Alwen now understood the faint burning at her breast, beneath the silver amulet. It signaled the channeling of the power she had summoned. With nothing more than a wish, Alwen had created a clear path between her earthly form and the spiritual plane she commanded.
It was easier this time, easier than it had ever been, to find and bend the small creature to her will. With only the effort it took to conceive the thought, Alwen joined her mind with the mouse and sent it scurrying at her bidding. This time, she was better able to stay grounded within her body as her mind traveled outside it. She found herself able to fragment her thoughts and sustain consciousness to some degree in both places at once.
Knowing she had very little time before her body succumbed to the cold and stranded her in the depths of this place, Alwen sent the mouse in a new direction with renewed determination. To her relief, nothing but the wreckage of the battle between Madoc and Machreth remained. The damage to the corridors was extensive, but nowhere did the debris completely block the passageways. Such astounding testament to the forces that had constructed the labyrinth gave Alwen pause to acknowledge the omnipotence of the Ancients once again. And then she realized, with surprise, something else had changed.
She had grown beyond simply guiding the mouse. She was overruling its consciousness, taking it over, becoming one with its mind and sharing its knowledge. Now Alwen knew these tunnels — tunnels she had never traveled before — and she knew exactly where she was going.
Only one way in and only one way back — and only one way out. Without actually thinking to do so, Alwen had sent the mouse to trek the escape way, the passage that led to the forest. Anticipation surged as the mouse carried her toward a lightening in the dusky corridor. She had found the opening. Her small companion balked at the open air, preferring the safety of its underground home. Alwen encouraged it to take her as far as the brush that camouflaged the cavern entrance so she could search for a more capable adventurer.
The hawk rested atop a nearby oak tree. Alwen projected her sentience to the bird and encouraged it to take a low swoop over the grove and then turn back toward the castle ramparts. The bird skirted the outer walls, reluctant to enter the grounds. And then Alwen saw why.
The bloodied ground below her nearly shocked her back into herself. Fallen soldiers — or rather, the half-devoured remains of what had once been the brave men of the Cad Nawdd — were strewn in grisly heaps just inside the blockade. Half-eaten, she thought, yet it was not ravens or wolves that had disturbed the corpses. The thought repulsed her. If the usual scavengers had an aversion to the meat, whatever had set upon it had defiled it. She was sickened but forced herself to continue her faring. She needed to know. This was her keep now.
The outer walls had been breached in many places. Whoever or whatever had overrun their defenses had done so effortlessly, and it looked as though the battle had ended almost as quickly as it had begun. Alwen urged the raven to take her in, to the temple courtyard, noting with sorrow the losses that lay below. So many men.
The courtyard was empty of life, though it was littered with the evidence of a mighty storm. Entire trees had been uprooted, fences toppled, and building stone had been torn from the foundations of the temple itself. Alwen had only begun to take it all in when her avian carrier took a sudden, sharp turn, as if shying away from something.
Alwen caught a glimpse from the hawk’s steeply banking vantage that stopped her heart. Far below, in the meadow where her daughter had entered the faerie realm, a giant herd of vile creatures huddled. Atop the beastly mounts rode even beastlier monsters, all clad in bloodred armor. At the head of the pack, a single man rode tall astride a pure-black stallion. Machreth.
In the instant Alwen thought his name, he felt her. She realized her mistake almost as quickly, and fear shocked her heart back to beating, pounding in a furious rhythm that she could not control. She had lost the advantage of surprise. Machreth turned slightly upward toward the bird, smiling at her, just as he ordered the charge.
Great gods. Machreth’s Hellion army strained to a halting start and then surged toward the temple while Alwen fought against the hawk’s desire to flee. She coaxed the bird to circle, from a safer distance, and began to wrack her brain for a way to fight Machreth, to stop him before he reached the defenseless Fane.
But Alwen was not truly present, not in physical form. She had only her consciousness, and the bird. Spirit-faring was a means of witnessing through the eyes of her host, an existential state through which she could experience but not act. Though she knew it could be done, to conjure by pure thought alone was beyond her experience. Alwen had never manifested magic that did not require her body as a conduit.
