Fergal cast a glance over his shoulder and then turned around to address Conor, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘Do you not think it odd that sour old Lenos should appear out of nowhere all of a sudden with sweet promises of aid and friendship? And him a fella well known to never have two happy words for you or me when last we saw one another?’
Conor looked around to see if they were being overheard. The pilot at the tiller was the only faéry to be seen. ‘Keep your voice down. They’ll hear you.’
‘I tell you the truth,’ Fergal continued, dropping his voice, ‘these Albion faéry are serving up bad fish. The stew smells rank to me.’
‘You may be right,’ Conor conceded. ‘Then again, it may be just as Lenos says—that he regretted the unfriendly way we parted and saw a chance to make amends.’
‘What so?’ said Fergal; leaning close, he put his face in front of Conor’s. ‘These faéry folk have found a way we can all help each other? What does that look like on two legs? Tell me if you know.’
‘I reckon we’ll find out soon enough.’
‘And I say we’re making a very large mistake trusting them. We should tell Lenos to turn this boat around and take us back.’
‘Too late for that,’ said Conor, glancing toward the stern, where Armadal had just appeared and was coming toward them. ‘We’ll have to see it through.’
‘You are awake,’ said the silver-haired faéry, folding his long pale hands in front of him. ‘Follow me. You will want to see this.…’ He moved on, leading them around the central enclosure to the other side of the ship, where Lenos and Sealbach stood at the rail gazing at the high, rock-bound coastline of a verdant green island. The pale sky gave the water a silvery aspect over which a multitude of white birds sewed the air; looping and diving, they flocked to their roosts on the sheer cliffs and crevices, their mewing cries filling the sky with a melancholy sound; dolphins, pacing the prow, breached the shimmering surface chasing small fish. The rich green of the tree-lined hills and silver sea gave the island the appearance of a rare jewel in a costly setting.
‘Behold!’ declared Lenos, lifting a hand to the ruddy brown headlands and towering black crags rising before them. ‘Eilean Ceó, our home.’ The king pointed to a mountainous landmass rising out of the blue mist on the near-distant horizon. ‘And there lies the Albion mainland. The Aes-sídhe have lands in both places. The Kerionid reside here. The island has everything we need for an agreeable life.’
The five remained at the rail as the ship bounded over the wave swell, closer and closer until gliding into the shelter of the high headlands, whereupon the pilot swung onto a northern course, passing along the rock-bound coast. Some little time later, the ship arrived in a wide, shallow cove and the water changed from stony grey-green to the blue of a sparrow’s egg; the cove was ringed with a strand of sand as white and fine as snow leading to grass-covered dunes above. There was a scattering of small, stone-built beehive-shaped dwellings lining the crest of the dunes; blue nets were strung on poles between the huts, and a few deep-bellied boats were drawn up high on the beach.
The ship’s pilot gave out a cry and his crewmen struck the sails. A moment later, the faéry craft kissed the strand with the soft whisper of the keel against sand. ‘Welcome to Eilean Ceó in Albion, my friends,’ said the Aes-sídhe king. ‘You will want for nothing while you are my guests.’ He put his hand to the rail and, with a lithe, graceful leap, vaulted over the side of the ship and landed in water to his knees.
Fergal and Conor followed their host’s example, clambering over the side. The cold water rinsed away the dregs of sleep, and they waded onto the glistening beach to wait while the wooden walkways were put down and the horses led ashore. Lenos saw the two mortals eyeing the boats and fisher huts. ‘You must be hungry after your long ride and voyage,’ he declared. ‘We will eat soon. And worry not—my people love fishing and you will be well supplied with food and drink suitable for your race.’
Conor turned a puzzled glance at his host. ‘I thank you for your thoughtfulness, but we have eaten faéry food before and are more than happy to do so again.’
Lenos professed astonishment, and then understanding came to him. ‘Of course! To be sure. I was forgetting you sojourned among the Tylwyth Teg for a time. And they allowed you to eat from their table?’
‘For a fact they did,’ replied Fergal. ‘And we were all the better for it.’
Lenos’s long face pulled a wry smile. ‘I am certain that you are much the better for it. Any mortal would be. But did they not tell you the terrible price you pay for such indulgence?’
