The Heart of Stars

by Kate Forsyth

  Isabeau stood still close by, the knife now hanging limply in her hand, her eyes wide and shocked, unable to believe that there was nothing left of Dide but tumbled bones.

  Brann smiled at her. ‘And ye’re a beauty too,’ he said, ‘though a little auld for my taste. Never mind. Well done.’ Reaching forward his large, living hand, he drew Isabeau to him and kissed her on the mouth.

  Isabeau stood, unresisting, for a second, then suddenly her knife flashed up. Brann laughed and sidestepped. ‘Naughty, naughty,’ he said and divested her of the knife. ‘Ye need prettier tricks than that to kill me,’ he said, and lifted the knife so he could lick its shining blade. ‘Mmmm, tasty.’

  They were all so numb with shock and horror they could not move. Brann looked them all over with a sardonic eye. In the brilliant moonlight he could see almost as well as by day, though everything was sucked dry of colour.

  ‘Celestines. Excellent. Indeed, ye are a worthy acolyte, my dear. Come, heal me, uile-bheistean!’ Brann took three strides towards Cloudshadow and Thunderlily, the dagger raised threateningly. Donncan managed to lower his eyes, and saw three slits in Brann’s skin that oozed blood. He could move no more than that. He realised suddenly that this inertia was more than shock and horror and dread. He was frozen in place, and by the looks on the faces of his companions, they too were unable to lift a finger.

  ‘Heal me, uile-bheistean! I have only a few minutes afore the blood-magic fails. Come, lay your stinking hands upon me and heal these slits in my side, else I’ll gouge out the little one’s eyes, all three o’ them.’

  Suddenly he had his arm about Thunderlily and his knife point at her crystalline eye. Cloudshadow cried out loud in pain and terror, the first time Donncan had ever heard her mutter more than a faint hum in her throat. Thunderlily tried to shrink back, but she too was held immobile, the sharp tip of the dagger only a hair’s breadth away from piercing her eye.

  ‘Ye, Celestine, lay your hands upon me and heal me, or by the dark fiends o’ hell, your daughter will be blind!’

  Cloudshadow lifted shaking hands and laid them upon Brann’s bare skin. At once the bleeding dagger cuts in his breast and belly began to close over. Within seconds he was healed.

  Brann laughed aloud. ‘So I am alive again! Alive and kicking! And it was a man in his prime whose blood raised me, a man o’ power. I feel young again, young and lusty.’

  He gazed down at Thunderlily shrinking back into the embrace of his arm, the dagger still poised above her eye. Brann laughed and pretended to shift his grasp, ready for striking. Thunderlily sobbed and flinched back, Cloudshadow shrieked aloud and Stormstrider gave a low, guttural groan in his throat.

  Brann considered them, smiling. ‘It may also be worth suffering uile-bheistean flesh to see the anguish on all your faces,’ he mused. ‘But no! Sweet human flesh for me tonight. Ye!’ He looked at Ghislaine. ‘Ye’re a pretty piece. Come kneel before me, sweetling, and pleasure me. I’d enjoy that.’

  Ghislaine did not move, and he crooked a finger. Step by awkward, jerking step, she moved forward and fell to her knees before him. Her eyes were huge and terrified, but she was unable to resist.

  Inwardly Donncan writhed and shouted. He had Dide’s daggers hanging on his belt. He had been supposed to leap forward and plunge them into Brann’s black heart before it had had time to beat more than a few times. He longed to be able to reach down and seize them, and stab them into Brann’s chest again and again. But he could not even twitch his finger.

  How could they have been so stupid? Donncan thought. They knew Brann was a powerful sorcerer who had always taken pleasure in forcing others to his will. He was practised in the arts of compulsion, while the witches of the modern-day Coven had no defences against such an attack, having never been forced to face such a thing before. The only one powerful enough to have withstood him was Isabeau, and her will had been utterly enslaved by his before he had even been resurrected.

  Ghislaine was fighting Brann’s will desperately, turning her face away, digging her fingers into the ground in an attempt to stop them from rising and cupping the engorged penis of the man standing naked and smiling above her. He only laughed, and her hands jerked up, and her head jerked round, and her mouth jerked open in a silent scream. Brann forced himself into her mouth.

