“No,” Catrione said, “but the fact you did makes me think there’s hope.”
“Are you saying you believe this story is true? Isn’t it just a story?”
“If you’re asking is it true in the sense it happened before and can happen again? Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
He looked at her as if he thought she might be mazed. “I suppose, though, it doesn’t really matter if the story is true or not.” He shrugged. “She was my sister and he tried to kill me. If it’s help you want to claim a head-price—”
“I want your help to kill him. It.”
“Kill him?” Cwynn leaned across the table. “Are you sure a head-price won’t do? It doesn’t seem there’s that many druids—”
“He’s not a druid,” she said. “Tiermuid, Timias—” Tetzu. She shook her head to clear it. “He’s not even mortal, or goblin or sidhe. He’s something else all together. Something that has to be sent down to the Hag and her cauldron as soon as possible, because he’s not just killed your sister by getting her with that thing, he’s stolen the khouri-crystals and the khouri-keen, as well. And he hates us for banishing him. I could see that in his eyes.”
“So how do we find him?”
“You’re willing to help?”
“You’re willing to come to Far Nearing and make sure my boys are safe from goblins?”
It was Catrione’s turn to hesitate, not from reluctance, but from surprise. “That seems a small enough exchange. I agree. You help me rid the world of Tiermuid, and I will gladly go to Far Nearing and make sure your boys are warded. All right?”
“So what do we do?”
“We go into Faerie. Whatever he’s planning to do, he needs a druid to do it. He’s either found one as willing as Deirdre or—and I hope this is the case—needs one. And you—we’ll dip your new hook into silver. And you will slice his throat, when I get close enough.”
“What’s to keep him from seeing me? ”
“This.” Catrione reached under the table. “This is the object he and Deirdre made together. It’s some strange blending of druid and sidhe magic. When you put it on, you disappear.”
“How will we find him? ”
“Leave that to me for now. In the meantime, let’s eat and then there’s a few things that need attending. So listen.” She spooned the last of her porridge into her mouth and scraped the bowl clean. “I’ll tell you the story of Seanta while you eat. We’ll gather what we can here. And then we’ll go to the forge. I can’t manage a silver hand, but—” she broke off and nearly laughed aloud at the expression on his face “—I can surely manage something a bit better than that hook.”
“It was silver, my Queen. Silver was the primary cause of the disaster. Rather than sinking immediately back into Shadow, some of the silver found its way onto the shore, almost as if it’d been thrown there, deliberately. From there, the poison seeped into the ground, burning the roots of the trees, the hedge walls, undermining all our defenses.” The tall sidhe paused. His body was streaked with ash, his expression troubled, and he glanced at Bran with accusation in his tired eyes. “When the goblins came—” He broke off once more and raised his hands. “There were just too many.”
Loriana stood on the edge of the charred and smoking ruins with tears in her eyes and streaked down her cheeks, Bran behind her, stunned into silence. The whirling and the sense of weightlessness in his head had eased, but he felt hollow and empty as he gazed at the grim scene.
Blackened trunks stood skeletal and bare against the smoke-clouded sky; cinders still glowed in piles within the open spaces. Foul black fluid oozed from the earth in places or seeped down the sides of trees or dripped from low-lying branches. A few brave sidhe darted amid the wreckage, searching out what few survivors there were.
“Most of the survivors have retreated to the Deep Forest, my lady. I have a horse here ready to take you to safety, but say the word.”
“B-but, Ozymandian, we can’t just leave—we have to do something,” Loriana said. “What about the silver? Where’s it coming from? Is it still in Faerie? We can’t just let it stay here—we have to get rid of it.”
“I agree, Your Majesty,” Ozymandian replied. “That’s what your father was attempting, when the goblins attacked. But none of us can actually touch the silver, and all our materials are just as useless.”
“Maybe I can help you find it,” Bran said. “Silver won’t hurt me, right?”
“The poison’s gone deep into Faerie,” Ozymandian replied with a sniff and quirk of his lips.
