“Your brother?” Gull raised his brows. “The lord of Sevenwaters? He would deal openly with such as us?”
I nodded. “I believe so. My brother once spoke of trading in specialized services. Certainly he understands the value of what you can offer. It was on my brother’s mission that Bran was taken prisoner this time. Sean owes me a favor for that, and for another—transaction I carried out for him. I believe he will agree.”
Snake gave a low whistle.
“You might consider broadening your scope,” I went on. My mind was warming to the idea. “An army needs surgeons and healers, astrologers and navigators, as well as warriors. And men must learn that there is more to life than killing and destruction. I have no wish to be the only woman on this island.”
“Women?” Wolf’s tone was awed. “There would be women there?”
“I see no reason why not,” I said. “Half of the world is made up of women.” The men looked over at Bran and at one another.
“Work to do,” said Snake, getting to his feet. “Thinking. Planning. I’ll go and put it to the rest of the lads. What a turnaround. But who’s going to ask him?”
“Perhaps you should draw straws,” I said.
The men were already deep in debate as they walked back to the main camp, leaving me alone with Gull. The bright mood of enthusiasm faded abruptly; before there could be any contemplation of a future, tonight’s battle must be won.
“Gull,” I said, “this is dark of the moon.”
He nodded without speaking.
“If I cannot. reach him tonight, it is all over. Best leave me alone now. No lights. Let the fire die.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am sure. I promise I will call if I need you. But keep the others away. No interruptions or I may lose him.”
He took the lantern and moved down beyond the fire, leaving me in darkness. Johnny slept. I put my arm across Bran and laid my head beside his on the pallet, my face close to his own. His breathing was shallow, with an interminable pause before each inward gasp. At each turning point something still drove him to that effort of will. I closed my eyes and slowed my own breathing, so that we shared the rise and fall … in … out … life … death … and I willed myself back down the path of time, through the secret byways and crooked paths of memory. I reached with all the strength of my mind to find him in that twisting labyrinth. And at last, now, through veils of shadow, through layers of darkness, he began to let me through.
No air, can’t breathe, heart thudding, blood running swift, out of control, out of control … one and two and three, four and five and six … how long, how long before the next time … how long before it is light again … do not seek to find this man, here in the box, in the dark … he’s long gone … long gone …
The thoughts faded and were lost. I reached out further, deeper into the shadows. Tell me. Tell me. It was as if my own mind flowed into his and became a part of him, while my body was a shell, untenanted. Show me.
Story. Tell me a story. Long tale, many nights. There was a boy who set out on a crooked pathway … he thought he knew where he was going … four, five, six … but he was lost, lost in the dark, and nobody came … he was wandering and falling … falling away down …
I will hold your hand, no matter where you go; no matter what you are, I told him. I will never let go of what I love, not until the end of time and beyond Look up, dear heart. Look up and follow the light. Come out to me.
Dog, with his guts spilled Evan, so strong and in the end so helpless. Gull shut up in that place with a butcher. These men followed him, and their reward was suffering and death. They followed him into the shadow … so many lost … a crushing burden … count them … count the stones in Sídhe Dubh, the layers of darkness over his head, weighing him down … gutter scum, unworthy of hope … flee from him, for his touch is death … his love is a curse …
If you will count, count the stars, dear one. How many stars in the sky, looking down on us as we lie in each other’s arms and taste joy? How many gleaming fish in the lake where I splash our son in the water and hear his shrieks of glee ring out in the clear air? A fine little salmon you made, that night in the rain. How many times does the heart beat, how fast does the blood run when at last we touch, and touch again, and breathe the same desperate, longing breath? Count those things, for they are the stuff of life and of hope.
Hope … this man is forbidden hope. Touch this man, and he will draw you down into the box beside him, into the darkness. Words spin by like dry leaves, whispering into emptiness … he cannot hear them …
He was leaving me again, escaping my grasp, fleeing down the long, dark way to his place of hiding, deep within. How could I follow? How could I find him, once the shadows concealed him again? I summoned all my strength, and reached after him. The story. Tell me. A boy. A man. He went on a journey. Tell me his tale.
