The Darkest Road (5 page)

There was nothing even slightly prepossessing about Ivor, Dave was thinking. Not beside Ra-Tenniel’s incandescence or Dhira’s slow dignity, or even Levon’s unconscious animal grace. There were far more imposing men in the room, with voices more compelling, eyes more commanding, but in Ivor dan Banor there was a fire, and it was matched with a will and a love of his people that, together, were more than any and all of these other things. Dave looked at the Aven and knew that he would follow this man wherever Ivor asked him to go.

Dhira had bowed his head, as if under the conjoined weight of the words and his long years.

“It is so, Aven,” he said, and Dave was suddenly moved by the weariness in his voice. “Weaver grant we see our way through to that Light.” He lifted his head and looked at Ivor. “Father of the Plain,” he said, “this is no time for me to cling to pride of place. Will you allow me to yield to you, and to your warriors, and sit down?”

Ivor’s mouth tightened; Dave knew that he was fighting the quick tears for which he took so much abuse from his family. “Dhira,” the Aven said, “pride of place is always, always yours. You cannot relinquish it, to me or anyone else. But Dhira, you are Chieftain of the first tribe of the Children of Peace—the tribe of the shamans, the loremasters. My friend, how should such a one be asked to guide a Council of War?”

Incongruous sunshine streamed through the open windows. The Aven’s pained question hung in the room, clear as the motes of dust where the slanting sunlight fell.

“It is so,” said Dhira a second time. He stumbled towards an empty chair near Mabon’s pallet. Obscurely moved, Dave began rising to offer his arm as aid, but then he saw that Ra-Tenniel, with a floating grace, was already at Dhira’s side, guiding the aged chieftain to his seat.

When the Lord of the lios alfar straightened up, though, his gaze went out the western window of the room. He stood very still a moment, concentrating, then said, “Listen. They are coming!”

Dave felt a quick stab of fear, but the tone had not been one of warning, and a moment later he, too, heard sounds from the western edge of Celidon—and the sounds were cries of welcome.

Ra-Tenniel turned, smiling a little, to Ivor. “I doubt the raithen of Daniloth could ever come among your people without causing a stir.”

Ivor’s eyes were very bright. “I know they could not,” he said. “Levon, will you have their riders brought here?”

They were on their way, in any case. Moments later Levon returned, and with him were two more—a man and a woman—of the lios alfar. The air in the room seemed brighter for their presence as they bowed to their Lord.

For all that, they were hardly noticed.

It was the third of the new arrivals who claimed the absolute attention of every person in the room, even in the company of the lios alfar. Dave was suddenly on his feet. They all were.

“Brightly woven, Aven,” said Aileron dan Ailell.

His brown clothing was stained and dusty, his hair tousled, and his dark eyes lay sunken in deep pools of weariness. He held himself very straight, though, and his voice was level and clear. “They are making songs outside, even now. About the Ride of Ivor, who raced the army of the Dark to Celidon, and beat them there, and drove them back.”

Ivor said, “We had aid, High King. The lios alfar came out from Daniloth. And then Owein came to the horn that Davor carries, and at the last Green Ceinwen was with us, or we would all have died.”

“So I have just been told,” said Aileron. He fixed Dave with a brief, keen glance, then turned to Ra-Tenniel. “Bright the hour of our meeting, my lord. If Loren Silvercloak, who taught me as a
child, said true, no Lord of Daniloth has ventured so far from the Shadowland since Ra-Lathen wove the mist a thousand years ago.”

Ra-Tenniel’s expression was grave, his eyes a neutral grey. “He said true,” he replied calmly.

There was a little silence; then Aileron’s dark bearded face was lit by the brightness of his smile. “Welcome back, then, Lord of the lios alfar!”

Ra-Tenniel returned the smile, but not with his eyes, Dave saw. “We were welcomed back last night,” he murmured. “By svart alfar and urgach, by wolves and Avaia’s brood.”

“I know it,” said Aileron, swiftly changing mood. “And there is more of that welcome to come. I think we all know it.”

Ra-Tenniel nodded without speaking.

“I came as soon as I saw the summonglass,” Aileron went on after a pause. “There is an army behind me. They will be here tomorrow evening. I was in Taerlindel the night the message was sent to us.”

“We know,” Ivor said. “Levon explained. Has
Prydwen
sailed?”

Aileron nodded. “She has. For Cader Sedat. With my brother, and the Warrior, and Loren and Matt, and Pwyll also.”

