But the ugly horse kept on, patient and steady. Sooner than Caith had looked for (had he somehow drowsed again?) he was passing the last curtain of black branches that screened him from that light.
It was one man camped on the trailside, a ragged-looking fellow whose like one might find along the roads and between the hills, a wanderer, an outlaw, more than likely. Such men Caith knew. He had met them and sometimes shared a fire and sometimes come to blows with such wolves; and he was alive and some of them were not. This much he had learned of his foster-father and the king of Dun na nGall: the use of the sword he wore.
So he had no overwhelming fear in the meeting, but he had far rather have avoided it altogether.
“Good night to you,” Caith said perforce, reining in.
The man no more than looked up at him over the fire, a mature man and lean and haggard. Then with the wave of a thin hand the man beckoned him to the fireside.
“Here is courtesy,” Caith muttered, still ahorse, and considering how Dun Gorm had cast him out into the night and the rain. There was a pannikin by the fireside. Caith smelled meat cooking. He had provisions on him he was willing to trade a bit of in turn. By now he ached with traveling and longed for rest in all his bones, and more, he saw a harp case on a limb near the man, the instrument protected against the weather.
So it was a wandering harper he had met, which was another kind of man altogether than bandits. Such a man might walk through bandit lairs untouched and stand equally secure in the halls of kings. That harp was his passage, wherever he wished to go. His person was more sacred than a king’s, and his fireside, wherever set, was peaceful and safer than any hall.
A second time the harper beckoned. Caith stepped down from the shaggy horse, though he did not pause to slip its bit or loosen its girth. He was not that trusting in any new meeting.
He came and crouched warily before the fire, warming his numb hands and studying the harper close at hand.
“Looking for some hall, are ye?” he asked the man.
“Not I,” the harper said. “I prefer the road.”
“Where bound?” Caith felt still uneasy, wishing still in a vague way he had no need to have stopped and yet being too proud, too, to leap up and run from a harper. “Gleann Gleatheran? Or Gleann Fiach?”
“I might go either way,” said the harper.
“I might keep you company to Dun Mhor,” said Caith, with devious thoughts of passing Dun Mhor’s gates in such company.
But suddenly he became aware of another watcher in the bushes, a man— a youth, all in dark. Between seeing him and springing to his feet with his hand on his sword was only the intake of a breath; but the youth stepped out into the open, holding his hands wide and empty, and grinning in mockery.
“My apprentice,” said the harper. “Is there some dread on you, man? Something on your mind? Sit and share the fire. Peace.”
“I hae thought again,” said Caith. “My business takes me on.”
“But I think,” said the square-jawed youth, whose eyes peered from a wild tangle of black bangs, “I think ’t is the horse— oh, aye, ’t would be that fine horse. He hae got something that dinnae belong to him.”
“The horse was lent,” Caith said shortly. Harper or no, he had made up his mind and retreated a pace. When he drew his sword, he had the habit of using it at once and never threatening, and it was part of its length drawn. “Teach your apprentice manners, harper. He will bring you grief.”
“But that horse is stolen,” said the harper. “His name is Dathuil. And he is mine.” The harper unfolded upward, tall and slim and not so ragged as before. Beside him the youth took on another aspect, with mad and ruby eyes, and the harper was all fair now, pale and terrible to see.
Caith drew the sword, for all that it could do. They were Sidhe, that was clear to him now. And he was in their woods. He stood there with only iron between himself and them and all their ancient power.
“I will be going,” he said, “and I’ll be takin’ the horse. He was lent to me. He’s not mine t’ give, one way or the other.” He backed farther, and saw the horse not ugly but fair, a white steed so beautiful it touched the heart and numbed it, and Caith knew then what blessing he had taken from Dun Gorm.
“He is Dathuil,” said the Sidhe again. “We gave him to a friend. You must give him back to us.”
“Must I?” Caith said, turning from his bedazzlement, discovering them nearer than before. He had his sword in his hand and remembered it. “And what if not?”
