The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  She only shook her head, kicked Ebony’s side, quickening the pace to a canter on the approach to the farm.

  The Long Burn had no guests—Mev Arun and the others had lingered on at the wake. They were welcomed in by the steward and the housekeeper, Bethne. In the large parlor, Gael spread out the banners on a table—there were no hidden signs in the banner for the Westlings or the banners from Eriu and Athron.

  “No,” said Tomas, “it must be this splendid thing woven for the fighting women of Palmur.” They gently removed the cotton cover and spread out the banner—a kind of gonfalon with two peaked ends—upon the table. There was a small raised place near a tree with silver fruit, and on the underside Gael found a folded parchment. It was as she had thought, and she knew that it must have a sad meaning.

  “It is from Lord Luran,” she said.

  The Eilif lord wrote in a fine antique straightletter:

  Gael Maddoc, I am alone in Tulach. It is finished But this need not be a time of mourning, for more of our folk have passed safely over the waters than we had reason to hope. My Mother, Ethain of Clonagh, sends her greetings. We have agreed to give you a certain stewardship as a return for all your work on our behalf, and particularly your last service to us in Eildon. We know now that you are indeed THE WANDERER, an envoy for the people of Hylor as well as for its rulers among the dark folk. I will send this letter by messenger to Captain Emeris Murrin of Ardven House, who will keep it safe for you until you are free to claim it. Then I must speak with you. Accept a blessing:

  Luran of Clonagh

  Gael passed the letter to Tomas. She leaned her elbows on the table and put her hands to her face, blinking away tears. Once again, she seemed to feel the soft wind that had touched her as she stood upon the hilltop overlooking the Palace Fortress of King Gol, the Eilif lords and ladies all about her.

  “Dear heart,” said Tomas. “Do not weep!”

  “I will speak with him,” she said. “This was news which must come!”

  Gael sat alone, looking out on the fields in the room where Culain Raillie had once kept Taran’s Kelch hidden in a chest. She thumbed the magic slip of cedarwood, and Luran looked out at her.

  When they had exchanged greetings, he said:

  “Ylmiane has departed,” he said. “Sir Hugh has gone with my mother to the Pendark lands, where he will pass a little time with the Lyreth Lords, the Children of the Sea. The others—they, too, have passed beyond Eriu, and this without fading. For this, we must give you thanks. You carried the golden thread,” he told her, and she knew he meant the bracelet she had worn for the Shee into Eildon. “That greatly soothed their journey.”

  “So soon?” Gael asked.

  “If you had not indeed been the Wanderer, our time would not have been called,” Luran admitted. “True, it came sooner than even we had expected, but that should have not been a surprise to anyone. But I bid you to be happy in your mind: for we were fading swiftly. If you had not come when you did, if the thread had not followed you across the waters, there would not have been many left to await the coming of a fresh hope.”

  Gael put her hand over the gold band upon her arm. For the first time, it felt warm from the heat of her own flesh. Some magic, some spell had departed from it as the last Lord of the Shee had spoken; beyond that, the gold seemed of itself suddenly heavy, a weight of loneliness upon her. Yet she managed to not speak aloud her sadness. The Shee had used her neatly: she had not understood, in this last venture, how closely the Shee’s tasks had paralleled the course of those she had taken on in this dark world, seeking the answer of the “Lost Prince.”

  She had her part-answers of Eildon, of Lien, and of the “Lost Prince” himself—but by the same token, she had also finished her service to the light ones, and this unknowing. It was almost more than she could bear, for the passing of beauty can never be anything but painful.

  They spoke for a time of Captain Murrin, and Luran sent a final greeting to Druda Strawn.

  “What will you have me do, lord?” asked Gael.

  “See to this place, Tulach Hearth,” he answered briskly. “We have left you with the spells that will bring its gates and gardens out of the land of the Shee. Those at least will stand in the dark world for all to behold, a monument to what has passed from the high ground.”

  “Oh, that is fine, lord!”

