The Quest for Saint Camber (22 page)

“It's a very old part of the basilica building,” Tiercel replied. “If you've ever wondered why Duncan never moved his study to some more convenient location, as he rose in rank, now you know. There's something else you should see, since we're here.”

Crossing softly to the prie-dieu set facing the corner to their right, Tiercel dropped to one knee and ran his hand tentatively under the arm rest. His touch caused something to move behind the tapestry covering the Portal entrance.

“Go ahead and have a look,” he said, at Conall's questioning expression. “Other than ourselves and the Council, I doubt more than half a dozen people even know it's there. This is where they brought your father to set his potential, and presumably where they'd bring you, if it ever came to that.”

It was a tiny, ancient chapel, only half the size of the study. The warm red gleam of a Presence lamp hanging to the left of a narrow altar gave only a vague suggestion of the dark crucifix suspended above, though it reflected more brightly from tiny giltwork stars studding the blue-painted wall behind the altar. And as Tiercel pressed past him and moved farther into the chapel with his handfire, to bend his knee briefly in prayer, Conall could see that the walls were decorated with frescoes depicting the lives of saints. Though Conall himself rarely felt the need for any outward religious observance, he, too, knelt and bowed his head, waiting until Tiercel had crossed himself and stood before doing the same.

“I hope you made a petition to Saint Camber,” Tiercel said, turning to face him, “because this chapel was once sacred to him.” He nudged the handfire higher and stood with his hands on his hips as he looked around again. “I suppose that's why Duncan and his friends are so fond of it. I confess, I rather like it myself. I hope your quest is successful. I'd like to see the day when Camber can claim his proper veneration in the open again.”

“Why, because he was Deryni?” Conall asked, a little uneasy at this talk of saints.

“Partly that. I think he would have been a great man even if he hadn't been Deryni, though. And maybe he'd have kept his sainthood longer, too.”

He grinned and called his handfire to hand with a snap of his fingers as he indicated it was time to leave.

“In any case, you have that adventure ahead of you, and we should be about showing you more of Portals. I'll take you through under my control again,” he said, closing the chapel door behind them before guiding Conall back into the Portal chamber with one hand on his shoulder, “but I'll let you experience the jump in its full glory this time, now that you know what to expect.

“Before we go, though, I want you to close your eyes and probe this Portal. Be aware of what it feels like. Every one of them is slightly different, or we wouldn't know where we were going. And one almost has to have been to a particular Portal in order to go to it unassisted—either that, or else get a
very
specific image from someone else who's been there. Notice everything you can about this one and commit it to memory. I'll verify, when you're done.”

Obediently, Conall closed his eyes and cast out with his mind to the Portal beneath his feet. Now that he knew what to look for, he could feel its tingle even through his boots, and it
did
feel different from the one in the library.

He let his heightened senses mull the feeling for several seconds, classifying everything he could about what made it feel different, then opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at Tiercel, still holding the images for his mentor's inspection.

“Good,” Tiercel breathed. “You shouldn't have any trouble getting back here if you needed to.” He quenched the handfire with a thought, but his mind was still wrapped around Conall's.

“Now we'll go to the next one. It's in the sacristy at the cathedral—which we'll hope is unoccupied at this hour; but if it isn't, I'll bounce us right back here before you or whoever's there even realizes something's happened. That's another good reason for me to keep control, even if you knew where we were going.”

Tiercel's control this time was more a melding of their perceptions than an actual taking over, so Conall was able to follow the process with far more understanding as Tiercel seized and balanced the energies, then bent them just—so. And apparently there was no one in the sacristy, for Tiercel conjured handfire again, as soon as he had assured himself of Conall's well-being and released his mind.

“Have you been
here
before?” Tiercel whispered, glancing casually around the little room as Conall did the same.

“I don't think so.”

“Well, it doesn't matter. Have a look at what you're standing on. This one is marked out in the floor mosaic. Do you see the squared cross motif?”

