The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Sssh,’ she whispered, and took him by the hand, tugging it.

  ‘Beau! What is it?’ he said sleepily.

  ‘I need ye,’ she whispered.

  ‘What? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Come with me,’ she repeated, and led him out through the menhirs and down the hill. Dide stumbled after her, blind and confused. She led him into the forest and then turned and flung herself against him, wrapping her arms about his neck. ‘Kiss me, Dide,’ she murmured. ‘Love me. Please.’

  Still half-asleep, Dide nonetheless did as she commanded, one hand sliding down her bare back, the other cupping the back of her head. Isabeau was near frantic with need. It was only in the pounding of her heart, the roar of climax in her ears, that she was able to drown out Brann’s sibilant hiss in her brain.

  Afterwards, as they lay entwined in each other’s arms in the darkness of the forest, Dide said softly in her ear, ‘Is all well, leannan?’

  ‘Better now,’ she answered.

  ‘Is it this spell?’

  She nodded.

  ‘We’ll find a way to break it, dinna ye fear, my love,’ he said, and kissed her ear.

  Isabeau nodded again, although she knew she lied. Blood-magic could only be broken by death.

  For the next two days Isabeau spent more time in the shape of a hollow-boned bird than in her own form.

  It was dangerous, she knew. Too much time in another shape and she began to forget her humanity. She became more eagle than woman. It grew harder and harder to remember to return to the campfire and shift back into her own pain-racked body. With each return she grew weaker, the fever of sorcery sickness gripping its sharp claws deep into her body. It was a swift downward spiral with nothing but madness or death at the end. Isabeau knew this, they all knew this, and yet there seemed nothing else to do. Both Cloudshadow and Thunderlily were weak and exhausted after their ordeal, and Isabeau would rather ravage her own body than risk the last of the Stargazers.

  On the evening of the second day, she lay shivering and moaning under a blanket by the fire, her eyes shut, perspiration dampening her skin. Dide sat beside her, stroking back her hair, while Cailean stirred a thin broth in the saucepan hanging above the flames.

  Their supplies had long since run out, but Cloudshadow would not permit any of them to step outside the circle of stones on the crown of the sacred hill to go exploring or foraging, or even just to stretch their legs. Beyond the sacred circle was a garden of the Celestines, faeries who had never before seen a human. Cloudshadow wanted to preserve their innocence as long as possible, knowing as she did that the faeries’ doom had already arrived in a burning ship from another world.

  The very first thing the Stargazer had done was leave a collection of twigs and stones in a formal pattern outside the ring of stones, explaining in tree-language that they were lost out of time and sought to heal and recover before attempting the journey home. It was one of the most sacred taboos of the Celestines, she explained wearily, that those who travelled the Old Ways back in time did nothing to change the world in which they found themselves. Do not touch, do not make or break, do not speak, she said. For the smallest change can have enormous implications for the future, so much so that we may find we have no future to return to.

  The next morning they had found some food left on large leaves by one of the tall standing stones. There were berries of all kinds, bundles of herbs and bitter green leaves, mushrooms and some odd knobbly roots of a rather putrid yellow colour, which when roasted in the coals proved to be utterly delicious. It was scanty fare for those used to palace feasts, but all were so hungry that they accepted it gratefully, filling up the gaps with long draughts of icy-cold spring water.

  All except Isabeau, who showed no interest at all in food. So Cailean was cooking her up some soup with the latest offering of herbs and mushrooms in the hope of tempting her appetite or, at the very least, getting some nourishment into her sadly wasted body.

  Isabeau’s hands were both bandaged to stop her gnawing her fingernails to the quick. Ghislaine had combed back her hair and plaited it tightly, to try to stop her from tugging at it. It was no use. She clutched at her head compulsively, rocking back and forth, muttering, until her curly red hair was dragged free of the plait to snake wildly about her white face. It disturbed Dide to hear words among the garble. ‘Blood,’ she mumbled. ‘He must have blood. A living soul, willing or unwilling, and a very sharp knife. Must go back … blood, blood, blood. No! No! I won’t! I won’t! No blood. No more blood. No. No.’

  She sobbed out loud, and turned her head fretfully, grabbing at her skull with both hands. ‘Make him stop, make him stop,’ she begged. ‘I canna stand it. Dide, please!’

