“You’ve the stone back, now, wicked lad. So now ye can carry us three, can ye not?”
Dubhain gave an indignant toss of his head and shook it, the mop falling into his eyes and needing a second toss, the hell-light glimmering behind that fringe, translucently sullen.
“You can do it.”
“Nay, cannae!”
“Will not, will not, is the word ye want! Carry us three, or go naked as a jay, for what I care, and give me back my shirt!”
Dubhain sulked, untied it and dropped it insolently in the water. His next trick would be vanishing, if Dubhain did not get all his way, and that was to no one’s good.
“Give me my shirt and be damned, then, stubborn wight.” Defeated, Caith flung the bundle of Dubhain’s clothes at him. Dubhain caught it with one hand and, with the grand flourish of a bow, swept up the bloody, the cut, the muddy and now sodden shirt from the peat-water with a single finger of the hand that held the stone. This, while two strangers with better sense watched them quarrel like a pair of dogs in a scullery yard.
“Please,” said Firinne.
“Oh, aye, please,” Dubhain scoffed, offering the shirt to him, one-fingered.
Caith jerked it from his hand. “That’s enough, Dubhain!”
“It’s the wickedness of this place,” Ceannann said while Dubhain glared. “Friend Sidhe, please, please and politely, by the cup we gave you, come out of the loch.”
Dubhain gave a great shiver. It was sense the lad was urging on them both and rare sense the lad had in Calling the wight by the obligation of hospitality he had on him. The boy who had bolted into the trap in the woods was now the one to advise his seniors to use their heads.
And, furious as he was, grudging as he was in Dubhain’s case, Caith swallowed his rage and put on a cold courtesy before his temper killed them all on this shore.
“Come,” he said, and turned along the shore, putting his back to the lady’s keep, and burning with the anger in him.
The pair pleaded further with Dubhain to come, too. Firinne added her voice to the entreaties, and Caith spun around and walked backward a pace and two. “Come along!” he bade them, “Now!” And he turned about again, acutely anxious, past the rage that had the blood buzzing in his skull.
This place, this cursed place where he had fallen, must be the boundary of the lady’s lands. Dubhain wanted to act the fool here, buthe refused to, and if Ceannann and Firinne would not follow him out of here, then damn them! He wanted away from this foul borderland, into air he could breathe.
But Ceannann and Firinne, at least, did follow him, not without misgiving looks back at Dubhain.
And seeing Dubhain bent on his own, fey, fickle course, Caith slung his sword angrily to his shoulder and wrung out his shirt as they walked— from white, it had gone a loathsome brown shade of dirt and blood. It was all over with prickly bits of peat from the loch.
And Dubhain with his fine clean, clothes could follow or not, for all he was able to care at the moment. He was shamed by Dubhain’s flouting him in the sight of Firinne and Ceannann, his silver-burned hand hurt as he wrung the shirt out, but getting the water out and himself dry was the only saving of himself from chill tonight. So he gave it three furious twists with all his strength, after which effort the wound in his shoulder ached, too— so much for Dubhain’s magic. The pain might even be Dubhain’s spite at him, the same as the lady’s, and Dubhain might hope he would grovel, as the lady had wanted it of him.
Well, by the Badbh he would not, not if he bled his life out. He shook the shirt out, put one arm in it and handed his sword to Ceannann to hold while he pulled it over his head, stumbling as he walked.
Then— while he had his head stuck inside the clammy shirt, he suffered a sudden light-headedness, a thorough confusion which direction he was walking. He fought his head through the collar and caught-step at the same time, finding himself, as he staggered, facing backward, toward the distant castle, toward Dubhain.
That had been the true boundary they had passed just now, the farthest limit of the lady’s land, and they all had crossed save Dubhain— which gave him now an unbearable sense of unease. He knew that feeling, and damned it, and spun about again, tugging the clammy shirt down about his ribs and his waist. Every breath felt lighter, but the geas he shared with Dubhain pulled at him, wrenched at his very soul—
So let it worry Dubhain, was his thought, beneath the anxiety. Let it pull at the wretch. He would haul the wight to safety.
