He had to laugh, albeit bitterly. “Not he. Not that one. He’s none of the small folk. A gift could not bind him. He cannot be bound at all. Go back to sleep.” He found himself in no mood to suffer anyone in patience. He hurled himself to his feet instead, clutching his blanket about him, and stalked off along the river shore into the night— churlish behavior, it was, and he had been bred to better, but the wind dried the tears in his eyes and chilled the heat in his heart to a cold bearable resignation.
At least he had not shouted at an undeserving innocent, or cursed her, or, thank the gods, done any worse thing to her and her brother. It was an uneasy night, after the last uneasy night, and he had not slept, dared not sleep, without Dubhain to ward off the dreams, and his brain was fevered with exhaustion. He only wanted to lose himself in the wind and the river sound for a while, until Firinne had the sense to go inside and leave him alone for the night.
He could only hope that when the twins’ unearthly father did show his face, the sun-born Sidhe would be far more reasonable to deal with than his two offspring or Dubhain.
The world had tilted when she had settled near him. Tilted askew, and he had slid to the edge of it, with darkness stirring in him, anger, and lust, and every such thing that was his father’s gift. He had a very last hand hold on safety with the twins, and Firinne had twice now tried his restraint. If he once let that go, and did as he inclined— then nothing could save them from slipping off the edge.
“Hhoom.”
He spun about in blind fright, his hands to his sword.
It was no apparition of shadow and clattering stone, it was only a man sitting on a flat rock, in the dark, an old man whose face was stubbled and weathered like any man who had lived his life in the sun and wind. His cloak was far from rich, and his white hair, such as remained of it, blew up in an untidy ridge in the stiff wind.
It was not quite the dreadfulness and dignity one expected of the Sidhe.
But a man who dealt with faery learned to take nothing at its outward seeming. Most of all learned not to be rude with any creature who might be Sidhe— it gave them license.
He was not sure whether he was safe to let go his sword hilt, but he refrained from drawing the weapon, or making it obvious. He saw the stout stick showing from under the old man’s cloak— a walking-stick, it might be, but such a stick in expert hands was not at all to discount as a weapon.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I might do the askin’,” the stranger said cheerfully, in an old man’s rough voice, and with the lilt of the remote, ancient places of the land, “seein’ ye’ve made yoursel’s free o’me hoose yonder.”
Here might indeed be the fisherman who owned the place, except, Caith thought, the items left, and the nets left rotting on their frames. There had been no living to be had in this place for years.
“If the place is yours, we do earnestly beg your pardon, grandfather. But the dust lay so thick about, and the nets in disrepair and all...” It was a perilous thing to challenge a ghost. Some took it very ill to have their death proven to them.
“Och,” the old man sighed, slowly standing up, leaning on the stick. He had only one leg, Caith saw then, and that could explain a great deal else, about the abandoning of the nets and the house, for one, without at all invoking the Sidhe. “Well,” said the gaffer, “ ’t is free ye are of the place, for aught I care. Me daughter persuaded me to leave the auld hoose, gie up me nets and sell me boat.”
“So you still live near here?” They had seen no plume of smoke such as a chimney might make at suppertime, but then, they had been busy plundering the hut about sunset. Had he been a fool, and a thief? He would feel a little foolish, but he ever so much wanted to find an explanation for the vacancy of this shore.
“Oh, a wee o’er the hill. Me daughter wad nae approve th’ auld man walkin’ abroad at sich an hour, but I smellt the smoke and a’, and I asks mesel’, I asks, who’d be settlin’ in here i’ these wicked days?— Is ’t the fishing at a’ ye’re after? ’T is gone, man, gone. Th’ day ye’d make a good living fra’ the river Fiain is lang gone. But e’en yet ye can find a fat ‘un or two, on a good day, if ye do ask. — Hae ye had any luck at all?”
“Oh, we hope to try in the morning,” he said, and debating urgently in his mind whether the old man was only what he seemed, a trusting old grandfather who truly ought to ask himself whether the people in his old shanty might not be bandits keenly interested in finding better plunder.
“Ye wad nae have a dram o’ the barley for an auld man, would ye?”
