And thinking this, I was conscious also of a sudden flood of what felt, astonishingly, like well-being, a sunny tide of warmth and joyousness that lapped me round and that seemed to come out of the air. This, then, was dan’s fulfillment, and I no longer worried or fretted for any of it. Even my two young grandsons seemed to have share in this beautiful new certainty; and whether it was certainty of death or life made no differ, for either road it was the same, and my fears for them were gone…
Abruptly I excused myself to my friends and went alone to my cabin aft, across from Arthur’s own. Once there, I went straight to the chest against the wall and took out Frame of Harmony, as if I had been under some geis to do so, some rann of compulsion. Bards will know whereof I speak: Sometimes the urge to make is a physical thing, a force that drives one to harp or pen or brush as surely as desire may drive one to a lover’s body, or hunger to food, or weariness to the pillow. And it cannot be mistaken, and it cannot be resisted… All you can do is obey; it is greater than you are, and when it chooses you out to work its will in the world, give thanks to all gods, and do its bidding. To deny it is sin of the highest order.
So I did not deny it now, though as yet I knew not what it would of me, and the tunes I sketched were but forerunners to what I knew was on its way: marked them down, and set them aside. They would speak to me in their time, not in mine. But already it seemed that their work was well advanced, for I found as I loosened the strings and set Frame of Harmony back into its satchel that I was at ease now with our circumstance, stood in my soul where Artos and Daronwy and the others stood; and if the song whose first faint notes had here been heard could only be sounded in full on the other side, then that too was well. I was bard; I would go where I must to find my music.
One time, long ago on a planet whose name escapes me, where we had gone with strong force in defense of our new-born Protectorates, I saw a bear-baiting, a vile spectacle long since outlawed on civilized worlds. And now, as I stared out at the Marro from my place on the bridge again, I minded me of the bear-dogs in that baiting, and how their jaws had locked upon their prey and could not be pried open even in death.
So it seemed now, for Prydwen and the Marro; they were each of them baited bear and baiting dog together, their grip not to be broken even as the life went out of them. We had been battered sorely, and had battered as sorely back again; and now both ships were all but derelict in the currents of the vortex.
Arthur still stood unwearied at the helm, the kingly oak to which Merlynn had once likened him, straight and unbending in this last gale. He sensed my attention and gave me a quick sidewise half-glance.
"Not long now, Talyn," he murmured. "We will know when it is time." Before he had quite finished speaking, a tremendous explosion rocked the ship, knocking us off our feet and darkening the bridge. Nearer than you knew, braud, I sent silently, but as I hauled myself upright once more I saw with astonishment that the explosion had not been on Prydwen, but on the Marro, and that that mighty craft was dead in space.
"What happened there?" I gasped, and Arthur shook his head.
"Some delayed hit of ours," he said. "We fired into their drive, and it seems the bolts found a target after all…"
Not only that, Elenna informed us from her post, but the two ships had been thrown from their death-lock by the blast. We were free of the Marro; but the Marro was not free of us…
Arthur took a deep breath, as if to compose himself, then asked for a link to the Coranian captain. It took a moment or two to establish this time, and when Jaun-Zuria appeared at last upon the screen, his face, no less than the destruction behind him, told all the tale.
"King of Kelts," he said, giving Arthur the deep bowing of the head a vanquished opponent in the combat-ring will give the victor. "As you see, we are yours. Though you yourselves may not find it so easy to escape from here…"
"Perhaps not," agreed Arthur gravely. "You gave most painful account of yourselves. What would you ask, Jaun-Zuria, that we may now give?"
The Coranian smiled. "I think you know that already, lord," he said evenly. "In your tongue it is called the ergyd; in ours the katxa-raika. I have heard, and have seen, that Kelts are a folk to whom battle-courtesy matters much. You will not deny us this last."
I caught my breath: What the Coranian warlord was asking of us was the deathblow, the coup, the final mercy a victor could of martial pity accord a mortally wounded foe. It in no way diminished either party: In truth, there was nobility in both the giving and receiving of such a stroke, and had our cases been reversed we would surely have now been asking of Jaun-Zuria the selfsame grace.
