by T.A. Barron
With a flourish, he pulled out the contents of his satchel: plenty of oatmeal for porridge, some dried bilberries, a large slab of honeycomb, a flask filled with apple cider, one vial of ground nutmeg, a cooking pot, and a pair of wooden spoons. Quickly, we set about collecting driftwood and dry grass to build a fire, the first I’d seen since the torches of the dwarves’ underground realm. Soon crackling flames arose, warming our chilled hands. For a moment, I thought of Lleu, coaxing our own fire to life back in the village.
“Did you return to the village after you went home?” I asked, as Cairpré stirred the nutmeg into the simmering pot. “And was Elen there? And Lleu?”
“Yes on all counts,” he replied. “Little Lleu brought her your message. She’s staying there, as you demanded, though she’s not very pleased about it.” He gave the pot a final stir. “There now. Break off a generous piece of honeycomb and grab your spoon.”
In short order, we were eating porridge from the pot. Simple though it was, it seemed like a grand repast. The aromas of apple, oats, and honey filled our nostrils as well as the air beneath the dune; the porridge warmed our bodies thoroughly.
The poet studied me as he blew on his spoon. “In a way, it’s really a blessing that Stangmar has reappeared.”
I nearly dropped my spoon. “How so?”
“Because otherwise your mother couldn’t resist going to the circle of stones, not to fight, but to be near you and Rhia. Much as she detests being confined to that squalid little settlement, she’s probably quite safe there, and she’ll be spared all the horror of the battle.” He gazed wistfully into the fire. “O gentle soul, thy innocence stole.”
I threw another piece of driftwood onto the flames. “It’s Stangmar’s legacy, though, that’s made it so difficult to win the allies we need! I tried with Urnalda, and she practically spat blood at me.” The fire, as if in emphasis, crackled loudly. “I doubt Rhia’s having any better luck with the canyon eagles and the others.”
Somber again, Cairpré said, “If you don’t return in time from this misadventure at the island, she may be there all alone.”
“I’ll be there. Whatever happens, I’ll be there.” Quizzically, I examined him. “You won’t be there yourself?”
“Me?” He shook his gray head. “I’m a man of words, not weapons. As bad as I am fighting with the ending lines of a ballad, I’d be far worse fighting any living foe! No, the last thing you need is an old bungler like me on the battlefield.”
He gazed at me intensely across the flames. “I shall be with you and Rhia in every other way, though. Yes, and so will that woman with the sapphire eyes.”
“I know,” I whispered. “You’ll be staying with Elen, then? Keeping her company through all this?”
His gaze never wavered. “You can count on that, Merlin. As long as she’ll have me, I’ll stay by her side. I know no treasure even half so precious as a single day with her.”
Thoughtfully, I pursed my lips. “In the ballad, where it spoke of the Treasures of Fincayra, what did that mean?”
“Nothing good,” he answered. “Fin was implying that the Treasures are somehow linked to the future of Fincayra. So if the Treasures are cursed, Rhita Gawr is likely to prevail.” He ran his fingers through the sand of the dune. “That seems unlikely, though. And besides, only the Caller of Dreams has been destroyed.”
“What?” I grabbed his tunic sleeve, imagining the graceful horn in his keeping. Often called the Horn of Good Tidings, it held the power to bring a person’s most cherished dream to life. “It’s been destroyed?”
“That’s right. It cracked somehow, inexplicably, a few days ago. I was combing through my books, looking for the ballad. Suddenly, from its place on a neighboring shelf, it gave out a mournful wail and split in two.” He frowned. “There’s no way to repair it.”
“That’s what happened,” I exclaimed, “to the Flowering Harp! Destroyed, with no explanation.”
He looked at me, aghast. “Truly?”
“Yes! And Rhia’s Orb is gone, too, though in that case the curse came in the form of Stangmar.”
His body went rigid. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then exclaimed: “No, no, it can’t be related! Why should the fate of the Treasures be connected to the fate of Fincayra?”
I reached over and touched his knee. “Because, my friend, it’s not their fates that are connected but their lives. They were hewn from the same wondrous fibers, by the same great forces. It’s the magic of this land that gave birth to the Treasures to begin with. It’s the magic of this land that has empowered them always.”
