by Sarah Rayne
‘That was the idea,’ said Nuadu, hearing this. ‘Miach woke them because he thought they would aid us.’
‘Will they?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I believe you think we shall aid you more,’ said Floy.
‘I believe you will be of immense help to our cause,’ said Nuadu, politely. ‘That is, if we can persuade you that ours is the side of — what did you call it? the side of right’
‘And providing we can outwit the giants?’
‘Providing you can avoid the Fidchell board,’ said Nuadu caustically.
‘Are we really risking our lives?’ said Floy.
‘I have no idea,’ rejoined Nuadu, lightly. ‘But I don’t think it’s very likely. You are sufficiently intelligent to outwit the Gruagach and, although I am only a bastard Wolfprince, still I can summon a thread of magic and I can certainly call the sidh if I have to.’
‘Can you?’ said Floy, and Nuadu smiled.
‘I can. The sidh are bound by a very ancient bewitchment to answer the enchantment known as the Draoicht Tarrthail, which is the Enchantment of Peril. I have never pronounced it, but I know the words, and the sidh would never dare disobey the Draoicht Tarrthail.’ He regarded Floy blandly. ‘Despite my birth there are still some things that have come down to me from the Wolves of Tara,’ he said. ‘Will you believe that we shall not go into the giants’ lair entirely unprotected?’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Floy.
As they neared the edges of the Trees, the Wolfwood became quieter and more strongly tinged with the strange dark blue light that Fenella and Floy had found so eerily beautiful.
‘Twilight,’ said Nuadu, leading them between the Trees, and nearer to the glow of light that was Tara. ‘The hour once known as the Purple Hour.’ He sent them a sideways look. ‘The hour when magic is at its strongest,’ he said.
‘Should we be afraid?’ asked Fenella and Nuadu hesitated.
‘You should be wary,’ he said at length. ‘There are many layers of magic. Some of it is good and some of it is evil and some of it is ancient. But between the good and the evil and the ancient, there are shades and half-shades, and there are degrees and half-degrees, and nothing is ever quite good or quite evil, Human Child.’ He regarded her with the characteristic tilt of his head.
‘Have the Gruagach any magic?’ asked Floy. And thought it remarkable that he was able to ask this question quite normally and quite calmly, as if it was the most everyday thing in the world to be discussing giants and their possible involvement in magic.
‘No,’ said Nuadu. ‘Giants have never had the-I think you would say the sensitivity-to harness anything magical or enchanted,’ he said, and Fenella started to breathe a sigh of relief, because if you had to be dealing with giants, it would be better if they did not have any magical powers. And then Nuadu said, ‘But they are able to command the services of those who do have powers,’ and Fenella remembered that it was always as well not to be lulled into a false sense of security. Even when it came to giants. Especially when it came to giants.
They were strongly aware of the presence of the Trees now; ‘There is a kind of whispering,’ said Floy, standing still on the edge of the forest and staring into its depths. But Fenella thought it was more that the Trees were listening and watching them. Were they? Was it only her imagination that made her catch a glimpse of eyes peering from the gnarled trunks of the largest Trees, and was it only her eyes playing tricks that made her see the slender twining branches as long arms with branchy fingers at the ends, or long flowing tresses of hair that was not hair at all, but leaves and twigs and fronds?
I won’t look too closely, said Fenella silently. I’ll remember that we are leaving the Wolfwood behind us, and that Miach will certainly be able to keep the Tree Spirits confined within the forest. At least, thought Fenella, turning to follow the others through the forest fringe, at least, I hope he will.
If the Wolfwood had been dark and rather sinister, and full of secret whisperings and laden with unseen enchantments it had, in some unfathomable way, also been safe. Both Floy and Fenella thought there had been a sense of security there; a feeling that at least you were protected by a something. Fenella thought she would not examine too closely what the something might be. But they had been safe. They had very nearly been cosy in the Forest Court.
The road that led to Tara was not cosy at all. It was open and bare and, although the Trees still fringed the road, there was something extremely disturbing about it. Several times, Floy turned round suddenly, as if expecting to see something (what?) creeping along behind them, and once Snodgrass stopped dead in the middle of the path and looked very intently at the high thick-thorn hedge that fringed the road.
