The beauty of the deep forest was something Telyn had not had time to appreciate before, and she absorbed the sounds and sights with hushed delight.
The dappled greens and golds of the trees, the thick emerald moss that carpeted the forest floor were dazzling in their intensity, and the songs of birds held melodies and counterpoints that were wild and complex. It occurred to her that the unusual clarity of her perceptions might be born of a subconscious sense of doom, but Telyn had never really believed in presentiment. She refused to give the thought credit. She concentrated instead on the moment: the scents of spring unfolding in the heat of the sun, the mildness of the breezes, and the presence of the man beside her, his hand warm in her own.
Mithrais did not speak either, leading her through the Wood in a seemingly random path that led to the west and north. They crossed a small ridge, and when they began to descend, the bard saw a large, clear pool tucked beneath the cliff, the rocks at the bottom sharply defined in the sunlit waters. A small stream wound away from the pool through a lovely dell, scattered with small flowers and deep, green grass that stretched from the pool in an uneven crescent shape.
“Another spring?” she asked.
“Another spring,” Mithrais confirmed. “This one isn’t hot, I fear.”
When they reached the bottom of the ridge, Telyn tested the waters with her hand, and the bite of the spring water was almost more than she wanted to brave. Mithrais, however, discarded his tunic and boots and dived in without hesitation, surfacing and shaking his dripping hair out of his eyes.
“Come in,” he dared her, grinning, and Telyn grimaced doubtfully, but shucked rapidly out of her outer clothing and followed suit. The water was shockingly cold beneath the surface, and she came to the top beside him, gasping for breath.
“This is freezing!” she screeched, afraid to stop moving for fear the cold would cramp her limbs. “How can you stand it?”
Mithrais laughed. “This is nothing. There is another spring we call the Ice Witch. It flows out of a rock face in the Rift. In the winter, the water freezes before it hits the ground and creates a mountain of ice.”
“And you bathe in that?”
“Oh, no. Not even on the hottest days of summer. Even Rodril is not so brave.”
They splashed about for a few minutes, but Telyn’s teeth were soon chattering, and she swam to the edge to pull herself out of the spring. The sun was warm in the dell, and she used her linen shirt to remove the excess water from her dripping hair. As Telyn hung the shirt on a branch to dry, Mithrais joined her in the grass, the water sparkling on his skin as he flung himself on the ground.
“Nothing like a refreshing swim?” she asked archly, and he laughed.
“It was a bit chilly, even for me.” Mithrais pulled her down beside him for a kiss. His lips were slightly cold from the water, but as his mouth opened against hers, Telyn found the contrasting heat exciting; a different warmth began to spread through her as the kiss deepened. When they parted, the deep love and the need she saw in his eyes was no less than her own, no less alarming in its intensity. She touched his face tenderly.
“I do love you,” Telyn whispered.
Mithrais touched his fingertips to the tears that had escaped her eyes, and brushed them away. “I have loved you from the moment I saw you. I was but half a soul, and I did not truly live until our hands touched that morning in the clearing.”
“But I love my life as a bard, as well,” Telyn said. “I am torn. I want to stay with you, but music is my life’s work, and it is my very blood. And if one of us should not survive tomorrow...”
“Believe in yourself, Telyn. We will survive the fulfillment of the covenant.” Mithrais forced her to meet his eyes with a gentle hand beneath her chin. “Your will is strong enough to withstand the Gwaith’orn’s presence, and strong enough to shape the magic into what they need. And once it is fulfilled—” his voice became lighter. “Someone will need to travel through the Wood to discover how the magic has returned, and to explain to the outlying villages what has happened. It's a bard’s duty to carry important news, as much as it is to play music, isn't it?”
Telyn smiled cautiously. “Yes, of course. It would keep me out of the delegation’s way, and the Gwaith’orn can tell me if anyone is a danger to me while I’m in the Wood. I also have a promise to keep to Cormac, to visit Ilparien.”
“There you have it. I think that’s work enough for one bard, until at least the turn of the seasons.” Mithrais touched her cheek. “Nothing will change the bond we share. We are mated in heart and mind, no matter the distance between us. Would you spend the winter at the manor? At least I would know where to find you.”
“Perhaps I could play at one of the inns in the city when the mood strikes me,” Telyn suggested, a great weight lifted from her. Mithrais gave her that slow smile she loved, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
“I wonder what Marithiel will say to that,” Mithrais remarked, kissing her forehead. “What a scandal!”
“Less scandal than I am accustomed to,” Telyn countered, smiling.
He rolled up onto his elbow, one eyebrow raised, and began with endearing uncertainty and a mock show of great reluctance, “We may have to marry formally someday to keep my mother from trying to plan another alliance for me.”
“I thought you were well practiced at avoiding the duties of rank,” Telyn quipped.
“Find a trace of duty in this,” he challenged, lowering his mouth to hers.
