Gervin watched Darin quietly. “It is one of many things in my keeping.”
“But this is part of the Circle.”
Lowering his voice, Gervin said, “A robe of the initiates of the Bright Heart.” The words fell like stones.
Bright Heart
. No one had spoken these words in all of Darin’s time in the Empire. His fingers contracted around the material, unwilling to let it go.
“Lord Darclan commanded it.” Gervin walked forward and firmly took the robe from Darin. “I don’t know why.”
Darin stood numbly and allowed Gervin to put the robe around him.
“It’s long. Whoever wore it last was certainly more than two days adult.”
Again Darin looked at Gervin.
Two days adult.
There were so very few people, outside of Culverne, who understood the Bright Heart’s calendar. For the first time, he wondered what Gervin’s other life had been; it was clear to him that the slavemaster had not started life in Veriloth.
I am,
he thought, looking at the older man,
two days an adult. I completed the True Ward. I would have had robes of my own to wear, and a Circle to join.
He was the Circle now.
Gervin took a step back to look at Darin. The shoulders of the robe were inches too long; the sleeves fell over his fingertips; the hem gathered on the floor at his ankles. In spite of this, he wore the awkward clothing with dignity.
“It will do. Your hand?”
Darin tried to move it. It throbbed more painfully than earlier. “It’s fine.”
Gervin smiled at the fleeting grimace.
“We’re supposed to go to the north gate of the garden. You’re to tell everyone that we’re not to be disturbed no matter what.”
“I will inform the household of his commands. Wait here; I will return momentarily.”
Darin found himself waiting again. He folded the sleeves of the robe up. He gathered handfuls of the simple gray cloth and took a few steps. It was going to be hard to walk in it—hard, and wonderful. Something played around the comers of his eyes, but he kept his face bare of emotion. He could hear the teasing of the Grandmother.
Can you see me, Grandmother? Mother? Father? Are you standing at the Bridge of the Beyond even now?
“Are we ready?”
Looking up, Darin saw Gervin standing in the doorway.
“I hope so.”
Lord Darclan was waiting for them as they made their way to the north gate. Although he appeared to be at ease as he stood casually by the hedge wall, Darin pulled the robe further up his legs and ran to meet him. Darclan turned and surveyed the garments on the panting youth.
“No need to run, Darin. You will need what little energy you
have.” He looked across the walk and nodded at Gervin, who hesitated slightly and then nodded.
For a long moment, Lord Darclan looked down at Darin. His mouth turned oddly at the comers, as if both a smile and a frown struggled for control.
“The robes fit poorly. Forgive me; I have not had the time to have them altered.” He smiled crookedly. “Nor, I admit, the inclination. You will make do as you are.”
“Don’t change them. I’ll grow.”
Lord Darclan looked slightly pained and began to walk down the path. “Follow me.”
Without question, Darin did as he was bidden, taking two steps for each of his lord’s. Darclan did not look back. His graven face was turned inward, into the garden, his thoughts on the center. Each step he took felt irrevocable, marked in passing by more than fading sunlight and blades of turned grass. The shuffle of cloth and footsteps behind him was a whisper of past times. His progress grew more stilted as he fought the urge to turn back, to accept the unacceptable, to have an end. The smell of foliage and flowers grew cloying; it clung to him like little claws and drew invisible blood. He wanted to wither them all, to turn the entire garden into a vast, barren landscape leaving only the wreckage of the well as a centerpiece. He shuddered and stopped.
“Lord?”
“It is nothing. We are—almost there.” Drawing the folds of his cloak more tightly around his shoulders, he forged on. Closing his eyes, he allowed his feet to trace the familiar path the last few steps.
Darin saw it first: the magnificent ruin of stonework and carving, choked with vines and weeds. He opened his mouth, but found no words to describe the sudden sense of wrongness that twisted his stomach. This was old, but there was a majesty about it—a familiarity ...
Lord Darclan opened his eyes. He saw, with bitter pride, that Sara had left her mark upon it; the vines that she had cleared had not crept back. She earned it; she had paid for it.
