“The Sithi are long gone, Lady, if they ever lived here.” Eolair was solemn, but Maegwin thought she heard a certain satisfaction in his tone. “It is time to return.”
Maegwin gave him a look of disgust. Had the man no curiosity at all? “Then what is that?” she asked, pointing to a faint glow near the center of the shadowed city. “If that is not lamplight, then I am a Rimmersman.”
The count stared. “It does look like it,” he said cautiously. “But it might be something else. Light leaking down from above.”
“I have been in the tunnels a long while,” Maegwin said. “Surely it is well past sunset aboveground.” She turned and touched his arm. “Come, Eolair, please! Don’t be such an old man! How could you leave this place without knowing?”
The Count of Nad Mullach frowned, but she could see other emotions struggling beneath the surface. He did wish to know, that was plain. It was just this transparency that had captured her heart. How could he be an envoy to all the courts of Osten Ard and yet sometimes be as uncloudedly obvious as a child?
“Please?” she said.
He checked the oil in the lamps before answering. “Very well. But only to set your mind at ease, I do not doubt that you have found a place that once belonged to the Sithi, or to men of old who had skills we have lost, but they are long vanished. They cannot save us from our fate.”
“Whatever you say. Count. Hurry now!”
She tugged him forward, into the city.
Despite her confident words, the stone byways did indeed seem long-deserted- Dust sifted beneath their feet, eddying listlessly. After they had walked awhile, Maegwin found her enthusiasm begin to diminish, her thoughts turning melancholy as the lamplight threw the jutting towers and swooping spans into grotesque relief. She was again reminded of bones, as though they wandered through the time-scoured rib cage of some impossible beast. Following the twisting streets through the abandoned city, she began to feel herself swallowed up. For the first time the utterness of these depths, the sheer furlongs of stone between herself and the sun, seemed oppressive.
They passed innumerable empty holes in the carved stone facades, holes whose smooth edges had once been tight-filled by doors. Maegwin imagined eyes staring out at her from the darkened entrances—not malicious eyes, but sad ones, eyes that gazed at the trespassers with more regret than anger.
Surrounded by proud ruins, Lluth’s daughter felt herself weighted down by all that her people had not become, all that they could never be. Given the entirety of the world’s sunlit fields in which to run, the Hernystiri tribes had let themselves be driven into caves in the mountain. Even their gods had deserted them. At least these Sithi had left their memorial in magnificently crafted stone. Maegwin’s people built of wood, and even the bones of Hernystir’s warriors now bleaching on the Inniscrich would disappear with the passing of years. Soon there would be nothing left of her people at all.
Unless someone saved them. But surely none but the Sithi could do that—and where had they gone? Was Eolair right? Were they indeed dead? She had been sure they had gone deep into the earth, but perhaps they had passed on to some other place.
She stole a glance at Eolair. The count was walking silently beside her, staring up at the city’s splendid towers like a farmer from the Circoille fringes on his first visit to Hernysadharc. Watching his thin-nosed face, his bedraggled tail of black hair, she suddenly felt her love for him come surging up from the place where she had thought it prisoned, a helpless love as painful and undeniable as grief. Maegwin’s memory went flying back almost a score of years to the first day she had seen him.
She had been only a girl, but already tall as a grown woman, she recalled with disgust. She had been standing behind her father’s chair in the Taig’s great hall when the new Count of Nad Mullach arrived for his ritual pledge of loyalty. Eolair had seemed so young that day, slender and bright-eyed as a fox, nervous, but almost giddy with pride. Seemed young? He had been young: scarcely more than twenty-two years old, full of the suppressed laughter of anxious youth. He had caught Maegwin’s eye as she peered curiously around the high back of Lluth’s chair. She had blushed scarlet as a berry. Eolair had smiled then, showing her those bright, small, sharp teeth, and it had felt as though he took a gentle bite of her heart.