Slowly, Cairpré nodded, his brow aglow from the firelight. “You’re right, Merlin. I see it now.” With his boot, he pushed an ember back into the flames. “And while I am gladdened that my student has become my teacher, I only wish it hadn’t happened when we’re about to lose everything.”
“We haven’t lost it yet,” I declared. “Listen, now. Do you recall that night, that terrible night, when you and I first met?”
He watched me, saying nothing.
“Well, on that night, you said something I’ve never forgotten.”
Seeing the grim line of his mouth relax ever so slightly, I continued. “You told me that you couldn’t say whether I really belonged in Fincayra, whether it was truly my home. The only one who could ever know that, you said, was me. Well, I’m telling you now that it is my home! It will always be my home, no matter what fate might befall it—or me.”
I squeezed his knee, my sightless eyes watering. “I love this land, Cairpré. So much I’ll give everything I have to save it.”
The poet swallowed hard, then spoke. “Then, my boy, it is truly your home.”
21: AIRBORNE BODIES
Late that afternoon, Cairpré departed our sheltered niche at the base of the dune. He stood stiffly, knees cracking, and brushed some of the sand off his tunic. With an air of grim resolve, he studied me, the light from the lowering sun turning his hair silvery bronze.
“Good luck to you, my boy. You have revived my spirits, a major feat in its own right. True evidence of the strength of your powers!” His fingers wrapped tightly around my arm, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps you will be the one to find the way to the island.”
“That I will,” I declared, jamming my staff into the sand. “And then I’ll do my best to turn back Rhita Gawr.”
His steady gaze faltered. “No power, I fear, is strong enough for that. He’ll be terribly vicious—whether he takes the form of a man, a wild boar, or something else entirely.” Slowly, he filled his lungs with the briny air. “Even so, your bravery has inspired my own. While I won’t be joining you myself at the circle of stones, I will do my very best to urge others, more capable of fighting, to be there.”
“Thank you, my friend.” I cocked my head. “Don’t even think about trying the dwarves, now. With Urnalda’s state of mind, any man or giant who enters her realm is just asking to be killed.”
The poet smiled wryly. “Worry not. I’ll try something easier, such as the great man-eating spider of the Misted Hills.”
“Elusa? Finding her is just as dangerous.”
His eyes narrowed. “Everything now is dangerous.” Pensively, he worked his tongue. “I should say something before we part, I know. Something profound, or at least poetic, something befitting a bard.” He sighed. “Can’t think of anything, though. I told you I wasn’t very good with endings.”
Doing his best to smile, he released my arm. Then he drew up the hood of his heavy cloak, throwing his face into shadow, all but the very tip of his nose. Turning, he strode through the stand of dead trees, a dark shape amidst their white trunks. He continued over the floodplains, his boots crunching on the hardened turf and brittle grass.
Standing in the lee of the dune, I watched him go, wondering whether we would ever meet again. When his cloaked figure finally disappeared, I started gathering driftwood, enough to keep the fire burning through the night. The winter’s su
n would soon be gone, and with it whatever meager warmth came from its rays.
As the blue overhead deepened into purple, the color of wild grapes, I ate the remains of our porridge and honeycomb. In time, darkness flowed across the land like the tide of a shadowy sea. My thoughts turned to the dead trees, and I contemplated how to bind them together in a seaworthy craft. Strands of kelp might work. Or some of the dried vines I’d seen while crossing the floodplains.
The size of the raft, of course, would depend on the number of children it would need to carry. If Shim did well, despite so little time, he might be able to find thirty, maybe thirty-five. Even for a large raft, that would be a full load. Yet the thought of saving that many lives—that many seeds—made me all the more determined to try.
A new realization hit me: If I succeeded in protecting those children from Slayer, perhaps they would also be safe from Rhita Gawr! Might the curtain of spells that hid the island be enough to keep its shores, and anyone there, out of the warlord’s grasp, even if he did prevail on winter’s longest night?
