Coinich Mor stayed, but tucked herself silently into a corner near the hearth, from which vantage point she watched everyone else in the room.
They sat, drinking hot cider and listening to the harsh winds of early winter a.s.sault Mertuile, while Feich tried to engage his pretty hostage in conversation.
"Your Mistress liked this room," he told her, after observing how continually awed she seemed by her surroundings. "We came here with Cyne Colfre more than once during her time here. Did she ever speak to you of that time?"
The girl blinked at him as if bemused by his sudden amiability. "She spoke of it," she said at last. "She called it a time of confusion."
Feich offered a wry smile. "For me, as well. I was . . . very fond of your Mistress."
"You tried to kill her." The girl"s eyes were pools of ice that made even Ladhar shiver.
"She seemed a threat to my Cyne and my country. Later events proved me right."
"No sir. They did not. Taminy had nothing to do with Colfre"s death." She laid subtle stress on her Mistress"s name, as if to imply that someone other than Colfre had had something to do with it.
Feich"s eyes glittered. "She abducted the Cyneric-"
"She did not. Toireasa and Airleas came to us of their free will. She means no harm to Airleas, as you well know. She means only to strengthen him to see to it that when he does take the Throne, no one will mold him to their own desires." Her voice, soft and measured, quivered a bit as she said the words, but her eyes were unwaveringly direct.
Feich shook his head and glanced at Ladhar. "I appreciate," he told the girl, "that you wish to believe no ill of your Mistress, but she has proven herself to be Evil incarnate."
"She has proven only to be your adversary, Regent Feich. I suppose that must make her seem evil to you."
Everyone in the room was astonished by the girl"s audacity. Ladhar saw on other faces the same look he knew must be on his own. Only Daimhin Feich took the remark blandly, his face set in a benign smile.
"Unfortunately, I must regard you as evil as well, poor child. You are undeniably under her influence. If you were to disavow your Mistress, however . . ."
"I can"t do that, sir."
Feich shrugged. "Then you will most likely die . . . eventually. Hanged, perhaps, or burnt, or drowned."
Her lovely face paled to the color of cream, but the girl only said, "I"m prepared to do that."
Feich shook his head. "I admire your courage, child. But what a deplorable waste. How can you love one who would so cruelly ignore your plight?"
"Taminy doesn"t ignore me."
"Ah, well, if you wish to plead that she"s unaware-"
"She"s not unaware, Regent. She knows where I am and under what conditions. She"s always with me. Always."
Feich perked up at this, his eyes lighting with interest.
"You are in communication with her?"
"Yes."
"Yet, she does nothing to free you."
"Perhaps my freedom is not required."
An odd thing to say, Ladhar thought, and a part of his mind began trying to work out what it meant.
Late that night at Ochanshrine, he came to the beginning of an understanding, for Daimhin Feich arrived there, the Nairnian cailin in tow, and demanded to be admitted to the Shrine.
What choice had he? He let them in, following them down into the Osmaer Crystal"s sacred bowl.
The girl was clearly terrified. Wrapped in a long cloak that did not cover the soft skirts of her sleeping gown, hair in wild disarray about her shoulders, she glanced about with frantic eyes-eyes that were willing to beg even Ladhar for aid.
Meanwhile Feich, obviously excited, prattled like a schoolboy. "I asked if she had a crystal, and of course she did-a tiny thing, barely worthy of the name, belonged to some mouldering Osraed. But she could fire it, Ladhar! d.a.m.n, but she could fire it! So I gave her Bloodheart and the d.a.m.ned thing all but ignited in her hands. Those sweet, magical hands!"
He kissed them both, knotted as they were into fists, and dragged the poor girl down another three or four steps.
"And I thought, if she can do that with puny, flawed rocks, then-" He broke off, staring at Ochan"s Crystal.
Yes, it too had ignited, even as Feich"s imperfect Bloodheart. Ladhar thought his legs would refuse to support him. He sank to the nearest bench, overcome, mesmerized as on that horrible night . . .
Feich, exultant, dragged the girl the rest of the way down the aisle, forcing her into close contact with the Stone.
The Stone burned.
"Now, Wicke! Show me how you Weave with this crystal. Show me your Mistress! Let me see her! Does she sleep? Does she Weave? Does she feel your distress? Show her to me!"
The girl strained to pull her hands free, struggled to put some distance between herself and the Osmaer Crystal, but Feich had the advantage of physical strength and spiritual frailty. He cared little if he terrified her or caused her pain. He twisted her to face the Crystal, shrieking his commands in her ears, shaking her until the cloak slid from her shoulders.
The commotion drew an audience; Osraed and cleirachs appeared in the upper doorway. Ladhar felt their eyes on him. They hung back, seeing him there. Surely if the Abbod Ladhar was witness to this spectacle they need not interfere.
"Show me Taminy-Osmaer!" cried Feich for perhaps the twentieth time, and the girl, sobbing, put up her hands as if in prayer.
