Fionavar 1 (27 page)

She was quiet and ready when he came round the side on the horse. He had a sword now, and a bow slung in the saddle, and he rode the black charger with an easy grace. She was, she had to admit, impressed.

There was a slight issue at the outset over her refusal to leave Malka behind, but when she threatened to walk, Aileron, a stony expression on his face, reached a hand down and swung her up behind him. With the cat. He was very strong, she realized.

He also had a scratched shoulder a minute later. Malka, it seemed, didn't like riding horseback.

Aileron, it also seemed, could be remarkably articulate when swearing. She told him as much, sweetly, and was rewarded with a quite communicative silence.

With the dying of the wind, the haze of the day seemed to be lifting. It was still light, and the sun, setting almost directly behind them, cast its long rays along the path.

Which was one reason the ambush failed.

They were attacked at the bend where she and Matt had first seen the lake. Before the first of the svarts had leaped to the road, Aileron, some sixth sense triggered, had already kicked the stallion into a gallop.

There were no darts this time. They had been ordered to take the white-haired woman alive, and she had only one servant as a guard. It should have been easy. There were fifteen of them.

Twelve, after the first rush of the horse, as Aileron's blade scythed on both sides. She was hampering him, though. With a concise movement he leaped from the saddle, killing another svart as he landed.

"Go on!" he shouted.

Of its own accord, the horse sped into a trot and then a gallop down the path. No way, Kim thought, and, holding the terrified cat as best she could, grappled for the reins and pulled the stallion to a halt.

Turning, she watched the battle, her heart leaping into her throat, though not with fear.

By the light of the setting sun, Kimberly bore witness to the first battle of Aileron dan Ailell in his war, and a stunning, a nearly debilitating grace was displayed for her then upon that lonely path. To see him with a sword in his hand was almost heartbreaking. It was a dance. It was more.

Some men, it seemed, were born to do a thing; it was true.

Because awesomely, stupefyingly, she saw that it had been a mismatch from the first. Fifteen of them, with weapons and sharp teeth for close fighting, against the one man with the long blade flashing in his hand, and she understood that he was going to win. Effortlessly, he was going to win.

It didn't last very long. Not one of the fifteen svart alfar survived. Breathing only a little quickly, he cleaned his sword and sheathed it, before walking toward her up the path, the sun low behind him.

It was very quiet now. His dark eyes, she saw, were sombre.

"I told you to go," he said.

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"I know. I don't always do what I'm told. I thought I warned you."

He was silent, looking up at her.

"A 'little' skill," she mimicked quite precisely.

His face, she saw with delight, had suddenly gone shy.

"Why," Kim Ford asked, "did that take you so long?"

For the first time she heard him laugh.

They reached Paras Derval at twilight, with Aileron hooded for concealment. Once inside the town they made their way quickly and quietly to Loren's quarters. The mage was there, with Matt and

Kevin Laine.

Kim and Aileron told their stories as succinctly as they could; there was little time. They spoke of

Paul, in whispers, hearing the thunder gathering in the west.

And then, when it became clear that there was something important neither she nor the Prince knew, they were told about Jennifer.

At which point it was made evident that notwithstanding a frightened cat, or a kingdom that needed her, the new Seer of Brennin could still fall apart with the best of them.

Twice during the day he thought it was the end. There was very great pain. He was badly sunburned now, and so dry. Dry as the land, which, he had thought earlier-how much earlier?-was probably the point. The nexus. It all seemed so simple at times, it came down to such basic correspondences. But then his mind would start to spin, to slide, and with the slide, all the clarity went, too.

He may have been the only person in Fionavar who didn't see the Mountain send up its fire. The sun was fire enough for him. He heard the laughter, but was so far gone he placed it elsewhere, in his own hell. It hurt there, too; he was not spared.

That time it was the bells that brought him back. He was lucid then for an interval, and knew where they were ringing, though not why. His eyes hurt; they were puffy with sunburn, and he was desperately dehydrated. The sun seemed to be a different color today. Seemed. What did he know?