The moon, deep red, rose into the darkened sky, resembling a swollen, angry eye. Behind the row of dunes, the water birds that had settled on the shore grew quieter. I listened to their occasional cries, and the surging waves, for quite some time, ever mindful that only four days remained before the longest night. At last, I drifted into a fitful sleep.
Not long after dawn’s first rosy rays touched the top of my dune, I awoke. Though I couldn’t be sure, I thought I heard a rhythmic rumbling in the distance. Grabbing my staff, I scurried up the sandy slope. When I reached the ridge, I realized that the congregation of sea birds had swollen to enormous size. Thousands of them milled and chattered, filling the entire beach and shallows right up to the edge of the rolling wall of mist. I saw pelicans and gulls, cormorants and kitiwakes, long-legged cranes and gray-necked swans, as well as ducks, herons, gannets, and many more kinds I could not name. Some marched around squawking or honking; some flapped their wings or danced vigorously; some stood aloof on one leg, paying no heed to the tumult surrounding them.
As the morning light swelled, so did the birds’ raucous noisemaking. At the same time, the distant rumbling also grew louder, enough that some of the birds at the edges of the crowd started to take notice. In groups of three or four, they lifted off and circled through the folds of mist, wings spread wide, trumpeting loudly to their companions. Not until the ground actually started to shake, however, did most of them take to the air. Then, by the hundreds, they took off, wings whooshing in unison.
I stood atop the dune, drenched in golden light, watching the awesome scene unfold. Higher and higher rose the mass of birds, a great spiral of airborne bodies darkening the sky. Rhia’s dreamlike words, spoken at the stargazing stone, came back to me: Imagine taking time to rise above the lands below, your spirit along with your body.
Now, viewing these winged creatures ascending into the sky, I understood her words in a whole new way. Here was freedom, true freedom, as pure as I’d felt in my dreams of flying—but more tangible, more real. I still longed for the speed and directness of Leaping, of course, but physical flight offered something more than that: a fullness of feeling, a grandness of motion, an endless soaring of the senses.
The spiraling cloud of birds angled eastward and began pouring toward the rising sun. I watched them depart, fading into the shredding light. Their tumultuous cries, too, began to fade, blending into a single melancholy chord that echoed across the shore.
As trails of mist arose, obscuring the last of them, I felt I was watching not a vast flock of birds, but my beloved homeland itself, slipping away. Fincayra was vanishing, no less than these creatures. Its colorful scenes and richly varied sounds were disappearing, no less than their own.
An instant later, they were gone. I stood above the beach, so recently charged with life, now utterly empty. Everything was quiet, but for the pulsing of the sea—and the rhythmic rumble, steadily growing. Spinning around, I gazed past the dead trees to the wide floodplain beyond.
Before long a great, shaggy head appeared on the horizon. With each new rumbling step that rocked the ground, the head grew larger. Soon I spied the red flames of Shim’s eyes above his bulbous nose, along with his immense neck, brawny shoulders, and massive chest. In his hands, he held a wide-brimmed hat made from woven branches, while on his chest hung a vest infinitely bigger than my own.
Leaning on my staff for balance, I peered at him closely. My brow knitted, for I could see no children. None at all! A feeling of dread swelled in my chest. Something had gone wrong with the plan. Seriously wrong.
I gasped, seeing a subtle movement inside the bowl of the hat. Heads—tiny heads! Lots and lots of them, more than I would ever have predicted. Why, there must have been at least seventy or eighty! Shim had, indeed, done his job well.
Then my wave of relief vanished. There were too many children for one raft! I looked over at the straight trunks of the whitened trees, counting them. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Enough, perhaps, to build a very large vessel, one that might just hold everyone. Could I control it, though? Guide it through the spells?
My attention turned back to Shim. As he came nearer, his feet slamming against the ground, I could make out the faces of some of his passengers. There were bright-eyed ones, eager ones, doubtful ones, and several very sleepy ones. One little girl, wearing her hair in two braids that stuck out sideways from her head, sat on the shoulders of a boy with a chin so slender, he reminded me vaguely of Hallia. Both of them were pointing at the sky, in the direction of the departing birds, probably still visible from their higher vantage point.