So I looked expectantly at Arthur, thinking to hear his willing assent to this, and was instead astounded afresh to see the vivid bleak refusal stamped upon that countenance I could read so well. Nay, this could not be! How in honor could he deny a brave enemy what had been in honor asked? Heartsick, I reached out to catch at my fostern’s sleeve; but he was speaking, and the pain in his voice caught at my soul.
"We would do so full willing if only we could," said Arthur, and all over the bridge heads snapped round to stare at him in shocked surprise no less than my own. "But my first duty, and my last also, is to my own folk; and if there yet be a chance by which I can bring them out of this place, I must conserve that chance as long as I may. And while there is still some strength in Prydwen to strive to leave the Morimaruse, I cannot spare aught of it for other purpose. Not even for the blessing of the ergyd for you and your folk and your ship."
Jaun-Zuria heard this as seemingly untroubled as if he had asked for a cup of water and been refused for lack of a suitable vessel.
"Well," he said lightly. "If it must be so, then it shall be so, and we will find for ourselves another way home. Belike a swifter one. No dishonor to you, King of Kelts," he added, and I closed my eyes briefly at the courage of him in that moment. "I know you would grant my asking could it be done without harm to your folk and your chance. It is you, after all, are victor here."
Arthur flinched as if he had been struck upon an open wound, a solitary jerk from head to foot, as if someone had twitched all his muscles at once, some unseen puppeteer.
"My sorrow, lord," he said then, recovering. "If ever we find our own way from this place, I shall send messages to your home-world and all nearby stations, so that a rescue may yet be yours. I can do no more than that; but that, I promise you, shall be done."
Jaun-Zuria bowed, more deeply than before; already he seemed remote from us, as if his inner being had even now turned to commence its journey.
"My thanks for that at least," he said. "And if it be not irony past words to say so or feel so, I wish you gods’ speed, Arthur of Arvon. I shall leave word of you and of this day for whomever may chance to find us here. Whatever else you may have been, you have been a worthy enemy. Go now to find your own fate, and leave us to ours. Speak of us to the gods."
He saluted Arthur in the graceful manner of Alphor, then the screen went dark and empty. Glancing out the viewport, I saw the Marro, listing badly, turn and begin to drift; and I prayed devoutly, not only as Jaun-Zuria had begged for his folk and himself who had deserved better of us, but that Arthur should remove us from soul-proximity, now, before Jaun-Zuria took his folk home by the only road now left open.
For obvious reasons, that was one leavetaking I did not wish to be witness to; and venturing a glance at Arthur I saw that he was, as usual, of more than one mind in the matter. Plainly he shared my own feeling—this would be too huge and too painful to endure—but just as plainly he thought this was a thing he must witness fairly, as something he himself had caused to be; that he must thole the Coranians’ self-slaughter because it was he who had denied them the honor of eacht-grasta, the mercy-blow.
And that was all very fine and noble for him to be thinking, but there were other considerations here, and I was opening my mouth to persuade him of them when, visibly, his mind shifted. And upon his face, in the bearing of his body, I read th
e outcome of his inner struggle: However he himself might feel, this was not a thing he could rightly or reasonably ask his people to endure. In battle’s heart and heat it is different; death is all around, and the ever-present possibility of one’s own somehow insulates each warrior from the mass of the violence, from the sheer press of souls taking flight.
Not so here: We should not of course be able to ignore the backwash, as it were, when the Coranians chose to take their lives in their own hands and by their own hands move on; mere distance would have no effect on that. But there were in the event certain preparations we ourselves could make: not to diminish the impact we should feel, but to encompass it, and to draw out of it some measure of comfort for our enemies to speed them on their way, as well as some measure of resolution for ourselves.
