King Javan’s Year (21 page)

Tavis only smiled and nodded as Javan opened his eyes and put the empty goblet back in his hand. Joram was on his feet and heading toward him with the sword upright before him, coming to stand beside him facing East, directing Javan to do the same.

“The words you are about to hear,” Joram said quietly, fixing his gaze on the golden flame of the Eastern Ward, “are the words your father spoke as he cast the third circle that night before he died. With Queron's assistance, I am able to provide exact recall. You were present in the room when he spoke these words. If you'll center and focus, you'll find that you recall them, too—and other things that happened that night.”

So saying, he drew himself to attention for a few seconds, focusing his concentration, then saluted the East with his blade—the East, the source of Light. He drew a breath as he let the tip of the sword sink to point at the floor just to the right of the candle, beginning to speak in a low voice.

“Saint Raphael, Healer, Guardian of Wind and Tempest—” He began to walk slowly to his right, retracing the previous two circles. “May we be guarded and healed in mind and soul and body this night.”

He had nearly reached the Southern Quarter, with its red-shielded flame, and he inclined his head in salute as his blade traced on. As he did so, Javan saw Tavis out of the corner of his eye, bowing, and Javan bowed, too.

“Saint Michael, Defender, Guardian of Eden, protect us in our hour of need.”

Joram continued on. Where the tip of his blade passed, it laid down a glowing ribbon of silver, misty and substantial at once, perhaps the span of a man's forearm. Javan watched it grow behind Joram, with almost an impression that it took the priest more effort to pull the ribbon behind him, the farther around the circle he got. He could not take his eyes off it as Joram saluted the Western Quarter and he and Tavis and Queron bowed. A part of him knew what Joram was about to say, and he could not even find it in himself to be amazed as blue fire reflected off the polished blade and the words came exactly as he had known they must.

“Saint Gabriel, Heavenly Herald, carry our supplications to Our Lady.”

Javan could hear his father's voice overlaid with Joram's now—could almost see a familiar, fur-lined gown of Haldane scarlet superimposed over Joram's Michaeline blue. He resisted the impulse to rub at his eyes as Joram passed on toward the Northern Quarter, with its green-lit candle and the waiting Queron; but he had the feeling that if he closed his eyes, the voice would make the image
be
his father.

“Saint Uriel, Dark Angel, come gently, if you must,” Joram said, “and let all fear die here within this place.”

Javan could feel himself trembling as Joram continued on around to join the two ends of the circle in the East and then gave salute once more, right beside him. He did not really understand what Joram was summoning—what his father had summoned with those same words, and what he himself had summoned to his brother's deathbed—but he stood in awe of it. The archangels he knew of, both from childhood catechisms and his seminary training, though he had never heard anyone address them the way Joram was doing.

Joram turned, the sword now dangling by its quillons in front of him, and motioned for Javan also to turn toward the center. Javan obeyed, gazing across the circle at a pale and focused Tavis as Joram spoke new words that Javan somehow knew had been Evaine's words before.

“We stand outside time, in a place not of earth,” Joram said. “As our ancestors before us bade, we join together and are One. By Thy blessed Apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; by all Powers of Light and Shadow, we call Thee to guard and defend us from all perils, O Most High. Thus it is and has always been, thus it will be for all times to come.
Per omnia saecula saeculorum.
”

The “Amen” of the others' response came to Javan's lips all unbidden but wholly proper and natural, and he found his hand making the Sign of the Cross as they did.

Then Joram was bending to lay the sword along the edge of the circle to their right, in the northeast quadrant; taking Javan's arm to lead him closer into the center of the circle to stand before the little altar table. He moved around to Javan's left to return to his proper place in the South as Queron knelt down to bring several more items out from under the table: a footed goblet of glazed white pottery, partially filled with water, which he set on the table beside the thurible; a small piece of parchment with something written on it that Javan could not see; and a little silver dagger, which he handed to Tavis as he stood.

