“Yes,” said Paul. And stepping forward, he embraced, for the first time, the old blind gallant figure who had sent his soul so far to find Paul’s on the dark wide sea.
Paul stepped back. Gereint turned, with that uncanny precision, to where Kim was standing, silent, inexplicable tears streaming down her face. Shaman and Seer faced each other, and no words at all were said. Kim closed her eyes, still weeping.
“I’m sorry,” she said brokenly. “Oh, Tabor, I’m sorry.” Paul didn’t understand. He saw Loren Silvercloak lift his head sharply.
“Was this it, Gereint?” Tabor asked, in a strangely calm voice. “Was it the black swan that you saw?”
“Oh, child,” the shaman whispered. “For the love I bear you and all your family, I only wish that it were so.”
Loren had now turned completely away, staring north.
“Weaver at the Loom!” he cried.
Then the others, too, saw the onrushing of the shadow, they heard the huge, roaring sound, and felt the mighty buffet of the wind that had come.
Jaelle clutched at Paul’s arm. He was aware of her touch, but it was at Kim that he looked as the shadow came over them. He finally understood her grief. It became his own. There was nothing he could do, though, nothing at all. He saw Tabor look up. The boy’s eyes seemed to open very wide. He touched the glorious creature that he rode, she spread her wings, and they rose into the sky.
He had been ordered to stay by the women and children in the curve of land east of the Latham, to guard them if necessary. It was as much for his sake, Tabor knew, as it was for their own: his father’s attempt to keep him from leaving the world of men, which was what seemed to happen whenever he rode Imraith-Nimphais.
Gereint had called for him, though. Only half awake in that grey pre-dawn hour in front of the shaman’s house, Tabor heard Gereint’s words, and everything changed.
“Child,” the shaman said, “I have been sent a vision from Cernan, as sharp as when he came to me and named you to your fast. I am afraid that you must fly. Son of Ivor, you have to be in Andarien before the sun is high!”
It seemed to Tabor as if there was an elusive music playing somewhere amid the ground mist and the greyness that lay all about before the rising of the sun. His mother and sister were beside him, awakened by the same boy Gereint had sent with his message. He turned to his mother, to try to explain, to ask forgiveness… And saw that it wasn’t necessary. Not with Leith. She had brought his sword from their house. How she had known to do so, he couldn’t even guess. She held it out toward him, and he took it from her hands. Her eyes were dry. His father was always the one who cried.
His mother said, in her quiet, strong voice, “You will do what you must do, and your father will understand since the message comes from the god. Weave brightly for the Dalrei, my son, and bring them home.”
Bring them home. Tabor found it hard to frame words of his own. All about him, and more clearly now, he could hear the strange music calling him away.
He turned to his sister. Liane was weeping, and he grieved for her. She had been hurt in Gwen Ystrat, he knew, on the night Liadon died. There was a new vulnerability to her these days. Or perhaps it had always been there and only now was he noticing it. It didn’t really matter which, not anymore. In silence, for words were truly very difficult, he handed her his sword and raised his arms out from his side.
Kneeling, his sister buckled the sword belt upon him, after the fashion of the old days. She did not speak either. When she was done, he kissed her, and then his mother. Leith held him very tightly for a moment, and then she let him go. He stepped a little way apart from all of them. The music had gone now. The sky was brighter in the east above the Carnevon Range, in whose looming shadows they lay. Tabor looked around at the silent, sleeping camp.
Then he closed his eyes and inside himself, not aloud, he said: Beloved!
And almost before the thought was fully formed, he theard the voice of his dreaming that was the voice of his soul respond, I am here! Shall we fly? I He opened his eyes. She was in the sky overhead, more glorious to see than even innermost knowledge remembered her to be. She seemed brighter, her horn more luminous, every time she came. His heart lifted to see her and to watch her land so lightly at his side.
I think we must, he answered her, walking over to stroke the glistening red mane. She lowered her head, so the shining horn rested on his shoulder for a moment. I think this is the time for which we were brought together.
We shall have each other, she said to him. Come, I will take you up to the sunrise!
He smiled a little at her eagerness, but then, an instant later, his indulgent smile faded, as he felt the same fierce exhilaration surge through him as well. He mounted up upon Imraith-Nimphais and even as he did, she spread her wings.
Wait, he said, with the last of his self-control.
He turned back. His mother and sister were watching them. Leith had never seen his winged creature before, and a far-off part of Tabor hurt a little to see awe in her face. A mother should not be awed by her son, he thought. But already such thoughts seemed to come from a long way away.
The sky was appreciably lighter now. The mist was lifting. He turned to Gereint, who had been waiting patiently, saying nothing. Tabor said, “You know her name, shaman. You know the names of all our totem animals, even this one. She will bear you if you like. Would you fly with us?”
And Gereint, as unruffled as he always seemed to be, said quietly, “I would not have presumed to ask, but there may yet be a reason for me to be there. Yes, I will come. Help me mount.”
Without being asked, Imraith-Nhnphais moved nearer to the frail, wizened shaman. She stood very still as Tabor reached down a hand, and Liane moved forward and helped Gereint up behind Tabor.
Then it seemed that there was nothing else to be said, and no time to say it, even if he could have managed to. Within his mind, Tabor told the creature of his dream, Let us fly, my love. And with the thought they were in the sky, winging north just as the morning sun burst up on their right hand.
Behind him, Tabor knew without looking, his mother would be standing, straight-backed, dry-eyed, holding his sister in her arms, watching her youngest fly away from her.
This has been his very last thought, his last clear image from the world of men, as they had sped through the morning high over the rolling Plain, racing the rising sun to a field of war.
To which they had finally come, and in time, with the sun high, starting over into the west. They had come, and Tabor had seen a black thing of horror, a monstrous swan diving from the sky, and he had drawn his sword, and Imraith-Nimphais, glorious and deadly, had reached for even greater speed, and they had met the diving swan and struck her two mortal wounds with shining blade and horn.
When it was over Tabor had felt, just as he had before, each time they’d flown and killed, that the balance of his soul had shifted again, farther away than ever from the world through which the people all around them moved.
Gereint descended, unaided, and so Tabor and Imraith-Nimphais stood by themselves among men and women, some of whom they knew. He saw the blood dark on his creature’s horn, and heard her say to him, in the moment before he formed the thought himself, Only each other at the last.
And then, an instant later, he heard Silvercloak cry aloud, and he wheeled about and looked to the north, above the tumult of the battlefield where his father and his brother were fighting.
He looked, saw the shadow, felt the wind, and realized what had come, here, now, at the last, and knew in that moment why he had dreamt his creature, and that the pending was upon them.