Crystal Rose (27 page)

“That Halig-liath is protected by magic as well as stone.”

Feich smiled. “No cousin, I have not forgotten. That, too,
is being taken care of.”

oOo

“This is the place!” Gwynet clambered down over the rocks
to the pool, evidently mindless of the chill. Airleas followed, reluctantly at
first then, realizing the rocks cut the buffeting wind, with more enthusiasm.
By the time they reached the pool, he was warm with exertion. The sun
penetrated this little grotto, the wind did not.

Once at the bottom, Airleas gazed about, fascinated. Jumbled
blocks of stone formed uneven walls on both sides of the steep rill, looking as
if a giant had thrown them there in displeasure.

Downstream, the water tumbled away toward Airdnasheen; he
could see the sharp peaks of roofs and the tops of ancient pines. Upstream, was
the fall—a cascade of liquid crystal that plummeted twenty feet into its pool,
raising a froth of silver-white.

Airleas moved to the edge of the water, peering into it. It
was dark, even in sunlight, blue-violet like a twilight sky. His eyes couldn’t
penetrate to the bottom. “Is that where she lives, d’you think?” he asked.

Gwynet squatted, following his gaze. “I don’t think she
lives in the water at all. Not really. I don’t think she lives any place.
Taminy says she just is.”

“Well, then, a person would be able to see her anywhere at
all, wouldn’t you think?”

“I think some folks can. But here, it’s just easier.”

Airleas glanced at the veil of water cascading from above.
He could feel the spray, icy and wet on his face. He licked his lips. “Do you
think she’ll come with both of us here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She comes to each heart,
the Hillwild say . . .” She caught his look and grinned. “Anyway, I got studies.”

With Gwynet gone, Airleas sat cross-legged on a large flat
rock whose hollowed surface looked as if it had held the huddled forms of a
thousand-thousand aspirants to the Gwyr’s favor. He breathed deeply, cleared
his mind, tried to open his heart and free his spirit. His mind was a bird—an
iolair
—climbing, climbing, soaring
toward the Sun, reaching for the supernal. The chill of the day fell away, and
the icy spray, and the Sun, itself. Even the pool and the falls disappeared.

He wondered, at once detached and curious, if this was what
the pilgrim Prentices experienced at the end of their journeys. This, too, was
a Pilgrimage of sorts. He felt he’d been tested—just being here was a test. And
between Feich’s treachery and the lessons he’d had to learn at Taminy’s
hands—and Broran’s—he certainly had been tried.

He peeked at the pool. Nothing.

Patience. Taminy was right; he needed to develop patience.
He wondered if he might ask the Gwyr for that. He also needed maturity. A Cyne
must be mature, whatever his age. He must be a man, not a boy. And justice—he
must be replete with justice. And honor, trustworthiness, devotion to the Meri . . . to Taminy.

His meditation became a litany—a catalogue of the qualities
he must have—
must
have—to be a
fitting Cyne. How could he possibly acquire them? His life at court had not
prepared him to be a man—to be Cyne. His father had not been prepared to give
up what Feich had snatched from him. At Mertuile, Airleas had learned only
self-indulgence and pride. Except for his mother’s loving influence he might
not have been capable of recognizing Taminy at all.

Airleas’s eyes, half open, caught movement below him in the
pool. His heart fluttered. Draped across the deep violet mirror was a veil of
tatted mist. As he watched, the mist circled, drawing into a lacy spiral. At
its center there appeared a peak and, in a moment’s time, a translucent
mountain rose from the cycling mist like a miniature ghost of snow-capped
Baenn-iolair.

Heart racing, expectant, Airleas could hardly contain
himself. It was happening. The Gwyr was forming before his eyes. He wanted to
leap up and dance; he wanted to cry with relief. He had learned something here,
after all.

The form was no longer a mountain, no longer amorphous. In a
moment more he would gaze on the face of the White Wave—mystic Gwyr-Gwenwyvar,
believed by the Hillwild to be an aspect of the Meri. He would receive her
benediction. He shivered in delight.

Taminy would be so proud of him, and his mother, and even
Catahn. He’d be given his own Weaving Stone instead of the little schooling
crystals he now used. He’d be eligible for the Crask-an-duine; he’d be a man in
the eyes of all. Broran would respect him then, by God, for surely, he’d never
seen the Gwyr.

