“Why, everything’s a joke, ta’en in its time, man. The lord Nuallan and the lady, ’t is a great joke, that.”
“How? How is it a joke, Dubhain?”
“To her, man! She hae a wicked disposition. Roses, ye say?”
“Black ones!”
“I should nae expect white.”
“What if she’s doing all of this? What if it’s all her working, us coming here, us escaping with the twins? I was in hell, Dubhain, I looked into hell, and the old gods...”
“Man, I told ye, ’t is her view of things. ’t is the draiocht she works, and wi’ a lord of the Sidhe in her black nest, och, nae doubt she’ll be reaching out again, as far as she likes, the next valley and the next and the next. She’ll reach for us whene’er it please her.”
“And what can we do, with the gods of hell at her calling...”
“Och, but ’t is all her view, man. Calm yoursel’.”
“I was there, don’t tell me so! You couldn’t breach the wards?”
“Sweet Caith, I maun tell ye a thing about the draiocht: ’t is a simple bargaining’ye maun gie as much as ye get.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ye maun allow your victim t’ gain something, the same as you; only ye gie him the gift nae sae easy to use, whilst ye gain the thing ye want. I hae thought about it one way and the ither, but now I would almost wager ’t was she that blinked at us slippin’ out. She let that pass her and, because she let us pass, in the balance o’ magic, she gained the greater prize in him. ’T is all a fencing match. ’T is press and retreat, an’ rapid as thought, a duel o’ magic is. And m’ lord of the Daoine Sidhe was a wee bit greedy and far too sudden wi’ her. He tried to press an’ to take— and she let him, whiles she ... took him.”
“Nuallan made a mistake.”
“Oh, aye. A mistake such as any guid swordsman may make on any day. Nae great mistake, but such as can kill ye. And mind ye, Nuallan went suddenly into this match wi’ her, but she hae prepared three long sevens of years for this— knowing what she wants most, what’s more, and he hae all to guess. ’T is a great advantage in magic, when what ye want, what ye’ll take, and what ye’ll allow, is all a puzzle to the enemy.”
“This woman and her beast and her gods couldn’t take an unwalled shepherd’s cottage without seven years and two score men to do her work, she could not compel the lad and lass alone without—”
”Ask what that lad and that lass are, my bonny prince.”
Caith looked down at the pair, ahead of them on the descent, which must lead them to the loch shore again, or to running water.
She reads the rivers, Dubhain had said.
And if there was a danger in crossing running water, how should they get beyond that valley without doing that?
Or would they turn aside again, away from the water which inevitably must run in any cleft between two rain-swept mountains?
Give and get, Dubhain said.
“And how far and how long can she reach, Dubhain? Beyond the glen? To the great sea itself? Can you at all guess?”
Dubhain shrugged and gave a troubled shake of his head. “I can nae think on ’t,” was all Dubhain said for the moment, but a little further on, did answer: “She could, aye, I do fear she could, and if she grows much more powerful, she ma’ reach as far as she likes. But ask me nae more such questions, man, on what she can and can nae do.”
Dubhain was on a precarious edge, he saw evidence of it in that brief silence: a question had sent Dubhain’s thoughts and Dubhain’s wishes back to that place against Dubhain’s will, and in the way faery ran threads through all the world, the lady had been perilously close to them for a moment, a mere thought, a simple wish removed from reaching them.
And for a moment after answering him, Dubhain skipped away on a series of scattered flat rocks, boy-like amusing himself, or, more desperate and under assault from the dark, taking deliberate risks on the steep to distract his thoughts.
Dubhain was worried. That did come through, plain as plain to him.
* * *
If mortal legs could have stood the pace, Caith would have argued for going on: but it was as safe and comfortable a nook as they would find on this mountainside, this small corrie where, autumn though it was, not all the trees had cast their leaves. The mountain and the leaved trees broke the wind somewhat, and there was no dearth of water, with the spring gushing bright and cold out of the mountainside ... they had now to drink, no matter the risk they ran of the lady’s magic.