‘I would not say it was an indulgence,’ replied Conor. ‘Donal lay for many months in death’s shadow and that close to the door of the Hag Queen’s hall he might have walked through at any moment. I myself was sorely wounded. We owe our lives to King Gwydion and his physicians.’
Fergal, his brow furrowed in thought, asked, ‘You mentioned a price to be paid just now—what did you mean by that?’
‘Do you not know?’ wondered Armadal, coming up just then. ‘Has no one told you what happens to any who touch food or drink of the faéry?’
‘Ach, to be sure,’ replied Fergal in a lightly scoffing tone. ‘We’ve heard it said—by bards and such—that drinking from a faéry’s cup means you can never leave the land where that cup was served.’ He looked to Sealbach for confirmation. ‘Aye, well we not only drank our fill at Lord Gwydion’s table, but dined every day we were with them. And, as Conor says, we left them better than we came. If that is a cost, then it is a price I’ll gladly pay any time.’
‘Perhaps,’ replied the faéry. ‘But you should know the nature of the bargain you have made.’
Lenos, assuming his usual dour mien, added, ‘The price is nothing less than your mortality.’
Donal
Last night I awoke to the screams of dying warriors. I started up out of my bed, the shrill and terrible cries hanging in the air. I looked around. The hall was dark and silent, the fire in the hearth burned down to embers. Those who slept in the hall, slept still. Was I the only one who heard the death agonies of Tara’s brave defenders?
It took me a few moments to realise that the terrible cries belonged to a dream—a dream of my second sight. Since my sojourn among the Tylwyth Teg on the Isle of the Everliving, I have experienced such dreams and visions. They seem to have become more frequent and more vivid. This latest was a vision of such rare and vivid intensity that it awakened me and left me upright and shaking, my heart beating hard and fast. I waited—holding my breath and listening.…
The hall remained calm and silent, save for the gentle sough of men breathing like the ebb and swell of a distant sea.
Reassured, but still unsettled, I passed a hand over my face. My palm came away slick with sweat. I closed my eyes and lay down again, but could not rest. The echoes of the screams banished all thoughts of slumber. Instead, I rose, draped my cloak over my shoulders, and left the hall. Barefoot, I paced the yard, moving among the huts and shelters of our refugee citizens, hearing only the occasional night murmur, or snores of a sleeper. Above, the night sky was clear with a sea-foam spray of stars stretching from horizon to horizon, and the air held a hint of stale smoke from the evening before.
One of Tara’s dogs saw me and came to nuzzle my hand. I patted the warm head and stroked the soft ears and, looking down, saw his glossy white coat aglow in the starlight, his blood-red ears erect as he stared out toward the rim of the hill; and I understood that the dog wanted me to go there. So, we walked together to the rim of Tara Hill and looked out over the darkened plains of Mag Rí, Mag Coinnem, and Mag Teamhair.
As I gazed over the starlit land, I heard a rustling movement behind me and the sound of many feet. Suddenly, I was standing in the midst of a warhost and the warriors streamed around me, running, racing down the hillside to the plain—Mag Teamhair, but the other two also, for when I looked again the lowlands all around the hill were covered in smoke and mist, which began
flowing up the hillside from the plain—smoke from a thousand fires of the enemy camped out on the plain.
I could not see the Scálda for the obscuring wrack, but I could hear them. I could hear their shouts and jeers and wild ululations. I could hear them beating the iron rims of their shields with sword hilt and spear shaft. I could hear the rhythmic rumbling of their drums. It seemed to me that I had been hearing them all through the long, wakeful night—booming like the thunder of a storm about to break. And I knew we were powerless to avoid the impending conflict, much less stop it.
Even though I could not see them, I sensed somehow that we were fearfully outnumbered. Where were the other tribes? Where the other kings? What had happened to the fianna? Where were Médon and Galart? Where was Fergal? And Conor … where was he?
As I looked around for my swordbrothers, I heard the dog whine. I turned around to see that the dog was gone and in its place stood a woman clutching a tiny child tight in her arms and she was trying to quiet it, to comfort it. She stumbled out of the mist wrack and took her place beside me. I gazed at her and recognised her at last. ‘Aoife, what are you doing here? Go back.’
‘I am a queen in Eirlandia. Where else should I be but with my brave warriors?’ she said, and when I looked again I saw she held not a child, but a sword. She gazed at me and I saw that half her face was daubed in blue: the ancient colours of a warrior.