Darin looked at it. “The Gifting.” His mouth was dry. His words dropped like a pebble into the thick stillness.
“You know it, then.”
“I’ve heard the old tales.” Darin stepped forward and gingerly placed his hand upon the stone that Sara had worked so
hard to clear. It tingled gently against the tentative brush of his fingers. “This—this is where the Lady Sara came.”
“Yes.” The word was a curse. “I should not have brought her here. I should have known what would happen.”
“What happened?”
“She tried to clear the vines from the well. The vines are part of a larger—protection.” He spoke with difficulty, anger punctuating each syllable. “The Servant—in blood-wraith form-was the other part. She wounded herself on the thorns of the vines. Her blood woke the creature.”
“Why did you let her—”
“Enough! It was done, and badly. She would have been able to protect herself in the—” He broke off, swallowed, and strove to speak more slowly, measuring his words. “I erred. That is all you need to know.”
Darin turned to face the ruined stone again. His hands flew upward across his body, his fingers doing the dance of the Greater Ward. Darclan took a deliberate step back.
“Darin,” he said softly, “I cannot stay here.”
“But I don’t know what to do!” He too drew back, turning his face to his lord.
“Nor do I. The well and its workings are—forbidden to me.” He gestured in a wide circle. “I have done what I can to ensure that you are undisturbed. You must do the rest.”
“But lord—”
“You are of the lines; you are initiate to the Circle. You are the only person alive who is both of these things. I know little of the well, save this: Its power is my Enemy’s, and His alone—and it is this that will save Sara.” He drew further back along the pathway. “I cannot stay. I will return to Sara and wait for you.” He turned away, stopped, then turned back again.
“This is not without risk to either of us. But for you, Darin, the risk is now. If you fail you will die—not by my hand, but I will be unable to save you.
“If you succeed, your chance of death is also high. Can you not feel it, even now? The well has old magic, and it is strong enough to be felt.” Pink sunlight glinted off the silver weave of the circle on Darin’s breast.
“And if I do nothing, Lady Sara will die.”
“Yes.”
Darin bowed his head. “Then I don’t have any choice.”
“You have the same choice that I have had for a long time.” Lord Darclan shook his head wearily.
“You know I’ll do it,” Darin said, his voice a gentle accusation. “But I want to know something, if you’ll tell me.”
“I owe you at least that much, although you become bold.”
“I know why I’m making my choice, and I know why you’ve made yours—I think it’s the same reason. But this—this is the greatest work of my—of your Enemy.”
“Yes,” the lord replied. He turned, to protect his face from Darin’s eyes. “And yes. It is because I love her that I risk these things. But how, and why? These are very good questions, Darin.” Bitter, bitter voice. “Do you think I have not asked them of myself? I have no answer to give you. But think of this: Is love the province of the pure alone? Does it not exist in various guises throughout humanity? Can you answer these questions of even yourself?”
Darin was silent for a few moments. When at last he spoke, his voice was full, deeper than its youthful tone should have allowed. “All the things I love about her are things the priests of the Enemy have tried to destroy forever.”
“Yes.” Lord Darclan bowed, a formal, final salute. “Fare well and succeed, my little enemy.”
Darin watched him leave, knowing that he would not turn back again. He felt tears push at his eyes.
What do I do?
He tried to remember anything that would make his path clearer to him. The well—the Gifting—was legend to the line; one of the two wells of Lernan. What had the Grandmother called it? The eyes of Lernan? He looked down at the wrinkled sleeves of his initiate’s robe. It lay there, dull gray cloth that offered no answers. He looked at the bandages around his injured hand; a small red blotch had appeared through the last fold and was spreading slowly.
I’ve opened it again,
he thought dully.
It’ll get infected. I wish it would stop bleeding.
Bleeding. Blood. The blood of God. She had called the two wells the blood of Lernan. A triumphant smile darted across his mouth, then fell away.
Great. So it’s blood. Does that help? Sara, what am I supposed to do to help you? What?
He made tight fists of his hands, gasped, and relaxed the injured one.
Stupid.
He sighed again.
