Joram, meanwhile, had bent briefly to retrieve the cup at their feet. Rhys Michael guessed that the liquid half filling it was water, but by the greenish light of the handfire above, he could not be sure. Joram looked very focused as he slightly lifted the cup between them in his left hand, the parchment held over it on his open right palm. He did not even blink as the parchment burst into flames and, within a few heartbeats, was reduced to a mere snippet of ash. This he tipped into the cup, watching the ash disintegrate as he spoke again.
“Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness unto the king’s son.”
Rhys Michael breathed a fervent “Amen,” and let the words sink into his soul as Joram held the cup closer to Tieg. The Healer carefully slipped the bloodstained Ring of Fire into the cup, then summoned the handfire down beside the cup while Joram gently swirled the ring around the bottom to stir the contents. When it was done to both their satisfaction, Tieg drew the handfire back into his hand and quenched it, leaving the circle lit only by the candle near their feet and the two elsewhere in the room.
“You drank of a similar cup once before, Sire,” Joram said quietly. “As we proceed, I expect you’ll begin to remember. We shall now reiterate the blessings that made it potent by more than blood, calling upon our archangelic guardians to witness our intent. Stand where you are and attend. It’s customary to turn as we invoke the various Quarters, beginning in the East.”
So saying, he passed the cup to Tieg, then stepped back to the edge of the circle closest to the foot of the bed as Tieg likewise retreated to the easternmost limit of the circle. Clasping the cup between his Healer’s hands, Tieg briefly bowed his head over it, then lifted his face heavenward, eyes closed. His deep voice was low and musical, almost singing words Rhys Michael had heard before—he could almost remember when.
“O Lord, Thou art holy indeed: the fountain of all holiness. In trembling and humility we come before Thee with our supplications, asking Thy blessing and protection on what we must do this night.”
Slightly elevating the cup, he shifted his right hand to extend the palm flat above it, lifting his eyes to a Presence that only he seemed able to see.
“Send now Thy holy Archangel Raphael, O Lord, to breathe upon this water and make it holy, that he who shall drink it may justly command the element of Air. Amen.”
Shifting the summoning hand to support the foot of the cup, he raised it just above eye level and threw back his head, eyes closing as a faint breeze stirred his reddish hair, swirling once around the circle’s confines and then subsiding. Rhys Michael, standing at the circle’s center, felt the ghost-breath of the stirring as a crawling of the fine hairs on his forearms and a chill along his spine. As Tieg lowered the cup, the king found himself joining his hands in an attitude of prayer, fingers pressed to his lips, only now beginning to realize the magnitude of what they Called.
The young Healer smiled faintly, bowing slightly to the king before moving slightly to his left to hand the cup to Michaela. Rhys Michael turned to face her, but she did not seem really to see him, so intent was she upon young Tieg. She received the cup as if it bore the Blessed Sacrament, reverently bowing her head over it before lifting it as he had, with palm extended flat above it, drawing upon the knowledge they had given her of her heritage.
“O Lord, Thou art holy indeed: the fountain of all holiness. We pray Thee now to send Thy holy Archangel of Fire, the Blessed Michael, to instill this water with the fire of Thy love and make it holy. So may he who drinks of it justly command the element of Fire. Amen.”
Rhys Michael fancied he could see blue flames flickering above the rim as she lifted it in further offering, though he could not imagine that she had the power to craft such fire herself. Whatever its source, her face seemed aglow as she carefully passed the cup to Rhysel. Only reluctantly did he take his eyes from her as she backed into her place and the younger woman bowed briefly over the cup, then lifted it in supplication.
“O Lord, Thou art holy indeed: the fountain of all holiness. Let now Thine Archangel Gabriel, who rules the stormy waters, instill this cup with the rain of Thy wisdom, that he who shall drink hereof may justly command the element of Water. Amen.”
