CHAPTER FOUR
This is the faithful and prudent steward, whom the master will set over his household.
As the door closed behind Kelson, Nigel let out a slow, apprehensive sigh and slumped back on his heels, letting his back take support from the edge of the seat behind him. In a few minutes, he must also walk through that door.
He had hoped never to have to face what would presently be required of him—not out of any fear for his own safety or comfort, but for what tonight’s work implied. To take upon himself the potential for the ancient Haldane power was to acknowledge, in a far more concrete way than hitherto, the possibility that he himself might one day be king. That was what frightened him.
For he had never sought or even idly wished for the crown. Until Brion’s death, he had lived his life in the pleasant limbo of a much-loved younger son—close to the crown, unshakably loyal to it, whether worn by father, elder brother, or brother’s son, but confident and relieved that he himself should never wear it. That was for his nephew’s heirs, in the fullness of time; and Nigel was content with that.
And yet, if Kelson should perish before an heir could be engendered, then the crown must pass to Nigel or his heirs. That was a grim possibility Nigel had known from the moment Brion died—and something he prayed fervently would never come to pass. But if it did, then Nigel must be prepared to take up the mantle of his royal duty; must stand ready to sacrifice his own wishes for the good of the land. He felt himself a far from worthy vessel, but he must be ready to meet the test, if it was demanded of him. Tonight was the first step toward that readiness.
Still reluctant, then, but resigned, and with a weight of far more than years resting on his shoulders, he rose and dared to approach the high altar, lifting his eyes to the Christus gazing down at him even as he sank to one knee at the foot of the altar steps. He did not often feel the need for a physical expression of his religious feeling. Like Brion, he preferred to witness for his faith through the example of an upright life, rather than spend overmuch time on his knees, in a building that took the place of belief for many folk. Tonight, however, had its special demands, and seemed to demand more formal observance.
A little awkwardly, then, he bowed his head and framed his thoughts in far more formal petition than was usually his wont, entreating the Anointed One for strength to endure, should he be called one day to his own anointing as Gwynedd’s king, but praying also that such fate should never come to him. He asked as well for courage to face the more immediate ordeal—but he would suffer that gladly if it might permit the greater cup of kingship to pass.
Whatever was given him, he knew that in the end he could only offer all he had, and pray that it would be enough. He would serve his king as he had always served, with faith, loyalty, and love, and he would either live or perish according to God’s will. When he rose to join those who awaited him, turning inward now to draw his strength, his steps were steady and his head was clear.
He heard no sound as he passed through the doorway where Kelson had gone. A short corridor lay beyond, and as he closed the door behind him, another door opened ahead and to the left. Duncan inclined his head in silent greeting and stood aside to let him pass, both reassuring and vaguely alien in his episcopal purple.
The room Nigel entered was strange to him as well, of fair size, but lit only dimly by the light of a low fire immediately to the right and a single candle on the table before it. Weapons lay on the table: several daggers, a narrow stiletto Nigel thought he remembered seeing in Morgan’s hand from time to time, and a sword in a scabbard set with cairngorms that was definitely Morgan’s. Dhugal stood behind the table, his own sheathed sword cradled in the crook of one arm, the baldric wound loosely around the scabbard. There was no sign of Kelson or any of the others he had been expecting to see.
“I’ll relieve you of your cloak first of all,” Duncan said, already reaching for the garment as Nigel unsnapped the clasp and let it fall away from his shoulders. “I’ll also ask you to leave your weapons here. The others are in a small chapel through that door,” the bishop went on, nodding past Dhugal with his chin, “but only Kelson’s sword is permitted inside.”
He draped the cloak over a chair that already held several others as Nigel began obediently unbuckling his swordbelt, and caught the weight of the weapon as the belt came free. He coiled the white leather around the scabbard and laid it on the table with the others as Nigel produced a sheathed dagger from the small of his back and a stiletto from a narrow sheath in the side of his boot.
“Any more?” Duncan asked, with a faint grin. “You and Alaric are two of a kind when it comes to sharp, pointed things. Incidentally, I suggest you take off any outer layers you think you can spare; the rest of us have already done so. It’s going to be a little close in there, with so many people.”
Managing a snort of appreciation at the attempt to lighten the mood, Nigel removed a belt of metal placques set low on his hips, ducked out of the heavy, linked collar of his princely rank, then began unbuttoning a long, wine-colored overtunic with running lions intertwined around hem and cuffs. Now he noticed that Dhugal had already stripped to shirt and trews and boots, though Duncan’s concession to undress appeared to be an open collar and the omission of his cincture.
