The Caller (14 page)

‘Silva,’ I murmured, making the drum vibrate in my hands, ‘we should sing. Do you know the forbidden song? The Song of Truth?’ She nodded, wide-eyed. ‘Will you sing it with me?’

Our voices rose together through the drizzling rain and the darkness, across the tumbled stones and out through the circle of leafless elders. I did not sing as well as I had when I had used this same song to rouse the small folk of the Beehives, but I did my best. By the time we reached the third verse, our voices had been joined by two lower ones: up on the rise, Whisper and Ean were singing too.

White Lady, shield me with your fire,

Lord of the North, my heart inspire,

Hag of the Isles, my secrets keep,

Master of Shadows, guard my sleep.

I held up my hand, and the others stopped singing. The drum skin stilled; all was quiet. I thought of the wee folk, as fragile as butterflies, lovely as spring flowers, bright as sunbeams. I remembered their curious dumb show, the high tinkling that was their laughter, the way they had flown down to gather on my shoulders when they thought I needed comfort. I imagined them clustered on the stone shelves in the cairn, or dancing in firefly garlands around the heads of the wise women as they enacted the ritual. I remembered the wry, wise voice of the White Lady.

This call would not be delivered in ringing tones, a summons to war. It would be as light as thistledown in the wind; as subtle as moon shadows.

‘If you’re there, come out, wee ones,’ I whispered against the drum skin. ‘It’s safe now. Look, your priestess is here; she is faithful to you. And there are three of us with her, three friends of the White Lady. Your home is ruined; your great tree is fallen. But we will find you a new home, a place where the rite can continue, and we will take you there. I give my solemn promise.’ I took a breath, then as softly as I could, I sang the next few lines:

I am the mountain, I am the sky,

I am the song that will not die,

I am the heather, I am the sea . . .

The silence drew out until I could hardly bear it. Perhaps I’d been foolish. Long ago, my grandmother had told me one thing that the Good Folk hated was to hear a song or poem unfinished. The likelihood was that if a human singer stopped before the end, a wee voice would pipe up and supply the missing lines. That was probably just a fancy, something Grandmother had invented to amuse me. This, now, was life and death: the loss of a being so old and precious she was part of the very fabric of Alban, the strength and hope that kept us all fighting for what was right. I laid my hand on the drum skin, knowing there would be nothing, knowing I must check anyway before we turned our backs on this place and walked away.

Under my palm the skin was vibrating. It was the very slightest of movements, the tiniest sign of life, like the weak pulse of some little forest creature wrenched from its safe place and left to die. I bent my head again, but I could not hear a voice.

‘Show me where you are,’ I breathed. ‘Can you make a light?’

The skin shuddered and went still.
Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

Silva put her hand on my arm, making me start. She said nothing, only pointed down among the broken stones, beyond the circle cast by our lamp. In the shadows, a faint light flickered. Something after all; something to be saved.

I motioned to Silva –
don’t reach in, don’t say anything.
That first day, my voice and movements had scared the tiny beings. Now, with the cairn broken apart, the drum might help me speak to them. I whispered against its surface. ‘You know me. I’m Neryn, the Caller. Will you come out? I will look after you, I promise. Find you somewhere safe. Take you there.’ At the back of my mind a plan was forming; I hoped I would not make a liar of myself.

Silva sucked in a sharp breath. A tiny hand had appeared on the edge of a broken stone. Another hand followed, then a small form pulled itself up from the darkness. Its wings were torn, its wispy hair stood up in wild disarray; it clung to the stones as if the next raindrop might be enough to dislodge it. This was the wee one who had been full of fun, miming my own probable demise from cold. Now it seemed at the last gasp of exhaustion.

‘Come,’ I whispered against the drum. ‘Come with me. Bring the others. It is night, and you need shelter.’

The fragile being struggled to its feet, a forlorn, defeated scrap. It opened its mouth and sang, or I guessed it did. Its voice was as before, too high for me to make out more than squeaking, but I was in no doubt that it had emerged to provide the last line of the song:
My spirit is forever free.

