Guy Kay - The Wandering Fire

He hadn’t known he carried so much rage within himself.

Impotent rage, it seemed,

“We can’t do it,” he heard Diarmuid snarl as he grasped the same truth himself.

“This is what I need,” Loren had said as Prydwen rode at anchor beside the island.

In a way it hadn’t been much at all, and in another way it was everything. But then, Paul remembered thinking, they had not come here expecting to return.

Metran would be doing two things, Loren had explained with a terseness alien to him. He would be pouring the vast preponderance of his enhanced power into building another assault on Fionavar. But some of his strength he would be holding back to form a shield around himself and his sources and the Cauldron. They need not expect to find many guards at all, if indeed there were any, because Metran’s shield—as Loren s own, that had blocked the Soulmonger— would be guard enough.

In order for Loren to have any hope of smashing the Cauldron, they had to get Metran to lower that shield. And there was only one thought that occurred to any of them— they would have to battle the svarts. Not those being used as sources, but the ones, and there would have to be a great many, who were there as support.

If they could create enough chaos and panic among the svarts, Metran might just be moved to turn his defensive shield into an attacking pulse leveled at the South Keep invaders.

“And when he does that,” Loren said grimly, “if I time it right and he doesn’t know I’m with you, Matt and I may have a chance at the Cauldron.”

No one said anything about what would happen when Metran’s might, augmented by the svart alfar and the inherent power of Cader Sedat, hit the South Keep men.

There was, really, nothing to say. This was what they had come to do.

And they couldn’t do it. With the wily caution of years of secret scheming, Metran had forestalled even this desperate stratagem. There were no support svart alfar they could attack. They could see the shield, a shimmering as of summer heat rising from fallow fields. It covered the entire front of the Hall, and all the svart alfar were behind it. Only an occasional runner, like the winebearer they had killed, would make a darting foray out from the Hall. And they couldn’t mount a threat against so few. They couldn’t do anything. If they charged down onto the floor, the svarts would have a laughing time picking them off with arrows from behind the shield. Metran wouldn’t even have to look up from his book.

Frantically, Paul scanned the Hall, saw Diarmuid doing the same. To have come so far, for Kevin to have died to let them come, for Gereint to have hurled his very soul to them—and for this, for nothing! There were no doors behind the screen, no windows over the dais whereon the Cauldron stood, and Metran, and all the svart alfar.

“The wall?” he murmured hopelessly. “In through the back wall?”

“Five feet thick,” Diamuid said. “And he’ll have shielded it, anyway.” Paul had never seen him look as now he did. He supposed he appeared the same way himself. He felt sick. He saw that he was shaking.

He heard from just behind them Cavall whimper once, very softly.

His sudden memory from the dark corridor came back. Quickly he looked past Diarmuid. Lying prone beyond the Prince, gazing back at Paul, was Arthur. Who said, a whisper of sound, “I think this is what Kim brought me for. I never see the end, in any case.” There was something unbearable in his face. Paul heard Diarmuid draw a sharp breath and he watched Arthur move back from the entrance so he could rise without being seen. Paul and the Prince followed.

The Warrior crouched before his dog. Cavall had known, Paul realized. His own rage was gone. He hurt instead, as he had not since he’d seen the grey dog’s eyes under the Summer Tree.

Arthur had his hands in the scarred fur of the dog’s ruff. They looked at each other, man and dog; Paul found he could not watch. Looking away, he heard Arthur say, “Farewell, my gallant joy. You would come with me, I know, but it may not be. You will be needed yet, great heart. There… may yet come a day when we need not part.”

Paul still could not look at them. There was something difficult in his throat. It was hard to breathe, around the ache of it. He heard Arthur rise. He saw him lay a broad hand on Diarmuid’s shoulder.

“Weaver grant you rest,” Diarmuid said. Nothing more. But he was crying. Arthur turned to Paul. The summer stars were in his eyes. Paul did not weep. He had been on the Tree, had been warned by Arthur himself that this might happen. He held out both his hands and felt them clasped.

“What shall I say?” he asked. “If I have the chance?”

Arthur looked at him. There was so much grey in the brown hair and beard. “Tell her…” He stopped, then slowly shook his head. “No. She knows already everything that ever could be told.”

Paul nodded and was crying, after all. Despite everything. What preparation was adequate to this? He felt his hands released into the cold again. The stars turned away. He saw Arthur draw his sword in the corridor and then go down the five steps alone into the Hall.

The one prize that might draw the killing force of Metran’s power.

He went quickly and was most of the way to the dais before he stopped. Scrambling back with Diarmuid to watch, Paul saw that Metran and the svarts were so absorbed they hadn’t even seen him.

“Slave of the Dark, hear me!” cried Arthur Pendragon in the great voice that had been heard in so many of the worlds. It reverberated through Cader Sedat. The svart alfar shouted in alarm. Paul saw Metran’s head snap up, but he also saw that the mage was unafraid.

He gave Arthur an unhurried scrutiny from beneath his white eyebrows and bony forehead. And, Paul thought bitterly, from behind the safety of his shield.

“I intend to hear you,” Metran said tranquilly. “Before you die you will tell me who you are and how you came here.”

“Speak not lightly of dying in this place,” Arthur said. “You are among the great of all the worlds here. And they can be awakened. As for my name: know that I am Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther, King of Britain. I am the Warrior Condemned, summoned here to battle you, and I cannot die!”

Only an arrow, Paul thought fearfully. An arrow could kill him now. But the svart alfar were gibbering in panic, and even Metran’s gaze seemed less secure.

“Our books of lore,” he said, “tell a different tale.”

“Doubtless,” Arthur replied. “But before you run to them, know this: I command you now to quit this place on the hour or I shall go down and wake the dead in their wrath to drive you into the sea!”

Metran’s eyes wavered indecisively. He came slowly from behind the high table. He hesitated, then said, sharp and brittle in the huge room, “It is told you can be killed. Over and over, you have been killed. I will offer your head before the throne in Starkadh!”

He raised one arm high over his head. There came a low sound from Cavall. Arthur’s head was lifted, waiting. This is it, Paul thought, and he prayed.

Then Metran lowered his hand slowly and began, brutally, to laugh.

It lasted a time time, corrosive, contemptuous. He’s an actor , Paul remembered, wincing under the laceration of that mockery. He fooled them all for so long .

“Loren, Loren, Loren,” Metran finally gasped, overcome by his own amusement. “Just because you are a fool must you take me for one? Come and tell me how you eluded the Soulmonger, then let me put you out of pain.” His laughter ended. There was a bleak malevolence in his face.

From the far side of the Hall, Paul heard Loren’s voice. “Metran, you had a father, but I will not trouble his rest by giving your full name. Know that the Council of the Mages has ordered your death, and so, too, has the High King of Brennin. You have been cursed in Council and are now to die. Know also that we did not elude the Soulmonger. We slew him.”