After another few days of this, I grew sufficiently alarmed to take counsel where of old I had always sought it first; and found when I did so that Arthur was there before me…
"Come in," said Merlynn, and from his place by the quartz-hearth Arthur grinned at me, as if he had only been wondering how long it would take for me to come there.
"I grew weary waiting for the other boot to fall," I said sourly, and Merlynn laughed.
"And I am not one to say I-told-you-thus," he replied. "Well, not much, any road… But I have a thing to tell you both- and you will hear me, and hearing me you will do as I shall tell you."
Arthur stretched his legs out in front of him and slumped down in his seat. "That is what I have come for, athro," he said and his voice was humble and devoid of shielding, as it ever was before our teacher; as much a function of humility, I think, as of his knowing that any dissembling would be ever in vain.
As Arthur slumped so did I sit up straighter in the seat I had taken. This was it at last, this was the revealing of that strange task Morgan had been hinting at for so many weeks; Arthur knew something of it already, and had all along, but I had not, and now the full demand was about to be set out for us…
Merlynn saw, and smiled. "Aye, Tal-bach, you have been patient, and now you shall hear… There is in the HollowMountains a place called the Hill of Fare; in its depths is the Sidhe stronghold of Dun Aengus, where Nudd the king rules with Seli his queen beside him."
Already I was misliking it: Nudd, as Arthur and I (if not the rest of Keltia just yet) did know, was the stepfather of Edeyrn Marbh-draoi; and it was that Queen Seli herself who had given birth to him…
"There you must go, you two and Morguenna, as you three went once before to find a weapon."
Arthur's hand went instinctively to Llacharn's hilt. "What is it we must seek, athro, when we come there? And will they receive us, the Shining Folk?"
"For the sake of an ancient kinship, and a newer friendship, they will," said Merlynn after a moment. "And also there are other reasons… As for what you seek, before that question may be answered you must face a sterner inquisitor than I."
The old glint came in his eye at that, but I was no longer the lad I had been, to be as daunted as I used to at sight ofit—not that I was entirely undaunted even now. But I spoke my mind to him as ever.
And is that all the help we are to have? It does not seem much."
"And do you think you merit more? Well, be assured more will be given you… Nor shall you go unguided: Whoever will present themselves along the road, those shall you take for guide; and you shall demand of them, and you shall dismiss them, and you shall not thank them for their service. Do not forget this, I charge you both; for if you do any of these things all is truly lost."
I looked at him doubtfully. "It seems gross discourtesy, if naught worse, to do so."
"Do not you believe it! Artos, Talyn, as your teacher I implore you both, for once only do as I say! Is that so much to ask?"
All at once Arthur was back again, who had been away for most of the fortnight past. He had not moved from his chair, nor even straightened his deplorable posture, but I could see plain that Arthur had come back to us; his sudden vibrancy made the tent seem small and cramped, and his eyes were alight with thought of the quest to come.
I spoke at once to caution. "Who shall rule the army while we are gone?"
"Why, Gweniver," he said, surprised that I seemed to think it needful to ask. "With Keils and Tari, to be sure,—there shall be naught that those three cannot deal with amongst them, or would manage any differently than I should do were I here to do so. As for our enemy, theMarbh-draoi sits in Ratherne, and Owein is cut off from us by the snows. I very much doubt me if either will make any move before our return, and if they do, Tryffin, Elen and Betwyr have grown skilled generals to cope."
"And Uthyr?"
That settled him down a bit. "We must speak to the King ourselves," he said soberly. "And as soon as may be; this is a thing must not be delayed in the telling."
Nor did we delay: No more than an hour later, Arthur and I stood with Morgan before the King in the King's own tent. Ygrawn was there, and Merlynn, but none other had been asked to join us; even Gweniver was kept from this audience.