Nuadu appeared unconcerned. He led them on down the road, guiding them when the path forked; apparently perfectly sure about which route to take.
Floy said, ‘You know the way well?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you told us you had never been to Tara,’ said Floy, and Fenella looked up because Floy’s voice held an edge to it.
Nuadu did not appear particularly perturbed. He simply eyed Floy with faint amusement and said, ‘You’re not altogether trusting yet, are you, Floy?’
‘Not altogether,’ said Floy.
‘Maybe you are right not to,’ said Nuadu softly and, as he spoke, the gathering twilight lay across his face and his eyes were dark and unreadable. Fenella shivered, because just for a moment, it had seemed as if something alien and cruel and inHuman was looking out through his eyes. ‘I have not been inside Tara.’ And then, his eyes still in shadow, ‘But perhaps I have been there in my mind. Perhaps I have traversed its halls in my mind and perhaps I have wandered in its marble galleries and perhaps I know it as well as if I had spent my every waking hour there.’ He looked back at Floy. ‘I have never been inside Tara,’ he said, again. ‘Even though it is the home of my ancestors, for my mother was of the ancient Royal House, and my father — ’ He stopped, and the slanting wolfsmile touched his face again. But he only said, ‘Tara is the shining castle, the bright palace of all the Wolfkings. I possess the ancient royal blood, but I am tainted stock and if I had tried to gain entrance, I should have been turned from the doors.’
‘And yet,’ said Fenella gently, ‘yet now you come with us.’
‘Yes,’ The slanting eyes were on her. ‘You see how much I am prepared to risk, Human Child,’ he said, mockingly. ‘Or perhaps it is only on account of your bright eyes.’
‘Will the Gruagach know you?’ asked Floy.
‘It is possible,’ There was the familiar tilt of his head. ‘I have the wolfmark on me.’ He shrugged. ‘If they recognise me, they will turn me from their doors and they will deal with you as they deal with all spies.’
Fenella and Floy stared at him. ‘Is that any different to how they deal with other Humans?’ said Floy at length.
‘Not in the slightest,’ said Nuadu. ‘But they’ll call it by a different name.’
‘But supposing — ’ began Floy, and then stopped and half turned. In the same moment, Nuadu whipped about and Fenella saw his right hand curl in a sudden predatory movement and his eyes narrow.
Snodgrass, who had been a little ahead, stopped, and said, ‘What is it?’
‘Into cover quickly,’ said Nuadu, pulling Fenella with him. ‘There’s something following us.’
Something following us … They all heard it in the same moment and, in that moment, knew that it had been with them for some time. There was a swirling of the shadows, a clotting malevolent coalescing of the night. Something evil, thought Fenella. Whatever it is, it is evil. It is something ancient and evil and faceless and it is creeping along the moonlit road towards us.
As they crouched in the rather sparse cover of the thin trees at the side of the road, the three Renascians tried to think that the something might be just another traveller, an ordinary, innocent-intentioned wayfarer, on his way to the nearest village, or the next
township. But with the thought, came another: innocent travellers do not remain just out of sight and just beyond hearing, and just over the borders of vision. And even though Renascia was small enough to make travel an easy matter, the three Renascians understood the universal code for travellers; the almost obligatory courtesy that lone travellers, or parties of two or three, meeting on a journey, banded together, shared food, companionship, the protection of numbers against danger.
Solitary travellers did not prowl furtively down deserted roads without making their presence known.
Floy, lying in the bracken between Fenella and Snodgrass, hearing the sounds coming closer, realised that they had been hearing them for some time and glanced to Nuadu, remembering how Nuadu had seemed able to hear the night creatures of the forest so easily. Why, then, had he not heard this creeping slithering sound earlier and led them to safety? Is it a trap? thought Floy wildly. Is he about to give us up to some evil being? Nuadu was lying flat, his flesh and blood arm thrown half casually, half protectively about Fenella. His eyes were narrowed almost to slits, and he was so still that he had become part of the shadows.
