Ceridwen gasped as Dain flinched.

"If you go as deep on Ceridwen," he said between gritted teeth, "I will come for you, Quicken-tree man."

"Ceridwen will drink," Moriath said hastily. "No, Dain, do not look so," she added when he turned on her. "Gwin draigis in her blood, already a part of her, and will not harm her. The wine will only help her see her way clear."

"And my blood?" he asked, watching it drip off his hand into the pool.

"Your blood will mix with the wine she pours into the water and bind you more completely to her so that, supposedly"-she cast a glance at Rhuddlan-"if you followed her, you could help her or protect her."

"Protect her from what?" he demanded. "Pryf?"

"No. She needs no protection frompryf. But Rhuddlan fears Ceridwen's nature may not yield enough to complete the journey or the task at hand-whereas you, Dain, know the way of yielding well, whether it be in strength or in weakness. This is what Rhuddlan uses of you, the same skill that kept you from being destroyed in the place where the wind blows hot off the sea and all the mountains are made of sand."

A fair enough description of Akabah and the Nefud Desert. "So you did poke and stir around in my mind that night in your cottage."

"I touched you, aye, and saw the things you have done." Her gaze fell away from him for a moment, and so help him, a blush stained her cheeks.

"Do not judge me, Moriath," he cautioned her.

"I do not. I swear." Her eyes lifted to his. "But no matter your nature or your strength, Dain, 'tis your weakness that endangers you. Believe me,in remotissimo angulo terraeis not a destination for you to seek. Let her go, mage, and do not follow."

The remotest corner of the earth, he translated. Latin, like so much in Nemeton's tower. The witch was as learned as her father, but sorely mistaken in her advice.

"Untold suffering awaits you there," she warned him further. "Mayhaps death." .

"And mayhaps the power Moriath would keep for herself," Rhuddlan interrupted. "She fears you would take her father's place here as you have in the Hart and in Deri." "Is that why you gave me the dream?" he asked, turning to Moriath. "To keep me from this remote corner, where you say I must not go?"

"I didn't give you the dream," she told him. "I but looked, and it was there."

An ill-omened sign, he thought, for such a dream to lie unbidden in the depths of a man's mind.

"Can Ceridwen yield and still be strong enough to return?" he asked, knowing that despite all their talk of yielding, 'twas strength Ceri would need if Moriath proved to be right and he met his death in the deep caves-for he would follow her to hell and back if needs be. Mayhaps he was stronger than the witch allowed. For certes, even with a look into his past, she could not have seen all that it had taken to survive.

"She is Rhiannon's daughter," Moriath said with a return of confidence. "Born and bred to make many such journeys in her life's time." She paused, and her voice took on a less sure tone. "Listen not to Rhuddlan, Dain, for my fear is real. You are not Druid, and it has always been a Druid who has forged a union with the priestess through the wine. Nemeton and Rhiannon were the weir amidst the chaos for many years, and before that, 'twas Nemeton and Teleri, Ceridwen's grandmother."

Ceridwen had been listening in silence and liking none of what she heard. Her part in the ceremony had been ordained by her birth. That the Quicken-tree had used Dain's blood much as Caradoc would have used hers was an abomination. That Dain would be put in danger, she would not allow.

"Moriath is right, Dain," she said, stepping forward and taking the chalice from Moira. "You will not come. Rhuddlan will drink with me." She cast a cold glance at the Quicken-tree man. "Let his be the nature that yields, if yielding it takes." 'Twas no request she made, but an order, and before anyone could stop her, she lifted the gold cup to her lips for a long swallow.

When she was finished, she gave the cup to Rhuddlan. Pale gray eyes rimmed in green shone at her over the golden chalice. "You are strong, as I thought," he said. "Let us hope you also know the way of yielding, if yielding it takes, and prove me wrong in the other." He took his drink.

"That is unlikely," Moriath said with exasperated churlishness, "if we are all run through by Caradoc and do not survive the day. Sweet maid, Rhuddlan has it all his way. It mattered not if he drank. He goes when and where he might in the caves, doing whatever he wishes, excepting for opening the weir gate he made the night Carn Merioneth fell. For that he needs you, and you have drunk, as well you should have, but there is no escape for Dain, unless he devises it himself and chooses not to follow you. Moira herself started his blood in the pool. Rhuddlan has but thickened the mix. The two of you are bound, and for that we have a war beneath the keep."

"Watch the water, Ceridwen," Rhuddlan commanded, draining the chalice into the pool. He looked to Moriath. "You shall have your chance. If she can see her way to the weir gate, I will not interfere. If she cannot, I will drag both her and Dain there myself and put them to the task."

