The Quest for Saint Camber (47 page)

“So be it,” Duncan murmured, as Arilan said, “Amen.”

Morgan let himself plummet into deep rapport with Duncan then, taking nearly a full minute to mesh the linkage before beginning a symbolic visualization of power being withdrawn from Nigel. He was never certain, afterwards, whether Nigel, indeed, lost anything in the operation; but when he and Duncan had ended the link, stiffly pulling back from the physical exertion of the contact, he seemed to feel a new power pulsing in the sword, beyond that usually associated with the magical blade.

Gently he disengaged the weapon from Nigel's further grasp, waiting until Duncan had rearranged the unconscious prince's hands crossed on his breast before lightly touching the cross hilt of the sword to Nigel's lips. Then he was taking the blade into the center of the room, hand closed firmly around the blade just below the quillons, and turning to face east, waiting while Duncan and Arilan brought Conall to stand directly behind him.

Arilan picked up an aspergillum and moved ahead of Morgan to bow to the East and begin tracing a circle clockwise around them, sprinkling holy water to define its perimeter, the circumference of the room. Duncan lit candles on the little table Arilan had moved into place earlier, then touched flame to the document they had signed and sealed, laying it in a small clay bowl when it had caught and was burning well.

“May this offering blessed by Thee ascend to Thee, O Lord,” Duncan said, signing it with a cross, “and may Thy mercy descend upon Thy servants, both present and to come.” He then traced a similar cross over an incense boat before sprinkling a few grains on charcoal glowing in a thurible.

“Be thou blessed by Him in Whose honor thou shalt be burnt,” he said, taking it up by its chains and setting it to swinging gently. “Welcome as incense smoke, let our prayers rise up before Thee, O Lord. When we lift our hands, may it be acceptable as the evening sacrifice.”

The stench of the burning parchment and blood was quickly covered by the sweeter smell of incense as Duncan moved to the East and bowed, swinging the thurible, then proceeded to follow Arilan in the second casting of their protective circle.

And when Duncan had gotten as far as the southern quadrant, Morgan reversed the Haldane sword in his hands to salute the East, then began cutting the third circumambulation, the tip of the blade seeming to extrude a shimmering ribbon of deep orange flame at chest level, where it passed. When the third circle was complete, Morgan returned to the center to face Duncan and Arilan, both of whom had returned to flank Conall.

“Now we are met,” Arilan said softly, as Morgan extended the sword horizontally across his body, the tip braced against his left hand, and raised the sword to shoulder level between himself and the other three, throwing back his head to summon the psychic triggers to extend the wards. The fire of the circle rose with his arms, closing in a glowing dome above their heads; and when he swept the sword and his empty left hand downward, to end with the tip grounded at his feet and both hands resting on the quillons, the fire closed downward to floor level, completing the wards.

“Now, we are One with the Light,” Arilan continued, head bowed. “Regard the ancient ways. We shall not walk this path again.”

“
Augeatur in nobis, quaesumus, Domine
,” Duncan went on in Latin, “
tua virtutis operatio
.” May the working of Thy power, O Lord, be intensified within us.

“So be it.
Selah
. Amen,” Morgan responded. And Arilan lifted his hands in one final blessing, all of them tracing the sacred symbol as he did.

“
Et mentis nostri tenebras, gratia tuae visitationis, illustra, Qui vivus. Amen
.” By the grace of Thy coming, light up the darkness of our minds, Thou Who Art.

Conall looked wary but not at all frightened as Morgan glanced up at him, and Morgan did not know whether he liked that or not.

“Very well, we're fully warded now. Do you have any questions, before we proceed?”

Conall shook his head carefully, but did not seem inclined to speak. At Morgan's gesture, the prince turned to follow Arilan around to the other side of the altar table, where Duncan pulled out a small stool that had been concealed beneath it and Arilan sat, his back to the altar. While Arilan unfolded a linen cloth across his lap—for Conall would next receive a form of anointing, since he was not yet king in fact—Duncan loosed the prince's shirt strings and bared his breast, then signed for him to kneel at Arilan's feet. As Morgan moved in closer behind Conall, straddling Conall's calves and setting the sword between his feet so that the blade lay close along Conall's spine, the prince bowed his head and rested folded hands on Arilan's knees. Duncan took up an ampule of holy oil and also knelt at Arilan's right to hold it for him.

