A Time of Exile

by Katharine Kerr

  Even though he’d always known this day would come, Aderyn felt close to tears. Nevyn laid down one last slice of root and turned to look at him, his piercing blue eyes unusually gentle.

  “It’ll ache my heart to see you go. I’ll miss you, lad. But it’s time. You’ve reached the third nine of your years now, and that age marks a turning point for everybody. Come now, you know it, too. You’ve got your herbcraft to feed and clothe yourself, and I’ve opened the gates of the dweomer for you as far as I can. Now you have to walk through those gates and take up your own Wyrd.”

  “But what will my Wyrd be?”

  “Oh, that’s not for me to say. No man can see another’s Wyrd. You have the keys to open that door. It’s time for you to work a ritual and use them. The Lords of Wyrd will reveal what you need to know—and not a jot more, doubtless.”

  On the morrow, when the rain stopped, Nevyn took his horse and two pack mules and rode off to the villages to buy food. He told Aderyn that he would stay away three days to leave him alone for the working, but as to what that working would be, he said nothing at all. Only then did the apprentice realize that the most important moment of his life was strictly in his own hands. He would have to draw on all his knowledge and practice to devise a ritual that would open his Wyrd and put him in contact, at least for a few brief moments, with his secret and undying soul, the true core of his being that had invented and formed the young man known as Aderyn for this lifetime the way a potter takes clay and makes a bowl. As he stood in the doorway and watched Nevyn ride away, Aderyn felt a panic tinged with excitement, an exultation touched with dread. It was time, and he felt ready.

  That first day, while Aderyn did his usual chores in the garden and hut, he kept thinking about the task ahead. He had at his disposal a vast amount of ritual lore—tables of correspondences, salutations to the gods, invocations and mighty calls to the spirit world, signs, sigils, and gestures to set in motion streams of force and direct inner energies. In his excitement, his first thought was to use them all, or at least as many as possible, to create a ritual that would sum up and climax all rituals, as elaborately decorated, braided, laced, and spiraled as a beautiful brooch fit to give a king. While he weeded cabbages, his mind raced this way and that, adding a symbol here, a prayer there, trying to fit twenty years of work into a single mighty pattern. All at once he saw the irony: here he was, grubbing in the dirt like a bondsman and making grandiose plans. He laughed aloud and contemplated his mud-stained fingers, callused with years of menial work such as this. The Great Ones had always accepted his humble status and lowly sacrifices before. No doubt a simple ritual would be best now. With the insight came a feeling of peace, because he’d passed the first test.

  But just as with a simple meal or a simple garden, every element would have to be perfect of its kind and perfectly placed. The second day, Aderyn worked furiously all morning to finish his chores by noon. He ate a light meal, then went outside to sit under a willow tree by the shore of the lake, sparkling in the soft spring sun. On the far shore the stony, hard mountains rose dark against a blue sky. He looked at them and thought over his lore, rigorously pruning instead of proliferating it. A simple approach to a central symbol—he looked at the peaks and smiled to himself. For the rest of the day he practiced every word and gesture he would use, mixing up the order so no true power would run through them. In the evening, by firelight he prepared his magical weapons—the wand, cup, dagger, and pentacle that he had made and consecrated years before. He polished each one, then performed the simple rituals of consecration again to renew their power.

  On the third day, he was quiet as he went through his work. His mind seemed as still as a deep-running river, only rarely disturbed by what most men would call a thought. Yet in his heart he renewed, over and over, the basic vows that open the secret of the dweomer: I want to know to help the world. He was remembering many things, sick children he’d helped heal, children who died because they were beyond the help of herbs, bent-back farmers who saw the best of their harvests taken by noble lords, the noble lords themselves, whose greed and power-lusts drove them like spurs and made them suffer, though they called the suffering glory. Someday, far in the future, at the end of the ages of ages, all this darkness would be transmuted into light. Until that end, he would fight the darkness where he found it. The first place he would always find darkness would be in his own soul. Until the light shone there, he could do little to help other souls. For the sake of that help, he begged for the light.

