Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

  The low bothy of Kilchoran was just discernible among the rowans. Sionnach held the plank door open as Torc took the baby gently from Jed and carried him inside. I knew I couldn’t join them; not yet. Conal walked on into the copse of ghostly trees that clung to the nearby rocks, and he expected me to follow. I knew that. Oh, what I would have given to defy him.

  But it was out of my hands now. Everything was.

  The moon was pale and cold, its light unforgiving.

  What a coincidence.

  Conal was outlined in starlight, the silver pinpricks of his eyelight frightening in his shadowed face. I walked closer and faced him. Oh, those bright, hard, pitiless eyes, heated by a spark of love: the worn, hard-bitten love of centuries. Maybe it was the last dying spark.

  He drew back his hand and struck me brutally on the side of the face.

  My head snapped sideways with the blow. I staggered, but I didn’t fall.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said quietly.

  Shaking my head slightly, I lifted it to face Conal again, but I didn’t retaliate. We stared at one another in silence for a very long moment. No point keeping anything back. A muscle twitched beneath his hollow eyes, but he said nothing of what he saw. Nothing. He didn’t have to.

  ‘And now,’ he hissed, ‘tell Jed.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  Was that my voice? I didn’t recognise it: so cold and hard and don’t-give-a-damn. I stared my brother full in the face, searching his eyes till he was forced to avert them. He swore again, rubbed a hand down his face.

  ‘Seth.’ Hesitantly he extended a hand towards me.

  All I did was look at it.

  Conal jerked his head upwards to throw a curse at the night sky. He turned, and walked away from me, back towards the bothy. The black horse fell in at his back, its shark’s eye swivelling towards me as it passed.

  Then he and the horse were gone.

  ‘Kate’s known this for a long time. She’ll be coming for your brother.’

  Jed stared at Sionnach’s kind, scarred face. ‘She can’t have him.’

  I laughed bitterly. ‘It won’t be up to you, Cuilean. That’s one thing you can be sure of.’

  From outside, Kilchoran looked like nothing more than a down-at-heel barn. Inside it was one stone walled space with soaring rafters and a worn timber floor. We all lay wakeful but for the baby, who slept soundly in a nest of blankets. The only light came from the far end, where birch logs burned in a vast stone fireplace. In the flickering shadows, no-one’s face was readable any more.

  ‘We have to cover good ground tomorrow,’ said Conal. ‘I barely trust this place for one night.’

  ‘It’s fine here,’ soothed Torc. ‘We’ll start early, ride hard all day.’

  ‘Don’t waste energy worrying, Cù Chaorach,’ said Sionnach. ‘Kilchoran’s safe. Get some sleep.’

  Jed said nothing, only crouched, hugging his knees and gnawing his knuckles. I knew he was paying attention, though. I knew he was waiting only for his chance to run. I didn’t blame him. Poor bastard. He didn’t know he hadn’t a chance; he didn’t know what was going to happen.

  He had to hate me very thoroughly. I had to be sure of that.

  ‘Be ready to leave an hour before dawn,’ said Conal, and the discussion, such as it was, was over. Rising, he buckled his sheathed sword onto his back, then reached down and took Eili’s hand. She rose to her feet without a glance at him. Wordlessly Conal opened the barred wooden door and she preceded him into the night and the darkness.

  Left behind, Liath whimpered, but all human conversation died. Sionnach and Torc turned over on their makeshift beds and settled to sleep. Branndair lay close to me, but it was Liath’s skull I caressed, and my gaze lingered on the door through which Conal and Eili had disappeared.

  ‘You’ve this to look forward to, Cuilean,’ I murmured. ‘Ah, women. All the fun of falling out is in the making up. And I should think it’ll take them a very long time to make this one up.’

  Wincing slightly, I touched my left eyebrow, feeling the crust of blood forming on the cut. The flesh around my eye was already swelling; it was going to be a beauty. Everyone in the bothy had conspicuously avoided mentioning the state of my face, but Jed, watching me, shook his head slowly. I grinned.

