Slowly, Rod laid Magnus’s body down and rose to his feet, albeit shakily, dagger at the ready.
Gwen turned and saw. Then she shifted her gaze, seeking and finding Rod’s fallen sword. It lifted itself from the ground and shot to his side, point toward Duke Foidin, circling in the air. Through the numbed sorrow that filled him, Rod felt the comfort of her support. “Whoever dies, milord, thou shalt be first.”
The Duke and his train stopped, grins vanishing. Foidin’s eyes flicked from the floating sword to Rod’s dagger, then to Rod’s dangling arm, but back to the sword. He licked his lips, and swallowed. “Deliver up mine ward and nephew.”
“He comes with me,” Rod grated.
The Duke’s face darkened; he glanced back at his men, who glanced at one another. Hands felt for sword hilts, but they darted uneasy glances at Rod.
Gwen whispered to Cordelia, and the little girl stared at the sword. Gwen transferred her gaze to a three-foot-high boulder fifty feet from the Duke. It shuddered, then rocked, then began to topple, to roll—over and over, faster and faster, right at the Duke and his men.
The courtiers broke, and fled. The Duke stayed an instant longer, to cast a venomous glance at Rod; then he ran, too.
Rod glared after them.
Little Elidor breathed out a shaky sigh.
The little sound broke Rod’s trance; he dropped to the ground beside Magnus’s still form. “Gwen! Quickly!”
And she was there. She stared at her son, horrified.
Rod’s thumb was on the inside of Magnus’s wrist. “There’s still a pulse…”
“Quickly, children!” Gwen snapped. “Four-leafed clovers, red verbena, and St. John’s Wort!” Leaning forward, she ripped open Rod’s doublet and stripped the bandage from his wound. “ ‘Twill do, until they find afresh! He needs it now!” She tore the poultice free; Rod winced, and watched as she flipped the fresh side down with one hand as she yanked Magnus’s doublet loose with the other. She pressed the poultice down. “Ah, if only chanting spells could work!”
It seemed reasonable—or at least, in harmony with everything else that’d been happening here. A strange sort of dizziness took hold of Rod, and with it came again that sense of a stern but kindly presence. His lips opened, and he found himself chanting,
“Red blood rise, to fill Life’s way; Close the wounds of weapons fey! The elfin power hath lost its sway; Warrior, rise, to greet the day.”
Gwen shot him a startled glance.
His right arm gave a terrific wrench, and something popped. Rod clasped his shoulder with a gasp of pain. “Hahhhh… aieeee!” He gulped air, and swallowed hard. The glen swam before his eyes, then steadied, and the pain ebbed to a dull ache.
“My lord! What tortures thee?”
“Nothing—now.” Rod massaged his shoulder, marvelling. He moved his arm; it was stiff, and ached, but it worked. “Never mind me! How’s Magnus?” He looked down, and saw the color returning to the boy’s face. Gwen stared, then slowly peeled back the poultice. Beneath it, only a faint red line marked the sword-cut. Rod could scarcely hear her whisper; “He is healed!” Her head snapped up; she stared into Rod’s eyes. “Where didst thou learn that charm?”
Rod shook his head slowly. “Just came to mind… Uh—it was you who rang the church bells, wasn’t it?”
Her gaze held his; she slowly turned her head from side to side.
They knelt in silence, gazes locked.
Then Rod looked away. “There was a feeling—a sense of some… something… helping…”
“A spirit?” Gwen demanded softly.
Rod shrugged. “Good a name for it as any…”
Magnus groaned.
They both bent over him, holding their breath.
He levered himself up on his elbows, frowning and blinking. “Papa… sorry…”
“Sorry? For what?”
“For that… I had to cry for aid. ‘Twas… full puissant magic, do you see. The strength alone, I might have met, but… ‘twas strange, unlike to any I had dealt with aforetime.”
Rod met Gwen’s gaze. “That makes sense; whatever kind of magic these elves use, it’s probably not psionic. What kind of place is this, anyway?”
“One, I think, where magic truly reigns. Thou didst heal thy son with a spoken chant, didst thou not?”
