Daughter of Fire (38 page)

“If not William, then who? A son perhaps, by right of succession? Is that what the Darkness has come to prevent?” She sensed that he knew, but refused to tell her.

“Father, you must tell me! What has this to do with me? Why have I seen it in my visions?”

“It has nothing to do with you!” He rose of a sudden and, as though filled with torment, stalked across the chamber where there was no wall. It opened out onto the small valley below, where the light at a cottage window could be seen, and Ninian waited.

Merlin sensed the power within this daughter, and knew that it was strong, much stronger than he had ever imagined. He protected his thoughts from her because it was the only way to protect
her
.

“I have seen other visions, Father.” She told him then of her vision of a creature, born in fire and blood—the image carried on Rorke FitzWarren’s battle shield; of the warning about
a faith that has no heart, and the sword that has no soul;
and finally, of her recurring vision of the tapestry.

His expression was tormented. He suddenly looked very old; sadness and grief etched his handsome features.

Vivian felt his anguish and pain, sensed, too, the thoughts that he was no longer powerful enough to keep from her.

“The tapestry is a prophecy,” he said with a great weariness of spirit. “What you see are the things that will come to pass.”

She thought of the figures of the man and woman, the threads forming their images in brilliant, glorious detail as they came together in a profusion of color, light, and texture that had seemed so real. And she knew that even before she had given herself to Rorke FitzWarren, it had already been written that she would.

“Whose prophecy?” she demanded. “The forces of Light? Or the forces of Darkness?”

“You are a child of the Light. The vision is yours; therefore, it is a prophecy of the Light.’

“But it is not yet finished. How may I know the prophecy if parts of it are not yet woven?”

“You cannot know it,” Merlin said, turning his tortured gaze from her.

As clearly as if he had already confessed it, Vivian knew that he lied.

“I have seen myself in the tapestry,” she said with quiet voice, sensing many other things that before were closed to her. “You’re trying to protect me, Father.”

His shoulders stiffened and she dreaded that she must search his thoughts to know the truth. It was there, along with such pain and regret that she thought she could not bear it.

“I am part of it.” She reached out to his thoughts and knew it of a certainty. “What I have seen woven in the tapestry is a prophecy of what was destined to happen. But that which cannot be seen, which is not yet woven, has not yet been written.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“The weaver who weaves the tapestry.” She spoke aloud of the image that came so clearly to her now in this place of magic and light, an image that had been hidden from her before of a young woman sitting before a loom, feeding through the threads that would create the images in the tapestry.

As clearly as if she saw the young woman before her, she watched as the young woman’s head lifted from her weaving as though summoned by some unknown voice. As she slowly turned, the hood fell away from her head, revealing brilliant red hair. The face that turned toward her was her own. She was the weaver of the tapestry! And suddenly, Vivian knew beyond any doubt what it was that tormented Merlin, and that he had tried to prevent her from seeing.

“The tapestry is not yet woven,” she said softly. “The future is not yet decided. I am the weaver at the loom. I will determine the design. I—and I alone—must face the Darkness.”

Merlin stood at the opening of the chamber, hands braced to either side, his head hanging between.

“I tried to keep it from you.”

She nodded with new understanding. “I understand, Father. But I also now know that I can change the design of the tapestry. It is in my hands. I must face the Darkness.”

“You need not,” he said with quiet voice. Then he slowly turned. His face was lined with weariness and suddenly he seemed very old. “Do not go back. Stay here.”

She went to him then, filled with a new awareness and, because of it, a new power. She held his hands in hers and brought them to her cheek.

“You know as well as I that I cannot stay.”

With grief deep in his heart, he answered, “Aye,”, then pulled his hands from her and wrapped his arms about her, and held her close.

“I knew it would be your answer, but I had hoped that I might change your mind.”

“What of my powers, Father? For I have loved a mortal man.”

“The answer, my daughter, is to be found in his heart. If his heart is true, then your powers will be the stronger for it. But if his heart is false...”

“I cannot see his true heart, Father.”

“You cannot see it because he must open it to you. You will know only when he surrenders both his heart and soul to you.”

They stood together beneath the canopy of the sky, father and daughter, bound by the common threads of destiny. Much time had passed since they had come to the chamber of light in the hollow hills. The night sky faded and became silvery with the coming of the dawn.

“Do you have the crystal?”

She removed it from about her neck and handed it to him. He held it aloft, the shimmering blue crystal clasped between thumb and fingers. He began to recite the words of the ancient ones.

Slowly, across the heavens, the last of the night stars began to glimmer and brighten as though in answer. The crystal seemed to absorb all the light of the stars, then cast it back again in a blinding flash that streaked the sky in a shimmering blue arc as if the crystal had become a blue star that streaked the sky—a dragon’s eye that saw beyond the mists of time.

The stars rested once more in their heaven, slowly winking out until only one remained. Her father handed the crystal back to her.

“Do not part with it. As long as you possess it, we are joined. Whatever powers I have will also be joined with yours on this journey.” He held her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes.

“Is there nothing I can say to stop you?”

She hugged him fiercely. “There is nothing, Father.”

After a while she moved out of his arms, knowing that if he could physically keep her in his world, he would.

“It is late, Father.”

He did not argue with her, but instead nodded. There were tears in his eyes.

“I will walk with you.”

They returned along the footpath together, down from the hollow hills, and the ancient place of legend where her life began.

At the edge of the orchard Ninian was waiting for them. She was wrapped in the ethereal light that glowed at the eastern horizon, seeming to set her hair and clothes afire, and for a moment Vivian was given to question whether or not her mother was mortal. For in that moment, she seemed otherworldly. She had wrapped many of the ancient herbs that grew in such profusion in her garden and handed them to Vivian, along with a special packet for Meg.

