Crystal Rose (58 page)

Taminy longed to cry out, to stop the boy from giving in to
his rage, but she knew, suddenly, she could not. This was the moment of
testing—for both of them. She would not—
could
not—provide external controls for his aidan or his anger. She could only
protect Feich from the results.

Reluctantly, Taminy held up her own hand, ready to
intercede, and wondered if it meant anything to Feich that neither his men nor
his Deasach ally moved to protect him from Airleas’s attack. Only his cousin,
Ruadh, his face ashen with fear, did anything at all.

“Lady!” he cried, addressing Taminy. “Lady, please stop
him!”

Airleas stood over Feich’s prone form now, face contorted
with rage, hand clenched before him as if it held his enemy’s heart. Only then
did he glance up at the party from Hrofceaster, his eyes going to Taminy, then
past her to where Gwynet stared at him, her face white as the snow about her
feet. His expression went from crazed to stricken and he straightened, relaxing
his hand. He subsided to his place between Leal and Aine as Daimhin Feich,
choking and breathing raggedly, clambered awkwardly to his feet.

Feich’s smile had vanished. With visible effort he slid it
back into place. “Weak. You are all weak. You could have killed me, just then,
boy, but a moment of indecision robbed you of the chance. I have once more
proved myself more powerful than any of you. And now, before all eyes, I will
reveal a glimpse of that power to you.”

He turned his head back toward his line of troops and made a
sweeping gesture with one hand. “Behold, the Stone of Ochan.”

The ranks behind him parted and a woman stepped forward, bearing
an open gilt box. Even in the mist and smoke, the gem it carried painted the
clinging tendrils of brume rose-gold, glowing brilliantly, as if in the
presence of a strong aidan.

Taminy felt a cold shock run through her. Did the Dearg
woman have that kind of Gift? She might have doubted it, but the Stone didn’t
lie. She watched as the woman set the Crystal into Daimhin Feich’s hands. The
fire within it wavered momentarily, then flared again.

Only now Taminy realized that it was not Feich’s tremulous
ability that lit it. It was the Dearg who fueled the Stone; in handling it, she
had revealed herself.

Much became clear, then. Feich’s grand gestures were cues to
the Dearg Wicke, for it was she who held the captives entranced, she who lifted
the Sleepweave from them. She was the source of the disciplined power Taminy
had found confronting her at every turn. Feich did not use her, she used him,
hiding herself behind his immature and inconsistent Gift.

And I was powerless to
block it
, Taminy marveled,
because I
was trying to defend myself against the wrong enemy. The real enemy was
invisible.

Now she saw, and couldn’t help but wonder at the Dearg’s
motives. Was she in Feich’s thrall? If so, why did she not work against Airleas
when he attacked Feich? Or was it personal power she sought?

The woman was looking at her now, a smug smile on her full
lips. “Shall we Weave now, my Lord Regent?” she asked Feich. “Shall we show
them great wonders?”

He waved her off. “
I
shall Weave. You shall watch.”

The dark look the woman gave him as she stepped aside was
enough to answer all of Taminy’s questions about her loyalties.

“Behold,” Feich said, lifting the Crystal dramatically above
his head.

Behind him, his troops murmured, many flinching back a step.
From Ochan’s great Crystal a chaotic whirl of motes exploded like a festival
fire show, painting the enshrouding pall of smoke and mist with carnival
colors. Daimhin Feich himself was swaddled in an aura of paerie light and
seemed, momentarily, to lift several inches from the ground. His men gasped and
withdrew further.

Feich, his eyes gleaming, laughed aloud . . . and the light
died. The fire show ended as suddenly as it began; the aura drained away, the
Crystal glowed dully in his upraised hand. He gaped at it, then turned his eyes
to Taminy.

“What is this? What have you done?
What have you done
?”

The Dearg woman was laughing, now, hands on her broad hips,
head back. Her hilarity wound through the fog and echoed from the walls of
Catahn’s fortress.

“You fool! She has done nothing!
I’m
the one you should ask. Go on, Regent. Ask me! Ask me what I
have
not
done.”

Feich glared at her, fury standing out in red relief on his
face. “What are you talking about? What have you not done?”

“I have not aided you, Regent. I have not guided your paltry
powers and shored them up and supplemented them. ‘Behold,’” she mocked him.
“‘Behold’ what you are capable of doing
without
Coinich Mor!”

