arm. ‘If you can tear your gaze away from her for a moment, let me point something out to you – that is, if you can still think! You are being summoned. That makes you the summoned-one. Are you concentrating, Jarek? The summoned-one? Ra-he-borain? Rabain, Jarek. It is you! When you step through whatever gateway she has created, you will be Rabain.’Suddenly he was no longer trying to pull away. The full force of the argument struck him and he relaxed in my grip. ‘I am Rabain?’ he whispered.
‘You will be if you travel with her.’He laughed then. ‘How can I lose, Owen? Rabain didn’t, did he? He got to be King.’Yes, he got to be King,’ I said, holding the sadness from my voice.
He turned away from me and approached Horga, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘How soon do we … leave?’ he asked.
‘Now,’ she replied, lifting her arm.
Golden light blazed through the clearing . . .
And I was alone. Piercollo and Wulf had vanished with Mace, drawn with him because they carried the weapons of enchantment.
I built up the fire and waited, my thoughts sombre.
After a short while, even before the new wood had burnt through, there was a second bright flaring of light and Piercollo and Wulf were back.
Both were dressed differently and Wulf s beard was better trimmed, his hair cut short. He was wearing a tunic and boots of finest leather, and a golden dagger was belted at his side. Piercollo looked much the same – save that he now wore an eye-patch of silver that needed no thong to hold it in place. He moved to me, hauling me to my feet and taking me into a bear-hug that almost broke my back.
‘He is the King then?’ I asked, as Piercollo released me.
‘Aye,’ said Wulf. ‘And not making a bad job of it. But he’s staying behind, Owen. He wouldn’t come back with us. He’s living with the sorceress now, like husband and wife. But we asked her to send us back. How long have we been gone?’Merely a few minutes.’Sweet Heaven!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We were there for
almost a year. You should have seen it, Owen. Mace was the hero! We stormed the Vampy re keep. I killed one of the Kings with. . .’With a silver arrow, I know. And Piercollo slew the second, hurling him from the high walls, where his neck was broken, his head severed upon a sharp rock.’You saw it?’No, my friends, I didn’t need to see it; it is a part of history. You were Jerain the bowman, Piercollo was Boras the Cyclops – the one-eyed. It is a wondrous circle. All this time men have been saying that Mace is Rabain reborn. And they were right, after a fashion. All the legends said that Rabain would come again. And, in a way, he did. And he will.’Mace ain’t coming back,’ said Wulf. ‘Trust me on that.’No, Wulf, you trust me. The Morningstar will appear at the last battle. There is an old man in the past, a poet, and he will convince Mace that he should return.’There is a wide, long meadow in a valley eight miles south of Ziraccu. It is flanked by trees and a narrow ribbon stream to the west, with a line of hills to the east. Being old, they are not high hills, mere humps in the land rising no more than two hundred feet. The meadow itself now has a church upon it. They call it the Morningstar Abbey. Pilgrims journey to it, for there is a tomb there – an empty tomb – but legend tells us there is a cloth within the sarcophagus that was stained with the blood of the Morning-star.
For fifty years there have been claims of miraculous healings and it has become a shrine, guarded now by an order of monks, saying prayers thrice daily by the statue of Jarek Mace. How he would have chuckled to see their set, serious faces.
But I am drifting ahead of the tale.
On the last day of spring, on a cloudy morning – the grass white with dew, and mist like the ghosts of yesterday swirling upon the meadow – our army waited. There was no church then, only a long flat area of killing ground.