Medieval 02 - Forbidden

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.”
     
    “T HE 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 fromthere 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