Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven

by Mercedes Lackey

  This time, there was no sound from the spirits—at least none that Nan could hear—but it was evident that something was going on, because every window in the place was soon full of light, and they could hear the constable rushing around inside gibbering hysterically.

  Tis a pleasant music, that, observed the malicious Water Elemental who was suddenly beside them.

  “And well done of you, to think we must give the man such wild visions that when he tells of them to his neighbors, they’ll think he went mad, and when he tells them to his lords, they’ll be sure of it,” Puck said warmly.

  Oh, well that was the tall wench’s thinking as much as mine, the Elemental replied with a shrug of her weed-covered shoulders. A pretty mind she has for such things. She could work a world of mischief on folk, were she so inclined.

  “Well, it’s not the sort of thing I like to think up,” Nan said, feeling a little guilty, because thinking of ways to torture the constable had been so much fun. It wasn’t very Christian of her… and she didn’t like to think what Sarah’s parents would say if they ever heard about it. “I mean, I only do when people deserve it…”

  Puck made a tsking sound. “And what is wrong with that? Evil to him who evil does, I say. Be done by as you did, and someone has to be doing the done-by.” He glanced over at Sarah. “And what are the spirits telling you?”

  She had her eyes closed, and her head cocked in a “listening” position. “That he’s wedged in a corner behind a chair, and trembling from head to toe. Shall I call them back?”

  “Oh yes,” Puck nodded, “I think it’s time.”

  More quickly than they had gone, the four spirits came flying back to hover expectantly in front of Sarah. She cast an enquiring glance at Puck, who made a little bowing motion. “Unless I am vastly mistaken, you have a great deal of experience in this now, my pretty wench,” he said gallantly. “You began this; let your hand be the one that ends their woe.”

  Sarah beamed at him, and Nan knew why. Of all the things that Sarah could do, showing spirits how to “cross over” gave her the most pleasure.

  She held her hands over her head and a soft light began to shine from them. She brought them down in a double arc, drawing the outline of a pointed door in the air, then stepped a little away from it. The doorway filled with a dim, but welcoming light, and she beckoned to the male ghost.

  “Thank you, thank you so very much,” she said, her voice full of gratitude. “Go and take your reward at last, for there is Summerland waiting for you, and all those you would meet again.”

  The man gave a little, glad cry, and rushed through the door. For a moment after he had gone, there was a scent of lupines and violets and grass warmed under the sun.

  Then Sarah turned to the woman. “Would you—”

  The spirit trembled. “I fear the anger of Heaven,” she said, sounding as if she would weep. “I do not see how this balances the scales. Even if I escape the fires of Hell, how could Heaven welcome me?”

  “Then take the middle way, and Summerland,” Puck said instantly. “Go there and learn goodness. It is in my purview and I give you leave to go there, and learn to be better.”

  The woman did not hesitate, but rushed after the man. This time the scent that lingered was of rue and rosemary and heated earth.

  The second of the children piped up in a nervous voice. “Please…”

  But before Sarah or Puck could say anything, the doorway brightened until it was too bright to look on, and the light shone on the faces of the child-ghosts. The pale, wispy things looked alarmed for just a moment, and then, suddenly, their expressions filled with wonder and joy, and without another word, the elder seized the younger’s hand, and they ran through the doorway, laughing. There came a sound of music from far off, and the strong perfume of lilies, roses, and carnations.

  And the doorway faded, and was gone.

  Puck looked at Sarah with new respect. “Oh well done, sweeting.”

  Sarah looked embarrassed. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” she said, voice trailing off. Mari looked dumbfounded, astonished, and as if she wanted to ask something but didn’t quite dare.

  Well! If we are all done with our love-feast, will you give me leave to get on with it? The acerbic voice of the Water Elemental made them all jump.

  Puck laughed, and made another gesture. This time an odd little half-human head popped out of the ground.

  “And have you found it? And cleared the way?” Puck asked.

  Done and done, said the gravelly voice. The spring is found, the way is cleared, the path is made. Just let yon water-wench call, and the spring will come.

