The hour of Matins had come and gone. Jehan had not gone to sing the Office, nor had Oddone. Anna and Stefania had quieted at last, Anna drowsing, Stefania seeming to drowse by the cooling brazier. Nikki knew that it was only a seeming; that she watched him, oblivious as he feigned to be, and brooded. Considered what she had fallen into; wrestled with flat incredulity. It could not be as she imagined. There was Anna asleep, the monk and the priest all but asleep, Nikephoros pretending to sleep.
But there was Cynan wide awake, playing on the floor with a shadow and a bit of string. The shadow in his hands had substance, although when he let it go it was merely shadow. And when he turned toward the lamp, his eyes caught its light and flamed.
Nikki left the bed without thinking, went to her, sat at her feet. She could not muster a smile, but she touched his cheek with a fingertip. He laid his head in her lap. So simply he did it; so simply she accepted it. But she did not cease her brooding, nor did her touch linger.
Nikki snapped erect. Cynan too had heard it, that cry of unspeakable anguish. The child’s form flickered. Nikki flung himself at it. Dimly, distantly, he knew the shock of a great weight falling upon him. Then weight and world were gone, swept away.
Cynan struggled, protesting. Why do people always fall on top of me? Nikki, crushed, had neither breath nor wits to answer.
The tangle sorted itself. The weight was Father Jehan, staggering up and shaking his head groggily. The world was strange, but familiarly strange, Anna’s old prison. Between the newcomers and those who were there before them, it was full almost to bursting. Alf and Thea, clad alike in voluminous white, lay side by side with a stranger who bore Alf’s face. Over them all and regarding the arrivals with surprise stood Brother Paul, with Liahan struggling in his grip.
She won free, scrambling round the still bodies. Cynan met her in mid-flight. Their bodies twisted and blurred and mingled. An alaunt, a manchild; a womanchild, an alaunt; twin alaunts, twin children side by side, her hand upon her mother’s brow, his upon his father’s. The scent of power was chokingly strong.
Jehan, never one to reflect when action was wiser, launched himself at Brother Paul. Nikki had not long to watch the battle royal. Power, the power he had met twice before and to his sorrow, had risen against him. The fourfold will of witch and witchling offered no such tempting target as one lone, bemused human creature, given power himself but never born to it, marked and sealed with mortality.
It was immeasurably strong and immeasurably cruel. Human, it mocked him. Mortal man. It showed him himself as in a mirror, but realer than any image cast upon glass: a shape of earth and clay, ill-made, incomplete, brother to the mute beast. But even a beast had five full senses.
His image cowered. It was rank with filth. A strangled moan escaped it, an unlovely sound bereft even of human music; and he himself less lovely still, a scrap of bone and hair, a lingering stink, a hint of the death that waited to claim him.
Far down in the hollow that had been his soul, something stirred. It looked like himself, yet not the sorry creature the mirror had shown him; the Nikephoros Stefania had dreamed of. It lifted its head; shook it slowly, then more firmly. Its jaw set, stubborn. Little by little, with effort that drew the lips back from the white teeth, it stood erect. Raised its arms. Refused.
The power over him, vast ebon hand, paused in its descent. He was conquered. How dared he resist?
He was human. He could not help but resist. Poor impotent half-cripple that he was, he hurled himself upon the hand, upon the mirror it held, upon the lying image.
The mirror shattered. The image hung in the mocking air, but it withered and shrank, melting away.
Wrath rose in a blood-red tide. He flung back his tangled hair; he turned half-crouched, searching, nurturing his fury. Father Jehan had his knee in the back of the stranger-monk, the man choking out a plea for mercy. The rest had not moved at all.
He was forgotten. His victory had been no true victory; he had been discarded in favor of a stronger opponent. In the moment of distraction the fourfold mind of his kin had drawn Simon in, had beset him with power even he could not despise.
Nikki did not try his own bruised power. His anger was growing, honing itself into perfection. Human, was he? Crippled, was he? But he had hands. And he had a weapon. No named blade, no sword of heroes, only the little silver-hafted knife he used at meat, but it was Damascus steel, slim and deadly sharp. Alf had given it to him when he grew from page into squire; it had a falcon graven on its blade. He drew it, seeking neither silence nor concealment, advancing upon Simon.
No lightnings drove him back. No mighty force of power struck him down. He knelt beside the still body. It might have been asleep. So Alun had seemed to be upon his bier, but Alun’s breast had not risen with a slow intake of breath. Alun had died by this man’s will, for no more reason than that he was there to be slain.
