The Isles of the Blest

by Morgan Llywelyn

  At her words the fairy men gathered near her broke into a lusty cheer, obviously ready for a new battle.

  “But what about me?” Connla wailed.

  They had already forgotten him. Everyone was scurrying off in search of weapons and fighting comrades. Even Blathine was trotting briskly in a new direction, looking for the king of the Sidhe to tell him of the incident. No one was paying any attention at all to the unfortunate cause of the upcoming hostilities.

  Connla let his feet carry him away, wherever they willed. He felt painfully unnecessary, which was a new experience for him.

  I might as well continue my tour of the realm of the Sidhe, he thought to himself. At least I will have that pleasure.

  His tireless feet carried him at breathtaking speed across the land, however, so he was not able to admire any of it in the detail he wished. He caught brief glimpses of what appeared to be cities, crystal-spired and glittering, lit from within in some mysterious way. Elsewhere, dark forests loomed and he heard the howl of some unknown animal, a sound so chilling it sent shivers down his spine.

  Whatever it is, I can outrun it, he reassured himself. At least there’s that consolation. And no one dies here.

  Unless ... A terrible thought struck him. This was supposed to be an island, or islands, which meant they ended somewhere and the sea began. Was there any chance his feet might carry him off the land and into the sea? His one effort to control them—when he had circled around to speak to Blathine—had been almost beyond his strength. He doubted he could do it again. If his feet chose to take him out into the water, he might drown.

  His feet ran on.

  Green meadows flashed past. Hills rose, dwindled, fell away. And still he did not come to a seashore. He had not turned but was running in a straight line, so surely he should reach the edge of the island soon.

  Yet he ran and ran and there was always more land in front of him. That which had been composed of several islands, or a cluster of islands, or a whole world of islands when he arrived, now seemed to be one endless stretch of land. And every bound was carrying him farther and farther away from Blathine.

  The farther he got from her, the more he realized he loved her.

  She flooded his memory like moonlight. His nostrils seemed to fill with the fragrance of her, his hands ached to hold hers. His ears yearned for the sound of her voice. She became more precious to him with every step. He forgot to look at the countryside and turned his vision inward, staring at images of Blathine and wondering if he would ever see her again.

  Then, another image shoved hers aside—quite rudely, he thought. An elderly woman, fat and with a discontented face, filled his mind. It took him a few heartbeats to recognize her as his dead mother.

  “Mother!” he gasped. He could not imagine why she was entering his thoughts at such a time.

  My son, she replied, in a voice like a distant echo at the back of a sea cave. She held out her hands beseechingly. You will do yourself harm if you go on this way for too long. Stop now, I implore you. You are in the land of the Sidhe but you are not one of them; you have a mortal body, even if it cannot die in this place. No man can run endlessly without doing terrible damage to himself. Stop, for my sake.

  “I would if I could,” he assured her, feeling foolish for speaking aloud to a voice that was only in his own head. “But my feet are under a spell.”

  You must stop! she repeated urgently. Your lungs will fill with blood. The muscles in your legs will tear themselves to shreds. You will eventually become a monster so hideous that the others will turn their faces away to avoid seeing you.

  Her words frightened him. He was not certain if she was really there ... Who could be certain of anything in this place? But he began to suspect she was there at least in some sense. And she was trying to protect him.

  “Why have you come to warn me?”

  Because I love you, she said.

  Love.

  Blathine had let him run off without warning him at all.

  But Blathine loved him, too. He believed it; he was absolutely certain of it.

  Almost.

  His mother’s face stayed vivid in his mind while his feet ran on and on. He began to hear his breathing, great rasping breaths that did not sound right to him. And there were pains creeping up the backs of his legs, as if the muscles were beginning to fray from the strain he was putting upon them. “Can you help me?” he asked the vision of his mother.

  I have no magic but love, she told him.

  “Then if that is magic, use it!”