“Well, yes—but the words just focused the power that did the healing.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. “Hast thou such power?”
“Well, it was in me at the time.” Rod frowned. “That ‘spirit’ that I told you of. Or maybe it was me… Well, it doesn’t matter.” He looked back down at Magnus. “Just how well are you, son?”
“I do feel stiff—but strong as ever.” Before they could stop him, Magnus rolled to his knees and stood. He took a few tentative steps, then nodded. “I do feel wearied, Papa—but I am well.”
Rod let out a huge, shaky sigh of relief. “Well, whatever magic it was that did it, I’m all in favor of it!”
“Yet what was it, indeed?” Gwen wondered. “Or…whose?”
“I’m not so sure I want to know the answer to that,” Rod said slowly. “Come on, let’s get moving. As soon as Duke Foidin gets back to his castle, we’re going to have an army on our heels.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Not only had the trees changed—so had the time of day. It had been morning when Father Al stepped past Fess, over the line of stones; now it was night, with rays of moonlight sifting down through the tinsel leaves. He caught his breath at the beauty of the woodland glade. Yes. There could be magic here.
Then he remembered his mission, and looked about him to see if he could find evidence of the Gallowglasses. The mold of the forest floor was thoroughly churned up; a number of people had been walking about, surely. Bending closer, he was able to distinguish the prints of small feet and large ones; the Gallowglasses and their children, surely. He straightened up and looked about him; immediately he saw two tracks going away from him: a small one and a broad one. He weighed the evidence and decided the small track was a preliminary foray, while the broad one would be the whole family moving together. It was an easy enough trail to follow—last year’s fallen, moldering leaves were scuffed up; twigs were broken; and small plants had been trodden down. He wasn’t too far behind them, then—certainly no more than 24 hours. And if he hurried… He set off, following the moonlit trail.
He’d gone about twenty paces before he happened to glance up and see a blaze on a treetrunk.
He halted, grinning with delight. How considerate of them, to leave him so clear a way to follow! Not that they’d meant it for that purpose, of course—how could they have known someone would come after them? No doubt they’d wanted to make sure they could find their way back to the point they’d come from; presumably, it was the only place where this world was linked to their own.
World?
He looked about him, and silently revised that opinion. Silver trees had never grown on Terra, nor on any planet he’d ever heard of. Scarcely conclusive proof, that, but still… The chilling thought crept in that he might not even be in his own universe and, for the first time, it occurred to him that he should perhaps be concerned about getting back home.
Curiously, he wasn’t. If God wanted him to return to Gramarye, or Terra, no doubt He would make the means available. And if He didn’t, well, Father Al had long ago decided to do whatever work God sent him, wherever it should be. Dying on the planet of his birth mattered little, compared with doing God’s will.
So he turned ahead and sauntered away between the forest trees, following the trail of blazes, and whistling—and not just out of good spirits.
He came out onto the bank of a stream, and looked to either side, to see which had trees with—What the blazes! Nothing! Not a single trunk was marked!
Of course—they would be returning back along the river bank; they’d know which direction they’d gone in. The stream itself was enough of a trail. They only needed to know at which tree to t
urn back into the wood.
Here was a knotty problem. Which way had they gone? Left, or right? Upstream, or down?
“Well met by moonlight, handsome stranger.”
She rose up out of the water, dark hair shimmering over her shoulders to cloak her breasts—and that was all that did. Her eyes were large, and slanted; her nose was small, but her mouth was wide, with full, red lips, and her skin was very pale. “How fortunate am I,” she purred, “that hath found a gentleman to company me.” She waded toward him, up out of the water. As she rose, watercress draped itself about her hips in a token tribute of modesty. Father Al managed to wrench his gaze back to her face, feeling the responses in his body that reminded him that priests are human, too. He swallowed thickly, turned his lips inward to wet them, and muttered. “Greetings, Lady of the Waters.”
“No lady I,” she murmured, “but a wanton, eager to do the bidding of a mortal man.” She twined her arms about his neck and pressed up against him.
It ran counter to every demand his body screamed, but Father Al pulled her arms loose, gently but firmly, and pressed her hands together in front of his chest, forcing her body away from his. She stared at him in surprise. “How now! Do not deny that thou dost want me!”
