Silver's Lure

by Anne Kelleher

  “I found them!” The answer drifted out, his voice high-pitched and excited. “I found them!”

  “Get him out of there,” Murdo whispered. “She’s right.” The other knights followed where he pointed. “Look.”

  “Great Hag,” murmured Morla as she realized the growths that appeared to distort the trunks of the trees were vaguely human in outline and shape, that they moved and that it was their body fluids that ran down the scabrous bark that covered the trees. “Get him out of there,” she hissed. “What are you waiting for? Get him out of there.” She drew her own long dagger, and started forward, but Lochlan held her back.

  “You wait here,” he said, running past her. A hot wave of desire exploded through her, leaving her breathless and dizzy. As her head reeled and she tried to steady herself, she glanced at one of the trees, a beech, where a pale face peered. The eyes flickered and opened and stared and Morla looked deep into agonized depths. Help me, it mouthed.

  She heard a high-pitched scream, and then another and then Lochlan, followed by Murdo, ran out of the grove, crying, “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Behind Lochlan, she saw another knight, Ongus, perhaps, trip and fall, and she saw that his legs were bound around with roots. Someone pushed Bran out of the grove, and Morla saw his hands were covered in dirt and blood. From the center of the enclosure, black, oily smoke was billowing, carrying a rank stench on the wind, and on it, she could hear high-pitched wails and an eerie screeching keen that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

  The old gatekeeper rushed out of his gatehouse, waving his staff, shouting at them. Lochlan slung Bran over the back of his horse, then leaped into his own saddle. “Let’s go,” he cried. “Old man, take a horse and ride with us.”

  The fire had spread with amazing swiftness, leaping across the enclosure as if it pursued them. She could hear the knights screaming. “What about—” she turned to Lochlan with a horrified look. A wall of flame ten men high roared up and over the walls, engulfing the roof of the gatehouse in a solid sheet of fire.

  Lochlan reached over and slapped Bran’s horse. As the beast leaped forward and took off down the road, Morla touched her heels to her own horse’s sides and sped off after them both, the flames and the stench and the screams fading only gradually.

  Bran woke up propped against a tree. He opened his eyes into Lochlan’s, who was stirring something that smelled delicious in an iron pot hanging over a fire pit. “There you are, boy. We weren’t sure you were coming back. How d’you feel?”

  “Like someone tried to scrape the skin off my body,” he replied. He tried to sit up, but had to lie back as his head began to spin. “What happened? Where are we?” They were in a clearing, in a campsite, surrounded by the stones of what looked like a tumbled-down foundation and rotting wood. “What is this place?”

  Lochlan glanced around with a shrug, then lifted the spoon to his lips and carefully tasted. “I think this used to be a druid-house. The lake is just down that path through the trees.”

  Bran tried to stand but dizziness overtook him before he reached his knees. He sank back down, feeling stiff and sore all over, as if he’d fallen from a great height. He looked around. Rotting wood timbers, shards of pottery and rubble were piled to one side, but one of the ancient fire pits was still in use. Someone had erected a rough kind of shelter against the weather. He rubbed his head and saw only Murdo and Bedwyr. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “You don’t remember what happened?”

  Lochlan gave him a hard look. Bran shook his head, suddenly very worried. “Where’s Morla? Is she still angry with me? ”

  Lochlan’s expression was grim. “Angry with you? It’s thanks to her you’re alive.”

  “I don’t remember a thing.” Bran stared at the knight in disbelief. “I—I remember we were riding, and Morla was angry.”

  “We came to a grove.” Lochlan paused, then said, “It’d been overrun with blight. You—you got ensnared by it.” Lochlan nodded in the direction of the path leading to the lake. “Go find her. She’ll be glad to see you’re all right. She went down to the lake when we started setting up camp. Tell her food’s ready.”

  Bran hesitated. He wanted to ask more questions, but Lochlan nodded toward the lake. “Go on, boy. Go find her.”