  She closed her eyes then, and stretched her arms wider. A sense of warmth poured over Connla. He forgot the times he had been as impatient with her as his own father had often been. He forgot the times she had scolded him, or neglected him, or made what seemed unreasonable demands of him. He remembered her only as a source of comfort and security when he was small, and he longed for that security again.

  My son, her voice whispered softly.

  He relaxed into the vision, letting go. Her imagined arms closed around him. His tense muscles softened; his taut tendons eased.

  His enchanted feet slowed their mad racing, then stopped. Connla stood with his head hanging and his chest heaving, leaning against ... the wind. When he opened his eyes, his mother was not there. He was alone. Yet the sense of her presence lingered.

  He shook himself, hardly daring to believe the frightening experience was over. Hesitantly, he raised one foot and took a step, but the foot made no effort to run away with him again. It was just an obedient foot, under the control of his own mind.

  He mopped the sweat from his brow and turned around, to retrace the long way he had come and return at last to Blathine.

  Now that he could walk, he could appreciate the countryside in detail. Truly, he had never seen a land so beautiful. He lingered to admire sparkling lakes and crystalline pools and leaping waterfalls. Beside meadows tapestried with wildflowers he paused to give his nostrils a treat, enjoying the numerous perfumes that wafted to him on the warm breeze. The trip became one long delight.

  The Isles of the Blest, Connla thought to himself, were truly named. He saw fat deer grazing in lush grass, fearless as if they had no natural enemies. Perhaps they did not, here. Fat little brown animals popped out of holes in the earth and surveyed him as he passed, but they did not seem nervous, either. When he crouched down and held out his hand, one hopped trustingly onto his palm to have a better look at him. It cocked its round little head to one side and met his gaze with liquid eyes. The creature was plump and glossy; meaty.

  Yet he felt no appetite for it.

  I may never eat meat again, he thought.

  Then he remembered the hare he had slain and devoured with such zest. Never eat meat again? Never enjoy that delicious taste, feel good grease running down his chin, crunch bones?

  The animal on his palm looked at him with total trust. Gently, Connla set it down upon the earth and went on, musing to himself.

  He found himself wandering along the shore of a reed-filled lake. A dark bird with red patches on its wings was perched atop a catkin, singing. Willows crowded the fringe of the lake. A great thirst came upon Connla and he knelt by the water, cupping his hands to scoop up a drink. But as he bent over, a fish with green scales rose to the surface and flicked its tail, sending a spray of water into the young man’s face.

  He drew back, startled. The fish circled and came toward him, head on. Lifting its snout clear of the water, it announced in a bubbly voice, “This is my place, find your own.” Then it submerged with a mighty splash.

  So, not only dolphins, but even common fish could speak!

  “Everything has some way of communication,” a voice commented close by him. He glanced around but saw nothing, neither fish nor animal. He gave the bird with the red wings a suspicious look but it sang on, oblivious to him.

  “Who spoke?” he asked.

  “We spoke,” came the answer.

  Connla scrambled to his feet. H
e felt better meeting the unexpected on his feet.

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  The wind sighed over the water and the reeds stirred in unison. “The water dancers,” they murmured, their massed voices a sibilant song.

  Even reeds had the gift of speech? Connla rubbed his eyes and knuckled his ears, hoping to clear the cobwebs from his mind. “If you can really speak,” he said to the reeds, “why did I never know this before?”

  “Very few attempt to talk with us,” came the answer. “Some talk to trees, or flowers, but we are considered so common that we are quite ignored.”

  “I am afraid I have always ignored reeds myself,” Connla admitted.

  The chorus of reeds hummed in disapproval. I wonder if they mean to do me some harm, Connla thought.

  “We harm no one,” the reeds said.

  They were hearing his thoughts, then, as Blathine so often did! He should have realized it sooner. They had more powers and gifts than he had ever suspected. Was this true of all things, perhaps?

