She scuffed her boot of woven bark on the blackened rock. “Well . . . if I do, and you somehow survive, will you promise to do something?” Her eyes grew suddenly moist. “Even if I’m not around to hold you to your promise?”
I swallowed. “Of course I will. And why wouldn’t you be around?”
“Never mind that.” She blinked back her tears. “Promise me that, if you should survive, you will one day go to the Forgotten Island and learn whatever it is you’re meant to learn there.”
“I promise. And I’m going to take you with me.”
She stood abruptly, scanning the bleak ridges. “Then let’s go. We have some hard trekking ahead of us.”
P
ART
T
HREE
29:
T
HE
F
INAL
T
REK
Wordlessly, Rhia led us deeper into the wasteland of rubble. Somewhere on these ridges lay the entrance to the spirit world—and the deadly ogre who guarded it. Yet if Balor indeed lived here, he lived without the company of anything that breathed or sprouted or moved. For where the Dark Hills had seemed devoid of life, except for the occasional withered tree, these hills seemed utterly hostile to life. The dragon’s fiery blasts had not left a single tree, nor shrub, nor clump of moss anywhere. Only charcoal. I wished that I still carried the Flowering Harp on my shoulder, and that I might use its magic to bring even a few blades of grass to these slopes.
No landscape could have been more different from Rhia’s home in the lush glades of Druma Wood. Yet she moved with as much confidence and grace over the piles of scorched rocks as she would have moved through groves of scented ferns. She headed due east, never veering. If staying on course meant scrambling straight up a crumbling rock fall, or leaping over a deep crevasse, then that was where she led us. Hour after hour.
Still, as much as I admired her endurance, I admired some of her other qualities even more. She loved life, and all living things, true to her childhood in the boughs of a great oak tree. She carried with her a quiet, soulful wisdom, reminding me of the tales of the Greek goddess Athena. And, even more, of my own mother.
I felt a surge of gratitude that Rhia had allowed her life to entwine with my own, wrapping us together as tightly as the woodland vines of her garb. And I found myself appreciating as never before the virtues of her garb itself. The tight yet flexible weave around her elbows. The broad green leaves across her shoulders. The playful designs along her collar.
As we trekked over the desolate ridges, her suit of woven vines lifted my spirits, if only a little. Its very greenness somehow gave me hope that even the bleakest lands might be coaxed again to flower, that even the gravest fault might one day be forgiven. For, as Rhia herself knew well, those woven vines held a surprising truth. No wizard’s magic, however impressive, could be greater than Nature’s own magic. How else could a new sapling spring from lifeless soil? And was it possible that I, like every living thing, might actually share in some of that magic of renewal?
Because the ridges lay in parallel lines, running north and south, we couldn’t turn down any of the valleys without changing direction. So we climbed up the steep slopes only to plunge immediately down the other sides. We reached the valley floors only to start climbing again. By the time the sun hung low in the sky at our backs, and long shadows fell from the blackened rocks, my knees and thighs wobbled from the strain. Even my staff hardly helped. It was clear from Bumbelwy’s constant stumbling, often on the hem of his own cloak, that he felt no sturdier.
Still worse, we found not even a trickle of water. My own tongue felt like a dry sliver of wood inside my mouth. I might have been more thirsty than the others thanks to my bite of boot leather, but probably not much. The long day of trekking over the rubble had left us all parched.
Yet Rhia never slowed down. Though she said nothing, she seemed more grimly determined than ever. Perhaps it was simply the urgency of our quest. Or perhaps it was something else, something that only she knew. In any case, my own mood was no less grim. The voice of Tuatha still thundered in my ears, kindling my fears just as it had kindled the light in the blue stones surrounding his grave. Immensely wise and powerful though he was, he had still lost his life to Balor’s deadly gaze. And why? Because of hubris. Wasn’t I guilty of the same flaw, daring to confront Balor with only six of the Songs to my name?
Yes—and no. My hubris had spawned this whole mess to begin with. Yet now my actions were driven more by desperation. And also by fear. For Rhia had been right. I was relieved, truly relieved, to have avoided the Forgotten Island and whatever the Song of Seeing might have entailed. That Song haunted me like a terrible dream, as terrible as the one that had made me claw at my own face on that night in the Rusted Plains. I doubted that I could ever find the soul of Seeing, with my useless eyes and limited second sight. And I suspected that to see like a wizard could require something else entirely, something that I surely lacked.