  He obeyed with a questioning glance over his shoulder. His head throbbed, the backs of his hands were bloody and scrapped. His whole body ached. Once again, Morla had saved him. He remembered all the hours on the beach they spent together when he was very small. She wasn’t pretty in the same way as Meeve, but her eyes were big and dark and her hair was black and fine as spider silk. He remembered how it blew around her face while she watched him dig the sand with a small spade stolen from the gardeners.

  He remembered listening to the voices that murmured from the water, from the rocks, from the sand. Morla would stare out over the water. He remembered the day he learned that she couldn’t hear the voices, too. It made him sad to think that she missed so much. Suddenly he remembered the day she went away, the day she’d given him the white shell he still wore around his neck. Reflexively, he reached for it, to reassure himself, and felt comforted when his fingers touched its cool round surface. He’d missed Morla for a long time.

  He found her sitting on a rock, gazing out over the rough surface of the lake, so deep in thought she did not hear his approach until he stood beside her. Twilight filled the air—beyond the lake, the jagged tree-covered hills of the Forest of Gar stretched all the way to the sea. The choppy water gave him an eerie feeling, as if the waves were churned up by creatures moving beneath the surface, and he wondered how deep this lake of Killcarrick was. The sun had gone below the trees, and the black water was broken by little waves crashing over the tops of the rocks that lay below the surface. “Hello, Morla.”

  She jumped a good handspan in the air. “Great Herne, Bran,” she said faintly, face flushed, straight brows creased. A series of expressions rippled across her face like the breeze on the lake, troubled, then startled, then angry. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” She turned back to the water with a soft sigh.

  “I’m sorry.” He waited, uncertain what to say. “Lochlan sent me to find you—”

  “Lochlan? What’d he want?” An unreadable expression flickered across her face.

  “It’s time to eat.”

  “Oh.” She kept her eyes on the water.

  He stood his ground, sensing that, like the rocks below the surface, something lay beneath Morla’s silence. He decided to take a chance. “Why’re you so angry, Morla?”

  “I begged everyone not to go in there. But no one would listen.”

  He watched her face closely, sensing coiled tension tamped down so deeply he wondered if she was even aware of its existence. It was like a huge lake of fire burning deep inside her.

  She whipped around, glaring. “Stop that. Stop that now. Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to invade someone’s head like that?”

  “Like what?”

  For a long moment, Morla was silent, even while the look in her dark eyes kept him rooted into place. “You almost got us all killed, Bran. You have to get control of these things you can do—You have to learn how to judge what to act on, and—”

  He shook his head, frantically blinking back the tears that filled his eyes. “You don’t understand, Morla. I don’t even remember what you’re talking about. I don’t remember stopping at a druid-house, or even—” He broke off, balling his fists in frustration. “I don’t even know what you mean when you say I’m in your head—I’m just thinking about you—I’m not trying to be in your head.”

  Her expression was unreadable. “Does Mother know you’re like this? Connla?”

  “I thought I was going to Ardagh with Aunt Connla. But then Mother changed her mind.”

  “You know why?”

  Bran looked over his shoulder. “Lochlan says Mam wants nothing more to do with them. I guess that’s why she’s angry with me. I’m not�
�I’m not what she wants me to be.”

  Morla nodded. “That might be true, but that’s not why she sent the druids away. All the reasons I’ve heard have got nothing to do with you.”

  Bran took a deep breath. All his memories of Morla were bathed in golden light, washed with the scent of the sand and the ocean. He could trust her, he decided. “Morla,” he began, then glanced over his shoulder up the path, “I have a message for you.”

  “From who?” She cocked her head. “Lochlan?”

  “No, this is a message from Fionn. Fionn, your husband?”

  “Fionn’s dead, Bran. Don’t tease me like that.”

  “I know he’s dead. He came to me last Samhain. He told me to tell you the answer to your question was no.”

  “What question?”

  “He seemed to think you’d know.” Far out on the water, he thought he saw something round—like a head—break the surface. Just a wave, he told himself, forcing his attention back to Morla.

  She was staring out over the water but he didn’t think she was really looking at anything. A tear glistened on her cheek. “How—how did this happen?”

