The Dark Mirror

by Juliet Marillier

  “This hollow is called the Vale of the Fallen.” Broichan’s voice was a whisper. In this still place the thread of sound was as intrusive as a shout. “I will tell you its story on the way home. Look in the water, Bridei. Come, stand here.”

  Bridei felt the druid’s hands on his shoulders. Broichan’s presence at his back, solid and strong, made him feel a great deal better. He gazed down into the dark waters of the pool and into his own eyes, staring back. He could see Broichan, too, black-cloaked, white-faced, grim and tall. And behind Broichan—Bridei squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again. Had he really seen that? An axe, whistling through the air, glinting, deadly, and the druid’s hand going up to catch it by the blade, slicing, bloody, and—

  “Careful, boy,” Broichan said, gripping Bridei’s shoulder hard. “Do not lose sight of what is vision and what is reality. Breathe as I taught you, slowly and steadily. There is much to be seen here, and not every eye discerns the same images. Indeed, there are many who see only water and light and a fish or two. What was it that alarmed you thus?”

  Bridei did not answer. His gaze was on the water’s surface, for now it was dancing with images. The pool flashed scarlet and silver and showed him a battle, not the whole of it, but the small and terrible parts that made the whole: men crying out, men afraid, men dauntless in courage, fighting on with smashed jaws and broken limbs and faces running red. Men with their wounded on their backs, with their dead over their shoulders, struggling to bear them to safety even as the enemy came on and on in relentless, vengeful pursuit. A little dog settled in faithful guard against the curled body of its dead master, its white coat stained with the fellow’s lifeblood, its eyes desolate. A severed hand, a head without a body, young, fierce, somebody’s son, somebody’s brother. The enemy rolled forward like a great wave, shrieking their triumph, taking all that stood in their path. They passed, and Bridei saw the vale cleared of its human wreckage, empty of all save a sorrow so deep that none could well walk there again. It was a realm of mist and shadow, a habitation of unquiet spirits.

  The images faded to gray, to black, and were gone. There was only the water. Bridei drew a deep breath; he wondered if he had been breathing at all while he looked into the pool.

  “The Dark Mirror,” Broichan said, releasing his foster son and squatting down by one of the weathered stones. Now that Bridei thought of it, they did look a little like ancient sages keeping vigil by this mist-guarded tarn. There were seven of them: the seven druids. “You will see me make use of such a tool from time to time, but not here; my practice is with my own artifact of bronze and obsidian, and I do not venture beyond the walls of my house to use it. As you saw, this place admits whom it chooses, and it chooses but rarely. You were meant to see something, and so you were summoned here. Can you tell me what you were shown?”

  Bridei looked at him in surprise. “Didn’t you see it, too?”

  “I saw what I saw,” said Broichan. “Weren’t you listening? Maybe it was the same and maybe it wasn’t. Now tell me.”

  “A battle,” said Bridei, shivering. Suddenly he didn’t want to talk about it at all. He wanted to be out riding with Donal, and the sun to be shining, and the thought of bread and cheese for dinner the most important thing on his mind. “It was horrible. Cutting; screaming; dying for nothing. Blood everywhere.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Broichan said as they made their way back up the track. “The grandsons of those warriors are dead and in the grave; their granddaughters are old women. Their suffering was over long since.”

  “It was wrong,” said Bridei.

  “Wrong, that valor is rewarded by death? Maybe; but that is ever the nature of war. How do you know that those who were slain were our own kind, Bridei? Maybe those who were victorious were ours, and the courageous losers our enemies. What do you say to that?”

  Bridei did not answer for a while. He had never seen anything as horrible, as sickening as those images of carnage and loss, and he hoped he never would again. “It shouldn’t happen like that,” he said at last. “It was wrong. The leader should have saved them. Got them out in time.”

  “That is how you would have done it?”

  “I would have made a good plan. I would have saved them.”

  “A battle isn’t about saving your men. It’s about winning. A leader expects losses. Warriors expect to die when their time comes. It is the nature of man to war with himself. But you are right, son. It can be done better; a great deal better. And planning is indeed the key. Ah, we’ve reached the top at last. The walk has made me quite hungry; I wonder if Donal has any rations.”