"She will see."

Ceridwen looked to Dain and prayed that she would see, and that she would finish her task before anything could go amiss and he tried to follow. Moira was already sealing his wound withrasca, which gave her heart. His pain would soon be gone.

"You are not needed here, Dain. I do know the way of this." She spoke the lie confidently, her gazesteady, and he smiled in that way of his.

"You arealkemelych, Ceri, the small magical one. More than any other, my faith is in you."

She had not fooled him.

The sound of the drums grew louder as she lowered her gaze to the pool and prayed for guidance, though who she prayed to was a mystery. She could no longer put a name to God.

Wisps of vapor rolled and curled across the dark water like storm clouds brewing far out to sea, nebelmer. She felt nothing of the wine, until... until the pool beneath the steaming mist quieted itself and she not only saw the quietness, but sensed it slipping inside her.

Daughter of Rhiannon... The words slid into her veins along with the dragon wine, soothing her, showing her the way.Daughter of Teleri, daughter of Mair, Nessa, Esyllt, daughter of Heledd and Celemon from the line of Arianrod.

Her vision of Arianrod was clear. She rose from the stillness of the pool with a river as her hair and eyes the deep blue calm of the ocean, she whose essence was as one with the waters of the earth. There was power in water, sweet elixir of life.

Beloved daughter of Don, called Danu, Dana of the light, Domnu of darkness who has the earth as her womb.

A chant rose and fell around her in a lilting, hypnotic rhythm, a hundred voices singing. "Dommmm-nu, Dommmm-nu, Do-amm-nu. A matria patro leandra, eso a prifarym, Domnu." Stone Mother, lead us to the deep cave ofpryf.

Aye, she knew where the heart of the earth lay,in remotissimo angulo terrae, and she knew she must go there. She bent down and dipped her fingers into the pool, and the water became a part of her, lapping at her skin and sinking through her pores. She had fought this place, this moment, this responsibility, and all of her fighting had been misspent, for there was nothing to fear. 'Twas her duty and her right to open the weir gate and all doors that came before her. Her mother had done it, and her mother's mother, opened doors and seen through gateways farther into the distance than any horizon could hold. The Light Caves and the Canolbarth were her ancient home. 'Twas where she belonged, Ceridwen of the Cauldron, blessed chalice.

And yet she would not stay, for north was where her future lay-north, with Dain.

"Domnu, Domnu, Domnu," she sang, rising to her feet and letting the water flow back into the pool, taking her essence with it.

The vaporous steam slowly stretched into ethereal strands and rose into the darkness, released from the water one by one and in pairs. Without the misty veil, the depths of the pool became visible, and 'twas in those depths that Ceridwen saw the abyss.

She reached out with her hand, thinking how easily she'd found the place where she must go.

In a crystal cavern far beneath the Canolbarth, a man strode along the length of a gaping chasm in thefloor. He had to keep his head low to miss the ceiling, and hold his quiver in front of him to keep it from being ripped to shreds by the sharp, jagged walls. His unstrung bow he held by his side, his hand wrapped around the leather grip, which was finished at each end with strips of white wool bound with grayish-green thread. A length of rope Was looped across his chest.

The shattered damson stones on either side of the chasm picked up light from the blue crystal he carried and cast their amethystine glow before him, into a tunnel of darkness. Two months past, the floor had been unbroken. He'd watched the crack begin, and grow, and zigzag its way across the cavern; and he'd felt the final giving way of the crystal as it had been torn apart by the twisting and turning of the giant wyrms trapped in the bowels of the earth below. Change was the way of all things, but he sensed doom at the breaking of the damson shaft. He'd tried everything he knew to free thepryfand guessed at half of what he hadn't known, taking chances whose risks went far beyond life and death, and still the weir gate defied him.

He reached the end of the low place and slipped into a larger darkness lit only by his crystal. Behind him the damson continued to glow. Without slowing his gait, he slung the quiver over his shoulder. Men were fighting above the Canolbarth, and though the fight was not his, his instincts were running rampant with the need for him to be there.

Chapter 26.

Ceridwen put her hand into the rising mist. At her feet, the scrying pool was glass smooth, yet the steam continued to thicken and swirl about her like a cloud, bringing the vapor up into the air. 'Twas warm and growing warmer, and smelled of salt. She stared down into the clear depths of the water, entranced. The sealed weir gate floated there, in the abyss, colored the deepest green, a perfect circle set into the huge bore hole, round and pulsing, a shimmering thing.

