“Aye, and therein lies the path to your own destruction,” she said aloud.
The power granted to her by the spirit of Riamfada all those years ago had come at a price. “It is born of love,” he had said within the tranquil setting of the Wishing Tree woods. “It is of harmony and joy. You may use it to heal, to enhance, to bring together. Never to destroy.”
“I don’t want to destroy anything,” she had told him.
“Let us hope that is always true.”
Oh, there had been times in the past when she had wished to cause harm. When the Moidart had betrayed Lanovar to his death, when the greedy bishop of Eldacre had tried to have Maev Ring burned for witchcraft. Evil men who deserved death. Yet the temptation had never been as great as it was now. Is it just because my own life is threatened? she asked herself. Is my desire merely to save myself? The Wyrd hoped that was not true.
She gazed around her small, single-room hut, her eyes lingering on the objects gathering dust on the shelves. There was an old green cap that had belonged to Ruathain, stepfather to Connavar the King, and a bronze cloak brooch Connavar’s mother had given him when he was twelve. A bronze and silver wristband lay alongside the brooch. This had been worn by Vorna the Witch, long ago when the Rigante had been kings of the highlands. There were other items: scarves, belts, jugs, and cups. All had been owned by heroes of the clan. Nothing there was worth more than a single chailling in the markets, and yet they were beyond price. She had but to touch them, and her mind would fill with color and she would hear the voices of their owners drifting down through the centuries. Closing her eyes, she would see fragments of their lives: Connavar fighting the bear to save his crippled friend, Ruathain holding his sons in his arms, Bane gathering the army to defend the homeland . . .
Moving to the nearest shelf, the Wyrd reached out, picking up an old cloth heavily stained with dried blood.
“Oh, Jaim,” she said, “you were the best of them.”
This cloth had been used by Maev Ring to wipe the blood from Jaim’s face after his epic fight with the Varlish fistfighting champion Gorain. The one-eyed Jaim Grymauch had stood toe to toe with the champion and, incredibly, had defeated him. “You had a heart as big as the mountains,” said the Wyrd, a tear in her eye.
The greatest regret of her long life had come the day she had told Jaim Grymauch of the arrest of Maev Ring. Jaim had loved her and had been determined to rescue her. The Wyrd had asked him to wait. He could have gone to the cathedral, where she had been imprisoned for the trial, dealt with the guards, and freed her. He would have lived then and known happiness. But no. The Wyrd told him that the future well-being of the Rigante depended on his delaying his rescue.
So Jaim Grymauch had waited. They had brought Maev out to burn her at the stake, and Grymauch had marched through the crowds like a giant of old. He had scattered the guards and killed three knights of the Sacrifice. Then, having rescued Maev and seen her free, he had been shot down by the muskets of the Moidart’s soldiers.
Even now his death felt like an open wound to the Wyrd.
Everything she had told him had come to pass. His heroism had forever altered the relationship between the northern Varlish and the Rigante. Before Jaim’s death the highlanders had been treated like an inferior race and viewed with ill-concealed contempt. A fog of hatred and fear had blinded the Varlish. Jaim Grymauch had been the cleansing storm.
Now it seemed his death might have been for nothing, after all.
War, destruction, plague, and death were rampant in the southern lands. Malice hung in the air, touching all living things, disrupting the harmony of nature, and poisoning the nature of all earth magic. It even affected the Wyrd. Normally tranquil of nature, she found herself more swift to anger. Man had always feared spell casters. Almost all societies had at one time or another burned witches. Yet ironically, man himself could cast the most destructive spell of all. With his endless lust for war he could pollute the very magic that fed his world.
The Wyrd took a deep breath, then relaxed. She could feel the spirits of two Redeemers hovering near her. They hungered for her death, their minds overflowing with images of inflicted pain and suffering.
“You will not make me hate you,” she said aloud. However, even thinking of them brought anger to her heart. Best to think of nobler men, she told herself, turning her thoughts to Kaelin Ring.
