Challenge of the clans (29 page)

"I mean, how could it happen, boy?" the other shouted. He banged both fists on the table with his full might to punctuate his words. "It . . . is . . . not . . . possible!"

Finn stood stiffly, not knowing what to say. He believed the man had passed from simple madness into raving lunacy.

"It's not possible," the bard repeated, speaking with greater control this time. "No, the prophecy said that it was the one named Finn alone that would taste the salmon. And you said your name was . . . something else . . . what was it?"

"Demna, Great Ollamh," Finn supplied. 'That's the name I was given at birth. But most of my life I have been known as Finn."

This news seemed to draw the bones from the old man. He sank back limply in his seat, his face draining of its color. "Finn!" he repeated hollowly. "You are Finn." He looked down at the fallen bite of pink, succulent fish that had a moment before been so close to his mouth. So close. His voice reflected his sense of desolation at its loss. "Then it must be you that the prophecy was speaking of, not me."

"I don't understand," Finn said.

"Wait! Wait!" the bard told him irritably, holding up a hand. "Give me a moment to get used to this. It's a hard thing to discover after seven years."

He looked around him at the decrepit hut, down at the table and the waiting salmon. Then he sighed and seemed to pull himself together, sitting upright again.

"All right," he said in brisker tones. "If it's to be that way, it will. " He arose, stepped aside, and gestured to the seat. "Sit here," he ordered Finn. "It is now for you to consume the entire salmon!"

Chapter Twenty-six

BARDIC TRAINING

Finn looked blankly at the man. "I still don't see.**

"Oh, you don't?" said Finnegas, He sighed and glanced upward as if appealing to some invisible powers. "And this is the one the gods have chosen for such a gift?" he asked. Then he looked back to the young man. "Now, listen to me, lad: it was prophesied that this salmon would be consumed by one named Finn, and that he would gain great knowledge as a result. I thought it was to be me. Clearly I was wrong. It was you. The fish all but killed itself to come to you when you arrived. You tasted of it before I did. So now you must sit down and eat it all."

Finn looked fi-om the salmon to the bard. "But are you certain?" he asked uncertainly. "YouVe waited for so long. I don't mean to take away—"

"Look, the salmon is yours!" Finnegas snapped testily. "Don't expect me to be gracious about it as well. Just sit down here and eat the bloody salmon, will you?"

Finn obeyed with alacrity, springing into the seat, taking up the knife, and all but diving into the fish. The bard watched him closely as he cut into the warm flesh, raised a piece, and put it into his mouth. Finn found its taste rich and savory, but he chewed and swallowed without real enjoyment under those staring, disappointed eyes.

"Seven years," the man muttered darkly, watching piece after piece disappear into the young man. "Seven

years I sat here, letting my joints stiffen. And for this!" He leaned forward. *Tell me, what is it Hke? What is the power doing to you?"

Finn considered, then shrugged. "I dont feel anything," he said.

"Oh?" Finnegas said. "You must need more. Keep eating."

"Excuse me, please,** Finn managed to get out around a hot mouthful of salmon, "but will you still be willing to tutor me after this?"

"Tutor you?" the bard repeated. "You are a bold lad, asking me that after stealing away my salmon!"

Finn fell back to eating, silently, eyeing the man.

"Still," Finnegas went on heavily after a time, "I suppose you are the one who's been chosen. And you say you are Cumhal's son?"

"Yes, Great Ollamh."

The bard sighed again. "Well, then it seems I'm meant to help. The fish must be some sign of some future greatness for you, and Tm clearly the one who must see you properly trained." He paused, considering, then went on as if to himself: "I'm to be an instrument. I suppose that's always the lot of a teacher; to be the instrument for someone else's winning of their goals. Still ... I had hoped ..."

"Does that mean you will help me?" Finn asked hopefully.

"Yes, I will," Finnegas answered, "if I must. But if you are as leatherheaded as your father was, it'll not be easy."

"Is there so much to learn. Great Ollamh?"

"Of course there's much to learn!" Finnegas replied indignantly. *The storyteller's calling is the most exalted in Ireland! His authority is next to that of the king himself Why, even to become an ordinary bard requires seven years of study. Becoming a file or an ollamh requires twelve. "

"Seven years?" Finn said, taken somewhat aback. "Why?"