‘Where are the others?’ I murmured, pointing toward the hole from which it had emerged. ‘Your friends?’ I passed the drum to Silva, then tried to show what I meant, making a play of counting on my fingers, then raising my brows in question.

The small one shook its head, then shrugged, spreading its arms wide.
Gone. All gone.
It pointed toward its own chest, then held up a minuscule finger.
Only me.
There followed a mime of flying, of being buffeted by powerful forces. The being cupped its ear as if listening, indicated me, then gestured to the broken hut.
You brought me home.

One left. One tiny scrap of all that had once been the White Lady, Guardian of the East. How it had survived I did not know, since I had called it home before the tree fell. But here it was, without home or comrades, without any help but us. I heard Tali’s voice in my mind:
Get on with it, Neryn. Don’t waste time on might-have-beens.
I cupped my hands together, placing them where the little one could reach. ‘Come,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here on your own. Come with us.’

A sudden, strange shiver of wind passed through the place of the cairns, stirring every tree, making the lantern flicker, blowing Silva’s dark hair across her face. The little one stepped onto my palm and I lifted it, cradling it against my chest. It was as light as thistledown.

‘Good,’ I said softly. ‘Now we’re going home.’

We made a bed in the egg basket, lining it with an old, soft cloth. To my surprise, the wee one curled up there and went straight off to sleep. The four of us gathered around the brazier, drinking Silva’s herbal brew, and held a council.

Ean had been shocked into silence by what he had seen. Silva was quiet, too – the loss at the cairns was a kind of death to her, and I thought she would have liked time alone to grieve, but that was not possible. As for Whisper, he was calm, though sombre. He understood the magnitude of what had happened; whether he would agree to my half-formed plan remained to be seen.

As simply as I could, I explained to Ean that the tiny being was vitally important to the participation of the Good Folk in the rebellion, and indeed to the future of Alban.

‘I can’t explain to you exactly what the wee one is, but it is the last of its kind here; there were more of them before the storm. They’ve been safe here because of . . . an ancient magic, a protective power maintained by the wise women’s rituals. After the fire, after the other women were killed, Silva kept that going by herself.’

Ean raised his brows. ‘What about you?’

‘Neryn helped me,’ Silva said, frowning at him. ‘But she’s not trained in the rituals. And she had her own work to do.’ When he made to speak, she added, ‘She’s needed for the end, Ean. For midsummer. Don’t you listen?’

The show of temper was a good sign; anything was better than the aching sorrow I had seen on her face when she realised the Lady was gone. ‘I’ve had my own work here,’ I kept my tone even, ‘but now that there is only one of these beings left, that work has changed. My next task must be moving the little one to a place where it can be safe, and where Silva or someone else can continue the appropriate rituals.’

‘But Neryn,’ said Silva, ‘this was the last place.’

‘That’s what I was told, yes.’ It was what the Lady herself had believed. ‘But don’t you think if we have faith and hope, and if we take steps to mend what’s been broken, we can change that? Maybe we can bring the magic back.’

The others stared at me, uncomprehending.

‘The sanctuary is gone,’ Silva said flatly. ‘The tree has fallen. The Beehives are no more.’

‘Besides,’ put in Ean, ‘Silva can’t stay here, not after this. She needs to come south with me. If you have any sense you’ll pack up your things and do the same.’ He glanced at Whisper. ‘At least, you will, Neryn.’

‘Silva,’ I said, ‘there is one left. We can’t give up hope while one survives, even such a small and fragile one. And maybe it’s not the place itself that matters so much as a . . . a meeting of things, time and place, hearts and minds, hope and belief. When all comes together, the magic is born. In my grandmother’s time and before, people performed rituals all over Alban, on hilltops and in caves and out in the forest. In their own houses, sometimes. Think about the song we were singing; the magic is present in every part of Alban, if only we look for it. Sometimes it’s hard to find. Sometimes it’s hidden away. Sometimes we don’t have the strength to keep on looking. But it never really dies. It never really goes away.’

