‘Tell me nothing,’ he said. ‘Already the strands of time are so interwoven that I find it hard to know when – or where – I am. I would dearly love to know how the Ancient Gate was opened, but I dare not ask. I will only assume that I did it. For now you must rest, and regain your strength. Then we will talk.”
‘I am so tired,’ she said. ‘Forty years of war and loss, victory and pain. So tired. And yet it is good to be back in the Enchanted Realm.’
‘Say nothing more,’ he urged her. ‘We stand at a delicate place on the cross-roads of time. Let me say only this. Two days ago you urged me to hunt down Caracis, and return to you the sword, Skallivar. You remember asking me this?’
She closed her eyes. ‘I remember. It was almost thirty years ago. And you did.’
‘Yes,’ he said, his gaze drawn to the fabled sword that stood now against the far wall beside the fire.
‘You sent the goddess walking on the water of the pool below the Falls. All my generals saw the miracle, and when word spread of it men came flocking to my banner. I owe you much for that, Taliesen.’ Her words faded away, and she fell into a deep sleep.
Taliesen stood and walked to the sword, his thin fingers stroking the ruby pommel. He sighed and moved back into the sunlight. ‘The goddess upon the water,’ he repeated. What did she mean? Taliesen had spent the last two days desperately trying to think of a way to achieve what the Queen told him he already had!
And he remembered the words of his master, Astole, many centuries before. ‘Treat the Gates with respect, Taliesen, lest you lose your mind. They are not merely doorways through time. You must understand that!’
Oh, how he understood! He glanced back at the sleeping Queen. How many times had he seen her die? Thirty? Fifty? Again the words of Astole drifted back to haunt him.
‘Hold always to a Line, my boy. A single thread. Never move between the threads, for that way lies madness and despair. For every moment that the past can conjure gives birth to an infinity of futures. Cross them at your peril.”
The sun was hot upon Taliesen’s face, though the wind remained cool. ‘I crossed them, Astole,’ he said, ‘and now I am trapped in a future I cannot unravel. Why is she here? How was the Gate opened? How was it that I returned her sword? Help me, Astole, for I am lost, and my people face annihilation.’
No answer came, and with a heavy heart Taliesen returned to the cave.
1
CASWALLON WATCHED THE murderous assault on Ateris, a strange sense of unreality gripping him. The clansman sat down on a boulder and gazed from the mountainside at the gleaming city below, white and glorious, like a child’s castle set on a carpet of green.
The enemy had surprised the city dwellers some three hours before, and black smoke billowed now from the turrets and homes. The distant sound of screaming floated to his ears, disembodied, like the echo of a nightmare upon awakening.
The clansman’s sea-green eyes narrowed as he watched the enemy hacking and slaying. He shook his head, sadness and anger competing within him. He had no love for these doomed lowlanders and their duplicitous ways. But, equally, this wanton slaughter filled him with sorrow.
The enemy warriors were new to Caswallon. Never had he seen the horned helms of the Aenir, the double-headed axes, nor the oval shields painted with hideous faces of crimson and black. He had heard of them, of course, butchering and killing far to the south, but of their war against the lowlanders he knew little until now.
But then, why should he? He was a clansman of the Farlain, and they had little time for lowland politics. His was a mountain race, tough and hardy and more than solitary. The mountains were forbidden ground for any lowlander and the clans mixed not at all with other races.
Save for trade. Clan beef and woven cloth for lowland sugar, fruits and iron.