throat and he pitched to the ground, writhing and straining to free the blade. Then the pain faded, washed from his body by the rushing blood. He rolled to his back, looking up at the sky above him, waiting to see the Valkyrie ride down for his soul.
He wondered if Asbidag would mourn for him. “I’ll cut out his eyes,” he heard someone say. Barsa knew panic; he did not want to be blind in the Hall of Heroes.
“Leave him be,” said the clansman who had cut him.
Relief and release came together, and the light faded.
Chapter Nine
In the early-morning sunlight the clanswomen stripped the Aenir dead of all weapons and dispatched those warriors still clinging to life. Caswallon walked into the forest with many others of the attacking party, stopping at a fast-moving stream and removing his blood-covered clothes.
The night’s work had appalled the new War Lord. More than six hundred Aenir warriors had been butchered in their sleep; it was no way for a man to die.
Caswallon stepped into the stream, shivering as the icy mountain water touched his skin. Swiftly he washed, then returned to the bank, sprawling out alongside Leofas and the young raven-haired warrior Onic, the finest quarterstaff fighter in the mountains.
“A fine night,” said Leofas, grinning. Stripped of his clothing, the old warrior looked even more powerful. His barrel chest and muscular shoulders gave evidence of his great strength, yet his belly was flat and taut, the muscles of the solar plexus sharp and clean.
“It was a victory, anyway,” said Caswallon wearily.
“You’re a strange man, Caswallon,” said Leofas, sitting up and slapping the younger man between the shoulder blades. “These swine have come upon us with murder and rape and now, I sense, you regret last night’s slaughter.”
“I do regret it. I regret it was necessary.”
“Well, I enjoyed it. Especially watching you gut that tall son of a whore.”
A group of clanswomen, led by Maeg, came to the stream carrying clean clothes for the men. Caswallon dressed, and spotted Taliesen sitting on a fallen tree; the War Lord joined him in the sunshine.
“There is the smell of death in this forest,” said Taliesen. “It reeks of it.” The druid looked impossibly old, his face ashen, the skin dry. His cloak of feathers hung limply on his skeletal shoulders, the colors faded and dust- covered. “But still, you did well, War Lord.”
Caswallon sat beside the old man. “Who are you, druid? What are you?”
“I am a man, Caswallon. No more, no less. I was a student centuries ago and I joined the trek from the stars to see more of life. I wanted to learn the origins of man. The Gates were a means to an end.”
“And what are the origins of man?”
Taliesen chuckled, his tired eyes showing a glint of humor. “I don’t know. I never will. My teacher was a great man. He knew the secrets of the stars, the mysteries of the planets, and the structure of the Gates. And yet, he never learned the origins. Together we journeyed and studied, and ever the great mystery eluded us. I sometimes fear the cosmic force I cannot see, and he laughs at me in my vanity.
“My teacher, Astole, became a mystic in a far land. It happened soon after the Prime Gate failed. You see, we could never travel back far enough, anywhere, to find the first man. The Gates would always be pushed back. Wherever we went, there was a man, developed to some degree. Several hundred years ago I developed a theory of my own, and I left Astole in the deserts of his world and journeyed to a northern land, a Highland kingdom. The people there were under threat, even as you are, and I led them to the Farlain to watch them grow and to see how they would develop. I thought the development would assist my studies.”
“And did it?” asked Caswallon.
“No. Man is a singularly irritating creature. All that happened was that I grew to love the people of the Farlain. My studies were ruined anyway two hundred years ago, when the last of my people wed into the race. We had no women, you see, and every man needs companionship. I recruited many of their children, and so the order survives, but many of those now practicing the skill do not appreciate any longer the… arts behind the machines.
“You, Caswallon, are of my race. You are the great-grandson of the daughter of Nerist. A bright man was Nerist. He alone of all my pupils said we would never reopen the Great Gates. You cannot understand the awful sense of separation and loss we experienced when those gates closed. You see, what happened was an impossibility.”
“Why should it be impossible?” asked Caswallon. “All things have a beginning and an ending.”
“Indeed they do. But when you play with time, Caswallon, you create circles. Think of this: Today you will see the last of the Middle Gates. Today. Now. You will gaze upon it, and your people-our people-will pass through it. But tomorrow, let us say, the Gate disappears. We are worried at first, but then we think: It was there yesterday. Therefore we step through a Lesser Gate into yesterday. What should we find?”
“ The other Gate should once again be there,” said Caswallon.
“Aye, it should-for we saw it yesterday… passed through it. But that is the mystery, my boy. For when the Great Gates disappeared, they vanished throughout time. Impossible, for it does not correspond with reality.”
“You told me,” said Caswallon, “that magic was impossibility made reality. If that is true, there should be no problem accepting the reverse. What happened to your Gates was simply reality made impossibility.”
“But who made it happen?”
“Perhaps someone is studying you, even as you study us,” said Caswallon, smiling.
Taliesen’s eyes gleamed. “Astole believed just such a thing. I do not.”
At that moment Gaelen entered the clearing, calling Caswallon’s name. The War Lord leaped to his feet, opening his arms as the young man ran to him. They stood there for several moments, hugging each other. Then Caswallon took hold of Gaelen’s shoulders and gently pushed him away.
“Now, you’re a sight to ease my mind,” said Caswallon.
“And you. Deva and I thought to find you cut to pieces by the Aenir. We saw you from the peaks yonder.”
“Just for once we out-thought them. You look tired, and there is dried blood on your tunic.”
We’ve been chased over the mountains for three days.”
“But you came through.”
“You taught me well.”
Caswallon grinned. “Where is Deva?”
“Upstream, washing the grime from herself.”
“Then you do the same. Much as I am glad to see you, you smell like a dead fish. Away with you!”
Caswallon watched the young man walk to the stream and his eyes glowed with pride. Taliesen stood beside him. “He is a fine young man. A credit to you.”
“ A credit to himself. You know, Taliesen, as I carried him on my back from the destruction of Ateris I wondered if I was being foolish. His wounds were grievous-and he was all skin and bone anyway. My legs ached, and my back burned through every step. But I’m glad I didn’t leave him.”
“He is tough,” agreed the druid. “Oracle did well to heal him.”
“Yes. I hope the old man survived the assault.”
“He did not,” said Taliesen.
“How do you know?”
“Let us leave it that I know. He was a strong man, but vain.”
“That is not much of an epitaph,” said Caswallon.
“It is the best I can offer. Now get the clan ready. We must cross the bridge before dusk.”
Almost six thousand people thronged the shoreline as the sun cleared noon. Silence fell upon them as a druid appeared on the island’s shore, some forty yards across the foaming water. He tied a slender line to a sturdy pine, then looped the long coil over his shoulder and stepped out on the water. A gasp rose from the watchers, for the
