With an effort almost physical Aeron wrenched her attention back to the present. Morwen glanced sideways at her, but Aeron would not look at her. Gwydion was a step or two behind them.
Aeron raised her eyes at last. Arianeira sat in the great carved stone seat, and as Aeron halted before the steps she found herself consumed by the flame of a white-hot heedless anger.
But it was Gwydion who moved forward, and the guards levelled their weapons at his chest.
"Why have you summoned us here, Ari?" he asked quietly. "Surely we have already said all there is to be said, the last time we spoke face to face."
"I craved the privilege of this meeting from my lord Jaun Akhera." his sister answered, "so that I may satisfy myself beyond all doubt that you three have had all possible chances to understand your position--and your peril."
"We understand well enough," said Morwen, after waiting a moment for Aeron to speak. "Have you anything new to say to us?"
"Only my best and strongest advice that you accept his terms. The alternative you know; and though Jaun Akhera is reluctant to take so final a step, be very sure he will do so if he must. Naturally, he knows of my deep concern for my kin, and so he willingly gave leave for me to try to reason with you one last time."
"You waste your time, his and ours, Ari," said Morwen, disgusted. "Your--lord has made his true position marvelous clear: Aeron dead and you upon the throne of a vassal Keltia. And so far has he succeeded." She nodded toward the throne. "Are you in truth so very eager to see the rest accomplished?"
Arianeira stared at Aeron, who returned her gaze untroubled.
"Clear the hall," said Arianeira then. "I will speak to Aeron Aoibhell in private."
"Highness," objected the Imperial captain, "we cannot leave you alone here with--"
"Can and shall!" snapped Arianeira, rising up out of the throne like an uncoiling piast, and he reddened. "They are your lord's prisoners, given into my hand. Also are they my own kin, my brother and my foster-sisters, and I say I shall speak to them privately."
"As you command, Highness."
"They will be my responsibility," said Arianeira, in a more conciliatory tone. "Go now." She waited until the guards had paced out of the Hall and closed the huge doors behind them. Then she dashed down the steps of the throne and flung herself at Aeron's feet.
"I invoke the mercy of the High Justice of the Ard-rian of Keltia, and ask royal pardon for my offenses against the Six Nations." She spoke the ancient formula of supplication with a depth of contrition in her voice that astonished her hearers.
Aeron stood motionless a moment, looking down in amazement at the bowed silver-gilt head. This was real and honest repentance, she could ken it. But why... She extended her hand to Arianeira in the ritual gesture of forgiveness. The Princess kissed the unicorn signet, and Aeron raised her and kissed her on both cheeks.
"You are forgiven, Ari," she said. "But I am confounded."
"Sometimes you can be denser than lachna, Aeron Aoibhell... But Gwydion knows." She cast an unreadable look at her brother. "I have made all arrangements. There are packs and weapons hidden behind the throne. You are to escape through the Nantosvelta, and, the gods being well disposed, come through the Dales down to Keverango. There, at the old spacebase, I have ordered your ship to be landed, Aeron. There is a token Imperial garrison there, perhaps a hundred troops; but with care you can easily avoid them. Your ship is fully fitted and supplied for space, and you should be able to get safely out-Wall with little difficulty. No Imperial craft is a match for Retaliator."
Aeron had been watching Arianeira's face with a puzzled frown. "I do not understand why you are doing this, Arianeira, but nor did I truly understand why you betrayed us in the first instance. Oh aye, I know what you said, but knowing is hardly the same as understanding..."
Arianeira dismissed this impatiently. "But you will go?"
"Certainly I will not go! Gwydion, we have had this out before. I will never leave the people, and three times never on the word of a--" She bit back the word before she spoke it.
"You forgave me, Ard-rian," said Arianeira. "Did you not say yourself that you are still my sister and my friend? Well, perhaps I have come, however late, to believe that... Still and all, Aeron, if you must know, I do this not so much for you as for myself; not so much for myself as for my brothers and my House; and not so much for them as for Gwydion alone."
