The Darkest Road (24 page)

Then, both of them standing on the tossing waves beside the ship heard Amairgen say, very formally now, “What tidings have you for me after so long?”

Jaelle, surprised, saw tears on Pwyll’s face. He said, very gently, “Tidings of rest, unquiet one. You are avenged, your staff has been redeemed. The Soulmonger of Maugrim is dead. Go home, first of the mages, beloved of Lisen. Sail home between the stars to the Weaver’s side and be granted peace after all these years. We have gone to Cader Sedat and destroyed the evil there with the power of your staff held by one who followed you: by Loren Silvercloak, First Mage of Brennin. What I tell you tonight is true. I am the Twiceborn of Mörnir, Lord of the Summer Tree.”

There came a sound then that Jaelle never forgot for what was left of her days. It came not from Amairgen but, rather, seemed to rise from the ship itself, though no one at all was to be seen: a high keening sound, twinned somehow to the slanting moon in the west, balanced achingly between ecstasy and pain. She realized, suddenly, that there
were
other ghosts here, though they could not be seen. Others manned that doomed ship.

Then Amairgen spoke, over the sound of his mariners, and he said to Pwyll, “If this is so, if it has come to pass, then in the name of Mörnir I release the Spear into your trust. But there is one thing I will ask of you, one thing further that is needed before I can rest. There is one more death.”

For the first time she saw Pwyll hesitate. She didn’t know why, but she did know something else, and she said, “Galadan?”

She heard Pwyll draw a breath, even as she felt the sapphire eyes of the one who had found the skylore fix themselves on her own. She willed herself not to flinch.

She heard him say, “You are a long way from your Temples and your thirsty axe, Priestess. Do you not fear the killing sea?”

“I fear the Unraveller more,” she said, pleased to hear her voice strong and unwavering.
The killing sea
, she registered, sorrowing:
Lisen
. “And I hate the Dark more than I ever hated you, or any of the mages who followed you. I am saving my curses for Maugrim, and”—she swallowed—”and I will pray, after tonight, to Dana, for your peace and Lisen’s.” She ended, ritually, as Pwyll had done, “What I tell you tonight is true. I am the High Priestess of the Goddess in Fionavar.”

What have I said?
she thought in bemused wonder. But she kept that, she hoped, from her eyes. Gravely, he looked down upon her from the ruined ship, and she could see, for the first time, something in him that went beyond power and pain. He had been loved, she remembered. And had loved so much that it had bound him in grief, beyond death through all the years, to this bay where Lisen had died.

Over the sounds that came from the torn hulk of his ship, Amaigren said, “I will be grateful for your prayers.”

Pwyll’s words earlier, she thought, exactly his words. It seemed to her that this had become a night outside of time, where everything signified, in some way or another.

“Galadan,” Amairgen repeated. The wailing from the dark ship was louder now. Joy and pain, she heard them both. She saw the moon shine through the sundered hulk. It was dissolving, even as she watched. “Galadan,” Amairgen cried, one last time, looking down at the Twiceborn as he spoke.

“I have sworn it,” said Pwyll, and Jaelle heard, for the first time, a doubt in his voice. She saw him draw a breath and lift his head higher. “I have sworn that he is mine,” he said, and this time it carried.

“Be it so,” said Amairgen’s ghost. “May your thread never be lost.” He was starting to fade; she could see a star shine through him. He raised the spear, preparing to drop it over the side to them.

The provinces of Dana ended at the sea; she had no power here. But she was still what she was, and a thought came to Jaelle then, as she stood on the dark waves.

“
Wait!
” she cried, sharp and clear in the starry night. “Amairgen, hold!”

She thought it was too late, he was already so translucent, the ship so ephemeral they could see the low moon through its timbers. The wailing of the invisible mariners seemed to be coming from very far away.

He came back, though. He did not let loose the spear, and
slowly, as they watched, he took again a more substantial form. The ship had gone silent, bobbing on the gentle swells of the bay.

Beside her, Pwyll said nothing, waiting. There was nothing, she knew, he could say. He had done what he could: had recognized this ship for what it was, had known the spear and ventured forth out over the waves to claim it and set the mage free of his long, tormented sailing. He had brought tidings of revenge, and so of release.

