The Harrowing of Gwynedd

by Katherine Kurtz

  “Primus est Deus …,” he whispered, setting the first black cube atop the first white one.

  “Secundus est Filius …”

  The next white cube was set on the next black one, beside the first.

  “Tertia est Trinitas … Quattuor Archangeli custodes …”

  The last two cubes were set into place.

  “Adorabo Te, Domine … Fiat lux in aeternum …”

  Again, as he spread his hands over the matrix, light grew beneath them, flaring to a flaming pillar as he drew his hands to either side. He did not bother to sing the Gloria; only reached out his hand to cup the top of the pillar of fire and press it downward. And as the light dispersed at his will, spreading over the mensa and down the black and white sides, the entire altar began to sink.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  And thou shalt put it under the compass of the altar beneath, that the net may be even in the midst of the altar.

  —Exodus 27:5

  This altar’s descent was not as smooth as the one beneath the keeill, but the fact that it sank at all seemed wonder enough, in that instant when it actually began to move. They could hear the stone grate in passage, the track doubtless clogged at least partially by the debris of decay and destruction, but the mass sank steadily—not only to the level of the dais floor, as they had always believed was as far as the keeill’s altar would go, but slowly beyond that point, without further wobble or tremor. As it reached the depth of a normal step, Joram carefully stepped down onto the altar surface, careful not to disturb the still-glowing ward cubes, and prepared to hang onto the edges of the opening as he continued to sink—just in case it should go farther than he wished to go.

  But it halted at the expected depth, just even with his shoulders, with a grinding jar that suggested it was not going any farther. Joram grinned roguishly and ducked to look at the side opening he had been watching grow, summoning his handfire down for a closer look.

  “Well, well, well. This one appears to be a dog-leg stair instead of a spiral. Are you two coming down, or do I get to go into the great unknown all by myself? Incidentally, I think this is the way it was supposed to work—to step onto the altar as it sank. Otherwise, I can’t imagine how anyone would get down here at all conveniently—unless they had a ladder stored somewhere, which hardly seems like the Airsid way.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind, next time we come,” Evaine said.

  She braced her hands on his shoulders as he reached up to help her down. Queron sat at the edge of the opening and swung his legs in, vaulting down with only minor assistance from Joram.

  “What I want to know is what’s at the bottom of the stair,” Queron said. “Whatever it is, it should be a finished structure, unlike the keeill. This has all been here for a very long time.”

  Since it had been Queron’s spell that let them discover the cube altar’s secret, they let Queron lead the way, Evaine following the Healer and his handfire down into the narrow stairwell, Joram bringing up the rear with more light. After the stair had descended the equivalent of several storeys, turning back on itself a full three hundred sixty degrees, they found themselves emerging on a landing that opened on an area of such vast darkness that it swallowed up most of the effect of their handfire. Immediately to their right, either a corridor or another chamber once had opened off, but that way was now permanently blocked by a massive collapse of stone and rubble that also had smashed the floor immediately adjacent. Loose tiles grated and shifted slightly underfoot as Queron moved closer to inspect the blocked entryway.

  “We won’t get any farther in this direction,” he said, turning back to the others. “However, there’s certainly something out there.”

  He gestured into the heavier darkness as he conjured more handfire, and the others followed suit, scanning with Sight as well as with vision and hearing. The extra handfire made little difference.

  “There’s something straight ahead,” Evaine said after a few seconds, sending a sphere of handfire lower along the ground in that direction. “It’s a power source of some kind, damped but still quite potent. Is anyone else reading that?”

  As both men turned their attention to that area at her bidding, her floating handfire began to disclose low steps heading upward—a dull, dusty black that drank the light, curving away to either side as circular steps leading up a dais. They moved carefully closer as she sent her light upward, finally setting foot on the first step—and faltered as the handfire was suddenly reflected back at them, bright silver flashing off the polished black side of something massive and rectangular. On it, as Evaine nudged the handfire higher with her mind, they could just make out the vague silhouette of what appeared to be a recumbent human form, its head toward their right.

