Legends Of Camber Of Culdi - Saint Camber Part 26

"Well enough, I suppose. He's mellowed a lot since you left-I'm not sure exactly why- but he's still moody and impetuous at times. Some of his new human friends have been talking up the idea of another heir, almost pressuring him, really-and I think he's starting to weaken and doesn't much like himself because of it."

"What does Rhys say?" Camber asked. "Is Megan up to another pregnancy so soon?"

"Not really, but what else are we to do? The barons are right. Even Rhys has to admit that the two little princes aren't the best of all possible hopes to live long enough to inherit.

Javan is healthy enough, but the clubfoot is going to hamper him. And little Alroy's health is still quite frail. Dynastically speaking, Cinhil needs another heir."

"You're right. I just wish it didn't have to be Megan. We and Cinhil aren't the only ones who have had to make sacrifices."

"No."

"And how are things at Caerrorie?" Camber asked, after a pause.

Joram tossed off the last of his wine and put his cup down very precisely. "No better than they were. We moved the body early last month-I forgot to tell you that, the last time I was here. He's been safely reinterred in the chapel of the haven, as we agreed- and in good time, I think. I don't like the feel of things."

"Have there been further incidents?" Camber asked.

"None outstanding," Joram replied. "We've tried to discourage the pilgrimages, without being hostile about them, but it does no good. The people seem to think that family is too shortsighted to recognize your obvious sanct.i.ty. We're even finding little devotions to 'Blessed Camber' left in the chapel by the tomb. It's- unnerving."

Camber shook his head resignedly. "It's not confined to Caerrorie, either. I've heard rumblings even here, in Grecotha. And if such talk reaches even me, as sheltered as I am now, I shudder to think what the common folk are really saying."

Joram shrugged, but said nothing.

"And yet," Camber continued, "there's an odd undercurrent, too. I don't know whether you've noticed it, Joram. Even as they laud the supposed accomplishments of a martyred 'Blessed Camber, Architect of the Restoration and Defender of Humankind,' they're also muttering about the old Deryni atrocities. I don't like the feel of it, Joram. I think we have to consider seriously the possibility of a backlash."

Joram sat and thought a minute, chin on hands, elbows propped on leather-clad knees, then spoke without looking up.

"Your tone says you see backlash as an inevitability, not a possibility. Are there no alternatives?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think so-at least not indefinitely. What you've just told me about the new factions forming around Cinhil makes it fairly certain that his reign, if not actually hostile to Deryni, is at least not going to be preferential. So long as you and I and Anscom and a few trusted others remain close to him, I doubt he'll allow any overt persecution, but the tenor of the court will be changing. We have to prepare for that. Eventually, we may even have to go underground again-and not just for a year, as we did in the haven. In case that time comes, we have to begin building safeguards now. We have to make certain that our people stay in line, that there are no more Imres or Coel Howells trying to reestablish influence through the misuse of Deryni talents. I think we might start with a semi-secret regulating body of some kind, to prevent flagrant abuses and to discipline those we can't prevent."

"A regulating body-composed of whom?" Joram asked softly.

Camber sighed. "Would it sound terribly self-righteous to suggest that some of us would have to do it? I'd also recommend men like Anscom, Dom Emrys of the Gabrilites, Bishop Niallan Trey, several others. Seven or eight, in all."

"Deryni sitting in judgment of Deryni," Joram muttered. "I'm not sure I like the implications for abuse of power right there. They'd have to have power, after all. The rulings of the body would have to be enforceable."

"That's true. I don't have an answer for you yet, either," Camber admitted. He eased his booted legs to a more comfortable position and stretched, indulging in an enormous yawn.

"We'll have to find a sufficient way to bind our watchers with the very power they wield.

Which reminds me of something which may or may not relate to what we've just been discussing."

"Which is?"

"Some fascinating records I've been uncovering. Are you aware that the archives of this diocese go back nearly four centuries, two of them in fair detail? They're badly disorganized, but-"

"What did you find?" Joram asked impatiently.

Camber smiled. "Well, in addition to some written materials which are probably a.s.sociated with the Protocol of Orin-I say 'probably,' because I haven't had time to translate them fully yet-in addition to these, I've found some other material which may relate to some of our ancient Deryni origins. Tell me, what are the two major schools with reputations for turning out well-trained Deryni?"

