I came to myself with a start. While I had been thinking all this, Gweniver had been setting herself to rights, smoothing her hair, cooling her burning cheeks with snow scooped from the drift just inside the window. Now she stood up, straightening her shoulders as she did so, and I saw that once again she was the Tanista as before. But it was not all as before, and as we went together down the long stair, I knew she knew it as well as did I.
I cannot say we were never again to disagree in all the years that were to come: We had bitter differences, and often, and the last of those was the bitterest of them all, and not for us two alone. But from that hour on, Gweniver and I were unfriends no longer, and that just then was enough.
Book III:
Saiochtrai
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
So Uthyr and Ygrawn were wedded, and once more Keltia had a queen. And within the year had also two new princesses, for in the spring following the marriage Ygrawn gave birth to twin daughters. Uthyr, wild with joy, commanded the infants to be named after two great royal ladies of the House of Don: Marguessan the firstborn; and, her junior by a half-hour, Morguenna—never to be known by any other name than Morgan.
Neither Arthur nor Gweniver was present for the birth, or for the saining held three months later; had it not been for the combined order of King and Queen-to-be, they would not even have attended the wedding itself. As it was, none of the three of us was to see the babies, or their parents, for almost a year after their arrival, though that was due more to distance than to disinclination—well, at least it was so for my part, but then I had no real stake in it.
By 'distance' I mean only that we three were no longer in permanent residence at Coldgates. The first to depart was Gweniver, who went with Ildana, the Ban-draoi Reverend Mother, to a hidden college of the Sisterhood on Vannin—travelling as befit the Tanista in one of the Counterinsurgen-cy's treasured starships. She would remain there for the next three years, being trained as a sorceress—for which calling, so went the general opinion in which even Arthur and I concurred, she had a real and considerable talent.
She went to our not-so-secret relief, and I think to Uthyr's also, if one were to judge by how she had been dealing with the fact of her uncle's marriage—not well—and by what sort of niece she was proving to Ygrawn—grudging. Oh, Gweniver was never openly uncivil to either her uncle or her new aunt—Arthur and I, alas, were not so fortunate—indeed, to give her her due, she was invariably scrupulously polite. But there is in that kind of courtesy a discourtesy that is like a slap in the face: Though Ygrawn for the most part ignored it, I know there were times when she longed dearly and deeply to box the Princess's ears, and restrained herself from so doing only for that such an action, however satisfying she might find it, would pain Uthyr far more than it would his niece. Uthyr, no fool, saw well the difficulty, and though Gweniver would soon have gone in any case, the King arranged that she should go sooner than she might have done otherwise.
Though our own departure a month or two after took place under no such cloud, Arthur and I also were sent out from the shieling—though sent nowhere near so far as Gweniver—on a secret and shadowed journey to the east.
We were more than a little fearful to leave the solid protection of Sulven's flanks, for since Daars had been destroyed we had known no other home, and if truth be known did not much wish for one now. No help for it, though, and we did not go alone: Our companions were true and trusted ones—Merlynn himself, who was to be both guide on the journey and tutor once we had come to our still unknown destination; and lads who had become our friends in Coldgates, and were like us being sent to train away from home—Grehan Aoibhell; the young Dyvetian Kei ap Rhydir; Arthur's cousin Tryffin, son of Ygrawn's brother Marc'h who was now the new Duke of Kernow; some three or four others beside.
Our journey was very much to the same purpose as the Princess's: For just as there were secret schools where lasses learn to be Ban-draoi, so too were there places for lads to become Druids, and the place we now went to was where we would begin to become.
After a fortnight's hard faring—much of it on foot, I am sorry to recall, for even on such a worthy errand we dared not take one of the precious ships to convey us—we came in sight of our new home.
Our journey had taken us almost due east from Coldgates, through the trackless wastes round the great inland freshwater Sea of Glora; but before we had come within sight of those shores we had turned sharp north, then east again and south, and it was a strange and scareful region into which we crossed at last.
Once, long ages since, all these lands had been the cauldron-floors of a chain of giant volcanoes, basins of liquid fire, each of them so wide that Caerdroia itself could have fit inside with room to spare.
