With that on her mind, she arrived next to Bes to meet the ancient god-king. Merrick swept his liege a low and surprisingly elegant bow. “I have brought her,” he announced simply.
Linn didn’t know what to say. Bes saved her with the introductions, “Linnea Vulkane, granddaughter of Haephestus. Blackie, son of Sekhmet.”
Blackie sat up straight and wrapped his tail around his feet, slitting his great golden eyes at the king, who nodded gravely, then lifted his gaze to Linn. His eyes, stormy as the sea he’d ruled, held hers, and she felt oddly detached from herself.
“Hello,” Linn said. She was fairly sure that wasn’t correct and proper, but he wasn’t her king.
Mac’Lir smiled, and stroked his silver beard. “Hello, daughter of fire. I hear you have had an adventure.”
Linn shook her head, embarrassed. “I was only separated from my traveling party.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows, looking much more awake. “Not an adventure, is that?”
“I could have gone home were I truly lost. But I was given a mission to complete.”
He looked at Bes, who was doing his stone statue impersonation. Black granite, of course, Linn thought with fond amusement, doing her best to keep her thoughts from affecting her expression. Everyone was waiting for the king to speak again.
“Something makes me think you would have kept on, even had we not come to your rescue.”
Linn felt a surge of indignation. She hadn’t been rescued. She hadn’t needed to be rescued. She pushed it down, not wanting to argue.
“I would have kept trying, yes.”
“Are you willing to have a fair and true adventure, Daughter of Fire?” He tilted his head to one side, looking steadily at her. Linn felt a little awkward as everyone was quiet, waiting for her answer, and it seemed that they were all expecting something.
“I was sent by my grandfather to find out what you needed, and to provide assistance if we could.” Linn knew that wasn’t really an answer, but why hadn’t he talked with Bes about this? Bes was the adult. She was only along as Heff’s granddaughter.
“True. But amuse an old, tired man. Are you willing?” His accent was odd, she realized, listening to him. But he spoke English very well. Hadn’t Grandpa said he’d been asleep for centuries?
Linn thought of the last two years, and the conversations coming to a halt with her arrival. She did want more.
“Yes.”
“Ah...” He sat back and smiled. “Youth is refreshing.”
Bes shifted his weight, and Linn realized guiltily that she ought to be letting him do the talking. She looked at him, and even though he hadn’t changed his expression, she thought she detected approval.
“I need help, yes.” Mac’Lir spoke again, and Linn paid attention to him. “My court is fallen...” He gestured loosely, at the ruins, fire, and the people who were mostly not paying too much attention to them. “Once, my rule here was supreme. The great heroes all came to eat, drink, and make merry with me. In time, I saw humanity was in ascendance.”
He looked away, out into the darkness. Linn wondered when it had stopped raining, or if he was somehow keeping it from raining. He looked wistful, for those days of legend and lore. Linn remembered Hypatia talking about the dirt, disease, and despair of the past. She had no inclination to romanticize that time.
The haunting pipes filled the silence. Mac’Lir spoke again, softly. “I went with my family down to the sea, to find peace. We slept long and long in the cold, icy lands far from home. Now, I have been awoken, for what reason I know not. One calls me, from a distant shore. I am exiled from my own place...”
That explained why they weren’t on the Isle of Man, then, Linn thought. She wondered when he would get to the point. One thing she had learned, these last two years, was to be patient. She waited.
“I cannot go, myself. I am needed here, I find. So, the Fire that has come to the Sea, will you go for me?”
She blinked at him. Was this what he had wanted from her grandfather? But she had said yes to the adventure. “I will go. Where, and who calls?”
“One of my blood, of my strength. They went to the new lands, after my sleep, and now all I can give you is a token, which tugs my heartstrings...”
Mac’Lir lifted a hand and held it out to her, a tiny white feather in his palm. Linn took it gently, and he cupped her hand in both of his, closing his eyes. She could see his lips moving, speaking, but couldn’t hear anything. The feather grew very hot, and heavy, and Linn heard her own squeak of pain with dismay, then gritted her teeth.