Did she Weave? Ladhar would never be certain, but all at once he found himself engulfed in aislinn mist and he was seeing-dear G.o.d the Spirit!-he was seeing Bevol"s Wicke, herself, right there in the Shrine. She appeared, suspended over the Osmaer Crystal, or superimposed upon it, her hair bound as if for sleep, dressed in a robe of blinding white. Light poured from her in waves and her lips moved soundlessly.
Ladhar found his own lips were in motion, as well, releasing a flood of desperate prayer.
Feich moved to approach the aislinn image, reached his hand out as if to touch it, but it folded in on itself, disappearing into an envelope of darkness.
The Regent howled. "Bring her back!" He turned to the quaking girl, who responded by collapsing into a trembling heap at his feet. Feich kicked at her. "Bring her back! I want to speak to her!"
"I can"t! Please, lord, I can"t!"
"You mean you won"t. Very well, you stupid child. You"ve condemned yourself." Feich turned to Ladhar, who was only now getting his own trembling under control. "In the morning, I"ll return, Abbod. And when I return, I will have the strength to take up that Stone of yours and Weave through it."
He dragged the hapless girl from the floor, then, and all but carried her from the Shrine.
Ladhar could only stare after them in mute horror. Daimhin Feich meant to get his hands on the Osmaer Crystal and, short of hiding it, there was nothing he could do to prevent that. He turned his eyes to the Stone, silently beseeching its unseen Mistress to aid him.
If ever you have listened to me, he told Her, I bid you listen now. Send me your two saints, your aingeals, to keep Daimhin Feich from abusing Ochan"s Stone.
"Fhada!" Leal rattled the door of the Elder Osraed"s room a second time. "Fhada!"
The door opened and Fhada gazed out at him, bleary-eyed, a tiny light-globe clutched in his hand.
"Leal! Meri"s Breath, what is it? What"s happened?"
"We must go to Ochanshrine."
"What? Now? . . . Wait . . . How go to Ochanshrine? We"ll be caught-"
Leal waved his hands, stoppering the uneven flow of words that poured from Fhada"s mouth. "I don"t know how . . . yet. We"ll find a way. I only know we must go."
Fhada shook his head. "But why?"
"To retrieve the Crystal. I had an aislinn-a vision. Taminy appeared to me and told me that the Osmaer Crystal is in danger. We"re to try to get Abbod Ladhar to let us take it and conceal it."
"Conceal it?" murmured Fhada. "Conceal it from whom?"
"From Daimhin Feich."
Fhada blanched. "He"s still a danger, then." He ran a hand through his unruly hair. "When shall we go?"
"Now. We must be there before dawn. We"re to take the Osmaer and replace it with this." Leal raised his hands into the glow of Fhada"s light-globe, revealing the crystal he held. Large and clear, with a slight golden cast at its heart, it looked very much like the Osmaer.
"Where did you get that?"
"From Taminy before she fled to Halig-liath. It was the Osraed Bevol"s. It"s smaller than the Osmaer-but not by much-and the facets are very similar."
"Similar enough to fool Daimhin Feich?"
Leal smiled, a tickle of exhilaration fanning his heart. "With a little help from Aine and the rest of us, I think it just might."
She hadn"t meant to make the Stone light-she had wanted nothing so much as to appear powerless in its presence-but she could not dissemble before the Stone of Ochan. At first, she"d credited her lack of control to her fear of Feich. He seemed a cauldron of violent impulse, terrifyingly near a boil-a man of ferocious wants-but when the aislinn Taminy appeared over the Crystal as if her Eibhilin body contained it and grew from it, Iseabal understood that her lack of control was irrelevant.
It was Taminy who worked through the Osmaer Crystal, Taminy who consoled her and calmed her fears with words of love that were meant for her ears alone. So, when Daimhin Feich railed at her and demanded that she Weave, again, the aislinn Taminy, she knew she could not.
She was afraid for her life by the time they returned to Mertuile. Feich"s rage, rather than being spent, seemed to feed on itself and grow. He dragged her through the castle halls past blank-eyed guards from whom she expected no help and got none. The noise of their pa.s.sing roused his young cousin from slumber and, for a brief, agonizing moment, Isha felt the young man"s distress and thought he might intervene. But he let them pa.s.s by him without comment, his face grimly opaque.
Feich"s curses ceased only when he had wrestled her into her chambers and thrown her to the floor. She rolled among the fine fleeces before the hearth, expecting that any moment blows would fall, but he didn"t touch her. She pulled herself to a crouch before the dying fire and gazed up at him where he stood, his back to the closed door, chest heaving, face red with exertion and fury. He did not seem quite sane.
At the point Iseabal was certain he would lash out at her either physically or through his aidan, he caught hold of his rage, closed his glittering eyes and set trembling hands to his hips. Several deep breaths later, he spoke.
"Well, cailin, I suppose I shouldn"t have expected you to aid me willingly."
"To harm Taminy?" Isha whispered. "No, never. But in this, I could not aid you if I wanted to. Taminy worked through the Stone tonight, not I."
