Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (50 page)

 
          
That
was, she recognized, implicit acceptance of Eyrik’s words, which in turn
suggested a degree of faith in her mysterious host. A small degree, she told
herself, for she was still uncertain of his motives and by no means any longer
convinced that he was so solicitous of her desire to regain the natural world
as he claimed. Still, if he did manipulate the pool, surely the talisman would
overcome even those gramaryes to show her what she sought to find.

 
          
If
not . . . She quelled the thought, for it meant that she was truly alone,
perhaps imprisoned by Ashar himself.

 
          
She
lifted her skirts high as she hurried down the winding stairway, ignoring the
windows that offered impossible views, intent on finding the chamber with the
blue door and executing her intention.

 
          
She
was breathless as she reached the stairway’s foot, and paused in the small,
stone room, composing herself, hoping that Eyrik would remain occupied with
whatever mysterious business filled his time: she did not want him present, nor
want him to witness her reaction should the experiment prove unsuccessful.

 
          
Her
breathing once more normal, she opened the door and stepped beneath the shelter
of the balconies. Rain still filled the atrium with its mournful cascade but
she ignored it, hurrying beneath the protective ceiling to the chamber
containing the pool. She saw no sign of Eyrik either in the courtyard or the
chamber, but as she entered the room it occurred to her that he might be within
the cavernous vault beyond and she crossed to the portal opening into that
strange room. A brief inspection suggested that unless he hid within the
shadows the place was empty. The candles still burned in their golden sconces
and the great throne stood unoccupied, the hall still and silent. Her heart
beating loud against her breast, she returned to the pool and knelt beside its
limpid circle.

 
          
She
mouthed a brief prayer to the Lady and fixed her eyes on the silvery liquid,
her mind concentrated on Kedryn, anticipating now the strange shimmer, the
sense of
movement, that
preceded the oracle’s
revelations. She saw the image form and her lips pursed as she recognized the
interior of the
White
Palace
, tapestries decorating walls, flambeaux
casting radiant light over a host of folk who seemed to cheer, raising hands in
accolade. She saw Bedyr and Yrla, smiling gravely, Jarl and Arlynne beside
them,
Bethany
close by, all standing at the foot of the
dais that carried the two chairs used to enthrone her and Kedryn. Now, however,
only Kedryn occupied the seat, and he rose, smiling, to extend a hand as
Ashrivelle, gowned in white and gold, walked proudly toward him. She halted at
the foot of the dais and Kedryn descended to her side, taking her hand and
turning to present her to the crowd, then turned again to face the dais on
which Bethany now stood, her arms raised as if to encompass the couple before
her.

 
          
Wynett
recognized the form of the marriage ceremony and tore her gaze away, clutching
the talisman as, despite her determination, she felt her heart pound afresh,
despair
threatening to well anew in her soul. Slowly she
slid her hands to the chain suspending the stone, spreading it as she ducked
her head so that she might lift the jewel clear. She held it tight for a
moment, breathing deeply, then wound the chain about her wrist and clenched a
fist around the metal, allowing the talisman to dangle free.

 
          
Then,
with teeth clenched, she lowered the stone into the pool.

 
          
Instantly,
the image dissolved. The pool’s silvery light grew blue,
then
cleared, shimmering afresh as another image formed.
Wynett
stared, unaware that she held her breath, seeing only the forms that shaped
before her nervous eyes.

 
          
Kedryn
stood with Tepshen Lahl and Brannoc in a landscape unlike any she had seen.
Above them was a blank, gray sky, beneath their feet what appeared to be baked,
gray mud, cut with a multitude of cracks. On Kedryn’s back was slung a massive
sword. His hair was unkempt and his eyes hollow, as if he lacked sleep, or was
burdened with great sorrow. His mouth was set in a grim, determined line, and
even as he watched he turned to speak with his companions and all three began
to trudge across the strange terrain, their movements those of men who have
marched long in adversity.

 
          
She
whispered, “Kedryn!” and the image flickered, changing to show a dismal,
red-lit chasm, narrow and filled with dust that rose in clouds as he stood with
upraised blade, Tepshen and Brannoc at his back. She gasped as a nightmare
creature scuttled on too many legs toward them, rearing up to display clashing
mandibles and hideous, excessive eyes.

 
          
Then
she screamed as the thing pounced forward, ignoring the blade Kedryn swung even
though it hacked deep into the creature’s body as it landed upon him, the
mandibles fastening about his chest, his face contorting in agony as the
bulbous sac lunged a curved stinger toward him, driving the point into his
thigh. Nausea filled her as she saw her beloved writhe in pain, the sword
dropping from his grasp. She snatched the talisman from the pool as the
mandibles began to tear out his stomach.
-s.

 
          
Shuddering,
she lurched back from the silver disk, crouching on the blue-tiled floor as
horror shook her, tears moistening her cheeks, her head shaking in mute denial.

 
          
It
could not be!

 
          
Yet
Eyrik had vowed the pool depicted only the truth, albeit in numerous
alternatives.

 
          
Yet
did Eyrik lie?

 
          
She
could not know, save through the talisman, which he had suggested must impose a
personal truth on the oracle; or had he lied about that, too?

 
          
She
willed herself to calm and extended her hand once more above the pool, lowering
the stone into the liquid, seeing a new manifestation take shape.

