Guy Kay - The Wandering Fire

“Hah!” Metran barked. “Will you bluster still, Silvercloak?”

“I never did,” said Loren and, with Matt, he stepped into the green light of the Great Hall. “Behold the staff of Amairgen for proof!” And he held the Whitebranch high.

At that, Metran stepped back and Paul saw real dismay on his face. But for a moment only.

“Brightly woven, then!” said Metran sarcastically. “A feat to be sung! And for reward now, I will allow you to stand here and watch, Loren. Watch helplessly, you and whoever you coerced into this voyage, while I move a rain of death from Eridu, where it has been falling for three days now, over the mountains into the High Kingdom.

“In the name of the Weaver,” Diarmuid said, horrified, as Metran deliberately turned his back on Loren and returned to his table by the Cauldron. Once more the svart alfar resumed their cycling of the living and dead. Through it all Denbarra stood, his eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open, slack and soundless.

”Look,” Paul said.

Matt was talking urgently to Loren. They saw the mage stand irresolute a moment, looking at the Dwarf; then Matt said something more and Loren nodded once.

He turned back to the dais and, raising the staff of Amairgen, pointed it at the Cauldron. Metran glanced up at him and smiled. Loren spoke a word, then another. When he spoke the third, a bolt of silver light leaped from the staff, dazzling all of them.

The stones of Cader Sedat shook. Paul opened his eyes. He saw Metran struggling to his feet. He felt the castle trembling still. He saw the vast Cauldron of Khath Meigol sway and rock on its base above the fire.

Then he saw it settle back again as it had been.

The shield had held. He turned and watched Matt slowly rising from the ground. Even from a distance he could see the Dwarf trembling with what that power surge had taken from him. And, abruptly, he remembered that Matt had sourced a shield against the Soulmonger that same day, and then a steering of all the worlds’ winds away from them as they sailed to the island. He couldn’t begin to comprehend what the Dwarf was enduring. What words were there, what thoughts even, in the face of a thing like this? And how did you deal with the fact that it wasn’t enough?

Shaken but unhurt, Metran stepped forward again. “You have bought the death you came for now,” he said with no trace of idle play in him any more. “When you are dead, I can begin shaping the death rain again; it makes no matter in the end. I shall grind your bones to powder and lay your skull by my bed, Loren Silvercloak, servant of Ailell.” And he closed the book on the table and began gesturing in a gathering motion with his arms.

He was bringing in his power, Paul realized. He was going to use it all on Loren and Matt. This was the end, then. And if that was so—

Paul leaped from the entranceway, down the stairs, and ran across the floor to Matt’s side. He dropped to his knees there.

“A shoulder might help,” he said. “Lean on me.”

Without a word, Matt did so, and, from above, Paul felt Loren touch him once in a gesture of farewell. Then he saw the Whitebranch lifted again, to point squarely at Metran, who stood now between them and the Cauldron. He watched Metran level a long finger straight at the three of them.

Then both mages spoke together and the Great Hall shook to its foundations as two bolts of power exploded toward each other. One was silver, like the moon, like the cloak Loren wore, and the other was the baleful green of the lights in that place; they met midway between the mages, and where they met a fire leaped to flame in the air.

Paul heard Matt Sören fight to control his breathing. Above him, he glimpsed Loren’s rigid arm holding the staff, straining to channel the power the Dwarf was feeding him. And on the dais he saw Metran, sourced by so very many of the svart alfar, bend the same power that had made winter in midsummer directly down on them. Easily, effortlessly.

He felt Matt begin to tremble. The Dwarf leaned more heavily on his arm. He had nothing to offer them. Only a shoulder. Only pity. Only love.

Crackling savagely, the two beams of power locked into each other as the castle continued to shake under their unleashed force. They held and held, the silver and the green, held each other flaming in the air while worlds hung in the balance. So long it went on, Paul had an illusion that time had stopped. He helped up the Dwarf—both arms around him now—and prayed with all his soul to what he knew of Light.

Then he saw that none of it was enough. Not courage, wisdom, prayer, necessity. Not one against so many. Slowly, with brutal clarity, the silver thrust of power was being pushed back toward them. Inch by bitter, fighting inch Paul saw Loren forced to give way. He heard the mage’s breathing now, ragged and shallow. He looked up and saw sweat pouring in rivulets down Loren’s face. Beside him, Matt was still on his feet, still fighting, though his whole body shook now as with a lethal fever.

A shoulder. Pity. Love. What else could he give them here at the end? And with whom else would he rather die than these two?

Matt Sören spoke. With an effort so total it almost shattered Paul’s heart, the Dwarf forced sounds out of his chest. “Loren,” he gasped, his face contorted with strain. “Loren… do now!”

The green surge of Metran’s might leaped half a foot nearer to them. Paul could feel the fire now. Loren was silent. His breathing rasped horribly.

“Loren,” Matt mumbled again. “I have lived for this. Do it now.” The Dwarf’s one eye was closed. He trembled continuously. Paul closed his own eyes, and held Matt as tightly as he could.

“Matt,” he heard the mage say. “Oh, Matt.” The name, nothing more.

Then the Dwarf spoke to Paul and he said, “Thank you, my friend. You had better move back now.” And grieving, grieving, Paul did so. Looking up, he saw Loren’s face distort with wildest hate. He heard the mage cry out then, tapping into his uttermost power, sourced in Matt Sören the Dwarf, channeled through the Whitebranch of Amairgen, and the very heart and soul of Loren Silvercloak were in that cry and in the blast that followed it.

There came a flash of obliterating light. The very island rocked this time, and with that shaking of Cader Sedat a tremor rolled through every one of the Weaver’s worlds.

Metran screamed, high and short, as if cut off. Stones shook loose from the walls over their heads. Paul saw Matt fall to the ground, saw Loren drop beside him. Then, looking up toward the dais, he saw the Cauldron of Khath Meigol crack asunder with a sound like a mountain shattering.

The shield was down. He knew Metran was dead. Knew someone else was, too. He saw the svart alfar, bred to kill, beginning to run with swords and knives toward them, and, crying aloud, he rose up and drew his own sword to guard those who had done what they had done.

The svarts never reached him. They were met by forty men of Brennin, led by Diarmuid dan Ailell, and the soldiers of South Keep cut a swath of sheer fury through the ranks of the Dark. Paul charged into the battle, wielding a sword with love running high in his heart like a tide—love, and the need to hammer through grief.

There were many svarts and they were a long time in the killing, but they killed them all. Eventually Paul found himself, bleeding from a number of minor wounds, standing with Diarmuid and Coll in one of the passageways leading back to the Great Hall. There was nowhere else to go, so they went back there.

In the entrance they paused and looked out over the carnage wrought in that place. They were near to the dais and walked up to it. Metran lay flung on his back, his face shattered, his body disfigured by hideous burns. Near him lay Denbarra. The source had been babbling through the fight, with the staring eyes of the hopelessly mad, until Diarmuid had put a sword through his heart and left him near his mage.