The Darkest Road

by Guy Gavriel Kay

She almost succeeded, too. But in the stillness that followed, someone asked, “Kim, what happened in the mountains?”

  She turned to Paul Schafer, who had asked the question, who always seemed to ask the questions that went below the surface. She looked at him, and then at Loren, beside Paul, gazing at her with the mix of gentleness and strength that she remembered from the beginning, and then, most vividly, from the night they’d shared in the Temple, before Kevin had died. Before she went to Khath Meigol.

  So it was to the two of them, so different yet so much alike in some inexplicable way, that she told the story of the rescue of the Paraiko and what had followed. Everyone heard, everyone had to know, but it was to Loren and Paul that she spoke. And it was to Matt that she turned, at the end, to repeat, “And so you see what I mean: whatever blessing I carry will not be unmixed.” For a moment he looked at her, as if considering the point. Then his expression changed; she saw his mouth move in the grimace that she knew to be his smile and heard him say wryly, “No blade I have ever known to be worth anything at all has had only a single edge.”

  That was all, but she knew those quiet words were all the reassurance she had any right to seek.

  Inclination matched training in the High Priestess of Dana. And so Jaelle, cold in the falling rain, chilled by what had happened with Darien and what was happening now, since the shipwreck, showed nothing at all of her apprehension to anyone on the strand.

  She knew, being what she was, that it had been the voice of Mórnir that had thundered to still the waves, and so her gaze was on Pwyll first, of all of them, when he came ashore. She remembered him standing on another beach, far to the south, speaking with Liranan in a perilous light that came not from the moon. He was alive, though, and had come back. She supposed she was pleased about that.

  They had all come back, it seemed, and there was someone new with them, and it was not hard to tell, from Jennifer’s face, who this was.

  She had made herself cold and hard, but she was not stone, however she might try to be. Pity and wonder had moved her equally to see Guinevere and Lancelot stand together in the rain, as the setting sun slanted through disappearing clouds low in the west.

  She had not heard what they said to each other, but the language of gesture was plain, and, at the end, when the man walked away alone into the Wood, Jaelle found herself unexpectedly grieved. She watched him go, knowing the history, not finding it hard at all to guess what distancing quest Guinevere had now imposed upon her second love. What was hard was to preserve her own necessary image of detachment—in the presence of so many men, and in the turbulent wake of what had happened in the Temple before she had taken Kim and Sharra away, with blood and the earthroot tapped.

  She had needed the Mormae in Gwen Ystrat to wield such a potent magic, and that meant dealing with Audiart, which was never pleasant. Most of the time she could manage it without real trouble, but that afternoon’s exchange was different.

  She had been on dubious ground, and she’d known it, and so had Audiart. It was beyond the irregular, bordering on a real transgression for the High Priestess to be leaving the Temple—and the Kingdom—even at a time like this. It was her sacred duty, Audiart reminded her, along the mindlink the Mormae shared, to remain in the sanctuary, ready and able to deal with the needs of the Mother, Furthermore, her second-in-command did not scruple to point out, had not the High King charged her to remain in Paras Derval and govern the country with the Chancellor? Was it not her further duty to exploit this unexpected opportunity as best she could in the service of their unwavering quest for Dana’s return to primacy in the High Kingdom? All of this, unfortunately, was true. In response, all she could really do was pull rank, and not for the first time. Not actually dissembling, she had drawn upon the unease and restlessness she’d been feeling in the Temple and told the Mormae, without amplification, that it was her judgment, as High Priestess, that for her to leave at this time was according to the will of Dana—superseding any traditions or opportunities for gain.

  There was also, she had sent along the mindlink, a very real urgency—which was true, as she had seen from Kim’s white face and clenched hands as she waited tensely with Sharra under the dome, oblivious to the closed exchange of the priestesses.

  She had made that sending white-hot with her anger, and she was, still, stronger than any of the others. Very well, Audiart had replied. If you must do this, you must. I will leave for Paras Derval immediately to act as best I can in your absence.