And that was only the beginning of my fears. What if there were no truth to the prophecy that only a child of human blood could defeat Rhita Gawr or his servant Balor? Tuatha himself had hinted as much.
The prophecy may be true, and it may be false. Yet even if it is true, the truth often has more than one face.
Whatever the prophecy might have meant, I certainly couldn’t rely on it. The sad truth was, I couldn’t even rely on myself.
A loose rock clattered down the slope from above, barely missing the toe of my boot. I looked up to find Rhia disappearing over the top of an outcropping that jutted from the ridge like a chiseled nose. How odd, I thought. With so much of this ridge yet to climb, why had she chosen to go straight over such an outcropping rather than around it?
The answer struck me as I noticed a glint of moisture on the rocks ahead. Water! But from where? The higher I climbed up the outcropping, the more wet patches I discovered. Even a scraggly tuft of moss, alive and green, had rooted itself in the crack between two stones.
When, at last, I reached the top, I stopped short. For there, not ten paces away, bubbled a small spring, forming a clear pool of water. Rhia was already drinking from it. I ran to her side, plunging my whole face into the pool. With the first swallow, my tongue tingled ever so slightly. With the next, it sprang back to life, feeling the slap and sting of coldness. Like Rhia, I drank and drank, filling myself with liquid. Bumbelwy, too, collapsed beside the spring, his slurps and gasps joining with our own.
At last, when I could hold no more, I turned to Rhia. She was sitting with her knees drawn close to her chest, watching the setting sun paint streaks of red and purple across the western sky. Water dripped from her hair onto her shoulders.
I wiped the trickle from my chin and slid a little closer on the rocks. “Rhia, are you thinking about Balor?”
She nodded.
“I saw him in the Lake of the Face,” I said. “He was . . . killing me. Making me look into his eye.”
She swung her face my way. Though sunset pink glowed in her hair, her eyes looked somber. “I saw Balor in the Lake of the Face, too.” She started to say something more, then caught herself.
My throat tightened. “Are we—are we close?”
“Very.”
“Should we push on and get there tonight?”
Bumbelwy, who was arranging some rocks so that he could lie down beside the pool, jumped. “No!”
Rhia gave a sigh. “There’s almost no moon left, and we need the sleep. We might as well camp here tonight.” She felt the rough contours of the charred rocks, then reached for my hand, wrapping her forefinger around my own. “Merlin, I’m afraid.”
“So am I.” I followed her gaze to the horizon. Above the jagged hills, the sky now loomed as red as blood. “When I was little,” I said quietly, “I sometimes felt so afraid that I couldn’t sleep. And whenever that happened, my mother would always do the same thing to help me feel better. She would tell me a story.”
Rhia’s finger squeezed mine tighter. “Did she really? What a wonderful idea, telling a story just to ease someone’s fears.” She sighed. “Is that the sort of thing a mother does?”
“Yes,” I answered softly. “At least a mother like her.”
Her head, streaked with red from the sunset, drooped lower. “I wish that I had known . . . my own mother. And that I had heard some of her stories, stories I could remember right now.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t have that, Rhia.” I tried to swallow, but couldn’t. “But there is one thing almost as good as hearing stories from your mother.”
“Yes?”
“Hearing stories from your friend.”
She nearly smiled. “I would love that.”
I glanced at the first star shimmering overhead. Then I cleared my throat and began. “Once, long ago, there lived a wise and powerful goddess by the name of Athena.”
30:
B
ALOR
Night fell cold and dark. Although after my story Rhia had seemed to drift off to sleep, I continued to lie awake, turning over and over on the rocks. For a while I watched the westernmost sky, recalling Gwri of the Golden Hair, but mostly I stared at the ghostly remnant of the waning crescent moon above our heads. In the morning, at most two days would remain.
Throughout the night, I shivered from the chill air of these treeless hills. And from the thought of that merciless eye, whose merest glance meant death. The vision that I had seen in the Lake of the Face stalked me. When I dozed, which wasn’t much, I struggled and flailed.