The other thing, what might happen now, was hers, for he could not know what she knew.

The mage’s cold, spectral gaze was fixed upon her. He said, “Speak, Priestess. Why should I hold for you?”

“Because I have a question to ask, speaking not only for Dana but in the name of Light.” Suddenly she was afraid of her own thought, of what she wanted from him.

“Ask it then,” Amairgen said, high above.

She had been High Priestess for too long to be so direct, even now. She said, “You were about to let go of the spear. Did you think thus to be so easily quit of your task in carrying it?”

“I did,” he replied. “By giving it into your custody with the Warrior in Fionavar.”

Summoning all her courage, Jaelle said coldly, “Not so, mage. Should I tell you why?”

There was ice in his eyes, they were colder than her own could go, and with her words there came a low, ominous sound from the ship again. Pwyll said nothing. He listened, balanced on the waves beside her.

“Tell me why,” Amairgen said.

“Because you were to give the spear to the Warrior for use against the Dark, not to carry far off from the fields of war.”

From the moonlit winter of his death, the mage’s expression seemed acidly sardonic. “You argue like a Priestess,” he murmured. “It is clear that nothing has changed in Gwen Ystrat, for all the years that have run by.”

“
Not so
,” said Pwyll quietly, surprising both her and the mage. “She offered to pray for you, Amairgen. And if you are able to see us clearly, you will know that she was crying for you as she spoke. You will also know, better than I, what a change that marks.”

She swallowed, wondering if she had really wanted him to see that. No time to think about it.

Instead, she lifted her voice again. “Hear me, Amairgen Whitebranch, long said to have hated Rakoth Maugrim and the legions of the Dark more than any man who ever lived. The High King of Brennin is riding from Celidon even now—so we believe. He is taking war to Maugrim in Andarien again, as the High King did in your own day. We have as far to go as the army does, and we are on foot. Neither the Warrior with his spear nor any of us here by the Anor will be there in time. We have three days’ walking through Sennett, perhaps a fourth, before we cross Celyn into Andarien.”

It was true. She had known it, and Diarmuid and Brendel, too. They’d had no other choices, though, once agreeing that Aileron would be riding north from the battle he’d missed by Celidon.
They would simply have to walk, as fast and as far as they could. And pray.

Now they might have a choice. A terrible one, but the times were terrible and it seemed as if she might be charged with this part of their remedy.

“If what you tell me is true,” the ghost said, “then, indeed, you have cause to fear. You had a question, though. I have stayed for it. Speak, for courtesy will not hold me any longer in this hour of our release.”

And so she asked it: “Will your ship carry mortal men, Amairgen?”

Pwyll drew a sharp breath.

“Do you know what you are asking?” Amairgen said, very softly.

It was cold now among the waves, in the lee of that pale ship. She said, “I think I do.”

“Do you know that we are released now? That tidings of the Soulmonger’s death mark our release from bondage in the sea? And you would bind us longer yet?”

It had all become very hard. She said, “There is no binding I have, mage. I have no power here, no hold upon you. I have asked a question, nothing more.” She realized that she was trembling.

For what seemed an interminable time, the ghost of Conary’s mage was silent. Then, in a voice like a stir of wind, he said, “Would you sail with the dead?”

The killing sea
, she thought for the second time. There was a marrow-deep fear within her, so far from the Temples she knew. She masked it, though, and then beat it back.

“
Can
we do so?” she asked. “There are some fifty of us and we must be at the mouth of the Celyn two mornings hence.”

In front of them the timbers of the ship showed black and splintered. There were broken shards at the waterline and one vast, gaping hole where the sea was flowing in.

Amairgen looked down, his pale hair ruffled by the night breeze. He said, “We will do this thing. For a night and a day and a night we will carry you past the Cliffs of Rhudh into Sennett Strand and then down again to where Celyn finds the sea. I will earn the prayers you offered, High Priestess of Dana. And the salt of your tears.”

It was hard to tell in the thin moonlight, and she was a long way below him, but it seemed to her there was some kindness in his smile.