Alwen had never, but Madoc had, as had generations of Grand Wizards before him. Their knowledge was her knowledge now, imparted by the well waters she had swallowed, hers to draw upon at will. The spell came to her in the blink of an instant, a string of ancient words resounding in her mind, over and over until she began to utter it with her own inner voice. Alwen repeated the words in a steady chant, redoubling her focus and intent with every turn of the phrase. Chwil awel o wynt.
It began as the bird circled the Fane. The wind stirred beneath the hawk’s wings, turning in tandem with the bird in a widening arc. As Alwen repeated her incantation, the wind began to reel, faster and faster, carrying the raptor to dizzying heights. The gusts swirled round and round Fane Gramarye until they formed a cyclone of impenetrable force. Nothing could approach, not even demonic monsters empowered with Machreth’s dark magic. The wind repelled his Hellion army, strewing the beasts about like leaves while Machreth cursed her name.
Safely aloft, at the eye of the whorl, Alwen witnessed the retreat with triumphant satisfaction. Machreth recalled what remained of his unholy legion and slipped into the cover of the White Woods. Her Fane and her family were safe, for now.
Alwen’s sorcery had consumed her thought, taken all of her concentration, and sapped the last of her strength. She had forgotten to preserve her own life force and was too far removed from herself to realize that her body was failing her until her senses began to wane. She felt as though she were floating high above the wings of the bird, soaring farther into a distant expanse. Her sight began to blur and her inner voice faded, receding to a far-off echo that she cared not to strain to hear. As her thoughts dimmed to black, an image of perfect comfort permeated her mind. Bledig.
Thirty-One
“Come to, woman. Alwen!”
His bark brought her round. Alwen grabbed burly forearms with both hands to stop them from shaking her shoulders and tried to focus on the face before her. She didn’t need to see Bledig to know him, but she wanted to be sure he was real and not just a vision she had conjured for herself. His hands felt warm where they gripped her. That was real enough.
“You came for me.”
“What a thing to say.” Bledig frowned, letting loose of her shoulders to sit beside her. “Of course I came for you. Are you all right?”
Alwen attempted a nod. She was too worn and weak to offer much more. Tears of exhaustion welled in her eyes.
“Well, you’re safe now. We were nearly too late. You were soaked to the skin and far too cold.”
It was only then Alwen realized that she was in her chambers, in her bed, not in the catacombs. “How did you know where to look?”
Glain spoke from her nervous hover near the foot of the bed. “Madoc told me where to look, should neither of you return.”
“She showed us how to get into the tunnels. It took some time, but we found the cavern, and you half buried in it.” His fingertips brushed the stray hair from her eyes. “And Fergus, too.”
Alwen choked back a gasp and struggled to pull herself to a sit. Fergus was dead, and Madoc drowned. With the return of that knowledge came the rest of her recollection, and a rush of panic. “We need to go back to that cave.”
“Hold on now.” Bledig tried to discourage her from rising. “You need to rest.”
>
Alwen shook her head and swung her feet over the edge of the bed to see if her legs would bear her weight. “I need to go back to that cave, Bledig. Now.”
“Alwen,” he said, trying to be kind, “there is nothing you can do for Madoc.”
“I need to be sure,” she insisted, waiting for the blood to circulate to her toes. “And I need to see what’s become of the well.”
Alwen forced herself to a stand and reached for the latch on the wardrobe door, seeking something more suitable to wear than her nightdress. “The tunnels must be passable. How else could you have gotten me out?”
“They are passable, at least as far as the cave,” Bledig admitted, with reluctance. “But it isn’t an easy walk.”
“I may be battered and bruised a bit, but I am more or less whole. Hardly on my deathbed,” she argued, struggling to turn the latch on the wardrobe door.
“Alwen” — Bledig reached for her right hand — “what happened to you?”
