by Sarah Rayne
Erin said very softly, “You may have put out the light, Medoc, but you will see that I can restore it.”
“We shall see,” said Medoc, and turned back to the Dark
Lords and the Lad of the Skins. “Begin the ritual to Crom Croich.”
*
Crom Croich. The king-idol of all Ireland. The being of pure gold who demanded the fresh hearts of its victims. The terrible hungry monster-god who had taken scores of children and eaten their hearts, and in whose name the Crusade Wars had been fought several generations earlier. The god to whom every person in Ireland must offer the first-born of every stock: sheep, pigs, cattle, hens … boys. Grainne could remember the old stories of how every family in Ireland must send a representative to the gathering called Mag Slecht, where Crom Croich materialised in all his dark glory, and how every person present must bow down to the ground until their foreheads and the soft part of their noses and the caps of their knees and the points of their elbows broke; where it was whispered that three-fourths of the men of Ireland died of these prostrations.
Dreadful and pitiful and more cruel than anything Grainne had ever heard of.
Somehow it had to be stopped. Grainne lay back in the dark Chamber and murmured the words aloud. “It must not happen.”
“It will not,” said Erin very softly. “You will see.”
“What can we do?”
He turned to survey her, and the shadows lay across his face, so that Grainne saw for the first time the wolf’s mask, and felt a thrill of delight and fear. The descendant of the Wolves of Tara … And then she thought, But so am I, and felt in that moment the strength she had felt on setting out for the Grail Castle.
The power and the light and the strength of the Wolves …
“Yes,” said Erin, watching her. “Yes, that is how we shall do it, madam.” He sat up and glanced to where Medoc and the Dark Lords had disappeared through the great double doors. “They cannot hear us,” he said, “but perhaps they can sense what we are saying. You understand that?”
“Yes.”
Erin regarded her, his head on one side, and Grainne saw with delight and terror mixed that his ears were pointed.
“One thing can save us,” said Erin, and Grainne said, “Yes?” and knew, in the same moment, what he was about to say.
Erin said, very gently, “You had not the power to do it before. Not alone. But together we have power and to spare —” And stopped and looked at her again, with the way she was coming to know of expecting her to understand.
And I do understand, said Grainne silently. I understand and I am afraid and filled with pure delight at the thought.
“Well?” said Erin, waiting.
Grainne said slowly, “We have to call up the Wolves of Tara.”
*
The clearing where the Wolfqueen’s armies slept was becoming shrouded in the cold blue and green ice-fire of the sidh. Slender formless creatures moved in between the trees and in and out of the rocks and the hills and the grassy forest floor; beckoning arms and cold slanting eyes peered and smiled and, at length, gently and softly, the sticky filaments of evil sleep woven by Medoc began to fall away from the sleepers.
Wake to us, humans, for we will lead you back to the world of the living, and we will ride with you, wild and fearsome to drive out the Dark Adversary from Tara’s Halls. It will be the greatest battle Ireland has ever known, for it will be the only battle when the ancient and magical people of Aillen mac Midha have joined with you … Together we can defeat the Dark Lords, humans, only there is a price that you must pay … We must take one of you and take his senses … it is the age-old law, and we cannot waken you unless you give one of your number to us …
And you must waken, humans, you must open your eyes, and you must surrender to our music, for only thus can you put off the evil slumber spun on Medoc’s Dark Looms … only thus can you find strength to put aside the heavy mandragora sleep of the necromancer. Hear our music, humans … let it soak into your skins and let it trickle into the most secret corners of your soul Hear it and feel it and drink it … stand still and become one with it …
And give us one of your number, humans. Let us take his senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. For only thus can we spin our music and save you. Whoever looks on us now will become blind, deaf, witless, speechless, for ever … But it is the price you must pay for our help, humans … It is the price that must be paid if Ireland is to be safe …
The blue and green smoke whirled and towered and, as the music poured into the clearing, Lugh of the Longhand opened his eyes and looked directly at the sidh.
