by Kate Forsyth
‘I will never be like other men. Even if my body was like that o’ others, my soul will never be. I was half bird too long.’
‘So the … Rìgh o’ your land is your brother?’
‘Aye, Jaspar is my brother. I am one o’ the Lost Prionnsachan o’ Eileanan, that the minstrels sing o’ in cold, winter evenings …’ His mouth twisted wryly.
‘So Bacaiche is no’ your name?’
‘No, I am Prionnsa Lachlan Owein MacCuinn, fourth son o’ Parteta the Brave.’
‘I am Khan’derin, gessepKhan’lysa o’ the Fire-Dragon Pride, Scarred Warrior and heir to the Firemaker.’
He glanced at her coldly, and looked away.
‘Did ye never try and reach your brother, tell him what happened?’ Iseult asked.
‘Isn’t that a whole new question?’ he sneered. ‘I have told ye my story, what more do ye want?’
Iseult nodded and moved away. Like many stories, Bacaiche’s tale had raised as many new questions as it had answered. She knew that the telling had been difficult for him, however, and so she asked no more questions, returning her gaze to the valley. As if reminded of his past, Bacaiche began to sing again, and his blackbird’s voice pealed out clear and melodious, charming Iseult anew.
It was a long, hot afternoon, tense beneath the spiky branches, as gradually the sun crossed the sky and still the slope was empty of Meghan’s small fierce body. Iseult stood it much better than Bacaiche, used as she was to stalking prey in much harsher conditions than these. The heat bothered her but the restless swish of Bacaiche’s wings as he fidgeted and fretted created a cool breeze that helped considerably. It was almost sunset when Meghan at last appeared beside them, remarking sardonically that she’d been able to hear Bacaiche’s mutters a mile away. Both jumped at her words and were badly scratched by the greygorse’s spikes.
‘Where did ye come from?’ Bacaiche asked. ‘We’ve been watching and watching and we never saw a sign.’
‘As if ye could see me approach if I did no’ want ye to!’ Meghan said harshly. Iseult looked at her anxiously. Gitâ was nestled up against her neck, always a sign Meghan’s mind was troubled, while her face was as grim and shadowed as Iseult had ever seen it. Meghan answered her unasked question. ‘Isabeau was executed last night, at sunset.’
To her surprise Iseult felt a stir of pain, but she told herself it was the darkness on the Firemaker’s face.
‘Apparently she killed the Grand-Questioner when he tried to torture her, even though she was fastened to a torture-table at the time. She did no’ go lightly, at least.’
Iseult was impressed—Is’a’beau could not have been such a softling, after all.
‘They fed her to the serpent o’ the loch, apparently,’ Meghan said. She was gathering her pack together. Bent over, her hands busy at her task, she shot a look at them. ‘So, ye took advantage o’ my absence and killed, Iseult?’
Involuntarily Iseult met her gaze, heat sweeping over her cheeks. ‘Aye, Firemaker.’
‘And what small animal did ye murder? Coney, by the smell o’ ye.’
Iseult clenched her fingers. ‘Aye, Firemaker.’
Meghan shouldered her pack, and started walking quickly through the trees. ‘Stay well behind me, then, both o’ ye. The smell o’ ye makes me sick to my stomach.’
Iseult slung her already loaded satchel onto her shoulder, picked up the long staff of ash she had taken to carrying, and followed in silence. She felt Bacaiche lurching along at her shoulder, and stared straight ahead.
‘She’s taking it hard,’ he whispered, but Iseult would not reply.
Down below the valley was filling with mist, only the opposite peaks still touched with light. Within an hour the mist had risen enough to cover their forms, and Meghan led them out of the copse of trees and down the slope towards the loch. Iseult looked around carefully. She was surprised that Meghan had not waited until they were further away from the township, bright with torchlight and still clearly within sight. There would be patrolling soldiers this close to the town. The loch’s shore was bare of trees that would conceal them, and if the mist should waver, they could be seen.
Meghan had a purpose though. She led them inexorably to the shore, planted her staff in the mud, and stared out at the misty surface.
‘What are we doing?’ Bacaiche whispered, looking about him with some anxiety. The shadowy loch, wreathed with mist, was a sinister place, thick with mystery and magic. ‘Is there no’ a uile-bheist in this loch?’
