by GJ Kelly
“What is it, Allazar?” Gawain asked, beginning now to fear the answer. “You’ve been looking at me as though Gwyn had died in the night but no-one’s had the courage to tell me. And it’s not just you, either. I saw the same expression in Ranger Kiran’s eyes the other night. And I’ve seen it often in Valin’s and Meeya’s. Now there it is, in the one place I least expected to see anything of the kind.”
“It is just journey’s ending, Gawain. So much has happened along the way since we left your hall in the autumn.”
“Again I say, Orsey-kek. Come now, wizard. This is not some sadness born of the ending of our quest. We’ve endured enough sorrow and misery on this venture as it is, without adding another to the list. Tomorrow we ride through the forest path and up to the doors of the hall; if there’s to be any sorrow of disbanding at journey’s end that’s the place to feel it, not sitting on our saddles at the edge of the eastern wetlands miles from the forest and Oggy squatting in the rain behind a bush.”
“Will you permit me not to answer? Will you allow the remainder of our journey to pass without my adding to the burdens you already carry on your kingly shoulders?”
“Burdens I carry?” Gawain snorted, “So says the Last Sardor of the D’ith! You, who’ve suffered the rising of Eldenbeard and the ending of the Hallencloister, the heart of all wizardkind left without a pulse and nothing now but a ruin wrought by Orb and Shadow? You who bear upon your back the Sceptre of Raheen, sought by our enemies since Elayeen claimed it from the bony claw of their dead and despicable elfbeard bastard A’knox? You say I have burdens?”
Allazar sighed, and Gawain’s eyes narrowed, remembering what once was a humorous and passing thought but which now took on much more serious undertones.
“You do still have the sceptre, Allazar? You didn’t lose it along the way or hide it somewhere fearing the enemy?”
“I still have the sceptre in its case upon my back, Gawain, I too am not as dense as Ognorm is heavy.”
“Then speak! Dwarfspit! We’ve travelled a great distance together you and I, as you yourself have so often said. Even when strange aquamire sharpened my senses and provided incisive insight and clarity, the reason for such profound sorrow as I’ve witnessed in my lady and my friends eluded me. I have no chance of understanding it now that the strange aquamire is discharged. And for that I blame you, you beardy goit. If I hadn’t needed to liberate the strange aquamire within me to release you and Eldenbeard from Kanosenn’s binding, I’d still be able to think as clearly as I did before.”
“I marvel, my friend, so simple a truth has evaded you for so long, ever since that fateful day when the three of us stood together in the circles of your father’s hall. You are my king, and though you likely will never declare it, you are, at least for my part, my friend,” and again Allazar sighed. “Can you wonder why I would not wish to speak of something I know will break your proud and noble heart?”
“Oh now my curiosity is become all dread, and as the Hallencloister plagued my dreams and waking hours with its vexatious insistence upon answers, now I must know. Tell me, Allazar. Nobody else will. Not even my lady. What terror approaches? And I know it must be terrible, and some horror made in elder days, linked to that vakin Morgmetal casket in the down-below of Crown Peak, and Elayeen’s bracelet, and hooked to all we’ve endured together. Please, Allazar, rid me of this last question-mark which hovers like a wizened and back-bent harbinger of doom over my head.”
“You already know the answer, Gawain, yet you refuse to see it. Have I and our lady not said it often enough? Did I not say so, in the down-below of Crown Peak before we left for the Hallencloister? Did I not say, we were all of us rewritten?”
“You did.”
Allazar’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Did I not also say our own separate qualities turned each of the three rune-rings, and all three aligned unlocked the great power of the circles which smote the Teeth and smacked Morloch back behind the wall of his binding. And then those qualities in us were rewritten to achieve a single end.”
“You did. You have, and so too Elayeen. We know this, we’ve always known this. And we’ve always known that the single end to be achieved is found in the three words which girdled the home-stone in my father’s hall. Friyenheth, Ceartus, Omniumde.”
