The falling dew had made the grass and the rocks alike slick and treacherous going, and, now the wind from the mountains had sunk away, and the air had grown still as one might expect at a certain point of the night— but the sea wind still failed them, the air stayed bitter cold, and now a mist began to rise from the river surface, making for the first hour a pale sheet over the water, a white tide slowly curling outward through the low places.
“Keep frae the edge o’ that,” Caith said, when he saw them chancing it too far and walking ankle-deep in mist. “Macha, the beast could take your leg.”
“Mind your own advice,” Ceannann retorted, and muttered to his sister, as they walked: “Where’s his friend? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Caith retorted, at their backs, and Ceannann swung around.
“Don’t know.” Ceannann was walking backward, a perilous act on the foggy edge. “I’ll wager you don’t know.”
“Ceannann,” Firinne said, and, catching at his arm, made him turn about again.
“You take his part. I don’t know why you should take up for him.”
“There’s a great deal i’ this world ye dinnae ken,” Caith retorted, utterly out of patience. “And walk or wade, as ye please, boy, ’t is your leg. I’ve no stake in the matter.”
“Oh, aye, you don’t.”
“I want your sister’s safety, man, and her life and her welfare, which art in great hazard wi’ you.”
“Oh, with me, is it? The beast likes your company. It likes it well enough it came up out of the glen with you to eat our flock and break the wards that protected us for years. It liked you well enough it came walking up on us at your side tonight, mild as milk, until it tried to take th’ door down. Then you break our door down, you hale us off into the dark on your advice, an’ now, nay, nay, we shouldn’t ask where the Sidhe has gone. We’re not to know that, and you’ve no idea?”
“Watch where you’re goin’, boy!”
Ceannann scarcely escaped walking into the reeds.
“Ceannann,” Firinne reproved him.
“I don’t know why we should trust him,” Ceannann cried. “I don’t know why you’re always taking his word over mine of a sudden!”
“Trust me or not,” Caith said. “An’ fall in the river if you choose. ’T would please me no end.” He was short of breath and shorter of temper, and he let his steps lag, wanting the twins to go on ahead of him and mind their own business, as they had before. Ceannann fell angrily silent again, while Firinne—
Who could know about Firinne? Firinne had her eyes on where she was walking and her wits clear on present circumstance, so far as he could tell. Ceannann was being the fool for both of them.
But Ceannann— because Ceannann was the fool that he was, the witch had a fool’s temper to use. And that was so evident a weakness that a man could all but see the black tendrils of Moragacht’s spells working through it, twining about Ceannann, and from there, twining about them all, far, far more evidently now that Dubhain had left them. Ceannann had respected Dubhain, the gods knew why— feared him enough, perhaps, to keep a civil tongue in his head, or, more likely, was bewildered by the chancy wight, and never knew which of them was master.
More, Caith thought, he himself had been outside the hut most of the time the twins had been searching through it—
So Ceannann was not the only fool in the company. He had not to wonder whether Ceannann might have found another knife among the oddments of fisherman’s gear, and hidden it from all of them— a close-quarters weapon far harder to see in the dark than that plain pole the boy carried.
That consideration, far more than the stitch in his side, kept him lagging considerably at their backs as they followed the river, to avoid words with them at all. He had no idea what specific cause a hostile magic might stir up between them, but he little liked the way his own temper had let fly past his better judgement just then and centered on Ceannann. He had said words he had not needed say, and he had been guarding his tongue.
Warn the lad? Nothing he could possibly say to him was going to fall on sensible ears now. He heard the faint mutters of argument ahead of him, as it was, Firinne doing her best to reason with the lad, by the sound of it, and to whatever she said, Ceannann shook his head fiercely.
And meanwhile both of them kept walking on the flatter, easier ground near the river, against all his advice. Not so near the water as before, true— to that degree Ceannann had taken his warning— but, if only because he had said it, Ceannann must appear to do the contrary, acting the boy as well as the fool.