‘O’ course. That is why I am here.’ And from Meghan’s thin form came an eerie ululating cry that echoed around the shore. Again she raised her voice, and again the long, sobbing cry rang out. Iseult felt her skin crawl.
Out of the mist loomed the serpent of the loch, its tiny head high above them, its Song sinuous neck swaying back and forth. It opened its mouth and wailed, and it was all Iseult could do not to fall back in terror. In the Spine of the World few faery creatures could survive the bitter cold. Apart from frost giants, she had no experience with uile-bheistean, and had no desire to make a closer acquaintance. She held her ground, however, and felt gratification when Bacaiche stepped back involuntarily.
Meghan and the loch serpent wailed and bobbed at each other for fully ten minutes. Iseult concentrated on keeping a watch for any passers-by, but they were undisturbed. Listening to the eerie ululation, Iseult thought to herself that anyone who might be nearby would surely be too afraid to come any closer.
When at last the strange conversation was finished, Meghan’s small dark face was alight. ‘Come, let us go,’ she said, and grasped her staff with more vigour than Iseult had seen in days.
‘Where are we bloody well going now?’ Bacaiche asked bad-temperedly.
‘In search o’ Isabeau,’ she answered.
‘Isabeau is dead,’ Iseult said as gently as she knew how.
‘Och, no, she’s no’. Isabeau has my mark upon her. The loch serpent did no’ harm her.’
‘Then … where is she? What happened?’
‘That is what I am going to try and find out,’ Meghan said, and the usual grimness of her voice was drowned beneath her evident joy. ‘Isabeau must have escaped, for else we would have heard. All we have to do now is find her.’
The shock of the cold water and the scald of the talisman against her hip roused Isabeau as she plunged into the loch. Immediately panic filled her, and she struggled against her bonds. Finding they would not yield, she gathered her will together and tore the ropes apart. For an instant she felt the world contract about her, and her inner self was a hard, clear stone, unnaturally conscious of water, weeds, darkness, and the rush of currents. Then it seemed she would swoon again, her lungs and head bursting, multicoloured lights swirling in her head. The pain of her hand and her own will was all that kept her conscious as she kicked feebly to the surface.
There was a loud keening sound and she saw far above her the long neck and tiny head of the uile-bheist of the loch. Torchlight flickered on the water as the soldiers leaned forward, searching the waters. Terrified, Isabeau shrank back under the barnacle-encrusted poles of the jetty and began to swim as silently and quickly as she could in the opposite direction. Injured as she was, she could barely keep afloat, and gave a half hysterical sob at the thought of the uile-bheist bearing down on her. Then it was on top of her, a huge sinuous creature that opened its mouth to wail again, showing a mouth full of tiny, pointed teeth. The long neck bent and, although she swam as hard as she could, Isabeau felt its length brush against her. Then the mouth closed on the cloth of her shoulder and she was being towed along, water swelling on either side. For a moment Isabeau was stiff with astonishment, then she realised, with shocked gladness, that the uile-bheist was towing her to safety.
‘Do ye think it got her?’ she heard one guard say, and the other chuckled, and said, ‘Look at that thing, ye think a wee girl like that could outswim it, bound hand and foot? No, she’s monster bait, for sure.’ Isabeau smiled tiredly, and
cradled her injured hand against her body, letting the loch serpent tow her.
For long, anxious minutes they swam through the heavy mist, Isabeau craning her ears for any sound. There was none. She could hardly believe the uile-bheist had rescued her, and she wondered what it wanted. She did not know the language of loch monsters and although she tried sending out a mind-message, she had no way of knowing if it understood. Did the shock waves from her breaking her bonds attract it? Was it not hungry? She prayed to Eà, mother and father of them all, to protect her.
The loch serpent swam for what seemed like hours, the fog thick about them. Isabeau slipped off into a feverish daze where voices seemed to speak to her through the mist—Meghan scolding her; the witch-sniffer sneering at her and hurting her; the Grand-Questioner Yutta, his cavernous face leaning over her, the stench of blood in her nostrils. She was half woken by the loch serpent’s eerie call as, with a flourish of foam, he beached himself, and bent his neck so she slid forward and onto soft sand. Just before nightmares filled her eyes, she heard his haunting call again.
