We went into a middle orbit round the planet, while Arthur opened communications with the leaders of one particular region he had singled out as likeliest of approach. They governed an area near a great high plain called the Morann, according to the geocharts they sent up to us, and their city-cave, a settlement of some thirty or forty thousand, called the Ras of Salhi, was the capital of the empty lands roundabout.
But more awesome to behold were the two giant volcanoes, huger than any I had ever seen—not even the tremendous craters that form the Long Valley on Gwynedd were bigger than these—that faced each other across the plain of the Morann. Both were alight just now, in full and dramatic eruption, and even from our distance they made a most impressive spectacle: their sides stitched by scoriae rivers, their throats lined with flame, their heads crowned by pillars of glowing smoke that reached to the very edge of atmosphere. Staring at the screen closeups, I could even imagine I heard the sound of them as they spoke to each other: a huffing, snuffling sound like some great beast breathing, or a huge pot seething on the boil…
All at once I started back violently from the screen, my own breathing suddenly disevened. Alannagh, who was by, looked over curiously.
"Talyn? What is it?"
I shook my head, still staring blankly at the unchanged picture on the screen of the firemountains in their shouting glory.
"I know not—something I saw—or Saw." But I had Seen, Seen plain, though I did not understand: a hand, Arthur’s hand—for I could see his face up along the length of his arm, though he seemed asleep—and upon his hand not the great green stone of Athyn’s that he wore for Seal but a ring I did not know, had never seen him wear before. It was onyx and silver, massive, finely done, and bore for device a winged unicorn, rearing and regardant, its wings raised above its back; but I knew of no House in Keltia that had such arms, and as bard I knew them all.
"Nay," I said aloud, to myself as much as to Alannagh. "It was nothing. Be easy."
But I could not take my own advice.
We had been orbiting Kholco for perhaps five or six turns when Arthur called me to his cabin. He was in merry mood, and yet also somehow somber, and I could only think this mismatch of feeling had origin in our plight: on the one hand, the seemingly real chance of repair and return to Keltia, on the other the undeniable losses we had suffered amongst Prydwen’s crew. But Arthur, though he talked for many minutes of all sorts of things, made no mention of any of this; and at last he told me that he had a task for me to perform, and began to explain its nature.
"I had forgotten we had escape boats aboard," I said honestly, for it was true on both counts: We had several such sloops, and I had indeed forgotten. "But, Artos, will they serve your purpose? Will they even launch at all?"
"Oh aye," he said, rather quickly. "Elenna has made sure of it, but only one of the four is spaceworthy and also capable of being launched. Any road, it is only a little outer inspection I would have you make, and then to stay in orbit on watch-station while we take Prydwen down to the planet for repairs. It is all settled now with the Salamandri… But I would not be left blind down below and have some Coranian or Fomori marauder catch us on the ground. And the Salamandri, as you know, have no weapons."
Well, that seemed a prudent enough plan, and straightforward with it, for once… "Shall I take the sloop out on station alone?"
"Nay," said Arthur. "The boat can carry six besides its pilot; as well to take the full count, you never know. I have made a list—"
He walked his fingers slowly down the piece of paper with which he had been toying, seeming to touch each name as his fingers came to it, then pushed it over to me. I read the names attentively: Daronwy, Ferdia, Elen, Tanwen, myself as pilot, and my two grandsons Sgilti and Anghaud, to make up the seven.
"A serviceable crew," I said with a grin, and never noticed that his own smile was a fraction slow off the mark in answer to my own.
"Truly," was all he said.
"And if we see trouble coming?"
"From an orbit this high you will be able to see trouble coming, if any comes, from far enough away to let us know in good time below, so that we may take space. You are to be lookouts, no more, do you hear me, Talyn; no hero-feats."
"Well, but the sloop is armed—"
"Aye, but confine yourselves to giving warning if such should be needed. We will do the fighting. But it is on me that fighting is done with, for us, here, now."
"And a very good thing too." I rose to leave. "Now, then?"
