The Dark Mirror

by Juliet Marillier

  “Come! Come up!” called the voice. There was no telling if it was Gossamer’s bell-like tinkle or Woodbine’s deeper tone, or something else altogether. It mingled with a stranger sound, a sorrowful, eldritch howling like the cry of a small, deserted dog. That, she had heard before in this place.

  It seemed to be possible to get up, although it took a great deal longer than it should have done. Her feet obeyed her command to shuffle forward; to ascend with slow, uneven steps the steep path out of the vale. Her hands gripped whatever came their way; without the support of these thorny, tearing bushes she could not have remained upright at all. By the time she reached the top, Tuala’s breath was coming in sucking, painful gasps. The light was starting to fade now, even up here. She could not go on for long.

  “Come! Follow me! Higher! Higher!” Now there seemed to be a whole chorus of them out in the dimness. She could not see them. The sound led her forward, now on a new path, a way that wound steadily upward between the trees, first a muddy quagmire, then a narrow track densely packed with decaying leaf mold, last a steep scramble up slippery, moss-covered rocks. I can’t, was there somewhere in her mind, but the voices were insistent, compelling; it was nearly time for this pain to cease . . . If she could just do this next bit, if she could just go on a little, soon none of it would matter anymore . . .

  “Higher! Higher! Farther! Farther!”

  Creeping, crawling, hauling herself up, hands leaving bloody smears on the stones, feet scrabbling for a purchase they could scarcely feel, Tuala fought her desperate way ever closer to the top of Eagle Scar.

  “IT SEEMS ODD to say this,” the creature known as Woodbine communicated to his companion in his own way, “but this strikes me as somewhat . . . cruel. I find myself almost moved to sympathy with the girl.”

  Gossamer laughed. “It is a test,” she said. “It is necessary. What are these small human ills, an empty belly, a little scratch, a night without sleep? They are nothing.”

  “The child is a good child. Our blood kin. I see no need to prolong her suffering.”

  Gossamer shook her head; threads of bright hair danced, sending a shimmer of light across the gloomy hillside beneath the bare-limbed oaks. “This will make her think. It will make her ponder. It will ensure she never forgets whence she came, or who she really is.”

  “She doesn’t know who she really is,” Woodbine pointed out.

  “No. But she will feel it. When she is old, and dreams by the hearth fire with her grandson on her knee, she will feel it deep in the bone and tell it in her tales. She will hold it in her heart.”

  “That’s if she does not first perish from cold, loneliness, or despair.”

  “These folk are so weak; so flawed; so fragile. At least it is not raining.”

  “Could we not send her a companion?” Woodbine queried. “A small one would suffice.”

  “What, are you become like a man, that you turn sentimental the moment you see this girl experiencing a little inconvenience?” Gossamer’s tone was full of scorn. “Are you yourself fallen victim to the pangs of love?”

  “Love? Hardly. I think, all the same . . .”

  “Do what you will.” Gossamer shrugged. “Bridei comes; soon he will be at Pitnochie, he and the mare without peer. A clever choice; the old man walks with one foot in each world, and sees entirely true. Only this creature, Spindrift, could have brought Bridei here in time. But the young man has a companion of his own; one who wears the mask of a friend to hide the face of a traitor. So it begins.

  “Begins?” echoed Woodbine. “It began with a little child, and a newborn babe, and the cool gaze of the Shining One. What if he fails? What if he gets this wrong?”

  Gossamer turned her wide, bright eyes on him. “We must hope that he does not,” she said gravely “Such a leader as Bridei is found but rarely among mortal men. Such a companion as Tuala is beyond price. If he fails today I think Fortriu is lost.”

  BRIDEI COULD FEEL his weakness in every limb; the injury and the long time of unconsciousness had sorely sapped his strength. That was countered by the sudden miraculous disappearance of the headache, leaving him clearer in his mind than he had been a long time. Then there was the mare, Spindrift, who proved to be everything he had hoped for. She found her way entirely unguided, pacing herself across the changing terrain, apparently quite tireless. Her only fault was the way she halted, sometimes, in the shelter of a rock wall or a dense stand of pines, and toppled him from her back so he was forced to rest awhile. She did not stand to sleep, as Snowfire or Lucky would have done, but lay down by him, warming his body with her own.