“Why do I get the distinct impression that it’s going to be more than ‘close’ in there?” he said. “I thought you Deryni could do something about such things.”
“We can,” Duncan returned. “But it would take energy we’ll need for other things tonight. Besides, you’re not Deryni.”
“I take your point. I don’t suppose you considered a different chapel?”
“Not for tonight’s work,” came the reply. “We’ll be working under the protection of Saint Camber. I trust that doesn’t surprise you?”
“Surprise me? Hardly. I can’t say it reassures me, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
He knew he was talking to cover his persistent nervousness—and that Duncan knew it. Impatient with himself, he tugged loose three more buttons—enough to let the tunic fall around his feet—and stepped out of the pool of wine-dark wool. He would be well rid of it if it was going to be as warm as Duncan hinted. Beneath it he wore close-fitting britches of burgundy wool, midcalf boots dyed to match, and a full-sleeved shirt of fine linen. He untied the laces at the throat as he bent to pick up his discarded tunic, making a calming little ritual of folding the garment and laying it neatly atop his cloak before looking back at Duncan again, aware that he could delay no longer.
“I suppose I’m ready, then,” he said.
Duncan lowered his eyes, obviously aware of what Nigel was feeling.
“You can have a few more minutes, if you’d like.” He glanced to his right, where Dhugal had taken up a guard post beside the chapel door. “There’s a prie-dieu there in the corner. You’re welcome to use it.”
Deep in the shadows, Nigel could see two red votive lights burning before a small ivory crucifix, the vague outline of a kneeler before them, but he shook his head.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, Duncan,” he murmured. “You know I’ve never been much on ceremony.”
“Come, then,” Duncan said with a smile, taking him by the elbow and leading him toward the door Dhugal guarded. “As you know, you’re going to have to bear with some ceremony tonight, but we’ve tried to keep things reasonably informal. It could be worse.”
“It could?”
“Of course.” Duncan gave him a reassuring smile. “You’re an adult, coming into this of your own free will, able to give us your conscious cooperation. If you were a child, things would be totally out of your hands.”
Nigel snorted at that, wondering whether it had ever really been in his hands—then flashed for an instant on the sudden realization that one day it might be Conall or Rory or Payne approaching the ordeal he himself now must face. The thought chilled him—it should be Kelson’s son walking toward the door he now approached with Duncan; not himself or his own sons—but all of that was academic in the immediate reckoning. For now, there was no turning back.
Nigel had to duck a little as he followed Duncan past the curtain Dhugal held aside. The chamber beyond was dim and close—half the size of the room they had just left, and almost crowded even before they entered. Arilan and Morgan stood against the walls to left and right, Richenda, all in white, immediately to his right against the back wall, but it was Kelson who caught and arrested his attention immediately.
His nephew—no, the king—the king stood with his back to them in the precise center of the room, raven head flung back and hands hanging easily at his sides. He was more than human or Deryni in that moment of Nigel’s first beholding, sacred kingship lying upon his shoulders as puissant and apparent as any physical mantle he had worn since his coronation day—though he, like Morgan and Nigel himself, had stripped to the basics of shirt and britches and boots, putting aside all weapons or other tangible insignia of his rank.
The object of his attention appeared to be a very ornate crucifix of ebony suspended above an altar set hard against the eastern wall—or perhaps it was the wall itself that held his gaze, painted all around the altar and above it like the midnight sky, spangled with bright-gilt stars that caught the light from six honey-colored tapers. The stars shimmered through the heat rising from the candles, and the air tickled at Nigel’s nostrils with the faint aroma of beeswax and incense.
“Come stand beside me, Uncle,” Kelson said softly, turning slightly to beckon with his right hand, quicksilver eyes drawing him even if the gesture had not.
Without hesitation Nigel obeyed, taking the proffered hand and bobbing briefly to one knee to press it to his forehead in homage before straightening at his sovereign’s side. Duncan passed to Kelson’s other side and approached the altar—but a few steps in the confines of this tiny chamber—and Nigel dared a glance at Morgan, back pressed against the southern wall and arms folded across his chest, almost close enough to touch. As their eyes met, Morgan inclined his head slightly in a nod meant to be reassuring, then turned his gaze deliberately toward the altar, where Arilan had joined Duncan in the preparation of a thurible. Dutifully Nigel turned his attention that way as well.
They would ward the chamber first; he knew that. He even knew a little about warding. He had seen Morgan ward a circle once, long ago, when Morgan helped Brion assume his full Haldane powers before the battle with the Marluk. Nigel had been nineteen, Brion twenty-five, Morgan not yet fourteen.