The whisky, aye, he had, and with the chill undeniably riding the wind out of Gleann Fiain, it seemed very ill-mannered to send the old man off into the night— especially seeing they were occupying his house and making free of his goods.
Although his daughter must be rich, to let good copper pots go to ruin. That thought— gave him pause.
But if the old man was, as might well be, simply the Sidhe who ruled the place, then it would be wise indeed to give him his due at his Asking.
And if he should turn out to be the selkie they had come to find, it might well be the first step of some trial. Perhaps there was some test to pass or some geas about him they had to break to gain his help, and if he did the wrong thing, the creature might dive off into the river and leave them on the spot.
Or if it was, after all other chances, only a lame old man come out on a long walk to his outworn house, well, then, ply the old fisherman with whisky and send him home sleepy and safely clear of trouble— but he doubted there was anything ordinary about him. Dubhain’s deserting him tonight, along with his own impulse to walk out here in the cold wind and the dark had, to him, a most definite sense of Sidhe magic about it.
Either, he thought, the selkie himself was indeed testing him, or the local Sidhe was offering im a chance his faults would not let him take: the Sidhe were very keen on such tricks and traps, exactly the sort of thing that would give a Sidhe just cause for anger at him. Sidhe magic, as opposed to the draiocht, was far and away more potent if it could set a man in the wrong, and if it had offered him escapes the magical three and seven times. They had troubles enough with the witch: they needed no other quarrels atop that one.
“Oh, aye, we might have a drink,” Caith said. “Whisky out of Gleann Fiain, last of the stock, it is. Would ye take a nip?”
“Heh,” the old fellow said, and, spry for a grey-beard and well-practiced on his crutch, he hopped down off the little rise and swung along with him toward the bothy and the firelight.
“My name is Caith, by the way. Caith mac Gaelan.” It was dangerous to give a true name to the Sidhe: and one could equally well reckon that a Sidhe would never lightly give his own. “And who might you be, besides the owner of this land?”
“Liamh mac Kiernan, Auld Liam, they call’t me, when there was more folk about.”
“And will there be fish to be had, grandfather, i’ th’ mornin’? Ye’ll nae begrudge them, will ye?”
Old Liamh laughed merrily as they walked. “A half a score fat an’ long as your arm wad ye take, upon a time, the pretty fishes running up to the loch and beyond. Ye’d see them leaping at the sun, a’ up the river Fiain, when the old laird was alive.”
“Him of Gleann Fiain, d’ ye mean?”
“Och, aye, e’en as long as Himself was on his high hill, the fishes came, but when the keep burned down, then the glen came grimmer and darker, and the fishes came fewer, and, och, the clatterin’ beast was out an’ about. A horrid beastie, all clatterin’ an’ rattlin’ wi’ dead men’s bones. Ye’d do well to avoid the glen, lad.”
Nothing now seemed chance at all. “Did you ever meet the mac Ceannann? Did you deal with him?”
“A fine, fine man, the mac Ceannann. He gie’d me leave to draw fishes fra’ the loch, and paid me besides, in cheeses, meself being the only fisherman who’d dare.” He chuckled as he hopped along on his crutch, and a hale old fellow he was, for a mortal, not seeming so much
as short of breath or slowing a hale man down. “Himself wad ask me the doin’s on the loch and doon th’ river ... hoo, th’ ol’ hoose a-warm wi’ light. ’T is a lassie’s voice yonder, is ’t?”
The lamplight showed through the seams and cracks in the stonework. But he had not heard any voice above the rush of the river and the sound of their own steps on the gravel. It was a sharp-eared old man, a suddenly worrisome old man.
“Was it fishing that ye lost the leg, gaffer?”
“Me leg?”
“Was it fishing ye lost it?”
“It were the beast, lad, it was.”
“In the loch?”
“In the deep I snagged something beneath the water. Up it comes!” The old man gave one hop as he swung his stick at the night sky, then used it to lean on again. “I stuck my foot at the beast and it bit it right off and dived doon wi’ me nets and a’.”