  Possibilities of wonder sprang from the idea, spreading out before him like concentric rings of unguessed colors.

  Overhearing his speculations, the reeds commented, “When you walk in a forest, you are never alone but surrounded by a vast community of trees. Do you not ever feel their presence?”

  “Perhaps I have,” Connla admitted uncertainly, trying to recall.

  “And if you cross a meadow, each time you set down your foot you set it upon a host of living things, grasses and flowers and insects. Have you not sensed this?”

  Appalled, Connla took a step back from the verge of the lake. “I have not!” But now that he knew, could he ever walk on grass again?

  The massed reeds made a sound like rustling hay, which Connla somehow understood was their way of expressing laughter. “Plants are not harmed by the weight of a quick foot,” they told him. “We are resilient; more so than you. It is only the cutting edge that can hurt us”—at this, a shiver ran across the reeds—”or some poison in our water. We ask only that you be aware of us, for we are small and humble things. Do us no intentional unkindnesses. Do not overlook us as if we do not exist, though we are a faceless mass to you.”

  Having recently been overlooked by the Sidhe as they prepared for the excitement of a war, Connla felt sympathy for the water-grasses. Promising to remember them and the wisdom they had given him, he turned to be on his way.

  Then they spoke to him one last time, on a puff of wind that might have blown in from the sea he had not found. “You yourself might be no more than a reed to Something Else,” they cautioned.

  They fell silent, and try as he might, he could not persuade them to speak to him again.

  Resuming his journey, Connla was lost in thought. He looked with fresh eyes at everything he passed, taking comfort in the new knowledge that he was not alone.

  Alone. Hardly! He moved through crowds. Birds and butterflies and bugs, every manner of green and leafy thing, kept him company as he traveled. Now that he knew they had the gift of communication, he sent his thoughts to them from time to time, as one might raise a hand in cheery greeting to a stranger on the road. And sometimes a bird sang out a reply, or a butterfly alit on his shoulder, to ride for a while. Or a tree dipped a branch in salute.

  In this way he covered much ground.

  The sky never changed; day never faded, night never fell. Connla found himself wondering what was happening among the Sidhe in his absence. Had the war already been fought? He felt a twinge of regret, realizing he might have missed it. With the threat of death removed, battle had become a joyous sport and he longed to take part in it again.

  Surely the Isles of the Blest, where all wishes seemed to be granted in some fashion, would give him a second chance to test his skills against the best warriors of the fairy folk.

  No sooner had he thought the thought, than he heard a clash of metal, coming from a long distance away. He started to run, but then he remembered the spell Fiachna had put on his feet. If he ran again, would the enchantment return?

  He could not be sure, so he kept walking—though at as brisk a pace as he could.

  He was approaching a valley encircled by low hills, forming a natural amphitheater. Someone had erected poles at measured intervals around the hilltops, and various banners fluttered from these poles, each with a different color and design. Between these flags garlands of flowers were swagged, and an assortment of vendors moved around the scene, hawking their wares. They did not seem to demand any payment for their merchandise, however—whatever it was—but handed it out freely to anyone who asked.

  Connla ducked under a rope of flowers and stepped forward to get a good view of the valley spread out before him.

  It was a true battlefield. Pavilions made of gauzy fabric had been erected at vantage points on either side so that the ladies could watch their heroes at play. The central area was clear and level; not even a stone threatened the unwary foot. Two mighty armies met here.

  One side was led by Fiachna; even at a distance, Connla could make out his hawkish face quite clearly. With him was a great company of fairy men attired in every sort of bizarre costume, waving weapons ranging all the way from swords and spears to sticks and stones.

  Indeed, as Connla narrowed his eyes to peer more closely, all the weapons might have been no more than sticks and stones. But the warriors carrying them were making a great roar as if they thought themselves the best armed in the land.

