Finbar must have been as hungry as I was, but that did not stop him from taking time to break up my share of the food and pass it to me piece by piece. I was relieved that Luachan did not offer to perform this task. He busied himself getting out a small bag of oats and feeding Blaze, then settled beside us.
“Why are you out here on your own?” I asked when I had taken the edge off my hunger.
Luachan cleared his throat. It was the first time I had seen him look uncomfortable. “When I raised the alarm, I expected to head out straightaway searching for you. Your father made it quite clear that my assistance was not required. His anger was not unreasonable. I had argued for the two of you to be housed at the nemetons. I had failed in my duty of protecting Finbar. So, armed riders set out, and I was not among them. I was…somewhat frustrated. Early on the second day I heard that the wolfhounds had lost your trail quite quickly, and that this was looking like the Disappearance all over again. So I headed out without asking for permission. It seemed to me there might be places I could search where others might not venture.”
“If you had an idea of where we might be, then it’s taken you a while to get here,” I said. Luachan was a fit, able man, and he was on horseback. Finbar and I had our reasons to be slow. What did he mean about places where other people might not venture? Did druids make a habit of traveling to the Otherworld?
“I lost the trail.” Luachan spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. His tone was apologetic. “I didn’t expect that.”
“There’s an oddity about the place. A changeable quality. Similar to what happens in the human part of the forest, where strangers often lose their way. It’s as if the land itself doesn’t want to let intruders go by.” I thought of the spider tree, where each side was like a different world. “But I’d have thought that even in the Otherworld part of Sevenwaters Finbar and I would not be considered outsiders.”
“It’s different now Mac Dara is here,” observed Finbar gravely.
I had no answer for that. “Luachan,” I said, “we’ve had some encounters with…folk from here. A woman helped me, gave me
food and drink and this cloak, and cryptic instructions that allowed me to find Finbar, though it took me a while. I…saw some folk by night, riding past. And Bear and Badger were stolen, taken by force while Finbar and I were in a tree and couldn’t reach them. Finbar said it was the gray-cloak people, but he hasn’t explained to me who they are.” On the brink of telling him that my brother thought he had been here before, I held back the words. That confidence was Finbar’s to tell, not mine.
Luachan was staring down at his linked hands. Something in his demeanor reminded me of Ciarán, a man who always seemed to have secrets, and most of them unhappy ones.
“Many folk must dwell in these parts, of course,” Luachan said. “All kinds, I imagine. Some benign; some less so. The sooner we head for home, the better. Blaze can carry the two of you. I will walk alongside.”
“I’ll walk,” I said a little too quickly. Perhaps that was stupid; I was weary to the bone. But I did not care for the prospect of sitting on a horse, holding on to my young brother for support, and being led home like an erring child. It was no way to complete a quest. “Finbar, you should ride.”
I could see Finbar was about to say he, too, would walk, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead he folded up the cloth that had held the food, put the stopper back in the waterskin, then rose to his feet. “All right,” he said. He’d stopped glancing toward the trees in hope of seeing the leaf and twig boy again. His manner, his tone, his posture all spoke of defeat.
“Finbar,” I said, “you’ve done a great job this morning, walking all this way and not complaining at all. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You know it hurts me to leave Bear and Badger behind. I can’t put into words for you how hard it is. But there’s no choice. We have to go home.”
He turned his big eyes on me. They were full of sadness—not reproach, only sorrow that he had not been able to make me understand. Then Luachan boosted him into the saddle, and we moved off in a direction I judged to be roughly eastward. There were questions I might have asked, such as,
Whose trail was it you lost? Mine? Swift’s? Finbar’s? And if you lost it, how was it that you found us?
But now was not the time for that. We had a friend and protector and he knew the way home. I didn’t have to do this on my own anymore. That made more difference than I would have believed possible. Never mind the cold and wet; never mind the paths that had a curious tendency to change their direction each time a person looked at them. If Luachan led us back the way he had come, soon enough we would be at the Sevenwaters keep. And though it was breaking my heart to leave the dogs behind, I took comfort from the thought of bringing Finbar safely home. So we walked on. Blaze went beside me, with Finbar in the saddle, and on the other side of the horse walked the tall young druid, saying little.
