by Sarah Rayne
‘I don’t know,’ said Miach, his eyes on the Beastline. ‘I think it’s something that’s — ’
‘Instinctive?’
‘I was going to say inbred,’ said Miach. ‘But instinctive describes it just as well. It’s something from within. Perhaps they simply — open their minds and call, or perhaps they just concentrate on the animals. It’s the-unHuman part of them. I’ve only got the tiniest trickle of Beastblood myself, you see. I wouldn’t know.’
He narrowed his eyes as the Beastline fell into silence and Snizort saw that Miach had for the moment forgotten about making a good impression on people and reminding them about being a sorcerer. I believe he cares very much about all this, thought Snizort and discovered that he, also, cared very much.
Light slanted through the Wolfwood, purple and blue, falling about the Beastline like a thin veil. Snizort thought that each of them were becoming subtly more akin to the Beasts now; it was more marked with every minute, difficult to pinpoint precisely, but there, in the feline grace of Tealtaoich and the massive strength of Clumhach, and in the sharp light in Eogan’s eyes.
Their ancestors lay with the beasts of the forest to cheat the old, old curse and they have in their veins the blood of those creatures …
Their eyes were half closed now and a great stillness had fallen upon them. Within the Wolfwood there was a sudden stirring, a deep and primitive feeling of something incalculably ancient, something that had been old when Man was learning to walk upright; something that had, for countless centuries, lived just below the surface of civilisation, something that was not, itself, civilised in the least …
The stirring of the beasts answering an enchantment which had been forged in Ireland’s magical dawn by the first sorcerers for the long-ago High Kings and Queens.
The Samhailt … The strong, light-filled power of one mind over another …
Snizort and Miach both felt it at once; a dark, sensuous lure, a throbbing beckoning that you could no more help resisting than you could breathing. Snizort thought: it is working! They are succeeding! At any minute, at any second, we shall surely see the creatures come sweeping through the forest … panthers and bears and deer and fox … We shall hear the beating of wings on the night sky as the swans and the eagles obey … How remarkable and magical, thought Snizort.
And then, without warning, between one heartbeat and the next, the feeling faltered. It hesitated and wavered and, in that instant, the lure weakened its hold.
The light which had started to shine from the Beastline dimmed and the Wolfwood sank into its deep purple night. The watchers were sharply and dreadfully aware that the strange, mystical force which had lifted its head for a moment and listened, had turned back to its dark, deep sleep.
The Enchantment of the Beastline, spun at the beginning of Tara’s history, was beyond their reach …
Chapter Thirty
Floy was trying to be sensible about Fenella. He was remembering that she was not entirely on her own; she was with Caspar and Caspar would certainly have brought her out of Tara by now. They might already have reached the Fire Court and be there, waiting. This was a heartening thought, and Floy would hold on to it. He would remember that Fenella was brave and sensible and intelligent, that she had never, so far as he could remember, shirked anything. In fact, she was so far from shirking things that she sometimes went out to meet them of her own volition. Floy knew she would not be daunted by anything here. She had been fascinated and intrigued by the Forest Court and by the magic and the ancient enchantments — and she had certainly been fascinated by Nuadu Airgetlam.
Nuadu Airgetlam …
If Nuadu hurt Fenella, if he deliberately set to work that subtle, ironic charm and hurt her, Floy would kill him. Fenella was not weak, she was strong and perceptive and intelligent, but she would have no defences against Nuadu’s charm, because he was not like anyone she had ever encountered. Floy smiled rather ruefully at this, because Nuadu was not like anyone Floy had ever encountered either. But Floy had seen, as Fenella might not see, that Nuadu’s gentle malice was filled with dangerous allure.
The exiled Court had looked to Nuadu as their leader, had unquestioningly accepted him as the one who would regain Tara for the Wolfkings. The dark charm working again, had that been? And also, thought Floy, also, Nuadu is a son of one of the ancient, Royal Houses of Ireland. The words themselves were brimful of a beckoning romance and Fenella, for all her intelligence and perception, had a strong vein of idealism. If Nuadu beckoned, Fenella might well fall into his arms.