  Bridei was impatient. It seemed to him there was no time for rest. Tuala was long gone, perhaps already at Pitnochie and moving on . . . moving where? The thought of that made him shudder, for the more his mind dwelled on what Ferada had told him and the more he thought about the way it had all unfolded, the easier it was to believe Tuala had decided to leave him; to step across the last margin into a place where he could not follow her. He had failed her at full moon. She had waited for him and he had not come. If Ferada had spoken the truth, Pitnochie, too, had rejected its small forest daughter. And she had fled from Banmerren. Tuala had never wanted to be a servant of the Shining One. She had wanted . . . she had wanted what he wanted, and he had not seen it, blind as he was to all but his own needs. He had got it all wrong, and now, if he could not find her quickly, he would lose her forever.

  He chafed at each delay, knowing at the same time the utter necessity of rest and warmth. Without Spindrift, he could not go on; on foot, he could not reach Tuala in time. Unless she waited at Pitnochie . . . He did not think she would. If the best Broichan had been able to offer her was marriage to a stranger or a life behind stone walls, the king’s druid was unlikely to welcome her back into his house. Bridei clenched his teeth. Broichan . . . Broichan had as good as lied to him. To say that Banmerren was Tuala’s choice was all very well. To omit the fact that the only other choice offered to her had been to wed Garvan was a cruel concealment of the real truth. Broichan had let her run away, all alone, and had not said a word about it. From the first, the druid had distrusted the Shining One’s Midwinter gift. This was a betrayal pure and simple. On an instant, his foster father had become a stranger: a man who did not trust him, and whom he could no longer trust.

  Twice they had stopped to sleep. It was day now, and Bridei judged by the position of the cloud-veiled sun that the afternoon was well advanced. As they drew closer to Pitnochie, picking a way along the steep track by the lake shore, Spindrift grew increasingly restless, twitching her ears, turning her head, swishing her tail. Bridei was acutely aware that he had no weapons with him, not even the smallest knife with which to defend himself; he had come away with nothing. Donal would have been less than impressed with him.

  Now Bridei could hear what had alerted the mare: hoofbeats behind them, a rider approaching. His mind sifted the possibilities: an assassin, another in the pay of Circinn’s kingmakers. Broichan himself, seeking to track down his disobedient foster son and force him back to court. No; if Broichan had decided to pursue him, he would have traveled as a druid does, by paths unknown to ordinary men. One of his keepers, Breth or Garth. Or Faolan; this was by far the most likely. Faolan must earn his fee, and to do so, he must ensure his charge was at Caer Pridne for the assembly, not off on what the Gael would doubtless see as a fool’s errand. Faolan had the strength and skill to track him thus, to be here now, at the end. Spindrift halted, turning to face the oncomer. Bridei summoned what reserves he had. Weapons or no weapons, he would not go down without a fight.

  The rider rounded a corner and was in full view: a freckle-faced youth, tall, red-haired, his unprepossessing features creased by a smile.

  “Gartnait!” Bridei exclaimed; his friend was the last person he had expected.

  “Caught you up at long last,” Gartnait said, reining in behind him. “What a chase . . . That mare certainly keeps up a cracking pace. Bridei, you look worn
out. What were you—”

  “Why have you come here?” Time was passing. He wanted no companions; once at Pitnochie, he scarcely knew where the path would lead him. “Why did you follow me?”

  Gartnait frowned. “That’s not much of a greeting for a friend, Bridei. I was worried about you. A man doesn’t leap out of his sick bed and go rushing off on some wild quest in the middle of winter without giving his friends some cause for concern, you know. Especially not if he’s about to stand up and contest the kingship. What were you thinking of?”

  “You must know that,” Bridei said. “Ferada certainly knew all about it. The kingship can wait; I must find Tuala. And time’s short. If you want to come with me, come. But this isn’t just a simple matter of walking into the house and fetching her out. She won’t be there; I think she may have gone to a secret place up in the woods.”

  “A secret place,” echoed Gartnait as Bridei’s mare set off once more along the track and he guided his own mount after her. “Dangerous?”

  “Not in the way you mean, I expect. It’s quite isolated.”