  This was when the real clash had come, making what had gone before seem like a minor skirmish in a children’s game.

  No, she’d sent back, absolute firmness masking her inner anxiety. It is my command, and so Dana’s, that you stay where you are. It is only a week since the sacrifice of Liadon, and the rites of response are not complete.

  Are you mad? Audiart had replied, more nakedly rebellious than ever before. Which of those chattering idiots, those insipid nonentities, do you propose to have act in your stead in a time of war?

  A mistake. Audiart always let her contempt and ambition show through too clearly. Sensing the response of the Mormae, Jaelle drew a breath of relief. She was going to get away with it. Every established pattern of precedent would have demanded that the Second of the Mother come to Paras Derval to take charge in her absence. Had Audiart said so quietly, with even the most cursorily assumed humility, Jaelle might have lost this battle. As it was, she sprang to the attack.

  Would you like to be cursed and cast out, Second of Dana? she sent, with the silken clarity she alone could command over the mindlink. She felt the Mormae’s collectively indrawn breath at the unveiled threat. Dare you speak so to your High Priestess? Dare you so denigrate your sisters? Have a care, Audiart, lest you lose everything your scheming has won you thus far!

  Strong words, almost too strong, but she’d needed to throw them all off balance for what she had to say next.

  I have chosen my surrogate, and the Chancellor has been informed on behalf of the High King. I have this afternoon named the newest member of the Mormae, and she stands beside me, robed in red and opened now to the mindlink.

  Greetings, sisters of the Mother, Leila sent, on cue.

  And even Jaelle, half prepared for it, had been stunned by the vividness of her words.

  On the strand beneath the Anor Lisen, as the rain slowly came to an end and the sunset tinted the western sky, Jaelle was remembering that vividness. It offered a confirmation of sorts for her own instinctive actions and had served to still, quite effectively, whatever opposition to her peremptory behavior might have been mounted in Gwen Ystrat. Even so, there was something profoundly unsettling about the mixture of child and woman in Leila, and her link to the Wild Hunt. Dana had not yet chosen to reveal to her High Priestess any indication of what all this might mean.

  The voice of Loren Silvercloak, the mage she had hated and feared all her life, brought her fully back to the strand. She heard him reveal what had happened to him, and the triumph she might once have felt at such a revelation of weakness was quite lost in a wave of fear. They had need of Silvercloak’s power, and they were not going to have it.

  She’d hoped he might be able to send her home. So far from the Temple she had no magic of her own, no way to get back by herself—and, it now appeared, no one to help her. She saw the Baelrath come to life on the Seer’s hand; then she heard where Kim was going with that power.

  She listened to Pwyll’s question—his first words spoken since Prydwen had run aground and they’d come ashore. She wondered about him, how one who could speak with the thundered voice of the God could be so quiet and self-contained and then surface, when his presence had almost been forgotten, with words that cut through to the heart of what was happening. She was, she realized, a little afraid of him, and her attempts to channel that fear into hatred or contempt were not really working.

  Once more she forced her mind back to the beach. It was growing darker by the minute. In the shadows Diarmuid’s
fair hair was still bright, catching the last color of the western sky. It was the Prince who spoke now.

  “Very well,” he said. “It seems that what we have been told is all we are going to learn. Let us be grateful to our charming Priestess for such information as we do have. Now, Loren can’t reach Teyrnon anymore. Kim, I gather, has had a vision of Calor Diman but nothing of the armies. And Jaelle has exhausted her store of useful tidings.” The gibe seemed reflexive, halfhearted; she didn’t bother to respond. Diarmuid didn’t wait. “Which leaves us dependent,” he murmured, with what seemed to be a genuinely rueful shake of his head, “upon my own less than exhaustive store of knowledge about what my beloved brother is likely to do.”

  In some inexplicable way, the glib flow of words had a calming effect. Once more, Jaelle realized, the one she used to dismiss as the “princeling” knew exactly what he was doing. He had already decided, and now he was making the decision sound effortless and of little consequence. Jaelle looked at Sharra, standing beside the Prince. She wasn’t sure whether or not to pity her, which was another change: once she would have had no trouble doing so.