Nikki raised the knife. Lamplight flamed on the polished blade. He narrowed his eyes, shifted his grip upon the hilt. This was a just execution. This was Rhiyana’s salvation. With all his strength he struck.
Steel fingers snapped shut about his wrist. Simon regarded him coolly, eyes focused full upon him. The power waged its war upon Rhiyana; shielded itself from Rhiyanan retribution; toyed with the little creatures who had bearded it in its lair. But it was losing patience. Its prey had learned not to confront it; teased it, eluded it, made itself four and two and one and greater-than-one.
Strength mattered little in such a battle. Subtlety it had never studied. It had never needed to.
Nikki, caught, struggling vainly, saw Simon’s focus sharpen; felt the power shake off a score of trivialities—a dozen forays against Rhiyana’s walls, a handful of spies in Caer Gwent, a thought maturing in a cardinal’s mind. Here was an anomaly. A human with power. A living being who dared to bring steel against the hand of God. Dared, and had not died.
He would die. Slowly. With effortless, ruthless strength, Simon snapped the boy’s wrist.
And screamed. Nikki’s mind, white with agony, had opened wide; and the eye of Simon’s power was fixed upon him. The dart of pain plunged deep and deep and deep. Simon fell writhing, all his myriad magics crumbling, no room for aught in mind or body but the reverberation of pain.
Nikki won the mercy of unconsciousness. Not so Brother Simon. The pain had caught him and bound him in its ceaseless circle. He could not escape. He could not heal it. The body was not his own; Nikki’s will, unconscious, still repelled him with blind persistence.
Alf fought free of the nightmare. They were all in a heap, he and his lady and his children. Gently but firmly he pried Liahan’s arms from his neck. Witch-children were never beautiful; that came with blossoming into man or woman. Yet she was a lovely child, great-eyed, with a cloud of spun-silver hair about a solemn face. Poor infant, she had never learned to smile. He kissed her and set her with her brother in her mother’s lap.
They were all in his mind, interwoven, as he knelt above Simon. Now we can take him, Thea said, and Cynan who was fully as fierce as she. Liahan was a wordless reluctance. Alf looked down at the body of the one who had wrought so much havoc, and considered justice. Considered vengeance. Remembered compassion.
He can’t live! Thea cried. Can’t you feel it? He’s working loose. The earth is trembling. The stars are beginning to wobble in their courses. When he’s free, our deaths will be the very least of it.
He knew. He was a seer again; he saw clearly what she could only guess. Simon’s wrath, maddened beyond all hope of healing, would make do with no small revenge. It would reach. It would strike. What it had done to Alun, it would do to the sun itself. And then, in a storm of fire, world’s end.
He shook his head. He did not know what he denied. It was too much—it was too horrible. He was not strong enough to do what he must do. Even the simplest way…Nikki’s dagger lay abandoned on the floor. He could not take it up.
Thea’s will lashed him. Fool that he was; he had done justice before, long ago in Saint Ruan’s, for the murder of a single man. Why was he so slow now, when the crimes were so much blacker?
That other criminal had been pure enemy, and human. This…this could have been himself. If he had grown up as Simon had; if he had not known the mystical peace of Ynys Witrin, that could sanctify even elf-blood, defending it from human hatred.
He had been stoned in the streets of the village, he had faced more than one Brother Radbod, but he had always had that rock, the surety that he was loved. His nurse had loved him in her fashion; after her a Brother or two, a teacher, a very wise abbot; and a red-haired fellow novice who became fellow monk and fellow priest, who rose above him as abbot and died at the hands of a madman, and that madman had died in his own turn by Alf’s hand. But Alf had not gone away desolate; he had had Jehan, he had had King Richard, and Gwydion, and Thea. He had always been rich in friendship; in love.
Simon had nothing. Terrible as that was for a mortal man, for his kind it was beyond endurance. No wonder he was mad. No wonder he had tried to destroy his own people.
“But,” Alf whispered as the long body convulsed, “I love you.” Somewhat to his surprise, he knew it for the truth. He stretched out his hands. He knew quite clearly that when he touched Simon, he would raise the power; he would die, they would both die, but the war would be ended.
Thea stood aghast within his mind. With all gentleness he nudged his children’s awareness toward hers and shut them out. How lonely it was without them; how empty. The power was a warm tingling in his fingers. He laid them on Simon’s breast.