“I'll ask you for the Ring of Fire now,” Joram said, holding out his hand.

Javan took off the ring and offered it with his right hand. Joram retained the hand, isolating the thumb and compressing it, but passed the ring to Tavis, taking the dagger from him in exchange as Queron read from the parchment in a low voice.

“
I will declare the decree
,” he said. “
The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son: This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
”

“Javan Jashan Urien Haldane, King of Gwynedd,” Joram said as Queron lowered the parchment, “be consecrated to the service of thy people.”

With that he jabbed Javan's thumb sharply against the blade. Blood spurted, bright and startling, but even Javan's reflexive flinch was dulled, as if it were happening to someone else. His thought processes seemed to be slowing down, and he found himself watching with a detached fascination as Tavis rolled the dark stones of the Ring of Fire through the blood on his thumb and then Joram pressed the still-bleeding thumb to the parchment Queron held.

The parchment then was laid on the thurible to burn, after which Queron wiped off Javan's wounded thumb with a bit of linen and Healed it. When the parchment had curled to ash, he pinched a bit between thumb and forefinger and sifted it over the water, quoting again from Scripture.

“
Give the king Thy judgements, O God, and Thy righteousness unto the king's son.
”

Tavis bent to slip the bloody ring into the cup at that. A little dreamily, Javan watched the blood diffuse in the water, wondering what it would taste like—this intinction of blood and ash. Another part of him seemed to know. His eyes did not seem to be focusing quite properly. The cup seemed to draw him, so that he swayed a little on his feet, and Joram set a steadying hand on his elbow.

“Steady,” he murmured. “In addition to everything else, you're feeling the effects of the first cup. Just go with it. Let yourself take it all in, but don't try to analyze.”

Joram gave him into Queron's keeping then, moving around to take up the sword lying in the northeast quarter of the circle. Tavis went with him.

“Tavis will leave the circle now,” Queron murmured, smiling slightly as Javan's eyes followed the path of Joram's sword-tip, tracing up and across and down, cutting an arched doorway in the circle. “We're about to move on to the dramatic bit. Don't worry; he'll be right outside,” he added as Tavis reluctantly stepped though and went to crouch on the altar steps close behind Javan. “He wasn't in the circle that night, so he shouldn't be there now.
I
shouldn't be here, except that I'm part of the process. Joram is the key to this part, since he's the only one remaining who was present and coherent that night.”

Joram cast him a wary glance before closing the gate again with three swift strokes of the sword along the floor, replacing it on the floor again before heading back toward his place in the South.

“Now,” Queron went on, standing easily at Javan's left, between him and Joram. “In order to re-create as accurately as possible what happened on the night in question, I plan to use a technique Joram has seen me use once before, many years ago. I trust he will not find it as startling this time as he did that other time. You, however, my prince, may find it very startling indeed.”

Before Javan could even react, Queron's hand had reached out to touch his forehead, seizing controls as he did, taking Javan several levels deeper into trance than his own efforts and the drugged cup had already carried him.

“Deeply centered and at peace, my prince,” Queron murmured.

An even greater stillness seemed to settle around him, and a part of him watched, detached, as Queron turned his attentions to Joram.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

In a trance I saw a vision
.

—Acts 11:5

Despite his utter faith in Queron, Joram could not help a brief surge of uneasiness as the Gabrilite Healer moved before him and set both hands on his shoulders. Queron had told him precisely what was involved and reassured him that he would retain a detached awareness of exactly what was happening, even as Queron tapped his memory in so dramatic a manner; but the specter of that other time he had watched it done evoked a dread that was totally irrational.

“You can let go of that fear,” Queron whispered, sliding his hands up to cup around Joram's neck and the back of his head, thumbs resting on his temples as the dark eyes compelled. “When you saw me do this before, you had cause to be wary. This is totally different.”

Relax and open to me, Joram
, he went on, shifting to mind-speech as Joram let fall his shields and gave the other access.

