Yet, could a man feel exhaustion on the Isles of the Blest?
“We can fix that for you at once,” Finvarra said, hearing his silent question. The king lifted his hand from Connla’s shoulder and laid it on the young man’s head, and at once his tiredness fell from him like a discarded cloak.
Finvarra nodded in satisfaction. “Come now, our hero, and be welcomed as is your due.”
He led Connla toward a rolling green hillside above the beach, where the familiar silken pavilions had already been set up. The sound of music came drifting toward them, overriding and canceling the voice of the troubled sea. Flower perfumes wafted on warm air, replacing the stink of sulfur in Connla’s nostrils. Laughter and song filled his ears, silencing the memory of the dragon’s roar.
A small hand slipped in his announced Blathine at his side.
“You were wonderful,” she said worshipfully.
“I was afraid,” he had to admit.
“Ah, indeed, but that made you fight all the harder, did it not?”
He nodded. He had fought hard; harder, apparently, than any of the Sidhe would have done, else one of their number might have been sent on this most dangerous of undertakings. So there was something in his human-ness more powerful even than the magic of the fairy folk...
Before his thoughts could pursue this path too far, Blathine leaned her warm body against his, whispering silvery things in his ear, stirring his fiery hair with her sweet breath. And the Sidhe surrounded him, burying him in their beauty.
Little Whim came up with a shy smile. “May I touch you?”
Connla laughed. “A fairy man wants to touch a mortal?”
“For luck,” said Whimsical.
Shaking his head with amusement, Connla understood. Each of the Sidhe then came forward in turn to touch him with an extended forefinger. Their eyes, already larger than mortal eyes, were wider than ever as they made contact with whatever magic it was they thought lay within Connla.
He felt the tingling he had felt before when touched by one of the fairy folk. But this time the tingling seemed to be going out from him instead of coming in to him.
They did not allow him time to think of this, either. He was soon swallowed up by festival, garlanded with flowers, the center of so much attention and admiration that he could only smile and laugh and surrender to the wild, sweet joy running through him.
And when even festival paused, there was Blathine.
On the Hill of Usna, only Coran the Druid and Conn of the Hundred Battles remained at the site of the ritual circle. A great storm had come up, sending banners of black cloud streaking across the sky, and the dancers had dispersed to gather their herds and find shelter for their horses. The storm had turned the entire sky green, and the more sensitive claimed the earth shook beneath their feet. They were all afraid, but at Conn’s urging they had kept the dance going as long as they dared.
Yet the time came when even old Hundred Battles could not demand his people give more, and so they had been dismissed. Now just the chieftain and the druid waited together, watching the storm build. A great cold wind whistled around them, flecked with ice, out of its season. Along the distant horizon they thought they glimpsed flashes of fire.
“Never have I seen such a storm growing,” Coran murmured.
The chieftain had become very cynical as a result of advanced age and the many sad events of his life. “You don’t suppose,” he said, “that you’ve been misconducting the ritual? Could you be to blame for this?”
Coran recoiled. “I am not! Did I not bring you a vision of your son? I could not do that and summon a dreadful storm with the same ritual.”
“Perhaps not.” The old man shrugged. “But you must admit we caught no glimpse of Fiery Hair this time.”
“We did not. Yet I swear to you I felt him.”
“Are you certain?”
“I am,” Coran averred. “As we moved through the steps of the dance it was as if I felt his presence among us. The sensation was so strong I turned my head, expecting to see his face looking at me.”
“Well? Did you?”
“Not his face ... yet I saw something which never was seen before on the Hill of Usna,” the druid said. “I saw a great wall of water rising, like a huge wave, and I felt as if something very precious was in danger of being carried away by that wave. I found myself reaching out ... and then the vision faded.”
The old warrior’s eyes were blurred as he responded, “I had a similar experience. I thought it was my imagination. There seemed to be nothing around us but water instead of air, and when I moved my feet it was as if I were trying to dance in deep water. It took all my strength to keep going.
“I told myself it was just because I am getting old,” he added ruefully.
“We are all old,” said the druid. “Very old. The youngest among us who still remembers Connla Fiery Hair and cares about him has begun losing his teeth and slumping his shoulders.”
“What happens when we are dead?” Conn wanted to know. “Who will there be to reach out to Connla then? The bards may sing of him, but will that be enough?”
“We will tell his story over and over so that he is never forgotten,” the druid assured his chieftain. “The children of your children’s children will be taught to love the memory of your best and brightest son, and that love will always be a beacon calling to him, wherever he is.”
Conn of the Hundred Battles sat down abruptly on the earth. “But I wanted to see him,” he said. “I wanted to actually hold him in my arms again before I die.”
The storm roared. And then, with shocking suddenness, it passed.
The sky grew lighter, the black streaks of cloud faded and became flags of silver as the sun reasserted its strength. The wind was no more than a whisper and birds began to sing again in distant trees.
The old druid looked around in surprise. “No storm? It seemed so certain, so terrible.”