  “You must be poor Tulach’s chatelaine,” Luran told her. “People it as you will, to keep secure the last of its ancient treasures. A guard or two, perhaps a scribe to point out its wonders?” Luran’s sweet smile was touched with sadness. “Though its Mistress continue to wander still, Tulach will surely outshine the attractions of Old Greddaer’s estate in Eildon!”

  “I hope I will never earn it such a comparison,” said Gael seriously. “Fear not, my lord, I will keep Tulach private and safe. But where will you go now?”

  “To Eildon,” he said cheerfully. “I will seek an Eildon bride. I will leave in the last days of this Applemoon. Keep patient, then you may come after the first day of the new month. In the meantime, Tulach will wait in its shadowland until the Wanderer bids it appear.”

  A last blessing, and he was gone from them.

  II

  Gael sat bolt upright in bed next to Tomas, unsure what had woken her. The embers of the little fire within the grate had burnt to the faintest glow. It was three nights into the new moon, Maplemoon, the Month of Blood, though the fire colors of autumn had not yet clad the trees, the autumn storms had not yet come upon them.

  They had talked much in these past days of Tulach, though neither had made any move to go there. It was too sad, knowing those fair folk were forever gone. Yes, Gael felt a certain curiosity to traverse the halls and chambers of that great manor, hidden from her eyes in all her visits there. Would Hurlas, the Widow Menn, the other mortals who had served the Shee, also be departed with their masters? Yet she deferred the moment while she could, wanting to remember Tulach as it had been, well peopled by the folk of light. Besides, there was harvest to bring in, and Rab Maddoc not so spry, and Bress soon to be called away for duty again in Krail, the golden city. Gael and Tomas had delayed by days, then a week, their departure, lingering with family and friends.

  There came a sharp stab in her hand, as if of heat. Looking down, she saw that Annhad’s precious ring had woken her. She touched its stone, and a great light blazed up, brighter than anything she had yet beheld from its depths. She cried out her surprise, full of foreboding, and Tomas came awake.

  “What is it?”

  She was at her chair, pulling on her boots, fumbling for her weapons. “Call the kedran. Call Hadrik. Have themselves make ready for a lift. There is trouble at the Holywell.”

  He did not hesitate, but ran down the hall to where the Long Burn’s other guests were quartered. She heard him rousing all the kedran—Mev Arun was the first to rise, and the first at the door of Gael’s bedchamber.

  “What has happened?” The dark Chyrian girl fastened her sword belt at her waist, bent to tighten her greaves.

  “I am not sure,” Gael said. “But I fear an attempt upon the Star Kelch.”

  “Blood and Fire!” Mev swore. “The Goddess will not stand for this.”

  “No she will not,” Gael said grimly, “and so we have been called.”

  “Is it Eildon?” Mev dogged her steps to the yard’s door. “Come to steal back our treasure?”

  Gael only shook her head. “No. Liam of Greddach is our friend. His Uncle—nay his family entire—is not, but I believe they will do nothing while Liam remains consort to Tanit.”

  Overhead the new moon was hidden behind thick clouds, the light a strange quality of dull silver. Gael strode swiftly toward the cantreyn behind the tall elm, casting a brief longing look at the stable. But she thought of the narrow passage that reached the inner grotto of the sanctum and knew she would not risk bringing Ebony in upon that floor.

  Golden-skinned Amarah, her friend Imala, and Hadrik soon joined them, Tomas and Br
an at their heels. Tomas held the thick collar at Bran’s neck, keeping the big dog back when he would have run to her. “I would come with you,” he said, but she only shook her head, and it was what he had expected.

  “Ride to Coombe,” she charged him. “Find the Druda, rouse up the town. There has been anger in Coombe these last weeks, but this, no one will argue.”

  He took her hand. “The Aldmen must have come to Coombe seeking more than a landholding.”

  “I fear it must be so.”

  “Then you will see Merrin Treyes when you come to the Holywell,” Tomas said. “Take care. There will be others alongside him.”

  “The Goddess has called us forth,” Gael said. “We will hold them.”

