Child of the Prophecy (83 page)

Johnny stared at me. "But—" he said faintly.

"Ssh," I said. "All will be well. Go, ask Gull to staunch that wound. Mend matters with these men. That is your part; to lead. There is no further need for you here."

"Fainne-"

"Go on, Johnny. Trust me. I am family." I saw the sorceress's head snap around toward me as I spoke these words. Her eyes narrowed sharply. At the moment her attention was diverted the circle of flames died down a little, and the two warriors stumbled through, cloaked by my father's protective spell, and collapsed into the arms of waiting healers. Bran of Harrowfield and Edwin of Northwoods each went to his son; they conveyed the wounded men away to a place of safety. Still the forces of Inis Eala kept a tight control of the crowd; the warriors were growing ever more restless and fearful. They had come here expecting an honest battle, not some eldritch display of magic tricks that turned the very day to night before their eyes. My father lifted his arms again and the fire sprang up anew. The sorceress gave a little smile; her pointed teeth glowed red in the flames. She took one step, two steps inside the circle. It had not taken her so very long to find a way through.

Ciaran stood calm and steady with the flames at his back. On his shoulder Fiacha crouched still as a carven effigy. Behind my father the fire still burned fiercely. Conor stood still and silent, outstretched arms holding the circle unbroken, and on the opposite side Finbar played his part, crouched on the earth with visage ghost-white and eyes darkened with pain. Mother and son faced each other not six paces from where I knelt, my head still reeling from the knowledge that my mother had been murdered, and a terrible lie told all these years, a lie which had filled my father's days with guilt and shame. All this time he had believed his love was not enough for Niamh; all this long time he had believed she chose to leave him. Beneath this new grief my heart still ached with emptiness, with the loss which could never be made right, not if I lived thrice the span of mortal woman. Maybe my mouth no longer howled my pain, but inside me the song of grief wailed like the banshee's cry, keening, screaming, sharp and savage as a shard of ice twisting deep in the vitals. And all the while I felt the magic flowing back into me, stronger and still stronger, powerful and true, yet I could not move; I slumped on the ground, held fast by shock and misery.

Beyond the flames the great throng of warriors had fallen silent, but for occasional mutterings and whisperings; prayers, maybe. This was far beyond the experience of ordinary man, be he hardened warrior or Christian priest or merely fisherman or shepherd called to arms in service of his chieftain. Terror blanched their faces; fascination held them watching as this strange game played itself out before their eyes.

"So," the lady Oonagh said, and it seemed to me as she faced her son she drew up dark power from deep within her; she grew taller, and grander, and her mulberry eyes glowed with malevolence in the smooth pallor of her terrible, fair face. "So, you think to do battle with me; you, my weakling son, corrupted by druids, tainted by family, crippled by love. Have you forgotten who gave you birth, you apology for a sorcerer, that you manifest yourself now at the last in some futile attempt to save these fools and their pathetic scrap of rock? Or do you seek merely to protect your daughter, who has proven no apter a tool for my purposes than you yourself were? Look at her crouching there, a shivering, pathetic wreck! Some sorceress she is! Cared more for her common little tinker than for the great task I set her, got it all mixed up in the end, let it all go. Now she's got nothing left, no power, no influence, no lover, no family, for they will cast her out now they know what she's done. Maiming children, killing druids, spying, watching, insinuating herself among them

with the will to destroy in her heart. There'll be no going back for your precious student, Ciaran. You should have seen your sweet little girl in Eamonn's arms. That would have opened your eyes well and truly. Oh, yes, she did inherit one or two skills from her mother. Niamh was good under the blankets, wasn't she? Why else would you have wanted such a featherhead?"

All the time my grandmother spoke she was watching Father; her eyes never left his face. His lips were tight, his jaw set; his eyes burned with rage. But he did not lose control. I sensed each waited for a moment when the other's guard might slip; the instant of opportunity. The air seemed to crackle with magic; spell and counter-spell, in the mind but not yet on the lips, warred in the air above the fiery circle. Fiacha's dark form was outlined in little sparks. My own body tingled with the craft; I felt its force in my hands, in my feet, burning in my head.