I searched the sea of faces for Lleu, but with no success. Perhaps he was standing behind someone else, or even sleeping down inside the bowl. Still, I did recognize one lad who was wriggling out of the hat onto Shim’s thumb: the boy whose life I’d managed to spare in the goat pen of Caer Darloch. Another girl was seated on the brim of the hat, grasping one of the branches beside her for support. Sunlight streaming through her long brown hair, she watched the coils of mist rising from the shore, her face full of awe.
In a few more thunderous strides, Shim reached the dunes. I barely kept my balance as powerful tremors coursed through the sand. Just before the dead trees, he stopped, planting his bare feet on the ground. As always, his sheer size amazed me. His ankle, thick with hair, reached nearly halfway up the dune.
“Well done, Shim!” I called up to him.
Beneath his gargantuan nose, the giant’s lips parted. “You asks me to do some crazily things befores, Merlin, but this is the crazilyest.”
He released a bellowing yawn, the force of which knocked over several of the children in the hat. “I is so sleepily, after walkings for two nights, trying to find all the orphanly kids! Some in villages, some in mountains, some by roads . . . It wasn’t easily! And somelytimes they is scrapping with each others, pulling out hairs and ripping clothes. Then, for mostly of the night, they wants me to sings, and tells them stories. Now . . . I really needs to rest. Sleepily, definitely, absolutely.”
Many of the children, some of whom were giggling hysterically from being blown over by Shim’s yawn, piped up. Their voices rang across the dunes, as discordant as the departed sea birds.
“No sleeping, master Shim! We want some more bumpy rides.”
“Sing some more, Shimmy! Sing us your longest song, pleeease?”
“Hey! Hey! How’d you getta be so big ‘n’ fatlike? Didja eat a whole big mount’n fer brekkyfast?”
“Heeyah, after that mount’n, now ya need ta drink up the sea ta wash it all down. Yah! Then you’d make a great big waterfall, hee-heeyah, hee-heeyah.”
At that, a deeper voice called from the rear of the hat. “Now children, we don’t need—”
“It’s all right, don’t worry! The waterfall won’t spray you.”
Gales of wild laughter followed. But my attention was focused on the source of the deeper voice. My mother! So she had
come, too!
In the midst of the joyous chaos surrounding her, Elen looked at me with a sparkle of genuine amusement in her eyes. Shim, for his part, stifled another yawn and started to lower the hat. Carefully, he placed it on the sandy shore, between the braid of kelp that marked high tide and the base of the dunes.
“Oh please, please, master Shim,” cried the girl with the two horizontal braids. No older than three, she was now seated on the brim of the hat, her legs swinging freely. “Don’t put us down yet! Fly us, like them birdies was flyin’ before.”
Shim bent down to her, so that his lumpy nose pressed against the sand beneath the brim. “Don’t you be worriedly, little one. I’ll gives you another ride somelytime soon.”
She gazed at him, wide-eyed. “Really will you, master Shim?”
“Of course, you sweetly girl.”
She crawled across the meshed willow branches of the brim until her face was right next to Shim’s. Timidly, she leaned forward, then planted a kiss on his massive cheek. The giant’s face, always ruddy, reddened more deeply. And for the first time in quite a while, he smiled, his wide lips wrapping around his face.
By the time I trotted down to them, other children had already started scrambling over the edge of the hat. Oblivious to the chill air, several of the older ones started climbing up the dunes, rolling in the sand, or running off to explore the beach. A few stayed around to help me with the smaller children, coaxing them to jump into our waiting arms, or carrying them if they were too cold to walk. Shim grabbed by their feet a pair of boys who had been hitting each other, holding them upside down for a moment while they squealed and squirmed in protest. Finally, when they’d calmed a bit, he laid them down on the sand.
At the same time, my shadow emerged from the darkness behind Shim’s vest. With an unmistakable air of smugness, it slid down the seam, through a buttonhole, and leaped to the ground. I was about to remind it that its vacation, while earned, hadn’t begun yet, when my attention was diverted by a lanky girl, about ten years old. She was boldly climbing out of the gap between Shim’s ear and his temple! Catching hold of a lock of his hair as if it were a rope, she swung from it and dropped to the ground before taking off down the beach.