Heir to Sevenwaters (46 page)

There was a sudden, frozen silence. Then Dog Mask said, “Oh, no. No, no, no. A daughter of Sevenwaters does not associate with the son of the Lord of the Oak. Walk out, walk away, have nothing more to do with his kind. They are harmful. They are full of tricks and lies. Throw in your lot with Mac Dara’s son and you face a lifetime of sorrow.”

“You’re wrong,” I said firmly. “I love him and he loves me. Yes, he’s Mac Dara’s son; he carries that legacy and I’m not trying to deny it. But he is his mother’s son, too. And he’s tried all his life to be his own man. He is a warrior of exceptional skills. He can be a good person, I know it, he just needs to . . . he just needs to find his way home.”

There was a pause, and then they sighed as one, gathering close around me in a circle. I sensed a thaw in the air.

“Oh, dear,” said Dog Mask. “What is it that makes the folk of Sevenwaters love so fiercely and with such determination? We have seen it before, over and over. A foolish thing, a perilous thing. But what can we do?”

“If not for that,” pointed out the hedgehog-dwarf, “the child of the prophecy would never have been born. That was not so foolish. And but for Johnny, Mac Dara’s son would not have evaded his father’s clutches for so long. Perhaps this is meant to be. The young man has acquitted himself well thus far.”

“Strong,” said the rocky being emphatically, and it thumped its chest with a fist in illustration. The sharp knocking sound made birds twitter with fright in the trees all around. “Tough. Bold.”

“Twisty, tricky,” added the watery one, as if these were admirable qualities.

The eyes behind the dog mask glinted with annoyance. “He is
Mac Dara’s son
,” the creature said, as if it thought its companions fools.

“True love!” hooted Owl Mask. “Pure! Good!”

Dog Mask hissed softly. “Mac Dara’s get can never be a good man,” it said. “Blood will out.”

“That isn’t true,” I said, remembering something. “What about my father’s uncle Ciarán? His mother came from a dark branch of the Fair Folk. From what I’ve heard, she was just as wicked as Mac Dara. But Ciarán is expected to be chief druid after Conor. If that isn’t good, I don’t know what is.”

There was a ripple of amusement around the circle.

“I vowed to Cathal that I would come back for him,” I said, encouraged. “I won’t abandon him here. But on my own I won’t be able to manage the way we came in. If there’s another portal I need to know where it is.”

“Finding a portal is the least of your worries,” said the hedgehog-dwarf. “Do you imagine Mac Dara is going to let his son wander about freely to be found and led away by anyone who happens along? The Lord of the Oak may not believe you would willingly return to his realm, but he’ll have protections in place all the same. He’s been trying to get his only son back since the boy was seven years old and ready to begin learning. To win this Cathal of yours, you would have to out-trick the trickster.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ve promised. I don’t expect help; you’ve aided me a great deal already and I’m deeply grateful for it.” They could have helped a lot more, I thought, if they had given me better information from the start. But it was plain that their kind despised the Tuatha De and that they considered Cathal as bad as his father. “Somehow I’ll find a way.”

“Ripple-green,” murmured the watery being, which was stroking my hand with its cool fingers. “His ring?”

I nodded, remembering. “It belonged to his mother. Cathal gave me all his talismans. He should have kept them for himself.”

“Then you would not have saved your brother, Clodagh,” said the hedgehog-dwarf. “There are surprises in this story. For love, the son of Mac Dara sacrificed his own freedom. He gave up his life in the human world. A selfless act. This man is no copy of his father.”

“Hah!” snorted Dog Mask. “His father read him perfectly. Mac Dara predicted what his son would do from the first moment the young man clapped eyes on you, Clodagh. Perhaps the Lord of the Oak even set you in his son’s path, who knows?”

I remembered the day I had first met Cathal, when I had sensed an uncanny presence in the forest watching me, something that had sent me running out of the woods in panic and straight into Aidan’s arms. “That idea troubles me,” I said.

“The Fair Folk like to meddle, and some of them have great power,” Dog Mask said. “They have played a part in the history of your family for more years than you could count, Clodagh. Many a forebear of yours has danced to their tune.”

