Darkwell - Douglas Niles [100]
"Come, Avalon, this way. Let us go home."
* * * * *
Koll leaped to his feet as soon as he felt movement in the castle floor below him. "Come on! Let's get out of here!" he cried.
Gwen leaned back on the rug, the look of contentment on her face quite at odds with her companion's agitation. "I think we're perfectly safe," she said with a sigh, "and I'm going to stay right here!"
For a moment, the northman considered reaching down and sweeping the woman into his arms. Damn her blind naivetй! He wanted to carry her to safety, but he admitted to himself that he didn't know where safety lay. Koll's heart pounded, thumping in his ears. Somehow he spoke without screaming.
"Stay here, then, if you want to! I have to see if we're sinking!" He sprinted through the corridor, back into the Great Hall with its shimmering stained glass, and out the great bronze doors into the courtyard.
For a moment, he felt relieved. Water was not, as he had feared, pouring into the castle. It did not appear to be sinking back beneath the waves. Then he looked to the sky and saw the clouds sailing past the castle walls, appearing to move from the north to the south.
Koll dashed across the courtyard and found a stairway leading to the parapet high above the wall. Scrambling up the steps three and four at a time, he stumbled onto the rampart and looked in disbelief at the water below.
The castle wall, like the prow of some impossibly massive ship, plowed through the gray swells of the Sea of Moonshae, tossing up solid curtains of spray from each mountainous wave. The citadel moved across the surface of the water on a steady northerly course! He looked behind them and saw a broad, foaming wake in their path.
"Am I mad?" he asked himself. After a moment's reflection, he decided that the movement of the castle across the ocean did not seem any more improbable than its rising from the depths at the precise moment his boat had sailed above it. It all seemed impossible and unbelievable!
He stood there for a long time, like the captain on the bridge of a massive warship, watching the gray swell rolling to the far horizons. Eventually he felt a presence beside him and turned to see that Gwen had joined him on the rampart. She took his hand and leaned against him. "It is a miracle," she said. "The fire told me." "What?" Koll turned to look full into her face, but he could see no trace of madness. In fact, she looked more confident and self-assured than he had ever seen her.
"I know it sounds crazy," she continued, laughing, "but the fire – I heard it talking to me while you were gone. It spoke with a woman's voice. This is her castle, and she is – was – a queen of the Ffolk who died long ago. Queen Allisynn, bride of Cymrych Hugh."
"You know of her?"
"Her husband was the great hero of my people, the first of our High Kings."
Koll was prepared to believe almost anything now, so the news that the fire had spoken to Gwen did not shake him. Some distant part of himself watched in amazement as he calmly discussed the issue. "And what did she say?"
"She is taking us someplace where there is a task we must perform. I don't know what it is, but it is important, and we are suited for it because I am a daughter of the Ffolk and you are a son of the North."
He turned back to the water, watching the gray waves roll past the castle walls. His seaman's sense told him they sailed north, or perhaps just a little west of true north. He made a guess, based upon their course and his knowledge of the Moonshaes.
"I believe she is taking us to Norland," Koll pronounced.
* * * * *
Tristan led the way, blindly driving himself along the bottom of the icy gorge, pulling his companions by the force of his rage. Savage images cavorted through his mind. He saw Canthus, drowned and dead, Daryth mauled beyond recognition. He pictured Yazilliclick frozen in the snow somewhere, Avalon torn and bleeding. He stared unwillingly at the image of the red-haired vixen sprawled naked on his bed and Robyn's wounded