Arthur nodded slowly. "Now would be best."
All at once he came round the desk and embraced me, held me close and long, kissed me as a brother and a friend. I smiled a little quizzically, but even then, oh gods, I did not twig, did not sense aught but what he would have me sense: his love for me, and our long shared intertwined lives and histories, and the promise of the same to come, for aye.
So I gave him the same back, no whit reluctant or shamed or sorry to do so, but thinking perhaps this small brief parting were not worthy of so fraught a farewell. But I loved Arthur as I have loved no other being, not even my own mate or my own son; never would I have stinted to show my love for him, nor scorn to receive the same from him… As we drew back from our embrace but still held each other’s forearms in the Fian way, I looked at him; truly looked. Still the same peat-dark eyes, keen and deep as ever; the same red-brown oakleaf hair, though with a vein of silver threading it here and there; the beard also; the same tallness and strength in the spare frame, most of the height of him in the legs… Nay, this was my brother, my Artos, my anama-chara, and no stranger to me; we would meet again soon, and together go home to Keltia. What tales we would have to tell Gwen and Morgan…
And as I left his cabin and headed down to where the sloop was decked, I caught never a mindwhisper nor a mouthword as to what was about to come upon us all. Perhaps it was best that way, as so many have since told me, hoping to comfort; but I have never ceased to wonder if it was not.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-nine
Hard it will be to set down what comes next in the tale; but it must be set down, else all the tale foregoing were in vain. Hard it will be to read it as well; or so at least I trust—nowhere in the Bardic Code is it written that I as teller should spare you as hearer (it is written that I have a duty to set it all out for you; but the duty from there on is your own).
But the difficulty lies not only in the pain of it (and it was, and is, the greatest anguish I have ever known, of body or of soul; not even my Morgan’s passing would be worse grief to me than this) but also in the fact that I myself was neither privy to nor present at much of what came to pass, for reasons that you shall learn. Much was concealed from me, and much I was required to piece together afterwards—even long afterwards.
But I shall recount it here as it happened, and as I knew it, as best I can, so that you may know. And if I have judged you aright—and I think I have, else you would not have read so far in these chronicles—you will be no gladder of the knowing than was I who knew it first.
I swung into the pilot’s chair in the command cabin of the sloop—we call these partner craft such small names as ‘sloop’ or ‘pinnace,’ but in truth they are full starships, able to sail deep space for months at a stretch, and so this one was—with a cheerful greeting to the others who were there before me.
Daronwy occupied the second-command chair, to my right; while just behind us Ferdia had taken the astrogation helm and Elen the weapons array. Naught unusual in these dispositions: Each was longtime expert in the stations elected; and in the blastcouch alcove aft, Anghaud and Sgilti sat quietly, their eyes on sticks, as Morgan put it. Tanwen was with them.
We detached from Prydwen smoothly enough, though it seemed more that it was Prydwen detached from us, moving away and then beginning a long falling arc planetward while we held our position in orbit. I was admiring the lines of the graceful dark-green ship as I always did, thinking that though the battle damage sustaine
d in the Morimaruse and at Fomor, plainly visible from this high angle, was very terrible indeed, still it might be possible of repair. Suddenly Daronwy, beside me, stiffened and straightened bolt upright in her chair.
"Ronwyn?"
She ignored me, was busy configuring a course, her fingers flashing over the boards, and I saw that the course was Prydwen’s own down to Kholco. Or so I thought.
"Oh Goddess—"
Daronwy’s whisper and the screens before each of us crackling into sudden life came in the same moment. And I stared at mine with rising dreading horror, as I knew the others did also, for before me on the screen was Arthur as he stood on the bridge of Prydwen. As soon as I saw his face I knew what was afoot; it all came clear to me in one terrible instant, and in that instant we each of us spoke the other’s name.
