Fionavar 1 (26 page)

The swan increased her speed. For a day and a night Avaia had borne her north, the giant wings beating with exquisite grace, the odor of corruption surrounding her, even in the high, thin reaches of the sky. All through this second day they flew, but late that night they set down on the shores of a lake north of the wide grasslands that had unrolled beneath their flight.

There were svart alfar waiting for them, a large band this time, and with them were other creatures, huge and savage, with fangs and carrying swords. She was pulled roughly from the swan and thrown on the ground. They didn't bother tying her-she couldn't move in any case, her limbs were brutally stiff with cramp after so long bound and motionless.

After a time they brought her food: the half-cooked carcass of some prairie rodent. When she shook her head in mute refusal, they laughed.

Later they did tie her, tearing her blouse in the process. A few of them began pinching and playing with her body, but some leader made them stop. She hardly registered it. A far corner of her mind, it seemed to be as remote as her life, said that she was in shock, and that it was probably a blessing.

When morning came, they would bind her to the swan again and Avaia would fly all that third day, angling northwest now so the still-smoldering mountain gradually slid around towards the east.

Then, toward sunset, in a region of great cold, Jennifer would see Starkadh, like a giant ziggurat of hell among the ice, and she would begin to understand.

For the second time, Kimberly came to in her bed in the cottage. This time, though, there was no

Ysanne to watch over her. Instead, the eyes gazing at her were the dark ones, deepset, of the servant, Tyrth.

As awareness returned she became conscious of a pain on her wrist. Looking, she saw a scoring of black where the vellin bracelet had twisted into her skin. That she remembered. She shook her head.

"I think I would have died without this." She made a small movement of her hand to show him.

He didn't reply but a great tension seemed to dissolve from his compact, muscled frame as he heard her speak. She looked around; by the shadows it was late afternoon.

"That's twice now you've had to carry me here," she said.

"You must not let that bother you, my lady," he said in his rough, shy voice.

"Well, I'm not in the habit of fainting."

"I would never think that." He cast his eyes down.

"What happened with the Mountain?" she asked, almost unwilling to know.

"It is over," he replied. "Just before you woke." She nodded. That made sense.

"Have you been watching me all day?"

He looked apologetic. "Not always, my lady. I am sorry, but the animals were frightened and. . .

."

At that she smiled inwardly. He was pushing it a bit.

"There is boiling water," Tyrth said after a short silence. "Could I make you a drink?"

"Please."

She watched as he limped to the fire. With neat, economical motions he prepared a pot of some herbal infusion and carried it back to the table by the bed.

It was, she decided, time.

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"You don't have to fake the limp anymore," she said.

He was very cool, you had to give him credit. Only the briefest flicker of uncertainty had touched the dark eyes, and his hands pouring her drink were absolutely steady. Only when he finished did he sit down for the first time and regard her for a long time in silence.

"Did she tell you?" he asked finally, and she heard his true voice for the first time.

"No. She lied, actually. Said it wasn't her secret to tell." She hesitated. "I learned from Eilathen by the lake."

"I watched that. I wondered."

Kim could feel her forehead creasing with its incongruous vertical line.

"Ysanne is gone, you know." She said it as calmly as she could.

He nodded. "That much I know, but I don't understand what has happened. Your hair. . . ."

"She had Lokdal down below," Kim said bluntly. Almost, she wanted to hurt him with it. "She used it on herself."

He did react, and she was sorry for the thought behind her words. A hand came up to cover his mouth, a curious gesture in such a man. "No," he breathed. "Oh, Ysanne, no!" She could hear the loss.

"You understand what she has done?" she asked. There was a catch in her voice; she controlled it.

There was so much pain.

"I know what the dagger does, yes. I didn't know she had it here. She must have come to love you very much."

"Not just me. All of us." She hesitated. "She dreamt me twenty-five years ago. Before I was born."

Did that make it easier? Did anything?

His eyes widened. "That I never knew."