“That horse is not for anyone’s taking. He must be freely given. And better if you should do that now, man, and give him to me. ’t would far better for you.”
A Sidhe horse could not be for his keeping. Caith knew that. But he kept the blade up, reckoning that his life was the prize now, and them needing only a single mistake from him to gain it. “If you maun hae it gi’en,” Caith said, “then keep your hands frae me.”
“That horse was lent to the kings of Dun Gorm,” said the youth. “Cinnfhail has cast him away, giving him to you— with whom the bright Sidhe have no peace. So we will take him back again.”
Caith backed still farther, seeking Dathuil’s reins with his left hand behind him; but the horse eluded his reaching hand once and again, and the two Sidhe stalked him, the tall one to his left now, the dark youth going to his right.
“So,” Caith said, seeing how things stood. “But if I give ye what ye want, ye’ll have everything and I, nothing. That seems hardly fair. They say the Sidhe will bargain.”
“What do you ask?”
“Help me take Dun Mhor.”
The dark one laughed. The bright one shone cold as ice. “Why, let us do that, lord!” the dark one said.
“Be still,” said the taller; and to Caith, with chill amusement: “Pookas love such jokes. And those who bargain with the Sidhe come off always to the worse. You have not said the manner of the help, leaving that to us, and leaving the outcome of it to us, too. Things are far more tangled than you think they are. So I shall take your bargain, man, and choose the manner of my help to you, which is to tell you your futures and the three ways you have before you. First: you may go back over the hills the way you came. Second: you may go back to Dun Gorm; Raghallach would help you. He would be your friend. Third: you may enter Dun Mhor alone. All of these have consequence.”
“What consequence?”
“A second bargain. What will you give to know that, of things that you have left?”
“My forbearance, Sidhe!”
“For that I trade only my own. What more have you left?”
Caith hurled the stone amulet from his neck. It vanished as it hit the ground.
“A fair trade, then. You have made yourself blind to our workings, and in return I shall show you truth. This is the consequence if you go back where you came from: that you will die obscure, knifed in a quarrel not of your making in a land not of your choosing. Second: if you go back now to Dun Gorm: Cinnfhail’s son will die in your cause; you will win Dun Mhor; you will take Cinnfhail’s daughter to your wife and rule both Dun Gorm and Dun Mhor, king over both within three years.”
“And if I go alone to Dun Mhor?”
“Sliabhin will kill you. It will take seven days for you to die.”
Caith let the swordpoint waver. He thought of Dun Gorm, which he had so wanted, the faces, in particular Deirdre’s fair young face.
But there were traps in every Sidhe prophecy; this he sensed.
“And gaining Dun Gorm,” he said, “what would I have there but sorrow and women’s hate?”
“For a son of Sliabhin,” said the Sidhe, stepping closer to him, “you are marvelous quick of wit. And now I must have the horse you have given me.”
“Curse you!” he cried. He struck, not to kill, but to gain himself space to run. The Sidhe’s blade— he had not seen it drawn— rang instant against his own; and back and back he staggered, fighting for his life.
A black body hurtled against
him, trampling him beneath its hooves, flinging his sword from his hand; Caith staggered up to one knee and lunged after the fallen sword.
“Rash,” said the bright Sidhe, and light struck him in the face and a blow flung him back short of it. “The horse is mine. For the rest—”
”Sidhe!” Caith cried, for he was blinded in the light, as if the moon had burned out his eyes. All the world swam in tears and pain. He groped still after his sword among the leaves and as the hilt met his fingers, he seized it and staggered to his feet. “Sidhe!” he shouted, and swung the blade about him in his blindness.
He heard the beat of hooves. A horse’s shoulder struck him and flung him down again. This time he held to the sword and rolled to his feet.
But blind, blind— there was only the shadow of branches before a blur of light, a world gone grey at the mid of the night, a taunting, moving shape like a will-o’-the-wisp before his eyes.