Footsteps … Rather hollow-sounding. Fenella did not pause to examine why this should be so very frightening. Footsteps and a soft silken swishing sound. Silken skirts brushing the road. Or perhaps a long dark robe trailing the ground. A robe. And mingled in with all of it, was the feeling of a darkness so complete and so all-embracing, that you thought the light might at any minute be blotted out for ever. Fenella remembered, and wished not to remember, words like necromancy and sorcery and remembered, as well, that when the world was very young, there had been old and evil enchantments … And this is the world where those enchantments walked and where they might still walk.
What kind of creature prowled stealthily through the night, wearing a dark whispering Robe, and carrying with it the aura of an ageless dark evil …
Fenella remained very still and felt Floy’s arm about her protectively and was immeasurably reassured. And then realised that it was not Floy, because Floy was several feet away.
I am lying on the outskirts of an old dark forest, and something ancient and powerful and probably immensely evil is creeping along the road towards us, but his arm is around me … I am in the embrace of a wolf creature, a prince of an old Royal House, and I feel as if I was never alive until this moment …
The fear was thudding in her heart, but the delight was still pouring over her, and she felt, in the same breath-space, Nuadu’s arm tighten briefly about her. Protecting her? Or something else?
As if in answer, the fingers of his hand closed about her waist and there was a flare of understanding and of deep, primeval closeness, sudden and wrenching and — surely in these circumstances?-shocking. Fenella, briefly suspended between fear of what was coming towards them and purest delight at Nuadu’s touch, felt the misty forest blur and then right itself again.
She turned her head, and saw that Nuadu was scanning the shadowy road and that his features had somehow sharpened, so that there could be no doubt at all about his strange ancestry.
The sounds were nearer now, only just beyond the curve in the road; there was a slithering silk-against-bone sound, as if something cold and bloodless was clothed in slippery, oily satin, and, in another minute, in just another few seconds, the creature that was inside the silken robe would appear …
Nuadu said in a low, urgent voice, ‘Stay completely quiet. Do not move,’ and Fenella felt him tense to meet the danger.
Lying flat in the briar hedge, between Nuadu and Floy, with Snodgrass to the left, Fenella was chokingly aware of a thick, fetid staleness drifting over them and the sense that, as the creature drew closer, the very air was becoming fouled with something leprous and diseased.
The sound was identifiable now; a whispering slimy softness that concealed something foul and dripping and terrible … something that was tainting the air with its ancient, noisome aura, something that came prowling towards them, thinly clad in whispering softness to conceal its true self …
A monstrous, elongated shadow fell across the roadway directly in front of them, and Fenella thrust one hand into her mouth to stop from gasping, because the shadow could surely not belong to anything Human, or even partly Human, because it was so sinister, so eerie, so entirely soul-less that it was not to be borne.
At her side, Nuadu said very softly, ‘Dagda preserve us. The Robemaker.’ And, without warning, he murmured a string of words in an unfamiliar tongue.
There was a blurring and a humming on the night air and the shimmer of blue-green, iridescent wings, distant and unearthly and eerily beautiful. There was the faint, far-off sound of singing, of music so inHuman and so coldly seductive, that the three Renascians forgot for a moment about the dark, prowling evil, and the terrible shadow and the giantish castle that they must soon enter and surrendered, briefly, to the singing.
And then the shadow was upon them and they were in its darkness. The light from the night sky was blotted out and there was a heaviness on the air, the feeling of huge wings beating somewhere overhead.
Round the curve in the road, there came the hooded and cloaked figure of a thin, tall shape, its eyes and face hidden by the deep hood, a long, carved staff held in one of its gloved hands.
The blue-green iridescence deepened and the singing was momentarily stronger. Fenella thought that long, narrow, turquoise eyes gleamed from within the Wolfwood. The dusk thickened and, without warning, a thin mist-curtain of dark blue and indigo and sea-green, threaded with glistening silver veins, seemed to shroud the four travellers, so that they were obscured from view.
The dark hooded figure of the Robemaker passed by and went on down the road towards Tara.
