Jennifer turned. The rain was sheeting down; Brendel had no way to tell if there were tears or raindrops on her face.
“Come,” he said, “we must go inside. It is dangerous out here in this!”
Jennifer ignored him. The other three women had come up. She turned to Kim, waiting, expecting something.
And it came. “What in the name of all that is holy have you done?” the Seer of Brennin screamed into the gale. It was hard to stand upright; they were all drenched to the bone. “I sent him here as a last chance to keep him from Starkadh, and you drove him straight there! All he wanted was comfort, Jen!”
But it was Guinevere who answered, colder, sterner than the elements. “Comfort? Have I comfort to give, Kimberly? Have you? Or any of us, today, now? You had no right to send him here, and you know it! I meant him to be random, free to choose, and I will not back away from that! Jaelle, what did you think you were doing? You were there in the music room at Paras Derval when I told that to Paul. I meant everything I said! If we bind him, or try, he is lost to us!”
There was another thing inside her, at the very deepest place in her heart, but she did not say it. It was her own, too naked for the telling: He is my Wild Hunt, she whispered over and over in her soul. My Owein, my shadow kings, my child on Iselen. All of them. She was not blind to the resonances. She knew that they killed, with joy and without discrimination. She knew what they were. She also knew, since Flidais’ tale on the balcony, what they meant.
She glared at Kimberly through the slashing rain, daring her to speak again. But the Seer was silent, and in her eyes Jennifer saw no more anger or fear, only sadness and wisdom and a love she remembered as never varying. There was a queer constriction in her throat.
“Excuse me.” The women looked down at the one who had spoken. “Excuse me,” Flidais repeated, fighting hard against the surging in his heart, straining to keep his voice calm. “I take it you are the Seer of Brennin?”
“I am,” Kim said.
“I am Flidais,” he said, unconscionably quick with even this casually chosen name. But he had no patience left; he was near now, so near. He was afraid he would go mad with excitement. “I should tell you that Galadan is very close to this place—minutes away, I think.”
Jennifer brought her hands to her mouth. She had forgotten, in the total absorption of the last few minutes. But it all came back now: the night in the wood and the wolf who had taken her away for Maugrim and then had become a man who said, She is still to go north. If it were not so, I might take her for myself. Just before he gave her to the swan.
She shuddered. She could not help herself. She heard Flidais say, still for some reason addressing Kim, “I can be of aid, I believe. I think I could divert him from this place, if I go fast enough.”
“Well, then, go!” Kim exclaimed. “If he’s only a few minutes—”
“Or,” Flidais went on, unable now to keep the rising note from finally reaching his voice, “I could do nothing, as the andain usually do. Or, if I choose, I could tell him exactly who just left the glade, and who is here. ”
“I would kill you first!” Brendel burst out, his eyes gleaming through the rain. A bolt of lightning knifed into the roiling sea. There came another peal of thunder.
“You could try,” Flidais said, with equanimity. “You would fail. And then Galadan could come.”
He paused, waiting, looking at Kim, who said, slowly, “All right. What is it you want?”
Amid the howling of the storm Flidais was conscious of a great, cresting illumination in his heart. Tenderly, with a delicate ineffable joy, he said, “Only one thing. A small thing. So small. Only a name. The summoning name of the Warrior.” His soul was singing. He did a little dance on the wet strand; he couldn’t help himself. It was here. It was in his hands.