Fionavar 1 (13 page)

The Dalrei she saw next, in a whirling away to the north and west; on the Plain she watched them in pursuit of the glorious eltor, their long hair tied back. The Dwarves delving under Banir Lok and

Banir Tal she was shown, and the distant men of wild Eridu beyond their mountains.

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Eilathen's eyes carried her south then, across Saeren, and she saw the gardens of Cathal, and the unrivalled splendor of the Lords across the river. The heart of Pendaran she touched, and in a bright vision, bittersweet, she saw Lisen of the Wood meet Amairgen Whitebranch in the grove and bind herself to him, first source to the first mage; and she saw her die by the sea tower, fairest child of all the turning worlds.

Grieving still for that loss, she was taken by Eilathen to see the war-the Great War against Rakoth.

Conary she saw, and knew, and Colan his son, the Beloved. She saw the bright, fierce array of the lios, and the shining figure of Ra-Termaine, greatest of the Lords of the lios alfar-and she saw that brilliant company torn apart by wolves and svart alfar, and most terribly of all by the flying creatures older than nightmare unleashed by Maugrim. Then she watched as, coming too late, Conary and Colan were cut off and trapped in their turn by Sennett, and as a red sun went down on a night Conary would die, she saw, and her heart exploded within her to see the curved ranks of the

Dalrei ride singing out of Daniloth, out of the mist behind Revor into the sunset. She did not know, though Ysanne did, that she was weeping as the Riders and the warriors of Brennin and Cathal, terrible in their fury and their grief, drove the armies of the Dark back north and east through

Andarien to Starkadh, where the Lion of Eridu came to join them, and where the blood and smoke cleared at last to show Rakoth beaten to his knees in surrender.

Then she was shown the binding, and knew the Mountain again for the prison it had become, and she watched Ginserat make the stones. Faster then, the images began to fly, and to Ysanne's eyes

the speed of Eilathen's turning became as a maelstrom of power, and she knew that she was losing him. The joy of his release she tasted, even amid her own deep ache of loss.

Faster he spun, and faster, the water white beneath his feet, and the Seer watched as the one beside her who was no longer a girl learned what it was to dream true. To be a dreamer of the dream.

And there came a time when Eilathen slowed and stopped.

Kimberly lay sprawled on the rock, drained of all color, utterly unconscious. The water spirit and the Seer gazed at each other a long time, unspeaking.

At length, Eilathen's voice was heard, high and cold in the moonlight. "I have done. She knows what she is able to know. A great power is in her, but I do not know if she can bear the burden.

She is young."

"Not anymore," Ysanne whispered. She found it hard to speak.

"Perhaps not. But it is no care of mine. I have spun for you, Dreamer. Release me from the fire."

He was very close, the ice-crystal eyes gleaming with an inhuman light.

The Seer nodded. "I did promise. It was past time. You know why I needed you?" There was an appeal in her voice.

"I do not forgive."

"But you know why?"

Another long silence. Then, "Yes," said Eilathen, and one listening for it might have imagined gentleness in his tone. "I know why you bound me."

Ysanne was crying again, the tears glinting on her lined face. Her back was straight, though, her head high, and the command, when it came, rang clear. "Then go free of me, free of guardianship.

Be free of flowerfire, now and evermore. Laith derendel, sed bannion. Echorth!"

And on the last word a sound burst from Eilathen, a high, keening sound beyond joy or release, almost beyond hearing, and the red-stoned ring slid from his finger and fell on the rock at the
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Seer's feet.

She knelt to gather it and, when she rose, saw through still-falling tears that he had already spun back out over the lake.

"Eilathen!" she cried. "Forgive me if you can. Farewell!"

For reply, his motion only grew faster, wilder somehow than before, untamed, chaotic, and then Eilathen reached the middle of the lake and dived.

But one listening for it-wanting, praying even, to catch it-might have heard, or imagined she heard, just before he disappeared, the sound of her name called out in farewell in a voice cold and free forever.

