A Dance with Fate Page 16

  DAU

  Darkness all around. Shadows. Ghosts. A hive of bees in my head, buzzing, swarming, stinging. My eyes burn. What is this? Someone’s shouting, a young man, an old man, yelling at each other. The words don’t make sense. Crashing sounds, breaking sounds, hurting my ears. I shout, I scream, but nobody comes, there’s only me and the pain, the knife through my skull, the writhing snake in my head, the pounding beat of a great drum inside me . . .

  * * *

  * * *

  Wasn’t there a boy here? A boy with a kind voice? What happened to him?

  * * *

  * * *

  My hand is burned. My hand was in the fire. When I fell. Why did I fall? Where am I? Why doesn’t anyone come?

  * * *

  * * *

  Hot. Cold. It hurts to breathe. What is this garment, a monk’s habit, a night-robe, a shroud? It’s wet. It smells vile. Oh, gods, my eyes! Help me! Help!

  * * *

  * * *

  No. Don’t shout. Don’t bring them here. Their scornful voices. Their cruel hands.

  * * *

  * * *

  Every part of me aches. My knife . . . my weapon . . . Make this pain stop. Make it stop.

  * * *

  * * *

  A sound. A door opening. I curl up tight. A hedgehog, all sharp spikes. A hard-shelled sea creature. I will make my own fortress. I will . . .

  17

  BROCC

  There’s nothing to say. What is the point of accusations? The bird is dead. I could ask questions all day and not find out who slipped into my hut and murdered it while I slept. To do so would not bring it back to life. A dark mood is on me as I dress then wrap the corpse in a cloth and carry it out into the forest. I will lay it to rest now, before too many folk are stirring. I cannot speak to them yet. I know I could not hold back my anger.

  I don’t try to find the area where Rowan first saw the little one. The forest is vast and his description was vague. Instead I walk well clear of the habitations of Eirne’s folk, then look for a spot where the small one’s remains are unlikely to be disturbed. It feels so light in my arms now. I have wrapped the cloth over its head; I cannot bear to see its eyes so dull and lifeless.

  It takes me some time to find the right place. At last I come across a fearsome stand of holly bushes growing around a small rock formation that somewhat resembles a crouching cat. It is possible to slide the bundled remains through a narrow gap, then edge them up until the rocks hide them from view. I hope this is good enough. I kneel there for a little, and sing softly about flight and freedom and hope. Odd how a bard can summon such words when his heart is full of doubt. Does that mean the song is a lie? I do not know, only that I am heartsick and weary, not in the way of a man who has completed a long day’s work, but in the manner of one who wrestles with unanswerable questions. A man in danger of losing his way. Oh, Liobhan, how I wish you were here.

  The song is done. I walk back to the gathering place, where Eirne’s folk are preparing the morning meal as usual. It is as if nothing at all has happened. But perhaps they do not know—after all, I took the body and went off without a word. Still, at least one of them must know the truth.

  Folk bid me a good morning and I wish them the same. Eirne is nowhere to be seen, but when Rowan appears I tell him quietly what has occurred. His shock seems perfectly genuine. Of them all, he is the one I could least believe to have done this deed.

  “You should speak to the queen,” he says in a murmur. “Let her know about this before anyone asks you how the creature is.” He glances around the gathering place. The assorted folk of Eirne’s clan are setting out leaf platters, piling various foodstuffs on them, bringing little jugs of water. They look so innocent. They are like something from a sweet childhood song, perhaps the one I sang with Eirne, verse for verse, on the day we first met. Not all are here. “Where is True?” I ask Rowan. “How is he faring?”

  “Resting in my quarters. Troubled by pain. Moon-Fleet sat with him overnight. She tried her wash to reduce inflammations of the skin, and her draft to banish ill humors. He is no better this morning. His wounds are beyond her ability to treat. The matter needs urgent action, Brocc.”

