“It was only for the King’s festival,” Dave said. Nervousness made it sound sharper than he meant.
“Perhaps,” Gereint said, “but there are other threads appearing now.”
Which wasn’t all that wonderful.
Turning on his side, Dave could see the raised silhouette of Levon against the night sky. It was deeply comforting to have that calm figure standing guard. Levon hadn’t wanted to come at first, he remembered. Concern for his brother had left him visibly torn.
It was the Chieftain, asserting himself with absolute firmness, who had settled the issue. Levon would be useless at home. Tabor was being cared for. It was not, in any case, unusual for a faster to sleep a long time on his return. Levon, Ivor reminded his older son, had done the same. Cechtar could lead the hunt for ten days or two weeks—it would be good for him in any case, after the loss of face caused by his failure two days ago.
No, Ivor had said decisively, given Gereint’s injunction as to speed and secrecy, it was important to get Dave—Davor, he said, as they all did—south to Paras Derval safely. Levon would lead, with Torc beside him in a band of twenty. It was decided.
Logical and controlling, Dave had thought, and coolly efficient. But then he remembered his own last conversation with Ivor.
The horses had been readied. He had bidden formal, slightly stiff farewells to Leith and then Liane—he was very bad at goodbyes. He’d been embarrassed, too, by the knot of girls standing nearby. Ivor’s daughter had been elusive and remote.
After, he’d looked in on Tabor. The boy was feverish, and restless with it. Dave wasn’t good with this, either. He’d made a confused gesture to Leith, who’d come in with him. He hoped she’d understand, not that he could have said exactly what he’d wanted to convey.
It was after this that Ivor had taken him for that last stroll around the perimeter of the camp.
“The axe is yours,” the Chieftain had begun. “From what you have described, I doubt you will have great use for it in your own world, but perhaps it will serve to remind you of the Dalrei.” Ivor had frowned then. “A warlike remembrance, alas, of the Children of Peace. Is there anything else you would …?”
“No,” Dave had said, flustered. “No, it’s fine. It’s great. I’ll, ah, treasure it.” Words. They had walked a few paces in silence, before Dave thought of a thing he did want to say.
“Say goodbye to Tabor for me, eh? I think … he’s a good kid. He’ll be all right, won’t he?”
“I don’t know,” Ivor had replied with disturbing frankness. They had turned at the edge of the camp to walk north, facing the Mountain. By daylight Rangat was just as dazzling, the white slopes reflecting the sunlight so brightly it hurt the eye to see.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Dave had said lamely, aware of how asinine that sounded. To cover it, he pushed on. “You’ve been, you know, really good to me here. I’ve … learned a lot.” As he said it, he realized it was true.
For the first time Ivor smiled. “That pleases me,” he said. “I like to believe we have things to teach.”
“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Dave said earnestly. “Of course you do. If I could stay longer …”
“If you could stay,” Ivor had said, stopping and looking directly at Dave, “I think you would make a Rider.”
Dave swallowed hard, and flushed with intense, self-conscious pleasure. He was speechless; Ivor had noticed. “If,” the Chieftain had added, with a grin, “we could ever find a proper horse for you!”
Sharing the laugh, they resumed their walk. God, Dave was thinking, I really, really like this man. It would have been nice to be able to say it.
But then Ivor had thrown him the curve. “I don’t know what your encounter last night means,” he had said softly, “but it means a good deal, I think. I am sending Levon south with you, Davor. It is the right thing, though I hate to see him go. He is young yet, and I love him very much. Will you take care of him for me?”
Mean, unbalancing curve ball. “What?” Dave had exclaimed, bridling reflexively at the implications. “What are you talking about? He’s the one who knows where he’s going! You want me to guard him? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
Ivor’s expression was sad. “Ah, my son,” he had said gently, “you have far to go in some ways. You, too, are young. Of course I told him to guard you as well, and with everything he has. I tell you both. Don’t you see, Davor?”
