night, guardian of the way to the world of the dead.

  I can’t! she flung back, but even as she formed the thought, Kim felt the terrible fire and there was a red illumination in her mind.

  And pain. She did not know that she cried aloud in the Temple. Nor did she know how wildly the light was blazing under the dome.

  She was burning. Too near, she was. Too far into the web of Dark, too near the heart of power. The flame was all around, and fire does more than illuminate. It burns, and she was inside. She was—

  A balm. A cooling breath as of the night breeze through autumn grasses on the Plain. Gereint. Another now: moonlight falling on Calor Diman, the Crystal Lake. And that was Loren, through Matt.

  And then a goad: Come! Jaelle cried. We are near to it.

  And Teyrnon’s strength, cool in its very essence: Farther yet, I think, but I am here.

  So on again she went. Forward and down, now, very nearly lost with how far she had to go. There was fire, but they were guarding her; she could endure it, she would; it was wild but not the Dark, which was an end to everything.

  No longer an arrow, she made herself a stone and went down. Driven by need, by a passionate longing for Light, she went into the Dark, a red stone falling into the secret heart, the worm-infested caverns of Maugrim’s designs. Into this unplace she fell, having cast loose from all moorings save the one along which she could send back, before she died and was lost, a single clear icon for the mages to shape in the domed room so infinitely far.

  Too far. It was too deep and she was going so fast. Her being was a blur, a shadow; they could not hold her. One by one she left the others behind. With a despairing cry, Loren, who was the last, felt her slip away.

  So there was fire and Rakoth, with no one to stay either one of them. She was alone and lost.

  Or she should have been. But even as she plummeted, burning, a new mind came to hers so far down into the Dark she could scarcely believe it was there.

  The burning ebbed again. She could exist, she could move through the pain, and she heard then, as if in a memory of a clean mild place, a deep voice singing.

  There was darkness between, like a black-winged creature, screening the other from her. She was almost gone. Almost, but not yet. She had been a red arrow, then a stone. Now she made herself into a sword, red as it had to be. She turned. In this directionless world she somehow turned and, with the last blazing of her heart, she slashed through the curtain, found the other where he lay, and grasped an image to send back. She had to do it alone, for the mages were gone. With her very last power, using fire like love, she threw the vision back, unimaginably far, towards the sanctuary in Gwen Ystrat. Then it was dark.

  She was a broken vessel, a reed on which a wind could play if there could be a wind. She was a twinned soul without form. The ring had faded utterly. She had done what she could.

  There was someone with her, though, chanting still.

  Who? she sent, as everything began to leave her.

  Ruana, he replied. Save us, he sent. Save us.

  And then she understood. And, understanding, knew she could not let go. There was no release for her yet. No directions existed in this place, but from where her body lay his chanting would be north and east.

  In Khath Meigol, where the Paraiko had once been.

  We are, he sent. We still are. Save us.

  There was no fire left in the ring. With only the slow chanting to guide her in the black, she began the long ascent to what there was of light.

  When the Baelrath blazed Ivor closed his eyes, as much against the pain in the Seer’s cry as against the surging of red. They had been asked to bear witness, though, and a moment later he forced himself to look again.

  It was hard to see in the punishing glow of the Warstone. He could just make them out, the young Seer and the others around her, and he marked the clenched strain on the faces of Matt and Barak. He had a sense of massive striving, of almost shattering effort. Jaelle was trembling now. Gereint looked like some Eridun death mask. Ivor’s heart ached for them, journeying so far in such a silent battling.

  Even as he thought this, the chamber exploded with echoing voices as, almost simultaneously, Jaelle and Gereint and tall Barak cried aloud in despair and pain. For a moment longer Matt Sören was silent, perspiration pouring down his craggy face; then Loren’s source, too, cried out, a deep tearing sound, and fell to the floor.

  As he rushed forward with Arthur and Shalhassan to succour them, Ivor heard Loren Silvercloak murmur with numbed tone-lessness, “Too far. She went too far. It is over.”

  Ivor took the weeping Barak in his arms and led him to a bench set into the curving wall. He went back and did the same for Gereint. The shaman was shaking like the last leaf on a tree in an autumn wind. Ivor feared for him.

  Aileron the High King had not moved. Nor had he taken his gaze from Kim. The light was still blazing and she was still on her feet. Ivor glanced at her face and then quickly away: her mouth was wide open in a soundless, endless screaming. She looked as if she were being burned alive.

  He went back to Gereint, who was breathing in desperate gasps, his wizened face grey, even in the red light. And then, as Ivor knelt beside his shaman, that light exploded anew, so wildly it made the glow from before seem dim. Power pulsed like an unleashed presence all around them. It seemed to Ivor that the Temple shook.

  He heard Aileron cry, “There is an image! Look!”

  Ivor tried. He turned in time to see the Seer fall, in time to see a blurred shaping in the air beside her, but the light was too red, too bright. He was blinded by it, burned. He could not see.

  And then it was dark.

