He felt a chill when he realized how very close a call it had just been— and it had even had the flaw every Shaping had, damn his foolishness and his reluctance to take his sword to it. It had had a very host of flaws. Its story had not made sense, but the longer he had listened, and the more he had tested it, the more committed he had become to testing it further, until he had walked beside it. He had taken it right up to the hut, where only the twins’ will not to open that door had barred it— with far, far more than the strength of that leather hinge.
As for him, he had never quite given it the peace of the evening and never trusted it completely. Therefore it had had no power to come at him without disadvantage. That had surely been the saving of him.
It might also have smelled the Great Sidhe about him. The geas that bound him to Dubhain and the bright Sidhe might have been just enough magic at odds with its own purpose that, in its low cunning, it had declined to take him on, saving its strength for its try at the twins and, it had supposed, an unwarded doorway.
But that charge, too, had been a futile effort. It had been too far from the seat of its power, this hunting-hound kenneled at Dun Glas.
Or something about the twins had driven it back.
No help from him. Disgust ran through him. He started to put his sword away, found the blade sticky to the touch, and in a fury he dropped to a knee, wiped it with damp grass and dried it on his kilt— the cursed blade, the unlucky thing that he could not lose.
Macha, he wished Dubhain had never found the sword in the loch. It was a stubborn thing, with an affinity for wicked blood. He had blooded it on himself, tonight, and then on the clattering beast, and it was stained with evil.
But let a stone rattle in the dark and he would reach for it now like a child for his mother’s hand.
And the truth was, with that sword, like many a thing bespelled and wicked, a little use became more use, and a feckless, unthinking reliance in every situation. Counting his assault on Firinne, then Ceannann, tonight, Babdh and Macha, he did not like it. He was not doing at all wisely today since Dubhain had left him.
He wondered now whether Dubhain had honestly won the contest, or whether his ever declaring the contest in the first place was the chink through which the witch’s magic had gotten at him tonight. It was his own vaunted cleverness she had tested, and so far— what had he managed and how far had he outwitted anyone? It was the twins who had driven it off.
And the selkie— the selkie deep in the sea: if he read Dubhain at all a-right, Dubhain feared it. Why did he stay to meet it?
Because he could not walk out of here. His legs refused to take him. It was the geas or it was the draiocht, and he did not know which.
He squatted there in the dark, having slid the sword back in its sheath. He held the wicked thing on his knees and asked himself why he had treated Firinne like a whore in hail and full sight of her brother.
For who could say it was ever only the witch’s power just now that had blinded him to consequences? He had wanted Firinne as long ago as the cottage. A moment ago he had wanted her with a deafness to common sense that had all the feeling of geas about it— himself, himself, the Sidhe’s own criminal, that they sent to do the things in the world that the immortal Sidhe did not want the guilt for.
Macha, what do they expect of me?
Is it rape and murder they call me to, next? Is that the game now, to loose or to end the twins’ magic in the world?
And which shall I kill? Or both?
He knotted his hands together against his forehead, elbows on his knees, and he sat out in the dark a long time, trying to calm himself, trying to achieve peace and patience with Ceannann and Firinne, at least within his own heart. He tried not to think of his own fate at all, or thought, when he must think, Please, Dubhain, this is not what I have to do, is ’t? ’T is my own wicked imagination at work. Say so, ye wicked wight!
If that were not th’ Callin’ I hae yet to face— what can there be, Dubhain, my friend?
But at last he took account of where he was, and in what danger, sitting alone on the shore. Much as he dreaded to go back to the house, where Ceannann would undoubtedly offer him some other foolhardy, though justified, provocation, it was folly to sit here until the beast slipped up on him in the dark.
Besides, the wind had chilled him through, and the fire was still burning by the shanty, and there was a blanket in the hut he could claim for a cloak. He had lost his own. In the wide world, he needed that.
“Dubhain,” he whispered as he got up. “Dubhain, will ye come back now?”
