“That’s what he doesn’t understand,” Finnavar shrieked. “A druid isn’t something one can learn to be—a druid is something one’s born. A druid isn’t someone who understands how to use those miserable mud-creatures—a druid is someone the trees remember. That’s what’s gone wrong in Shadow, and that’s what the druids there themselves don’t understand. The blight is wiping out the memory of the trees. And so we must find a druid. A druid the trees in Faerie remember.”
Despite her confusion, her fear and her grief, Loriana laughed in disbelief. “But there’re fewer and fewer druids at all in Shadow, everyone says. So where do we find a druid like that?”
“You met one on the road last night.”
“H-how—” Loriana’s jaw dropped.
“I can smell him on you—yes, he’s that strong.” Finnavar unfolded her twisted frame. She was more birdlike, her speech more garbled with every passing moment, and Loriana realized soon she might not be able to understand her grandmother at all. She had been resisting the change, and now, it was almost impossible. “I happened to notice him one day when I was crossing back and forth after Timias. I always took time to have a look around. One never can be sure what mortals might be doing next.”
“You’ve seen that boy before? The one who just—who just burst over the border?”
“That very one.”
“How do you know him? You’ve seen him before? Met him?”
“I didn’t so much meet him as find him. I went looking for him, you see. Something as strange as Timias, I thought should have an echo somewhere in Shadow. Sooner or later, something or someone was bound to show up. And sure enough, someone did. His name’s Bran. And, not surprisingly, he’s the son of the High Queen—the dying High Queen. Can you see how it all fits together, Loriana? Echoes and overlays, spiraling around? What happens in Shadow reverberates in Faerie, what happens in Faerie is repeated over and over again in Shadow until the energies wear themselves out. So I knew there had to be someone like Timias. Someone different. He’s very young, just a boy, but strong—Oh, he’s strong! He just needs…He needs to be awakened.”
“How? What do you mean?”
“We sidhe are born aware and knowing of our magic. But mortals take a while—they have to learn and grow, and finally, they need one of us to light the spark, to kindle the knowing. So you see—we need him, he needs you.”
“But he’s so young—I thought it took most druids years—”
“He’s what they call a rogue, child, a druid who comes suddenly into the full flower of his or her power, without the understanding and the discipline necessary to focus it. If any mortal ever made an impression on the trees of Faerie, it would be a rogue like that one.” Finnavar fixed her beady eyes on Loriana. “Come, child. If your father can’t bring himself to act, we must.”
“Where are we going, Grandmother?” Loriana scrambled off the bough after Finnavar, who seemed to actually fly through the trees. “Grandmother, where are you taking me?”
“Into Shadow, of course, child.”
“But, why?”
“To fetch the boy, of course.”
“And then what?”
But Finnavar was so far ahead that the answer that filtered back to Loriana scarcely made sense: “To see if he remembers the trees.”
In his bower, Timias stroked the clay pipe Auberon had left behind and tried to decide what to do. What to do? Maybe you should decide who you are or what you are, the insidious little voice whispered through his skull, making it difficult to plan his next move. You didn’t really think the king was going to listen to you, did you?
Why hadn’t he seen through Auberon’s plan? It wasn’t so much a plan, of course, as an opportunity that he’d presented to the king himself. You were an embarrassment, he thought. Once Allemande went into the Deep Forest, there was no place for Timias at the Faerie Court. There was no suggestion he could be king. The throne belonged to Allemande’s son. Auberon had no use for him. He had tolerated Timias’s presence for the sake of his father. When Timias offered to go to Shadow, of course Auberon had agreed.
Of course he’d agreed to present Timias as a potential consort to Loriana. He’d’ve promised anything. He never thought you were coming back. The mourning song of the sidhe was rising higher now, and it grated on his nerves, for it reminded him he had two things to conceal—the first that he was the one who’d started the goblins rampaging, and the second, that he himself apparently was able to metamorphose into goblin form. He wasn’t quite sure what to think of that but he was quite certain it wouldn’t be met with approval.