"Ari, Ari, whomsoever you may do it for, it will be suicide all the same! When Jaun Akhera learns you have betrayed him in his turn--"
"He is meant to find out." Arianeira busied herself with the heavy tapestries that backed the throne. "This is not the first time I have betrayed him, though he knows it not: I it was who swayed him to break the Gate with magic--and you know what that must mean in the end. And it is not suicide, but execution... Aeron, I beg you, go!"
She had wrestled the hangings aside to reveal a granite slab, its highly polished black surface broken only by a small shield inlaid at eye level: the device of the winged unicorn, set flush with the facing of the stone.
"Gwydion, you knew of this?" asked Aeron, her voice dangerously soft.
"I did, Aeronwy; Ari spoke of it to me yesterday in private... You will go, Queen of Kelts, and your Taoiseach with you."
The silence sang like a plucked harpstring. Then Aeron laughed.
"Very well, then, Prince of Don. I will go if you will also. All it needs is another pack."
But Gwydion shook his head. "That is not the bargain, Ard-rian. I remain so that you have a realm to return to. And any road, as you yourself said, all this has been fated by Kynon's doom laid upon you--and spoken of by Gwyn."
Aeron shrugged. "Fates have been altered before now, and the counsels of faerie kings set aside. Join me in flight, or I stay."
"If you stay, Aeron, you will die," Gwydion answered, with a certain weary patience, for they had been over this ground a good many times before.
"And you? You are the designated king-consort of Keltia, or have you already forgotten? Are you so sure of your own life under an Imperial occupation?"
"I am of more use to the Coranian alive than slain; he knows that, and knows I know it too. And I am of more use to you and to the kingdom if I stay. You and Morwen serve us all best by fleeing."
Aeron remained unmoved. For many minutes Arianeira pleaded with her, Morwen could not shake her, and at last even Gwydion appeared to capitulate.
"We waste precious time here... Very well then, I go too. Another pack can be as swiftly obtained. But let us await it in the tunnel entrance, so that we are in less chance of discovery." He exchanged with his sister a look that even Aeron could not interpret. Arianeira gave a small nod, and looked again at Aeron.
"You must open the gate to the Nantosvelta, Ard-rian," she said. "That is in your power alone. The guards will soon begin to grow suspicious."
Aeron stepped slowly up to the granite slab, raising her hand to set her ring to the inlaid seal. True it was that only the reigning monarch, he or she who bore the Unicorn Seal, could open this hidden gate. It led to the Nantosvelta, an underground tunnel running beneath the mountains of the Loom and emerging in one of the high hidden valleys of the Dales to the south. Partly it was the long-abandoned bed of an ancient river, and partly it was shaped by the lasers of the builders of Caerdroia; and it had been used ever since the days of the Fainne for just such desperate moments as this.
The seal on the signet and the seal on the stone met, and the huge granite block slid silently aside, revealing half-open gates of findruinna, three feet thick, and beyond them a tunnel sloping down into darkness.
At the back of the throne lay the packs provided by Arianeira. Morwen hefted one experimentally, testing the weight of it, as Aeron, stepping into the tunnel entrance, turned to make a final farewell to Arianeira.
For the first time in their meeting, Arianeira smiled, the old sunny smile without malice or bitterness that all of them remembered.
"Gods with you
, Queen of Kelts."
"Ari--"
"Now, Gwion!" his sister shouted, and whirling upon Morwen pushed her into the tunnel. Gwydion tossed Aeron's pack to follow, then pinned her arms beneath her cloak and kissed her swift and hard upon the mouth.
Aeron grasped his intent immediately. "Gwydion, I will not go without you--"
"Aeronwy, you must." He held her close a moment with a final fierceness, then flung her from him so violently that, entangled in her cloak, she overbalanced and fell. But, as he intended, she fell beyond the automatic sensors that operated the findruinna gates, and those gates rang shut between them even as she was scrambling to her feet.
"Gwydion!"
Her cry was cut off as the stone wall too slid back into place. In the reverberant quiet left in the Hall of Heroes, Gwydion leaned his forehead against the throne's carved back, his shoulders bowed in grief and relief. Arianeira leaned against him, her head bent to his, then both of them looked up as the great copper doors crashed open at the far end of the hall.