The water was cold enough to numb the day’s hurts and bruises, but they took no longer about drinking than they must. “Stay awa’ frae the water,” Dubhain bade them before he went out in search of their supper. “An’ dinnae drink a’ th’ whisky!”
So they made their fire and they settled to wait. Caith found the driest ground he could on the smoky side of the fire, because the smoky side was the warmest, and Firinne and Ceannann had a blanket to keep the chill off their backs.
The twins could watch themselves, Caith decided. The two of them could make a supper for the clattering beast, for what he cared at the moment. He did not take it greatly amiss that they did not offer the loan of their blanket, even until he should get warm, since Firinne had been the one to rescue it. Probably it never occurred to the girl he was cold.
But the blowing smoke was warm all about if he sat in it, and after a sip of Dubhain’s jug, he only wanted to lie down and shut his eyes. A risk, that fire was, the same as the water yonder. If it were mortal folk they had most to fear, it would be foolishness even to think of it; but if the lady’s hunters were out and on their track, it was no smell of smoke or gleam of fire they needed to help them.
But to hell with it, was his estimation, once the warmth of the smoke had eased the ache in his limbs and let him lie easy. With two Sidhe about, if he was not safe to lie down and rest, he was not safe to wake, either.
Except he dared not truly give himself to sleep without Dubhain near.
And he was perilously tired, and close to that black brink. A little nightmare or two tonight— he was too weary to care for that inconvenience, if before the dark dreams, he could take a little rest.
But there was more now to fear in his dreams than his memories. There was far more of substance and far more of betrayal in this pair, for him to rest easy with them awake. There was far too keen a memory of the death Padraic had died. And there was far too much threat in the loch below this hill— a beastie that lived in the loch, but was not bound to it. He dared not dream of that.
Yet he remembered a leaf— a particular red and yellow leaf, a larch, it was, with flecks of black on it, and it had fallen down to the spring— he had noticed it for its color against the dark water. That pretty leaf was safe to think of, so he set his mind very narrowly on that memory, from before all this had begun. To that simple memory he bound himself, that one bright leaf, for rest from his cares and the dangers about them, and shut his eyes.
But a current caught that leaf, sucked it from the spring down into the brook in a trice, and he knew where it was going, a fast, helpless course toward the loch below, where something waited, for the leaf ... and for the dreamer.
He wanted to break away. He wanted to take his eyes away from the leaf, but it met an unexpected little falls, and plunged into white water, and into the pool below.
Then the world went dark indeed, dark as the waters of the loch, that were night turned liquid, heavy with peat. He was blind in these waters, and he knew by the wash of a current that a great body had brushed past him, and that the current had just met the loch.
He could not tell where the shallows were. He tasted blood and salt, and a second time that cold current rolled over him. The beast called, strange lonely squeals into the dark, that went away and then came back. It knew that he was there, and it searched for him, making a strong current in the pitch darkness that brushed him with a chilling cold.
“Dubhain!” he shouted, with water all about
him, and should have drowned.
Immediately he waked, threw his head up and was halfway to his feet when he saw, in the dusk and the firelight...
Firinne and Ceannann kneeling on either side of the little brook, with their hands joined above the water. Dark threads of something flowed and dripped about their fingers.
“Macha! What are you doing?” He came at them— grabbed Ceannann by the shoulder and tore them apart from each other, all but pulling Firinne into the water. Their two hands showed red stain in the firelight, blood dripping freely into the brook.
Ceannann was on his feet; Firinne was, and Caith reached his hand across the tiny brook to steady her, getting her blood on him when she shoved his hand away.
“We are no children!” Firinne cried. “Do not treat us like children! Don’t touch me!”
He took back his hand, sticky as it was, and hesitated how to deal with the blood. He wiped Firinne’s blood on his bare knee, having no desire to break Dubhain’s enjoinder himself and put his hand in the brook to wash it. “He said keep out of the water!”
“We were not in the water!”
“Oh, aye, well, blood was, and that’s worse!”
“You don’t know!”