A shout of triumph went up, and the sidh closed in.
*
Raynor was the first to become fully awake, to blink and look about him and remember what had happened, and push away the clinging remnants of Medoc’s nightmares. He thought he recalled trying to fight the dreadful darkness that was shot with crimson and laced with evil, and he certainly recalled struggling, because he had known at once that this was black sorcery, Medoc’s ploy to stop them all from following him to Tara. To succumb meant to abandon Grainne utterly and forever to Medoc, and this was something so unendurable that Raynor would have done anything in the world to prevent it; he would have let the sidh take him to their underground caves; he would have let them cage his soul in the Prison of Hostages; he would willingly have given his sight, hearing, senses …
There was a ripple of light and the sensation of gentle, cruel mirth and malice at that, and Raynor knew that the sidh were still very close, and that they were hearing very clearly.
Oh, yes, we would have taken you, eagle one, had you been the first to awake … we would have taken you gladly, for you have strength and beauty, and we would have enriched our music by taking you …
Raynor stared round the clearing, trying to make out the blurred moving shapes.
Come with us, eagle one, come with us beneath the ocean where the waterlight moves ceaselessly against the walls of the caves, and where you will walk on the bones of all the humans we have taken, and where we will steal one of your five senses to pour into our music … Again the laughter, and Raynor thought, We dare not fully trust these creatures.
Oh, yes, you can trust us, you can be sure of us, for we have taken one of your number, and we are carrying him far far away, over hill and over dale … we are carrying him beyond the skies and beneath the oceans, and he will never return to the world …
Raynor said, “Who have you taken? Who is it?” And looked about him, trying to see who was no longer there.
We have taken one who was no friend to the Queen, eagle one … and now, because of it, we will ride out with you, we will join with you against the Dark Ireland. The Elven King bids us do it, but we do it gladly for the Ancient Royal House … We are what we are, and our music is made from the emotions and the perceptions of humans … We have taken what we want now, but beware of us, eagle one, for we shall return, and we may steal you away that time, for we are greedy and soulless, but our music is the most beautiful sound you will ever hear …
The laughter filled the clearing again, cold and unearthly, and Raynor closed his mind at once, for he knew as well as anyone the dreadful seductive power of the sidh.
Tybion the Tusk had woken at almost the same time as Raynor; he too had heard the chill music, and felt the sidh’s lure, and had felt, as if it was a tangible thing, the dark sluggish Enchantment dissolve and slide from him. He thought he was now strong enough and fierce enough to storm Tara’s ramparts and pull down the Palace walls brick by brick to rescue Grainne, and he was certainly angry enough to rip Medoc from gut to groin and spill his innards all over the Sun Chamber’s polished floor. This was a far more bloodthirsty notion than Tybion had ever entertained or expected to entertain, and he wondered why it did not horrify him. But he was not in the least bit horrified; he wanted to be off at once, ripping Medoc apart and wreaking some extremely gruesome form of punishment on the Twelve Dark Lords (dise
mbowelling? boiling alive?), and he could not understand why the others, with the sole exception of Raynor, were still wandering about rubbing their eyes and being confused. Tybion was not the smallest bit confused; he was wide awake and brimming over with energy and plans and plots, and it was very irritating indeed when people such as Fintan and Cermait Honeymouth and Dorrainge the Druid were not running and scurrying and shouting for the horses and sounding the advance. They ought to have sounded the advance long since, said Tybion firmly, and would not listen when Cathbad tried to explain that Medoc’s nasty Enchantment had sat more heavily on some of them than it had on others. Tybion said that this was utter nonsense and sheer absurdity, and there was no time to be lost, because if they were to rescue Her Majesty, they ought to have set out two hours ago. For good measure, he prodded one or two of the most recalcitrant souls with the toe of his boot, and became very nearly angry with Fintan who, said Tybion, ought to have recognised Medoc’s spell the minute Medoc started to weave it, and warned them all.
“But there’s the point,” said Fintan, on whom Medoc’s Enchantment had sat rather weightily. “There’s the point. We didn’t any of us know until it was too late.”