"Artos—"
"Talyn." His voice was as it ever was, but his face—His face was changed utterly, so signally altered from the countenance I had not ten minutes since given a brotherly kiss in parting that almost I could not even say I still knew it for his. Yet it was his, was him… Only it was lifted now to some higher sphere and power, a face perfected and refined and raised, reflecting all that was perceivable by earthly vision of a higher self and a greater reality. It was grief and it was glory at the same time to behold; and yet still he was our Artos… I was dimly ‘ware of the muted protests behind me as the others came to see what I was seeing, to realize its import and implication: There was naught we could do to alter this, this was dan and it was run.
I heard a voice speaking somewhere far and fast, but on the screen Arthur’s lips framed no words; and after a moment I knew that it was I myself who babbled on in panic and denying…
"Nay, Artos, not this way—you cannot—must not—"
He let me go on, very briefly, then gently cut me off with a smile and an upraised hand.
"Peace. You remember, Tal-bach. We Saw it—or I did, and told you after—our schoolroom in Daars? And Merlynn, Ailithir, plagued into showing us something more than pishogues. This is what he let me to See, and what Gwyn spoke of, and Merlynn again later. And now it is here at last, and it is well."
"Nay," I said, blindly putting out both my hands to the screen, as if somehow I could reach through to touch him. "Nay, Artos, it is not! Do not do this—Gweniver, and Arawn, and Arwenna whom you will never now see… And what in all the hells shall I tell our mother?"
The face on the screen was brilliantly alive, and also somehow remote from me, drawing away, as if the decision he and the others on Prydwen had already taken (and had selfishly—or so I felt it—kept from me) had already removed him from the world and its cares. But he reached out to me as I had to him, so that our hands seemed to clasp and hold across the miles of space.
"Tell her we went most well, for so I hope we shall," he said. "Tell her—well, you will know what to tell her. As for Gwennach, she has my heart; the children also. Majanah and Donah—These lastwords are naught, all the rest is naught. Save for those sacred things you know of, and those are well bestowed. They, and we, shall be safe here; for have we not been told what the end of it shall be? One of our own shall come one day to find us, and to bring the Treasures home. That is enough for me and my peace." I knew what my face must have looked like by the way his own changed just then. "Talyn, it is the only road! We could never get home again, Betwyr and Alannagh tell me; you yourself see what case Prydwen is in. There is no repair even our own skydocks could do for her now. Would you have us die as the Marro did, choking and alone between here and home?"
"Nay, surely not!" I snapped, anger edging my voice to carry me through the pain and the tears that threatened to silence me. "But what of our own, our Companions? Are they too beyond repair?"
He smiled gently, and fresh terror struck me to the heart. "For the most part, they are, aye. Most of us are wounded sore, with no hope of healing; many are dying or dead already. I ask again, would you wish us to try to struggle home to Keltia, knowing that we should never last the voyage?"
"But not even to try! And what of us here?" Tears were streaming unheeded down my face by now; anger had been overborne by grief and an all but overmastering feeling of desertion. They were leaving us, leaving me, behind; they would all be together, crossing over, and we would be abandoned, I would be abandoned… And the thought overwhelmed me: For all my days Arthur had been the one value that had never abandoned me. I had hardly known a conscious life without him in it, he had been my armor against so many losses; and now this choice of his was forcing me to go unarmed on without him. He had been there for me always; now in the worst moment of all he would not be, and it was he himself who was causing that moment to be… I must watch his ending and witness it—stand witness for them all. And I did not think that I could bear it.
Arthur saw all this, and spoke in a tone of utmost gentleness, such as he had used to me that first night in Daars, and so often since.
"We could save only seven; that is all the sloops can carry, and there was only the one sloop we could get away. We are glad to save even so many of us—better seven saved than all lost alike."
I was angry again. "And are you Arawn Doomsman, to decide for us who should be saved and who should not? We would all have far liefer stayed; shame to you, Arthur Penarvon, to presume to choose for us! You tricked us, where we would have chosen otherwise!"