For tens of thousands of years, the firemounts had slumbered; then one day, long before ever a Kelt had come to Gwynedd, they had roared awake, tearing their guts out in what our scientists hold to be the greatest natural explosion Keltia has ever seen. The very floors of the chain of craters buckled and collapsed one after another into the empty magma chambers below; then the rains and winds of countless millennia had worn down the walls, leaving a wide, hollow plain ringed by remnants of the mountains' flanks: Glenfhada, the LongValley.
That was not all that was left: The firemounts, nameless forever, had perished, but the forces that had fed them were still moving, far below the valley's twisted floor—even after all these centuries too hot in places to cross on foot. There were sheets of black glass sloping into shining dunes, obsidian plains like miles of shattered lacquer, fissures that seemed to drop away bottomless down to the planet's core. The valley's length was alight with steam-vents and fumaroles; with scaldings, those evil bubbling pots of molten sulphurous stone, whose exhalations made your breath catch clawing in your throat; geisyrs too, splendid exploding fountains of superheated water—everywhere smokes and fumes and sub-terrene thunder.
Ever had folk shunned those lands for pure prudence's sake: the LongValley was no place in which one might safely dwell. But that made it all the safer for us; Ravens called it Uffern, and avoided it like grim death—the which it had been in truth, not so many years ago, for an entire cohort of Owein's enforcers. They had been ill-advised enough to pursue a fleeing band of loyalists into the valley, and came never out of it alive; though their would-be quarry, I am most pleased to report, escaped and thrived thereafter.
And we hoped to do likewise, we who came there now, as we looked from across the valley's width at our new refuge. Called Bargodion, for it stood on the very edge of the ancient caldera rim, it was in fact the rim itself: A sharp narrow ridge of rough dark stone rose up like a ship's keel above a chain of scald-pools, and carved into the ridge's thickness was a Druid stronghold.
We were by no means the only ones to come here to study, though by compare to nowadays the college was no larger than a hedge-school. But the days I speak of were dangerous days, different days; and so that neither learning nor learner might be lost, the Druids scattered both: few students in each place, and many places, each of those places as remote and strangely defended as Bargodion.
Here it was, then, that Arthur and I, so at least we hoped, would become Druids made. We had been learning magic and lore all along, of course, in Daars and then after at Coldgates, taught by Merlynn chiefly and by others as we did progress. Having begun as most boys do who show magical promise, as sizars, or postulants, at the age of twelve, we were seventeen now, and had both just been advanced with our fellows to the rank of sophister. In the next year or two, according to our speed and scope, and if the Druid preceptors found us worthy of it, we would take our first initiation, in a rite that would be our first true encounter with the soul and heart of our Keltic heritage.
Though we covered up with a fine casualness, I think we were all equally feared of the unknown rite to come. And rightly, for it is a fearsome thing; I know now too that women face a ritual just as much to be feared, when they come to be made sorc
eress and priestess according to the way of Nia. Perhaps their road is even more perilous—though all Paths are paved with danger for the frivoler, or the malcontent, or the idler, or the halfhearted—simply for that it is the way of Nia. She was of the ancientest Danai, that race from the stars who settled Atland on Earth of old, there to build great cities and greater edifices of the spirit, and to flee—and many of them to perish—when by the working of their enemies they were whelmed in the waves. (Strange how often our bane has come upon us from the sea, and yet we cannot seem to thrive but near its shores…)
But Nia would surely have passed on to her daughters of the spirit many learnings lost to the rest of Keltia, even to Druids, whose Order her own son did found at her command. Brendan, mighty Astrogator though he was, had learned much from his mother; but he was still a mortal Kelt, and the knowledge he had sent down the years was mortal knowledge—or at least the most of it was, where Nia's legacy may have been far other. But whether it be science at heart, or magic in soul, or some blend of the best of both, it matters little: What counts for all in the end is how one may use what one is given; and that, here in this place perched on the edge of cataclysm, was what we had come to learn.