"She's taking too long."

'Twas Rhuddlan's voice, but he was wrong. No more than a minute had passed since she'd felt the stillness of the wine.

" 'Tis her first time, elf-man. Patience."

Around her the song to Domnu swelled and receded, the chant sung with a resonance and depth that made her tremble inside, and above and below and beyond the song were the bodhran drums and the sound of a word... a word of power and grace. She had felt it upon her lips in Moriath's dream, while she'd searched for the way into thepryfnest, into the dragon nest. Now she heard it for the first time- Ma-rahm, ma-ma-rahm.

She looked to Dain through the wisps of vapor. "Ma-rahm," she told him, smiling. "Not sezhamey."

He reached for her hand, but she denied him with a shake of her head.

"Do not follow where I go. There is no need." She was Rhiannon's daughter. The deepening fog spiraled up around her, round and round, with her body as the axis of its orbit, warming her skin and heating her soul, until with an artful sweep of her arm, she parted the veil of white and was at the weir gate.

Aye, she thought, her smile broadening, she knew the way of this. 'Twas in her blood, through and through.

She stood on the threshold of the gate and looked upward to its farthest reaches; seven times her height it was, solid, though with the fluid look of melted glass. The shimmery emerald-green door filled the bore hole, with naught else to be seen except for the rim of rough-hewn rock encaging it.

'Twas a thing of heat. Warmth radiated from it like the rays of the sun. Rich, verdurous light pulsed and streaked away from its outer edges, crackling and resounding in the heights and depths of the vaporous clouds billowing about her. Where the green light faded, heliotrope began, in eight spokes of slowly circling brilliance. She watched the lights flicker and shine and suffuse the mist with color, and thought with awe that Rhuddlan had made this marvelous, extraordinary thing with naught but ethers and the magic of thetylwyth teg, for she had heard Moriath call him elf-man.

Filled with wonder, and commanded by a presence she instinctively knew to be Rhuddlan-aye, and she could almost love him, for he was faerie-she lifted her hand to the seal. Ancient markings covered its surface, line after line of mystery flowing down its face in the ridges and curves of bas-relief. She pressed her palm to the shimmering plane, and the annals began sliding beneath her hand, revealing their secrets of dragon keepers, and time watchers, and eon upon eon of Quicken-tree history: a time when Liosalfar and Dockalfar had been one and their place had been Yr Is-ddwfn; tales of the Wars of Enchantment and of thetylwyth teg'scoming to man; a record of the time of trees. The emerald surface spoke of beginnings long lost to the most ancient memory: of the Sun and the stars and the vault of the heavens, of the Moon, and of the Earth, great orb of celestial dust...vessel of matter and thought, of the eternal mystery and miracle of life, death... circling, ever circling and being coiled round and warmed by a great serpent devouring its own tail...held in the grip of wisdom, lightning of the cosmos, sword of the gods, One is All-Ouroboros... The flood of deep knowledge poured into her, pulsed through her in a blaze of searing light, and she pulled her hand back with a pained cry.

Looking down at the flesh of her palm, she saw that she'd been burned with a symbol she'd never before seen. It glowed on that tender space in graceful curves, and the hurt caused her to cry the tears of Arianrod. The drops of salt water splashed into her hand, healing the mark and relieving her suffering.

Moriath had been wrong. She could not open the weir alone. Woman and man together made the bond that ruled the elf-man's gate, one into the other. There was no harm for Dain in this journey through the scrying pool.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she reached for him, calling his name in silence, and his hand came through the mists to take hers, the iron-and-teeth bracelets of Ceraunnos still banding his wrist. There was no hesitation in his action, no doubt in his touch, only sureness. Where their hands clasped, pale ivory light surrounded them with a soft glow...Amor, lux, veritas, such is the way to the stars.

But they need not go so far, not this day.

She tightened her fingers around his, looking past the pagan bracelets and into the fog. He was naught but a dark shape half-hidden within the swirling rising mists. She called to him again, and one by one the layers between them dissipated, until she could see the charm marks on his gambeson and his hairrippling like a veil in the wind of the abyss. Wisps of fog clung to him as the final mist lifted, crowning him in gossamer and trailing down the length of his body in wind-driven tatters.

"Dain." She spoke his name, and he took her in his arms.

Strength was his magic, his body the shield and haven she needed to do what must be done-to yield, and yield yet more, with all of her being, to soften and release her mind so the ethers of the weir gate could come into her and be consumed by the fire of the sun in the Mother Goddess's heart, and thus the pryfwould be free and the way opened to Yr Is-ddwfn.