“And still you will not see what lies so plain for the elves of Minyorn to see, even with unSighted eyes? Don’t you understand, Gawain? All of us were rewritten. So too your seed,” Allazar’s voice dropped so low that Gawain had to lean forward, aghast, to hear his words. “The life unborn yet carried by your lady bears the qualities of all of us who stood together. He shall be the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell. The Wolf of Issilene Reborn…”
Gawain’s heart began to pound, remembering the words Eldenbeard had spoken to Kanosenn before the elfwizard’s destruction.
Soon shall come the days of the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell. You have loosed the wolves. You shall be devoured.
“What do you mean?” Gawain whispered, the sound of his heart thumping in his breath.
“Do you not recall the elven dawntime tale our lady told by Lord Rak’s fireside, after the battle of Far-gor? The tale of Yargo, finest of all hunters, who admired Issilene when she took the form of elfkind?”
“Yes, I remember,” heart pounding so loud now that surely Allazar must hear it.
“Do you not recall that Issilene bore seven sons, and took from them all pride, and fear, and anger, and pity, and love, and made of them the Shimaneth Issilene.
“I remember...” breath shortening, as if in expectation of imminent battle.
“To them was given the duty of seeking out all things unnatural, and destroying them, for there can be no light without shadow, and even in those dawntime days, dark powers and demons lurked. Thus were born the hunter-warriors of Issilene, wolves of elves loosed upon the darkness.”
“Yes, I remember the story…” But Gawain’s mind was reeling. He did remember the story. How could he forget it? The creatures Elayeen had described had seemed to him remarkable, a wonderful addition to any army bent upon the destruction of all things dark wizard-made…
“They were cold, Gawain. Cold, our lady said, bereft of compassion, merciless and single-minded. In pursuit of some foul creature, they would pass all others by, the needy or wounded abandoned to their fate in the name of duty.
“So cold were they that when they encountered others of the kindred, those others would shiver, and bar their doors. But the Shimaneth cared not, for they lived for their duty and knew neither compassion, nor love, nor pride, nor anger. Pain they knew, for it warned of injury and allowed them to rest and to heal, the better to hunt again.”
“Allazar…” Gawain whispered, eyes damp. “It was surely just a story…”
“Perhaps it was, my friend, and I wish I could speak words that might comfort you. But the circles in your father’s hall were not a story, nor a dawntime tale of creation. The myths and legends of Minyorn might be dismissed as tales of elder days too, but for a Morgmetal casket sealed and hidden more than two thousand years ago, awaiting she who wears the horse yet she be born of tree. She who bears a key which passed through sixty-two generations of elfkind against the coming of the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell.”
“My son will not be some heartless wolf, Allazar!” Gawain pleaded, desperate for reassurance.
But the wizard’s features remained utterly bereaved. “Perhaps not heartless... I do not know. But he shall be the wolf reborn of Minyorn’s myth. He shall be the reaper of the darkness described in the Arathalaneer, the ancient song for the fallen Thalangard. My friend… he shall bear qualities rewritten from all three of us who stood together in the circles. He shall be the Word, the Sight, and the Deed. He shall be of humankind, and elfkind and… of wizardkind.”
Gawain gaped, his stomach churning, heart pounding and head thumping. A strange voice, weak and feeble, asked the question he himself was too afraid to ask. “My son… a whitebeard?”
Allazar’s hand reached out and gripped Gawain’s shoulder.
“Oh my friend and my king,” he whispered. “I do not recall the illustration in the final panel of the Book of Thangar, but the panel was one of many, and arranged in a circle. Master Arramin will send a copy to me from the vaults of Crownmount if he can, but that the illustration was a circle made up of individual panels alludes to the reason for Sardor Eljon’s expression when I mentioned the final panel. The circle, Gawain, always turning, with neither beginning nor ending. How can there be a final panel? The world has turned, and now come again the days of Issilene’s warriors, the rebirth not just of the Sight, but of Nature’s warriors, the Shimaneth Issilene, to drive into the shadows once more the darkness which blights our world.”
Gawain blinked, his mind in turmoil. “Then, my deed is done, and your words have been spoken? Is this it? Is this all there is of us now?”
