“He has the Dwarves with him!” keen-eyed Brendel suddenly cried.
“Now that,” said Diannuid sharply, “is news!”
It was. “Matt succeeded, then!” Paul exclaimed. “Do you see him, Brendel?”
The silver-haired lios alfar scanned the distant army. “Not yet,” he murmured, “but… yes. It has to be her! The Seer is with the High King. No one else has her white hair.”
Paul looked quickly over at Jennifer. She returned his glance and smiled. It was strange, he thought, in some ways it was the strangest thing of all, how she could be at once so different, so remote, so much Guinevere of Camelot, Arthur’s Queen, Lancelot’s love, and then, a moment later, with the quickness of a smile, be Jennifer Lowell again, sharing his own flash of joy at Kimberly’s return.
“Should we walk around the lake to meet them?” Arthur asked.
Diarmuid shook his head with exaggerated decisiveness. “They have horses,” he said pointedly, “and we have been walking all day. If Brendel can see them, then the lios alfar in the army can see us. There are limits, I’m afraid, to how far I will stumble over those rocks in order to meet a brother who didn’t bother to wait for me!”
Lancelot laughed. Glancing over at him, Paul was hit with a renewed sense of awe and, predictably, by another wave of his own frustrated impotence.
Lancelot had been waiting for them here, sitting patiently under the trees, as they had walked up along the river two hours ago. In the gentle restraint of his greeting of Guinevere, and then of Arthur, Paul had glimpsed again the depths of the grief that bound these three. It was not an easy thing to watch.
And then Lancelot had told, sparely, without inflection, the tale of his night battle with the demon in the sacred grove for the life of Darien. He made it sound prosaic, almost a negligible event. But every man and the three women there could see the wounds and burns of that battle, the price he had paid.
For what? Paul didn’t know. None of them did, not even Jennifer. And there had been nothing at all to be read in her eyes as Lancelot told of freeing the owl in Daniloth and watching it fly north: the random thread in this weaving of war.
A war that seemed to be upon them now. The army had come closer; it was rounding the tip of Celyn Lake. Beneath Diarmuid’s acerbic flippancy Paul could read a febrile tension building: the reunion with his brother, the nearness of battle. They could make out figures now. Paul saw Aileron under the banner of the High Kingdom, and then he realized that the banner had changed: the tree was still there, the Summer Tree for which he himself was named, but the moon above it was no longer the silver crescent of before.
Instead, the moon above the tree was the red full moon Dana had caused to shine on a new moon night—the Goddess’s challenge to Maugrim and the challenge Aileron was carrying now, at the head of the army of Light.
And so that army rode up around the lake, and it came to pass that the sons of Ailell met again on the borders of Daniloth, north of the River Celyn among the broad-leafed aum trees and the silver and red flowers of sylvain on the riverbank.
Diarmuid, with Sharra holding him by the hand, walked a little forward from the others, and Aileron, too, stepped apart from the army he led. Paul saw Ivor watching, and a lios alfar who had to be Ra-Tenniel, and Matt was there, with Loren beside him. Kim was smiling at him, and next to her was Dave, a crooked, awkward grin on his face. They were all here, it seemed, here on the edge of Andarien for the beginning of the end. All of them. Or, not quite all. One was missing. One would always be missing.
Diarmuid was bowing formally to the High King. “What kept you so long?” he said brightly.
Aileron did not smile. “It took some doing to maneuver the chariots through the forest.”
“I see,” said Diarmuid, nodding gravely.
Aileron, his eyes unrevealing as ever, looked his brother carefully up and down, then said expressionlessly, “Your boots seem seriously in need of repair.”
It was Kim who laughed, letting all of them know that they could. Amid the release of tension, Diarmuid swore impressively, his color suddenly high.
Aileron finally smiled. “Loren and Matt have told us what you did, on the island and at sea. I have seen Amairgen’s staff. You will know without my telling you how brightly woven a journey that was.”
“You might tell me anyhow,” Diarmuid murmured.
Aileron ignored that. “There is a man among you I would greet,” he said. They watched as Lancelot stepped quietly forward, limping very slightly.
Dave Martyniuk was remembering something: a wolf hunt in Leinanwood, where the High King had slain the last seven wolves himself. And Arthur Pendragon had said, a strangeness in his voice, Only one man I ever saw could do what you just did.
Now the one man was here, and kneeling before Aileron. And the High King bade him rise and, gently, with care for the other’s wounds, he clasped him about the shoulders as he had not clasped his brother. Who stood a little way behind, a slight smile on his face, holding the Princess of Cathal by the hand.
“My lord High King,” said Mabon of Rhoden, stepping forward from the ranks of the army, “the daylight wanes, and it has been a long day’s riding to this place. Would you make camp here? Shall I give the orders to do so?”
“I would not advise it,” said Ra-Tenniel of Daniloth quickly, turning from conversation with Brendel.
Aileron was already shaking his head. “Not here,” he said. “Not with the Shadowland so near. If the army of the Dark were to advance overnight we would have the worst possible ground for battle, with the river behind us, and no retreat beyond it into the mist. No, we will move on. It will not be dark for a few hours yet.”
Mabon nodded agreement and withdrew to alert the captains of the army. Ivor, Paul noted, already had the Dalrei mounted up again, waiting for the signal to ride.
Diarmuid coughed loudly. “May I,” he said plaintively, as his brother turned to him, “be so bold as to entreat the loan of horses for my company? Or did you want me to trundle along in your wake?”
“That,” Aileron said, laughing for the first time, “has more appeal than you know.” He turned to walk back to the army but over his shoulder, as if offhandedly, added, “We brought your own horse, Diar. I thought you would find a way to get back in time.”
They mounted up. Behind them, as they left the river for Andarien’s stony ground, a boat was drifting gently down the current of the Celyn. Within that craft Leyse of the Swan Mark was listening to the music of her song, even as she came out upon the waves, to follow the setting sun across the wideness of the sea.
Kim looked over at Dave for encouragement. She didn’t really have a right to any support, but the big man gave her an unexpectedly shrewd glance, and when she began picking her way forward and to the left, to where Jennifer was riding, he detached himself from Ivor’s side and followed her.
There was something she had to tell Jennifer, and she wasn’t happy about it at all. Especially not when she thought about the disastrous results of her sending Darien to the Anor two days ago. Still, there was really no avoiding this, and she wasn’t about to try.
“Hi,” she said brightly to her closest friend. “Are you still speaking to me?”
Jennifer smiled wearily and leaned across in her saddle to kiss Kim on the cheek. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s not that silly. You were pretty angry.” Jennifer lowered her gaze. “I know. I’m sorry.” She paused. “I wish I could explain better why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
“You wanted him to be left alone. It isn’t that complicated.”
Jennifer looked up again. “We have to leave him alone,” she said quietly. “If I’d tried to bind him we’d never have known what he really was. He might have changed at any time. We’d never have been sure what he might do.”