  At sunset, he put his magical weapons in a plain cloth sack and set off for the shore of the lake. In the twilight, he made his place of working, not a rich temple glittering with golden signs and perfumed with incenses, but a stretch of grassy ground. He used the dagger to cut a circle deosil into the turf, then laid his cloth sack down for an altar in the middle. On the sack he laid the dagger, the wand, and the pentacle, then took the cup and filled it with lake water. He set the cup down among the other objects and knelt in front of the sack to face the mountains. Slowly the twilight deepened, then faded as the first few stars came out, only to fade in turn as the full moon rose, bloated and huge on a misty horizon. Aderyn sat back on his heels and raised his hands, palms flat upward, about shoulder high. As he concentrated his will, it seemed the moonlight streamed to him, tangible light for building. He thrust his hands forward and saw to the east of his rough altar two great pillars of light, one all pure moon-silver, the other as dark as black fire shining in the star-strewn night. When he lowered his hands, the pillars lived apart from his will. The temple was open.

  One at a time, he picked up each weapon, the dagger for the east, the wand for the south, the cup for the west, and the pentacle for the north, and used it to trace at each cardinal point of the circle a five-pointed star. Above and below him he finished the sphere, using his human mind alone to trace the last two stars, the reconcilers of the others. When he knelt upon the ground, he saw the temple glowing with power beyond his ability to call it forth. The Lords of Light were coming to meet him. Aderyn rose and raised his hands to the east between the pillars. Utterly calm, his mind as sharp as the dagger’s point and deep as the cup, he made light gather above him, then felt and saw it descend, piercing him through like an arrow and rooting itself in the ground. His arms flung out as he felt the cross shaft pierce him from side to side. It seemed he grew huge, towering through the universe, his head among the stars, his feet on a tiny whirling sphere of earth far below, enormous, exalted, but helpless, pinned to the cross of light, unmoving and spraddled, at the mercy of the Great Ones.

  The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

  “Why do you want knowledge?”

  “Only to serve. For myself, naught.”

  With a rush like cold wind, with a dizzying spin and fall, he felt himself shrink back until he stood on the damp grass and saw the temple around him, the pillars glowing, the magical weapons streaming borrowed light, the great pent-angles pulsing at their stations. He nearly fell to his knees, but he steadied himself and raised his hands in front of him. In his mind he built up the vision between the pillars—a high mountain covered with dark trees and streaked with pale rock under a sunswept sky—until it lived apart from his mind and hung there like a painted screen. Calling on the Lords of Light, he walked forward and passed through the veil.

  Pale sun glinted on flinty rock. The path wound steeply between dead shrubs, twisted through leafless trees, and over everything hung the choking smell of dust. Aderyn stumbled and bruised himself on rock, but he kept climbing, his lungs burning in the thin cold air. At last he reached the top, where huge boulders pushed out from gray soil like the bones of a long-dead animal. He was afraid. He had never expected this barrenness, this smell of death as thick as the dust. Although the wind was cold, he began to sweat in great drops down his back. It seemed that little eyes peered out at him from every rock; little voices snarled in cold laughter. He could feel their hatred as they watched him.

&n
bsp; “Would you serve here?” the voice said.

  Aderyn had to force the words from his lips.

  “I will. I can see there’s need of me.”

  There was a sound—three great claps of thunder booming among the dead rocks. As they died away, the eyes and the voices died with them. The mountaintop was lush with green grass; flowers grew, as vivid as jewels; the sun was warm.

  “Look down,” the voice said. “Look west.”

  Aderyn climbed to the top of a boulder and looked out, where it seemed the sun was setting on a smooth-flowing wide river. Oak forest stretched on the far bank.

  “West. Your Wyrd lies west. Go there and heal. Go there and find those you will serve. Make restitution.”

  As Aderyn watched, the sun set over the river. The forest went dark, disappearing under vast shadows. Yet he could hear the water flowing. With a start he realized he was kneeling in the dew-soaked grass and hearing the hundred water-voices of Loc Tamig. In the west, the moon was setting. He rose and walked back between the pillars, then knelt again before the altar to raise his hands and prayed aloud in thanks to the Lords of Light. As he finished, the pillars disappeared, winking out like blown candles. He withdrew the five-pointed stars into himself and erased the magic circles.

