Crystal Rose (54 page)

Daimhin smiled indulgently. “Would such a thing occur to
you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you don’t believe the universe holds both the Spirit
and Its Opposite, Its balance, Its undoing?”

“No.”

“Well, I do believe that. Moreover, I believe I am called to
serve that Opposite. Coinich Mor tried to convince me that the power of my
aidan arose within me. She spoke in ignorance. Oh yes, of course, she
instructed me in how to Weave by tapping my own energies and those of others.
But I can feel something outside me, beyond me, feeding those energies. It is
this that Caime Cadder fears and I exult in. A Being of Darkness. The Spirit’s
opposition.”

“So, in wedding Taminy, you expect to bring Light under the
control of Darkness?”

Daimhin chuckled. “You misunderstand my intention. Let me
share with you what I have come to understand. You see, the universe exists in
a balance. If the balance is upset, chaos erupts. I now know that the Meri
regenerates every hundred years or so. When this occurs, Light floods the
world; the balance is upset. There is what the Osraed call a Cusp; there is a
battle, if you will, between what the Osraed perceive as Good and what they
perceive as Evil. There is chaos; blood is shed; the balance of power is upset
in Creiddylad as elsewhere. But in this Cusp, the chaos will be short-lived
because I have come to understand the need for balance. I will wed
Taminy-Osmaer and there will be balance between Darkness and Light.”

“You expect to be in control of Light?”

Daimhin smiled. “I told you, Ruadh, Taminy lacks the strong
qualities necessary for control. Therefore, I shall harness her powers as well
as mine for the best interests of Caraid-land.” His eyes brightened. “I shall
bring about a confluence of good and evil. Think of it, Ruadh. For the first
time in history, a balance shall be struck between the two.”

“Ah, and there shall be peace and prosperity for all,” said
Ruadh facetiously.

“Exactly.”

There was no talking to him, he was so full of himself—so
full of his grandiose ideas. Ruadh had no recourse but to go to his cousin’s
allies, such as they were. They gathered in Lilias Saba’s tent—the Banarigh,
Coinich Mor, The Dearg, Caime Cadder and himself—and he told them of his cousin’s
intention to drag Taminy-a-Cuinn from Hrofceaster and wed her. He didn’t
mention Daimhin’s prattle about Darkness and Light. He spoke in terms of a
balance of power—of the logic of control.

“If he kills her, she becomes a martyr—someone for whom
people will be willing to fight. Likewise, if he leaves her here and free, she
continues to be a rallying point for every dissident and malcontent in
Caraid-land. So, Daimhin has . . . come to believe that the only way he can
control Taminy’s allies is to control her. And to enlist her tacit support.”

Caime Cadder’s face was as white as the snow covering the
ground outside. “He can’t control her. Doesn’t he see that?”

“He thinks he’s done a mighty good job of it so far. He
believes his talent for subterfuge makes him inherently stronger. And, of
course, his aidan and his fey allies.” Ruadh bowed toward the Dearg and Deasach
women, who glanced at each other in a way that made his skin crawl.

“He was to marry me,” Lilias said. “He spoke to me of power
and love.” She smiled wryly. “Also, our common love of power. I will not share
him with Taminy the Pure.”

Eadrig Dearg made a rude noise. “I care little for that,
mistress. But I do care that the man behind our Cyneric’s throne not take this
Wicke into his confidence. She’ll taint him as surely as she draws air.”

Ruadh declined to comment upon who would taint whom, but
merely said, “Then are we agreed that he must be discouraged from this course?
That he must be made to return to Creiddylad with Airleas, now?”

“At all costs,” said Cadder. “He can have no idea how
dangerous that woman is. He is swept up in a heady sense of his own power. He
is naive. He cannot hope to control her. She Weaves to make him believe that he
can.” He glanced around at the others. “You see how insidious she is?”

“What do you put forth as a plan?” asked The Dearg.

“Withdraw your men. Threaten to leave him here with only the
Deasach as allies.”

Lilias Saba laughed. “He has no Deasach allies. He will not
let me avenge my brother’s death on this Osmaer woman and now he insults me by
proposing to marry her. I’ve had enough of this gaming.”

“Now, Raven,” murmured Coinich Mor, “will you let your
jealousy blind you? What better way to avenge your brother than to allow our
Daimhin to get his hands on the Wicke so you can get your hands on her?”

