"Aye and nay," said Loherin, though how he came to know I could not tell you. "Dead in this world, but not in the greater; dead to this life, but not to living. He is taken out of time awhile; Taliesin knows, for he has seen this"—I fingered the gold case that held my gray feather, and nodded once—"though the rest have not. Not dead, then, but renewing; not alive, but transforming. And Merlynn must be protected from the world, and the world from him, until this state of peril and glory shall be completed, and he return at need."
"So he comes again!" cried one of the young members of the company, a dark Kymro I did not know.
"Oh aye," said Avallac’h, and now I could hear the centuries of exhaustion in his voice, and closed my eyes for pity of it. "He comes again, right enough, and not he alone. I say again: The Graal will not remain among you. It has a quest of its own to go on, and the other Hallows with it. For things have their dan even as do people, and the dan of the Treasures is this: that they must go from here, in the proper time of going, until the time is on them to return. They themselves shall set in motion the means by which they will be restored, and one shall be sent to the world whose dan is to bring them back. There shall be great need in that time, but though desperate it will not be the true need; for that Merlynn must awaken, and counsel be taken of the Graal Keeper. My charge to you, Pen-bardd"—I startled at his use of my title—"is to keep them all alive. Sing, then; sing of them all until that day comes. Sing of the Treasures, and Merlynn, and Arthur the King, and all of us, until the future hears your song."
He was growing weary now; but Gweniver too had somewhat she must ask.
"And are there no more words, then?"
"For the Ard-rian of Keltia, peace after pain"—Gweniver’s mouth tightened briefly, but she did not speak—"and for the daughter of the Yamazai, a daughter of her line to help that one who brings the holy Quaternity back to Keltia."
Donah looked thunderstruck, but exalted also. "My daughter? But Prince, I am far from even troth-plight—"
It seemed as if the pillar of brightness that was Avallac’h and Loherin together smiled benevolently upon her.
"True enough, but the daughter shall be of your House, not of your immediate bearing. So let the name Fionnabhair be given now and again to lasses of your line to come; she shall have need of that name to help her in her task."
Donah bowed but found no words; and I startled yet again as the brightness seemed to bend itself upon me. The words confirmed it.
"Pen-bardd"—and now it seemed Loherin who spoke—"one word more. Let the sword be reforged, and returned to its home-place. Let the sword flash downward in the stroke, and be sure it is well reforged ere that day of need is come."
And, ah, that bard’s brain was already translating this into songspeech deep and far within me, music already blowing through my awareness like mists in autumn… But now Gwyn and Birogue had come forward, and they were near as bright as Avallac’h and Loherin; and again I saw Fionn and Rhian upon them and through them and beyond them.
"We will take the Cup back beneath the hill, to lie with its comrades, until such time as they must go upon their immram." Birogue spoke for the first time here, and those of the company whose first encounter with the Sidhe this was caught their breath at the sound of her voice. But not all were too awed to speak up.
"Then what does Loherin remain to guard?" called one young Druid, a friend of Gerrans. "If the Cup does not even rest here—"
"The Cup will ever be here," said Gwyn, before any other could answer. And if they had shivered at Birogue’s power of voice, they positively shook at Gwyn’s… "Its physical self goes with us back to our own place. But its reality remains here at Caervanogue, and this is where it must be defended. Thus Loherin is Guardian, in the Castle of the Graal, until the need of him is ended—however long by your count of years that may take. And so now"—he moved forward and took the Graal from the brightness that had been Avallac’h and was now Loherin—"we bring them away. Farewell in Nudd’s name, all you who have sought so well and found so fairly. Taliesin Pen-bardd, brother to my folk, we shall meet soon again."
"‘Soon’!" I said, startled into speech and discourtesy alike. "By whose counting?"
But the seidean-sidhe was swirling round us now—though, strange to tell, not a grain of sand rose with it—and though I heard Gwyn’s laughing farewell to me over the rush of air and unseen troops or wings ("Soon, Talyn! No more! Be content!"), when I could open my eyes again against the light and wind, Gwyn and Birogue were gone, and the Cup with them.