“I do,” Father Al admitted, “but ‘twould be wrongful.” He glanced down at her fingers, and noticed the tiny, vestigial webs between them. ,
“Wrongful, because thou art a mortal, and I a nymph?” She laughed, revealing small, perfect, very white teeth. “Come, now! It hath been often done, and always to the man’s delight!”
Delight, yes—but Father Al remembered some old tales, of how a water-maid’s seduction had led to death—or, failing that, to a steadily-worsening despair that had surely torn apart the mortal lover’s soul. He clung to the memory to give him strength, and explained, “It must not be—and the fact that I am human and you are not has little enough to do with it; for see you, lass, if thou dost give out favors of thy body where thou art lusted for, but are not loved, thou dost break thine own integrity.”
“Integrity?” She smiled, amused. “ ‘Tis a word for mortals, not for faery folk.”
“Not so,” Father Al said sternly, “for the word means ‘wholeness,’ the wholeness of thy soul.”
She laughed, a dazzling cascade of sound. “Surely thou dost jest! The faery folk have no immortal souls!”
“Personalities, then.” Father Al was miffed at himself for having forgotten. “Identity. The sum and total of thyself, that which makes thee different, unique, special—not quite like any other water-nymph that ever was.”
She lost her smile. “I think thou dost not jest.”
“Indeed, I do not. Thy identity, lass, thy true self, hidden away and known only to thyself, is what thou really art. ‘Tis founded on those few principles that thou dost truly and most deeply believe in—those beliefs which, when manners and graces and fashions of behaving are all stripped away, do still remain, at the bottom and foundation of thy self.”
“Why, then,” she smiled, “I am a wanton; for in my deepest self, my chiefest principle is pleasure sexual.” And she tried to twine her arms about his neck again.
Well, Father Al had heard that one before, and not just from aquatic women, either. He held her hands firmly, and held her gaze, looking deeply into her eyes. “ ‘Tis an excuse, I trow, and will not serve. Some male hath wronged thee deeply, when thou wast young and tender. Thou didst open thy heart to him, letting him taste thy secret self, and didst therefore open, too, thy body, for it seemed fully natural that the one should follow the other.”
She stared at him, shocked, then suddenly twisted, trying to yank herself free. “I’ll not hear thee more!”
“Assuredly, thou wilt,” he said sternly, holding her wrists fast, “for this young swain, when he had had his fill of thee, tore himself away, and tore a part of thy secret self with him. Then went he on his merry way, whistling, and sneering at thee—and thou wast lost in sorrow and in pain, for he had ripped away a part of thine inner self that never could be brought and mended back.”
“Mortal,” she fairly shrieked, “art thou crazed? I am a nymph!”
Father Al had heard that one before, too. “It matters not. There was never a thinking creature made to tear her secret self to bits, and toss the pieces out to passers-by; thus thou wouldst slowly shred thy secret self away, till nought was left, and thou didst not truly exist—only a walking shell would then be left. And this doth happen whenever thou dost open thy body to one who loves thee not, and whom thou dost not love. That breaks the wholeness of thy secret self, for we are made in such a wise that our inner selves and bodies are joined as one, and when the one doth open, the other should.
So if thou dost open thy body while keeping thy secret self enclosed, thou dost break the wholeness of thy self.”
“A thousand times have I so done,” she sneered, “yet I am whole within!”
“Nay, thou’it not. Each time, a tiny piece of thee hast gone, though thou didst strive to know it not.”
“Nay, not so—for ‘tis my nature to give my body and retain my self untouched! I am a nymph!”
“This is a thin excuse that thou didst first concoct, when first thy secret self was torn. Thou then didst say, ‘It matters not; I am untouched. This is my nature, to give of my body and not of my soul; mine only true desire is pleasure.’ And to prove it to thyself, thou didst seek to couple with every male that happened by—yet each time, thou wast more torn, and didst need to prove it more—so thou didst seek out more to pleasure thee, quite frantically—though in thy depths, thou knew it pleasured thee not at all. For in truth, ‘twas only an excuse.”