Alwen puzzled a moment, gazing at the mottled gray fingers curled around the brass handle. Memory returned in a rush and stunned her into a backward stagger that landed her again on the edge of her bed. “It must have been the cold.”
“Must have been,” he said, examining each finger and nail.
As her mind adjusted to the oddity of it all, Alwen noticed Madoc’s signet ring encircling the index finger of her afflicted hand. She could not remember placing it there, nor could she actually feel it. Though the fingers behaved as they should in response to her will, they had lost all sensation from the first knuckle to the tip.
“It is fitting, I suppose, that a battle so bitter should leave an ugly reminder.” Alwen withdrew her hand from Bledig’s grasp. “I need my robe.”
Alwen pulled to a stand again, and this time, Bledig steadied her with a strong hand on her elbow. He’d apparently decided there was no point in arguing.
“Your robe will take days to dry, if not weeks.” Glain appeared at the foot of the bed and waited for Bledig to make room for her to pass. She yanked open the closet, rummaged about the wardrobe, and pulled out the plain brown woolen cloak Alwen had brought with her from Norvik. “This will have to do.”
Alwen allowed Glain to help her with the clothes while she badgered Bledig for details. “Where is Rhys?” she asked.
“Rhys is fine.” Bledig hovered, trying not to look as anxious as she knew he felt. “And Odwain will be, in time.”
“What about the others?” Alwen stifled a groan as she forced a swollen foot into a slipper. Clearly it would be some time before her body did not protest her every move. “Is the temple still standing?”
“Domagoj and all of our mangy lot survived, but the Cad Nawdd has suffered heavy losses. The men that are left are hardy, though, and resilient. And, yes, this place still stands, more or less, but there’s work to be done.”
Alwen glanced at Bledig when he paused, painfully aware of his agony. They had both suffered such unspeakable loss, and his pain added weight to her own. She wished she could keep him from speaking his thoughts, but she new there were things that had to be said.
“I am sorry about Fergus, Alwen,” Bledig offered, reticent and yet determined. “And the rest of it, as well.”
So many regrets underscored his words, and at the heart of it all was Eirlys. Alwen struggled to keep from succumbing to melancholy. So deep was the well of torment within her that the hurt knew no end, but Alwen hadn’t the words to respond to his. Not yet. This was not the time to give in to grief; it was a time to rise above it. All she could do was offer a nod of acceptance. Thankfully, Glain interceded.
“If you must be up, at least take some tea,” she fussed, helping Alwen to tie the waist strings of her wand bag, which Glain had done her best to salvage. “And you should eat.”
“Later.” Alwen waited while Glain hung the brown cape over her shoulders and then made her way across the chamber. She threw open the door and gestured for torches. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The closer they drew to the cavern that entombed the Well of Tears, the more difficult their passage became. The air, which had been dank and stale before the battle, was now so thick with frost and dust it was difficult to breathe. The stamped-earth floor was littered with fallen rock and sections of tree roots the size of large branches.
Alwen stopped at the last fork in the passageway to examine the tunnel through which Machreth had escaped into the forest. Stone and silt had blocked it tight, from floor to ceiling.
“Looks like the roof has caved in,” Bledig assessed, holding his torch close to the opening. “It would take months to dig it out, if it’s possible at all.”
“Well,” Alwen said, remembering Madoc’s warning against revealing the secret entrance, “at least we won’t have to worry about an underground invasion. This way.” She directed them through the widening that opened into the cave, though Glain clearly knew where to go.
Bledig forged ahead, kicking a path through the rubble. “It’s rough going, but you can get through. Where would the well be?”
“On the far side of the chamber.” Alwen clambered over a knee-high boulder and picked her way across the cave with Glain on her heels. “Wait for me.”
“Here,” he called, shoving a stone slab away from an opening in the ground. “This must be it.”
Alwen’s heart leapt to her throat. A strange mix of exhilaration and anticipation burbled, though she knew that this was not a rescue. It couldn’t be. Still, Alwen felt her senses tingle and the amulet burning, awakening in the presence of the well. Its draw was strong.