Floy was still unsure about Nuadu and he was very unsure indeed whether Nuadu was simply using them all as a means to get Tara’s Throne. And, although they were all still grappling with this business of thrones and exiled kings and palaces, Floy had seen enough of Tara to fall a little under its spell himself. Even with the brutish Gruagach inhabiting it, it had been the most beautiful place Floy had ever dreamt could exist. He found he had to quell a traitorous thought that whispered that Nuadu could not be blamed so very much if he was intriguing to get Tara. If Tara had been within Floy’s reach, Floy thought he might have been tempted to intrigue a bit himself.
They had both rested while it was dark and, when the first light was streaking the skies over to the east, they found a stream where they drank some water and washed a bit sketchily.
‘To freshen us,’ said Snodgrass.
There were Trees with apples growing and they had looked at them for a moment. ‘But I should think,’ said Floy, ‘that it’s all right to take fruit from the Trees. It’s a natural thing, isn’t it?’
Nothing happened when they reached up to pluck the apples, which turned out to be crisp and ripe and much juicier than the ones they remembered from Renascia. Then Snodgrass discovered a few blackberry bushes and picked some blackberries to go with the apples.
‘They’d be better if we could just simmer them over a fire,’ he said, rather regretfully. ‘With a drop of my blackberry wine.’
‘We haven’t the means of making a fire and, if we had, there aren’t any cooking pots,’ Floy pointed out.
Snodgrass said it was to be hoped that the journey would not be a long one, because they were going to get extremely hungry if all they could find to eat were a few apples and a handful of blackberries.
‘We shan’t get hungry,’ said Floy. ‘We’ll be at the Fire Court by noon. And from all accounts it’s a pretty hospitable sort of place.’ He grinned at Snodgrass. ‘They’ll wine and dine us royally.’
‘Well, I hope so.’
They set off straight away, taking the narrow, winding mountain path, intrigued and interested in the great violet and blue mountains ahead of them.
‘But we don’t go very far into the mountains,’ said Snodgrass, who was consulting the map at intervals. ‘It’s only a very little way.’ He looked up at the glistening peaks with the thin, beautiful morning light pouring over them. ‘They’re awesome things,’ he said, frowning over his spectacles. ‘It’s as well not to get lost in mountains, you know. You don’t know what might be prowling about.’
‘We shan’t get lost,’ said Floy. ‘We’ll follow the map. And there’s only the one road to take and Gruagach isn’t so far along.’
‘Well, so long as we’re careful not to actually go into the City of Gruagach,’ said Snodgrass. ‘I didn’t like the sound of that creature — what did they call it? — the Frost Giantess — did you?’
‘We’ll be sure to avoid Gruagach,’ promised Floy, who had not liked the sound of the Frost Giantess any more than had Snodgrass.
As they walked cautiously along the narrow mountain road, which wound upwards away from the rather friendly, forest-fringed road, the air became colder and the light began to change subtly.
‘It’s bluer,’ said Floy, who thought it was attractive. ‘Sharper.’
‘It’s certainly colder,’ said Snodgrass, fastening the flaps of the rather odd-shaped hat he had worn. ‘It’s not a very friendly feeling, is it?�
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They walked steadily on and, as they neared the great ice-blue Mountains of the Morning, Floy began to feel farther from the world he had known than at any time since they had left the doomed Renascia. He thought it was just the desolate road they were travelling, or perhaps it was the persisting worry for Fenella, or maybe it was simply that he had never visualised a world quite like this one. It was beautiful and eerie and sinister and filled with unexpected creatures. I think I’m liking it though, he thought cautiously. I think we can make a home here. After all this is over, I think the four of us can live here and work here and find friends. He paused to wonder what kind of work they might do and then dismissed this, because they could only cope with one thing at a time and the thing to cope with now was delivering Inchbad’s proposal to the Fire Court and then finding Fenella and Snizort.