His eyes opened to fix her with a gaze like shadow on snow. "Yet, you have a great Gift. I"ve seen you use it . . . to disappear as if made of smoke. That is a trick I"d like to learn."
Isha took a deep, steadying breath. "Would you have me teach you?"
He chuckled. "No need, child. I have a tutor. A woman who has taught me . . . a good many things-not the least of which is how to harness the power of others. Or, rather, to a.s.similate it, to make it my own."
Isha shifted uneasily among her fleeces. She"d learned no such discipline and knew it was no part of the Divine Art. "You Weave . . . without drawing on the Spirit? How is that possible?"
He was smiling at her now, looking impossibly relaxed. It was a fiction-within him a fierce, nervous energy was building. It tingled in the air around them, making it seem to move and flicker.
"I told you, pretty Iseabal. I draw on others to feed my aidan. I draw on Ladhar"s stupid fears, on the Deasach boy"s brash pride, on Blair Dearg"s stupidity . . ." The smile widened. " . . .on his wife"s l.u.s.t. But, you see, I have learned to draw on much deeper wells. When I am one with Coinich Mor, I am one with her aidan and it feeds into mine, makes it grow great and deep."
He wandered a few steps toward her-to the edge of her woolly defense-his smile a warm, lazy lie. He squatted there, meeting her eye to eye, reaching out to take a lock of her hair in gentle fingers and rubbing it between them.
"Coinich Mor is a second rate Wicke, a petty sorceress with barely a midge of power. You, on the other hand, are very powerful, indeed. Powerful and disciplined and in touch-" He stroked the tip of her nose. "-with Taminy-Osmaer, the most powerful source of all. And you are much more desirable than Coinich Mor."
The words made no sense to her. Even so, they inspired terror. They were the last words he spoke to her that night before showing her that to be fed upon by Daimhin Feich was to be devoured by darkness.
The Osraed Ladhar had been praying for hours, yet dawn seemed no closer than when he had first started. He lifted bleary eyes to the open arch of the eastern doorway of the Shrine, certain that merely wishing it would cause the Sun to rise. The corridor remained dark, but in it, obscured by the veil of incense . . .
Ladhar squinted. Vague shapes that might have been part of the smoky pall seemed to hesitate within the open arch. They coalesced even as he watched, wavering toward clarity. He made out two forms, and his heart and soul leapt. Were these the helpers promised in his vision? Were these the saints he awaited? A glance at the Osmaer Crystal a.s.sured him; there was fire deep in its heart-a warm, gentle glow that grew and steadied with the moments.
He came to his feet, heart tripping over itself as it raced to meet the visitation. "Pray enter, good spirits. I am in much need. Praise Meri, you have been sent!"
There was a moment more of hesitation, during which Ladhar thought he heard whispers from the aislinn-cloaked figures. Then they began to move down the sloping aisle toward him, step by step. Odd that spirits should exhibit such human movement. He had opened his mouth to offer another greeting when the veil they moved in was whisked aside, leaving only the very physical smoke from the censers around their too-human frames.
Ladhar staggered back a step, nearly falling over the bench behind him. "Fhada. Lealbhallain. Why are you here? How did you get past the sentries?"
The two glanced at each other, then took the last several steps into the circle of the Crystal-a circle still lit by a wash of Eibhilin radiance.
"I can hardly think," Fhada replied, "that it matters how we got past the sentries. Obviously we got past them. The point is, we are here. To help."
Ladhar"s face flushed with clammy heat. "To help? What are you talking about?"
Leal pressed forward, a pup"s eagerness sparkling in his eyes. "Daimhin Feich means to lay hands on the Stone of Ochan-to control it as he tried to control Taminy. You know this."
"How do you know what I know?" Ladhar growled. "How do you dare suggest-"
"The knowledge has been given to us," Leal persisted. "Daimhin Feich is a danger to the Stone, to you, to all you hold dear. As loathe as you are to believe it, Abbod," the boy added, insolently, "those are the same things we love. The Meri has sent us to your aid. Give us the Stone and we"ll see that Daimhin Feich never touches it."
Ladhar"s body shook, evading his best attempts at control. "Ah, but your sly Mistress will, won"t she? That"s your plan, is it? You knew of the aislinn I have received or-dear G.o.d, worse!-you caused it! Was it you who put the idea into my head that I would be sent aingeals to help me?"
The idea was stunning, but made a certain perverse sense. More than that . . .
"Ah, now, Lealbhallain, now, I recognize the voice that spoke to me out of that vision, the cold eyes that pierced me as I prayed. It was Bevol, whom I thought dead! Bevol is the one who controls you! Admit it!"
The two exchanged a look of sheer astonishment and Ladhar flushed in triumph. "Aha! I"m right! Bevol lives! Hiding in that filthy warren of yours, no doubt. Collecting heretics and Wicke to himself, pledging them to her service. Tell me the truth, if you"re able, Fhada. Is this not so?"
Fhada was not able to tell the truth as Ladhar now perceived it. "Abbod, Bevol is dead-taken by stealth and force at Daimhin Feich"s order, butchered and fed to the Sea."