"Because of the amount of material. A bard must know the twelve books of poetry. Each concerns a

different class of tales: courtships, destructions, tragic deaths, cattle raids, encounters with the Others, and the like. There are three hundred and fifty in all. You'll begin with the simpler ones, and move slowly on to the more difficult. You'll be learning the art of composing the poetry yourself at the same time. Some go on beyond the seventh year to learn the higher forms of verse and the ancient Poet's Speech, but you'll not likely be doing that. As it is, you're very old for beginning the training."

"Yes, I am," Finn admitted. 'That's why I'm afraid I haven't got quite the whole seven years to learn the bardic ways. "

"What do you mean?" the bard demanded. "How much time have you?"

"I . . . ah . . . hoped to be finished before this Samhain," Finn said reluctantly.

This last revelation could bring no new astonishment to Finnegas. He nodded, as if he had expected something of the kind.

"Samhain, " he said in a resigned way. "Of course. You want to gain the knowledge of seven years in sixty days. Certainly. Why not? It should be simple then."

"Good!" Finn said, much relieved. "I was fearing that you might be upset by that." And with his appetite freshened by this good news, Finn resumed his eating of the salmon with a real will.

Less than a day's walk eastward along the Boinne River from the hut of the ollamh, a chariot carrying Tadg, high druid of Tara, rolled to a stop.

"Wait for me here, " he commanded its driver, climbing from the back of the wicker-sided car.

The man looked nervously toward the high, rounded I hill that rose abruptly and ominously from the smooth lowland along the river's bank.

"You'll not be gone long, will you. High Druid?" he asked hopefully. "It's said that the Others live within that hill. People who venture here have been taken Away by them and never seen again. '

"You will be safe so long as you stay here," Tadg assured him. "But I warn you: do not wander!"

"I'll be doing none of that. High Druid," the driver said most emphatically.

Tadg nodded and started away from the chariot toward the base of the hill. The driver watched him with apprehension, wondering what dark and terrible secrets a man of such powers was seeking in this haunted spot. He saw the druid come close to the base of the hill, then stared in shock as Tadg's form began to shimmer, like an object seen through a haze of heat. Its outlines grew quickly hazy, its colors faded, and it was abruptly gone.

Frightened by the magical disappearance of his passenger, the driver glanced quickly around him at the landscape, feehng suddenly very much alone. His impulse was to urge the horses away at their best speed and leave this cursed place. But somehow he knew that to disobey the high druid's order would be a great deal more unpleasant to him than anything that might happen to him here. He waited.

Tadg, meantime, was striding up the hillside, unconcerned by the feet that he was now invisible to the outside world. He had penetrated the barrier that both hid and protected all dwelling places of the Tuatha de Danaan from mortal men. As a member of this mystical race himself, the druid had no difficulty in passing through the shield of energy raised by the powers of Manannan MacLir many years before. But no one not of the Other could breach that defense without the permission of those who inhabited the enchanted realm contained within its circle. Should the driver have tried to follow Tadg, he would quickly have found himself led astray, sent oflF in some other direction, far from the hill, disoriented and lost.

Tadg reached the crest of the hill. It was slightly flattened, providing a platform for a large ring of standing stones. It was composed of a dozen large pieces, taller than a man and crudely shaped into pillars, spaced widely about the open space. In the center of this ring, three men awaited him.

He knew them well. In the center stood Bobd Dearg, a lean, intense, darkly brooding man who was the chosen leader of all the de Danaan clans of Ireland. To his left stood his brother, Angus Og, a fair, youthful, and spirited man whose cheerful disposition helped to balance Bobd Dearg s sombemess. On the right loomed the gigantic form of their father, the great Dagda himself, most powerful champion of the de Danaans, his hard, thick body and broad, battered face making him seem like one of the stones himself

Tadg moved through the circle and crossed the open area to stop before them. His expression was one of displeasure.

"Why have you summoned me here?" he demanded impatiently. "I have duties at Tara."