  The Water Elemental did not wait to be invited. With a grand gesture and a shrill cry, she stamped her foot on the ground.

  And water gushed out of the hillside right above the cottage. The air was full of spray and the smell of wet rock and mud, and the sound of water in a great hurry.

  You couldn’t say that it flowed toward the cottage, for that was too tame a word. It was as if a stream in full fury of a spring flood erupted towards the cottage, and in far less time than it took Nan to take it all in, the water had hit the side of the building and plunged underneath it.

  It hadn’t really disappeared, of course. It was just taking the channels that the gnome had cut for it and into which the Water spirit was guiding it.

  Right into the cottage.

  With a shriek of pure panic, the front door burst open, and the constable, propelled by a rush of water, ran out into the street.

  This had, as Nan had hoped, been the last straw. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, heading—well, she didn’t know where he was heading. It didn’t matter as long as he didn’t come back too soon.

  The Water Elemental made another gesture and the water stopped as abruptly as it had started, and Nan, Mari, and Sarah ran for the front of the cottage. The Elemental made a different gesture, and the ground began drying so quickly that by the time they got to the open front door, there was no sign that any water had ever been there. Puck followed at a more leisurely pace.

  Daffyd Prothero was beating on the door of the cell, yelling in hysterical fear himself, and Nan didn’t blame him, since he’d been awakened by water that had probably been up to his waist, and was locked in a little stone cell with no window and only an iron grate in the door. Furthermore, he had watched the constable, the only man who could get him out, go pelting away as fast as he could. He must have thought he was going to drown.

  As Mari reassured her father, Nan and Sarah let him out—easy enough, since the door was only barred on this side and it was a matter of moments to lift the bar and let him out, then drop it back in place again to leave another puzzle for the constable to have to explain. Meanwhile Daffyd was demanding that Mari tell him what the hell was going on, and not waiting for her to actually do so, until finally Mari picked up a pan from the floor that was still full of water and dashed it into his face.

  “Now—” she said into the silence. “Da, shut up. You will go with Sarah and this—fellow.” Behind her, Puck saluted, and Daffyd stared. “Nan and I are going after Idwal and the babies. We need to be able to concentrate on what we’re doing without worrying about you going and doing something daft, so you promise me, on your life, that you will stay with Sarah and Robin and you won’t leave them until I come to tell you it’s all right. Because I won’t be rescuing my man only to find my da dangling at rope’s end when I return! Do you hear me?”

  Daffyd was so astonished all he could do was nod.

  “Good.” Mari gestured to Puck. “Please take him.”

  “Wait!” Daffyd shouted. “Where?”

  “Underhill of course, you daft beggar,” Puck said with impatience, while a couple of little gnomish brownies scurried about the constable’s cottage, setting things to rights so that he would have even more explaining to do. “You know who and what I am! It’s the safest place for the likes of you for now.”

  “But wait—that’s—I d
on’t want to come out a hundred years from now!” Daffyd said hysterically.

  Puck sighed. “Daffyd Prothero, you and your line is more Selch than mortal. Underhill will have no hold on you, and you’ll come to no harm. Enough of your blathering! All of you, join hands!” He seized Sarah’s who seized Nan’s, who grabbed Mari’s, who took her father’s—

  And in a flash of moonlight and a smell of heather, they were standing on the beach in front of the Prothero cottage. Now Mari took charge again.

  “Da, go with Robin. Sarah, can you stay here?”

  “Surely,” Sarah replied. “No one expects us up at Gower Cottage for days yet. Robin, if anyone comes searching here for Daffyd? Can you hide me?”

  “Easy done,” Puck assured her. “And Nan too, should that come to pass.”

  “Nan, have you got the bundle ready?” Mari asked, turning to her.

  Nan dashed into the cottage, as Sarah picked up their bicycles, and moved them both into the cover of a bit of canvas and some firewood. “I do now,” she declared, coming out with it in her hand. I just hope I don’t get seasick in that little teacup of yours.”