And Avallac’h too was gone: The light that had been was vanished, and Loherin stood as he had been, the son of Tryffin of Kernow and Ysild the valorous of Arrochar, in plain light and ordinary guise. He looked to the outer eye much his usual self, but we knew so much better now…
Again a shiver of awe rippled over me. From this hour on, Loherin would never again be as other Kelts; indeed, was already not so. He might age, slightly and slowly, but even that was doubtful; more like, he would stay even as he now was, young and fair and unchanging in the world, until that long day came of which Avallac’h had spoken, and that one should come to seek his counsel, and to waken Merlynn my beloved teacher from his long sleep.
I was momentarily blinded by dan—quite literally blinded; the sight was taken from me for a few seconds, all I saw was blank brightness—and when I could see again, I wondered what it was that had gone by me. Certain sure it concerned me or mine most nearly; otherwise I had been permitted to see. And a tiny secret thought crept somewhere far within, full of traha and humility both together: Could it be true, as one or other of the principals here had implied—that I myself should be at hand, in the body, reborn when all these things should come to pass that my songs would serve to keep alive until that day? Hu Mawr! In what guise, whose form, which name?
But in Her mercy the Goddess does not usually give us to know of our incarnations and lives to come, any more than She permits us to keep more than a shadowy inkling memory of lives gone by. Either way, that knowledge would destroy us more surely than a sword: We would never do, but spend all our time in watching ourselves; we would not grow, and dan would not be served.
Thoroughly frightened now—bards, who so readily can calm or fright others, do a masterful job of daunting themselves—I pulled Morgan to me and held her close, to take of her what comfort I could. I felt older than Avallac’h, and every bit as weary; I longed now only to go home, as swiftly as I might, with my dear ones and companions riding beside me, to bring the news to Arthur the King that the Graal had been found, and that dan had been both met and set.
I looked at Loherin, who was speaking quietly and gravely to Gweniver Ard-rian. Even in his everyday existence Loherin of Kernow had been the fairest of mortal Kelts; now his beauty had become like to that of the Sidhe themselves, raised by high purpose and the hand of the gods to the measure of the task he had so joyfully accepted. And I felt a sudden stab of envy for the nobleness of the task, and also for the knowledge of what Loherin would come to see, down the centuries of his duty, with those very same eyes with which he now studied Morgan…
I came to myself with a start, to find Loherin’s eyes warm and kind on me in my turn. I did not need to explain a thing to him.
"Nay, cousin, do not grieve for me," he said quietly. "Nor yet covet the task. Yours will be greater still, I promise. All is as it will be, Talynno. Go now. We shall meet again." And he kissed me, and embraced me, and we parted for this life.
He made his farewells to the others of his kin and friendship—a long and deep converse with Donah, which none overheard, words to several of us to be given to his parents—and then he was gone from among us, suddenly, silently, just as Avallac’h had come and the Graal itself had come, and gone as he had gone. Only, above us, the great seaward gates of Caervanogue swung slowly closed, and no hand was seen to shut them fast…. and we found ourselves standing upon the farther shore of the Dragonsea, at Fairlight, our horses with us (and they
not best pleased at the sudden alarming change of scene). I believe we all shouted, in terror or amazement or surprise or sorrow according to our feeling and nature, and turned as one to the island whence we had so precipitately arrived here.
Beckery was vanishing even as we watched: It went shimmering, back once more behind its shields and veils of magic, safe in the power of a new Graalkeeper, the white pennon upon Caervanogue’s highest turret the last to disappear; and then it was gone, and the white causeway even, too, and the sea stretched seamlessly green from our boots at its western fringe to the shores of the Easter Isles.
"Well," said Gweniver, Ard-rian of Keltia, and she spoke for all of us, "that is that."
And she was so right to say it.