The misty shape quivered over its dark pool, tenuous and
uncertain. In a breath it was gone and all of Airleas’s daydreams with it.

oOo

He sat long by the pool, trying to call the Gwyr back.
Chill permeated his clothes as the Sun slid away from the grotto, leaving a
deep pocket of shadow. At last realizing the futility of his efforts, he gave
up and left, trekking forlornly back up the trail to Hrofceaster. He reached
his room without drawing notice and curled up before the fire to contemplate
his failure.

He had trouble accepting it as that. After all, the Gwyr had
been there, had formed almost completely—most people probably never even saw
the mist—but what had made her vanish again?

Was it something he’d done or thought? Had someone been
watching and impinged on his aislinn?

He knew he should seek out Taminy and ask her what it meant.
Had he failed, or had he nearly succeeded? Only she could tell him which. He
wanted to go to her this minute; he dreaded going to her at all.

“Airleas?”

He started guiltily and looked up to see his mother standing
in the doorway of his room.

“Airleas, are you all right?”

“Oh, just cold, mam.”

The Cwen moved further into the room and perched on a
fur-covered chair. “Gwynet told me you’d gone down to the stream—to the Gwyr’s
pool.”

Drat Gwynet! Couldn’t keep a thing to herself. All anybody
had to do was ask a direct question . . . Well, the damage was done and his mother
was sitting here, looking at him with searching blue eyes and he, too, was
powerless to dissemble.

“I wanted to see her,” he said simply. “I wanted to . . . to
see if I was ready for Pilgrimage.”

“Don’t you think Taminy must be the one to tell you that?”

“I guess I was hoping . . .”

“To prove yourself?”

He nodded, bleak.

“What happened?”

“She came, mam! I saw the mist rise and form, and then, just
before it was finished, she disappeared—as if the wind had blown her away.”

“Why do you think that happened?”

“I don’t know, really. Gwynet says the Gwyr usually appears
to only one soul at a time. Perhaps someone was watching me.”

Toireasa tilted her head, sending a cascade of honey-gold
hair over one eye, and Airleas realized how different she looked now, wearing
simple clothes, her once carefully styled hair left to its own devices. He
wanted to ask her how she felt about that—about the loss of their home, their
way of life.

“Do you think that’s what happened?” she asked him. “That
someone was watching?”

He blushed. “No. No, I don’t. I think I did something . . .
wrong.”

“But you don’t know what.”

“No.” He looked up at her. “I should tell Taminy, shouldn’t
I?”

“Well, I think if it had happened to me, I would tell her.”

Of course she was right. And of course he’d known already
what he should do. Now, finally, he did it, pulling together his pride and
taking himself off to Taminy’s parlor. She was not alone, but seeing him, she
bid him sit beside her until she had dealt with a roomful of supplicants. There
was a mother whose baby had been born with a withered arm, a pair of inveterate
enemies—once friends—who begged the Osmaer to settle their decade-long dispute,
a woman torn because of a wrong she felt she had done an old friend, now
deceased.

Airleas sat and watched and listened while Taminy carefully
handled each situation. She called Blue Healing down to make the child’s arm
well and whole; she uncovered the common bond between the two adversaries,
bringing to light their long-buried friendship; she gently and reasonably
relieved the guilt-ridden woman of her anguish.

When they had all gone and Eyslk-an-Caerluel, acting as
gatekeeper, had closed the thick door to the corridor, Taminy turned her eyes
to him. He knew she expected him to speak—to tell her he had gone to find the
Gwyr and failed to draw her out.

He cleared his throat, searching for the words.

“Airleas,” she said before he could find them, “what does it
mean to be Cyne?”

He blinked up at her, startled. “What—what does it mean?”

“Your father thought it a position of power, of leadership.
He believed a Cyne lived to be obeyed and to be served by the obedient. What do
you think?”

“Well, I . . .”
Well,
what, Airleas Dimwit? You’ve dreamed of being set before the Stone every day
since your father’s death. What is it you dream of?
“It is leadership,
surely. A Cyne must lead his people to prosperity and strength.”

“How must he lead? By force? By guile?”