She sank to her knees cradling Kim, and rocked her upon her lap as one rocks a child. Holding the girl, gazing out through almost blinded eyes at the empty lake, she did not see the dark-haired, dark-bearded figure that rose from the cover of a sheltering rock behind them. The figure watched long enough to see her take the ring Eilathen had guarded and slip it carefully upon Kimberly's right hand, where it fit her ring finger as perfectly as the Seer had dreamt it would.

After seeing this, the watching figure turned, still unseen, and walked away from them, and there was no trace of a limp in his stride.

She was seventeen that spring, not yet accustomed to men calling her beautiful. A pretty child she had been, but adolescence had found her long-limbed and coltish, prone to skinned knees and bruises from rough play in the gardens at Larai Rigal-activities ultimately deemed unfitting for a

Princess of the realm. The more so when Marlen died hunting and she became heir to the Ivory Throne in a ceremony she scarcely remembered, so dazed was she by the speed of it and the death

of her brother. Her knee was hurting, from a fall the day before, and her father's face had frightened her. There were no falls after that, for the play in the gardens and on the lake of the summer palace came to an end. She learned to school herself in the ways of a decadent court and, in time, to deal not unkindly with the suitors who began to come in such numbers, and she did grow beautiful, the

Dark Rose of Cathal, and her name was Sharra, daughter of Shalhassan.

Proud she remained, as were all of her blood, and strong-willed, a quality rare in dissolute Cathal, though not unexpected in her father's daughter. Within her, too, there flickered yet a secret flame of rebelliousness against the demands of position and ritual that trammelled her days and nights.

Even now the flame burned, within beloved Larai Rigal, where the scent of calath and myrrh, of elphinel and alder enveloped her with memories. Memories that fired her with brighter longing than had any of the men who had knelt before her father's throne seeking her hand, with the ritual phrase: "The sun rises in your daughter's eyes." She was young yet, for all her pride.

And it would have been for all of these reasons, the last perhaps more than any of the others, that when the letters had begun to appear in her room-how, she knew not-she kept them secret unto herself; deeply secret, too, she kept the suspicion, burning like a liena in the gardens at night, of who had sent them.

Of desire they spoke, and called her fair in words more strung with fire than any she had ever heard. A longing was in the lines that sang to her, and it awoke within her breast, prisoner that she was in the place she would one day rule, longings of her own: most often she yearned for the simplicity of mornings that were gone, leaving this strangeness in their place, but sometimes, when she was alone at night, for other things. For the letters grew more bold as time went by, and descriptions of desire became promises of what hands and lips might do.

Still, they were unsigned. Finely phrased, elegantly penned, they bespoke nobility, but there
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never was a name signed at the close. Until the last one came, as spring was spilling calath and anemone all over Larai Rigal. And the name she read at last gave shape and certainty to what she had long guessed and held in her heart as a talisman. I know something you don't know was the refrain that had carried her lightly, even kindly, through mornings in the reception chamber, then closely escorted afternoon walks with one suitor or another along the curving pathways and arched bridges of the gardens. Only at night, her ladies at last dismissed, her black hair brushed and falling free, could she take from its hiding place that last letter and read again by candlelight: Bright One, Too long. Even the stars now speak to me of you, and the night wind knows your name. I must come. Death is a dark I seek not to find, but if I must walk within its provinces to touch the flower of your body, then I must. Promise only that should the soldiers of Cathal end my life it will be your hands that close my eyes, and perhaps-too much to ask, I know-your lips that touch my cold ones in farewell.

There is a lyren tree near the northern wall ofLarai Rigal. Ten nights past the full of the moon there should still be light enough at moonrise for us to find each other.

I will be there. You hold my life as a small thing between the fingers of your hands.

Diarmuid dan Ailell

It was very late. Earlier in the evening it had rained, releasing the scent of elphinel from below her window, but now the clouds had drifted and the waning moon shone into her room. Gently its light touched her face and glinted in the heavy fall of her hair.

It had been full nine nights before.

Which meant that he had somehow crossed Saeren and was hiding somewhere in the dark of the land, and tomorrow. . . .