  I hear the words he does not speak aloud. Whereas the death of the bird, sad and strange as it is, requires no action at all. “Moon-Fleet must be exhausted,” I say. Moon-Fleet is the nearest thing to a healer that Eirne’s folk have. She is a human-like being, notable for her flow of silver hair, her large shining eyes, and her delicate, pale features. Of all the clan, she is the one most like the image I always had of the Fair Folk, back in the days when I had not encountered them in the flesh. The one exception being Conmael, my parents’ friend, who brought them the entirely unexpected gift of a newborn infant. But Conmael, like me, like Eirne, is of mixed blood, one parent fey, the other human. Or so my mother has told me.

  “Eirne cannot help True?” Eirne has her own powerful magic. I’ve seen what she can conjure up in her scrying bowl.

  “The queen is unwell.” Rowan sounds somber. “And she has said this is beyond the abilities of any in our clan to heal. True must walk the Long Path. I will go with him, Brocc, if you think that wise. Only . . . it would leave our patrols short, unless there is another who could take my place.” He knows, and I know, that only the three of us are strong enough to act as guards and protectors.

  “Perhaps Moon-Fleet could go with True. Or Nightshade.”

  “The queen needs Nightshade by her side. And Moon-Fleet is too slight to support True if his strength fails along the way.”

  We look at each other, neither of us willing to put the other possibility into words. In the end, this will be decided by Eirne. As queen, she has that right.

  When all are assembled, including a shaky-looking True, I tell them what has happened with the bird. I make no accusations and they ask no questions. All are unusually quiet. Perhaps that has something to do with the look on Eirne’s face.

  Rowan asks if he and I can speak to her in private after breakfast, with Nightshade, True, and Moon-Fleet, and she nods assent. I notice that she eats almost nothing. There was a time, not very long ago, when I’d have been able to sit next to her and coax her to eat, choosing the choicest morsels. I should do that now. But she is shutting me out, not with an oaken door and a bolt, but with eyes full of distrust and a tight, ungiving mouth. Is it because I do not comply unquestioning with her will? She is not always right. She is fallible, as I am. I came here to be her warrior, her bard, her helpmeet. But not her slave.

  With breakfast over and the smaller ones heading about their day’s business, we gather in Eirne’s retreat, which is spacious enough to accommodate even True. He, too, has eaten little, and he moves stiffly, as if in constant pain. How long is the Long Path? A walk to fetch help might take many days.

  “Well, Rowan?” Eirne’s tone is cool, even toward her most loyal retainer. But then, he has become my friend and comrade, and perhaps she no longer trusts him as she did.

  “True needs expert help, my lady. You spoke last night of the Long Path. I believe he should go now, this morning, while he has the strength. One of us should go with him.”

  “True?” Eirne’s expression softens as she turns toward the stony being. This morning his mossy hair has a brownish tinge, as if the Crow Folk’s poison is starting to kill it. How will his tiny passengers fare if that happens?

  “I can go on my own. It would be better.”

  “No!” Rowan, Moon-Fleet, and I all speak together.

  “No, True,” Eirne says. “You must take a companion, for the way can be long, and you are not your strong self right now.” There’s a silence. Eirne looks at each of us in turn: her indispensable companion and sage; her stalwart protector; her delicately built healer; her husband, the warrior bard. As her eyes light on me, a frown appears on her brow. Gods, she’s pale. I wonder if it i
s she who should travel the Long Path in search of healing. “You will go, Brocc,” she says. “I must have Nightshade here by me. The patrols will cease until you return, though some of our winged beings will watch from above. Rowan, you will make a plan to keep the gathering place and all the dwellings of our folk safe until True and Brocc return. There are some who can help you. Make use of them. And no more forays out into the human world. Not for anyone.”

  She wants me gone. That hurts, even though I had been about to volunteer my services, knowing this was the best plan. I am strong enough to support True. I have skills that might be useful on such a venture; I am a healer’s son, and I am a Swan Island warrior. Or was, until last summer. Eirne’s folk will miss me less than they would Rowan. My wife will miss me less than she would Nightshade. There, I’ve said it. Not aloud, but I think all present understand it.