Rhys Michael flinched as thunder seemed to rumble softly all around him, glancing instinctively at the door beyond Michaela, for surely they must be able to hear it in the next room. A glittering mist seemed to gather above the cup as Rhysel spread her hand higher above the cup, almost-lightnings crackling and spitting from hand to contents.
A whiff of the sharp, clean scent of summer thundershowers prickled briefly at his nostrils, and when she lowered the cup, beads of moisture were streaming down the outside, dripping on the carpet as she took it to Joram. The priest appeared nonplussed, as did Rhysel, only wiping his right hand against the tail of his surcoat before extending it over the cup he raised. Despite their apparent nonchalance, the king felt a shudder of fear tighten along his spine, and he had to clasp his hands tightly together to stop their trembling as Joram spoke.
“O Lord, Thou art holy indeed: the fountain of all holiness. Let Uriel, Thy messenger of darkness and of death, instill this cup with all the strength and secrets of the earth, that he who shall drink hereof may justly command the element of Earth. Amen.”
Very suddenly, in an instant of unexpected vertigo, Rhys Michael seemed to feel the floor lurch under his feet. Though it ended almost as soon as begun, he had to scramble to regain his balance, arms briefly outflung in mindless dismay until the room stabilized. He could hear the hollow, tinkling sound of the Ring of Fire rattling against the inside of the cup as Joram lowered it, and his heart was still pounding as the Deryni bade him turn to face Tieg again.
The young Healer had come forward to take up the candle, remaining deeper in the circle as Joram moved in beside him with the cup, and Rhys Michael found himself sinking to his knees before them. The candlelight lit their faces eerily from below, also lighting the cup with merciless clarity, and he knew he was trembling again.
“I can’t tell you exactly what to expect next,” Joram said quietly, studying the taut, upturned face of the young man kneeling before him. “I think you realize that this cup is now potent with far more than water and Haldane blood. Drinking it should be sufficient to take you past whatever has prevented your assumption of your father’s power—but if it isn’t, I’ll step in. Possibly Tieg, as well. Try not to resist whatever happens. You probably can, if you’re determined not to let anything past your shields, but it won’t be in your best interests.”
Rhys Michael nodded dimly. He was very much aware of the power in the cup Joram now held out to him, a power whose promise he knew he had tasted before, at his father’s hands. But as his own hands clasped around it and brought it to his heart, a flash of the futility of it all nearly made him drop it.
“Rhys Michael Alister Haldane, you are the true King of Gwynedd, God’s anointed,” he heard Joram saying softly, as if through a fog. “Drink. By this mystery shall you come to the power that is your Divine Right, as king of this realm; and even so shall you instruct your own sons, in due time.”
Rhys Michael raised the cup in shaking hands and drank it to the dregs, wanting it to be true, praying that it was true. The draught was bitter with ash and despair, flat with the faint salt-taste of his blood and his mortality. All too briefly, he thought he sensed something vaguely stirring deep within him, the ghost flickers of unfamiliar images teasing behind his closed eyelids, but he could not seem to bring it to focus.
Choking back a sob of frustration, frantic to catch and hold the Sight, he sank back on his hunkers and blindly scrabbled the Ring of Fire out of the bottom of the empty cup, shoving the ash-smeared band of it hard onto his left hand. The momentary discomfort as it grazed across his knuckles flared as a fleeting glimpse of psychic clarity that made him gasp, came and was gone almost before it could register.
No! Come back! a forlorn part of him pleaded, sightless eyes straining at the dark
ness.
Hands huddled to his breast half in prayer, he found himself rubbing at the knuckle he had scraped in donning the ring. In that instant he became acutely aware of another presence in the circle, both familiar and strange—not Joram or Tieg or either of the women—One who had the power to give him his Sight, if only he could focus, could bring the vision through. But how?
“Please, help me,” he whispered, slowly collapsing over his clasped hands. “Help me, whoever you are. Help me to See, for the sake of my Crown and my kingdom!”
