The Darkest Road

Too far. He did not even reply. He turned away. She heard Owein mock the Warrior, saw the sky kings draw their burning swords. There was fire all around her; there was blood in the sky, on the Temple walls. Fi

“In the name of the Goddess, no!” one of the priestesses cried in horror, a hand before her mouth.

Leila did not hear her. She was screaming, and far away. She lifted Dana’s axe, which only the High Priestess could lift. She raised that thing of power high over her head and brought it crashing, thundering, echoing down upon the altar stone. And as she did she cried out again, building with the power of the axe, the power of Dana, climbing on top of them as upon a mighty wall to hurl the mind command:

Fi

She dropped to her knees in the Temple, letting the axe fall. In the sky over Andarien she watched. She had nothing left; she was empty, a shell. If this was not enough it had all been waste, all bitterest waste.

Fi

So she said, softly, over the mind link they had shared, with no power left in her, only sorrow, only love, Oh, Fi

There wasn’t even the tracest flicker in her ring, and Kim knew that there wouldn’t be. She was powerless, empty of all save pity and grief, which didn’t count for anything. A part of her mind was savagely, despairingly aware that it was she who had released the Hunt to ride, on that night at the edge of Pendaran. How had she not seen what would come?

And yet, she also knew, without Owein’s intercession by the Adein River, the lios and the Dalrei would all have died. She would never have had time to reach the Dwarves. Aileron and the men of Bre

Owein had saved them then. To destroy them now, it seemed.

So went her thoughts in the moment Fi

She did hear Owein cry aloud, shouting after Fi

Fi

Then the wailing changed. Everything changed. Kim cried aloud, in helpless horror and pity. For in the distance, west, toward the setting sun, Iselen threw her rider, as Imraith-Nimphais had thrown hers, but not out of love. And Fi

No one broke this fall. Kim watched him plummet to the earth and saw him lying there, crumpled, and she had a vivid, aching memory of the winter night by Pendaran Wood when the wandering fire she carried had woken the Wild Hunt.

Do not frighten her. I am here, Fi

No more. He was no longer Iselen’s rider in the sky, sweeping between the stars. He was mortal again, and fallen, and very probably dead.

But his fall meant something, or it might mean something. The Seer in Kim seized upon an image, and she stepped forward to give it voice.

Loren was before her, though, with the same awareness. Holding Amairgen’s staff high in the air, he looked up at Owein and the seven kings. The kings were moaning aloud, the same words over and over, and the sound of their voices whistled like wind over Andarien.

“Iselen’s rider’s lost!” the Wild Hunt cried in fear and despair, and for all her sorrow, Kim felt a quickening of hope as Loren cast his own voice over the sound of the kings in the air.

“Owein!” he cried. “The child is lost again, you ca

He lifted his sword, and its blade was red in the light, and he made wild Cargail to rear back high above them, black as night. The wailing of the kings changed from grief to rage. They ceased their frightened circling in the sky and drew their own grey horses into place behind Cargail.

And so it was all meaningless, Kim thought. She looked from the Hunt away to the twisted body of Fi

“Listen!” cried Brendel of the lios alfar.

And even as he spoke, Kim heard the sound of singing coming over the stony ground from behind them. Even before she turned she knew who it had to be, for she knew that voice.

Over the ruined plain of Andarien, covering ground with huge, giant strides, came Ruana of the Paraiko to bind the Wild Hunt as Co

Owein slowly lowered his sword. Behind him the kings fell silent in the sky. And in that silence they all heard the words Ruana sang as he came near:

“The flame will wake from sleep,

The Kings the horn will call,

But though they answer from the deep

You may never hold in thrall

Those who ride from Owein’s Keep

With a child before them all.”

Then he was among them, chanting still in the deep, tuneless voice. He strode to the forefront of the ridge, past where Loren stood, and he stopped, looking up at Owein, and his chanting ceased.