Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [93]
The last remark could brook no argument. Danrak bit his tongue, further objections dying unsaid. He looked at the bedraggled Ffolk around him and realized that she spoke the truth. These, the ones who remained of the druid apprentices of twenty years before, made a battered lot, ill-used by the passage of time.
Mikal, whose beard had streaked silver before Danrak shaved his first whiskers, was indeed too old to make the trip. Now he leaned upon the great bear that, during the last dozen years, he had reared and tamed. It served as his steed, in fact, and was the sole reason the withered druid had arrived at this council. And for the quest before them, Danrak knew that no companion could help.
That was why the druids had gathered here, upon the far northern shore of Gwynneth, where the land reached with rocky fingers into the Sea of Moonshae. Standing at the very headland of Gwynneth, the druids overlooked many miles of gray water. The coasts of Alaron, to the east, and Oman, to the west, lay far over the gray horizons, and to the north lay hundreds of miles of chill, rolling sea.
It was stormy water, and a surface that must be crossed by the druid sent on this quest.
A rocky promontory dropped sharply a hundred feet or more into the foaming surf. The steady cadence of the sea came to them from below like a booming tempo that marked away the minutes remaining to them. Danrak felt, with a cold shudder, that those minutes had become all too few. Perhaps not the entire time of his life had been good, but he surprised himself by realizing, when faced with its possible and potentially imminent end, how much he wanted to keep living, to sample many more minutes of existence.
Closing his eyes, Danrak offered a quiet prayer to the goddess. Though he felt no response to his act of faith, the litany soothed him, and he felt better prepared to face the challenge implicit in Meghan's remarks.
"Here, Danrak," said a softly female voice. "I made this for you-just the way it was in my dream." Petite Isolde, her black hair framing a round and very serious face, held an object in her hand.
"Thank you, sister," he said, clasping the small feather in his hand.
"And here, brother," offered Kile, extending a small curved object, the crossed talons of a great wolf's paw.
"You, too, Kile?" Danrak could not help asking. "You had this dream?"
"Aye, and I carved the claw as it was in the dream."
A young druid called Lorn gave Danrak a shiny pebble, which he said had come from a shallow streambed. Danrak saw that it bore a circular spot, like the pupil of an eye. Lorn had smoothed and polished the bauble until now it glowed more brightly than gold.
One by one the others gave him the gifts they had made-things of animal, or plant, or earth. With each bestowal, Danrak felt a flowing of love and a slowly growing sense of power. Each of the druids had spent months in the preparation of the talisman, and now all of their might, limited though it was, flowed together into one. All of them had made the objects of their dreams, and in those dreams, they had given them to Danrak.
Only Danrak had had no dream, had seen no token. Yet he couldn't ignore the combined will and prescience of the others.
"I will go on the quest as the goddess commands," announced Danrak, when they had finally finished. He carried the talismans about his person, in belt pouches and pockets and, in some cases, pinned to his woolen tunic.
"May her benevolence watch over you," said Meghan quietly, her voice catching. Danrak was surprised and touched to see tears gathering in her eyes.
The others stood back, forming a loose ring around him. Trying to suppress the trembling in his knees, Danrak stepped to the edge of the promontory. He didn't look down, yet he remained acutely conscious of the surf pounding against the jagged boulders far below.
It had been decades since any druid had gained power from the goddess, either to cast a spell or to employ the innate abilities of their order. This