When it came, it was tenuous indeed, a little thread of thought. But it was a tale: his own tale.
Tell … tell the story … there’s a man, and they finish beating him, and someone in green puts him in the hole in the ground and shuts the door. It’s dark. It’s too dark, and small. But he must go on, because … because … he can’t think why, but he must. He knows how to go on; he’s done this before. He’s done it before over and over. Counting, to keep the other things out; counting, one, two, three … There’s a child, and he’s being jostled up and down in her arms, and he doesn’t like it. She’s crying and running, and that makes him cry too. Then she says, “It’s all right, Johnny. Now crouch down small and keep very quiet. It’s not for long, sweetheart. I’ll come back for you as soon as I can. Don’t be frightened; just keep really still and quiet, no matter what you hear.” She puts him in a hole in the ground, and shuts the door. Thumb in mouth, hand over head, knees up, heart thumping. One, two, three, he counts as he hears the crashing and screaming outside, as he smells the burning and the blood. Four, five, six. Over and over he repeats the numbers, a talisman of protection. One, two, three … one, two, three … So dark. So long. Too long. And then—and then …
The thoughts wavered and were gone. I felt as weary as if I had fought a battle; my head throbbed, my hands shook, my eyes were full of tears. I lifted Bran’s cold hand to my lips.
“All right,” I whispered shakily. “It’s a start.” But I could make little sense of it. Had his mother abandoned him long years ago? The Margery my mother had spoken of with such love and respect? How could that be?
Show me more, I begged with the voice of the mind and tried to let him feel, without words, that whatever his past had been, we loved and needed him now. Such a message I could have passed to Sean, or Conor, or Finbar in a flash. I might have reached such a one as my father or Niamh or even Gull with a little more difficulty, though they would have felt no more than a lightening, a sense of well-being, and would not have known what I did. I had worked thus with my sister at Sídhe Dubh, when despair came close to overwhelming her. But wounded though he was, Bran was a man of immensely strong will, and he was fighting against me as Finbar had predicted. And already I was exhausted from my efforts.
Come out!
My heart thumped. The Old Ones were come to help me. Their voices called from the depths of the earth, soft and strong.
Come forth from the darkness. Would you leave your son fatherless, your woman alone and grieving? Would you cast your men adrift without purpose? Come out and answer this challenge.
“Do not heed them.”
I jerked upright, clutching Bran’s hand convulsively. This was a different voice, and its owner stood eerily lit at the foot of the pallet. It was the Lady of the Forest, her face a gleam of white in the darkness, her cloak midnight dark save for its sheen of blue. The flame-haired lord stood behind her, his light dimmed to an eldritch glow. Their expressions were stern; their eyes cool. I trembled to see them here, remembering their fury when I had refused them. Bran lay by me quite helpless, and my little son was here, wit
h only me to defend him.
“Do not heed these voices,” the lady said again, “they lead you astray. They are old and confused, an ancient, twisted people of the rocks and wells. There is no meaning to their words.”
“Forgive me,” I said, shivering, “I think they are my own ancestors, for the folk of Sevenwaters are descended from a mortal man and a woman of the Fomhóire. Those you call twisted seek only to aid my task. Time is short. If you are not come to help, then I must ask you to leave us alone.”
The lord’s brows rose to extravagant heights. He made as if to speak, but she stopped him.
“Liadan,” she said, and there was a sorrow in her voice, “this man is dying. You will not call him back. It is cruel to hold him thus. Let him go. He longs to be released. The man is damaged and broken, no fit mate for a daughter of Sevenwaters. He cannot protect the child. Let him go and bring the boy back to the forest.”
I clenched my teeth and kept my silence.