He remembered what Finnavar always claimed—that he didn’t so much blend in among the mortals as become one. Everyone laughed, dismissing her comment as wit, but Timias had always recognized how uncomfortably close she came to the truth. So was he sidhe or mortal or goblin or some curious combination of all three? And how could that have happened? What combination of parents could possibly explain who, or what, he was?
Whatever he was, the druid banishing had been effective in both worlds. Now he was back, in the world he had always thought of as his home. He wanted to stay here, in this green and pleasant land, with Loriana and all the sidhe. This is where I belong, he thought. This was where all his happiest memories were, of Allemande and the long days in his sunny Court. This is where I want to be. And if they wouldn’t let me stay because of what I can become…I just won’t let on.
He could keep secrets. And maybe if he convinced Loriana that his plan would work…maybe it wouldn’t matter what Auberon thought. How to make her understand, then, that the magic of the sidhe would be enhanced by the magic of the khouri-keen, made stable and permanent in a way nothing in Faerie had ever been before? How to make her see what her father could not?
He stroked his chin. Unlike his chin in Shadow, his skin was smooth and beardless. His appearance was something else that was going to set him apart, he thought. All the other sidhe of Auberon’s generation were showing signs of changing. But as far as he could discern, in pools of still water and polished crystal mirrors, his appearance hadn’t altered at all. It was as if he’d exchanged one set of clothing for another.
If only he hadn’t lost the cloak of shadows, Timias thought. That was an artifact created out of a blend of both magics, something real and tactile, with substance and weight. If he hadn’t lost it, he could’ve shown Auberon and the Council—and Loriana, too—that a direct blending of sidhe and mortal magic could result in something stable, something lasting.
He remembered the motion of Deirdre’s fingers, weaving form and weight and substance into the dark and slippery strands of shadow, mimicking the motion of their hips as he drove the magic into her. The cloak would’ve been a perfect illustration, something the sidhe could understand far more readily than all his wordy explanations of concepts that didn’t really exist in Faerie. There was only one thing to do. He’d have to go back to the druid-house and either find Deirdre’s piece of the cloak or find a druid to make him a new one. He could get the Khouri crystals, too, from the Chapter house, and show her those, as well. As the sun rose over Faerie, Timias found he was able to cross into Shadow just as he had hoped. He headed once more for the White Birch Grove.
5
Eaven Morna
The trixies were relentless and the fire wouldn’t burn. At least not the one in the charcoal brazier where Bran swatted over a finger-length of ore. It was demeaning the way the Master Smith refused to believe it was trixies that kept smothering the fire with their dirty little feet or dousing it with their smelly piss. He, Bran, was apparently the only one with a drop of druid blood left in the whole of Eaven Morna. No one else admitted seeing them, and even the charm Apple Aeffie had taught him only worked for a few minutes at best.
“Tricksie trixies, run away quick—here I come with a big, fat stick. Here I come with a big long bone, so run away, trixies, run away home.” He gritted his teeth and swatted at them with all his might. He didn’t underst
and why his mother had set him to this torment. He’d expected to be welcomed and congratulated on his marvelous abilities, maybe even have a song made about him, and then sent to start his druid schooling. But instead of special attention, he’d returned to find all the druids gone and himself shunted aside in favor of a lot of foreign strangers who reeked of foreign spice, consigned to this forge he very quickly decided to hate, not the least because it was infested with trixies.
They scurried under the benches and into the walls, disappearing into the dark crevices so that only the gleam of their liquid eyes was visible, while he picked up the hammer and bent over the anvil once more. It was bad enough he’d been left to hammer out the slag in this minuscule piece of metal, heating the iron over and over and over, tap-tap-tapping away for what seemed like hours without respite so that his legs began to ache, his shoulders began to cramp and his eyes began to sting. The air was muggy in the forge, the day overcast. Sweat poured down his sides and trickled down his ears, winding down his back in long itchy rivulets. And the trixies. The trixies were merciless in their torment.
They not only played with the fire, they pinched his ankles and tickled his toes, blew in his ear and pulled his hair. At last he could bear it no longer. “Enough!” he cried. He waved his arms as if to fend off a swarm of bothersome flies and whipped off his apron, flinging it around the room. Curse Deirdre to the Summerlands—she was the reason he was chained to this horrible labor and Connla wasn’t here. The rumors were rampant through the castle she’d gotten herself with some unnatural child by another druid, a child that by all reports she’d carried far too long.