“It’s completely hardened.” Heartbroken, Alwen knelt at the edge of the cistern and spread her hands across the cold, glassy opaqueness.
Bledig planted one of the torches in the dirt near the marble sill, and the glimmer from its flame revealed Madoc’s tomb. Alwen was devastated. Though she remembered Madoc’s battle with Machreth and trying to save Madoc once he had fallen into the water, she had hoped those memories were delusions. If her frostbitten hand had not been proof enough, there could be no denying the truth now. Madoc was lost in the deep, beneath a layer of thick black ice.
Alwen could feel him near, or at least what she thought was his essence. There were others, too, though the spirits were indistinguishable. Like voices muffled in pillow feathers, she thought, wondering if the water below was liquid or solid. If only she could break the surface. Perhaps the voices would be clearer.
“Alwen?” Bledig’s voice seemed so far away.
She had pushed any awareness of Bledig or Glain so far into the recesses of her mind that it was as if they were no longer in the chamber. Closing her eyes, Alwen turned inward, searching for the magic she had discovered deep within herself. She opened her mind to the voices, but heard only one.
Your sorcery is rooted in the spirit, in the sentient soul of all beings. Your power is manifested in the waters, from which all life is fed.
These had been Madoc’s words to her. They had come to her in the forest, when she had asked for a way to vanquish the devilkin. The skin of her breast tingled as she again tapped the amulet’s mysterious power. Calling upon all of her strength, Alwen focused intently on the well and concentrated her energy on the water.
She envisioned the thaw, ice thinning layer by layer until it was once again liquid, its hold on Madoc’s spirit relinquished, and the power of the Well of Tears returned. With the melting of the water came a melting in Alwen’s soul. She felt her body relax, a manifestation in herself of the languid state she had cast upon the enchanted tarn. In her mind’s eye, she saw the well waters turn from black and foul to clear and pure, and a deep, abiding calm took hold. Alwen opened her eyes.
Nothing had changed. Alwen let loose a cry of anguish and frustration that shook the cavern walls. She had offered everything she had to the conjuring.
Bledig moved to her side and took her by the arm. “We can’t stay here, Alwen. It is too cold.”
“Not y
et, Bledig.” She shook free of his grasp and redoubled her focus. “I will try again.”
“Alwen.” Bledig took her by both arms and yanked her to her feet. “Enough.”
“It took unfathomable power to cause this.” Glain still stood behind her, near the entrance to the cave. “It will take as much to undo it.”
Alwen recognized the logic, but her heart was not ready to hear it. She repositioned herself over the mouth of the tarn and tried to center her thoughts and emotions. The amulet she wore was the source of immense magic, Madoc had said so himself. She could summon more of it, if only she tried harder.
And yet, even as she committed herself to the attempt, Alwen knew she would fail. She knew it as plainly and surely as she knew her own name. Freeing the Well of Tears was beyond her means.
It was then that she was given understanding. Whether it was ancient wisdom that had somehow escaped the frozen waters or some truth buried deep within her ancestral memory, Alwen came to see the true strength of the Stewards council that Madoc had sought to create. The greatest power of all came from the combining of wise minds, pure hearts, and unique gifts. Without the others, she was but one piece of a greater whole. Until the other sisters returned and the Circle of Sages was joined, the prophecy would never come to pass and the well would never be restored. Alone, Alwen would never be enough.
Thirty-Two
“Are you certain you got them all?” Alwen sat on the divan in her room and counted the scrolls again. “There should be four.”
Glain looked confused, then panicked. “I found only three.”
Alwen quickly slit the seals on the rolls that Glain had retrieved from their hiding place under Madoc’s desk. A quick glance revealed a decree of proxy naming Alwen as sovereign until his blood heir was recovered, a map of the known world marked with the locations of each of the exiled sorceresses, and a letter addressed to Alwen that contained a list of directives, the joining spell that would consecrate the Stewards council, and other bits of wisdom meant to guide her.
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