The Harrowing of Gwynedd

by Katherine Kurtz

  Queron chuckled aloud at that, patting his free hand wearily against Evaine’s, where it still curved against his neck.

  “Dear lady, after what we’ve all just been through, I wouldn’t dream of asking. I confess, I’m too numb to think very clearly, so you just do what you think is best. You know what I need, both in body and mind. You’ve worked with one of the best Healers I ever knew. You just set your orders, and we’ll all be off for some well-deserved rest.

  “And Joram,” he went on, turning his attention to the younger man, “I don’t think you ever need to be wary about your ability to operate in my league.” He shook his head at Joram’s beginning protest. “No, don’t deny it. You were intimidated by my reputation, which I’ve cultivated carefully for many, many years; and I deliberately let you think I was as good as you thought I was. I’m good,” he agreed, holding up a finger for emphasis, “but so are you. You were trained by Camber MacRorie, after all—whether or not he really is a saint.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  For thou seest that our sanctuary is laid waste, our altar broken down, our temple destroyed.

  —II Esdras 10:21

  Joram took Queron’s Mass the next morning. Queron slept until ccmidaftemoon and lay on his pallet thereafter, thinking, until Evaine came with a tray of supper, an uncomfortable-looking Joram accompanying her.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” Evaine said brightly. “I’ve brought you something to eat. How do you feel?”

  Queron smiled and swung his legs off the bed, taking the tray on his lap. “Hungry. How should I feel, after you’ve let me sleep all day?” He chose to ignore the look the two exchanged as he bit into a slab of bread spread thick with butter and honey. “I do hope someone showed up to celebrate Mass this morning,” he went on, around the bite of sweetness. “It’s one of my few contributions to this little flock, in addition to rather niggling Healer’s duty when one of the children has a scuffed knee or a stomachache. You should let me do more.”

  “You’ve already done a lot,” Joram said quietly. His eyes had a faintly haunted look. “We haven’t the right to ask more of you.”

  “But you have asked,” Queron replied. “And I’ve thought it over and I accept.”

  Evaine glanced at her hands, suddenly shy to look him in the eyes. “Searching out the records we need is only the beginning, Queron. If we find what we’re looking for, the magical working required almost certainly will be unlike anything any of us has ever done before. Nor will it be without its dangers, perhaps to our very souls as well as our lives. You should know what you’re getting into.”

  Queron started to speak, then paused to pass both hands in a ritual gesture somewhat hampered by the piece of bread in his hand. The impediment did not affect the Wards that rose up around the room in a shimmer of silvery light.

  “I wonder, do either of you know what you’re getting into, where that’s concerned?” Queron said, after another bite of honeyed bread. “Oh, you know you must try to reverse a spell that you think Camber worked successfully—and I’d like another look at him, now that I’ve somewhat recovered from my initial shock—but neither of you knows any more than I do about what may actually be involved. You’re not even sure how the spell was set, never mind how it needs to be reversed.”

  “I’ve seen the result of a failed setting at rather close range,” Joram said quietly, “back when this whole thing began. Ariella tried it, after the real Alister pinned her to a tree with a spell and his sword. Either she died before she could complete it or she did it wrong. Father did neither.”

  “I believe you may be right,” Queron answered softly.

  “I was also with him when Rhys was dying,” Joram went on, almost daring Queron to deny it. “He was confident enough that he could work the spell that he thought about using it to try to save Rhys until a Healer could get there to do a proper job. He decided that the decision was one he couldn’t make for another soul—which means, one must conclude, that he felt there was danger that went beyond the mere finitude of existence in a physical body. From that and from the research Evaine and I have done, I think we realize the kind of power we’re dealing with. Gabrilite training isn’t everything, you know.”

  “No one ever said it was, son.”

  For a few minutes, Queron only continued eating, finally pouring himself a cup of ale from the pottery pitcher on the tray and gulping it down.

