Dave hurt for the beast, for blood on that silvered grass, for the crumpled fall of a thing so noble.
What happened next tore a gasp of wonder from the core of his being. Where the dead stag lay, a shimmer appeared in the glade, a sheen of moonlight it seemed at first; then it darkened, took shape and then substance, and finally Dave saw another stag, identical, stand unafraid, unwounded, majestic, beside the body of the slain one. A moment it stood thus, then the great horns were lowered in homage to the huntress, and it was gone from the glade.
It was a thing of too much moonlit power, too much transcendency; there was an ache within him, an appalled awareness of his own—
“Stand! For I would see you before you die.”
Of his own mortality.
With trembling limbs, Dave Martyniuk rose to stand before the goddess with her bow. He saw, without surprise, the arrow leveled on his heart, knew with certainty that he would not rise to bow to her once that shaft was in his breast.
“Come forward.”
A curious, other-worldly calm descended upon Dave as he moved into the moonlight. He dropped the axe before his feet; it glittered on the grass.
“Look at me.”
Drawing a deep breath, Dave raised his eyes and looked, as best he could, upon the shining of her face. She was beautiful, he saw, more beautiful than hope.
“No man of Fionavar,” the goddess said, “may see Ceinwen hunt.”
It gave him an out, but it was cheap, shallow, demeaning. He didn’t want it.
“Goddess,” he heard himself say, wondering at his own calm, “it was not intentional, but if there is a price to be paid, I will pay it.”
A wind stirred the grass. “There is another answer you could have made, Dave Martyniuk,” Ceinwen said.
Dave was silent.
An owl suddenly burst from the tree behind him, cutting like a shadow across the crescent of the moon and away. The third one, a corner of his mind said.
Then he heard the bowstring sing. I am dead, he had time, amazingly, to think, before the arrow thudded into the tree inches above his head.
His heart was sore. There was so much. He could feel the quivering of the long shaft; the feathers touched his hair.
“Not all need die,” Green Ceinwen said. “Courage will be needed. You have sworn to pay a price to me, though, and one day I will claim it. Remember.”
Dave sank to his knees; his legs would not bear him up before her any longer. There was such a glory in her face, in the shining of her hair.
“One thing more,” he heard her say. He dared not look up. “She is not for you.”
So his very heart lay open, and how should it be otherwise? But this, this he had decided for himself; he wanted her to know. He reached for the power of speech, a long way.
“No,” he said. “I know. She’s Tore’s.”
And the goddess laughed. “Has she no other choice?” Ceinwen said mockingly, and disappeared.
Dave, on his knees, lowered his head into his hands. His whole body began to shake violently. He was still like that when Tore and Levon came looking for him.
When Tabor woke, he was ready. There was no disorientation. He was in Faelinn, and fasting, and he was awake because it was time. He looked about, opening himself, prepared to receive what had come, his secret name, the ambit of his soul.
At which point, disorientation did set in. He was still in Faelinn, still in his hollow, even, but the wood had changed. Surely there had been no cleared space before him; he would never have chosen such a place, there was no such place near this hollow.
Then he saw that the night sky had a strange color to it, and with a tremor of fear he understood that he was still asleep, he was dreaming, and would find his animal in the strange country of this dream. It was not usual, he knew; usually you woke to see your totem. Mastering fear as best he could, Tabor waited. It came from the sky.