Bes shifted his weight and Linn flashed a warning look at him. She’d said she would do this. He frowned, but didn’t move again. The pain ebbed, and Mac’Lir let her hand go. The feather was gone. Only a blackened, ashy outline of it remained in her palm. Mac’Lir opened his eyes, smiling. Linn could see he was tired, now. Whatever he had done had been difficult.
“You will leave tomorrow, perhaps. For tonight, child, dance, refresh, and be joyful!”
Linn knew this was a dismissal, but wasn’t sure quite what to do. This whole episode had been odder than even her normal. She backed away slightly, then. Bes turned away from the king, who was sitting still with his eyes closed now.
“Come on, you heard him...” Bes started, amusement in his eyes.
“I don’t know how to dance...” Linn murmured to him, feeling utterly silly and blushing uncontrollably for some reason.
“We will teach you, then, Daughter of Fire!” The women who had been dancing all swooped in on her at once. Linn found herself again swept into an inexorable force as her coat came off, a long shawl was knotted around her hips to become a skirt over her practical jeans, and the pipes were joined with other instruments. She almost couldn’t help it, then, the music carried her into the dance with the four women.
It was fun, she had to admit, as they took her hands, and chanted the steps for her at first. It didn’t take long to learn how to follow them. Naeve, the woman with green hair, clapped her hands when she saw how quickly Linn was catching on. The music pulsed through her blood, her heart raced, and Linn whirled through the intricate patterns as her body took over from her mind.
“Faster, faster!” Naeve encouraged. They had been telling her their names, and she suspected they were naiads, except the very fair blonde with the pupil-less black eyes. That one, Ban, made Linn a little nervous when she came to her in the rounds of the dance. Now, she laughed as Linn stumbled a bit while taking her hands in turn.
“No need to fret, my pretty. I shall not sing tonight.”
Linn didn’t know what she meant, but this had gone from being a command, to a lot of fun, and she really did want to learn. Besides, something told her that her failure would look bad for Grandpa Heff. This was oddly important.
The pipes skirled, the drum beat faster, and Linn felt her hair slipping loose of its braid as she flew from hand to hand around the circle. The naiads were singing, softly now, a liquid chant that kept time with the fast drum, but growing louder as Linn joined in with them. She had no idea what the Gaelic words meant, but it sounded beautiful, and it felt right to sing with them. Ban, true to her promise, did not sing.
There were stars, Linn saw when she tipped her head back. Twinkling brightly overhead, and she felt like she could reach and touch them, they looked so near. Her feet kept time to the rhythm of the music, like they weren’t hers, and she was part of a pattern of dancers. More had joined in, even Bes, who caught both her hands in his for a movement, his fingers warm on hers and his smile broad. He could really dance, Linn thought, and then they were separated again.
Merrick, his hair as tousled as hers must be, laughed as they danced, but she didn’t mind. He wasn’t laughing at her, but in joy. Everyone was happy. Mac’Lir had returned, so they celebrated.
Linn was never sure, later, how long they had danced. She knew that at some point the music had slowed, the various instruments dropping out until it was only the lonely pipes again, and
then even that had stopped. The wind whispered among the stones, and she stood on the grass wondering if she had lost her mind. People were all around, some curled up near walls sleeping, others swaying with blank eyes to music only they could hear now.
Linn lifted a hand to her face, feeling her head throb. What on earth had possessed her to dance like that? And sing? She couldn’t sing or carry a tune in a bucket.
Bes appeared. “Hey, now...”
He put an arm around her waist and she leaned on him. “Bes, what the hel- heck?”
“Tell you later, kiddo. You did grand.” He led her toward the wall, making a gesture with his free hand. There was a doorway, with a half-open door. Blackened oak timbers, very heavy, Linn noted absently as they passed through it and into the dim room beyond.
“Was that there before?” She wasn’t thinking clearly, but she was sure it hadn’t been. “Where are we?”
