Mortal men should not look into heaven. If they do, they should not be surprised when all they can remember is that they were there, for one brief, radiant moment. He certainly was not.
But that moment had given him something he had needed, and had not known he needed, until the need was not there anymore.
He sat up slowly and felt the back of his skull gingerly. But the lump he expected to encounter, and the headache he anticipated, were not there.
:I took your body, and caused you to lie down, rather than fall down, Alberich,: Taver said, as Kantor whuffed at his ear. :I knew what would happen, and it was no thought of mine that you take hurt from it.:
Alberich stared at the Companion—who was more, so much more than he appeared that it made him dizzy even to nibble at the edges of the thought. 'You've never done this to Talamir?'
:Talamir never required it. He is of Valdemar, blood and bone. You— were floundering, drowning, without a foundation. I think you were not even aware of it, except that you sought for it desperately, without knowing what you sought for. Have I given you what you needed?:
He had been looking, and yes, desperately—Taver was right. He thought that he'd been thinking, but he'd really been cluttering up his head with the minutiae of his new life here so that he didn't have to think about anything deeper. But if it came to that, he'd been looking for that foundation all his life. He'd tried to make his honor into a place to stand, but honor needed something to be based in.
:Ah.: There was contentment in that thought. :Good.:
Good? Oh, this was so much more than good. He had been drowning, with no land in sight. Yet, suddenly, Taver had put firm ground beneath his feet. Uncertainty that had been with him for so long it had become an uneasy part of him had been dispelled, popped like a bubble, exploded like the inflated bladder that it was. The monster in the closet was gone. And something so much better had taken its place....
Taver nodded his graceful head. :Alberich, will you trust me again?:
Alberich blinked at such nonsense. Trust him? Trust him? Trust to so pure a spirit —a being so near to the divine that he could scarcely believe there was no glow of holiness about him? Trust a being that he should, by all rights, be worshiping?
Taver shook his head and mane, and whickered a laugh. :Oh, come now, Alberich, I am not so much as all that—a servant only, nothing more.:
A servant! 'As much a servant as—as the Firecat of legend!' he whispered, hardly daring to speak. 'As the Guardian of the Gates of Paradise!'
:Exactly so. No more than that.: Taver bent to touch a soft—and very, very material nose—to Alberich's ear. :Come, stand—put your hand to Kantor's neck, and look into his eyes as you did mine. And this time, open your heart to him, as you have not yet done. Give up your walls, Alberich of Karse. Take them down, and let him inside.:
He could fight the command of one of Vkandis' Priests—he could no more stand against the same command as given by Taver than he could have fought a whirlwind. He did as he was told.
He looked deeply into those sapphire eyes, and opened his heart. And Kantor stepped gracefully into it, and filled it, and until that moment, he had no notion how empty it had been, nor how lonely he had been.
And as all of the knowledge and understanding and revelations that had come to him in the past few moments settled into place like doves coming to rest on their proper perches for the night, he knew, truly and completely, that there was Something above them all, call it Vkandis Sunlord or any other name. He could no more understand that Something than a flea could understand a man—but it was there. He would continue to have other doubts, other fears, but that one was gone.
And there was something else, much nearer and homelier, that would also be with him as a certainty as rock-solid as the earth beneath him and undoubted as the sky above. No matter what happened, in the next moment, or moon, or year, or lifetime—he and Kantor would never be alone or lonely again.
'Chosen—' he whispered, and buried his face in Kantor's mane.
:Chosen,: Kantor replied, with all the love that great heart could hold.
And it was—oh, yes—it was more, so much more, than enough.
