“I know.” He felt the ragged edge of tissue where his ear had been. “Tell me,” he asked, “am I very ugly?”
Cernan tilted his magnificent head in appraisal. “No more than before, “ he said judiciously.
Flidais laughed. And so too, after a moment, did the god—a deep, rumbling, sensuous sound that reverberated through the Wood.
When the laughter subsided, it seemed very quiet among the trees, but only for those not tuned to Pendaran as were both of these, the forest god and his son. Even with only one ear, Flidais could hear the whispering of the Wood, the messages running back and forth like fire. It was why they were talking out loud: there was too much happening on the silent link. And there were other powers in Pendaran that night.
He was suddenly reminded of something. Of fire, to be precise. He said, “It really could have gone worse for me. I lied to him.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”
“He wanted to know who had been in the Anor. He was aware that someone had. You know why. I said: only myself. Which was not true.” He paused, then said softly. “Guinevere was, as well.”
Cernan of the Beasts rose to his feet with a swift animal-lithe motion. “That,” he said, “explains something.”
“What?”
In response, Flidais was offered an image. It was his father who was offering, and Cernan had never done him actual harm, although, until just now, little good either. And so, in uncharacteristic trust, he opened his mind and received the image: a man walking swiftly through the forest with an utterly distinctive grace, not stumbling, even with the darkness and the entangling roots.
It was not the one he’d expected to see. But he knew, quite well, who this was, and so he knew what must have happened while he lay unconscious on the forest floor.
“Lancelot,” he breathed, an unexpected note, most of the way to awe, in his voice. His mind raced. “He will have been in Cader Sedat. Of course. The Warrior will have awakened him. And she has sent him away again.”
He had been in Camelot. Had seen those three in their first life, and seen them again, without their knowing him, in many of the returnings they had been forced to make. He knew the story. He was a part of it.
And now, he remembered with a flash of joy, like light in the darkness of the Wood, he knew the summoning name. That, however, brought back the memory of his oath. He said, “The child is in the Wood as well . . . Guinevere’s child.” And urgently, “Where is my brother now?”
“He is running north,” Cernan replied. For an instant he hesitated. “He passed by the child, not a hundred yards away . . . some time ago, while you slept. He did not see or sense him. You have friends in the Wood angry for your shed blood: he was offered no messages. No one is speaking to him.”
Flidais closed his eyes and drew a ragged breath. So close. He had a vision of the wolf and the boy passing by each other in the blackness of the Wood in the hour before moonrise, passing by so near and not knowing, not ever to know. Or did they? he wondered. Was there a part of the soul that reached out, somehow, toward possibilities barely missed, futures that would never be, because of such a little distance in a forest at night? He felt a stir of air just then. Wind, with a hint—only imagined, perhaps—of something more.
He opened his eyes. He felt alert, sharpened, exalted still, by what had come to pass. There was no pain. He said, “I need you to do one thing for me. To help me keep an oath.”
The dark eyes of Cernan flashed with anger. “You too?” he said softly, like a hunting cat. “I have done what I will. I have healed the damage my son did. How many of the Weaver’s bonds would you have me break?”
“I too am your son,” Flidais said, greatly daring, for he could feel the wrath of the god.