“We can carry you,” he said. “Though you will see none of the mariners, and myself only when the stars are overhead. There is a ladder aft of where you stand. You may both come aboard, and we will moor the ship by the jetty at the foot of the Anor for your companions.”

“It is very shallow,” said Pwyll. “Can you go so close?”

At that, Amairgen suddenly threw back his head and laughed, harsh and cold in the darkness above the sea.

“Twiceborn of Mörnir,” he said, “be very clear what you are about to do. There are no seas too shallow for this ship.
We are not here
. Nor will you be, when once you stand upon this deck. I ask you again—would you sail with the dead?”

“I would,” said Pwyll calmly, “if that is what we must do.”

Together the two of them walked along the sea to where a rope ladder hung over the almost translucent side of the rotting ship. They looked at each other, saying nothing. Pwyll went first, entrusting his weight to the ladder. It held, and slowly he went up, to stand at length upon the deck. Jaelle followed. It seemed a long way to climb, upon nothing, to reach nothingness. She tried not to let herself think about it. Pwyll reached out a hand for her. She took it, and let him help her onto the deck. It held her weight, though looking down she could see right through the planks. There were waves washing through the hold below. Quickly she looked up again.

There seemed to be no wind suddenly, but the stars were brighter where they stood, and the moon also. Amairgen did not approach. He walked to the tiller and, with no one visible to aid him, began bringing the ship in towards the dock.

No one visible, but all around her Jaelle now heard footsteps, and then the creaking of the tattered sails as they suddenly flapped full, though still she could feel no breath of wind.

There were faint voices, a thread of what might have been laughter; then they were sailing toward the Anor. Looking to the land, she saw that all the others had awakened by now and were waiting there in silence. She wondered if they could see her and what she and Pwyll must look like, standing here; if they had become as ghosts themselves. And what they would be when they stepped down off this ship, if ever they did.

It did not seem that words were necessary. Diarmuid, unsettlingly quick as he always seemed to be, had already grasped what was happening. Amairgen gentled his ship to the foot of Lisen’s
Tower, a thing, Jaelle knew, that he had never done as a living man. She looked over at him but could read nothing at all in his face. She wondered if she had imagined the smile she thought she’d seen from below.

There was no more time for wondering. The first of the men from the jetty were coming over the rail, wonder in their eyes and apprehension in various measures. She and Pwyll moved to help them. Last of all were Sharra, then Guinevere and Arthur; finally, Diarmuid dan Ailell came aboard.

He looked at Pwyll, and then his blue eyes swung to Jaelle to hold her with a long glance. “Not much of a ship,” he murmured at length, “but I’ll concede it was fairly short notice.”

She was too strained to even try to think of a response. He didn’t give her a chance, in any case. Bending swiftly, he kissed her cheek—which was not, by any measure, something to be permitted—and said, “Very brightly woven, First of Dana. Both of you.” And he moved over and kissed Pwyll, as well.

“I didn’t know,” said Pwyll dryly, “that you found this sort of thing so stimulating.”

And that, Jaelle decided gratefully, would do for her response as well.

They were all on board now, all silent among the tread of the invisible mariners, and the filling of sails that should have been too tattered to fill, in a wind that none of them felt.

Jaelle turned to see Amairgen walking slowly towards Arthur, the spear cradled in his hands. There was one more thing to be done, she realized.

“Be welcome,” the dead mage said to the Warrior. “Insofar as the living can be welcome here.”

“Insofar as I am living,” Arthur replied quietly.

Amairgen looked at him a moment, then sank down on one knee. “I have had charge, in this world, of a thing that belongs to you, my lord. Will you accept the King Spear from my hands?”

They were moving out to sea, rounding the curve of the bay, swinging north under the stars.

They heard Arthur say, simply, in the deep voice that carried the shadings of centuries and of so many wars, “I will accept it.”

Amairgen lifted the spear. Arthur took it, and as he did, the head of the King Spear blazed blue-white for a dazzling instant. And in that moment the moon set.