‘Go back to the women’s house where you will be safe,’ I told her.
‘Think you any place on Tara Hill is safe?’ she spat. ‘I tell you, brother, no place is safe while the Scálda spoil and scream for the heads of Dé Danann warriors to adorn their spears.’
‘Where is the king?’
Aoife was gazing down upon the plain—only this time it was Mag Tuired—and I knew that there had been another battle there, long ago. This battle, still remembered in the songs of bards, had determined the destiny of the island for ages to come.
Thinking she had not heard me, I asked her again, ‘Where is Conor? Where is the king?’
The queen turned to me with tears in her eyes and shook her head. But I heard a voice from somewhere—behind me, above me—I know not where, saying, ‘Conor has gone to the Land of the Everliving. His like will not be seen in Eirlandia again.’
The voice I recognised.
‘Gwydion?’ I spun around to see where he might be, but there was no one to be seen. The words chilled the warm blood in my heart. ‘Did you hear that, Aoife?’ I asked, turning back to the view of the valley.
Alas! Lady Aoife had vanished, too—as if, like Conor, she would be seen no more in this worlds-realm. Meanwhile, down on the open ground of Mag Tuired, the battle had begun.
The Scálda appeared, rolling out of the smoke and mist in their fast chariots led by Balor Berugderc, he of the Evil Eye. He rode in his wheeled war cart waving his iron spear and shouting to the bestial gods of his people while his driver whipped the double team of horses to a lather to serve their foul lord’s bloodlust. Behind him, behind that lead chariot, came a vast sea of high-wheeled war carts sweeping over the wide, grassy plain, the hooves of the horse teams churning, the chariot wheels spinning. Like the storm-driven tide-rush inundating the strand, drowning the beach and rushing inland, they came. Rank upon rank, they came. And the sound of their rumbling filled the earth and drove the birds from the very sky.
But I bound courage to my heart, vowing within myself that I would not be ground beneath the wheels of a Scálda war cart like the carcass of a dumb animal. I was a warrior of the Dé Danann and I would go to my grave with my spear in my hand and send as many Scálda to the Hag Queen’s hall as I could.
Suddenly, I was down on the plain with a shield on my arm and my faéry spear in my hand and there was a great warhost around me—many on horseback, more on foot—and we were flying to meet the enemy.
The clash when it came shattered the air with a horrendous concussion—the sound of ten thousand collisions as blade met shield and bone. The ground trembled. The sun dimmed. Faint stars glimmered in the sky. And then the screaming began. My ears were filled with the screams of triumph and of pain.
And then, strange to say, I was back in the yard at Tara. I was chilled from standing barefoot in the yard. The moon had set and in the east the sun was just tinting the horizon pale pink. I looked out at our settlement—still and quiet and at peace in the dawn of a new day. I was alone and wondering not only what had happened down on the plain, but what had become of the warriors and people of Tara?
18
A short journey inland from the shore brought the travellers to a steep rocky path leading up to a high, windy, gorse-covered moorland. Away to the east and north, the land rose higher still to form the crags and peaks of a serried mountain range. Atop one of the moorland’s rounded hills stood a stone circle much like those Conor knew in Eirlandia: a series of enormous upright slabs linked together by horizontal lintel stones and arranged in a great ring surrounded by two deep ditches. But this stone circle was not only much, much larger, it was also topped with a steep, conical roof thatched with reed and perched atop the lintel stones like a hat. Each space between the many standing stones became a huge door; and each door was overhung by a curtain of heavy material woven into patterns of swirls and spirals in green and silver.
There were other structures, too. Scattered around the stone circle were several large round turf-covered barrows, a handful of dolmens, and several of the beehive-shaped structures like those seen on the shore—and all had doorways covered by the cloth hangings bearing the same spiral design.
Conor took in the strange settlement and it seemed to him a wilder, more austere and primitive place than any faéry habitation he might have imagined—and certainly far different from those inhabited by the Tylwyth Teg, which he knew well. Perhaps the Aes-sídhe settlement reflected both the severe nature of the storm-worried island and the otherworldly beings who lived there. To Conor’s eye the contrast could not have been greater or more complete. Where the faéry of Tír nan Óg lived in a woodland paradise of tall trees and flowing water, the faéry of Eilean Ceó lived on a wind-blasted scarp of granite amid purple heather, bracken, and the perpetual heave and sigh of the restless ocean round about.
