After we had exchanged warm familial greetings, Loherin turned his horse in beside Feldore and we rode on knee to knee. Almost the first news he gave me was of an addition to that cousinage.
"—so now I have a sister, at my advanced age too!" His delight was apparent through the mock bemusement. "My parents have called her Ydain, for an aunt of my mother’s; they have longed for a daughter, but not as much as I have wished for a sister—"
He babbled on amiably, then became suddenly somber as he began to recount his own adventures since Corryochren. His tale was much the same as Donah’s and my own, though one large piece of news set me thinking.
"Aye," he said, gravely, when I asked him to repeat it. "The search is centered here on Tara now; most of the seekers have returned from the other worlds, and even of those many have left the hunt."
I thought about that for a moment or two. "Is there a reason—some direction or vision—to call the hunters here?"
The untidy blond hair bobbed as Loherin nodded. "The King himself had a Seeing: His own father—the Prince Amris—came to him, and instructed him to bring the searchers from the other worlds, that the Cup would not be found thereon."
"Therefore it will be found on Tara?"
Again the glib swung, in denial this time. "Not so featly," said the lad with some reluctance. "But that if it were found, it would be on Tara that one found it."
We rode in silence a while. "I was forgetting," said Loherin suddenly, "there is news of Morgan and the Queen."
I near unseated myself turning round to face him, and he shrugged, smiling with all his father’s charm. "My sorrow," he said ruefully, "but I did not see them myself, only heard of them from one I encountered in the Marshes of the Siennega—"
Again I stared and startled. "Avallac’h! You met Avallac’h—"
"Prince Avallac’h," he corrected courteously. "It seems many of those who seek the Cup have come to meet him, one way or another. But though he did not say overmuch, this he did tell me: that Queen Gweniver and Morgan had both been there, only days before me."
"Therefore after my own stay." First I myself, then Donah and the Pendreic cousins, now Guenna and Gwen… It seemed that Avallac’h played a larger part far than the one I had so blithely assigned him in this. I tried not to hear the tiny voice that asked mockingly far inside, And what part more ere the ending?
Loherin and I rode together all that day, then parted as mysteriously as we had earlier met: Riding through a narrow valley, Feldore leading, I turned in the saddle to say somewhat to my young kinsman and found he was no longer in the defile behind me. I rode back a ways in search of him, but there was neither track nor trace, and after a while I rode on again, reflecting on how strangely folk seemed to come and go upon this quest. But at the least, I comforted myself, I had had certain word of my Morgan and my Queen. Not that I had feared, you understand; but it was good to be told for fact. Loherin, now… As I said, I did not know him as well as, say, I knew Malgan, even; although he was of my cliamhan kindred. And as I have also said, he was one of the fairest folk, apart the Sidhe, that ever I have laid eyes on, combining as he did the best features of two far from uncomely parents with a grace all his own.
And it was that very beauty, somehow, and the fact that he had been of those who had met Avallac’h, that set me thinking. Had not the ancient prince said that he would know the Graal Servant when he came? And that he was not far off? But there were two who served the Cup, man and woman; and also those who would see it but be not of it… We had all come to Inisguidrin; or had we? Perhaps, still, there was one yet to come, some unknown quester.
Yet suddenly I knew as surely as if the Pair itself had told me: Loherin was that one for whom Avallac’h had waited, that one of the blood of Don (through Ygrawn’s mother Keresen) to serve the Graal. And what that might mean—to Keltia, to Arthur and the rest of us, to Loherin himself—I had not the smallest idea. But I found myself thinking it was as well, perhaps, that Ysild and Tryffin had got themselves this young Ydain.
I slept that night with Avallac’h’s words ringing in my fuddled brain; so that when I woke to full awareness, as if someone had called my name, it was no surprise—or at least not the surprise it might otherwise have been—to see what I did see.
A woman stood not ten feet away, facing me; and as soon as I perceived the faint glow that clung round her, the same glow that I had sometimes beheld round the Sidhe-folk in their high places (well, do you think they are called the Shining Folk for mere compliment’s sake?), I was on my feet before her, bowing as to a queen.