Many years later, there had been another warding as well: in a tent at Llyndruth Meadows, the night before the final confrontation between Kelson and Wencit of Torenth. He had seen only the beginnings of that warding; that was the night he had learned that Arilan was Deryni. He remembered little else besides black and white cubes and Arilan’s hand touching his forehead—and Kelson’s eyes boring into his until he thought his very soul must be sucked out of his body.
Since then, he had learned not to fight or fear that kind of mental touch. Something akin to that would happen again tonight, but he put that knowledge from his mind for the moment and set his attention on the two bishops. Arilan was beginning: censing the altar and the East and then moving to his right toward the space between Nigel and Morgan.
They would cast a triple circle first. As they trod the circle, they would invoke the protection of the four great Archangels who guarded the Quarters and ruled the elements. Duncan was already aspersing the East with holy water, preparing to follow Arilan in the second circle. Morgan would cast the third with a sword.
The South was Nigel’s especial favorite, however: first of the Quarters to be saluted after the East, where Morgan still stood and Arilan now paused to bow—for the South was the realm of Saint Michael, familiar to Nigel as the patron of warriors long before he learned the Prince of Heaven’s other, more esoteric attributes.
To Saint Michael had Nigel pledged a special devotion those many years before, as he kept his knight’s vigil before receiving the accolade from his brother. God willing, perhaps his son would conceive a like devotion. Before another year was out—if they all lived that long—Conall, Kelson, and Dhugal would keep their own knights’ vigil, and receive the knightly accolade from his hand. He suspected that Kelson and Dhugal would reserve their special devotion to Saint Camber—which was certainly fitting—but he knew they reverenced Michael as well. He was surprised to realize that he did not know his own sons’ feelings on the matter.
That realization so occupied him for the next few seconds that he was not aware when Morgan moved from South to altar—only that Morgan was suddenly there, drawing the fine-wrought scabbard from Kelson’s sword—Brion’s sword, his father’s sword! Spellbound, he watched Morgan raise the blade in reverent salute to the East, candlelight flashing down the polished steel and taking on a life of its own—remembering another Morgan, another Nigel, a Brion still alive, as Morgan leveled the blade at eye level and slowly began to retrace Arilan’s and Duncan’s paths.
Light streamed from the tip of the blade as Morgan walked, scribing a ribbon of blue-white brilliance a handspan wide along the wall behind the altar. It floated with substance of its own where the tip of the blade bridged the southeast corner of the room, curving in a blue-white streak to follow all across the South.
Nigel watched Morgan’s progress on toward the West until he could no longer follow without turning his body as well, catching just a glimpse of Richenda stepping closer to him, away from the West wall, so that Morgan could pass between it and her. The chamber was growing uncomfortably warm, as Duncan had warned, but he thought he could feel cold radiating from the ribbon of light. He shivered a little despite the sweat trickling between his shoulderblades and plastering his shirt to his back.
At the altar, their circuits completed, Arilan and Duncan replaced thurible and aspergillum on the altar, and backed off to stand directly in front of Kelson and Nigel as Morgan continued past the North and closed the ring of the circle in the East. The ribbon of light clung to the walls like a physical thing, pulsing slightly.
Saluting again, Morgan laid the sword back on the altar beside its sheath and came to stand behind Nigel, at Richenda’s right. Nigel suddenly wondered what the circle looked like to Dhugal, standing just outside, in the doorway to the chamber—whether it floated across the doorway the same way it arched in the corners.
“We stand outside time, in a place not of earth,” Arilan said quietly. “As our ancestors before us bade, we join together and are One.”
“Amen,” the others responded.
Nigel could feel the faint breeze of a flowing sleeve brush his back, and sensed the shadow of Richenda’s hand raised between him and Kelson.
“Before us … Ra-fa-el …” Richenda intoned, chanting the syllables of the name with an odd inflection and holding the last note.
As the note died, he sensed her hand moving and saw a circle of black appear in the ribbon of light stretched above the altar. He stifled a little gasp, but the others seemed unperturbed.
“God has healed,” Richenda said in a normal tone.
“God has healed,” the others repeated.
Confused, he let himself be turned to face the south. Morgan was beside him now, Richenda behind Morgan. Again she stretched forth her hand.
“Before us … Mi-ka-il …”
Again, the prolonged note, the movement of her hand as the note died—only this time, a red glowing triangle pierced the ribbon of light, pulsing like a heartbeat.
