by Roger Taylor
The Sirshiant came to an ominous halt in front of him, and looked down at him with exaggerated sternness.
‘And with you, trooper,’ he said slowly, his breath fogging the air between them. ‘But let’s have the correct challenge in future. Suppose I’d been a Mandroc.’
The trooper stamped his feet in the well-trodden snow. ‘Well, I’d have wished him The Light, and then whacked him with my pike, Sirsh,’ he replied.
The Sirshiant’s mouth curled slightly at the edges and one eyebrow went up.
‘Very festive of you, trooper,’ he said. ‘Very festive. I like my troopers to be thoughtful in their ways.’
‘Thank you, Sirsh,’ the trooper replied, executing another small dance and turning his gaze back to his duty, northwards. The snow-covered landscape was radiant in the brilliant moonlight but, in the distance, dark clouds shadowed the mountains and hid them from its touch. It seemed as though they were waiting, brooding, darker even than the black, moon-washed sky.
‘Why are we making such a fuss about the Winter Festival this year, Sirsh?’ the trooper asked. ‘Lord Eldric and all coming round ordering us to enjoy ourselves.’
The Sirshiant did not answer immediately, but put his hands behind his back and blew out a long steaming breath to the north.
‘Because the Lord Eldric’s got a lot of sense, lad,’ he said eventually. ‘As you’d have heard, if you’d listened to him. Him and the others are doing their best to bring the country together again. Sooner or later we’re going to have to go up there’-he nodded towards the mountains-‘and winkle those beggars out of Narsin-dalvak. Then, if I’m any judge, we’re going to have to go into Narsindal itself and find Him, if we’re not going to be looking over our shoulders forever. We can’t do any of that unless the country’s ready and with us, and the Winter Festival’s part of that.’
The trooper nodded dutifully. ‘Would it help if I went back to camp and did my bit for steadying the country right now?’ he suggested. ‘I can’t see any hordes teeming out of the mountains tonight.’
The Sirshiant turned and eyed him. ‘You’re not here to look for teeming hordes, lad,’ he advised. ‘You’re here to look out for me, in case, bewildered beyond repair by having to deal with incorrigible jesters such as your good self, I wander off into the night, howling, and, falling down, do myself a hurt.’
‘Ah,’ said the trooper, nodding sagely and dancing again.
The Sirshiant continued. ‘Bearing Lord Eldric’s injunction in mind, however, I will allow you to sing a Festival Carol to yourself, as you march conscientiously up and down. But not too loud. People are trying to enjoy themselves back at camp and I don’t want them thinking we’re being attacked.’
The trooper contented himself with a reproachful look and, hugging his pike to him, slapped his gloved hands together.
‘On the other hand,’ the Sirshiant continued. ‘It is the Festival, and a certain member of a certain group has just come back to say that the pass is still well-blocked, and all our neighbours… are busy celebrating themselves after their own fashion, so… ’ He nodded towards the camp.
The trooper grinned and set off without any further comment, but he had scarcely gone five paces when he stopped. Turning back to the Sirshiant, his face was serious. ‘I’ve been watching, Sirsh,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t see anyone coming back.’
The Sirshiant nodded. ‘Don’t worry, trooper, neither did I. That’s why he’s Goraidin, and we’re not. Enjoy your party. Light be with you.’
* * * *
‘Light be with you.’ Oslang held his hands out in front of himself and then snapped his fingers.
A small star of light appeared just above his out-stretched palms. It hung motionless in the soft, subdued torchlight that filled Urthryn’s private chamber.
‘Take it,’ he said.
Sylvriss cast an uncharacteristic ‘should I?’ smile at her father, who shrugged a mighty disclaimer.
‘Is it hot?’ she asked.
Oslang laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Go on. Take it.’
Sylvriss’s tongue protruded between her teeth and, hesitantly, she reached out to take the glittering star.
As her hand closed about it, it slipped between her fingers at the very last moment. She gave a little cry of surprise and drew her hand back.
‘Try again,’ Oslang said, encouragingly.