The next few days were a feverish blur. The bitter cold of the water, the lack of dry clothing and food, and the throbbing pain of her injuries combined into a whirl of dancing lights and darkness that kept threatening to overwhelm her. She knew she had to keep going, though. The Grand-Seeker might send out a party to search for her body, or she may even be discovered by sentries. Although all she wanted to do was rest her aching head on Eà’s breast, Isabeau kept staggering forward.
Sometime during the next day, she tended her hand with some herbs she found in the forest, and ate some berries off a tree. Her hand throbbed with an eager pulse that made her sick to the stomach, but she kept on following the burn, barely conscious of her surroundings.
The water will lead me true, she kept telling herself. Soon I will be at Tulachna Celeste. Soon I will be safe.
Isabeau was too deep in fever to recognise the signs that would have told her she was no longer following the Rhyllster. Where the river ran through a wide, gradually falling valley in long, sinuous loops, with the Tuathan Loch filling most of the centre, Isabeau was following a fast-moving burn that ran through thick trees. Where the Rhyllster ran almost due south, she had the sun on her face in the morning and at her back in the evening. Isabeau’s woodcraft and general knowledge of geography should have alerted her.
Each hour that passed, however, made Isabeau less and less coherent. Soon she was walking with no clear thought other than that her muscles must keep working. She lost the burn and wandered through thick woods with nothing on her mind but the beat, beat, beat of her blood, the beat, beat, beat of her boots. Night came again, and then it was day, and Isabeau lay where she had fallen many hours earlier, with the talisman burning no hotter than her forehead. In the throng of nightmares that beat around her, she thought she saw Lasair, dreamt they galloped like the wind, dreamt they were together again. In rushes of sound like storm, trees strode over her, sky broke, darkness was filled with whispering faces, she was as small as a pea, she was large as a world, shapes flinched, sounds roared, colours blurred and rolled, nightmares chased her.
She woke with a start, and was conscious at once of coolness. She was lying on her back in a dark room, and someone was wiping her face with a blessedly damp cloth. She tried to speak but was so parched her tongue felt like a lizard in her mouth. The person tending her held a cup of water to her lips and she gulped greedily, trying to follow the cup when he moved it away. Her body felt as frail and light as a dandelion seed, so that the effort of raising her head exhausted her and she let it fall back onto rough pillows.
‘Obh, obh!’ he said in a gruff, reproving tone. ‘Sick ye’ll be if ye swallow too much o’ the water.’
She became aware of the pain in her hand, which throbbed with an urgent pulse. Through blood-stained bandages she could see her fingers, grossly swollen and blackened, and her heart sank with fear. The streaks of infection were already racing up her wrist, and she could feel her whole arm aching. He followed her gaze. ‘Paw hurt bad,’ he said.
At his words, she peered more closely at him. Her vision gradually steadied, and she realised with a shock that this was no human tending her. Although she had never seen one, she made a guess at a cluricaun. He was about three feet high, sturdy, with a triangular face that had a slightly guilty expression on it, like a cat caught with its paw in a jar of cream. He was dressed in rough clothes like a farmer’s boy, and she could see they had been clumsily altered to fit. Round his neck hung a jangle of different objects—keys, flashy rings, buttons, the top of an inkwell, and a christening spoon. They all sparkled and flashed, although it was dim in the room, and she saw they had been carefully polished. As he turned his head she saw his ears; large and covered with soft, brown hair, they swivelled from side to side like an elven cat’s. If not for the ears, he would have looked rather like a very short, very hirsute man.
As he moved away from her, she saw a long, slender tail sneaking out of his clothes, waving about as he moved around the room. She lay back, cradling her hand against her, and let her gaze rove around. Behind her was a high wall, made of ancient blocks of stones that were now much broken and discoloured. She could dimly see the shape of a narrow doorway, with leaves clustering close outside. She wondered vaguely where she was, and felt her eyes begin to close, sleep swooping in.
Suddenly Isabeau remembered the talisman, and tried to sit up with a jerk. Pain flashed through her and her vision swam, so that she sank back with a groan. Whether it was the expression on her face or whether the cluricaun could read her mind she did not know, but immediately he fished out the black pouch from his pocket and sheepishly handed it over. ‘It be marvellous bonny,’ he said wistfully. ‘I do be wanting to wear it on my chain, but as soon as I take it out it shrieks so loud I am afraid, and put it back.’
