22 #3
Duncan’s breath hissed between his teeth as he did what Erik asked. The amber was cool, but it burned viciously.
“’Tis like holding a live coal,” Duncan said in a strained voice.
“Now you know why she left,” Erik said.
“What?”
“’Tis Amber’s pain you are feeling.”
But Erik’s voice wasn’t without sympathy, for he knew the pain had become Duncan’s also.
It gave Erik hope.
“Breathe over the pendant gently,” Erik said. “Don’t blow. Just open your mouth and let air flow out until the amber fogs with the breath of your own life.”
Duncan closed his eyes, grappled with the pain as though it were a living enemy, and then exhaled gently into his cupped hands.
“Again,” Erik said.
In taut silence everyone watched. Cassandra watched the most keenly, for what Erik was doing had never been tried with someone who wasn’t Learned.
“Is the amber hazed?” Erik asked.
“Aye,” Duncan said.
“Hold it just above the tips of the flames. Think of Amber as the haze clears. Then tell me what you see.”
Frowning, trying to see past the vicious pain that still burned in his palms, Duncan dangled the pendant just above the flames. As the fog cleared, he saw…
“Nothing,” Duncan said.
“Again,” Erik said.
Grimacing against the agony of holding the pendant against his skin once more, Duncan cupped the amber in his hands.
“Ignore the pain,” Erik said curtly. “She did. Think of the woman who gave you her heart and her body and her soul.”
The amber in Duncan’s hands burned so fiercely he expected it to burst into fire.
“Did you give her nothing in return but your body?” Erik continued relentlessly. “Did nothing of you leave with her? Let go of your tightly held spirit. Let it seek her and make both of you whole.”
Erik’s words echoed in Duncan’s head, drowning out the cries of his body. Raggedly he exhaled, giving the breath of his life to the amber he held cupped in his hands.
“Again,” Erik commanded. “Think of Amber. You must want her beyond all else. Do you understand? You must want her more than you want life itself.”
Again Duncan breathed tenderly over the amber, infusing its coldly burning surface with his own warmth.
“To the fire,” Erik said. “Quickly! As the haze clears you will see Amber.”
Duncan let the gem slip on its chain until it was just within reach of the flames.
He stared deeply into the pendant, to the place where shadows shifted and turned.
He searched each shade of darkness for Amber, staring at the pendant until nothing was real but the darkness and the elusive fragments of gold…
The keening, questioning cry of an eagle piercing the air.
Mist clearing and re-forming, a dizzying view of hills and ridges, cliff-clinging trees and a glen falling away to an invisible sea.
Over all, enfolding all, the thousand whisperings of wind through an autumn marsh.
She is there, in the heart of silence, surrounded by whisperings she cannot hear.
“…hear me?” Erik demanded, shaking him harshly. “Duncan!”
Slowly Duncan lifted his head, breaking the amber enchantment. Sweat stood on his face. His hands were shaking.
“God’s blood,” Erik said roughly. “I thought we had lost you.”
Duncan drew a deep breath. “Amber.”
“Did you see her?”
“Nay.”
Disappointment flattened Erik’s mouth. “Rest. We’ll try again later.”
“I know where she is,” Duncan said as though Erik hadn’t spoken.
“Where?” Erik and Cassandra demanded simultaneously.
“Ghost Glen.”
Erik looked at Cassandra. The Learned woman shrugged.
“We can but try,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Duncan demanded.
“The sacred places accept or reject us,” Cassandra said. “Ghost Glen has accepted no one but Amber within my lifetime.”
“But I went there!” Duncan said.
“Aye,” Erik said. “With Amber.”
Duncan’s hand closed around the pendant. Pain radiated through his hand, his arm, his body. He welcomed the pain.
It told him that Amber was still alive.
“I will be there again,” Duncan vowed. “With Amber.”
“Cassandra and I will come with you,” Erik said.
“So will Simon,” Dominic said. “He went to ready the horses. He is bringing Whitefoot, too. Amber will need a mount.”
No one said what each feared, that Amber was lost to them.
“It will be a grueling ride,” Erik said. “Ghost Glen may not reveal itself to him. Or to us.”
“No matter how bewitched the rest of you become, Simon will see only what is real. That is his gift.”
“It sounds more like a curse,” Erik muttered.
A hound howled like a wolf just beyond the keep. A peregrine keened, calling for the hunt to begin.
“Do what you can for Duncan,” Dominic said to Erik. “I value him as much as you value your sister.”
“You have my vow on that, Wolf.”
“I will hold the keep for whoever returns,” Dominic said. “You have my vow.”
“THE pendant,” Erik said. “How is it affecting you?”
“It tells me Amber is still alive.”
Erik asked no more. The pale line of Duncan’s lips beneath his dark mustache said all that was needed. He had been haunted by what Amber had once said to him, in the golden time before his memory returned.
Precious Amber. What would I do without you?
You would fare better than I would without you. You are the heart in my body.
The memory was even more painful than the searing pendant.
“Take it away from your skin,” Erik said.
“Nay. Pain is all we have between us now. If I deny it, I deny her. I’ll not do that again. Ever.”
Simon looked from Duncan to Erik, and from there to Cassandra. No one spoke for many miles, until Cassandra reined in sharply.
“There is something odd ahead of us,” she said.
Erik gazed at the land ahead and nodded slowly. “Aye.”
Without a pause, Duncan urged his horse forward. His eyes were fixed on the ridge that looked rocky and impassable from this vantage point, but had proved to be much easier when Amber had chosen the way.
Just below the crest of the ridge, Duncan’s horse balked. He urged his battle stallion forward, but still the horse refused.
Without a word, Duncan leaped off, vaulted into Whitefoot’s empty saddle, and went forward again. Whitefoot minced and flattened her ears, but didn’t refuse the trail. Within moments she was over the ridge and out of sight.
An eagle’s majestic cry came through the mist like a shaft of light. Duncan answered as he had before, the hunting call taught to him long ago.
The eagle did not cry out again.
“I knew Duncan could find the way!” Erik said exultantly. “Learned or not, I knew it! The rowan wouldn’t give Amber an inferior mate.”
“Thick-skulled, stubborn, proud,” Cassandra muttered.
“Courageous, strong, honorable,” Erik amended dryly, remembering what Amber had once told him. “In short, a good man.”
Cassandra crossed herself, breathed a silent prayer, and urged her own mount forward.
The white stallion refused the trail.
So did Erik’s mount.
So did Simon’s.
Of the three, Simon was the only one who was surprised. What surprised him more was that even when he dismounted, he couldn’t find the trail Duncan had followed. Mist swirled, lifted, teased, confused, concealed…and Simon found himself back where he had started.
Neither Erik nor Cassandra fared any better. Ghost Glen was as it had always been to them.
Closed.
Duncan didn’t notice that no one had followed him down the ridge into Ghost Glen. He knew only that the way became clearer with each step forward.
Without a thought to safety, Duncan urged Whitefoot to greater and greater speeds. Soon the mare was galloping swiftly down the glen, leaping brooks and fallen branches, skirting sacred circles, devouring the ground as though she had been born to run through the glen’s ancient stillness.
Gradually, almost secretly, the rhythmic pounding of hooves was consumed by the myriad cries of geese. Calls lifted and tumbled, soared and turned, stirred by a restless wind. Answers stitched over other calls, other answers, countless wild voices weaving a tapestry of sound over marsh and sea.