  Cailean took a deep, gasping breath and then uttered one single word, his voice hoarse with the effort. ‘Dob!’ he said.

  The shadow-hound leapt forward like a streak of black lightning. It leapt straight over Ghislaine’s bowed head and closed its massive jaws about the sorcerer’s throat. Brann fell backwards, his scream cut short. Ghislaine flung herself backwards, coughing and retching, and Cailean crawled to her, drawing her into his arms. She turned her face into his shoulder, shaking with angry sobs.

  The only sound was that of tearing flesh.

  ‘Enough, Dob,’ Cailean said gently.

  Dobhailen lifted jaws dripping with blood and gore, and turned his head to Cailean, seeming to grin. Beneath him, Brann lay still, his eyes staring in astonishment up at the moons, his throat a bloody mess. The fingers of one hand twitched.

  Able to move again, Donncan gasped a deep breath, moaned aloud and covered his face with his hands.

  All around him his companions did likewise. Thunderlily turned her face into Stormstrider’s chest, sobbing. Cloudshadow found herself caught up in Stormstrider’s strong arms too. Cailean lifted Ghislaine’s face and kissed her, and she brought her arms about his neck and kissed him back, sobbing, ‘Thank ye, thank ye, thank ye.’ Isabeau lifted both bloodstained hands up, and stared at them, mute, shivering, unable to catch her breath.

  ‘Dide,’ she whispered. ‘Dide.’

  ‘We must bring him back,’ Donncan cried, scrambling to his feet.

  ‘How? How?’

  ‘The spell o’ resurrection. Quick, quick. Gather up his bones. Is there anything else left o’ him? Any blood? Any dust? Gather it all together. We must be able to do it.’

  Isabeau fell to her knees in the moonlight, gathering up the flimsy articulation of her lover’s bones, reaching out for his skull and scooping it up into her arms. ‘Is it too late? Is it too late?’ she wept.

  Donncan found the knife, the blood upon its blade smeared and beginning to congeal. Then he found, with his heart bounding with excitement, the rope of black hair. He laid Dide’s skeleton down upon Brann’s body, and tied their wrists together. Brann’s lifeblood had been pumping fiercely, but now it merely bubbled as the sorcerer fought to take one last breath. Donncan thrust the knife, still red with Dide’s blood, into the pulsing wound at Brann’s throat and slashed from side to side, chanting, low and fast and fierce, the words of the spell of resurrection. He remembered it well. He thought he would never forget it.

  Brann’s body began to rot away, and then rise and swirl about, like a little whirlwind of red dust caught up by the wind. It found Dide’s bones and began to wrap itself about them, building his body again in frail layers of flesh and sinew and skin. Strangely, miraculously, Brann dissolved away and Dide materialised upon the bed of his bones.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes opened. He lifted one hand desperately, and they saw his throat still gaped wide. Thunderlily and Cloudshadow stumbled forward, ululating in their throats. They fell to their knees together, one on either side of his head, and laid their hands about his throat, fingers meshed tight about the dreadful wound, humming and weeping. The air throbbed with magic. Donncan’s hair rose on his arms and a shiver ran down his spine.

  Then the Celestines sat back, smiling through their tears, and lifted away their bloody hands. Dide sat up, pushing Brann’s bones away violently.

  Isabeau fell on her knees beside him, embracing him passionately, weeping. ‘Ye’re alive, ye’re alive. Thank Eà, thank Eà!’

  Dide put her aside. He was frowning, his eyes wide and very black. He put up one hand to feel the scar on his throat. It was thin and white and swooped from the base of one ear t
o another.

  ‘Dark,’ he said. His voice was hoarse and faint. ‘So dark. Where …’

  ‘All is well,’ Isabeau said. ‘Ye are here with us again, ye’re alive.’

  ‘Alive … Was I dead?’

  ‘Aye. Do ye no’ remember?’

  ‘I was here, I remember that, and then …’ He looked at Isabeau. ‘That’s right. Ye killed me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she wept. ‘But all is well now. Ye’re back, ye’re alive.’

  ‘What do ye remember?’ Ghislaine asked gently.