“‘Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king,'” Arilan said, quoting from scripture. “Prince Conall Blaine Cluim Uthyr Haldane, thou art not yet crowned or anointed; yet the acknowledgement of a Haldane sovereign doth customarily involve a sacring. Therefore, as senior bishop present here as witness, I hereby anoint and bless thee, as a foreshadowing of the blessing and anointing to come when thou art become king in fact.”

The bishop dipped the first two fingers of his right hand into the oil Duncan held and anointed the palms Conall opened on his linen-draped lap, tracing from right thumb to left forefinger, left thumb to right forefinger, then making individual crosses on right and left palms.

“Be thy hands anointed with holy oil, that thou mayest achieve glory.”

Dipping again, Arilan set the sacred sign on Conall's breast.

“Be thy breast anointed with holy oil, that valor and courage may be ever in thy heart.”

And finally, on the crown of Conall's bowed head.

“Be thy head anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed, that thou mayest receive knowledge.”

Arilan closed Conall's hands then, binding them lightly together with a strip of linen before carefully cleansing his own fingers. The oil was indeed holy oil, but it also contained a substance to lower resistance and induce mild relaxation. It had no observable effect on Arilan, whose exposure had been brief, but Conall continued to absorb the drug through hands, breast, and scalp, swaying a little on his knees. As Duncan exchanged the ampule of oil for the bowl containing the ashes of the burned document, Morgan steadied Conall with his right hand on a shoulder, while his left continued to press the flat of the Haldane blade against their subject's spine.

Morgan sensed a mellowing in Conall's previously rigid shields as Duncan dipped his thumb into the ashes, signed the prince between the eyes, and read a gentle wash of warmth and faint disorientation as he briefly touched what lay beyond.

“Conall Blaine Cluim Uthyr,” Duncan said, “I seal thee Haldane and confirm thee as Heir.”

While Duncan took up a pinch of the ash between thumb and forefinger, Morgan slid his right hand under and around Conall's jaw as cue for him to open his mouth. Conall complied without resistance.

“Taste of the ashes of mingled Haldane blood,” Duncan murmured, sprinkling some of the ash onto Conall's tongue, “thine own and thy father's, in unbroken line. By blood art thou consecrated to the Haldane legacy and acknowledged as The Haldane, that the power may come upon thee in its fullness.”

But the actual channeling of power would not come from the ash. Nor would it come from the Ring of Fire that Arilan slipped onto Conall's left hand, after he had unbound Conall's hands and cleansed them of the oil. As for Kelson's ritual, hardly more than four years before, Morgan and Duncan had set the catalyst for the descent of power in a physical vessel associated before with Haldane magic—the heavy, fist-sized brooch that Duncan brought out from under a linen cloth, last seen at Kelson's knighting—golden Haldane lion inlaid in a crimson enamel field.

And on the back, which Duncan had carefully prepared during the afternoon, was the pin that normally clasped the brooch—three inches of gleaming gold, very sharp, which Conall, like Kelson before him, would be required to stab through his left hand. The golden shaft also carried a second, stronger drug that would further reinforce the lowering of any possible resistance to the forces about to be focused in Conall.

Arilan stood to Conall's right as Duncan put the opened brooch in Conall's right hand, and Morgan prepared to step back—for none of them must touch Conall at the actual moment of his ordeal. In turn, each of the priest-bishops offered a prayer for the health and prosperity of this latest Haldane heir, Morgan leading Conall in the response of “Amen” at the appropriate moments—for Conall's eyes were dilated now, and he was sinking deeper into thrall of the first drug.

And then, as Morgan stepped back to kneel directly behind Conall, the Haldane sword held beneath the quillons like a cross between them, Arilan also knelt at Conall's right and Duncan, still standing, placed both hands lightly on Conall's head, careful not to touch the oil still glistening there.