  ‘Ssssh, dearling,’ he soothed. ‘Sssh. Sleep. All will be well.’

  ‘How?’ she demanded. ‘Tell me how?’

  ‘Try to rest, leannan. Ye must save your strength.’

  ‘Please, just kill me,’ she begged. ‘I canna stand it any more. Please, kill me and have done with it!’

  ‘We canna do that, dearling. Come, try to sleep. We’ll find a way to break the spell, I promise.’

  Tears poured down her cheeks. ‘How? This is no’ a ghost that has lost its way and needs help passing through to the next world. This is a ghost who is so determined to live again he is willing to drive me to madness to work his will. Ye do no’ understand! This is blood-magic, o’ the highest, most dangerous kind. Blood-magic. Blood. Only death will save me. Please, oh, please, Dide! I’m afraid o’ what I will do. Please …’

  She began to sob hysterically, and only calmed when Ghislaine the Dream-Walker touched her gently between the eyes and brought down the veils of sleep.

  ‘She’s getting worse,’ Dide said to Donncan.

  The young Rìgh was very troubled about his aunt, and sat close by her makeshift bed, occasionally soothing her with gentle pats when she grew too fretful. At Dide’s words he nodded, biting his lip and looking very anxious. ‘What are we to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Beau says the only escape is death,’ Dide said, dabbing at her hot forehead with a cool damp cloth. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, her pupils like pinpoints in the bright blank blue of her irises.

  ‘Yes, death,’ she said in a low, husky voice. ‘Life, death, life, death. He swore he would live again. He shall live again. He shall! He must!’

  ‘Ssshhh,’ Dide soothed, and she closed her eyes again, mumbling to herself.

  ‘But we canna kill her!’ Donncan cried.

  ‘O’ course no’,’ Dide replied.

  ‘Then what?’ Cailean asked, dropping a pinch of salt into the soup. ‘For we have to do something!’

  ‘I can only think o’ one thing,’ Dide said. He paused and took a deep breath. ‘We must raise Brann from the dead.’

  ‘What!’ Cailean, Ghislaine and Donncan all cried together. Thunderlily, who had been sitting staring out at the dusk-filled valley, turned her head and stared at them, eyes wide with horror.

  ‘If we raise Brann from the dead, then the compulsion will have been fulfilled and Isabeau will be free,’ Dide explained.

  ‘But then Brann will be alive,’ Donncan said hotly. ‘That is the very thing we fought so hard to avoid.’

  ‘We’ll just have to kill him again,’ Dide said. ‘Surely if he is resurrected once, the terms o’ the spell will be fulfilled? Then, once we have killed him and put him back in the grave, it will be done. It’ll all be over.’

  ‘How are we to kill him?’ Ghislaine asked. ‘Remember what Isabeau told us, about what his son said? The only way he was able to kill his father was to come across him at the moment o’ rapture, when all his senses were closed to the world. He is a sorcerer o’ ten rings, remember.’

  ‘He’ll be newly raised from the dead,’ Dide said. ‘He’ll be weak, disorientated.’

  ‘Ye hope,’ Ghislaine said.

  Dide grimaced and nodded. ‘I must admit, it’s a plan full o’ holes. We will just have to make sure
we are ready for him. A quick stab to the heart at the very moment he is resurrected, perhaps?’

  ‘Do ye think it would really work?’ Donncan asked, his dark eyes filled with hope. ‘Would Aunty Beau really be free o’ the spell if we raise him and then kill him again?’

  ‘I dinna ken,’ Dide said. ‘It is at least a plan, though, the only one we’ve got.’

  Cailean frowned, thinking this through. ‘I suppose so,’ he answered slowly. ‘There’s one small problem I can see with your plan, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dide asked.

  ‘Someone has to be sacrificed in order to resurrect him.’

  ‘Och, I ken,’ Dide said. ‘O’ course I thought o’ that. It’d have to be me.’

  ‘Ye!’ Donncan cried. ‘Ye want us to sacrifice ye?’

  Dide nodded, and looked back down at Isabeau, who was turning her wild red head from side to side, saying at great speed, ‘Blood, blood, he must have blood, he must walk again. Aye, aye, blood for my master!’

  ‘O’ course,’ he answered. ‘Who else?’