“And what of thee?” she demanded angrily. “Why dost thou rant thus at me? Why dost thou make me stay to listen, when I would turn away? Is not this thine own excuse, for the hot lust that doth throb within thee at the sight of me?”
Touché, Father Al thought. “It is indeed. Yet hath mine excuse done harm to thee? Or me?”
She frowned prettily, searching his eyes. “Nay…none to me. Yet I think that it doth harm to thee—for what is natural to thyself would be to grapple me, and couple here in wildness and in frenzy.”
“Thou dost read me shrewdly,” Father Al admitted. “Yet though ‘tis ‘natural,’ lass, it is not right—for thereby would a part of me be ripped away, even as a part of thee would.” He sighed. “It is a male conceit that a woman’s self may be rended by a one-night’s coupling, while the man’s is not—but ‘tis only a conceit. We, too, are made all of one piece, body and soul so shrewdly welded together that we cannot give of the one without giving of the other. And we, too, can be rended by a first coupling with a one who loves us not, and may seek to deny that hurt by seeking to lie with every maid we may. Thus is the legend born of prowess male, and many a young man’s soul is rended by the promiscuity that comes of thus attempting to prove himself a legend”—which is to say, a ghost. But if young men would speak the truth, they would own that there is little enough pleasure in it—for loveless coupling, at the moment when pleasure should transform itself to ecstasy, truly turns itself to ashes, and the taste of gall.”
“I think,” she said slowly, “that thou dost speak from hurt that thou hast known.”
He smiled ruefully. “All young men commit the same mistakes; all step upon the brush that covers o’er the pitfall, no matter how loudly their seniors blare the warnings in their ears. I was once young; and I was not always of the Cloth.”
Her eyes widened in horror. She leaped back, looking him up and down in one quick glance, and pressed her hands to her mouth. “Thou art a monk!”
He smiled. “Hadst thou only seen that I was male?”
She nodded, eyes huge.
“If thou hadst looked, thou wouldst have known that I did not walk the stream-banks in search of pleasure.”
“Nay, that follows not,” she said with a frown, “for I have known—Nay, never mind. Yet if thou didst not hither come for sp
ort, why hast thou come?”
“Why, I do seek an husband, wife, and children three,” Father Al said slowly. “They would have come out from this wood some time ago, mayhap whilst sunlight shone. Wouldst thou have seen them?”
“Indeed I did,” the nymph said slowly, “they woke me from my daytime sleep—the wee ones made some noise, thou knowest.”
“I do indeed.” Father Al had delivered sermons at family churches. “Canst thou say which way they went?”
She shook her head. “I did not look so long. One quick glance sufficed to show a woman with them—and she was quite beautiful.” The nymph seemed irritated by the memory. “I saw no prospect of a satisfaction there, though the man and boys were comely—so I sought my watery bed again.”
“Out upon it!” Father Al glared up at the leaves, clenching a fist. “How can I tell which way to go?”
“If ‘tis a matter of so great an import to thee,” the nymph said slowly, “mayhap that I can aid. Do thou sit here, and wait, and I will quickly course the stream, and seek for sign of them.”
“Wouldst thou, then!” Father Al cried. “Now, there’s a wench for thee! Why, thank thee, lass! The blessings of…”
“I prithee, hold!” The nymph held up a hand. “Name not thy Deity, I beg thee! Do thou abide; I’ll search.” She ducked under the water, and was gone.
Father Al stared after her a moment; then he sighed, and lowered himself carefully to the river bank. Not so young as he had been—but still too young for comfort in some ways, eh? He wondered if his hectoring had done any good, if the nymph would even remember it. Probably not; the young never seemed to learn where sex was concerned, and she was eternally young. Nice of her to offer to help, though—or had it just been a convenient excuse for getting away from a garrulous old man?
With that thought in his head, he sat there on tenterhooks, tense in waiting, wondering if the nymph would even return.
Then, suddenly, the water clashed in front of him, and the nymph rose up, pushing her hair back from her face. “They come, good monk. Back up the stream-bank they do wander.” She pointed downstream. “Though why, I cannot say.”
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