Camber of Culdi (47 page)

As Cullen's final words ceased echoing in the dull hollow of the warded circle, Camber opened his eyes and looked at all of them again. Each face stared back at him with serenity now, even Cullen's reluctance lulled by the comfort of the gently glowing hemisphere which surrounded them at arm's length behind them.

With a smile of confidence, Camber picked up the central candle and elevated it a little.

“Air, Fire, Water, Earth—and Spirit.” His eyes flicked to what was now the fifth light in his hand. “The unity of Man. All are joined in One within this circle.”

He put the candle down again and took up the Haldana necklace.

“We come to the unknown portions now, my friends,” he said easily. “We use something once belonging to the person with whom we hope to form a link—in this case, the necklace—and we use it as a focal point to concentrate on Ariella.”

He hefted the necklace in his hand, then slid it gently into the silver bowl of water. The scarlet stones gleamed more quietly, seen through water instead of air; but none present, attuned as they were, could fail to notice a faint rush of chill as they stared at the gems—all of them already picking up residual energies of the woman who had last worn the necklace.

Camber took a deep breath, holding back his sleeve as he stretched forth his right hand and began tracing another cross above the water.

“Blessed be the Creator, yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega.”

The cross which he had traced glowed in aftertrail in the air above the water, the Greek letters steady at the east and west aspects.

“His are the seasons and the ages, to Him glory and dominion through all the ages of eternity. Blessed be the Lord. Blessed be His Holy Name.”

As he spoke, he traced the symbols of the elements in the four quadrants cut by the cross: Air, Fire, Water, Earth. Beneath the pressure of his hand and will, the signs sank into the water and disappeared in a wisp of mist. When he looked up, the very quality of the water seemed somehow to have changed.

He could feel their eyes on him as he picked up the bottle and removed its stopper, pouring its crystal contents on the water in the form of an encircled cross. The clear liquid turned a dense black and began to diffuse as it touched the water. By the time Camber had set the empty bottle behind him, the water was completely black, the necklace totally hidden from sight, though not from mind.

Camber waited until the surface had settled, then drew breath again and glanced up at them all.

“Joram, you can start the incense now. And then I'll ask you all to hold your candles against the edge of the bowl at the four quadrants, and to link your energies so that I can draw on them. If all goes well, I should be able to see images on the surface of the water after a time. Possibly you'll see them, too.”

He extinguished the standing candle at that, then waited as Joram opened his thurible and held his hand over the charcoal inside. After a moment, the charcoal began to smolder and Joram shook a few grains of incense on it. Sweet, pungent smoke began to spiral upward as he replaced the pierced top. He watched it briefly before looking up at his father.

“Do you want it here, or shall I move it behind us? It can get pretty strong.”

Camber pushed it close beside the bowl, so that the smoke curled up along the silver side and rolled across the water.

“This will be fine,” he said. “I want the benefit of both the scent and the visual smoke. Let's form our link now, and see what we can find out.”

The other four moved closer to the table and set their tapers against the bowl, each instinctively reaching to his or her left to link with the right hand of the next person. Camber edged a little closer to Joram, so that he stood midway between him and Evaine, reaching between them to lay his hands on the edge of the bowl. His wrists rested lightly on their forearms, physically linking him into the bond which was about to be forged.

He closed his eyes and began clearing his mind, letting the incense and the stillness carry him into a state of relaxed receptivity. He became aware of the familiar minds surrounding and meshing with his own—distinct, yet blurred in the bonding which they mutually forged. He could feel their closeness, firm and supportive, yet undemanding, passive, as he slowly opened his eyes to gaze at the saltired reflection of candlelight on the silver-rimmed blackness.

Stillness. Anticipation. A crystal clarity of all senses, as he tuned his awareness and focused in on his own mental processes. He could feel himself slipping into an even deeper concentration, and he let it happen. His vision tunneled, blurring all around him until only the blackened water remained, incense smoke rolling across the surface like heavy fog.