"Why, the Varnarites and the Gabrilites, of course," Joram replied.

"Very good. You probably also know that the Varnarite school, now run by laymen, originally broke off from this cathedral chapter around 753, because of philosophical differences. Now, can you tell me where the Gabrilites came from?"

Joram thought a minute. "I-supposed-that they just arose as an independent Order.

But I see by your expression that I'm in error. I never really thought about it before. I do know that they have only the one house at Saint Neot's."

"Correct on the last statement," Camber agreed. "They do have just the one house.

However, my discoveries lead me to believe that the Gabrilite founders were originally an arch-conservative arm of this same cathedral chapter which sp.a.w.ned the Varnarites- who went their way even before the Varnarites pulled out, though they did it a few members at a time, not in a ma.s.s exodus. Mind you, I can't prove this yet, but I've found-well, I'll let you decide. How would you like to look at some ruins?"

"Ruins?"

With a nod, Camber rose and moved to the northwest corner of the little chamber, where he knelt and traced a large square along the edges of one of the flagstones near Joram's feet. Joram watched, thoroughly mystified, as Camber straightened up and beckoned for Joram to join him on the square.

"This is something I've already gleaned from my archival reading: how to construct a new kind of Transfer Portal-or perhaps I should say that it's an old kind that had been forgotten. The location changes from corner to corner of this area, in a deosil rotation, so that the same spot is used only once in four times. Another feature is that it's attuned so that only I can sense its presence or use it. I'll have to take you through blind."

As Joram stepped on the square, a peculiar expression came across his face.

"There's a Portal here?"

"I told you, it's specific to me. And I take it as a distinct compliment to my abilities that even you can't detect its presence."

Joram could only shake his head. "You do scare me sometimes."

Smiling, Camber stepped behind Joram and laid his hands lightly on his son's shoulders.

"All right, I'm going to show you what's left of the old Varnarite school, before they moved to new quarters. I think you'll find this very interesting. Open to me when you're ready, and we'll go."

Joram closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out with a slow exhale. As he did, Camber simultaneously forged the familiar link with his son and nudged them both into the spell of the Portal. In a blink, they were no longer in the daylit tower chamber.

"Are we underground?" Joram whispered as he opened his eyes to total blackness.

"This part of the complex is."

Light flared in Camber's hand, cool and silver-hued, to coalesce in a s.h.i.+ning sphere a handspan above his palm. With a gesture, he set it to hovering slightly above his right shoulder, then ignored it as he moved beside Joram. The light showed them to be standing in a plastered anteroom which opened into a rubble-strewn corridor. Termite-riddled timber lined the pa.s.sageway, and the tesselated tiles which they stepped out upon were cracked and uneven.

"I doubt anyone had been through here for fifty or a hundred years before I came,"

Camber said, gesturing toward the left as he ushered Joram into the ruined corridor. "One of Willowen's work crews broke through into an upper level of this complex when they were clearing away some collapsed masonry to get at a clogged drain-which led me to take a much closer look at the old master plans for this house. Mind your head."

As he ducked to avoid a fallen beam, he glanced back at Joram. The following handfire cast an eerie silvery wash on ancient, crumbling frescoes lining the hallway-half-glimpsed scenes of monastic and academic life so badly damaged by time and damp that little detail could be read. The air was musty and stale, and did not move except as their garments stirred it with their pa.s.sage.

"Anyway," Camber continued as they walked, "I eventually worked my way down to this level through a series of pa.s.sages, most of which I've since sealed. That was after I'd discovered that the corridors leading to the outside had long since fallen in-or possibly been deliberately slighted when the school was abandoned. And, of course, I'd already set up my private Portal. Unless I've badly misinterpreted the building plans, the Portal is the only way into this area now. Watch your step. What I want to show you is just beyond this next bend."

As they made a sharp turn to the right and halted, Camber's gesture caused the hovering handfire to float a little higher and ahead to illuminate a vast double door of iron-bound oak, half of which dangled precariously from one rusted hinge. Above the doorway, carved into the lintel with graceful chisel strokes, was a Latin inscription: Adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum, et confitebor nomini tuo.

Joram scanned the carving intently, moving a little closer in the ghostly light.

"It's from the Psalms," he said. "I forget the exact verse. It says, 'I will wors.h.i.+p toward Thy holy temple, and will give glory to Thy Name.' " He glanced at his father. "Is this a chapel you want to show me?"