  ‘It was dark … and the bones, I was tied to the bones. And then … Beau cut me … there was blood …’ Dide put his hand up to his throat again. ‘I felt … a rushing. Like I was flying. I tried to look back, I wanted to see … But behind all was dark. All I could see was light … ahead o’ me … like stars spinning. It was so bright …’

  ‘What did ye see?’ Ghislaine prompted him after several long moments.

  He shook his head, fingering his scar again. ‘It hurt my eyes … I could hear music, I think … a song my mam used to sing … but I canna remember the words … and then they spoke to me. They said …’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What did they say?’

  Everyone was leaning forward, listening intently. Dide shrank back from their vehemence. ‘I dinna ken … I dinna remember …’

  ‘What happened then?’ Cailean prompted.

  ‘I came back. I was jerked. It hurt. Then I was here.’ As Dide spoke, his voice strengthened. He looked from one face to another, all bone-white in the moonlight.

  ‘I’m so glad,’ Isabeau said, seizing his hand in hers and lifting it to her mouth. ‘We were so afraid we could no’ bring ye back.’

  ‘Back …’ he said, very quietly. ‘So that was it? I was dead?’

  ‘Aye,’ Isabeau said, wiping her face with her free hand. ‘Ye were dead, but now ye are alive again. We saved ye.’ She laid down her head on Dide’s hand. She could speak no more.

  ‘Can we go home now?’ Ghislaine asked with a quaver in her voice.

  ‘We’ll go at dawn,’ Cailean said. ‘I’ve no doubt it would be best if we all spent a week in bed first, but I’m sure I’m no’ the only one that canna wait to shake the dust o’ this graveyard off my feet.’

  ‘Och, aye!’ Donncan agreed. ‘We’ll go to Rhyssmadill. It’s only a short walk to the castle from the Tomb o’ Ravens, and there’s staff there who’ll be able to feed us and look after us. I’ll be able to send a message to Lucescere right away.’

  To Bronwen, he thought. My wife … ‘We must time it very carefully,’ Cailean said, glancing at Stormstrider who nodded gravely. ‘I guess it would be easiest to return on the night o’ the full moon, which is two weeks from the time we left. That way we can be sure we do no’ run into ourselves.’

  Ghislaine shuddered. ‘That would be horrible,’ she said in a low, intense voice.

  It is an impossibility, Stormstrider said. The universe could not endure such wrongness.

  ‘What would happen?’ Cailean asked, his eyes alive with interest.

  Stormstrider shook his head and shrugged expressively.

  The centre could not hold, Cloudshadow said. The universe would splinter. We would find ourselves in another world, another universe, like unto ours but not ours.

  ‘Another universe?’

  She nodded her head. So our songs say, and they are wise.

  ‘Would we ken?’ Cailean thought aloud. ‘Or would we wander around in another Eileanan, never realising we’ve caused the world to split? I wonder how many times it has happened already? Are we the original world or only the facsimile? And if so, how many worlds have me in them, living another life? I wonder how many o’ me there are? And how many Ghislaines?’

  ‘Dinna!’ Ghislaine cried.

  ‘Only one,’ Cailean said, his eyes softening. ‘There could only ever be one Ghislaine.’

  They were much of a height, the young sorcerer and sorceress. Their eyes met, and colour rose in Ghislaine’s cheeks. In all the years Donncan had known her, he had never before seen the dream-walker blush.

  ‘All this time-travelling has worn us out,’ he said. ‘Stormstrider is right. It is a wrongness. I am glad we can go home now.’

  ‘All I want is a long hot bath, and a fire, and a big bed with clean sheets,’ Ghislaine said.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Cailean said, and she glanced at him and smiled in such a way that it was his turn to flush.

  ‘We need to hide any sign that we’ve been here,’ Donncan said with a sigh, looking down at the clutter of bones and dirt and tools. ‘We’d best get to work right away, then I’ll take the tools back to the farm, and we’ll do our best to hide the grave again. Aunty Beau, do ye think ye are strong enough to encourage the grass and weeds to grow all over the dirt again?’

  ‘I think so,’ Isabeau answered with a tremulous smile.

  ‘Excellent. Let’s get to work then.’

  They simply kicked Brann’s bones back into the hole and threw his coffin down on top of him, then all set to with a will, to bury him deep under the earth again. Dobhailen once again proved immensely useful, digging the earth back into the hole joyfully.

