Crystal Rose (15 page)

“Spiritually? I didn’t think you even believed in anything
so intangible as spirit. See, you’ve even boggled your young kinsman.”

Ruadh, insolent lip curled, said nothing, but merely poured
himself another goblet of wine.

Daimhin carefully considered his next words. “Abbod, I would
be a fool to deny that she wields some power I do not understand. Some . . .
force beyond my ken. I saw her blaze of glory. I witnessed her miraculous
escape. I saw the very mouth of hell when I raised that crossbow, thinking I
could simply shoot her where she stood. But then, I also saw a spark in the
heart of that great Crystal your Osraed lives revolve around. I begin to
understand that it, and the Art you Osraed practice, are the only things that
can protect us from Taminy’s venom.”

He stared moodily down the table, his frown slipping toward
a twisted grimace. “She visits me in my dreams, Abbod. She haunts me, teases
me, allows me no rest. And though, in those dreams, I take up a bow or a sword
or a dagger—weapons I understand—I cannot touch her, for she holds the reins of
a power I cannot fathom.”

“We Osraed will do what we can,” the Abbod assured him.
“When you travel to Halig-liath rest assured the full force of every loyal
Osraed in Creiddylad and beyond will be with you. I myself will be with your
host. I will Weave what protection I can.”

“For that I thank you,” said Daimhin, bowing his head. “But
for myself, for the nightmares that plague me and the fears that beset
me—breathe no word of this outside this chamber, either of you—for those I
would ask one thing more.”

“Ask.”

“A crystal. A crystal with which I may learn to Weave a ward
to protect myself from the Wicke’s haunting.”

The Abbod’s face was whiter than the breast of the gamebird
that sat, half-eaten, on his plate. “A . . . a crystal? You wish to learn how to
Weave inyx?”

“Small Wardweaves only. For my personal protection. I now
realize that physical weapons are useless against a spiritual enemy.”

“But you have no training in the Art, no Gift. Good God, you
have no
belief
! The purest Weaving
stone in the world would do you no more good than a hunk of plain rock.”

“I think I may have some small . . . talent, Abbod. As for
training, you or one of your cohorts could provide that. The Osmaer Crystal
winked at me, Osraed Ladhar. You saw it. I think that might have been a
benediction, a blessing. Leastwise, let me have a crystal. If I’ve no Gift,
then I’ll do no harm. But if I do, I’ll be able to protect myself.”

The old fool was already shaking his head, jowls flopping
like the dewlap of an aging mastiff. “I cannot allow it, Regent Feich. All the
rune crystals in Creiddylad are registered at Ochanshrine. They go to none but
Osraed. Even the Aelder Prentices there are not allowed them. So it has always
been. So it must remain.”

“She has a crystal. Everyone of her minions probably has one
by now—pilfered from the reliquary at Halig-liath. And she is no doubt teaching
their use. Abbod, please, consider what you’re saying. You are, in effect,
condemning me to enter a battle weaponless while my adversaries are fully
armed. I go to Halig-liath to return your Cyne to his rightful place. Would you
deny a man a knife after he had pledged to march into a den of armed thieves to
return your stolen goods?”

“A good analogy, Regent, but not apt. Yes, you will march
into that den of thieves, but neither weaponless nor alone. A spiritual army
will surround you. Further, I will perform a Wardweave this very night to
shield your dreams from the Wicke’s intrusion.”

Frustrated, Daimhin shook his head. “No, Abbod. I am no
coward. I will find my own way of safeguarding my dreams. As to the other—you
certainly shall accompany me to Halig-liath. I expect you and your fellow
Osraed may be as effective a weapon as the Suderlander’s cannon.”

The Abbod looked quite pleased at that. “I assure you,
Regent Feich, we can be very effective indeed. I think you will find us the
greatest of allies in assuring the future of Caraid-land.”

Daimhin raised his glass. “I’m sure I will.”

oOo

“The greatest of allies,” he snarled some time later when
the Abbod had removed himself to Ochanshrine.

He and Ruadh had withdrawn to the warmth of his favorite
salon and sat before the fire drinking hot
karfa
and trying to stay warm.

“I find them the greatest of irritants. A shame they’ve
woven themselves so inextricably into the fabric of this society. God, what I
wouldn’t give to rip them out.”