  “Then you’ll need a friend by your side. Don’t bother to thank me for half killing myself catching up with you.”

  “Thank you,” said Bridei tightly; to talk at all seemed a waste of precious time and strength. “There was no need.”

  There were folk about at Pitnochie, though fewer than in the old times. A small figure could be seen outside the barn, with children and dogs at foot: Fidich leaning on his crutch, inspecting some sheep. The guards were changing shift, a fortunate accident of timing. “Keep to the trees,” Bridei told Gartnait. “I’ve no idea what they’ll do if they see me, but time’s short, and I must get to the Dark Mirror without delay”

  “The Dark Mirror?” queried Gartnait as they guided their horses up under the pines, where they could not be seen from house or yard.

  “The place I must go to. A haunt of the Good Folk; a narrow glen that once saw a terrible massacre unfold, men of Fortriu cut down by the Gaels. If she came back here, that’s where she’ll have gone.”

  “Why?” asked Gartnait blankly. His voice was sounding odd, unlike itself.

  “She used to go there for answers when she was worried or upset or lonely. There’s a dark pool; a pool in which some people can see visions . . . That is where she would go.”

  “Mm-hm,” Gartnait said, and they rode on in silence, into the deeper places of the forest where sunlight penetrated but dimly. The foliage was damp and clinging; the ground was covered by a thick mat of decaying leaves, richly dark and releasing a pungent smell under the horses’ hooves. A cold vapor crept among the trees, drifting close above their gnarled roots, sending its tendrils up to weave a chill net about their trunks. Under the canopy of twisting branches, the mist clothed the slopes so thickly Bridei could see no more than three strides ahead. At length, he slipped down from Spindrift’s back and walked forward with his hand on her neck. Behind him Gartnait, too, dismounted.

  “Here,” Bridei said. “This is the little track into the Vale of the Fallen.” There were no white stones by the path today. Never mind that; he would go on, Good Folk or no Good Folk. Perhaps she was just down there, no farther than a shouted word away . . . He did not shout. “We must leave the horses here,” he told Gartnait. “This is too narrow for them. If you’re coming with me, come now.”

  “Bridei—”

  Bridei did not wait to hear what his friend wanted to tell him. Already he was slipping and sliding down the precarious path, his sleeves catching in the thorny foliage to either side, his breath coming hard. Something had possessed him, a new, dark sense of urgency, as if a voice were calling him on, a voice that was like a challenge: Come out and do battle with us! Prove yourself! Show us what you are made of!

  He gritted his teeth and plunged on downward. Tuala, Tuala . . . She was the only thing that mattered. Without her he could do none of it. Why couldn’t Broichan understand that? Why couldn’t Faolan, why couldn’t anyone? He had to find her . . . He had to stop her . . .

  Bridei hissed an oath as something shot past his feet, near toppling him: a small, gray-furred fury streaking up the path from the glen of the Dark Mirror and away into the forest.

  “Black Crow save us!” exclaimed Gartnait. “What was that?”

  Her cat, Mist; Mist fleeing in utter terror, or pursuing an errand of equal urgency with his own . . . “Quick,” muttered Bridei, and scrambled down the track to the water’s edge.

  It was instantly plain that Tuala was not here. Perhaps she had been, before, but now the place was gripped by a deep chill and shut in an impenetrable silence; the cold was enough to stop the heart and freeze the breath. Bridei paused by the dark water, on the brink. Had she stood here? There were marks on the earth, the impression of small boots, a cat’s paw prints. Where was she? Where had she gone? It was almost dusk. How would he find her out here at dark of the moon?

  “I’m sorry” Gartnait’s voice came from just behind him, and then Gartnait’s hands were around his neck and squeezing hard. Bridei staggered, his heart pounding, his breath squealing in his lungs as he fought to wrench the constricting fingers from his throat. So close, so near and now this, what in the name of the gods was this . . . Gartnait had the advantage of him, taller, stronger today for all the long ride . . . a vise around his neck . . . he couldn’t breathe, everything was going dark . . . Donal, what would Donal do . . . Bridei threw his weight forward, sending them both off balance. An instant later he was toppling into the icy water of the Dark Mirror and, still clutching him in a strangling grip, Gartnait fell with him.

