Crystal Rose (57 page)

He stood for a moment, trembling. The wind pirouetted
playfully about him, poking icy fingers through the sodden weave of his
clothing. It was pitch black where he stood. A large boulder squatted a few
feet away at the edge of the tent’s long shadow.

He shook himself and made for it with unsteady steps. From
there, each rock, each puff of scrub, each twist of tree became the focus of
his every thought and move. He floundered from one to another in silence,
ignoring the cold, the wet, the bruises and cuts of his passing. Closer to
Hrofceaster’s walls.

Closer.

It was when he reached the last vestige of cover that he
realized how futile had been his quest. Ruined Airdnasheen still cast a faint
glow over the snowy flat between the trail head and the fortress’s gates and,
though no soldiers battered at them this moment, a dozen or so men camped just
outside. All his painstaking struggle had been for naught. Giftless, he could
not hope to pass by Feich’s men unseen.

Frustrated and exhausted he huddled in the lee of a broad,
twisted oak, staring up at the unreachable. He could even see the shadows of
the defenders walking the battlements for all the good it did him.

Wait. Perhaps his lack of aidan was not an issue. Hadn’t
Aine found him in the bowels of Mertuile?

He trained his eyes on the towers behind and above the
looming walls and concentrated all his thought on Taminy, concentrated it there
until he was sweating with the effort. At length he lay back, exhausted. How
easy they made it look—speaking without words, touching across miles. He
focused his eyes on the gates. If someone came for him, would he see them open?
Would he see phantom footprints in the snow? Shadows stretched across the
fire-lit surface?

His mind wandered and he found himself slipping toward
sleep. The realization shocked him awake. If he slept here, he’d never wake
again. Already his feet and hands were beyond feeling. He scrambled to think of
some way of staying awake until help came.

If
help came. He
aimed another plea at the fortress.

How long had he been here? Minutes? Longer?

He squinted at the fortified walls until his eyes ached,
felt himself slipping again, and was shocked to full consciousness by the touch
of a hand on his shoulder. He jerked, nearly crying out. The cry died in his
throat; bending over him was a hooded figure. Within the recesses of the hood,
the face was a young man’s, lit by the glowing star between his brows. He
attached a name to the face—Osraed Wyth. Another figure hovered, the face
swaddled in darkness.

Hands moved him; voices prodded gently; he became aware that
his hands were free, that he was on his feet, that he was moving across that
yawning open area in clear sight of the enemy encampment. He watched their
shadows stretch before the glow of their fires and wondered that no alarm was
being raised behind them.

They passed through the gates unmolested.

Some time later, before a roaring fire in Hrofceaster’s
Great Hall, Saefren sipped hot tea and tried not to betray the pain of
returning sensation in his feet and hands.

“I don’t know what good I thought it might do,” he murmured
between swallows. “I probably should have stayed with them. But when the
opportunity presented itself . . .”

Seated beside him, Taminy pressed a hand to his shoulder.
“You could do little there but welter in frustration. He won’t harm the others . . . not yet.”

“He’s given them a sleeping draught, you said,” said Osraed
Wyth. “Any idea what might have been in it?”

Saefren shook his head. “It was the Dearg woman who came up
with it. I’m sure it was full of inyx.”

Taminy’s brow knit with puzzlement. “The Dearg woman? She
wasn’t the one who saw you on the trail . . .”

“No, that was the Deasach Banarigh.”

“She must have the Sight,” said Wyth.

“She has something,” Saefren agreed. “She saw us. Iseabal
and Leal were both Weaving and still she saw us. Then there was Daimhin Feich
with that red crystal, and it seemed he could see us too.”

Taminy nodded—absently, Saefren thought—her eyes not on
anything in the room. “Yes, sometimes a person with a specialized Gift can enable
other Gifted souls to share their ability . . .” Her eyes took on sudden clarity
and moved to his face. “More than that. Iseabal and Leal were using a
Cloakweave coming up the mountain and Aine used one to free you from Mertuile.”

He nodded.

“You were very likely part of that Weave. Aine might very
well have drawn on you to help her maintain the Cloak.”

“Me? But I’ve no Gift. Not a shred.”

“Everyone possesses a shred, Saefren. Everyone. The more
they possess, the more a talented Weaver such as Aine can draw on them.” She
rose from her chair. “Rest now. I should say you’ve earned that.”