He put aside all conscious thought, letting conscious and unconscious merge and focus on and through the blackness which was there and not. He let a mental image form of Ariella as he had last seen her—proud and arrogant—merge with his knowledge of the necklace hidden beneath the inky water.

Dimly, no longer aware of anything else around him other than the safeness, the reservoir of energy, he quested outward and inward for some thread which would draw her essence nearer. He kept his blinking to a minimum as an image began to form at the edges of his vision.

There! A face—indistinct at first, but then a wizened, ancient—no, an infant visage, which quickly expanded to include the whole body! A child of perhaps five or six months, one tiny fist clenched beside the pursed, petulant mouth. Wisps of fine chestnut hair feathered the shapely skull. The child opened slightly bulging eyes of rich, golden brown and seemed to look directly at Camber.

Could it be that he was seeing Ariella's child, through her own eyes?

The image wavered as Camber blinked, but he managed not to lose it entirely. His vision swam for a few moments, but then it cleared and a new image began to materialize—a map this time, with a ringed female hand sprinkling water on that map. The map itself seemed indistinct—he could not seem to make it quite come into focus—but then he realized that was because the person sprinkling it was not concentrating on the map, but on magic connected with the map.

He was watching Ariella work her weather magic!

He blinked again, inadvertently this time, and lost the image—tried desperately to reschool his thoughts to tranquility.

He must regain the contact! He must somehow try to redirect Ariella's attention to the map itself. Her strategies were what they most desperately needed.

He closed his eyes briefly to rest them, then stared at the blackness again, this time concentrating specifically on Ariella and her connection with the map—any map! He could feel himself slipping even deeper into trance, and let himself go. Images formed and reformed on the blackness, only to fade and be replaced before he could read them.

He
must
read them! He was so close, he dared not fail now!

Another deep breath, a stretching to his very limits of awareness, as he tried to reach across the miles and touch her sleeping mind, actually to manipulate her dreaming. Gently, he visualized a map of Gwynedd and its surrounding kingdoms, mentally marked the map with Torenth's capital, with Cardosa—and waited.

At first, nothing. And then, other markings began appearing on the map—notations and markings such as Cullen and Jebediah had been employing on their map earlier in the day. Hands moving markers, deploying troops.

Abruptly, he
knew
the location of all Ariella's strength,
knew
where and how many and what kinds of warriors she could throw into any assault!

He was almost ready to withdraw, when suddenly the picture blanked and he caught an almost mind-splitting explosion of rage. A wrenching pain lanced behind his eyes, temporarily blinding him physically as well as psychically, and he realized that he had been detected. His touch had been too clumsy, his direction too direct! Ariella was awake, and aware of his link—and she was trying to sustain the link he had created, to surge back across that link and mentally destroy him!

With a cry of pain, he blinked and wrenched his eyes from the blackened water, gasping for breath.

“Joram, get me out of it!”

He did not know whether Joram or the others had seen what he had seen, or felt the awesome menace of Ariella's retaliation; but Joram and Evaine, at least, knew exactly what to do in such a situation. Joram threw down his taper and seized his father's shoulders, pouring power and protection into his father's mind. As Cullen joined forces with Joram, protective instincts taking precedence over caution, Evaine snatched the silver bowl and hurried to where Rhys was already struggling to move the chest which covered the garderobe.

A wind roared outside, ripping the tapestry covering from the window and whistling into the room, but not inside the wards which they had set to prevent just such an incursion. The wind died as Evaine poured the contents of the bowl down the garderobe, and Camber relaxed in his son's arms.

The link was broken.

The room seemed to undulate as Camber opened his eyes, and the first thing that he saw was Joram's ashen face, the gray eyes stunned, dulled with exhaustion. Camber swallowed and managed to get his feet under himself again, but he had to lean on Cullen's arm until he could steady himself against the edge of the table. He took a deep, sobering breath, but he knew that he had nearly reached the limits of his physical endurance. His defense had drained him.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured. “I'm afraid I pushed too hard. Is everyone else all right? Do you realize what happened?”

