Heartwood (45 page)

She came up to him, ignoring the glowering form of Maegenheard, and grasped Grimbeald's hands in her own. “It is time to let the past go,” she said urgently. “Grimbeald – you were never able to please your father, because you broke the mould – you are a new Wulfian, a new leader, one who realises violence is not the answer to everything. Times change, and we have to change with them, and maybe you are the light that is to guide Wulfengar into a new age.”

Grimbeald could not tear his gaze away from the spectre who resembled his father. “Even if this is so,” he said softly, “and this is not my father… I still cannot bear the thought that I failed him. I was never the son he wanted me to be.”

“It is not our place to tell our children who they should be,” said Tenera. “It is their role to find out for themselves. You found your place in the world – you are a musician, a painter, a creator of things, not a destroyer. And it is time you accepted who you truly are, and put the shade of your father behind you once and for all.”

Grimbeald finally looked down at the knight who had travelled at his side since leaving Heartwood. The anger had faded from her deep blue eyes, leaving them soft as a twilight sky. He could not help himself, but bent his head and kissed her lips. He did not know why he did it; it wasn't a kiss of passion, although he did have feelings towards her. It was a kiss of beauty, of thanks, like the nuzzling of two animals looking for nothing more than the comfort one gets from the closeness of a friend.

Behind them, Maegenheard roared, but this time, Grimbeald did not tremble at the sound. For the first time, maybe in his life, he felt as you feel when you have been carrying a heavy weight, and someone offers to take it from you: so light he could almost drift off into space. The disapproval of his father had been hanging around his neck like a physical thing, dragging him down through the years, and although he had thought temporarily that doing as his father wanted might alleviate the weight, in actual fact all it would have done was turned the weight into a yoke, for he would have been little more than his father's pet, trained to do his bidding.

For the first time ever, he felt free. Letting go of Tenera's hands, he stood in the centre of the Tumulus where the light had appeared. Before him, Maegenheard spat and twisted, but Grimbeald was not afraid. Now he saw the spectre for what it really was – a shadow of his own fear, sent to test him, to make him discover what was truly important to him, and to make him realise what sort of person he was meant to be.

“You are not my father,” he said.

Immediately, the figure before him vanished. The ghostly shape remained, however, a grey shadow, writhing like smoke. “You are partly correct,” the shadow said. “I exist because of the thousands of Wulfians who have died and who lie in this tomb. Each of them gave a little bit of themselves to form me. They guard this land and all who pass through it. And they will answer only to the one true lord – he who is true to himself and who will rule over his people with a just and fair hand.”

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. Grimbeald turned as Tenera gasped, and saw with shock the bones that had been piled on the shelves on either side of the chamber were moving. Gradually, they tipped off the shelves and onto the floor, piling themselves up and slowly forming skeletal shapes that sent shivers down his spine. Slowly, however, the figures fleshed themselves out, and soon he was surrounded by lines of people dressed in the same dull brown burial shrouds, who all watched him with the same dark, serious eyes.

He could not see Tenera, and wondered if she had fled outside. He could not blame her if she had; he was tempted to run himself. But he held his ground and watched as the figures all raised their arms, touching the fingers of those standing opposite and forming a long alleyway of people down which he was obviously expected to walk.

Closing his eyes so he could not see the dull flesh of the living dead beside him, Grimbeald walked forwards and into the alleyway. He felt the presence of those around him, felt their hopes and dreams, wishes and desires, the people of Wulfengar – the spirit of Wulfengar itself.

In the middle, he stopped and raised his hands to join with those above him. His fingers touched those of his ancestors, and immediately he felt himself spiralling, his head spinning. He could see back into the past, his parents, his grandparents, great-grandparents and so on, back and back, each linked by invisible threads that joined them all together, and soon he began to see Wulfians linked with Laxonians, linked with Hanaireans, linked with Komis; they were all one people, one element, and finally he understood why there was no need for separatism, and why everyone was the same.

And then suddenly the only thing that existed was light, and the ground shuddered beneath him, and with joy he realised the Node was activating, energy shooting in rivulets through the land. It shot through him, too, like lightning, and he could feel it sparking out of his fingertips and the ends of his hair, and he was a part of it, pure energy. He held the whole of Anguis in the palm of his hand.

Then, just as suddenly, the light vanished, and he stood back in the Tumulus. All was dark, the bodies just a pile of bones lining the shelves, the ground packed earth beneath his feet. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

And the crumpled form of Tenera lay motionless on the ground.

 

III

Fionnghuala stood on one side of the Portal, looking through to the quiet hillside beyond. It was growing dark, the deepening gloom intensified by the still-falling rain.

It had been a busy couple of days. Following Lalage's mysterious death, the Quest party had withdrawn into grief, tinged with no small amount of fear. It was the first time, she thought, they all realised the seriousness of the task they had been set; the mystical powers they were dealing with had the ability to influence life and death, and if the light-hearted Lalage could be driven to take her own life, then none of them was safe.

Privately, Fionnghuala wondered whether it was the crying baby that had lured the knight to her death. Though she had been quieter over the previous few days, she had not seemed particularly depressed, and certainly not badly enough to end it all. But Fionnghuala didn't share this with the rest of the group, because if she did so, she would have to explain the presence of the phantom child, and she didn't think she could bear that.

Of course Bearrach knew, but he too remained silent, more than a little disturbed, she thought, by the presence of the floating body in the pool. She had not spoken to him much since she woke the others to inform them of what she had found. True, they had been busy, first with burying Lalage and second with continuing to clean the Portal site, but she also felt he had withdrawn from her. Whether that was because he thought her somehow responsible for the knight's death, or whether because he wanted to give her some time to think, she didn't know. Not that it mattered, anyway, she thought miserably. Not even Bearrach could give her comfort now.