The mountain road, washed with the aqua tints of the morning, was the most desolate place either of them had ever imagined. They walked on, the sun rising somewhere behind them, indicating that they were nearing the middle of the day. But there was no warmth from it up here and the higher they went the colder it became.
Twice they stopped to rest. Snodgrass said that the people of this world would probably have made what was called a camp; building a small fire and cooking over it.
‘We could eat some of the berries,’ said Floy, but he looked at the sparse fruit growing there and was doubtful. They had no way of telling if this fruit was edible and it would be better to go hungry for a few hours than risk poisoning themselves.
They consulted the map at intervals and Snodgrass thought they ought to be nearing the City of Gruagach quite soon.
‘We’ll only skin it,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to actually go through it. I think we can avoid that. It looks as if there’s a road that goes round it instead of through it.’ He proffered the map for Floy’s inspection. ‘And once we’ve passed Gruagach — because it doesn’t look very big — once we’re past there, we’ll be in sight of the Fire Court.’
The mountain road wound even higher and there were drifting wisps of white cloud almost within their reach now. The ground was hard beneath their feet and there were no longer the sparse bushes, or the occasional, rather beautiful, scarlet-berried trees which they did not recognise. The Mountains of the Morning were harsh and barren and there was a sharp iciness in the wind which scurried in and out of the crevasses. When Floy stopped to point out how the road widened a little way on, his breath formed clouds of vapour.
As the sun began to sink low in the sky, the cold air became tinged with darker blue and they both glanced uneasily at one another. They had been here long enough to understand that twilight, what these people called the Purple Hour, was the time when sinister forces prowled.
‘I think,’ said Floy, ‘that we must go a little faster.’ He did not say that they had been walking all day and that they were beginning to be extremely tired as well as hungry, because it would not have served any purpose. He remembered that Snodgrass was no longer a young man and that he had been used to a gentle, rather academic existence, and he knew a swift gratitude to him because he had not once complained, or wanted to rest, or bewailed their lack of food. But he must be extremely weary, thought Floy, who was extremely weary himself. If they could have rested and eaten, or even taken a hot drink of something, it would have put fresh heart into them. But to be up here on this cold, desolate mountain path by night would be a truly dreadful thing. They must go on.
‘It isn’t so very dark yet,’ said Snodgrass, valiantly. ‘We can see where we are going perfectly well.’
‘Yes. I think we shall reach the Fire Court well before night falls properly,’ said Floy, and wondered whether they were both simply encouraging one another, or whether they both believed this. The giants had explained that the journey to the Fire Court would not take an entire day — but that had been when they were using the horses. On foot it would take much longer.
But a little further along, with the mountain path winding suddenly and steeply downwards, Floy stopped and said, ‘Look.’
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Snodgrass. ‘Is it — ’ And stopped as well, because directly ahead of them, beyond the last curve of the mountain road, unmistakable and forbidding, were the outlines of great rearing buildings and huge grim castles and towers and turrets.
Gruagach. The ruined City of the Giants.
Floy said, ‘And the road goes straight through it. We can’t avoid it.’
They walked cautiously through the outskirts of the ruined City of Gruagach …
‘I don’t think,’ said Floy wearily, ‘that we need to worry. If there’s anything here, it probably won’t even see us.’
‘No.’
‘But it would be as well to be very careful.’
It was as well to be very careful indeed. Neither of them cared very much for the bleak, desolate city, with the crumbling walls and the abandoned buildings, and the cold, dry wind that sang in and out of the ruins. Both of them knew, one layer beneath consciousness, that Gruagach was not entirely deserted and both of them had the feeling that they were being watched from the ravaged buildings and from the piles of rubble and the tumbledown houses that lined the streets. Both remembered, although neither mentioned it, that the grim-named Frost Giantess, the creature the giants had referred to as the Geimhreadh, would be somewhere close by.
But despite the feeling of lurking danger, despite the strong impression that dozens of eyes were peering out at them, Floy found himself thinking not of Gruagach and the Geimhreadh, nor of the dangers that might lie ahead of them, but of Renascia. Renascia, lost now for ever, had looked a little like this towards the end. Cold and barren and deserted. And swept by a terrible, keening wind.