  “Bloody hell!” Joram muttered under his breath. “It’s a tomb.”

  “Possibly,” Queron replied, a little distractedly. “But not just a tomb. Someone went to a great deal of trouble over this burial. Let’s have a closer look.”

  “A very careful look,” Evaine added, holding back just a little as Queron ascended the first step.

  Slowly, even reverently, they climbed—seven steps, as in the keeill—eyes fastened on the silhouette that became more and more clear as they approached. A nagging suspicion began to whisper at the edges of Evaine’s mind as they came nearer, grown to a praeternatural certainty by the time she paused on the top step. Gazing across the silence of dust that had not been disturbed for centuries, she knew who it must be who lay on the bier, but an arm’s length away—for bier it was, not mere tomb. The form outstretched along its length was no waxwork or stone-carved effigy but a corpse, somehow preserved.

  “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety,” Queron quoted from the Psalms. He bowed low and made a curious salute to the right, toward the corpse’s head, with both his hands.

  “You know who it is?” Evaine whispered.

  “Of course. It’s Orin.”

  “Orin?” Joram gasped.

  “Aye. And look at his resting place: the pillars of Might and Mercy laid on their sides to form his bier, with the four to one proportions of the ward cubes. The four black ones form the Pillar of Might, and the four white ones, the Pillar of Mercy, with Orin himself as the Middle Pillar, recumbent upon them. This tradition I know—as he would have known it, and his followers, who laid him here.”

  Awed, Evaine looked upon the body again, noting and now understanding why the half of the bier nearest her was black, and its opposite white. A thick layer of dust overlaid everything, dulling the top surface to a near uniform grey, but it was not only the dust that obscured the body lying there. Fragile, its colors dimmed by the dust, a fine net of multi-colored silk cord shrouded the body beneath, each knotted jointure of the netting secured with what looked to be a small shiral crystal drilled through the center for fastening in place.

  Evaine did not touch the net, but she held one cautious hand over a section of it for a moment, then ran her palm close over a portion that trailed off the edge of the surface. The stones definitely were shiral, but bound into the knotted silk in some unfamiliar fashion that felt vaguely of a spell she had encountered before, though she could not fully place it.

  “Shiral and silk?” Joram said softly, close by her left elbow.

  Nodding, Evaine continued to scan, increasingly intrigued by what she read. “Aye, this is the cording lore. I know a little of it, beyond what we use for the Council binding, but most of it has been lost over the centuries. ’Tis women’s magic, for the most part. This one is a preservation spell, I think—a little like something Rhys did a few times. Queron, does it feel of what Healers do, to preserve bodies?”

  Carefully, as a tight-lipped Joram watched, Queron ran his Healer’s hands above a section of the net covering the body’s left knee.

  “It’s similar,” the Healer finally said, “though I haven’t a clue how this particular working was done. It is the source of the power n
exus we sensed from the stairwell, and I could produce a similar effect for a time, but it wouldn’t last anywhere near as long as this one seems to have done. And if we move the net, I can’t answer for him.”

  “You really do think it’s Orin?” Joram asked after a moment.

  “I do.”

  Queron’s two simple words, backed by uncompromising personal conviction, unleashed a torrent of silent speculation in both his listeners. For Orin had been a mage of legendary, even supernatural, strength and ability, the most learned of an ancient order of Deryni adepts whose wisdom had shaped Deryni esoteric thinking for nearly three hundred years. It was Orin who had known and tapped the ancient mysteries of which Camber and his children had only dipped the surface—most specifically, the author of the Protocols that had enabled Camber to take a dead man’s shape and memories, and Evaine to assume the guise of someone who had never been.