  “I do too,” Mari said somberly, and paused long enough to kiss her father. “Behave yourself, Da. I’ll see you soon, with Idwal and the babies. Take him, Robin!”

  Before Daffyd could try and escape, Robin grabbed his arm, and they vanished. Sarah went into the Prothero cottage to wake the birds and let them know what was happening. Mari looked at Nan, who nodded back.

  “Time to go,” said Nan.

  18

  NAN stood in the cold sea with the water lapping at her ankles and tried not to think too hard about going out on it in a frail little construction of hide and wood and tarred canvas. On the one hand, she did want to help Mari in every way she could. On the other, she really didn’t want to be on the open ocean in a tiny coracle. She couldn’t imagine how Daffyd Prothero kept the wretched thing from capsizing in good, calm weather, much less in the winter storms he had taken the thing out in. And to cram two people into a boat made for one? That was insane.

  Well, nothing was going to happen unless she could make this next part of the plan work. It all rested on her shoulders at the moment.

  So she stood in the surf, and thought on all of the saddest things she could, until finally she landed on the day that her grandmother, the only person who had really cared for her as a tiny child, had died.

  And that did it; she felt her eyes starting to burn, she remembered how devastated she had been, how her mother had dragged her away, cursing, and sent her out to beg, and how when she had come back every trace of the old woman was gone and her mother was drinking the gin that selling Granny’s pitiful possessions had bought her. Her mother had even sold the little handkerchief-dolly Granny had made for her. That terrible, terrible loss welled up inside, and she let the tears come, counting them as they fell into the sea at her feet, and drying the rest on her sleeve when the number reached seven. Then she took a deep breath, steadied herself and reminded herself that it had been a long time ago, and there was someone else grieving and in need right now.

  “Rhodri!” she called out over the quiet ocean. “Rhodri! Rhodri! Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!” Threes, always threes; repeating things in triples seemed to be the backbone of much Celtic magic.

  For a moment she thought the magic wasn’t going to work. Then, as she peered over the moon-spangled waves of the sea, far, far off, she spotted something moving. It neared, as a breeze sprang up and sent the wind from the sea to fan her face, a humped shape moving swiftly through the water, ripples spreading out to either side of it. It heaved itself up into the shallows—showing that the creature was a strong bull-seal—then heaved itself up and up and—

  And Rhodri stood there in the moonlight, his sealskin about his shoulders, an approving smile on his face.

  “Ah, well done, well thought, well schemed!” he exclaimed. “Not even Gethin can bespell me to resist the power of tears in the sea and my name on the wind! Oh, the sorrow and the pity that your tears were not for missing me, though…”

  She snorted. He shook his head, but grew serious. “Tell me, what can I do for you? I cannot bring Idwal back, but if there is anything I can do, I will!”

  Nan gestured to Mari, who was hauling the coracle down into the surf. “Take us to Gethin,” Mari said quickly, tossing the oars into the boat. “Take us to the clan.”

  “You mean to challenge him, then?” Rhodri said, blinking in surprise. “That’s a bold move, my girl.”

  Mari’s jaw set stubbornly. “I do. It is my right, and he can’t deny me that much. I won’t give up without fighting.”

  Rhodri shook his head, though not in disbelief. “Well. Well and well. I can do that, I can take you. No matter what our elder says, you are worthy. I will take you to our people. But not, alas,” he said to Nan with real regret, “You. You are neither kin nor magician, and are barred from the lands of the Selch therefore.”

  Nan was torn. On the one hand, she wanted terribly to be with Mari to help. But on the other—

  She glanced at the coracle and shuddered.

  “It would take a braver woman than I to relish going to sea in that,” she admitted, and handed Mari the bundle. “And I would go with you, even so, if I thought there was a chance they’d let me.”

  “If you were with her, Gethin would use it as the reason to bar you both,” Rhodri said flatly.

  “It’s all right, Nan,” Mari replied, and patted her arm. “I’ll have to count on Idwal’s lessoning and all you and Sarah found for me. And on Gethin still thinking I’m but a weak thing he can disregard.”