  “I don’t know, really. All I know is last Samhain, I looked up, and there he was. He told me who he was and said I should tell you the answer to your question is no. And he said I’d be seeing you soon.” Bran squinted at the shadows that appeared to move beneath the water.

  Morla let out a long breath, then wiped her eyes. “Well. Maybe you are. I guess it’s as well we’ve decided to take you to Ardagh.”

  Something moving in the water caught his eye. The air blowing off the lake was as foul as the stench of a charnel pit.

  Morla jumped off the rock and pulled her plaid around herself. “Eh, what’s that smell? We’re not going to be able to stay here if the lake’s going to give up that kind of stink. Come on, let’s go see if we can still smell it back—”

  But Bran was certain that now he could see something moving across the water, a long line of white approaching the shore. A curious kind of shimmer was growing in the air. He knew that smell, too, he realized. It was indeed the very same stench that clung to Athair Eamon after he’d been to the charnel pits. “Morla.” Bran grabbed her forearm. “Run.”

  “What’s wrong—?” she began. She took one look over her shoulder and vaulted up the path. But the goblins were quicker than any goblins he’d ever heard of. Bran whipped out a dagger and sank it into the goblin, just as Lochlan crashed through the underbrush, riding his chestnut warhorse, swinging his broadsword over his head with one hand as he grabbed for Morla with the other. Lochlan reached for Morla and hauled her into the saddle, as another goblin raked its claws down her thigh. The horse reared and wheeled and screamed, its front hooves flailing as the goblins swarmed into the clearing. But before Lochlan could grab Bran, just as two goblins reached for him, a huge black raven grasped Bran’s shoulders in her talons and pulled him into TirNa’lugh.

  11

  Timias staggered down the Tor, the heavy air thick in his throat, conflicting emotions engulfing him like a cloak. Like the cloak of shadows he’d forgotten all about, he thought, clutching the crystal pouch tightly. Mortals were clamoring up the hillside, crying for more light, more men, more druids. What would they think when they discovered that malformed creature?

  He knew exactly what they would think, he told himself as he stumbled into the wood, heading for the border. A parade of torches led up the Tor, and the shouts were muted now, but he could guess what they were saying. They would blame him, call him a monster.

  Isn’t that what you are? a quiet voice whispered silently. Who wouldn’t call you a monster? What would the sidhe do to you, if they knew you could turn into a goblin? What would the druids do?

  Banishment would be mild.

  But what if it was their fault? He stopped short, one foot in Shadow, the other raised, and without thinking, he found himself in that place between the worlds in which he’d been forced to spend so much of his exile. Banished by the druids and unable to return to the sidhe, he’d had time to think about his next steps. As he sank down onto the thick green moss beneath the spreading branches of an enormous oak, the idea that occurred to him made him cold all over. He fumbled with the leather pouch that held the crystals, pulled out a handful and shook them gently. Pale pink and warm, they pulsated in his palm. What if it were these things? he wondered. The druids were the first to admit they didn’t really understand the limits of the khouri-keen, and they struggled to maintain control over them.

  So maybe his…his…His mind struggled to find a word that described and defined how he felt. Maybe his new ability was a result of what the druids had done to him. As he remembered what happened to his child, and Deirdre, too, rage suffused his thoughts, turning to a tangled swirl of anger and grief and fear. The sidhe would never let him live in Faerie with them if they knew he could turn into a goblin—they’d believe him a monster, as well. And if the Court ever heard about this unfortunate birth…Finnavar, that black-hearted old crow, would make it her business to find it out and to broadcast as far and wide through Faerie as her wings could reach.

  He hefted the crystals from hand to hand, trying to impose some order on the chaos that choked his thoughts. What had he gained from his time in Shadow? What had the druids taught him, and what had he figured out on his own?

  The first thing he’d learned was that these crystals—at least one of them—were necessary for almost all the workings the druids did, other than the fertility rituals they performed with the sidhe. The second was that there was some power inherent in the crystal’s that was unlike anything else in either Faerie or Shadow. And the third was that even the druids didn’t know where the crystals came from.