“I’m afraid that would be impossible,” said Ruadh. “And, as
the Abbod said, they can be helpful. Did you mean what you said about believing
yourself at risk from the Wicke’s devices?”

Daimhin chuckled. “What would you say if I said ‘yes?’”

“I’d say you’d suffered a life-changing experience.”

“Eh, well, as it happens I did. I didn’t think, didn’t
really believe, she had the powers everyone ascribed to her. I didn’t see the
healings in the street. I didn’t witness her handling of the Stone. Until the
night she stood in the Assembly Hall and confounded everyone there, I saw only
one supposed miracle. I saw her cause a rose to bloom from a desiccated bud. I
was far away, it might’ve been faked—for a long while I believed it was. I’ve
changed my mind. I believe she really did it. Just as I believe she once picked
up a crossbow bolt and read from it that the man who’d fired it at her was a
mercenary. I had him killed, Ruadh, because at that moment I knew that if she
but saw his face, she’d know I had paid his fee.” He rose and moved to stand
nearer the fire. “But as believing her able to harm me . . .” He shook his head.
“She won’t harm me.”

“So certain?”

“Let me share a secret with you, Ruadh. The Lady Taminy is
many things; she is manipulative, powerful, seductive. She is dangerous to the
Osraed and to my own aspirations. But she is not evil. She honestly believes it
is her duty to reform and renew and recreate the religion of Caraid-land and
redeem its fortunes. She wants to put a Malcuim Cyne on the Throne and she
wants to stand, alone, beside him. There is no room for Daimhin Feich in her
government, and for that reason, she is the Enemy.”

“Not evil?” repeated Ruadh, and for a moment, in the amber
light of the fire he looked like the boy Daimhin had taught to hunt not that
many years ago.

“Not evil. That Taminy is evil is a game we play so that
this pathetically divided country might not suffer any further dissolution . . .
and that a Feich may always stay near the Throne.”

“Or in it?” asked Ruadh.

Daimhin smiled. “If that is our destiny, Ruadh. If that is
our destiny.”

oOo

“The man is a blasphemer! If I could I would call down a
blast of fire out of the sky and cook him where he stands. I can’t fathom why
the Meri hasn’t dealt with him already.”

Caime Cadder stood by silently, watching his Abbod pace his
chambers and steam as if freshly cooked. He understood the great man’s
perturbation—no, anguish—for the Regent of Caraid-land was a lawless man, a
self-absorbed man, in a word: amoral.

“Perhaps,” Cadder offered, struck by sudden inspiration, “it
is because She sees in him a tool—a means to an end.”

“And what end might that be?”

“The return of Airleas Malcuim to Mertuile. Feich is set on
it and he will accomplish it, I’ve no doubt, though his motives be . . .
questionable.”

Ladhar looked at him with interest, now, a rare thing that
always made him feel blessed.

“An interesting idea, Caime. It is like Her to manipulate
the wicked.”

“Yes.”

“To make them feel it is their will they serve.”

“Yes,” Caime repeated, then jumped when the Osraed poked a
chubby finger at his nose.

“Do you know what that arrogant Feich asked of me today?”

“No, master, I do not.”

“He asked me for a crystal. A Weaving stone. Can you believe
it? Can you take it in? The damned idiot thinks he can Weave—thinks just
anybody
can Weave. You, of all people,
know how untrue that is.”

Cadder winced, stung by the cavalier way in which the Abbod
referred to his Great Failing. Damn, but the man could be cruel.

But no,
argued an
inner voice.
You
did
fail. You reached the Meri’s Shore only to
become so affrighted by dreams of Her coming that you ran.
Ran!
Such cowardice warrants occasional cruelty.

“Why,” Cadder asked carefully, “why would he wish . . . that
is to say, what reason did he give for wanting a Weaving stone?”

“Protection,” spat Ladhar. “He’s taken it into his head that
the Wicke is reaching into his dreams.”

Cadder blanched. “Has he reason to believe this?”

“He’s had some nightmares, that’s all. Rich food and late
nights will do that to a man. Not to mention the stress of sitting inside that
castle knowing that half the populace of Caraid-land would like to pry him out
and hang him.”

“As the Wicke would like to pry him out,” Cadder said.
“Could she?”