"How could you?" He seemed to regard gaps in his awareness as deeply felt affronts. But there was something else that had to be said. "There is more," Kim said. His name is not to be spoken, she thought, then: "Your father died this afternoon, Aileron."

There was a silence.

"Old news," the elder Prince of Brennin said. "Listen."

And after a moment she heard them: all the bells in Paras Derval tolling. The death bells for the passing of a King.

"I'm sorry," she said.

His mouth twitched, then he looked out the window. You cold bastard, she thought. Old news.

He deserved more than that, surely; surely he did. She was about to say as much when Aileron turned back to her, and she saw the river of tears pouring and pouring down his face.

Dear God, she thought shakily, enduring a paroxysm of self-condemnation. He may be hard to read, but how can you be that far off? It would have been funny, a Kim Ford classic, except that people were going to be relying on her now for so much. It was no good, no good at all. She was an impulsive, undisciplined, halfway-decent intern from Toronto. What the hell was she going to do?

Nothing, at any rate, for the moment. She held herself very still on the bed, and after a minute Aileron lifted his tanned, bearded face and spoke.

"After my mother died, he was never the same. He . . . dwindled. Will you believe that he was once a very great man?"

This she could help him with. "I saw by the lake. I know he was, Aileron."

"I watched him until I could hardly bear it," he said, under control now. "Then factions formed in the palace that wanted him to step aside for me. I killed two men who spoke of it in my presence, but my father grew suspicious and frightened. I could not talk to him anymore."

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"And Diarmuid?"

The question seemed to genuinely surprise him. "My brother? He was drunk most of the time, and taking ladies to South Keep the rest. Playing March Warden down there."

"There seems to be more to him than that," Kim said mildly.

"To a woman, perhaps."

She blinked. "That," she said, "is insulting."

He considered it. "I suppose it is," he said. "I'm sorry." Then he surprised her again. "I am not good," Aileron said, his eyes averted, "at making myself liked. Men will usually end up respecting me, if against their will, because at some things they value I have . . . a little skill. But I have no skill with women." The eyes, almost black, swung back to hers. "I am also hard to shake from desires I have, and I am not patient with interference."

He was not finished. "I tell you these things, not because I expect to change, but so you will know I

am aware of them. There will be people I must trust, and if you are a Seer, then you must be one of them, and I'm afraid you will have to deal with me as I am."

A silence followed this, not surprisingly. For the first time she noticed Malka and called her softly.

The black cat leaped to the bed and curled up on her lap.

"I'll think about it," she said finally. "No promises; I'm fairly stubborn myself. May I point out, on the original issue, that Loren seems to value your brother quite a bit, and unless I've missed something, Silvercloak isn't a woman." Too much asperity, she thought. You must go carefully here.

Aileron's eyes were unreadable. "He was our teacher as boys," he said. "He has hopes still of salvaging something in Diarmuid. And in fairness, my brother does elicit love from his followers, which must mean something."

"Something," she echoed gravely. "You don't see anything to salvage?" It was ironic, actually: she hadn't liked Diarmuid at all, and here she was. . . .

Aileron, for reply, merely shrugged expressively.

"Leave it, then," she said. "Will you finish your story?"

"There is little left to tell. When the rains receded last year, and stopped absolutely this spring, I suspected it was not chance. I wanted to die for him, so I would not have to watch him fading.

Or see the expression in his eyes. I couldn't live with him mistrusting me. So I asked to be allowed to go to the Summer Tree, and he refused. Again I asked, again he refused. Then word came to Paras

Derval of children dying on the farms, and I asked again before all the court and once more he refused to grant me leave. And so. . . ."

"And so you told him exactly what you thought." She could picture the scene.

"I did. And he exiled me."

"Not very effectively," she said wryly.

"Would you have me leave my land, Seer?" he snapped, the voice suddenly commanding. It pleased her; he had some caring, then. More than some, if she were being fair. So she said,

"Aileron, he did right. You must know that. How could the High King let another die for him?"

And knew immediately that there was something wrong.

