The Summer Tree Read online

  To be met by a defence of intricate, resilient subtlety. Whatever Ailell had dwindled from, however his mind and authority might seem to waver, Paul knew, ten moves into the game, that he was dealing with a man of formidable resources. Slowly and patiently the King ordered his defences, cautiously he shored up his bulwarks, and so it was that Schafer’s freewheeling attack began to exhaust itself and was turned inexorably back. After almost two hours’ play, Paul tipped over the white king in resignation.

  The two men leaned back in their chairs and exchanged their first look since the game had begun. And they smiled, neither knowing, since there was no way they could know, how rare it was for the other to do so. Sharing that moment, however, as Paul raised his silver goblet to salute the King, they moved closer, across the twin gulfs of worlds and years, to the kind of bonding that might have allowed them to understand each other.

  It was not to happen, but something else was born that night, and the fruit of that silent game would change the balance and the pattern of all the worlds there were.

  Ailell spoke first, his voice husky. “No one,” he said, “no one has ever given me a game like that. I do not lose in ta’bael. I almost did tonight.”

  Paul smiled for the second time. “You almost did. You may next game—but I’m not very certain of it. You play beautifully, my lord.”

  Ailell shook his head. “No, I play carefully. All the beauty was on your side, but sometimes plodding caution will wear down brilliance. When you sacrificed the second rider …” Ailell gestured wordlessly. “I suppose that it is only the young who can do a thing like that. It has been so long for me, I seem to have forgotten.” He raised his own cup and drank.

  Paul refilled both goblets before replying. He felt drained, simplified. The bird outside, he realized, had stopped singing a long time ago. “I think,” he said, “that it is more a question of style than of youth or age. I’m not very patient, so I play the way I do.”

  “In ta’bael, you mean?”

  “Other things, too,” Paul answered, after a hesitation.

  Ailell, surprisingly, nodded. “I was like that once, though it may be hard for you to credit.” His expression was self-deprecating. “I took this throne by force in a time of chaos, and held it with my sword in the early years. If we are to be a dynasty, it begins with me and follows with … with Diarmuid, I suppose.” Paul remained silent, and after a moment the King went on. “It is power that teaches patience; holding power, I mean. And you learn the price it exacts—which is something I never knew when I was your age and thought a sword and quick wits could deal with anything. I never knew the price you pay for power.”

  Ailell leaned over the board and picked up one of the pieces. “Take the queen in ta’bael,” he said. “The most powerful piece on the board, yet she must be protected when threatened by guard or rider, for the game will be lost if that exchange is made. And the king,” said Ailell dan Art, “in ta’bael you cannot sacrifice a king.”

  Paul couldn’t read the expression in the sunken, still-handsome face, but there was a new timbre in the voice, something shifting far under the words.

  Ailell seemed to notice his discomfort. He smiled again, faintly. “I am heavy company at night,” he said. “Especially tonight. Too much comes back. I have too many memories.”

  “I have too many of my own,” Paul said impulsively, and hated himself the instant the words were spoken.

  Ailell’s expression, though, was mild, even compassionate. “I thought you might,” he said. “I’m not sure why, but I thought you might.”

  Paul lowered his face to the deep wine goblet and took a long drink. “My lord,” he said, to break the ensuing stillness with a new subject, any new subject, “why did the Priestess say that Loren should have asked her before bringing us? What does—”

  “She was wrong about that, and I will send to tell her so. Not that Jaelle is likely to listen.” Ailell’s expression was rueful. “She loves to make trouble, to stir up tensions she might find ways to exploit. Jaelle is ambitious beyond belief, and she seeks a return to the old ways of the Goddess ruling through her High Priestess, which is how it was before Iorweth came from oversea. There is a good deal of ambition in my court, there often is around the throne of an aging king, but hers runs deeper than any.”

  Paul nodded. “Your son said something like that last night.”

  “What? Diarmuid did?” Ailell gave a laugh that was actually evocative of the Prince. “I’m surprised he sobered up long enough to think so clearly.”

  Paul’s mouth twitched. “Actually, he wasn’t sober, but he seems to think pretty clearly anyhow.”