“Heed us, girl.” As the lord spoke, small sparks arose from his hair and from his robe, so that he was haloed with golden light. It touched Bran’s wan features with a ghastly semblance of health. “Dark forces stretch out toward your child. There are those who would do anything to prevent his survival. We can keep him safe. We can ensure he grows strong in body and spirit, fit for the task that lies ahead. You must bring him back. Or …”
I saw the seed of an idea forming in those changeable eyes, and quick as a flash I sprang up and snatched the sleeping Johnny from his nest of bracken to hold him tight in my arms.
“You’re not taking him!” I spat, as alarm and fury surged through me. “Fair Folk or no Fair Folk, you won’t steal my son and leave me with some changeling! And you won’t dismiss his father either. They are mine, the two of them, and I’m keeping them both. I’m not a fool. I know the danger. I know about Lady Oonagh and—and—”
I went back to the pallet, where I could stretch my arms around my small family, where I could make a strong wall of love to hold the three of us together. “We’ll be safe. We’ll keep each other safe,” I said defiantly. “I know it. We have many protectors here. As for the prophecy, if it’s to come about, it will come about whatever I may do. It will unfold as it must.”
As I spoke, there was a thickening of the air, a darkening of a night already profound in its blackness. A chill ran through me that was beyond cold, a freezing clutch deep in the bone. There was another presence here; one that now stood by the pallet, watching. In the darkness I thought I could detect a flowing robe and a deep hood, and within that hood, where a face might be, nothing more than ancient bone with blank holes for eyes.
“You may choose to defy us,” said the lady gravely. “But you cannot deny her. If she comes for him, he must go. It is his time. She will take him from you, however strong your hold. Let go, Liadan. Release this broken spirit from the fetters of life. It is not love, but selfish cruelty, to hold him thus. The dark one waits. She will give him the rest he craves.”
I gritted my teeth, and blinked back my tears. My voice, when I found it, was a tiny whisper. “Not true. He can’t go. We need him here. I can hold on. I can.”
The dark figure shifted, and I glimpsed a hand outstretched, a hand that was no more than bone and sinew.
“Go away,” I breathed, “all of you. Leave this place now. I care nothing for who you are or what you are. I defy your powers and your demands. I am a healer; my mother taught me her craft with love and discipline. This man will not die, not while I hold him in my arms. While I warm his heart with my own, he will not leave me. You cannot take him. He’s mine.”
And when the hooded one would not go, but lingered there, beckoning with her skeletal fingers, I began to sing. I sang very softly, as if I were lulling a child to sleep. Over and over I hummed my small tune, and my fingers stroked the new growth of hair on the patterned skull of my fallen warrior, and I gazed into the dark and spoke defiance with my weary eyes. He’s mine. You can’t have him.
“Fool of a girl,” muttered the bright-haired lord. “Wretch of a mortal. That so much should rest on them.”
But the lady stood and watched me, considering. I wondered why they did not simply use their magical powers to make me give up my son, or to rob Bran of his last breath, or indeed to drive every Briton from the Islands if that was what they wanted. Johnny gave a little sleepy cough and a sigh.
“As you say, child,” said the lady. “It will unfold. Your choice may determine whether it unfolds at great cost, with blood and darkness. Your vision is so short you cannot see who may be trusted, and so your decisions are flawed. But it is your own choice, not ours. Our time is nearly at an end; it is your kind that will guide the course of events and influence the turn of the tide. Whatever happens, we will fade and conceal ourselves, as the Old Ones did. We will be little more than a memory for the sons and daughters of your children’s children. The pathway you set here will be a long one, Liadan. We cannot choose for you.”
Awake. The voice of the earth called, sang, groaned deep with the weight of ages. Awake now, warrior.
Tears filled my eyes, and I whispered my response. “I will wake him. Trust me.” I turned back to the tall beings who stood before me in the darkness. “For me there is but one choice,” I said steadfastly.
“Your son’s blood will be on your hands.” The fiery lord’s voice shook with a fury beyond mortal rage, a noise like thunder; yet the sleeping babe did not stir. “You want too much. You want more than you can have.” He faded, until all that I could see of him was a faint outline in little sparks.