“Deal with your sister,” Caith said to Ceannann, and angrily turned his back on the affair, because he honestly did not know whether he had done good or ill in stopping them. He only foresaw Firinne’s anger with him starting a quarrel between himself and Ceannanna quarrel which could lead to worse than angry words. He wanted nothing this hour so much as the sleep he dared not take, but he could only go back to their little fireside and sit, angry, leaving the twins to mutter and whisper in their own secrecy, and to bind up their self-dealt wounds.
He had not gotten all the blood off his fingers. He sat down in his place in the smoke and rubbed at his hand and his knee, which left a grit of leaf mold, and then tried to scrub it off with ash, which left a gray dust behind it. He was thoroughly disgusted, and tired, and dirty, and hungry, and Dubhain abandoned him, leaving him to deal with a pair of obstinate young fools who worked magic without consulting anyone.
They had cast a spell in the witch’s teeth, what was more, with blood, which the stone gods liked well with their sacrifices. Blood, and drownings, and things that went down to the bottom of the loch and lay there until the whole bottom of the loch was one vast creature.
Not children, Firinne had said, indignantly; but what they had just done argued otherwise. They had waited until he had his eyes shut, indeed, when they well knew what Dubhain had said.
And argue against it sanely and with reason? Oh, no, they sneaked their business, and the Badbh knew what else they had been doing when no one was watching ... to bring them all to this wretched little camp perched between heaven and the loch.
He recalled them through Padraic’s eyes, sleeping in each other’s arms— the same way they had slept last night, in the storm. The memory gave him the same queasy feeling Padraic had had about it: it was an unnatural thing, wickedness more than a man could imagine in that bed-sharing. The feeling that walked up and down his backbone was of some vaster wrong in the twins, in the way of nature itself, the way rain did not fall up and bodies did not become bone while a man watched.
Draiocht? he asked himself. It had been in their mother’s milk. It had been in that hill fort. It was under its very stones, it ran in the springs that leapt down to the loch...
Dubhain came back on a gust of wind— late, to his summons, and blithe as a May lamb. He had four large hares this time, fat ones; quick and easy hunting in this wooded nook between the mountains.
“Hey,” said Dubhain, “sae glum ye are, Caith! Here’s supper. How are the coals? Ready?”
“Beyond ready,” Caith said with a shiver, and got up to help skin and dress the take— and to have a muttered word with Dubhain:
“Did ye hear me, you? Did ye hear my warning?”
Dubhain seemed nonplussed. “Warnin’, d’ ye say?”
“I dreamed, I slept, I was in the loch, and these— these children we plucked from the witch’s den were spilling their blood into the brook. Did ye not feel it?”
“Nay.” A frown was on Dubhain’s face. He was skinning one of the hares, and the flint blade made fair short work of it, sending tufts of fur flying on the wind. “I felt nae such thing. Bluid i’ the water, ye say.”
“I slept.” He knew he was at fault, and knew Dubhain would remember it at his expense. “And while I slept they were working some kind of magic, themselves, with their blood dropped into the water.”
“Were they, now?” Dubhain was maddeningly unconcerned. He parted a hare’s neck with a crack of bone and gristle and took the head off. “Nae ghostie here to feed, I suppose. Well, ’t will feed the foxes—”
”Macha and the Badbh! Take it seriously, ye smug wight.” Caith rubbed the fire-heat that was stinging his shins, and lowered his voice. “And make no jokes about ghosts! What did you find out there?”
“Oh, I went along the ridge a ways, and looked for the fay ye’d expect, but the lass is fled a’ready.” Now Dubhain was not smiling: a brow was cocked beneath his forelock. “I cannae find the fair folk. I cannae find so much as a path that would lead me there. The springs yonder— nae sign of the fair ones, and naught e’en o’ the darker sort— but to tell th’ truth, I would nae flirt wi’ my own kindred near this loch.”
A step disturbed the ground. Ceannann came over to the fire with something on his mind, and sat down by them without their leave. “We are not such fools,” he said angrily, “as to betray us to the witch. The water runs down to the sea from here, not to Dun Glas. It was a magic our mother showed us if ever we could make it work. That was what we were about.”
One could take it for a young fool bent on pursuing his folly. One could take it for a desperate lad trying to bridge the angry silence. Caith deliberately chose to take it for the latter.