  “At a time like this,” Diarmuid continued, “I can do no better than go back to my precocious childhood memories. Some of you may have known patient, supportive older brothers. I have been blighted sadly by the lack of such a one. Loren will remember. From the time I was able to take my first stumbling steps in my brother’s wake, one thing was manifestly clear: Aileron never, ever, waited for me.”

  He paused and glanced at Loren, as if seeking his confirmation, but then continued in a voice from which the flippancy was suddenly gone. “He will not wait now, nor could he, given where we went. If he is on the Plain with the army and the lios with him, Aileron will push for battle; I would stake my life on that. In fact, with your leave, I will stake my life on it, and all of yours. Aileron will take the fight to Starkadh as swiftly as he can, which to my mind means one thing only.”

  “Andarien,” said Loren Silvercloak, who, Jaelle suddenly recalled, had taught both Diarmuid and his brother.

  “Andarien,” the Prince echoed quietly. “He will go through Gwynir to Andarien.”

  There was a silence. Jaelle was aware of the sea, and of the forest to the east, and, acutely now, of the dark shape of Lisen’s Tower looming above diem in the darkness.

  “I suggest,” Diarmuid went on, “that we skirt the western edge of Pendaran, going north from here, angle up through Sennett across the River Celyn to meet, if childhood memories have any merit at all, with the army of Brennin and Daniloth and the Dalrei on the borders of Andarien. If I am wrong,” he concluded, with a generous smile at her, “then at least we will have Jaelle with us, to terrify whatever the fifty of us find there.”

  She favored him with nothing more than a wintry glance. His smile grew broader, as if her expression had only confirmed his statement, but then, in one of his mercurial changes of mood, he turned and looked at Arthur, who had risen to stand.

  “My lord,” said the Prince, with no levity at all, “such is my counsel at this time. I will attend to any suggestion you might make, but I knew the geography here, and I think I know my brother. Unless there is something you know or sense, Andarien is where I think we must go.”

  Slowly the Warrior shook his head. “I have never been in this world before,” Arthur said in his deep, carrying voice, “and I never had a brother in any world. These are your men, Prince Diarmuid. Number me as one of them and lead us to war.”

  “We will have to take the women,” Diarmuid murmured.

  She was about to make a stinging retort, but in that moment something very bright caught her eye, and she turned to see the Baelrath on Kim’s finger burst into even more imperative flame.

  She looked at the Seer as if seeing her for the first time: the small slim figure with tangled hair, so improbably white, the sudden appearance of the vertical crease on her forehead. Again, she had a sense that there seemed to be burdens here greater than her own.

  She remembered the moment she had shared with Kim in Gwen Ystrat, and she wished, a little surprised at herself, that there were something she could do, some comfort she might offer that was more than merely words. But Jennifer has been right in what she’d said when Darien had gone: none of them had any real shelter to offer each other.

  She watched as Kim walked over to Pwyll and put her arms around him, gripping him very hard; Jaelle saw her kiss him on the mouth. He stroked her hair.

  “Till next,” the Seer said, an echo, clearly, of the world the two of them had left behind. “Try hard to be careful, Paul.”

  “And you,” was all he said.

  The Priestess saw her walk over to Jennifer then, and saw the two women speak, though she could not hear what they said. Then the Seer turned. She seemed to Jaelle to grow more remote, even as she watched. Kim gestured Loren and Matt to either side of her. She bade them join hands, and she laid her own left hand over both of theirs. Then she lifted her other hand high in the darkness and closed her eyes. In that instant, as if a connection had been made, the Warstone blazed so brightly it could not be looked upon, and when the blinding light was gone, so were the three of them.

  * * *

  When he woke it was quite dark in the Wood. Putting a hand to his head, Flidais could feel that his wound had healed. The pain seemed to be gone. So too, however, was his right ear. He sat up slowly and looked around. His father was there.