  ‘You can’t make us out at all, can you, Cuilean?’ Casually I leaned across to Sionnach and found his left temple with my fingertips. It was like a bolt of dull electricity leaving my hand, making me momentarily unsteady. But only a moment; that was all it ever took.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to,’ said Jed. Frowning, he watched me stand up and step over Sionnach, then crouch down to lay my hand on the back of Torc’s head.

  ‘That wasn’t your mother’s attitude.’ Reeling very slightly, getting my balance back, I sat back down beside him.

  ‘Shut up about my mum.’ Jed glared at me. ‘You don’t know her. Didn’t. Know her.’ He blinked hard.

  ‘Oh, but I knew her quite well. I was her lover for four years.’

  Jed looked just like Eili had, when the Lammyr slammed its feet into her chest.

  ‘No. You weren’t.’

  ‘Yes. I was.’ I smiled.

  Oh, yes, it was there. I was there, on the edge of Jed’s mind. The ripples were stirring again, a hideous shape hauling itself out of the dark water of his subconscious. He shut his eyes, then snapped them open again. ‘I’d have known!’

  ‘You did know.’ I touched my cut eyebrow again, delicately. ‘You just didn’t take much notice of me. Remember?’

  ‘That’s not possible!’ Jed put a fist to his mouth from sudden nausea. ‘No. Yes. Yes. I saw you. I remember.’ The swirling murkiness was gone from his brain. The memory was like crystal. He did remember.

  ‘No. No, no.’

  Oh, yes, sunshine. Oh, yes.

  He remembered me. I was there with Mila whenever he came home: my eyes on his mother, and my hands on her too. My hands on her waist, or touching her face, or trickling her long pale hair though my fingers. I’d be there into the late nights, I’d be there when Jed woke in the morning.

  Jed trembled violently. ‘I remember you leaving. I remember I wasn’t sorry to see you go.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ I said. Idly I fiddled with the rip in my t-shirt, examining my new scar. The blood was dry, a thin blackened ridge across my abdominals. ‘But your mother and I understood each other. We were happy for a while.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’

  ‘That’s your prerogative.’ I shrugged. ‘But that last day, as I left... you won’t remember me taking hold of the back of your neck. You were very surprised at the time, but you won’t remember.’

  Jed shook his head, wordless.

  ‘There was always a weird connection between us, you know. Our minds must be a good fit; I always knew my way around yours. I didn’t much like that, but I got used to it.’

  ‘If you’ve messed with my brain—’

  ‘Call it that if you want. That day, the day I left your mother, I found the Veil in your head and I pulled it back for you. I shifted your perceptions, that’s all. I hope you’re grateful, because it wasn’t easy.’

  ‘Screw you. And screw your Veil.’

  ‘I expect it already is, practically speaking. Anyway, I had to obscure your memories to compensate. Rub myself out of them a bit more – even the parts of me you remembered. Fact is, it was too easy to mess with your mind. I played with it so much, I think I’ve given you immunity. It’s very hard to affect your mind now. We still have the link, but I can’t do a lot with it any more. Except know what’s going through that hot head of yours.’

  ‘How dare you. How dare you.’

  ‘I told you, you ought to be grateful. And you will be.’ I could feel my eyelight, almost burning my own pupils. A frost-burn: so very cold. ‘But I did pull the Veil aside for you. It’s why you’ve been there for old Finny. You could see her better than other people do.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that.’ Jed stare
d at me. ‘Why would you do that for Finn?’

  ‘I didn’t do it for Finn.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I did it for someone who needed looking after. Oh, far more needy than Finn, believe it or not. You see, it was essential you paid him plenty of attention.’ I smiled innocently. ‘Even his own mother couldn’t quite make him out.’

  ‘Oh God. Oh. God.’ Jed’s voice when he spoke was barely audible. ‘So why didn’t you do it for her?’

  ‘Ah, too late. I got tired of walking in to find her looking for a vein. Tired of wiping blood off the wall before you got home, though I don’t know why I bothered, since you’re not stupid. I wasn’t enough for her, but then you weren’t either, were you? The drugs were more important than either of us.’

  White rage and grief, creeping up my spine to the nape of my neck. The boy watched me like he’d watch a cobra with its hood up, and I realised he had reason. I blinked it back. Ah, Murlainn, be careful. Don’t go too far. Don’t lose yourself.

  Not entirely...