  The King gestured dismissively. “He is charming sometimes.” After a pause he tugged at his beard and asked, “I’m sorry, what were we speaking of?”

  “Jaelle,” Paul said. “What she said this morning.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Once her words would have been true, but not for a long time now. In the days when the wild magic could only be reached underground, and usually only with blood, the power needed for a crossing would be drained from the very heart of the earth, and that has always been the province of the Mother. So in those days it was true that such an expenditure of earthroot, of avarlith, could only be made through intercession of the High Priestess with the Goddess. Now, though, for long years now, since Amairgen learned the skylore and founded the Council of the Mages, the power drain in their magic runs only through the mage’s source, and the avarlith is not touched.”

  “I don’t understand. What power drain?”

  “I go too quickly. It is hard to remember that you are from another world. Listen, then. If a mage were to use his magic to start a fire in that hearth, it would require power to do it. Once all our magic belonged to the Goddess and that power was tapped straight from the earthroot; and being both drained and expended in Fionavar, the power would find its way back to the earth—it would never diminish. But in a crossing the power is used in another world—”

  “So you lose it!”

  “Exactly. Or so it was once. But since Amairgen freed the mages from the Mother, the power will be drained from the source only, and he rebuilds it in himself over time.”

  “He?”

  “Or she, of course.”

  “But … you mean each mage has …?”

  “Yes, of course. Each is bonded to a source, as Loren is to Matt, or Metran to Denbarra. That is the anchoring law of the skylore. The mage can do no more than his source can sustain, and this bond is for life. Whatever a mage does, someone else pays the price.”

  And so much came clear then. Paul remembered Matt Sören trembling as they came through the crossing. He remembered Loren’s sharp concern for the Dwarf, and then, seeing more clearly still, the dim torches on the walls of that first room, the torches frail Metran had so easily gestured to brightness, while Loren had refrained to let his source recover. Paul felt his mind stretch away from self-absorption, stiffly, as if muscles had been too long unused.

  “How?” he asked. “How are they bound to each other?”

  “Mage and source? There are a great many laws, and long training to be endured. In the end, if there is still willingness, they may bind with the ritual, though it is not a thing to be done lightly. There are only three left in Fionavar. Denbarra is sister-son to Metran, Teyrnon’s source is Barak, his closest friend as a child. Some pairings have been strange ones: Lisen of the Wood was source to Amairgen Whitebranch, first of the mages.”

  “Why was it strange?”

  “Ah,” the High King smiled, a little wistfully, “it is a long tale, that one. Perhaps you may hear a part of it sung in the Great Hall.”

  “All right. But what about Loren and Matt? How did they …?”

  “That, too, is strange,” Ailell said. “At the end of his training, Loren sought leave of the Council and of me to travel for a time. He was gone three years. When he returned he had his cloak, and he was bonded to the King of the Dwarves, a thing that ha
d never happened before. No Dwarf—”

  The King broke off sharply. And in the abrupt silence they both heard it again: a barely audible tapping on the wall of the room across from the open window. As Paul looked at the King in wonder, it came again.

  Ailell’s face had gone queerly soft. “Oh, Mörnir,” he breathed. “They have sent.” He looked at Paul, hesitating, then seemed to make a decision. “Stay with me, young Paul, Pwyll, stay and be silent, for you are about to see a thing few men have been allowed.”

  And walking over to the wall, the King pressed his palm carefully against it in a place where the stone had darkened slightly. “Levar shanna,” he murmured, and stood back, as the thin outline of a door began to take shape in the seamless structure of the wall. A moment later the demarcation was clear, and then the door slid soundlessly open and a slight figure moved lightly into the room. It was cloaked and hooded, and remained so a moment, registering Paul’s presence and Ailell’s nod of endorsement, then it discarded the concealing garment in one smooth motion and bowed low before the King.

  “Greetings I bear, High King, and a gift to remember your crowning day. And I have tidings needful for you to hear from Daniloth. I am Brendel of the Kestrel Mark.”