‘Are you saying we should take the little being away from here?’ Silva’s voice was hushed with shock. ‘Wouldn’t it die?’

‘If it’s left behind on its ain,’ said Whisper, ‘it surely willna survive.’

‘But Neryn,’ protested Silva, ‘if the wee beings are what you said they are, we can’t . . . I mean we shouldn’t . . .’

‘If we’re stopped on the way and anyone sees that thing,’ Ean nodded in the general direction of the egg basket with its small occupant, ‘we’ll all be hauled up before the authorities, you know that, I suppose?’

‘All too well,’ I said levelly. ‘Fortunately, the being is small enough to be easily hidden. I wasn’t planning to carry it on my shoulder like a pet bird.’ I caught myself before I went any further; Ean was only asking the questions I might ask if the situation were reversed. ‘Ean,’ I said, ‘you told me you were living at Callan Stanes. And you said something about ritual. How did that place get its name?’ I prayed that my hunch about this was right.

‘The Stanes? Well, that’s what it is, an old stone circle. Sometimes called the Giants, though there’s more giants lying down now than standing tall. All covered over with moss and brambles. Godforsaken sort of spot. Nobody goes there anymore except rabbits and mice and a crow or two.’

I saw dawning comprehension on Silva’s face, and on Whisper’s. ‘A stone circle,’ I said. ‘And you said the rebel base is at a nearby farm. How near?’

‘A short walk. Further from the stones to the settlement. The Giants are not straightforward to find. There’s a tale about them.’

‘Oh, yes?’

Ean’s face was rosy in the light from the brazier; his expression softened. ‘People say the stones move around as they please. The Slow Dance, it’s called. Each time you go there, you’ll find them in different places. And . . . at certain times of year, at sunrise and at sunset, they say you can see them dancing. You can’t watch the stones directly or they’ll freeze in place. You have to watch their shadows.’

As her brother spoke, Silva’s eyes came alight. I felt my own heart beat faster. He had told me exactly what I wanted to hear.

‘It’s only a story,’ Ean said, looking at Silva. ‘But I thought you’d like it.’

‘Aye,’ said Whisper. ‘A pleasing tale. You say naebody visits this place save the wee field creatures? But you tell it as if you ken the spot weel. The brambles and the fallen stanes and all.’

Ean cleared his throat. ‘One or two of us have been there. The folk from the farm, I mean. Cut away some thornbushes, set one of the smaller stones back upright. There’s a girl knows some of the old prayers. The folk from the settlement don’t go there, and we haven’t cleared the path.’

Now all eyes were on him.

‘It felt right,’ he said. ‘That is, I thought it was what Silva would have wanted me to do. Back then, I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive.’

Silva put her arms around him. ‘You did well,’ she murmured. ‘You did a good thing.’ He gave her an awkward hug in return.

‘It’s plain we need to move on after what’s happened,’ I said. ‘Silva’s reason for staying here is gone. Besides, as Ean pointed out, it’s far more likely folk will come out this way to have a look as the weather improves. What’s to stop them reporting back to the local authorities? We should go – all of us – to this farm near Callan Stanes. It sounds as safe for you as anywhere can be right now, Silva. The wee one might survive at the stone circle if you’re there to conduct the rituals. The girl Ean mentioned, the one who’s been offering prayers, might be able to help you.’

‘And you?’ asked Ean, eyes on me.

‘Whisper and I were planning to link up with your group when we left here anyway. Once we’ve spoken with your leaders we’ll move on to the south.’

‘Just one thing,’ Ean said.

‘What?’

‘Whisper,’ Ean said. ‘And you. You talk about moving away from here because of folk reporting to the authorities. But you intend to travel together. That’s a sure way of getting yourself turned over to the Enforcers.’