“But if Bran finds it, he can throw it back,” Loriana said. “He can throw it back into the deep part of the water, right?”
“What does that do?” Bran asked.
“It sends the silver back to Shadow,” Loriana answered.
“It’s dark,” said Ozymandian.
“Bring torches,” Loriana said. “So many trees have burned—there must be dead wood around somewhere. Come, Bran. We have to do this. We can’t let the silver stay in Faerie.”
“Hasn’t this ever happened before?” asked Bran as he followed Loriana through the wood. The rot had seeped into the entire wood, he thought as he dodged slimy-looking pools and trees that oozed foul liquid.
She paused by the side of a pool that looked familiar. “This was the one…” he began as they both hesitated at the treeline. In places it was possible to see that the banks had once been white and sandy, and tiny-leaved thyme still clung to places along the low-lying rocks. “At the revel, the sacred spring—when they threw the coins into the pool—this is what happened?”
Loriana nodded. In the moonlight, her face was white, her hair gray and her eyes very old. She looked ancient, he thought, despite the smoothness of her skin, and he remembered that the sidhe lived many lifetimes compared to mortals. Behind them, five or six sidhe stepped out of the wood, carrying torches that snapped and smoked and lit the whole scene with an orange-red light out of a nightmare.
Ozymandian clapped one hand on his shoulder and pointed to the beach with the other. “See that, boy? Where the sand is black? There’s a piece of silver in there, somewhere.”
Bran gulped. The thought of sticking his hand into the reeking mess was the last thing he wanted to do; his head felt too heavy for his neck and the back of his throat stung. “You have a glove?”
Loriana only looked at him and the other sidhe made little noises of derision. “It won’t hurt you.”
He took a deep breath before the stink made him gag. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” With a long sigh, he bent beside the blackened sand. It wasn’t painful, but it felt like plunging his arm into rotten flesh. His skin recoiled as he stretched out his fingers, feeling from side to side, through the gelatinous mess, up over his elbow, and finally, just as he thought his stomach would rebel and he would vomit before them all, he felt something hard and round and flat. He withdrew it and saw, in the flickering light, it was indeed a coin.
With a curse he threw it as hard as he could into the deep part of the pool. Loriana clapped and blew him a kiss. He hesitated just a moment, then stuck his hand once more into another reeking mess. All around him, sidhe were gathering, tall and slim and pale. They pointed and whispered, and he could feel the weight of all their eyes, the tug of all their voices as he worked, enmeshing him, entangling him, sucking him dry.
At last he’d retrieved all the coins but one, and thrown them all into the center of the pool. But the last was larger than the others, deeper, and he hesitated. His arms and shoulders ached and he was tired, so tired. Loriana leaned over him, kissing the back of his neck, infusing him with new strength. “Just one more,” she whispered. “Please. You see what silver does. You see how dangerous it is. Even the tiniest piece can hurt us.”
“All right,” he said. He was forced to wade into the pit, up to his thighs, and then to his waist as he felt around with hands and feet, while she and the other sidhe watched from the safety of the trees. At last his big toe touched som
ething. “I think I have it,” he cried. He bent as low as he could, and finally, was forced to take a deep breath and submerge his head in order to reach down and grab the final coin out of the festering hole it was burning into Faerie.
He pulled himself up, covered in muck, but triumphant, holding the final coin aloft. He pulled his arm back to throw it as hard and as deep as he could, when a voice rasped from the other side of the pool, “Don’t throw that coin, boy.”
Bran looked up, incredulous, and a collective gasp went up from the sidhe. On the other side of the pool, a figure limped out from beneath the trees. He clung heavily to a stout branch of oak. His face was pockmarked with cuts and scratches, many of them deep, his hair was long and gray and wild as his beard. He scarcely looked like a sidhe at all and, in fact, was dressed in a long robe that appeared to be of mortal make. Every step appeared to pain him, and as he hobbled forward, Bran saw his footprints were stained with pale red blood.