  Answers from the khouri-keen varied, according to mood and whim and weather. But maybe there was a way to ferret out what they knew. Maybe they hadn’t been asked a question for which they had an answer. He put the stones in the pouch with the others, tightened the string and shook it hard enough to make the crystals knock audibly against each other. “Khouri-keen,” he said with a will and an intention fueled by shock and anger. He held the pouch between his palms, concentrating on the center. “Here. Now.”

  Another hard shake of the pouch and above the rattle of the crystals, he heard the first “Ow!,” saw the first flash of big eyes in the branches overhead. A dozen or more scampered out from behind and around and out from between the spreading roots or from hollows in the trunk.

  “Where are we?”

  “What is this place?”

  “Can we stay?”

  He sat silent, with a tight hold on the pouch, watching them run and caper and jump and sniff. When one dared to blow in his ear, he gave the bag a vicious shake and the khouri-keen, all hundred or so of them, tumbled from whatever or wherever they’d perched with shrieks and flailing limbs and widespread eyes and ears. The offending trixie hurtled to the ground and landed on its side. As he writhed in pain, Timias observed impassively. Then he raised the bag as hard as he could. “Enough!” he cried. “Be still—sit where I can see you, all of you.”

  Warily, they crept around him, forming a semicircle of bright eyes and batlike ears, twitching noses and spindly limbs. “You’re the Keeper now?” one whispered, and the question was taken up through the entire throng.

  “Yes,” Timias said. “I’m the Keeper and you obey me.”

  “Khouri like this place,” one piped up and the others nodded and chattered in agreement. “Khouri stay?”

  “Maybe,” Timias answered. He gave the bag another vicious shake and watched as they all crumpled against each other, tossed like leaves in a strong wind. “If you do as I say, maybe I’ll let you come back.”

  They liked that. They nodded and their long tails flicked above their heads. They were like little goblin creatures, he thought with distaste, and he hated them suddenly. “But if you want to come back, you have to do as I say.”

  “Say what you want Khouri to do,”
they chorused.

  They were like insects, he thought, with one mind in many bodies. It was well established that the more difficult a magical task, the more khouri-keen were needed to accomplish it. What if that’s how their minds work, too? he wondered. “I want you to think,” he said. “I want you to think about the crystals.” The khouri-keen themselves didn’t seem to know the real connection. “You don’t know where they came from, you don’t know what they are. And if they were yours, you should know that, shouldn’t you? But what if they aren’t yours?” he muttered to himself. He reached into the pouch and felt the lambent energy within the stones, felt the latent life pulse against his skin. The power was in the crystals. In the khouri-keen…

  Almost by accident, two edges of two separate stones clicked together like pieces of a puzzle. He felt the two fragments slide together so perfectly that he was able to remove the two still locked. He held the crystals up, felt in the pouch, withdrew another piece and tried to put it together. Another try and another, yielded no match, but a fifth slid into the first two like a key into a lock. A collective moan rose through the khouri-keen, rippling like the wind. They shut their eyes and curled their toes, sighing in what could only be acute pleasure. “You like that,” he mused. He rubbed the edges of the crystals together, slowly, caressingly.

  He slumped down, stroking the crystals together, and considered while the khouri-keen—the gremlins, he corrected himself—quivered in obvious pleasure. He was sidhe, he told himself and he would use the word of the sidhe, not the mortals. The gremlins acted and thought and behaved as one being. He held up the three interlocking crystals. They fit together so seamlessly it was obvious they were once part of the same stone. And then it came to him. He sat up so fast, he knocked his head against the tree.

  The crystals were part of one crystal. And the khouri-keen—the gremlins—they were all parts of a single consciousness, in the same sort of way. “So maybe its not that Khouri made the crystals,” he muttered. “Maybe the crystals made Khouri.” The crystals began to pulsate in his palm. “Khouri,” he began. The intensity of their gaze was tangible. He closed his fingers around the crystals, and felt them beat against the inside of his fist like a living heart. Originally there’d been just one crystal, he could feel the truth of it pushing against his awareness. The druids had always assumed the gremlins had found the crystals. The idea that the crystals themselves had somehow created the gremlins never occurred to the druids. Or maybe this was something even the trees didn’t remember.