  “I think you’ll agree that Gabrilite training does offer some unique features, however,” he went on, as if the break had not occurred. “In general terms, you’re surely aware of some of the things it implies. I’ll bend my vows by telling you that it also implies connection with an ancient mystery school whose very existence I’m not supposed to reveal. It’s entirely possible that knowledge coming from that source might apply to what we need to do—in which case, I’d have to consider very carefully what I dare share with you. I am still bound by some oaths no less strong than those I gave you in the keeill a few weeks ago.”

  Evaine breathed out softly, still not looking up at him. “We’re aware of the existence of other traditions alongside the Gabrilite,” she said. “You studied with Dom Emrys, didn’t you? He once told Father that he’d had his original training in a tradition that was neither Gabrilite nor Michaeline. It was even pre-Varnarite, wasn’t it? We’ll be looking at some Varnarite texts, with any luck.”

  As she looked up at him at last, her blue eyes were glowing like sapphires. Joram’s face was closed and shuttered, the grey eyes like granite, but no threat could be read from either of them.

  “I think,” Queron said, setting aside his tray, “that we never quite finished some business in the keeill, back when I gave you my oath. I don’t think we need go back there for this, do you?” he went on, holding out a hand to each of them. “If I’m to help you, I need to know everything you kept back because it was tied in with your secret about Camber. I can handle it here, if you can, but we need to get this resolved, I think.”

  Wordlessly, Evaine and then Joram sat down on either side of him, joining hands with him and then with each other across his knees. In a harmony jagged at first, with Queron unused to their three-way linkage, they settled into deep rapport.

  This time, there was no holding back save in the areas of Queron’s esoteric oaths of secrecy and his and Joram’s priestly offices. This Evaine and Joram simply knew, with a certainty that echoed the closest bonds any of them had ever had with other Deryni. All knowledge pertinent to the situation was shared, including a full briefing to Queron of all the material they had assembled thus far and what Evaine felt they needed next. Whatever misgivings any of them might have had about one another previously were dispelled by the time they dismantled the rapport.

  “I shouldn’t think we ought to waste any time, though,” Queron said, plucking a piece of cheese from the discarded tray and taking a bite. “The Varnarite library is sure to be an early target for the Custodes Fidei, if Bishop Edward’s minions haven’t already gotten to it.”

  “You don’t think they’ll burn the library, do you?” Evaine asked, horrified.

  “Oh, very likely. Parts of it, at least.” Queron poured himself another cup of ale to wash down his cheese. “That would be a particular pity, since Grecotha had a copy of the Liber Ricae, the last time I looked. We should go tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Joram had said it, but both he and Evaine looked surprised.

  “But don’t you need to rest?” Evaine asked. “We put you through a lot last night.”

  “Very true,” Queron replied, draining off his ale. “Gabrilites have wonderful resiliance, though. When this is all resolved, and we have more time, I’ll teach you both some of our techniques. Go get changed now, both of you, while I finish eating. Michaeline blue is not conducive to sneaking into establishments run by paranoid bishops these days, Joram. And Evaine—you can’t go climbing around ruins comfortably in skirts. Borrow someone’s boots and breeches.”

  An hour later, all of
them suitably garbed and fed and armed with implements for shifting earth, their excuses made to Niallan, who must take charge in their absence, the three of them stood outside the door to the sanctuary’s Transfer Portal. Though they had not consulted among themselves, all had chosen clothing in shades of grey and black, stone- and shadow-colored. Joram wore a close-fitting leather cap with his ears exposed and handed one to each of his companions.

  “Besides providing camouflage for the two of us with yellow beacons for hair, the caps give some protection where headroom is close,” he said, as Evaine coiled the braided tail of her hair inside hers and pulled it on. “At least Evaine won’t concuss herself, with all that padding,” he added with a grin, as she felt the soft cushion on top of her head.