  Donal, a seasoned campaigner, did not disappoint them. His saddlebag was packed with dark bread, salty cheese, and little apples, and they stopped to eat these on a rise overlooking Serpent Lake, where the horses could crop sweet grasses. Broichan ate sparingly for all his talk of hunger; in all things, he showed restraint.

  “The Vale of the Fallen,” he said at last, looking out over the silvery waters below them toward the dark hills on the other side, “was once a place of such ill-doing that folk have regarded it with both reverence and revulsion ever since. There was a battle; this you have learned already.”

  “And a lot of men were killed,” Bridei said, abruptly losing his appetite for the crisp, tart apple he was eating.

  “A whole community,” Broichan said, “fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, the men of many settlements up and down the Great Glen. They had fought long and hard; this was the ending only, the last flickering of a conflict that had lasted from seeding to harvest. Our forces were already defeated; the enemy had taken the western isles and the land all along that coast, and was moving eastward like a plague. They seemed fit to rampage across the very heartland of Fortriu, not content until every one of our warriors was slain. You saw the result. Our men fell there, the last of them. When the enemy was gone another army crept out, the widows, the fatherless, the old folk, and gathered the broken remnants of their kin. They bore them away for burial. Then a watch was set on that place. Just who keeps it, nobody is quite sure. Folk speak of a dog that howls there at night.”

  “A sorry place,” commented Donal.

  “The Vale of the Fallen is not solely a scene of death and defeat,” said Broichan. “It holds the essence of the men of Fortriu who fell there. Each of these doomed warriors held in his heart the love of his country, his kin, his faith. We must never forget that, for all our sorrow at their loss.”

  “My lord,” queried Bridei, “what enemy was that? Their eyes were strange. They frightened me.”

  This time it was Donal who answered, his tone bitter. “The Gaels, curse them, that godforsaken breed from over the water. That invasion was under an old king. His grandson rules them now, Gabhran’s his name. King of Dalriada. Huh!” He spat by the path. “Jumped-up incomer, that’s all he is, meddling where he’s not wanted. There’s one king too many in these parts already; we don’t need one of those bog-dwellers moving in and helping himself.”

  Broichan glanced at the warrior and Donal fell silent.

  “Let us not speak of kings,” the druid said smoothly. “There is time for Bridei to study these matters, and expert advisers to help him learn. But that’s for the future. He has barely begun to scratch the surface of what he must know.”

  Bridei considered this as they completed their meal and made their way home through the forest. There was a question he wanted to ask Broichan, one that was often in his thoughts. His foster father talked about later, about the future, about all the things Bridei needed to learn. But Broichan never said what it was for; what was to become of Bridei when the learning was over. Would he go back to Gwynedd, home to the family he was starting to forget? Would he become a druid like Broichan, grim and tall, his mind all on learning? Or was it something else Broichan meant? Perhaps he was to be a warrior, like those men in the Dark Mirror. He shivered, remembering. It did not seem to be a question he could ask, not straight out.

  “Te
ll me, Bridei,” Broichan said, breaking into his thoughts, “can you swim?”

  This was entirely unexpected. On the other hand, Broichan’s method of conversation was ever full of surprises.

  “No, my lord. I would like to learn.”

  “Good. We’ll need to retain Donal’s services over the winter, then, so he can teach you when the weather’s warm enough. Rowing, too. It’s just as well you didn’t tumble into that pond. It’s rather cold and extremely deep.”

  “Yes, my lord.” There was nothing else to say. If you fell into the Dark Mirror, Bridei thought, drowning might be the least of your worries.

  “Meanwhile,” the druid said, preparing to mount his horse once more, “winter allows the study of numbers and codes, of games and music, and I think Donal can use the hall to start some rather specialized training that will equip you to be a little more self-sufficient. I may be away for a time. I will appoint other tutors as required.”

  “Yes, my lord.” One thing was certain, thought Bridei. There’d be no time to get bored.

