The Summer Tree

“But she does not,” said Ysa

Eilathen glittered high above them both. His voice was a splintering of ice. “And this is the last?”

“This is the last,” Ysa

He did not hear the note of loss in her voice. Sadness was alien to him, not of his world or his being. He smiled at her words and tossed his hair back, the taste, the glide, the long green dive of freedom already ru

“Look then!” he cried. “Look you to know—and know your last of Eilathen!” And crossing his arms upon his breast, so that the ring on his finger burned like a heart afire, he began to spin again. But somehow, as Kim watched, his eyes were locked on hers all the time, even as he whirled, so fast that the lake water began to foam beneath him, and his cold, cold eyes and the bright pain of the red ring he wore were all she knew in the world.

And then he was inside her, deeper than any lover had ever gone, more completely, and Kimberly was given the Tapestry.

She saw the shaping of the worlds, Fionavar at first, then all the others—her own in a fleeting glimpse—following it into time. The gods she saw, and knew their names, and she touched but could not hold, for no mortal can, the purpose and the pattern of the Weaver at the Loom.

And as she was whirled away from that bright vision, she came abruptly face to face with the oldest Dark in his stronghold of Starkadh. In his eyes she felt herself shrivel, felt the thread fray on the Loom; she knew evil for what it was. The live coals of his eyes scorched into her, and the talons of his hands seemed to score her flesh, and within her heart she was forced to sound the uttermost depths of his hate, and she knew him for Rakoth the Unraveller, Rakoth Maugrim, whom the gods themselves feared, he who would rend the Tapestry and lay his own malignant shadow on all of time to come. And flinching away from the vastness of his power, she endured an endless passage of despair.

Ysa

Kimberly, though, was oblivious to time and place, to lake, rock, Seer, spirit, stone, locked like a spell into the images Eilathen’s eyes imposed. She saw Iorweth Founder come from oversea, saw him greet the lios alfar by Se

The Dalrei she saw next, in a whirling away to the north and west; on the Plain she watched them in pursuit of the glorious eltor, their long hair tied back. The Dwarves delving under Banir Lok and Banir Tal she was shown, and the distant men of wild Eridu beyond their mountains.

Eilathen’s eyes carried her south then, across Saeren, and she saw the gardens of Cathal, and the unrivalled splendor of the Lords across the river. The heart of Pendaran she touched, and in a bright vision, bittersweet, she saw Lisen of the Wood meet Amairgen Whitebranch in the grove and bind herself to him, first source to the first mage; and she saw her die by the sea tower, fairest child of all the turning worlds.

Grieving still for that loss, she was taken by Eilathen to see the war—the Great War against Rakoth. Conary she saw, and knew, and Colan his son, the Beloved. She saw the bright, fierce array of the lios, and the shining figure of Ra-Termaine, greatest of the Lords of the lios alfar—and she saw that brilliant company torn apart by wolves and svart alfar, and most terribly of all by the flying creatures older than nightmare unleashed by Maugrim. Then she watched as, coming too late, Conary and Colan were cut off and trapped in their turn by Se

Then she was shown the binding, and knew the Mountain again for the prison it had become, and she watched Ginserat make the stones. Faster then, the images began to fly, and to Ysa

Faster he spun, and faster, the water white beneath his feet, and the Seer watched as the one beside her who was no longer a girl learned what it was to dream true. To be a dreamer of the dream.

And there came a time when Eilathen slowed and stopped.

Kimberly lay sprawled on the rock, drained of all color, utterly unconscious. The water spirit and the Seer gazed at each other a long time, unspeaking.

At length, Eilathen’s voice was heard, high and cold in the moonlight. “I have done. She knows what she is able to know. A great power is in her, but I do not know if she can bear the burden. She is young.”

“Not anymore,” Ysa

“Perhaps not. But it is no care of mine. I have spun for you, Dreamer. Release me from the fire.” He was very close, the ice-crystal eyes gleaming with an inhuman light.

The Seer nodded. “I did promise. It was past time. You know why I needed you?” There was an appeal in her voice.

“I do not forgive.”

“But you know why?”

Another long silence. Then, “Yes,” said Eilathen, and one listening for it might have imagined gentleness in his tone. “I know why you bound me.”

Ysa

And on the last word a sound burst from Eilathen, a high, keening sound beyond joy or release, almost beyond hearing, and the red-stoned ring slid from his finger and fell on the rock at the Seer’s feet.

She knelt to gather it and, when she rose, saw through still-falling tears that he had already spun back out over the lake.

“Eilathen!” she cried. “Forgive me if you can. Farewell!”

For reply, his motion only grew faster, wilder somehow than before, untamed, chaotic, and then Eilathen reached the middle of the lake and dived.

But one listening for it—wanting, praying even, to catch it—might have heard, or imagined she heard, just before he disappeared, the sound of her name called out in farewell in a voice cold and free forever.

She sank to her knees cradling Kim, and rocked her upon her lap as one rocks a child. Holding the girl, gazing out through almost blinded eyes at the empty lake, she did not see the dark-haired, dark-bearded figure that rose from the cover of a sheltering rock behind them. The figure watched long enough to see her take the ring Eilathen had guarded and slip it carefully upon Kimberly’s right hand, where it fit her ring finger as perfectly as the Seer had dreamt it would.

After seeing this, the watching figure turned, still unseen, and walked away from them, and there was no trace of a limp in his stride.