“You linked in with something bigger than you could handle,” Cullen said gruffly. “What was it? Do you know?”

“You mean you didn't see?”

“See what?” Rhys asked. “I knew you were experiencing something—but until you started shaking, all I saw was candlelight reflected on that black water.”

“I couldn't see anything either, Father,” Evaine agreed.

“Oh.”

Camber swallowed down a surge of nausea and let that sink in, finding it increasingly difficult to think coherently in his exhaustion. He tried to straighten up more, but his fatigued body refused to obey. Partially abandoning that fight, he let himself slump back against Joram again and closed his eyes, making a conscious effort to organize his thoughts.

Rhys's hand touched his forehead, and he felt the cool touch of the Healer's mind against his, but he shook his head and opened his eyes again.

“I'll rest in a moment, Rhys—I promise. I got what I went for, though, and you'll need the information before I let myself collapse. Joram, if you'll release the wards, Evaine can get a map and pen. I have Ariella's troop strengths and deployment, and I think I'll have just about enough strength to make those notations before I have to sleep.”

He gestured weakly with a hand which seemed almost not to belong to him, so heavy was his fatigue. Rhys took Joram's place, supporting him against the table, while Joram raised his arms to release the wards. As the silvery hemisphere dissolved away, the chill of the room assaulted them. Instantly, Evaine was unlocking the door to the sleeping chamber and rushing through.

Rhys and Cullen slowly walked Camber to his chair beside the fire, where Joram wrapped another robe around him. Cullen, when he had seen Camber safely ensconced, went to the earl's desk and brought back a map board. Evaine stood holding pen and ink beside a seemingly unconscious Camber. Cullen glanced at them all in concern.

“Is he all right?”

Rhys moved his fingers from his patient's pulse point to the temples and closed his eyes briefly, then nodded and motioned for Cullen to lay the map board across Camber's lap. As Evaine put the pen in her father's hand, Joram brought a lighted candle from the mantel and held it close.

Camber opened his eyes and took a deep breath.

“All right. Her main strength is here, and here, and here.” The pen glided across the parchment, marking encampments and troop deployments.

“I'd say that close to a thousand men, most of them mounted, have already come through the Arranal Canyon approach and are now camped here, at Coldoire. Another eight hundred are here, at the foot of the Cardosa Defile, where she herself plans to join them tomorrow. They plan to rendezvous near Iomaire two days from now. Be sure that Jebediah studies this aspect in particular.”

As Cullen and Joram nodded agreement, Camber closed his eyes and took another deep breath. His hand shook a little as he again dipped the pen in the ink which Evaine held.

“Now, this is also important. She has eighty extra knights here.” He indicated a location. “And here. She's also considering a new foot route through this pass, which can accommodate several hundred men. If she uses it, we're vulnerable here and here, even if Sighere assists us. She has reports of his troop movements about a day's ride west of Iomaire, by the way.

“One last thing—she has a small body of men, perhaps as many as thirty of them, who seem to be some kind of elite bodyguard, or special shock troops, or something on that order. But they're more than that; there's something special about them that I wasn't quite able to read—only that Ariella seemed very pleased with herself about them. It may simply be that they're Deryni. I'll try to go back over that part in the morning, after I've slept, and see if I can remember anything else. They're quartered with her in Cardosa, for now, along with another five hundred of mountain cavalry.”

His pen moved to the mountain city and drew a circle, with the figure
550?
in it. Then his hand relaxed and he almost dropped the pen. Evaine rescued it as he leaned back in the chair and let out a deep sigh.

“Is that all of it?” Joram asked.

Camber nodded and closed his eyes. “All that's important. More details later. Sleep now …”

As his voice trailed off, his entire body relaxed and he was asleep in a single breath. When Cullen removed the support of the map board from his lap, Camber slumped even deeper into the chair, his light, even breathing the only sound in the stilled room.