"Your life, yes. Not your death."
"Life? Death? What does it matter? I am a sacrifice either way."
The Belrene sighed and turned away. "That is all, Charis. You may go."
She turned and moved to the door, pulled it open, hesitated, and then turned back. "Thank you, Belrene…I am sorry—"
He held up his hands. "You owe me no apologies. Only promise me you will think about what I said."
Charis ducked her head and hurried from the room, closing the door quickly behind her. Then she started down the corridor, slowly at first but with increasing speed until she was running, careening into a group of startled Mages who clutched at her to slow her as she passed. She fought free of them and rushed on blindly.
* * *
Charis came to herself in familiar surroundings: the mirror-clean pool with its lazy fountain. Cool afternoon shadows stretched across the smooth-shaven lawn; the honeyed light hung heavy in the air, and Charis remembered the first time she had come to this garden and had seen it just like this.
She walked slowly along, remembering that distant day when she had come to the garden with her mother. Gradually she became aware of another presence in the garden with her, turned, and saw the High Queen watching her. Oddly Charis did not register shock or surprise, for some part of her had expected this meeting to take place. She approached where the queen sat on her tall, three-legged stool, gazing silently at her, an unhappy expression on her face.
"Well, Charis, it has been a long time," said Queen Danea, her lips curving into a bitter smile. "I knew we would meet again, but I thought it might be sooner."
"Did you bring me here?" wondered Charis, for it occurred to her that perhaps she had not wandered as idly as she had at first thought.
"Your own steps brought you." The queen raised her eyes to the clean, sun-blushed sky. "This is my favorite time of day—false twilight."
"What do you want with me?" Charis asked bluntly.
"Why so suspicious, daughter?" The queen's eyes flicked back to her. "Is that what you have learned in the ring?"
"So it would seem."
"Then we must enlarge your education." The High Queen regarded the sky once more. "I remember…" she said at length, "remember a girl with such curiosity, such intensity of life that it burned in her like a flame. I did not think anything could extinguish it." The queen raised an eyebrow and glanced at Charis once again. "Was that you?"
Charis was moved by these words. Her hands rose to her throat. "I may have been…once," she replied, finding it difficult to speak.
"Yes…once." The queen was silent for a long moment. The sound of the fountain spilling itself into the pool filled the garden. Somewhere a bird poured out a song to the closing day. "I came to find a friend," she said finally. "I find none here."
Charis only nodded, hands at her sides.
"Leave it, Charis," the queen told her.
"I am afraid. It has been so long…and so much has happened. Maybe too much."
The queen stepped from her stool and gestured toward the path. "Walk with me a little."
They strolled along the shadowed path and Charis felt the tight knot of her thoughts and emotions slacken as she wished, as she had never wished before, that someone would tell her what to do. "I am so confused," she sighed.
"You are bound to a past you never wanted and a future that cannot be. Therein lies your confusion."
"Do you know what I have done?"
"I know you have tried your best to destroy yourself, daughter. You chose the bull pit—you chose death. But the spirit within you would not allow it. Instead you have become the greatest dancer in the history of our race. That should tell you something."
"I cannot leave them," Charis said. "They are all I have. I am their leader, their life. If I go, they will all be killed."
The queen stopped and turned toward Charis. "Set them free, Charis. Free yourself."
"What will I do?"
"Why, daughter, you will do what you were born to do." The High Queen smiled, and it suddenly seemed to Charis as if the past had never happened: she was still that young girl, burning to know the secrets of the ages.
"Come to me when you are ready," the queen said. She turned abruptly and moved off. "It is time you made a decision, Charis."
The queen disappeared among the deepening shadows and was gone. Charis stood for a while looking after her before realizing she was staring at nothing. An evening breeze sighed through the garden and Charis shivered with the chill. She turned and hurried away.
