The Wandering Fire

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  A short while later the sun was lost in trees behind Mörnirwood and the cold became too great. They went inside.

  Three hours later they were back on that tower with the King and half the court, it seemed. It was full dark and savagely cold, but no one noticed, now.

  Away to the north, very, very far, a luminous pearly light was being cast into the sky.

  “What is it?” someone asked.

  “Daniloth,” Loren Silvercloak replied softly. Brendel was standing beside him, his eyes the colour of the light.

  “They are trying it,” the lios breathed. “Not for a thousand years has Daniloth been unsheathed. There are no shadows on the Land of Light tonight. They will be looking at the stars later when they fade the shining. There will be starlight above Atronel.”

  It was almost a song, so beautiful was his voice, so laden with yearning. Every one of them looked at that cast glow and, wondering, understood that it had been like that every night before Maugrim had come, and the Bael Rangat, before Lathen had woven the mist to change Daniloth into the Shadowland.

  “Why?” Sharra asked. “Why are they doing it?”

  Again it was Loren who replied. “For us. They are trying to draw him down from Starkadh to divert his power from the winter’s shaping. The lios alfar are offering themselves so that we might have an end to the cold.”

  “An ending to it for them as well, surely?” Gorlaes protested.

  Never taking his eyes from the light in the north, Na-Brendel answered him. “There is no snow in Daniloth. The sylvain are blooming now as they do each midsummer, and there is green grass on Atronel.”

  They watched, picturing it, heartened despite the knife of wind by that lifted glow that meant courage and gallantry, a play of light in heaven at the very door of the Dark.

  Watching it, Kim was distracted by a sound, very thin, almost a drift of static in her mind. More that than music, and coming, so far as she could tell, from the east. She lifted her hand; the Baelrath was quiescent, which was a blessing. She was coming to fear its fire. She pushed the whisper of sound away from her—it was not hard—and turned her whole being to the light of Daniloth, trying to draw strength and some easing of guilt and sorrow. It was less than forty-eight hours since she had stood at Stonehenge and she was weary, through and through, with so much yet to be done.

  Beginning, it seemed, immediately.

  When they returned to the Great Hall, a woman in grey was there waiting for them. Grey, as in the grey robes of the priestesses, and it was Jaelle, striding past the Kings, who spoke to her.

  “Aline, what is it?”

  The woman in grey sank to the floor in a deep curtsy before Jaelle; then she offered a perfunctory version to Aileron. Turning back to the High Priestess, she spoke carefully, as from memory.

  “I am to convey to you the obeisance of the Mormae and Audiart’s apologies. She sent this in person because it was thought the men here would greater appreciate urgency if we did not use the link.”

  Jaelle remained very still. There was a forbidding chill in her face. “What urgency?” she asked, velvet danger sheathed in her voice.

  Aline flushed. I wouldn’t be in her shoes for anything, Kim thought suddenly.

  “Again, Audiart’s apologies, High One,” Aline murmured. “It is as Warden of Gwen Ystrat, not as Second of the Mormae, that she sent me. I was told to say this to you.”

  Imperceptibly, almost, Jaelle relaxed. “Very well—” she began, but was interrupted before she could finish.

  “If you are sent by my Warden, you should be speaking to me,” Aileron said, and his own voice was fully as cold as Jaelle’s had been. The High Priestess stood immobile and impassive. No help there, Kim thought. She felt briefly sorry for Aline, a pawn in a complex game. Only briefly, though; in some ways pawns had it easy.

  Aline decided; she sank down into a proper curtsy before the King. Rising, she said, “We have need of you, High King. Audiart requests that you remember how seldom we ask aid and that you therefore consider our plight with compassion.”

  “To the point!” the High King growled. Shalhassan, just behind him, was taking it all in avidly. It was no time for anything but control.

  Again Aline glanced at Jaelle and again found no assistance. She licked her lips. Then, “Wolves,” she said. “Larger than any of us have ever seen. There are thousands of them, High King, in the wood north of Lake Leinan, and they are raiding at night among the farms. The farms of your people, my lord King.”