  “All right then.” Nan stepped back out of the waves. “Stay brave, and good luck to you.”

  “Stay safe!” she heard Mari call, as she made her way back up the beach to join Sarah in the little cottage. And when she turned back to wave goodbye, she saw the coracle moving out to sea, steadily, along a path made by the moonlight on the still ocean.

  Mari crouched in the coracle, one end of a rope fastened to the frame, the other around Rhodri’s neck. He pulled the coracle effortlessly across the water, as if it weighed next to nothing. The moon was setting, and seemed bigger than she had ever seen it before, as it painted a silver road on the water. Rhodri pulled the boat along that road, silver light enfolding her, growing brighter, as mist arose from the water around her. Soon it was the mist that enveloped her and her boat, and not the moonlight, a softly glowing mist that obscured everything, making it impossible even to see the Selch who continued to pull steadily. Then even the moon vanished, leaving only the glowing mist, and she understood that she was no longer in the world she knew, but in the one that the Selch inhabited, and that somewhere along that path of light she had crossed from her world into one of magic.

  Then the mist cleared for a few paces ahead; the boat was no longer being pulled, but propelled on its own. She saw land where no land should be, under a dome of stars so bright she didn’t miss the moonlight. The coracle grounded on soft sand, and she took her bundle and stepped out of it. There was nothing to be seen but the mist around her and bright, bright stars in unfamiliar patterns above her.

  The mist still surrounded her as she waded to the shore, dragging the coracle behind her by the rope. There was a smell of seaweed and sea-air and wet rock, and not much else; through the mist, within feet of her, she saw the vaguely humped shapes of the sort of rocks that seals like to lie-out on around her, but this stretch of the shoreline, at least, was sand. The coracle might look frail, but it wasn’t light, and she strained to get it that last few feet above high tide, as marked by the line of dried seaweed. Only when she had done so did she drop the rope, and try to look about her. The mist still obscured everything, and she took her bundle out of the bottom of the coracle and climbed up on the nearest rock to see if she could get above it.

  And that was when it cleared away, all in an instant, and she found herself staring at the enraged face of Gethin,
standing on the rocks not thirty feet away from her.

  Quick! You must take the advantage! If he speaks first, he can ruin everything!

  “Gethin Selch!” she shouted, quickly, before he could get the first word in. “By the right of blood, by the right of kin, by the right of the bond of man and maid, I challenge ye for the bodies, minds, and hearts of my man and my children!” No point in specifying “souls,” since Gethin wouldn’t have right over those in the first place, and in the second, the legends differed as to whether the Tylwyth Teg had souls at all.

  She fumbled into the bundle and brought out the jar that she and Sarah had filled on the directions of the Land-Ward. “Tis something Idwal or any witch could have taught you,” Robin had said with a shrug when she asked if this would show his favor to her and get him in trouble with the Sea-Ward. “And once a drop of it strikes him, he’ll have to answer your challenge whether he likes it or not.” The jar had her tears in it, and herbs, and a little of her blood, and sea-water, and other things. She hurled it at Gethin’s feet; her aim was true, it shattered there and some of the contents splattered him, and he jumped back as if he had been burned.

  “You cannot deny me my rights!” she snarled. “Pretend it is not true though you will, I am your kin and your clan! The same blood runs in my veins as runs in yours! Deny me, and you deny the Old Ways and your own kin, and you forfeit your right to be chieftain!”

  There were more people coming over the rocks, dressed roughly in skins and homespun, hair wild or braided with shells and faded ribbons and holey-stones. They heard her clearly, and began to murmur among themselves, looking askance at Gethin.

  Gethin plainly heard the murmurs, and seethed, and his face darkened as one of the men called out, “She’s right, Chieftain. Her being here proves she’s as much Selch blood as human. She has the rights to challenge by the Old Ways.”

  “And I’ve the right to set the conditions,” Gethin snarled back. He turned to Mari. “Very well then. I’ll set you three Tests. Pass them all, and you’ll get Idwal and the babies. But fail them—and you forfeit your life.”