“Utter balderdash,” said Tybion, and Fintan, never at his best when woken from sleep, and certainly not at his best when woken from a necromancer’s sleep, became very tetchy at this. He said it was all very well for Tybion to be bright-eyed and bounciful; it was all very well to be all of this at Tybion’s age. Fintan had been those things himself, said Fintan lugubriously, and pretended not to hear when Cermait remarked, in not quite an undertone, that this was stretching the truth a bit, because Fintan had been born middle-aged. These things were well and good, said Fintan, raising his voice a little, but if you had eaten a smidgen too much of Cathbad’s roast pig, and if you had drunk maybe a thimbleful more than you ought of the Cruithin’s mead, and on top of that had had a nasty black sorcerer tying you up in knots and nightmares, you were apt to take a bit of time to gather up your wits. They were all of them gathering up their wits, said Fintan, and glared at Cathbad, who said people took longer to do this because their wits were so wildly astray in the first place. They would set off at any minute, said Fintan.
Cermait thought that this was the thing to be doing; they would surely set off pretty soon, he said, because there was no saying what might have happened while they had all been asleep. From which the others gathered that Cermait had no more notion than Cathbad’s roast pig of what had gone before, and certainly had not the smallest suspicion that Grainne had been carried off by Medoc for purposes best not thought about.
“I wouldn’t trust Medoc,” said Cermait sagely. “Not from here to that tree would I trust him.”
“He’s got the Queen!” said Tybion loudly, and Cermait said if that was so, it was the most terrible thing that had ever befallen Ireland, and he was very sorry, but the entire thing had been a bit hazy, well, if they wanted the truth, it had been very hazy indeed, and if Medoc really did have Her Majesty, oughtn’t they all to be doing something about it instead of standing about holding a meeting. They were no better than Lugh Longhand, said Cermait, and he was very surprised indeed, and he was especially surprised at Tybion the Tusk, of whom he would have thought better.
At which Tybion lost his temper in good earnest and said they none of them had any romance in their souls, and that they were no more fitted to be in Her Majesty’s service than one of Cathbad’s pigs, and took himself off to find the army’s musicians, so that the proper advance could be sounded.
Cathbad said, “Oh, dear me, can’t you any of you see that half of us are still under Medoc’s nasty Enchantment,” and Fintan sat up and looked more alert than he had done for some time — several people said he looked more alert than he had done for years — and wanted to know the exact form the Enchantment had taken. He accepted a tankard of mulled wine, which Cathbad was distributing on the premise that mulled wine never hurt anyone, and said Tybion was right, they ought certainly to be mustering their forces.
Cathbad, who had now finished giving out the mulled wine, was simmering a cauldron of soup, which he had just boiled up from one or two odds and ends of the Samain feast. You had to be prepared for anything to happen, said Cathbad and although he had not himself been precisely prepared for Medoc, because Medoc was not the sort of person you expected to meet in the ordinary way, it just went to show that you should never relax your guard. Cathbad had not himself been prepared for Medoc to stroll into the middle of the feasting, as cheeky as an intoxicated fieldmouse, and he had not expected to be bewitched either, because it was not something you normally expected.
If anyone wanted to know, Cathbad had found it all a very horrid experience. He had suffered an unspeakably nasty nightmare, in which every creature he had ever cooked had grown legs and wings and teeth and feet, and had come running after him to dismember him and fling him into a stew-pot. He felt quite breathless still after running across a dark landscape with pigs and turtles and positively dozens of rabbits in hot pursuit, waving spoons and ladles and carving knives, and shouting things like, “Let’s make a Druid pie,” and, “Cathbad-stew for supper,” and, “I say we fricassee him.” It had been quite shudderingly nasty, and Cathbad had been very glad to wake up. He had gone off at once to stir up a pot of soup which would warm everybody, and prepare them for what might be ahead, and he thought he would certainly add the bones of the roast pig and the wild ducks and the rabbits, if only to remind himself that pigs and ducks and rabbits were eaten by people instead of the other way about. He would put in a few spoonfuls of chopped parsley as well, and some onions. Onions made a really good strengthening broth, never mind Lugh complaining that anything with onions in it went right through him. Cathbad would not have cared if the onions ran right through Lugh and out the other side. Now he came to look, Lugh was nowhere to be seen, but this was not something that anyone need trouble about, because they would all have a bit of peace.