“You lie! I have power. I have great power. I have used it
often since—”

“Since I tutored you? Since I held your hand and let you
believe you drew upon me for your Weaving? Behold me, Regent Feich—the one who
has been drawing upon you.”

His face was the color of death and his eyes transparent as
glass. “No. You lie. I Wove. I
Wove
.
You’ve tricked me. You’ve siphoned off my powers somehow. Are you in league
with her?” He jerked his chin toward Taminy. “Are you one of her minions?”

“I am no one’s minion, Feich. Least of all hers. I am in
league with no one but myself.” She held out her hand. “Give me the Crystal,
and I’ll prove what I say. I’ll show you power.”

Feich shook his head and held the Crystal close to his
chest. “No. You’ll not get your hands on this. You’ll ruin it. You’ll defile
it.”

She laughed again, mocking. “And you won’t? Come, Regent.
You’re a good enough prentice, but a wretched master. Give me the Stone.”

He stepped back, prompting her to fling herself upon him,
locking her hands with his around the Crystal.

“Let go!” he shrieked, but she only laughed, crowing as the
Stone of Ochan caught fire, bathing their struggles in amber radiance. Behind
them, Feich’s troops began to melt away into the mist.

Sensing movement from the men near her, Taminy held up her
hand to them.
Do nothing.

Their hands entwined around the glowing gem, Feich and
Coinich Mor continued their physical struggle, and now, impatient, the Dearg
assailed her opponent in other ways, causing the Crystal to flare up so as to
blind him, causing it to grow cold enough to freeze his hands.

Feich fought back, flailing at the Wicke with random slashes
of thought. Aislinn sparks fell in a shower around them, and now, Coinich Mor’s
cloak seemed to catch fire.

She cried out, but recovered quickly, recognizing simple
trickery. Then she was laughing again. “Like heat, do we? Well, here’s fire for
you!”

The flames leapt between their fingers now, licking up
Feich’s arms, setting his clothes afire. He shrieked in agony. The fire was
within him, around him. It was eating him alive.

Rage soared with the pain, until Taminy felt it as the heat
of a roaring fire. No! He would not let this woman best him with a lie. He
would not let her prove her vile claims to be true.
He
was the Dark Power. It lived in him, walked with him, worked
through him.

He writhed, mouth forming meaningless sounds, trying to
gather all his pain and fury for one great Weave. He turned his head to look at
Taminy, found more reason for rage in the mute sadness of her eyes.

“Damn you!” he cried. “Damn you all!” He forced himself to
look down into the Crystal past his burning, shriveled hands, past the smell of
his own cooking flesh. He forced his mouth to form more words—a command of
power: “Destroy the enemy!”

With a roar of sound like a thousand thunders, with a flash
of light like a thousand suns, the Stone of Ochan resounded with one great beat
of power. The mist and snow, the walls of Hrofceaster, the assembled troops,
were lit more brightly than if the Sun had suddenly appeared in its noonday
glory. Some cried out and shielded their eyes or covered their ears. Others
simply turned and ran as all the light and sound and fury gathered itself into
a mad whorl of flaming wind that rose from the place of struggle, catching up
snow and mist into a scintillating storm of fire and ice.

A moment, and it was over. The colorful maelstrom with its
light and heat was gone. The world around the watchers faded back to gray.
Where Daimhin Feich and Coinich Mor had stood there was only a circle of bare
earth, naked of snow, steaming in the chill air. Of the two combatants, there
was no sign.

For a long moment, the clearing before Hrofceaster was
silent. Silent, save for the sounds of the hasty dispersal of Feich’s loose
alliance.

Catahn grasped Taminy’s arm. “Lady! The Crystal!”

Lying in the sodden, snowless circle, the Osmaer glowed
fitfully as if lapping up the dregs of the aislinn explosion. Taminy moved to
pick it up. In her hands it caught fire once again, making her a beacon in the
morning gloom.

oOo

Caime Cadder’s universe had come to a shattering,
explosive end, pieces of it falling down about him like snow. In a blinding
flash, his hopes of keeping Caraid-land out of evil’s hands failed. The Wicke
had won. She had won. Now her lovers flocked around her and her former
adversaries approached to grovel obsequiously—The Dearg, Ruadh Feich, even the
Deasach Banarigh.