  “And any spirits bound by this ceremony, go free! It is over. It is finished.”

  From the lake came three hollow claps of thunder in answer. Aderyn stood and stamped three times upon the ground, then fell to his knees, sweating with exhaustion, trembling so hard from the spent forces that he could do nothing but kneel and shake until the first pale gray of dawn cracked in the east and brought him some of his strength back with the sunlight. He gathered up his magical weapons, put them in the sack, then rose to see Nevyn striding across the grass toward him.

  “Oh, here! Have you been close by all this time?”

  “Did you truly think I’d leave you to face this alone? You’ve done well, lad.”

  “I heard the voices of the Great Ones. I’ll never forget this.”

  “Don’t. It would go hard with you if you did. You’ve had your great vision, but there will be plenty of other little ones. Never forget this, either: you’ve just begun.”

  Aderyn slept all that day and through most of the night. When he woke, a few hours before dawn, he knew that the hour had come for him to leave. As he lay in darkness and considered routes west, he was calm, knowing, without knowing how he knew, that he would see Nevyn again, many times, no doubt, over the years ahead. His grief at leaving his beloved master was only another test; he’d had to believe that he would lose Nevyn in order to see if he would ride out even in grief. You’re not an apprentice anymore, he thought, not a master, either, mind—but the journeyman is ready to go look for his work.

  In the center of the hut, a fire flared, revealing Nevyn beside it.

  “I figured you were awake,” the old man said. “Shall we have one last meal together before you go?”

  “We will. I know I don’t need to, but I wish I could pour my heart out in thanks for all you’ve done for me.”

  “You were always a nicely spoken lad. Well, then, in thanks, do one last thing that I charge you: go say farewell to your family before you head west. I took you from them, after all, and I feel I should send you back one last time.”

  All of Aderyn’s new confidence dissolved in a sudden stab of anxiety. Nevyn grinned at him as if he knew exactly what was happening.

  “Oh, I’ll do it!” Aderyn snapped. “But I’d hoped to spare them that.”

  “Spare yourself, you mean. And how can you handle the mighty forces of the universe if you can’t even face your own father?”

  After they ate, Aderyn saddled his riding horse and loaded up his mule. He had only a few things of his own—a bedroll, a spare shirt, a cloak, his magical weapons, the cooking pots and implements he needed for camping by the edge of the road—but he did have a great store of herbs, roots, salves, and other such medicines, all of which needed to be carefully stowed in the canvas panniers. Nevyn also insisted on dividing their small store of coins and giving him half.

  “You’ve earned it as much as I have. Ride out in the light. We’ll meet again one of these days, and if the need is great, we can scry each other out through the fire.”

  “Well, so we can.” Aderyn felt a definite lump in his throat. “But I’ll miss you anyway.”

  As he rode out, leading his mule, Aderyn turned in the saddle and looked back. Nevyn was standing by the door of the hut and watching. He waved once, then turned back inside.

  On a day warm with the promise of coming summer, Aderyn reached the village of Blaeddbyr and Lord Maroic’s dun, where his father, Gweran the bard, served the White Wolf clan and where Aderyn had been born and raised. To his surprise, the ward and the familiar buildings seemed much smaller than he’d remembered them. Near the broch tower he dismounted and looked round the dusty ward. A few curious servants stopped to look him over; a couple of the riders came strolling over as if to ask him his business there. All at once he heard a woman’s voice.

  “Ado, Ado, thank the gods!”

  It was his mother, Lyssa, laughing and weeping at the same time as she threw herself into his arms. Close to tears himself, Aderyn hugged her tight, then set his hands on her shoulders and smiled at her. She’d grown stout but was still beautiful, her raven-dark hair barely touched with gray, her wide blue eyes bright, her cheeks barely marked with wrinkles.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Lyssa said. “Truly, I was wondering if we would ever see you again. Can you stay with us a while?”