We have to keep you busy, your aunt said. Meeve’s voice damning him echoed over and over as the trixies bolted for cover. One managed to set his apron on fire with a piece of flaming coal, just as the oldest of the apprentices, Liam, rounded the corner, trundling a wheelbarrow of fresh charcoal.
“Herne’s balls, Bran, what’re you doing?” Liam dropped the wheelbarrow and grabbed a bucket of water as Bran danced around, swatting at the flames with his hands. Liam threw the water full on Bran, thoroughly soaking his lower half.
Bran spun around, face flaming redder than the coals, which were now glowing perfectly. Blue fire leapt out of the brazier, as the trixies—invisible to Liam—blew on it. “I was just—I’m just—It’s the trixies, I’m telling you. They’re everywhere.”
“Will you watch that fire?” Liam continued. Bran ducked out of the way just as Liam threw the bucket of water at an errant flame that had apparently jumped out of the brazier by itself. “You’ve got to get that head of yours out of your backside. I told them not to leave you alone. Next you’ll be telling me it’s the trixies keeping you from getting work done, right?” He paused and shook his head as Bran nodded eagerly.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. They’re everywhere.”
The older boy glanced over his shoulder, put the bucket down and advanced a few steps into the forge. “Look, Bran,” he began, “I wouldn’t talk about the druid thing too loudly. No one here thinks very much of them, you know, from the Queen on down. You might not like the work, but for the time being, we’re stuck with you. No one much likes having you around. You’re a danger to everyone—look at where you laid your hammer, you moon-mazed calf.” He gestured at the fire, and Bran turned in horror to see a pair of trixies had dragged his hammer so that the handle lay across the coals. It was beginning to smoke and the handle had already turned black. The trixies were dancing over it, jumping from side to side in such a way they created a draft that fanned the flames.
“Get away from that,” Bran yelped. He pulled the hammer out of the fire and plunged the handle into the nearby vat of water. The flames were leaping higher now, borne aloft by the trixies who were tossing sparks back and forth like tiny balls of flame. “You have to believe me. They’re all over the place—this forge is infested—”
“The only thing this forge’s infested with are lazy ’prentices,” rumbled Mordram the Master Smith from behind. “Look at the mess this place’s in while you two stand and shake your jaws.” He cuffed the back of Bran’s head with the edge of hand as thick as a slab of ham. “Get to work, the pair of you—now!”
Bran’s jaw dropped as he looked beyond Mordram’s bulk, and saw, to his horror, that the trixies had systematically stripped one wall of all its implements. Hammers and tongs of varying sizes now lay scattered around the forge in haphazard piles. It would take hours to replace the implements. Hours and hours and he was already tired and soaking wet. “I can’t work like this,” he shouted. “And I won’t!”
He threw the apron down and bolted out of the forge, past Liam who tried to restrain him, past the wagons and the piles of scrap metal, broken weapons and untouched ore. He charged out of the smithy yard, into the outer courtyard of his mother’s keep and paused for just a moment, breathing hard and thinking fast. Who was going to help him get rid of the trixies, now that all the druids were gone? Mother’s just going to have to find me one, he thought as he stormed off, ignoring all the shouts behind him. He dashed into the enormous central courtyard and paused, momentarily disoriented by the choreographed confusion all around him. He was jostled and pushed, brushed and almost backed into. As he jumped out of the way of a heavy cart that had been jerked over the paving stones by a recalcitrant mule, a hard grip fell on his shoulder and he was spun around, nearly off his feet.
Strong hands righted him and relief washed over him in a floodtide as he stared up into Lochlan’s puzzled eyes. “Is that you they want, boy?” Bran tried to wiggle out of Lochlan’s grasp, but the big knight held him hard. “Be still, now. What’s wrong?” The expression on Lochlan’s face offered no hope, but his eyes were kind.
“Tell them, please tell them—You’ve got to tell them—”
“Slow down, boy, tell them what?”