All this Caith observed and held his peace, thinking in his heart, Very well, if the beast swallows them whole, if the Sidhe can do no better than send fools to their aid, what affair is that of mine? Did m’ lord Nuallan make me their keeper? ’T is only Dubhain’s guess we’re to take them anywhere at all, and what care I if the beast makes breakfast of them both?
While, past the next few hills, the river-course grew wider and lower and more reedy along the edges. “We should go up,” he said, seeing how the cold fog was spreading now from the water to the shore, and about their legs from time to time. It lay in the low places in the meadow as the land descended, pale, diffuse pools of starlit mist.
But when he made that sane suggestion, Ceannann muttered something surly and kept walking, no longer indolent strolling, but setting a pace that was painful for him ... while the fog grew deeper over the land and the gap between him and them widened.
The cold air remained still and hushed, except for his own hard breathing and the persistent quiet rush of the river, that drowned all slighter noises. It was that hour when the night-creatures had fallen to silence and sleep and the birds had not yet foreseen the sun— the dark before the dawn, Caith thought to himself. In air so still it was full of tricks, and underlain by the river-sound, he believed at times he still heard the howling from the hills, but in the dark it was easy to imagine a remembered sound. At other times he thought he heard the beat of hooves, the same way, but it might have been the rhythmic whisper of the water.
Twice and three times that happened to him as he walked, and he stopped and listened, wary and mistrustful man that he was, not liking to dismiss so much uneasiness, and so much that rode, like faery, at the edge of his five senses, and under the sounds of his own struggle to stay with the twins. He never heard it when he was stopped, or in the troughs of hills. It was as if the air had a life and a heartbeat too faint to hear, as if his senses might, as sometimes they did, unwilled, reach into faery to warn him of what mortal ears could not hear.
Another hill and over, and he walked faster down the slope this time to overtake the twins with their Sidhe-born strength. The effort was almost beyond him, and at the last, seeing them start up again, he had to call their names louder than he liked at all.
It was Firinne who made Ceannann wait. Ceannann gave him a surly look while he held his side and caught enough breath to speak sanely.
“There’s something in the hills,” he began.
“Something in the hills,” Ceannann mocked him.
“Boy,—” Macha, it was always the wrong word with the lad. Hostile working tangled all about them, and he made a dismissing, deprecatory gesture. “Forgive me. Something’s out there.”
In the cellars of Dun Glas, the boy had shown some compassion. On the road outward, he had shown some respect of his rescuers. Since they had set out, not a whit of sense ... but now Ceannann as well as Firinne did look toward the hills, frowning, as if some least unease had gotten past the clamor of Ceannann’s jealousy.
“I’ve seen nothing,” Caith said quietly. “It’s distant. Riders, I’d judge. Maybe something else, not their friend.” Unlucky to name a ghost, unluckier to attract one by imprudence. “The same that’s followed us from your father’s keep.”
The twins looked not at all comfortable in that.
“Naught to do but keep going,” Caith said, “but they’ve
naught to guess, either. They know we’ll be following the river.”
“Then well we didn’t go off into the hills,” Ceannann muttered.
Ye did not hear, Caith thought, appalled by the boy’s notions. Ye fool, lad, ye’ve no craft at all where it counts...
But going off with them into the rolling land, laying traps and ambushes with two innocents for his help ... he thought of that and thought that Ceannann, from his own understanding, might be right about their chances.
Besides, it lost too much time.
“The fog will hide us,” Firinne said, “if it stays.”
“The witch’s damned weather,” Caith said, “and not what I’d trust, over all.”
“We daren’t stand here,” Ceannann said, and he found no argument to that. He was willing finally for them to work whatever magic they could on him, much as he loathedthe feeling of the Sidhe touch, but Ceannann’s impatience put him off.