Unaccountably, the entire day had passed as they toiled up the long winding path, and the travellers arrived just as the sun broke through the haze in the west to paint the stone circle in a soft yellow light. A few early stars kindled in the wind-scoured sky to the east and from somewhere came the dull, clanking sound of a cattle bell.
Coming into the settlement, they were greeted with fine hospitality by the inhabitants, who showed a genuine, if reserved, esteem for their king, and a reticent recognition of their mortal visitors. The horses were taken away to be groomed and fed, and a young maid with hair white as eiderdown appeared with a silver bowl filled with mead, which she passed to the king, then backed away with a bow; another maiden followed bearing a silver platter with tiny flat loaves of sweet brown faéry bread. As the mead and bread were brought to the king, Conor noted the aspect of the people, most of whom gave every appearance of being just as dour and forbidding as their moorland surroundings.
‘Welcome to Socair Sídhean,’ said Lenos, passing the mead cup to Conor and Fergal in turn. ‘May you find rest and good fortune in your sojourn here.’
When they had drunk and eaten a little of the bread, Lenos then led them over a short timber walkway across the double ditches and onto a paved pathway leading to one of the great circular structure’s many doors.
‘I can see why your Lenos is such a grim old charmer,’ Fergal whispered, leaning close to Conor. ‘He gets it from this mean ráth of his. I tell you the truth, brother, I am not liking this Socair Sídhean. Not at all.’
‘A cheerless place, so it is,’ agreed Conor, gazing around the massive stone circle and the barrow mounds and dolmens. ‘The cave palaces of the Tylwyth Teg are happier by far than this. Why that should be, I wonder?’
; ‘Ach, it is the nature of the beast,’ remarked Fergal. ‘These folk are as much like their king as I remembered. Every scrap and scrape as friendly anyway.’
One of their guides pulled away the heavy hanging over the doorway and they passed between the enormous standing stones and into a great hall with its heavy stone walls and huge carved pillars to support the timber roof. Each of the pillars was made from the entire trunk of a huge pine, and the roof was so high overhead it disappeared into the shadows. The doors at the entrance opened onto a broad circle of stone steps leading down to a stone-paved floor. The outer walls were lined with nooks, some partitioned with hangings, others enclosed with wooden panels and doors. In the centre of the great round hall, a great bronze bowl on a tripod burned with a golden flame before a low dais on which sat a throne draped in green cloth embroidered with silver thread into the shapes of deer and boar, oxen and eagles. Other fires burned throughout the enormous room in smaller braziers and from large candles on bronze sconces affixed to the rooftrees. Unlike every other hall the Dé Danann visitors had ever entered, the fires produced no smoke, nor were the candles consumed by their burning. The lightly tinkling sound of a harp played among the stately pillars with the sound of a brook trickling through a wooded glade, yet no musician was to be seen.
Near the bronze cauldron, a semicircle of boards and benches had been set up with three carved wooden chairs placed in the centre. Lord Lenos took the middle chair and placed Conor and Fergal on either side. One by one, the Kerionid came to take their places and were introduced to the visitors. Conor soon gave up trying to remember who everyone was and how they were related, but did his best to greet each one with cordial, if subdued, courtesy.
When everyone was seated, the meal commenced, and while they waited for the food to be brought out, Lenos told his guests something of the long history of the Aes-sídhe and how the Kerionid had come to the island. He explained that Eilean Ceó was not always their home, but that long ago war erupted among the island faéry tribes and those of the Tír Galli across the sea. In what came to be known as the War of the Sun Bull, the fortunes of the various faéry tribes rose and fell many times as power shifted and alliances were formed and broken. Following one particularly brutal battle, a truce was negotiated and the combatants withdrew; on the way home, the truce was violated; the Aes-sídhe were ambushed and suffered a ruinous loss. Shattered, dispirited, bereft, they retreated to the high moors and mountains and the remote islands of Albion, leaving the wider world and its affairs to others. ‘We have lived here ever since,’ concluded Lenos somewhat morosely.
In the Kingdom of All Tomorrows--Eirlandia, Book Three Page 16