Tybion the Tusk was very nearly distracted by this time. He discovered that Raynor had been quietly deploying the Beastline creatures and studying a map showing the quickest route to the Bright Palace. Bee and Rinnal had been putting together foodstuffs, and several of the others had been stamping out the embers of the bonfire and making sure that Cathbad’s cooking fire was properly smothered with earth and damp grass.
This was not something that it had occurred to Tybion to do, but he was very pleased to see such evidence of preparation for the march.
“But of course we are going to march on Tara,” said Raynor, looking at Tybion in surprise. “Did you think we should not?”
“Oh, no,” said Tybion. “It’s only that —” He tried to think of something sensible to say, because Raynor had the way of looking at you with his hard golden eyes, so that you felt he saw into your mind.
Raynor said gently, “It is only that the others are not yet properly out of Medoc’s spell.” And he smiled suddenly, and Tybion smiled back, and felt the smallest bit silly and wished he had not been quite so sharp to Fintan and Cermait Honeymouth. He said, quite humbly, that he would very much like to ride alongside Raynor and the others when they set out, and Raynor said, “We should count that an honour, Tybion.” Tybion beamed, and felt that after all they might succeed in getting the Queen out of Medoc’s clutches, because Raynor was a person who made you feel confident and sure of yourself, and, thus restored, he took himself off to apologise to Fintan and Cermait, and also to several people whom he had not offended at all, all of whom very politely said not to mention it; they were all of them distracted and in a state of confusion anyway.
Raynor, outwardly calm and composed, was in a far worse agony of mind than any of them knew. He believed that none of the others had guessed at his inner torment, and he thought this was how it must be. A Princess of the Ancient House of Ireland could never join her life with a parvenu of a Beastline, with a nobility created by a band of enterprising sorcerers. He remembered what he had thought o
n that first night: She is not for me nor I for her. He could still think of it, even while his body was remembering, and even while his heart was torn apart with longing. I shall let her go, thought Raynor. I shall let her go, even though I can hardly bear to think it. And then, without warning, a thought surfaced: At last I shall see Tara, he thought, and with the thought, came a flame of rebellion. But why should I not see it? thought Raynor, his eyes suddenly glowing, his mind lit to new awareness. Why not? I have the Enchanted Beast-blood, I have the right. Why should I not see the lights blaze, and why should I not see the doors sealed against the Dark Ireland? Why should I not he at the forefront of the battle to rescue Grainne?
Fintan and Cermait had woken up properly now, and were rounding up people sternly, and wanting to know why so much time was being wasted when Queens were being held captive by wicked necromancers.
“There’s no time to be lost,” said Cermait, and Fintan agreed, and looked round for Lugh, who might be a fool, but who was in nominal charge of the army.
“Oh, he’s sulking somewhere, I expect,” said Cathbad.
“He’ll have gone off in a sulk, and very likely we shan’t see him this side of the Winter Solstice.”
“And very nice too,” said Cermait. “It’s high time we saw no more of him. And if you want to know what I think,” said Cermait, even though most people did not, “it’s that Raynor is perfectly capable of leading the charge on Tara, and of destroying Medoc! He’s got authority,” said Cermait firmly, “and that’s something people respond to. Mark my words, everyone will follow him without even stopping to think.” And he nodded as if agreeing with himself, and glared at anyone who might have considered arguing against him.
No one did argue, because most people were becoming rather impressed by Raynor. As Cathbad said, he did not say very much; he certainly did not put himself forward in any way, “But you can’t help but be aware of him,” said Cathbad.