  Cernan had crouched down on his haunches, not very far away, and was regarding him gravely, the horned head held motionless. Flidais met the gaze for a long moment in silence.

  “Thank you,” he said at length, speaking aloud.

  The antlers dipped briefly in acknowledgment. Then Cernan said, also aloud, “He was not trying to kill you.”

  Nothing has changed, Flidais thought. Nothing at all. It was too old a pattern, laid down far too long ago, when both he and Galadan were young, for the anger or the hurt to be strong. He said mildly, “He wasn’t trying not to, either.”

  Cernan said nothing. It was dark in the forest, the moon not yet high enough to lend silver to the place where they were. Both of them, though, could see very well in the dark, and Flidais, looking at his father, read sorrow and guilt, both, in the eyes of the god. It was the latter that disarmed him; it always had.

  He said, with a shrug, “It could have been worse, I suppose.”

  The antlers moved again. “I healed the wound,” his father said defensively.

  “I know.” He felt the ragged edge of tissue where his ear had been. “Tell me,” he asked, “am I very ugly?”

  Cernan tilted his magnificent head in appraisal. “No more than before,” he said judiciously.

  Flidais laughed. And so too, after a moment, did the god—a deep, rumbling, sensuous sound that reverberated through the Wood.

  When the laughter subsided, it seemed very quiet among the trees, but only for those not tuned to Pendaran as were both of these, the forest god and his son. Even with only one ear, Flidais could hear the whispering of the Wood, the messages running back and forth like fire. It was why they were talking out loud: there was too much happening on the silent link. And there were other powers in Pendaran that night.

  He was suddenly reminded of something. Of fire, to be precise. He said, “It really could have gone worse for me. I lied to him.”

  His father’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

  “He wanted to know who had been in the Anor. He was aware that someone had. You know why. I said: only myself. Which was not true.” He paused, then said softly. “Guinevere was, as well.”

  Cernan of the Beasts rose to his feet with a swift animal-lithe motion. “That,” he said, “explains something.”

  “What?”

  In response, Flidais was offered an image. It was his father who was offering, and Cernan had never done him actual harm, although, until just now, little good either. And so, in uncharacteristic trust, he opened his mind and received the image
: a man walking swiftly through the forest with an utterly distinctive grace, not stumbling, even with the darkness and the entangling roots.

  It was not the one he’d expected to see. But he knew, quite well, who this was, and so he knew what must have happened while he lay unconscious on the forest floor.

  “Lancelot,” he breathed, an unexpected note, most of the way to awe, in his voice. His mind raced. “He will have been in Cader Sedat. Of course. The Warrior will have awakened him. And she has sent him away again.”

  He had been in Camelot. Had seen those three in their first life, and seen them again, without their knowing him, in many of the returnings they had been forced to make. He knew the story. He was a part of it.

  And now, he remembered with a flash of joy, like light in the darkness of the Wood, he knew the summoning name. That, however, brought back the memory of his oath. He said, “The child is in the Wood as well… Guinevere’s child.” And urgently, “Where is my brother now?”

  “He is running north,” Cernan replied. For an instant he hesitated. “He passed by the child, not a hundred yards away… some time ago, while you slept. He did not see or sense him. You have friends in the Wood angry for your shed blood: he was offered no messages. No one is speaking to him.”

  Flidais closed his eyes and drew a ragged breath. So close. He had a vision of the wolf and the boy passing by each other in the blackness of the Wood in the hour before moonrise, passing by so near and not knowing, not ever to know. Or did they? he wondered. Was there a part of the soul that reached out, somehow, toward possibilities barely missed, futures that would never be, because of such a little distance in a forest at night? He felt a stir of air just then. Wind, with a hint—only imagined, perhaps—of something more.

  He opened his eyes. He felt alert, sharpened, exalted still, by what had come to pass. There was no pain. He said, “I need you to do one thing for me. To help me keep an oath.”

  The dark eyes of Cernan flashed with anger. “You too?” he said softly, like a hunting cat. “I have done what I will. I have healed the damage my son did. How many of the Weaver’s bonds would you have me break?”