“Sidhe!” he cried in his anger and his helplessness.
The light drifted on. Laughter pealed like silver bells, faint and far and mocking.
Five
There was no sight but that fey light, no sound but that chill laughter, pure as winter bells. Caith followed it, sobbing after breath, followed it for hours because it was all the light he had in his grey blindness and if he turned from it he was lost indeed. He tore himself on brush and thorns, slipped down a streambank and sprawled in water, clawing his way up the other side.
“Sidhe!” he cried again and again. But the light was always there, just beyond his reach in a world of grey mist, until he went down to his bruised knees and fell on his face in the leaves, having lost all sense of direction.
He got up again in terror, turning this way and that.
“Sidhe!” His voice was a hoarse, wild sound, unlike himself. “Sidhe!”
A horse sneezed before him. The will-‘o-the-wisp hovered in his sight, near at hand. It became Dathuil and on his back the tall fair Sidhe, against a haze of trees, of moon-silvered trunks.
“Will ye ride?” the pooka asked, at his other side, and Caith turned, staggering, and caught his breath in. Red eyes gleamed in the shadow. “Will you ride?” the pooka asked again. “I will bear ye on my back, man.”
Caith’s eyes cleared. In one blink, it was a black horse that stood there. Its eyes shone with fire. Suddenly it swept close by him, too quick for his sword, too quick for the thought of a sword.
“If you had kept the white horse,” said the will-o’-the-wisp on his other side, “even the pooka could not have caught you. Now any creature can.”
“Sliabhin hunted in these woods,” said the pooka-voice, from somewhere in the trees, and again the youth was there, dark-haired, stark naked. “Now we hunt here too.”
“Go back,” said the will-o’-the-wisp, and horse and rider shimmered away before him without a sound.
Caith caught after breath and stumbled after, exhausted, wincing at the thorns that caught his cloak back and tore his skin.
“Go back,” said the voice. “Go back.”
But Caith followed through thicker and thicker brush, no longer knowing any other way. His sight had cleared, but in all this woods there was no path, no hope but to lay hands on the Sidhe and compel their help or to wander here till he was mad. A pain had begun in his side. It grew and grew, until he walked bent, and sprawled at last on the slick, wet leaves.
“You cannot take us,” said the Sidhe, and was there astride Dathuil, paler and brighter than the newborn day. A frown was on the Sidhe’s face this time. “I have given you your answers. Are you so anxious then to die? Or are you looking for another bargain?”
Caith caught his breath, holding his side. It was all that he could do to gain his feet, but stand he did, with his sword in his hand.
“Ah,” said the Sidhe. “Proud like your father.”
“Which father, lord Sidhe? I’ve had three.”
“You have but one, mac Sliabhin. The house at Dun Mhor has but one lord. And a curse rests on it and all beneath that roof. Hunters in our woods, slayers of our deer and of the innocent— for your line there is neither luck nor hope. But for the gift of Dathuil and for my own pleasure, I will give you once what you ask of me. And pitying mortal wits I will tell you what you should ask— if you ask me that advice.”
“That would use up the one request, would it not?”
The Sidhe smiled then as a cat might smile. “Well,” he said, “if you are that quick with your wits, you may know what favor you should ask.”
“Take the curse off Dun Mhor.”
The smile vanished. The Sidhe went cold and dreadful. “I gave my word. It is done. And now the curse is to bestow again. I give it to you.”
Caith stared at the Sidhe in bleak defeat, and then took a deeper breath. “Sidhe! One more bargain!”
“And what would that be, mac Sliabhin, and what have you left to trade?”
“It’s Dun Mhor you hate. I’ll work this bargain wi’ ye. There’s a young boy, my brother, inside Dun Mhor. Brian is his name.”
“We know this.”
“I want to take him out and free of Sliabhin. Help me get him out and safe away and I will kill Sliabhin for you; and take Dun Mhor, so you can have it all. Me. And Dun Mhor. My brother is the price of my killing your enemy.”