The years since the death of Grymauch had been kind to him. Still in his early twenties, he was admired by the Black Rigante, holding a position of honor in the council of their leader, Call Jace, and married to his daughter, Chara. Kaelin’s first child had been born two years previously, a boy they had named Jaim. Life was good, yet the black-haired young Rigante would often wander the lonely hills around Ironlatch Farm, camping out at night in the woods, sometimes for days.
His need for solitude hurt his young wife, but she did not doubt his love for her. Had he not fought his way into the heart of an enemy castle to rescue her? Chara had spoken to the Wyrd about Kaelin’s wanderings on the day they had taken baby Jaim to Sorrow Bird Lake for the blessing. While Kaelin had sat holding the sleeping babe, Chara and the Wyrd had strolled to Shrine Hollow and sat in the shafts of spring sunshine lancing through the trees.
“Sometimes he is so distant,” said Chara. “His eyes get a faraway look, and then I know he will be gone. When he returns, he is fine for a little while. I don’t know what is wrong with him.”
The Wyrd gazed affectionately at the slim, red-haired young woman. Even now she looked scarcely old enough to be a mother. Slight of build and delicate of feature, she seemed almost childlike. “His soul was pierced when Jaim died,” said the Wyrd. “Grymauch was everything to him as a boy: a father, an older brother, a friend. He was the one constant in Kaelin’s life. He was like a mountain. You could not imagine a day when he would not be there, filling the horizon.”
“Aye, I know he was a great man,” said Chara.
The Wyrd laughed, the sound rich. “Ah, Chara! He was a drunkard, and he loved to go whoring. He was not stupid, but neither was he equipped for scholarship. Aye, he was a great man, but it was his humanity that made him great. Jaim was, believe it or not, ordinary. He was Rigante and embodied the best and the worst of the clan. That is why he remains such an inspiration. Too many men are allowing his legend to grow out of proportion. He was not so different from Rayster, Bael, or, indeed, Kaelin. Good men, strong men. Men to walk the mountains with.”
“I still do not see why Kaelin cannot let him go. He has his own family now.”
“Love carries burdens, Chara, my dear. And great love understands pain beyond bearing. As time passes, Kaelin’s grief will ease. It is not made easier by the presence of Maev. She, I fear, will never recover from the loss.”
“Sometimes they sit in the evenings and talk about Grymauch,” said Chara. “I can’t contribute anything. I did not really know him. All I remember is that he was a big man who wore a strip of cloth over a blind eye. Why did Maev not wed him?”
“She was wedded to him,” said the Wyrd, “only she did not know it. They shared everything except a bed. And, you know, that is not so important.”
As the two women talked, the black-garbed Kaelin Ring came walking into the hollow, baby Jaim crying in his arms. “If you two are finished gossiping,” he said, “there’s a little fellow here who needs his mother.” Chara took Jaim, opened her shirt, and held him to her breast. The crying ceased immediately. Kaelin stood by, gazing fondly at his wife and son.
The Wyrd watched him and felt pride swell in her. Kaelin Ring was all that a Rigante should be.
Taking his arm, the Wyrd led him back to the shores of Sorrow Bird Lake, and they stood together in the sunlight, gazing out over the mountains. “You have done well, Ravenheart,” she told him. “Jaim would be proud of you.”
“That is a good thought, Wyrd. Thank you for sharing it.”
“How is Maev?”
“Growing richer by the day. She deals now wi
th the Moidart, sending cattle south to feed the Varlish armies.”
“I know she is rich, Kaelin, and you know that is not what I meant.”
Kaelin shrugged. “What can I tell you, Wyrd? She talks of Grymauch endlessly.” He gave a wry smile. “She seems to have forgotten all the times she lost her temper with him. He has become a golden man, almost a saint.”
“Understandable,” said the Wyrd. “The man died for her.”
She saw a momentary spasm of pain cross his handsome features. “Aye, he did that. Sometimes I dream of him, you know. We’ll be talking and laughing. Then I’ll wake and—just for a heartbeat—I think he’s still here with us. It’s like a wound that won’t heal.”
“It will, Ravenheart. Trust me. Have you heard from Banny?”