Sylvriss, her face glowing in the torchlight, and her eyes sparkling in this newly made starlight, looked at Oslang in friendly suspicion, then reached again for the twinkling light.
As before, it floated quietly and smoothly away from her curling fingers and then from the second hand which was lying in ambush. There followed a brief flurry of increasingly frantic arm waving by the Queen, but the light moved through it all with unhurried calm.
Urthryn laughed at his daughter’s frustration, as her hands eventually fell back into her lap.
‘No,’ Oslang said, his eyes teasing. ‘Like this.’ And his hand came out and gently wrapped itself about the waiting light. As he held out his gently clenched fist, the light shone out from between his fingers with seemingly increased brilliance.
When he opened his hand, the star rose into the air and floated towards Sylvriss.
She looked from her laughing father to the smiling Cadwanwr, then abruptly, her hand shot out and seized the light.
However, she was so surprised at catching it that with another cry of surprise she immediately opened her hand and released it again.
Urthryn roared, provoking a look of indignation from his daughter.
Oslang smiled, then taking hold of the hovering star he placed it gently on Sylvriss’s still outstretched palm, closing her fingers around it gently as he did so.
‘Now clap your hands,’ he said.
After a slight hesitation, Sylvriss did as she was bidden.
A brilliant cascade of twinkling lights burst out from between her fingers and rose up to dance in front of her face. As she reached out to them, they swirled and danced around her searching hand.
‘Beautiful,’ she said.
Oslang bowed, then waved his hand. The hovering sparks scattered and spread themselves through the cellin boughs that traditionally decorated the walls of the Riddinvolk homes during the Winter Festival.
There they glittered and shone, amongst the prickly dark green leaves and bright red berries.
‘A fine trick, Oslang,’ Urthryn said. ‘It’s a pity the Old Power can’t be confined to such uses.’
‘Indeed,’ Oslang replied, relaxing into his chair and closing his eyes. ‘But who would confine the confiner?’
Urthryn nodded and let the debate die.
For a while, the three sat in companionable silence. Sylvriss, large now with Rgoric’s child, exuding a gentle, enigmatic calm which seemed to fill the room; Urthryn, content that the shores of Riddin were guarded as well as they could be, was as pleased to be spending the Festival with his daughter as he would have been celebrating with his line; and lastly Oslang, luxuriating in the lavish hospitality he had received from his hosts. He patted his straining stomach. Such over-indulgence, he thought. But there was barely a whiff of true contrition to mar his satisfaction. He must have a word with Andawyr when he got back about the Cadwanol being a little more enthusiastic about the Winter Festival in future.
Gradually Oslang felt himself falling into a doze. He was vaguely aware of distant revelry seeping into the room and Urthryn and Sylvriss bestirring themselves to go and join it.
‘Will you join us, Oslang?’ said a voice, also some-where in the distance.
‘Later,’ he managed to reply, but he heard his an-swer being greeted with laughter, and a reassuring hand was laid on his shoulder.
Roused a little, he felt Sylvriss moving past him on the way to the door. Turning, he made a gesture that would have sent stars shimmering through her hair for the rest of that evening, but as he looked, the radiant stones flared up and the sheen of her black hair made him lower
his hand.
Best confined, he thought. You’d paint a rose, you donkey.
‘Light be with you truly, lady,’ he mumbled as he slipped deep into a happy slumber.
* * * *
‘Light be with you, Girvan Girvasson.’
The Line Leader turned and peered into the dark-ness at the approaching rider. The figure increased the light of his torch a little to illuminate his face as he came alongside.
Girvan smiled. ‘Brother,’ he said in some consider-able surprise. Then he leaned across to embrace him.
‘What’s drawn you from your relentless pursuit of idle leisure down at Westryn,’ he said, still holding him.
Girven laughed. ‘Our Festival Helangai, brother,’ he said. ‘I saw your Line had volunteered for coast watch duty to avoid being soundly beaten again so I decided to seek you out and offer you yet more instruction in the subtler arts of the game.’
Girvan smiled and shook his head. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘Avoiding your Line in the Helangai is always uppermost in my mind, as it is with anyone else who’s survived so far in life without being kicked in the head by a horse.’
