“It’s not in my nature to despair,” I said. “I’ve always thought it more sensible to attempt to put things to rights. But we human folk do work at a certain disadvantage, being short-lived and without any magical powers. Will you answer further questions for me?”
“I have said that I expect to do so.”
In fact, all she’d said was that she expected me to ask them, but never mind that. Luachan was sitting quietly, chin on hands, as if he assumed that I would be doing all the talking. I would not waste time quizzing Caisin over what had happened to Finbar or why she had not given me straightforward directions to find him. That hardly mattered now he was safe. I must ask about Mac Dara, about how much she knew. I must seek out any information that might help my father. But there was something that must come first.
“My dogs,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. “While I was getting Finbar down from the oak tree they were stolen. Taken by force, with a fight. Finbar said he saw people in gray cloaks carrying them away into the forest. Do you know who those people might have been and why they would do such a thing? Is there a way I can get Bear and Badger back?”
Caisin lifted her brows. I had tried to speak calmly, as if this were an ordinary matter, but it had not been possible to keep my voice steady.
“Two dogs?” she queried. “When I first encountered you there was only one.”
“It’s a long story, but yes, there are two. They were running wild in the woods, scared and hungry, before I took them in, and now…Because I must take Finbar home as soon as possible, I had thought I must leave them behind. But since events have brought us to you, I wondered perhaps…”
“I have no knowledge of this matter. But I can inquire for you, and perhaps find out what has happened.” A delicate frown creased her brow. “What I am about to tell you will not be welcome news,
Maeve. Among our people, each clan has its own colors. The folk in gray cloaks belong to the household of that powerful personage of whom I spoke earlier. He calls himself the Lord of the Oak. They carry out certain tasks for him. They are his minions.”
“I see.” My heart was like a cold stone. “Then it is not likely I can fetch my dogs back. Not without those magical powers I do not have.” Why would Mac Dara take my boys? What possible use could he have for them?
Caisin smiled and reached out to pat my hand. “Magical powers, perhaps not. But you have another gift that is rare, Maeve. The skill you demonstrated with the horse was truly astonishing. I have never seen anything like that. None of my folk were able to get anywhere near the creature.”
She was being kind, of course; she could see how upset I was and thought to make me feel better. I asked the question I had held back earlier. “If your folk could not approach Swift, how was it he ended up in your enclosure?”
“You’d need to speak to Dioman. I gather the horse was found grazing with some of our own animals and came in with the others. As I told you, we avoided the use of spellcraft, seeing the creature was already exhausted and hurt.”
That was a curiously incomplete explanation, but perhaps Dioman could fill in the gaps. “My lady, is it permitted to mention the true name of that other person, the one whose folk you believe may have taken my dogs?”
“It is not forbidden, Maeve, though the name sits ill on my tongue; it tastes of wrongdoing. Did you wish to ask about him?”
“You have heard of an event my people refer to as the Disappearance, I imagine.” She’d said her kind were interested in the human folk of Sevenwaters, after all. “That is, the disappearance of sixteen men from Tirconnell, including a chieftain’s sons, on the border of our forest, and the later reappearance of all but three of them within this same forest, each done to death in cruel and unusual fashion. My father believes it was Mac Dara’s doing, an act designed to set Father at enmity with his neighboring chieftains, to isolate him, to apply pressure.”
“I know of it,” Caisin said gravely. “Pressure to do what?”
I looked at Luachan, suddenly wary of saying too much. I was quite sure I did not want to mention the unlikely possibility of Cathal coming back to confront his father, though it did seem that might be central to the whole matter.
“It seems Mac Dara wants something from Lord Sean,” Luachan said smoothly. “Something Lord Sean is not prepared to give. And it does appear this Lord of the Oak is in a hurry, or he would not have increased his activities so dramatically of recent times. I believe Lady Maeve was hoping you might know something about his reasons.”
“I don’t want to see any more lives lost,” I said. “Nor does my father. We did wonder if Mac Dara perceived some particular threat to his authority, something that might make him a little…desperate.”