“Who can be sure of anything?” muttered Conn of the Hundred Battles, glaring at his own bent and arthritic knees and wondering if he would ever be able to stand up again. To dance again, in the ritual circle for his son.
Twelve
ON THE ISLES of the Blest, happiness had reached a fever pitch. Like every other emotion, human and fairy, joy had its peaks and valleys. The joy of the Sidhe was expressed in an outpouring excessive even for them, and Connla was its recipient.
Everyone seemed to want to do something for him. Blathine showered affection on him until he was finally reminded of one of the many lessons he had learned since coming away with her: One can have too much of a good thing, even air. Even pleasure. He found himself turning from Blathine as if she were a surfeit of honey.
And when he did, at once a jolly war was begun and sides were chosen and weapons pressed into Connla’s hands. A fierce battle sprang up to offer a contrast to the joys of scented bowers. Connla fought and killed and laughed the hot, high laughter of a man at the height of his strength, and the warriors of the Sidhe clapped him on the back and praised his abilities. They were quite open in their admiration of him, quite fervent in their friendship.
Yet Connla could never quite forget he was not one of them. No matter how badly he was wounded, nor how he sought the sweet, brief sleep of oblivion, his brain never cooled in brief death and his memories stayed with him.
And no matter how often a feast was prepared, he was given only the magic apple to eat, though his mouth watered at the sight of the fairy food spread out to tempt him. “As soon as you are ready,” Blathine told him. “You have only to say the word and you can eat to your fill; you have never tasted sweetmeats so delicious as these nor drunk wine so intoxicating. Take one bite and you will shed your human guise as easily as Finvarra lifted your weariness from you.
“Are you ready now, my Connla?”
Though he ached to say Yes, he did not. He looked with longing eyes at the food and shook his head. And Blathine, who was wise, did not push him further, but merely waited. She c
ould afford to wait.
No time passed.
New delights were introduced to add merriment to the endless summer day. A herd of horses appeared, resembling the snowy animal with the proud high crest and long tail which had first carried Connla into enchantment. They were equipped with saddles of silver and bridles of gold, and caparisoned in silk. Connla was presented with the largest and most spirited of these horses for his own, and in company with many of the Sidhe he went for long gallops over rolling green hills.
On other occasions, the same horses were used as mounts for the fairy folk when they went hawking, for Finvarra brought a fine selection of magical hawks from his palace for the pleasuring of his people. These could capture any bird in the air with consummate grace. Fairy women were given smaller merlins to carry on their dainty wrists, though they pursued falconry with the same eagerness as their menfolk and cheered as lustily at a good strike.
And always there was dancing, and music, and a whole succession of games were set up and played on crystal tables beneath flowering trees. There was endless wagering, and no limit to the amount players might bet, for no one could be impoverished on the Isles of the Blest.
When the rules for these games were first explained to Connla he took part in them gladly, wagering huge sums. He would crouch over the playing board with a ferocious scowl on his face, moving carved pieces of alabaster and jade and lapis lazuli according to the prescribed patterns of the contest, concentrating on every move as if his life depended on it. When he won he was overjoyed; when he lost he was heartbroken.
But soon he realized it did not matter if he lost—he lost nothing of value that was not instantly replaced.
No one could be impoverished in the Isles of the Blest.
And when he won, he did not win anything he could not have had, anyway.
No one could be impoverished in the Isles of the Blest.
Blathine saw the discontent creeping across his face.
“You are remembering, and finding it painful,” she said shrewdly.
“I am remembering that on the Hill of Usna we used to play a board game similar to these. Chess, we called it, and it was a very serious sport with us, for a man could lose all his cattle and find himself hungry at the end of the day.”
“That can never happen to you here,” she assured him.
“I know it. But it is a strange thing, Blathine—how the lack of peril diminishes the joy of winning.”
“If you could forget, the games would seem fully satisfying to you,” she promised him.
Her words were true, he knew it. In her lovely face he could see her concern for him and he understood she was willing him to accept complete and unalloyed happiness.
How easy it would be. How hungrily he longed to do so.
Yet a small voice at the very back of his head—or perhaps behind his head—spoke to him at the moments of greatest temptation. And though he could not always understand the words (for sometimes Blathine seemed to hear them too and would begin to talk to him very fast herself), he recognized the voice. The voice of the woman who had died in a wicker basket. The voice of a woman whose love for him had not died.
Love.
Connla kept remembering.
“If you love me, come with me now,” Blathine had once said to him. He had proved his love by doing as she asked.
But did she love him? Could any of the Sidhe really love?
The question began to haunt him. Like a dragon stirring beneath the sea, it roiled his innermost thoughts and spread clouds of darkness over his happiness.
At last he knew he would have to ask her, though he did not want to; one part of him very much feared her answer.
He tried to reassure himself first by taking her into his arms and making a cold mental note of every effort she made to please him, weighting those efforts up like gold grains on a scale. Surely she must love me, he told himself, because she does this and this and this...
Only a fool would hesitate and question.
Only a fool, he told himself. Or a madman.
The thought frightened him.