“No. We have only begun our work. Our task now is to safeguard our lady and your son, and to teach him all we know. It is he who shall defeat the Toorseneth and release Elvendere from Toorsen’s grip. It is he shall restore elvendom, and scythe the darkness like a reaper in the fields. So says the prophecy of Minyorn. Why else do we bear the sceptre, but for him to wield? Who else but one of wizardkind could wield Dymendin? The Sceptre of Raheen shall be his, as the Sword of Raheen is yours.”
Gawain could hear the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears. His son. A heartless wolf of a man, doomed to roam the lands seeking out the darkness to avenge all affronts against Nature? Not even a man, but some bizarre hybrid elf-man-whitebeard, so cold and terrifying to behold that all of the kindred would turn away from the sight of him, and bar their doors against him… it was clearly some grotesque joke that the wizard was playing.
But the dampness in Allazar’s eyes and on his cheeks was not rain, and Gawain knew it was no joke. He should have seen it. It was so obvious, now that Allazar had explained it. So obvious. Elayeen knew. Doubtless all the Kindred Rangers knew. Even Morloch and the Toorseneth knew but like Gawain preferred not to believe ancient tales and prophecies.
Know this, king of nothing! Know this now! No futile relics or prophecies of darken days dimmed by the dust of millennia can defeat me!
So said Morloch at Far-gor.
You are nothing! No victory was yours! Where are your wizards? Where is your King of Ashes? Where is your prophecy!
So said Morloch, at Tarn.
Do you really think the Toorseneth cares for childish tales croaked by cackling crones around their reeking peat-fire flames? D’you think we are here for the sake of some pissant peasant’s prophecy? Do you think the Creed would risk war with Callodon for a story?
So said Oze of the ToorsenViell, at Dun Meven, or so Elayeen had recounted.
But Elayeen believed it. She had believed it enough to risk everything on her journey from Tarn to Last Ridings, to keep their son far from Morloch’s dreaming influence. Meeya and Valin believed it. The Kindred Rangers believed it. And now, Allazar, the Word, First of Raheen and Last Sardor of the D’ith, believed it.
And Gawain, stunned into gaping silence, his heart and stomach in the grip of icy dread, believed it too.
“I can bugger off again if’n you need me to, melord?” a gruff voice called softly in the dark.
But Gawain shook his head, and in silence, and in misery, the three companions sat in their cloaks, waiting for the rain to stop, waiting for the sun to rise, and waiting to leave the last miles of their journey behind them.
oOo
41. Last Yards
Those last miles took longer than they’d imagined, the distance from the edge of the wetlands to the eastern edge of the forest of Last Ridings further in reality than maps suggested. It was late afternoon on the 11th of January when the forest loomed before them, and they took the path which would lead to the settlement, and to the very door of Gawain’s Hall. Ranger Yago put in a brief appearance, waving a farewell before resuming his easterly patrol, and all three of them were surprised when a handful of stout-looking fellows stepped out onto the path to bar their way.
But then Gawain and Allazar were recognised, and the men, a mixture of old and young Gawain vaguely recognised from the volunteer infantry at Far-gor, saluted, and stepped back, one of them raising a horn and blowing a long note, loud and clear. Moments later a faint note came back down the forest track by way of a reply, and Gawain’s eyebrows twitched at the new precautions someone, possibly Elayeen or Tyrane, had put in place in his absence.
They were all tired. The horses were tired too, even the stoic and relentless packhorse seemed on the verge of giving up, laying down, and sleeping until the end of days, its packs all but exhausted, carrying now only salvaged weaponry, threadbare clothing and blankets, and the remains of commandeered elven supplies.
For Gawain, the last miles through the forest were a blur of trees, light and flickering shadows, weak sunshine lancing through the treetops and the puffy clouds of what had thankfully been dry heavens thus far. Not that it made much difference to the discomfort of cold, damp clothing which was the legacy of a miserable twenty-four hours of ceaseless misty rain. He had tried all night to gainsay in his mind the truth of Allazar’s explanation for the sadness so often seen in others at mention of his unborn son. Now, he was trying to forget that truth, and he was doing so for Elayeen’s sake, as well as his own. Just as she had, for his.