He was so skewed, nothing could be taken for what it was.

Though the bells were ringing in Paras Derval, he was sure of that. Except . . . except that after a while, listening, he seemed to hear a harp sounding, too, and that was very bad, as bad as it could be, because it was a thing from his own place, from behind the bolted door. It wasn't out there. The bells were, yes, but they were fading. He was going again, there was nothing to grab hold of, no branch, no hand. He was bound and dry, and sliding, going under. He saw the bolts shatter, and the door opening, and the room. Oh, lady, lady, lady, he thought. Then no bolts anymore, nothing to bar the door. Under. Undersea down. . . .

They were in bed. The night before his trip. Of course. It would be that memory. Because of the harp, it would be.

His room. Spring night; almost summer weather. Window open, curtains blowing, her hair around them both, the covers back so he could see her by candlelight. Her candle, a gift. The very light was hers.

"Do you know," Rachel said, "that you are a musician, after all."

"I wish," he heard himself say. "You know I can't even sing."

"But no," she said pursuing a conceit, playing with the hairs on his chest. "You are. You're a harper, Paul. You have harper's hands."

"Where's my harp, then?" Straight man.

And Rachel said, "Me, of course. My heart's your harpstring."

What could he do but smile? The very light.

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"You know," she said, "when I play next month, the Brahms, it'll be for you."

"No. For yourself. Keep that for yourself."

She smiled. He couldn't see it, but he knew by now when Rachel smiled.

"Stubborn man." She touched him lightly with her mouth. "Share it, then. Can I play the second movement for you? Will you take that? Let me play that part because I love you. To tell."

"Oh, lady," he had said.

Hand of the harper. Heart of the harpstring.

Lady, lady, lady.

What had brought him back this time, he didn't know. The sun was gone, though. Dark coming down.

Fireflies. Third night then. Last. For three nights, and forever, the King had said. The King was dead.

How did he know that? And after a moment it seemed that very far down, below the burnt, strung-out place of pain he had become, a part of him remained that could fear.

How did he know Ailell was dead? The Tree had told him. It knew the passing of High Kings, it always did. It had been rooted here to summon them far back in the soil of time. From Iorweth to

Ailell they were the Children of Mörnir, and the Tree knew when they died. And now he knew as well. He understood. Now I give you to Mörnir; the other part of the consecration. He was given.

He was becoming root, branch. He was naked there, skin to bark; naked in all the ways there were, it seemed, because the dark was coming down inside again, the door unbolting. He was so open the wind could pass through him, light shine, shadow fall.

Like a child again. Light and shade. Simplicity. When had all the twisting started? He could remember (a different door, this) playing baseball on the street as darkness fell. Playing even after the streetlights kicked on, so that the ball would come flashing like a comet out of brightness and into dark, elusive but attainable. The smell of cut grass and porch flowers, the leather of a new fielder's glove. Summer twilight, summer dark. All the continuities. When had it turned? Why did it have to turn? The process changing to disjunctions, abortings, endings, all of them raining down like arrows, unlit and inescapable.

And then love, love, the deepest discontinuity.

Because it seemed that this door had turned into the other one after all, the one he couldn't face.

Not even childhood was safe anymore, not tonight. Nowhere would be safe tonight. Not here at the end, naked on the Tree.

And he understood then, finally: understood that it had to be naked, truly so, that one went to the

God. It was the Tree that was stripping him, layer by layer, down to what he was hiding from.

To what-hadn't there once been a thing called irony?-he had come here hiding from. Music. Her name.

Tears. Rain. The highway.

He was skewed again, going down; the fireflies among the trees had become headlights of approaching cars, which was so absurd. But then it wasn't, after all, because now he was in the car, driving her eastward on Lakeshore Boulevard in the rain.

It had rained the night she died.

I don't, I don't want to go here, he thought, clinging to nothing, his mind's last despairing effort to pull away. Please, just let me die, let me be rain for them.

