Child of the Prophecy (26 page)

Conor was yelling into my ear. "Come on! I'll help you! Take a breath, and go on up!"

"What?" Up through there, up through that pounding, drenching downflow, with water in my nose and eyes and ears, and no idea what was on the other side? The very thought paralyzed me.

"Quick!" shouted Conor, and he grabbed my arm as my foot slipped on the ledge, under the water, and I came close to disappearing beneath the surface. "Quick, while we can still see where it is."

"I-I-"

"Are you Ciaran's daughter, or aren't you?" he said, and putting his arms around my waist, he lifted me up toward the circle of light, through which water poured down unabated. I took a breath, remembering to fill my chest slowly from bottom to top, and then I reached out and hauled myself up as hard as I could against the weight of the descending water. I clutched at the slippery rocks, scrabbled for a root or branch or anything that might give purchase, held my breath until my chest seemed close to bursting, cursed the need for a long gown, kicked out with my booted feet and found a little ledge in the rock, pushed upward . . . and at last, found air. I gripped at the exposed roots of a willow, gasping and choking, and scrambled out onto rocks over which water ran and ran, funnelling down through the narrow opening into the cave.

"Conor!" I screamed, leaning over and peering back down into

the darkness beneath the torrent. "Conor!" There was no reply. I looked around wildly, thinking a rope would be handy, or a little ladder, or even a small lantern, if I could get it to light. Light. Fire. At least then he could see the way out. I clicked my fingers, muttering. There was a pop and a fizz, and a little cloud of steam. "Oh, come on," I said, and did it again. A ball of flame appeared, and hung in the air above the dark hole in the rocks. Hurry up, Fainne, I thought grimly. The man's old enough to be your grandfather, and he did save you first. I looked around again, and was just in time to grab a stout branch of ash wood as the flood swept it by. I clutched the tree roots with one hand as the water washed around me, and reached down with the stick. Surely the cave must be near full by now. How long could an old man hold his breath? I moved the stick around, my fingers gripping tight against the sucking of the water. There had never been such rain. Cursed forest. Words ran through my head. We think you don't give a toss what casualties you leave behind. A pox on the Fair Folk and their owlish friends. What did they know? I cast about with the stick again, searching for something, anything. Where was he? The rain ran down my face, washing it clean, washing everything away. Was this how it felt to weep?

The stick jerked in my hand. I let go the tree roots and put both hands on the ash branch, wedging my foot between the roots to keep from being swept away over the rocks and down the steep bank. Overhead, the orb of fire maintained a steady glow, lighting the way up. I pulled as hard as I could, feeling the strain arching through my back. Come on, come on, old man. Not far. Not very far.

A long, pale hand appeared, gripping the stick, and then another, emerging through the cascade to grasp at the muddy roots beside me. I bent and grabbed his arm, and pulled again with all my strength. There was a splash, and his head emerged from the water, small plaits plastered damply to his cheeks, mouth open and gasping like a fish. Somehow, he still managed to look dignified.

"Manannan save me," he spluttered, "that's an experience I'd gladly not repeat. Give me your hand again, Fainne. Not as agile as I once was ... ah, that's it. By all that's holy. And my staffs gone as well."

"Come on," I said, getting to my feet with some difficulty on the treacherous surface. "Let me help you. We're best off these rocks and onto some dry land, if there's any to be found."

"Very wise, Fainne," he said, coughing explosively as he gazed at the ball of light hovering above the hole in the ground. Water still poured in. Further down the hill, there was now the sound of a gushing exit.

I mumbled a word, and the flames died. "Come on," I said again, and we made our stumbling way, arms linked for safety, over the rocks and along the remnants of a hillside track, now crumbling away in many small landslides, until we found a stand of pine trees, and a space under them, needle-carpeted, thickly canopied, and mercifully dry. We sat on the ground side by side, breathing hard.

"It'll come back," I observed eventually.

"What will?"

"The staff. You needn't worry. They always make their way back. That's what Father said."

"Did he? I've never lost it before. There are tales. Maybe they are true, and maybe not."

"Why did you do that? Why would you do such a thing? They tell me not to use the craft unwisely, and then you—you go and nearly kill yourself. And you're an archdruid. Why?"

"Why did I do what, Fainne?"

"That. The rain and—and everything. At your age you should know better."

"Why assume it was my doing?"

I looked at him sideways as I took the shawl off my shoulders and wrung it out. The dye had not run; still it bore its brave pattern of all that was fine and fair and lovely. "Father always said you were good with weather."

"Uh-huh." Now that he had his breath back, Conor seemed remarkably his old self; almost as if nothing at all had happened.

"Father's good with weather too," I said cautiously. "He commanded winds and waves once, at the cove. The folk there think him a hero."

"I'm sure that is no less than the truth," said Conor very quietly. "A hero makes errors, and becomes strong. But he'd be the last one to recognize it. Listen. The rain's stopping. Shall we go home?"

We walked. My boots squelched, and my gown felt like a lead weight. I had lost Conor's cape somewhere in the water, and had only my wet shawl to keep out the chill. The rain dwindled to droplets, then ceased altogether. The wind died down. On the shore, where the track emerged from the trees, a long, strong piece of birch wood lay washed up, its smooth pale surface carven with many tiny symbols.