  LOOKING BACK ON this period, years later, Bridei wondered if Broichan had forgotten that his foster son was still some time short of his sixth birthday. He was inclined to think not. The druid had simply assessed him to discover how quickly he could absorb information, what was his capacity for endurance, what was his inclination to obey, then instituted a program of learning that would ensure Bridei squeezed in as much as he possibly could. The days were full. He rode out with Donal. He spent time learning to fight with two knives or with one, or with his fists. He practiced rolling on and off his pony’s back swiftly and easily, as he had seen the warrior doing. In the afternoons Broichan drilled him on druidic lore, starting with the sun, moon, and stars, their patterns and meanings, the alignment of the kin stones and the older markers that were dotted all across Fortriu, down into Circinn, which had its own king, and northward into the wild and mysterious land of the Caitt. They delved deeper into the study of deities and spirits, ritual and ceremony. As Broichan had said, so far they had barely scratched the surface. Bridei fell asleep at night with the lore tangling and twisting through his head and his body aching with weariness. He ate like a horse and grew apace.

  Some time before Midwinter, Broichan went away to attend a king’s council. The territories of the Priteni were divided into four parts: Fortriu, where Pitnochie was located, the southern realm of Circinn, and the more distant territories of the Caitt and the Light Isles. When Bridei asked where his father’s kingdom of Gwynedd fit into this, Broichan smiled.

  “Gwynedd is another land, Bridei,” he said. “Your father’s people are not of the Priteni. Cannot you remember how long it took you to ride here?”

  Already, the memory was fading. Bridei said nothing.

  “There will be representatives of two kings at the council,” Broichan told him. “Our lands are divided; it was a black day when Drust, son of Girom, became a Christian, and his realm of Circinn split from Fortriu. Here in the north we are blessed with a king loyal to the ancient gods. Drust, son of Wdrost, known as Drust the Bull, holds power over all the territories of the Great Glen. When they call me king’s druid, it is Drust the Bull they mean. He is a good man.”

  Bridei wished that Broichan would not go. His foster father did not smile much; he did not joke and play games as the old men had done. But Broichan knew so many interesting things, and was always ready to share them. He listened properly when Bridei wanted to explain something, not like Mara, who was always too busy, or Ferat, who often didn’t seem to hear. Broichan always had time for Bridei, and although the druid rarely offered words of praise, Bridei had learned to recognize a certain expression in his foster father’s dark eyes, the look that showed he was pleased. He wished Broichan would stay at home.

  The day came. Sibel was saddled and ready in the yard; four men at arms were to ride with the druid as an escort. Donal would stay at Pitnochie.

  “I will work very hard, my lord,” Bridei said as Broichan stood waiting to mount his horse.

  “Did I express any doubts as to that?” Broichan was almost smiling. “You will do well, son, I know it. Don’t neglect the more intellectual pursuits in your desire to develop your skills in combat. Now I must go. Farewell, Bridei.”

  “Safe journey, my lord,” Donal said from where he held Sibel’s bridle. “I’ll watch over the boy”

  “Farewell,” whispered Bridei, suddenly feeling quite odd. He would not cry; he had promised his father. He watched in silence as Broichan, surrounded by his guards, rode away under the leafless oaks and down the track to the lake’s edge. They had a long journey northeast to Caer Pridne, great fortress of Drust the Bull.

  “Right,” said Donal cheerfully. “How about swords today? I’ve a little one somewhere that you might just about be able to lift up, at a pinch. What do you say?”

  The lesson in swordsmanship kept Bridei occupied for some time, and while it lasted there was no place in his mind for anything beyond strength, balance, concentration. It was only in the afternoon, when the sky grew dark and rain began to fall in drizzling gray curtains, and his arms had begun to ache fiercely in belated protest at the morning’s hard work, that Bridei felt sadness creep over him. Donal was out doing something with the men at arms. Mara was fussing over linen and the impossibility of getting it dry. Ferat, the cook, was in a foul temper that had something to do with wet firewood. There was nobody in the house to talk to.