“But not all,” said the hedgehog-dwarf. “From time to time, one will crop up who doesn’t play by the rules. Your Aunt Liadan was one such. It looks as if you’re set to become another. That is a surprise. I had thought you cut from simpler cloth. If you get Mac Dara’s son out of here safely, you will impress all of us.”

“Such a task is beyond any human woman,” said Dog Mask flatly.

“Didn’t Aunt Liadan stand up to the Tuatha De when she chose to take Johnny away from Sevenwaters?” I asked. “Isn’t that the same?” My aunt had defied the Fair Folk to wed her Painted Man and go with him to Britain, where their child would grow up safely.

“This is not Deirdre of the Forest or her Fire Lord,” said Dog Mask. “It’s Mac Dara. Nobody can outwit
him
. Try it, and he will destroy you as easily and with as little thought as he might snap a twig or swat a troublesome fly. Go home, Clodagh. This is beyond your abilities. Do not inflict yet another loss on your family.” Its tone was final.

“What happened to the Lady of the Forest and those others my sister used to see?” I asked. “Where did they go? Why does the Lord of the Oak rule here now?”

Dog Mask shrugged. “What do we care for the doings of
their
kind?” it said.

“Drifting, shifting, away, away . . .” The watery creature’s vague gesture set a spray of droplets dancing in the air.

The hedgehog-dwarf shook itself, making a rattling sound, then said, “When your cousin Fainne went to the Islands to stand as guardian to their mysteries, the Lady of the Forest and her companions retreated from this land. I do not think they will return here before your grandchild’s grandchild is an old woman, Clodagh.”

“Gone, gone,” said Owl Mask dolefully.

I had been told the strange story of Fainne, only a few years my elder, who had lived with us briefly, then had gone away to be custodian of a sacred cave. When he had related the tale my father had provided scant detail, and after a while my sisters and I had stopped asking questions. “Gone,” I echoed. “And all that’s left is
him
. That can’t be right. The forest of Sevenwaters can’t stay under Mac Dara’s control. Our ancestor, the one who gave us the task of looking after it, would feel betrayed.”

“One thing at a time, Clodagh,” said the cat-being, and the elongated eyes behind its golden mask were warm. “Save your sweetheart before you take on the Tuatha De in their entirety. Mend your broken heart before you attempt to change the course of history. Show us this ring.”

I held out my hand, and three or four of them bent close to examine the green glass ring. They looked at it; they looked at each other. They turned grave eyes on me.

“What?” I asked, suddenly feeling very tired again.

“It’s old,” said one.

“It’s very old,” said another.

“It’s as old as we are,” added a third.

“Who exactly was this young man’s mother?” asked the hedgehog-dwarf.

“An ordinary woman, low-born, a fisherman’s daughter, I think. Cathal didn’t say much about her except that she was very beautiful and that she waited years and years for Mac Dara to come back.”

“She was from the west?”

“That’s right. A place called Whiteshore, on the coast of Connacht.”

“A fisherman’s daughter,” mused the hedgehog-dwarf. “There is a good magic in this, Clodagh, a powerful old sea magic. Your young man did well to put it on your finger before you faced the Lord of the Oak.”

“If he had worn it himself—”

“No, no,” put in the owl-creature. “You, you!”

“It is a woman’s ring,” said the hedgehog-dwarf, “and meant for your finger. As for Cathal, if you attempt a rescue you must wear this. Do not be tempted to give it back to him. He will require his own talisman of protection, and it is up to you to determine what that may be. Does this young man not understand his mother’s legacy?”

“Her legacy? What do you mean?”

“Ah. He dismisses her, perhaps, as someone he loved, who failed him. If she owned this ring, she was far more than that. There is a strength in such folk that runs very deep, Clodagh. He is her son; it runs also in him. He has shown it by passing the ring to you; by ensuring your safety at the price of his own.”

“All he said about his mother was that she loved Mac Dara and that she killed herself from despair when he didn’t come back. If there’s more, I’m certain he doesn’t know. He was only seven when she died.” Seven.
He’s been trying to get his only son back since the boy was seven years old.
Without being quite sure why, I felt suddenly chill. “Are you saying this could be the key to getting him out? That it is possible?”

“Possible, maybe,” said Dog Mask a little sourly. “Not probable, and not at all advisable. Now sleep. Husband your strength. Tomorrow you will be home among your own.”