Snodgrass made and lit a small fire and they sat round it, chilled and shaken, dusty from the tumble into the briar hedge. Snodgrass had even fallen into a bed of nettles. They sipped gratefully at the tiny but fiercely potent portions of some thick, sweet liquid which Nuadu had produced. ‘For strength,’ he said, and Snodgrass and Floy had drunk appreciatively.
The fire burned brightly, sending the creeping shadows slithering back into the Wolfwood and there was a sharp scent of burning within the smoke.
‘Peat,’ said Nuadu, regarding the fire critically. ‘In all Ireland you wouldn’t find anything to make a better fire.’ He grinned suddenly and, in the flickering light of the peat fire, he seemed very much younger and very much more ordinary and, for the first time, without bitterness.
‘You pronounced the — what did you call it? — the enchantment to summon the sidh,’ said Fenella.
‘I did.’ The grin deepened. ‘The Draoicht Tarrthail.’ He leaned back against the bole of a tree and looked at them, his fingers curled about the wine chalice. ‘The Enchantment of Peril,’ he said. ‘Once pronounced, by a member of the Royal Wolfline of Ireland, the sidh are compelled to come to that person’s aid and to that of his companions.’ The smile lifted his lips again. ‘They would not have liked doing it, because they would not recognise me as truly Royal,’ he said, ‘but for all that, it is powerful, the Draoicht Tarrthail, and they could not ignore it. It is the oldest of all the enchantments, that, and it was spun by the first sorcerers who came out of the North and built Tara, the Bright Palace, for Ireland’s first High Queen.’
He sat back, watching them, the glow from the fire making red lights gleam in his eyes. ‘I grew up in the forest,’ said Nuadu softly. ‘And I know little of my ancestors, other than what is known to all Ireland. But I am glad that I knew enough to call the sidh to render us momentarily invisible to the Robemaker. And I am glad that I have sufficient of the ancient magical wolfblood to summon the sidh.’
Floy said, carefully, ‘How did you know the words of the spell?’
‘Spells and enchantments do not necessarily have to be learned,’ said Nuadu, looking at Floy across the firelight. ‘It is not a question of sitting down with a parchment or a manuscript, and learning by rote. It is — I think
you would call it a race memory. I was born knowing the words of the Draoicht Tarrthail.’
‘What is the Robemaker?’ asked Fenella, who had been wanting to know this ever since the dark silk-clad evil had passed on and vanished round the curve of the road.
‘He is a necromancer of the highest order,’ said Nuadu, seriously. ‘I do not know the details of the bargain the Gruagach struck with the Robemaker, I do not think anyone knows it. But the Robemaker is ever greedy for souls and that is why he comes out of the Dark Ireland. That is why he would have trafficked with Goibniu. The Gruagach certainly have not sufficient wit or sufficient — I think you would say — enterprise to vanquish and kill the King and then take and hold Tara. It simply would not have occurred to them,’ said the Wolfprince, and poured himself another glass of wine.
Floy said, ‘It is difficult for us to understand this question of souls,’ and Nuadu said, quite lightly, ‘If you have not the understanding, then it is something you will have to come to in your own way. It is difficult for me to explain it properly, because it is something I was born to. But believe me when I tell you that every sentient creature possesses a soul and that there are evil, hungering powers who would take those souls for their own dread purposes.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ said Floy. ‘But the Dark Ireland … ’ He looked questioningly at Nuadu.
‘It is the mirror image of this Ireland,’ said Nuadu.
‘The black and leprous underside of the world, which most people never see, but which is nevertheless there. All worlds have a dark underside,’ he said seriously. ‘Did not your own?’
‘I don’t think — ’ began Floy, and then stopped.
‘What of the Dark Lodestar?’ said Nuadu. ‘The Black Abyss that sucked in your world?’
‘Was that our Dark World?’ said Floy. And then, looking at Nuadu, ‘Is that possible?’
‘If you encountered a Dark Sun, then for sure it will have been the evil, hungry underside of a true fair world,’ said Nuadu. ‘Our philosophers and our learned men and our druids could no doubt explain it fully to you. It is an interesting thing, this question of light and darkness and of every thing having its direct opposite. It would be that Dark Sun that forced you through the Time Curtain into this world,’ he said.