Faster and faster the old man went, hop-step, hop-step, until Caith could scarcely keep pace, past the maze of frames with their rotting nets, and at the very edge of the waning firelight, every sense of the Sidhe flared up, a prickling of Caith’s skin and a shortness of breath.
Then of a sudden it was no man beside him, but a three-legged dog, or a wolf, that, before his heart could take another startled beat, snarled and streaked straight for the hut.
“Hold the door!” Caith cried. “Hold the door, lad! As ye live, do not open it!”
Caith ran with his sword in his hand ... he did not even remember drawing it, except the weight was swinging with his arm at every stride. The black dog hit the door, scrabbled at the broken corner of it, growling and snapping, trying to force himself through.
But seeing the twins were holding the rotten door inside and he was alone out here withthe creature, Caith skidded to a halt a little short of what no longer was a dog, but a one-legged man hammering at the door with his stick, then a woman in ragged skirts...
Or a goat hung about with seaweed—
Or a drowned sheep, or a bloated pig—
Or a clattering collection of bones, changing shape with every motion it made, thumping at the door and trying to drag it open.
“Dubhain,” Caith gasped, “Dubhain, if ye’d kindly take notice, here.” He slid his finger along the edge of his sword, drawing blood, Dubhain liking the smell of it so well. “Dubhain, sweet lad, I’ve caught the creature. I hae th’ thing trapped. I’ve got it. Will ye come now and dispose of it?”
The beast, hearing his voice, abandoned its attack on the door. It turned and eyed him. In that shapeless, skinless body it had settled in, veins stood out, knotting and twisting; then sinews bunched along its grating, disjointed bones and it lunged toward him, grown larger, with a reek of stale mud and rot.
He cut at it and spun past its rush, but some part of it hit the back of his knees like a sack of stones and sent him flying onto the gravel.
He landed on his side with his sword arm beneath him and his legs all this way and that. His eyes were still full of red flashes as he scrambled back to his feet to face the beast. He made out its retreating shape through the flashes in his sight. It lurched through the nets and frames, tearing down half a dozen poles, swathing itself in rotten nets and adding a wooden clamor to its bony clatter as he gave chase and it ran for the river.
“Damn you!” he howled after it, as it churned into the black water, leaving a pale froth in its wake. He almost had a second cut at it— close enough to have his feet wet to the ankles in the slosh it made as it dived
The water reached for him. It had wanted him in deeper. He leapt back to dry land in haste, but it was already faery about him, or hell...
He stood in the vault at Dun Glas, and Saw a tracery of black vines about the cage of light.
So near to Nuallan he was standing that he could see the fine dew of sweat on Nuallan’s cheek. He heard the thundering of the death-god’s cauldron, saw the Sidhe lord’s eyes half shut. He flinched from the sight, so unmasked and desperate the Sidhe magic was, the light shining out through Nuallan’s flesh as if it were his strength melting away in the assault of that sound?
Silver in the waning moon,
Iron then becomes...
The shadows of stone images were about that place, deep in the dark, the gods with staring eyes. A black rose-branch twined through the cage, past waxen flesh, and the dark thorns of it drew blood.
Curse Nuallan, oh, aye, he did that three and four times a day and oftener if he thought of it; but this— this torment was wickedness. This was Moragacht as he had known her— her assault against any reason that resisted her hungers.
And as Nuallan turned his head and looked off toward the dark, it was such an expression of intimate desire, such a longing as anyone could ever have toward a forbidden, destructive thing— so naked a look that a man with his own soul to guard wanted to flinch away from it. The blood moved hotter in his own veins, and he was smothering in the lady’s presence. He wanted to flee back to the mortal realm, to distance himself from what was happening here. He understood suddenly what held the witch at bay. It was consent the lady wanted. Consent was the geas on her.
She must have it. She must have it or have no power. He knew that kind of wickedness. He had fought it from boyhood up, in this and that man who had found a challenge in any upright back and would not be satisfied until he bent it. It was a hungry power that had to own and bend and break what it laid hands on.