“Will you tell him about this? If there’s something he doesn’t know about his mother, something he can use—”

“Our kind does not speak to his kind,” said Dog Mask predictably. “Now sleep.”

“But . . .” I could not bear the idea that there was a clue that might help Cathal escape, and that there was no way I could tell him about it.

“If he is what you believe him to be,” said the hedgehog-dwarf, “he will seek his own answers.”

I lay down with Finbar nestled against me and a blanket over the two of us. Around me the Old Ones went about various tasks, banking up the fire, checking the torches that lit the enclosure, feeding the goat. Two stayed by the gate; two more patrolled the perimeter. Beyond the hedge of thorn, all was quiet.

My last thought before I slept was of Cathal. I pictured him as he had been on the day I met him, his thin lips twisted in a mocking smile, his dark eyes dancing with mischief. From the first he had been an enigma, an irritating, intriguing puzzle of a man, full of a restless intelligence. It came to me that if anyone knew how to outwit the trickster, it might be the trickster’s son, if only he did not let despair overwhelm him first.

The dawn woke me, seeping under my eyelids in a glorious wash of pale gold. Finbar was still fast asleep, a warm, damp bundle against my side. The blanket was over us and my pack was under my head. But I was no longer in the safe place within the hedge of thorn. The sunlight told me so before I sat up and saw that instead of the massive dark trees of the Otherworld a grove of graceful birches stood around the small expanse of open ground where the two of us were lying. Real sunlight; above me the sky was turning to a delicate duck-egg blue. There was a freshness in the air, an openness that made my heart lift. All around us, birds chorused their greetings to the rising sun. We were out. We were back.

I had dreamed of a long walk through narrow underground ways, secret ways, with the Old Ones padding before and behind with their torches, guiding me as I carried Finbar against my chest in the sling. That path had been nothing like the one Cathal and I had followed to enter the realm of the Tuatha De, and I had sensed it was an entry known only to these smaller folk. I had dreamed that I walked all night. And now, on waking, I realized that perhaps it had been so. I felt refreshed, as if I had slept well, but my legs were aching. I stretched, looking around me again. The area looked familiar. There was a marker stone not far up the hill with ogham signs on it. Beyond it, oaks grew. I was close to the nemetons, the well-concealed habitation of the Sevenwaters druids. It was a fair walk back home, but not so far that I could not manage it.

The earthenware jug had been set not far away, with a neatly folded cloth covering it—the Old Ones had kept their promise of providing milk for Finbar. I thought my dream had perhaps included a pause in a little shadowy cavern where I had changed my baby brother’s wrappings and fed him. I’d have to do both again before I moved on.

Which way? Head straight for home, so I could put Finbar in my mother’s arms myself? How could I do so, then announce that I must leave again immediately? I could imagine how Father would react to the idea of my heading back to the Otherworld to confront a dark prince of the Tuatha De. He would consider it his responsibility to stop me; to make sure I came to my senses and stayed safe. I could not go home. But Finbar must, straightaway.

So, go to the nemetons. Seek help from the druids. How would they react when I appeared? Conor was a wise and open-minded man, but I was sure he would share my father’s opinion on this matter. I did not know Ciarán very well. He was the same kind of half-breed as Cathal. Whether that would influence him to help me or hinder me, I had no idea. Perhaps I could slip into the nemetons, leave Finbar somewhere safe, then disappear into the forest. No, that would be irresponsible. Even if I did not love him as I had Becan, I owed it to my brother to deliver him safely into the arms of his family.

As if reading my mind, Finbar awoke, requesting his breakfast. He was loud. If we were as close to the druids’ home as I thought, his crying would soon arouse curiosity. I fed him, and as he sucked and swallowed I cast my eyes all around the area, looking for the chink or crack or cave through which I must have emerged last night more asleep than awake. I couldn’t see anything. No stream or pond, no large cluster of rocks, nothing that might conceal an opening. Only the gentle birch-clad slope. And now, walking down it toward me, an old woman clad in an oddly shifting garment that might have been cloak, gown or robe. She used her staff for support, but she moved with an energy and purpose that belied her years.

I should not have been surprised. After the events of the last few days, I should have been ready for anything. “I thought you’d gone away,” I said as Willow came over and seated herself on a flat-topped stone beside me.