“Ye daren’t lose me,” was how it came out, and Firinne brushed his arm as if to say they would not, by her will, but Ceannann, with a cold look half-backwards, and already two steps up the hill, said,
“Then keep up, man.”
Damn the boy, he thought, too quickly to stop himself, and instantly wished to avert the fey saying he had hurled into the winds of magic, but he could not somehow find forgiveness in him for Ceannann.
Safest, then, to wish safety for all of them, Ceannann, because he wasFirinne’s.
Perhaps he should go apart from them after all, and fight the fight he understood, from ambush and with stealth— and let the twins deal with their father. If that sense he had prickling at the nape of his neck was the witch’s men behind them, and they had brought horses up over the hills of the little glen, by Guagach and over the mountain there, as they might well have done, then the witch might have been casting her spells to stop them as well as sending her riders to cut them off from the sea, long since knowing the track they would take. The woman who had schemed so long for this would have foreseen every move they could make, and the draiocht she wove worked through time and years.
She might well have sent an ambush out to their rear, and thrown her nets about them in haste only when they made their sudden bid tonight to reach the sea?
And trust that, since they were still free, Nuallan’s magic was still working, too. To what degree it was working a mortal could only guess, but if the moon could not be hastened in its course, and Moragacht’s purpose attended that immutable hour, the hinge of the year— then wisest for m’ lord white-hands to give his mortal instruments a wee, small help tonight, never minding his own discomfort for a trice.
Something subtle, like the impulse that had made him think of the new moon and the autumn, and, subtle as a kick, had Nuallan’s good hound on his feet and frightened of the hour.
Except the Sidhe’s hound was not wise enough oe’r all to know which kicks came from the lady and which from the lord.
Good sense said now that he might thwart Moragacht by killing her men and cutting off the mortal reach of her power, but he felt queasy at the thought of going out there to deal with them alone, even from ambush and by night. He had lived with bandits, aye, and old bandits had not gotten that way by ignoring the odds.
D’ ye hear me, Dubhain, thou lazy wight? Is ’t another Calling ye ask? And heart’s blood, this time?
Is it mine, is it mine will satisfy ye this time, ye black, intemperate creature? Maun I bleed?
Maybe that thought was where his courage failed him. He abandoned all thought of challenging the witch’s men alone.
He slogged along the meadow, up to his knees in fog now, as the shortest course, the one that let him keep the twins in sight, and wondered in a fey and angry mind whether he ought not to go closer to the river, make himself a target for the witch’s beast and be done with it. Dubhain might save him. The geas that drew him back might get Dubhain free of the witch, poor wight, the bright gods save his wicked innocence.
Maybe that was what he had to do.
Give to get, kept ringing in his mind with every step he took in the wake of the geas-bound, fey and fated offspring of a selkie and a fool.
Sacrifice. Something had to be given, to get Dubhain back.
Then the geas would hurl them together with dreadful force.
Was that m’ lord’s simple plan, against the powers of hell? Was that all the wisdom and the foresight Nuallan could muster?
Macha, he did not want to think at the moment how angry he was, or how much at times he longed for Nuallan to suffer something beyond the pangs of inconvenience. From moment to moment he hated Nuallan more than he hated the witch, and, oh, that hatred was considerable tonight.
Meanwhile his side ached, the breathless air grew thicker with fog, and if the morning stars were still visible above the hilltops, no stars shone above them on the riverside. The mist grew thicker by subtle degrees, and the gap between himself and the twins steadily widened. He made an earnest effort to narrow it, called out, faintly,”Wait, plague take it,” while Ceannann and Firinne pursued their way on a rapid downhill. His voice lost itself in the fog and the whisper of the river.
And in only as long as it took to crest the next small knowe, he had no sight of them at all.
No sight of them, no sound but the river, then a feeling of presence in the night and some sound just out of hearing, that might have issued from out of the earth. It might be some ominous echo resounding through faery— or it might simply be the sound of pursuit coming closer to him.