"Not exactly. I think your 'temple' is a more apt translation. Let's go inside. I want you to tell me what it is."

Pus.h.i.+ng the door ajar, Camber ducked and stepped through, holding the opening until Joram could follow gingerly behind him. The handfire, bright enough in the outer corridor, seemed to dim almost to nothing in the vastness of the inner chamber. Camber cupped his hands and breathed light into another sphere, set that to hovering an armspan from the first one with a wave of one amethyst-ringed hand.

"I'm afraid it's in a terrible state of repair," Camber murmured. "This place was old long before it was abandoned. The earliest date I've been able to locate so far is on a ledger stone there to the left of the altar dais-and that reads either 603 or 503. The stone is badly damaged. Take a look around and then tell me what it reminds you of."

Joram gave only a perfunctory nod, for he was already sweeping the chamber with sight and other senses, questing out into the sheer otherness of the place.

The chamber was far larger than he had first supposed, wider and higher than even the central transept of the cathedral in Valoret, which was said to have the largest dome in the Eleven Kingdoms. Circular in shape, its walls set with time-dulled mosaic designs of leaves and seas and golden-gleaming fire, it was vaulted by a tangle of arches and geometric patterns whose intricacies vanished in the subtleties of shadowed height.

From the dome's central boss hung a heavy metal chain terminating in nothingness.

Beneath the chain, on a raised circular dais of seven wide steps, stood what remained of a square altar with black-and-white sides, its once-burnished mensa smashed almost to powder by whatever had fallen from the empty chain. Fragments of shattered stone and gla.s.s and twisted metal littered the dais around the altar. The pavement of the dais, also badly damaged, repeated the black-and-white checkerboard pattern of the altar sides, though on a far smaller scale.

Camber cleared his throat and glanced at Joram after a few minutes had pa.s.sed.

"Well?"

"I think I understand the Gabrilite connection you mentioned earlier," Joram said, after a thoughtful pause. "It's-something like the chapter house at Saint Neot's, in that it's round and has a square altar in the center. I've only seen those design features at Saint Neot's before this. But this has-a strange feel to it." He glanced at his father. "Does that make any sense?"

Nodding, Camber looked around the chamber. "It does. I felt the same way, the first time I came here. And now that I've been reading some of the ancient records connected with this place-well, come and take a close look at the altar."

They crossed the rubble-strewn floor in silence, only the slither of leather soles on stone intruding on the quiet. Up the seven shallow steps they climbed, to tread gingerly on the black-and-white tile of the dais floor. The pavement was swept fairly clean on the side of the altar from which they approached, and Joram glanced around it curiously. One triangular section of the altar slab remained in place, nearly half the original top, and he could see now that an inscription had once been carved around the edge. Faint traces of gilt paint still clung to the curves of the incised lettering.

"Benedictus es, Domine Deus patram nostrorum," Joram read in a low voice, filling in the sense of missing letters and parts of words.

" 'Blessed art Thou, O Lord G.o.d of our fathers,'" Camber translated. "I believe it's from Daniel. And the rest would read: et laudabilis in saecula-'worthy of praise forever.' It's not a usual quotation for an altar stone, so far as I've been able to discover."

Merely grunting in reply, Joram bent to pick up a fragment of gla.s.s from the tile. The piece was a clear, smokey amber, remarkably free from bubbles or other imperfections.

Running diagonally across one jagged corner was a streak of cloudiness which Joram suspected was once part of an etched design. He could not quite visualize the original object it had helped to form.

"What do you suppose this was?" he finally asked, laying the gla.s.s on the altar slab.

"An unusual sanctuary lamp, I think," Camber replied. "I've found some drawings which I'm fairly certain are from this place. If so, this was part of a great lantern of eight sides, done in silver wire and amber gla.s.s etched with equal-armed crosses." He indicated the debris of gla.s.s and twisted metal with a sweep of one leather-clad arm. "But as to whether it fell or was pulled down for some reason, I couldn't say. Judging by the size of that chain, I should think it unlikely that the lamp fell by itself-but if it was pulled down, why? Or, was it blasted by some great energy? I don't think the altar was ever deconsecrated, by the way."

"No?"

