Guy Kay - The Summer Tree

“He came to the Temple by the lake, and stayed there a night, which was brave, for there is no love in that place for any of the mages since Amairgen’s day. Raederth was a brave man, though.

“He saw me there,” Ysanne continued. “I was seventeen and newly chosen to be of the Mormae—the inner circle—and no one so young had ever been chosen before. But Raederth saw me that night, and he marked me for something else.”

“As you did me?”

“As I did you. He knew me for a Seer, and he took me away from the Mother and changed my fate, or found it for me.”

“And you loved him?”

“Yes,” Ysanne said simply. “From the first, and I miss him still, though all the years have run away from us. He brought me here at midsummer, more than fifty years ago, and summoned Eilathen with the flowerfire, and the spirit spun for me as he did for you last night.”

“And Raederth?” Kim asked, after a moment.

“He died three years after of an arrow ordered by Garmisch, the High King,” Ysanne said flatly. “When Raederth was slain, Duke Ailell rose in Rhoden and began the war that broke the rule of Garmisch and the Garantae and took him to the throne.”

Kimberly nodded again. “I saw that, too. I saw him kill the King before the palace gate. He was brave and tall, Ailell.”

“And wise. A wise King, all his days. He wedded Marrien of the Garantae, and named Metran, her cousin, First Mage to follow Raederth, which angered me then and I told him so. But Ailell was trying to knit a sundered kingdom, and he did. He deserved more love than he has had.”

“He had yours.”

“Late,” Ysanne said, “and grudgingly. And only as King. I tried to help him, though, with his burden, and in return he found ways to ensure that I would be left alone here.”

“A long time alone,” Kim said softly.

“We all have our tasks,” the Seer said. There was a silence. In the barn out back, a cow lowed plaintively. Kim heard the click of a gate being shut, then Tyrth’s uneven steps crossing the yard. She met Ysanne’s gaze, a half-smile tugging at her mouth.

“You told me one lie yesterday,” she said.

Ysanne nodded. “I did. One. It was not my truth to tell.”

“I know,” said Kim. “You have carried a great deal alone. I am here now, though; do you want me to share your burden?” Her mouth crooked. “I seem to be a chalice. What power can you fill me with?”

There was a tear in the old woman’s eye. She wiped it away, shaking her head. “Such things as I can teach have little to do with power. It is in your dreams now that you must walk, as all the Seers must. And for you as well there is the stone.”

Kim glanced down. The ring on her right hand was no longer shining as it had when Eilathen wore it. It glowered, deep and dark, the color of old blood.

“I did dream this,” she said. “A terrible dream, the night before we crossed. What is it, Ysanne?”

“The Baelrath it was named, long ago, the Warstone. It is of the wild magic,” the Seer said, “a thing not made by man, and it cannot be controlled like the shapings of Ginserat or Amairgen, or even of the Priestesses. It has been lost for a very long time, which has happened before. It is never found without reason, or so the old tales say.”

It had grown dark outside as they talked. “Why have you given it to me?” Kim asked in a small voice.

“Because I dreamt it on your finger, too.” Which, somehow, she had known would be the answer. The ring pulsed balefully, inimically, and she feared it.

“What was I doing?” she asked.

“Raising the dead,” Ysanne replied, and stood to light the candles in the room.

Kim closed her eyes. The images were waiting for her: the jumbled stones, the wide grasslands rolling away in the dark, the ring on her hand burning like a fire in the dream, and the wind rising over the grass, whistling between the stones—

“Oh, God!” she cried aloud. “What is it, Ysanne?”

The Seer returned to her seat beside the bed and gravely regarded the girl who lay there wrestling with what lay upon her.

“I am not sure of this,” she said, “so I must be careful, but there is a pattern shaping here. You see, he died in your world the first time.”

“Who died?” Kim whispered.

”The Warrior. Who always dies, and is not allowed to rest. It is his doom.”

Kim’s hands were clenched. “Why?”

“There was a great wrong done at the very beginning of his days, and for that he may not have rest. It is told and sung and written in every world where he has fought.”

“Fought?” Her heart was pounding.

“Of course,” Ysanne replied, though gently still. “He is the Warrior. Who may be called only at darkest need, and only by magic and only when summoned by name.” Her voice was like wind in the room.

“And his name?”

“The secret one, no man knows, or even where it is to be sought, but there is another, by which he is always spoken.”

“And that is?” Though now she knew. And a star was in the window.

Ysanne spoke the name.

He was probably wrong to be lingering, but the commands had not been explicit, and he was not overly prone to let it disturb him. It intoxicated them all to be abroad in the open spaces, using forgotten arts of concealment to observe the festival traffic on the roads to and from Paras Derval, and though by day the charred land dismayed them, at night they sang the oldest songs under the unclouded glitter of the stars.

He himself had a further reason for waiting, though he knew the delay could not be prolonged indefinitely. One more day he had promised himself, and felt extravagantly gratified when the two women and the man crested the ridge above the thicket.

Matt was quietly reassuring. Kim was in good hands, and though he didn’t know where Diarmuid’s band had gone—and preferred it that way, he added with a grimace—they were expected back that night. Loren, he confirmed, had indeed gone in search of Dave. For the first time since her encounter with the High Priestess two days before, Jennifer relaxed a little.

More unsettled by the strangeness of everything than she liked to admit, she had spent yesterday quietly with Laesha. In Jennifer’s room the two new friends had traded accounts of their lives. It was somehow easier, Jennifer had reflected, to approach Fionavar in this way than to step out into the heat and confront things such as the children’s chanting on the green, the axe swaying in the Temple, or Jaelle’s cold hostility.

There had been dancing after the banquet that night. She had expected some difficulty in dealing with the men, but against her will she’d ended up being amused at the careful, almost apprehensive propriety of those who danced with her. Women claimed by Prince Diarmuid were very clearly off limits to anyone else. She’d excused herself early and had gone to bed.

To be awakened by Matt Sören knocking at her door. The Dwarf devoted the morning to her, an attentive guide through the vastness of the palace. Roughly garbed, with an axe swinging at his side, he was a harshly anomalous figure in the hallways and chambers of the castle. He showed her rooms with paintings on the walls, and inlaid patterns on the floor. Everywhere there were tapestries. She was beginning to see that they had a deeper significance here. They climbed to the highest tower, where the guards greeted Matt with unexpected deference, and, looking out, she saw the High Kingdom baking in the rigor of its summer. Then he led her back to the Great Hall, empty now, where she could gaze undisturbed at the windows of Delevan.

As they circled the room, she told him about her meeting with Jaelle two days ago. The Dwarf blinked when she explained how she was made guest-friend, and again when she described Jaelle’s questions about Loren. But once more he reassured her.