  Or it seemed that way. There were still torches on the walls, candles burning on the altar stone, but after the crazed illumination of the Baelrath, still raging in his mind’s eye, Ivor felt surrounded by darkness. A sense of failure overwhelmed him. Something had happened; somehow, even without the mages, Kim had sent an image back and now she was lying on the floor with the High King standing over her, and Ivor had no idea what she had sent to them with what looked to have been the last effort of her soul. He couldn’t see if she was breathing. There was very little he could see.

  A shadow moved. Matt Sören rising to his feet.

  Someone spoke. “It was too bright,” said Shalhassan. “I could not see.” There was pain in his voice.

  “Nor I,” Ivor murmured. Far too late his sight was returning.

  “I saw,” Aileron said. “But I do not understand.”

  “It was a Cauldron.” Arthur Pendragon’s deep voice was quietly sure. “I marked it as well.�
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  “A Cauldron, yes,” Loren said. “At Cader Sedat. We know that already.”

  “But there is no connection,” Jaelle protested weakly. She looked close to collapse. “It quickens the newly dead. What does the Cauldron of Khath Meigol have to do with winter?”

  What indeed? Ivor thought, and then he heard Gereint. “Young one,” the shaman rasped, almost inaudibly, “this is the mages’ hour. You have lived to come to this. First Mage of Brennin, what is he doing with the Cauldron?”

  The mages’ hour, Ivor thought. In the Temple of Dana in Gwen Ystrat. The Weaving of the Tapestry was truly past all comprehending.

  Oblivious to their beseeching looks, Loren turned slowly to his source. Mage and Dwarf looked at each other as if no one else was in the room, in the world. Even Teyrnon and Barak were watching the other two and waiting. He was holding his breath, Ivor realized, and his palms were damp.

  “Do you remember,” Loren said suddenly, and in his voice Ivor heard the timbre of power that lay in Gereint’s when he spoke for the god, “do you remember the book of Nilsom?”

  “Accursed be his name,” Matt Sören replied. “I never read it, Loren.”

  “Nor I,” said Teyrnon softly. “Accursed be his name.”

  “I did,” said Loren. “And so did Metran.” He paused. “I know what he is doing and how he is doing it.”

  With a gasp, Ivor expelled air from his lungs and drew breath again. All around him he heard others doing the same. In Matt Sören’s one eye he saw a gleam of the same pride with which Leith sometimes looked at him. Quietly, the Dwarf said, “I knew you would. We have a battle then?”

  “I promised you one a long time ago,” the mage replied. He seemed to Ivor to have grown, even as they watched.

  “Weaver be praised!” Aileron suddenly exclaimed.

  Quickly they all looked over. The High King had crouched and was cradling Kim’s head in his arms, and Ivor could see that she was breathing normally again, and there was colour in her face.

  In a rapt silence they waited. Ivor, close to tears, saw how young her face was under the white hair. He was too easily moved to tears, he knew. Leith had derided it often enough. But surely it was all right now? He saw tears on the face of the High King and even a suspicious brightness in the eyes of dour Shalhassan of Cathal. In such company, he thought, may not a Dalrei weep?

  In a little while she opened her eyes. There was pain in their greyness, and a great weariness, but her voice was clear when she spoke.

  “I found something,” she said. “I tried to send it back. Did I? Was it enough?”

  “You did, and it was enough,” Aileron replied gruffy.

  She smiled with the simplicity of a child. “Good,” she said. “Then I will sleep now. I could sleep for days.” And she closed her eyes.

  Chapter 11

  “Now you know,” said Carde with a wink, “why the men of Gwen Ystrat always look so tired!”

  Kevin smiled and drained his glass. The tavern was surprisingly uncrowded, given the prevailing energies of the night. It appeared that both Aileron and Shalhassan had given orders. Diarmuid’s band, though, as always, seemed to enjoy an immunity from such disciplinary commands.

  “That,” said Erron to Carde, “is half a truth at best.” He raised a hand to summon another flask of Gwen Ystrat wine, then turned to Kevin. “He’s teasing you a bit. There’s some of this feeling all year long, I’m told, but only some. Tonight’s different—or tomorrow is, actually, and it’s spilling over into tonight. What we’re feeling now comes only at Maidaladan.”

  The innkeeper brought over their wine. Upstairs they heard a door open, and a moment later Coll leaned over the railing. “Who’s next?” he said with a grin.

  “Go ahead,” Carde said. “I’ll keep the wine cool for you.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I’ll pass,” he said as Coll came clumping down the stairs.

  Carde raised an eyebrow. “No second offers,” he said. “I’m not being that generous tonight, not with so few women about.”

  Kevin laughed. “Enjoy,” he said, raising the glass Erron had filled for him.

  Coll slipped into Carde’s seat. He poured himself a glass, drained it in a gulp, then fixed Kevin with a surprisingly acute glance. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked softly, so it wouldn’t go beyond their table.

  “A little,” Kevin said. It was the easiest thing to say, and after a moment he realized that it gave him an out. “Actually,” he murmured, “more than a little. I don’t think I’m in a party mood tonight.” He stood up. “I think I’ll turn in, as a matter of fact.”