Good
, came Queron's encouragement.
And now go deeper still, to the memory of that night … Standing in the little chapel adjoining Cinhil's bedchamber … you and Cinhil and Evaine and Alister … And
be in
that chapel
…

Joram was there. A part of him remained detached, well aware that it was but memory he relived, standing a little apart, as if observing from over his own shoulder. But the greater part of his conscious awareness had returned to that night in Cinhil's chapel, standing in the presence of persons now dead. That part saw them already: father and sister and sister's husband and ill-fated king.

But as Queron moved around to his right to stand slightly behind him, retaining contact with a hand on that shoulder, the detached part of Joram's mind began to see them, too. An armspan farther to the right, a slightly dazed-looking Javan stood watching and waiting—and beside him, where memory supplied the likeness of the boy's father, a more solid form began to materialize.

It was not the form Queron had summoned that other time, in the chapter house at Valoret, when his conjuration had unwittingly confirmed the illusion of a visitation by the recently deceased Camber MacRorie—and sealed his sainthood. A variation on that form eventually would materialize as well, but it would be as Alister Cullen, Camber's alter ego, not Camber himself.

Meanwhile, there were the other players to re-create. As Joram watched, the detached part of him utterly fascinated, the figure of Cinhil Haldane slowly took solid shape in the East beside his son, appearing as he had that fateful night he set his Haldane seal on Alroy and Rhys Michael as well as Javan, holding a ghost-echo of the physical cup set on the little altar table before him.

But the young king was staring across the circle at another form beginning to solidify, his joy and surprise evident even through the heavy controls and the drugs. Joram glanced left to behold the likeness of Evaine, graceful form enveloped in a dark cloak, the gold of her hair gleaming from inside its hood.

And across from him began to form the shape and semblance of one whom Joram and Queron both knew in two guises, though it was solely as Alister Cullen that he had appeared that night and as he now appeared, in the purple of his episcopal rank. Joram's immersion in the memory intensified as the figure crossed his arms on his breast, directing his gaze toward the larger altar as he had done that night, and Joram followed suit, watching the oddly solid ghost-Cinhil face that way as well, and raise his ghost-cup in salutation. In that instant Joram truly was back in that chapel adjoining Cinhil's bedchamber in Valoret, reliving the moment as Cinhil seemed to speak.

“O Lord, Thou art holy indeed: the fountain of all holiness. In trembling and humility we come before Thee with our supplications, asking Thy blessing and protection on what we must do this night.”

The voice sounded exactly like the dead Cinhil, though a part of Joram knew that the words came from Queron's lips, projected across the space separating them. But as Cinhil turned to face the awestruck Javan, lowering the cup to extend his right palm flat above the rim, fact and illusion blurred and it
was
Cinhil, setting the pattern for the rest of their invocations, summoning the attributes of Air to permeate the contents of the cup.

“Send now Thy holy Archangel Raphael, O Lord, to breathe upon this water and make it holy, that they who shall drink of it may justly command the element of Air. Amen.”

As he shifted the summoning hand to help support the cup, a breeze seemed to stir in the East, cycling gently at first but then gathering in intensity, stirring hair and robes, sweeping the hood from Evaine's hair in a shower of golden pins, even buffeting at Javan and Joram—but not touching so much as a hair on Queron's head. Indeed, Queron seemed hardly even aware of what he was calling up, head half bowed, eyes half closed, left hand still resting quietly on Joram's shoulder.

The storm condensed into a whirlwind that sucked at a blue-tinged curl of smoke spiralling upward from the thurible which, in reality, was hardly smoking at all anymore. It swirled above the ghost-cup in Cinhil's ghost-hands and tightened down, faintly stirring the surface of the water and then dying away.

The Cinhil figure closed his eyes briefly and passed the cup across to Joram. To Joram's senses, melded of reality and recall, the ghost-cup seemed to have real weight and substance in his hands. He held it beside the entranced Javan and extended his right hand flat over the rim as he had done that other night, repeating the same words, and with the same intent.