“Ask beforehand. Warn a man.”
“You are not our master, man! And what d’ you know about it?”
“More than ye think,” Caith said in labored patience, “but if you doubt my advice, ask Dubhain, and trust that he knows something.”
“Hoosht,” said Dubhain, “ye may ask, but I hae nae the calling of any selkie, nor he of me.” A second crack of bone. Another head and skin joined the first. “Bluidy work, it is.” Dubhain licked his thumb, and Caith frowned and flinched, seeing that red glimmering in Dubhain’s eyes.
“I’ll spit them for you,” Ceannann said, anxious to move away for the same reason, it might be; but Firinne moved in before he could leave, and sat down quietly. Like two children they were, indeed, anxious to be forgiven, fearful of their rough company; while Firinne’s profile, against the fire, her fine-boned, pensive face, reminded him why he had almost succumbed to temptation under her roof.
Almost. It reminded him, too, how she had done the tempting.
He watched her instead of Dubhain, as she poked at the coals with a stick of wood. It took fire and she threw it in, and added another.
“A wicked night,” said Dubhain. Crack. “Easy as kiss me hand, these creatures are to catch. They trust a Calling, puir wee things.”
“Let be,” Caith said. He had seen Dubhain at work too often. Thinking about it soured a man’s appetite, and Dubhain knew it. “Think of the daylight, Dubhain, think of a summer day.”
“Bright as our pretties’ hair, d’ ye think, my Caith? Willing ye were once to think it fair.”
“Wicked creature. Mend your manners.’T is the witch talking to you.”
“Och, and not a wicked thought in his ain head. What a wonder!”
“Forgive him,” Caith said to Firinne. “His mother foaled him headlong.”
“I forgive him,” said Firinne, and gazed at him, instead, all shadow, with an outline of golden light. “And you.”
He saw Dubhain lift his jaw, saw the spark of malice in Dubhain’s eye and the quirk of Dubhain’s lip. But he countered meekly
, with a sketch of a bow. “For the laying on of hands, aye, I take your forgiveness. For the other...” It was a question he supposed he should have asked, although he foreknew the answer. “So ’t was the selkie ye were callin’.”
“Aye.”
“And did he answer you at all?”
“No,” she said, downcast. “Not a whisper. Nor ever has, for all our calling, in trouble and out of it.”
“But there was a great working in the way of him, wi’ the witch against ye.” Dubhain said. Crack, the fourth neck. “That for the foxes. The fay all hae fled this valley, having better sense than we. And does not the selkie do as the selkie will? I hae heard they are a flighty sort, nor here, nor there—”
”Dubhain.”
“... and mad, most times.”
“Dubhain!”
“Go, go,” Firinne said. “You’ll burn them, likely. Leave them to me. Away!”
With a wave of her hand she assumed possession of the coals and the hares. Men, even a dark Sidhe, were advised to give up their efforts.
“A determined lass,” said Dubhain. “A pretty armful.”
“By the Badbh, you’re...” But least of all did he want a quarrel with Dubhain tonight, and he saw himself on the brink of it, with the hellfire glimmering in Dubhain’s eyes and the wicked smile at the corners of Dubhain’s mouth. “I beg ye, softly, softly, Dubhain. Come away and speak with me.”
“Nay!” The frown was instant. Dubhain flung his hand off his arm, got up and spun away.
“Dubhain.” He began to be afraid. It had all too much the tone of the madness he had seen before in this cursed glen. “Softly.” He picked up the whisky jug as he rose, held it out, and that brought a spark of interest to Dubhain’s eye. “Come, fair Dubhain, sweet Dubhain. By the geas the bright Sidhe set on us, ye fractious creature, — have a wee drink.”
It was precarious. The madness was there. But Dubhain came back to the fire and held out his hand for the jug.
“Sit down, sit down, ye darksome wight.” The thought of Dubhain off in the woods alone the last hour, searching for some way to faery, frightened him, now. Dubhain was their surest, quickest hunter, but his poking about the brush might have started more on the boundaries of faery than four unlucky hares. The loch was just down the steep and at the end of their little corrie.
Faery Moon Page 26
