Paul understood. He felt the same way about Kevin. Exactly the same way.
Neither of them said anything else. Paul looked off to the west, to where the sea sparkled in the bright sun. There were stars beneath the waves. He had seen them. In his heart he bade farewell to Liranan, the god who had called him brother.
Coll glanced over at him. Paul nodded, and the two of them turned and rode back to Paras Derval.
The next evening, after the banquet in the Hall—Cathalian food that time, prepared by Shalhassan’s own master of the kitchen—he found himself in the Black Boar, with Dave and Coll and all the men of South Keep, those who had sailed Prydwen to Cader Sedat.
They drank a great deal, and the owner of the tavern refused to let any of Diarmuid’s men pay for their ale. Tegid of Rhoden, not one to let such largess slip past him, drained ten huge tankards to start the proceedings and then gathered speed as the night progressed. Paul got a little drunk himself, which was unusual, and perhaps as a result his memories refused to go away. All night long he kept hearing “Rachel’s Song” in his mind amid the laughter and the embraces of farewell.
The next afternoon, the last but one, he spent in the mages’ quarters in the town. Dave was with the Dalrei, but Kim had come with him this time, and the two of them spent a few hours with Loren and Matt and Teyrnon and Barak, sitting in the garden behind the house.
Loren Silvercloak, no longer a mage, now dwelt in Banir Lok as principal adviser to the King of Dwarves. Teyrnon and Barak were visibly pleased to have the other two staying with them, if only for a little while. Teyrnon bustled happily about in the sunshine, making sure everyone’s glass was brimming.
“Tell me,” said Barak, a little slyly, to Loren and Matt, “do you think the two of you might be able to handle a pupil for a few months next year? Or will you have forgotten everything you know?”
Matt glanced at him quickly. “Have you a disciple already? Good, very good. We need at least three or four more.”
“We?” Teyrnon teased.
Matt scowled. “Habits die hard. Some, I hope, will never die.”
“They need never die,” Teyrnon said soberly. “You two will always be part of the Council of the Mages.”
“Who is our new disciple?” Loren asked. “Do we know him?”
For reply, Teyrnon looked up at the second-floor window overlooking the garden.
“Boy!” he shouted, trying to sound severe. “I hope you are studying, and not listening to the gossip down here!”
A moment later a head of brown unruly hair appeared at the open window.
“Of course I’m studying,” said Tabor, “but, honestly, none of this is very difficult!”
Matt grunted in mock disapproval. Loren, struggling to achieve a frown, growled fiercely. “Teyrnon, give him the Book of Abhar, and then we’ll see whether or not he finds studying difficult!”
Paul grinned and heard Kim laugh with delight to see who was smiling down on them.
“Tabor!” she exclaimed. “When did this happen?”
“Two days ago,” the boy replied. “My father gave his consent after Gereint asked me to come back and teach him some new things next year.”
Paul exchanged a glance with Loren. There was a genuine easing in this, an access to joy. The boy was young; it seemed he would recover. More than that, Paul had an intuitive sense of the rightness, even the necessity of Tabor’s new path: what horse on the Plain, however swift, could ever suffice, now, for one who had ridden a creature of Dana across the sky?
Later that afternoon, walking back to the palace with Kim, Paul learned that she too would be going home.
They still didn’t know about Dave.
On the next morning, the last, he went back to the Summer Tree.
It was the first time he’d been there alone since the three nights he had hung upon it as an offering to the God, seeking rain. He left his horse at the edge of Mórnirwood, not far (though this he didn’t know) from the place of Aideen’s grave, where Matt had taken Jennifer early one morning in Kevin’s spring.
He walked the remembered path through the trees, seeing the morning sunlight begin to grow dim and increasingly aware, with every step he took, of something else.
Since the last battle in Andarien—when he had released Galadan from the vengeance he’d sworn and channeled his power for healing instead, to bring the rising waters that ended the cycle of Arthur’s grief—since that evening Paul had not sought the presence of the God within himself. In a way, he’d been avoiding it.
But now it was there again. And as he came to the place where the trees of the Godwood formed their double corridor, leading him inexorably back into the glade of the Tree, Paul understood that Mórnir would always be within him. He would always be Pwyll Twiceborn, Lord of the Summer Tree, wherever he went. He had been sent back; the reality of that was a part of him, and would be until he died again.
And thinking so, he came into the glade and saw the Tree. There was light here, for the sky showed above the clearing, mild and blue with scattered billowy clouds. He remembered the white burning of the sun in a blank heaven.
He looked at the trunk and the branches. They were as old as this first world, he knew. And looking up within the thick green leaves, he saw, without surprise, that the ravens were there, staring back at him with bright, yellow eyes. It was very still. No thunder. Only, deep within his pulse, that constant awareness of the God.
It was not a thing, Paul realized then, from which he could ever truly hide, even if he wanted to, which was what he’d been trying to do through the sweet days of this summer.
He could not unsay what he had become. It was not a thing that came and then went. He would have to accept that he was marked and set apart. In a way, he always had been. Self-contained and solitary, too much so: it was why Rachel had been leaving him, the night she died on the highway in the rain.
He was a power, brother to gods. It was so and would always be so. He thought of Cernan and Galadan, wondering where they were. Both of them had bowed to him.
No one did so now. Nor did Mórnir manifest himself any more strongly than through the beating of his pulse. The Tree seemed to be brooding, sunk deep into the earth, into the web of its years. The ravens watched him silently. He could make them speak; he knew how to do that now. He could even cause the leaves of the Summer Tree to rustle as in a storm wind, and in time, if he tried hard enough, he could draw the thunder of the God. He was Lord of this Tree; this was the place of his power.
He did none of these things. He had come for no such reason. Only to see the place for a last time, and to acknowledge, within himself, what had indeed been confirmed. In silence he stepped forward and laid one hand upon the trunk of the Summer Tree. He felt it as an extension of himself. He drew his hand away and turned and left the glade. Overhead, he heard the ravens flying. He knew they would be back.
And after that, there was only the last farewell. He’d been delaying it, in part because even now he did not expect it to be an easy exchange. On the other hand, the two of them, for all the brittleness, had shared a great deal since first she’d taken him down from the Tree and drawn blood from his face in the Temple with the nails of her hand.
So he returned to his horse and rode back to Paras Derval, and then east through the crowded town to the sanctuary, to say goodbye to Jaelle.
He tugged on the bell pull by the arched entranceway. Chimes rang within the Temple. A moment later the doors were opened and a grey-robed priestess looked out, blinking in the brightness. Then she recognized him, and smiled.
This was one of the new things in Brennin, as potent a symbol of regained harmony, in its own way, as would be the joint action of Jaelle and Teyrnon this evening, sending them home.