Kim Ford

The King's House in Morvran is a better place for her than the Sanctuary, Kim knows. With Jaelle gone and Audiart once more in charge, there was no way she could remain there-- the triumph in the woman's eyes over Kevin's sacrifice is too much for her to bear.

Milliways had helped in that, at least; it had bought her a little time, time to find her balance again. Balance that had been and will be desperately needed, she's sure of that.

Especially now.

Arrangements have been made with Spoon and Wells-- there's an archway, a stone door, between here and where she will need to go. It'll do, she thinks, and it'll make everything much simpler to meet them there than to have to explain where two more strangers had crossed from, and how.

All of these things and more occupy her thoughts as she sorts through her things, selecting what to take with her and what to leave behind.

Asleep in Ysanne's cottage during the deepest, darkest hours of the morning, Kim dreams.

She walks a narrow bridge above an abyss, while shapeless horrors twist vilely in the darkness below. The land ahead of her is empty and blighted, and split open by a long and winding road. She can't see where it leads-- the road disappears into darkness.

As Kim approaches the far side of the chasm, a figure appears, walking towards her. Towards the road. With dawning terror, she realizes that there's something all too familiar about it.

She moans in her sleep, tossing violently from side to side as for the first time she fights her own vision, struggling not only not to see, but to actually change the shape of the image that stands before her; not merely to foresee, but to alter the threads of the Tapestry on the Weaver's Loom.

It is to no avail, of course. It was so that Kim could dream this very dream that Ysanne had relinquished her own soul to ensure that Kim would be the Seer she needed to be, the Seer of Brennin, and there are no true surprises here. Only despair, and a weight of inevitability.

Slowly, she ceases her unconscious battle, and lies still.

She stands motionless in the dream as well, at the far side of the chasm, facing him. There is to be no changing it, no turning back; this has been waiting for her, for them both, since the beginning. The figure approaches once more, and as he takes the first step upon the Darkest Road, Kim Ford sees his face.

It is late morning when she finally wakes. For a time she simply stays in bed, looking at the fall of the sunlight as it streams through the windows, deeply, desperately grateful for the small bit of peace to be found in this quiet place. She can hear birds singing outside, and the distant sound of waves splashing quietly against the rocks on the shore.

It's that sound which moves her, finally. Kim gets up and dresses, then goes out into the brightness of the day, heading down the path to the lake.

Jaelle recognizes the woman in the grey robes – Aline – waiting for them in the Great Hall, and strides past the Kings, regal and commanding as either of them, to speak to her. And she listens, impassive and cold and very still, as Aline recites her greeting from Audiart, Second of the Mormae, Second of Dana, in Gwen Ystrat. The only outward reaction is a slight narrowing of her eyes, when Aline explains that Audiart chose to send a personal message, rather than linking through the Mormae to Jaelle, so that the men here would understand the urgency.

She almost relaxes – a little – when Aline explains that Audiart is acting as the King’s Warden, not as the High Priestess’s Second. But then her shoulders stiffen again as Aileron cuts in, demanding that a message sent from his Warden must needs be delivered to him, not to Jaelle. Nor does Jaelle intercede, though his tone and behavior are hardly those she expects her priestesses to be addressed with. Aline, whether she knows it or not, is a pawn in a complex power struggle both within the ranks of the priestesses of Dana and outside it, among three very clever people, and between each pair of them.

---

Paul watches the power struggle between Jaelle, Aileron and the absent Audiart in detached silence - taking note of the sallies made, even when he doesn't understand the full import of them - until Aline mentions the wolves in the woods.

His gaze sharpens instantly. But he waits for a pause in the complex game before stepping forward, with a polite cough.

"Aileron, you spoke of cleaning out the wolves. It may be more important than that."

He pauses a moment. "Aline, is Galadan in Leinanwood?"

"We never thought of that," says the priestess, with fear in her eyes. Paul isn't surprised; he steps back again, waiting to see what the others will do with this new question on the board. He expects they'll make the decision to move right away.