Guinevere wheeled abruptly as if she’d heard a sound. In silence she looked back at the strand, and at the forest beyond. Then, “Oh, my love,” she whispered. “Oh, my dear love.”

The battle had been going on for a long time when Flidais finally reached the sacred grove. He was the last to arrive, he realized. All the moving spirits of the Wood were here, ringing the circle of the glade, watching, and those who could not travel were present as well, having projected their awareness to this place, to see through the eyes of those assembled here.

They made way for him as he approached, though some more readily than others, and he registered that. He was the son of Cernan, though. They made room for him to pass.

And passing through that shadowy company he came to the very edge of the glade and, looking within, saw Lancelot battling desperately by starlight for his life, and Darien’s.

Flidais had lived a very long time, but he had only seen the Oldest One once before, on the night the whole of Pendaran had gathered, as it had now, to watch Curdardh rise up from the riven earth in order to slay Amairgen of Brennin, who had dared to pass a night in the glade. Flidais had been young then, but he was always a wise, watchful child, and the memory was clear: the demon, disdaining its mighty hammer, had sought to smash and overwhelm the mind of the arrogant intruder who was mortal, and nothing more, and could never resist. And yet, Flidais
remembered, Amairgen had resisted. With an iron will and courage that Cernan’s younger son had never yet, in all the years that had spun between, seen surpassed, he had battled back against the Oldest One and prevailed.

But only because he had help.

Flidais would never forget the shocked thrill he’d felt (like the taste of forbidden wine in Macha’s cloud palace, or his first and only glimpse of Ceinwen rising naked from her pool in Faelinn Grove) at his sudden realization that Mörnir was intervening in the battle. At the end, after Amairgen had driven back Curdardh, in the grey hour before dawn, the God—asserting after, with the daunting authority of his thunder voice, that he had been summoned and bound by Amairgen’s victory—sent down a visitation of his own to the mortal, and so granted him the runes of the skylore.

Afterwards, Mörnir had had to deal with Dana—which had occasioned a chaos among the goddesses and gods that, Flidais thought, back in the glade again a thousand years later, had nothing and everything to do with what was happening now. But two clear truths manifested themselves to the diminutive andain as he watched the figures battling here under the stars.

The first was that, for whatever unknown reason—and Flidais was ignorant, as yet, of Lancelot’s sojourn among the dead in Cader Sedat—the demon was using his hammer and his terrifying physical presence as well as the power of his mind in this battle. The second was that Lancelot was fighting alone, with nothing but his sword and his skill, without aid from any power at all.

Which meant, the watching andain realized, that he could not win, despite what he was and had always been: matchless among all mortals in any and all of the Weaver’s worlds.

Flidais, remembering with brilliant clarity when he had been Taliesin in Camelot and had first seen this man fight, felt an ache in his throat, a tightness building in his broad chest, to see the hopeless, dazzling courage being wasted here. He surprised himself: the andain were not supposed to care what happened to mortals, even to this one, and beyond that he was a guardian of the Wood himself and the sacred grove was being violated by this man. His own duty and allegiance should have been as clear as the circle of sky above the glade.

A day ago, and with anyone else perhaps, they would have been. But not any more, and not with Lancelot. Flidais watched, keen-eyed by starlight, and betrayed his long trust by grieving for what he saw.

Curdardh was shifting shape constantly, his amorphous, fluid physicality finding new and deadly guises as he fought. He grew an extra limb, even as Flidais watched, and fashioned a stone sword at the end of it, a sword made from his own body. He challenged Lancelot, backed him up to the trees at the eastern side of the glade with that sword, and then, with effortless, primeval strength, brought his mighty hammer swinging across in an obliterating blow.

Which was eluded, desperately, by the man. Lancelot hurled himself down and to one side, in a roll that took him under the crushing hammer and
over
the simultaneously slashing sword,
and then, even as he landed, he was somehow on his knees and lashing out backhanded with his own blade to completely sever Curdardh’s newest arm at the shoulder. The stone sword fell harmlessly on the grass.

