She remained unconscious for the rest of the night and all the next day. Ysanne did not sleep, but watched her through the hours of darkness, and then in the searing brightness of the following day, and on the face of the old Seer was an expression only one man, long dead, would have recognized.
Kimberly woke at sunset. Away to the south in that moment, Kevin and Paul were taking up their positions with Diarmuid’s men outside the walls of Larai Rigal.
For a moment, Kim was completely disoriented, then the Seer watched as a brutal surge of knowledge came flooding into the grey eyes. Lifting her head, Kim gazed at the old woman. Outside, Tyrth could be heard shutting up the animals for the night. The cat lay on the window sill in the last of the evening light.
“Welcome back,” said Ysanne.
Kim smiled; it took an effort. “I went so far.” She shook her head wonderingly, then her mouth tightened at another recollection. “Eilathen has gone?”
“Yes.”
“I saw him dive. I saw where he went, into the green far down. It is very beautiful there.”
“I know,” said the Seer.
Again, Kim drew breath before speaking. “Was it hard for you to watch?”
At that, Ysanne looked away for the first time. Then, “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it was hard. Remembering.”
Kim’s hand slipped from the coverlet and covered that of the old woman. When Ysanne spoke again, it was very low. “Raederth was First of the Mages before Ailell was King. He came one day to Morvran, on the shores of Lake Leinan… You know what lies in Gwen Ystrat?”
“I know,” said Kimberly. “I saw Dun Maura.”
“He came to the Temple by the lake, and stayed there a night, which was brave, for there is no love in that place for any of the mages since Amairgen’s day. Raederth was a brave man, though.
“He saw me there,” Ysanne continued. “I was seventeen and newly chosen to be of the Mormae—the inner circle—and no one so young had ever been chosen before. But Raederth saw me that night, and he marked me for something else.”
“As you did me?”
“As I did you. He knew me for a Seer, and he took me away from the Mother and changed my fate, or found it for me.”
“And you loved him?”
“Yes,” Ysanne said simply. “From the first, and I miss him still, though all the years have run away from us. He brought me here at midsummer, more than fifty years ago, and summoned Eilathen with the flowerfire, and the spirit spun for me as he did for you last night.”
“And Raederth?” Kim asked, after a moment.
“He died three years after of an arrow ordered by Garmisch, the High King,” Ysanne said flatly. “When Raederth was slain, Duke Ailell rose in Rhoden and began the war that broke the rule of Garmisch and the Garantae and took him to the throne.”
Kimberly nodded again. “I saw that, too. I saw him kill the King before the palace gate. He was brave and tall, Ailell.”
“And wise. A wise King, all his days. He wedded Marrien of the Garantae, and named Metran, her cousin, First Mage to follow Raederth, which angered me then and I told him so. But Ailell was trying to knit a sundered kingdom, and he did. He deserved more love than he has had.”
“He had yours.”
“Late,” Ysanne said, “and grudgingly. And only as King. I tried to help him, though, with his burden, and in return he found ways to ensure that I would be left alone here.”
“A long time alone,” Kim said softly.
“We all have our tasks,” the Seer said. There was a silence. In the barn out back, a cow lowed plaintively. Kim heard the click of a gate being shut, then Tyrth’s uneven steps crossing the yard. She met Ysanne’s gaze, a half-smile tugging at her mouth.
“You told me one lie yesterday,” she said.
Ysanne nodded. “I did. One. It was not my truth to tell.”
“I know,” said Kim. “You have carried a great deal alone. I am here now, though; do you want me to share your burden?” Her mouth crooked. “I seem to be a chalice. What power can you fill me with?”
There was a tear in the old woman’s eye. She wiped it away, shaking her head. “Such things as I can teach have little to do with power. It is in your dreams now that you must walk, as all the Seers must. And for you as well there is the stone.”
Kim glanced down. The ring on her right hand was no longer shining as it had when Eilathen wore it. It glowered, deep and dark, the color of old blood.
“I did dream this,” she said. “A terrible dream, the night before we crossed. What is it, Ysanne?”
“The Baelrath it was named, long ago, the Warstone. It is of the wild magic,” the Seer said, “a thing not made by man, and it cannot be controlled like the shapings of Ginserat or Amairgen, or even of the Priestesses. It has been lost for a very long time, which has happened before. It is never found without reason, or so the old tales say.”
It had grown dark outside as they talked. “Why have you given it to me?” Kim asked in a small voice.
“Because I dreamt it on your finger, too.” Which, somehow, she had known would be the answer. The ring pulsed balefully, inimically, and she feared it.
“What was I doing?” she asked.
“Raising the dead,” Ysanne replied, and stood to light the candles in the room.
Kim closed her eyes. The images were waiting for her: the jumbled stones, the wide grasslands rolling away in the dark, the ring on her hand burning like a fire in the dream, and the wind rising over the grass, whistling between the stones—
“Oh, God!” she cried aloud. “What is it, Ysanne?”
The Seer returned to her seat beside the bed and gravely regarded the girl who lay there wrestling with what lay upon her.
“I am not sure of this,” she said, “so I must be careful, but there is a pattern shaping here. You see, he died in your world the first time.”
“Who died?” Kim whispered.
”The Warrior. Who always dies, and is not allowed to rest. It is his doom.”
Kim’s hands were clenched. “Why?”
“There was a great wrong done at the very beginning of his days, and for that he may not have rest. It is told and sung and written in every world where he has fought.”
“Fought?” Her heart was pounding.
“Of course,” Ysanne replied, though gently still. “He is the Warrior. Who may be called only at darkest need, and only by magic and only when summoned by name.” Her voice was like wind in the room.
“And his name?”
“The secret one, no man knows, or even where it is to be sought, but there is another, by which he is always spoken.”
“And that is?” Though now she knew. And a star was in the window.
Ysanne spoke the name.
He was probably wrong to be lingering, but the commands had not been explicit, and he was not overly prone to let it disturb him. It intoxicated them all to be abroad in the open spaces, using forgotten arts of concealment to observe the festival traffic on the roads to and from Paras Derval, and though by day the charred land dismayed them, at night they sang the oldest songs under the unclouded glitter of the stars.
He himself had a further reason for waiting, though he knew the delay could not be prolonged indefinitely. One more day he had promised himself, and felt extravagantly gratified when the two women and the man crested the ridge above the thicket.
Matt was quietly reassuring. Kim was in good hands, and though he didn’t know where Diarmuid’s band had gone—and preferred it that way, he added with a grimace—they were expected back that night. Loren, he confirmed, had indeed gone in search of Dave. For the first time since her encounter with the High Priestess two days before, Jennifer relaxed a little.