Child of the Prophecy (25 page)

for in the scheme. They realized too late what her importance was. By then they couldn't change her mind for her; she up and went her own way, abandoned us, left the forest, never came back save for a social call or two. Took the child with her, and near confounded the whole thing. But the child will come back. They always do. The forest calls them. Look at you. You came back. Now what are you going to do?

Why would I tell you? I don't know who you are. Why should I tell anyone?

I could help, fire child.

I don't need help. I don't want help. Why do you keep calling me that?

When you're angry, sparks fly. Doesn't that mean something to you?

It means I have been remiss in my control. It will not happen again.

Pigheaded, aren't you? Let me know if you change your mind.

I won't. I work alone, as my father does.

Hmm. Look what happened to him. Should have come back here, where there was a place for him, if you ask me. He was a fool.

I'm not asking, and I won't hear you insult him. He is a fine man, wise and honorable, and expert at what he does.

You're doing it again. Flickering. You're a loyal daughter. Make sure loyalty's not your downfall. Best ask your questions now, if you've got any. There's rain coming.

Without opening my eyes, I could see the sky above us, pale blue and completely cloudless.

Very well. I thought I might as well use the opportunity, whether or not the answers were of any value. What lies on the Islands? What is their importance to this family, and to the Fair Folk?

The owl-person blinked. Ask the druid.

I'm asking you.

Ask the druid to tell you the story. He's got a flair for it. The Islands are the Last Place. Pity you don't have the gift.

What gift?

The gift of seeing ahead. It'll all begone, soon enough. In your granddaughter's time, or her granddaughter's. The trees. The lake. All there'll be is a handful of barren fields for sheep to pick on, and a dried-up pond with a few sickly eels in it, gasping for breath. Nowhere to go. Nowhere for my kind, or their kind, or even for your kind. Without the Islands, it'll be the end of us all.

I thought the Islands were no more than rocks in the sea. If—if, as you say, all is to be laid waste, how can they help anyone survive? Surely they can sustain no life?

The little creature gave a huge sigh that shivered through all its feathers. I told you. It's the Last Place. The druid'll explain.

I don't want to ask him.

He wants you to ask him. He's waiting for you to ask him. He's been waiting since the very moment your father stormed out of Sevenwaters, and the wise ones lost their future leader. But you know that, don't you?

I did not reply. The feathered being was uncomfortably close to the mark.

Any more questions? Rain's coming. Want to know what your aunt Liadan said when she heard Ciaran's daughter had turned up at Seven-waters? Want to know how your father's doing, all alone in Kerry? Want to hear a tale about pipers and weddings?

Stop it! How can you know so much, anyway? It might be all lies, put out just to confuse and distress me.

Distress? Thought you weren't capable of such a feeling. How do I know so much? What sort of a question is that, from a sorceress half-fledged? Didn't your father ever teach you how to scry?

I hesitated.

Well?

Yes. But I'm not very good at it.

The small being gave a nod. There's some in your family have quite a talent in that direction, it said. What you need's a seer. And then it happened again, that slight changing of the way matters were, and there was a flap of wings, and silence.

Deep in trance, I could not move or open my eyes. By the time I had completed the slow sequence of shallowing the breath and coming back to the conscious mind, of reawakening the body and, finally, emerging into the time and place of now and here, there was not a bird in sight. Just the quiet clearing, and the archdruid stretching his arms above his head, and rising gracefully to his feet with the ease of a man half his age. The day was clear and the sun still shone, glittering on the lake water down the hill between the willows.

"Ready?" Conor asked me quietly. I nodded and we began the walk homeward.

It should not have taken long. We had come only far enough to be sure of solitude and quiet. I was distracted, my mind repeating that strange conversation, and trying to puzzle out how much of it was real, and how much the product of a rather effective meditation combined with my natural unease. After a while I began to notice that, although I was certain we had simply retraced our steps along the track, now we were walking through a different kind of terrain, where surely we had not been before; a steep sort of hillside tumbled with many boulders. There was the sound of a stream very close at hand. It began to rain, fat droplets spattering, then a shivering gust of wind followed by sudden, drenching sheets of water. I could have sworn the sun was still shining. I pulled my shawl up over my head in a futile attempt to keep dry.

"In here, Fainne!" yelled Conor through the downpour, and, seizing my hand, he pulled me sideways off the narrow path and down into the shelter of the rocks. It was a long way down, through a very low opening into a place where there was a real cave, with a broad shelf above the stone floor, and a small, round opening in the roof which let in the light. Somewhere close at hand water gushed noisily.

"The stream," said Conor, stating the obvious. "One of the seven. Rain swells it quickly. Are you very wet? I suppose we could make a small fire."

"With what?" I said touchily, surveying the bleak, damp interior of the chamber. Outside, it sounded as if the rain was coming down in buckets. There was a thing about druids, and rain.

"We could improvise," he said with a little smile. "Between us, we could come up with something."