“And Na-Brendel, surely?” Ra-Tenniel asked quickly. “Or is he following with your army?”

“No,” said Aileron, as the two lios alfar behind him stirred. “Something else has happened.” He turned then, surprisingly, to Dave, and told of what Jennifer had said when
Prydwen
was out of sight, and what Brendel had said and done, and where the two of them had gone.

In the silence that followed they could hear the sounds of the camp through the windows; there were still cries of wonder and admiration from the Dalrei gathered about the raithen. The sounds seemed to be coming from far away. Dave’s thoughts were with Jennifer, and with what—and who—she seemed to have become.

Ra-Tenniel’s voice slid into the silence of the room. His eyes were violet now as he said, “It is well. Or as well as could be in such a time as this. Brendel’s weaving was twined with hers since the night Galadan took her from him. We may have greater need of him in the Anor than anywhere else.”

Only half understanding, Dave saw the diamond-bright lios alfar woman let slip a sigh of relief.

“Niavin of Seresh and Teyrnon the mage are bringing up the army,” Aileron said, crisply coming back to solid facts. “I brought almost all of my forces, including the contingent from Cathal. Shalhassan is levying more men in his country even now. I have left word that those should remain in Brennin as a rear guard. I came here alone, riding through the night with Galen and Lydan, because I had to let the army have some rest; they had been riding for more than twenty-four hours.”

“And you, High King?” Ivor asked. “Have you rested?”

Aileron shrugged. “There may be time after this meeting,” he said, almost indifferently. “It doesn’t matter.” Dave, looking at him, thought otherwise, but he was impressed all the same.

“Whom did you ride behind?” Ra-Tenniel asked suddenly, an unexpected slyness in his voice.

“Do you think,” Galen answered, before Aileron could speak, “that I would let a man so beautiful ride with anyone else?” She smiled.

Aileron flushed red beneath his beard as the Dalrei burst into sudden, tension-breaking laughter. Dave, laughing, too, met Ra-Tenniel’s eyes—silver now—and caught a quick wink from the lios alfar. Kevin Laine, he thought, would have appreciated what Ra-Tenniel had just done. A sorrow, there. The deepest among many, he realized, with a twist of surprise.

There was no time to even try to deal with the complexities of that sort of thought. It was probably just as well, Dave knew. Emotions on that scale, running so deep, were dangerous for him. They had been all his life, and he had no room now for the paralysis they caused, or the pain that would follow. Ivor was speaking. Dave forced his thoughts sharply outwards again.

“I was about to initiate a Council of War, High King. Will it please you to take charge now?”

“Not in Celidon,” Aileron said, with unexpected courtesy. He had recovered from his momentary embarrassment and was once again controlled and direct. Not entirely without tact, however.

Dave, out of the corner of his eye, saw Mabon of Rhoden nod quiet approval, and a look of gratitude suffused the features of old Dhira, sitting beside the Duke. Dhira, Dave decided, was all right after all. He wondered if he’d have a chance to apologize later, and if he’d be able to handle it.

“I have my own thoughts,” the High King said, “but I would hear the counsel of the Dalrei and of Daniloth before I speak.”

“Very well,” said Ivor, with a crispness that matched Aileron’s. “My counsel is this. The army of Brennin and Cathal is on the Plain. We have Daniloth here with us, and every fit Dalrei of fighting age….”

Except for one
, Dave thought involuntarily, but kept silence.

“We are missing the Warrior and Silvercloak and have no word from Eridu,” Ivor continued. “We know that there will be no aid for us from the Dwarves. We do not know what has happened or will happen at sea. I do not think we can wait to find out. My counsel is to linger here only so long as it takes Niavin and Teyrnon to arrive, and then to ride north through Gwynir into Andarien and force Maugrim into battle there again.”

There was a little silence. Then, “Ruined Andarien,” murmured Lydan, Galen’s brother. “Always and ever the battleground.” There was a bittersweet sadness in his voice. Echoes of music. Memories.

Aileron said nothing, waiting. It was Mabon of Rhoden who spoke up, raising himself on his one good arm. “There is good sense in what you say, Aven. As much good sense as we are likely to find in any plan today, though I would dearly love to have Loren’s counsel here, or Gereint’s, or our own Seer’s—”

“Where are they, Gereint and the Seer? Can we not bring them here now—with the raithen, perhaps?” It was Tulger of the eighth tribe.

Ivor looked at his old friend, worry deep in his eyes. “Gereint has left his body. He is soul-travelling. He did not say why. The Seer went into the mountains from Gwen Ystrat. Again, I know not why.” He looked at Aileron.