  I smiled more easily. ‘Ah, Mila was crumbling in front of my eyes, and you were a much better bet. Besides, I had my work cut out keeping her hidden.’

  ‘You...’

  My smile mutated into a smug grin. This I was proud of. ‘Yes, I helped, course I did. Do you seriously think you’d have escaped the authorities’ notice as long as you did if it hadn’t been for me? It’s a small town! That nosy bitch of a landlady was quite a challenge, let me tell you. As for you and your endless thieving... oh, you made life difficult.’ I was watching Jed’s eyes very intently. ‘You were good, you really were, but you weren’t quite as good as you thought you were. Say, “Thank you, Seth”.’

  Jed put his head in his hands.

  ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ I widened my eyes and mimicked a child. ‘“Thank you, Seth”.’

  Jed looked back up at me, hands over his mouth. He wanted to be sick, but I knew he was too cold for that. Stone-cold.

  ‘Jesus,’ he choked at last.

  ‘She was lovely, your mother. Could have been the saving of me. Ah, well. Good mother, too, wasn’t she?’ A hint of bitterness entered my voice. ‘To you, if not to my son.’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Jed.

  That’s right, Cuilean. Look at me, beautiful and heartless. She fell for me, loved me, followed me. And I abandoned her.

  ‘You’re the reason we left the commune.’

  ‘Yup. Mack threw her out when she got involved with me. She knew what I was, by the way. She was scared of our child even as it grew in her belly. Scared of that sickly thing! Afterwards she almost forgot he existed, but she never forgot me. I wasn’t enough,’ I said again, viciously, ‘but she never forgot.’

  He was having trouble breathing. ‘You should have left her alone.’

  ‘Of course I should.’ I lifted one shoulder idly. ‘But I liked your mother. I liked her a lot. Perhaps I loved her a little, if I’m capable of such a thing.’

  ‘No,’ said Jed.

  I ignored that. I ignored the spike of pain it put in my gut. ‘I did try to put a stop to it.’

  ‘Yes. Left her. And you know what she ended up with, don’t you?’ For a moment his face was terrifyingly emotionless, and something deep inside me shuddered. ‘After you dumped her? That thing came after her. Because of you.’ Jed raised his eyes to mine. ‘You know what you left her to and you did nothing. You didn’t save her from Skinsh...’ His voice died. He couldn’t finish the name.

  I gazed into the fire. I decided not to speak for a while. When I did open my mouth again, I pretended I hadn’t heard that part.

  ‘She got pregnant. Believe me, no-one was more surprised than I was.’

  ‘You stupid bastard.’

  ‘Hah! I suppose that does sound stupid to you, but it’s not easy for a Sithe. I panicked. A half-breed child! I didn’t think he’d survive long. They don’t. How was I to know I’d fathered Leonora’s precious Stone? And I didn’t know, not till Cuthag came today.’

  ‘You knew you were his father. You knew that and you left us—’

  ‘I know. But you’re a boy who spends his life running. Let me tell you, you’d run a lot faster if some benighted soothsayer had laid out your life five hundred years in advance.’ Thoughtfully I examined the alleged lifeline on my palm. ‘I wonder if all her prophecies are going to be so blatantly self-fulfilling? I don’t suppose I would have fathered the child if we hadn’t been in the otherworld for so long. Wasn’t the first time I’d got lonely.’

  ‘When Mum found out I knew your family...’ Jed sounded as if he was speaking from an echo-chamber, as if his whole soul was a great hollow cavern. ‘She told me to go to you. If I was ever in trouble.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She told me to go to Finn’s uncle.’ His face twisted with contempt. ‘I thought she meant Conal.’

  ‘Naturally. Strange it wasn’t Conal, isn’t it? He’d be a much more suitable sire. And much as he loves Eili, he has not been faithful for four hundred years.’

  ‘Conal.’ Jed took a painful breath. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Only just.’ Irritably I touched my eye again. ‘How shall I put it? He wasn’t happy. But it was time I owned up. He didn’t know about me and your mother, you see. I can still keep secrets from my brother, and he has far too many scruples to probe against my will.’

  ‘He’s got too much respect for you,’ spat Jed.