In his father’s kingdom young Connla had seen madmen, people who were convinced of a different reality. They made strange remarks, odd gestures, talked to invisible companions, rolled their eyes and shrank from horrors no one else could even see.
Am I mad? Connla thought.
Am I still, somehow, on the Hill of Usna, locked inside my own disordered skull?
Here was another question he dared not ask Blathine.
He summoned the one friend he thought might understand, and little Whimsical came to him at once, as always, with a cheerful grin and a wink.
“I must talk with someone, Whim,” Connla confided.
“I am all ears,” said the other. Indeed, he almost was, for his pointed ears were the largest among all the Sidhe. With a happy sigh the little fellow settled himself comfortably at Connla’s elbow and prepared to listen.
“Do you know what madness is, Whimsical?”
A brief wrinkling of the brow, a shake of the head. “I do not know the word.”
“Think,” Connla urged. “You were human once. Do you not recall other humans who behaved in very strange ways for no reason? Some said they were mad and some said they were touched by the gods.”
“Now that you describe the condition, I know what you mean, though I do not remember it myself. Madness. Ah, Connla, I heard a funny story about a madman once. It seemed that this...”
“Not now, Whim!” Connla said with uncharacteristic sternness to his friend. “Later you can tell me your joke and we will laugh together. But first, think about madness and answer me truthfully when I ask you—could it be that I am mad?”
Whim drew back in astonishment. “It could not be at all! No one suffers from any affliction on the Isles of the Blest!”
“But suppose we are not actually on the Isles of the Blest,” Connla persisted. “Suppose all of this, everything, is just something I am creating in my own head?”
“Me? You think you are creating me in your own head?” Whim was aggrieved. “What a terrible thing to say to a friend, Fiery Hair. To suggest that he does not even exist. I would not have thought you capable of such cruelty.”
“Ah, Whim, I am not trying to be cruel. I am just trying to understand, to think clearly.”
“Thinking! That is your trouble. You are still thinking, like a human person. If you would give all that up and be content to be happy and heedless you would be spared so much, Connla.”
“I know. But there is always the possibility that I would just be giving in to madness, Whim. I need to know. Are you real? Am I actually here? Can you not help me?”
The little fairy man scratched his head, digging into his perpetually tousled hair with frantic fingers. “And how am I to answer you? How can I prove I am real?”
“Pinch yourself.”
Whim started to obey, then stopped and laughed. “Pinching hurts and I left pain behind me long ago. I would not feel a pinch, so there’s no proof.”
Connla thought of Blathine. “If you feel no pain, do you feel pleasure?”
“I do indeed.”
“How can you be certain?”
Whimsical stared at him. “I do not like this conversation, Connla. It makes me uncomfortable. I do not know what you want from me.”
“Neither do I,” Connla replied sadly.
To cheer him, Whimsical immediately launched into a windy and roundabout tale concerning three fish, a seven-headed bird with ruby eyes, and a stone that snored. Connla tried to listen, and tried to laugh even though the story, as always, did not seem funny to him. But his thoughts were elsewhere.
“Whim,” he interrupted suddenly. “Do you never wish you could go back to being ... what you were?”
Whim’s mouth snapped shut like a turtle on a morsel of food. “Never,” he said. Too quickly.
Connla’s eyes lit with victory. “Aha! You do. Then you will help me.”
The little man backed away from him. “I cannot.”
“You can.”
“I do not want to be hurt.”
“I would never hurt you,” Connla promised. “I love you.”
“You do?” Whim’s eyes were larger than ever and his ears quivered, from their round lobes to their pointed tops. “You ... love ... me?”
“Indeed I do, my friend. That is what friendship means.”
“Oh, dear.” Whim’s chin wobbled. A suspicion of moisture glinted in the corners of his eyes.
“You remember love!” Connla exclaimed triumphantly. “You remember, Whim!”
The little fairy man held out his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of heartbreak and defeat. “I do,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I did not want to. You should never have done this to me, Connla. You tore down a wall and let it all come flooding back in. Ah, woe is me!” He bent double and beat his small fists against his skull.
Connla was appalled at the result of his actions. He had just vowed never to hurt Whim, yet as soon as he brought back the memories of love, pain had come with them. Pain from the mortal world.
I am mad, he told himself. I must reject one world or the other forever; it is monstrous to try to stand with a foot in each.
He put his arms around Whimsical. “Forgive me, my dear friend,” he pleaded. “I never meant...”
Whim waved him away. “It is all right, all right. I know you did not intend to make me suffer. I forgive you of course, Connla, for I ... love ... you too.” His lips stumbled over the long unused word, but he got it out bravely.
They stood looking at each other like two mortal men.
“I will help you in any way I can,” said Whimsical. Even as he spoke his ears seemed less pointed, his eyes less large.
“Then tell me, if you can. You are able to feel love. Can Blathine?”
Whim considered. “I doubt it. She has never been human; she was born to the Sidhe. But she makes you happy!” he added loyally.
“She makes me happy,” Connla agreed. “It is myself who is making me unhappy. But I must resolve this, Whim, if I am ever to be content.”
“What do you want to do?”
The Isles of the Blest Page 14