Kaelin shook his head. “There are few post riders now bringing mail from the south. I don’t know what possessed him to join the army. He should have come here.”
“The war will come to the north, Ravenheart. When it does, you must be ready for it.”
“We have had this conversation before, Wyrd. I listened then, and I am listening now. Call Jace has built new forges, making cannons, muskets, and swords. We can do no more. If the Moidart comes north, the Rigante will face him.”
A log in the fire cracked suddenly, jerking her mind back to the present. A burning cinder was smoldering on the old rug. The Wyrd knelt down, pinched the cinder between her fingers, and swiftly threw it back into the flames. Sitting upon the rug, she stretched and yawned.
When would the Moidart and his army invade the north? she wondered. It had surprised her that the cruel and vengeful lord of the north had not already joined the enemy. They were made for one another. They had approached him. She knew this. The Moidart had requested time to consider their offer. The Wyrd shivered. He would be seeking a position of power among them. And he would get it.
Another face loomed in her mind, a handsome young man with golden hair and curious eyes, one gold and one green. The Moidart’s son, Gaise Macon, the Stormrider. So much depended on him and his survival. She wished with all her heart that she could know just how much. It seemed sometimes that the power had a mind of its own. On occasions, as with Jaim Grymauch, she had seen the future clear and bright. She had known what to do. The coming days of dread were like an awesome tapestry, ten thousand threads weaving in and out. Some she could see, some lines she could follow, but the whole was a mystery. In her spirit dreams she could see fragments. A hawk-faced Varlish lord—similar to the Moidart—and a skull within an ancient case that burned with unholy light. Battles and deaths, some past and some still to come, raged in her visions.
All she knew with grim certainty was that the Stormrider was central to the survival of the Rigante and that the Rigante were vital to the survival of not only the world she knew but the well-being of the world to come. Her eyes felt heavy with weariness, and she pushed herself to her feet and once more ventured out into the night.
The Wyrd walked back through the trees to the remains of the old stone circle at the center of the island. Only one golden column stood upright now, and it was cracked, the ancient runes worn away by wind and rain. The Wyrd shivered and drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. The night wind whispered across the icy lake.
“Soon, witch,” came a voice in her mind. “Soon your evil will be forever destroyed.”
The Wyrd took a deep, calming breath and whispered the words of power. A bright light blazed, and the world shifted beneath her feet. She stumbled and fell to the earth of the Wishing Tree woods, hundreds of miles south of Sorrow Bird Lake. The Redeemers would find her soon. They knew almost all her tricks now.
Rising, she looked around at the ancient trees. “I need you, Riamfada,” she said aloud, her voice breaking. “Help me!”
A glowing light formed like a tiny candle flame flickering a few feet above the snow-covered earth. Slowly it swelled into a shimmering globe like moonlit mist trapped in glass.
“What is troubling you, child?” asked the voice from the light.
“It is long since I was a child, Riamfada. Look at me. I am an old woman. My bones hurt, and I can no longer—without a little magic—thread a needle.” The Wyrd sighed. “It is forty years since first you took me into the Wishing Tree woods. Long years.”
“And that is what is troubling you?”
“No.” The Wyrd gazed at the globe of light floating some three feet away from her. For a moment her mind drifted away from her problems. “Why do you not take human form these days?”
“This is what I am, child. I only take human form when I need to speak to humans who cannot understand my nature. It is tiring to do so, drawing particles from the air and shaping them like a sculptor. This is more comfortable for me. This is how I am when I am with friends. What is it that you fear to say to me?”
“I am frightened, Riamfada.”
“Of the demons hunting you?”
“They are not demons—or spirits like you,” she said. “They are living men who have found a way to soar free from the flesh. They whisper to me of their hatred, and they seek to kill me when I am in spirit form. Thus far I have escaped them, but they are growing in strength and . . . “ Her words trailed away.
“You wish to fight them, Caretha? To kill them?”
“Would it be so wrong?”
“A simple question but one of rare complexity. Your gift is to heal, Caretha, to enhance the fading magic of the world. When healers yearn to kill, then hope begins to die.”
“Then I must let them kill me?”