She smiled but said no word, and I am sorry to tell you that I stared, plain and simple. Tall she was, and slim, though I cannot call to mind the color of her hair or eyes; and she was swathed from neck to toe in a sweeping white mantle embroidered with scarlet stars. At her left hand was a great black hound, of the breed we keep to course the wild deer of the uplands; on her other side… I ran a hand over my face, closed my eyes in brief incredulity—was there to be no end to the strangeness of this quest—but the image did not change. A huge-antlered white stag stood statue-still, only the moonlight glittering upon the mighty rack he bore, and on the collar of gold belted round his curving neck.
"Taliesin," said the woman then, musically. And, "Gwion." And again, "Mabon Dialedd." There was the touch of a smile even in the names, but she did not mean to mock me, and I gave her a deep slow nod in return.
"Lady," I said, putting on the word just the tiniest edge of question. As for the rest, they were all my names, or had been…"You may speak of me as Bhan-reann-ruadh," she said in a light, bright voice. "It will serve well enough for now."
Red Star Woman… Well enough indeed: I had remembered by now that Avallac’h, yet again he, had spoken of such a one. "The woman and the white stag and the hound," he had said, part of a long list of tests and things and folk I might expect to meet along my way; but he had said no more than that.
"Arthur knows better perhaps of blue stars," she said then, and at that I startled even more, if that were possible. For you may recall I spoke earlier of the Protectorates that Keltia had come to over the years of Arthur and Gweniver’s reign…
Hardly by policy, I promise you; but petition and the wish for alliance and the greater, very natural wish for the protection of Keltia’s sword against mutual enemies had won for us an empire of sorts. Though Gwen and Artos never permitted it to be called so, it was an empire, in all ways save the subjugation of its component worlds. These came freely to us, glad to huddle near for warmth in the howling storm among the stars; we deprived them of no rights, made no demands they could not brook, stayed well away from their internal governance. Yet among these worlds Arthur and Gweniver, and those who would come after them as rulers of Keltia, bore imperial titles and sway. And one of the outward tokens of that sway, worn only on presidings of state on some Protectorate world or other, never in Keltia itself, was a great blue cloak, embroidered about with stars.
"As Amheraudr, Emperor of the West," I said slowly, giving him the title that those very worlds had bestowed upon him, "surely he would. But if I may ask, lady, what is that to you—or to yours?" And I glanced as I spoke at the hound and the stag.
She smiled again. "More than you may think. See, Taliesin; there is little time for telling."
Before I could divine her intent, she flung a fold of the starry mantle between us, and the clearing in which we stood vanished away. All at once I could see Caerdroia before me in the misty darkness, very small and clear and far, unutterably dear. That pang was scarce gone before I was pierced by another: I saw Arthur, in his solar, the round room overlooking the rose garden, where he was accustomed to do his private work. Saw him seated in his high-backed chair, saw the disconsolate air about him, the way he rubbed his brow and then ran the same hand into his tousled hair. I inhaled unevenly, tried to call to him, but he too was gone, and in his place came a volley of images: things I myself had Seen in times past and things I somehow knew I
would come to in life, or lives, yet to be. I saw Gwyddno; I saw my father. Saw Amris, Uthyr, Merlynn, Gorlas…
"For men, the Quest can be to do with fathers also," said the Bhan-reann-ruadh softly, and all at once I was back in that midnight clearing, the mystic woman before me, the hound and stag watching out of wise deep eyes. "But Arthur shall not have the Cup, though he might be the better for a glimpse of it."
"That is a hard saying, lady," I remarked presently, for I was trembling from head to foot at those quick—too quick—sightings, would have had longer to look upon them. Ah tasyk… My hand crept to my hawk’s feather, then fell away. "How stands it with the Quest, then?" I asked, giving the word the special emphasis she herself had laid just now upon it.
Her answer was as surprising as her simple presence. "Better than you have been thinking. But there are perils yet before you. Do not forget the laughing flower, and the corrigaun with the flaming sword."