It had meant nothing to him, of course. Maegwin knew that. She was only a girl then, but already fated to become the king’s gawky spinster daughter, a woman who lavished her attention on pigs and horses and birds with broken wings, and knocked things off tabletops because she could never remember to walk and sit and carry herself delicately, as a lady should. No, he had meant nothing more than a fretful smile at a wide-eyed young girl, but with that unwitting smile Eolair had caught her forever in an unbreakable net…
Her thoughts were interrupted as the walled road they had chosen ended before a broad, squat tower whose surface crawled with ornate stone vines and translucent stone flowers. A wide doorway gaped darkly like a tooth-less mouth. Eolair looked at the shadowed entrance suspiciously before stepping forward to peer inside.
The interior of the tower seemed oddly spacious, despite the close-hovering shadows. A stairway choked with rubble curled away up one inner wall, and a descending stairway passed around the circumference of the tower in the opposite direction. When they drew their lamps back outside the door, a glimmer of light—only the faintest of sheens—seemed to brighten the air where this downward passage disappeared from view.
Maegwin took a deep breath. Astonishingly, she felt no fear at being in such a mad place. “We will turn back whenever you say.”
“That staircase is far too treacherous,” Eolair replied. “We should go back now.” He hesitated, torn between curiosity and responsibility. There was indeed an unarguable gleam of light from the down track. Maegwin stared at it, but said nothing. The count sighed. “We will just go a little way on the other path, instead.”
They followed the downward path, spiraling for what seemed a furlong into the depths until they leveled out at last in a broad, low-ceilinged passageway. The walls and roof were carved with tangled vines and grasses and flowers, a panorama of vegetation that could only grow far above, beneath sun and sky. The interwoven strands of stem and vine ran endlessly along the wall beside them in a tapestry of stone. Despite the immensity of the panels, no part of the wall seemed carved with exactly the same design as any other. The great carvings themselves were composed of many kinds of rock, of an almost infinite variety of hues and textures, but the panels were no mosaic of individual tiles as was the patterned floor. Rather, the very stone itself seemed to have grown inexact and pleasing shapes, as a hedge coaxed and pruned by gardeners might mimic the form of an animal or bird.
“By the gods of Earth and Sky,” she breathed.
“We must turn back, Maegwin.” There was little conviction in Eolair’s voice. Here in the deeps, time seemed to have slowed almost to a stop.
They walked on, examining the fantastic carvings in silence. At last, the lamplight was supplemented by a more diffuse glow from the tunnel’s far end Maegwin and the count stepped out of the passageway and into the open, where the shadowed ceiling of the huge cavern once more arched distantly overhead.
They stood on a broad fan of tiles above a great and shallow bowl of stone.
The arena, three stone-throws across, was lined all about with benches of pale, crumbling chert, as though the deserted bowl had been the site of worship or vast spectacle. A misty white light glowed in the open space of the bowl’s center, like an invalid sun.
“Cuamh and Brynioch!” Eolair swore quietly. There was a distant and anxious edge to his voice. “What is it?”
A great, angular crystal stood on an altar of dull granite in the middle of the arena, shimmering like a corpse-candle. The stone was milky white, smooth-faced but rough-edged as a jagged chunk of quartz. Its strange and subtle light slowly brightened, then died, then brightened again, so that the ancient benches standing nearest seemed almost
to flicker in and out of existence with every scintillation.
Pale light washed over them as they approached the strange object, the chill air began to seem distinctly warmer. Maegwin felt a moment of breathlessness at the queer splendor of the thing. For long moments she and Eolair stood looking into the snowy glare, watching subtle colors chase each other through the stone’s depths, mangold and coral and shy lavender, shifting like quicksilver.
“It’s beautiful,” she said at last.
“Aye.”
They lingered, transfixed. At last, with obvious reluctance, the Count of Nad Mullach turned away. “But there is nothing else here, Lady. Nothing.”
Before Maegwin could speak, the white stone suddenly blazed, radiance swelling and blossoming like the birth of a heaven-star, until the blinding glare seemed to fill the cavern. Maegwin battled to orient herself in that sea of terrifying brilliance. She reached out for the Count of Nad Mullach. Blasted by light, Eolair’s face had blurred until his features were almost indistinguishable His far side had vanished into absolute shadow so that he seemed but half a man.