Ladhar fixed him with a look that would have perforated the
walls of Mertuile. “I refuse to believe she is capable of that. No, she can’t
be capable of that, otherwise she’d be reaching into our dreams as well—or
trying to.”

“She hasn’t . . . reached into your dreams, has she Abbod?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. None but the Meri touches my dreams,
Caime. I permit no other access.”

“Daimhin Feich,” Cadder reminded him, “is not an Osraed. And
you said yourself, she does manipulate the wicked to her will.”

The Abbod had nothing to say to that except that, of course,
Mertuile was surrounded by Osraed and the Wicke Taminy was far away at
Halig-liath and had shown no ability to reach them from there. He seemed
content to let it go at that, but Caime Cadder could not help but recall that
Mertuile had always been surrounded by Osraed and it had not helped poor, weak
Cyne Colfre at all.

We are what we think,
having become our thought—like the cart that follows the horse that pulls it,
grief follows evil thought. And delight follows pure thought, like a man’s
faithful shadow. We are what we think, having become our thought.

—The Corah, Proverbs of Ochan vs. 20

It had been nearly a week since his humiliating escape
attempt. Airleas Malcuim had rededicated himself to his lessons and his worship
and his learning of the Art. It was on the fourth day after that, during an
exercise in Mapweave that he began to wonder, seriously, if he would ever be
worthy of the Meri.

“Will I,” he asked Taminy one evening at supper, “ever take
Pilgrimage to the Meri’s Shore?”

She looked at him and then away from him, and her eyes
became misted, focusing on somewhere that was not part of the warm, noisy
refectory. “You will make a Pilgrimage.”

He started to be elated, then checked himself. “You didn’t
answer directly. You didn’t say I would go to the Meri’s Shore. Won’t I?”

“Everyone’s Pilgrimage is unique. This is a new age,” was
all she would say.

Before he could frame another question, she said, “You’ve set
yourself a difficult path, Airleas. Your Pilgrimage has as many facets as a
Weaving stone. You are waljan. You are Cyneric. You are a youth, growing to
manhood. I see three Pilgrimages in your future.”

“Then I’ll become Osraed?”

“Airleas, have you ever stood at the top of the Airdnasheen
wall and looked off down the pass?”

“You know I have.”

“Did you see the path to the bottom of the mountain?”

“Aye.”

“Did you see Creiddylad at the other end of it?”

He frowned. “Of course not. It bends and winds and vanishes.
And it splits into branches long before it reaches Creiddylad.”

“So Creiddylad is not the only place it goes?”

“No, it . . .” He saw the point of her questions then and did
not like it. “You’re saying our future has branches that we mayn’t see.”

“Yes.”

“But
you
can see
them. Surely, you can.”

“I see possibilities. And I see only those possibilities
that the Meri and Spirit will me to see. Think of our lives as bits of a
Tapestry. I am a thread and you are a thread, as is everyone here. Some threads
are longer or stronger or more colorful or shiny as gold. Some threads are holy
and pure and some are sullied. We are all weaving away at the Tapestry,
Airleas.”

Her eyes lifted, unfocused, and he thought she must be
envisioning the Tapestry.

“Every soul has been called to the weaving,” she said. “Some
have heard a Voice, others an inarticulate cry, others only an annoying
whisper. They have been called to a forking of paths, a Cusp, a choosing. Some
souls understand that, but may fail to see the nature of the choice, or that it
must be made. I can’t make this choice for Caraid-land, nor can you, nor can
even the Meri. The choice is not Daimhin Feich’s. The Abbod Ladhar cannot make
it, nor any other single human being. It lies not with the Council, nor the Body,
nor the Hall. For the Tapestry is choices upon choices, woven through and into
and over each other until a pattern emerges and a new fabric is created. The
Spirit is the Weaver and all these souls provide the thread. The Meri adds Her
own Thread to the weaving and the Spirit guides the shuttle, ever mindful of
the patterns. The destiny of Caraid-land lies in a handful of threads. I will
Weave Mine, also. We will Weave it, ever mindful of the Pattern.”

Strange, Airleas felt as if the entire room held its breath
as she spoke. As if the entire fortress listened. He stared at her, suddenly
mindful himself that he was part of the Pattern.

“I might’ve ruined it,” he murmured. “By running off like
that, I mean. I wasn’t thinking of the Pattern then. I was thinking of myself.”

Taminy only looked at him and smiled.