  “Very well, I will go. I may need some instructions, having never ventured down that path before. I should speak with Moon-Fleet about True’s injuries. I should pack a bag.”

  “Brocc,” says Eirne, “you are a warrior. Prepare yourself calmly, as you would for a mission. When you are ready, I will show you the doorway.”

  * * *

  * * *

  I’m used to packing quickly and efficiently. It’s one of the things they taught us on Swan Island. I talk to Moon-Fleet, who gives me a jar of salve and a cloth-wrapped bundle of dried herbs. She has never traveled the Long Path and does not know how far we will have to walk or whom we might ask for help along the way.

  Rowan puts his bone knife in my hand. “You’ll need this,” he says. And when I make to protest, for I know it is a prized possession, he adds, “Look after it carefully. We’d best see about making you one of your own after you return. Be safe, my friend.”

  “And you, comrade.” Gods, when I first met Fox Boy—that was my crude name for him before I learned the real one—I would never have dreamed we would become so close. “I hope this won’t take long.”

  “It will take however long it takes.” Nightshade casts her owl eyes over the bag I will carry, which holds both my necessities and True’s. “The Long Path is changeable. Your music will help you, Brocc. A shame you cannot carry the harp, but your voice will open doors for you. If not that, then your quick wit. May good spirits attend you.”

  Eirne is out of earshot, talking to True by the council oak, so I say, “I know you will look after the queen; give her good counsel; help her in all things. Nightshade, I am concerned for her. She seems so distant, and she looks so pale.”

  The sage gives me a look I cannot interpret. Quizzical? Pitying? “The queen will be among her own people,” she says. “Think first of True, who needs you most. He does not like to admit weakness, Brocc. He finds it hard to accept help. But the walk will be testing for you both, and you must be the strong one. Do not lose sight of the small folk who dwell on him, for they, too, will need care.”

  I had imagined perhaps the tiny folk would stay behind, moving from the chinks and crevices of True’s body to similar spots on tree trunks or stony outcrops. “They travel everywhere with him?”

  “They have not taken the Long Path before and neither has True. I wish you a safe journey, bard, and a swift return. I think the queen is waiting for you.”

  Eirne has said good-bye to True, who stands in the shade of the council oak, gazing around the gathering place as if to commit it to memory. Now she comes toward me. A smile trembles on her lips. Are those tears in her eyes? She looks like a flower chilled by the first frost of winter.

  I will not say good-bye without touching. I cannot. Too much is unknown about this journey. We might never come back. How can I not embrace my wife, kiss her cheek, murmur words of love? But the wall is still up, for all her smile, for all her tears. I reach out and take her hands in mine. They are cold. “I wish I could sing you a song,” I say, ignoring the fact that we are not alone. “But I know we must leave now. I will sing to you when we return, and I hope it will be a song of love and hope, wisdom and courage. Be well, my queen. Be safe, my wife.” I lift her hands and kiss them gently. I close my eyes and remember how we were on our wedding day, brimful with love and joy and fun. That was a day of singing and dancing, of flowers and feasting and laughter. “Will you show us where to find the path?”

  Eirne does not embrace me. She does not kiss me. But she holds on to my hands, and her eyes are searching as she gazes up at me. “Fine words, bard,” she says, and I do not know if she means the words are lies, or if she is telling me she, too, still believes in hope and courage. “I will look forward to that song. Come, I will show you. Reaching the Long Path is not so much where as how.”

  We walk northward through the woods, Eirne, True, and I, with Nightshade following. I have the bag on my back. True carries a staff. On this journey he’ll more likely be using it as a support than as a weapon. I have no idea what we will encounter, and none of the others is particularly helpful.

  “How will we know where to stop?” I ask. “How can we know whom to trust?”

  “There will be signs,” Eirne says. “You seek a healer. Do not expect that healer to be much like Mistress Juniper, who, despite her knowledge of this realm, is a human woman. If I believed she could help True, I would have sent you to her.”