  The opposition had clothed itself in shimmering fabrics not unlike the coppery cloak Connla wore. Some were draped in silver, some in gold, others in robes of jewel tones. They glittered like a lady’s jewel box spilled out into her lap. Their weapons also defied understanding; they might have been flowers or weeds or huge plumes from exotic birds.

  If they meant to fight with such outlandish tools, where had the sound of clashing metal come from?

  At that moment the two armies met and Connla had his answer. When branch struck plume, both rang like bronze. The touch of a flower stem could open a long bloody slash on an opponent’s cheek. Their weapons might be fanciful, yet the damage they did appeared very real.

  One of those in the jewel-robed crowd glanced up and saw Connla looking down at him.

  “You there, Fiery Hair!”

  Connla automatically glanced around, as if expecting someone else to be the object of that shout.

  “I say, Fiery Hair! Come down and join us, we have been waging this battle for you!” The man calling up to Connla was half a head taller than those around him, and his cloak was not one color, but many. When it rippled, its hues changed with every move so that it might have been striped with green and blue and amber and brown and gold and silver and purple. As Connla started down the hill he noticed that the tall man wore a crown of gold.

  “I am Finvarra, king of the Sidhe,” he cried, “and this war is because of you, so you had better take part in it. Here, fight at my side.” He said this last as Connla reached him, and immediately handed the young man a sword that he produced from some voluminous fold in his cloak.

  At least it felt like a sword.

  It looked like a reed from some quiet lake.

  Connla stared down at the thing.

  “Have you never used a weapon before?” Finvarra asked him with a note of scorn in his voice. “Take it up quickly and strike, foreign-born. Your Blathine is watching to see you do something brave.”

  Brave! Of course he would do something brave if Blathine was watching. Brandishing the sword Finvarra had just given him, he ran toward the opposing side, shouting as courageously as anyone else.

  In midstride he thought: Am I really being brave doing this, if I cannot be killed, anyway?

  But by then, the enemy was boiling around him and he was in the heart of desperate fighting.

  Connla did not see Fiachna, though he would have liked to take a cut or two at the fairy man. He could run safely now, he had discovered, so the enchantment had worn off. But he sti
ll seethed with resentment for the trick Fiachna had played on him. He took this resentment out on Fiachna’s comrades as best he could, acquitting himself brilliantly with a series of cuts and thrusts and slashes. The reed, or sword, or whatever it was, fitted so smoothly to his hand it seemed an extension of his own arm. Lighter in weight than any sword he had every handled, it did not make his muscles tired and seemed to operate almost with a will of its own, rising to parry an opponent’s sword thrust before he even saw it, creating a dazzling net of safety around Connla’s person.

  “Connla, Connla!” someone was calling.

  His sword was protecting him so well he dared risk a glance to the side. There he saw Blathine at the entrance to a silken pavilion, her tiny hands clasped admiringly under her chin as she watched his battle prowess.

  Connla threw her a wide smile and a wink and she waved back to him, flirting a square of some delicate lavender fabric into the air. Her gesture was so graceful, so unlike any woman’s he had ever seen, Connla was lost for a moment in rapt admiration of her.

  In that moment Fiachna ducked under his guard and cut off his head.

  Eight

  CONNLA’S ONLY SENSATION was one of extreme cold as the blade of the sword severed his neck. His brain, being in his head, did not record the pumping of blood from the frenzied heart as the body emptied itself. His eyes went on seeing for a while, however, and noted the world spinning wildly around him as his head tumbled to the ground, rolled, and at last came to a stop in a tangle of grass.

  Very close to the end of Connla’s nose an ant paused on its journey up a blade of grass and looked at the newcomer to its territory.

  Having nothing else to do, Connla looked back at it.

  “Are you going to step on me?” the ant inquired. It had a suprisingly deep voice for such a tiny creature.

  “I am not,” Connla assured it. “I have no feet.”

  The ant swiveled its round little head on its thread of a neck. “So. You have no body, either.”

  “I have not.”