  Erron’s voice was sympathetic. “It’s not a bad idea, Kevin. Tomorrow night’s the real thing, anyhow. What we’re feeling now is going to be ten times stronger. With a wolf hunt under your belt, you’ll be ready to bed a priestess or three.”

  “They come out?” Kevin asked, arrested for a moment.

  “Only night of the year,” Erron said. “Part of the rites of Liadon.” He smiled wryly. “The only good part.”

  Kevin returned the smile. “I’ll wait for tomorrow, then. See you in the morning.” He clapped Coll on the shoulder, pulled on his coat and gloves, and walked out the door into the bitter chill of the night.

  It is bad, he was thinking, when you have to lie to friends. But the reality was too difficult, too alienating, and it was private, too. Let them think he was apprehensive about the hunt; that was better than the truth.

  The truth was that nothing of the desire that every other man in the company was feeling had even touched him. None of it. Only from the talk all around had he even grasped that something unusual was happening. Whatever supercharged eroticism was associated with Midsummer’s Eve in this place—so much of it that even the priestesses of the Goddess came out from the Temple to make love—whatever was happening wasn’t bothering to include him.

  The wind was unholy. Worse even than a December holiday he’d spent once on the prairies. It scythed like a blade under his coat. He wasn’t going to be able to stay out long. Nothing could. How, Kevin thought, did you fight an enemy who could do this? He had sworn revenge for Jennifer, he remembered, and his mouth twisted with bitter irony. Such bravado that had been. First of all, there wasn’t even a war in which to fight—Rakoth Maugrim was breaking them with a hammer of wind and ice. Second, and this truth had been coiling within him since they had arrived from Stonehenge, he wouldn’t be much good for anything even if, somehow, they ended the winter and there was a war. The memory of his useless flailing about during the battle on the Plain three nights ago was still raw.

  He had moved past jealousy—hadn’t lingered long there anyhow—it wasn’t really a part of his nature. He was used to being able to do something, though. He no longer envied Paul or Kim their dark, burdensome powers—Kim’s grief by Pendaran Wood the night before and Paul’s loneliness had wiped that away, leaving a kind of pity.

  He didn’t want their roles or Dave’s axe-wielding strength, and no sane person would want any part of what fate Jennifer had found. All he wanted was to matter, to have some way, however slight, of effectuating the heartfelt vow he had sworn.

  Two, actually. He had done it twice. Once in the Great Hall when Brendel had brought word of the lios alfar dead and Jennifer taken away. Then a second time, when Kim had brought them home and he looked down at what had been done to a woman he loved and then forced himself not to look away, that the scalding image might always be there if courage ever flagged in him.

  It was still there, that image, and—he searched himself for this—he was not lacking in courage. He had no fear of tomorrow’s hunt, whatever the others might think, only a bitterly honest awareness that he was just along for the ride.

  And this, for Kevin Laine, was the hardest thing in any world to handle. What he seemed to be, here in Fionavar, was utterly impotent. Again his mouth crooked bitterly in the cold, for this description was especially accurate now. Every man in Gwen Ystrat was feeling the
pull of the Goddess. Every man but him, for whom, all his adult days, the workings of desire had been a deep, enduring constant, known only to the women who had shared a night with him.

  If love and desire belonged to the Goddess, it seemed that even she was leaving him. What did that leave?

  He shook his head—too much self-pity there. What was left was still Kevin Laine, who was known to be bright and accomplished, a star in law school and one in the making, everyone said, when he got to the courts. He had respect and friendship and he had been loved, more than once. His, a woman had told him years ago, was a face made for good fortune. A curious phrase; he had remembered it.

  There was, he told himself, no room for maudlin self-pity in a curriculum vitae like that.

  On the other hand, all the glitter of his accomplishments lay squarely within his own world. How could he glory in mock trial triumphs anymore? How set his sights on legal excellence after what he had seen here? What could possibly have meaning at home once he had watched Rangat hurl a burning hand into the sky and heard the Unraveller’s laughter on the north wind?

  Very little, next to nothing. In fact, one thing only, but he did have that one thing, and with the pang of his heart that always came when he hadn’t done so for a while, Kevin thought of his father.

  “Fur gezunter heit, und cum gezunter heit,” Sol Laine had said in Yiddish, when Kevin had told him he had to fly to London on ten hours’ notice. Go safely, and come safely. Nothing more. In this lay a boundless trust. If Kevin had wanted to tell, Kevin would have explained the trip. If Kevin did not explain, he had a reason and a right.

  “Oh, Abba,” he murmured aloud in the cruel night. And in the country of the Mother his word for father became a talisman of sorts that carried him in from the slash of wind to the house Diarmuid had been given in Morvran.

  There were prerogatives of royalty. Only Coll and Kevin and Brock were sharing the place with the Prince. Coll was in the tavern, and the Dwarf was asleep, and Diarmuid was God knows where.