The Summer Tree

“Oh, God!” she cried aloud. “What is it, Ysa

The Seer returned to her seat beside the bed and gravely regarded the girl who lay there wrestling with what lay upon her.

“I am not sure of this,” she said, “so I must be careful, but there is a pattern shaping here. You see, he died in your world the first time.”

“Who died?” Kim whispered.

”The Warrior. Who always dies, and is not allowed to rest. It is his doom.”

Kim’s hands were clenched. “Why?”

“There was a great wrong done at the very begi

“Fought?” Her heart was pounding.

“Of course,” Ysa

“And his name?”

“The secret one, no man knows, or even where it is to be sought, but there is another, by which he is always spoken.”

“And that is?” Though now she knew. And a star was in the window.

Ysa

He was probably wrong to be lingering, but the commands had not been explicit, and he was not overly prone to let it disturb him. It intoxicated them all to be abroad in the open spaces, using forgotten arts of concealment to observe the festival traffic on the roads to and from Paras Derval, and though by day the charred land dismayed them, at night they sang the oldest songs under the unclouded glitter of the stars.

He himself had a further reason for waiting, though he knew the delay could not be prolonged indefinitely. One more day he had promised himself, and felt extravagantly gratified when the two women and the man crested the ridge above the thicket.

Matt was quietly reassuring. Kim was in good hands, and though he didn’t know where Diarmuid’s band had gone—and preferred it that way, he added with a grimace—they were expected back that night. Loren, he confirmed, had indeed gone in search of Dave. For the first time since her encounter with the High Priestess two days before, Je

More unsettled by the strangeness of everything than she liked to admit, she had spent yesterday quietly with Laesha. In Je

There had been dancing after the banquet that night. She had expected some difficulty in dealing with the men, but against her will she’d ended up being amused at the careful, almost apprehensive propriety of those who danced with her. Women claimed by Prince Diarmuid were very clearly off limits to anyone else. She’d excused herself early and had gone to bed.

To be awakened by Matt Sören knocking at her door. The Dwarf devoted the morning to her, an attentive guide through the vastness of the palace. Roughly garbed, with an axe swinging at his side, he was a harshly anomalous figure in the hallways and chambers of the castle. He showed her rooms with paintings on the walls, and inlaid patterns on the floor. Everywhere there were tapestries. She was begi

As they circled the room, she told him about her meeting with Jaelle two days ago. The Dwarf blinked when she explained how she was made guest-friend, and again when she described Jaelle’s questions about Loren. But once more he reassured her.

“She is all malice, Jaelle, all bright, bitter malice. But she is not evil, only ambitious.”

“She hates Ysa

“Ysa

“We’ve hardly seen him.”

“He is with Ailell, almost all the time. Which is why he is to be feared. It was a dark day for Bre

“The King turned to Gorlaes?” Je

The Dwarf’s glance at her was keen. “You are clever,” he said. “That is exactly what happened.”

“What about Diarmuid?”

“What about Diarmuid?” Matt repeated, in a tone so unexpectedly exasperated, she laughed aloud. After a moment, the Dwarf chuckled, too, low in his chest.

Je

“Matt,” she said, as a thought struck her, “Loren left without you. Did you stay here for us?”

“Just to keep an eye on things.” With a gesture at the patch over his right eye, he turned it into a kind of joke.

She smiled, but then looked at him a long moment, her green eyes sober. “How did you get that?”

“The last war with Cathal,” he said simply. “Thirty years ago.”

“You’ve been here that long?”

“Longer, Loren has been a mage for over forty years now.”

“So?” She didn’t get the co

She listened, taking in, as Paul had three nights before, the story of Amairgen’s discovery of the skylore, and the secret forging that would bind mage and source for life in a union more complete than any in all the worlds.

When Matt finished, Je

“You’ve surrendered all of your independence!” she said, turning back to the Dwarf, hurling it almost as a challenge.

“Not all,” he said mildly. “You give some up any time you share your life with someone. The bonding just goes deeper, and there are compensations.”

“You were a king, though. You gave up—”

“That was before,” Matt interrupted. “Before I met Loren. I… prefer not to talk about it.”

She was abashed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was prying.”

The Dwarf grimaced, but by now she knew it for his smile. “Not really,” he said. “And no matter. It is a very old wound.”

“It’s just so strange,” she explained. “I can’t even grasp what it must mean.”

“I know. Even here they do not understand the six of us. Or the Law that governs the Council of the Mages. We are feared, respected, very seldom loved.”

“What Law?” she asked.

At that he hesitated, then rose. “Let us walk,” Matt said. “I will tell you a story, though I warn you, you would do better with one of the cyngael, for I am a poor tale-spi

“I’ll take my chances,” Je

As they started to walk the outer edges of the hall, he began. “Four hundred years ago, the High King went mad. Vailerth was his name, the only son of Lernath, who was the last King of Bre

She had questions about that, too, but held her peace. “Vailerth was brilliant as a child,” Matt continued, “or so the records from that time say, but it seems something bent in him after his father died and he came to the throne. A dark flower blossomed in his brain, the Dwarves say when such a thing occurs.