So Arthur thought, as he gave order to Elen to take Prydwen off on a new heading, out past one of the Morimaruse’s spiral arms. But he remained standing there at the war-helm, watching the one screen that showed the Marro falling away behind us, drifting now into a great clear lacuna that shone like a giant eye in the midst of the dust-storms. And as the clouds began to swirl between to veil even that poor view, the eye began to close, I moved to stand just behind him, and so was near enough to hear him say a few words in the tone of a prayer and a farewell and a salute all three, and none but I upon that bridge heard him speak them.
"Bydd i ti ddychwelyd," said Arthur to Jaun-Zuria, and left the bridge alone.
I gave him an hour or two, then went in search of him, finding him where I had thought he would be. He was in his own cabin, sprawled sitting on his spine in one of the low armchairs, and he was staring at the chest at the bed-foot that held the Hallows, and his eyes were haunted.
"Did you see him, Talyn?" he asked without preamble. "Did you see my honored foe?"
"Aye, Artos," I said quietly. "All the time."
"I could not even grant what was asked of me," he went on, ignoring my reply and even my presence. "I have dishonored myself forever, and well may dan do to me as I have done to them."
"They have not yet gone," I pointed out. "Perhaps they will delay as long as their supplies and air and power hold out, and perhaps by that time we shall have escaped from the Morimaruse, and can send a message to a rescue ship to come for them. It may yet happen."
"And, indeed, pigs may sing," he muttered. "I do not deserve to have these"—he jerked his chin at the Treasures in their coffer—"even near me, far less in my care and keeping. I do not know why they are with us, or what we are to do with them. And I do not know how, or even if, we ourselves shall ever find a way home. Upon my soul, I do not think it."
Now there were two ways I had traditionally used to deal with Artos in such a mood and mode: One was to jest him out of it, even (especially) if the jest were at his expense, and the other was to join him in the mire of his own creation and wallow until we both grew bored. This time I chose neither, but simply and soberly agreed.
He did not even notice my departure from policy. "We are badly damaged, Talyn, as you have seen," he said. "Many have been hurt, some beyond our power to heal, at least while we stay shipbound. And there is yet an errand for us to accomplish, before we may hope for home…"
Arthur was thinking aloud now, and was not to be questioned while he did so, as I knew very well from long years’ familiarity. So as much as I wished to know about this errand—of which this was the first I or anyone else, to my knowledge, had heard—I held my peace. Arthur went on staring at nothing a while longer, muttering and nodding every now and again; then at last he seemed to reinhabit his own body once more, and saw me still sitting patiently in the other chair. He gave me that spacious grin he so seldom chose to employ—and a pity too, for it was quite the most irresistible thing imaginable and made him look fourteen again—and was about to say something when both of us froze into immobility, suddenly hit with a wave of presentiment.
I cannot speak for Arthur, but I found myself flung back nine decades in a single instant, once more a frightened five-year-old waking up in a strange bed, knowing that my father was dead at Edeyrn’s hand and that my whole province was drowned behind me. This feeling now had much of that same nightmare coinage about it, but seemed also to be less immediate to me, wider somehow yet also more diffuse; and I stared gape-jawed at Arthur.
He recovered first. "It is the Marro," he whispered. "They have gone." He rose and pressed a button on the wallscreen; instantly the image formed of the Coranian flagship, far behind us now, drifting through the giant clear eye in the dust-clouds.
"They are like caers, those great clear places," said Arthur then. "Fortresses in the vortex, where things may rest for aye… The ship will be there centuries from now, belike; long after they have been honorably reborn—"
I had risen to my own feet; it seemed the respectful thing to do at a death, and so many deaths… And now as I cast round me with othersense, I could feel the altered mood aboard Prydwen, as realization came to the rest of those who went with Arthur. I said the Last Prayer for Jaun-Zuria and his folk with my outer ‘wareness; but, true to form, that inner Taliesin was busy even now putting music and words together, somewhere way within. Something I had just remembered, something Gwyn had said, or Merlynn, or Arthur just now, something I could use… I shook my head angrily. This was no time for bardery: Hundreds of souls had just made their crossing, and we had not helped them to it, and I was songmaking?! What was the matter with me? And then I thought, Nay, not so; it is the perfect time for songmaking, it is just such times as these that bardery was born for.
