Guy Kay - The Summer Tree

But the girl. The girl was something else, and her Ysanne could see, had seen many times. She rose quietly and walked to stand over Kim. She saw the vellin stone on the slim wrist, and the Baelrath glowing on one finger, and she thought of Macha and Red Nemain and their prophecy.

She thought of Raederth then, for the first time that night. An old, old sorrow. Fifty years, but still. Lost once, fifty years ago on the far side of Night, and now… But the dog had howled in the wood, it was full, fullest time, and she had known for very long what was to come. There was no terror any more, only loss, and there had always been loss.

Kimberly stirred on her pillow. So young, the Seer thought. It was all so sad, but she knew, truly, of no other way, for she had lied the day before: it was not merely a matter of time before the girl could know the woven patterns of Fionavar as she needed to. It could not be. Oh, how could it ever be?

The girl was needed. She was a Seer, and more. The crossing bore witness, the pain of the land, the testimony in Eilathen’s eyes. She was needed, but not ready, not complete, and the old woman knew one way, and only one, to do the last thing necessary.

The cat was awake, watching her with knowing eyes from the window sill. It was very dark; tomorrow there would be no moon. It was time, past time.

She laid a hand then, and it was very steady, upon Kimberly’s forehead, where the single vertical line showed when she was distressed. Ysanne’s fingers, still beautiful, traced a sign lightly and irrevocably on the unfurrowed brow. Kimberly slept. A gentle smile lit the Seer’s face as she withdrew.

“Sleep child,” she murmured. “You have need, for the way is dark and there will be fire ere the end, and a breaking of the heart. Grieve not in the morning for my soul; my dream is done, my dreaming. May the Weaver name you his, and shield you from the Dark all your days.”

Then there was silence in the room. The cat watched from the window. “ It is done ,” Ysanne said, to the room, the night, the summer stars, to all her ghosts, and to the one loved man, now to be lost forever among the dead.

With care she opened the secret entrance to the chamber below, and went slowly down the stone stairs to where Colan’s dagger lay, bright still in its sheath of a thousand years.

There was a very great deal of pain now. The moon had passed from overhead. His last moon, he realized, though thought was difficult. Consciousness was going to become a transient condition, a very hard thing, and already, with a long way yet to go, he was beginning to hallucinate. Colors, sounds. The trunk of the Tree seemed to have grown fingers, rough like bark, that wrapped themselves around him. He was touching the Tree everywhere now. Once, for a long spell, he thought he was inside it, looking out, not bound upon it. He thought he was the Summer Tree.

He was truly not afraid of dying, only of dying too soon. He had sworn an oath. But it was so hard to hold onto his mind, to hold his will to living another night. So much easier to let go, to leave the pain behind. Already the dog and wolf seemed to have been half dreamt, though he knew the battle had ended only hours before. There was dried blood on his wrists from when he had tried to free himself.

When the second man appeared before him, he was sure it was a vision. He was so far gone. Popular attraction , a faint, fading capacity of his mind mocked. Come see the hanging man!

This man had a beard, and deep-set dark eyes, and didn’t seem about to change into an animal. He just stood there, looking up. A very boring vision. The trees were loud in the wind; there was thunder, he could feel it.

Paul made an effort, moving his head back and forth to clear it. His eyes hurt, for some reason, but he could see. And what he saw on the face of the figure below was an expression of such appalling, balked desire that the hair rose up on his neck. He should know who this was, he should. If his mind were working, he would know, but it was too hard, it was hopelessly beyond him.

“You have stolen my death,” the figure said.

Paul closed his eyes. He was too far away from this. Too far down the road. He was incapable of explaining, unable to do more than try to endure.

An oath. He had sworn an oath. What did an oath mean? A whole day more, it meant. And a third night.

Some time later his eyes seemed to be open again and he saw, with uttermost relief, that he was alone. There was grey in the eastern sky; one more, one last.

And this was the second night of Pwyll the Stranger on the Summer Tree.

In the morning came something unheard of: a hot, dry wind, bitter and unsettling, swept down into Paras Derval from the north.

No one could remember a hot north wind before. It carried with it the dust of bone-bare farms, so the air darkened that day, even at noon, and the high sun shone balefully orange through the obscuring haze.

The thunder continued, almost a mockery. There were no clouds.

“With all respect, and such-like sentiments,” Diarmuid said from by the window, his tone insolent and angry, “We are wasting time.” He looked dishevelled and dangerous; he was also, Kevin realized with dismay, a little drunk.

From his seat at the head of the council table, Ailell ignored his heir. Kevin, still not sure why he’d been invited here, saw two bright spots of red on the cheeks of the old King. Ailell looked terrible; he seemed to have shrivelled overnight.

Two more men entered the room: a tall, clever-looking man, and beside him, a portly, affable fellow. The other mage, Kevin guessed: Teyrnon, with Barak, his source. Gorlaes, the Chancellor, made the introductions and it turned out he was right, except the innocuous-seeming fat man was the mage, and not the other way around.

Loren was still away, but Matt was in the room, and so, too, were a number of other dignitaries. Kevin recognized Mabon, the Duke of Rhoden, Ailell’s cousin, and beyond him was Niavin of Seresh. The ruddy man with the salt-and-pepper beard was Ceredur, who had been made North Warden after Diarmuid’s brother was exiled. He’d seen them at last night’s banquet. Their expressions were very different now.

It was Jaelle, they were waiting for, and as the moments passed, Kevin, too, began to grow impatient with apprehension.

“My lord,” he said abruptly to the King, “while we wait—who is Galadan? I feel completely ignorant.”

It was Gorlaes who answered. Ailell was sunken in silence, and Diarmuid was still sulking by the window. “He is a force of Darkness from long ago. A very great power, though he did not always serve the Dark,” the Chancellor said. “He is one of the andain—child of a mortal woman and a god. In older days there were not a few such unions. The andain are a difficult race, moving easily in no world at all. Galadan became their Lord, by far the most powerful of them all, and said to be the most subtle mind in Fionavar. Then something changed him.”

“An understatement, that,” murmured Teyrnon.

“I suppose,” said Gorlaes. “What happened is that he fell in love with Lisen of the Wood. And when she rejected him and bound herself instead to a mortal, Amairgen Whitebranch, first of the mages, Galadan vowed the most complete vengeance ever sworn.” The Chancellor’s voice took on a note of awe. “Galadan swore that the world that witnessed his humiliation would cease to exist.”

There was a silence. Kevin could think of nothing to say. Nothing at all.

Teyrnon took up the tale. “In the time of the Bael Rangat he was first lieutenant to Rakoth and most terrible of his servants. He had the power to take on the shape of a wolf, and so he commanded them all. His purposes, though, were at odds with his master’s, for though the Unraveller sought rule for lust of power and domination, Galadan would have conquered to utterly destroy.”