‘It shrieks?’ Isabeau was surprised, having never heard the talisman emit a sound before. She clutched the black pouch to her and felt, with waves of relief, the familiar triangular shape through the silky material.
‘Indeed, and though we do be far from anyone here, a witch-sniffer could hear it if they be close enough. So I did no’ keep it.’ The cluricaun sounded regretful.
‘What about my rings?’
A sly expression crossed the cluricaun’s face. ‘Do no’ be trying to sit up now, or it’s your head that be whirling off, and then where will ye be?’
Isabeau covered her eyes with her hand, exhausted by even such a slight effort. ‘I have to get going,’ she murmured. But she was asleep again before she even finished the words.
When she woke it was daylight and she could see her surroundings more clearly. She was lying on wide flagstones, with broken walls on either side. The room must once have been the kitchen of some great building, for she saw faces and patterns carved here and there into the walls, and part of a great arch, now filled with rubble. The cluricaun had turned the corner of the long room into a snug little home, with a real bed, lanterns hanging on the wall, and a small fire built in a fireplace big enough to roast an oxen. Smoke puffed out, filling the room with a fragrant blueness that stung Isabeau’s eyes. A barrel of water was set near the pointed doorway, and herbs, onions and a cured ham hung from the walls on hooks. Although her eyes had been open only a few seconds, the cluricaun bounded to his feet, which she saw were bare and rather hairy, and brought her some hot broth, which she ate greedily, steadying the bowl against her throbbing arm.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘The moons have swelled and shrunk again and are almost ready to swell again. Long time ye tossing an’ turning on my floor—too long ye are by far for my bed, and too heavy for me to lift ye.’
‘A month! I’ve been here a whole month! No, I canna have! It’s impossible!’ Isabeau tried to sit up, but her weakness overcame her and she sank back, plucking at her blankets in distress, the broth forgotten.
‘Eating, eating,’ the cluricaun reproved, and tried
to force the spoon into her mouth. ‘No eat, no go anywhere.’
Feeling tears stinging her eyelids, Isabeau tried to obey, but panic was setting in. She had already taken far longer than she should have to make the journey out of the Sithiche Mountains, and she hardly dared hope that Meghan’s friend would have waited for her. With as much patience as she could muster, she swallowed the broth the cluricaun forced between her teeth, trying to ignore the spoonfuls which splashed over her. A savage bout of coughing shook her, and she lay back afterwards, feeling weak.
The cluricaun waved a rag around, trying to disperse the smoke, chanting, ‘House full, room full, canna catch a spoonful!’ He gazed at her anxiously as if wanting her to respond in some way. Not having any idea what he was talking about, Isabeau was silent, while he chanted again, mournfully, ‘House full, room full, canna catch a spoonful!’
‘I must go,’ Isabeau said when she was finished. ‘I am so horribly late.’
‘Where is it ye are trying to be?’ asked the cluricaun cheekily.
‘Tulachna Celeste.’
His slanted eyes widened. ‘Well, ye are several weeks’ ride from there,’ he said. ‘If no’ more.’
‘But how? I was only a day’s journey away from it afore.’
‘Tulachna Celeste is in Rionnagan.’
‘Where am I?’ Anxiety made Isabeau feel sick to her stomach.
‘Aslinn, o’ course.’
‘Aslinn! How can I be in Aslinn!’
‘That’s where ye be. The bonny forests o’ Aslinn. The wild and bonny forests, where dreamers wander. I will show ye if ye do no’ believe me.’
Isabeau could not walk, though; her legs were too shaky. The cluricaun gave her water, and chuckled. ‘I think ye will no’ be travelling anywhere just now.’
During the next three days the pain in Isabeau’s hand increased steadily and, despite attempts to clean and dress the injuries, the sickly smell of infection hung around her, turning her stomach. The cluricaun, whose name was Brun, brought her herbs and once she tried to lance the infection with his blunt little knife, to ruinous effect. Isabeau’s anxiety and impatience increased with her pain, but her body was so weakened with the fever, she had trouble crawling from her bed to the little bucket Brun had set aside for her lavatory. There was no hope of setting out to Tulachna Celeste until she regained her strength, no matter how she fretted.