Jaun Akhera's guard poured through, and among them, not first, was the Prince of Alphor himself. He strode down the hall and stopped at the steps to the throne.
"Where is Aeron, Gwydion?" he demanded. "And Morwen Douglas?"
"They are gone, lord."
"Gone! Dead?"
"No, gone, and long gone too," said Gwydion, lying serenely. "They are well away off-planet, far beyond the reach and speed of such ships as you still command."
"Who arranged this escape? You? I promise you, Gwydion--"
"Nay, I will claim that promise for my own, Emperor's Heir." The voice was Arianeira's. She had been standing in the shadows to one side of the throne, and now she came slowly forward. Her face was white and set, but triumphant contempt danced in her eyes.
Jaun Akhera's face grew black with anger as realization of how she had tricked him struck home.
"You! You damnable both-sides traitor--"
"My mistake, that I have tried to right as best I could. They are both safely fled where neither you nor your spies shall find them." She smiled down at him. "That is my reparation to Keltia and to Keltia's Queen; and in return I have forgiveness."
"Forgiveness, is it? I shall give you a forgiveness shall requite all sins forever--" Jaun Akhera started forward, hand to sword-hilt, but her expression stayed him.
"Coranian fool!" she hissed. "And do you think me a like fool, to boast to you of such and not to have made--arrangements? Look you--" She held out the hand that had been hidden in the folds of her cloak. In it was the writhing form of the little red-eyed white snake that is called marbh-fionn, white death, on the Keltic worlds, to which it is not native; the most venomous known in all the settled galaxy, that bites and dies with its victim.
With her other hand Arianeira pulled down the high round neck of her guna, revealing the small puncture mark over the heart-vein, startlingly red against the pale skin. Gwydion made as if to speak, then caught back his words unsaid.
"I have but little time left," she said, looking not at Jaun Akhera but at her brother. "Yet time enough to know that there has been here not defeat but victory. And that victory, Jaun Akhera, is not yours."
"Victory!" jeered her former ally. "Caerdroia fallen, the Keltic army scattered, your own death but moments away, and Aeron Aoibhell fled off-planet like a runaway serf? You claim this as victory?" Yet for all his mocking tone, his eyes showed fear and uncertainty.
"Victory indeed," she repeated calmly. "But not yours, and not yet. You shall see." Her body swayed as the poison began to riot in her blood. Gwydion leaped forward to catch her in his arms, and lowered her gently to the steps. The small white snake lay upon the floor, already dead.
"Gwynfyd, the Circle of Perfection," murmured Arianeira, looking past Gwydion now, past him, past Jaun Akhera, to something neither man could see. "Ah! The Light--Gwydion, my dearest brother--you do not know how--" Then the incredulous look of joy froze upon her face, as her body sagged in his arms and her head fell back against his chest.
Gwydion kissed his sister gently upon the brow, and when he raised his face again to Jaun Akhera, only love and pride and triumph marked his features.
Jaun Akhera looked long at him in silence, then down at Arianeira.
"She was a true Kelt after all," he said. "Come when you will, Prince of Gwynedd." Turning on his heel, he left the Hall of Heroes, and the guard followed after, to wait outside the door, leaving Gwydion alone awhile with his sister.
*
On the other side of the throne, Aeron flung herself weeping against the gate, hammered on the cold metal with her fists and clawed at it with her fingernails. Beneath her grief and frustration and fury, she knew well that that barrier would not yield to siege lasers, much less to fingernails, and it could not be opened from this side. Nor from the other side either, now...
Morwen pulled roughly at her arm. "Come away, Aeron. There is no time for this. Put these on." She held out the fur-lined white leather leggings and hooded doublet worn in the deep cold, spoke as to a grieving child. "There, so--now your boots--snowcloak--"
Moving like a sleepwalker, Aeron put on the heavy garments, then stood there, her face remote and gray. Morwen, having finished her own preparations, looked closely at her friend and then fetched her a sharp slap to the face. Aeron rocked beneath the blow, then seemed to come back from the far place into which shock had thrust her.