“Who is like God,” Richenda said this time.
“Who is like God,” the others repeated.
Again they all turned, now facing the west. Beyond the ribbon of light, which did hang in midair where it crossed the recess of the doorway, he could just see Dhugal, looking very solemn.
“Before us … Ji-bra-il …”
A crescent of white light for the West.
“God is my strength,” Richenda said.
“God is my strength,” Nigel repeated with the others. He had suddenly realized that the phrases were translations of the names of the Archangels being invoked, the symbolism doubtless drawn from Richenda’s eastern origins.
On to the North.
“Before us … Au-ri-el …”
A golden square here.
“Fire of God.”
“Fire of God,” came the response.
He started to turn again to the east, but Morgan pulled him back a step instead. Kelson also took a step away from him before turning, so that all at once everyone was facing toward the center. Richenda, her loose-fitting shift a luminous white by circle-light, spread both palms before her at waist level and closed her eyes.
“At our center and foundation is Spirit—that which endures.”
As she moved her hands slightly apart and tilted them toward one another, a five-pointed star appeared in the air between them, etched in violet light. It floated to the floor as she parted them still farther, pulsing against the stone as she threw back her head and stretched her palms heavenward this time.
“Above us, the circled cross: defining and containing, unity of all contained within One.”
As the symbol appeared, green fire hanging above their heads, she swept her arms to either side and held, eyes closing, but it was Arilan who spoke.
“Now we are met. Now we are One with the Light. Regard the ancient ways. We shall not walk this path again.
“Augeatur in nobis, quaesumus, Domine, tuae virtutis operatio.…” May the working of Thy power, O Lord, be intensified within us.…
“So be it. Selah. Amen,” Richenda responded.
And as she lowered her arms, bowing her head over hands joined palm-to-palm in an attitude of prayer, the ribbon of light around the room quickly broadened and extended upward and downward until its edges met in the symbols above their heads and beneath their feet. Then all six symbols vanished. Glancing surreptitiously toward the doorway, Nigel could no longer see Dhugal except as a vague, shadowy form.
“Lumen Christi gloriose resurgentis sissipet tenebras cordis et mentis,” Kelson intoned steadily, signing himself in ritual gesture as the others did the same. May the light of Christ rising in glory scatter the darkness of our heart and mind.…
The motion seemed to release them from a former immobility. Suddenly Kelson was smiling at him, Arilan and Richenda withdrawing slightly to stand against the northern and western walls. Morgan took his elbow.
“Well, that’s done,” Kelson said softly. “The warding was drawn partly from the tradition that Richenda grew up in. Other than the Moorish elements that have crept in over the years, it’s supposed to be fairly close to the form Camber might have used. Not that we’ll ever know for certain, I suppose.” He glanced at Morgan, at Duncan, who had moved to the altar, then back at Nigel.
“Are you ready?”
Nigel only inclined his head, afraid to speak.
“We’ll get on with it, then. Come with me, please.”
Three steps brought them to the altar. Duncan’s small surgical kit lay open there, Duncan doing something with a wad of cotton wool and a small flask. As Morgan assisted Nigel to kneel, Kelson reached to his right ear and removed the great ruby fastened there. For the first time, Nigel noticed that Kelson also wore the Ring of Fire, the garnet-studded seal of Brion’s power, great central cabochon surrounded by a dozen lesser, brilliant-cut stones that fractured the cold light of the circle like summer lightning. He did not think he had seen it since Kelson’s coronation.
“So far as we know, the Eye of Rom has always played a part in the setting of the Haldane potential in Haldane heirs,” Kelson said, handing the earring to Duncan for cleansing. “It and a ring seem to be important and constant elements in the power rituals of all Haldane kings. Because you aren’t my heir in the usual sense, we’ll only involve the ring marginally tonight, since it usually seals the ritual after the old king is dead, but I do want you to wear the Eye. I’ll leave both in a place of safety here at Rhemuth before I go to Meara—just in case you should need them.”
Nigel swallowed and managed a faint nod, eyeing the jewel as it was passed back to Kelson, and Duncan moved closer with the wad of cotton wool. As Morgan held his head steady from behind and Duncan swabbed his earlobe with something cool and pungent—welcome relief in the heat—Nigel braced himself for the bite of a needle, but it came as only a slight pressure and popping sound. He wondered whether Morgan had blunted that sensation for him. Intrigued now despite his apprehension, he watched Kelson remove the Ring of Fire and bring it close to his ear for a few brief seconds—marking it with his blood, he sensed—then lay it on the altar. Next, the Eye of Rom was brought close in a similar manner, though Kelson’s hand came away empty this time.