"You have come where Moriath has warned you not to tread," she said, her cheek resting against the softness of his Quicken-tree cloak, "but I swear all will be well."

"Aye." He drew her nearer with an easy flex of his arms, bowing his head closer to hers, and his breath came warm and soft in her ear. "In the hours we have watched and waited, I feared only that you would not need me, Ceri, not that you would call for me."

Hours, she thought, not the mere moments she'd felt. "Then have not even that fear, sorcerer"-she looked up at him-"for this door Rhuddlan has set us to cannot be breached without you. 'Tis why he bound us."

At that, he smiled. "The one thing I have learned in this place is that we were bound long before Beltaine, Ceri. Mayhaps even before the night Ragnor brought you to Wydehaw."

She understood. Standing before the weir gate, she felt a familiarity with him that went far beyond the time she'd known him. One short season of spring could not hold all the love of him that ran through her heart, for 'twas even more than she had for the lost Merioneth. When the time came to go north, she would be by his side; her love for Dain Lavrans would set the course of the rest of her days. She raised her mouth to his and gave him a kiss of peace, the sweetest blessing she could bestow, before turning to face the door.

Dain kept one arm around her waist, holding her close and regarding the strange place she had brought him. Jalal had never known such, nor such a woman. In these things he had surpassed his desert master.

But not Rhuddlan, elf-man, Moriath had said, and he knew it to be true. Not the elves of imagination, fanciful creatures, but a man-child of nature,tylwyth teg. 'Twas Rhuddlan, even more than the maid, who had forced him to the weir, waiting all these years, it seemed, for only the right bait to bring him to heel-Ceridwen ab Arawn.

The gate was nothing to fear, Rhuddlan had said as they had watched Ceridwen glide through the mist toward the weir gate. Journeying to it through the waters kept them from the gate's dangers, of which there were many, as Moriath had warned, but what was merely seen could not harm, Rhuddlan had assured him, and what was felt would be mitigated by the scrying pool. Dain had turned to the Quicken-tree man where they both stood by the edge of the steaming water. He'd held Rhuddlan's translucently gray gaze, and he'd known the other man had not told all. There was danger for him somewhere in this place. He sensed it strongly enough that he would have turned away rather than walk into the thick of it, if not for Ceridwen.

Aye, the elf-man had chosen well the lodestone with which to draw him in. He had glimpsed the weir through the vapors while watching Ceridwen, yet still felt awe standing before it. As he'd waited by the pool, the heat of it had emanated from the water and warmed the great cavern. Heat from the past,Rhuddlan had told him, for the weir was a thing of the past, and the past was hot. Dain trailed his hand through the mist and watched the fine strands of it leave his fingers and twist into tiny green, white, and heliotrope whorls.

This was true magic, this place out of time where Nemeton had stood. The bard's marks were upon the emerald surface of the gate. Not all of them, not the Latin or Arabic, nor the runes Dain had found amongst all the other writings in the Hart, but only the most mysterious signs, the ones he'd never deciphered. The key to ultimate transformation? he wondered. Or that which would seal his doom?

"Ma-rahm, maa-aa-rahm, la shadana may-am," the Quicken-tree chanted, drawing power into their voices from deep in their bodies, then filling the cavern with that power. "Ma-rahm, ma-ma-rahm."

"Now we begin," he heard Rhuddlan say with satisfaction.

Ma-rahm, Ceridwen thought, and began to sing, matching her voice to the wild ones as her mother had done before her. The word had no simple translation, but she knew that in the way the song to Domnu had led her to the womb of the earth,ma-rahmallowed entrance, as a blossoming bud allowed entrance into the heart of the flower. 'Twas all the same, an opening and a release, the bringing of one into the other.

Dain heard Ceridwen's voice and the echo of it off the weir. He felt the resonance of it caress his skin and set up a counter vibration inside the vortex. On the other side of the mists, the Quicken-tree chant grew stronger, the words sung into the air where they were captured by the swirling edge of the abyss and pulled down inside with him and Ceri.

He knew the use of sound and voice-was a master himself in the skill-but he had heard naught like this, a hundred voices in concert to work magic.

"Ma-rahm, ma-rahm," they sang, and the drums answered with a quickening of their rhythm. A faint color change washed over the bright green surface of the weir, leaving an opalescence in its wake.

This was the way then.

"Take heed, Dain," he heard Moriath warn him. "You can go farther than you can come back."

Mayhaps. But his journey was yet young. He joined his voice with Ceri's, and when she laid her hand once again upon the gate, he laid his beside it.