In the early hours before dawn, he’d tried to imagine her, swollen and heavy with child, but while he could remember her hazel-green eyes her features eluded his mind’s eye, and the image of her splendour and beauty was robbed by visions of a snarling Seekmaw dressed in Red and Gold and wielding a short stick of Dymendin. It was an image Gawain was desperate to expunge, and now that they were so close to his hall and Elayeen, he was yearning for nothing more than their reunion, and no ancient prophecies or nightmare imagery born of exhaustion to ruin the joy of it.
When they emerged from the western tree line of the forest, Gawain caught his breath. Last Ridings had grown since September. Brightly-coloured Arrun-made cottages proliferated where once only a handful of dwellings had stood, fields now fallow much enlarged and forming a great patchwork expanse to the north and to the south. Pens had been built too, for sheep and pigs, and coops for chickens, and to the north, a cattle-shed. Smoke rose from chimneys, the smell of cooking on the air mingling with the familiar odour of farmlands everywhere.
“Is it me, melord, or has Last Ridings more’n doubled its size since last we saw it?”
“It’s not you, Oggy. It looks as though it’s more than doubled.”
“You have many friends, Longsword. It is no surprise that many of those would wish to dwell near your hall.”
“Elayeen has many friends, Allazar, I doubt I have anything at all to do with this new growth.”
“What’s that up on the hill, melord? Glinting up on the watchtower?”
“I believe it might be the carriage-bow, mounted up there somehow as a defence against Graken, perhaps. Or something similar, I’d say. It’s difficult to tell from this distance.”
“Then let us ride the last miles a little faster, Longsword, if the horses can manage it?”
“Aye. Up to the trot then, and to hearth and hall and the kind hearts waiting there for our arrival.”
And so they picked up the pace, hooves crunching on a track now strewn with gravel and pebbles dredged from the river’s edge, new-laid to strengthen this well-trod path and hopefully to prevent it becoming a quagmire in winter rains. People came from their cottages and emerged from the sheds of their cottage industries, and waved, and smiled, and given the brightness of the dwellings around them, all Last Ridings seemed filled with joy at their king’s return.
But still Gawain’s heart pounded in his chest as he clenched his teeth against a sudden billowing of fear. Fear that Elayeen would see the worry in his expression, the dread of impending fatherhood, the terror of the unknown and the horror
of dread prophecy. The track became a road, gravel and pebbles giving way to cobbles. Hooves clopped, and in the fields behind the Orb’s Ending away to the south as they entered the square, horses whinnied a greeting.
Dwarves stood grinning in the faint bloom of a glowstone lamp hanging from the porch roof over the raised decking of the tavern, pipes clenched in teeth and fuming, pints clutched in calloused hands and lifted in salute. All around the square, people, dwarves and elves and men and women, all beaming with joy in the gloom as late afternoon faded to evening and dusk.
And there, on the deck surrounding the New Hall of Raheen, there clad in Red and Gold and radiant, there stood Elayeen, with Meeya Thalangard, and behind them, Wex, Reef and Tam of the Guard. Tyrane, and Corax, Valin, and Arbo, steward of the hall.
And if Gawain had feared for his expression those fears melted as ice before a flame, and still fifteen yards from the Hall he leapt from Gwyn’s back, and with great strides almost breaking into a run swept across those last yards, cloak billowing, as Elayeen in full sight of all rushed forwards into his embrace, and there they stood, clinging to each other as if to let go would mean the world’s ending…
Hours later, bathed and scraped clean and in fresh clean clothing, the King of Raheen regarded his lady, holding her hands and gazing at her, taking in the new and quite frankly astonishing girth of his queen and marvelling at it, then leaning forward to kiss her, letting go of her hands to cup her face and revel in the damp and wide-eyed gaze that held him as if in a wizard’s binding.
For a long time they stood, smiling at each other, as close as they could, as close as they dared, the buzz without their apartments in the long hall reminding them that preparations were being made for a small homecoming dinner, a greater feast to be held later when the travellers fresh returned had rested from their journeying.
“Your hair’s a little longer,” Gawain whispered, running his fingers through it.