  There was a choking, gasping, clawing struggle for survival. The water was far colder than any normal pool, even at solstice time. It froze the very blood in his veins. Gartnait, ever the stronger swimmer, was doing a good job of holding him under . . . no time, no time . . . Still Bridei fought, for all the things that mattered, for Breth’s loyalty and Garth’s kindness, for Faolan’s strange reluctant friendship, for the hearth fire of Pitnochie and the banners that flew above the field of Galany’s Reach, for the fierce strong eyes of Drust the Bull and the twisted body of a tattooed warrior . . . for Broichan’s discipline and the long years of learning . . . even for that . . . for Tuala . . . above all, for Tuala . . . Gods, Gartnait was strong. He had not realized how strong . . .

  “Why?” Bridei spluttered as the other’s hands slackened a moment in the thrashing chaos of the struggle, “Why?”

  There was no answer; only a glimpse of Gartnait’s white face, Gartnait’s furious, unseeing eyes, and then the grip again. “I’m sorry,” said Gartnait in a gasping whisper, and forced Bridei’s head back under the water.

  He was drowning . . . he was dying . . . his lungs were full of a fiery pain, and his head was crowded with visions tangled and twisted . . . Somewhere down beneath the water, a dog was barking . . .

  He was deep in the earth, cradled in darkness, curled on himself like a sleeping babe. Above him the roots of great oaks made their slow, searching journey through layer on layer of soil, and about their winding paths crept the lesser ways of myriad tiny creatures, beetle and slow-worm, ant and wriggling larva . . . Their little excavations, their minuscule chambers and hallways and storehouses honeycombed the earth, a whole world invisible beneath the wooded hillside, the grassy field, the heather-clad moor . . . He was buried underground . . . He was trapped Tuala.

  “Forget your body, trust your mind.” Broichan’s voice came deep and strong. “Apply your learning.”

  “It’s all right, Bridei.” Tuala’s clear, small tone, making him want to weep. “You can do it.”

  Think, then . . . Think of Bone Mother, in whose arms he lay, within whose long patterns each of them lived his own small span, be he king of Fortriu or foundling child, great soaring eagle or least of subterranean tunnelers. She held them all; to each she granted a certain time, a certain span. A certain opportunity. When she judged it enough, the long sleep would come. For him, this was
not the time. Bone Mother, in whose womb he rested now, safe and quiet, . . . warm warm at last . . . Her hands were strong, her reach wide, from the western glens to the shores by the king’s fortress, from the softer hills of Circinn to the bare, rocky peaks of the northwest . . . It was all one, one and the same; her love existed in every part of it . . . the great realm of Fortriu, which needed him . . .

  I will not beg to live, Bridei prayed in silence. I will give myself into your hands. Let me find her. I am bound to go forward; bound to lead. I make no bargains. I am not so foolish that I dare to test the gods’ will so. I love. I trust. Let me go forward on this journey . . .

  He felt the water around him. Creatures strange and wondrous swam on every side, glowing balls of color with attenuated limbs, fish fat and squat with bulging eyes, or long, slender, and studded with forbidding spikes. There was a being like the sea-beast of the islands, and a small white dog with the tail of a salmon. They circled him in flamboyant dance, above, below, around, dazzling his eyes and beguiling his senses. He could not see Gartnait. Whatever realm he now journeyed through, it seemed his friend had not followed. But someone else was here. On the surface above him, a girl was swimming, struggling to stay afloat, heavy gray robes dragging her down. Her small, pale feet could be seen kicking, kicking ever more feebly as cold and weariness sapped her strength. Her arms moved weakly in the water . . . she was sinking, drowning . . . A great hand came down from above, fastening around her head, pushing her under the water . . . her eyes stared . . . her dark hair drifted around her features like fronds of graceful weed . . .

  No! Bridei shouted, but the water turned his voice into helpless bubbles. He thrust out with his feet, stretched up with his hands, she was there, right there, two arm’s-lengths above him, he could touch her, he could save her . . . His foot was caught, he could not move . . . He looked down, his movement slow against the water’s weight. Something was holding him, a strip of tangled weed, a shred of net, a length of rope . . . Tuala! he shouted, and the bubbles rose to burst beside her drowning face. Tuala!