  It was a long and difficult night. Isabeau alternated long periods of fever where she recognised no-one, with interludes of agitation where she struggled to get back to the time of Brann’s death, cursing them, pleading with them, beseeching them to help her. Isabeau was convinced Brann’s ghost was there in the circle of stones with them, watching her, commanding her.

  ‘He says it is time!’ she cried. ‘I must go to him, I must, I must! Let me go!’

  Suddenly she disappeared where she stood. They searched desperately in the darkness, stumbling over each other, terrified they had lost her forever. Then Dide found a tiny mouse crouched trembling beside one of the great standing stones, obviously in great distress. He bent and picked it up very gently, and sat cradling it in his large, warm hands, crooning to it through the last hours of the night until at last the little creature stopped shivering and panting, and dozed a little, its tiny paw crooked over his thumb. Dide could not help but weep then, silently and shamefacedly, pressing his sleeve against his eyes so no-one would see his tears.

  When dawn began to finger-paint the sky with brilliant streaks of rose and gold and crimson, Cailean made tea with some of the herbs left for them outside the circle of standing stones, and said, ‘Well then, how are we to do this thing? For we canna go on this way.’

  Dide’s face was haggard, his eyes red-rimmed. Cradling the sleeping mouse against his breast, he held the tin cup with his other hand, sipping at it gratefully.

  ‘We go back to Brann’s grave. It does no’ have to be to the time o’ his death again, for his son will have it guarded, and I have no desire to fight his men first. Maybe fifty, a hundred years after his death? We resurrect him, ye kill him, Thunderlily heals me and brings me back to life, we bury him and go home. Simple.’

  There was a long silence. No-one wanted to begin to point out all the things that could go wrong with such a plan.

  ‘Any other suggestions?’ Dide asked, with an attempt at cheerfulness that rang extremely hollow.

  No-one spoke. Buba hooted softly from his perch above Isabeau’s head, and the mouse cringed and shivered.

  ‘But … but … Dide … who is to kill ye?’ Donncan said at last. ‘I could no’ do it, I could no’. The idea o’ it fills me with horror. Now, Brann the Raven, I think I could kill, though no’ with any ease o’ heart. He was a wicked, wicked man and his resurrection would mean naught but evil for us all. If I had help … if I did it quickly enough … I think perhaps I could do it. But no’ ye.’

  ‘Beau would have to do it,’ Dide said, stroking one thumb over the silky fur of the mouse, who looked up at him with beady black eyes, its whiskers quivering.

  ‘Aunty Beau! But … but she canna kill a cockroach!’ Donncan said.

  ‘She’s already drawn a dagger on me once.’ Dide tried, and failed, to keep the pain out of his voice. He cleared his throat. ‘She’ll be acting under compulsion. This is no ordinary spell o’ persuasion, Donncan, we can all see that. Isabeau is the strongest witch o’ our time and she has failed to withstand this spell. Brann wrote it in his own blood, and with all the force o’ his black heart.’

  ‘But …’ Donncan protested again, and was so overwhelmed with emotion his voice failed him utterly. ‘How could ye stand it?’ he whispered at last. ‘To let your lover cut your own throat, to let her kill ye …’

  ‘Thunderlily will heal me,’ Dide said, trying to grin. ‘We saw how she healed Cloudshadow.’

  But what if I cannot heal your wound? Thunderlily said. She was sitting bolt upright, her ruined silver dress gleaming like water in the grey light of the dawn. Her third eye was open, staring at Dide in anguish. What if I am too late? Or not strong enough? I have not yet eaten of the flower of the Summer Tree. My powers are not great.

  But mine are, Cloudshadow said. I have killed my beloved and eaten of the Summer Tree’s flower. I will heal the juggler, if I can.

  But you have lost so much blood, Thunderlily said. You are frail still. It takes weeks to recover from such a blood loss, particularly since you are already much weakened by the poison in the wine Johanna gave us all. It takes much strength to heal a mortal wound. You could take yourself to the brink of death even trying.

  The juggler will be dead, Stormstrider said in deep concern. Each second that the blood ebbs from his body, each second his heart does not beat and his lungs do not breathe, is a second further away from life. I am not a Stargazer. I do not know your mysteries. But this I do know. The Stargazers do not have the power to bring the dead back to life. Once he is dead, dead he must stay. You can only heal while life remains.

  ‘Ye will just have to be quick,’ Dide said.