"See for yourself," Camber replied. "When I first laid my hands on the altar, I thought my senses must be playing tricks on me. If I wasn't new to magic, I was at least new to priesting, and I hadn't expected- Well, see for yourself. Remember every other altar you've ever touched; remember the one in the haven chapel, after Cinhil celebrated his last Ma.s.s-and then tell me what this one says to you. In fact, don't touch the table slab at all.

Lay your hands on the black stone underneath."

With a puzzled glance at his father, Joram wiped his hands against the leather of his riding tunic and moved closer to the altar. He wet his lips in concentration as he held his palms a fingerspan above the black undersurface for several seconds, then closed his eyes and let his hands rest gently on the stone. After a long moment, he exhaled softly through slightly pursed lips and raised his head a little.

"I see what you mean," he finally said, eyes a little unfocused as he continued trying to pin down the sensations he was experiencing. "There's power here still -far, far more than I would expect, after so many years-and more than can be explained even if the altar were still in use, which it clearly is not. Or is it?" He looked up shrewdly. "What was done here?

You know, don't you?"

Camber smiled drolly, the expression somehow almost mischievous on Alister Cullen's weathered face, and folded his arms across his chest.

"I have my suspicions, at least in part. Look closely at the altar, at how it's constructed.

Then try searching some of your earliest childhood memories. That's where I found the connection."

Frowning, Joram stepped back a few paces and eyed the ma.s.s of stone from another angle, his expression clearly proclaiming that he saw nothing unusual in its appearance.

From an obsidian base, perhaps a hand-span in thickness and extending that much around the edges, side panels of alternating black and white squares rose to waist level, four squares to a face. The now-destroyed table of white marble, originally the same size as the base, had once rested on four fluted columns as big around as a man's arm, two white and two black, though one of the black ones was fallen now, its shaft snapped clean across the center by the same impact which had smashed the marble mensa.

Camber watched Joram's perplexed gaze follow the lines of the stones, then shook his head resignedly and reached into the front of his leather tunic and withdrew a small black velvet bag. Untying the scarlet cords which bound its neck, he leaned down to blow dust from a portion of the black understone of the altar. He tipped the bag gently above the cleaned ebony surface and captured the polished cubes with his right hand as they tumbled out, four white and four black. The cubes seemed to glow in the baleful light of Camber's handfire, casting hardly any shadows. Camber's bishop's ring glittered in brilliant contrast to the quieter s.h.i.+mmer of black and white cubes.

"Wards Major?" Joram whispered.

Nodding, Camber sorted the cubes with his fingertip, moving the four white ones until they formed a solid square. The velvet bag he laid aside as he looked up steadily at his son.

"You remember the spell, Joram," he said softly. "It was the first one I ever taught you.

Your mother thought I should have waited until you were older, but I knew that your brother Ballard would show you if I didn't, and then you both might have gotten yourselves into trouble."

With a smile, Camber moved the four black cubes so that they stood at each corner of the larger square he had already formed, black not quite touching white. Then, glancing up to be certain he had Joram's attention, he gently placed first and second fingers on prime and quinte and switched their places, repeating the process with quarte and octave. He looked up at Joram again, hoping for comprehension, though he did not really expect to see it.

"You never learned this one, did you?"

Joram studied the configuration in silence, fair brow furrowed in consternation. Then: "But-you can't set Wards Major like that."

"That is very true."

"Then . . ." Joram's eyes took on a faraway look. "You mean that-something else would happen if you tried to work the spell using this arrangement?"

Camber nodded.

"You wouldn't get a Ward Major," Joram continued tentatively.

Again Camber nodded.

"Which means that-the cubes can be used for more than one spell," Joram finally murmured. He stared at the cubes fixedly for several heartbeats, swallowing audibly before daring to look up at his father again.

"What-what would happen if you went ahead with this setup?"

"I don't know. I've not tried that arrangement." He picked up the white cube in the upper left-hand corner, normally named prime, and held it lightly between thumb and forefinger.

"Without actually naming the components and risking finding out precipitously, however, I want you to consider yet another variation. If I place prime on quinte, and sixte on seconde, and septime and quarte on tierce and octave-what will I have?"

Joram stared hard at the cubes, trying to visualize them as Camber had described, then shook his head. "Go through it again. Prime on quinte-"

"Prime on quinte." Camber nodded, stacking the two cubes, white on black, as Joram watched.