“Dubhain,” he muttered as he walked, leaning heavily on the pole, and using it to probe the hidden ground ahead of him. “Dubhain, lad, I truly, truly own ye the winner in our quarrel, I’ll carry ye on my back a mile, I swear ’t to ye, sweet Dubhain....”
He had lost all hope that Dubhain could slip around the edges of faery to cheat and help him outside the balances. Worse, if even he slipped toward the lady’s magic from time to time, what of Dubhain’s temptation to it?
“Two miles, Dubhain.”
Twice was never enough.
“Three miles, ye hard-hearted wight!”
Macha, would that the calling could be that easy, or that cheap.
“Three’s the bargain, is ’t not, in faery? Thou ‘rt bound, d’ ye hear me, Dubhain? She cannot have ye. I will not let ye go to her, d’ ye hear? I’ll drag ye out of faery with my bare hands if I have to...”
Mistake, that was, even to think of going after him: the fog hid the mortal world from him and in the next step the grey desolation of faery and the mist of the riverside fluttered back and forth in his senses.
For the next few steps, he did not know whether he was walking or floating, could not tell solid earth from the insubstantial.
But something was there— something was near him, even as the river’s noise faded from his hearing and a silence came around him.
That was what he held to, in the treachery of that slippage— a moment, a breath, and he was back on the river-shore again, hearing the river.
He could not remember now whether he had found Dubhain a moment ago. He recalled the feeling of something brushing near him in faery, but he could not recover it and on the evidence of that presence near him, he dared not reach back to it. He cast about him in fright for a moment, trying to assure himself that he remembered aright and that the river belonged on his left— surely he could rely on that memory. He had not gotten turned around.
But he had lost other points of bearing, impossible to recover— for the mist-laden dark gave him no indication how long he might have spent in that fey, foolish slip into the other world. It seemed to him to have been only the space of a breath or two’but one could never rely on time in faery, and now he did not know how far Firinne and Ceannann might have walked ahead of him, or whether he had stepped out of that realm at the same place on the river, or whether the pursuers he had feared were behind them were now ahead.
That was what it was to step into faery.
And he cursed his judgement in general: unnecessary, to have quarrelled with Ceannann; unnecessary, his dealings with Firinne, setting them at odds with him...
Or maybe wholly Necessary. Maybe Necessity was in full course now, unstoppable— it was surely not all his fault that Ceannann and Firinne had ranged ahead of him, refusing help. The one of them was Sidhe, well and good.
One of them had gotten the other away safely from the hill fort seven years ago, while Padraic and the mac Ceannann died for them...
Had they shed tears for it? The one that was Sidhe would not have.
They might be losing this battle, he thought. And he had had to take a step into the grey world, and lose them in this chancy mist. His breath as he walked came like the wind of a bellows. The hammering in his ears might be his heart or the thunder of the cauldron of hell. He still kept the pace he set until, despite the pole to feel ahead of him, he misstepped into boggy ground, and slid suddenly knee-deep into cold water.
At that touch of the river-water the draiocht flooded through him, quick and bitter chill, full of shadow-shapes. The brazen thunder threatened him, and a mournful wail shrieked through all the borders of faery— the shelly-coated beast, finning along on the currents, smelt the blood on him and searched the waters for him.
And for the elusive red-eyed shape it hunted there.
“Dubhain! Damn ye!”
Caith struggled across the boggy spot and recovered solid ground to walk on, with an acute stab of pain in his heel he dismissed at first as a scrape on some sunken rock or branch, while his foot was numbed by the cold, but he recalled then it was the same heel the beast had bitten when he had outrun it above the glen, that wound which Dubhain had healed in the cottage that night.
And that it had a piece of him— that thought set the fear in him. He limped among the reeds, swearing in crazed cadence to keep himself moving, remembering his own advice to the twins to take to the higher ground. But he trusted Ceannann to do exactly the thing he had told Ceannann not to do, and hew close to the river.
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