  And perhaps Orin had known the secret of the spell that even now held Camber bound in some state like unto death, but not that final severing of the silvery cord—a spell from which, if legend served, he might be roused and healed and saved. And now, to look upon Orin himself—

  His face was covered beneath the shroud of netted shiral crystals by a dense, dust-laden veil of white silk, so they could not guess his features, but his raiment they could survey with wonder—a curious blending of sacred and secular, calling to mind both the familiar and the unknown. He was known to have been a tall, well-made man in life, and even in death he projected an ineffable melding of priest and prince, the dust dimming the colors but never his splendor.

  Around his body, just beneath the net, lay a fine, copelike mantle made of what they first took to be some darkish, close-napped fur, its formal folds spilling back off his hands to pool softly on the bier at either side. When Evaine gently blew at the dust on one shoulder, however, the “fur” was revealed as thousands of tiny, iridescent bird feathers stitched individually to a backing of scarlet silk. It shimmered in the light of their handfire, taking on different hues every time their breath stirred the feathers again and another layer of dust was dissipated. An ankle-length tunic of fine violet wool showed through the parting of the feathered cloak, of a shade very close to that chosen by the Camberian Council for their formal robes.

  “An Airsid color,” Queron remarked. “Did you know that, when you chose it? And those solar crosses embroidered along the sleeve edges are Gabrilite motifs, of course—and Varnarite, before that.”

  Solar crosses were worked across the toes and insteps of his slippers, too—twisted gold thread on white silk, encasing long, narrow feet. Violet silk hosen disappeared under the tunic, whose hem was also stitched with gold.

  It was the hands that captured their lasting interest, however, when they bent to notice closer detail—the fine-veined hands crossed on the breast in a pose denoting pious repose. A silver chain wound among the long, tapered fingers, one of which bore a band of silver engraved with dust-dulled symbols, and the chain led above the hands to a heavy silver medallion set with a coin, of a size to nestle in the circle of a man’s thumb and forefinger. Evaine breathed out softly as she saw it, leaning a little on her brother’s arm as she bent down for a different angle.

  “Well, well, do you see what I see?”

  Joram nodded and leaned closer to puff at the dust on the silver, uneasiness giving way to curiosity.

  “It looks like another dower coin. In fact, it could even be the one that made the seal we copied off Jodotha’s documents.”

  “If we’re careful,” Queron said, reaching in to prod cautiously at the medallion, “we may be able to get it out without disturbing anything else. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t appear to be actually under the net. It may have been put here after his burial.”

  “Be careful,” Evaine murmured, as Queron delicately grasped the medallion by the edges with his Healer’s fingers and began to lift it.

  Slowly the chain emerged as Queron manipulated the medallion back and forth, back and forth, freeing it from the grasp of long-dead fingers and delicate silken cords. When it was completely clear, he smiled and handed it to Joram. The younger priest blew away the dust and burnished it with a fingertip before holding it down where all three of them could see it.

  “If this isn’t the coin that made that seal impression, I’d say it’s from the same house,” he offered, after a moment. “I can’t see any difference.”

  “And you were never able to identify it?” Queron asked.

  The Michaeline shook his head. “It has to be very old. I checked all the resources we have at hand—which I’ll admit are somewhat limited, these days—but it isn’t any house I’ve ever heard of. Of course, if it was an Airsid House—provided, of course, that the Airsid even had Houses …”

  “Ah, yes, that is by no means certain,” Queron agreed, leaning closer to peer at the rim of the coin’s mounting. “Could that be a hinge there, on the left, or am I seeing things?”

  Scowling, Joram tried to work a thumbnail under the opposite edge. “Looks as if it could be. If so, there may be a compartment underneath. It’s thick enou—ah-ha!”

  With his exclamation, the coin swung out on its hinges to reveal a thin, flat circle of crystal—and under it, a small, gently curving lock of rich red hair.

  Queron whistled low under his breath. “Well, well, I think this about confirms that we’re dealing with a dower coin. The hair would have been cut at the owner’s tonsuring or religious profession. Was Orin a redhead?”

