She came out under the dome, behind the altar and the axe. There she paused. The voice was loud within her, though, urgent and exultant, even in its grief, and it carried her with it.
She was High Priestess. It was the night of Maidaladan, and, impossibly, the sacrifice had come to pass. She laid both hands on the axe that only the High Priestess could lift. She took it from its rest, and swinging around, she brought it crashing down on the altar. Hugely, the sound reverberated. Only when it ended did she lift her own voice in the words that echoed within her being.
“Rahod hedai Liadon!” Jaelle cried. “Liadon has died again!” She wept. She grieved with all her heart. And she knew every priestess in Fionavar had heard her. She was High Priestess.
They were awakening now, all those in the Temple. They were coming from their sleep. They saw her there, her robe torn, blood on her face, the axe lifted from its rest.
“Rahod hedai Liadon!” Jaelle cried again, feeling it rise within her, demanding utterance. The Mormae were all there now; she saw them begin to tear their own robes, to rend their faces in a wildness of grief and she heard them lift their voices to lament as she had done.
There was an acolyte beside her, weeping. She carried Jaelle’s cloak and boots. In haste, the High Priestess put them on. She moved to lead them away, all of them, east, to where it had come to pass. There were men in the room now, the two mages, the Kings; there was fear in their eyes. They stepped aside to let her pass. There was a woman who did not.
“Jaelle,” said Kim. “Who is it?”
She hardly broke her stride. “I do not know. Come!” She went outside. There were lights being lit all over Morvran and down the long street leading from the town she saw the priestesses running toward her. Her horse had been brought. She mounted up and, without waiting for anyone, she set off for Dun Maura.
They all followed. Two on a horse, in many cases, as the soldiers bore with them the priestesses who had leaped, crying, from their beds. It was midsummer and the dawn would come early. There was already a grey light when they came up to the cave and saw the dog.
Arthur dismounted and walked over to Cavall. For a moment he gazed into the eyes of his dog, then he straightened and looked at the cave. At the entrance Jaelle knelt among the red flowers now blooming amid the snow, and there were tears streaming down her face.
The sun came up.
“Who?” asked Loren Silvercloak. “Who was it?”
There were a great many people there by then. They looked around at each other in the first of the morning light.
Kim Ford closed her eyes.
All around them the priestesses of Dana began, raggedly at first, but then in harmony, to sing their lament for the dead Liadon.
“Look!” said Shalhassan of Cathal. “The snow is melting!”
Everyone looked but Kim. Everyone saw.
Oh, my darling man, thought Kimberly. There was a murmur surging toward a roar. Awe and disbelief. The beginnings of a desperate joy. The priestesses were wailing in their grief and ecstasy. The sun was shining on the melting snow.
“Where’s Kevin?” said Diarmuid sharply.
Where, oh, where? Oh, my darling.
PART IV—Cader Sedat
Chapter 12
Oldest of three brothers, Paul Schafer had a general sense of how to deal with children. But a general sense wasn’t going to be much good here, not with this child. Dari was his problem for the morning, because Vae had her own griefs to deal with: a child’s loss to mourn and an almost impossible letter to write to North Keep.
He’d promised to see that the letter got there, and then he had taken Dari outside to play. Or, actually, just to walk in the snow because the boy—he looked to be seven or eight now, Paul judged—wasn’t in a mood to play and didn’t really trust Paul anyhow.
Reaching back fifteen years to a memory of his brothers, Paul talked. He didn’t push Dari to say or do anything, didn’t offer to toss him or carry him; he just talked, and not as one talks to a child.