* * *
BOOK THREE:
Suantrai
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
Arthur was in the gate to meet us, as we had rather thought he might be. Although no advertisement had been made of our coming home, he had known even so of our midnight arrival—perhaps Morgan had bespoken him, mind to mind, or perhaps he had just, well, known—for here he was, come hastily as it seemed, clad only in boots and trews and a thin silkwool cloak flung round him against the October chill.
"You might have dressed for the occasion," I remarked as I swung stiffly out of my saddle and into his bear-hold of an embrace. We held each other a moment or two, scarce long enough, then turned as one to help Gweniver and Morgan down from their own mounts. A passionate embrace for his wife and Queen, another for his sister; then Arthur was moving like the seidean-sidhe down the line of riders to Donah—who was nodding in her saddle, poor weary lass, with Gerrans watching carefully lest she topple over.
We had ridden home to Caerdroia straight and swiftly, bidding farewell along our way to the others of the Graal’s Company whose own homes lay elsewhere on Tara; had even seen a good few off-planet at Mardale, the spaceport that served the Crown City, twelve miles to the east in one of the Loom’s broader vales. Now the Caerdroians had all come home together from the great quest.
Arthur shepherded us all inside Turusachan, as if he had been a particularly assiduous sheepdog and we excessively strayed lambs of the flock. Pendreics, friends, kindred, neighbors, even those we had not known before the quest began—all were chivvyed alike into the Palace by the High King, who seemed to have assumed for the moment the duties of eager doorward.
Though my most overriding emotion just then was plain simple childlike gladness to be home, I did manage to be glad to see how Arthur received his long-absent Gwen—they had flung themselves upon one another with a will—and all the more so because I myself had been parted from my own mate until that last day at Caervanogue and knew well how it felt. But here we all were, safe home, and though I was longing very much by now for naught but my own wide soft familiar comfortable bed, the news had to be imparted to the High King and his chief ministers—just Tarian, Grehan and Ygrawn, for now—before any slumber be selfishly thought of.
So Arthur solicitously ordered us fed and drenched, most heavily and unsuitably for the time of night and the state of our bodies. To my everlasting surprise, we all revived with the onslaught of food and drink rather than collapsed beneath it; revived sufficiently to give lucid account of our questing before sleepwalking off to bed (and the nightmares our overeating would soon cost us). Even Donah, who had more cause than most for weariness, woke up to tell her father all her adventure (Arthur threw me a deeply grateful thoughtsmile when it came to her telling of my small part in her quest). As for the rest of us, we acquitted ourselves respectably and gave good enough accounting of events, for now at least; fuller details, and a complement of recorder-bards to hear them, must wait till the morning, or some morning…
Then we all went to our beds and slept like the slain. Sounder. I did not even recollect Morgan beside me, and was in fact quite surprised to find her there when I wakened a day and a night and a day again after.
On the morning of the day after that, I was slept out, and up betimes to watch the day break over the City and the valley of the Avon Dia spread out below me.
I stood on the topmost tower of the Keep, the great square-built tower at the heart of Turusachan. Raised by Brendan’s master-builder Gradlon of Ys—he who had engineered the Nantosvelta—the Keep was the first structure to rise on the level small plateau between the Lower City and the Loom behind. Indeed, it set its granite back against the hill itself; Eryri, Mount Eagle, made the fourth wall of Brendan’s tower.
I had long time since discovered a high rampart overlooking the fifty-mile view, where I could see and not myself be seen, and had come there often. So now that I was home at last from my captivity—there had been so little time between escaping Marguessan and leaving on quest that I did not trouble even to count it—this refuge was the first place I sought. And I was not the only one to seek it.
"I knew you would be here," said Arthur, looking pleased with himself. He came through the door in the tower behind me, latching it so that none else could intrude, and settled himself into one of the merlon nooks, levered out from the battlements, five hundred feet above the Great Square.
"I wish you would not sit so," I snapped, as my guts seemed to plummet like a stone down through my feet and right straight through the embrasure where he was so comfortably lodged.