Saefren grimaced. “I haven’t earned anything.”

“You got away from Daimhin Feich. Which shows me how
distracted he is.”

“He’s a boiling pot, Mistress,” Saefren told her. “A pot
that thinks it contains the entire universe.”

Pay no heed to your
frailty; keep your eyes, instead, on the invincibility of the Spirit. Did She
not subject the militant Houses to the Divine discipline of the Meri through
the first Osraed, Ochan?

Rise up in the name of the
Spirit of this all, put your faith completely in Her, and let your soul be
assured.

—Book of Pilgrimages
Osraed Aodaghan

“You believe she will concede to your demands this time?”
Lilias did not seem convinced.

To Daimhin Feich that hardly mattered, she’d be convinced
soon enough. He gestured up the trail toward Hrofceaster, hunkered balefully at
the foot of her crags.

“We will parade her beloved waljan before her; she will
concede. Then Coinich Mor will bring the Stone of Ochan to me and I shall
perform a great Weaving. Something that will put fear into the Hillwild and
cause Taminy to recognize that I wield a power superior even to hers.”

“Yet, her power is the Meri’s, is it not? Do you believe
yourself superior to that?”

He considered the question. Well, he had the upper hand,
didn’t he? The Meri hadn’t struck him dead; Taminy hadn’t lifted a violent hand
against him. He had won. Simply and completely. Bested the Meri’s vice-regent,
and therefore, bested the Meri Herself. The minion of some Dark Power, was he?

Or perhaps—the thought excited him—perhaps he was, himself,
the Power of Darkness, the anti-Meri, Her equal opposite and nemesis.

“Yes. I do believe I have that power. Have I any choice?”

“What will you do after your great Weaving?”

“I will take Taminy back to Creiddylad.”

“Do you intend to set her disciples loose as you promised?”

“Why not? It hardly matters. If their Mistress can’t stop
me, what can they possibly do?”

Lilias laid a firm hand on the hilt of her sword. “I will
not give up the girl, Iseabal. She will be made to pay for Sorn’s death.”

He opened his mouth to argue with her, then realized there
was no point to the argument. Iseabal didn’t matter. None of them mattered. Not
even Airleas Malcuim mattered to him at that moment.

“Very well, she’s your responsibility. If Taminy ever asks
after her, I’ll refer her to you. Still, I remind you that it was, to all
accounts, Rodri Madaidh who put an end to your little brother’s life.”

“For her. He did it for her.”

“Strictly speaking, he did it for Taminy. Of course, if you
look at it another way, your dear brother would be alive today if he hadn’t
allowed himself to be smitten with the girl.”

“Yes, but that, I am certain, was due only to a Weaving on
her part. She made him become smitten with her. She used him to escape
Creiddylad. And when she had brought her Madaidh rescuer to her, she had him
slaughter Sorn as if he were a fatted sheep.”

Daimhin considered telling Lilias just how ridiculous that
sounded. After all, the Cirkemaster’s daughter had not a mote of guile in her.
The thought that she had engineered her own escape—no, it was ludicrous. She’d
been barely aware of her surroundings when he’d packed her off in the tribute
caravan.

Then again, telling Lilias Saba anything at all—besides that
she was unutterably beautiful, of course—produced no result. That hardly
mattered now.

“Believe what you will, my dear. Only now, it’s nearly time
for the fateful meeting. Where’s Coinich Mor?”

“Near by, Regent,” said the Dearg’s voice practically in his
ear. “Always near by.” Though they were several yards from the nearest tent,
she appeared beside him as if she had but to take one step from concealment.

He nearly snapped at her that she had startled him, but
didn’t wish to admit he hadn’t sensed her there.

“Have you given our guests an antidote to the sleeping
draught?”

“Aye, but, I’ve kept the inyx upon them—bound to that silly
boy’s cat amulet. Gullible, that one.”

Feich frowned. “I want them to appreciate their
predicament.”

“Oh, they will, soon enough. By the way, the Claeg is gone.”

“What do you mean, the Claeg is gone?”

“What I said. The nephew of Iobert Claeg has escaped.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “You would not have him be drugged.”

“He was tied. I put an inyx on him.”

Coinich Mor’s dark brows rose. “Did you? To what did you
bind this inyx, Regent?”