  Queron smiled and put on his cap as well. “One would think you’d done this kind of clandestine foraging before,” he said. “One of the advantages of Michaeline training, no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” Evaine said, before Joram could reply. “Who’s going through first?”

  Joram ended up going through first with Queron, since he had been there before, then returned to bring Evaine. Queron’s silvery handfire met Evaine and Joram as they stepped from the plastered Portal chamber into a timbered corridor strewn with rubble. Both Evaine and Queron had seen the place through Joram’s memory, but it was different, seeing it in person. Different individuals noted different things. Evaine was struck by the dank, stagnant air, overlaid with a faint, sweetish odor she had smelled before.

  “Dry rot?” she whispered, brushing fingertips across a crumbling wall panel.

  “And wet rot, rising damp, woodworm, deathwatch beetles—you name it,” Joram replied, pulling on gloves. “God, it’s worse than I remembered!”

  “Well, you were here in the autumn before,” Queron murmured, his boots making crunching sounds as he ground rubble against the tessellated tiles. “I’d expect winter to be wetter. To the left, I believe?”

  Joram nodded, steadying himself with a hand against the wall as he stepped across the debris to join Queron. “As good a direction as any other. You probably ought to see the parts I saw, before we get too far afield. There’re some interesting frescoes on these walls ahead. Watch your heads.”

  The frescoes to which Joram referred had long since ceased to have any artistic merit. If Evaine squinted her eyes just right, she could imagine she saw the scenes of monastic and academic life Joram had noted on his first visit, but that was stretching credibility to its limits. What lay ahead interested her far more, in any case—just around a sharp bend to the right.

  The vast doorway once had supported heavy double doors of oak bound with iron. One of the doors had fallen since Joram’s last visit, its upper hinge finally rusted through; the lower had been ripped from the wood by whatever catastrophe had brought the place to ruin. Joram did not attempt to push the remaining door ajar, but scrambled up the gentle incline of the fallen one and held out a hand to Evaine when he had jumped down to the littered floor level on the other side of the door sill.

  “Adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum, et confitebor nomini tuo,” Queron recited behind them, reading from an inscription carved on the lintel beam high above his head. “I will worship toward Thy holy temple, and will give glory to Thy Name.” He chuckled softly. “Well, that’s apt.”

  “Yes, but for what?” Joram murmured, as Queron joined him and Evaine. “Father and I were never able to figure it out.”

  “Oh, it’s apt for the folk who built this place,” Queron replied, gesturing forward. “Shall we?”

  The great domed chamber they had just entered was vast, sucking up the feeble light of their handfires even when they each conjured a second sphere. It bore a superficial resemblance to the keeill underneath the Camberian Council chamber, but it was much larger. A circular dais of seven steps supported a black and white cube altar very like the one in the keeill, but the top level of the dais was inlaid with black and white tiles set in a checkerboard design that echoed the motif of the altar sides. The pavement was badly damaged, as was the top of the altar, perhaps by the impact of something heavy and substantial that had fallen from a length of broken chain dependent from a central boss high above. The chain ended in nothingness well short of the cracked altar top, which once had been a polished expanse of white marble. Above and all around, the ribs and arches of the chamber’s domed ceiling disappeared into a gloom that was little dissipated by handfire, even when they sent several additional spheres aloft. Shattered glass and masonry littered the steps around the altar, though the dais itself had been swept mostly clear.

  “Father and I did that,” Joram whispered, indicating the space.

  As Queron glided closer to inspect some of the glass shards, crouching beside the bottom step, Evaine began moving around the room’s perimeter.

  At least in the evocations depicted on the chamber’s walls, the place had been an elemental shrine, Evaine soon realized. As she moved from quarter to quarter, making the complete circuit of the chamber, the cool greens of a shaded forest glade gave way to a dark, brooding sky filled with scudding storm clouds, to the fire of summer lightning, and then the cool, tranquil beauty of a lake shore nestled among craggy mountain peaks. The familiarity was somehow comforting, though the chamber itself was not.