* * * *
The night was clear, the sky full of stars that shone with cold, white fire. Her head pillowed on Mithrais’ shoulder, Telyn watched the turn of the wheel, awake long before the first grey light of dawn touched the sky. Images from the first dream conversation the Gwaith’orn had impressed upon her returned to memory: The silent Gwaith’orn, ghostly foxfire glows fading into oblivion; the resonant trees, shining like beacons in the darkness of the Wood...and herself, channeling a torrent of power through her hands into the tree folk and releasing a mighty chord.
They were on the doorstep of fulfilling the covenant, and those vague images had been replaced by vivid knowledge of how to accomplish the deed. Every nuance of gesture and intent had been reinforced by the Gwaith’orn when they shared the knowledge with Cormac and Telyn, imprinting it upon their subconscious memories. She glanced over to where the young warden lay, and saw that he, too was awake, gazing at the sky.
It would be Cormac who showed the first signs of returning power when the act was done; the Gwaith’orn had not been descriptive of how these gifts would manifest, only that it would happen immediately. She wondered how he felt, knowing that in but a few hours’ time, he would be the first true magic-user that the Silde had known in centuries. The other eight men, including her beloved Mithrais, would discover their new gifts awakening soon afterwards, and would learn to use them.
As if sensing her thoughts of him, Mithrais stirred and opened his eyes, turning toward her. He pressed his lips against her forehead. “Are you all right, love?” he asked softly.
“Yes. I just can’t sleep any longer.” She leaned against him briefly, and then sat up, untangling herself from the cloaks that had been their bed.
The other Tauron began to awaken as well, sensitive to the changes in the air that signaled the approach of day. She was not certain that Colm had slept at all, for he had kept the fire going the night long and still sat beside the ring of stones, gazing into the flames. He did not look troubled; on the contrary, his face was peaceful, reflecting a calm that Telyn wished she could feel. The pit of her stomach was aflutter as she stood, and Mithrais rose with her.
They joined the Northwarden beside the fire. Cormac arrived a moment later, huddling closer to the flames, but the smile he gave to Telyn was brimming with excitement.
“I can’t believe that the day has come,” he said in hushed tones. “I’ve been moving toward this all my life, but now that it is happening...” Cormac’s face fell slightly. “I don’t know what I’ll do afterwards.”
Colm grinned and tousled the young warden’s hair. “Just because you are the seed-speaker does not mean you can’t remain in the Tauron, pup. Or will you be too grand for us now?”
“I intended to remain in the Tauron as long as the Gwaith’orn needed me,” Cormac answered slowly. “But everything is going to change. What if they no longer need us?”
“We will probably be nursemaids to the Gwaith’orn seedlings,” Aedan interjected sleepily as he joined the group, eliciting a collective chuckle.
“You eight are destined for more than that,” Telyn reminded them. “Cormac will be the first, but the rest of you will be able to wield magic as well.”
“I said at our first council that the Tauron Order would change,” Mithrais said quietly. “I still believe that. We may be responsible for guiding others in developing their gifts, or preventing the misuse of magic. Then again, the Gwaith’orn may take that responsibility out of our hands. My father has told me old stories that might give us some idea of how things will change. The Gwaith’orn were able to speak aloud when they wished, even able to work magic in their immediate environment.”
“What marvels await us, brothers?” Colm mused aloud in the singsong voice of a storyteller, and Telyn could not help but laugh aloud as the others drifted into the circle of firelight.
“You are a bard at heart, Colm.” She looked at the ring of faces surrounding her, feeling a surge of pride and comradeship. “One thing is certain: what we accomplish here will never be forgotten, and will change our land. If there is glory to be won, I do not know more deserving company than those who stand before me.”
* * * *
The company consumed a meal as dawn approached—Telyn wanted them at full strength before the attempt was made. She ate and drank whatever Mithrais had given her from their store of rations; it all tasted the same, her distraction growing as the sky lightened in the east. She was no longer afraid, merely ready to end this waiting.
Jona and Conlad wished them well before they took cover behind the southernmost Gwaith’orn. The Elder Historian grasped both Telyn’s hands, his expressive face working, but he could not find the words. He ended by kissing her hands, and bowing deeply. Jona followed suit, but this time, it was without resentment and his face was full of admiration as he looked at them all.
“I am very proud to have been witness to this endeavor,” he said. “The Order has never seen a finer group of wardens, and it is an honor to serve with you.” Jona drew himself up to attention.
“Isild lea siangenath,” he began, and the wardens immediately stood straighter, their shoulders thrown back with pride. A dozen voices rang through the clearing in repetition of the old vows:
“Gaeth orn lea urilath
Tauron cuil connat.
Mathain lea pridis
Lea fil bain ispiridis
Craigh cuil connat.”