And so they do, until Kim upsets the board by saying quietly that it will be more than a hunt; that she and Loren and Jaelle will also be accompanying the hunting party.

"Why?" Paul asks, when no one else seems to have a response. Those three have other talents; surely their responsibilities in the capital are more important than a wolf hunt, with or without Galadan's involvement.

But when Kim answers that she'd dreamed Gereint at Morvran, it becomes clearer. And Paul understands that, Galadan or no, this hunt will not be his.

---

She had dreamed, the night before. Blurred and insubstantial, difficult to discern, and yet some things had been clear-- among them a wood and a rushing heavy thunder over some distant ground, with flashes of hooves and weapons and something whiter than the snow itself.

As soon as the discussion began she had known that he would look to her for guidance. Had known it, within the depths of her being, on a level that has both everything and nothing to do with being a Seer.

And so, when he does--

"I have seen a hunt," Kim says, meeting Aileron's glance with her own and holding it, steadily. Her voice sounds crisp to her own ears. "Something is there. Or someone."

Which makes everything clear enough, really.

A hunt, and more than -- for Kim's going along, and the mages as well, even into the very heart of Morvran, the priestesses' territory, because Gereint of the Dalrei will be there, too, she informs them all. She can't quite bring herself to care about the muttered, fearful reaction that her words bring; she's too tired, and none of it is getting any easier.

Especially when Aileron says, decisively,

"We'll leave tomorrow, as well--"

"No," Kim interrupts. She shoves her hair back from her face and meets his gaze again. "Wait for Diarmuid."

Aileron holds her look for a long moment, then nods agreement and turns back to the others.

It's not going to get any easier for a long time, Kim realizes. Maybe not ever.

---

Aileron smiles and raises the challenge to the two kings beside him. "Shall we three hunt wolves of the Dark in Gwen Ystrat?"

Shalhassan of Cathal only nods. Arthur Pendragon says, "It will be good to have an enemy to kill just now."

It will, in fact, be very good.

Yesterday, Arthur sought out Kim to ask her about Guinevere. Jennifer. Kim spoke of kidnapping, a black swan, Rakoth Maugrim. What Kim did not say, Arthur can guess. Guinevere has been carried off before, in other worlds and other lives. This time Arthur was sleeping, and Lancelot could not come; Kim did come, but too late.

Arthur wishes, fervently, that Lancelot had been there. Lancelot: his right arm in battle, his shield and his fortress, absolutely loyal in all things save one. Arthur could bear to see Guinevere and Lancelot look upon each other, he thinks, if only Guinevere were still golden, and Lancelot had kept her safe.

Arthur can do nothing for Guinevere now except let her go free in peace. He can fight wolves, though, and he will do so gladly.

---

Galadan is the Wolflord of the andain, and this title deals with more than the shape he bears, and always has.

So it is that he is confident enough to set his wolves on Gwen Ystrat, leaving them to their own devices while he runs free on errands of his own.

Errands that further his own cause more than that of Rakoth Maugrim.

For Galadan will see to the final destruction of Fionavar. He will have recompense for his pain and his humiliation.

He will forget the sight of Lisen's face, the sound of her voice, the--

Nothing will remain.

Not even him.

And then he will have peace.

Kim recognizes the guard at the door; Shain had escorted her to Ysanne's lake when she had last gone there. She sees in his face that he knows her as well, and then his eyes widen in sudden surprise as he sees Arthur.

Before he can speak, before he can do anything at all, Kim says,

"Hello, Shain. Is Loren here?"

The guard swallows and answers,

"He is, with the lios as well, my lady."

"Good." A beat. "Well, are you going to let me in?"

Once upon a time, she might have laughed at the speed with which he leaps back, but Kim knows the reason for it and it isn't funny at all. They fear her now, as once they'd feared Ysanne.

It doesn't matter. Kim takes a deep breath, then nods to Shain and steps into the room.