“That I’m not mazed, and I’m not being disobedient deliberately, and I do see trixies!” Bran finished just as the Master Smith, accompanied by Liam and another apprentice stormed across the courtyard. He struggled beneath the knight’s hand as the master approached. “Please!”
“There you are, you wretched laggard. And thanks to you for catching him, Sir Lochlan. This one’s slipperier than an eel and quicker than a trout.” He grabbed Bran’s ear and yanked. “Now you come with me—”
But Lochlan put a hand on the smith’s wrist. “Master Smith.”
The smith dropped Bran’s ear as if it burned and turned to Lochlan with an expression bordering on disbelief. “My lord knight? You interfere?”
“I think you should listen to what he says.” Lochlan let go of Bran. “Tell him.”
“He won’t believe me and he’ll beat me.”
“You’ve no call to beat a lad for telling the truth.”
“And you’ve no call to interfere, my lord.” The smith folded his arms over his massive chest and lowered his head like a bull about to charge. “No one tells me how to handle my ’prentices, and no one’s ever complained the way this one—”
But Lochlan shook his head. “Hold right there, Master Smith. This lad’s been put into your charge, that’s true. But he’s not been ’prenticed to you, not as far as I think his mother believes. I was there when she brought him to see you. There was no talk of apprenticeship. She asked you to keep him busy. Not kill him.” Lochlan leaned closer and from that moment on, Bran knew he’d follow Lochlan blindly into battle, or anywhere else, in fact, he might care to lead. “Easy now, Master Mordram. Meeve’s got all those guests—she has her hands full—”
“And we don’t? Or need the extra work this one’s caused?” Mordram raised his chin and took a belligerent step in Lochlan’s direction with all the swagger of a man who knew exactly how valuable he was. “You want him kept busy? Then have the lad shovel out the stables, or peel potatoes, or chop wood. You want him to learn to be a smith—you send him back to me.” With a disgusted look at Bran, he tapped Liam on the shoulder. “Come on, lad. Le
t’s get that smithy set to rights.”
“Wait—” Lochlan began. He looked down at Bran and shook his head. “You know every druid must earn a ’prentice’s letter in blacksmithing. Aye.” He nodded when Bran’s jaw dropped. “No one ever told you, hmm?” He scratched his head. “All right, boy. You might as well come with—”
A line of trixies had appeared underneath the nearest wagon. They blew kisses, made faces, stuck out their tongues, winked and wiggled their fingers. Bran stared down at them, horrified. It didn’t matter where he went, he realized. They were all around him, everywhere. And it didn’t matter who he told. No one else could see them, and no one else believed him. With a shriek of exasperation, Bran bolted. He ran across the courtyard and through the opposite gate, and he kept running, despite Lochlan’s shouts. Soon, he realized he was lost.
He halted, breathing hard. He was in some sort of enclosure. All the walls were high sandstone, all the doors carved and wooden and closed. Barrels of what appeared to be provisions were stacked neatly against two walls. A low open arch was set in a third wall. He had no idea how to find his way back to the main courtyard, let alone his mother’s rooms.
A sudden chill raised a ripple of gooseflesh across his arms and he dismissed it. There was no reason to be afraid of anything here, he thought, in the very center of his mother’s keep. He peered through the archway and saw that it led to an enclosed orchard of rows of fruit trees.
A scent filled the orchard, sweet and earthy and wet, and the light filtering through the trees had a greenish cast that reminded him of the road from Pentland. It was very quiet and very warm and the air was very still. He glanced over his shoulder. From the adjoining courtyard, he heard shouts and curses, the rumble of wagon wheels and the clatter of something being unloaded. He must be somewhere near the kitchens, he realized as a strong scent of baking bread wafted past his nose. He had no idea how to find Meeve. But the orchard beckoned, the rows of quiet trees tempted. He was so tired. Roused at the crack of dawn, forced to work harder than he’d ever worked in his life hauling ore and coal, then expected to shovel and lift and hammer until he was nearly dizzy, who could blame him if he needed a nap? He glanced over his shoulder. He heard footsteps and the rumble of barrels trundled over stones coming closer. He dodged into the orchard.
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