“What is happening?!” she cried. “Is the stone burning up?!”
“Lady!” Eolair snatched at her, trying to pull her back from the glare. “Are you hurt?”
“Ruyan’s Children!”
Maegwin reeled back in shock, stumbling unaware into Eolair’s protective grasp. The stone had spoken with the voice of a woman, a voice that surrounded them as though mouths spoke from every side.
“Why do you not answer me!? Three times now have I called to you. I no longer have the strength! I will not be able to try again!”
The words were spoken in a tongue Maegwin had never heard, but still their meaning was somehow as clear as if spoken in her own Hernystiri, as powerful as if the woman’s voice were inside her head. Was this the madness she had feared? But Eolair, too, had clapped his hands over his ears, beset by the same unnatural voice.
“Ruyan’s Folk! I beg you, forget our old strife, the wrongs that were done! A greater enemy now threatens us both!”
The voice spoke as though with a great effort. Weariness and sorrow was in it, but something also of immense power, a strength that set Maegwin’s skin to tingling. She held her hands splay-fingered before her eyes and squinted into the heart of the glare, but could see nothing. The light that beat out at her seemed almost to push like a strong wind. Could some person be standing in the midst of that staggering incandescence? Or could it somehow be the stone itself that spoke? She found herself sorrowing for whoever or whatever should call out so desperately, even as she fought against the lunatic idea of a shouting stone.
“Who are you?!” Maegwin cried. “Why are you in the stone!? Get out of my ears!”
“What? Someone is there at last? Praise to the Garden!” Unexpected hope flared in the voice, supplanting weariness for a moment. “Oh, ancient kindred, black evil threatens our adopted land! I crave answers to my questions…questions that might save us all!”
“Lady!”
Maegwin at last noticed that Eolair was holding tightly to her waist. “It will not hurt me!” she told him. She moved a little closer to the stone, pulling against his strong arms. “What questions?” she shouted. “We are Hernystiri. I am the daughter of King Lluth-ubh-Llythinn! Who are you? Are you in the stone? Are you here in the city?”
The light from the stone dimmed and began to flicker. There was a pause before the voice came back, more muted than before. “Are you Tinukeda’ya? I hear you only faintly,” the woman said. “It is too late! You are fading away. If you can still hear me, and would give aid against a shared enemy, come to us in Jao é-Tinukai’i. Some among you must know where it is.” Her voice grew softer still, until it was barely a whisper, tickling the insides of Maegwin’s ears. The stone had lapsed back into fitful gleaming. “Many are searching for the three Great Swords. Listen! This might be the salvation of us all, or the destruction.” The stone pulsed. “This is all the Year-Dancing Grove could tell me, all the leaves would sing…” Despair welled up in her dying voice. “I have failed. I have grown too weak. First Grandmother has failed…I can see only darkness coming…”
The soft words at last were gone. The speaking stone dimmed to a smear of pale light before Maegwin’s eyes. “I could not help her, Eolair.” She felt quite empty. “We did nothing. And she was so sad!”
Eolair gently released her from his grasp. “We do not understand enough to help anyone, Lady,” he said softly. “We are in need of help ourselves.”
Maegwin stepped away from him, fighting back angry tears. Hadn’t he felt the woman’s goodness, her sorrow? Maegwin felt as though she had watched a wonderful bird thrashing in a trap just beyond her reach.
Turning to Eolair, she was startled to see moving sparks in the darkness beyond. She blinked, but it was no phantasm of her dazzled eyes. A procession of dim lights was moving toward them, wending its way down the aisles of the shadowed arena.
Eolair followed her stare. “Murhagh’s Shield!” he swore, “I knew I was right to mistrust this place!” He fumbled for his sword hilt. “Behind me, Maegwin!”
“Hide from those who will save us?” She darted around his restraining hand as the bobbing lights approached. “It is the Sithi at last!” The lights, pink and white, wavered like fireflies as she took a step forward. “Peaceful Ones!” she cried. “Your old allies need you!”