She's seen this place many times before during this long winter, the same images tumbling and falling through her nights until she had finally been able to make sense of them. In the days of those first dreams she had been too young in power, too new to her gift to realize where she was-- and it had taken repeated dreaming for her to realize that she had been deceived not by where, but by when. A seer's dreams twist and loop through time, she now knows, and with that knowing she had been able to look through the blurring of her inner vision and see truly.

Now, Kim Ford walks with clear sight in her dream, moving forward across the starlit grass, passing over now-familiar ground before pausing in the shadow of a monolithic stone to look out at Stonehenge as it had once stood, three thousand years ago. She looks toward the grave of a dead king who will lie silent until the time comes for her to raise him by the strength of the need within her and the power of the Warstone on her finger, and as always the sorrow threatens to drown her with grief.

But as she has before, this time again she hardens her heart as much as she can, making herself and the sorrow within her as much a stone as the boulders by which she stands-- and this time as she does the sky above is suddenly filled with falling stars as the ground under her feet twists, turning her away from Stonehenge, spinning her down a loop of time until she finds herself standing on a peaceful shore and looking outward once more.

It is an image of near-heartbreaking beauty, this green, green island in the middle of a glass-still lake, lit in silver by the thin new crescent of the moon overhead. Once, she would have wept at the sight and the knowledge, at the rising memory within her of a furious young man with white hair like her own and a choking fear within him. Once she would have wept, and not so very long ago at that, despite all that has been said and done.

Here at last, however, is the place she has sought-- and she has been waiting too long, far too long for this moment, this knowledge, to see the place of summoning. Even as her unconscious cry splits the Toronto night with a despairing plea, here within the deepest part of herself Kim knows that there is far too much need to allow room within her now for the space of grief or the solace of tears.

It's the same coffeehouse they've been meeting in ever since they came back. Great for students, cheap food, cheap drinks -

It's all the same - but something's different. Kevin and Dave don't know what, exactly, but they can tell nonetheless. It's there in Paul's silence, and in the way he keeps looking at the door.

It's there, at long last. After this endless autumn: change.

By now, she is familiar with the dream.

She stands before massive shapes of stone that lie jumbled amid wide grasslands, listening to the keening wail of the wind that blows around her. The stone on her hand burns a deep red in the approaching dusk, power and invocation, call and warning both at once.

She has been here before, she has walked this place in her dreams more times now than she can count, and Kim is no stranger to the silent demand of the gathered boulders and the wind that threatens to tear the words from her aching throat.

But it is not time, not yet, for she cannot see the other place, the next one, the last – the place of summoning, the hidden site where another man lies, dead father and guardian spirit whose secret she will wrench free with blood-red fire and her own sorrow like stone.

“Where are you!” she screams, instead, frustrated and tired and broken-hearted even here within the dream that she walks—for the summer has been long, and the autumn longer yet, and Kim Ford has never been called patient. “Where?”

As her cry echoes over empty lands and from fallen rocks, the wind dies suddenly—and in the next instant, everything shifts.

She is in a forest, now, dark and still and green at the edge of a glade in the promise of spring-turned-new-summer. This place she doesn’t know, has never seen, and still somehow Kim knows it is not where she seeks, not here. This is somewhere else, and although she looks up she cannot see sun nor moon nor stars—she doesn’t know where she is, and although she is the Seer of Brennin, a dreamer of the dream, at the moment she has never felt so blind.

From behind her, footsteps crackle in the underbrush, and Kim whirls. Light glints from the fair golden hair of the young man who stands before her, half-hidden by the trees—save for his eyes, which are a startling bright blue.

And oh, she knows him, somehow she knows him, Jennifer’s son, and Kim breathes,

“Darien.”

Blue eyes flash red and are answered by the sudden crimson blaze of the Baelrath on her hand, and she jerks her hand up before her face with a wordless, desperate cry as she stumbles backwards--

--and as she falls, Kim Ford wakes up.