  I’m not sure if this is the truth. When I suggested Mistress Juniper, when I needed help for the little bird, Eirne said no. But I don’t challenge her. Right now it’s True’s well-being that matters.

  “Here,” says Nightshade. The terrain has become more hilly, rising and falling through beech woods, and there are many streams. We have crossed several bridges, some consisting of a single log spanning a watercourse whose width was twice my height. Those were a challenge for True. As a warrior, his greatest assets are his strength and his sheer bulk. But he is heavy and a little awkward in his movements. Now we are at the top of a rise, and down the hill before us is a bigger body of water, perhaps a lake. “The entrance is on an island. There is a ferry.” Nightshade glances at True.

  “This is the only way?” I ask, imagining the sort of ferry that might be designed to take passengers such as the slender Eirne or the bird-like Nightshade, or our small folk such as Thistle-Coat and Gentle-Foot. On that kind of vessel, a tall man such as myself might well have difficulty.

  “It is the only way,” says Eirne, stepping forward to look up at me. “Go now, Brocc. May good fortune walk with you. For this journey, my bard, your fey blood is your friend. Use what you have learned in your time here. Do not give answers too freely. Do not trust in outward appearances. Be measured in your approach.” She turns to True. “Be strong, my friend. Help is in sight. For you and for your small passengers. I wish you well.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” rumbles True, but I cannot find words to speak. I hitch the bag higher, glance at my companion to be sure he’s ready, then head on down the path without a backward glance. It is all too easy to believe this whole thing is a trick designed to send me away from Eirne’s realm, perhaps forever. In my mind is an image of myself lying dead under the trees, my eyes staring blindly upward, my neck snapped like the bird’s. I see True drowned, his body reduced to a heap of rocks on the lake bed, a beard of water plants creeping across his face.

  “Well,” True says now, making me start. We’re on the muddy shore, and out there on the water is a shallow vessel. A diminutive boatman is poling it toward us. “It’s a ferry of sorts.”

  An old story comes to mind, one in which a man got onto such a ferry and was persuaded to take a turn with the pole. When the vessel reached the far shore the ferryman sprang to dry land and the man discovered he was ferryman now, doomed to pole the craft back and forth, back and forth, until he in his turn could trick a passenger into lending a hand. “If he asks for help, say no,” I mutter.

  As the boat makes its gradual approach I take a good look around. This is a smallish lake, not much bigger
than a pond. Might there not be some other way to cross? But no. This is the Long Path. The ferry is here, and this is the way onward.

  “Take you over, friends?” The boatman puts me in mind of a clurichaun, not that I’ve ever seen such a being, but I know of them from tales. This one stands a little higher than my knee, and he wears a jaunty green hat with matching boots. His tunic and leggings are nut-brown, and around his neck is a collection of acorn cups, dried leaves, and tawny feathers threaded on a cord. The fellow’s face is human-like in its general proportions, but markedly Other. His hair falls to his shoulders in scrolling brown curls.

  “Thank you,” I say, eyeing the ferry, which is closer to a raft in shape. I wonder how such a small boatman can wield a pole long enough to reach the lake bed. This thing surely can’t float with True on it; it’ll sink or smash into splinters the moment he steps on. “As you can see, my companion is quite heavily built. I am not sure your ferry can accommodate him safely.”

  The ferryman lays down his pole. The boat is at the shore; he holds it steady with one green-shod foot. “Take it or leave it,” he says. “It’s all one to me whether you cross to the island or go back where you came from.” When I don’t reply straightaway, he moves his foot and picks up the pole as if about to head off without us.

  “Wait,” I say. “True? Do we try this?”

  “The only way,” he says, and his tiny folk echo his words in their high squeaking voices. I can’t ask him to wade across; even if all of his passengers could climb up onto his head it would be risky. The lake may seem small, but this is the Otherworld, where things are changeable. We don’t know how deep it is. The length of that pole is no guide; it, too, may alter as the user wishes. “You go first, Brocc.”

  “No. You go first. I’ll help you on.” I can’t go across and leave True to wait.