No one spoke in the reverent silence that followed. Each warden turned purposefully toward his place in the Circle. Mithrais lingered a moment longer, touching Telyn’s cheek gently. She turned her face to kiss his palm, and then he, too, was striding away to his place in the northeast. He did not look back.
Cormac was quietly confident, and Telyn took comfort from that as they faced each other across the granite slab. His blue eyes were steady and unblinking as they met hers, and he smiled encouragingly. Telyn nodded. When the wardens had reached their places, she lifted her arms slowly.
The young warden paralleled her gesture, and called on her magic. It leapt to bridge the gap between them, as if it were eager to fulfill their task as well. The power began to spiral into the space between them, pushing Telyn and Cormac backward even as they took their measured, reversed steps toward the Gwaith’orn.
She released the magic to flow outward to the waiting men who stood like sentries between each tree, their arms outstretched slightly to each side, palms forward. They absorbed it effortlessly and called on her gifts to enable them to radiate the power in all directions. The pressure between Cormac and Telyn dropped, and then built again. The grass was ruffled by the gathering energies, and the leaves of the trees began to thrash noisily in the maelstrom as they both stepped beneath the canopy of the Gwaith’orn. The tree folk were now enveloped in the gathering power, and the ghostly glow that had begun to show itself brightened twofold as Telyn and Cormac came level with the trees and the eight wardens who formed the bridge between them.
With uncanny timing, Telyn and Cormac both turned and simultaneously thrust their hands against the trees. The power in the Circle doubled, pushing against them with gale force. Even the wardens were buffeted by this change in energies, rocking slightly in their places as the flow increased.
It begins! The Gwaith’orn exulted, and Telyn concentrated on shaping the raw power that was now a cyclone in the middle of the Circle, blue-white and blinding. It was her gift that would impress upon it the properties for metamorphosis, for opening, for the giving of life. The spinning vortex blushed orange, and then to a deep, blood red that bathed the clearing in a rosy glow.
NOW!
Telyn surrendered her shields. She fell into the void and was immersed in the Gwaith’orn’s collective consciousness, sensing Cormac at the opposite side of the Circle, his gifts allowing her to touch each ancient being in succession, bringing them into the link between herself and the seed speaker. The Gwaith’orn were drunk with power, absorbing everything that Telyn had shaped, and gathering more. The air in the clearing was tinged with that sanguineous hue, and the power kept growing until Telyn thought she would lose consciousness from the strain.
The sun topped the trees.
Telyn gasped with sudden, excruciating pain; the quadrupled power seemed to expose every nerve in her skin, but there was nothing she could do to stop it now. The magic burned in the center of her chest like lightning, and she was locked into the Gwaith’orn’s consciousness as the ancient ones wrought their own will.
Dimly, she sensed that Cormac was in comparable agony as he strove to temper the power that flowed through them, the palms of his hands burning against the trunk of the western Gwaith’orn. Around the Circle, the other Tauron continued to stand firm against the onslaught, their faces twisted with pain as the power was drawn from her and through their bodies. She could feel each of the wardens now as the Gwaith’orn brought them into the link, the power no longer flowing outwards, but in a continuous, spinning circle between them all. She sensed Mithrais, aware of his concern that the Gwaith’orn now controlled Telyn’s magic, and his comprehension that he was powerless to help her.
The rising column of blood-red fire suddenly exploded without warning. Cormac and the bard were flung away from the trees with its violence, and Telyn felt herself falling into a deep darkness that was flecked with golden sparks as consciousness faded.
* * * *
Mithrais blinked slowly, his eyes focusing on the green canopy above him as he tried to remember why he was on the ground. His body felt as if it were bruised from head to foot. He turned his head to the right and saw Colm lying nearby, groaning as he stirred, and the Westwarden remembered with sudden clarity what had transpired.
Wincing, an involuntary gasp of pain escaping his lips as he rolled and came to his hands and knees, Mithrais saw that the enormous grey slab of stone in the center of the Circle had cracked in half. His heart lurched as he located Telyn, motionless on the grass inside the Circle. He tried to rise to his feet and staggered weakly. Hands on his shoulders steadied him, and Mithrais turned his head to see Jona, who appeared shaken, but no worse for the wear, his eyes wide with wonder and fear.
“Let me help you,” he said simply, and Mithrais leaned on him as they made their way toward the sundered stone and the bodies lying too still within the clearing. Across the Circle, Conlad had reached Cormac, who stirred sluggishly, and Mithrais managed the last few steps to Telyn’s side, fear screaming inside him as his shaking hand touched the side of her throat, desperately seeking the flutter of life beneath his fingertips. No movement of breath, no heartbeat sounded as he laid his ear against her breast.
“No!” The cry of anguish left his throat raw as he gathered Telyn’s lifeless body into his arms. The sound brought other wardens to Mithrais’ side as quickly as their battered bodies could carry them, to stare in disbelief. Colm dropped to his knees with a groan of agony.