TWO
TALIESIN STOOD IN THE CENTER OF THE BOWER, HAND clasped tightly behind his back, eyes closed, intoning his lesson with a scholar's practiced gravity while a brown wood wren chittered on a branch above him. Hafgan sat on a stump, a rowan staff across his lap listening absently to his pupil's recital as he scanned the blue patch of sky visible through the trees overhead.
"…of the fishes with shells," said Taliesin, "there are three kinds: those with feet and legs to move, and those with neither feet nor legs that do not move but lie passive in the sand, and those that affix themselves to rocks and…and—" His eyes peeped open. "And I forget what comes next."
Hafgan drew his eyes from the sky and spared a stern scowl for the boy. "You forget what comes next because your mind is not on your recitation. You are somewhere else entirely, Taliesin, and not with the fish in the sea."
Taliesin looked solemn for a moment but no longer. The joy of the day had welled up within him so that he could contain it no longer, and he burst into a grin. "Oh, Hafgan," he said, running to the druid, "my father is coming home today! He has been away all summer. I cannot think about stupid fish."
"I would give my serpent's egg for an ovate but half as smart as any stupid fish."
"You know what I mean."
"How do I know if you do not say it, lad?" Hafgan reached out and tousled the boy's golden hair. "But the opportune moment is passed; we prattle here to no purpose. Let us go back and you can wait for your father with the other boys."
Taliesin clapped his hands. "But," Hafgan cautioned, "on the way back you shall tell me about the uses of saxifrage root."
"Saxifrage? Never heard of it."
"Just for that you can tell me in rhyme," replied Hafgan.
"Catch me first!" Taliesin called over his shoulder as he raced away.
"You think me too slow?" Hafgan leaped after the boy, caught him up, and lifted him high.
"Stop!" cried Taliesin, squirming helplessly. "I yield! I yield!"
But even before the words were out of his mouth, Hafgan had dropped him back onto his feet. "Shh!"
"What is—"
"Shh!" the druid hissed. "Listen!"
Taliesin fell instantly silent, turning his head this way and that to capture any stray, wind-carried sound. He heard nothing but the ordinary sounds of a woodland steeped in summer.
At last Hafgan relaxed. He looked at the boy. "What did you hear?"
Taliesin shook his head. "I heard the wren, a wood pigeon, bees, leaves rustling in the breeze—that is all."
Hafgan stooped to retrieve his staff and straightened, brushing grass and twigs from his gray mantle.
"Well," demanded Taliesin lightly, "what did you hear?"
"It must have been the bees."
"Tell me."
"I heard what you heard," replied the druid. He turned and began walking back toward the caer.
"Ah, Hafgan, tell me what you heard that I did not hear."
"I heard three crickets, a moorhen, the stream yonder, and something else."
"What else?" The boy brightened at once. "My father?" he asked hopefully.
Hafgan stopped and turned to his pupil. "No, it was not your father. It was something else—it may not have come to me from the world of men, now that I think about it. It was a groan—a long, low groan of deep enduring pain."
Taliesin stopped walking and closed his eyes once more, listening for what Hafgan had heard. The
druid walked a few steps and turned back. "You will hear nothing now. The sound has gone. Perhaps I imagined it in the first place. Come, let us go back."
Taliesin joined his teacher and they walked to Caer Dyvi in silence. When they reached the village they were met by Blaise, who was sitting somewhat anxiously at the outer gates. When he saw his master, the young man ran to him.
"Did you hear, Hafgan?" He saw the answer to his question on his master's face and asked, "What do you make of it?"
Hafgan turned to Taliesin and said, "Run along home now. Tell your mother we have returned."
Taliesin did not move.
"Get along with you," insisted Hafgan.
"If you send me away, I will only spy on you to hear what you say."
"As you wish, Taliesin," the druid relented. He turned back to Blaise and said, "It will bear study, but I think it may be beginning."
Blaise stared for a moment and then sputtered, "But—but how? Is it time? I thought—thought it would be—be…"
"That it would be some other time? Why? All things happen in their season."
"Yes, but—now?"
"Why not now?"
