“Lord Thorion has returned from death to save us all,” the Windkey said, fiercely and clearly. “He will be Archmage. Under his rule Roke will be as it was. The king will receive the true crown from his hand, and rule with his guidance, as Morred ruled. No witches will defile sacred ground. No dragons will threaten the Inmost Sea. There will be order, safety, and peace.”
None of the mages answered him. In the silence, the men with him murmured, and a voice among them said, “Let us have the witch.”
“No,” Azver said, but could say nothing else. He held his staff of willow, but it was only wood in his hand.
Of the four of them, only the Doorkeeper moved and spoke. He took a step forward, looking from one young man to the next and the next. He said, “You trusted me, giving me your names. Will you trust me now?”
“My lord,” said one of them with a fine, dark face and a wizard’s oaken staff, “we do trust you, and therefore ask you to let the witch go, and peace return.”
Irian stepped forward before the Doorkeeper could answer.
“I am not a witch,” she said. Her voice sounded high, metallic, after the men’s deep voices. “I have no art. No knowledge. I came to learn.”
“We do not teach women here,” said the Windkey. “You know that.”
“I know nothing,” Irian said. She stepped forward again, facing the mage directly. Tell me who I am.”
“Learn your place, woman,” the mage said with cold passion.
“My place,” she said, slowly, the words dragging, “my place is on the hill. Where things are what they are. Tell the dead man I will meet him there.”
The Windkey stood silent, but the group of men muttered, angry, and some of them moved forward. Azver came between her and them, her words releasing him from the paralysis of mind and body that had held him. “Tell Thorion we will meet him on Roke Knoll,” he said. “When he comes, we will be there. Now come with me,” he said to Irian.
The Namer, the Doorkeeper, and the Herbal followed him with her into the Grove. There was a path for them. But when some of the young men started after them, there was no path.
“Come back,” the Windkey said to the men.
They turned back, uncertain. The low sun was still bright on the fields and the roofs of the Great House, but inside the wood it was all shadows.
“Witchery,” they said, “sacrilege, defilement.”
“Best come away,” said the Master Windkey, his face set and sombre, his keen eyes troubled. He set off back to the School, and they straggled after him, arguing and debating in frustration and anger.
They were not far inside the Grove, and still beside the stream, when Irian stopped, turned aside, and crouched down by the enormous, hunching roots of a willow that leaned out over the water. The four mages stood on the path.
“She spoke with the other breath,” Azver said.
The Namer nodded.
“So we must follow her?” the Herbal asked.
This time the Doorkeeper nodded. He smiled faintly and said, “So it would seem.”
“Very well,” said the Herbal, with his patient, troubled look; and he went aside a little, and knelt to look at some small plant or fungus on the forest floor.
Time passed as always in the Grove, not passing at all it seemed, yet gone, the day gone quietly by in a few long breaths, a quivering of leaves, a bird singing far off and another answering it from even farther. Irian stood up slowly. She did not speak, but looked down the path, and then walked down it. The four men followed her.
They came out into the calm, open evening air. The west still held some brightness as they crossed the Thwilburn and walked across the fields to Roke Knoll, which stood up before them in a high dark curve against the sky.
They’re coming,” the Doorkeeper said. Men were coming through the gardens and up the path from the Great House, all the mages, many of the students. Leading them was Thorion the Summoner, tall in his grey cloak, carrying his tall staff of bone-white wood, about which a faint gleam of werelight hovered.