  “Morvran?” said Jaelle sharply. “What about us?”

  Aline shook her head. “They have been seen near the town but not yet in the Temple grounds, High One. If they had been, I am to say, then—”

  “Then the Mormae would have linked to tell me. Audiart,” Jaelle murmured, “is cleverness itself.” She tossed her head, and the red hair rippled down her back like a river.

  Aileron’s eyes were bright in the torchlight. “She wants me to come and clean them out for her? What says the High Priestess?”

  Jaelle didn’t even look at him. “This,” she said, “is your Warden, not my Second, Aileron.”

  There was a silence, and then a polite cough and Paul Schafer walked forward towards Audiart’s messenger.

  “One moment,” he said. “Aileron, you spoke of cleaning out the wolves. It may be more than that.” He paused “Aline, is Galadan in Leinanwood?”

  The priestess had fear in her eyes. “We never thought of that. I do not know.”

  And so it was time. That was a cue for her, if anything was. Kim schooled her face and, as she did, Aileron’s glance swung over to find her.

  Would she ever be used to this? Had Ysanne ever grown accustomed to this shuttling back and forth on the timeloom? Only last night, restless and heartsick for Jennifer, she had fallen into half sleep and a blurred, insubstantial dream of a hunt in a wood, in some wood, somewhere, and a rushing thunder over the ground.

  She met the King’s glance. “Something is there,” she said, keeping her voice crisp. “Or someone. I have seen a hunt.”

  Aileron smiled. He turned to Shalhassan and to Arthur beside him. “Shall we three hunt wolves of the Dark in Gwen Ystrat?”

  The dour King of Cathal nodded.

  “It will be good to have an enemy to kill just now,” Arthur said.

  He meant more, Kim knew, than Aileron heard, but she had no space for sorrow because something else from her dream had slotted into place with the High King’s words.

  “It will be more than a hunt,” she murmured. It was never necessary for a Seer to speak loudly. “I’ll be coming, and Loren, and Jaelle, if she will.”

  “Why?” It was Paul, challenging, bearing his own burdens.

  “I dreamt the blind one,” she explained. “Gereint of the Dalrei will be going to Morvran tomorrow.”

  There was a murmur at that. It was, she supposed, unsettling for people to hear such things. Not much she could do, or cared at the moment to do, about it. She was very, very weary, and it wasn’t about to get easier.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow then, as well,” Aileron said decisively.

  Loren was looking at her.

  She shook her head, then pushed her hair back from her face. “No,” she said, too tired to be diplomatic. “Wait for Diarmuid.”

  It wasn’t going to get any easier at all, not for a long time, maybe not ever.

  It was passing away from him. He had seen it coming long ago, in some ways had willed it to come, but it was still a hard thing for Loren Silvercloak to see his burdens passing to others. The harder because he could read in them the toll exacted by their new responsibilities. It was manifest in Kim, just as her power was manifest: a Seer with the Baelrath and the gift of another’s soul, she must be staggering under the weight of it.

  Today was a day of preparations. Five hundred men, half from Cathal and half from Brennin, were to ride for Gwen Ystrat as soon as Diarmuid returned. They were waiting because Kim had said to wait. Once it mig
ht have been the mages who offered such decisive counsel, but it was passing from them. He had set the thing in motion when he brought the five of them, and he was wise enough, for all Matt’s reproachful glances, to let it move without his interference, insofar as that was possible. And he was compassionate enough to pity them: Kim, and Paul who bore the weight of the name Twiceborn, with all such a thing implied, but who had not been able to tap into his power yet. It was there, any fool could see, it might be greater than any of them could fathom, but as of now it was latent only. Enough to set him painfully apart, not enough to give him compensation or direction.

  And then there was Jennifer, and for her he could weep. No compensation, or even dream of it, for her, no chance to act, only the pain, so many shadings of it. He had seen it from the first—so long ago, it seemed—before they crossed, when he had read a message in her beauty and a dark future in her eyes. He had taken her anyhow, had told himself he had no choice; nor was that merely sophistry—such, at least, Rangat’s exploding had made clear.

