Daimon’s eyes dropped, hid from the wyvern’s gaze, and from the magus,
who, frowning vaguely, seemed to be trying to remember something else lost in
the mists of time and history, and whether or not it might in any way be
important.
“Well,” he breathed finally, “what will come will come. We shall see in the
end what shape, what face it takes.” His tangled brows knotted suddenly; he
shifted the glasses on his nose, looking pained. “You need,” he said to
Pierce, “to call your mother.”
—
The next afternoon, Pierce stood between his father and his brother among
hundreds of knights in the sanctum of the god Severen. Like Val, he wore the
dark uniform and the quilted jacket embroidered with the sign of Leith’s
family: a black swan floating on a silver-blue lake, silhouetted against a
full moon edged with a circle of stars. The sanctum was a huge, diamond-shaped
structure whose great colored windows were so rich with coiling seams of
silver and gold that light reflecting off them burned Pierce’s eyes and
inspired the tears that were his first gift to the god. Through centuries, its
lofty walls had acquired a crust of wealth that astonished the eye in every
possible shape and from every possible cranny. In the center a great fountain
shot sacred water upward through a lavishly decorated pipe, imitating the
perpetual, vigorous power of the Severen River.
Mystes Ruxley, high above the gathering on an ornate, gilded pulpit, also
endlessly imitated that flow.
“You will at all times uphold the laws of Wyvernhold. You will use all
weapons in the name of the god Severen, and lead your quest in a manner that
reflects the ancient traditions of this land and its king. You will . . .”
Pierce’s thoughts strayed to the small town on Chimera Bay that, no matter
how far he traveled, would not let him go. Random memories surfaced: the
strange ritual in the ghost of the old hotel; the past that clung there, a
collection of fractured relics and small mysteries; the young woman with her
smiling green eyes, her flowing golden hair and generous smile, those eyes
reddened, heavy with unshed tears. Trapped in a fairy tale, she seemed to him,
by the chef who refused to show his face. Again Pierce felt the pull of her,
even across the distance, and his impulse to step once more onto that
convoluted, obsessive path to her door.
“Go in peace, return safely with what you find, for every one of you,
searching for such a prize will, according to the magus Lord Skelton, bring
back what you need most. In the name of the god Severen, and with King Arden’
s sufferance, go into the world with courage, humility, and the worthiest of
intentions. As Lord Skelton might say, and probably did: Follow your heart,
and you will always know where you are. This Assembly is ended. Praise
Severen.”
The knights did so with such enthusiasm that the phrase bounced from wall to
wall and even overwhelmed, for an instance, the incessant voice of the river
god. Pierce felt a hand grip his shoulder; he turned his head, met Leith’s
smiling eyes. He followed his father and his brother out of the sanctum into
the long shadows and bright, sun-streaked late afternoon of Severluna, and he
wondered what he could possibly find of value on this quest that he did not
already, amazingly, possess.
Late that night, he finally called his mother.
14
News about the Assembly reached Calluna’s sanctum in piecemeal fashion. Short
of listening through a keyhole, Perdita had to wait for Gareth to reappear,
which he finally did late in the evening after the Assembly ended. They
slipped out of the palace, away from knights and acolytes, to a quiet,
discreet pub to talk. From Gareth, the princess heard the incredible tale of
the secret son of Leith Duresse, whose wife Heloise had kept from him all
those years.
“We actually met him,” Gareth told her, looking amazed. “Prince Roarke and
Bayley and I, when we got lost on Cape Mistbegotten, coming home from the
north. The sorceress who cooked our lunch was Pierce’s mother. Now he is
going off questing with his newfound father and brother.”
“And you?” Perdita asked grimly, fascinated as well but refusing to be
distracted. “Are you going off, too?”
He gave her a rueful look that was overshadowed by a vision. She recognized
that distancing between them, the feeling that part of him had already left
her. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You just got back from the north!”
“I know.”
“That time it was for a falcon—”
“The winter merlin.”
“This time—for what? Exactly?”
“Nobody seems to know, exactly. It’s hard to explain.”
She took a cold swallow of beer and eyed him dourly. “Try.”
He did, earnestly but not very coherently, through another beer, and most of
what was left of the night. They parted company in the morning, he to pack,
she to Calluna’s sanctum, where she had the first shift of the day keeping
watch, among the pools and fountains and flickering candles, over the ancient
peace of the goddess. She opened the chamber door to change into her robe and
found herself face-to-face with Leith Duresse.