Chapter Thirty-Four

The lady’s radiance gathered in upon itself and swirled like mist about to dissipate. In a moment she’d be gone, leaving Barta there in the frigid dark with a dead hound in her arms. What could Barta say or do to make a difference? She’d offered all she had—all she was.

She threw back her head and wailed a single cry, “Love!”

For an instant the hovering moonlight wavered; then it continued to swirl. Barta closed her eyes in despair.

And heard a deep, male voice sound directly in front of her. “Hear her, wife. She speaks of love.”

Barta’s eyes flew open; they might just as well have remained shut, for she doubted what she saw.

The woman made of moonlight had once more coalesced. Another being stood beside her—tall he was, towering and glowing with dark green light. Half man, half stag, he emitted an aura of power as distinct as scent.

For a moment, Barta’s heart seized in her chest. She would die here with Loyal, the two of them lying in the snow. Then the god looked at her. In his face Barta saw the compassion the lady lacked and such a strong force of life she had to blink.

The Lady answered him, “Do not interfere in this. I raised him once. It is done.”

“You raised him once,” the god said, “and thus he remains your responsibility.” Again his gaze moved over Loyal and Barta, tactile as a touch. “Did you not make him a promise? Yes, I heard what you said.”

“What said I?”

“That if the girl knew him despite his changed form, they might remain together.”

“I know him.” Barta spoke swiftly, desperately. “I did not at first, but I do now. If this was the bargain…”

“So it was. And had he lived, girl, I would have held to my part of it and allowed him to stay with you. But he dies—again.” The Lady turned a serene face to her lord. “It is finished.”

For many long moments the two gazed at one another while Barta’s desperation beat through her and she strove for something she might do or say to change the Lady’s mind.

At last the Lord’s voice rumbled, “Yet she speaks the word of magic: love. They love, wife, even as we love. They are as eternally bound.”

The lady said nothing, but her gaze returned to Barta and Loyal, twined on the hard ground.

“I know their pain,” the god went on softly. “Are you not lost to me each month? I am forced to watch you dwindle and slip away from me. Yet just when my spirit is darkest you reappear, and soon your lovely face shines full upon me once more. Then does my heart beat stronger and do I run more fiercely through the forest.”

The Lady swayed toward him, pliable as a beam of moonlight.

“Do I not sing to you?” the Lord asked then. “Like wind through the leaves, do I not cry out my heart and set the cords between us vibrating like music? Why should it be any different for these two? They are bonded. They love as we do. Should they too not be allowed to return to one another?”

The Lady sighed. “Love is eternal,” she agreed. “As such, it will endure between them even if they be apart.”

“In torment. Why do you think I cry songs to you if I do not long for you? Love was born when we entered the minds of the first beasts and men. The music is most ancient. Even I dare not still it.”

“Nor I. But he has had two favors from me. I will grant no more.”

Barta’s heart sank. Already, Loyal’s body cooled in her arms.

But the god spoke softly. “Yes—you granted the hound’s request. The girl has had no gift from me.”

He turned to Barta even as her heart rebounded sickeningly. He gazed at her with deep kindness.

“Girl, what would you ask? Speak the words carefully: they create your world and your future.”

Barta’s thoughts leaped, and she bade herself to caution. If she’d learned one thing since the night Loyal first died and she awoke to find herself lying beneath a sharp, deadly moon, it was the lesson of selflessness.

She gazed up into the god’s broad face and spread her fingers on Loyal’s fur.

“I want what he would want—no matter what it may cost me.”

The god smiled. “Then let us awaken him and ask.”

He bent and quite simply laid his hand on Loyal’s head. Barta, reminded forcefully of her father’s broad hand descending just so on the head of his hound more times than she could count, gulped back a rush of tears. Tenderness lay in that touch, kindness. Love.

Loyal’s body jerked, and he stirred. Barta felt the bump against her knee as his heart started up, and the bright, warm surge as life filled him. The bonds between them—so still a moment ago—crackled.

The great white hound lifted his head, picking it up from Barta’s lap. He gazed into her eyes. Bright hazel his were—those of the hound, the man, the spirit she loved.

Far more than the world.

Far more than herself.

Almost lazily he licked her cheek, placed his head against her chest and leaned in. She wrapped her arms around his head and let the tears come.

“Do not weep,” the god admonished. “We are not done. Will you have him as hound or man?”

Barta shook her head. “I tell you—it is not up to me.”

“Then we had better let him tell us, no?”

The god straightened. Loyal surged to his feet and turned to face him. For several moments they stood wondrously still; Barta sensed they communicated without words.

Radiance flashed, far brighter than the moonlight and many times more powerful. When Barta could once more see, she leaped to her feet.

The Lady had gone, faded like gossamer. The Lord remained, and in front of him stood a man—tall, lean and graceful as a hound.

“True?”

He turned and faced her. Naked he was, with a red slash across his chest. His wheaten hair now bore streaks of white, but his eyes were the same. Bright and brimming with life, they contained her world.

Robbed of all speech, she reached out and seized his hands.

“Love is greater than we,” the god said. “Remember that. The first thought before all others, it creates all we see, all we feel—all we are. Nothing can ever be more powerful.” He smiled again. “Live in happiness, my children.”

As simply as that, he slipped away into the gray dawn.

Barta fell forward into True’s arms.

They wrapped around her, tight. The tears came again, but he swept them from her cheeks and kissed her, a kiss that felt like life returning. Joy flooded through her, making her tingle.

But she broke the kiss at last to ask, “Why? Why did you choose to be a man?”

“Ah then, Mistress, that is easy.” He looked into her eyes and joy seized him also, uniting them. “Men live longer than hounds. It will give me more time with you.”

Barta nodded, unable to speak. She summoned the frightened pony with a whistle, reproducing the Gael’s signal as best she could. True donned the dead man’s clothing—stiff with blood—against the cold. Together they mounted up and turned the pony’s head back the way they had come—eastward into the new dawn.