Girven beamed, and his brother ploughed on.
‘However, I’d happily have my people trounce them, were it not for two facts. Firstly, we’re on duty, and secondly, as you may have noticed, it’s pitch dark. Though I appreciate that most of your Line can’t tell night from day.’
Girven grinned broadly and then peered intently out across the shore towards the lights of the distant look-out boats extending to the horizon and beyond.
‘Ah,’ he said, after a moment, in mock surprise. ‘You’re right. I suppose that means we’ll just have to share your watch and our meagre supplies with you.’
Girvan bowed graciously, partly to hide his face; it was a generous gesture on his brother’s part. ‘How meagre are your supplies?’ he asked.
Girven looked at him significantly. ‘As meagre as usual,’ he replied.
Girvan cleared his throat. ‘Have you got any of grandfather’s… liniment… with you,’ he said, affecting casualness.
‘A little,’ Girven answered, in the same vein.
Girvan smiled expectantly. ‘Then welcome to the coast watch brother,’ he said. ‘And Light be with you and your wondrous Line too.’
‘And grandfather,’ Girven added reproachfully.
‘Oh yes,’ Girvan chuckled. ‘Light be with Grandfa-ther especially.’
* * * *
‘Light be with you, Ffyrshht,’ burbled the drunken Mathidrin as Dan-Tor appeared unexpectedly around the corner.
The trooper’s two supporters, marginally the better for drink, sobered abruptly and closed ranks quickly, if unsteadily, to support him; a griping fear returning control of their minds to them for the moment. Their suddenly pale faces heightened the flush of the wine in their cheeks and made them look like ghastly mario-nettes. Wide-eyed, they managed to salute their Master.
Dan-Tor strode past, and the two men, almost un-able to believe their good fortune, desperately dragged their oblivious colleague away with much fearful hissing for silence.
Dan-Tor’s face was unreadable, but the old and unexpected greeting had struck him as powerfully as Hawklan’s arrow, and he found himself unable to deal out the punishing response that such insolent familiar-ity would normally have earned. The scuffling sibilance of the departing drunkards mingled in his ears with his own tightly drawn breath.
Strangely uncertain and disorientated, he turned off the broad curving corridor and ascended the long stairway that would take him to his private quarters. No Mathidrin trooper guarded this part of the tower fortress, nor even any invisible snare woven from the Old Power. Both precautions were unnecessary; the aura of an Uhriel was protection enough.
With an angry wave of his hand he doused the globe that dutifully attempted to light as he entered. As its brief glimmer faded sulkily, an ancient, dreadful memory bubbled up from the dark and awful depths of the well of his history.
‘Light be with you, daddy,’ piped the childish voice. Dancing in its wake came other memories; a cherished face, glistening dark hair, opened arms, trusting eyes and, worst of all, the touch of a trusting heart.
His eyes opened wide in horror as this tiny flame rose from the grey ashes of his long crushed humanity to shed its cruel, penetrating light. Instinctively his every resource leapt to defend him with a ferocity that would have served to protect him from an assault by Ethriss himself.
For a moment he swayed, his whole being tense with the centuries of guilt and remorse that this small light threatened to illuminate. Wilfully he extended his Power into the arrow in his side until a physical agony so possessed his body that all else dwindled into signifi-cance.
Then it was over. As he withdrew the Power, his pain faded, and all that remained of the desperate memory was a livid afterglow. He sat down awkwardly.
Light be with you! The greeting raked across him. Damn the man, he thought. He should have consigned him to darkness where he stood, but…
He breathed out irritably. His natural inclination had been to forbid all celebration of the Winter Festival, but Urssain and Aelang had prevailed upon him.
‘Morale is low enough, Ffyrst. It would be a needless provocation unless it served some clearly visible purpose.’
Now, a quieter part of him mused, his response to this small incident had been a salutary demonstration of his vulnerability, and a reminder that his armours could not be too many.
