THE WANDERING FIRE by Guy Gavriel Kay

There was dappled light. The sun was high and it shone down on the glade. He remembered how it had burned him a year ago, merciless in a blank, cloudless sky.

He put away his memories.

He said, “Cernan, I would speak with you,” and heard Brendel draw a shocked breath. He did not turn. Long moments passed. Then from behind a screen of trees surrounding the glade a god came forward.

He was very tall, long of limb and tanned a chestnut brown. He wore no clothing at all. His eyes were brown like those of a stag, and lightly he moved, like a stag, and the horns on his head, seven-tined, were those of a stag as well. There was a wildness to him, and an infinite majesty, and when he spoke there was that in his voice which evoked all the dark forests, untamed.

”I am not to be summoned so,” he said, and it seemed as though the light in the glade had gone dim.

“By me you are,” said Paul calmly. “In this place.”

Even as he spoke there came a muted roll of thunder. Brendel was just behind him. He was aware of the child, alert and unafraid, walking now about the perimeter of the glade.

“You were to have died,” Cernan said. Stern and even cruel he looked. “I bowed to honor the manner of your death.”

“Even so,” said Paul. There was thunder again. The air seemed tangibly charged with power. It crackled. The sun shone, but far off, as if through a haze. “Even so,” Paul repeated. “But I am alive and returned hither to this place.”

Thunder again, and then an ominous silence.

“What would you, then?” Cernan said.

Paul said in his own voice, “You know who the child is?”

“I know he is of the andain,” said Cernan of the Beasts. “And so he belongs to Galadan, to my son.”

“Galadan,” Paul said harshly, “belongs to me. When next we meet, which will be the third time.”

Again a silence. The horned god took a step forward. “My son is very strong,” he said. “Stronger than us, for we may not intervene.” He paused. And then, with a new note in his voice, said, “He was not always as he is.”

So much pain, Paul thought. Even in this. Then he heard, bitter and implacable, the voice of Brendel: “He killed Ra-Termaine at Andarien. Would you have us pity him?”

“He is my son,” said Cernan.

Paul stirred. So much darkness around him with no raven voices to guide. He said, still doubting, still afraid, “We need you, Woodlord. Your counsel and your power. The child has come into his strength, and it is red. There is a choice of Light we all must make, but his is gravest of all, I fear, and he is but a child.” After a pause, he said it: “He is Rakoth’s child, Cernan.”

There was a silence. “Why?” the god whispered in dismay. “Why was he allowed to live?”

Paul became aware of murmuring among the trees. He remembered it. He said, “To make the choice. The most important choice in all the worlds. But not as a child; his power has come too soon.” He heard Brendel breathing beside him.

“It is only as a child,” Cernan said, “that he can be controlled.”

Paul shook his head. “There is no controlling him, nor could there ever be. Woodlord, he is a battlefield and must be old enough to know it!” Saying the words, he felt them ring true. There was no thunder, but a strange, anticipatory pulsing ran within him. He said, “Cernan, can you take him through to his maturity?”

Cernan of the Beasts lifted his mighty head, and for the first time something in him daunted Paul. The god opened his mouth to speak—

They never heard what he meant to say.

From the far side of the glade there came a flash of light, blinding almost, in the charged dimness of that place.

“Weaver at the Loom!” Brendel cried.

“Not quite,” said Darien.

He came out from behind the Summer Tree, and he was no longer a child. Naked as Cernan, he stood, but fair-haired as he had been from birth, and not so tall as was the god. He was about the height, Paul realized, with a numbing apprehension, that Finn had been, and looked to be the same age as well.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *