"Not even me."

He looked at her then, saw the pensive look on her face, and knew she contemplated a weak moment of her own. From something Desary had told him of her time at Mertuile as Taminy's companion, he suspected one such moment had come at the hands of Daimhin Feich. The thought of it made his brain burn with anger-with hatred. When Taminy raised her eyes to his, her gaze extinguished the flame, leaving ashes.

He crossed to the hearth, throwing himself down before her on the thick rug. "Forgive me, Lady. Forgive me for throwing my shame open to you. Forgive me my weakness."

His head in her lap he felt the soft caress of her hand upon his hair.

"It is Eyslk who must forgive you these sins, Catahn. As she must forgive her mother. A woman should not bear a child for honor, but for love. She should not bear it to a family name, but to a man." She raised his head with her hands then, framing his face with them, gazing down at him with eyes as deep and limitless as the Sea whose color they wore. "There is one other whose forgiveness you must have. Yourself. Forgive yourself these things, Catahn. Then take up your life and move forward. Move upward."

The touch of her eyes, of her hands, opened in his soul a great, river canyon of hope and joy-a canyon only her Sea could fill. But as glorious as that was, it seemed to Catahn Hillwild that he stood at the bottom of that chasm, forever staring up, unable to climb out.

Forward? Upward? How could he move in either direction when the very Touch that warmed his soul, also heated his blood?

Cadder's gaze leapt anxiously about Ochanshrine's circular sanctuary. "Please, Regent Feich!" he whispered. "Please! I can't possibly-"

"You can. And you will. Indeed, you must." Feich lowered his voice a notch and lowered himself to the wooden bench next to the quivering cleirach. "You're holding out on me, Minister. You know more of this . . . aislinn business than you're telling. I've stared at this d.a.m.ned crystal, I've burned incense to it, I've sung to it. It does nothing."

"I don't know what to tell you."

"Tell me what they do." Feich jerked his head toward the doorway that led to the Abbis where the Osraed of Ochanshrine lived.

"They . . . they use duans, the-the Gift. Regent Feich, I can't-"

"Use that word one more time, Cadder, and I'll start shouting my demands. Is it the chamber? Must I also use a circular room?"

Cadder scanned the sanctuary, mouth working. "It-it could be the chamber. The aislinn chambers of the Osraed are circular-often conical."

"Fine, then I will build such a room. What else?"

"Of-of course, they don't always use their aislinn chambers," babbled the cleirach, "but then they're trained Osraed and you're-" He broke off and swallowed several times in rapid succession. "It-it could be the duans-there are different duans for different purposes."

"Is there a book of them somewhere? Surely, they're recorded."

"I-I-I've seen-Yes, there are books."

"In the library here."

"Yes."

"Fine. Get one for me."

"Regent, I-"

"And I warned you what I'd do if you uttered that word again. Think carefully before you speak."

Cadder squirmed and sweated. "I-I shall attempt to procure it."

"Good. What else?"

"What else? Regent Feich, I don't know what else. Either one has the Gift or one has not."

"What about the crystal itself? Might I have gotten a flawed one?"

"I suppose that could be-"

"Here. Here is the crystal." Before Cadder could protest, Feich had opened the velvet bag and revealed his prize.

Cadder's mouth clamped shut and his sweating increased.

"What? What is it?"

"An Osraed would not use that crystal. It is stained."

"I'm not an Osraed. Can I use it?"

"I don't know."

"I'm warning you; 'I don't know' is beginning to annoy me as much as 'I can't.'"

"It's a blooded crystal, Regent Feich. No Osraed has ever used one with that stain."

"Does that mean it can't be used to conjure?"

Cadder's gaze flew, once again, around the room. "Please, Regent! The Osraed do not conjure. They Weave. There is a great difference."

"They are words."

"They are the difference between the Art and Wicke craft. I'm sorry, Regent, I cannot help you with either."

Impatient, angry, Feich rose. "d.a.m.n you, Cadder. I should reveal you to Ladhar this very night."

The cleirach paled, but did not protest. "If you must."

"Worm. Haven't you even the courage to defend yourself? You're pathetic. It's no wonder the Meri rejected you."

Cadder's eyes, fixed now on the Osmaer crystal, misted. "Yes, Regent. I'm sure that's true."

To be confronted with such complete self-abnegation, such unabashed cowering, drove Daimhin Feich to rage.

"d.a.m.n you, man! Have you no spine? Have you no dignity?" He moved closer to the quivering cleirach, turning his back on the Osmaer, and lowered his voice to a growl. "You are everything I despise about the religious. Instead of giving you strength, your faith makes you weak and useless. It must give Ladhar great personal pleasure to have you about-someone who will be kicked and cuffed and murmur only 'thanks' for the abuse. You are a poor excuse for a Caraidin, Cadder, and a poorer excuse for a man. You make a G.o.d of me."

Cadder's only reaction to this tirade was a sudden widening of his eyes. His lips, open now, moved without sound. It took Feich an angry moment to realize that the miserable little creature was reacting to something other than his cruelty.

He turned, and was struck with quaking; deep within its translucent facets, the Osmaer Crystal's heart glowed a deep, ruddy gold.

Taminy was nearly asleep when she felt it-a glacial wind that caught her tethered loosely to her body, and slapped her back to wakefulness.

Shuddering, she sat up-would have flown from the bed had she wings. It was like nothing she had felt before, that chill-hot kiss of terror. Its touch was unclean, horrific, a finger of pure malice that trailed along her spine and dug at her heart. It told her, wordlessly, what she did not want to know; a connection had been made between Daimhin Feich and the Osmaer Crystal. And in contact with that, he was somehow, hideously, connected with her.

The touch was brief; ambient anger faded swiftly as it was swallowed by surprise. Still, it left Taminy shaking, holding her breath. When it was gone, she dared breathe. Then she reached out shaking hands and called silently for aid. It came in the form of Skeet, who scratched softly at her bedroom door and came to sit upon the foot of her bed. As she looked at him, it seemed an Eibhilin radiance rose from him to embrace her.

"Feich," she murmured. "Feich has touched the Osmaer Crystal with his aidan. I felt it. It . . . it connected us for a moment. He has the Gift."

Skeet nodded, shedding boyhood as if it were a costume he wore. "It's a capricious Gift. Unsettled, disloyal, as treacherous as its master."

"And just as dangerous."

"In every age," said Skeet softly, "there is an Adversary. One who, out of desire for what he does not understand, makes himself an enemy of desire's Object."

"I once thought Osraed Ealad-hach was the Enemy," Taminy whispered.

"He was once. That changed. He changed. In the twinkling of an eye, you changed him. Now, there is a new Enemy, dangerous because he knows no Law above his own."

Taminy studied the young-old face. "Does that grant him power?"

"It grants him license. He may not accomplish what you can't, but he can a.s.suredly accomplish what you won't."

"I must thwart him. The Stone. He mustn't get his hands on it."

Skeet's brows rippled-a peculiar expression reminiscent of the Osraed Bevol. Such tiny things had given birth to the rumor around Nairne that Skeet was not a boy at all, but a golem created by Bevol to take the place of a lost child.

"Then," he said, tilting his head so that she must see Bevol in him again, "it must be got into other hands."

In an instant the boy was back, grinning at her. "Sleep well for the rest of the night. It seems the enemy is gone, for now."

"For now," Taminy echoed. "But not for long."

Chapter 9.

Anything, no matter how wonderful, no matter how good, can be misdirected and abused. A lamp in the hands of the blind will more likely burn its bearer than light his way. To the sighted and wise, the lamp is a guide, to the blind and ignorant it is a danger.

-Utterances of the Osraed Ochan #19 The Jura were a House of poets and musicians, scholars and storytellers. They'd produced a good many Prentices and Osraed over the centuries, but few great warriors. The bright-eyed Osraed Tynedale was a Jura-historian and philosopher, Osraed and Taminist. Mystics, all of them, and therefore incomprehensible to Saefren Claeg.

That they accepted Taminy's "talisman" did not surprise him, though he was a bit taken aback by the amount of celebrating it engendered. The fiery scroll was immediately affixed to a standard and paraded through the Jura holt, collecting a parade of curious and jubilant folk who followed the new icon from village to manse. There, in a great, walled court, a bonfire was set and the Jura Chieftain, Mortain, his young heir at his side, recited the story of Taminy's escape from Mertuile and how the Eibhilin scroll and sacred Shard (which he now wore in a small bag dangling from a cord about his neck) had come to be among them.

The Jura were impressed with their Chieftain's Tell. He was, Saefren had to admit, an impressive figure-a young man with gleaming red-gold hair and large, pale green eyes that made the recipient of their gaze feel as if they had just been read, mind, heart and soul. Many of his people came forth, both men and women, young and not-so-young, and pledged themselves to travel with him to Creiddylad to impress their pet.i.tion upon the Feich Regent. The celebration of their journey, intermixed with preparation for it, lasted the night.

After a night of feasting and fest, Saefren felt barely able to drag himself out of the fine bed The Jura had put him in for his meager hours of sleep. Yet, not long after sunrise, he found himself on the road, headed for the Graegam holdings by way of Claeg, where Uncle Iobert expected to take on more men.

That the Jura contingent was made up of both men and women was a source of bemus.e.m.e.nt to the Claeg kinsmen, but put the annoyingly clear-eyed Aine in a high mood. She spent the traveling day chattering with the Jura cailin and flirting outrageously with the Jura youth.

Saefren was tired, hungry and in a foul mood when they stopped to make their evening camp. He fully intended to retire early to the tent he shared with his uncle, but the Jura Elders, seemingly none the worse for the wear of the previous night, set up a great, roaring fire in the midst of their colorful tents and settled down for a round of tales.

As Aine-mac-Lorimer was the guest of honor at these proceedings (the Jura even called her Alraed Aine, according her a station on a par with the Osraed), Mortain Jura asked her to settle on a Tell. She diplomatically chose the story of Bearach Malcuim and the Jura ancestor, Osraed Gartain. Obviously pleased, The Jura launched into the Tell while Saefren sullenly chewed at his stew.

It was during the reign of Kieran the Dark (said the Storyteller), son of Niall Cleirach, grandson of Bitan-ig, called the Preserver. Kieran was a much weaker Cyne than his father and owed much to the solid framework his grandfather had built and his father built upon. Alas, his weakness did not go unnoticed by those who watched for such things. These bided their time and, upon the death of Bitan-ig's old advisor, the Osraed Abhainn, the rebellious House Claeg arose to establish control over the Throne.

(Looks were pa.s.sed here between Claeg and Jura, and Saefren thought his uncle's face darkened, though he said nothing. There was nothing to be said to the truth.) In a handful of years (continued The Jura) the Claeg had reduced Kieran to a mere puppet, through the agency of a sooth-sayer named Suardalin-a-Troddan, for Kieran was a superst.i.tious man, easily led when it came to protecting his timid self.

In those days, it was the custom for the Cyne to be married at Halig-liath. But Suardalin prophesied that if Kieran was wed in the Holy Fortress, the roof of the Sanctuary would fall in upon the guests. Kieran consulted the Osraed, who protested that they'd been given no such aislinn message, but so fearful was he of Suardalin, that he rejected the Osraed counsel and had a chapel hastily built at Creiddylad in which he and his betrothed, Ailis Graegam, were married.

In this way, the Claeg began to drive the wedge of distrust between the Throne and the Osraed. A further prophecy that Kieran would fall from the battlements of the Holy Fortress when he next ventured there, kept him from ever again entering its sacred precincts. Thereafter, he presided over Farewellings from Nairne's village green.

The Claeg Chieftain, Buchan by name, saw to it that the Cyne was surrounded at court by Claeg advisors and, using the soothsayer, Buchan had himself put in a position to defend the Cyne's gates against all others. Kieran Malcuim was quick to make Buchan his Durweard at Suardalin-a-Troddan's say-so.

Yet even timid Kieran had his limits. Realizing how he'd been led, galled by his own cowardice, he at last sought counsel from the Osraed at Ochanshrine. With their strength, he was able to stand up for himself. He sent his family away into hiding, then attempted to throw off the yoke of Claeg domination by ejecting Buchan Claeg from his position as Durweard and barring all Claeg kinsman from Mertuile.

Alas, his efforts ended in failure and humiliation. While Kieran worshipped in his little chapel among loyal subjects, Buchan Claeg rode up to the altar on a fully armored war horse and s.n.a.t.c.hed the royal Circlet from the Cyne's head.

He then dragged Kieran from the chapel by the hair and staged a mock coronation in which he had the Circlet placed upon his own brow. In further retaliation for his resistance, The Claeg appropriated the Graegam family estates and laid waste to the village of Ailis Graegam's birth, slaughtering hundreds of innocent men, women and children and leaving their bodies lying out for all to see.

(Saefren laid aside his stew, finding it suddenly unappetizing.) Other Chiefs and Eiric that The Claeg considered possible adversaries, Buchan had brought to the village by force so they might view the carnage. He then imprisoned the Cyne beneath his own castle and ruled openly from Creiddylad as Regent, proclaiming the Cyne mentally unfit to sit upon the Throne.

Kieran's son, Bearach Malcuim, was now seventeen years old. Outraged by the actions of the Claeg, the young Riagan left his hiding place in the village of Storm and moved about the countryside in disguise, rallying the lesser Houses, n.o.bles and commoners who were now chafing to be rid of the brutal Claeg.

(I should leave, Saefren thought. I should get up and go to my tent. But he didn't leave; he stayed and listened further to the Storyteller.) Most of all did the Osraed want the Claeg usurper gone, for in his rage at their support of Bearach, he had placed Halig-liath under virtual siege. But Bearach infiltrated the Holy Fortress and found the Osraed willing allies. They had already been using the Divine Art on his behalf, and were gratified when he turned to them for aid.

His foremost champion among the Osraed was Gartain Jura, whom he made his Durweard. The two became as brothers-never apart, always of one mind and heart. Together they brought the people of Caraid-land to revolt and challenged the Claeg at every pa.s.s.

Buchan Claeg had grown tired of keeping Cyne Kieran as pet and now, enraged by the bold actions of Bearach and Gartain, he let it be known that he had every intention of setting himself before the Stone of Ochan in a real coronation.

This was the rallying point Bearach and Gartain had been waiting for. Moving swiftly, they visited Ochanshrine just long enough to remove the Osmaer crystal. When The Claeg rushed in, seeking to lay hands on it, it was gone.

Buchan Claeg demanded it be handed over to him so he might be set before it, but Bearach, now called Spearman for this bold thrust at his enemy, rejected Buchan's demand, knowing that once the Stone was in The Claeg's hands, his father's life would be forfeit. Alas, it was lost anyway, for the treacherous Claeg, in retaliation for Bearach's effrontery, tortured and killed the Cyne.

Bearach was mad with grief. At once, he launched an attack on the Claeg forces. Pa.s.sion driving him, bolstered by the Art of the Osraed, he routed the enemy from Creiddylad, but in the battle to take Mertuile, Osraed Gartain was captured and carried away to the Claeg capitol.

Hoping to save his beloved friend's life, Bearach Malcuim went into the Cave of Ochan and brought out a crystal all but identical in size and color to the Osmaer. He offered this false Stone to The Claeg in exchange for Gartain's life.

The counterfeit nearly fooled The Claeg, but even as the hostage Gartain was on his way to Creiddylad to be released, the cautious Chieftain took the stone and presented it to a Hillwild woman of his household. The woman tested the crystal and found it to be false.

Furious, The Claeg raced to Creiddylad, reaching the release point in the court of Kieran's Chapel as Gartain began his walk to freedom and reunion. In full sight of Bearach Malcuim and the people of Creiddylad, Buchan Claeg took up a crossbow and shot the young Osraed in the back. The heroic Gartain fell dead into the arms of his young Cyneric.

Grief doubled and driven by vengeance, Bearach entered into a pact with the Chief of the House Feich, knowing that with the forces of this mighty family, he might hope to trample the Claeg once and for all. They might have done this if The Feich had not played traitor and run straight to Buchan Claeg with the news that Bearach Spearman was planning a ma.s.sed attack on the Claeg estates.