Caisin threw back her head and laughed; the sound was an unsettling reminder that she was not a human woman. “Desperate? That is not a term I would ever use for that person. He so loves to be in control.” Abruptly, the amusement left her face. “Maeve, we touch on matters strange and perilous. Tell me, is your purpose here solely to fetch your young brother back home, out of harm’s way? Or do you seek to aid your father and to secure the future of Sevenwaters?”
She sounded deeply solemn, and for a few moments I could not think how to reply. “Both, I hope,” I said with some hesitation. I had been fixed on the need to return Finbar safely to our parents. I still was. But what Caisin had just hinted at turned things on their heads. Of course I wanted to secure the future of Sevenwaters. There was no argument about that. She could not mean I might actually play a part in doing so, surely. Me against Mac Dara? Maeve Claw-Hands standing up against the Lord of the Oak? It was laughable.
“Please make yourself clear.” The look in Luachan’s eye was, if not hostile, then definitely cool. “Lady Maeve is tired, she has come a long way and she’s lost her beloved companions. If you have something particular to say to her, I believe she would prefer you to do so plainly and without delay.”
Under other circumstances this speech would have annoyed me; I preferred to fight my own battles. It was a measure of how weary and dispirited I was that Luachan’s words set a warm glow inside me, reminding me that I still had friends to rely on. “I am indeed tired,” I said. “But, my lady, if there really is some way I can help in the struggle against Mac Dara, I would be very glad to hear it explained.”
Caisin clasped her long-fingered hands together on the table and sighed. “There is so little time,” she said. “So very little. Maeve, I would not tax you with this now, when you are weary and far from home, and have lost the dogs to which you are plainly so devoted. But since I saw you with the horse and realized what you can do, I have no choice but to put it to you. I believe you may hold the key to defeating our mutual enemy. You and Swift between you.”
Luachan and I stared at her. I was too astonished to find words.
“Let me explain. For some years Mac Dara has held sway here; many of my folk follow his lead and dance to his tune.”
“Almost all, surely. When my sister came to the Otherworld, none of your kind opposed him. Only smaller folk.”
“Perhaps your sister saw only those who chose to show themselves: Mac Dara’s sycophants and lackies, dazzled or cowed into obedience. Believe me, there are plenty who wish him gone. More than that: there are those who plan to remove him.” For a moment I saw something different in her lovely face, as if there were a fire within, a power seldom revealed. As quickly it was gone, and she was as before, a flawlessly beautiful woman with kind, troubled eyes. “But he is skilled in magic, more skilled than any of us. A challenge of the time-honored kind would almost certainly result in his retaining his authority here. And, of course, that is what he intends to do until he can secure the successor of his choice.”
“His son.” I realized she had known all along about Cathal. She must understand exactly why Mac Dara was tormenting my father.
“Or another of his own blood. But I understand the grandchild is still a babe.”
“You mentioned a challenge,” said Luachan. “So there is an accepted way for the leadership to be decided? What is that way?”
“A contest of magical skills. It would be held at the Grand Conclave, following lesser encounters of the same kind. Mac Dara has not been challenged before. It is a single combat, you understand, one mage against another. None of those who oppose him has sufficient power to stand against a practitioner of such singular subtlety and power. If the rules were broken—if, for instance, two of us stood up against him together—that would render the contest invalid, and he would retain his authority regardless of the result. There is a way these things must be done. That is set down in ancient lore.”
There was a brief silence while we digested this.
“Explain to me how it is that a girl with crippled hands and a skittish horse can achieve what a group of fey nobles with magical powers cannot,” I said. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but your idea is starting to sound a little implausible.”
Caisin smiled. “This time it is different,” she said softly. “We have worked for some time to discover a weak spot in Mac Dara’s apparently impregnable defenses. It seemed there was no such weakness; that there was no way to bring him down. Until now. By means of spellcraft, we have uncovered a remarkable secret.”
The silence had acquired a different quality. The pleasant chamber where we sat was suddenly full of shadows; there was danger in the air. We waited.
“There is a geis,” Caisin said. “It was spoken over Mac Dara long years ago, when he was only a child. It set out certain conditions under which he would lose his power. The words were not entrusted to a single individual to remember, but divided among several. On their own, the pieces of this verse mean little. Put together, they are the weapon I have long been seeking: the means to rid this realm of its cruel prince forever.”