"What is beginning?" demanded Taliesin. "What is it? Is it about the Dark Time?" He had heard the druid speak of it before, though he knew little about it.
Hafgan glanced at the boy. "Yes," he said. "If I read the signs aright, the time is fast approaching when the world will undergo mighty travail. There will be storms and great rendings; the stony roots of the deep with be disturbed and old foundations shaken. Empires will fall, Taliesin, and empires will rise."
"To what end?"
Hafgan hid a smile of pride. Young as he was, the boy had the knack of piercing to the heart of the matter with a question. "Ah," he said, "that is what we all want to know. Get you home now; your mother will be wondering what became of you."
Taliesin turned reluctantly to go. "You must tell me when you figure it out."
"I will tell you, Taliesin." The boy walked off dragging his feet and then, overcome by a sudden fit of exuberance, leaped over a stump and raced away.
"Watch him, Blaise," said Hafgan. "His like will not soon come again. And yet, great as he will be—"
"One greater is to come. I know. You tell me often enough."
The druid's head jerked toward his filidh. "Do I tax you with my aimless nattering?"
Blaise grinned. "Never more than I can bear."
"Perhaps you would rather join Indeg at the Baddon Cors— he is getting on wonderfully, so I am told. Instructing the indolent sons of very wealthy men. You might do as well."
"I have my hands full with just the one indolent son and his cranky druid."
Hafgan placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and they started through the caer. "You have chosen well, Blaise. Still, I know it must sometimes seem as if you are stuck all alone in the world's furthest outpost watching and waiting as life hastens by in the distance."
"I do not mind."
"You could travel, as I have told you. You could go to Gaul, or Galiza, or Armorica. Anywhere. There is still time. I could spare you yet a while."
"I really do not mind, Hafgan," said Blaise. "I am content. I know that what we do here is important. I believe that it is."
"And your faith will be rewarded tenfold, a hundredfold!" The druid stopped and turned slowly. "Look around you, Blaise!" he said, gray eyes gazing past his surroundings as through a window into another world. "We are in the center. This—" He swung his staff in an arc before his face. "This is the center. The world does not know it yet, perhaps never will. But it is here. It is here that the future will be decided. Whatever happens in the age to come will owe to us for its beginnings. And we, Blaise, we are history's midwives. Think of it!"
He wheeled suddenly toward Blaise, his face radiant with the power of his vision. "Important? Yes! Many times more important than anyone now alive can guess, more important even than you or I imagine. Though we be forgotten, our silent shadows will stretch across all future ages."
"You speak of shadows, Hafgan."
"In the Age of Light, all that has gone before will seem as shadow."
* * *
Taliesin squirmed on a rock overlooking both the track along the sea cliffs and the trail from the woods leading to the caer—either one of which his father might choose. Four other boys bore noisy vigil with him, clambering among the rocks, seeing who could throw stones the furthest. The day had been calm and bright, but clouds were sliding in from the west, low and dark, full of tomorrow's rain.
Watching the clouds, and thinking about what Hafgan had said earlier, Taliesin felt himself drifting, his mind sailing free like a bird loosed from its cage. He let himself go and it was like flying. He rose up on tiptoes. The air shimmered as with noonday heat. He still saw the boys playing around him, heard their careless talk, but their forms had become vaguely blurred and their voices echoed to him as if from far away. A murmuring roar filled his ears, like that of the ocean breaking on the beach after a storm.
He turned his eyes toward the west and the clouds gliding in. The water gleamed like oiled sunlight, and further out, just at the horizon, he saw an island. It glistened and shone like a faceted stone or polished glass, and was nearly as transparent: an isle of glass.
The beams of light glancing off its central peak struck his eyes, pierced them like spears and passed through him. The fire of their passing burned his bones. He felt brittle, as if he would shatter.