"And learn we must," lamented Grehan one day some months later, "else Merlynn will doubtless throw us over the cliff's edge; why else build this place overlooking a hell-pit?"
From where he sat with his books strewn like leaves about him, Arthur looked up and laughed. "All for convenience's sake in neatly disposing of failed Druids? Could be!" He turned again to the day's lesson. "Now the rann Thair is to call rain and mist in time of frost, while the rann Bith may be used for summer rain, and the rann Plenn is not to be spoken for a sevennight either side of the Sunstandings. Should rain be needed in such times, the rann Quyl—"
Kei and Tryffin groaned as one, but Arthur continued inexorably on, until we had been reminded of how we might summon rain any day of any year on any world of Keltia. Usually he was the one to rebel against the rote-work that was so much a part of this stage of our learning, but today it seemed he could not get enough of it, though the rest of us rebelled in our turn.
We had formed the pleasant and useful custom of studying as a group, the five of us who still remained of the company that had come from Coldgates a year ago. Arthur, Grehan, Tryffin, Kei, myself: We had been joined just recently by some new recruits, among whom one Betwyr ap Benoic seemed most of like mind with us, and as far as we were able we had admitted him to our circle.
Bargodion itself was oddly conducive to the study of sorcery: A year since, had any told me I would be learning my magic on the rim of a dead volcano, I would have laughed that one to scorn. Yet somehow the harshness of the lands about, and the knowledge of the limitless power that lay beneath them, seemed to underscore all that was taught us, a childish but effective demonstration of relative strengths. Today, beyond the window where Arthur sat amid his books, the vast vale was golden with smoke from one of the perpetually active fumaroles; not dangerous to us—there were sorcerers here at Bargodion could command the earthquake, hold the very lightning in leash if need arose; certain sure they could control an infant volcano—but impressive all the same.
Though I sought just now, had in fact been trying for some minutes, to command something perhaps just as impressive a natural force—Arthur's undivided attention—I paused a moment to look out over that view that never failed to enthrall. Far south and west of the golden haze that drifted over Glenfhada, a distant spur of the Spindles split, holding in its granite arms the Sea of Glora. If rumor spoke true, that sapphire sheet of water was not all those mountains held: A dun, a great hall of the Acs Sidhe, the Shining Ones, was said to be hidden somewhere among those pathless wilds. Not so ancient or mighty perhaps as Dun Aengus on Tara the throneworld, where Nudd the faerie King held court in splendor beneath the hollow hill, but a fair and high hall even so—though none I knew had ever been there, or beheld it, or could even say who was lord there, or lady.
I glanced again at Arthur where he sat so apparently absorbed in his studies; though I could tell from the set of his head and shoulders that he was well aware of my gaze, he would not look up to meet it. And just as well I knew why he would not: He did not wish to hear the rest of my news, and thought I would be too polite to interrupt his work and force it on him. After all these years, how little he sometimes knows me…
I had been gone from Bargodion this fortnight past, on a flying visit back to Coldgates, the first time I had returned there, and I the only boy so far to do so. But my brother Cadreth had been wounded in a battle with Owein's forces, far in the east in the province of Raen, and Tegau had summoned me back to the shieling, that I might be at hand should he not survive. Indeed, they had even sent an aircar for me, so grave had his condition been thought—though in that kindness I saw Uthyr's hand. His compassion would have insisted on the concession: He had ever been most fond of me, as I of him; too, he had done it to please his queen—and Ygrawn, of course, was still my foster-mother.
Whatever, I had been very grateful; happily, Cadreth was soon recovered, thanks to some skilled work by the healers and sorcerers, and the remainder of my visit was of pleasanter stamp. And that was what I wished to tell Arthur, and had been so far balked: I had given him news first of all of his mother, and of Uthyr his stepfather—lasathair we call it in the Gaeloch, 'half-father'; it seems a kinder and truer way to call such a one—and he had listened eagerly enough. But whenever I tried to speak of his new sisters he had all at once found urgent need to attend once more to his books.