Lilias pursed her generous lips. “You make a winning point.”

Cadder scowled and glanced at Ruadh. “Where is he?”

“Visiting the Cyneric.”

“I must speak to him.”

“Speak to him,” said the Raven, “of my decision to leave him
alone on this mountain. Then perhaps your threats of Divine retribution may
mean something to him.”

She left the tent, swaggering, and Ruadh could not help but
think how well-suited she and Daimhin were, albeit, she was not as mad.

oOo

“Your cousin says you would marry the Caraidin Wicke.”

Daimhin Feich glanced from Airleas Malcuim’s pale face,
flaccid with drugged sleep, to where Caime Cadder stood framed in the entrance
of the tent that housed his prisoner. He had not wanted a confrontation with
the cleirach just yet; he hadn’t had a chance to formulate his plans fully. No
matter, though. He found he thought quite well under pressure.

“Coinich Mor?” he asked, deliberately dissembling. “My dear
Minister, I wouldn’t think of marrying such a coarse creature.”

“Taminy-Osmaer. You mean to make her your captive wife.”

Nettled by the sourly pious expression on the other man’s
face, Feich abandoned his previous caution. “Yes. And I mean to make the
Banarigh Lilias Saba of El-Deasach my free wife. What have you to say to that?”

Cadder reddened. “What? You would marry both of them? Our
laws will not permit such-such an immoral act.”

“They will.”

“They—? W-what you suggest is-is blasphemy!” He lifted his
head, drew his shoulders back, showing that he did, after all, have a spine of
sorts. “I won’t countenance it. The Osraed—”

“The Osraed will be powerless before me once I have the
Osmaer Crystal, once I have the Osmaer woman. They will be powerless before
us.”

Cadder’s face blanched, then went deep crimson but for the
braces of white that pinched his hawkish nose. “You’ll not lay hands on her
without your allies—and those you have lost. The Dearg and your foreign Cwen
have both pledged to leave and strand you here.”

Quaking, Cadder folded his arms across his chest—a combative
posture which Feich found both amusing and irritating.

“I had come here to reason with you,” the cleirach
continued, managing to sound at once arch and timorous. “I had come to warn you
of your allies’ defection and to suggest that we should return to your capitol
at once to seal your victory. Now, I think I am too late. When the Dearg go, so
shall I.”

“They won’t leave.”

“You think they bluff? I assure you, Regent, they do not.”

“I won’t allow them to leave, Cadder. It’s that simple. I
need them, therefore they shall stay.” He smiled at the stricken expression on
the cleirach’s thin face. “You don’t understand yet, do you, Minister? You
don’t realize what I am or what I am capable of accomplishing.”

“Well, Regent Feich, whatever it is you hope to accomplish,
you will have to do it without the Dearg or the Deasach. Nor is the blessing of
the Osraed any more with you. When Tarsuin hears of this—”

“Tarsuin be damned.”

Shaking like a wind-blown sapling, Cadder swept out of the
tent, vibrating the very air around him.

Feich laughed aloud. He turned back to the tethered boy.

“So the little insect has a temper,” he observed, though
Airleas could not hear him. “I’d never have suspected.”

From Airleas’s tent, he returned to his own, there to
carefully word his next dispatch to the fortress—a dispatch that would begin
negotiations for Taminy’s surrender. He drafted the message, his mind
half-consumed with the desire for another aislinn visit to Taminy’s rooms. He
would see Coinich Mor when he had finished here, he decided. He would tender a
more personal demand for Taminy’s capitulation.

He did neither of those things—a heavy, sodden sleep caught
him unawares and relegated thoughts of Taminy to his dreams.

oOo

Caime Cadder’s universe had become a dark and terrifying
place. He had always doubted Feich’s quality of spirit, but he had at least
been certain of one thing—that Taminy was the Enemy, was Evil incarnate.
Therefore, allying himself with anyone less evil was justifiable. Now, he was
certain of nothing. It was as if he’d wakened from a dream to find himself
submerged in black water. There was no up, no down, neither left nor right, but
only a vast and impenetrable darkness.

He recalled a nightmare from saner days at Ochanshrine—a
place this dark shared with Ochan’s Crystal and Taminy-Osmaer. The threat to
the Crystal was explicit in that dream; he’d assumed that threat was solely
from the Cwen Wicke. Now . . .

