A sound from him, more of a grunt than a word.
“Here it comes. One, two—”
The wave caught us, drenching me to the waist as I struggled to my feet. The man hung on. We were standing.
“Move!” I screamed, for the next one was coming fast, and it was much bigger, surely powerful enough to smash us against the rocks. “Now!”
I staggered toward the place where I had climbed down, half-dragging him with me. “Quickly!” But he could not be quick; it was taking all his strength to move one foot before the other. No chance of getting there in time. It was coming. I heard its roar behind us.
“Breathe!” I shouted. I braced my legs and threw my arms around the man’s waist, holding on hard. No time to pray.
The wave hit us. I fought for purchase, clinging to my companion as the water crashed into me, chest-high, and spent itself on the rocks. All was swirling white around us, and then came the sucking undertow, and I did pray, a wordless, mindless plea. It was gone, and we were still here. He wheezed for air, the sound like a knife scraping iron. His legs were buckling. I fought to keep him on his feet.
“Well done!” I shouted. “Now up! Up, quick!”
I dragged him up, step by stumbling step onto the slippery rocks. His breathing vibrated through my body. “Up there. Next wave—up to that ledge. Higher! Up! Up!” And let the next wave not smash my head into a boulder, or we’re both gone.
My legs ached. My shoulders felt like fire. Another step up, and another. Let me be right about how fast this uncanny tide was rising. Let this wave carry us up to the ledge. The voice of the sea thundered its challenge. Now, it was coming now.
I found a tree root between the stones and grabbed it with my left hand. My right arm was clamped around the man’s waist. “Breathe!” I ordered, then took a breath deep into my chest as I had been taught. The water came, chill and hard. It was in my face, up my nose, filling my ears. My head hit something. I surfaced, my shoulder smashing against the rocks. The man was slipping from my grip, down, down and away. “No!” I shrieked in defiance of the sea, and I grabbed his hair and held on like a barnacle to its rock. “No! You’re going to live!”
The wave subsided, leaving us just below the safe ledge.
“Up!” I croaked. His breathing screamed hurt. His face was ghastly white, his eyes dark hollows. I must be cruel. “Move! This way!” The next wave would get us there. It must. I got his arm around my shoulders again. He forced himself more or less upright. Nyd. Courage in the face of the impossible. “Good work,” I said. “Keep hold of me. I won’t let you go.”
We struggled over a patch of sliding stones and past a projecting boulder. As the next wave roared up behind us, we reached the ledge. The surge washed us up onto it, as if weary of the game we were playing. The water receded, and we were safe.
At first all I did was breathe. With every breath my spirit filled with thanks for the blessing of air, for the gift of survival. The man breathed, too, making a sound that suggested his lungs were half full of water. He lay flat on his back beside me. Bouts of shivering coursed through his body. He was wet through, and so was I. The strength he had summoned at the last was gone now. He wouldn’t be walking anywhere, even with my support. And I couldn’t leave him here on his own. How long would it be before anyone thought to look for me, and how long before they found us? I had left my basket up on the path. Eventually someone would spot it and call, and I would answer. But it was cold, and growing dark, and we could not afford to wait.
You are a druid, Sibeal. Use what is here. Use what you have. What did I have? My seer’s gift was strong, but it did not allow me to mind-call as some of my kinsfolk could, communicating over distance without words. Ciarán was teaching me the language of creatures and the power to manipulate the elements, but I was only a beginner, and I could think of no way my limited skills could be put to use now. If my mentor had been here on the island, he’d have sensed something wrong and come to find me. If . . . but wait. What about Cathal? Clodagh’s husband was half-fey. Indeed, he was an adept in the magical arts, though he did not make use of them, having chosen to live his life as a man among men. Might Cathal sense a message of the mind, if I tried hard enough to send it?
The man was shivering so violently that he seemed likely to fall off the ledge into the water. Gods, I hoped I was right about the tide line.