Well, he would hear, will he or nill he… "I have seen your sisters, Artos, you know. You must return yourself to meet them before they are much older—they are the fairest little lasses I have ever set eyes on. I have never had younger sibs—no more have you, now I think on it—and it was the grandest fun to play with them, the King himself was creeping on the floor with us…" I had not been watching to see the effect of my speech, dared a quick glance now. Still the chestnut head was bent to the book—I sighed and continued doggedly. "They are not much alike: Marguessan is lighter of hair and of eye, and though they are both lively Morgan is the quieter—"
Oft enough in our years together I had run up against that unexpected stubbornness of Arthur's that was like no other's: as contrary as a gauran, as adamantine as a findruinna wall. No one could get other of him in such mood, and I but lost my labor to try now. But what was the difficulty? He had genuinely rejoiced for Ygrawn and Uthyr when word had come of the birth of his half-sisters—his cousins too, come to it. Perhaps that was it there? I glanced sidewise at Grehan; he shook his dark blond head and shrugged, as baffled as I, so that was where I left it, and left Arthur too.
But I put the problem to Merlynn later that night, after the evening meal. Whatever demons had got into Arthur seemed to be afflicting the Druid master also, for he was in a mood to be as uncommunicative as only he could be. I tried vainly to get him to speculate on my fostern's mood and mind, and the more I asked the shorter grew his answers. At last in my passion of annoyance I asked something I was instantly to regret.
"Well, if you will tell me naught about Arthur, tell me this then: Have you Seen for the babes yet?"
To my astonishment he answered me swift and straight. "I have Seen; two dans for two princesses. One I will not speak, not now, not yet…"
"Then speak what one you would, or may."
Unexpectedly Merlynn smiled, a warm, benevolent light in his face. "I think I need not tell you; have you not Seen it for yourself?"
I blushed. "Aye, well, as to that—I have Seen somewhat; but I thought I must have read it amiss…"
He shook his head, still smiling. "Nay, you Saw true. You and Morgan will be beloved of each other; you will wed in time, and Geraint shall come of it, and he shall find that which has long been lost."
As he spoke I had been staring at him, jaw agape, my head slowly moving from side to side in my wonderment; for all that he had just
spoken, I had Seen this fortnight past, and in that wonder's grip I dared ask further.
"And she? What of her dan?"
"Morgan? She shall make for Keltia a greater protection than all your swords together, though it shall not come save through the bitterest loss in all our years." Merlynn shook himself, or something shook him; I could not tell just which, but he trembled violently from head to foot, and at once was calm again. "It takes me so," he said crossly, "as if I were only far-labhartha, the tonguetalker's manikin, and it speaking through me will I or nill I… But as to Arthur, let him come round in his own time and do not plague him. We cannot force his heart, and would not wish to try."
I nodded, and rose to go, for by now the hour of curfew was on us and my chamber was not close by; I would have to scurry if I were to make it to my bed before the bell went. But, my hand upon the hasp, I remembered something, and turned again to him.
"You said you had Seen two dans, athro—two dans for two princesses. Can you not say what dan is Marguessan's?"
Merlynn looked at me then. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, perhaps it was truly that I saw that unspoken dan reflected in his eyes—but whatever it may have been, I drew myself up and bowed hastily and pulled the door closed behind me. And once safe in the hallway outside, no matter the nearness of the curfew-bell, I leaned against the rough stone wall and shook, for what I had seen just then in Merlynn's eyes was death.
Not my own death—that would have troubled me not in the slightest; as Druids we are taught how death is not the end but merely a way-station for the voyaging soul, a bruidean or traveller's halt between the worlds. Nay—the death I had glimpsed in Merlynn's eyes was Arthur's. And for all my learning, and all my faith, I could not keep myself from terror and dread.
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
Whatever I had seen, or thought I had seen, it was not a thing to speak of—one's dan is after all one's own, and though by chance it might be glimpsed by another still it is not something to be spoken aloud. Indeed, after a while, I had succeeded in convincing myself that I had been mistaken, conveniently ignoring the corollary: I had accepted the Seeing of my fate and Morgan's, therefore I should accept the Seeing of that which would be Arthur's.
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