"It's over, Mother," Ciaran said quietly. "There are forces ranged against you here that you can scarcely dream of. You have failed. The young warrior lives to lead his men forward; I see peace in his eyes, truce in the strength of his hand. Your venture is pointless. And if Fainne could not do the deed you set for her, tell me, tell us all, why did you not do it yourself?"

Oonagh stared back at him. Her face was not that of a beautiful, regal lady now but had changed again; I saw the skull beneath the tight-stretched skin, I saw the look in her eyes and knew it for fear.

"That means nothing!" she snapped. "The boy was useless! Child of the prophecy, huh! He's not fit for it, he can never fulfill the task foretold for him. What matter if he lives or dies? You've lost, all of you! This can only turn to dust and ashes, whatever you do. Dust and ashes, desolation and despair!"

"Answer me," Father said in the quietest of voices, and I saw Fiacha beginning to edge down from his shoulder and along his outstretched arm, as if preparing for flight. "Answer my question. No? Then let me answer it for you, Mother. You sent my daughter to kill the child of the prophecy because you could not do it yourself. You could not do it because your strength is waning, day by day, season by season. Even as my daughter grew, even as she worked and studied and became strong in the craft, so your own powers diminished. You never recovered from the defeat you suffered at the hands of human folk. You will never be what you were. You cannot destroy the secrets of the Islands. Admit the truth. In what was to be your great moment of triumph, you have already lost."

The lady Oonagh blinked. For the merest instant her eyes were unfocused, and in that moment Fiacha rose, dark wings spread wide, to fly swift as a spear straight at her face. She was quick; her eyes grew sharp again and with a little snapping sound she set a guard in place. One hand went up, and now a ball of green light was pursuing the raven as he circled her head, dipping and swerving to escape its eldritch fire. The bird could not fly away; she held him to her. The charm would burn him to a crisp the instant it touched him. My fingers moved subtly, and now Fiacha was a tiny raven no bigger than a bee, a little speck of darkness that spun out of the fixing charm as easily as a fishling escapes the herring net, and darted away to the shelter of a small feathery bush which might or not have been there an instant before. My father did not so much as glance in my direction. Oonagh glared at her son.

"What is this?" she snarled. "A game of tricks? Dog eats cat, cat eats rat, rat eats beetle and so on? We are above such conjurer's gimmicks, surely. And you are wrong. I have a power beyond yours, beyond theirs." Her glance of scorn swept around the great circle of dumbfounded, staring warriors, taking in the ashen-faced Conor, the grim-jawed Sean, the crouching, gasping Finbar, and passing over the tall, stately figures of the Otherworld beings who stood behind, silent, grave observers. "You've never understood how to defeat your enemy, Ciaran; you've never grasped it, and you never will."

Then she changed. At the Glamour she was a master, even more skillful than my father; I had seen that demonstrated many a time as she stood before the mirror back in the Honeycomb and showed me simpering girl and wondrous queen, slithering serpent and sleek hunting cat. But she had never shown me this. Quick as a heartbeat the change was on her, and there stood a girl of eighteen, her pale cheeks flushed with delicate rose, her wide, guileless eyes blue as the summer sky, her hair flowing down across her bare shoulders red-gold as fine clover honey. She wore a gown the color of wood violets and on her feet soft kidskin shoes, dancing shoes. I heard my uncle Sean's exclamation of shock, I heard the lovely girl who was not my mother say, "Ciaran?" in a soft, sweet voice that trembled with hesi-

tant joy. I saw the look on my father's face; his guard had dropped away, and for that moment he was quite without defense. The girl held something loosely in her hand, half hidden in the silken folds of her gown; something shining, something deadly. I opened my mouth to warn him, to speak a spell, anything, but I, too, hesitated; the girl looked at me, her eyes full of love; it was my mother . . .