Uthyr lay as he had lain for so many weeks, on a couch covered with furs, heaped with pillows at one end for ease. He wore his now-usual garb—a robe of rich if plain stuff that fell to his feet, or would fall to had he been standing upon them. Though it was by no means uncommon in Keltia for older folk to dress so, with Uthyr it had ever been mic and trews. The robes were worn for one reason only: to keep the unhealed wound in his thigh from the sight of the curious or the pitying; and perhaps, even, from his own sight as well.
But never for the least instant could he be aught but sickeningly aware of it: Though he tried to conceal this as well, the pain of the wound was plain upon his face, coming and going like summer lightning without thunder—what we call a dry-storm—and each time the pain was accepted into his soul. So that, watching him (it would have been the height of indecency not to have looked him straight in the face), I thought that never in my life had I seen anything braver than this, nor would ever see however long I lived; and I was right. Most fitting, then, to honor it by looking upon it unflinching.
Uthyr's pain even so did not prevent him from an awareness of things as keen as ever, or keener, even; so that when we three came and stood before him that night, and made our reverences to him as Ard-righ, and our loving duties as daughter and nephew and foster-son, he knew well why we had come, and whither we were bound.
"By rights I should as King forbid this," he said, and though he spoke to us all his eyes were on Arthur. "Still—it is not laid by me upon you, but by dan; though in it lies my release as well as our victory."
I spoke unthinkingly from my love. "We would heal you, not lose you, Uthyr-maeth."
The King smiled. "Though I died this night, my son, you would never lose me, and though I were healed a hundred times over still must I soon take my leave… I am well content that it should be so; and this"—he gestured toward his wounded thigh with his free hand; the other hand was clasping Ygrawn's—"if this is my part to bear in our fight, then let it be so. Be it dan or the Marbh-draoi's evil working or the will of the Mother, I shall not be healed until you have won what you go to seek, and I shall not die until I have been healed." His fingers tightened on his wife's. "And Keltia shall not be whole until all this has been accomplished. Go then my dearest children, and do what has been given you to do. My love is with you."
And as I went forward in my turn to embrace Uthyr Pendreic, King of Kelts, I was unsurprised to see that, of all those in that chamber, I was the only one who wept.
BOOK II
Goltrai
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Chapter Eight
A DAY LIKE AN OWL'S WING, brown, black, gray, white: tones of cold earth and frozen sky blended without seam; heavy clouds, big-bellied with snow and darkening from lead-gray to ink-blue as day faded.
We had been riding for many days now through this harsh country, Arthur and Morgan and I. North and a little east of north was our heading; we had crossed the great iron slash of the Avon Dia on the third day, as far upstream as we could safely make the crossing, for the river ran strong here, with all the swiftness of a mountain stream and already a goodly part of its later wideness.
Of the three of us, Morgan seemed of best cheer: She sang as she rode, lilts of the Arvon hills or strange minor-key chaunts of the Shining Folk, or entertained us with tales of her time with Birogue in Collimare where she had learned those songs; and we were pleased to be ourselves silent to hear her. She had also, by dint of some mysterious process undisputed by Arthur or myself, become the leader of this riding: We but followed where she did lead, and wished to know no more; grateful only to be spared both wondering and deciding, smiling at our memories of another, long-ago, riding the three of us had shared
.
The region through which we now were passing was growing ever rougher and lovelier. North of the Avon Dia the land rose steadily, to bare peaks and greengash valleys filled with firs; high above the cold racing streams loomed a long ridge of sharp and serrate stone, like the comb of the Mountain Mother Herself.
On the tenth day we rode through deep pine forests, where sunlight did not fall and the air was thick as wine. I was first in line that day, with Arthur behind me and Morgan riding rearguard. The track was narrow and the light uncertain, and so it was that I did not see just precisely when we were no longer three riders on the path, but five.
I was aware of a horse's nose moving up beside my left stirrup as the track widened, but thought it to belong to Arthur's splendid black mare, Miaren. Then as the beast shouldered in beside my placid bay, I saw that it stood a hand higher than Miaren, and bore a white star and snip on its muzzle where the mare's was solid black. I all but came out of my saddle with the surprise of it, and then as my head whipped sidewise so that I might see the rider's face, I heard her voice from behind the muffling hood.