  And in this fashion did Paul Schafer first see one of the lios alfar. And before the ethereal, flame-like quality of the silver-haired figure that stood before him, he felt himself to have grown heavy and awkward, as a dfferent dimension of grace was made manifest.

  “Be welcome, Na-Brendel of the Kestrel,” Ailell murmured. “This is Paul Schafer, whom I think we would name Pwyll in Fionavar. He is one of the four who came with Silvercloak from another of the worlds to join the fabric of our celebration.”

  “This I know,” said Brendel. “I have been in Paras Derval two days now, waiting to find you alone. This one I have seen, and the others, including the golden one. She alone made the waiting tolerable, High King. Else I might have been long hence from your walls, with the gift I bear undelivered.” A flame of laughter danced in his eyes, which were green-gold in the candlelight.

  “I thank you then for waiting,” said Ailell. “And tell me now, how does Ra-Lathen?”

  Brendel’s face went suddenly still, the laughter extinguished. “Ah!” he exclaimed softly. “You bring me quickly to my tidings, High King. Lathen Mistweaver heard his song in the fall of the year. He has gone oversea and away, and with him also went Laien Spearchild, last of those who survived the Bael Rangat. None now are left, though few enough were ever left.” The eyes of the lios alfar had darkened: they were violet now in the shadows. He stopped a moment, then continued. “Tenniel reigns in Daniloth. It is his greeting I bring to you.”

  “Lathen gone now, too?” the King said, very low. “And Laien? Heavy tidings you bear, Na-Brendel.”

  “And there are heavier yet to tell,” the lios replied. “In the winter, rumour came to Daniloth of svart alfar moving in the north. Ra-Tenniel posted watch, and last month we learned that the word was not false. A party of them moved south past us, to the edgings of Pendaran, and there were wolves with them. We fought them there, High King. For the first time since the Bael Rangat, the lios alfar went to war. We drove them back, and most of them were slain—for we are still something of what we were—but six of my brothers and sisters fell. Six we loved will never now hear their song. Death has come again to us.”

  Ailell had collapsed into his chair as the lios alfar spoke. “Svarts outside Pendaran,” he moaned now, almost to himself. “Oh, Mörnir, what wrong of mine was so great that this need come upon me in my age?” And aged he did seem then, shaking his head quiveringly back and forth. His hands on the carved arms of the chair trembled. Paul exchanged a glance with the bright figure of the lios. But though his own heart was twisted with pity for the old King, he saw no trace of the same in the eyes, now grey, of their visitor.

  “I have a gifting for you, High King,” Brendel said at length. “Ra-Tenniel would have you know that he is other than was the Mistweaver. My tidings of battle should tell you that. He will not hide in Daniloth, and henceforth you will see us more often than at the sevenyear. In token of which, and as earnest of alliance and our interwoven threads of destiny, the Lord of the lios alfar sends you this.”

  Never in his life had Paul seen a thing so beautiful as the object Brendel handed to Ailell. In the thin sceptre of crystal that passed from the lios to the man, every nuance of light in the room seemed to be caught and then transmuted. The orange of the wall torches, the red flickers of the candles, even the blue-white diamonds of starlight seen through the window, all seemed to be weaving in ceaseless, intricate motion as if shuttling on a loom within the sceptre.

  “A summonglass,” the King murmured as he looked down upon the gift. “This is a treasure indeed. It has been four hundred years since one of these lay within our halls.”

  “And whose fault was that?” Brendel said coldly.

  “Unfair, my friend,” Ailell replied, a little sharply, in his turn. The words of the lios seemed to kindle a spark of pride in him. “Vailerth, High King, broke the summonglass as a small part of a great madness—and Brennin paid a blood price for that madness in civil war.” The King’s voice was firm again. “Tell Ra-Tenniel that I accept his gift. Should he use it to summon us, the summons shall be answered. Say that to your Lord. Tomorrow I will speak with my Council as to the other tidings you have brought. Pendaran will be watched, I promise you.”

  “It is in my heart that more than watching may be needed, High King,” Brendel replied, softly now. “There is a power stirring in Fionavar.”

  Ailell nodded slowly. “So Loren said to me some time ago.”