He laughed, but did not move; and throwing him an evil look, I retreated to the curve of the tower wall, planting my back firmly and solidly against the ruddy eternal granite of the ashlar that formed it. Some things never change…
When no word came from Arthur’s vicinity for more minutes than usual, I glanced curiously up at him. He was not looking at me but out over the million-acre vista, as I had earlier done myself, and I schooled myself to study him, as the King, as a bard and a stranger might see him.
And, tell you the truth, I found it unexpectedly difficult: I had known this soul, this Artos, all this life, and, no doubt, many lives before it. Scarce a memory I had that did not have him somewhere within it, or near: I knew his face better than I knew my own, his moods likewise, his weaknesses and his strengths. I knew him in many, many aspects: When I looked at him I saw the High King of Keltia and the little runabout lad with whom I had taken the vows of fosterance before I was six years old. Saw my wife’s brother, my foster-mother’s child; Gweniver’s wedded lord and Majanah’s onetime mate; Arawn’s father, Amris’s son.
"Sometimes you are hard to find, Artos," I said aloud, "in the midst of yourself."
A smile touched the mouth in the silvering beard, but still he did not turn to me.
"So Gwennach said the night you all returned… But I am here, Talyn; indeed, I never left."
"Do you mind?" I asked presently. "Avallac’h said it was your dan to remain, and that it would be harder for you to wait than for us to ride on quest."
At that he did laugh, and shot me the old sparkling glance full of amused chagrined admission I knew so well.
"And how right he was to say so… Nay, I do not mind, not truly; yet still—it would have been a fine thing to ride with you, to have made a twenty-seventh in your company. And to see the Cup so!" He was silent a moment, and I knew he was remembering as I was that day beneath the hill, when Nudd ap Llyr had tested us and then rewarded us with the proffer of the Treasures. Arthur had accepted only Fragarach, the great Sword of Light that never let itself be drawn in evil cause; the other sacred things he had left in the Sidhe’s keeping. And it was from that keeping that the Cup had been snatched away by Marguessan and her dwimmer-workings…
"Aye," said Arthur, nodding, for he saw what I saw. "What are we to do about her?"
"She is your sister," I said to remind him, and let a tiny note of reproof edge my voice. He shrugged angrily, and I tried another tack. "Have you had word of her since the Graal came back?"
Arthur shook his head. "Only that she is thought to have left Tara, after—Galeron’s death."
"And Gwain’s reviving," I said ster
nly, and he nodded.
"What is it with Marguessan!" he suddenly exploded. "Tell me, Bard of Keltia, how is it that from the one birthing can come two souls so utterly opposed as Morgan and Marguessan?"
"I know not," I said. "It is almost as if—"
"As if what?" When I did not at once reply: "Speak, Glyndour! Speak your mind to your Ard-righ!"
"As if they had but one dan and soul between them," I said slowly, "and it was halved, the part of the Light being Morgan’s and the Dark—"
"And the Dark for Marguessan’s portion," he finished for me. "Aye, well, naught new there, that has been said many times before. Only now, with this matter of the Cup—
"Artos," I said, suddenly sure, "what is the trouble? It is not your sister’s devilry, not this time. What is on you?"
Arthur threw me another of those looks. "You truly are a tiresome man, do you know that… Well then, two things. Three."
"Never mind how many; only tell them. This is I here, Talyn; none else is near to listen."
"Melwas of Fomor is coming to Keltia," he said then, no preamble, and smiled grimly as I gaped. "You do remember Melwas?"
"Oh aye," I said slowly. "I recall the Prince of Fomor’s heir very well."
"No heir more, nor yet Prince himself but King now," said Arthur, pleased to have confounded me. "And it seems that that seed we put down of friendship has come to flower at last: He comes with an embassy to make a formal treaty of friendship and trade with us, enlarging on that pact we made on Ganaster."
I thought for a while, recalling the circumstances. "Friendship is well and good, but trade is done on Clero. Is that not why we have a trading planet in the first place?"
"It is," conceded Arthur. "But I have called some of our merchant chiefs home from Clero to negotiate with the Fomori trader lords. All of them will arrive before the winter Sun-standing, and will remain at least until Brighnasa."
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