"Well, Gwyddno's son, you had a better greeting for me the last time we met."
A voice once heard and never forgotten… I stared speechless as Birogue let the hood fall back upon her shoulders, and a chance ray of sunlight caught the gold of her hair. It flamed to light half the dark wood, and her smile was a torch to the other half: Lovelier than ever she seemed, certainly no whit more aged, and yet somehow she seemed changed; or perhaps it was merely the seeing her out of what I had thought of as her 'customed context, the island-llan of Collimare, the Forest in the Sea.
Her smile widened, and I saw she had heard my thought. And then it was that I had my second shock of that day: As I turned round to Arthur and Morgan—all this had taken no more than moments—I saw that another rode beside them.
I could see no more—the track just then swept down a rocky defile, too narrow to allow for backward glances, even if the footing had been easier—but that one quick sight had been enough to show me that they did not seem distressed or even much surprised. But who could the fifth rider be? Tall hooded, upon a mount as white as Morgan's Nyfer… just then my bay pecked at a stone and nearly sent me over his head, and I turned all my attention to making our way onto sound ground again.
As we climbed up and out of the little gorge, emerging onto the green open flank of the great hill that stood before us, I swung my horse around and pulled him up hard, blocking the track to those who came behind. Arthur and Morgan halted when I did, but the other rider came on until his horse had brought him knee to knee with me, and I was face to face once again with Perran.
Never in all the years since that day in Daars had I forgotten that face—the face of the one I had blamed for Daars's death, and Gorlas's, and nearly mine and Arthur's as well, that terrible night—the face of one I had held to be Edeyrn's tool, a betrayer Raven—never should I have failed to recognize him, not on a moonless winter midnight in the depths of Corva Wood.
He recognized me too, it seemed, as readily as I did him, and in my fury I did not think to wonder even at that: For I was forty years older, and he had aged not a day…
"Nay, Talyn," he said with a smile, "it was not I whom you mistook me for."
I ignored the familiar use of my shortname and did not think to wonder at his words. "Oh aye? Who, then?"
'Oh, I was there that day to spy you out—you and Arthur—but not to aid the Marbh-draoi; I had a purpose of my own." He paused a moment. "What think you Luath feared?"
Luath… By now I was in utter bewilderment; to hear this stranger speak the name of our long-dead hound was beyond all reason, and I looked helplessly and wildly at Arthur. For once his face read as baffled as he was feeling, while Morgan beside him bore a countenance both settled and amused. Birogue, behind me, was silent all this time.
And as the stranger spoke a shimmer seemed to have come over my sight, so that I wondered suddenly if I were indeed going mad, or if perhaps the bright mist cloaking this Perran were the harbinger of another of those blinding one-sided headaches with which I had been afflicted of late.
Then I saw that the brightness was not in my eyes after all, but in Perran, or on Perran, and he spoke from out the glory in a voice it seemed I knew.
"I am Gwyn, son of Nudd," said that glory then. "And though it much misliked me to put fear on you as a child that you should think me a Raven and one of Edeyrn's creatures, it was ordered that I should do so, and even I must obey."
Gwyn, son of Nudd… Prince of the Sidhe, son of Nudd the king and Seli that bright wayward queen, heir to the crystal throne beneath the Hollow Mountains—Perran had fled forever, and the face that now looked at me was the face that my faithful Luath must have seen; beasts are not subject to glamourie, as are most of those who call themselves their masters… I glanced at Arthur, and he seemed as stunned and dazzled as I: Morgan merely looked pleased and enigmatic, not much help there…
Arthur had kneed his mare forward, until he was level with me on Gwyn's other side; in the saddle, he and Gwyn were of a height with one another, and each of the same darkness of eye, though the faerie prince's hair was black to Arthur's red-brown.
"Gwyn son of Nudd," said Arthur on a long wondering note.