As he huddled there in a miserable ball of hopelessness, shaking his head in denial at his seeming impotence, he felt the cool sleekness of the Haldane brooch hard at his throat. Suddenly something Joram had said earlier came clear as crystal in his mind: The sacrifice of blood … the test of courage …
In that instant he knew what he must do. Reason shrank from the performing of it, but his fingers were already fumbling at the clasp of the brooch, easing the sleek length of shining metal pin from the throat of his tunic, testing the sharpness of it against a questing thumb.
“Sire?” came Joram’s tentative query from somewhere far away.
He shook his head emphatically, shrinking away from the other’s touch, opening the clasp wide so he could get a firm grip around the brooch itself as he poised the point of the sharp metal pin against the palm of his left hand.
“Don’t touch me!” he whispered. “I have to do this!”
He felt the pulse pounding in his ears and the surge of hopefulness welling up within him. Merely mortal flesh shrank from the certainty of the pain to come, but he offered up his fear in a heartfelt entreaty to Those who watched, of whose presence he had no doubt; to that Other who he prayed would be his salvation; and to Him in Whose service he had been anointed as king. Unlike his father or his brother Javan, he had never considered himself particularly religious, but he sensed the fitness of some formal seal on what he now did.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” he whispered, pouring all his will and longing into the invocation. “Not my will but Thine be—done!”
He jammed the clasp home on the final word, a part of him detached and almost surprised at how hard it was to force such a slender sliver of metal between bones and sinews.
And the pain of it—a blinding, burning agony centered in his palm but racing up his arm to lance into his brain in an explosion of white-hot light. The mass of the brooch itself was like molten metal in his hand, but far worse was the raging inferno that kindled in his head.
The fire illuminated old, long-buried memories—standing fearlessly before his father and draining another cup, his father’s hands laid upon his head as power came surging through in a fountaining of light and heat, stirring the power and setting its access in place, then reimposing Blindness, setting constraints that should have loosed six years ago and more, when Javan died …
But besides his father’s hands in memory, other hands suddenly were on his head here and now, and they were not Joram’s hands, or Tieg’s. He could feel the presence behind the hands pushing, probing, insisting, entreating, but his own defenses surged up in rebellion. He sensed the benign intent of that Other and knew he must not resist, but he could not seem to summon up the will to yield. In desperation, he jammed the brooch harder against his palm and gave a twist, shifting the impaling shaft of gold between the bones of his hand.
The new pain brought his intention abruptly and sharply to a focus, blossoming out like a flower of light, pushing back his shields, baring his soul to that Other who waited. As he felt the weight of ghost-hands upon his head, light exploded behind his eyelids with a white-hot brilliance, and his brief awareness of illumination faded smoothly into oblivion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.
—II Corinthians 9:15
Joram briefly had glimpsed that other presence in their circle and knew that Tieg had seen it, too, by the startled look on his face. But as the king gave a little moan and collapsed onto his side, twitching alarmingly, Joram relegated any personal dismay to that deeply guarded inner place reserved for things he did not understand or entirely approve of. He doubted whether Tieg had recognized the figure as his Grandfather Camber, Joram’s father, but the boy would surely ask about it later. Much to Joram’s dismay, “Saint” Camber had acquired a disconcerting tendency to make unexpected appearances during magical workings, at least for Haldanes. Whether this betokened merely an ongoing interest in that royal House’s well-being or was sign of more far-reaching intent, Joram had no idea; but with the king’s life hanging in the balance, this was not the time or place to debate the issue, even with himself.
“Don’t touch him!” he ordered, as Tieg started to go to the stricken king. “Let it run its course!”
Tieg drew back, though obedience clearly was at odds with the Healer’s instincts urging him forward. Rhysel had gone to the queen as Rhys Michael collapsed, preventing her intervention, and glanced at her uncle in query as the king’s movement ceased and Joram finally dropped to his knees beside him.