“In the morning... well, ok, it’s morning now. When you wake up.”
She knew it was morning. The sun had been rising over the ruined castle wall, just the edge of dawn showing. Her head ached abominably, and she could barely keep her eyes open. Bes kept pushing her along. When the bed came into view, she stopped asking questions and let him tumble her into it. She could feel him tugging a boot off as she fell asleep, but she was past caring about being treated like a child.
Chapter 6
Linn woke up to a pounding headache. For a fleeting moment she thought she was still hearing the drums from the night before, but then she finished waking up and realized it was her own heartbeat. She stared at the low ceiling, embossed with smoky patterns in the once-white plaster between wooden beams that looked black with age. Black with age... the door they had come through. She sat up and looked around.
Deirdre sat next to her bed, in a battered chair, reading an equally battered book. She looked up from it at Linn's movement.
“Good morning!”
Linn clutched her head. This headache was going to kill her. “Ow, ow, my head hurts.”
Deirdre made a tsking sound, and produced a glass of water. “This ought to help, and these...” She handed two pills over. Linn looked dubiously at them. “Aspirin,” her friend supplied. “Bes thought you would be needing it.”
“How did he know?”
The water felt good, and then her stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she had eaten a handful of gorp, two cookies—biscuits—and nothing else since breakfast yesterday. Deirdre giggled. “Come on, let's find you breakfast and I'll explain.”
“So last night was the first time Manannan's Court has seen him in, oh, hundreds of years.” Deirdre was walking quickly, and Linn was grateful for her longer legs to keep up with the diminutive coblyn.
“Okay, so it was a party? I didn't drink anything, why do I feel like I have a hangover?” Linn wondered where Deirdre had been. She vaguely remembered seeing the big cats, perched on walls, and had she seen a wolf in the shadows, too?
“At a feis like this, there is a lot of magic in the air, and you weren't prepared for it. Bes said to tell you that you were drunk on Power.”
“Why isn't Bes telling me this himself? Is he still asleep?” Linn's stomach rumbled harder as they found their way into a kitchen. A little woman with a face like a dried apple turned away from the big fire. Linn didn't think she had ever seen a bigger fireplace. The woman smiled and came to meet them.
“Welcome, Linnea Fire Daughter.”
Linn decided she wasn't going to argue her name with the person who might feed her if she asked nicely. “Good morning.”
“I am Bronwyn, welcome to my kitchen. Sit and eat, child.”
Linn, gently herded in the direction of a table and chair, sat thankfully and watched as Bronwyn brought a tray. A bowl of oats, different than what oatmeal ought to look like, but smelling the same. A handful of dried apples and nuts, a little bowl with sugar, and a pitcher of cream. Along with the ubiquitous tea. Linn resigned herself to learning to enjoy the hot amber liquid.
Deirdre sat too, but didn't get a bowl, so Linn guessed she had already eaten. Linn stirred sugar, cream, and the fruit-nut mixture into her oats. It tasted delicious. Deirdre started talking again. “So Bes had to leave...”
“What?” Linn was just happy she had swallowed right before Dee told her that. Otherwise she might have sprayed food everywhere. “Where did he go, and why did he leave us?”
“He didn't say.”
And Dee hadn't asked hard, Linn guessed. She loved the little coblyn, but the girl had been trained out of curiosity early. It couldn't be that she was born without it... Little Feagle, her baby cousin, couldn't be kept out of trouble, and Daffyd said he was just like Dee had been as a baby.
“Great.” Food was most important at this second, so Linn kept eating.
“We're staying with Mac'Lir's Court until he returns.” Deirdre went on, unaware of her friend's traitorous thoughts. She was pleased with her decorous behavior. “Spot and Blackie went off someplace with Merrick this morning, hunting, I think.”
Linn, who liked to hunt, too, snorted with disgust at the boys cutting her out of that activity. “That means Bes will be back soon, because Mac'Lir told me I'd be leaving on my adventure today.”
Deirdre got a little wide-eyed. “Leaving? Adventure?”