Jehan saw him kneel, saw him gaze down as if in thought; saw him reach, and knew surely what that must mean. As hands touched white-habited heart, Alf’s body arched like a bow. His flesh kindled blindingly bright; shadows of bone stood stark within.
Thea was already moving, beating against potent barriers. But Jehan had no power to hinder him. He braced his body, aimed it, and let it go. It lunged toward the dagger, snatched it up, took an eternal moment to measure its target. Swift as a serpent’s tongue, neat as a viper’s fang, the thin blade sank itself into Simon’s throat.
The world rocked. The stars reeled. The moon was born and slain and born again.
Silence fell, the silence that comes after a whirlwind. Jehan was flat on his back, but unbroken, only bruised and winded. He sat up dizzily. He was all over blood; he wiped it from his eyes. More dripped down—his own. He had cut his forehead.
He could have howled. The monster was still alive. Alf likewise, glory be to God. They locked in a struggle as intimate as love, as frozen-fluid as a marble frieze. Waves of levin-power surged between them, and that was all that moved; all that mattered.
Someone, perhaps God, perhaps Thea, gave Jehan eyes to see. It was life for which and with which they battled. Simon’s ebbed low with the pulsing of blood from his throat, too low for any miracle of healing. But Alf’s flickered ember-feeble, all the rest burned to ash in the flare of his enemy’s power. What remained between them sufficed, just barely, for one alone.
And they, mad saints, fought each to die that the other might live. Alf’s hands that seemed to strangle strove to heal; Simon’s, fisted, drove life and strength into a failing body. Drove relentlessly, drove inexorably, against a resistance that hardened as the life burned higher. Smote at last, low and brutal, with the faces of two children against a ruined land.
With a wordless cry Alf tore free, only to catch the falling body of his brother. By blood indeed or simply by face and spirit, it did not matter now. Grey eyes looked up into silver, death into life. For one last, utterly illogical time, Alf reached out with healing in his hands.
Too late now, Simon said in his mind with the last of his power. Which is well for you and most well for me. The power has fled, but not as far as death. I must go while I can help myself.
“Brother—”
A smile touched the white lips, half gentle, half bitter. What a good priest you are. You love your enemy as yourself.
“Because he is myself.”
Simon shook his head just perceptibly. You are too wise, my brother. See—I admit it. We are kin. I would have destroyed you, and you foremost, but when the time came, I too was powerless. It took a pair of mortal men to break the deadlock.
Alf spoke swiftly, urgently. “Simon, you can live. We can heal you. You can be one of us. The past doesn’t matter; only the present, and the power.”
The power, Simon repeated, yes. For that I must die. Believe me, brother in blood, there is no other choice. Close the eyes of hope; unbind your prophecy. Let me go before I shatter the world.
Alf bowed his head. But he said stubbornly, “I can heal you.”
Proud, proud saint. Bless me, brother. I shall need it. I go murderer, suicide, very probably soulless.
“You go forgiven.” Alf signed him with the cross: eyes, ears, nostrils, lips and cold hands, each gate of the senses sealed and sanctified. Simon’s eyes closed as Alf blessed them; he sighed. As easily as that, as hardly as if he would indeed rend worlds, he let his spirit go.
Such a death for a mortal man was a journey into singing glory. Simon went into soft darkness. But at its edge glimmered light, and all of it wrapped not in oblivion, not in the agonies of Hell, but in spreading peace.
“I think,” Alf said in deep, wondering joy, “I think—dear God in Heaven, I think that even we are granted souls.”
“You’re the only one who ever doubted it.” Thea rose stiffly, catching Alf as he crumpled to the floor. Even unconscious, his face was too bright for human eyes to bear.
She, who was not human, looked long at it. Her eyes when she raised them were brighter still, blinding. Her voice was cool and quiet. “It is over,” she said. “For a little while.”
Jehan turned slowly. It was like a battlefield. The living and the dead lay tangled together, conscious and unconscious and far beyond either; and Thea swayed above them, and for all her courage she was perilously close to breaking.
Jehan sighed deeply. “How on God’s good earth am I going to get us all out of this place?”
“My power will take us.”
“All of us?”
“Not Simon Magus.” She bent over him, her face unreadable. With hands almost gentle, she straightened his limbs, folding his hands upon his still breast, smoothing his ruffled hair. “This will be his tomb.”
For a long count of breaths Jehan was silent. “It’s fitting,” he conceded at last. He paused. After a moment, in a clear and steady voice, he spoke the words that came to him. “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant him rest. Grant him rest; grant him eternal rest.”