But Loriana appeared to know him. “Timias?” she whispered. “Timias, is that you?”
“Yes, my queen,” the newcomer panted. “Through blood and battle and sacrifice, my queen. I’ve come back.”
“Timias, the Forest House has burned and the silver—”
“I know.” He held up his hand. “I heard it in the trees. But don’t worry. There’s something we can do, after all.” He hooked his thumbs in the belt he wore around his waist and straightened with effort. His eyes fell on Bran. “There’s something we can do, indeed.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Ozymandian. “Do you see what’s happened here? The silver’s rotted all the way in…How can we possibly hope to—”
Timias put his hand on the other sidhe’s shoulder. “Just hear me out.” He looked at Bran again.
I should go home, Bran thought. A chill went down his back as his eyes connected with Timias’s and it occurred to him that while Timias definitely had the green eyes of a sidhe, there was something different and strange about him. He was the only one with a beard and gray hair. “I should go,” Bran said.
“No!” cried Loriana. “Just stay a moment more.” She held out her hand. “Come, let’s hear what Timias can tell us.”
“I’ve found a way to protect us—from goblins and silver both. We have to make a barrier so silver will never get in and the goblins will never get out.”
“And just how do you intend to do that?” laughed Ozymandian, and the other sidhe followed suit. “Dig a trench and build a wall?”
“Not exactly,” said Timias.
“Then how?”
Timias grimaced. “All I ask is a bit of the queen’s time—and yours, as well, mortal.”
“M-mine?” blurted Bran.
“Most of the Council survived,” replied Ozymandian, with a look that quelled Bran. “They should be consulted before any—”
“I’m not surprised the Council survived, my lord,” interrupted Timias. “They always managed to find the highest trees. And now they’ve simply retreated deeper. What does the Council propose to do? What were they doing before?”
“Timias is right,” Loriana said. She stepped between the two men and laid her hand on Timias’s arm. To Bran’s astonishment, he saw the sidhe’s eyes soften. Why, he loves her, Bran realized with a start, and he found that interesting because the druids insisted that the sidhe were incapable of feeling real emotions, which was why they found mortals so intoxicatingly different.
But Loriana was continuing, with an authority in her tone he hadn’t heard before. “I want to hear Lord Timias out. Not only did my father send him into Shadow, for the express purpose of learning druid magic, but he saved my life. I owe him that much, wouldn’t you agree?”
Ozymandian glanced down. “Perhaps upon due consideration—”
“We can’t wait any longer, Ozymandian. I can hear the trees screaming.”
“You only fear what you don’t know,” Timias said. “Give me but a day, and by the time the sun has risen and set in Faerie, I promise you the goblins will be vanquished, the silver will be neutralized and the Forest House rebuilt.”
Ozymandian snorted. “A day, my lord? Done.” He shook his head. “My queen, when you are ready to remember the rest of us, we will be waiting in the Deep Forest.” He turned on his heel and stalked back through the trees, calling for the others to follow.
I should go, Bran thought. But how could he leave now, he thought, especially if the silver coin had some part to play in this odd sidhe’s grand plan? Loriana was looking at Timias as if she thought the sun might rise out of his brow, and he was looking down at her as if he expected to see stars in her eyes. As if he were communicating his plan with a look. “I think I should be getting back.”
“We need you, boy,” Timias said. He was smiling, his teeth gleaming white. They were very long teeth, Bran noticed, and pointed, almost like a goblin’s, at the ends.
“We need you to hold the silver,” Loriana said. “Please? Can’t you please just stay here with us a little more?”
Bran hesitated. The still surface of the pool beckoned, and it occurred to him that he, like the coins, could dive into the deep water and find his way back into Shadow. But how could he abandon Faerie to the goblins and the silver? I really should go. “All right.” He held out the coin. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“Just come with us, boy,” said Timias. He reached for a torch. “Come and let me show you everything I’ve accomplished so far.”
“Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?” asked Catrione as she stoked the fire in the forge. The smithy was deserted at this hour, the last sleepy apprentice chased away. Dawn was always the best time to cross into TirNa’lugh, but there was work to be done first. To his credit, Cwynn didn’t question when she tapped on his window sill, lest the still-wives see. But even Niona’s shrill harangue had gone silent, and not even a sister-druid had marked her silent passage in and out of the dormitory to fetch a few critical items, like silver daggers and her staff.
But all along the way, she’d noticed him whipping around, glancing left or right, clearly seeing something. “There’s this white dog,” he began, then paused at the look on her face. “You see him, too?”
Catrione hesitated. The white dog who’d guided him across the treacherous channel had resembled Bog, and she herself had glimpsed the plume of a white tail more than once or twice, disappearing around a corner or into an empty room. But the idea that Bog would come back from the Summerlands to help Cwynn—though after all he is the man you are to marry—unnerved her even more than the sense of connection she felt every time she looked into his eyes. “Come work these bellows—you can do it with one hand like this, see?” She handed him the tool, then withdrew from the pack of items she’d gathered the leather harness that he’d worn to hold his hook in place. “I had a dog like that. Deirdre—well, under the influence of that creature, she killed him.”
“She killed your dog?” He looked at her with such horror, such disgust, she liked him just for that.
“You have to understand that that wasn’t Deirdre, that person you saw in the Tor. She wasn’t really like that, before.”
“Before what?”
“Before she fell under Tiermuid’s spell.” Catrione tied her hair back. “She wasn’t the only one—I think all us younger ones were affected, and maybe some of the older ones, too. It’s just tells me whatever that creature is, it’s no more natural than that thing it spawned.”
She skipped her fingers over the hammers hanging on the walls, looking for something small and delicate.
“How is it you know how to do this? You don’t look like a blacksmith to me.”
“All druids have to pass an apprenticeship under a blacksmith—just a year, unless, of course you have a particular gift for it. It’s one of the foundations of elemental magic, you see—the turning of earth, or ore, into objects. Every druid needs at least a little experience in it.”
“Ah.” He raised his eyebrows but said
nothing, his eyes fixed on the forge.
As the coals began to glow, she said, “Do you know what a pooka is?”
He shook his head.
She motioned for him to stop. “Let me see your arm again.” As she unwrapped the long strips of linen, she said, “A pooka is an entity or an energy that for whatever reason binds itself to a soul. Sometimes it’s an elemental energy, like a trixie. But most commonly, it’s the spirit of an animal. It’s like the soul makes a stop on the way to the Summerlands. They don’t stay forever and some people attract them.” She blinked away the tears that filled her eyes as she remembered Bog’s still white body beside the cold hearth, and busied herself examining the harness and the small-pronged garden rake she’d had in mind to replace the hook. It was only a temporary solution—something more permanent, less clumsy, could be achieved given more time. But for right now, it would serve, not just as a limb, but as a weapon. “We’ll coat the ends in silver,” she said. “Let me see your arm.”
Reluctantly, he held it out for her inspection. “It’s not hurt—I didn’t think it was. They just put a bandage on it, because it’s not pretty.”
Not pretty was an understatement. The jagged scar, the shiny red skin stretched tight over a broken knob of bone bore silent testimony to a terrible wound, a painful recovery, but also the means to a weapon even Tiermuid could not anticipate. “I think the first thing—”
“Excuse me.” The raspy voice was like the scratch of a bat’s wing, and at first, Catrione dismissed it merely as the scurrying of the mice in the rafters. “Excuse me.”
Catrione peered beyond Cwynn and was startled to see a bent figure huddled in the doorway of the forge. Despite the temperate night, the old woman was wrapped in a motley collection of ragged shawls that quite possibly represented the sum total of her wardrobe. “Cailleach?” asked Catrione. “Is there something you require?” She was one of the refugees, of course, probably lost on her way to the latrine.
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