“Better that than to become like them. That is the real danger, Caretha. Evil cannot be overcome by evil. The Seidh—at the last—understood that.”
“Why did they leave us?” said the Wyrd. “They could have helped us, guided us. Then there would have been no wars, no plagues, no disease.”
“Once they, too, believed that,” said Riamfada. “For thousands of years they tried. They saw man relentlessly devouring the magic, sowing the seeds that would inevitably lead to destruction and an end to all life. And slowly it dawned upon some of them that they, too, were parasites. The Seidh also fed on the magic and were part of the cycle of destruction. Then the Seidh, too, went to war, Caretha. Among themselves and among humans. The most powerful of them, a being known as Cernunnos, triumphed for a while. He took human form and became a king. He ruled for three hundred years, gathering massive human armies and waging wars across many lands. Then he was overthrown, his body destroyed. After that the Seidh slowly began to leave the world. The last to go was the Morrigu. I was with her when she passed, which pleased me greatly, for she was the one who brought my spirit into the Seidh world, and I loved her.”
“Where did they go?”
“Far out among the stars. I do not know exactly what lies there.”
“Yet you remained.”
“I am an earthbound spirit, child. This is where I belong.”
Suddenly she sat upright, staring at the night sky above her. “They are back,” she said.
“I see them. Stand between the stone pillars,” said the voice from the light.
The Wyrd pushed herself to her feet. Her shawl fell from her shoulders, and she caught it and swung it back into place. Bright light blazed around her once more. For a time she floated weightless, spinning in the air. Then, with a lurch, she felt her body pressing down upon soft earth. The light did not diminish. Opening her eyes against the glare, she saw that it was no longer night. The sun was low in a clear blue sky, and it shone down on a foreign landscape. All around her were trees of colossal size, their trunks red, their uppermost branches seeming to pierce the sky.
Beside her dust rose from the ground, swirling as if caught in a tiny whirlwind. Slowly it formed the shape of a man. Colors began to appear, blonding the hair and painting the eyes blue. A white-tipped eagle feather materialized on a shirt of painted buckskin. When the movement in the air had subsided, Riamfada stood before her, dressed as she had
never seen him. He wore a loincloth and soft moccasins, and there were painted symbols decorating his shirt: a handprint in red and a series of circles in white at the center of which were depictions of birds and deer.
Before the Wyrd could speak she felt a ripple of earth magic flow across her, as if caught on a breeze. Dropping to her knees, she stretched out her arms. The strength of the magic was awesome. It seemed to seep up from the earth, flowing out like mist.
“Is this paradise?” she whispered.
“It is at the moment,” he said. “This is Uzamatte. You see that tree?” he asked, pointing to her left. She looked around and stared in disbelief at the redwood. It was ten times, perhaps twenty times, as thick as any tree she had ever seen. “It is over two thousand years old,” Riamfada told her. “This tree was ancient when Connavar fought the armies of Stone. The magic feeds it. There were trees like this in your world across the ocean, Caretha. No longer. Man has used up much of the magic there, burned it away in his wars, suffocated it with his greed. One day he will come here. He will look at these trees and will see no majesty. He will see timber. He will gaze upon the mountains and the waterfalls, and he will see gold and silver. And far below the earth he will tunnel and burrow.” Riamfada sighed and gave a small smile. “But not yet.”
“There is still magic in my world,” said the Wyrd. “Every day I try to summon more, to feed the land.”
“Yes, you do, child.”
“I know it is a losing battle,” she continued. “In one day of war more harm is done than I can put right in ten lifetimes. It is said that more than a hundred thousand have already died, yet the war goes on. Gaise Macon is fighting in it now, and I fear for him. One day it will reach the north. I know this in my heart. It fills me with sorrow—and with terror.”
“You must rest now, Caretha. Absorb the magic. Strengthen your body and your spirit. You cannot stay here long. Sleep for a few hours, then I will return you to Sorrow Bird Lake. Once you are home, you must find a way to reach the spirit of the white-haired swordsman. I do not have your gift for prophecy, but I sense he will be vital in the days ahead.”
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