"You have a duty to us," the Dagda growled, taking a step forward. "When youVe called, you come. Don't be forgetting yourself, Tadg. You live in the mortal world because we allow it. You're still subject to our rules."

"You allow it?" Tadg responded scornfully, unimpressed by the giant's blustering. "I am the son of Nuada. My father was your own high king. I do as I wish."

"Your freedom to live in the outside world was agreed upon by us all, you must admit," Bobd Dearg said in more reasonable tones. "It was intended that you become part of their life, watch them, help us to understand them, not interfere with them."

Tadg eyed Bobd Dearg coldly. "Why don't you say out what you mean."

"Very well," the de Danaan ruler agreed. "We believe it is time that you give up this drive to destroy the son of Cumhal."

"What?" Tadg cried in disbelief "How can you say that? You know what insult has been done us. My daughter was brought to deny her own people, to accept the mortal world over her own."

"This boy called Finn had no part in that," Bobd Dearg said.

"He is a product of the obscene union," Tadg said

slowly, gratingly, through clenched teeth. "He is a symbol of the violation of my family, of our whole race. His existence is a continued insult to me that I will not tolerate!"

"You were wrong in asking our help," Angus Og now stated. "The Shadowy One has come to us. She told us what happened at Cnoc-na-Righ. We have met and we have talked with the leaders of other Sidhes. All of us are agreed. The Tuatha de Danaan have no right to interfere in the life of Finn MacCumhal or his comrades."

"I might have known you would argue so,** Tadg answered with a sneer. "You always have displayed an unnatural liking for these beings who savagely tore Ireland from our hands."

"Be reasonable, man!" the Dagda bellowed irritably. "I hate what the mortals have done to us, and Td be the first to match iron against them in a fair fight, but this lad carries our blood, too, and he's done us no harm."

"So," Tadg said, his chill glance moving from man to man, "you are telling me that you will no longer help me to exact the vengeance that is owed to me?"

"We're asking you to understand that there is no need for vengeance at all," Bobd Dearg replied. "Muime's choice was her own. It was made for her love of Cumhal. The crime you see is in your own mind. Your need for revenge has already destroyed your daughter and Cumhal. It has interfered with many lives. It is enough. Let it be finished."

"I will not," Tadg angrily shot back. "The insult was to me, not you. You cannot understand. Until the blood of Cumhal is utterly wiped away, my honor is not clear. If you have chosen not to help me, then choose as well not to hinder me. Nothing will keep me from my end. Nothing!"

With that, he wheeled and stalked away from the three men, who stared after him in some dismay at his defiance.

*The man's obsessed," Angus Og pointed out. "He'd

W-

bring all the mortals of Ireland to war if it served his purposes."

"Well, he's alone now," said the Dagda. "What can he do?"

"He has great magic," Bobd Dearg told him. "Even among our own druids he's known to be very powerful. Who knows what he could do?"

"That may be," the Dagda admitted, *T3ut I know that if he tries to use our people in his schemes again, it will go hard for him." He clenched a massive fist. "I'll see to that."

Tadg, meantime, had reached the base of the sacred hill. He strode angrily back toward the Boinne River, fuming with indignation over this treatment by his own race. What fools they were, he thought. Had their defeat and their years of hiding away in their underground realms made them so weak, so passive that they could meekly allow this outrage? Well, he would not. He would find a way to act.

He was through the protecting barrier now. The chariot and driver were ahead. The man was looking toward him with a great smile of relief A hard day's ride would see him back in Tara, able to begin devising some new plan.

But suddenly he stopped. He stiffened, all senses alert. He turned and looked westward along the shining band of the river. A sharp breeze had arisen from there, tangy with the first scent of fall decay, damp and keen with the foretaste of coming winter snows. But it also seemed to carry a hint of something else, something that called up a hazy vision of his daughter smiling in the arms of Cumhal, of their forms blending, uniting to form another image of a handsome, insolently grinning, fair-haired youth.

He had not seen Finn before, but he knew that this was the hated boy. Tadg could feel his presence, as if he were close by, as if the druid could almost touch him, smell him, hear his voice.

Then the breeze died and the impression faded with it. Tadg shook his head irritably. The experience had disturbed him. Could the boy dare to be so close to