For sometimes, in the after-moments of the worst and most perilous magic, when it ran utterly amiss, other things could go so far astray, and a clever Sidhe might slip through the slats, if only for a moment, and advise him.
But in the way of magic when one needed it most, there was no favorable answer, only the baying of some hound, far away on the mountain. That made him think of the mastiffs, and the mac Ceannann, and of the ruins only a mountain away from them. Ghosts howling at the moon, he thought, but when on some curious impulse, he looked at the stars in a sky clear for the first time in a night and more, he found only the last sliver of it.
Witch’s moon. The dark of the moon was tomorrow night.
He was troubled by that. Spells went better or worse on such nights.
And in the fading of the year, with life at it slowest ebb, with one realm rubbing up against another...
Tomorrow night would be the moonless time.
He reached the shanty, dragged the door open and went in, to a worried look from Firinne in the lamplight and no good pleasure from Ceannann.
The night grew too chancy to make plans for morning. He pulled off his ruined shirt and put on the better one. He gathered up the blanket he claimed, never looking at the twins more than sidelong. He put it on for a cloak and skewered it with a fisherman’s net-making needle.
He left then, and shoved the door shut on them, and went to throw another piece of driftwood on the coals.
He saw the scratches in the dirt the beast had made, scrabbling at the door. Fay rarely left such signs. It had been that much in their world. And it had broken the whisky jug. What there was had run out on the earth, mingling with mud and the creature’s blood.
He gathered his blanket about him and tucked down in the warmth of the fire that started up from the coals. Wood shifted, and sparks went up.
A whisper came drifting into his head, in the crackling of the fire, and the roar of the river.
“Silver in the waning moon,
Iron then becomes.”
He leapt up. He looked about him.
“Dubhain?”
It was the doggerel Dubhain had given him back on the trail. But it was not Dubhain’s voice. It was different. It had the rattle of stones about it.
“Silver in the waning moon,
Iron then becomes.
Ask then the ransom of the Sidhe.”
It was out of the blood of the creatures. It was out of the earth. It was the witch whispering through the wind, out of the crackle of the very fire.
Ransom.
Ransom, was it? Not for the world would she let Nuallan go no matter the ransom. But she wanted something.
And draiocht would bind her to a thread of the truth.
Dubhain had warned him...
The crackling became muddled, a racket masking other sounds. A coal snapped and spat.
There was no more voice. He could have imagined it. But her magic had come close tonight.
Silence prevailed inside, and the disturbing image came to him of the twins entwined in each others’ arms, snared again in their mutual obsession, taking comfort of each other..
Was it the nature of them? He had shaken Padraic’s indignation from him enough to ask himself that. They were born to be what they were, geas not their fault bound them.
And, aye, he decided, aye, it was wrong. Together in the womb, and never free, never truly born to the worl
d, they were.
And ne’er their fault, what they were.
There was a smear of blood on his hand. He discovered it, dark in the firelight, but it was nothing of omen, only where he had cut his finger. He sat by the leaping fire and sucked at the wound. It tasted of salt, and iron, of chanciness and such things as the dark gods desired.
Iron.
Binding.
He spat the taint out.
Heart’s bluid is the bindin’ of me.
Call the third time, my prince.
Poesy was in the wind tonight, damn it. He heard things in the dark. Voices, singing in the silence.
“Whose heart should bleed, Dubhain, damn you? Mine?”
Nuallan was in danger as the moon waned to dark. The bright Sidhe were strongest in the moonlight. And as it waned, the witch’s power grew.
Nuallan might hear the cauldron’s thunder about him. And once a man or a Sidhe began to listen to a frightening thing, Caith said to himself, and it went on— then that man, or that Sidhe might begin to tell himself there was no real harm in the sound— might he not?
He might, in the dark of the moon, say to himself, If I gie th’ witch what she wants...
Oh, who, since the foundations of the world, had ever taught m’ lord Nuallan about self-denial, when fruit from the white trees of faery had fallen into his hand at his bidding, and everyone about him bowed and did as he wanted.
