Death of an Adept

Gingerly, he opened the box. The dagger lay visible within, pillowed on layers of silk. Taliere drew breath sharply, then let it out again in a gusty sigh.

"If I am to commune with this object, it must be in the spirit of its own time," he said, not taking his eyes from the dagger. "I can return there by passing through the sacred grove, but may I rely upon you to stand ready as an anchor-line to the present?"

Raeburn smiled thinly. "Have no fears on that account, Tao-iseach. With so much at stake, I would be foolish to let you lose yourself among the shadows of the past."

Taliere signified his acceptance with a nod. After further silent contemplation of the dagger, he struck a formal posture of invocation, feet braced apart and gnarled hands upraised above his head. When he opened his mouth to speak, it was in a long-dead tongue that Raeburn only belatedly recognized from rare encounters with its graven form.

At once adamant and oddly liquid, the words spilled from the old man's lips like angry waters rushing down a cataract, an ancient formula to set the stage. At the conclusion of his utterance, he abruptly dropped his arms and brought his hands together in an intricate sign of warding. Only then did he venture to pluck the dagger from its nest of silk, clasping both hands around its hilt and carrying it to his breast, its point toward the ceiling.

"I am ready to set out," he announced, as he closed his eyes in an attitude of stiff composure.

"And I am ready to guide and guard you," Raeburn said.

He rose smoothly and came around to stand next to Taliere, lifting his left hand to rest lightly on the older man's right shoulder. At once Taliere's rate of respiration quickened.

After a moment, the old man drew a deep breath, held it a moment, then released it in an explosive gust of expelled air. With his next deep intake of breath, his face went momentarily blank. Then he began to mutter to himself, stringing words together in a singsong, semi-metrical chant.

"I have been the blind striving Of a worm turning in the earth.
I have been the racing of the blood In the heart of the running deer.
I have been the captive silence Of a trout in the singing brook.
I have been the rooted strength Of the oak tree in its prime.

''

The chant trailed off and he began to sway, but Raeburn's hand on his shoulder steadied him.

"Tell me where you are now," Raeburn murmured, after a long pause.

Taliere's face took on a look of fierce exultancy.

"Home," he murmured. "Among the trees, before the Burning Time."

His voice lifted again in bardic song.

"Tall and green were the sacred groves,
when the sky rained fire from heaven.
Then did we take up our sickles of gold,
venturing into the fields by night
to reap a harvest of fallen stars."

With these words he broke off, his hands tightening around the dagger's hilt while he cocked his head, as if listening for some approaching sound.

"Yes… Yes…" he murmured.

"The iron speaks with a creaking voice.
It cries aloud in the tumult of the storm.
I hear its clamor in the hollows of the hills.
I hear the echoes in the chasms of the sky.

Raeburn stared more intently at the old man, his eyes pale and bright.

"Tell me what the iron is saying," he instructed softly.

A look of consternation passed over Taliere's lined face.

"The speech it employs is not that of the wood," he breathed. "The sense is there, but not the words…." He struggled a moment longer, as if trying to fix an elusive impression.

"The Thunderer speaks, but only in riddles," he muttered at last. "One must be found with the skill to interpret. The storm-wind waits to carry him aloft. Let him harness the tempest and make his ascent - "

A sudden seizure gripped Taliere, choking off anything more he might have said. As the dagger fell from his palsied fingers, a violent shudder sent him caroming against a lyre-backed chair, which overturned despite Raeburn's attempted intervention. As the old man collapsed twitching to the carpet, a white foam frothing at his mouth, Raeburn was only partially able to break his fall.

"Barclay, get in here!" Raeburn shouted.

Barclay answered the summons on the run, bursting through the library door to find his employer kneeling over the thrashing Taliere, forcing the spine of a paperback book between his teeth.

"Give me a hand here, damn it, before he does himself damage!" Raeburn barked.