No, that he must still be sure of. Taminy-a-Cuinn
was
Evil incarnate, of that he must have
no doubt. She had seduced an army of converts, seduced even the Abbod Ladhar at
the end, but she would not have Caime Cadder. In this one thing, he would not
fail.

Powerless before us
,
Feich had said—as if he and Taminy were not adversaries, after all, but allies.
Very well. Cadder had been grossly deceived about Daimhin Feich. But he had
recovered from that deception, and now, surrounded by deceivers, he could be
sure of no one but himself. His dream had foretold it; he was in a position to
be the savior of the Stone.

If Feich laid hands on it, took it to Creiddylad, then he
would wrest it away and put it in the hands of the Osraed Tarsuin. The thought
gleamed before him as if it were, itself, crystalline. Yes, he would bide
awhile, and by so doing he could manipulate the manipulator. Such a thing might
wipe out every failure he had ever suffered.

oOo

It was like the popping of a bubble or the breaking of a
wave; over the most Gifted citizen of Hrofceaster poured the sudden awareness
that something was wrong, that Airleas Malcuim was now in the hands of his
enemy. Awakened from a rare, sound sleep, Taminy felt of the peculiar energies
in the after wash of that wave.

Aine. Aine-mac-Lorimer was on her way up the mountain with
the Crystal. She would need to be shielded.

Airleas was alive, but bound in a sleep so deep it could
only be drug-induced. Safer that way, perhaps, Taminy thought, and summoned her
waljan to waking.

She couldn’t reach Airleas to help him, but she could
certainly reach the forces of Daimhin Feich.

oOo

Chaos. Daimhin Feich was awash in it. He heard the shouts
of men and the shrill whinnies of frightened horses.

A dream?

But no. The sound and confusion rose with maelstrom fury to
batter at his sleep until he must open his eyes or scream. Light gleamed redly
through the slitted panels of his tent flap, flickering like an unsteady lamp.

Dawn? Fire?

He threw off blankets, dragged on boots and coat and
stumbled to sweep aside the tent flap.

What he saw was a scene from a nightmare. Liquid lightning
the color of flame flowed from the high crags of Baenn-eigh and down over the
blocky columns of Baenn-an-ratha, bloodying the bellies of the eternally
hovering clouds. Beneath the crawling crimson shroud, Hrofceaster’s
light-blocking bulk threw a long, creeping shadow over Airdnasheen. The smoke
from her fires fanned out below the clouds, all but obscuring the banners
flying atop her gates. From that smoke, wraiths unfurled, shredding away like
wisps of carded wool to take forms that boggled both eye and mind.

Huge wolves one moment, distorted riders upon deformed
mounts, the next—silkies of the mountain mist, demons from frozen hell. They
swarmed down the boulder-strewn trail from the Hillwild’s stronghold into
Feich’s camp, demon eyes like flames dancing, uttering obscene noises through
lips meant for sucking the life from souls.

They met living men—Feich and Deasach and Dearg alike—and
swooped around them, swaddled them. Bodies fell right and left— molten lumps of
flesh and cloth under the red, red gleam of demon lightning.

His heart froze and his hair stood up on his head. Could he
reach his horse? Could he escape? No. There could be no escape from this
horror. Could this be Taminy? His mind refused to accept that. She was a minion
of the Meri; this wholesale slaughter could not possibly be of her Weaving.

Who then?

Coinich Mor? Lilias? The two of them together? He had been a
fool to laugh at Cadder, to underestimate Lilias and the Dearg Wicke, and these
were the wages of his foolishness.

He saw himself cowering beneath the canopy of his tent,
wringing his hands and was disgusted with the image. It was against every
instinct he possessed to step out into the swell of red light, but he did it,
and darted from shadow to shadow to the tent that held Airleas Malcuim. There,
he would be safe.

It was an island of sanity, that tent, and others were there
before him. His two women sat cross-legged on the ground-cover, the crystal
Aiffe between them, their intent faces—the coarse and the refined—bathed in its
golden glow. Behind them, Airleas Malcuim still slept the sleep of the drunken,
oblivious.

The sight froze him for a second as his mind flooded with
the certain conviction that it was they who wove the destruction of every man
about them.

“What are you doing?” he shrieked. “What are you doing?”

The women only smiled at him. He drew his sword and came
toward them, arm raised to strike. A quick move of Coinich Mor’s hand stopped
him in his tracks as if he’d hit an invisible barrier.