The Darkest Road

Upon Lokdal, Seithr’s gift to Colan a thousand years ago. And Rakoth Maugrim, blinded by Lisen’s Light, mortal because he’d fathered a son, killed that son with the Dagger of the dwarves, and he killed without love in his heart.

Dying, Darien heard his father’s last scream and knew it could be heard in every corner of Fionavar, in every world spun into time by the Weaver’s hand: the sound that marked the passing of Rakoth Maugrim.

Darien was lying on the floor. There was a bright blade in his heart. With fading sight he looked out the high window and saw that the fighting had stopped on the plain so far away. It became harder to see. The window was trembling, and there was a blurring in front of his eyes. The Circlet was still shining, though. He reached up and touched it for the last time. The window began to shake even more violently, and the floor of the room. A stone crashed from above. Another. All around him Starkadh was begi

He wondered if anyone would ever understand what had happened. He hoped so. So that someone might come, in time, to his mother and tell her of the choice he’d made. The choice of Light, and of love.

It was true, he realized. He was dying with love, killed by Lokdal. Flidais had told him what that part meant, as well, the gift he might have been allowed to give.

But he’d marked no one’s forehead with the pattern on the haft, and in any case, he thought, he would not have wanted to burden any living creature with his soul.

It was almost his last thought. His very last was of his brother, tossing him among the soft banks of snow when he’d still been Dari, and Fi

Chapter 17

Dave heard the last scream of Rakoth Maugrim, and then he heard the screaming stop. There was a moment of silence, of waiting, and then a great rumbling avalanche of sound rolled down upon them from far in the north. He knew what that was. They all did. There were tears of joy in his eyes, they were pouring down his face, he couldn’t stop them. He didn’t want to stop them.

And suddenly it was easy. He felt as if a weight had been stripped away from him, a weight he hadn’t even known he was bearing—a burden he seemed to have carried from the moment he’d been born into time. He, and everyone else, cast forth into worlds that lay under the shadow of the Dark.

But Rakoth Maugrim was dead. Dave didn’t know how, but he knew it was true. He looked at Tore and saw a wide, helpless smile spreading across the other man’s face. He had never seen Tore look like that. And suddenly Dave laughed aloud on the battlefield, for the sheer joy of being alive in that moment.

In front of them the svart alfar broke and ran. The urgach milled about in disorganized confusion. Slaug crashed into each other, grunting with fear. Then they, too, turned from the army of Light and began to flee to the north. Which was no haven anymore. They would be hunted and found, Dave knew. They would be destroyed. Already, the Dalrei and the lios alfar were racing after them. For the first time in that long terrible day, Dave heard the lios begin to sing, and his heart swelled as if it would burst to hear the glory of their song.

Only the wolves held firm for a time, on the western flank. But they were alone now, and outnumbered, and the warriors of Bre

Dave and Tore, laughing, crying, thundered after the urgach and the svart alfar. Sorcha was with them, riding beside his son. The slaug should have been faster than their horses, but they weren’t. The six-legged monsters seemed to have become feeble and purposeless. They stumbled, careened in all directions, threw their riders, fell. It was easy now, it was glorious. The lios alfar were singing all around, and the setting sun shone down upon them from a cloudless summer sky.

“Where’s Ivor?” Tore shouted suddenly. “And Levon?”

Dave felt a quick spasm of fear, but then it passed. He knew where they would be. He pulled up his horse, and the other two did the same. They rode back across the bloodied plain strewn with the bodies of the dying and the dead, back to the ridge of land south of the battlefield. From a long distance away they could see the Aven kneeling beside a body that would be his youngest son. They dismounted and walked up the ridge in the late afternoon light. A serenity seemed to have gathered about that place.

Levon saw them. “He’ll be all right,” he said, walking over. Dave nodded, then he reached out and pulled Levon to him in a fierce embrace.

Ivor looked up. He released Tabor’s hand and came over to where they stood. There was a brightness in his eyes, shining through his weariness. “He will be all right,” he echoed. “Thanks to the mage and to Arthur he will be all right.”

“And to Pwyll,” said Teyrnon quietly. “He was the one who guessed. I would never have caught him, without that warning.”

Dave looked for Paul and saw him standing a little way apart from everyone else, farther along the ridge. Even now, he thought. He considered walking over but was reluctant to intrude. There was something very self-contained, very private about Paul in that moment.

“What happened?” someone said. Dave looked down. It was Mabon of Rhoden, lying on a makeshift pallet not far away. The Duke smiled at him and winked. Then he repeated, “Does anyone know exactly what happened?”

Dave saw Je

“It was Darien,” said Kim, approaching as well. “But I don’t know how. I wish I did.”

“So do I,” said Teyrnon. “But I could not see far enough to know what happened there.”

“I did, ” said a third voice, very gently, very clearly.

They all turned to Gereint. And it was the old blind shaman of the Plain who gave voice to Darien’s dying wish.

In the soft light and the deeply woven peace that had come, he said, “I thought there might be a reason for me to fly with Tabor. This was it. I could not fight in battle, but I was far enough north, standing here, to send my awareness into Starkadh.”

He paused, and asked gently, “Where is the Queen?”

Dave was confused for a second, but Je

Gereint turned to the sound of her voice. He said, “He is dead, my lady. I am sorry to say that the child is dead. But through the gift of my blindness I saw what he did. He chose for the Light at the last. The Circlet of Lisen blazed on his brow, and he threw himself upon a blade and died in such a way that Maugrim died with him.”

“Lokdal!” Kim exclaimed. “Of course. Rakoth killed without love, and so he died! Oh, Jen. You were right after all. You were so terribly right.” She was crying, and Dave saw that Je

In mourning for her child, who had taken the Darkest Road and had come at last to the end of it, alone, and so far away.

Dave saw Jaelle, the High Priestess, no longer so coldly arrogant—it showed even in the way she moved—walk over to comfort Je

There were so many tilings warring for a place in his heart: joy and weariness, deep sorrow, pain, an infinite relief. He turned and walked down the slope of the ridge.

He picked his way along the southern edge of what had been, so little time ago, the battlefield whereon the Light was to have been lost, and would have been, were it not for Je