A place more fair than any in all the worlds, Matt Sören had named Calor Diman long ago, before the first crossing. They had been still in the Park Plaza Hotel: five people from Toronto, en route to another world for two weeks of partying at a High King’s celebrations.
A place more fair . . .
A place of judgment. Of what might be final judgment.
Chapter 11
That same day, as the Dwarves of the twin mountains prepared for the judgment of their Lake, Gereint the shaman, cross-legged on the mat in his dark house, cast the net of his awareness out over Fionavar and vibrated like a harp with what he sensed.
It was coming to a head, all of it, and very soon.
From that remote elbow of land east of the Latham he reached out, an old brown spider at the center of his web, and saw many things with the power of his blinding.
But not what he was looking for. He wanted the Seer. Feeling helplessly removed from what was happening, he sought the bright aura of Kimberly’s presence, groping for a clue to what was shuttling on the loom of war. Tabor had told him the morning before that he had flown the Seer to a cottage by a lake near Paras Derval, and Gereint had known Ysanne for much of his life and so knew where this cottage was.
But when he reached to that place he found only the ancient green power that dwelt beneath the water, and no sign of Kim at all. He did not know—he had no way of knowing—that since Tabor had set her down beside that shore, she had already gone, by the tapped power of the avarlith, to Lisen’s Tower, and from there that same night, with the red flaming of her own wild magic, over the mountains to Banir Lok.
And over the mountains he could not go, unless he sent his soul traveling, and he was too recently returned from journeying out over the waves to do that again so soon.
So she was lost to him. He felt the presence of other powers, though, lights on a map in the darkness of his mind. The other shamans were all around him, in their houses much like his own, here beside the Latham. Their auras were like the trace flickerings of lienae at night, erratic and insubstantial. There would be no aid or comfort there. He was preeminent among the shamans of the Plain, and had been since his blinding. If any of them were to have a role yet to play in what was to come, it would have to be him, for all his years.
There came a tapping on his door. He had already heard footsteps approaching from outside. He quelled a quick surge of anger at the intrusion, for he recognized both the tread and the rhythm of the knocking.
“Come in,” he said. “What can I do for you, wife of the Aven?”
“Liane and I have brought you a lunch,” Leith replied in her brisk tones.
“Good,” he said energetically, though for once he wasn’t hungry. He was also discomfited: it seemed that his hearing was finally starting to go. He’d only heard one set of footsteps. Both women entered, and Liane, approaching, brushed his cheek with her lips.
“Is that die best you can do?” he mock-growled. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. He would have ferociously denied it, if pressed, but in his heart Gereint had long acknowledged that Ivor’s daughter was his favorite child of the tribe. Of the Plain. Of all the worlds, if it came to that.
It was to her mother that he turned, though, to where he heard her kneel in front of him, and a little to the side. “Strength of the Plain,” he said respectfully, “may I touch your thoughts?”
She leaned forward, and he raised his hands to run them along the bones of her face. The touch let him into her mind, where he saw anxiety, a weight of cares, the burdens of sleeplessness, but—and he marveled, even as he touched her face—not even a shadow of fear.