  He hesitated, then went on, almost reluctantly. “Tell me, Na-Brendel, how does the Daniloth wardstone?”

  “The same as it has been since the day Ginserat made it!” Brendel said fiercely. “The lios alfar do not forget. Look to your own, High King!”

  “No offence was meant, my friend,” said Ailell, “but you know that all the guardians must burn the naal fire. And know you this as well: the people of Conary and Colan, and of Ginserat himself, do not forget the Bael Rangat, either. Our stone is blue as it ever was, and as, if the gods are kind, it ever will be.” There was a silence; Brendel’s eyes burned now with a luminous intensity. “Come!” said Ailell suddenly, rising to stand tall above them. “Come, and I will show you!”

  Turning on his heel he stalked to his bedroom, opened the door, and passed through. Following quickly behind, Paul caught a glimpse of the great four-postered, canopied bed of the King, and he saw the figure of Tarn, the page, asleep on his cot in a corner of the room. Ailell did not break stride, though, and Paul and the lios alfar hastened to keep up as the King opened another door on the opposite wall of the bedchamber and passed through that as well into a short corridor, at the end of which was another heavy door. There he stopped, breathing hard.

  “We are above the Room of the Stone,” Ailell said, speaking with some difficulty. He pressed a catch in the middle of the door and slid back a small rectangle of wood, which allowed them to see down into the room on the other side.

  “Colan himself had this made,” the King said to them, “when he returned with the stone from Rangat. It is told that for the rest of his days, he would often rise in the night and walk this corridor to gaze upon Ginserat’s stone and ease his heart with the knowledge that it was as it had been. Of late I have found myself doing the same. Look you, Na-Brendel of the Kestrel; look upon the wardstone of the High Kingdom.”

  Wordlessly the lios stepped forward and placed his eye to the opening in the door. He stayed there for a long time, and was still silent when at length he drew back.

  “And you, young Pwyll, look you as well and mark whether the blue of the binding still shines in the stone.” Ailell gestured and Paul moved past Brendel to put his eye to the aperture.

  It was a small chamber, with no decorations on the walls or floor and no furnishings of any kind. In the pre
cise centre of the room there stood a plinth or pillar, rising past the height of a man, and before it was set a low altar, upon which burned a pure white fire. Upon the sides of the pillar were carven images of kingly men, and resting in a hollowed-out space at the top of the column lay a stone, about the size of a crystal ball; and Paul saw that that stone shone with its own light, and the light with which it shone was blue.

  Back in the room they had left, Paul found a third goblet on a table by the window and poured wine for the three of them. Brendel accepted his cup, but immediately began a restless pacing of the room. Ailell had seated himself again in his chair by the gameboard. Watching from the window, Paul saw the lios alfar stop his coiled movement and stand before the King.

  “We believe the wardstones, High King, because we must,” he began softly, almost gently. “But you know there are other powers that serve the Dark, and some of them are great. Their Lord may yet be bound beneath Rangat, but moving over the land now is an evil we cannot ignore. Have you not seen it in your drought, High King? How can you not see? It rains in Cathal and on the Plain. Only in Brennin will the harvest fail. Only—”

  “Silence!” Ailell’s voice cracked high and sharp. “You know not of what you speak. Seek not to meddle in our affairs!” The King leaned forward in his chair, glaring at the slim figure of the lios alfar. Two bright spots of red flushed his face above the wispy beard.

  Na-Brendel stopped. He was not tall, but in that moment he seemed to grow in stature as he gazed at the High King.

  When he finally spoke, it was without pride or bitterness. “I did not mean to anger you,” he said. “On this day, least of all. It is in my heart, though, that little in the days to come can be the affair of one people alone. Such is the meaning of Ra-Tenniel’s gift. I am glad you have accepted it. I will give your message to my Lord.” He bowed very low, turned, and walked back through the doorway in the wall, donning his cloak and hood as he moved. The door slid silently closed behind him, and then there was nothing in the room to mark his ever having been there, save the shimmering sceptre of glass Ailell was twisting around and around in the trembling hands of an old man.