Vulnerability. To have been brought so low by the mindless ramblings of some drunken oaf after surviving the giving of the news of the loss of Fyorlund to Him was a disconcerting irony.
For at Derras Ustramel, there had been no mighty outburst; no sudden black extinction. Only a brief, slow glance from those eyes, and a briefer touch of that chilling will. You are my Uhriel, it said. You must ever learn. Then, a silent, icy, dismissal.
Looking up, Dan-Tor peered out into the darkness over the mist-shrouded land to the north, doubly hidden now by the heavy snow-burdened clouds.
Learned? What was to be learned? That these incon-sequential humans were poor material for His work; always dangerously flawed and unreliable? The face of Rgoric came to him. He needed no lessons there. And how could he protect himself from the vagaries of random chance? Then, blasphemously, and we would have held Fyorlund if You would have unbound me.
Dan-Tor looked round, as if this treacherous thought alone might have brought Him there to deliver a belated retribution.
When he turned back again to the window, the darkness outside was at one with the darkness inside, and for a moment his extraordinary loneliness felt overwhelming.
As if responding, a dim, hesitant glow came from the globe.
As the images of the room began to form under its cautious touch, Dan-Tor found something blurring his vision, some cold, unfamiliar irritation in his eye.
Then, sustaining this time, came, ‘Light be with you, daddy.’
* * * *
‘Light be with you all,’ Loman half-shouted, with a dismissive wave of his hand as the last few sentences of his speech disappeared under a mounting roar of cheers and applause.
‘Bravo, bravo,’ cried Hawklan and Isloman, ap-plauding ironically as the red-faced smith flopped down on to his chair between them, laughing. ‘A most moving final toast to our feast,’ Isloman added with heavy graciousness.
Loman had no time to reply to his false praise, how-ever, as, slapping him on the shoulder, Isloman said, ‘Duty calls,’ and stood up and wandered off, threading his way through the many guests who were now bustling around clearing the long rows of tables and pushing them to the sides of the hall.
‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute.’ Gavor’s agitated voice nearby rose above the mounting din. He was hopping along pecking desperately at a plate that Tirilen was dragging across the table in an attempt to remove it.
‘You’ll never fly again, you feathered barrel,’ she said.
Tirilen conceded defeat and relinquished the plate. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You can join in the dancing then.’ And with that she began clearing various other dishes from around the raven, though not without some anxious sidelong glances from him, and a great deal of fretful wing flapping.
‘Gavor must have eaten three times his own weight,’ Andawyr said, leaning over to Hawklan.
‘Gavor has many and capacious appetites,’ Hawklan replied caustically.
Andawyr frowned. ‘I think cavernous might be a better word,’ he said.
Further comment about Gavor was curtailed, how-ever, as the entire table on which he was sitting was pushed aside by a crowd of enthusiastic guests.
With the same abandon, the crowd shooed Hawklan and the others back until the middle of the hall was clear. Then a clapping, foot-stamping, chant began.
‘Is-lo-man. Is-lo-man.’
Just as it began to involve virtually everyone in the hall, Isloman appeared through a wide arched doorway.
‘Good grief,’ Arinndier exclaimed. ‘What’s he carry-ing?’
Isloman was carrying a large circular stone held high above his head, while behind him a small proces-sion of apprentices carried other stones of various sizes.
‘It’s a traditional hearthstone,’ Hawklan replied to the Lord, smiling. ‘Watch.’
At the centre of the hall, Isloman cautiously bent down and lowered his burden to the floor. Despite his gentleness, the floor shook as he released the hearth-stone. Then the apprentices filed forward and laid their own burdens on it. As they did so, the torches in the hall gradually dimmed, and the babble of the onlookers died away almost completely.
When the last stone had been placed, there was a considerable pile, and after making one or two adjust-ments, Isloman took something from a pouch at his belt and struck one of the largest stones with it.
Immediately, the stone glowed white and, as Islo-man stepped back, the whole pile burst into a brilliant incandescence, sending a great shower of white, orange and yellow sparks of long-held sunlight cascading upwards into the high vaulted ceiling, where they swirled and fluttered like wind-blown stars.