And he kept walking, with the nameless fear rising up and choking him, the geas anchored back in the lady’s territory, and himself stretching it thin.
Firinne cast a glance back. “He’s following us.”
“Oh, how not? There’s mischief to do.” Dealing with Dubhain, one learned churlish answers, and he regretted his at once; but the pain in his hand and his shoulder was consuming his good sense, the geas drew him as it drew Dubhain, and the loch was a sheet of gathering dark lapping all too close to the edge of the road they walked. The beast in the loch might be watching them while Dubhain lagged and argued and made himself a cursed anchor in its territory. “Forgive me,” he muttered to Firinne, “but I know his ways.”
“You have the Calling of him,” Ceannann said.
“Oh, aye, ye see how far that goes.”
“But he follows. He obeys you.”
“For his hide’s sake.” He knew how narrowly it was true, and what mortal danger Dubhain was in, near this dark place. The feeling of danger was running strongly up and down his spine of a sudden. He paused, turned to see Dubhain’s shadowy shape, a mere gleam of white, clean shirt in the dusky distance, and furiously beckoned him to catch up with them.
Dubhain, the wretch, looked about him and behind him, as if he might have meant some other Sidhe.
A second time he beckoned him, and Dubhain laid a hand on his breast in mock astonishment.
A third time. Then Dubhain flung wide his arms and began to run along the trail, quickly as a Sidhe could move, jumping the weeds, his kilts flying, cavorting and waving his arms like a very fool.
Caith let go a weary curse and stayed to suffer his antics. Dubhain had to flirt with the brink of hell, had to walk the edge to the last moment.
“Oh, master!” the fool cried at the meeting, flinging himself to his knees.
“Wicked creature,” Caith said. And because he had his own share of hell-bent temper, folded his arms and looked down at him.”Now will ye carry us?”
There was an instant, foreboding frown, and Dubhain leapt to his feet and looked away.
So— so, he surmised in better sense, it might be the truth Dubhain had spoken, not a whim. He could not, Dubhain had insisted, and by Dubhain’s manner now he almost did believe it.
Either, despite finding the stone, Dubhain had not the strength here, or, more likely, Caith surmised at a second thought, Dubhain feared his own nature in this wicked place and did not trust himself, once he carried them on his back, to keep them all out of the loch.
But Dubhain admit to such a fear? Never.
“Behave,” he told Dubhain soberly. “Walk with us, where these folk tell us.”
“Och,” Dubhain said with a flourish, “aye, with them. A feither we’re seekin’, now. Their feither. I remember ’t. And husband and wife, are they? Hoosht, what merry wickedness!”
“Hush, damn you! — Forgive him. He wants a bridle on his tongue.”
“Och, such a wit, the man!” Dubhain swept a bow, the doffing of a cap he did not own, as he skipped backward a pace and walked sideways in courtship of Firinne. “But this deceiving of your guests, lassie, surely I do forgive, counting the sight of our mutual friend here, and him an unmannered fellow. — But a prince ... did I tell ye that? A noble man, my master is....”
“Sidhe, be quiet!”
A second bow, and a skip. “An’ yourselves, fair brother, fair sister, by no means common shepherd folk, are ye’ Sae delicate and mannered ye are, and wi’ such a dreadful en
emy as Herself? Or is ’t your pretty faces and pretty selves she covets, for ither reasons?”
“Peace, damn you!” For a moment Caith wished him back the other side of the boundary, but that was dangerous. He caught Dubhain by the shirt instead and marched him a step and two off and aside. “What in very hell d’ ye think to do, ye wretched creature? What harm hae these folk done you? Or will you no be content until the lad takes his foot to you— I’ll not blame him!”
Dubhain rolled his eyes and turned his long jaw to the coming night and the hills, sullenly refusing any answer. Then, with a twist of his shoulder, trying to escape him: “Mayhap they lie. What d’ ye think of that, my dearest lord, my fair master, me darlin’ Caith? D’ ye think all truth flows from that pair? Or that Himself is safe abed in his own land tonight? He does nae lie so easy, ye ken.”