The High King hesitated. “If I tell you, it must not leave this chamber. We have fear enough without summoning more.” And into the stillness, he said, “She went to free the Paraiko in Khath Meigol.”

There was a babble of sound. One man made the sign against evil, but only one. These were Chieftains and their hunt leaders, and this was a time of war.

“They live?” Ra-Tenniel whispered softly.

“She tells me so,” Aileron replied.

“Weaver at the Loom!” Dhira murmured, from the heart. This time it didn’t sound inappropriate. Dave, comprehending little, felt tension in the room like an enveloping presence.

“So we have no access to the Seer, either,” Mabon continued grimly. “And we must accept, given what you have said, that we may never have her or Gereint or Loren again. We will have to decide this using what wisdom we have among ourselves, and so I have one question for you, Aven.” He paused. “What assurance do we have that Maugrim will fight us in Andarien when we get there? Could his army not sweep around us among the evergreens of Gwynir and so run south to destroy what we have left behind: the mid-Plain here? The Dalrei women and children? Gwen Ystrat? All of Brennin and Cathal, open to him with our army so far away? Could he not do that?”

There was total silence in the room. After a moment, Mabon went on, almost whispering.

“Maugrim is outside of time, not spun on the Loom. He cannot be killed. And he has shown, with the long winter, that he is
in no hurry this time to bring us to battle. Would he not glory and his lieutenants exult to watch our army waiting uselessly before impregnable Starkadh while the svarts and urgach and Galadan’s wolves were ravaging all we loved?”

He stopped. Dave felt a weight like an anvil hanging from his heart. It was painful to draw breath. He looked at Torc for reassurance and saw anguish in his face, saw it mirrored deeply in Ivor’s and, somehow most frighteningly, in the normally unreadable features of Aileron.

“
Fear not that
,” said Ra-Tenniel.

A voice so very clear. Blurring forever, Ivor dan Banor thought, the borders between sound and light, between music and spoken word. The Aven turned to the Lord of the lios alfar as might one desperate for water in a rainless land.

“Fear Maugrim,” said Ra-Tenniel, “as must any who name themselves wise. Fear defeat and the dominion of the Dark. Fear, also, the annihilation that Galadan purposes and strives for, ever.”

Water
, Ivor was thinking, as the measured words flowed over him. Water, with sorrow like a stone at the bottom of the cup.

“Fear any and all of these things,” Ra-Tenniel said. “The tearing of our threads from the Loom, the unsaying of our histories, the unravelling of the Weaver’s design.”

He paused. Water in time of drought. Music and light.

“But do not fear,” said the Lord of the lios alfar, “that he will avoid a battle with us, should we march to Andarien. I am your surety for that. I and my people. The lios alfar are out from Daniloth for the first time in a thousand years. He can see us.
He can reach us. We are no longer hidden in the Shadowland.
He will not pass us by
. It lies not in his nature to pass us by. Rakoth Maugrim will meet this army if the lios alfar go into Andarien.”

It was true. Ivor knew that as soon as he heard the words, and he knew it as deeply as he had known any single thing in all his life. It reinforced his own counsel and offered complete answer to Mabon’s terrifying question, an answer wrought from the very essence of the lios alfar, the Weaver’s chosen ones, the Children of Light. What they were and had always been; and the terrible, bitter price they paid. The other side of the image. The stone in the cup.

Most hated by the Dark, for their name was Light.

Ivor wanted to bow, to kneel, to offer grief, pity, love, heart’s gratitude. Somehow none of them, nor all of them together, seemed adequate in the face of what Ra-Tenniel had just said. Ivor felt heavy, clodlike. Looking at the three lios alfar he felt like a lump of earth.

And
yes
, he thought. Yes, he was exactly that. He was prosaic, unglamorous, he
was
of the earth, the grass. He was of the Plain, which endured, which would endure this, too, if they proved equal to the days ahead, but not otherwise.

Reaching back into his own history, as Ra-Tenniel had just done, the Aven cast aside all thoughts, all emotions save those that spoke of strength, of resistance. “A thousand years ago the first Aven of the Plain led every Dalrei hunter who could ride into the woven mists and the skewed time of Daniloth, and the Weaver laid a straight track for them. They came out onto a battlefield by
Linden Bay that would otherwise have been lost. Revor rode from there beside Ra-Termaine across the River Celyn into Andarien. And so, Brightest Lord, will I ride beside you, should that be our decision when we leave this place.”