As Tiercel backed off a few steps and nudged the handfire closer to the floor, Conall crouched to look. By appearance, the square was but one of many, all very similar, but his heightened senses told another story altogether as he ran his fingertips along the design's perimeter.

“That's right. You've found the physical marker for this one,” Tiercel murmured. “Now take a few minutes to file away this location, the way you did the other. You're really taking to this far more easily than I had feared. I keep underestimating your talents.”

“I have a good teacher,” Conall said with a grin, in rare compliment.

“Hmmm, we'll see how good he is when you try the jump yourself for the first time. Do you think you've got this one?”

Opening his shields to the other, Conall said, “See for yourself.”

“Very good. How about seeing if you can get back to the one in the study now. You haven't quite got the library squared away, since you didn't know what you were looking for when we started out, so there's nowhere you can end up except here or in the study. Are you game to try it?”

“By myself?” Conall squeaked.

Tiercel grinned. “Well, it's safer than having you try to take me through, too. Only one person can control the operation—and if it's you, I'd only be a hindrance anyway. I'll follow right behind, as soon as you've gone. Just don't move physically at the other end, until I get there.”

Conall drew a deep breath. “You're sure I'm ready?”

“Have I asked you yet to do something you weren't ready to do?”

“No.”

“Then I suppose you must be ready.”

Conall exhaled slowly and stood, aware of Tiercel watching intently. He did not need to look down at his feet to know he was standing squarely on the Portal. He could feel it tingling beneath his feet, vibrant and alive. He summoned up the memory of the other Portal's location, brought it into balance with the one he was standing on, then glanced at Tiercel uncertainly. The Deryni did not appear to have done anything to prepare.

“Just—go?” Conall asked.

“Did you want a royal fanfare?” Tiercel countered, with a wry grin.

Conall did not answer that. Instead, he closed his eyes and drew another deep breath, linking in with the energies beneath his feet the way Tiercel had done and then bending them to where he wanted to go. And then he was staggering in darkness again, and a split second later, Tiercel's arms were bracing him around his shoulders, the warmth of his congratulation wrapping him like a mantle as he realized they were back in the study Portal again.

“Well done!” Tiercel whispered in his ear. “Oh, well done! How do you feel?”

“A little—giddy,” Conall said. He could feel himself grinning ear to ear like an idiot. “I
did
do it, didn't I?”

“Does this look like the cathedral sacristy?” Tiercel countered, making his handfire flare brightly around them to reveal familiar stone walls.

“Let's do it again,” Conall said happily. “That was so quick, I hardly got to realize what had happened.”

“No, we'll not risk going back to the sacristy,” Tiercel said. “Besides, I told you that this uses energy. We'll go back to the library, so you can memorize that location, and then,
maybe
, I'll let you bounce us both back here one more time. I'll need to get home when we're done, after all. And you'll need a good night's sleep to be able to ride out in the morning. I suppose you'll have a lot to think about, at any rate.”

“That's for certain,” Conall agreed.

He let Tiercel take control again for the jump back to the library Portal. He was less disoriented this time and was able to kneel immediately to finish assimilating the characteristics of this location. And when he had done it to Tiercel's satisfaction, he asked whether
he
might control the return.

“I can do it, I
know
I can,” he pleaded.

“I don't know,” said Tiercel. “It's much harder, taking through someone else's mass besides your own. I don't want you to exhaust yourself.”

“So you can use that fatigue-banishing spell on me if you have to, or give me something from your trusty drug satchel. I can do it, Tiercel, I know I can. Please let me try. If I have any trouble at all, I'll let you take over.”

Tiercel sighed. “Oh, very well. I can leave from there as well as here, after we've gathered up the loose ends. I want you to promise to return through the secret passageway, though, after I've left, rather than coming through the Portal again on your own. I'm serious about the energy drain.”

“I promise.”