Time passed. Perhaps more time than I realized. Even allowing for the rain, it began to seem oddly dark for afternoon. We had been walking for a few hours, certainly, but it was too soon for the light to be fading. There should have been sufficient hours of day left for us to reach the bridge. I made no comment on the oddities of the light and nor did Luachan, but when I glanced across I saw that his mouth had a grim set to it.
The rain began to fall in relentless sheets, as if seeking to drown every wretched creature that dared move in this forest. There was a bite in the air. The sky darkened still further, as though dusk were already falling. Birds cried out all around us, a song of distress; what was this strange night that swept over the afternoon forest like a dark cloak over a gown of autumn gold?
“We’ll have to camp tonight, of course,” Luachan said. “Once we’re over the bridge we can find a place and I’ll make a fire. We won’t be able to get all the way back before dark.”
I had known this. All the same, I had kept myself moving by imagining my family’s hearth fires, Rhian’s welcoming smile, the tub of hot water awaiting my weary body; hearing the uncomfortable truth spoken aloud did not improve my mood. At the rate things were going, we might not even reach the bridge before it was too dark to find a way.
“A fire will be good,” I said, glancing up at Finbar, who sat
hunched on the mare. He had Luachan’s cloak draped around his shoulders, the hood concealing his face. The garment was running with water. Blaze walked with her head lowered, no doubt thinking of a dry stable and a manger of food.
The chill wind rose, driving the rain into us like a scourge. Even with Caisin’s cloak to shield me, I was cold. My feet were numb; I stumbled over tree roots, stones, unexpected clumps of drenched foliage. I could barely see an arm’s length in front of me. My skirt was sodden. It was becoming hard to breathe.
“We’d best stop and find shelter now.” Luachan was looking around into the gathering gloom.
“It’s like nightfall,” I said, shivering. “But it can’t be night yet. Maybe when the rain stops…” My voice faltered and died as the last light leached abruptly away, leaving us in total darkness.
“Finbar,” I said, putting out a hand to reassure myself that Blaze was still there. “Reach your hand down so I can touch you. That’s it.” What this was, I did not know, only that it frightened me beyond words. “Luachan, there’ll be no finding shelter in this.”
Finbar’s hand was winter-cold against my arm.
“Put your hand on Blaze’s back.” Luachan spoke with commendable steadiness. “Don’t let go.”
The best we could do in the complete dark was to get Blaze lying down, then huddle up with our backs against her body and Caisin’s blanket draped over all of us. The blanket undoubtedly possessed fey qualities, for like my borrowed cloak it imparted some warmth and kept the worst of the rain out, even in a storm like this. But it was not big enough to shelter a man, a woman, a child and a horse. Water seeped in. The wind lifted the corners, whistling in around us. Briefly, I allowed myself to remember falling asleep with my head pillowed on Bear’s warm body, with his heart beating steady and sure against me.
“This storm can’t last forever,” Luachan said. “We must simply wait it out and then head for home.”
Perhaps he thought to reassure Finbar with this statement. The storm was all very well. I had most certainly had enough of being
wet and cold, but I could endure a little more of it provided I knew the next thing would be going home. But this darkness, this sudden night at a time when the sun should still be high—what could it be but a fell charm, a thing of Mac Dara’s doing? He did not want us to go home. He wanted to trap us here in the Otherworld; I was becoming sure of it. I would not say so in Finbar’s hearing. Tucked in between me and Luachan, with the druid’s cloak wrapped around him, he was still shivering.
“I think—” I began, hardly knowing what I would say, only that Finbar could not be lied to.
“We’re supposed to go back.” My brother’s voice, shaking with cold, was nonetheless full of certainty. “We’re supposed to find the dogs. That’s why it’s dark and wet. It’s to stop us from going home. I told you, Maeve.”
A silence. “Supposed to?” asked Luachan over the roar of the downpour. I could feel water pooling underneath me. Blaze shifted against my back. “What do you mean, Finbar?”
Finbar did not reply.
“Finbar said earlier that if we went straight home this would work out badly. I insisted that we go. Finbar, you know that’s what Mother and Father would expect us to do.” After another silence, I said, “Finbar?”