“Why to . . . to the ropes.” He had, in fact, thought it
particularly clever to have done that. Rather like an aislinn pun.

“Well, he isn’t in the tent. Neither are his ropes. He must
have taken your inyx with him.”

Her eyes glinted with wry humor, making him despise her.

“Taminy came to me last night in a vision. She must have
aided him to unravel the Weave I set.”

The Dearg Wicke nodded, her eyes gliding past him to Lilias.
“Ah, yes. I can see that’s what has happened. Well, it matters not a bit.
There’s no aidan in him. It’s likely we’ll find his body wherever it was he
froze to death.”

“They’re ready to go, then?”

She nodded.

He raised his eyes to the fortress and swept a gesture at it
with one hand. “Behold, the gates of Hrofceaster open. Let us go to our
parley.”

oOo

Catahn to her right, Wyth Arundel and Saefren Claeg to her
left, Taminy met Daimhin Feich before the gates of Hrofceaster.

It was an oppressive morning—gray mist riding low over the
clearing with trailing skirts, draping bits of them in tree and bush,
entangling the battlements. The damp air reeked of ash.

Feich came alone, or nearly so. He left his cousin and the
Deasach several yards behind him before a phalanx of Feich men. Now, in what he
surely perceived as his moment of power, he did not smile or swagger. His pale
eyes were alert, sharp as shards of crystal, his expression sober.

He came to stand before Taminy, only then allowing a smile
to pass over his lips.

“Lady,” he said, “are you ready to surrender yourself to
me?”

“Where are they?”

“My hostages?” He waved a hand above his head and the line
of men behind him parted to allow the four hostages to move forward. They might
have been sleep-walking—heads bowed, eyes glazed, feet shuffling through the
snow.

Taminy wondered again at how Feich managed to control them
so, though his attention seemed to be fully on herself. A boiling pot, Saefren
had called him, and she knew him to be conflicted, a man of sometimes frenetic
thought. That didn’t tally with the discipline necessary to Weave as he had.

She thought again of the Dearg woman and her inyx-laden
sleeping potion, of the Deasach Banarigh and her sharing of her Gift of Sight.
It was possible that Daimhin Feich was not the only Weaver at work here—that he
was using one or both of them to amplify his powers. It was possible, but
failed to explain why she could not smother his power at the source.

The Deasach woman had the Sight, even as Saefren had noted.
She was not using it now, and Taminy sensed nothing from her but bristling
hatred and anticipation. The Dearg woman was nowhere in sight.

The hostages had stopped now, Airleas, Aine and Leal forming
an uneven line to Feich’s right. They were definitely mesmerized, looking like
a set of particularly life-like scarecrows propped in a farmer’s vegetable
garden. Iseabal remained beside Banarigh Lilias, her blue eyes fixed on
nothing.

Taminy looked to Feich. “Let Iseabal come forward with the
others.”

Feich glanced over his shoulder. Lilias Saba had wrapped a
gloved hand around the girl’s arm. “Iseabal is no longer my affair. You’ll have
to discuss her fate with my ally.”

Taminy didn’t argue the point. “These three are your affair.
Let them go, Regent. Loose the Weave. I promise no one will work any harm
against you.”

Feich smiled. “Oh, I can believe that.” Again, he made an
exaggerated gesture over his head with one hand.

It was as if a bubble had popped. The three drooping
hostages jerked, then gazed around in confusion, realizing they were on the
wrong side of an invisible line. Aine and Leal looked to Taminy, but Airleas’s
eyes were on Feich, a hatred born of humiliation burning deep in them.

“Welcome back to the waking world, Cyneric,” Feich told him.
“You are just in time to witness a most momentous event.” He turned to Taminy
then. “Here are your little ones, Lady. What will you surrender for them?”

“Myself.”

Airleas’s eyes flew wide open. “NO! Mistress, you can’t
surrender to this monster!”

Taminy shook her head. “Airleas, I must. For your sake. It
is destined.”

“No! I don’t believe that. I
won’t
believe it.” He whirled to face Feich, eyes flaming. “I hate
you!” He brought up his left hand, palm out, aimed toward Feich. A beam of
emerald fire shot from the gytha there, catching the enemy between the eyes and
flinging him backwards into the snow. The fingers of Airleas’s upraised hand
flexed and Feich shrieked with sudden agony.