And within her then he said, I will,and moved to mount astride her back. He was no weight at all; she was very strong and would be stronger yet. She bore him past the other, older man, and because Tabor loved him, she lowered her horn to him as they went by.
Then they were clear of the trees, and there was open grass and oh, the sky, all the sky above. For the first time she released her wings and they rose in a rush of joy to greet the stars and the moon whose child she was. She could feel his mind within hers, the exulting of his heart, for they were bound forever, and she knew that they were glorious, wheeling across the wide night sky, Imraith-Nimphais and the Rider who knew her name.
When the chestnut unicorn his son rode lowered her head to him as they passed, Ivor could not keep the tears from his eyes. He always cried too easily, Leith used to scold, but this, surely this transcendency…?
And then, turning to follow them, he saw it become even more, for the unicorn took flight. Ivor lost all track of time then, seeing Tabor and the creature of his fast go soaring across the night. He could almost share the joy they felt in the discovery of flight, and he felt blessed in his heart. He had walked into Pendaran and come out alive to see this creature of the Goddess bear his son like a comet above the Plain.
He was too much a Chieftain and too wise to forget that there was a darkness coming. Even this creature, this gift, could not be an easy thing, not colored as she was like the moon, like blood. Nor would Tabor ever be the same, he knew. But these sorrows were for the daylight—tonight he could let his heart fly with the two of them, the two young ones at play in the wind between him and the stars. Ivor laughed, as he had not in years, like a child.
After an unknown time they came down gently, not far from where he stood. He saw his son lay his head against that of the unicorn, beside the silver shining of its horn. Then Tabor stepped back, and the creature turned, moving with terrible grace, and went back into the darkness of the Wood.
When Tabor turned to him, his eyes were his own again. Wordlessly, for there were no words, Ivor held out his arms and his youngest child ran into them.
“You saw?” Tabor asked finally, his head against his father’s chest.
“I did. You were glorious.”
Tabor straightened, his eyes reclaiming their dance, their youth. “She bowed to you! I didn’t ask. I just said you were my father and I loved you, so she said she would love you, too, and she bowed.”
Ivor’s heart was full of light. “Come,” he said gruffly, “it is time to go home. Your mother will be weeping with anxiety.”
“Mother?” Tabor asked in a tone so comical Ivor had to laugh. They mounted and rode back, slowly now, and together, over their Plain. On this eve of war a curious peace seemed to descend upon Ivor. Here was his land, the land of his people for so long that the years lost meaning. From Andarien to Brennin, from the mountains to Pendaran, all the grass was theirs. The Plain was the Dalrei, and they, it. He let that knowledge flow through him like a chord of music, sustaining and enduring.
It would have to endure in the days to come, he knew, the full power of the Dark coming down. And he also knew that it might not. Tomorrow, Ivor thought, I will worry tomorrow; and riding in peace over the prairie beside his son, he came back to the camp and saw Leith waiting for them by the western gate.
Seeing her, Tabor slipped from his horse and ran into her arms. Ivor willed his eyes to stay dry as he watched. Sentimental fool, he castigated himself; she was right. When Leith, still holding the boy, looked a question up at him he nodded as briskly as he could.
“To bed, young man,” she said firmly. “We’re riding in a few hours. You need sleep.”
“Oh, Mother,” Tabor complained, “I’ve done nothing but sleep for the—”
“Bed!” Leith said, in a voice all her children knew.
“Yes, Mother,” labor replied, with such pure happiness that even Leith smiled watching him go into the camp. Fourteen, Ivor thought, regardless of everything. Absolutely regardless.
He looked down at his wife. She met the look in silence. It was, he realized, their first moment alone since the Mountain. “It was all right?” she asked.
“It was. It is something very bright.”
“I don’t think I want to know, just yet.” He nodded, seeing once more, discovering it anew, how beautiful she was.
“Why did you marry me?” he asked impulsively. She shrugged. “You asked.” Laughing, he dismounted, and with each of them leading a horse, his and Tabor’s, they went back into the camp. They put the animals in the stockade and turned home.
At the doorway Ivor looked up for the last time at that moon, low now in the west, over where Pendaran was.
“I lied,” Leith said quietly. “I married you because no other man I know or can imagine could have made my heart leap so when he asked.”
He turned from the moon to her. “The sun rises in your eyes,” he said. The formal proposal. “It always, always has, my love.”
He kissed her. She was sweet and fragrant in his arms, and she could kindle his desire so…
“The sun rises in three hours,” she said, disengaging. “Come to bed.”
“Indeed,” said Ivor.
“To sleep,” she said, warningly.
“I am not,” Ivor said, “fourteen years old. Nor am I tired.”
She looked at him sternly a moment, then the smile lit her face as from within.
“Good,” said Leith, his wife. “Neither am I.” She took his hand and drew him inside.
Dave had no idea where he was, nor, beyond a vague notion of heading south, where to go. There weren’t likely to be signposts in Pendaran Wood indicating the mileage to Paras Derval.
On the other hand, he was absolutely certain that if Tore and Levon were alive, they’d be looking for him, so the best course seemed to be to stay put and call out at intervals. This raised the possibility of other things answering, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that.
Remembering Tore’s comments on the “babies” in Faelinn Grove, he sat down against a tree on the upwind side of a clearing, where he could see anything coming across, with a chance of hearing or smelling something approaching from behind. He then proceeded to negate this bit of concealment by shouting Levon’s name several times at the top of his voice.
He looked around afterwards, but there was nothing stirring. Indeed, as the echoes of his cry faded, Dave became deeply aware of the silence of the forest. That wild rush, as of wind, seemed to have carried everything with it. He appeared to be very much alone.
But not quite. “You make it,” a deep voice sounded, from almost directly beneath him, “very hard for honest folk to sleep.”
Leaping violently to his feet, Dave raised his axe and watched apprehensively as a large fallen tree trunk was rolled aside to reveal a series of steps leading down, and a figure emerging to look up at him.
A long way up. The creature he’d awakened resembled a portly gnome more than anything else. A very long white beard offset a bald crown and rested comfortably on a formidable paunch. The figure wore some sort of loose, hooded robe, and the whole ensemble stood not much more than four feet high.
“Could you trouble yourself,” the bass voice continued, “to summon this Levon person from some other locality?”
Checking a bizarre impulse to apologize, and another to swing first and query later, Dave raised the axe to shoulder height and growled, “Who are you?”
Disconcertingly, the little man laughed. “Names already? Six days with the Dalrei should have taught you to go slower with a question like that. Call me Flidais, if you like, and put that down.”