"Maybe." My tone was less than accommodating. I did not like being tricked. I did not like being cold and wet and stuck in a little cave with an archdruid, family or not. "But there's no need. This must pass quickly. The day seemed fair enough."

"It did, didn't it?" remarked Conor. "Still, I'd prefer it if you didn't catch cold." He took off the cape he wore over his long robe, and put it around my shoulders. It settled there, soft and warm and not even the tiniest bit damp. "That's better."

I could not hold my tongue any longer. "If you're deliberately trying to annoy me," I snapped, "you're succeeding."

He smiled. "And if you are deliberately avoiding extricating your-

self from this situation, because you don't want me to see how much you already know, then you're wasting my time and your own."

I scowled at him. "What do you mean?"

"Could you not use a spell of transportation, and be safe before your little fire in the keep? Safe behind closed doors?"

"In fact, no," I told him crossly. "Father said I wasn't ready to learn that."

Conor nodded. "Very wise of him. It's all too easy, if you know how, to rush off home every time things get too much for you. Well, you may not know that spell just yet. But there are others."

"You mean, I could turn you into a frog, since you seem to like the wet weather so much?"

"Well, yes. You could try. But I'm somewhat older than you, and while I don't make a habit of using sorcerer's tricks, that doesn't mean I'm ignorant of them. I think you might find it just a little difficult. You'd have to be exceptionally quick."

I glared down at the stone shelf on which we sat. The sound of the downpour was all around us; cascading past the around opening above us, roaring outside the narrow passage through which we had entered. Below us, on the cave floor, water was running across the rock and pooling in the center. The walls were dripping.

"I wanted him to stay," Conor said softly. Despite the din I heard him clearly. "I asked him to stay, but he would not. He was very young, and hurt. He should not have left us. There's never been another with such aptitude; with such breadth of skill and such depth of intellect. I found it hard to forgive myself. It is part of the trust, part of the guardianship, that each generation gives a son or a daughter to the wise ones."

"Surely there have been others," I said, wondering how he could tell barefaced lies and still sound so convincing. He must know the restrictions placed on our kind. He must comprehend what Ciaran was, and how that fettered him. Yet he spoke like a father who had lost a beloved son. "There are my cousins: Sean's daughters, and my aunt Liadan's sons. Surely one of them— ?"

"The apt are not easily found. It is not a vocation you choose for yourself. It chooses you. I thought once that Liadan would take that path, Liadan or her son. But she broke the pattern. And as for

Johnny, he could have been anything he wanted to be. But she took him away. Johnny is a warrior and a leader of fighting men, young as he is. Liadan made her own path. Both the strange inhabitants of Inis Eala and the good folk of her husband's estate in Britain see her as die heart of their community. And she is a skilled healer. Muirrin fulfils that role at Sevenwaters. But there is no druid."

I was silent, watching the pool on the floor as it deepened and spilled over, a great bowl of water swirling dark into the corners of the cave. I did not wish to show I was frightened.

"Did you know," said Conor conversationally, "that I myself was close to twenty years old before I entered the nemetons? I had studied, of course, and made a start on the lore and the discipline. But I left it very late. By that age, Ciaran was close to completing his apprenticeship. I'd be more content if I believed it had not been wasted. The water seems to be rising."

I nodded.

"Who were the first folk in the land of Erin?" he asked softly.

"The Old Ones. The Fomhoire. People of the deep ocean, the wells and the lake beds. Folk of the sea and of the dark recesses of the earth."

"And after them?"

"The Fir Bolg. The bag men."

"Could you go on?"

"As long as you wanted. I suppose it would be one way to die: reciting the lore as you slowly drowned."

He looked at the cave floor. The water was not only dripping down the walls, now it was gushing in through the low entrance, a sort of stream of its own. There would be no getting out that way. The level was climbing ever close to our ledge. The roar outside went on unabated.

"It does seem to be getting deeper," observed Conor.

I clenched my teeth together and tried to look as if I didn't mind a bit. I racked my brains for an appropriate spell, but nothing came to mind. It was my father who was good with the weather.

"Not frightened, are you?" Conor asked, edging back a little on the ledge. The water was splashing up close to our toes. "Didn't he bring you up in Kerry, in some place where the waves are as tall as oak trees? I'm sure that's what I heard young Maeve saying."

"Yes, well, I may be used to looking at the water, and smelling the water, and hearing it, but that doesn't mean I want to be in it," I said tightly.

"No. I'd say fire is your element," said the druid calmly. "I seem to be getting wet feet. Shall we attempt an escape?" He rose to stand, looking up at the small round hole in the cave roof above us. It would be possible, I thought, to squeeze out. Just. If one could scramble up first. The water was around my ankles, and rising fast.

"What do you think?" inquired Conor, and at that moment a cascade burst through the opening above his head, a sudden violent waterfall that continued relentlessly, making it impossible to hear and difficult to see. The level rose with alarming rapidity to my waist; I felt my gown dragging me down. My heart was thumping, and even if I had wanted to turn into a fish or a frog and save myself, sheer terror would have made it impossible.