"I am here," she said, catching Morwen's wrist. "Let it be, and let us go. Ari and Gwydion have bought us time at a high price indeed, and we wrong them to waste it."
*
Up in Aeron's tower rooms, which he had taken over as much for his own solace as to prevent their desecration by Jaun Akhera, Gwydion stood looking out at the invisible sea. It was late, and he was exhausted, yet he could not sleep, and most especially he could not sleep in the curtained bed, but had asked instead for a field-couch to be brought. It stood over against the north wall of the chamber, uncreased and unused.
He knew very well that he could not go on sleepless many more hours; knew also that for Arianeira, death had come as a triumph, more of a blessing even than usual. She was happy now, she would be seeing all things clear, and all her pain and fear and hurt would be taken away. He had wept for her, some lost time in the night. But his tears had been for the child-sister he remembered: Since the day of their conception they had never been truly apart. She was part of him, and she would not now die in the world until he did, and he had no more fears for her at all.
Aeron... Well, Aeron was another tale, and one far from sung. It was a great comfort that Morwen was with her, for Morwen had a good deal of good sense, and she would not allow Aeron to run over-wild. But all the same, they were gone into the unknown, into a perilous uncertainty surpassed only by the far more certain peril they would have faced had they remained in Keltia. He had no doubts whatsoever that Jaun Akhera would have wasted any more time in setting Aeron's head above the Wolf Gate, and Morwen too had been sentenced to the block. Of his own danger he did not trouble to think. It was well that none knew where they had fled, though Gwydion had a few ideas of his own as to that. And he was glad of his ignorance; for had he known, he would have feared above all things that he might somehow reveal it to Jaun Akhera. Kelts were not the only skilled telepaths in the universe...
Well, ignorance would preserve him from that at least, if not from other worry. They might very well have gone to Earth, or to one of the Protectorate worlds, even. There were any number of safe places to which they might have gone...
Gwydion ran his hand over his face, putting resolutely aside the thought that they might decide not to leave the planet after all--Aeron was extremely persuasive when she chose to be--or, worse, had already been captured. And even if they did succeed in escaping, space right now was laced with terrors, the Imperial fleets crossing and recrossing the star-roads; remnants only, thanks to Rohan--and Elharn--but still strong. But they would be in Retaliator, he countered. Elharn had
designed that ship's armaments, Rhain and the Fianna scientists had overseen her construction, and Aeron had contributed several useful ideas of her own. The result had been a beautiful, deadly, elegant ship that looked as if it had been cut with a laser from a black diamond. It was the ship that had carried Aeron to Bellator--and back.
For once, remembering Bellator gave Gwydion some comfort.
*
Beneath the roots of Mount Eagle, Aeron and Morwen walked steadily and silently on in the darkness. The glow of illuminant crystals swept over their faces at widely spaced intervals, activated by their passing, then, once the human electrofields were out of range, again extinguished.
The Nantosvelta was bitterly cold, and it was well that they had clad themselves warmly; well too that their boots were sturdy, for the rock floor was uneven and difficult to walk on. After some hours, Morwen, who was in the lead, reached back to touch Aeron's arm.
"Look ahead."
They were coming to the mouth of the Nantosvelta; thin blue light that came from no crystal was seeping down to them. The tunnel sloped sharply upward, skewed round to antisunwise, and ended abruptly in a dripstone screen. The waterfall that masked the entrance was not Keltia's highest: That pride belonged to Lightwater, which fell from Mount Keltia such a downward flight that all its water turned to ionized mist and recombined again before it touched the earth. But Waterharp, so called for its peculiarly musical sound, was big enough, taking as it did all the runoff from the clouds that came in off the Western Sea, to spill their water on the slopes that barred their way in the air.
It did not sing this day. The cold that had fastened its fangs on all the High Dales had turned the entire waterfall to milky marble, a great smooth swelling frozen curve that burst from the rockface like a plume of ice.
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