He did see. Too late, of course. And clearly, he’d been an idiot, again. Again. And with no time to make it up, for they had looped full circle by then, and Levon, Torc, and seventeen other Riders were already mounted, with what seemed to be the whole third tribe turning out to see them off.
So there had been no last private word. He’d hugged Ivor hard, though, hoping the Chieftain would somehow know that it meant a lot for him to do that. Hoping, but not knowing if.
Then he had left, south for Brennin and the way home, the axe at his saddle side, sleeping roll behind, a few other things behind as well, too far behind for anything to be done.
On the starlit dark of the Plain, Dave opened his eyes again. Levon was still there, watching over them, over him. Kevin Laine would have known how to handle that last talk, he thought, surprisingly, and slept.
On the second day they started just before sunrise. Levon set a brisk but not a killing pace; the horses would have to last, and the Dalrei knew how to judge these things. They rode in a tight cluster, with three men, rotating every second hour, sent ahead a half-mile. Quickly and quietly, Gereint had advised, and they all knew Torc had seen svart alfar heading south two weeks before. Levon might take calculated risks on the hunt, but he was not a rash man; Ivor’s son could hardly be so. He kept them moving in a state of watchful speed, and the trees at the outreaches of Pendaran rolled steadily by on their right as the sun climbed in the sky.
Gazing at the woods, less than a mile away, Dave was bothered by something. Kicking his horse forward, he caught up with Levon at the head of the main party.
“Why,” he asked, without preamble, “are we riding so close to the forest?”
Levon smiled. “You are the seventh man to ask me that,” he said cheerfully. “It isn’t very complex. I’m taking the fastest route. If we swing farther east we’ll have to ford two rivers and deal with hilly land between them. This line takes us to Adein west of the fork where Rienna joins it. Only one river, and as you see, the riding is easy.”
“But the forest? It’s supposed to be …”
“Pendaran is deadly to those who enter it. No one does. But the Wood is angry, not evil, and unless we trespass, the powers within it will not be stirred by our riding here. There are superstitions otherwise, but I have been taught by Gereint that this is so.”
“What about an ambush, like from those svart alfar?”
Levon was no longer smiling. “A svart would sooner die than enter Pendaran,” he said. “The Wood forgives none of us.”
“For what?” Dave asked.
“Lisen,” Levon said. “Shall I tell the story?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Dave.
“I have to explain magic to you first, I think. You were brought here by Silvercloak. You would have seen Matt Sören?”
“The Dwarf? Sure.”
“Do you know how they are bound to each other?”
“Haven’t a clue. Are they?”
“Assuredly,” said Levon, and as they rode south over the prairie, Dave learned, as Paul Schafer had four nights before, about the binding of mage and source, and how magic was made of that union.
Then as Levon began his tale, Torc came up quietly on his other side. The three of them rode together, bound by the rhythm and cadence of Lisen’s tragedy.
“It is a long story,” Levon began, “and much of import comes into it, and has grown out of it. I do not know nearly the whole, but it begins in the days before the Bael Rangat.
“In those days, the days before magic was as I have told you it now is, Amairgen, a couns
ellor to Conary, the High King in Paras Derval, rode forth alone from Brennin.
“Magic in that time was governed by the earthroot, the avarlith, and so it was within the domain of the Priestesses of the Mother in Gwen Ystrat, and jealously they guarded their control. Amairgen was a proud and brilliant man, and he chafed at this. So he went forth one morning in the spring of the year, to see if it need always be so.
“In time he came, after many adventures that are all part of the full tale—though most of them I do not know—to the sacred grove in Pendaran. The Wood was not angry then, but it was a place of power, and never one that welcomed the presence of men, especially in the grove. Amairgen was brave, though, and he had been journeying long without answer to his quest, so he dared greatly, and passed a night alone in that place.
“There are songs about that night: about the three visitations he had, and his mind battle with the earth demon that came up through the grass; it was a long and terrible night, and it is sung that no man else would have lived or been whole of mind to see the dawn.