  Evaine, taking the locket from Joram, turned it over and froze. “I don’t know about Orin, but this lady certainly was.”

  The miniature on the back of the medallion had been executed on a wafer-thin roundel of ivory slightly smaller than the dower coin, the detailing so fine that the woman gazing up at them seemed almost to breathe. Rich red hair framed delicate but lively looking features. The chin was pointed, the mouth firm but curved in just the suggestion of a smile. The eyes were dark, with a depth that seemed to transcend the medium of mere painter’s pigment.

  “Sweet Jesu, can this be Jodotha?” Queron whispered.

  “I’d guess it is,” Joram replied. “The same coin-seal appears on documents we know were hers.”

  “That doesn’t look like a nun’s habit she’s wearing, though,” Evaine observed, indicating the close-necked white garment in the miniature. “Nor is the unbound hair what one would expect of a religious. Not that we’ve ever gotten any indication that she necessarily was a religious, other than the dower coin. And look what she’s holding. Queron, are your eyes good enough to make them out?”

  Queron nodded. “That’s an Alpha and Omega on the book in her left hand. And it looks like a flagon in her right. Usually, those are symbols of a deacon’s function. I wonder if the Airsid ordained women.”

  “You mean, to the priesthood?” Joram said.

  “Well, to the diaconate, at least. What’s the matter, Joram? Does that shock you?”

  “Well, not exactly, but—”

  “Oh, come now, you should know your ecclesiastical history better than that!” Queron scolded. “What do they teach you Michaelines anyway? You know that the scriptures speak of us all being a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”

  “And a peculiar people,” Joram said sourly. “We certainly are that—especially if we’re going to stand around debating canon law when we’ve just made one of the most spectacular discoveries of our age! Isn’t anyone else interested in what else we may be able to learn? That is why we came, isn’t it?”

  He scowled as he beckoned his handfire closer and bent over the shrouded face, puffing vigorously at the dust on the silk, and Queron moved closer to peer over his shoulder.

  “Forgive me,” he said mildly. “Can you make out any features?”

  “Not much. He had a beard, though, and there appears to be a narrow gold circlet or fillet across his brow. Evaine, was he a prince of some kind?”

  “Not in any worldly sense,” she rep
lied, moving around to the head of the bier. “He was of noble family, though, and there’s evidence to suggest that in the Airsid tradition, a gold fillet was the mark of an adept. Look at the texture, though. It isn’t a solid band at all. It’s woven, probably tied behind. That would—”

  Her voice cut off as she glanced up to read Queron’s reaction and, instead, caught something unexpected out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head slightly to the right and froze for just an instant, a look of astonishment on her face.

  “Oh, dear God!” she murmured, collapsing to her knees and clenching the locket to her lips.

  Instantly Joram and Queron were scrambling around the head of the bier to reach her, both of them stumbling to a halt at her side and behind her as they saw what she had seen.

  The woman lay on her right side, with her back along the cool white length of the bier. A cloud of dust-dulled red hair spilled across the black and white tiles beneath her head, tendrils trailing off the edge of the dais, and her right arm was curved under, to cushion it. Beneath her coating of dust, it was difficult to estimate how old she had been when she died, but none of them had any doubt that she was the woman in the locket.

  She wore a gown of violet silk, the same shade as Orin’s wool, but no jewelry save a torque of twisted gold around her throat. Her feet were bare. She lay on a mantle of scarlet that partially covered her left shoulder, a corner drawn close under her chin with one graceful hand, as if she had thought to shield herself from the cold of her long sleep, here at the side of her mentor. A wand of ivory, almost like a baton of office, nestled close along her right arm. Her left sleeve and the part of her side that lay beside and beneath it were stained with a darkness that showed black on the violet and brown on the ivory when Joram cautiously beckoned his handfire nearer.

  Queron, ever the Healer, leaned forward on his hands and knees in a fruitless attempt to see the wound more clearly, then rocked back on his heels, still not taking his eyes from the still form.