Chapter 12
“I will not go within,” Flidais said, turning way from the mist. He looked up at the man standing beside him. “Not even the andain are proof against wandering lost in Ra-Lathen’s woven shadows. Had I any words left that might prevail upon you, I would urge you again not to go there.”
Lancelot listened with that always grave courtesy that was so much a part of him, the patience that seemed virtually inexhaustible. He made one ashamed, Flidais thought, to be importunate or demanding, to fall too far short of the mark set by that gentleness.
And yet he was not without humor. Even now there was a glint of amusement in his eyes as he looked down on the diminutive andain.
“I was wondering,” he said mildly, “if it were actually possible that you might run out of words. I was beginning to doubt it, Taliesin.”
Flidais felt himself beginning to flush, but there was no malice in Lancelot’s teasing, only a laughter they could share. And a moment later they did.
“I am bereft neither of words nor yet of arguments of dappled, confusing inconsequentiality,” Flidais protested. “Only of time am I now run short, given where we stand. I am not about to try to restrain you physically here on the borders of Daniloth. I am somewhat wiser than that, at least.”
“At least,” Lancelot agreed. Then, after a pause, “Would you really want to restrain me now, even if you could? Knowing what you know?”
An unfairly difficult question. But Flidais, who had been the wisest, most precocious child of all in his day, was a child no longer. Not without sorrow, he said, “I would not. Knowing the three of you, I would not constrain you from doing a thing she asked. I fear the child though, Lancelot. I fear him deeply.” And to this the man made no reply.
The first hint of grey appeared in the sky, overture to morning and all that the day might bring. To the west, Amairgen’s ghostly ship was just then sailing north along Sennett Strand, its passengers looking out upon a town given to the fire long ago, long since turned to ashes and to shards of pottery.
A bird lifted its voice in song behind them from some hidden place among the trees of the dark forest. They stood between wood and mist and looked at each other for what, Flidais knew, might be the last time.
“I am grateful for your guidance to this place,” said Lancelot. “And for the tending of my wounds.”
Flidais snorted brusquely and turned away. “Couldn’t have done the one without the other,” he growled. “Couldn’t have guided you anywhere, let alone through the whole of a night, unless I’d first done something about those wounds.”
Lancelot smiled. “Should I unsay my thanks, then? Or is this some of your dappled inconsequentiality?”
He was, Flidais decided, altogether too clever, always had been. It was the key to his mastery in battle: Lancelot had always been more intelligent than anyone he fought. The andain found himself smiling back and nodding a reluctant agreement.
“How is your hand?” he asked. It had been by far the worst of the wounds: the palm savagely scored by the burning of Curdardh’s hammer.
Lancelot didn’t even spare it a glance. “It will do. I shall make it do, I suppose.” He looked north toward the mists of Daniloth looming in front of them. Something changed in his eyes. It was almost as if he heard a horn, or a call or another kind. “I must go, I think, or there will have been no point in our having come so far. I hope we meet again, old friend, in a time of greater light.”
Flidais found himself blinking rapidly. He managed a shrug. “It is in the Weaver’s hands,” he said. He hoped it sounded casual.
Lancelot said gravely, “Half a truth, little one. It is in our own hands as well, however maimed they are. Our own choices matter, or I would not be here. She would not have asked me to follow the child. Fare kindly, Taliesin. Flidais. I hope you find what you want.”
He touched the andain lightly on the shoulder, and then he turned and after a dozen strides was swallowed up by the mists of the Shadowland.
But I have, Flidais was thinking. I have found what I want! The summoning name was singing in his head, reverberating in the chambers of his heart. He had sought it so long, and now it was his. He had what he wanted.
Which did not do anything to explain why he stood rooted to that spot for so long afterward, gazing north into the dense, impenetrable shadows.
It was only afterward, thinking about it, that she consciously understood that this was something of which she must have always been inwardly aware: the terrible danger that lay in wait for her if she ever fell in love.
How else explain why Leyse of the Swan Mark, fairest and most desired of all the women in Daniloth—long sought by Ra-Tenniel himself, in vain—had chosen to abjure each and every such overture, however sweetly sung, these long, long years?
How else indeed?
The Swan Mark, alone of the lios alfar, had not gone to war. Dedicated in memory of Lauriel, for whom they were named, to serenity and peace, they lingered, few in number, in the Shadowland, wandering alone and in pairs through the days and nights since Ra-Tenniel had led the brothers and sisters of the other two Marks to war on the Plain.
Leyse was one of those who wandered alone. She had come, early of this mild summer’s dawning, to glimpse the muted light of sunrise—all light was muted here—through the waters of the upward-rushing waterfall of Fiathal, her favorite place within the Shadowland.
Though truly her favorite place of all lay beyond the borders, north, on the banks of Celyn Lake, where the sylvain could be gathered in spring by one who was careful not to be seen. That place was closed to her now. It was a time of war outside the protection of the mist and what it did to time.
So she had come south instead, to the waterfall, and she was waiting for the sunrise, sitting quietly, clad as ever in white, beside the rushing waters.
And so it was that she saw, just before the sun came up, a mortal man walk into Daniloth.
She had a momentary spasm of fear—this had not happened for a very long time—but then she relaxed, knowing the mists would take him, momentarily, and leave him lost to time, no threat to anyone.
She had an instant to look at him. The graceful, slightly stiff gait, the high carriage of his head, dark hair. His clothes were nondescript. There was blood on them. He carried a sword, buckled about his waist. He saw her, from across the green, green glade.
That did not matter. The mist would have him, long before he could cross to where she sat.
It did not. She raised a hand almost without thought. She spoke the words of warding to shield him, to leave him safe in time. And, speaking them, she shaped her own doom, the doom her inward self had tried to avoid, all these long years, and had instead prepared, as a feast upon the grass.
The sun came up. Light sparkled gently, mildly, in the splash of the upward-running falls. It was very beautiful. It always was.
She hardly saw. He walked toward her over the carpet of the grass, and she rose, so as to be standing, drops of water in her hair, on her race, when he came to where she was. Her eyes, she knew, had come to crystal. His were dark.
She thought, afterward, that she might have known who he was before he even spoke his name. It was possible. The mind had as many loops as did time itself, even here in Daniloth. She forgot who had told her that.
The tall man came up to her. He stopped. He said, with deepest, gravest courtesy, “Good morning, my lady. I am come in peace and trespass only by reason of utmost need. I must ask of you your aid. My name is Lancelot.”
She had already given her aid, she might have said, else he would not have walked this far, not be seeing her now. He would be locked in a soundless, sightless world of his own. Forever. Until the Loom was stilled.