  Isabeau had got to her feet with a weary sigh, but Ghislaine stopped her with one hand on her arm. ‘Ye’re exhausted,’ she said gently. ‘These past few weeks have been utter hell. Go with Dide, lie down and rest. There are enough hands here to get the job done.’

  Isabeau looked at her gratefully. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and taking Dide’s hand, they went together to lie for the last time in the shelter of the hemlock tree, where moonlight struck down through the leaves and branches and made for them a canopy of mottled silver.

  ‘I thought I had lost ye,’ Isabeau murmured. ‘I thought ye were dead and gone. Oh, Dide! I am so sorry, so very sorry!’

  He did not speak, looking up through the formalised shape of leaf and twig.

  ‘Will ye ever be able to forgive me?’ she said.

  ‘I dinna ken,’ he said at last.

  There was silence between them.

  ‘I ken I am no’ being fair,’ he said. ‘I ken it was my idea to stand sacrifice for ye. But … but …’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I did my best, Dide. I fought and fought, but the spell … it was so strong. It almost broke me.’

  ‘I think it broke me,’ Dide said quietly.

  She took his hand and kissed it passionately. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Ye are the strongest o’ us all. Ye must no’ say so. Ye must no’ let Brann have any victory over us. We stood together, and we beat him, and he is dead again and in his grave, and ye are alive. Alive, Dide!’

  ‘Alive,’ he repeated, and looked up at the vast and implacable beauty of the night sky. ‘Aye, I’m alive,’ he said, and stretched out his arms and legs, and suddenly smiled up at the sky. ‘What an adventure!’ he cried. ‘Eà’s eyes! I have died and I live again. How many other men can say that?’

  ‘None I ken,’ Isabeau said, and curled her body against his, suddenly so desperately weary she thought she might swoon. Lying there, his shoulder under her cheek, his arm about her waist, both of them staring into eternity, Isabeau thought she felt the earth spin beneath her, and she was suddenly deliriously happy.

  ‘Alive,’ Dide whispered.

  ‘And even as wheels of clockwork so

  turn that the first, to whoso noteth it,

  seemeth still, and the last to fly …’

  DANTE ALIGHIERI,

  Divina Commedia, 1314–1320

  Rhiannon was flying through a cold, rough, rainy wind, her numb hands clenched in Blackthorn’s mane, when she saw something ahead that made her raise her face in wonder and a little fear.

  It was a blazing line of silver light, drawn across the horizon with a sure hand. It was like a slash in the underbelly of the gloomy sky spilling out quicksilver, or like a chink under a heavy grey curtain, allowing
a glimpse of a realm made purely of light. Rhiannon had never seen such a thing before. It made her heart quicken and lift, and her eyes dilate. Sensing her sudden accelerated pulse, Blackthorn raised her head and neighed loudly. Rhiannon soothed her with one hand on her neck, even while she leant forward, willing the horse to fly faster, to take her closer to that miraculous shining line of light.

  They had already flown far that day. The past week had been one of constant motion, where they seemed to fly and fly, yet never gain any ground. The forest over which they flew all looked the same, and no matter how hard Rhiannon drove herself and her horse, they were never able to catch up with the lord of Fettercairn.

  He seemed to have an uncanny instinct for knowing when she was near, and Rhiannon had been taken by surprise more than once by a sudden flight of arrows out of the dense forest below her. To have so caught her unawares, the archers must have been hidden in the treetops waiting for her, and Rhiannon was forced to be more careful, terrified her beloved winged mare could be injured.

  Finn and Jay had also found it hard to come anywhere near the lord of Fettercairn. Their progress had been hampered by the persistently foul weather. So concentrated was the rain and fog and hail upon their stretch of road that they were all convinced the weather was being manipulated by Lord Malvern to slow their pursuit.

  ‘He can whistle the wind, that’s for sure,’ Finn had said gloomily, ‘we saw that at Lucescere Loch. Why no’ mist and rain too?’

  Rhiannon had told them about the unnatural storms that had plagued them in the Fetterness Valley, and how Lord Malvern had once been an apprentice-witch at the Tower of Ravens, where he would have learnt the rudiments of controlling the One Power.