  Which did not take away the sorrow. He understood her beauty now, they all did, and they knew her oldest name. Oh, Guinevere, Arthur had said, and was any fate more harsh in any world than that of the two of them? And the third.

  He passed the day alone in untranquil thought. Matt and Brock were at the armouries, giving the benefit of their expertise in weapons to the two Captains of the Guard. Teyrnon, whose pragmatic good sense would have been of some help, was in North Keep. They would reach for him that night; he and Barak, too, would have their place in Gwen Ystrat.

  If ever any mage, any worker in the skylore, could be said to have a place so near Dun Maura. The tall mage shook his head and threw another log on the fire. He was cold, and not just from the winter. How had it come to be that there were only two mages left in Brennin? There could never be more than seven; so Amairgen had decreed when first he formed the Council. But two, only two, and at such a time? It was passing from them, it seemed, in more ways than one.

  Two mages only in Brennin to go to war against Maugrim; but there were three mages in Fionavar, and the third had put himself in league with the Dark. He was on Cader Sedat, that enchanted island, long since made unholy. He was there, and he had the Cauldron of Khath Meigol and so could bring the newly dead back to life.

  Whatever else might pass from them, that one was his. His and Matt’s. We will have our battle in the end, he had said to the Dwarf.

  If the winter ever ended. Metran.

  Night came, and with it another storm worse than any yet. Wind howled and whistled down the Plain into the High Kingdom, carrying a wall of snow. It buried farms and farmhouses. It blanketed the woods. It hid the moon, and in the inhuman darkness figures of dread seemed to be moving within the storm and the howling of wind was the sound of their laughter.

  Darien lay in bed listening to it. He’d thought at first it was another nightmare but then knew he was awake. Frightened, though. He pulled the covers up over his head to try and muffle the voices he heard in the wind.

  They were calling. Calling him to come and play outside in the wild dark dancing of the storm. To join them in this battering of wind and snow. But he was only a little boy, and afraid, and he would die if he went outside. Even though the storm wasn’t so bad where they were.

  Finn had explained about that. How even though Darien’s real mother couldn’t be there with them she was protecting him all the time, and she made the winter easier around his bed because she loved him. They all loved him; Vae his mother and even Shahar his father, who had been home from war only once before they had come to the lake. He had lifted Darien up in the air and made him laugh. Then he had said Dari would soon be bigger than Finn and laughed, himself, though not the funny laugh.

  Finn was his brother and he loved Dari most of all and he was the most wonderful person in the world and knew everything besides.

  It was Finn who had explained what Father had meant when Dari came crying to him after, because there was something wrong about him being bigger than Finn. Soon, Father had said.

  Finn had dressed him in his coat and boots and carried him out for a walk. Dari liked it more than anything when they did that. Finn would throw Dari in the snow, but only where it was new and soft, and then fall in himself so they both got all white, rolling about, and Dari would laugh so hard he got the hiccups. This time, though, Finn had been serious. Sometimes he was serious and made Dari listen to him. He said that Dari was different from other little boys. That he was special because his real mother was special, and so he was going to be bigger and stronger and smarter than all the other boys. Even Finn, Finn said. And what that meant, Finn said, was that Dari had to be better, too, he had to be kinder and gentler and braver, so he would deserve what his real mother had given him.

  He had to try to love everything, Finn said, except the Dark.

  The Dark was what was causing the storm outside, Dari knew. And most of the time he hated it like Finn said. He tried to do it all the time, to be just like Finn was, but sometimes he heard the voices, and though mostly they frightened him, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes he thought it might be nice to go with them.

  Except that would mean leaving Finn, and he would never do that. He got out of bed and put on his knitted slippers. He pulled back the curtain and padded over, past where his mother slept, to the far wall where Finn’s bed was.

  Finn was awake. “What took you so long?” he whispered “Come in, little brother, we’ll keep each other warm.” With a sigh of pleasure, Dari kicked off the slippers and crawled in beside Finn, who moved over, leaving Dari the warm part where he’d lain.