He laughed. "And do you not think we knew that perfectly well? So we chose for you. Sgilti and Anghaud for their youth, they being much the youngest of all on board; there was no debate about their going. You, for that you are Pen-bardd of Keltia, and we all wish to be written of correctly. Besides, it needs a bard to tell of this, and to leave words after for those to follow who will. The rest were chosen purely by lots drawn—Tarian and I excepted ourselves, and did the drawing—and not a Companion has gainsaid or envied your choosing. We are glad that you are saved, Talyn, all of you; and glad also that we shall go."
"But we want to go with you!" The cry cut across the space that divided us like a sgian to the heart, and Arthur closed his eyes briefly, and I saw him draw a ragged breath. I was instantly sorry for my selfish outburst, to make it harder even than it already was on him and on the rest of them; but I was not sorry for feeling so… Yet when he looked again at me he was entirely the Ard-righ.
"I know. But you cannot, and you may not, and you shall not. This is not only farewell from your brother but the lastwords and final bidding of Arthur King of Kelts. And have I not promised Keltia that I shall come again when they have need of me? Go now. Do not stay for us to end it. Come again safe home."
In spite of my grief and terror I laughed. "Oh aye, Artos, think you your commands hold any weight with me? Now? Think again, braud! They scarcely did before… So I say we shall not leave you; I say we shall follow you and be with you, whether you willornill."
"Nay, that you will not," said Arthur, patience and love in his voice, as he heard the others in the sloop muttering mutinous agreement with my defiance. "Talyn—this is the last thing you can do for me, for us. I know well that you are both brave enough and loving enough to do it. It is just that you must give me a hard time first… Well, be it so. But I am not the only one would speak to you."
He stepped aside, and Roric came on screen, to bid farewell to Daronwy his wife; who at once begged to be allowed to join him, and whom he gently and implacably denied; and we all turned away that they might have some poor privacy for this. After, Roric said a few words to each of the rest of us, and then one by one our oldest and dearest and best Companions spoke their farewells likewise: Betwyr, Tarian and her lord Graham Stratheam, Alannagh, Tegau and Eidier, Elphin Carannoc—oh, and more besides, each bidding us a loving parting and to meet soon again, as surely we would. And I knew it was so; but sometimes—ah Goddess!—it is so hard to feel it so…
When all the farewells had been made, Arthur came back on screen, and I gasped to see him, as did the six behind me. For his face was shining now so that I could sc
arce look upon it, his eagerness for this venture transfiguring him; and even in my bitterness of loss I could not but be glad for him in his going—glad for his gladness, and a little, nay, greatly envious also.
"Talyn," he said then, in the gentlest and most implacable and most loving voice in all the worlds, "take them home now. Tell Gwen and Janjan; tell Guenna and our mother. Tell my children, when they are old enough to understand; tell all Keltia. This is the charge I lay upon you, and it is harder by any measure than the one laid on me and those who go with me now. I know you have strength for it."
He raised his hand again to the screen, and I slowly lifted my own, so that it seemed our fingers touched, and we looked upon each other for the last time in this life. All our past was in that look, and all looks since the first we had ever given each other, on an autumn hillside across a little valley from a walled town.
I had no words, nothing was left me; but Arthur smiled and spoke.
"We will meet soon again. M’anama-chara… ‘S e do bheatha, Taliesin Glyndour." And he was gone.
I lunged forward in a yearning desperate movement, my mouth open to frame a protest, or at the least some of the uncounted words I suddenly needed to say to him and now never could in life; but the screen was dark and pitiless, utterly black. Or perhaps it was my sight that had gone black, at least for a moment, for the next thing I beheld was Prydwen turning her nose slowly to the planet below. I hastily recalibrated the scanners to follow her down as far as they could; and when I saw the course she was taking, in spite of myself I laughed aloud, through all my tears and grief and protest, and shook my head. Ah, my Artos! Trust you, braud, for the dramatic end to it all… But it was dan, and he had had the right of it, as he had almost ever done: We had Seen it all before.
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