Shadows on the Stars (Great Tree of Avalon, Band 2) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

XXX A Pure Crystal

Elli and Tamwyn found themselves sitting on the floor of a large room. Its floor, walls, and furniture all sparkled with a moist, silvery sheen, like frozen mist. The ceiling, unlike any they’d ever seen, tapered to a point high above their heads. All at once, the truth struck home, and they turned to each other.

“We’re inside the tree!” they both said at once.

“I do have chairs, you know,” rang a mischievous voice behind them.

They spun around—and then leaped to their feet. Tamwyn accidentally stepped on Elli’s toes, but she hardly noticed. For seated before them was the Lady of the Lake herself.

She sat in a chair sprouting out of the floor, a crystalline burl that was part of the tree itself. Under its vaporous surface, it seemed as solid as any wooden chair—maybe more so, since it looked as if it had lasted all the ages of Avalon. The woman herself seemed quite old, and yet her gray-blue eyes twinkled with youthful vitality. She studied her guests, playing with the curls of her silver hair, until at last she spoke to them in a rich, gentle voice.

“And so we meet,” she declared, inclining her head to each of them in turn. “Elliryanna Lailoken. A mouthful of a name, that is! No wonder you go by just Elli.” She grinned playfully at the surprised young woman, then turned to Tamwyn. “And Tamwyn, who doesn’t even know his full name.” She watched him shift uncomfortably, then added softly: “Although … I do.”

Tamwyn started. He leaned forward and opened his mouth to ask her to say more, when she raised her hand. “Later, Tamwyn.” Reluctantly, he shut his mouth, though his dark eyes stared at her in wonder.

She turned at last to Nuic, who was standing on the sparkling floor beside Elli. This time, she did more than incline her head. She drew her thick shawl about her shoulders and rose from her chair, as gracefully as a spiral of mist. Then she made a full curtsey to the pinnacle sprite.

“Nuic,” she said. “How good to see you.”

The Lady’s special treatment of Nuic was, for Elli, surprising enough. But what words then came out of his mouth surprised her even more. For her ever-grumpy maryth said nothing harsh or even irreverent. He simply said graciously, “The pleasure is mine.”

Elli glanced down at the sprite, whose colors were vibrant blues and greens. “You’ve met before?”

Nuic just shrugged. “You could say that, Elliryanna.”

The Lady, watching him, fingered the amulet of oak, ash, and hawthorn leaves that hung around her neck. “Indeed you could.”

Tamwyn and Elli traded glances. Then, while Elli puzzled over the sprite’s strange behavior, Tamwyn turned back to the Lady. Her eyes, so bright, with both gray and blue, reminded him of the mist swirling on the sapphire lake. And there was something else about her—something magical—that made him think of the museo he’d seen that night back in Stoneroot. Although he’d been mired in a heap of dung, that museo, and the strange bard with the sideways-growing beard, had lifted his spirits right out of the dung and into the stars.

That’s how Tamwyn felt just now, for no reason he could name: ready to reach as high as he could. As high as the true heir of Merlin, perhaps—even if, as he feared, he was really very different. As different from Merlin’s heir as anyone could possibly be.

The Lady of the Lake sat again, and gestured for them to do the same. Both Elli and Tamwyn found shimmering burls beside the enchantress, not far from a wide hearth that glowed steadily. But it wasn’t any fire that produced the glow. It was, as Elli realized with astonishment, a cluster of light flyers—tiny winged creatures who were among the rarest in Avalon. They were crawling across the back of the hearth, their frilled wings pulsing with golden light.

“What a beautiful way to light your home,” said Elli.

“And no need for kindling,” said the wilderness guide next to her.

“Hmmmpff,” said Nuic in his usual crusty style. He had chosen to sit on the floor, not far from the Lady’s bare feet. “At least they’re friendlier than the last winged beasts we encountered.”

The Lady’s eyes grew suddenly sad. “Ah, yes. You have met ghoulacas.”

“Where did they come from?” asked Tamwyn.

The old enchantress sighed. “They are fairly new to Avalon, made by some hand I do not recognize. Yet this much I can tell you: In their blood runs an ancient evil. As old as Merlin’s magical seed. The same evil that fanned the flames of greed and hatred into the War of Storms.”

“But,” protested Tamwyn, “that war, and that whole age, ended long ago.”

“It did indeed.” The elder woman drew herself up straighter. “We ended it, Merlin and I, with the Treaty of the Swaying Sea. But the evil did not die. It merely retreated to the shadows.”

She plucked at one of the green threads in her gown, holding it closer to the hearth’s light. At once, Tamwyn and Elli realized that it wasn’t a thread at all, but a living vine. Her entire gown was woven of vines and leafy green shoots, all supple and alive. To Elli, it was almost—though not quite—as beautiful as the gown of woven spider’s silk worn by the High Priestess.

“You see this vine?” asked the Lady. “Green it is, and green it will remain, so long as my will is there to support it. The same is true for a friendship, a marriage … or a treaty of peace.”

Tamwyn gazed into the hearth. “So when the people lose their will for peace, things will happen—things like ghoulacas?”

She nodded. “And more.”

He chewed his lip. “Things like weird, moaning winds … and strange white lakes.”

“Or maybe even,” added Elli, “distant stars going dark.”

“Or things more subtle, that can’t be seen,” declared Nuic. “Things like arrogance. In a priestess, or a so-called teacher.”

“True.” The woman’s eyes, glowing brighter than the hearth, peered at Nuic. “The same sort of arrogance that, long ago, caused Rhiannon, daughter of Elen the Founder, to resign as High Priestess and leave the Society that she’d worked so long and hard to create.”

Elli started. “So that’s why Rhia walked out?”

“Hmmmpff,” corrected Nuic. “She didn’t just walk out. She stormed out— shouting and hurling insults right and left. I remember well, I saw it.”

“Nuic,” demanded Elli. “I didn’t know you’d ever been to the Drumadians’ compound before last month.”

The sprite eyed her grumpily. “You think all I’ve done with my life is sit on my ass in mountain streams? Well, think again.”

Beneath the wrinkles on the Lady’s cheeks, she grinned. And Tamwyn noticed, really for the first time, just how beautiful she looked. Not just radiant, and magical, and mysterious. Beautiful.

You must have been totally gorgeous when you were young, he thought to himself, speaking in his mind’s private language that only non-human creatures understood.

To his absolute horror, she turned to him and answered with thoughts of her own.

So I’m not gorgeous now?

Tamwyn sputtered and had such a sudden fit of coughing that he almost fell off his burl chair. As soon as he could speak again, he stammered, “You—you are, my gorgeous. I mean, my grace! Er, your gorge … No, no....