  Bridei’s small chamber was next to the place where Donal lodged with the other men at arms, although in practice Donal usually slept in the hallway outside Bridei’s door. He said the others snored and it kept him awake. Through Bridei’s tiny window, hardly big enough to admit a squirrel, could be seen a silvery glimpse of the lake between the branches of a birch. Sometimes Bridei could see the moon from his window, and then he would leave an offering on the sill, a white stone, a feather, or a charm woven from grasses. Broichan had taught him the importance of the moon, how she governed the tides, not just in the oceans, but in the bodies of man, woman, and creature, linking her ebb and flow with the cycles of nature. The Shining One was powerful; she must be honored.

  Today there was no moon to be seen, just the clouds and the rain, like endless, sorry tears. Bridei lay on his bed and stared up at the window, a small, dim square in the stone wall, gray on gray. He knew what Broichan would say: Self-pity is a waste of time, and time is precious. Use this for learning. Then the druid would talk about the rain, and where it fit into the pattern of the seasons, and how the element of water was like the moon in its fluctuations. There was a lesson to be learned from every single thing that happened. Even when people went away and left you. But right now Bridei didn’t feel like learning. Without his foster father, nothing seemed right at Pitnochie.

  He sat cross-legged on the bed and recited the lore to himself until his lids were drooping over his eyes. Then he made himself stand up, and practiced balancing on one leg with one arm behind his back and one eye closed, which was what druids did for meditation. Then he folded his blankets perfectly, so that the edges were a precise match, and he took everything out of his storage chest and replaced it in a different, more orderly arrangement. He polished his boots. He sharpened his knife. It still wasn’t time for supper.

  Bridei stood by the window and looked out into the rain. He thought about the day, and about the expression in Broichan’s eyes as he said farewell. He thought about the Vale of the Fallen, and all those men killed before their time, and their families with a whole life of sadness before them. He wondered which was the more difficult: having to go away, or being left behind.

  DONAL WAS EXTENDING the scope of Bridei’s combat training. It involved grips and holds and tricks, balance and strength and speed, and also the proper care and maintenance of weapons. Bridei learned to use a bow and to hit the center of the target nine times in ten. Donal began to move the target farther away and to add degrees of difficulty, such as a distraction at the moment of rele
asing the string or a sudden command to close his eyes. The lessons were never boring. With the careful instructions on cleaning and oiling his blades, on retrieving and refletching his arrows, on maintaining the bow in perfect condition, Bridei came to realize that long-limbed, wry Donal was, in his way, as self-disciplined a man as the tight-lipped druid.

  In the afternoons, when he would once have spent time with Broichan in the recitation of lore or the study of the mysteries, he was now left to his own devices. They had been studying the elements. He did his best to remember everything Broichan had taught him, not just the words of the lore, which he sometimes only half understood, but the meanings behind them. The waxing and waning moon governed water, and was like the tides in the spirit, both strong and pliant. Water was storm, flood, rain for crops; the hot saltiness of tears. Water could roar in a great torrent, a mighty fall from precipice to gorge, or lie still and silent, waiting, as in the Dark Mirror. Then there was fire, powerful and consuming. The life-giving warmth of the hearth fire could keep a man alive; the unchecked raging of wildfire could kill him. The Flamekeeper’s special gift to men was the fire in the heart: a courage that could burn on even in the face of death. Air was chill with the promise of snow, carrying the scent of pines. Air supported the eagle’s flight, high above the dark folds of the Great Glen. Bridei could feel how it was for the eagle as he looked down over the land of Fortriu in all its grandeur. His land. His place. Earth was the deep heartbeat under his feet, the living, knowing body from whence all sprang, deer, eagle, squirrel, shining salmon, bright-eyed corbie, man and woman and child, and the other ones, the Good Folk. Earth held him up; earth was ready to take him back when his time was done. Earth could make a house or form a track; earth could blanket a warrior’s long slumber. There was a whole world of meaning in the smallest things: a burned twig, a white pebble, a feather, a drop of rain.