  Evaine glanced at Joram, standing near the door and watching their reactions, arms folded across his chest. Queron had ascended the dais steps and was standing at the altar, his hands spread flat on its surface, eyes closed. As she mounted the steps to join him, Queron looked up, still in the trance of his deep reading, a trace of an odd little smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

  “I see what Joram means about the altar still being a power source, after all these years,” he murmured, inviting her to feel it for herself.

  Without comment, she moved in beside him, setting her hands flat on a part of the altar that had been exposed when the top was smashed, one hand on a black surface and the other on white. Closing her eyes, she felt the upsurge of power almost at once, strong eddies of pure energy that spiralled upward like a gentle tide, washing at the edges of her mind with a force that held just a hint of menace behind the raw potential.

  She blinked as she withdrew, unconsciously wiping her palms against the sides of her tunic as she glanced at Queron uneasily.

  “Do you have any idea who used this altar?” she murmured. “And more important, for what?”

  Queron shook his head. “I could hazard a few educated guesses, but I’d prefer to wait until I’ve had a chance to digest all of this,” he said. “Meanwhile, I seem to recall a library that wants finding. We’d best not spend too much time here.”

  “Come this way, then,” Joram said, gesturing back the way they had come. “There’s supposed to be a branch off the main corridor, not far from here. We’ll start there.”

  They spent the remainder of the night picking their way through a series of partially collapsed passageways that got worse the farther they went. Toward the end, they had to stop and dig through where a portion of roof had fallen in.

  “Father did this,” Joram told them in hushed tones, as they shifted the rubble, stone by stone. “A branch of this passageway, farther along, was one of the ones that still led close to the surface. He didn’t want anyone wandering down here who shouldn’t be. We’ll have several places like this, if I’ve interpreted the plans correctly.”

  That night’s work brought them little closer to their goal, however. The next night was hardly more fruitful. The third night saw them gain hesitant access to an area immediately underneath one end of the bishop’s residence, however, skirting a cellar complex that once had held a fine collection of wine amassed by Camber-Alister and his predecessors as Bishops of Grecotha. Only Evaine’s curiosity, as she investigated a supposedly blocked up squint in a wall, averted what might have been a fatal mishap. She had to stretch to peer through the narrow spy hole, and nearly gasped aloud at what she saw.

  What is it?
Queron asked, his question blasting into her mind.

  She eased back to let him look, still seeing the scene before her in memory: the dim, close confines of the hall beyond, lit by smoky cressets along the walls, its floor virtually lined with the sleeping forms of dozens of soldiers of the bishop’s garrison. And this late at night, the slightest sound made in the hidden corridor that passed so close might be heard and remarked by the men sleeping there.

  They beat a quiet but hasty retreat after that, and shifted their operations to the daylight hours in the future, when inadvertant sounds would not carry such potential danger. Since little natural light penetrated to the depths where they moved, the change of time made little difference on that account; they still used handfire, rather than torches, to eliminate the risk of smoke giving away their presence. A difference it did make was the opportunity it gave them to spy upon actual activities instead of sleeping men. On the fifth day, they even gained access to a narrow lancet window that looked out onto the main courtyard of the bishop’s manor.

  Smoke was curling upward from something smoldering in the center of the yard. At first Evaine thought they were burning leaves or the blacksmith had set up his forge in the center of the yard and was having trouble getting his fire to draw properly.

  Then she saw the monks carrying the stacks of parchment rolls and the occasional bound book, lining up to consign the volumes to the flames.

  “So, dear Bishop Edward is purging his library,” Queron murmured, close beside her ear. “What do you want to bet that our Liber Ricae is either in that lot or on its way in there?”

  Evaine shuddered and turned away to bury her face in her brother’s shoulder. “How can they do that?” she whispered. “How can they burn books?”

  “The same way they burn people,” Joram muttered. “Books are just as dangerous.”