Lord Nuallan had never faced the like, not m’ lord innocence, m’ lord of the lily hands— that now were beaded with blood. The lady whispered to him knowingly through the hammering and the fire, and Nuallan turned his face to her, when he would not. No, thou fool! Do not look at her!
Had he cried that?
With a thump of his heart he caught his balance— stood on the river shore again in the dark with his sword in hand. Firinne was running toward him from the house, past the fire, her skirts flying. He caught her in his arms in his own fright, Firinne asking him, he thought, through the roaring in his ears, whether he was hurt.
He did not know whether he was. He had fled death, he had his lips on hers, and that was not closeness enough. He began to slide her skirts up, found bare, warm skin beneath his fingers, while she covered his neck with kisses.
“You dog!” Ceannann’s voice cried out of nowhere. A hand landed on his shoulder and hauled him half about, a fist cracked across his jaw, and in that blinding pain, he let go Firinne to seize Ceannann’s shirt, the only thought in his head that of killing Ceannann.
“Caith!” he heard Firinne shouting at him. He felt her pulling at his arm, not the least hindrance to his grip on Ceannann’s throat and his grip on the sword.
But of a sudden a powerful blow landed across his back ... from what third quarter he could not imagine. It caught Ceannann, too, once, twice, then him, across the head, filling the night with stars. Firinne had a net-pole in her hands and wrath on her face.
“You very fools!” she cried. “Both of you! Stop it!”
“You let him touch you!” Ceannann shouted at her. His voice cracked. “You take up with this ... this ... this thief, this bandit!”
“Bandit, am I? And yourself, ye spoiled, selfish, unnatural boy! Maybe your sister is weary of you in her bed, d’ ye think?”
“No!” Firinne shouted, and swung at both of them.
“I should let you rut with this goat!” Ceannann cried. “Is that what you want?”
“Ye stop, stop, both of ye! Come back to the house! Get away from the river! ’T was her! ’T was Herself! Are ye blind as well as daft?”
Ceannann was listening, at least, gasping for breath, with the desire for combat running out of him: Firinne had not spared with the pole, and the heat flowed away on the wind.
A man of more years than Ceannann, Caith thought, ought not to have said what he had just said to the lad. It was not a thing Ceannann could forget, it certainly gained nothing with Firinne— and anything he said or did from now on, there would always be
that between them. Caith held his sword low— he was not trusting Ceannann not to come at him again, but it was only retreat he intended, and the hot blood had gone colder and colder in his veins.
Twice now tonight, twice, he had wanted Firinne. Twice tonight he had aimed at Ceannann’s life, and this time had had the sword in his hand, himself, the man stained with murders.
“T washer!” the lass said, having more sense than either of them.
“Your sister hae the right of it,” he said to Ceannann, still panting. “Both of us hae said what we should ne’er hae said. Enough on ’t. Leave be. I was drunk. I unsay what I said.”
“Ye cannot!” Ceannann said, and seized his sister by the wrist and hauled her along toward the hut, the pole booming and clattering away down the slope.
And with the anger still buzzing in his blood, Caith walked away from the twins.
“Caith!” Firinne called after him, a high, anxious voice.
Oh, aye, she had reason to fear, seeing he left her with a fool for her protection.
Ceannann had been clinging to her lifelong, for what he could see of matters between them. Take up with anyone and Ceannann threw a tantrum. Need anything for herself and Ceannann needed her attention, immediately. It was a twisted, unnatural obsession the boy had with his sister, by the Badbh, it was ... but would not be set aright, not here and not by him this night.
Fools, both of them!
And the moment he even thought of leaving them, he found himself halted on the river shore, looking at the night sky above the mountains, with his heart pounding in mingled fear and foreboding.
The mountains might make a wall, he thought, higher than any king could build; but evil and corruption flowed out of Gleann Fiain with the peat-water, just the same, and it reached them where they were.
Whatever folk had lived here, including their fisherman, were surely bones in that misshapen body of the rattling beast, and souls in its dark belly. Draiocht could make them speak, and walk, and do the beast’s bidding. Draiocht had made the old fisherman come out and speak with him, so convincingly that he had almost called the twins out to meet him.
Faery Moon Page 31