“It’s a long tale,” said the Lady of the Forest. “We thought it would be simpler. But the pattern is branching. We did not think the children would leave the forest. Your sister was corrupted. You are simply stubborn. There’s too much of your father in you. So we must wait longer than we anticipated. But you will see its unfolding, Liadan. You will see what you have wrought tonight.”
I wept as she too faded away, wept because I knew what I must do and because her words gave voice to a terrible fear and a gnawing guilt that I had tried to ignore since I rode out to Sídhe Dubh, since I first sensed Bran was in trouble and needed me. What if I was wrong? What if my pigheadedness brought death for my son and unleashed evil on the folk of Sevenwaters once more? Who was I to defy the warnings of the Fair Folk themselves?
I felt something. The smallest twitch against my hand where it clutched Bran’s, as if his fingers tried, weakly, to curl around mine. Had I imagined it? Now his hand was limp and still again. Perhaps it was Johnny who had moved, tucked snug now next to his father on the pallet. But I was sure, I was almost sure of what I had felt. I could not give up. I would not. I must start again, right now, for time was passing swiftly, and I thought Bran’s breathing slower and shallower than before, the breath of a man who walks steadily down his final pathway. The hooded one had retreated, but I sensed she still waited, out there in the darkness. Perhaps she could be patient, for in the end would she not take all?
“Help me,” I whispered, and the voices came back, deep and sure. Come out from the shadows, warrior. A mission awaits you. Walk forth from the darkness. I closed my eyes once more.
Tell … tell the tale … there’s a boy, bigger now. He’s got a lot of bruises from the beatings. It’s because he’s no good, gutter scum, that he must be punished. Uncle says so. When Uncle gets really angry, he shuts the boy in the box. In the box it’s dark. And small, smaller all the time as he grows. He learns to be quiet. He counts in his head. He learns not to cry, not to sniff, not to move, until the lid opens and light streams in, blinding and fierce. They drag him out, cramped and stinking, for more punishment.
There’s a woman. The man beats her, too, and they do the thing, the grunting, pushing, sweaty thing. Uncle makes him watch. Uncle makes him watch a lot of things. The boy tells himself he will never do that. It’s a dark thing, mindless, animal, dark as the terror of the box. Do that and he will be Uncle himself.
br /> There’s a dog, for a bit. The dog wanders in one cold night and decides to stay. It’s mangy, stark ribbed, wild-eyed. The boy sleeps warm that winter, curled by the dog in the straw of the outhouse. By day the dog follows him, padding quiet in his shadow.
One fine spring morning Uncle beats the dog for killing chickens, and the boy holds it as it dies. As the boy buries the dog, he makes a vow. When I am a man, he swears, next winter or the one after, I will do what must be done here and move on. I will move on and never look behind me.
I felt tears rolling down my cheeks to dampen the linen beneath Bran’s head and mine. Hold on, dear one. Could he hear the voice of my mind through the shadows that beset him? I’m here beside you, with my arm around you. We need you here, Bran. Come back to us. This dark dream is over.
And faintly, so faintly, I thought I sensed a response, like a sigh, a breath, a fragment of thought.
… Liadan … don’t go …
Then there was sudden light, out by the smothered fire, and the sound of footsteps, and Bran was gone, his inner voice abruptly silenced, the tenuous link instantly broken. I sprang up, furious, and staggered out of the shelter, for I had not realized how my efforts had exhausted me, nor how long I had sat there unmoving. It must be well into the night. How dared they disturb us? I had given strict instructions. How dared they do this?
“I told you!” I snapped as Gull came up toward me. “I told you not to come here tonight. What are these men doing?”
“Sorry,” Gull said ruefully. There was something in his voice that made me wait for more. “Thought you’d want to be interrupted for this.”
Down by the remnants of the small fire four men were standing. One of the men was Snake, and one of them was Spider, I could see from the long, thin legs and the awkward way he gestured with his hands, and there was broad-shouldered, barrel-chested Otter, and a tall man with hair as red as an autumn sunset. As I walked forward this man turned toward me, and it was my father.