I hope he didn't go out, Herewiss thought. Damn! He ran out of the room again, turned left and headed to the end of the south corridor. A stair led down from it to the central hall of the Woodward, where the Rooftree grew. He had no patience for the stairs, but hopped up on to the central banister, which had been polished smooth first by its craftsmen and then by the backsides of generations of the children of the Ward. At the bottom of the stairs he took a bare moment to nod courtesy to the Tree before he loped off across the tapestried hall, and out into the sunlight of the outer courtyard.
His father was there, kneeling in a newly dug flowerbed and setting in seedlings. Hearn Halmer's son was an average-looking man, a little on the lean side, dark-haired except for the places where he was going gray on the sides. He had the usual lazy, sleepy expression of the males of the Brightwood ruling line, the usual blue eyes, and the large hands that could be so very delicate. Those hands had been mighty in war, so that Hearn had come through two battles with the Reavers and one border skirmish with only a cut or two. This had prompted some to suggest that he had pacted with the Shadow, and had brought his relieved family to refer to him as 'Old Ironass'. Now, though, he no longer rode to the wars, and it was often hard for visitors to the Woodward to reconcile the conquering Lord of the Brightwood with the quiet, gentle man who could usually be found training ivy up the Ward's outer wall.
'Father,' Herewiss yelled, 'he's doing it again!'
Hearn sat back on his heels in the loose dirt, brushing off his hands, and looked over at his son.
'Who?'
'Here,' said Herewiss, coming up and holding out the parchment, 'read it!'
'My hands are dirty,' Hearn said as Herewiss knelt down beside him. 'Hold it for me.'
'Dirty? It hardly matters if it gets dirty—' But Herewiss held it out. His father rested hands quietly on his knees and read it through. After a moment he snorted. 'As't'raid Arleni, my ass!'
That's what I said.'
'Not in front of Hal, I hope.'
'Father, please.' 'So,' Hearn said, 'you're surprised?"
Herewiss laughed, a short rueful sound. 'No, not really.'
'And so you're going riding off to get him out of whatever he's gotten himself into.'
'May I?'
'You're asking me?' 'You're the Lord.'
Hearn chuckled and took a seedling out of the cup of water beside him. Herewiss noted with amusement that it was one of the ceremonial cups for Opening Night, the rubies flaring in the sunlight and making bright dots of reflection in the mud. 'Could I stop you? Could the Queen of Darthen stop you? Could our Father the Eagle stop you if He showed up? Go on. But when you see the idiot, tell him from me that he'd better not sign himself as King of Arlen unless he's willing to do something about it.'
'I had that in mind.'
'You'd never say it, though, you're too damn kind. You tell him 7 said it. Will you be needing men?'
'I'm sorcerer enough to handle this myself, I think. And the less people involved, the better. If Cillmod hears that Brightwood people were involved, it could be excuse enough for him to break the Oath again and move in on Darthen.'
Hearn planted the seed. 'There speaks my wise son,' he said.
'And besides — I don't want any Wood people getting killed because of this. And neither do you — but you'd never say it — because you're too damn kind.'
Hearn laughed softly. 'My wise son. But don't let it stop you from bringing him back here if he needs a place to stay. No-one will hear about it from us.'
Herewiss nodded and stood up.
'Take what you need,' Hearn said. 'Take Dapple, if you think he'd help. And Herewiss—'
Hearn turned back to his work, his strong hands moving the soil. 'Be careful. I'm short of sons.'
Herewiss stood there looking at his father's back for a moment, and then turned and headed back into the Woodward to start preparing for a journey.
The Brightwood is the oldest and most honored of the principalities of Darthen. It was the first of the new settlements established after the Worldwinning, by people who came down out of the eastern Highpeaks and found the quiet woodlands to their liking after their long travels. It took them many years to free the Wood and its environs from the Fyrd that infested it, but while many other peoples were still living in caves in the mountains, the Brightwood people were already building the Woodward in the great clearing at its center.
Though the Woodward is held by outsiders to be at the Wood's heart, the Brightwood people know that its real heart — or hearts, for there are several — lie elsewhere: the Silent Precincts, secret, holy places where few people not born in the Wood or trained to the usages of the Power have ever walked. There, upon the Forest Altars hidden within the Precincts, the Goddess was first worshipped again as She used to be before the Catastrophe — invoked in Her three forms as Maiden and Mother and Wise Woman. There too Her Lovers are worshipped, those parts of Herself which rise and fall in Her favor, eternally replacing one another as Her consorts. Even the Lovers' Shadow is worshipped there, though with cautious and propitiatory rites enacted at the dark of the Moon. Other places of the worship of the Pentad there may be, but there are none older or more revered except the Morrowfane, which is the Heart of the World and so takes precedence.
Night with its stars spread over the Wood, and the pure silver moonlight made vague and doubtful patterns on the grass as it shone through the branches. Spring was well underway; the night was full of the smell of growing things, and the chill wind laced itself through the new leaves with a hissing sound.
In the center of the little clearing, before the slab of moon white marble set into the ground, Herewiss knelt and shivered a little. The indefinite blackwork filigree of moonshine and shadow shifted and blurred on his bare body and gleamed dully from the sword he held before him. It was beaten flatter than it had been that morning, and had some pretense of an edge on it; but it was not finished yet. Herewiss had learned better than to waste time putting hilts and finishing on these swords before he tried them with this final testing.
The dappled horse tethered at the edge of the clearing stamped and snorted softly, indignant over having to be up at this ridiculous hour. But right now Herewiss had no sympathy for it, and he shut the sound out of his mind as he prayed desperately. It had to work. It had to. He had done a good day's spelling, a good piece of work, though he had paid dear for it, both in backlash and in the pain cutting away part of his self had cost him. But it might work. No, it had to. This was the Great Altar, the Altar of the Flame, the one most amenable to what he was doing, the one with the most bound-up power. And this sword felt better than any of the others he had tried; more alive. Maybe he had managed to fool the steel into thinking it lived. And if he had fooled it, then it would conduct the Power. His focus, his focus at last—
O Three, he said within himself, for no word may be spoken in those places, Virgin and Mother and Mistress of Power, oh let this be the last time. Goddess, You're never cruel without a reason. You wouldn't give me the seed of Flame and then let it die unused. Let the Power of this place enter into me and stir the spark into Fire. And let that Fire flow down through this my sword as it would through a Rod, were I a woman. Oh, please, my Goddess, my Mother, my Bride, please. Let it work. In Your name, Who are our beginnings and our endings—