Flidais caught his breath in wonder and awe. Then, after a moment of wild, irrational hope, he exhaled again, a long sigh of sorrow. For the demon only laughed—unwearied, unhurt—and shaped another limb from its slate-grey torso. Another limb with another sword, exactly as before.

And it was attacking again, without slackening, without respite. Once more Lancelot dodged the deep-forged hammer, once more he parried a thrust of the stone sword, and this time, with a motion too swift to clearly follow, he knifed in, himself, and stabbed upwards at the earth demon’s dark maggot-encrusted head.

That
had
to cause it pain, Flidais thought, astonished, still, to find how much he cared. And he seemed to be right for Curdardh hesitated, rumbling wordlessly, before sinuously beginning to change again: shaping this time into a living creature of featureless stone, invulnerable, impervious to blade, wherever forged, however wielded. And it began to track the man about the small ambit of the glade, to cut him off and crush the life out of him.

Flidais realized then that he had been right from the first. Every time Lancelot did damage, any kind of injury, the demon could withdraw into a shape that was impregnable. It could heal itself of any sword-delivered wound while still forcing the tiring man to elude its dangerous pursuit. Even with the crippled leg, Flidais saw—ritually maimed millennia ago to signify the tethering of the
demon to guardianship of this place—Curdardh was agile and deadly, and the glade was small, and the trees of the grove around and the spirits watching there would not allow the man any escape, however momentary, from the sacrosanct place he had violated. And where he was to die.

He, and someone else. Tearing his eyes away from the grueling hurtful combat, Flidais looked over to his right. The boy, his face bone white, was watching with an expression absolutely unreadable. As he looked at Rakoth’s son, Flidais felt the same instinctive withdrawal he had known on the beach by the Anor, and he was honest enough to name it fear. Then he thought about who the mother was, and he looked back again at Lancelot battling silently in darkness for this child’s life, and he mastered his own doubts and walked over the grass at the edge of the glade to Darien.

“I am Flidais,” he said, thereby breaking his own oldest rule for such things. What were rules, though, he was thinking, on a night such as this, talking to such a one as this child was?

Darien moved sideways a couple of steps, shying away from closer proximity. His eyes never left the two figures fighting in front of them.

“I am a friend to your mother,” Flidais said, struggling uncharacteristically for the right words. “I ask you to believe that I mean you no malice.”

For the first time the boy turned to him. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said, scarcely above a whisper. “You can’t make any difference, can you? The choice is being taken away.”

Chilled, Flidais seemed to see him clearly for the first time,
suddenly aware in that moment of how young Darien was, and how fair, and, for his vision was keen in the darkness, of how blue the boy’s eyes were.

He couldn’t, though, however hard he tried, escape the image of their crimson flashing on the beach and the blaze of the burning tree.

There was a sudden loud rumble of sound from the glade and Flidais pressed quickly back against the trunk of one of the trees. Not six feet away, Lancelot was retreating toward them, pursued, with a sound like dragging scree, by the demon in its impervious rock shape.

As Lancelot drew near, Flidais saw that his whole body was laced with a network of cuts and purpling bruises. Blood flowed freely from his left shoulder and his right side. His clothing hung in tattered, bloodstained ribbons from his body, and his thick black hair lay plastered to his head. Rivulets of perspiration ran continuously down his face. Every few moments, it seemed, he had to lift his free hand, ignoring the wound, and claw sweat free from his eyes so he could see.

Insofar as he could see at all. For he was only mortal, and unaided, and even the half-moon had long since passed out of sight to the west, hidden by the towering trees that ringed the glade. Only a handful of stars looked down from above on this act of courage by the tormented, scintillant soul of Lancelot du Lac—the single most gallant, impossible act of courage ever woven into the Tapestry.

Bound by his own duty to the Wood and by the power of that
place, Flidais watched helplessly as the two of them drew closer yet. He saw Lancelot, lithe and neat-footed, mastering pain and weariness, drop to one knee, just out of reach of the advancing demon and, lunging forward and down, level a scything blow of his sword at the demon’s leg, the only part of the slate-grey rock shape that was not impervious to iron.

