I looked down at my companion's face. So pale it was, and so serene now. My eyes filled, shimmering with the light from the river. I knew what that pallor, that painlessness meant.
Not long indeed.
'Behind us,' he whispered. 'The fane I sought. I did not mean to enter it... quite like this.' He coughed. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Drawing upon the strength that even the weakest man or woman finds at a moment of utmost trial, I drew him with me into the sanctuary.
Beyond the standing stones shimmered a pool. Beside it lay a stone as great as those that formed the gate. It gleamed as if it had been purified for some holy use.
'Bring me there...'
It looked too much like a bier for comfort, but we had the choice either of that stone or the cold ground. He slumped down onto the rock, propping himself with one hand, or he surely would have fallen full length. His reflection gleamed in the water, except for the spreading darkness from his wounds.
The silver light that yoked him with his native earth flared up like a candle end, then guttered out. In this new darkness, he still gazed at his reflection. Now it held more life than he. His blood dripped from his body down the stone. Tapers of light erupted at each end of the altarstone.
I stumbled toward the pool to fill the Cup. I set it to his mouth. At least, I could wash the blood from his face, wet his lips before he set forth on his journey, and I on mine.
'Light fails, light and life together. I would be dead at home,' he murmured in quiet amazement. 'I don't want this. I want...'
He let the water moisten his lips.
I set Cup and Blade aside and took his hands in mine.
'Stay with me,' I begged. 'I love you.'
'I love you,' he cried softly, 'but I cannot stay.'
So strange it was to hear a magus speak of love, not power. Anger flickered in me that we would not have the time we had earned.
'If I inscribed the circle now and you drew on me...' I faltered.
'We would not survive the passage. Listen...' His voice had sunk to a whisper.
I bent close. 'My true name. Gereint,' he said. 'Remember me. And...'
His fingers tightened on my hands, raising them toward his lips as the sun rose. He kissed the pallid scars upon my wrists and they vanished. He drew his silver bracelet from his arm and ringed my left wrist with it, still warm with the last of his life.
'You must return now,' he said.
Tears poured down my face.
'I don't want to leave you.' There the admission was. I had another one to make, too. 'Gereint, Gereint, my name is...'
He shook his head. 'Your name was marred. And so I give you another. It is 'Beloved.'' Our lips touched, then parted.
'I will take that kiss with me into forever,' he said, smiling. 'I beg you, go. Already, your light grows fainter.'
Gereint's hands gripped the stone as if he sought to hold onto life long enough to bid me farewell. I saw him glance at the river that he must cross, then back at me. He did not want me to see him pass.
I cleaned the Blade in the long harsh grass. I filled the Cup again, disturbing the shadowy reflection that I did not want to see dissipate when the ripples subsided Then I drew myself up, saluted him, as befitted an adept of our order, inscribed the circle, and began, ruthlessly suppressing my voice's trembling, the Invocation.
No fumes of incense eased my throat or my passage home. Instead, light wreathed up about me. It hid Gereint from my sight—all the farewell we would have. I forced myself not to weep. I needed my breath for the rite.
Cascades of silver exploded about me.
I lay upon the floor of Gereint's house, which was now and forever mine by my love's gift, idly drinking in the fragrance of rain upon the lilacs. Finally, I opened my eyes. I lay wholly covered with blossoms.
I let myself curl up on the floor as if, lacking Gereint, I could embrace my grief. Bereaved I was, yet somehow fulfilled. What else in me had changed? I would not find out by lying here.
I struggled onto my feet. The fire was banked. I stirred it into brilliant life. I hung the pot of porridge over it and set the kettle on the hearth to boil water for herb tea. Soon I would be hungry, I knew that from other workings. Soon, too, people would come, to inquire how I fared, as they would say. I knew they came even more for healcraft and reassurance. They were Gereint's people: no, they were ours. His sacrifice had kept them safe.
I looked out the window and saw not the familiar garden, the familiar slope edging down to the riverbank, but, with the shimmering of my tears, another river altogether, bridged by a sword that even now my Gereint must have dared cross.
A life of work. A life of service, friendship, perhaps love again; I would face it all.
The years would not pass rapidly. I would not wish them lessened, nor would he. An end to our waiting would come, in the fullness of my years or the midst of some good deed. And when I too crossed that final river, Gereint would greet me on the farther bank, smiling at me in the fragrance of the lilacs.