“Here,” I said. “Move closer.” For, though I had been foolish enough to come out here without shawl, cape or cloak, I had the warmth of my own body. On second thought, warmth was hardly the right word. I was drenched and chilled to the bone. The man was too exhausted to sit up, so I pushed and pulled him to the back of the ledge, then lay down behind him, wrapping an arm over him and pressing my body against his. It was a little improper, but necessary under the circumstances. He mumbled something. His words were in no language I could understand—they did not even sound like Norse.
“That’s better,” I said. “Now pray that this works. I’ve no wish to stay out here all night.” If nobody came, we would be dead of cold before morning.
I shut my eyes and summoned the deep calm that must enter the body before one may attempt to open the eye of the mind. I set aside the perishing chill of the ledge, the dark, the restless sea. I ignored the pain in elbow, knee, hip. Water and stone had tested us hard as we performed our unlikely struggle up from the cove. Never mind that. The quiet groves of Sevenwaters were far away, but in my mind I could be there, under the great oaks, walking in dappled light. The realms of the spirit were many and wondrous. At the last point of exhaustion, one could always find a deeper strength. In time of greatest trouble, one could feel the gentle touch of peace. So I had learned. Quiet your mind. Breathe in slowly; breathe out still more slowly. Feel the earth beneath you. You are part of the earth, she sustains and supports you. Breathe. Now let the grove open around you.
It had never been so difficult to take the time I needed for this practice, with a man perhaps dying in my arms and my body simply refusing to be still, but shaking and trembling like a leaf in an autumn wind. Eventually I detached my mind, swam into the place where I might call and bent all my will on Cathal. I pictured him seated in the dining hall, next to Clodagh, talking about the shipwreck; I imagined him running a long-fingered hand through his black hair, then gesturing as he explained something to his wife. I called him. Cathal! We are here. I tried to show him the path along the narrow neck of land, the precipitous way down. I made an image of the fallen sailor. I showed myself in this place without any of the things I needed such as a lantern or a blanket.
A spattering on the rocks around us; it was starting to rain. My concentration was gone. There were tears on my face, tears of sheer exhaustion. The roaring of the waves seemed menacing, as if Mac Dara himself was stirring, stirring, reaching out to suck us down. The water was right up to the ledge. From time to time a wavelet splashed over, teasing, as if it could not quite make up its mind whether to drown us. Thus far the sea had not reached the place where we were huddled. The rain grew heavier.
“It’s all right,” I said, more to myself than to the man pressed close to me, who likely knew no Irish. “You’ll be safe. Help is coming. This can’t be for nothing. I won’t believe it.” If I had been a different sort of person, I might have killed for a dry cloak.
He rolled over, surprising me. His arm came around me and tightened. He said something in that foreign tongue, perhaps Thank you. Or maybe Don’t cry. I pressed my cheek against the fabric of his tunic—wet through, a tear or two would make no difference—and shut my eyes. In time of trial, there is one weapon a druid always has, and that is the lore.
“How about a story?” I murmured. “I know plenty.” There in the growing dark, with the hungry sea washing in and out and our bodies sharing their last warmth, I told a tale of heroes and monsters, and a tale of a boy who accidentally tasted from the cauldron of knowledge, and then I related part of our own family story, for in our past there were brothers tur
ned into swans, and a wicked sorceress whose son was now my beloved teacher, Ciarán. Since this stranger in whose arms I lay probably did not understand a word I was saying, it hardly mattered whether any part of that story might be considered too private to tell.
“But in the end, he turned it all to the good,” I said eventually. “And he taught me everything I know. Almost everything. When I go back I will make my final commitment to being a druid, and then I’ll live in the nemetons all the time, and only see my family on ritual days.”
“Druide,” said the man, showing that he had not only been listening, but might even have understood a word or two. Then we both tensed, for over the washing of the waves and the screaming of the gulls, another sound came: the shrill yapping of a little dog from the path above. Fang had found us.
I sat up abruptly, elbowing my companion in the chest. “Here!” I yelled. “Down here!”