“All right, it’s done,” he murmured, darting a glance of summons at Tieg as he rolled the king onto his back. “I think he’ll be all right. This follows the same pattern as other Haldane empowerings. Rhysel, please close down the circle while we see how he is. Your Highness, you’ll help most if you don’t interfere.”
White-faced, Michaela nodded and sank to her knees where she stood, treeing Rhysel to take up the sword and set about closing the circle. Tieg had already come to crouch at the king’s head, setting his candle aside to lay both hands across the pale forehead.
After a moment, he turned his attention to Rhys Michael’s left hand, grimacing as the length of gold protruding from its back briefly snagged against a fold of scarlet tunic. Turning the hand palm-up, he gently unbent the fingers still clasped around the heavy enameled brooch, then carefully drew it free. Two small, almost bloodless puncture wounds remained, in the palm and on the back of the hand.
“That can’t have been easy, on several counts,” Tieg said as he handed off the brooch to Joram. “Hands are tough, and very sensitive to pain. At least what he did seems to have accomplished what was necessary. Were you expecting this?”
Joram shook his head. “Not this, precisely,” he said, “but it was clear very quickly that something more was going to be necessary to focus him. He obviously figured out what it was.”
Shaking his head, Tieg clasped the wounded hand in one of his own, fingers covering the two small punctures. When he released it, after a few seconds of concentration, both wounds had disappeared.
“How long will he be unconscious?” Joram asked, as the young Healer shifted his attention back to the king’s head.
“Hard to tell. And when he does come around, all he’s going to want to do is sleep. We’d better get him into bed. I do want to see him stirring before we leave, though.”
“But he does have full powers?” Joram asked, as Tieg slid an arm under the royal shoulders to hit him to a sitting position.
“Well, I don’t know how full is full, in the case of a Haldane, but there’s certainly a lot more there than there was before.”
“And could you block it, if you had to?” Joram persisted.
Tieg shot him an incredulous look. “If you’re asking whether he feels like one of us, the answer is yes. And I can sense the triggerpoint. You don’t really want me to touch it, though, do you?”
“Good God, no. I’m just trying to figure out how this all works. Let me give you a hand with him.”
Together they pulled the unconscious king to his feet, an anxious Michaela also rising, though she did not try to interfere. Behind them, Rhysel had closed the circle and was briskly winding up the length of white wool that had delineated its boundaries. Rhys Michael began to revive as they manhandled him toward the bed, legs moving jerkily at first, then starting to support a little of his weight as he tried
to lift his head and look around.
“You’re going to be fine, Sire,” Tieg reassured him. “Don’t try to exert yourself. We’re going to put you to bed now.”
They braced him against the edge of the bed so they could begin undressing him, letting Michaela help. He was an almost dead-weight at first, but he seemed to be aware of his surroundings by the time they drew the sleeping furs up around his chest. Michaela had crawled up onto the other side of the bed and was sitting cross-legged beside him, watching fearfully as her husband’s eyes scanned around him and gradually began to register reason.
“I know you must be very tired, Sire,” Joram said, as the king’s bleary gaze met his. “That’s completely to be expected. The best thing you can do now is sleep. There will be a lot of demands on you tomorrow and in the days to come, and you’ll want to tread slowly and cautiously as you explore the limits of your power.”
Rhys Michael managed a weak nod and reached out to take Michaela’s hand. She was smiling and crying, both at the same time.
“Mika, it worked,” he whispered.
“Yes, my darling.”
“Why did I fight this? How could anyone not want it?”
“What you do not want,” Joram said grimly, “is any extra scrutiny. Unfortunately, I can’t stay around to help you ease into wisdom on how to use your powers. I can only beg you to go slowly and be very, very careful, until you can find ways to shift the balance safely. The great lords did not achieve their positions of influence overnight, and you aren’t going to get rid of them instantly, either. If all of them were to disappear right now, you wouldn’t have the experienced support you’ll need to reign effectively—especially if Eastmarch should turn into a full-blown war, God forbid. That support can be gathered, but not all at once.
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