They had finally finished clearing the site that afternoon, and no longer could she put off her final task – the activation of the Node. Which was why at that moment she was standing just to one side of the Portal, soaked to the skin, and feeling as if she could quite possibly go and drown herself in the lake, too.

What exactly did she fear? She hesitated on the edge of the huge stone trilithon, her feet freezing to the floor. Just the unknown. It had never been made clear to her what to expect when she tried to activate the Node, because Nitesco himself hadn't known. Each of the Quest leaders had realised they would have to find out for themselves. How were the others doing? Had they activated their Nodes already? Had anyone had any success?

Behind her, one of the others shifted. They were growing impatient. They had been standing there for over half an hour now, waiting for her to begin the process, and she still didn't know what to do. She had hoped it would miraculously come to her, that the answer would reveal itself in a flash of light, but so far there had been nothing.

Still, didn't she really know how to start the process? Fionnghuala turned her face up to the rain and let it fall on her skin, closing her eyes. Of course she did. She had just been putting it off until now.

She looked through the Portal to the hillside. Cast in the same gloom as this side of the hill, there was nothing suspicious about it, nothing unusual. Still, she knew the answer lay this way.

Taking a breath, she stepped through the doorway.

Nothing changed. She looked around, disappointed, having half-expected to step into another dimension, another world. But the rain was still falling, the grass sodden. She turned to look back through the Portal to her companions, a shrug already on her shoulders.

Instead of finding Bearrach and the Heartwood knights, however, there was only one person waiting patiently for her. A little girl sat on the boulder Mundus had been resting on, the knight nowhere to be seen. Fionnghuala stared at her. She was about seven years old, with long fair hair hanging to her waist in braids. She was staring back at Fionnghuala, her face expressionless.

Fionnghuala stepped back through the Portal, half-expecting the girl to disappear as she did so. But she remained, watching as the Hanairean Council Leader walked up to her.

“Who are you?” Fionnghuala asked softly.

The girl stuck out her chin and looked her directly in the eye. “Can you not guess?
Mother?
”

Fionnghuala's heart missed a beat. As soon as she had calculated the girl's age, she had guessed who the girl might be, but it was so incredible that she had discounted the idea immediately. However, at the girl's words, she looked at her more closely, seeing the familiar upturned nose, the wide blue eyes with a hint of gold, the kink in her beautiful hair. All characteristics she herself shared.

“You are the child I lost?” she asked, her voice almost non-existent.

The girl glared at her. Her antagonism was evident, and she perceptibly drew back when Fionnghuala took a step forward. Fionnghuala's stomach clenched. How was this possible? Could it be the spirit of the child she had lost had continued to grow, to age, in whatever place it went after she died?

“Not the child you lost,” said the girl. “The child you
murdered
.”

The blood drained from her face. “I…” She fell silent. How could she possibly defend what was quite clearly a just and honest statement about what she had done?

The girl eyed her curiously. “You do not deny it, then?”

“No.” Fionnghuala's eyes filled with tears. “I have never denied the act. That is why I have suffered so long.”

“Suffered, hah!” The girl was openly scornful. “You have barely given it a thought these past few years.”

“That is not true,” Fionnghuala protested.

“I know it to be true. You put me out of your mind mentally as well as physically.”

Fionnghuala bit her lip. The girl's words were like a sword cutting through her, slicing open her emotions and leaving them fresh and raw. She took a deep breath. “It is true I have tried not to dwell on what I did. I saw no point in that. The deed was done. So I tried to move on with my life.”

“Tried to forget me?” For the first time the little girl looked upset rather than angry.

Fionnghuala fell to her knees in front of her. “No, not forget you. Never.”

“Do you regret getting rid of me?” asked the girl hoarsely.

Fionnghuala hesitated. She could lie, but somehow she understood the girl would know. “I regret I never got to know you,” she said. “I hope one day you can learn to forgive me.”

Tears poured down the girl's face. “Forgive you? For taking away my one chance at life? How I could ever forgive you for that?”

Fionnghuala felt as if her heart were breaking. She pressed her trembling hands against her lips but could not stop her own tears. They fell down her face, and soon she could not tell which were tears and which were rain.

It was in the midst of her despair that something strange happened. There was an odd noise, a mixture of a low rumble of thunder and a crackling of static electricity, and then suddenly a gap appeared in the clouds above their heads. Fionnghuala got to her feet hurriedly, looking up in awe as the grey clouds ripped, and through them the late sun shone down, illuminating the two figures on the hillside, the Portal casting a giant shadow across the grass behind them. Fionnghuala felt the sudden warmth of the sun on her face and closed her eyes, filled with an emotion she could not explain, a strange blend of love, happiness and contentment that swept through her leaving her breathless. “Gavius,” she said, only realising as she said the word that his was the face that had appeared in her mind's eye.

The whole thing lasted less than a minute, and then the sun faded, the clouds pulled back together and the rain began to pepper her face once more. She opened her eyes, stunned and confused, and then saw she and the girl were not alone. Bearrach stood in the Portal, his face creased with concern. “He let me through,” he said.

Fionnghuala did not have to ask who he meant. She wiped her face. “I am glad you came.”

He looked down at the ground. “I cannot move. I do not think I have long.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

He looked across at the girl, who was now standing, her face a mixture of resentment and fury. His eyes narrowed. “Who is this?”

Fionnghuala did not want to answer him, but she knew this was no time to be cautious. “It is my daughter. Seven years ago, I got with child. He was an older Council member… He…”

“You do not have to tell me,” he said softly. “It is of no matter now.”

She swallowed. “But there is something you must know… I… I aborted it.” She bit her lip. It was the most terrible crime you could commit in Hanaire. Children were sacred, and to deny a child its chance of life was the ultimate sin.