But nimbly, for all its grotesque, worm-infested ugliness, the demon of the grove spun away from the thrust. With terrifying speed, he shaped a new sword arm and, even as the weapon coalesced, launched a savage blow downwards against the sprawling man. Who rolled, in a racking, contorted movement, and thrust up his own bright blade to meet the overpowering descent of Curdardh’s stone sword.

The blades met with a crash that shook the glade. Flidais clenched his fists, his heart hammering, and then he saw that even against this, even against the full brutal strength of the demon’s arm, Lancelot had held firm. His blade did not break, nor his muscled arm give way. The swords met and it was the stone that shattered, as Lancelot rolled again, away from the edge of the glade, and scrambled, chest heaving convulsively, to his feet.

With, Flidais saw, another wound. A jagged fragment of the broken sword of the demon had cut him anew. His shirt shredded to confining strips, Lancelot tore it off and stood bare-chested in the middle of the glade, dark blood welling from a wound over his heart. He balanced on the balls of his feet, his unflinching eyes on his adversary, his sword held out once more, as he waited for Curdardh to come at him again.

And Curdardh, with the primeval, pitiless, unwearied power of earth, came. Once more shifting shape, away from the awkward though invulnerable guise of rock, once more it gave itself a head—almost human it was, though with only a single monstrous eye in the centre from which black grubs and beetles fell like tears—and once more, most terribly, it brought forth the colossal hammer from some place within itself. Taking hold of it with an arm so brawny it seemed as thick around as Lancelot was at the chest, the demon surged forward, seeming to cover the space of the glade with one huge stride, and, roaring like an avalanche, brought the hammer crashing down on the waiting man.

Who dodged yet again, though narrowly, for the demon was brutally swift. Flidais felt the ground shake again with the impact of the blow, and when Curdardh moved on, pursuing, always pursuing, the watching andain saw a smoking hole in the scorched grass of the glade where the hammer had fallen like doom.

On it went, on and on, till Flidais, driving his nails unconsciously into the palms of his hands, thought that his own heart would shatter from strain and weariness. Again and again Lancelot eluded the ruinous hammer and the slashing swords the demon shaped from its own body. Twice more the man succeeded in severing the arms that swung the stone blades, and twice more he was able to leap in, with a shining grace worthy of the watching stars, and wound Curdardh, once in the eye and then in the neck, forcing it each time into the protective, recuperative shape of rock.

This gave some respite to the man, but only a little, for even in that form the demon could attack, striving to corner Lancelot
against the impervious wall of the trees ringing the glade and crush his life away against the dark, mottled mass of its body.

Once more an attack brought demon and man near to where Flidais stood beside Darien. And once more Lancelot managed to fling himself away. But this time his shoulder landed in one of the smoking holes the hammer had gouged, and Flidais heard him grunt involuntarily with pain, and saw him scramble, with an awkward desperation this time, away from the renewed assault. He was burnt now, the andain realized, horror and pity consuming his own soul.

He heard a strangled sound from beside him and realized that Darien, too, had registered what had happened. He looked over, briefly, at the boy, and his heart stopped, literally, for a moment. Over and over in his hands Darien was twisting a bright dagger blade, seeming almost oblivious to the fact that he was doing so. Flidais had glimpsed a telling flash of blue, and so he knew what that blade was.

“Be careful!” he whispered urgently. He coughed; his throat was dry. “What are you thinking of doing?”

For only the second time Darien looked directly at him. “I don’t know,” the boy said, painfully young. “I made my eyes red before you came … that is how I have my power.” Flidais fought, successfully this time, to conceal his fear. He nodded. Darien went on, “But nothing happened. The rock thing said it was because I did not go deep enough to master it. That I had no power here. So I …” He paused and looked down at the knife. “I thought I might …”

Through the black night, and through the blackness of what was happening and the pity and horror he felt, Flidais of Pendaran seemed to see, within his mind, a faint, almost illusionary light gleaming in a far, far distance. A little light like the small cast glow of a candle in a cottage window at night, seen by a traveller in a storm far from home.

He said, in his rich, deep voice, “It is a good thought, Darien. It is worthy of you, and worthy of the one who is doing this for you. But do not do it now, and not with that blade.”