So as I looked with Arthur upon the once-lovely Coranian flagship tumbling far astern upon the wild currents of the Morimaruse, I thought of those for whom she was now cairn and tomb and barrow, and it seemed to me that song was the last and truest honor I could offer. You will not be forgotten, I said to Jaun-Zuria as he went, I promise you shall be remembered, and I think perhaps he heard me.
But Arthur still stared bleakly and blankly at the screen. After a while I touched his shoulder gently, and he started.
"They should not have had to shift so for themselves," he said in a low voice.
"We could not do for them," I said, my own voice pitched to carry reminder and absolution, as it seemed to me he needed both just now. "Not and yet do our best for our own… That is no dishonor, Arthur Penarvon, but duty, and dan. Let be. Come away."
He allowed himself to be drawn over to the couch, where he flung himself down atop the coverlets still booted and clad, and was instantly asleep. I pulled up a corner of the coverlet over him, and sat by to watch a while. Elenna answered my mental summons when her own duties spared her—as healer to the Companions since the Llwynarth days she knew best what each of us needed in such times, and she would do better for Artos than I or any other might—and I left her to minister to him in peace. A sprayshot of some tranquilizing herb, a deep dreamless sleep, and he would be himself again when he awakened.
Or would he? I glanced one last time at the screen and the drifting Marro as I left the cabin. Indeed, would any of us…
When I stepped onto the bridge for my next turn of watch, Arthur was there before me. I took a hard, if covert, scan of him as I came up to my post beside him: Elenna’s herbs had plainly done him a power of good, for he looked his old self, vital and alert and alive, and I saluted him with a smile and hidden relief.
"Well, Ard-righ."
He cut his glance sidewise and smiled, looking straight ahead. "Well, Pen-bardd," he replied, and all at once the most frightful suspicions leaped into my bosom.
"Artos," I said after a while, "where are we headed? Yesterday you spoke of an errand—?"
I had edged my voice with curiosity and just the tiniest touch of warning; he heard both, and laughed. My alarm-sense went into a sort of hyperspace, and I put a hand on the console behind me for anchorage.
"An errand indeed," said Arthur, and now he was very much the High King. "You will recall that Melwas of Fomor had made a
raid on our tradeworld of Clero, and had made hostages of those of our folk there residing whom he did not slay."
"Aye, I remember," I answered, though my head was beginning to pound.
"We are going to rescue them," said Arthur calmly.
"But—"
"Oh, aye, I know all, we are in no case even to think of raiding, we should be bending all our efforts to come safe home again—But we are going to do this, Talyn, and do it now. There were some six hundred souls taken when Melwas made his raid, and I shall not leave them to the mercies of the Fomori."
I was busy calculating. "That is twice as many again as are in Prydwen this moment—can we carry so many?"
Arthur gave me that wolf-grin, and I moaned inwardly to see it. "Prydwen can carry thrice her freight with ease." As I startled, he added in graver mood, "It is only her destination that is in doubt; if it be Keltia, home, that is well. If it be that same port where Jaun-Zuria has by now entered harbor, that too is well. But we will liberate them from Melwas."
To what? I thought, but did not say. Presently I spoke again. "And where must we go to liberate them?"
Arthur nodded at the viewports ahead. "Where they are," he said then. "On Fomor."
* * *
Chapter Twenty-eight
"Fomor."
I repeated the word for perhaps the twentieth time, hoping against all hope and logic that it might have somehow changed or altered in the saying of it; but nay. There it was, and there was Arthur who had said it first; and that was the time that counts, and naught any of us could do for it.
We were in the common-room, a handful of the Companions and I, a few hours after Arthur had made his stunning announcement. Under any other circumstances it would have been perhaps not quite so stunning as it, in fact, was. But this time out we had already been in a decisive space battle, one for the histories, and had been victorious too, had repulsed the combined gallain fleets that Marguessan had invited in for our destruction; had rewritten the texts on the ard-na-speire and how to achieve it; and had bested a superior adversary in a way that felt like no victory we cared to have—though we were grateful to take it all the same.
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