Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [145]
"To the Moonwell!" Tavish cried, immediately understanding. She hurried to the foot of the sloping, ramplike rainbow and, without hesitation, placed a foot upon it.
"It's solid!" reported the bard, beginning to climb upward.
"Hey!" cried Tavish, from far above them. Though she had taken but three steps, she was more than a hundred feet in the air.
"It carries her!" shouted Brandon triumphantly. Without further hesitation, he followed the bard, and in moments, the northman, too, was a distant figure.
"By the goddess!" breathed Alicia, as the rest of the party started to climb the miraculous bridge. "We may yet arrive in time!"
* * * * *
In the depths of darkness, High Queen Robyn started, struggling against the cloak of evil that enwrapped her. She felt the power of the goddess like a kiss of warm wind that restored breath to her lungs.
Chaos remained a thick fog, blocking all light and knowledge and memory. Yet now that fog dissipated somewhat. She felt a warmth and brightness beyond the fog, a hope and a promise that she hadn't felt for twenty years.
Slowly, with great determination, Robyn started upward, toward the sun.
* * * * *
"A dragon!" groaned Hanrald, his eyes riveted to the monstrous beast on the knoll above him. The horse he had claimed in the battle danced skittishly beneath him. The surviving riders of the twenty-five were gathered in a tight knot across the pond and seemed to be waiting for something.
The knight looked around and noticed behind him the prostrate form of Keane and, farther away, the trio of Deirdre, Malawar, and his father.
"Hanrald!" cried the Earl of Fairheight. "I command you to lay down your sword and yield the well to me!"
"I cannot," the knight stated simply.
"Treachery!" shouted the earl. "Upon the evil you have already wrought as slayer of your brother!"
"I would have shown him mercy," protested Hanrald, "but he betrayed me-and it was not I that struck the fatal blow!"
"Surrender-now!" demanded the earl.
"I refuse."
"Kill him! Strike him quickly!" Malawar's cracked voice was a rasping hiss in Deirdre's ear. She stared numbly at the knight, her mind still reeling from the knowledge that she had just slain her teacher, a man who trusted her and would have been her friend. "Do it!" shrilled the priest.
"No!" The voice of refusal was a deep rumble, and it came from the knoll above the Moonwell. Gotha, the dracolich, spoke. "The knight is mine!"
Hanrald turned, with no display of fear, to observe the great wyrm. The beast coiled its great legs beneath it, spreading its great skeletal wings to the sides. Crouching, it prepared to spring.
But then a sound like thunder rocked through the vale, and the darkness was split by a bright wash of sunlight. The heavy overcast broke apart above them, revealing an expanse of blue.
And a rainbow streaked down from the sky.
* * * * *
Musings of the Harpist
We cross meadows with a single step, mountain valleys in a few strides! Landscapes spread below us, exposed to the sun as the clouds flee the glory of the Earthmother's rainbow. We feel glorious warmth, we see expanses of forgotten beauty-indeed, it seems that vitality begins to return to the land.
Thus the power of the goddess carried us across moor and mountain to the heart other life-and of our hope.
20
Rainbow
The clouds parted below as Alicia and her companions walked swiftly along the avenue of the rainbow. A sky of glorious blue swelled above them, and the warm sun felt like a kiss of life on the woman's brow. A sense of faith propelled her, filling her with joy. The goddess lived! The gray vapor rolled back away from the iridescent spectrum to reveal sodden moors and rain-lashed mountains. All the landscape glistened in the brilliant rays of the sun.
The great ramp of the rainbow curved downward, splitting the overcast and finally spilling with a rain of color into the valley of the Fairheight Moonwell. Gleaming like a roadway,