“Wave, little one. Those are men of the High King, and they’re saying hello to us.”
Still shy, Dari lifted a small mittened hand in a tentative wave. Finn had to look away for a moment.
Then, to the brother who was all his joy, he said calmly, “I want to run and catch up with them a moment, little one. I have a thing to ask. You wait and see if you can start the flower by yourself.”
He rose then and began to walk away so his brother wouldn’t see his face because the tears were falling now. He couldn’t even say “I love you” at the end, because Dari was old enough to sense something wrong. He had said it so often, though, had meant it so much. Surely it had been enough in the little time he’d had. Surely it would be enough?
When Vae looked out a while later she saw that her older son was gone. Dari had done a thing of wonder, though: he had traced a perfect flower in the snow, all alone.
She had her own courage, and she knew what had come. She tried to do all her weeping first before going out in the yard to tell her little one how beautiful his newest flower was, and that it was time to come in and eat.
What broke her in the end was to see that Dari, moving quietly in the snow, was tracing his flower neatly with a thin branch in the growing dark while tears were pouring down his face without surcease.
In the twilight he followed them, and then by moonlight and their torches. He even got a little ahead, at first, cutting through the valley, while they took the higher ridges. Even when they passed him, torches, and a red flame on his right, they did not hurry; he was not far behind. Somehow he knew he could have kept up, even if they had been making speed. He was traveling. It was the day, the night, and nearly, now, the hour.
And then it was all three. There was no fear in him; as he’d moved farther and farther from the cottage his sorrow, too, had faded. He was passing from the circles of men into another place. It was only with an effort, as they neared the Wood, that he remembered to ask the Weaver to hold fast on the Loom to the thread of the woman, Vae, and the child, Darien. An effort, but he did it, and then, with that as the last thing, he felt himself cut loose as the fire blazed to let the horn sound and he saw and knew the kings.
He heard Owein cry out for him, “Where is the child?” He saw the woman of the flame fall down before Cargail’s hooves. He remembered Owein’s voice, and knew his tone to be fear and unease. They had been so long asleep in their cave. Who would lead them back into the starlit sky?
Who, indeed?
“Do not frighten her,” he said. “I am here.” And walking forward from the trees he came past Owein, into the circle of the seven mounted kings. He heard them cry out for joy and then begin to chant Connla’s verse that had become the ta’kiena, the children’s game, so long afterward. He felt his body changing, his eyes. He knew he looked like smoke. Turning to the cave, he spoke in a voice he knew would sound like wind. “Iselen,” he said, and saw his white, white horse come forth. He mounted and, without a backward glance, he led Owein and the Hunt back into the sky.
It came together, Paul thought, still twisting inside with the dazzle and the hurt. The two verses had come to the same place: the children’s game and the one about Owein. He looked around and saw, by the moonlight, that Kim was still on her knees in the snow, so he went and, kneeling, gathered her to his chest.
“He was only a boy,” she wept. “Why do I cause so much sorrow?”
“Not you,” he murmured, stroking her white hair. “He was called long ago. We couldn’t know.”
“I should have known. There had to be a child. It was in the verse.”
He never stopped stroking her hair. “Oh, Kim, we can reproach ourselves fairly for so many things. Be easy on the ones that are not fair. I don’t think we were meant to know.” What long premeditating will, Paul thought, down all the years, had been farseeing enough to shape this night? Softly he spoke, to frame it:
“When the wandering fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?
Will you leave your home?
Will you leave your life?
Will you take the Longest Road?”
The ta’kiena had become skewed over the long years. It wasn’t four different children to four different fates. The wandering fire was the ring Kim wore. The stone was the rock it had smashed. And all questions led to the Road that Finn had taken now.
Kim lifted her head and regarded him with grey eyes, so like his own. “And you?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
To anyone else he might have dissembled, but she was kindred in some way, set apart as he was, though not for the same thing.
“No,” said Paul. “I’m too frightened to even weep.”
She read it in him. He saw her face change, to mirror his own. “Oh,” she said. “Darien.”
Even Diarmuid was silent on the long ride home. The sky had cleared and the moon, nearing full, was very bright, and high. They didn’t need the torches. Kevin rode next to Kim, with Paul on her other side.
Glancing at her, and then at Paul, Kevin felt his own sense of grievance slipping away. It was true that he had less to offer here, demonstrably less than his marked, troubled friends, but neither did he have to carry what, so manifestly, they did. Kim’s ring was no light, transfiguring gift. It could be no easy thing to have set in motion what had happened to that boy. How could a human child have become, even as they watched, a thing of mist, diffused enough to take to the night sky and disappear among the stars? The verses, he understood, something to do with both verses coming together. He wasn’t sure, for once, if he wanted to know more.
Paul, though, Paul didn’t have a choice. He did know more, and he couldn’t hide the fact, nor the strain of wrestling with it. No, Kevin decided, he wouldn’t begrudge them their roles this once, or regret his own insignificance in what had happened.
The wind was behind them, which made things easier, and then, when they dipped down toward the valley around the lake again, he felt it grow milder and less chill.
They were skirting the farmhouse again, retracing their path. Looking down, he saw there was a light, still, in the window, though it was very late, and then he heard Paul call his name.
The two of them stopped on the trail. Ahead, the others kept moving and then disappeared around a bend in the hill slope.
They looked at each other a moment, then Paul said, “I should have told you before. Jennifer’s child is down there. He’s the young one we saw earlier. It was his older brother… so to speak… whom we just watched go with the Hunt.”
Kevin kept his voice level. “What do we know about the child?”
“Very little. He’s growing very fast. Obviously. All the andain do, Jaelle says. No sign yet of any… tendencies.” Paul drew a breath and let it out. “Finn, the older one, was watching over him, and so were the priestesses, through a girl who was mind-linked to Finn. Now he’s gone and there is only the mother, and it’ll be a bad night down there.”
Kevin nodded. “You’re going down?”
“I think I’d better. I need you to lie, though. Say I’ve gone to Mórnirwood, back to the Tree, for reasons of my own. You can tell Jaelle and Jennifer the truth—in fact, you’d better, because they’ll know from the girl that Finn’s gone.”
“You’re not coming east, then? To the hunt?”
Paul shook his head. “I’d better stay. I don’t know what I can do, but I’d better stay.”
Kevin was silent. Then, “I’d say be careful, but that doesn’t mean much here, I’m afraid.”
“Not much,” Paul agreed. “But I’ll try.”
They looked at each other. “I’ll take care of what you wanted,” Kevin said. He hesitated. “Thanks for telling me.”