  All she had summoned were now within the cantreyn. She gave Tomas a hasty kiss and unsheathed her kedran longsword. It felt uncomfortable to call the blue fire upon the tip of a sword rather than on a lance’s point, but a lance would be no good to her in the Holywell’s narrow passage. Sketching a prayer to the Goddess, she began the spell, and at first all went as she expected: the spreading circle of fire, the shrouding mist. Then came a horrid lurch, a disorientating waver. Mev Arun, or one of the others, cried aloud in terror. When the mist cleared, the sloped hill Gael Maddoc saw above her was not the tiny cantreyn below the Holywell where she had intended to bring them. A cold wind touched her neck, and at first she thought she had erred and brought them all to a place where they were under attack: dark figures stood around them, women, all of them, with grim faces and long, rising hair that flew about their shoulders.

  Then Gael saw that in the shadows of these faces were stars, rushing black water, trees—whatever stood behind them. She thought at first these strange folk were wraiths, then, looking around, she realized where she and her comrades were standing: they were within what should have been the stone circle of the Maidens, near the Holywell, but instead of the Maiden stones, all that stood there were these grim-faced women, robed in darkness: the chill wind was rising from them. Below ran the dark water of the Cresset Burn, and beyond that, the white-paved road to the Holywell and her parents’ croft.

  “Why have you brought us here?” Gael cried. “We must away to the Well!”

  One among the six was their leader—she made a gesture when the tall kedran would have broken away, freezing Gael in her tracks.

  “We are the Ruith Nighean,” the woman said. “Taran’s Maidens. You have been called here to receive arms.” She spoke a Chyrian so old, Gael could hardly comprehend the words. “The Kelch has come again to its home. It went away of old time by permission of the Guardians.” Gael was not sure of the word; “permission” was as close as she could construe its meaning. “Now, by the hand of the Wanderer and those who help her, it will not go away again. Punishment will fall on any who attempt to remove the Kelch without following the old-time ceremonies.” Again, Gael was unsure of every word’s meaning, but the woman’s tone brought a shiver down her spine.

  The wind from the dark women rose higher still. Four of the Ruith Nighean turned to Gael’s companions—Imala, Amarah, Mev Arun, and Hadrik—and armed them with fresh-cut switches, heavy with autumn dry leaves and thorns. Gael recognized the odor—these were Whitethorn, tree of magic and of sacrifice, which had grown so long by the mouth of the Holywell. At another time, these thin boughs might have seemed a frail weapon; tonight, granted from these wraithlike hands, no one doubted they would prove a fierce scourge.

  When the time came for arming Mev Arun, there was a hesitation, and the woman who held the branches turned to the leader. The leader then held both her hands to Mev, as if in benediction, the expression on her gaunt face sober. “You are of true Chyrian blood,” she warned. “If you take this weapon to your hand on the Goddess’s bidding, you should know, you will never leave the Holywell. The Goddess will not take you unwilling or unwitting to this pledge.”

  Mev looked a little scared, glanced nervously at Gael; still, she held out her hands for the sacred branches. “If Pfolben loses another kedran tonight,” she cried bravely, “it will not be because I shied away from my last battle.”

  So Mev was armed, like the others, with the branches, and the leader turned to Gael. “You will find your weapon in another place,” she said, almost sadly. “Tonight, for the Kelch, we can do no more but strengthen those spells you already hold.”

  She parted her dark robes and brought forth a staff, not a war staff, but something like a shepherd’s crook, elaborately carved and not strong looking. All the same, she struck it sharply across the edge of Gael’s sword, and there came a spattering of sparks, blue and green, that died away, only leaving the blade faintly glowing.

  “Go now, Gael Maddoc,” said the woman. All six of the Ruith Nighean raised their hands in benediction, palms held outward above their heads, the wind streaming from them like a storm, their hair lifting like wild black streamers. “Run to the Holywell, Tuannan, and put stop to the defilement that would be made there.”

  So they ran, splashing across the low water of the Cresset Burn to reach the road, and then stumbling along the white road in the half-dark. Imala fell. In the pulsebeat as they helped her rise, Gael took the chance to look back. On the hill above them, all that remained were the six ancient stones, standing once more in their eternal circle.

  They sprinted on up the hill to the Holywell. At first they feared for the noise they made, then up ahead, they heard great cries, as if of one in mortal peril. Gael thought her heart would burst. It was her mother’s voice.