Lady Sara, you tried to clear the well. At least I can finish it for you now that the nightwalker is gone.
Opening his eyes, he looked at the vines and again began to
trace the Greater Ward in the air. Then, steeling himself for a struggle, he put both of his hands on a large vine and pulled. To his great surprise, it gave way easily, and he left it, unregarded, on the ground. He moved on, traced the sigil, and again removed another section. It, too, he left behind him as he continued to work.
The routine became fixed in his mind as he walked around the large edifice. Greater Ward. Bend. Grip. Pull. The sun made its tumble into nightfall as he worked, marking time by the distance it had fallen. At no time did he become incautious; his fingers chose areas bare of thorn to grip, and he tugged each vine with enough force to remove it, no more.
Sunset came, and with it, the waning of the light; crimson splashed along the horizon. Darin pulled the robe tight. It was cooler; he could feel night wind creeping through the weave of fabric to touch his skin.
Forget it
, he thought, as he surveyed the well. It was almost completely cleared, and he could see that the vines and creepers had not damaged the stone as much as he had first thought. He stopped to rest, lying back against the object of his labor. The night was clear; a sliver of moon appeared, face in shadow.
He stood, took a deep breath, and began again. The last of the vines were more difficult to clear than the rest; whether that was due to his exhaustion or the coming of the dark, he could not be sure, but it seemed to him that they moved away from his fingers in the shadows.
Not that it mattered; there were so few he would soon have the well cleared regardless of the difficulty. He moved more slowly; several times his fingers brushed the sharp point of near-invisible thorns.
Sara, your blood called the nightwalker,
he thought, as his thumb nestled between the teeth of the vine.
I wonder what my blood would call.
It was an idle thought; he had no temptation to find an answer for his question. Not now, when the last of them rested in his hands. Smiling, he pulled it away, and the well was free. With a mingled sigh of exhaustion and triumph, he stepped back to survey his work.
The well seemed larger, newer somehow. Darin marveled at the way the stonework caught and held the frugal light of the night sky. It pulsed there, glimmering faintly. He reached out to touch the stone with his left hand and drew back; his hand glowed warmly.
Lernan, God.
He did not speak, did not want the sound of
his voice to shatter the fragility of his miracle. The well was shining, he felt, for him alone, the light of it gentle and green. He reached for the bandages that concealed his right hand, and trembling slightly, began to unwind them. They fell away in his left hand and fluttered to the ground.
“That’s quite a mess, youngster,” a voice said. Wheeling around, he made out another figure in the darkness. The person chuckled as Darin backed toward the well. “Running in that direction won’t do you any good, but never mind, I’ve no intention of harming you.” Another soft laugh issued out of the darkness as Darin’s fingers gripped the stone.
“What are you doing here?” Darin said, trying to give his shaking voice some semblance of authority. “The garden’s been forbidden to the household.”
“Quite true, quite true. More’s the pity.” The well began to glow more brightly; Darin could see it illuminating the grass. He wasn’t sure if this was a good sign.
“Much better,” the figure said, stepping into the light. “Well, don’t just stand there, boy. Come give me a hand.”
An old woman, clothed in tattered gray, hobbled forward. She walked with a gnarled cane gripped in equally gnarled hands. Her hair was an unruly white mass.
“You aren’t supposed to be here. It’s the lord’s orders, ma’am. You’d better leave before anyone sees you.”
“Nonsense. If no one’s supposed to be here, then no one’ll see me. Unless, of course, you count yourself.” She continued her awkward gait. “No manners in children these days.” She stopped and rapped the ground with the end of her cane. “Up to me to teach you some, I dare say. Get your back off that wall and help an old woman into the light!” She held out one arm expectantly.
Darin stared at it, and then at her. He felt sharply disappointed at her intrusion into his sense of divine isolation.
“Well? Are you going to keep me waiting all night?”
He wanted to say yes, but instead walked over to her. “You know you aren’t supposed to be here, don’t you?” he said as he took her arm. He’d seen many a similar old woman before, and he had no illusions about the effects his words would have. But he didn’t recall seeing this one around the household, and he wondered if she tended the grounds.