“It is a special brew that will ease the aching in her bones as none of your earthly herbs can.”

Vivian tucked them inside the mantle that Merlin wrapped about her shoulders. The three of them returned to the small clearing in the middle of the orchard.

“May the powers of the Light be with you, my daughter,” Ninian said in parting, and Vivian knew that Ninian was aware of what had passed between father and daughter.

“I love you,” Vivian replied.

Merlin walked with her across the clearing to the monolith which was almost visible now in that place between night and day when time stands still in the mist. There was such sadness in his expression.

“I did not foresee that you must take my place, Vivian. Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive.” She touched the blue crystal. “I am not afraid, Father. I know that you will be with me.”

Then she stepped away from him. She turned and slowly walked toward the standing stone that seemed as if it was suspended in the mist, hovering just above the earth. With her hand clutched about the crystal, she turned all her thoughts inward. She focused all her powers and the force of the Light that burned within her, on that inner place where memory and dream were interwoven like threads of a tapestry, and then stepped through the portal.

But this time it was much different. It was as if everything about her exploded in a painful, searing profusion of light and sound. Painful images flew at her, attempting to break her concentration in a profusion of stunning visions that seemed not her own, as though controlled by some other force.

She saw her mother and father where she had left them, covered in blood. She saw her sisters horribly tortured and maimed, then left for dead. Everything about her was laid to waste in some dreadful cataclysm that focused itself in the pain that tore through her as she was being pushed back from the other side of the portal, as though some malevolent force was trying to prevent her from entering the mortal world.  She felt it tearing at her flesh, burning into her soul, trying to destroy her, and knew it was the Darkness.

She saw it, just as she had before. It hovered just beyond the edge of awareness, in some vague, dark, shifting shape that resembled a man shrouded in darkness whose image came at her, pushing, shoving, denying her entrance, a gatekeeper whose horrible laughter rang in her ears.

Vivian clung to the stone. She drew on its ancient powers, reaching back through the fiery Light of the stone to draw on the strength her father had promised, joining it with her own.

It burned as bright as the ancient light of a billion stars, piercing the darkness, holding it at bay. It bent and twisted, shielding malevolent, evil eyes, then retreated once more to the edges of the real world.

In a blinding flash of light, as if a star had exploded, Vivian was flung through the portal to the other side, and collapsed in the freshly fallen snow at the clearing.

She lay there, utterly still, unmoving.

Twenty

F
lames at the torches fluttered wildly and cast fierce images along the walls of the entrance to the royal hall as Rorke angrily confronted the guard.

“She must have passed this way!” he insisted, questioning the guard for the third time, uneasiness sharpening his anger to a dangerous edge since first waking to find Vivian gone from his side, and, apparently gone from the fortress.

“No, milord,” the guard, replied with absolute certainty. “I was at my post all night. Mistress Vivian did not pass this way.”

“Are you certain?” Rorke again asked. “She can be most persuasive. Perhaps someone disguised that you did not recognize,” he suggested, frustration adding to the anger and rising fear.

How was it possible? he thought for the hundredth time, for a girl to leave and not be seen, in a place where people crowded the halls and passageways all times of the day and night, and more than two hundred men stood guard!

She would have had to step over people, for God’s sake! so crowded was the hall and chambers that surrounded it. Adding to the anger was the underlying uncertainty at what had passed between them.

He had never known a woman of such passion. Nothing they shared had in the least conveyed any  distress on her part, though he had anticipated it, for he had sensed by her innocence that she had never lain with a man. Then, upon discovering that what he suspected was true, he had taken care not to hurt or frighten her. But it was he who was stunned and dismayed by the depth of her passion and uninhibited responses. And now she was gone.

Frustration and fear mounted. It was nearly dawn. Soon everyone would know she was gone, including the bishop, and he already looked for reasons to discredit her with William.

Tarek abruptly returned, for Rorke had immediately told him of Vivian’s disappearance. With a silent shake of his head, Tarek indicated a thorough search of the royal household had yielded nothing. Somehow she had gotten past the guards and fled.

But where? Rorke thought furiously. How? And why?

“Have the entire yard searched again,” he ordered the guard. “Along both sides of the wall, and every building.” Then he turned to Tarek.

“Come with me,” he snapped, anger like a festering wound.

They checked the stables, then the mews as the sky drew first light. At the far end, where the small falcon was usually tethered, he found the old woman, Meg.

“She has gone,” Meg said, turning toward him though he made no sound as he entered, as if she had seen him in spite of her blindness.

“And taken the falcon with her.”

“What do you know of this?” he demanded. But the expression on the old woman’s face was as blank as her sightless eyes.

“She did not confide in me. She was with you, milord.” Then her tone sharpened. “She knew she must not stay with you!”

He crossed the mews in furious strides, his anger communicating itself to the birds, who flared their wings in alarm and cried out. He seized Meg by her thin shoulders and shook her.

“Do not lecture me, old woman! Nor point that bony finger in blame. There were no chains to bind her. She stayed with me of her own free will. I would never force her to do anything, even if I could.”

“No chains, perhaps,” she defiantly spat at him, “but bound as surely as any chain! I told her she should flee. She could have at any time.” Those sightless eyes narrowed.

“Do you truly believe that any bonds you place on her could hold her?” she asked, and then said with a grave certainty, “Milord, you know not what you deal with!”

“Silence! She would not leave you behind if it was her intent to flee. Wherever she has gone, she means to return. Surely, even you know that! Surely, too, you must see the danger to her. If you know where she has gone, then say so!”

“You have your conquest,” she said contemptuously. “You have bedded her. I dreamed of it last night. I saw her virgin’s blood on your body. And yet having conquered, you still seek the vanquished.” Then enlightenment spread across the wrinkled features in something almost akin to a smile.