Nigel felt a brief sting as Duncan threaded the earring’s wire through his flesh, faint weight of the stone as adjustments were made to its fastening, but then Duncan did something else and the sting became a tingle and then nothing. As the bishop withdrew and Morgan released him, Nigel brushed the earring lightly with his fingertip. He was surprised to feel no discomfort.
“We’ve healed that for you,” Morgan murmured, helping him to stand.
Somehow that did not surprise him. Nor did the piece of parchment lying on the altar, inscribed with all his royal names.
“I am told that the Deryni have a tradition of Naming their children by means of a brief magical ritual,” Kelson said quietly, drawing the parchment nearer the edge and reaching for the tip of the sword with his right hand as Duncan steadied the hilt. “The child’s mother generally performs this ritual between the ages of four and eight, depending upon the maturity of the child. Besides confirming the child’s bloodline as Deryni, it is also the first formal ritual in which most Deryni children are involved.”
He met Nigel’s eyes briefly and managed a quick, nervous grin. “I daresay, I am hardly your mother, and you have a few more years than eight. Still, this will be your first true ritual experience. And it does provide a useful framework in which to shift the succession to your bloodline—if only for the present. As one might suppose, a shedding of blood is required.”
He ducked his head at that. Nigel suddenly realized that Kelson was as nervous about the whole affair as he was. Holding the end of the blade over the parchment, grasped firmly between the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand, Kelson drew the tip of his left ring finger along the edge until blood welled from a fairly deep cut. His jaw tightened at the sight, whether from pain or some other emotion Nigel could not tell, but he made no sound, only touching the blood to the parchment beneath Nigel’s name with solemn deliberation. He held the wounded finger curled into the palm of his hand as he surrendered his place to Nigel.
“Now yours,” he said softly.
The blade itself held no terror for Nigel; as a soldier, he had sustained far greater wounds than was required now. Grasping the blade as Kelson had done, he drew his fingertip along the sharpened steel in a brisk stroke, letting the slight burning sensation of the cut help keep him from thinking about what might come next. When he had smudged his blood alongside Kelson’s on the parchment, the king pressed their wounds together briefly in further symbolism of the joining of the two bloodlines.
“By this mingling of blood do I acknowledge thee Haldane: Nigel Cluim Gwydion Rhys, son of King Donal Blaine Aidan Cinhil and only brother of King Brion Donal Cinhil Urien, who was my father and king before me.”
There was a bowl for rinsing off the blood after that, linen for drying, then Morgan’s hand enclosing Nigel’s wound briefly while Duncan ministered to Kelson. When Morgan released him, the wound was gone as if it had never been. As Nigel stared at his finger in the candlelight, Duncan wiped the sword clean with a linen cloth, then handed it off to Morgan, who reversed the blade and took up a guard position immediately behind Nigel, hands resting on the quillons. Nigel heard Kelson give a little sigh as Duncan pulled the thurible closer, still smoking slightly of incense, and opened it to the smoldering charcoal within.
“Be thou blessed by Him in Whose honor thou shalt be burnt,” Duncan murmured, tracing a cross in the air over the incense boat before offering it to Kelson.
Kelson bowed over the incense, hands joined before him in an attitude of prayer, then took the spoon and carefully sprinkled a few grains of incense onto the charcoal.
“Welcome as incense smoke let my prayer rise up before Thee, O Lord. When I lift my hands, may it be acceptable as the evening sacrifice.”
The chamber was so still and silent, Nigel could hear the faint hiss of the resin beginning to melt. As sweet smoke started spiraling upward, Kelson took the parchment and creased it loosely into quarters, then touched one corner to the glowing coal.
“May this offering blessed by Thee ascend to Thee, O Lord,” he said, laying the parchment full on the coal as it caught and began to burn. “And may Thy mercy descend upon Thy servants, both present and to come.”
When he was sure it was burning well, he turned once more to Nigel. Arilan had joined them at the conclusion of the prayer, and now took from the altar a thumb-sized brass container and a small ivory spatula.
“Bishop Arilan has offered to provide you with a little assistance for the last part of the ritual,” Kelson said, as Duncan pushed back Nigel’s right sleeve to expose the inner forearm and Arilan unscrewed the lid of the container. “The drug is sometimes used in the early phases of formal Deryni training to enhance psychic response. It also has a slight sedative effect.”