I awoke as the first rays of light touched the rock-strewn slope. No chirping birds or scurrying beasts greeted this dawn. Only wind, howling in long, lonely gusts across the ridges. Stiffly, I stretched, the place between my shoulders throbbing painfully. I bent to the clear pool, which wore a delicate collar of ice, and took a last drink.
Cold, hungry, and grim, we set off. Rhia strode solemnly over the spiky rocks, her bark shoes blackened by charcoal. Wordlessly, she led us in the direction of the sunrise. Yet none of us paused to savor the rich bands of orange and pink that were spreading across the horizon. Absorbed in our own thoughts, we continued to trek in silence. Several times, the loose rocks gave way beneath my feet, sending me sliding backward. Once I fell over, slicing my knee on a rock.
Late that morning, as we reached the top of another slope, Rhia slowed her pace. She halted, casting me a worried glance. Without a word, she raised her arm, pointing to the next ridge. A great gouge split the crest, looking as if the jaws of a mythic beast had clamped down on it ages ago, ripping away the very rocks. Even as I stared at the gouge, it seemed to stare back.
I chewed my lip, certain that the Otherworld Well stood on that spot. Why hadn’t the mighty Dagda simply descended from on high and struck Balor down? Surely, as the greatest warrior of all, he could have easily done so. Perhaps Dagda was fully occupied with battling Rhita Gawr himself. Or perhaps he didn’t want mere mortals to enter the Otherworld, whatever their reasons.
I took the lead. Rhia stayed at my heels, so close that I could hear her anxious breathing behind me. As we dropped down into the next scorched valley, I found myself scanning the rubble for any sign at all of something green, something living. But no springs bubbled here, no moss filled the cracks. The rocks lay as bare as my own hopes.
Slowly, we climbed toward the great gorge. When at last we reached its very edge, Rhia grabbed the sleeve of my tunic. For several seconds, she probed me with her gaze. Then, her voice a whisper, she spoke her first words of the day.
“The eye. You mustn’t look into the eye.”
I clasped the hilt of my sword. “I’ll do my best.”
“Merlin, I wish we’d had a little more . . . time. For sharing days. And sharing secrets.”
I furrowed my brow, unsure of what she meant. But there was no time now to find out. Setting my jaw, I handed her my staff. Then I marched into the gouge.
As I stepped between the dark cliffs that rose sharply to either side, I felt as if I were striding into the open mouth of a monster. Pinnacles, as jagged as the dragon’s teeth, jutted from the rims of the cliffs. A frigid wind slapped my face, screaming in my ears. As I moved deeper into the gorge, the air quivered ominously, as if shaken by footsteps that I could neither see nor hear.
Yet I found nothing else. But for the jagged, black rocks, shining in the morning light, the place seemed utterly empty. No Balor. No stairwell. No sign of anything living—or dead.
Thinking I might have missed something, I started to turn, when all of a sudden the wind lashed me again. The air before me darkened, then quivered. This time, however, it parted like an invisible curtain. Out of the air itself stepped a huge, muscled warrior, standing at least twice my own size.
Balor! Towering above me, he seemed almost as broad as the cliffs themselves. His deep, wrathful growl echoed within the great gouge, as his heavy boots slammed down on the rocks. Slowly, he lifted his gleaming sword. I caught sight of the horns above his ears, and the dark brow over his one enormous eye, before turning my second sight aside.
I must look at something else. Not his head! The sword. I’ll try the sword.
Barely had I focused on his broad, gleaming blade than it clashed against my own. My arm reeled from the powerful blow. To my surprise, the ogre grunted at the impact, as if the magic of my own sword had caught him off guard. Again he growled, then swung his weapon with even more force.
I leaped to the side just as his blade crashed against the rocks where I had stood only a split second before. Sparks flew into the air, singeing my tunic. As if the blurred edges of my second sight weren’t enough of a disadvantage, I could not look directly at him for fear of glimpsing his eye. As the ogre raised his arm to strike again, I thrust at him. But he spun away in time. Pivoting with uncanny speed, he charged straight at me, his sword slashing the air.