Yes, my lord, at once, my lord.
Nuallan knew not how to regard threats. Nuallan believed in his own will: that was his strength. But even he might begin to doubt, once the moon grew dark.
Did a man know such things?
This man knew the moon did not set in faery, not the faery of the Great Sidhe. Nothing changed there. Nothing ever changed.
But there was a silver gate there now, in a dark woods. And Lord Nuallan was trapped in a witch’s basement, in a silver cage, threaded through with black roses. He saw the sheen of silver, and the black leaves, black thorns...
Caith opened his eyes wide and stared at the firelight, trying to chase out the Sight, knowing now the voices were his voices, the Sight coming in on him like a flood. He hugged his arms about himself. He doubted all his choices, and repented all his decisions, and sleep eluded him this long night, weary as he was. Doubts and forces chased through his veins: war was going on in him, his hands trembled with it, and images of stone gods and silver vines chased each other through his vision.
He was ready to fall into that place. If he would consent, he would be there, and all doubts would end, and he could sleep....
Dubhain could come there. Dubhain was very welcome there, in Dun Glas.
Dubhain simply could not come here.
Come, a Voice said to him.
It was a brink so peaceful, and so easy...
He leapt up away from it and knocked on the door of the shanty. Knocked, and banged on it a third time, with his fist.
“Go away!” Ceannann shouted at him from the other side of the door. “The door is barred, man, and we’ve nothing further to do with you tonight!”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Oh, aye, something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. We’re asleep, man. We’ve no interest in your fancies. If the beast comes back, deal with it!”
“Lad— the moon’s wanin’! We were not hearing what Dubhain was telling us. When ye work magic, something is owed the other side. The greater the magic, the greater the gift must be, and the witch was obliged to warn us today, about the silver, and the iron, and the moon. ’T is the witch’s moon before us. I did nae keep track o’ the days! ’T is the hinge-point of nights tomorrow night, the changin’ o’ the year, d’ ye understand me, and too late for your father if we bide here?”
“Go to sleep!”
“Ceannann, we hae not the night to wait for your father. We have to go down to the sea!”
“Now?” Ceannann cried. “In the middle of the night? You’re drunk or daft, man. Have the rest of the jug and go back to sleep.”
“Lad, I was wrong. ’T is the third time I say it. Come out and gather what we need. We hae a walk before us.”
“No!” said Ceannann. “Not with you and not in the dark!”
“Lad.” Restraint and reason came harder with every breath. “If I wanted that door down, I could take it down. The Sidhe is not faring well in Dun Glas, and will fare worse tomorrow, d’ ye hear me?”
“All the more reason to stay inside tonight!”
“Open the door.”
“No!”
“You—” No. Temper would not improve matters. He did not batter the door: he rested his clenched fist carefully on the stone beside it. “Firinne, — Firinne, will you reason with the lad, there? ’T is a long walk to the coast. If your selkie father is late, or constrained somehow, let’s halve the distance. Shall we lose everything, for the sleep ye’ve had some of, at least?”
“We’ve had no sleep!” Ceannann cried. “We’ve walked half of last night and had you to deal with in this one, and if our father can’t reach us here, then what earthly help is he? Go where you like and ask your friend to go with you, if you can find him, if he’s not been one of the witch’s creatures all along! And for what we know,you are!”
He could not prove that untrue, even to himself. He lied, knowing what he did of magic: “If we were hers, would a bright Sidhe hae flung us out of Dun Glas? ’T is a’ the gods of hell she bids to loose, man, and this river is hers. Open the door, and let’s be on our way while we have the time left to do anything at all.”
“Do what?” Ceannann cried. “Why should we care? ’T was your notion to tag after us,’t was your notion our father could help the Sidhe, none of ours. We’re safe here. We can fish the river, the two of us, and live our lives?”