Cormac, struggling weakly to a sitting position, was speaking to Mithrais. He could not comprehend what the young warden was trying to say, his eyes and mind blurred with grief as he numbly watched Cormac, supported by Conlad, stagger to his side. He saw Cormac’s lips working, but there was no sound, no awareness of anything except the limp body cradled in his arms, the sweet scent of Telyn’s hair against his cheek, and the bitterness of loss.
A voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, carrying tones of command and urgency, shocking Mithrais’ mind back into focus.
“Mithrais, there is still time.” The voice held a middle timbre, not male, not female, but unmistakably, it was one of the old ones.
Cormac dropped beside him. “I can help her,” he said hoarsely. “Please...”
Mithrais numbly allowed the young warden to help him lay Telyn’s body upon the ground. Cormac closed his eyes, breathing deeply, his hands cupped before him as if to hold something precious. A white light gathered between his palms, seemingly drawn from the air itself, and gloved his hands in pale fire. He placed his strangely glowing hands over Telyn’s heart, and pressed the light in. There was a charge in the air like lightning, the stillness of a gathering storm, and suddenly the bard’s eyes flew open, startled, as she gasped for breath.
Mithrais wept openly, unashamed in his relief and joy.
* * * *
Telyn reached for Mithrais, offering bewildered comfort, and took in the ring of exhausted, shocked faces that surrounded her. The memory of the violent explosion came back, and she whispered faintly,
“We failed, didn’t we?”
Colm started to laugh, and the others joined in; hysterical, relieved laughter. A confused Telyn looked to Cormac, who grinned tiredly, his blue eyes bright with triumph.
“We did it,” he told her. “All of us.”
“You did well.” The words came gently, floating on the early morning breezes. “The fount is open, and we are free of the burden.”
Telyn, startled, allowed Mithrais to support her as she sat up shakily, her eyes searching the branches of the easternmost tree. “You can speak aloud, now.”
“We can do more than that.” A shape stepped forth from the trunk.
The wardens stared, awestruck, at the odd, androgynous figure. Its slender body was the dun hue of the trunk, its face and arms the white color of the upper branches, and its head was capped closely with green leaves. Eyes the color of golden honey scanned them all, and it smiled with an unearthly beauty.
“Can you leave the groves?” Telyn asked.
“No, seed-voice. We are still root bound, sky reaching. We are content.”
“The resonance?” someone murmured.
“It still exists. But our relationship with you, faithful ones, will change. Magic will replace what you have lost in fulfilling the covenant.”
“Do you still need our protection, old one?” Jona asked plaintively.
“We can still be destroyed by axe and by fire. We will not take life to save ourselves, nor will we suffer the presence of others who take life for greed or sport. We are not without defenses, but we are vulnerable. Our seedlings will be vulnerable. There is still need for the Tauron.” The figure smiled again, fey and strange. “Each of you was chosen to embody a particular skill of magic, and it will rise with full knowledge of your craft. It is our gift to you. You will be teachers and guides.”
“When will we know our individual gifts?” Colm asked.
“They rise even now. The seed-speaker received the gift of healing in full, for it was imperative to the fulfillment of the covenant.” The figure turned its eyes to Telyn. “The seed-voice is the life-giver. She gave us her life force, and we returned it.”
Mithrais tightened his embrace, and Telyn realized with a queer sense of vertigo what had happened to cause his distress. “I never interpreted your words in quite that way,” she said weakly, with heavy irony, “but you are welcome.”
“We thank you, Telyn.” The bard was startled by the sound of her name on the being’s lips. “Your task was well performed.”
Telyn’s fingertips strayed to her chest, which was sore and tender to the touch. There was emptiness there; she was not certain that she could cast even the lightest of charms with song magic if she tried.
“Your gifts will recover,” the sylvan creature said, reading her thoughts. “You gave us all, but it will return.”
“That was much more power than we needed to fulfill the covenant,” Telyn stated suspiciously. “What else has happened?”
The ancient one smiled. “The whole of the isle can now benefit from the fount, and so we benefit.”
“Magic has returned outside the Wood?” Eirion’s jaw dropped.
“Yes. It is one land, although this place will always be most powerful. There are those who are not our descendants who possess the gifts necessary to use the magic. It is only right that they do so. Teach them all.”
With another nod at Telyn, it stepped backwards and melted into the trunk of the tree. It was as if it had never been; an apparition born of their imaginations...then a sound echoed through the grove. The mighty chord of resonance, changed, but full of the purest harmonies that Telyn had ever heard, pulsed through the Circle and beyond, carrying magic in its wake.
Telyn sighed, a great, heavy sound of relief, turning in Mithrais’ arms. The tears were still wet on his cheeks, salty against her lips as she returned his fierce embrace.