It felt odd to be taking the active part. As Conall moved closer to Tiercel and set his hand on the other's wrist, making the physical contact necessary to ease the control, he sent his mind cautiously against Tiercel's shields, starting a little when the primaries dropped immediately and exposed the control levels necessary.

“Ease up a little,” Tiercel said, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath to make it easier for Conall. “With someone who knows what to expect, you don't need as tight a control.”

Conall obeyed, taking a few seconds to shift everything into balance with the energies pulsing beneath their feet, then paused.

“Do it,” Tiercel whispered. “Don't leave us hanging here all night.”

Conall did, and they were back in the niche in the study. He felt a slight flicker of impatience when he was a little slow releasing Tiercel, but he did not try to hold the control. Tiercel sighed as he conjured handfire again and opened the door so they could go into the room.

“You certainly did it,” he said. “Conall, I'm proud of you. Have a seat.” He waved his hand in front of the door leading from the study—setting wards, Conall knew, to warn against potential discovery—and pulled a chair from under the table set before the dark fireplace. He passed a hand over a candlestick there as he sat, and the candle flared to life immediately. Tiercel quenched his handfire as soon as the wick had caught.

“I hope that wasn't too rough,” Conall said, sitting opposite. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No matter. You were trying to juggle a lot of things at once. One expects a few training scars for the trainer as well as the trainee.”

Conall nodded. “I suppose so.”

“Anyway, that's about all the work I'd planned for tonight—and you did far better than I'd expected. You
will
need a good night's sleep, though. I wasn't joking about the energy drain. One doesn't normally jump more than two or three times in a twenty-four hour period, and we've done—what?—four, five? And I came to you from—well, farther away than any of these—and will need to get home. Fortunately, all of
our
jumps were close together.”

“And where
is
home, Tiercel?” Conall replied, asking a question he had been wanting to ask for months. “Where do you go, after we've met?”

Grinning, Tiercel shifted his satchel into his lap, easing the strap across his shoulder. “Lately, at least off and on, home has been a set of lodgings in the city. But there's no Portal there. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you where my real home is.”

Conall shrugged. “Well, I didn't think you would, but I had to ask. Are there many Portals?”

“Not a great many, no. I'm aware of a few dozen—but they're not all accessible to me. For security reasons, some are attuned to the use of only selected individuals, or they have special warding at the other end to keep a user from leaving the immediate vicinity of the Portal until the owner authorizes it. And then there are Trap Portals that will prevent an intruder from jumping back out of an unauthorized Portal until the owner releases him. That may not sound particularly dangerous, but suppose the one in this room were trapped, and we'd come into it while Duncan was on campaign last summer? A person could starve.”

“Good Lord, can you tell, before you jump, whether a Portal is trapped?” Conall asked, aghast.

“Sometimes. Sometimes not. It depends on the skill of the trapper and the trappee—which I hope will give you pause before trying any of this on your own, if you should find any Portals on your journey. As I said earlier, I don't recommend Transfer Portals for recreational purposes.”

Conall swallowed and nodded.

“That Portal in the library, then—it can't be a Trap, because we wouldn't have been able to use it, but—is it warded to keep someone from leaving the vicinity? Is that why you haven't used it to come to me before?”

“
Very
good,” Tiercel said, nodding approval, “though you haven't got it exactly right. There's warding involved, but it's on the passageway connecting the Portal room with the old library. I'm surprised you didn't sense it when you came through.”

Conall thought back, remembering the slight change in temperature he had felt.

“Was that a ward? But I walked right through.”

“Yes, because you're a Haldane. Kelson and his friends set up that very specific ward to permit my fellow Councilors to use the library resources, but to keep us out of the rest of the castle unannounced. After Charissa, one can certainly understand his reasoning. In any case, the only way I could have left that room was the way we did or else for you to take me through under your shields. It isn't a foolproof situation, but it serves the purpose.”