 
          
Now
Kedryn lounged before a barbarian lodge, Tepshen and Brannoc to either side,
beyond them a ring of grinning, laughing woodlanders who passed a leathern sack
from hand to hand, each tilting it above their cup and quaffing deep of the
liquid that poured out. Kedryn appeared at ease, drinking the brew and leaning
back on unsteady elbows, roaring silent laughter at some sally and thrusting
his cup eagerly forward to obtain more of the sack’s contents. She saw his face
clearly, recognizing the signs of drunkenness in the glazed eyes, the slack
mouth, and shook her head in disbelief.

 
          
The
image promptly shifted, changing, and now Kedryn stood upon the ramparts of a
hold, staring toward a forest of verdant trees. His face was lined and gray
streaked his hair. Two young men, so similar they must be his sons, stood
either side of him, smiling as he spoke, following his gesture as he indicated
some event occurring beyond the walls.

 
          
That
flickered and changed, and she looked upon a bier, Kedryn’s body in state,
draped with Tamur’s standard. Tepshen and Brannoc stood close by, their heads
bowed, and the two young men she had seen before, now grown to heartrending
semblance of their father.

 
          
That
was replaced with yet another image, one of fire, in which he wielded that
great sword against a thing of shadow and flame that darted just beyond the
limits of her vision, pressing him hard, driving him back so that he passed
from sight, the image shifting yet again.

 
          
Now
he stood upon a tumulus she recognized as Drul’s Mound. Dirt streaked his face
and his hands were bound behind him, Tepshen and Brannoc, similarly held, to his
right. Barbarians faced them, holding torches, their features twisted in rage,
beyond them a circle of tribesmen bearing swords and axes and spears. She saw
an order given and the prisoners driven roughly away from a pit at the mound’s
apex, toward three frameworks of wood. Their bonds were cut and their arms
dragged out that their wrists might be lashed to the crosspieces. Their shirts
were cut away and a woodlander she saw was Cord came forward with a long,
broad-bladed knife. She snatched the talisman clear as he began to cut the
blood eagle on Kedryn’s back.

 
          
Her
hand trembled as she forced herself to lower the stone into the pool once
again, seeing Kedryn outstretched on a bed of bloodstained grass, a birdlike
creature with black, leathery skin where feathers should be perched upon his
chest, its hooked beak descending toward his blindly staring eyes.

 
          
That
awful sight faded, replaced by another, then another, and another, and yet
more, the pool growing animated as the depictions altered, Kedryn old . . .
Kedryn young and with Ashrivelle . . . Kedryn with Tepshen Lahl and Brannoc in
landscapes that belonged in nightmares . . . Kedryn dying beneath the onslaught
of strange beasts . . . Kedryn laughing. . . weeping . . . fighting . . .
fleeing. One image overlayed the next until they passed too swiftly for her
eyes to follow and she realized that the surface of the pool seethed and
bubbled as if animated by some internal force.

 
          
She
snatched the talisman from the turmoil, the silvery liquid no longer smooth and
calm but roiled, wavering and rippling as if a spring burst forth deep below,
rushing to the surface to disrupt the images. She stared at it, seeing it
slowly settle, becoming once more the argent disk that promised so much and now
offered only confusion, and loosed the talisman’s chain from her wrist,
replacing the blue jewel about her neck.

 
          
Despondency
filled her, the hope that Kyrie’s stone would show her the truth dashed, that
disappointment opening gates through which disillusion threatened to flood. She
closed her eyes, determined that she would not give way to the despair that
stalked her soul, and imposed upon her troubled mind those meditative
disciplines instilled by Estrevan.

 
          
There
was no longer any point to consulting the oracular pool.
Either
because it would show, no matter what, the many strands of possibility that
opened before Kedryn, or because it was manipulated by Eyrik.
To what
purpose she was not sure,
nor
even that he did create
the images she had seen; but she did see, clearly, that to consult the pool
again was to court a pessimism bordering on madness. Yet without the pool she
could have no knowledge of Kedryn; could not know—save through faith now
rendered blind—that he sought her, or how he fared; whether he lived or died.

 
          
The
mind-numbing sensation of absolute loneliness that had assailed her on the roof
of the palace descended again. Without the pool she was totally in Eyrik’s
hands, and without trust in his goodwill she was alone as she had never been.
There existed only the unswerving belief that Kedryn
would
seek her, and the tenets of her faith.

 
          
She
fixed her mind on those bedrocks . . . and found them shaken by the very
disciplines from which she sought succor, for Estrevan taught a sometimes
uncomfortable pragmatism that forced her to consider all the possibilities,
regardless of her emotions. Kedryn
would
seek her, but to find her he must enter the netherworld and, presumably,
surmount the hideous dangers she had seen revealed: his death was a possibility
she could not ignore. If he should die questing for her she was trapped,
condemned to live out her life here in this fabulous—and now menacing—palace,
alone with Eyrik. The Lady was with her, of that she was confident, but less so
of Kyrie’s power to intervene directly. Her spirit, while she maintained her
faith, was secure, but her flesh, too, was real, and it crept at the notion of
remaining, perhaps forever, in this place. The talisman likely protected her
from direct harm, but now it could not stave off that creeping tide of
insidious doubt. All she had left were her faith and the flickering spark of
hope that Kedryn, himself protected, should win through to save her. Unless,
that coldly logical part of her mentality she had summoned told her, she placed
her trust in Eyrik, and that, she felt, she could not do.

 
          
Ergo,
she was alone.

 
          
She
must rely on whatever guidance the Lady could give her and her own wit. It was
a daunting prospect, and one that allowed her little initiative, for it seemed
that she could do nothing but
await
whatever might
develop, reacting to Eyrik’s suggestions, the gambits in the strange game
played by him.