"I am sent to be your guide, Artos," said Gwyn in answer to what Arthur had not asked. "And the Lady Birogue too is sent to guide you; will you accept our help as it is offered?"
All at once I felt my shoulders prickling as if a ghostly arm had been laid upon them,—and Merlynn's parting words to us came floating back through the stillness: 'Whoever will present themselves along the road, those shall you take for guide; and you shall demand of them, and you shall dismiss them, and you shall thank them not for their service… If you do any of these things all is truly lost.'
But it seemed my caution did not go unshared, for Arthur was speaking, and he too had been listening to the words of our old teacher.
"I accept that help," he said. "Now you will take us to Nudd's seat, and having brought us there you will take your leave."
It seemed the height of rudeness and ill manners, and never in ten lifetimes would I ever have thought to hear Arthur speak so—no matter the mood or the time or the trouble, Arthur spoke fair to all—but Gwyn smiled, and Birogue sighed, and Morgan threw back her head and laughed.
"So even Arthur Pendreic pays heed to his teachers when it suits him," said Gwyn, amusement sparking in the dark eyes.
"Who would defy Merlynn Llwyd must be braver far than I," replied Arthur, in a voice of fervent honesty that spoke volumes of past defiances and their upshot, and Gwyn laughed outright.
"I doubt it not! But come—' Without visible directing movement of his own Gwyn set his horse again to the rising track, and as the tall white stallion picked its way past me I saw that the magnificent animal carried no tack of any sort. No more did Birogue's equally handsome black, though I was later to learn that this was by no means the custom among riders of the Sidhe. Indeed, I saw bridles that were better fitted to be crowns, so richly set were they with jewels and gold. But even those fine fittings were mere headstalls only: Never did mount of the Shining Folk bear bit in its mouth—not of gold or iron or silver—and never was bit needed.
Birogue fell in beside me as we rode, though we exchanged few words, and none of import. It seemed plain to me that she knew well the only words I needed from her, and for my part I knew just as well that time had not yet come for her to say them: words of my mother, Medeni—whose name Birogue had so far spoken twice to me, whose friendship she claimed, whose saving she had declared beyond even her powers. Much, then, that needed to be known,—but I held my peace for the moment, and was happy.
Gwyn, who had led us out of the forest onto the open , mountainside, now fell back to ride with Arthur, whether by chance or by design I did not know; and it was, I confess to my mild surprise, Morgan who now cantered up to take his place as leader. With a sidewise glance a
t me, and a smile I could not read, she set her horse to a gallop; uncommanded by us, the other beasts followed at once.
I was unprepared for the sudden change of pace, and my spine cracked like a whip as my bay Meillion surged forward after Morgan and Nyfer, who were already far down the track. Three strides, and we had caught up to Birogue,—glancing back over my shoulder, I saw Gwyn and Arthur galloping as close together as if they rode a race.
It was unexpectedly exhilarating, this sudden thundering across the open hills, after so long a morning's going at a cautious walk through the forest closeness. But as we went up the curve of the first slope, then down another, I stiffened in my saddle, though Meillion did not perceive it—or more like, disregarded it—as his rider's signal to slow gait.
All at once a long-forgotten picture had sprung to life before my eyes: All at once I was far above the ground, as if I rode a falair, one of the great majestical winged horses found of old on Erinna, and no earthbound steed at all. But I did not have even such a mount as that: Rather, I sailed on the air as one of the gray hawks that did soar above my boyhood home of Tair Rhamant; I was heights and heights above the sparkling blue inland sea, whose existence none of us had even known of until now. A sea not so great as Glora, perhaps; but a sizable sea all the same, running down between the great hills that rose now on our right…
And from that high place I was watching as in a silent vision five riders came on across the mountain's long green swelling flank. I was a lad again, back in the schoolroom at Daars, caught up in a Seeing of Merlynn's sending: a Seeing that Arthur and I had ourselves called upon us in our traha, though he and I Saw very different things.
The Oak above the Kings Page 9