"Avallac’h told me—"
"And I tell you again. And also I tell you this: There shall be struck a blow of which such sorrow shall come in Keltia that only the Cup itself can heal. As for you, Taliesin: You must steal my hound and hunt my stag."
"I will do neither!" I cried vehemently. "Not the one nor yet the other, and I wonder that you do ask it of me."
There was a subtle change in the glimmering light that enfolded her like a second cloak, and I thought for an instant that I saw tears sparkle upon her cheek.
"I cannot command," she said then. "I may but ask and advise. In the name of that for which you have gone questing, then: Steal my hound, hunt my stag."
"And then?" I was still violently set against her words, and she saw it.
"And then you must do as you are bidden. Not easy for you, I know."
"If I do not?"
She ignored my truculence, even as she reached out a translucent white hand to me as in appeal. "Then again there will be sorrow in Keltia, and this time the Cup itself will weep."
She swirled her cloak again, and in the following darkness I saw float through the air a vision of the Hallow we so desperately sought. It was not as it had appeared the other two times I had been privileged to behold it; never the same vision twice of the holy things. Always there was some slight difference each time one was given the grace.
"That is not because the Cup is different." The Bhan-reann-ruadh’s voice seemed to come ringing from the place of her ruddy stars. "It is because you yourself are different, each time you see it—or have need to."
She spoke truly. The great Hallow appeared just now as the Cauldron of Kerridwen Rhen, worked all in heavy bronze, bronze both dark as iron and polished to the brightness of a flame. There were blue stones inlaid of the color of a summer sky over Kernow, a portrait on one curving side of Queen Kerridwen Herself among Her sacred beasts, on the other of the Cabarfeidh, the Antlered Lord who is Her royal consort. And this was a true seeing, undoubtedly the Cup had this aspect; and I yearned toward it with all my spirit, for I knew I would not see it so again…
Then it passed on in brightness and was gone, and I cried out in sorrow, so lovely and so sustaining had been the sight of it, and sank back onto my heels in my sudden bleak dole. Greedy to lament the briefness of my vision, how many millions were there in Keltia who had never been vouchsafed even so much as this? And even in my despair of the moment I knew I had no cause, that I should see the Cup again, and soon.
I turned to the Bhan-reann-ruadh, meaning to thank her and offer an apology, for it seemed I understood a little better now. But no one stood there between the fire and me, and no print of foot or paw or hoof marked the soft damp turf.
* * *
Chapter Ten
And now all the ill haps that had been so long and so often foretold for me began to make themselves felt upon my Path, all the geisa I could have thought of, for others and for me… You will remember, I had no idea, or very little of one, as to how my companions on this quest might be faring. True, I had encountered both Donah and Loherin, the two for whom I had most concern (and if you think there was aught of chance in those two meetings, well, there is a nice parcel of swampland hard by the Siennega that we might speak of… ); the others in my own riding—Morgan and Gweniver, Roric and Daronwy—were too skilled and tough and cunning to have come to any great or lasting harm, though of course I feared for them as well. Of the rest, I knew nothing save what I had gleaned from both those meetings and from the visions that seemed to be so thick in the air these days. Of Gerrans, my son, no word; of Gwain, Marguessan’s son, no word; none likewise of Tarian’s two heirs, Sioda and Shane, nor of Betwyr’s niece Keira—far less the dozens of those not known to us before this quest, who had ridden out into peril to bring the Cup back again to Keltia and to Kelts…
In the westering light, it was not hard to call up before my vision an image of that Cup I had seen last middlenight, in its aspect as Pair Dadeni, the Cauldron of the Mother of the World. But with that image came again the words of warning I had had of the Bhan-reann-ruadh (and just who was she when she was at home, so to speak? I wondered greatly, let me tell you, though I had my suspicions): the Dolorous Blow she spoke of, the Sorrowful Striking. And the other thing, the terrible commands she had laid upon me; that I should, indeed, must, steal her hound and hunt her stag…
I had been Druid long enough to know that very often on such quests as this, searches of the spirit, embarked upon for no reason of material gain or glory, one may well be given orders that in other time might be deemed evil or treasonous or simply cruel. And, if one is wise enough to know that such commands are not ever as they seem, will not have the same outcome as that same command given in ordinary time—well then, one may very likely find success at the quest’s ending, for oneself as well as for one’s errand. For a quest—any quest—is not always, or even entirely, about finding; sometimes it is the seeking that can matter even more.