“A geis,” I whispered. Ciarán had been right. So, in his way, had Finbar, though he had thought Mac Dara might have laid a geis over
him
. He’d seen something in his visions and gotten it confused. The curse was not on my brother, but on the Lord of the Oak himself. If Mac Dara had perhaps not known about it earlier, he surely did now. What better explanation for the way his attacks on my father had increased so markedly of recent times? If Mac
Dara sensed the terms of the geis might soon be met, and if he knew he had potential rivals for the leadership, he would indeed be desperate to fetch his son back home. “He thinks he’s about to be deposed,” I said. “Or that he’s about to die.” But wait. How could Swift and I possibly be part of a curse that had been pronounced years before either of us was born? “How did you discover this?” Had she sent someone on the same path Ciarán was following, asking the same questions? Might she even know about his journey to find the daughters of Mac Dara? She’d said
by spellcraft.
That might mean almost anything.
Caisin seemed to hesitate, as if choosing her words with care. “We discovered a source of information; one few folk knew about.” I heard in her tone that this was all the answer I would get.
“What are the words of this geis, my lady?” Luachan asked.
“As I said, it is somewhat cryptic. But less so now that Maeve and her horse have made their way to Sevenwaters. It runs thus:
Held by hands that cannot hold
Stands the steed so proud and bold.
Chieftain’s son with seer’s eyes
Observes the Lord of Oak’s demise.
As the age begins to turn
That is when the oak will burn.”
Luachan looked at me. I looked at him, then down at my hooked fingers, stiff as twigs on my lap.
“
Hands that cannot hold
,” I said flatly. “Based solely on that, you believe I can somehow make this geis come to pass?”
“Not only do I believe it, Maeve, I am certain of it. Into our midst comes a remarkably fine but highly strung horse, and a young woman of Sevenwaters with a certain disability, who happens to be able to control this wayward animal using only her voice…It must surely mean the fulfillment of the terms. I believe all that is required is that you demonstrate again the skill you showed us earlier. I am asking you to do so, before my people, in Mac Dara’s sight, at the Grand Conclave. Maeve, you can be the
key to his downfall. You can win peace and security for your family and your community. Will you do this?”
Morrigan save us. Her eyes were shining with hope; her voice trembled. But…me, save Sevenwaters? Bring down an enemy so dark and powerful that his own people shrank before him?
“Wait a moment,” I said. “
Chieftain’s son with seer’s eyes
—that must be Finbar. My brother is only a child. Mac Dara stole him away as a baby; he cared nothing for his welfare. But the words of this verse suggest Finbar must be present when this conclave happens, present for the challenge.”
“So it would seem. He is the third part of this, setting it beyond doubt that now is the time for this geis to be fulfilled.”
Dear gods. It was almost as if Finbar had known what we were walking into, with his insistence that we must do things in very particular ways. He had been so certain we should not go straight home. He had been so sure…
“I don’t like this,” I said. “I don’t want Finbar involved. He’s only little. What is that reference to burning?”
“Maeve,” put in Luachan quickly, “don’t distress yourself. I’m sure there will be time to discuss this, to make sense of it—”
“What does it mean,
the oak will burn
?” My voice was shaking despite my best efforts. “Are you sure that’s the whole geis? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, that is all of it. Such verses are often somewhat obscure. I do not believe your brother will come to any harm. The rhyme says only that he must be present to observe.”
“It’s not— I don’t think—” My mind was awhirl; I hardly knew what to say to her. “My lady, calming Swift with my voice is not as straightforward as it may look. If there was a crowd of folk around, and noise, and bright lights, I might well have no control at all over him. He would be very disturbed. And Finbar…It is hard to believe this rhyme requires only that he stand and watch. Simply being in the Otherworld is a risk for him, and going to this conclave, where Mac Dara could see him openly, it’s…”
It’s something my parents would not want to happen, even if it meant defeating their worst enemy.
“My lady, I believe their son’s safety would weigh more to my parents than almost anything.”