Dubhain Saw things; and Dubhain was distraught. It was the truth and a warning Dubhain was giving him in his impudent way, and only a fool would ignore it.Nuallan was in danger, their only patron in faery was in peril of his life and worse, and they were going away from that place as fast as they could.
But if the Great Sidhe fell under the witch’s spell, then what fate for them?
Caith made his grip on Dubhain’s shirt a flick of his hand, a careful straightening of the wight’s white, spotless collar, with a hand that trembled and an arm that ached with a gnawing, persistent pain.
“Sweet Dubhain, fair Dubhain. How could I mistake ye? Tell me then: gie me your advice. What should we do?”
“Oh, do as the pretty pair pleases. Twins they are, d’ ye ken? Do what they please, when they please, but list’ to me, my prince, this is a very dangerous place.”
“Aye, I did mark that.”
“Ye maun jest, prince of murderers, but listen, this is a deep and fearsome loch; this is a castle built of blood and blackest spells, and whatever the lord Nuallan intended here is most direly gone awry.”
“Aye. Then what?”
Dubhain shrugged. “Hoosht, we follow this pair.”
“To what?” The pain distracted him. He could not bring his wits to bear on anything but the betrayal the bright Sidhe had worked on him and on Dubhain, even if he reasoned that it was a fruitless resentment. The Sidhe would do as the Sidhe would do, and sometimes mend what fell aside. But meanwhile— they had to fend for themselves. “The fingers,” he said, holding up the seared and swollen joints. “I cannot hold my sword as they are— and, as ye say ’t, an unwholesome venue, this.”
“If ye entreat me well, aye, I might deal wi’ it.”
“Please,” he framed with his lips, and as quietly as he could, said: “Prithee, sweet Dubhain.”
“Can ye, wi’ more passion, and louder, sweet Caith?”
“I beg thee, villain!”
Dubhain took his hand and kissed the fingers, and the thumb. The pain was cooled, as at the touch of ice. The Sidhe licked the wound, and Caith snatched his fingers away in furious offense.
Dubhain grinned at him. “Ye dear, sweet, an’ bluidy man!”
“Foul creature.”
“Sweet Caith.” Dubhain whirled and skipped away along the trail, a white-shirted wraith in the night. And was gone for an instant, having given him no answer, and was there again, where the meadow began.
Caith trudged after him, the slower, mortal way, working the hand lately burned, sullenly glad and grateful Dubhain was in a helpful mood, even suspecting that Dubhain, in his own way, felt a human fondness for him.
But that was a man’s thinking, and a man’s sure way into trouble with the Sidhe was ever thinking their reasons were a man’s reasons, or that gifts from such as Dubhain had no barbs in them at all.
* * *
The meadow they reached, beside the loch, so fair and smooth under the starlight, proved a treacherous ground, full of bogs, and full of pits and watery holes in the dark. If the beast stayed near the water, it had enough water here to enjoy, Caith thought, and wondered if the road at the loch’s very edge might at least give them better ground to run— for the little distance that they might have the strength to run at all.
He was exhausted. Firinne and Ceannann slogged along with a strength born, he was sure, of desperation; while Dubhain skipped and dodged the watery patches as if they were on an evening’s stroll. And still they were leaving their best hope a prisoner behind them.
“You could work a spell on us,” he said to Dubhain when Dubhain was in reach. “You could make the walking easier.”
“Cannae,” Dubhain said surlily, maddeningly, with a shake of his head and a glimmering of red in his eyes.
He had had experience enough of Dubhain’s moods, and one hesitated to ask in the first place, Dubhain’s cures being all rough-edged and full of regrets at leisure.
But that was ordinary. This fey elusiveness— this cannae, and the wild red glimmering in his eyes and this skipping about— this refusal to name a purpose in this journey, or a reason for hope— this had a worrisome quality. They followed the twins, aye, who looked for their father, but what help would this father be to them? And who might this father be, and could he at all deal with the witch at the center of their trouble?
And where did he bide? Not, surely, in the environs of the cottage.
He dared not ask again. Dubhain stayed with them thus far. Dubhain had helped him, and: A wicked place, Dubhain had said, trying to warn him, but had grown wild-eyed and skipped all about the matter of Lord Nuallan— an account as full of holes and pits and traps as the water-meadow.
