Looking at the Priestess in the light of the tall candles, Paul realized that he had never seen pity in her eyes before.
“You will do nothing?” he murmured.
Jaelle nodded her head, still looking at the door through which the girl had gone. “Anyone else I would have killed, believe me.”
“But not this one?”
“Not this one.”
“Why?”
She turned to him. “Leave me this secret,” she said softly. “There are some mysteries best not known, Pwyll. Even for you.” It was the first time she had spoken his name. Their eyes met, and this time it was Paul who looked away. Her scorn he could master, but this look in her eyes evoked access to a power older and deeper, even, than the one he had touched on the Tree.
He cleared his throat. “We should be gone by morning.”
“I know,” said Jaelle. “I will send in a moment to have her brought here.”
“If I could do it myself,” he said, “I would not ask this of you. I know it will drain the earthroot, the avarlith.”
She shook her head; the candlelight made highlights in her hair. “You did a deep thing to bring her here by yourself. The Weaver alone knows how.”
“Well, I certainly don’t,” he said. An admission.
They were silent. It was very still in the sanctuary, in her room.
“Darien,” she said.
He drew a breath. “I know. Are you afraid?”
“Yes,” she said. “And you?”
“Very much.”
They looked at each other across the carpeted space that lay between, a distance impossibly far.
“We had better get moving,” he said finally.
She raised her arm and pulled a cord nearby. Somewhere a bell rang. When they came in response she gave swift, careful orders, and it seemed very soon when the priestesses returned, bearing Jennifer.
After that it took little time. They went into the dome and the man was blindfolded. She took the blood from herself, which surprised some of them; then she reached east to Gwen Ystrat, found Audiart first, then the others. They were made aware, manifested acceptance, then traveled down together, touched Dun Maura, and felt the earthroot flow through them all.
“Good-bye,” she heard him say, as it changed for her, in the way it always had—the way that had marked her even as a child—into a streaming as of moonlight through her body. She channeled it, gave thanks, and then spun the avarlith forth to send them home.
After, she was too weary to do anything but sleep.
In the house by the green where the ta’kiena had been chanted, Vae held her new child in her arms by the fire. The grey-robed priestesses had brought milk and swaddling clothes and promised other things. Finn had already put together a makeshift crib for Darien.
She had let him hold his brother for a moment, her heart swelling to see the brightness in his eyes. It might even keep him here, she thought; perhaps this awesome thing was so powerful it might overmaster the call that Finn had heard. It might.
And another thought she had: whatever the father might be, and she laid a curse upon his name, a child learned love from being loved, and they would give him all the love he needed, she and Finn—and Shahar when he came home. How could one not love a child so calm and fair, with eyes so blue—blue as Ginserat’s wardstones, she thought, then remembered they were broken.
Chapter 3
Paul, on lookout up the road, whistled the all-clear. Dave grabbed the post for support and hurdled the fence, cursing softly as he sank ankle deep in spring mud.
“Okay,” he said. “The girls.”
Kevin helped Jen first and then Kim to balance themselves on the stiff wire for Dave to swing them up and over. They had been worried that the fence might be electrically charged, but Kevin’s checking earlier had established that it wasn’t.
“Car coming!” Paul cried sharply.
They flattened themselves on the cold, mucky ground till the headlights went by. Then Kevin rose and he too vaulted over the fence. This part was easy, but the ground was pressure-sensitive farther in, they knew, and an alarm would sound in the guards’ underground room when they walked that far.