  “There are voices,” he said to Finn.

  His brother didn’t say anything. Just put an arm around Dari and held him close. The voices weren’t as loud here when he was beside Finn. As he drifted to sleep, Dari heard Finn murmur into his ear, “I love you, little one.”

  Dari loved him back. When he fell asleep he dreamed again, and in his dream he was trying to tell that to the ghostly figures calling from the wind.

  Chapter 9

  In the afternoon after the storm—a day so clear and bright it was almost a mockery—came Diarmuid, Prince of Brennin, back to Paras Derval. With certain others he was brought to the High King’s antechamber, where a number of people waited for him, and in that place he was presented by Aileron, his brother, to Arthur Pendragon.

  And nothing happened.

  Paul Schafer, standing next to Kim, had seen her pale when Diarmuid came into the room. Now, as the Prince bowed formally to Arthur and the Warrior accepted it with an unruffled mien, he heard her draw a shaky breath and murmur, from the heart, “Oh, thank God.”

  A look passed between her and Loren, who was on the far side of the room, and in the mage’s countenance Paul read the same relief. It took him a moment, but he put it together.

  “You thought he was the third one?” he said. “Third angle of the triangle?”

  She nodded, still pale. “I was afraid. Don’t know why now. Don’t know why I was so sure.”

  “Is that why you wanted us to wait?”

  She looked at him, grey eyes under white hair. “I thought it was. I knew we had to wait before going to the hunt. Now I don’t know why.”

  “Because,” came a voice, “you are a true and loyal friend and didn’t want me to miss the fun.”

  “Oh, Kev!” She wheeled and gave him a very un-Seerlike hug. “I missed you!”

  “Good,” said Kevin brightly.

  “Me, too,” Paul added.

  “Also good,” Kevin murmured, less flippantly.

  Kim stepped back. “You feeling unappreciated, sailor?”

  He gave her a half smile. “A bit superfluous. And now Dave’s fighting an urge to bisect me with his axe.”

  “Nothing new there,” Paul said dryly.

  “What now?” Kim asked.

  “I slept with the wrong girl.”

  Paul laughed. “Not the first time.”
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  “It isn’t funny,” Kevin said. “I had no idea he liked her, and anyhow, she came to me. The Dalrei women are like that. They call the shots with anyone they like until they decide to marry.”

  “Have you explained to Dave?” Kim asked. She would have made a joke but Kevin did look unhappy. There was more to this, she decided.

  “He’s a hard man to explain things to. Hard for me, anyway. I’ve asked Levon. It was his sister.” Kevin indicated someone with a sideways nod of his head.

  And that, of course, was it.

  Kim turned to the handsome, fair-haired Rider standing just behind them. There had been a reason for waiting for this party, and it wasn’t Diarmuid or Kevin. It was this man.

  “I have explained,” Levon said. “And will do so again, as often as necessary.” He smiled; then his expression grew sober and he said to Kim, “Seer, I asked if we might talk, a long time ago.”

  She remembered. The last morning, before the Baelrath had blazed and her head had exploded with Jennifer’s screams and she had taken them away.

  She looked at her hand. The ring was pulsing; only a very little, but it was alive again.

  “All right,” she said, almost curtly. “You, too, Paul. Kev, will you bring Loren and Matt?”

  “And Davor,” Levon said. “Diarmuid, too. He knows.”

  “My room. Let’s go.” She walked out, leaving them to follow her. Her and the Baelrath.

  The flame will wake from sleep,

  The Kings the horn will call,

  But though they answer from the deep,

  You may never hold in thrall

  Those who ride from Owein’s Keep

  With a child before them all.

  Levon’s voice faded away. In the silence Kim became aware, annoyingly, of the same faint static she’d heard two nights ago; again it was from the east. Gwen Ystrat, she decided. She was getting herself tuned in to whatever sendings the priestesses were throwing back and forth out there. It was a nuisance and she pushed it from her mind. She had enough to worry about, starting with all these men in her bedroom. A frustrated woman’s dream, she thought, unable to find it amusing.