  She feared then that the others—Bress, her father—were already dead, and a mist came down across her eyes, staining all the world with blood.

  Mev Arun and the others—they had never seen Gael Maddoc like this. Planning the attack—there was no chance for that. All they could do was follow her. They ran together up the lower path, straight to the cave, Gael Maddoc well in the front. She was lit by that anger Melniros call the God-rage. For those first moments, nothing could stand in her way.

  The scene at the mouth of the cave was already terrible: the cave mouth lit by shining blue fire, so intense it burned almost green. A crush of men in dark cloaks stood before this shining entrance, prevented by the magic fire from entering the passage. Yes, they had been already to the croft to rouse the Holywell’s guardians: Rab Maddoc lay unconscious on the ground, blood seeping from a terrible blow to his head. Bress was on the ground as well, a knee in his back, blood on his face: they were questioning him. Shivorn—one man had shorn a great hank of her fallen hair, straggling loose about her shoulders; now he pressed it brutally in her mouth, whether to gag her, punish her for crying out, or to force Bress to speak the words that would allow them entrance, could not be determined.

  Gael cleaved the first man from the back; a moment she would remember, out of all the haze of her God-rage, for the remainder of her days. Her sword, with the light of the Ruith Nighean upon it, went through him like an ax splitting a thin rod of wood.

  Mev Arun and the others, for there was little else they could do, fell in upon the other Aldmen with their branches. There was a horrible crackling, a blossoming of white fire, wherever those scourges landed. Still, they were five against upward a score of men. Merrin Treyes was there; he called his men to order; the Aldmen caved inward for another moment, then found their swords, drew together, and raised their defense.

  Then it seemed all would have gone ill for the Holywell’s defenders, save that in this same moment Gael threw back the man who had held Mother Maddoc’s arms, and when her hands touched her mother’s flesh, the God-rage left her. She came to herself quicker than reason could have expected, saw and understood what must be done. Bress was down, fresh- wounded, Amarah also—had she held her temper, called the Stillstand from a distance, this would not have happened.

  She raised again her sword, let it fall, called the spell. Then came, not crackling in the air, but thunder, and she understood in a sudden fear the strength of the gift the Ruith Nighean had laid upon h
er. The Stillstand spread in a blast of power that left only Gael standing, Gael and her mother, clutching her daughter’s waist for support.

  This was truly the Hour of Stone. Gael cried out—her mother loosed a second piercing cry. The knot of men at the circle’s center—Master Oweyn Murrin was among them—their faces went unnatural pale, their hair. As Gael watched the spell unfold, she saw the flesh of these men swell, coarsen, lose the color of its blood. This was not the strange costume pantomime she had seen at Thornlee in Eildon: truly the stone was taking them, transforming them out of life.

  All within the circle faced this danger. Mev, Amarah—none of them were shielded. Gael thrust her mother to safety, donned her own shield—with a prayer that it would be proof against the angry magic of the Ruith Nighean—and waded within the Stillstand’s edge. A flush of dread chill coursed through her as she stepped within; she seized the first body that came to her hand, dragged it to safety beyond the edge of the spell, returned for another …

  There was no one who could aid her in this desperate task. She worked in horror beneath the pale of the moon, entering and exiting the chill circle; there was nothing she could do to dispel magic so strong; she could only pull those within to safe ground; that was all she could accomplish. Shivorn moved among the bodies as her daughter dragged them free: “O Bress—Gael, you must try for Bress, for Mev Arun, for Hadrik …”

  When Gael was too worn to continue, eleven bodies yet lay within the Stillstand’s hold. It was too much for her. In stone, they had become too heavy to shift … and Rab Maddoc was among them. Her mother would not let her return within the spell: Gael’s cheeks had grown patchy and grey as the magic touched her, began its work. Her shields had worn thin; the Stillstand’s magic had seeped through. She fell down upon the grass and began to cry, bitter tears, if only the God-rage had not fallen on her, if only there had been a chance to order their attack … her father … but there was no time even to mourn, for here was Bress, bleeding upon the grass; here was Amarah, chilly grey and unable to breath.