Katharine Kerr - Daggerspell

“His Holiness can do what needs to be done.”

Gweran stared up at the ceiling and watched the candle-thrown shadows dancing. It had been a long time since he’d performed this ritual last, to talk to the spirit of an ancient bard of the Wolf clan to clarify a confusing point of Maroic’s genealogy. Now a great deal more than a lord’s vanity depended on the working. He let his breathing slow until he seemed to float, not rest, on the soft fleece. The candle-thrown shadows danced in silence, broken only by the soft rhythmic breathing of the old priest.

When he was on the drift point of sleep, Gweran began to recite in a dark murmur under his breath. He spoke slowly, feeling each word of his Song of the Past, a gift from his Agwen, the gate to the rite.

I was a flame, flaring in the fire,

I was a hare, hiding in the briar,

I was a drop, running with the rain,

I was a scythe, slicing the grain.

Ax and tree,

Ship and sea,

Naught that lives

Is strange to me.

I was a beggar, pleading a meal,

I was a dweomer-sword of steel. …

At those words he saw her, the Agwen, the White Lady, with her pale face, lips red as rowan berries, and raven-dark hair. He was never sure where he saw her, whether it was in his mind or out in a dark place of the world, but he saw her as clearly as the temple ceiling. Then more vividly than the ceiling—she was smiling as she ran her fingers through her hair and beckoned to him. The candle-thrown shadows turned to moonlight and fell, wispy white, to envelop him. He heard his own voice chanting, but the words were meaningless. The last thing he saw was the priest, leaning close to catch every whisper.

Gweran was walking to the well head by the white birches. A little patch of grassy ground, three slender trees, the gray stone wall of the well—all were as clear and solid to him as the temple, but on every side stretched an opalescent white void, torn by strange mists. The Agwen perched on the edge of the well and considered him with a small cruel smile.

“Are you still my faithful servant?” she said.

“I’m your slave, my lady. I live and die by your whim.”

She seemed pleased, but it was always hard to tell, because instead of eyes, she had two soft spheres of the opalescent mist.

“What do you want of me?”

“The rain refuses to fall in our land. Can you show me why?”

“And what would I have to do with rain?”

“You are the wise one, shining in the night, the heart of power, the golden light, my only love, my true delight.”

She smiled, less cruel, and turned to stare down into the well. Gweran heard a soft lap and splash of water, as if the well opened into a vast dream river.

“There was a murder,” she said. “But no curse. It was properly avenged. Ask him yourself.”

She disappeared, leaving the birches rustling behind her. Gweran waited, staring into the shifting white mist, tinged here and there with rainbowlike mother-of-pearl. A man was walking out in the mist, wandering half seen like a ship off a foggy coast. When Gweran called to him, he came, a young warrior, sandy haired with humorous blue eyes, and smiling just as if his chest weren’t sliced open with a sword cut. Endlessly, blood welled and gouted down his chest to vanish before it dripped to his feet. The vision was so clear that Gweran cried out. The warrior looked at him with his terrifying smile.

“What land are you from, my friend?” Gweran said. “Are you at rest?”

“The land of the Boars bore me and buried me. I rest because my brother cut my killer’s head from his shoulders.”

“And was that vengeance enough?”

“Was it? Ask yourself—was it?” The specter began to laugh. “Was it?”

“It should have been, truly.”

The specter howled with laughter. As if his sobbing chuckle brought the wind, the mist began to swirl and close in over the birch trees.

“Who are you?” Gweran said.

“Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember that name?”

The laughter went on and on, as, no longer solid, the specter whirled, a flickering shadow in the closing mists, a red stain ripping on white, then gone. There was only the mist and the soft rustle of wind. From out of the mist came the voice of his Agwen.

“He was avenged. Take warning.”

As her voice faded, the mist turned thick, swirling, damp and cold, wrapping Gweran round, smothering him, pushing him this way and that like a windblown leaf. He felt himself running, then slipping, falling a long way down.

The shadows were dark on the ceiling of the temple. Obyn sighed, stretching his back, and leaned closer.

“Are you back? It’s two hours before dawn.”

Shaking with cold, his stomach knotted with fear, Gweran sat up and tried to speak. The temple danced around him. Obyn caught his hands hard.

“For the love of Bel,” Gweran whispered. “Get me some water.”

Obyn clapped his hands together twice. Two young priest hurried in, carrying wooden bowls. Obyn draped his cloak around Gweran’s shoulders, then helped him drink, first water, then milk sweetened with honey. The taste of food brought Gweran back to the world better than any act of will could have done.

“Bring him some bread as well.”

Gweran wolfed down the bread, washing it down with long greedy swallows of milk, until he suddenly remembered he was gobbling in the middle of a temple.

“My apologies, but it takes me this way.”

“No apology needed,” Obyn said. “Do you remember the vision?”

The blood-gushing specter rose again in Gweran’s mind.

“I do. How do you read it?”

“It was a true murder, sure enough. It happened when I was a tiny lad, so I remember somewhat of it. You saw Lord—oh, was it Caryl? I can’t remember, but the head of the Boar clan he was, cruelly murdered by the Falcons. But truly, just as your White Lady said, it was avenged, twice over, some would say. The gods had justice, and I see no reason for Great Bel to be displeased.”

“Well, then, there’s no curse on the land, because that’s all my lady could show me.”

“Just so. We will perform the horse sacrifice at the waning of the moon.”

Until the sun rose, Gweran rested at the temple. He was so tired he was yawning, but sleep refused to come to him. His mind raced, reproducing bits of the vision or seeing flecks of the white mist, then simply babbling to itself. The ritual always left him this way. Though some bards develop a lust for the strange white lands and the marvels therein, a madness that eventually takes over their minds, Gweran felt mostly disgust, based on a healthy fear of losing himself forever in the swirling mist. Yet as he thought it over, this particular vision seemed to have a message for him: he knew that murdered lord, knew him like a brother. Was it vengeance enough? he thought. Truly, it should have been. When the sun came in pale shafts through the temple windows, he shook off these incomprehensible thoughts and went to fetch his horse for the ride home.

Gweran slept all morning, or rather, he tried to sleep. It seemed that someone was always coming in: one of the children, chased away by the maidservant; or Lyssa, fetching a bit of her sewing; a page, sent by the lord to make sure the bard was resting. Finally, the maidservant, Cadda, who seemed more than usually dim-witted that morning, crept in to find a clean pair of brigga for one of the lads. When Gweran sat up and swore at her, she cowered back, sniveling, her big blue eyes filling with tears. She was, after all, only fifteen.