“By . . . by force of example.” There, that sounded good. He
also felt it to be true. “A Cyne must not be treacherous or greedy or
hard-hearted. He must be honorable and trustworthy and compassionate. And
just—of course, he must be just.”

Taminy rose and walked slowly to her window where the
mullioned glass refracted the waning violet light of day. “Why must he be these
things?”

“Well . . . because it would please the Spirit. For the Spirit
says, ‘The most beloved of all things in My eyes is justice; turn your eyes
toward it if you love Me.’ And it would be a blessing to the people. If a Cyne
isn’t just and honorable and compassionate, his people will not be content, nor
his country healthy.”

“Then the Cyne is governed by and dependent on the
good-pleasure of others?”

“Of course. He must obey the Spirit and the Meri; he must
respect the Assembly and the Houses and the advice of the Privy Council . . . and
the people, naturally, who speak to him through these means.”

“So, he is guided by those who look to him for guidance.
Yet, is he not their master?”

Airleas knew a trick question when he heard one. He knew
Taminy was leading him toward some end, and cursed his feeble wits for not
divining what that end was. He called to mind the Cynes of Caraid-land who had
been lauded for their spiritual greatness: Malcuim the Uniter, of course; his
son Paecces, Peace-Lover; Bitan-ig, called the Preserver; Bearach Spearman;
Siolta the Lawgiver; more recently, his grandfather, Ciarda, Friend of All.

Tales of Ciarda’s exploits had always thrilled
him—especially those that related how the young Cyneric had courageously
weathered his own father’s distrust and treachery to take the Throne at a young
age; how he had braved the censure of the Assembly and Privy Council in
permitting his sister, Fioned, to marry a Hillwild Ren; how he had judiciously
handled the trespass of Deasach fishing fleets into Caraidin waters; how he had
gone about the country in disguise to see how he might better serve his people.

Airleas met Taminy’s eyes. That was it! In the life of a
great Cyne like Ciarda it was so plain to see. “The Cyne is not the
master
of the people, but their
servant.”

Taminy didn’t even leave him a moment to feel proud of
himself. “And what,” she asked him, “is servitude?”

Airleas sighed and pondered the question. It was not
something he’d thought about much—at least, not in connection with being Cyne.
He suspected he was about to have that error pointed out to him.

“Well, it’s . . . ah . . . serving the people, I suppose. Doing
what’s best for them.”

“And how does a Cyne serve his people? How does he determine
what’s best for them?”

Though Ciarda Malcuim had toured the country seeking the
answer to that question, Airleas suspected that would not work for every Cyne.

Well, I can keep
blathering and make real fool of myself and I can just admit—
“I-I don’t
know, Mistress. I suppose that’s what I’m trying to learn.”

“Servitude,” said Taminy, “is the station of preferring
another to oneself. It is embodied in the act of putting another’s welfare or
interests before one’s own. It is the continual bowing of one’s will to the
will of another.”

“The Meri,” he said. “I must bow to the Meri’s will. That’s
what you’re telling me, isn’t it? And that I must put the interests of my
people before my own. But I do that already, don’t I? The Meri’s will is my
will and my people’s interests are my own.”

“Your people. They belong to you, do they?”

There was a glint of humor in those green eyes, but Airleas
saw nothing even remotely humorous in the situation. He was frustrated, and let
his frustration answer.

“Yes, of course they do. They certainly don’t belong to
Daimhin Feich. A Malcuim has always been Cyne.”

Taminy smiled, but behind that smile, Airleas sensed
something darker, more urgent. “The people you saw here this afternoon—do they
belong to me?”

“Oh, yes! They adore you! They love you!”

“Why?”

“Be-because you heal them and-and soothe their anger and
mend their broken hearts.”

“Odd. It seems to me that I belong to them.”

Airleas paused to consider that, and in the pause, light
dawned. “You
serve
them. That’s what
you mean. That’s what a Cyne must do for his people. He must heal and soothe
and mend . . . and guide—the way you guide me, with love and respect.”

“Why, Airleas? Why must a Cyne do these things for his
people?”

“Because they’re the right things to do. The Spirit blesses
a Cyne who does these things with happiness and prosperity, and blesses his
people likewise. And the people adore and obey such a Cyne.”