  ‘Oh, way too much. He’s so upfront and honest! Well, he knows now, and so do you. He was adamant about that, by the way, so blame him if this is too much information. What does it make me, I wonder? Your uncle-in-law? Stepfather once removed?’

  ‘It makes you a—’

  ‘No.’ I parried Jed’s flying fist. ‘No, you won’t do that to me twice. You’ll find no-one ever does anything to me twice, Jed. Now, let’s not wake the neighbours, shall we?’

  Jed staggered to his feet. Helplessly he looked at Sionnach and Torc, but they were so deeply unconscious, even their breathing wasn’t obvious. Liath sprawled on the timber floor, well out of it, her sides barely rising and falling.

  There was no help for him here; not so much as a sympathetic murmur. He couldn’t stand it; I hadn’t expected him to. Grabbing his sweater he twisted it in his fingers as if he wished it was my neck.

  He’d have liked to say something, but there was no way he could curse me foully enough. All he could do was turn on his heel, and run from the bothy.

  The flames were dying and the fire was cold; I felt the bite of frost, the breath of Outside, but I knew it was imagination, I knew it was all in my heart and soul.

  I put out a hand for Branndair to lick. He waited a long reproachful moment before he finally shuffled to me, nudging his head under my hand. The ends of my fingers were numb; I raked them into his thick neck-fur, trying to absorb his warmth so I could feel them again.

  He laid his black head on my lap, mourning the loss of me.

  ‘Well, my only love,’ I said. ‘Will you come with me anyway?’

  PART FOUR

  Staring back over his shoulder, Jed hesitated. Torc had said the bothy was protected. Even for Rory’s sake he didn’t have to be in the same room as Seth.

  He swallowed, hardly daring to examine the darkness. The wind was wild in the rowans, covering God knew what other sounds. And Lammyr could move fast, but Conal and Eili were out here somewhere. They’d head back to the bothy if there was any danger, and he’d see them.

  Across the grass, twenty metres from the door, there was an outcrop of grey rock and a copse of rowan saplings. Pulling his jumper on, Jed squeezed into a cranny in the rock, keeping the door in view, his mind buzzing with obsessive hatreds. He was in no danger of falling asleep, so all he had to do was last out the chilling cold and discomfort till morning.

  And then what? He didn’t know, he didn’t know. Somehow he had to get Rory away, but there was no-one to trust. He loathed Seth so fiercely his heart might burn to a shrivelled cinder. Con
al was a stranger in the grip of madness. The rest were fanatically loyal to Conal.

  Jed tucked his hands into his armpits to warm them. He could feel his pulse, strong, hard and hating: the beat was rhythmic, regular, the ticking of his own life. Lowering his head he concentrated on it, on the repetitive thrum of his blood, low and ceaseless. Low and ceaseless...

  His head jerked up. Mila had touched his jaw with her fingertips, smiling, and in the sudden silent blackness he knew he’d been dreaming. Jed shook himself, shivering.

  Heart slamming, he stood up. The bothy door stood open, the blue roan motionless beside it. The shadow of a man rested something on its withers, then scrambled onto its back and took a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms.

  Jed emerged from his hiding place as the horse paced forward. Its rider glanced back, and so did the black wolf at his heels.

  ‘Seth!’ As Jed began to run the horse’s stride faltered, just long enough for him to run alongside. ‘Seth, what are you doing?’

  Seth’s white teeth flashed in the darkness, and Jed stared at the bundle he clutched against him. A small familiar snore was just audible, muffled by the depths of the woollen blanket. Jed clutched at the child, but Rory was out of his reach, snuggled into Seth’s t-shirt. Seth had changed the torn one for a new one, Jed saw, staring at the clean black cotton and wishing, with all his heart, that the Lammyr’s blade had gone six inches to the left.

  There were hard lines at the corners of Seth’s mouth. ‘I wondered where you’d got to. Thought you’d be asleep or dead by now.’

  Jed turned back towards the bothy, thinking of Torc and especially of Sionnach and the way he slept like a cat, alert in an instant at the smallest disturbance. ‘What have you done?’

  Seth rolled his eyes and sighed. ‘They’re all fine. Only sleeping. I do hate confrontations. Besides, I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’m fond of them.’