Sharra, daughter of Shalhassan, drew a long breath in the bed where she lay alone, and returned the letter to its secret place. That evening she did not dream of childhood or of childhood games when at length sleep found her, twisting from side to side all night, her hair loose and spread upon the pillows.

Venassar of Gath was so young and shy, he made her feel protective. Walking the next morning on the Circle Path, she did most of the talking. In yellow doublet and hose, long-faced and clearly apprehensive, he listened with desperate attentiveness, tilted alarmingly towards her as she named the flowers and trees past which they walked, and told the story of T'Varen and the creation of

Larai Rigal. Her voice, pitched low to exclude their retinue, which walked a careful ten paces ahead and behind, gave no hint of how many interminable times she had done this before.

They walked slowly past the cedar from which she had fallen the day her brother died, the day before she had been named heir to the throne. And then, following the curve of the path over the seventh bridge past one of the waterfalls, she saw the giant lyren near the northern wall.

Venassar of Gath, gangling and discomfited, essayed a series of coughs, snorts, and comments in a hapless attempt thereafter to revive a dead conversation. The Princess at his side had withdrawn into a stillness so profound that her beauty seemed to have folded upon itself like a flower, dazzling still, but closed to him. His father, he thought despairingly, was going to flay him.

Taking pity at last, Sharra carefully placed her hand on his arm as they crossed the ninth bridge, completing the Circle, and walked up towards the pavilion where Shalhassan reclined, surrounded by the scented finery of his court. The gesture launched Venassar into a state of petrified automatism, despite the predatory look it elicited from Bragon, his father, who was sitting beside

Shalhassan under the waving fans of the servants.

Sharra shivered as Bragon's glance lingered on her and the smile deepened under his dark moustache. It was not the smile of a potential father-in-law. Beneath the silk of her gown, her
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body recoiled from the hunger in his eyes.

Her father did not smile. He never did.

She made obeisance to him and moved into the shade, where they brought her a glass of m'rae, deeply chilled, and a dish of flavored ices. When Bragon took his leave, she made sure he saw the coldness in her eyes, and then smiled at Venassar, extending a hand he almost forgot to touch to his forehead. Let the father know, she thought, with no possibility of mistake, why they would not be returning to Larai Rigal. And the anger in her almost showed.

What she wanted, Sharra thought bitterly, even as she smiled, was to climb the cedar again, past the branch that had broken under her, and, reaching the very topmost point, to turn into a falcon that could fly over the shining of the lake and the glory of the gardens all alone.

"A brute, and the son is a callow fool," Shalhassan said, leaning towards her so only the slaves, who didn't matter, could hear.

"They all are," said his daughter, "the one or the other."

The moon, thinning down, had risen late. From her window she could see it surfacing from the eastern arm of the lake. Still, she lingered within her room. It would not do to arrive on time; this man would have to learn that a Princess of Cathal did not scurry to a tryst like a servant from

Rhoden or some such northern place.

Nonetheless, the pulse under the fine skin of her wrist was beating far too fast. A small thing between the fingers of your hands, he had written. Which was true. She could have him taken and garrotted for his effrontery. It might even start a war.

Which, she told herself, was irresponsible. Shalhassan's daughter would greet this man with the courtesy due his rank and the secrecy the passion in him deserved of her. He had come a long way through very great peril to see her. He would have gracious words to carry back north from the gardens of Cathal. But no more. Presumption such as his had a price, and this, Diarmuid of Brennin would learn. And, she thought, it would be well if he told her how he had crossed Saeren. It was a thing of no small importance to the land she would one day rule.

Her breathing seemed to be under control; the race of her pulse had slowed. The image of the solitary falcon in her mind fell away as on a down drift of wind. It was the heiress of Cathal, well schooled in duty and obligation, who descended, careful of her skirt, down the easy branches of the tree outside her balcony.

The lienae glowed, flying through the dark. About her were woven the deep, disturbing night scents of the flowers. She walked under starlight and the crescent illumination of the moon, sure of her way, for the walled gardens, for all their miles, were her oldest home and she knew every step of all the paths. A night walk such as this, though, was a vanished pleasure, and she would be severely chastised if discovered. And her servants would be flogged.