“You need food,” she said to Ruana. “How can we aid you?” ;
He shook his head. “After. The kanior must be first, it has been so long delayed. We will do the rites as soon as we are gathered.” Others appeared now, from the northeast, from the fourth fire, moving with the same slow, strength-conserving care and in absolute silence. They were all clad in white, as Ruana was. He was neither the oldest nor the largest of them, but he was the only one who had spoken, and the others were gathering around the place where he stood.
“I am not leader,” he said, as if reading Kim’s thoughts. “There has been no leader among us since Connla transgressed in the making of the Cauldron. I will chant the kanior, though, and do the bloodless rites.” His voice was infinitely mild. But this, Kim knew, was someone who had been strong enough to find her in the very heart of Rakoth’s designs, and strong enough to shield her there.
He scanned the ranks of those who had come. “This is full numbering?” he asked. Kim looked around. It was hard to see amid the shadows and the smoke, but there were perhaps twenty-five of the Paraiko gathered on the plateau. No more than that.
“Full numbering,” a woman said.
“Full.”
“Full numbering, Ruana,” a third voice echoed, plangent with sorrow. “There are no more of us. Do the kanior, top long delayed, lest our essence be altered and Khath Meigol shed its sanctity.”
And it was in that moment that Kim had her first premonition, as the dark webs of her Seer’s dream began to spin clear. She felt her heart clench like a fist and her mouth go dry.
“Very well,” Ruana said. And then, to her again, with utmost courtesy, “Do you want to choose someone to join with us? For what you have done it will be allowed.”
Kim said shakily, “If expiation is needed, it is mine to seek. I will do the bloodless rites with you.”
Ruana looked down on her from his great height, then he glanced at each of the others in turn. She heard Imraith-Nimphais move nervously behind her under the weight of the Giant’s gaze.
“Oh, Dana,” Ruana said. Not an invocation. The words were addressed as to a coequal. Words of reproach, of sorrow. He turned back to Kimberly. “You speak truly, Seer. I think it is your place. The winged one needs no dispensation for doing what Dana created her to do, though I must grieve for her birthing.”
Again, Brock challenged him, looking up a long way. “You summoned us,” the Dwarf said. “You chanted your song to the Seer, and we came in answer. Rakoth is free in Fionavar, Ruana of the Paraiko. Would you have us all lie down in caves and grant him dominion?” The passionate words rang in the mountain air.
There came a low sound from the assembled Paraiko. “Did you summon them, Ruana?” It was the voice of the first woman who had spoken, the one from the cave over the ridge.
Still looking at Brock, Ruana said, “We cannot hate. Were Rakoth, whose voice I heard in my chanting, obliterated utterly from the tale of time, my heart would sing until I died. But we cannot make war. There is only passive resistance in us. It is part of our nature, the way killing and grace are woven into the creature that flew to save us. To change would be to end what we are and to lose the bloodcurse, which is the Weaver’s gift to us in compensation and defense. Since Connla bound Owein and made the Cauldron we have not left Khath Meigol.”
His voice was still low, but it was deeper now than when he had first walked from the cave; it was halfway to the chanting that Kim knew was coming. Something else was coming too, and she was beginning to know what it would be.
Ruana said, “We have our own relationship with death, have had it since first we were spun on the Loom. You know it means death, and a curse, to shed our blood. There is more than you do not know. We lay down in the caves, because there was nothing else we could do, being what we are.”