Wordlessly Arilan set aside the lid and dipped out a miniscule amount of viscous, butter-colored unguent with the spatula. This he spread in a thin film over a thumb-sized area of Nigel’s inner arm, which Duncan then bound neatly with a strip of linen bandage.
“The drug is gradually absorbed through the skin,” Duncan explained. “When we’re done, we wash off the residue and the effect stops soon after. That makes it far easier to control than if you had taken a specific dose by mouth.”
Nigel cradled the bandaged forearm close to his chest and fingered the linen nervously. He was beginning to sweat profusely, whether from the drug or not, he had no idea.
“It tingles a little,” he said. “Sweet Jesu, it’s hot in here!”
“You’re feeling several effects already,” Arilan replied, handing him a towel and watching him closely. “How’s your vision?”
Nigel wiped his face on the towel and blinked several times, feeling slightly befuddled, then closed his eyes briefly and opened them again.
“I’m having trouble focusing,” he whispered. “I feel a little—dizzy, too.”
“Look at me for a moment,” Arilan commanded.
Swaying a little on his feet, so that Duncan and Morgan had to steady him on either side, Nigel obeyed.
“His eyes are dilated,” he heard Kelson murmur.
“Aye. Get him down before he falls down,” came Arilan’s low reply.
Nigel needed no encouragement to collapse to all fours. Light-headed and rapidly losing all sense of balance, he let them help him to a sitting position on the floor. His arms and legs seemed to have no bones in them. The stone floor was cool and soothing, and he wanted to lay his forehead against it, but Morgan knelt behind him and made him sit upright, providing a backrest for him to lean against.
He could not focus even as far as his toes. His hands lolled useless at his sides, but at least he could press the backs against the stone for relief from the heat now pulsing through his body with every heartbeat. The added warmth of Morgan’s body against his back was almost unbearable until he felt the sword slip between them, the blade chill as ice along his spine. As he turned his head blearily to see what Duncan was doing, he glimpsed one quillon above his head and to the side.
Duncan had the thurible as he knelt to Nigel’s right. Kelson was on his knees as well, but he loomed in Nigel’s vision like a darkling giant, forbidding and austere. Far more slowly than seemed right, Kelson reached into the thurible to crush a pinch of ash between thumb and forefinger, free hand burning Nigel’s shoulder where it touched to steady him.
“Nigel Cluim Gwydion Rhys,” Kelson breathed, touching Nigel between the eyes with a sooty forefinger and tracing a cross, “I seal thee Haldane and confirm thee as Heir until such time as I may produce an heir of my body.”
Nigel trembled beneath his touch, tears welling in his eyes as Kelson reached again to the thurible to take another meager pinch of ash. The left hand shifted to his jaw, pressing his cheeks to make his mouth open—and he could offer not a shred of resistance.
“Taste of the ashes of our mingled blood,” Kelson went on, sifting some of the ash onto Nigel’s tongue. “By blood art thou consecrated to the Haldane legacy. If it should come to thee, be The Haldane. Then shall the power come upon thee.”
The ash was bitter—bitter as the cup Nigel prayed he would never have to drink—and as the consecrated royal hands lifted slowly toward his head, Nigel felt a primal terror of the power latent there. In that interminable instant, the king seemed limned in fire—dread sovereign and master of all the power in the universe, not merely king and lord of the lands of their fathers—and Nigel feared that if Kelson touched him, he would die.
He had neither strength nor will to resist it, though; this cup, at least, must be drunk to its dregs—and the dregs were already bitter on his tongue. As the royal hands embraced his head, the thumbs pressing lightly on his temples, he closed his eyes with a shudder and surrendered any last resistance. The hands were hot, searing his flesh, making his fear boil up within him like molten lead, threatening to explode inside his brain.
But he did not explode. Not then, at least. The fire remained, but now another pressure began to build within him like a great wind, relentless and strong, scouring away the last vestiges of his will, pounding again and again in a rhythm a part of him only vaguely recognized as his own heartbeat.
The wind became a firestorm then, raging inside his mind and licking at his body, so terrifying that he was sure the very flesh must melt from his bones.
Water, then, quenching the fire but sweeping him away, out of his body, whirling and tumbling him in total disorientation, slamming him at last upon a stony beach where he seemed to lie and gaze numbly at a grey, fog-shrouded sky.
Until a face appeared against the fog: a kindly compassionate face framed by soft, silver-gilt hair; the eyes like windows to the fog beyond, calling him, drawing him, as a hand reached out to gently touch his forehead.
The touch sent him plummeting into nothingness.