  ‘Are ye no’ afraid?’ Donncan asked, regarding the jongleur with frowning eyes. ‘Of dying, o’ no’ being saved?’

  ‘I have travelled many roads, had many adventures,’ Dide said, his eyes glowing strangely. ‘What is there left o’ life to experience but death?’

  ‘I do no’ believe ye,’ Ghislaine said abruptly.

  He turned to her, and this time his grin flashed with his usual verve. ‘O’ course I am afraid,’ he answered. ‘I’m afraid o’ the pain and the blood, I’m afraid ye will fail and no’ bring me back, I am afraid that there is naught after death but black emptiness. But I do no’ lie. Death is the last great adventure. I have lived a good life, I have loved and been loved more deeply than I ever thought I deserved. My master, my friend is dead …’ His voice faltered. ‘… and my dear wife Isabeau … do ye think I would no’ rather face death than have her driven mad like this?’

  Suddenly his arms were full of Isabeau, naked, weeping, her wild mass of red hair doing very little to preserve her modesty. ‘Ye called me wife,’ she wept. ‘Oh, Dide, no! What do ye plan? No, no. I canna … I canna let ye …’

  He cradled her gently, bending his face to kiss her wet cheek. ‘Did ye hear it all?’ he murmured. ‘Indeed, it’s possible, dearling. We raise Brann, and then lay him to rest again, and with it his blaygird compulsion. Ye’ll be free …’

  ‘But ye’ll be dead,’ she wept.

  ‘Maybe no’,’ he answered. ‘In fact, definitely no’! Thunderlily and Cloudshadow between them have the power to revive me, dearling.’

  ‘But what if they do no’?’ she cried. ‘What if they are too late?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s worth the risk, don’t ye think?’

  ‘No, I don’t!’

  ‘Beau, listen to me. Ye are the Keybearer. Eileanan needs ye. These are evil times. Lachlan is dead. Iseult is beside herself with grief. There is only Donncan to rule, a mere lad whose mother’s milk is still wet on his lips …’

  He flashed a look at Donncan, who grinned.

  ‘What am I but a good-for-naught jongleur, a singer o’ pretty songs, a juggler o’ pretty balls?’ Dide said, reaching out one hand to grab his blanket and wrap it about her shoulders as he pressed her even closer to his chest.

&n
bsp; ‘Ye’re no’!’ Isabeau was weeping in earnest now, and Dide mopped up her face with one corner of his blanket.

  ‘If I should die, I’ll be missed, that’s true. No-one sings a love song the way I do. But if ye were to die … if ye were to be sent mad by this evil spell … what would happen to the Coven? To Eileanan? Who would replace ye?’

  Isabeau could not think, could not speak.

  ‘I love ye,’ he said, very low, putting his mouth to her ear in the vain hope that no-one else would hear his words. ‘I trust ye. I ken ye will bring me back.’

  ‘I canna … I must … I canna … I must …’ She was fighting the compulsion now, shivering and weeping, gripping Dide’s arm desperately.

  ‘Aye, it is time,’ Dide said and lifted her free of his lap. ‘It is time to raise Brann the Raven from the dead, and ye are the one to do it.’

  Once they began to take steps to return to Brann’s grave, some of the urgency of the compulsion left Isabeau and she was able to think and breathe more easily. She did not protest any more. Any attempt to avoid the compulsion only caused it to return in force. Acquiescence to Dide’s plan made it much easier for her.

  ‘Do ye think Brann’s ghost is really here, watching us, forcing us to do his will?’ Ghislaine asked Cailean nervously, looking about her with haunted green eyes.

  Cailean shook his head. ‘No, I do no’ think so. I think it’s the spell. As long as the one ensorcelled is moving in the direction the spell wants, it relaxes. It’s only when Isabeau tries to fight it or avoid it that it begins to pull again strongly. Spells o’ compulsion are all about imposing one’s will upon another. As long as she submits, all is well.’

  ‘When we get back to Lucescere, I’m going to go to the Book o’ Shadows and rip that page out and burn it,’ Ghislaine declared.

  ‘How will ye find it without reading it?’ Cailean said quietly. ‘We canna be sure that raising Brann from the dead will make the spell lose all its potency if he ends up back in the grave again. It’ll release Isabeau from the spell, that I’m sure o’. But anyone else who reads it?’