Darkwell - Douglas Niles [124]
"Well, goodness!" declared Gretta, picking up the chair Randolph knocked over as he leaped from the table and burst through the door into the Great Hall.
She found him staring in slack-jawed shock at the mantle over the huge fireplace. She looked, too, for a moment not understanding his concern. Then she realized the difference and gasped at Pontswain's treachery.
The Crown of the Isles was gone!
* * * * *
Chauntea listened for the prayers of the one who wore her medallion, but they were not forthcoming. The druid still clung to the belief in her benign, but inescapably perished, goddess.
Awaken! Heed my warning! Chauntea tried to communicate with the woman, tried to tell her of the power she held in her Rose-in-Sun medallion, but Robyn of Gwynneth did not hear.
The goddess of farming and growth sensed another menace, the powerful presence of evil, near the medallion itself. It was a lurking, potent vileness, but well concealed. Even the druid did not suspect it.
Each of the scrolls, with the casting of their powerful spells, had brought the woman a little closer to this new goddess, but she had resisted the final steps, the decision of faith that could make her a powerful cleric of Chauntea.
But until the human made that decision, the deity would have to watch and wait.
And perhaps pray.
XVII
Tempest of Ice and Fire
Storm winds howled through the night, and the snow raged across the lands in a blizzard of fury. The companions twisted and turned, sleeping little, brushing the snow from their furs to keep from being buried. Dawn brought no relief as the gray light seeped through the gale, illuminating a scene of shifting snowdrifts and frost.
Robyn pushed back the fur that covered her and felt the chill air against her face. Tristan stirred beside her, and she pulled close to him, reluctant to leave her principal source of warmth.
She felt the return of the dark despair she had known the previous evening. Genna's arrival had temporarily managed to raise the young druid's hopes, restoring her faith in the might of the great mother. She had prayed to the goddess for much of the night, concentrating intensely, desperately hoping for some kind of response. But there had been nothing.
Instead, her mind had whirled with visions of the redhaired vixen sprawled across Tristan's bed. The woman's musical laugh mocked her own pain and anger, and nightmare visions of despair and doom suddenly overwhelmed the druid's face. Robyn had twisted and turned in torment, wishing for the blissful protection of sleep.
All the while, she had known that the comfort of Tristan's warm embrace was right beside her, should she but choose to accept it. But all she could feel for him was hurt and betrayal, and so she turned away and huddled against the chill and didn't sleep.
Now the icy wind swirled about her, and stinging particles of snow chilled her skin every time they touched her face. She sat up and pulled her own cloak about her, though it did not insulate against the cold as well as the thick furs of the Llewyrr. Startled, Robyn saw Genna sitting alone in the blizzard, apparently unaffected by the cold.
"Didn't you sleep?" asked the young druid.
Her teacher shrugged. "A little. It seems time we were moving."
"To the well?" Genna made no response, and Robyn proceeded to tell her in more detail about the scrolls and her plan for freeing the druids from stone. She felt a moment of guilt, wondering if her teacher would berate her for using the scripts of one of the new gods, but Genna didn't appear to notice.
"We shall go the grove," said the Great Druid. "If this scroll will free the others, so be it, but we must be in the grove to face the… conclusion."
"Do you have enough power to control this storm, to ease our path?" asked Robyn, knowing that the Great Druid had often influenced the weather in the past, bringing rainfall to a parched valley or warming away the effects of a killing frost.
Genna looked