Not long after, there were lanterns, and men coming down the precipitous path—Cathal followed by Gareth and Johnny—and the blissful warmth of a dry blanket around my shoulders. I wanted to climb up by myself, but Gareth lifted me and carried me to the top as if this were the easiest path in the world. The others brought the man up between them. At the top Fang was scampering about, mightily pleased with herself, and close by stood Clodagh, warmly wrapped, with a lantern in her hand and my basket of seaweed over her other arm. Gareth set me on my feet. Clodagh put down lantern and basket and threw her arms around me.
“In the name of all the gods, Sibeal,” my sister said, “has this place turned you into a fearsome warrior so soon?” She stepped back, her hands on my shoulders, and scrutinized me more closely. “You’re freezing cold,” she said. “And hurt, too. There’s blood on your face.”
“I’m fine,” I said, sniffing. “Don’t worry about me. He’s the one who needs help—”
My knees gave way. One of the men uttered an oath. I fell into someone’s arms as the world turned black.
CHAPTER 2
~Felix~
The fog lies heavy on me. It weighs me to the very bone. My eyelids struggle against it. Ebb, flow. Ebb, flow. Tides. Faces above me, coming and going.
I thought I saw a woman. Between the shadowy curtains she turned strange eyes on me. The veil came down again, and I lost her.
My eyes hurt. My head hurts. I try to turn it and my neck shrieks protest. Iron bands around my chest, tighter, tighter. Each breath a mountain to climb. If I were dead, would I feel this?
I am cold. The chill is in my bone and in my blood. Blankets piled on me. A heated stone at my feet, some kind of creature beside me in the bed. I am so cold.
There are three women. One comes more often, neat-featured as a marten, dark-haired, green-eyed, a line between her brows as she leans over me. The others are like her, but not quite like. The second woman has locks the color of sun on autumn leaves, and a scattering of freckles across creamy skin. The third . . . the third has eyes that startle and compel, eyes like still pools under early morning sky. They fix on me and I feel the power of them in an untouched place, deep inside. I seem to know her.
I am in the afterworld, perhaps, or on my journey there, and these are three guardians. Three goddesses? Three Fates? Which cut the thread that was my life? What do they want of me? And what . . . What . . .
Are these three sisters? There is a dark-skinned man as well, who comes to look at me, a calm-eyed man in a white robe. A physician? Sometimes he seems old, sometimes young. What place is this?
Night outside. A lamp’s glow brings a landscape of moving shadows: monsters, demons, serpents. Another man sits by my bedside awhile. His face is tattooed with a raven’s mask. His gaze is somber. I am at the gate of death; this is a threshold spirit, a guardian warrior. He speaks of trust, of choices and chances. He tells me I am safe here. He names the place: Inis Eala. Swan Island? I do not remember such a name. I do not remember . . .
I wake with heart hammering, my skin clammy with sweat, my mind reeling in terror, from what, I do not know. Under all these covers I am naked. Where . . . What . . . There is no question I can ask. I know nothing. Nothing. Save that, after all, perhaps I am not dead.
The neat-faced woman, the eldest sister, sits by my pallet. The dark-skinned man stands behind her, his hand on her shoulder. Young now. Her husband? He moves to slip an arm behind me, lifts me, raises a cup of water to my lips. Gods, I’m thirsty. I could drink an ocean.
“Slowly,” he says. “A little at a time. That’s it. Rest now.”
I understand him. But the tongue he speaks is not the language of my thoughts. It is the same as the raven man used. Have I strayed far from home?
The woman fixes her emerald eyes on me. “What is your name?” she asks with careful enunciation. She gestures toward herself. “Muirrin.” And to the man, “Evan.” Then back toward me. “What is your name?” As she says this she points at me, brows raised.
I cannot answer. I have no answer. I close my eyes.
The two of them talk to each other. I catch some of it, not all. The man speaks of a ship, and someone called Knut who may know me. The woman says I do not look like a Norseman. They talk about my chest, my breathing.