The roads were filled with great craters, and at every comer they came to were great heaps of debris. All about them were half collapsed buildings, gaping windows, doors hanging on rotting hinges. Mould grew on rooftops and the stones were covered in bright green lichen. There were frostings of white everywhere, and everywhere was dust and decay. Weeds had forced their way up through the cobbles of the road and it difficult to walk without stumbling.
‘It’s so cold,’ said Snodgrass, shivering and pulling on his hat with the earflaps. I’ve never been anywhere so cold.’
There was a whiteness to the air. ‘Snow,’ said Snodgrass. ‘My word, now there’s a thing I never expected to see! Frozen rain, that’s all it is, of course. And traditional for quite a lot of Earth feasts, if my memory serves me. We seem to be walking into it rather than out of it. Shouldn’t we have left it behind in the Mountains?’
‘I suppose we’re quite far north,’ said Floy. ‘That might have something to do with it.’ He turned up the collar of his cloak against the biting wind and narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge how large the giants’ city was.
They moved warily in between the desolate buildings, here and there having to pick their way amidst the fallen rubble.
‘I didn’t much care for the giants,’ said Snodgrass, who had not cared for them at all, ‘but I have to say it must have been rather sad for them to see their city fall like this. What do you think happened, Floy? They were rather chary of saying much, weren’t they?’
‘I think,’ said Floy cautiously, ‘that they were made use of.’
‘By the Dark Ireland?’ Snodgrass had lowered his voice instinctively.
‘Yes.’
‘I’d have questioned all that,’ said Snodgrass, thoughtfully. ‘In the ordinary way, I’d have questioned it, you know. Necromancers and enchantments and another Ireland, an Ireland that’s the dark reflection of the true one.’ He peered up at Floy earnestly.
‘But we saw the Robemaker and we saw what he did to Nuadu,’ said Floy, understanding.
‘Yes.’
‘I think the Robemaker and the other one — CuRoi — ousted the giants from Gruagach and put them into Tara as a — a foothold,’ said Floy. ‘A stepping stone. I think they mean to take al
l of Ireland. And, as the first step, they’ve got rid of the rightful King.’
‘Yes. I daresay it’s been done like that before,’ said Snodgrass, thoughtfully. And then, ‘I suppose we’re sure that it was the rightful King they got rid of, are we?’
‘It sounded all right,’ said Floy, who had been asking himself this at intervals. ‘And it felt all right.’ He glanced at Snodgrass. ‘I think Nuadu and the rest are the right side.’ He frowned. ‘And I don’t see how we could have remained neutral.’
‘I don’t think we wanted to remain neutral,’ said Snodgrass. ‘If we are to live here — and there doesn’t seem to be any alternative — then we have to become involved. You can’t live in a country — or in a world — without embracing its causes and its struggles. At least, not unless you intend to live like a hermit.’
‘What’s a hermit?’ asked Floy, momentarily diverted from their surroundings.
‘Somebody who goes off to live by himself and never has anything to do with the rest of the world,’ said Snodgrass. ‘People occasionally did that on Earth. Mind you, when you think about some of the peculiar ages that Earth lived through it isn’t surprising. I’d have wanted to do it myself at times.’
‘Yes, and — ’ Floy stopped and turned sharply. From somewhere to their left, from the huddle of empty buildings, white-rimed now with the stinging icy rain, came a light, brittle sound of voices, as fragile as icicles tapping against window panes …
Come closer, Human Wayfarers, come farther in to the Icy City where you will find warmth and succour …
Floy and Snodgrass stood still, peering into the growing dimness, but there was nothing to be seen.
Floy said, in rather an uncertain voice, ‘You did hear it, did you?’
‘I heard something,’ said Snodgrass. ‘But I couldn’t say what it was, you know. Not to swear to, that is.’
‘Listen,’ said Floy, his head tilted to catch the sound, but now there was nothing, other than the stirring of the wind and the flurries of icy rain in their faces.