He most of all feared that Dubhain might be feeling other than horror at this place, and that Dubhain might be suffering the lady’s spells in a different way than a man might. Dubhain walked close with him, aye, but there was no comfort in his presence: Dubhain seemed anxious, perhaps sunk in thought.
But when Caith next misstepped and sank in to the knee, Dubhain hauled him up by the arm and laughed at him.
“Wretch,” Caith muttered between his teeth. “Find me dry shoes and a cloak, can ye not? When I freeze, what will amuse ye then?”
“Lazy fellow.”
“Oh, aye, lazy.” He bantered with Dubhain to lift Dubhain’s spirits, and found encouragement when Dubhain answered him in good humor, enjoying his jibes. But he saw a darkness about the trail ahead in the gathering night and, it seemed to him, a sheen of loch water bending that way. “The loch comes inward, ahead. We’re walking toward it again.”
“But a higher bank is there,” Ceannann said.”Yonder.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes made out a rise in the land, sure, but before it rose it came perilously near the loch.
“Aye,” Ceannann said. “There.”
But he had no better advice after that— nor any word at all from Dubhain, who strayed off into the dark ahead, his white shirt like a will o’ the wisp by the loch shore.
At least the ground did grow drier, and the trail rose, so that they were climbing slightly on stony ground.
Then, in the full dark, the trail took a much sharper upward slope, onto stony soil and among whin and heather, woody clumps that caught the feet and hindered a straight climb. What had been simple walking became a labor, a constant struggle for footing.
The loch curved around the shoulder of the hill, and there was its dark water thankfully far below them, now, a pitch-black pit drinking up whatever light there was.
But they had out-walked the beast, Caith told himself, sitting down a moment on the stony ground. His shirt had never dried, but it was sweat, now, that made the cold spots when the wind blew.
And blow it did on this hillside. He was winded with the climbing, but he had finally warmed himself through, and if they could keep that warmth by such steady climbing until the morning, he thought he might have the strength to make it.
Something thumped and banged above them. His ears did not at first know what it was. But, looking up, he saw the flickering cloud that had stolen in over the black height of the mountain above them, and that sight of
impending weather struck him with anger and bitter despair.
A second thump came from the sky above. A flash of light. A drop of icy rain hit his leg.
“Get up,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. “Keep moving.”
Firinne and Ceannann offered no argument. They were looking at the sky upslope, too, and had doubtless felt the drops on them. They had come far enough to feel some safety from the beast, but now the very mountains had turned on them. The hills ambushed them with bitter wind that blasted suddenly from over the ridge and down the height, carrying a spatter and then a sudden deluge of cold rain so gale-churned it filled the air and came in with the breath.
Wet wool was warm wool, so far as that went. But sweaty warmth turned quickly to rain-cold, sodden clothing, hanging with twice its dry weight before they had gone a dozen feet up the mountain. The lightning showed them a stony, heather-clumped slope ahead, heart-breakingly steep, but they had no choice now but keep moving, or freeze.
“Dubhain!” Caith shouted out, but wherever Dubhain had gotten to, it was not with them.
He saved his breath after that, needing it all, driving himself uphill in the surety that if he lost the warmth in his body, he would die— it happened all too often to the unwary in such hills, and there was not, in the heather and the small stones, even a way to make a shelter. Only if they came to some natural split in the mountain flank, a stream-course, a corrie, even a sheltering pile of rocks, the three of them might huddle close together and weather the cold until the morning sun.
In the lightning flashes he searched desperately with his eyes for any such place ahead or to the sides of them; and he still hoped for Dubhain— but Dubhain, curse him, was nowhere in sight, off about mischief, it might be— while Ceannann and Firinne were all unto themselves, forging steadily ahead of him with their young and unbattered legs, their small, desperate party become so strung out on the mountain that Caith could not at all times see them. Rocks turned underfoot, leather soles grew slick, the brambles and heather caught at clothing and at skin. The gusts of a water-choked wind threatened balance on the precarious steep. Caith found himself falling farther and farther behind, and was shivering so violently that he risked his knees in every uncertain step.
Faery Moon Page 19