  “I will, if Lord Maroic allows. But, Mam, this is the last visit I’ll ever make. I want you to know that now.”

  Lyssa caught her breath sharply, but he knew there would be no tears or recriminations. In a sweep of laughter, the rest of his family came running from the broch and clustered around him—his younger brother, Acern, training to take his father’s place as bard, his sister, Araena, married to the captain of Maroic’s guard and with a baby of her own, and finally his father, Gweran, as tall and imposing as always with his blond hair heavily laced with silver. In a chattering crowd they escorted him inside, where the aging Lord Maroic rose from his carved chair and announced that Aderyn was going to take his meat and mead for as long as he wanted to stay. The dailiness, the cheer, the mundanity of the visit broke over Aderyn like a wave, as if the dweomer were only some dream he’d once had. Being surrounded by his family made him realize why he had a lonely road ahead: the strange lore that mattered to him could never be shared. It set him apart like walls even as he talked and gossiped and shared heavy meal after heavy meal with them all in the long drowsy days of his visit.

  Gweran went out of his way to spend time with Aderyn, much more than usual. Aderyn supposed that Lyssa had told him that his firstborn son would never ride home again. She’d always been the link between them, keeping them at peace, telling them things that they could never voice themselves. There was good reason for their distance. Looking at his father’s silvery hair, his straight, almost regal bearing, his rich clothing that he wore like the honor it was, Aderyn found it hard to remember that Gweran was a murderer who had used the very law itself as a weapon. At times he wondered if Gweran even remembered the young rider, Tanyc, whom he’d so cleverly trapped twenty years before. Perhaps he did, because even though their talks rambled through Aderyn’s childhood, every time they came close to Aderyn’s seventh year, when the murder had happened, Gweran would shy away and find a distant topic to discuss. Aderyn was more than willing to let the subject stay closed. Even though he’d only been a child and spoken in all innocence, still he felt he shared his father’s blood guilt. Seven years old or not, he’d blurted out the information that had sent Gweran hunting revenge. “Tanyc’s always looking at Mam, Da.” Even at this lapse of years, he could hear his small boy’s voice pronouncing an unwitting death sentence.

  Since he’d done much meditation work to heal that old wound
, Aderyn was surprised the way the murder rose to haunt him. Doubtless it came from being in the dun, whose walls had once displayed his private horror. He remembered it vividly: climbing out of bed on a sunny morning, throwing open the shutters at the window, and seeing, just down below his tower room, Tanyc’s body hanging by the neck from the ramparts. He was bound hand and foot, his head flopping like a rag doll’s, and already the ravens were wheeling in the sky. Aderyn could only think there’d been some ghastly accident. He started screaming for his mother, who ran to him, looked out the window, and in a moment of horrified honesty, blurted out, “Your da’s killed him!” Later, she tried to recant, but by then Aderyn knew that his father had goaded the young warrior into drawing a sword against him, a bard, a capital crime under Deverry laws. In his child’s way, he knew his mother had told him the truth that first time.

  Aderyn wondered if Lyssa felt she shared their guilt. After all, Gweran and Tanyc had been fighting over her. During the visit, Lyssa said little, merely listened to him and his father talk while she watched Gweran with a patient devotion. Her man was a good husband who still loved her; he was famous, with young disciples clamoring to study with him; his skill kept her in comfort. Perhaps she’d carefully forgotten that he’d murdered a man for her sake. Perhaps.

  On the last day of the visit, Aderyn and Lyssa walked down to the Nerraver as they’d so often done when he was a child. The river ran full between lush green banks and sparkled in the sun with little fish-scale ripples of silver. When they sat down for a rest, Lyssa hunted through the grass and picked a few daisies like a young girl.

  “Ado? Do you remember the year of the Great Drought?”

  “I do.” That was the year of the murder, too. “Did you know it was Nevyn’s dweomer that set it right?”

  “Of course. It was one reason I let you go as his apprentice.”

  “And do you regret that decision now?”