Linn nodded. “Evidently he's having me stand in for Grandpa. He can't leave here, so he's sending us.”
“Us?”
Linn nodded. “Aren't we a team? So that means Bes will be back soon.”
“Okay.” Deirdre looked dubious.
Linn finished eating. “That was really good.” She looked at the empty bowl with a faint sense of surprise.
“Well, like I was trying to say before, you took part in what was practically a magical orgy last night. You burned a lot of Power.”
“Er, what?” Linn was fairly sure she'd been fully dressed the whole night. She blushed again, remembering how she'd danced... and with Bes and Merrick, not just the naiads.
“Okay, maybe orgy isn't the right word.”
“I hope not!” Linn made a face at her friend.
“But anyway, that's why you're hungry and all out of sorts.” Deirdre wrinkled her nose. The coblyn's face was very expressive.
“I'm grumpy because I got lost, and wet, and I need a shower. Which seems unlikely in this place. I don't see running water...”
“There isn't any. I'm not sure where we are, and something makes me think we aren't on Earth.”
“That would explain a lot, actually. So no shower.” Linn tried not to scratch her scalp. Just thinking about how dirty she was made her itch all over.
“We can have a bath drawn for you, child.” Bronwyn was gathering her dishes, which made Linn uncomfortable. The Sanctuary ate cafeteria-style, with everyone taking their dishes to the kitchen, and the teens took turns doing assigned chores along with many adults. She was being waited on, which was an odd sensation when not at a restaurant.
“I'd appreciate that, thank you.” Linn told her. “Is it something I can help with?”
Bronwyn looked amused. “No, you can just relax and it will be ready soon.”
She left the dishes in the dry sink, and left the kitchen. Linn hadn't seen anyone else, and was stricken with the sudden thought that maybe Bronwyn would be doing the bath by herself. She said that out loud, and Dee shook her head.
“No, there are others serving. I think the court is slowly gathering. Mary said they were scattered to the winds, and the word of the King's return is bringing them. Merrick's family was first, of course.”
“Why of course?”
Other than his grumpiness toward her in the car, Linn didn't see anything special about the boy. Well, that, and he was the youngest person of Mac'Lir's court she had seen. If there were children, they hadn't been at the... what did Deirdre call it? The feis last night.
“His family was the closest to the king’s family, their sworn retainers. They have been awaiting his return si
nce the last day of his rule.”
“Oh, ok.” Deirdre led the way back to the room they had come from. Linn thought she would just get lost, the twists and turns and narrow halls were confusing.
“Where are we?”
“Mac’Lir’s castle, on the High Plane.” Dee said over her shoulder. “Part of the feis last night was to gather the Power to open the door to Earth. This has been partially abandoned since he abdicated rule.”
“And how do you know all this?” Linn finished asking as they arrived back at the room.
Deirdre looked at her in surprise. “I used to live here.”
Linn felt her mouth drop open. She thought the little coblyn girl had been born in Sanctuary. Dee grinned suddenly, her eyes twinkling. She gave Linn a little push. “Wash your stinky self, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Linn emerged quite a bit later, pink from the hot water and her hair hanging wet and loose. She had brushed it, but wanted to let it dry before she braided it again. If she braided it wet the waves when she unbraided were ridiculous. Between her mother’s long, straight black hair inherited from Pele, and her father’s curls, Linn’s hair had a mind of its own at times. She had on her clean outfit from her backpack, and no idea what she was going to do about making the clothes she had been wearing clean again. For now, being clean was deliciously good.
Dee was, as usual, reading.
“What did you find?” Linn loved to read, too, but not quite as much as the little green girl.
“Tales of Gael and Loch. It’s a collection of myths and legends from Scotland and Ireland.”
She showed Linn the illustration of a banshee. “Recognize her?”
Linn peered at the old woodcut. “I don’t think so, should I? She kills with her cry?” that was the caption given in the book.
The God's Wolfling (Children of Myth Book 2) Page 4