"You don't know, then." It was not a question. The sudden gentleness in his voice unsettled her more than anything.

"What? Please. You had better tell me."

"My father did let another go," Aileron said. "Listen to the thunder. Your friend is on the Tree.

Pwyll. He has lasted two nights. This is the last, if he is still alive."

Pwyll. Paul.

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It fit. It fit too perfectly. She was brushing tears away, but others kept falling. "I saw him," she whispered. "I saw him with your father in my dream, but I couldn't hear what they said, because there was this music, and-"

Then that, too, fell into place.

"Oh, Paul," she breathed. "It was the Brahms, wasn't it? Rachel's Brahms piece. How could I not have remembered?"

"Would you have changed anything?" Aileron asked. "Would you have been right to?"

Too hard, that one, just then. She concentrated on the cat. "Do you hate him?" she asked in a small voice, surprising herself with the question.

It drove him to his feet with a startled, exposed gesture. He strode to the window and looked out over the lake. There were bells. And then thunder. A day so charged with power. And it wasn't over. Night to come, the third night. . . .

"I will try not to," he said at last, so softly Kim could scarcely hear it.

"Please," she said, feeling that somehow it mattered. If only to her, to ease her own gathering harvest of griefs. She rose from the bed, holding the cat in both arms.

He turned to face her. The light was strange behind him.

Then, "It is to be my war," said Aileron dan Ailell.

She nodded.

"You have seen this?" he pushed.

Again she nodded. The wind had died outside; it was very quiet. "You would have thrown it away on the Tree."

"Not thrown away. But yes, it was a foolishness. In me, not in your friend," he added after a moment. "I went to see him there last night. I could not help myself. In him it is something else."

"Grief. Pride. A dark kind."

"It is a dark place."

"Can he last?"

Slowly, Aileron shook his head. "I don't think so. He was almost gone last night."

Paul. When, she thought, had she last heard him laugh?

"He's been sick," she said. It sounded almost irrelevant. Her own voice was funny, too.

Aileron touched her shoulder awkwardly. "I will not hate him, Kim." He used her name for the first time. "I cannot. It is so bravely done."

"He has that," she said. She was not going to cry again. "He has that," she repeated, lifting her head.

"And we have a war to fight."

"We?" Aileron asked, and in his eyes she could see the entreaty he would not speak.

"You're going to need a Seer," she said matter-of-factly. "I seem to be the best you've got. And I have the Baelrath, too."

He came a step towards her. "I am . . ." He took a breath. "I am . . . pleased," he managed.

A laugh escaped her, she couldn't help it. "God," she said on a rising note. "God, Aileron, I've never met anyone who had so much trouble saying thank-you. What do you do when someone passes you the salt?"

His mouth opened and closed. He looked very young.

"Anyhow," she said briskly, "you're welcome. And now we'd better get going. You should be in Paras Derval tonight, don't you think?"

It seemed that he had already saddled the horse in the barn, and had only been waiting for her.

While Aileron went out back to bring the stallion around, she set about closing up the cottage.

The dagger and the Circlet would be safest in the chamber down below. She knew that sort of thing now, it was instinctive.

She thought of Raederth then, and wondered if it was folly to sorrow for a man so long dead.

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But it wasn't, she knew, she now knew; for the dead are still in time, they are travelling, they are not lost.

Ysanne was lost. She still needed a long time alone, Kim realized, but she didn't have it, so there was no point even thinking. The Mountain had taken that kind of luxury away from all of them.

From all of them. She did pause, at that. She was numbering herself among them, she realized, even in her thoughts. Are you aware, she asked herself, with a kind of awe, that you are now the Seer of the High Kingdom of Brennin in Fionavar?

She was. Holy cow, she thought, talk about over-achievers! But then her mind swung back to Aileron, and the flared levity faded. Aileron, whom she was going to help become King if she could, even though his brother was the heir. She would do it because her blood sang to her that this was right, and that, she knew by now, was part of what being a Seer meant.