By now I had lost all track of days. I tried to tell my time by the sun and stars and Tara’s two moons—their hours of setting and rising, their places in the skydance; or even by the leaves and their colors upon the trees, or their falling therefrom. It had almost immediately become plain, however, that time for those of us who rode questing was not as it was for those whom we had left behind in the day-to-day world. Day or night was all we ever knew for sure—though even that not always, as we have seen—be it morn or afternoon or even, dawn or dusk. Otherwise, the heavenly bodies were either obscured by cloud or simply made invisible, and even when they could be clearly seen they did not appear to move, in outrageous violation of all laws of nature. As for the leaves, on whom I had pinned my small hopes, well, sometimes they were red with autumn, sometimes brown and dead beneath their trees, and sometimes full deep green with high summer. There was no telling. It was as if the land itself and the heavens above did conspire to keep us moving to a measure of time we did not know or understand, and that too was part of our search.
But at bottom it was graver even than that: The power of the Cup was waning, I could feel it as I rode; and there ran one time that even I could tell—the hour was gruesome late.
What happened next I am not proud of. All I can say in my defense is that I did not know and acted only to save myself. Still, I had been warned; and that alone should have made me ‘ware. But—it did not, and I was not, and so you shall hear…
I do not even well remember where I was that day of days: somewhere near Windred, I think, past Armoy and its cold blue lakes, well into the Plains of Listellian with their wondrous herds of blue-eyed white bison. The search had led me farther east than ever I had been before on Tara: These were empty lands for the most part, in this remote southeastern corner of the Northwest Continent, and I wondered idly what would happen if I came to the last beaches and was ordered onwards nonetheless. Take ship and sail to the Easter Isles? What lay east of that east?
I was therefore paying no attention to the road or how we went—Feldore seemed to have that well in hand, or rather ho
of—and so when the dark-cloaked horseman galloped out of some fold in the air (for I swear I never saw nor heard him until he was all but upon us), it seemed that he planned to ride me down a-purpose, and I hastened to act.
Even then, though, I tried to hail him, warn him off; but he would come at me. More to the point, he was armed, as I could see, and I was not; and though he bore the badge of the Cup upon his tunic, as all questers did, his intent was plainly counter to that which the Cup embodied. I was on a sudden angered and incensed past ‘custom—I am not usually a wrathful person—at his hostile indifference and apparent murderous bent, and in my anger I resolved combat.
Now you will know from having read these chronicles thus far that I am by no means a warrior, at least not by comparison with such kin as Artos or Gerrans, or such Companions as Tarian or Roric or Daronwy or Betwyr or any of half a hundred others. Oh, to be sure, I had had a usual simple childhood training and familiarity with arms, such as every lass and lad in Keltia are given; and later, with the Counterinsurgency, I was given what more I might stand in need of to keep myself alive in my endeavors against the Marbh-draoi. So had we all been. But my vocation was not that of the warrior, and the Heroes’ Way not a road I travelled by choice.
Yet, though we love peace well enough in Keltia, we are not slow to use the strong arm where it is called for; and most especially not when a mounted sword-pointing stranger is bearing down upon us. So I called upon my old training (not so rusty, after all, though even in my spydays I had had little reason to summon it up) and met him full on.
Now, even though he was armed and I was not (I had only my little bronze dagger, as I have said), still there were ways, as the Fianna had taught me—even I, their unlikeliest and unhandiest pupil—and for all his fearsome aspect and approach, he must not have been so skilled after all, or else he was merely exceptionally unlucky; for on his second pass I levered him out of his saddle in the way I had been taught, and followed him down into the grassy verge. It looked for all the world (that bard’s brain, forever thinking of ways to put things into song—often when those things were still in progress) as if he had simply galloped up, lurched out of his saddle, flung himself upon the ground and handed me his sword.
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