The roar increased. He could make it out now. It was a chorus of voices. They cried out as one:
Lost! All is lost! The gods are fallen from on high, and we die. We die! All is lost…lost…lost…
The voices trailed away. Taliesin looked and the Isle of Glass faded, its outline dim and vanishing like a vapor on the wind. Then it was gone and he was standing at the edge of the cliff, trembling, the sound of his friends' voices booming in his ears, his head throbbing.
"Taliesin!" shouted one of the bigger boys. "What is wrong? Taliesin! Quick, one of you run and fetch his mother!"
Taliesin shook his head and stared at the others gathered around him. "No…no—it was nothing."
"You looked like you were in a fit," said another boy. "You said you saw it. What did you see?"
Taliesin glanced out at the sea again; the horizon was clean and empty. "I thought I saw something that was not there." The other boys craned their necks to study the sea, and it came to him that they would not understand, perhaps would never understand. "It is gone now. It was nothing."
"Maybe a boat," offered one of the smaller boys, gazing fearfully out at the huge expanse of ocean.
"A boat," replied Taliesin. "Yes, maybe it was only a boat."
The boys fidgeted uneasily. "I'm hungry," said one. "I think I'll go in now."
"Me too," seconded another.
"I have to feed the pigs," remembered a third.
"Not me," replied Turl, the older one. "You go on. I'm waitin' for my father. Right, Taliesin? Me and Taliesin will wait all night if we have to."
The others left, jumping over the rocks and down to the little dell, on the other side of which rose the hump of hill on which the caer was built. The two boys sat down on the rock and watched the sun slide nearer the western sea.
"I am going to Talybont soon," said Turl presently. "My uncle lives there; he is going to learn me my arms. I shall stay in his house until I be old enough to ride the Wall with my Da." He stared at Taliesin sitting silently beside him. "What about you?"
Taliesin shrugged. "I will stay here, I think." He had never heard anyone suggest otherwise, at least not in his presence. "Anyway, I have to stay with Hafgan."
"He's a gelding!" hooted Turl. "All druids are, says my cousin, and he is old enough to ride the Wall next year."
"Your cousin is a fool," muttered Taliesin darkly.
"What do you do with him all day?" wondered Turl, letting the slight to his cousin go unheeded.
"We talk. He teac
hes me things."
"What sort of things?"
"All sorts of things."
"Druid things?"
Taliesin was not sure what his friend meant by that. "Maybe," he allowed. "Birds and plants and trees, medicine, how to read stars, things like that. Useful things."
"Teach me something," taunted Turl.
"Well," Taliesin replied slowly, looking about, "you see that bird down there?" He pointed to a white seabird skimming the waves below them. "That one is called a blackcap. "
"Anybody knows that!" laughed Turl.
"It only eats insects," continued Taliesin. "It scoops them off the water." The bird's head swung down and its beak sliced a v-shaped ripple in the tidepool below. "Like that—did you see?"
Turl smiled broadly. "Coo! I never knew that."
"Hafgan knows more than that—he knows everything."
"Could I come and learn with you?"
"What about your uncle?"
Turl offered no reply; so they sat together, flaking the yellow lichen from the rock, until Taliesin jumped to his feet. "What is it?" asked Turl.
"Come on!" cried Taliesin, already running over the rocks toward the woodland trail on the far side of the dell. "They are coming!"
"I don't see anyone!"
"They are coming!"
Turl hurried after Taliesin and soon caught up with him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"I know," replied Taliesin as they ran along.
They ran across the grassy hollow of the dell and up the knoll on the other side. Taliesin reached the knoll first and stared at the place where the bare dirt track crested the hill beyond. "I don't see them," said Turl.
"Wait." Taliesin shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted hard at the road as if he would make them appear by force of will. Then they heard it—a light jingling sound, followed by the deeper drumming of horses' hooves.
A moment later they saw a prickly forest of gleaming lance-heads sprout from the crown of the hill. The forest grew and men appeared beneath the shining arc of their weapons, and then the horses were sweeping down the near side of the hill and the boys were racing down to meet them, yelling, arms outspread as if they would fly straight into their fathers' arms. "Da! Da!" they cried.
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