Finbar moved. Quick as sunlight he moved, up from his knees, into the circle, running, flying, wing unfurled to stop the lethal bolt as the girl raised her arm and hurled it toward my father's breast. Crumpling, falling, writhing enmeshed in the deadly, burning charm meant for his brother, Finbar sprawled at Oonagh's feet, a great black scorch across the white wing feathers, a bloody, gaping wound in his chest where cloak and tunic and living flesh had been torn away by the force of the death-bolt. The thing lay harmless by his side now, smoking, its force all spent. Ciaran stood mute, his eyes not on the man who lay dying at his feet, but on the figure standing opposite, now an old woman, her mouth a gash of crimson in her wrinkled face, her hair a wild crown of disheveled white.

"You killed my brother," Ciaran said in a voice like a small child's. "You killed him."

Conor had let out one great cry of anguish as he saw Finbar fall. Now he was chanting, his soft words falling like tears into the bitter silence. I saw Sean's face twisted with grief; I felt a wrenching pain in my own heart, I who had believed I could hold no more sadness. As the sound of my grandmother's cackling laughter rose in the air, my father knelt by Finbar's side and took his hand, heedless of danger.

"The earth receive and shelter you," Ciaran said softly. "The waters bear you forth gently to your new life. The west wind carry you swift and sure. The fire you hold already in your head, brother, strong and subtle, for you were ever a child of the spirit. You have given your life for me this day; I will not squander that gift. You have my word; a brother's word."

Then Finbar smiled, and died, and for a moment the air darkened as if a shadow passed over us all. And when I blinked again, it seemed to me the man who lay there lifeless on the hard ground was a man untouched by evil, a man who bore no disfigurement at all, for his two arms were outstretched at his sides and his clear eyes gazed up into the sky as if searching for an answer that lay, far, far

beyond the realm in which his family stood by him, their hearts stricken with loss.

Then my father rose to his feet again and turned to the sorceress, and her face changed as she saw the look in his eyes. I must not let him do this; it was wrong that son should be the instrument of mother's punishment. This was my own task; this was my time.

"No, Father," I said quietly, rising and stepping forward. "This must be done well. Your part is ended."

The lady Oonagh's head whipped around toward me again; her lips parted. She seemed to scent victory. "Fainne," she cooed, "my dear, how valiant. Best stay out of this, I think. This is well beyond your limited powers. And I see how weakened you are. The transformation took a lot out of you. Don't make a fool of yourself, dear. Leave this to your father." Then her eyes widened, and she swallowed, and her hands clawed themselves into tight fists as she felt the grip of my spell, a charm which held her where she stood, able to see, able to speak, quite unable to break free. In her wild gaze I saw the recognition that she had completely underestimated me.

"Clever," she said tightly. "I've taught you well. So be it, do your worst. It's all useless anyway. I've won this battle, regardless of your cunning little devices. Perhaps Sevenwaters has not lost the battle; but the Islands are surely lost, and the long goal of the Fair Folk thwarted. Oh, yes, they stand there watching; look over your shoulder and you will see them, the Lady of the Forest and her Fire-Lord, the fine ones of stream and ocean, of lofty heights and echoing caves. Sevenwaters cannot win. The child lives, but he cannot fulfill the prophecy. He just doesn't have It in him."

My father gave an odd little smile. He looked at me, and I looked at him.

"What do you mean?" asked Conor. His face was wet with tears; he looked gray and old. "Johnny has led his men valiantly, almost at cost of his life. He has triumphed here on the field, and so the Islands are won for Sevenwaters. What more can there be?"

The lady Oonagh laughed, a youthful, carefree laugh like the pealing of tiny bells. "The battle was only the first part, my dear little druid. It's what comes after that counts. The child of the prophecy is to keep watch; a very lonely watch, no less than the long guardianship of the very secrets of the lore; the heart of the mysteries the Fair Folk hug to themselves so jealously. He must climb up there, to the top of that pinnacle out yonder in the sea, and live alone, live his whole life in solitude, keeping those things safe. Without the Watcher in the Needle, the old things will dwindle and die, and the Fair Folk with them. Maybe it's not all in the prophecy, but it's the truth. Ask Ciaran. He worked it out. Ask these grand lords and ladies of the Tuatha De, they'll tell you."