“Conall Blaine Cluim Uthyr Haldane. Though the cords of the nether world enmesh thee, though the snares of death surge about thee, thou shalt fear no evil. With His pinions the Lord will cover thee, and under His wings thou shalt take refuge.” He lifted his hands and made the sign of the cross over Conall's bowed head. “
In Nomine Patris et Fits et Spiritus Sancti, Amen
.”

And then, kneeling at Conall's left, Duncan lifted his hands in final entreaty, as he had lifted them similarly for Kelson, what seemed a lifetime ago.

“
Domine, fiat voluntas tuas
.” Lord, let it be done according to Thy will.

Drawing only a single, final breath to brace himself for what he was about to do, Conall shifted the lion brooch slightly in his right hand to steady his grip, poised the point of the clasp against the center of the left palm, and thrust the metal home.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-O
NE

They have pierced my hand
.

—Psalms 22:16

It hurt far more than Conall had expected. The impaling pin seared like molten metal as it slid between the bones of his hand. The pain took his breath away, doubling him up like a kick in the stomach, hardly even able to gasp, much less cry out.

And yet, there was something besides the pain—something besides his awareness, gently blurred by medication, of the power that was already his. Through the burning that centered in his palm, he could feel it like the buzz of a trapped insect, beating to be released—only mildly distracting at first, but increasingly irritating, for his inability to focus on it. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he pressed the heel of his good hand harder against the cool sleekness of the brooch, as if the added pressure might capture whatever it was between his hands, might pinion it the same way the brooch pinioned his hand.

The second medication was having its effects, too. He could feel the new drug reinforcing the first, but he knew them both from his times with Tiercel—and knew that he could ride their effects; that they would not force him into betrayal, but only facilitate his mastering of whatever else was stirring with increasing insistence inside him.

That something else was rising like a gale within his mind, but it did not precisely threaten—though he was far from comfortable. Power there was—even more than had been within his grasp before, and that had not been inconsiderable—but this new and different sort of power was there for
his
using, not to be ordered by any other living soul. The clasp of the brooch burned in his hand, almost as if the very metal were growing hotter, but he knew that to be but a reaction of his physical body. The power was another thing, apart and alien, yet at the same time known and now completely controllable. He could feel it pulsing stronger with every heartbeat, filling up the empty spots, bringing new knowledge into being and casting old, only half-understood knowledge into sharper focus, so that even the jumbled material he had gained from Tiercel became accessible in its fullness, so far as it went.

He reveled in it. He floated on the tide of the ecstacy of knowledge and let himself flow with it—though he kept his pressure on the brooch so that the pain in his hand would keep him firmly anchored in his body. For, though it would have been tempting to surrender wholly to the power coiling within him, he worried that if he opened himself too fully, his shielding might slip to the point that the others could read him and know that he was not what he had seemed.

So he slumped even lower over his clasped hands, his breathing still a little ragged in response to the white heat concentrated in his left hand, and set his mind to assimilating all that had been brought to conscious levels and was still surfacing.

Not all of it was pleasant. There was a brief, thorny moment when the ghosts of what he had done rose up to threaten him—first Tiercel's face, frozen with horrified incomprehension as he went over backwards on the stair that claimed his life; and then his father, hands lifted in futile warding off as Conall's flare of guilt-spurred anger, powered by forbidden magic, enfolded him in death within life and left only a slowly dying shell.

That latter almost set Conall to sobbing, for he truly had not wanted to harm his own father. It simply had—happened—and he still was not sure how or why. Trembling, he tried to regain his equilibrium—but the newly stirred forces churning within were not yet finished with him.

Any of the other three kneeling around him would have understood what happened next, but Conall did not. As he banished the accusing face of his father from his mind's eye, another began slowly to take its place—and this one also looked little pleased with what it saw.

A pale, roundish face framed by a cap of quicksilver hair, sensitive mouth set in mute, stern contemplation, grey eyes like a Haldane's, that seemed to have nothing behind them but the darker grey of the cowl pushed back slightly from the head. The eyes caught and held Conall, so that he felt they must draw his very soul out of his body. He whimpered once and cringed harder into a ball as hands joined the face, reaching toward him.