He looked down on his own trembling hands, and then, slowly, he stood up, feeling the motion like a returning into time from another world entirely. He walked over, amid the silence, to stand by the man in the center of the grove.
Lancelot had pulled himself to a sitting position, his knees bent, his head lowered between them. His left arm hung uselessly at his side. There was dark blood on the grass, and it was welling still from half a dozen wounds. There was an ugly burn on his shoulder, raw and blistered, where he had rolled in the scorching pit of a hammer blow. Then Flidais, coming nearer, saw the other burn, and his breath lodged painfully in his chest.
Where the man’s hand—once so beautiful—had gripped the hammer of Curdardh, the skin of his palm was blackened and peeled away in thick strips of violated flesh.
“Oh, Lancelot,” the andain murmured. It came out as a croak, almost inaudible.
Slowly the man lifted his head. His eyes, clouded with pain, met those of Flidais, and then, unbelievably, the thinnest trace of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
“Taliesin,” he whispered. “I thought I saw you. I am sorry—” He gasped and looked down at the seared flesh of his palm. Then he looked away and continued. “I am sorry I could not greet you properly, before.”
Flidais shook his head mutely. He opened his mouth, but no words came. He cleared his throat and tried again, formally. “It has been told for centuries that you were never matched in your day of earthly knight’s hand. What you battled tonight was not mortal and should never have been defeated. I have never seen a thing to match it and I never will. What may I offer you, my lord Lancelot?”
The mortal eyes, holding his own, seemed to grow clearer. “Your silence, Taliesin. I need your silence about what happened here, lest all the worlds learn of my shame.”
“Shame?” Flidais felt his voice crack.
Lancelot lifted his head to gaze at the high stars overhead. “This was single combat,” he said quietly. “And I sought aid from the boy. It will be a mark against my name for so long as time shall run.”
“In the name of the Loom!” Flidais snapped. “What idiocy is this? What about the trees, and the powers of the Wood that aided Curdardh and hemmed you in? What about this battleground where the demon’s power was greater than anywhere else? What about the darkness, where it could see and you could not? What about—”
“Even so,” murmured Lancelot, and the little andain’s sharp voice was stilled. “Even so, I besought aid in single combat.”
“Is that so terrible?” said a new voice.
Flidais turned. Darien had come forward from the edge of the glade. His expression was calm now, but Flidais could still see the shadow of its contorted anguish when the boy had screamed.
“We both would have died,” Darien went on. “Why is it so terrible to have asked that one small thing?”
Lancelot swung to look at him. There was a moment’s stillness; then he said, “Save in one thing only, a love for which I will make eternal redress, I have served the Light in everything I have ever done. In that service, a victory won with a tool of the Dark is no victory at all.”
Darien took a step backward. “Do you mean me?” he asked. “A tool of the—”
“No,” Lancelot murmured quietly. Flidais felt his cold fear coming back, as he looked at the boy. “No. I mean the thing I did.”
“You saved my life,” Darien said. It sounded like an accusation. He did not step forward again. “And you, mine.” Quietly, still. “Why?” Darien shouted suddenly. “Why did you do it?”
The man closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Because your mother asked me to,” he said simply.
With the words Flidais heard a rustling in the leaves again. There was an ache in his heart.
Darien stood as if poised for flight, but he had not yet moved. “She knew I was going to my father,” he said, less loudly. “Did she tell you? Do you know that you have saved me to do that?”
Lancelot shook his head. He lifted his voice, though clearly it took an effort. “I have saved you to follow your road.”
Darien laughed. The sound knifed into Flidais. “And if it leads north?” the boy asked coldly, in a voice that sounded older suddenly.