The gate was warm and silky to the touch.

A hand came down on his shoulder, Rhuddlan's, and Dain felt the elf-man's strength flowing into him, along with a pressure to hold him where he stood. Rhuddlan would have this thing done, he thought, yet no force was needed to hold him at the door. The thing had its own allure, a lush mix of history, ritual, and arcana sliding beneath his hand and being made known to him through the skin of his palm-wondrous trick. Woven through it all was a rich vein of the ageless mysteries of mankind.

Moriath's warning came back to him, for no matter the cost, he feared he would follow that seductive thread to its core. Thus he cautioned himself to let reason be his guide, then he spread his hand wider on the door and glided it slowly, warily, across the green surface. To die for knowledge would be self-defeating at best. He would follow the vein for a moment, no more. And so the moments passed, one after the other, each more intriguing than the one before, as he learned secrets of time and space and here and there; a map of death showing a progression of states and colors, most interesting and not what he'd imagined; and a flicker of life beneath his hand where he held Ceridwen about the waist-genesis. He looked to her and found her deep in concentration, her eyes closed, her face lifted, the light of the weir dancing over it; a woman looking inward and seeing all. She knew, beautiful woman, radiant within his embrace. The gate could be opened; he learned that. The seal, an ether concoction of earth and seawater, could be broken-if a man would but wean himself from the luxury of the door's touch.

He continued the slide of his hand, soaking it all in, thinking not to deprive himself just yet. He was strong, and here was all he'd ever sought: the keys to transformation, redemption, salvation, even immortality-he was sure-and all of them within his reach. He pressed his hand flatter against the gate, wanting more, and it suddenly gave way, leaving nary a hairbreadth between him and the surface. An instant of fear was quickly ameliorated by a pleasurable heaviness filling his body, a sensation worth the risk and proving the wisdom of his action, for he would have more. Sweet ease. The heaviness caressed him from the inside out in deepening shades of oblivion, sinking him into a life so rich, he wondered if he was nearing the place where death began.

He removed his arm from around Ceridwen, letting her go. She need not follow him here. In fact, 'twas best if he went alone. He knew this country... too well.

Another hand reached for him then, much less gentle than the one on his shoulder, and smaller, but no less strong. It cupped his chin and pulled his head up to meet a set of fiery green eyes.

"Fool man," Moriath said, her voice as fierce as her grip on his jaw. "You are at this too long. Follow not that path in your mind-cursed thing from out of the desert. In this place, it can only lead you to a strange death. Fight for what you would have, Dain, before your weakness destroys you."

She released him, and he looked back at the weir gate. It would consume him if he did not break away.

Already his hand was sunk into it nearly full across the backs of his fingers, yet the desire to go even deeper was greater than his will to fight, more a need than a temptation, a desperate need. Aye, he knew the way of yielding to pleasure and a thousand ways of surrendering to solace. 'Twas his mortal weakness, as Moriath had said. A strange death, she'd promised him, and long ago she'd told him Nemeton had died here. Had it been thus that the mage had met his demise? In desperate longing?

The question no sooner formed in his mind than it was answered with blood, a red wash of it beneath his hand, obscuring the emerald surface of the gate.The Beirdd Braint of the Quicken-tree, Nemeton, did not die in search of pleasure or knowledge, but in battle with a blade through his heart, killed by Gwrnach the Destroyer; and behind the Druid, raped and gutted by a golden-haired youth, son of the Destroyer, the lady Rhiannon died in a pool of her own blood.

Dain jerked his hand away and stumbled back, freed by the truth and the horror and the blood. Always blood. An uncontrollable trembling seized him along with a flash of pain so sharp, it made him cry out and sent him to his knees. He slid his arm around his middle, a vain attempt to contain his body's yearning to return to the insidious bliss of the door. He'd felt such before, which only made it worse, for he'd succumbed again.

Save me.

Grim-faced, he looked down at the red stain covering his palm. Revulsion churned to life in his belly, and he fought the urge to lose the contents of his stomach. Damned, blessed sight. He would have died there,if not for his damned gift of sight. More than words had been upon the gate. A vision had been there: he'd seen the Druid's death and heard Rhiannon's last scream, her voice like Ceridwen's, her hair the same, her body, her face-'twas all of the daughter.

Save me.

He held himself tighter and tried to draw a deep breath into his lungs, vaguely aware of the tears tracking down his face. He had thought it Ceridwen lying there, raped and cut down by Caradoc's blade, the life within her flowing onto the cold stone like wine from a broken cup. The shock and horror of it had overridden every other instinct in his body.