“Perhaps we can get him through this,” Evan says. “Let us hope Sibeal’s heroic effort was not in vain.”
“Sibeal would give the credit to the gods,” says Muirrin. They speak further, then she goes away, her footsteps soft on the earthen floor. I let my lids fall over my eyes. Perhaps I will sleep. Is it night or day? Perhaps I will wake in terror again, not knowing what it is that sets such dread on me. Something unthinkable. Something unspeakable. It is gone from my mind, along with everything that makes sense of this day, this hour, this moment. Breath to breath. I cannot remember my dream. I cannot remember how I came to be here. I cannot remember.
~Sibeal~
Gareth insisted on carrying me all the way back to the settlement, although I could have walked perfectly well once I recovered from the faint. The man I had rescued was taken straight to the infirmary. Clodagh bustled me off to the bathhouse, where she made me soak in a tub until I was glowing pink all over, then stood over me as I put on clean clothing. She dried my hair in front of the bathhouse fire, which served the dual purpose of heating water and keeping the place warm. Biddy brought in food and drink on a tray, and the two of them refused to let me go anywhere until I had finished it all.
“I don’t think you realize what a fright you gave us,” Clodagh said, watching me with her arms folded. “The least you can do is be sensible now, Sibeal.”
I was not even allowed to walk back to the infirmary alone—Cathal went with me, moderating his long stride to keep pace with me. My brother-in-law had his dark cloak wrapped around him. He was not saying much at all.
“Thank you,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if you would hear me. It was the only way I could think of to fetch someone quickly. If we’d had to wait until someone noticed I was gone, he might have died.”
“So might you,” Cathal said, but he did not sound as if he was judging me. “I don’t suppose you thought of that.”
“It did occur to me, but it seemed . . . I don’t know quite how to describe it, Cathal, but something drew me out there.” I thought he might understand, where others would perhaps think I had taken a foolish risk. “Part of me knew that man was still alive and needing to be found. There must be a reason for all of it.”
“You worried Clodagh and Muirrin. You’re their little sister and they see you as their responsibility. As for my part in this, all I can say is that your summons reached me clearly. Proving, I think, that you are druid first and little sister second.” Cathal was a man who seldom smiled, but he did so now, his somber features transformed by it. “You’ve saved a man’s life. Your sisters may scold you, but they were impressed. We all were. As for why you were called to do it, this whole episode is troubling. It was no ordinary storm.”
“You think uncanny forces had a hand in it?” I was not prepared to ask him
directly whether he thought his father responsible.
“Who knows?” Cathal said lightly, but the smile was gone.
We had reached the infirmary. Cathal saw me in the door, then headed off.
Unusually, Muirrin was not working, but standing by the fire, staring into the flames. Behind a makeshift screen, Evan and his father, Gull, were tending to the survivor.
“I’d like to help look after him,” I said. “That would feel right.”
“There’s nothing you can do to help, Sibeal,” Muirrin said bluntly. “Maybe you don’t realize how sick he is. There’s the immersion in water—that’s affected his lungs. He’s weakened by cold and exhaustion. And I think there’s something else wrong. I must be honest. Even with the attention of skilled healers, he may not get through the next few days.”
There was something deeply wrong in saving a man’s life only to see him perish soon after. How could I let that happen? For a little, I listened to the low voices of Gull and Evan as they went about their work, calm and methodical. Then I said, “Muirrin, I may not be a healer, but I am a druid, or will be as soon as I get back to Sevenwaters and make my pledge. If this man is dying, what I have to offer may be what he needs most.”
There was a lengthy pause. Muirrin moved to sit down on the bench by the fire, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. My calm, competent sister, the one who always coped with everything. “I’m sorry, Sibeal,” she said, scrubbing a hand across her cheek. “You scared us. We hadn’t realized you weren’t somewhere here in the settlement, and when Cathal suddenly jumped up and said you were out there in the dark . . . You did a very brave thing. I can’t understand how you can be so calm and collected about it.”
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