How? How could evil prevail so utterly? How could the Meri
allow the Crystal to fall into her hands?

A small voice within him reminded him that Daimhin Feich’s
hands had not been so very clean. He would not, in his wildest dreams, have
called Feich good.

“Destroy the enemy,” Feich had cried, and had, himself been
destroyed.

Taminy must have deflected the inyx, turned it back on him.
Cadder wanted to believe that; the alternative was too terrifying to
contemplate. Yet, as he watched the Golden Wicke, the Osmaer Crystal gleaming
in her hands, he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering that path.

He scarcely realized he was moving, taking shuffling steps
backwards in the snow. The men who had stood around him only moments ago had
fled. Now, his feet found the chaotic path of their flight and followed it.
They had not gone far—only returned to their camp, where they clustered in
shivering, murmuring groups, eyes returning again and again to the walls of
Hrofceaster.

Caime Cadder did not join them. He pursued a stumbling track
to the corrals where he saddled his horse with fumbling hands, mounted and rode
away down the mountain.

The trail was steep, choked with snow, dangerous. Cadder
didn’t stop to consider that, but spurred his mount on with increasing speed.
The mist was ungodly thick. The Sun, which surely must be above the peaks by
now, did nothing to penetrate it. The horse skidded down the track, belching
steam into the air, a lather born of panic rising on its withers.

Without warning, Cadder found himself in an alien landscape.
A mob of twisted shapes surrounded him as if they had leapt up from the frozen
mountainside. Twisted and gaunt, they seemed to lean over him, threatening. He
caught himself in mid gasp, realizing it was only a grove of winter-stripped
trees; what he took for the arms of skeletal giants were only branches lifting
to spear the ever-shifting fog. Still, the place reeked of Wicke Craft, stank
of evil. Surely, it was a carefully woven snare.

Twigs whipped his face as the horse descended through the
trees, stumbling over a concealed boulder and plunging into a snow drift. He
tightened his grip on the reins and fought to pull the animal’s head up, to
help it lift its forequarters back up toward the trail.

There, in the still, ghostly place of frozen trees and a
sparkling veil of mist, the only sounds were those he and his horse made,
blowing, grunting, thrashing the snow, regaining the main trail—if it could be
called that—with great difficulty.

“Cadder.”

He did not expect to hear his name called, but he heard it.
Least of all did he expect to hear it called by a man he knew beyond doubt was
dead. Jerking his mount around to face downslope, he saw—beyond belief!—the
Abbod Ladhar blocking his escape. The animal beneath him danced sideways; he
clutched the reins and choked out words.

“You’re dead. You’re not here. You’re not real.”

“I am here.” Translucent, he seemed, and faintly aglow.

Cadder pointed a shaking finger. “Be gone, foul spirit!
You—you’re a Weave meant to frighten me.”

He set his heels to the horse’s flanks, but the stupid beast
wouldn’t move. It merely shuddered as if in some equine seizure, bobbing its
head frenetically from side to side.

“You can’t run away from Her, Cadder,” Ladhar’s ghost told
him. “There is no place to hide that She cannot find you.”

“The Wicke? She’s that powerful?”

“It’s our Mistress I speak of. The Meri. She’s the one you
flee. The only Wicke here was Coinich Mor of Dearg and she is dead.”

“Lying spirit! Let me pass!” He raised the ends of his reins
as if he might flog the apparition.

Ladhar’s image laughed. “I am beyond lies, Cadder. Where I
exist, they cannot.”

“What are you?”

“A messenger of Light sent to offer you a choice. Turn back
into light or flee into darkness.”

“I don’t comprehend you. Let me pass.”

“To do what? To return to Creiddylad to try to raise the
Osraed up against Taminy-Osmaer? You can’t hope to succeed in doing anything
more than slowing destiny. Turn back.”

“Or what—she’ll destroy me as she destroyed Daimhin Feich?”
He felt tears pressing his eyes. His whole body quivered with terror.

“She didn’t destroy Daimhin Feich, Cadder. He chose to
destroy himself. He was given a choice, too. As I was.”

“No! You try to mesmerize me. You try to trick me. I was
tricked by you. Years, I spent, thinking you a saint, a visionary, my moral and
spiritual superior.”