Macha, it was catching. “Wi’ the beast at your door at nights? When the whore of Dun Glas hath a Sidhe lord to open the gates below, an’ th’ old gods are let loose ‘i th’ world? Ye?” He swallowed ‘fool’ and continued mildly, letting his fist rest tamely against the wooden frame, “She owns all the land hereabouts, lad, from the mountains to the sea. Where are the people here? Can you answer that? D’ ye remember Gleann Fiain at all before the beast came? This land is despoiled of people, flocks, everything that ought to be here. This is not safety ye stand in. Listen to someone who knows the world, lad, listen to someone who’s been farther than Gleann Fiain in his life, and dealt with wickedness besides this wicked woman. Ye cannot temporize with it. I know ’t!”
“By what do you know?” Ceannann challenged him, and the intemperate man shouted back:
“Because you cannae, with me!” He drew back and jerked the rotten wood without a further thought. The door twisted, it fell apart, the twins cried out, and he stood facing them with his hand on his sword, because he had no idea what Ceannann would do.
But Ceannann stood embracing Firinne, her arms about him, and their eyes wide in the faint firelight from outside.
And if that sight did not curdle a man’s blood, he could not think what would.
“I will swear to you,” he said in a harsh voice, “I will take you toward the sea, as far as I can, by mornin’. I will find your father if there’s a father to be had on this forsaken shore. I will put my request to him, myself, and thereafter I’ve no care what ye do or where ye settle. My care is a fool of a Sidhe lord who’s about to become a witch’s key to bloody hell, and once I free him there’s none so ready as I to see the backs of two greater fools!” He found himself shouting, and the two of them staring at him like two mice caught in the granary, which was not the help he wanted. He lowered his voice and mastered his temper. “I beg ye, lad, I do beg ye, I’ve a black and a wicked temper, and I beg ye to use softer words with me sae I may get t’ a better mind. If Herself has a way to reach us tonight, I tell ye contritely, ’t will be your tongue and my temper, or the other way about. And I would not willingly do you harm, lad, not you nor your sister, but you will provoke me, if ye do not what
I say, now, and very quickly.”
Ceannann’s anger was ready to boil up, but Firinne silently pulled him back.
“Everything’s packed,” Firinne said. “Only let us take our blankets, Ceannann, and let’s go. We shan’t have any sleep, anyway, if we don’t. Please, Ceannann, don’t fight with him.”
“He’s a common bandit.”
“Nor common nor a bandit,” Caith muttered, and looked the place over for weapons. “The boat-hook, girl, the pole with the spike— four foot of that ’twixt you and the beast, if it gets past your brother and me. Take it, and leave all the rest. You can come back for what else you want, if there’s a coming back at all.” He gathered up a plain pole from the corner, thinking that his advice to Firinne was good for any of them, and: “Come on,” he said then, and kicked the wreckage of the door aside, waving them out into the night.
They followed, clutching their blankets about them for warmth, Ceannann doubtless with thoughts of bashing him over the head or putting the spike of Firinne’s boat-hook in his back.
He waved Ceannann on ahead of him, and Firinne, too, in that reckoning, and the twins struck out seaward along the river shore at that tireless pace of theirs. It was the cruelest weapon they owned.
Complain, and bid them go at a pace a mortal man could bear?
It was a comfortable pace, for a man fresh from his bed in the morning, a man who had not been knocked head over heels by the beast, tonight, and if that man had no sore jaw and sorer disposition. And if that man had slept more than a moment or two in recent nights.
A bit more, he told himself, with the breath already hurting his side, where a rib caught a stitch. He kept their pace and he did not damn them for it, either one. Things were far too chancy for that.
Came the lonely sound from the hills again, the howling of dogs, high in the mountains of Gleann Fiain, and he doubly cursed his folly, that he had ever delayed going to the sea.
Chapter Ten
Ceannann and Firinne strolled along the shore in the starlight with their poles in hand, letting them trail, at times, in an indolent, snaky line through the weeds that grew along the river bank— no more trail than they made with their walking, Caith decided glumly, and held his peace about it.
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