But no. He was the Arrow now. The Arrow on the Tree, of Mörnir, and he was to be given naked or not at all.

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Or not at all. There was that, he realized. He could die. That was still his choice, he could let go.

It was there for him.

And so on the third night Paul Schafer came to the last test, the one that was always failed, the opening. Where the Kings of Brennin, or those coming in their name, discovered that the courage to be here, the strength to endure, even love of their land were none of them enough.

On the Tree one could no longer hide from the living or the dead, from one's own soul. Naked or not at all, one went to Mörnir. And oh, that was too much for them, too hard, too unfair after all that had been endured, to be forced to go into the darkest places then, so weak, so impossibly vulnerable.

And so they would let go, brave Kings of the sword, wise ones, gallant Princes, all would turn away from so much nakedness and die too soon.

But not that night. Because of pride, of pure stubbornness, and because, most surely, of the dog, Paul Schafer found the courage not to turn. Down he went.

Arrow of the God. So open, the wind could pass, light shine through him. Last door.

"The Dvorak," he heard. His own voice, laughing. "The Dvorak with the Symphony. Kincaid, are you a star!"

She laughed nervously. "It's only at Ontario Place. Outdoors, with a baseball game in the background at the stadium. No one will hear a thing."

"Wally will hear. Wally loves you already."

"Since when have you and Walter Langside been so close?"

"Since the recital, lady. Since his review. He's my main man now, Wally." She had won everything, won them all. She had dazzled. All three papers had been there, because of advance rumor of what she was. It was unheard-of for a graduate recital. The second movement, Langside of the Globe had written, could not be played more beautifully.

She had won everything. Had eclipsed every cellist ever to come out of Edward Johnson Hall.

And today the Toronto Symphony had called. The Dvorak Cello Concerto. August 5, at Ontario Place.

Unheard-of. So they had gone to Winston's for dinner, to blow a hundred dollars of his bursary money from the history department.

"It'll probably rain," she said. The wipers slapped their steady tattoo on the windshield. It was really coming down.

"The bandstand's covered," he replied airily, "and the first ten rows. Besides, if it rains, you don't have to fight the Blue Jays. Can't lose, kid."

"Well, you're pretty high tonight."

"I am, indeed," he heard the person he had been say, "pretty high tonight. I am very high."

He passed a laboring Chevy.

"Oh, shit," Rachel said.

Please, a lost, small voice within the Godwood pleaded. His. Oh, please. But he was inside it now, had taken himself there, all the way. There was no pity on the Summer Tree. How could there be?

So open, he was, the rain could fall through him.

"Oh, shit," she said.

"What?" he heard himself say, startled. Saw it start right then, right there. The moment. Wipers at the top of their sweep. Lakeshore East. Just past a blue Chevrolet.

She was silent. Glancing, he could see her hands clasped tightly together. Her head was down.

What was this?

"I've got something to tell you."

"Evidently." Oh, God, his defences.

She looked over at that. Dark eyes. Like no one else. "I promised," she said. "I promised I'd talk
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to you tonight."

Promised? He tried, watched himself try. "Rachel, what is it?"

Eyes front again. Her hands.

"You were away for a month, Paul."

"I was away for a month, yes. You know why." He'd gone four weeks before her recital. Had convinced them both it made sense-the time was too huge for her, it meant too much. She was playing eight hours a day; he wanted to let her focus. He flew to Calgary with Kev and drove his brother's car through the Rockies and then south down the California coast. Had phoned her twice a week.

"You know why," he heard himself say again. It had begun.

"Well, I did some thinking."

"One should always do some thinking."

"Paul, don't be like-"

"What do you want from me?" he snapped. "What is this, Rach?"

So, so, so. "Mark asked me to marry him."

Mark? Mark Rogers was her accompanist. Last-year piano student, good-looking, mild, a little effeminate. It didn't fit. He couldn't make it fit.

"All right," he said. "That happens. It happens when you've got a common goal for a while.

Theatre romance. He fell in love. Rachel, you're easy to fall in love with. But why are you telling me this way?"