“Be that as it may, just before morning there came a fourth visitation to Amairgen, and this one was from the God, from Mörnir, and it was beneficent, for it taught to Amairgen the runes of the skylore that freed the mages ever after from the Mother.
“There was war among the gods after that, it is told, for the Goddess was wrathful at what Mörnir had done, and it was long before she would let herself be placated. Some say, though I would not know if it is true, that it was the discord and the chaos of this conflict that gave Maugrim, the Unraveller, the chance to slip from the watch of the younger gods. He came from the places where they have their home and took root in the north lands of Fionavar. So some songs and stories have it. Others say he was always here, or that he slipped into Fionavar when the Weaver’s eye was dimmed with love at the first emergence of the lios alfar—the Children of the Light. Still others tell that it was as the Weaver wept, when first man slew his brother. I know not; there are many stories. He is here and he cannot be killed. The gods grant he be always bound.
“Be all of that as it may, in the morning when Amairgen rose up, the runes in his heart and great power waiting there, he was in mortal danger yet; for the Wood, having its own guardians, was greatly angered at his having dared the grove at night, and Lisen was sent forth to break his heart and kill him.
“Of that meeting there is one song only. It was made not long after, by Ra-Termaine, greatest of all singers, Lord then of the lios alfar, and he crafted it in homage and remembrance of Amairgen. It is the most beautiful lay ever fashioned, and no poet since has ever touched the theme.
“There were very mighty peoples on the earth in those days, and among them all, Lisen of the Wood was as a Queen. A wood spirit she was, a deiena, of which there are many, but Lisen was more. It is said that on the night she was born in Pendaran, the evening star shone as brightly as the moon, and all the goddesses from Ceinwen to Nemain gave grant of their beauty to that child in the grove, and the flowers bloomed at night in the shining that arose when they all came together in that place. No one has ever been or will be more fair than was Lisen, and though the deiena live very long, Dana and Mörnir that night, as their joint gift, made her immortal that this beauty might never be lost.
“These gifts she was given at her birth, but not even the gods may shape exactly what they will, and some say that this truth is at the heart of the whole long tale. Be that so, or not, in the morning after his battles she came to Amairgen to break him with her beauty and slay him for his presumption of the night. But, as Ra-Termaine’s song tells, Amairgen was as one exalted that morning, clothed in power and lore, and the presence of Mörnir was in his eyes. So did the design of the God act to undo the design of the God, for coming to him then, wrapped in her own beauty like a star, Lisen fell in love and he with her, and so their doom was woven that morning in the grove.
“She became his source. Before the sun had set that day, he had taught her the runes. They were made mage and source by the ritual, and the first sky magic was wrought in the grove that day. That night they lay down together, and as the one song tells, Amairgen slept at length a second night in the sacred grove, but this time within the mantle of her hair. They went forth together in the morning from that place, bound as no living creatures to that day had been. Yet because Amairgen’s place was at the right hand of Conary, and there were other men to whom he had to teach the skylore, he returned to Paras Derval and founded the Council of the Mages, and Lisen went with him and so left the shelter of the Wood.”
Levon was silent. They rode thus for a long time. Then, “The tale is truly very complex now, and it picks up many other tales from the Great Years. It was in those days that the one we call the Unraveller raised his fortress of Starkadh in the Ice and came down on all the lands with war. There are so many deeds to tell of from that time. The one the Dalrei sing is of Revor’s Ride, and it is very far from the least of the great things that were done. But Amairgen Whitebranch, as he came to be called, for the staff Lisen found for him in Pendaran, was ever at the centre of the war, and Lisen was at his side, source of his power and his soul.
“There are so many tales, Davor, but at length it came to pass that Amairgen learned by his art that Maugrim had taken for his own a place of great power, hidden far out at sea, and was drawing upon it mightily for his strength.
“He determined then that this island must be found and wrested away from the Dark. So Amairgen gathered to him a company of one hundred lios alfar and men, with three mages among them, and they set sail west from Taerlindel to find Cader Sedat, and Lisen was left behind.”