The words that whispered out of the shadows came from no mortal throat. Maegwin was filled with wild excitement, certain now that her dreams had spoken truly. The new voice spoke an antique Hernystiri that had not been heard beneath the sunlight for centuries. Oddly, there seemed also a touch of fear in its words.
“Our allies are gone to bones and dust, now, as with most of our folk. What kind of creatures be you, that fear not the Shard?”
The speaker and his fellows slowly came forward into the light. Maegwin, who had thought herself ready for anything, felt as though the bedrock swayed beneath her. She clutched at Eolair’s sword arm as the Count of Nad Mullach hissed in surprise.
It was their eyes that seemed so strange at first, great round eyes with no whites. Blinking in the lampglare, the four newcomers seemed frightened creatures of the forest night. Man-tall but achingly slender, they clutched shining rods of some translucent gemstone in their long, spidery fingers. Fine, pale hair hung down around their bony faces; their features were delicate, but they wore rough clothes of fur and dusty leather, knobbed at knees and elbows.
Eolair’s sword rasped out of the scabbard, gleaming pinkly in the light of the crystal rods. “Stand back! What are you?”
The being nearest took a step backward, then drew up, its thin face evidencing nervous surprise. “But it is you who be trespassers here. Ah, you do be Children of Hern, as we did suspect. Mortals.” He turned and said something to his fellows in a language like a murmur of song. They nodded gravely, then all four pairs of saucer eyes turned to Maegwin and Eolair once more. “No, we have spoken on this, and only meet it is that you make shift to name yourselves.”
Marveling at how the dream had turned, Maegwin steadied herself on Eolair’s arm and spoke. “We…we are…I am Maegwin, daughter of King Lluth. This is Eolair, Count of Nad Mullach.”
The strange creatures’ heads hobbled on their slender necks; they spoke melodically among themselves once more. Maegwin and the count shared a look of stunned disbelief, then turned as the one who had spoken before made a discreet noise in his throat.
“You speak with good grace. So, be you gentlefolk among your kind, in truth? And promise you mean no harm? Sadly, it has been long since we have had dealings with Hern’s Folk, and we are sore ignorant of their doings. We were affrighted when you spoke to the Shard.”
Eolair swallowed. “Who are you? And what is this place?”
The leader stared at him for a long moment, the reflection of the lamp-flame bright in his great eyes. “Yis-fidri am I. My companions hight Sho-vennae, Imai-an, and Yis-ha
dra, who is my good wife.” They bowed their heads in turn as he named them. “This city is called Mezutu’a.”
Maegwin was fascinated by Yis-fidri and his friends, but a nagging doubt was making itself felt at the back of her mind. They were certainly strange, but they were not what she had expected…
“You cannot be the Sithi.” she said. “Where are they? Are you their servants?”
The strangers looked at her with alarm on their wide-eyed faces, then took a few pattering steps backward and joined briefly in chiming colloquy. After a moment, Yis-fidri turned and spoke a little more harshly than he had before.
“We served others once, but that was long ages agone. Have they sent you for us? We will not go back.” For all his defiant tone, there was something tremendously pathetic in Yis-fidri’s wagging head and huge, mournful eyes. “What did the Shard tell you?”
Eolair shook his head, confused. “Forgive us if we are rude, but we have never seen any like you. We were not sent to look for you. We did not even know you existed.”
“The Shard? Do you mean the stone?” Maegwin asked. “It said many things. I will try to remember them. But who are you then, if you are not the Sithi?”
Yis-fidri did not answer, but slowly lifted his crystal, extending his spindly hand until the rod’s rosy light burned heatlessly beside Maegwin’s face. “By your aspect. Hern’s people stand not so much changed since we Tinukeda’ya of the mountains last knew them,” he said wistfully. “How is it we are forgotten already—have so many generations of mortals come and gone? Surely it was only a few turnings of the earth since your northern tribesmen, the bearded ones, did know us?” His thin face grew distant. “The northerners called us Dvernings, and brought us gifts so we would craft for them.”