“Did you see something in a vision, Finbar?” asked Luachan. “I’ve told you how easy it is to get things wrong, to misinterpret the signs.”
“We have to go back.” The little voice remained firm. “In the stories, if there’s a chance to make things good, that’s what you have to do. Father wouldn’t mind. Not if he understood how important it was.”
I knew nothing in the world would persuade our father that Finbar should be taken deeper into the Otherworld rather than being brought safely home.
“Well,” said Luachan, “we can’t go anywhere right now, since there’s no seeing the way. The best we can do is try to keep warm and wait until it’s light again.”
If it’s ever light again.
I felt my spirits plummet. Endless darkness.
Had Mac Dara the power to impose that on his realm? The black dragon of Finbar’s story had cared nothing for the destruction he wrought in his own forest, nor for the folk he drove out or consumed in his mindless hunger. Would a creature like that be bothered with such small beings as a horse or a pair of dogs or a human brother and sister? If he’d wanted to abduct Finbar and use him as a bargaining piece, as he had long ago, he could have done it far more simply than this. I couldn’t think of any reason why he would want me.
“Some mead would be good,” Luachan mused. “Alas, I brought only water.”
“Oh. I do have a drink—a kind of cordial—that I was given by the fey woman I mentioned. And since I’ve already drunk from the flask several times, I don’t suppose doing so again will make any difference. She said it was safe for us. And she seemed to be a friend. If you want to risk it…” I maneuvered the flask from my pouch and held it out to him between my wrists. “Now seems the right time for it. It gave me heart earlier.”
We all had a drink, even Finbar.
“You could call her,” my brother said.
“What?”
“The fey woman. You could call her, and she might come to help us.”
Dear gods, it was the white dragon again; he believed Caisin was the Lady of the Forest come back to save her people from Mac Dara.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We should do as Luachan says and simply wait for morning and for the storm to be over.”
“I think you should call her. We might be here until we drown in rain. And Blaze is cold. Can’t you feel her shivering?”
I could, and I didn’t like it at all. It made me think of Swift, out in the forest somewhere running wild. It made me ache for Bear and Badger, captive among cruel strangers or worse.
“Why would Caisin Silverhair come to me if I called her? She’s one of the Fair Folk. I’m nobody.”
“She helped you before, didn’t she?” Luachan said. “I think, on
this occasion, that Finbar may be right. It is indeed cold and wet, and night has come some hours early. I don’t believe it would do any harm to try.”
I was not at all sure I wanted the Fair Folk to help us. Calling Caisin Silverhair felt arrogant. It felt wrong. It felt as if I were starting something that could turn dangerous. “You surprise me,” I said. “Isn’t it perilous to seek help from the Tuatha De? I mean, Mac Dara is one of them. We might walk right into some kind of trap.”
“I weighed this up carefully before I spoke, as we are trained to do.” Luachan was still calm. “In my judgment, our situation is sufficiently severe to make a call for help appropriate. This woman helped you before. Perhaps she will do so again. It would seem she has your best interests at heart.”
“Calling her is what you’re supposed to do,” Finbar said. “Please, Maeve. You could save Bear and Badger.”
“That’s not fair!” I snapped, losing my precarious control. Gods, it was cold and miserable. How could I be expected to make a balanced decision with the rain trickling down my neck and filling my shoes and drenching my gown under me? Despite that mouthful of Caisin’s cordial, I felt weak and hopeless. And if I felt that way even with Luachan here to help us, how must poor Bear and Badger be feeling, out there in the storm? If they still lived. “I’m sorry, Finbar.” I moderated my tone. “You say,
supposed to
. How do you know? What have you seen? Isn’t Luachan right to say visions can be misleading?”
After a moment, Finbar said, “Yes. And no. Please call her, Maeve. I’m cold.”
That, and the shivering of Blaze at my back, decided me. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “How could she possibly hear me over all this?” The rain thundered down; the oaks creaked and groaned in the whistling wind. “And what do I do—just shout
help
?”
“Of course not,” said Finbar. “Call out her name. Be respectful. Like saying a prayer.”