Guy Kay - The Wandering Fire

There was a difficulty in Paul’s throat. He took a step forward. “Bright the hour,” he said and sank to his knees in the snow.

For a moment he wasn’t sure, but then the great dog came forward and suffered him to place his arms about its neck. Low in its throat it growled, and Paul heard an acceptance, as of like to like.

He leaned back to look. The eyes were the same as they had been when first he’d seen them on the wall, but he was equal to them now; he was deep enough to absorb their sorrow, and then he saw something more.

“You have been guarding him,” he said. “I might have known you would.”

Again the dog rumbled, deep in its chest, but it was in the bright eyes that Paul read a meaning. He nodded. “You must go,” he said, “Your place is with the hunt. It was more than happenstance that drew me here. I will stay tonight and deal with tomorrow when it comes.”

A moment longer the grey dog stayed facing him; then, with another low growl, it moved past, leaving the path to the cottage open. As the dog went by, Paul saw the number of its scars again, more clearly, and his heart was sore.

He turned. The dog had done the same. He remembered their last farewell, and the howl that had gone forth from the heart of the Godwood.

He said, “What can I say to you? I have sworn to kill the wolf when next we meet.”

The dog lifted its head.

Paul whispered, “It may have been a rash promise, but if I am dead, who can tax me with it? You drove him back. He is mine to kill, if I can.”

The grey dog came back toward him to where he still crouched, on the path. The dog, who was the Companion in every world, licked him gently on his face before it turned again to go.

Paul was crying, whose dry eyes had sent him to the Summer Tree. “Farewell,” he said, but softly. “And go lightly. There is some brightness allowed. Even for you. The morning will offer light.”

He watched the dog go up the slope down which he had come and then disappear past the curve around which Kevin, too, had gone.

At length he rose and, taking the reins of the horse, unlatched the gate and walked over to the barn. He put his horse in an empty stall.

Closing the barn and then the gate, he walked through the yard to the back door of the cottage and stepped up on the porch. Before knocking he looked up: stars and moon overhead, a few fast-moving wisps of cloud scudding southward with the wind. Nothing else to be seen. They were up there, he knew, nine horsemen in the sky. Eight of them were kings, but the one on the white horse was a child.

He knocked and, so as not to frighten her, called softly, “It is a friend. You will know me.”

She opened it quickly this time, surprising him. Her eyes were hollowed. She clutched a robe about herself. She said, “I thought someone might come. I left a light.”

“Thank you,” said Paul.

“Come in. He is asleep, finally. Please be quiet.”

Paul stepped inside. She moved to take his coat and saw he wasn’t wearing one. Her eyes widened.

“I have some power,” he said. “If you will let me, I thought I’d stay the night.”

She said, “He is gone, then?” A voice far past tears. It was worse, somehow.

Paul nodded. “What can I say? Do you want to know?”

She had courage; she did want to know. He told her, softly, so as not to wake the child. After he had done, she said only, “It is a cold fate for one with so warm a heart.”

Paul tried. “He will ride now through all the worlds of the Tapestry. He may never die.”

She was a young woman still, but not her eyes that night. “A cold fate,” she repeated, rocking in the chair before the fire.

In the silence he heard the child turn in its bed behind the drawn curtain. He looked over.

“He was up very late,” Vae murmured. “Waiting. He did a thing this afternoon—he traced a flower in the snow. They used to do it together, as children will, but this one Dari did alone, after Finn left. And… he colored it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I don’t know how, but he tinted the snow to color his flower. You’ll see in the morning.”

”I probably marred it just now, crossing the yard.”

“Probably,” she said. “There is little left of the night, but I think I will try to sleep. You look very tired, too.”

He shrugged.

“There is only Finn’s bed,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He rose. “That will suit me very well.”

A short while later, in the dark, he heard two things. The first was the sound of a mother crying for her child, and the second was the wind outside growing in strength in the hours before dawn.

The calling came. It woke Dari, as it always did. At first it felt like a dream again but he rubbed his eyes and knew he was awake, though very tired. He listened, and it seemed to him that there was something new this time. They were crying for him to come out with them, as they always did, but the voices in the wind were naming him by another name.

He was cold, though, and if he was cold in his bed, he would die outside in the wind. Little boys couldn’t go out into that wind. He was very cold. Rubbing his eyes drowsily, he slid into his slippers and voyaged across the floor to crawl into bed with Finn.

But it wasn’t Finn who was there. A dark figure rose up in Finn’s own bed and said to him, “Yes, Darien, what can I do?”

Dari was frightened but he didn’t want to wake his mother so he didn’t cry. He padded back to his own bed, which was even colder now, and lay wide awake, wanting Finn, not understanding how Finn, who was supposed to love him, could have left him all alone. After a while he felt his eyes change color; he could always feel it inside. They had changed when he did the flower, and now they did so again, and he lay there hearing the wind voices more clearly than he ever had before.

In the morning a shining company left Paras Derval by the eastern gate, led by two Kings. And with them were the children of Kings, Diarmuid dan Ailell, Levon dan Ivor, and Sharra dal Shalhassan; and there were also Matt Sören, who had been a King, and Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior, cursed to be a King forever without rest; and there were many great and high ones beside, and five hundred men of Brennin and Cathal.

Grey was the morning under grey clouds from the north, but bright was the mood of Aileron the High King, freed at last from powerless planning within his walls. And his exhilaration at being released to act ran through the mingled armies like a thread of gold.

He wanted to set a swift pace, for there were things to be done in Morvran that night, but scarcely had the company cleared the outskirts of the town when he was forced to raise his hand and bring them to a stop.

On the snow-clad slope north of the cleared road a dog barked, sharp and carrying in the cold air. And then as the High King, moved by some instinct, signaled the halt, they heard the dog bark three times more, and every man in that company who knew dogs heard frantic joy in the sound.

Even as they stopped, they saw the grey shape of a hunting dog begin to tumble and dash down through the snow toward them, barking all the while, somersaulting head over tail in its haste.

It was Aileron who saw the light blaze in Arthur’s face. The Warrior leaped from his horse down into the road and, at the top of his great voice, cried, “Cavall!”

Bracing his legs, he opened wide his arms and was knocked flying, nonetheless, by the wild leap of the dog. Over and over they rolled, the dog yelping in intoxicated delight, the Warrior mock growling in his chest.

All through the company, smiles and then laughter began to blossom like flowers in a stony place.