Guy Kay - The Summer Tree

For a last moment, the very last, the youngest child of Ivor heard, as if someone else were speaking, a part of himself whisper, “An eagle would have been enough.”

It was true. It would have been more than enough, but it was not so. Standing very still before him, the creature appeared to understand his thought. He felt her then, gently, in his mind. Do not reject me , he heard as from within, while her great, astonishing eyes never left his own. We will have only each other at the last .

He understood. It was in his mind, and then in his heart also. It was very deep; he hadn’t known he went so deep. In response he stretched forth a hand. The creature lowered her head, and Tabor touched the offered horn.

“Imraith-Nimphais,” he said, remembered saying, before the universe went dark.

“Hola!” cried Ivor joyously. “See who comes! Let there be rejoicing, for see, the Weaver sends a new Rider to us.”

But as Tabor drew nearer, Ivor could see that it had been a difficult fast. He had found his animal—such was written in every movement he made—but he had clearly gone a long way. It was not unusual, it was good, even. A sign of a deeper merger with the totem.

It was only when Tabor walked up close to him that Ivor felt the first touch of apprehension.

No boy came back from a true fast looking quite the same; they were boys no longer, it had to show in their faces. But what he saw in his son’s eyes chilled Ivor to the core, even in the morning sunshine of the camp.

No one else seemed to notice; the tumult of welcome resounded as it always did, louder even, for the son of the Chieftain who had been called by the god.

Called to what, Ivor was thinking, as he walked beside his youngest child towards Gereint’s house. Called to what?

He smiled, though, to mask his concern, and saw that Tabor did so as well; with his mouth only, not the eyes, and Ivor could feel a muscle jumping spasmodically where he gripped his son’s arm.

Arriving at Gereint’s door he knocked, and the two of them entered. It was dark inside, as always, and the noise from without faded to a distant murmur of anticipation.

Steadily, but with some care, Tabor walked forward and knelt before the shaman. Gereint touched him affectionately on the shoulder. Then Tabor lifted his head.

Even in the darkness Ivor saw Gereint’s harshly checked motion of shock. He and Tabor faced each other, for what seemed a very long time.

At length Gereint spoke, but not the words of ritual. “This does not exist,” the shaman said. Ivor clenched his fists.

Tabor said, “Not yet.”

“It is a true finding,” Gereint went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “But there is no such animal. You have encompassed it?”

“I think so,” Tabor said, and in his voice now was utter weariness. “I tried. I think I did.”

“I think so, too,” Gereint said, and there was wonder in his voice. “It is a very great thing Tabor dan Ivor.”

Tabor made a gesture of deprecation; it seemed to drain what reserves of endurance he had left. “It just came,” he said, and toppled sideways to his father’s feet.

As he knelt to cradle his unconscious son, Ivor heard the shaman say in his voice of ritual, “His hour knows his name.” And then, differently, “May all the powers of the Plain defend him.”

“From what?” Ivor asked, knowing he should not.

Gereint swung to face him. “This one I would tell you if I could, old friend, but truly I do not know. He went so far the sky was changed.”

Ivor swallowed. “Is it good?” he asked the shaman, who was supposed to know such things. “Is it good, Gereint?”

After too long a silence Gereint only repeated, “It is a very great thing,” which was not what he needed to hear. Ivor looked down at Tabor, almost weightless in his arms. He saw the tanned skin, straight nose, unlined brow of youth, the unruly shock of brown hair, not long enough to tie properly, too long to wear loose—it always seemed to be that way with Tabor, he thought.

“Oh, my son,” Ivor murmured, and then again, rocking him back and forth as he always used to, not so many years ago.

Towards sundown they pulled the horses to a halt in a small gully, only a depression, really, defined by a series of low tummocks on the plain.

Dave was a little unnerved by all the openness. Only the dark stretch of Pendaran brooding to the west broke the long monotony of the prairie, and Pendaran wasn’t a reassuring sight.

The Dalrei were undisturbed, though; for them, clearly, this exposed spot on the darkening earth was home. The Plain was their home, all of it. For twelve hundred years, Dave remembered.

Levon would allow no fires; supper was cold eltor meat and hard cheese, with river water in flasks to wash it down. It was good, though, partly because Dave was ravenous after the day’s ride. He was brutally tired as well, he realized, unfolding his sleeping roll beside Tore’s.

Overtired, he soon amended, for once inside the blanket he found that sleep eluded him. Instead he lay awake under the wide sky, his mind circling restlessly back over the day.

Tabor had still been unconscious when they left in the morning. “He went far,” was all the Chieftain would say, but his eyes could not mask concern, even in the dark of Gereint’s house.

But then the question of Tabor was put aside for a moment, as Dave told his own story of the night glade and the Huntress, except for the very last, which was his alone. There was a silence when he was done.

Cross-legged on his mat, Gereint asked, “ ‘Courage will be needed’—she said exactly that?”

Dave nodded, then remembered it was the shaman, and grunted a yes. Gereint rocked back and forth after that, humming tunelessly to himself for a long time. So long that it startled Dave when he finally spoke.

“You must go south quickly, then, and quietly, I think. Something grows, and if Silvercloak brought you, then you should be with him.”

“It was only for the King’s festival,” Dave said. Nervousness made it sound sharper than he meant.

“Perhaps,” Gereint said, “but there are other threads appearing now.”

Which wasn’t all that wonderful.

Turning on his side, Dave could see the raised silhouette of Levon against the night sky. It was deeply comforting to have that calm figure standing guard. Levon hadn’t wanted to come at first, he remembered. Concern for his brother had left him visibly torn.

It was the Chieftain, asserting himself with absolute firmness, who had settled the issue. Levon would be useless at home. Tabor was being cared for. It was not, in any case, unusual for a faster to sleep a long time on his return. Levon, Ivor reminded his older son, had done the same. Cechtar could lead the hunt for ten days or two weeks—it would be good for him in any case, after the loss of face caused by his failure two days ago.

No, Ivor had said decisively, given Gereint’s injunction as to speed and secrecy, it was important to get Dave—Davor, he said, as they all did—south to Paras Derval safely. Levon would lead, with Tore beside him in a band of twenty. It was decided.

Logical and controlling, Dave had thought, and coolly efficient. But then he remembered his own last conversation with Ivor.

The horses had been readied. He had bidden formal, slightly stiff farewells to Leith and then Liane—he was very bad at goodbyes. He’d been embarrassed, too, by the knot of girls standing nearby. Ivor’s daughter had been elusive and remote.

After, he’d looked in on Tabor. The boy was feverish, and restless with it. Dave wasn’t good with this, either. He’d made a confused gesture to Leith, who’d come in with him. He hoped she’d understand, not that he could have said exactly what he’d wanted to convey.