The Sidhe considered him slowly, from toe to head. “Shall I tell you what you have left out?”
“Have I left something out?”
“Nothing that would matter.” The Sidhe reined Dathuil aside. “I take your bargain, man.”
Caith had his sword still in hand. He rammed it into his sheath and felt all his aches and hurts. He looked up again at the Sidhe, cold at heart. “What did I leave out, curse you? What did I forget?”
“Ye are nae apt to such bargaining,” said the pooka, there in young man’s shape, leaning naked against a tree at his right hand. “I will tell ye, mac Sliabhin. Ye hae forgot to ask your life.”
“Oh,” Caith said. “But I did not forget.”
“How is that?” said the fair Sidhe.
“If ye wish some use o’ your curse, you can nae kill me too soon, now can ye? ’t would rob ye of your revenge.”
The pooka laughed, wild laughter, a mirth that stirred the leaves. “O mac Sliabhin, Caith, fosterling of murderers and thieves, I love thee! Come, come wi’ me. I’ll bear ye on my back. We shall gae an’ see this Dun Mhor!”
“And drown me in the nearest brook, would you? Not I. I know what you are.”
But the black horse took shape between blinks of his eyes and stood pawing the ground before him. Its red eyes glowed like balefire beneath its mane, which flowed like smoke.
“Trust the pooka,” said the tall Sidhe with the least gleam of mirth in his eyes. “He offers. What have you left to risk?”
Caith glowered at the Sidhe and then, shifting his sword from the way, roughly grasped the pooka’s mane and swung up to his bare back.
It was the wind he mounted, a dark and baneful wind. It was power, the night itself in horse-shape; and beside them raced the day, that was Dathuil with the Sidhe upon his back.
Caith heard laughter.
Whence it came, he guessed.
* * *
The forest road stretched before the men from Dun Gorm in the dawning, and the sun searched the trees with fingers of light. It was the green Shade before them, the green deep heart of the Sidhe-wood.
“No farther,” Conn said, “young lord, no farther.”
Raghallach thought on Conn’s advice as he rode beside the man. His father had given him into Conn’s hands when he was small, and never yet had he put his own judgment ahead of Conn’s and profited by it.
But the years turned. It was after all Conn, his father’s watchdog, who had tutored him, cracked his head, bruised his bones, taught him what he knew, and Conn, he reckoned, who had orders from his father to protect him now, against all hazard.
“There is one captain over a band,” Raghallach said to this man h
e loved next to his own father. “And it is not lessons today, now, is it, master Conn?”
“Life is lessons,” Conn muttered to the moving of the horses. They went not at a gallop; they kept their strength for need. “Some masters are rougher than others, lad, and experience is a very bitch.”
“That man you sent to scout ahead of us— Feargal. We’re of an age, he and I— do you always call him lad, Conn?”
“Ah,” said Conn, and cast a wary look back, to see whether the men were in earshot of it all. The sound of the horses and their gear covered low voices at such distance. “Ah, but, me lad, ye are young. Yet. And will not get older by risking honest men who put their lives into your hand. Do not be a fool, son of my old friend; I did not teach a fool.”
Anger smoldered in Raghallach. He drove his heels into his horse’s sides and then recalled good sense. Raghallach grew a great deal, in that moment. He reined back, confusing the horse, which threw its head and jumped.
Arrows flew from ambush. A man cried out; a horse screamed. Raghallach flung his shield up in thunderstruck alarm. Arrows thumped and shocked against it; he reined aside, knowing nothing now to do but run into the teeth of ambush, not turn his shieldless back to the arrows or delay while some shot found his horse or his legs.
The good horse leapt beneath his heels, surefooted in the undergrowth, heedless of the breast-high thicket.
“Ware,” Conn yelled, riding up behind him as the horse’s hindquarters sank under a sudden impact: Conn hewed a man from off Raghallach’s back, an attacker who had flung himself down from the trees.
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