Mer: Crystal Rose Part 47

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 coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sure 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng."

"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 d.a.m.ned."

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.

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 a.s.sumed 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.

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 s.h.i.+elded.

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.

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, b.l.o.o.d.ying 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 h.e.l.l. 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 coa.r.s.e 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.

"Calm yourself, Regent Feich," she told him. "We are not the Weavers of this inyx. Our Weaving is one you will celebrate."

"You . . . ?" He slanted a swift glance back at the tent flap.

b.l.o.o.d.y light crept along its inner edge, the din of death lapped through it in sickening waves. "Who, then? Who could-?"

"Your pretty Golden Wicke," said Lilias, wine-dark lips curved in a knowing smile. "She and her acolytes Weave this. Do you like it? Does it terrify you?"

He didn't answer. "Doesn't it terrify you?"

The women glanced at each other and laughed. "Come," said Coinich Mor, gesturing at their circle of calm golden light. "Come see what your sweet Raven has divined for you."

He sheathed his sword and moved to sit between them, facing Aiffe. To his surprise, the two joined hands so as to frame the stone, and gazed deep into its facets. Then, Lilias's dark eyes seemed to roll back in their sockets and Coinich Mor began to sing a duan.

In the halo of light above Bevol's crystal images formed: Four riders struggled through rocky fields of snow, leaning into a wind that Feich could neither feel nor hear. Four walkers led their mounts along the treacherous ledges of the Cauldron. Four travelers sheltered beneath the pines of Baenn-an-ratha miles below where his chances of capturing Taminy were being snuffed out.

"What am I seeing?"

"Look closely," whispered Coinich Mor, her gaze going to Lilias's flickering eyelids.

The scene s.h.i.+fted to the aislinn travelers huddled around a camp fire. Their faces revealed by the fire's warming glow.

Feich gasped aloud.

"You know them?" asked Coinich Mor.

"Saefren Claeg, Iseabal-a-Nairncirke, that idiot Osraed, Lealbhallain. The other girl I know only on sight."

The Dearg smiled. "They bring you a gift, Regent. The Osmaer Crystal is with them."

He gaped at her through the aislinn scene. "How do you know this?"

"Dear Lilias has a great gift for the Sight. I have merely added to it my own senses and this, the Osmaer's sister stone, cut from the same matrix. They are perhaps two days below us, Taminy s.h.i.+elds them from more than observation. All this"-her gesture took in the turmoil without-"is her way of clouding your vision, lord. Of frightening you into retreat. How fortunate, you were, to have us here."

"The Osmaer," he breathed. "But what must I do? How can I have it?"

"Attack Hrofceaster."

The voice was Lilias Saba's. Feich turned his gaze to her, pulling it from the aislinn vision.

"Distract them as they attempt to distract you. You have the forces at your command. Attack. When these children arrive, s.h.i.+elded though they be to outward eyes, I will see them. You will have them, you will have the Crystal, and I will have Iseabal-a-Nairncirke and revenge."

Feich shook his head. "Don't you realize what's happening out there? I have no more forces at my disposal. Those who have not fled in panic are dead and dying. Taminy is destroying my men and yours."

The women smiled secretly and rose and beckoned him back outside where red tongues of light and black tongues of smoke licked at the bodies of the fallen. He shuddered as Lilias Saba knelt by the body of a Deasach corsair and turned him over to reveal his face. He was little more than a boy and Feich was startled to recognize him as the young soldier his Deasach paramour had chosen to display her displeasure at him only nights ago.

"Look," she told him, holding a hand before the boy's face. "He has only swooned in fear. He will wake before long and wonder, or run and hide."

"He's not dead?"

Feich bent closer and saw that Lilias was right. Steam rose from the boy's nostrils. He had only fainted. Head raised, Feich looked out over the camp and realized that it was only the strange, squirming light that made the scene so horrible.

"Yes, you see?" asked Coinich Mor. "They've not melted away. It is all a trick of light and shadow. You are right about your Wicke. She is constrained to be harmless."

Feich felt laughter building in his throat. It bubbled out, sweeping him away on a tide of relieved hilarity. He let it take him, tumble him, steal his breath.

"Shall I-" he gasped. "Shall I rally my fallen troops? Oh, but how shall they ride? How shall they fight?" He looked at the fallen bodies now and saw them as comic.

"Later," Coinich Mor told him, and together with her Deasach ally she led him back to his tent.

Deardru lived with a strange, tight, exhilarating dread clogging her throat. Around her, Taminy's followers scurried at their Mistress's beck and call, knowing that Airleas was missing or had been taken, but not knowing how or by whom. Reaching out through the catamount totem told her why they remained in the dark. Airleas slept, deeply and completely, dreamlessly, at Coinich Mor's Weaving.

Her first reaction to that realization had been relief; she'd fully expected to return to Hrofceaster to be locked away for her part in the boy's disappearance. Now she spent every day in nervous antic.i.p.ation that the boy would awake and point an aislinn finger at her. Alternately, she prayed that Feich would take his hostage and run or that he would stay and fight and win.

When the waljan and their Mistress launched their aislinn attack on the enemy camp, she was terrified.

Corsairs and soldiers swooned away in terror or panicked and tried to run, though there was no where to go with any speed.

Unable to do anything against the strength of that combined Weaving, she had reached out to Coinich Mor and been gratified to know that the Dearg Wicke already suspected what she knew as fact-Taminy was loathe to kill even her worst enemies. The attack was intended to induce fear, not bring about death.

Yet, there was death. Fleeing down the steep, dangerous track on foot and on horseback, a number of terror-stricken souls perished. She could see them, through the eyes of the Deasach Banarigh, tossed like rag-dolls down the toothed flanks of a pa.s.s known only as the Cut-Dearg red, Feich yellow, even Deasach black.

She knew that Feich would attack once he'd regathered his scattered and trembling troops. Still she held her breath, awaiting that event, fearing that Airleas might awaken first and reveal her as his betrayer, and went about her duties at Hrofceaster-cooking, caring for the children. All the while she watched the bond between Catahn and Taminy strengthen and grow. Like a living thing, it seemed, eating away at her, growing fat on her anguish.

Yet so, her hatred of Taminy grew fat and flourished.

Chapter 23.

Those who know G.o.d know none but G.o.d; those who fear G.o.d fear none but G.o.d, though the entire world be against them.

-from the Testament of Osraed Bevol Between the three forces, they had lost less than twenty men to the canyon; another thirty or so had made their escape good and hid or fled back the way they had come toward El-Deasach. Most of the dead and missing were Dearg. Daimhin Feich did not waste time with grief or anger.

He left no one time to mourn the deaths-which were, after all, the result of cowardice-but had the men gathered before dawn, fed and ready to a.s.sault the Hillwild fortress. Here, he stepped aside, Ruadh would call the battle plan in consultation with Coinich Mor's slow but fierce husband and Lilias Saba. It amused Feich to think that the Deasach Banarigh actually commanded her own battle forces. He'd expected her to relinquish their control to a lieutenant, but she did not.

He might have teased her for such a conceit if there had been time and opportunity . . . and if he had not such an appreciation of her pride.

They attacked Hrofceaster with the first faint reddening of the eastern sky-Ruadh with his troops, Daimhin with his aidan. Now, Taminy would taste of her own tactics.

Sunrise.