Gently, Tegid lowered the lios to stand on the mosaic-inlaid floor, and then, kneeling awkwardly, he offered his shoulder for support.
Brendel closed his eyes and drew a breath. And when he spoke again his voice, by some act of pure will, rang out strong and clear beneath the windows of Delevan.
“Treachery, High King. Treachery and death I bring you, and tidings of the Dark. We spoke, you and I, four nights past, of svart alfar outside Pendaran Wood. High King, there have been svarts outside your walls this day, and wolves with them. We were attacked before dawn and all my people are slain!”
He stopped. A sound like the moaning of wind before a storm ran through the hall.
Ailell has sunk back into his chair, his eyes bleak and hollow. Brendel lifted his head and looked at him. “There is an empty seat at your table, High King. I must tell you that it stands empty for a traitor. Look to your own hearth, Ailell! Metran, your First Mage, is allied with the Dark. He has deceived you all!” There were cries at that, of anger and dismay.
“Hold!” It was Diarmuid, on his feet and facing the lios. His eyes flashed, but his voice was under tight control. “You said the Dark. Who?”
Once more the silence stretched. Then Brendel spoke. “I would not have ever wanted to bear this tale to the world. I spoke of svart alfar and wolves attacking us. We would not have died had it been only them. There was something else. A giant wolf, with silver on his head like a brand against the black. Then I saw him after with Metran and I knew him, for he had taken back his true form. I must tell you that the Wolflord of the andain has come among us again: Galadan has returned.”
“Accursed be his name!” someone cried, and Kevin saw that it was Matt. “How can this be? He died at Andarien a thousand years ago.”
“So thought we all,” said Brendel, turning to the Dwarf. “But I saw him today, and this wound is his.” He touched his torn shoulder. Then, “There is more. Something else came today and spoke with both of them.”
Once more Brendel hesitated. And this time his eyes, dark-hued, went to Kevin’s face.
“It was the black swan,” he said, and a stillness fell upon stillness. “Avaia. She carried away Jennifer, your friend, the golden one. They had come for her, why I know not, but we were too few, too few against the Wolflord, and so my brethren are all dead, and she is gone. And the Dark is abroad in the world again.”
Kevin, white with dread, looked at the maimed figure of the lios. “Where?” he gasped, in a voice that shocked him.
Brendel shook his head wearily. “I could not hear their words. Black Avaia took her north. Could I have stayed her flight, I would have died to do so. Oh, believe me,” the lios alfar’s voice faltered. “Your grief is mine, and mine may tear the fabric of my soul apart. Twenty of my people have died, and it is in my heart that they are not the last. We are the Children of Light, and the Dark is rising. I must return to Daniloth. But,” and now his voice grew strong again, “an oath I will swear before you now. She was in my care. I shall find her, or avenge her, or die in the attempt.” And Brendel cried then, so that the Great Hall echoed to the sound: “We shall fight them as we did before! As we always have!”
The words rang among them like a stern bell of defiance, and in Kevin Laine they lit a fire he did not know lay within him.
“Not alone!” he cried, his own voice pitched to carry. “If you share my grief, I will share yours. And others here will, too, I think.”
“Aye!” boomed Matt Sören beside him.
“All of us!” cried Diarmuid, Prince of Brennin. “When the lios are slain in Brennin, the High Kingdom goes to war!”
A mighty roar exploded at those words. Building and building in a wave of fury it climbed to the highest windows of Delevan and resounded through the hall.
It drowned, quite completely, the despairing words of the High King.
“Oh, Mörnir,” whispered Ailell, clutching his hands together in his lap. “What have I done? Where is Loren? What have I done?”
There had been light, now there was not. One measured time in such ways. There were stars in the space above the trees; no moon yet, and only a thin one later, for tomorrow would be the night of the new moon.
His last night, if he lived through this one.
The Tree was a part of him now, another name, a summoning. He almost heard a meaning in the breathing of the forest all around him, but his mind was stretched and flattened, he could not reach to it, he could only endure, and hold the wall of memory as best he might.
One more night. After which there would be no music to be laid open by, no highways to forget, no rain, no sirens, none, no Rachel. One more night at most, for he wasn’t sure he could survive another day like the last.
Though truly he would try: for the old King, and the slain farmer, and the faces he’d seen on the roads. Better to die for a reason, and with what one could retain of pride. Better, surely, though he could not say why.
Now I give you to Mörnir, Ailell had said. Which meant he was a gift, an offering, and it was all waste if he died too soon. So he had to hold to life, hold the wall, hold for the God, for he was the God’s to claim, and there was thunder now. It seemed at times to come from within the Tree, which meant, in the way of things, from within himself. If only there could be rain before he died, he might find some kind of peace at the end. It had rained, though, when she died, it had rained all night.
His eyes were hurting now. He closed them, but that was no good, either, because she was waiting there, with music. Once, earlier, he had wanted to call her name in the wood, as he had not beside the open grave, to feel it on his lips again as he had not since; to burn his dry soul with her. Burn, since he could not cry.
Silence, of course. One did not do any such thing. One opened one’s eyes instead on the Summer Tree, in the deep of Mörnirwood, and one saw a man come forward, from among the trees.
It was very dark, he could not see who it was, but the faint starlight reflected from silver hair and so he thought…
“Loren?” he tried, but scarcely any sound escaped his cracked lips. He tried to wet them, but he had no moisture, he was dry. Then the figure came nearer, to stand in the starlight below where he was bound, and Paul saw that he had been wrong. The eyes that met his own were not those of the mage, and, looking into them, he did know fear then, for it should not end so, truly it should not. But the man below stood as if cloaked in power, even in that place, even in the glade of the Summer Tree, and in the dark eyes Paul saw his death.
Then the figure spoke. “I cannot allow it,” he said, with finality. “You have courage, and something else, I think. Almost you are one of us, and it might have been that we could have shared something, you and I. Not now, though. This I cannot allow. You are calling a force too strong for the knowing, and it must not be wakened. Not when I am so near. Will you believe,” the voice said, low and assured, “that I am sorry to have to kill you?”
Paul moved his lips. “Who?” he asked, the sound a scrape in his throat.
The other smiled at that. “Names matter to you? They should. It is Galadan who has come, and I fear it is the end.”
Bound and utterly helpless, Paul saw the elegant figure draw a knife from his belt. “It will be clean, I promise you,” he said. “Did you not come here for release? I will give it to you.” Their eyes locked once more. It was a dream, it was so like a dream, so dark, blurred, shadowed. He closed his eyes; one closed one’s eyes to dream. She was there, of course, but it was ending, so all right then, fine, let it end on her.
A moment passed. No blade, no severing. Then Galadan spoke again, but not to him, and in a different voice.