“What? Why?” Dave rasped, stunned.
It was Torc who answered. “She was a deiena,” he said, his own voice sounding difficult. “A deiena dies at sea. Her immortality was subject to the nature of her kind.”
“It is so,” Levon resumed quietly. “They built in that time for her the Anor Lisen at the westernmost part of Pendaran. Even in the midst of war, men and lios alfar and the powers of the Wood came together to do this for her out of love. Then she placed upon her brow the Circlet of Lisen, Amairgen’s parting gift. The Light against the Dark, it was called, for it shone of its own self, and with that light upon her brow—so great a beauty never else having been in any world—Lisen turned her back on the war and the Wood and, climbing to the summit of the tower, she set her face westward to the sea, that the Light she bore might show Amairgen the way home.
“No man knows what happened to him or those who sailed in that ship. Only that one night Lisen saw, and those who stood guard beside the Anor saw as well, a dark ship sailing slowly along the coast in the moonlight. And it is told that the moon setting west in that hour shone through its tattered sails with a ghostly light, and it could be seen that the ship was Amairgen’s, and it was empty. Then, when the moon sank into the sea, that ship disappeared forever.
“Lisen took the Circlet from her brow and laid it down; then she unbound her hair that it might be as it was when first they had come together in the grove. Having done these things, she leaped into the darkness of the sea and so died.”
The sun was high in the sky, Dave noticed. It seemed wrong, somehow, that this should be so, that the day should be so bright. “I think,” Levon whispered, “that I will go ride up front for a time.” He kicked his horse to a gallop. Dave and Torc looked at each other. Neither spoke a word. The Plain was east, the Wood west, the Sun was high in the sky.
Levon took a double shift up front. Late in the day Dave went forward himself to relieve him. Towards sunset they saw a black swan flying north almost directly overhead, very high. The sight filled them all with a vague, inexplicable sense of disquiet. Without a word being spoken, they picked up speed.
As they continued south, Pendaran gradually began to fall away westward. Dave knew it was there, but by the time darkness fell, the Wood could no longer be seen. When they stopped for the night, there was only grassland stretching awa
y in every direction under the profligate dazzle of the summer stars, scarcely dimmed by the last thin crescent of the moon.
Later that night a dog and a wolf would battle in Mörnirwood, and Colan’s dagger, later still, would be unsheathed with a sound like a harpstring, in a stone chamber underground beside Eilathen’s lake.
At dawn the sun rose red, and a dry, prickly heat came with it. From first mounting, the company was going faster than before. Levon increased the point men to four and pulled them back a little closer, so both parties could see each other all the time.
Late in the morning the Mountain exploded behind them.
With the deepest terror of his life, Dave turned with the Dalrei to see the tongue of flame rising to master the sky. They saw it divide to shape the taloned hand, and then they heard the laughter of Maugrim.
“The gods grant he be always bound,” Levon had said, only yesterday.
No dice, it seemed.
There was nothing within Dave that could surmount the brutal sound of that laughter on the wind. They were small, exposed, they were open to him and he was free. In a kind of trance, Dave saw the point men galloping frantically back to join them.
“Levon! Levon! We must go home!” one of them was shouting as he came nearer. Dave turned to Ivor’s son and, looking at him, his heart slowed towards normality, and he marvelled again. There was no expression on Levon’s face, his profile seemed chiselled from stone as he gazed at the towering fire above Rangat. But in that very calm, that impassive acceptance, Dave found a steadfastness of his own. Without moving a muscle, Levon seemed to be growing, to be willing himself to grow large enough to match, to overmatch the terror in the sky and on the wind. And somehow in that moment Dave had a flashing image of Ivor doing the selfsame thing, two days’ ride back north, under the very shadow of that grasping hand. He looked for Torc and found the dark man gazing back at him, and in Torc’s eyes Dave saw not the stern resistance of Levon, but a fierce, bright, passionate defiance, a bitter hatred of what that hand meant, but not fear.
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