"You were right," Conor said, bending to pick it up. It seemed to me the staff rose to settle in his hand, as if coming home. Interestingly, as we made our way along the last stretch of track, between the forest and the outer fields, I felt my clothing drying, and my hair no longer heavy and damp, and my boots once more watertight and comfortable. As for Conor, you'd have thought he'd been for no more than a fair weather stroll.

I was thinking hard. I was piecing together what had happened; trying to look beyond the physical and immediate, and to perceive the less obvious, as my father had taught me to do. The darkness of the cave, under the earth. The ascent through water, the emergence through a narrow opening, into light and air. The fire. That part I had made myself. The hand stretched out in friendship, in kinship. And the strange sense of peace which had settled on me now, against all that was logical. I stopped walking.

"What is it, Fainne?" asked Conor quietly, not looking at me.

I was not sure how to frame the question.

"I don't think you can do that," I said eventually, scowling at him. "Perform an—an initiation, I suppose it was—without someone's agreement. I shouldn't think it works, unless your apprentice has done the right preparation, and enters into it in a spirit of goodwill. Besides—" I stopped myself. It was not for me to remind him that the offspring of a line of sorcerers could never become a druid. That he must know already.

"Besides what, Fainne?" He was smiling; Dana only knew what he was thinking, the devious old man.

"Nothing." I scuffed the earth with my boot, feeling my anger rising. "Just—you must know how pointless this is, with me. You know whose daughter I am. I cannot be—I cannot be part of this. The forest, the family, the—the brotherhood. You must realize that."

Conor began to walk again, steady and quiet in his old leather sandals.

"I did not plan this," he said. "I don't suppose you believe me, but it is the truth nonetheless. Perhaps it was, as you say, a test; if so, you have passed it, I think. A test set by others than myself. It may take time before its meaning becomes plain to us. You might use this as the basis for meditation and consideration, Fainne. There's always something to be learned from such an experience."

"What?" I snapped. This wasn't fair; he sounded just like my father. "That an archdruid can drown as easily as the next man, maybe?"

"You know better than to ask me what. You are the only one who can discover what lesson this carries, for yourself. Perhaps it pertains to the question who am I, or what am I. One can spend a lifetime seeking answers to such questions. You are right, of course. It held all the symbols of a druid's passage into the brotherhood; even thus do we give our kind a new birth, a new emergence into light, from the body of our mother the earth. Ask yourself why such an experience was bestowed on you."

"An error, surely. Perhaps they—whoever they were—mistook me for someone else."

Conor chuckled. "I doubt that very much. You are your father's daughter. Now, I have something to ask you, Fainne. A favor. I'd like you to help me."

We had come to the path by the cottages.

"If it's anything to do with water, the answer's no."

He grinned. "I'd like you to assist me with the celebration of Samhain. You have been taught the ritual, I assume?"

"Yes, but—you must understand, my father and I, we are no druids. What has happened today changes nothing."

Conor looked at me gravely. "You doubt yourself. But this you could do with ease. This, and a great deal more, I think."

"I—I don't know," I stammered, finding it all too easy to convey confusion, for I felt a sudden longing to confess everything to this calm old man; to tell him the reason I was there, and what my grandmother had done, and my fear for my father. You loved him too. Help me. But I could not tell.

"Think about it, Fainne. You'll have choices to make while you're here. Choices that will be far reaching, perhaps beyond what you imagine."

If you knew what I imagine you would tremble with fear. "I'll consider it," I said.

Conor gave a nod, and we walked up to the keep in silence. When I got back to my chamber I took off the shawl, which was quite dry, and put it away in the chest. I hesitated before I took out Riona and set her back in the window. Then I built up the small fire to a rich, rosy glow of heat, and sat before it. It had been the strangest of days. In a way, I had achieved what I set out to do. I had confronted the forest and I had survived the experience. I had heard a voice from the Otherworld, perhaps not the one I had expected, but a voice nonetheless. But I had learned nothing. The message the owlish creature had given me had been no message. The words were meaningless. I had not asked Conor the questions I wanted answered. And yet I felt a warmth inside me, as if I had got something right at last. It didn't make sense. A pox on all druids. They were just too confusing. Like owls that talked, and clothing that dried itself in a flash, and dolls that followed you with their eyes and spoke to you in your head. I gave a huge yawn, and another, and I curled up there before the fire, and slept.

Quietly, unobtrusively, in the same way as a shadow moves under the winter sun, the druids came to Sevenwaters. They were not many: one old graybeard, a few much younger, men and women with plaited hair and pale, calm faces. Inscrutable, like their leader. They were housed in an annex near the stables, preferring to be outside the stone walls of the keep, and closer to the forest. They waited.

Samhain is the darkest and most secret of the great festivals. In Kerry Father and I had performed our own ritual, just the two of us, and because of what we were, the form of it was subtly changed. Not as folk might think. We may be sorcerers, but we are no devil worshippers. We are not necromancers or practitioners of the black arts. We acknowledge the old deities. We salute the elements, fire, air, water and earth. The fifth, which is the pure essence of spirit, we cannot approach. We reverence the passing of the year and its turning points. But we use our abilities for our own ends; we do not adhere to the druid way. Still, what we do is in many aspects very close. I understood the ceremony and what my own role in it would be. Conor had shown insight, I was forced to concede. He had known my father well enough to be sure I would have learned the lore, and understood the meaning behind it. He was right; if all you looked at was education, I was well skilled to become a druid. Besides, what other prospects did I have? I was unlikely to snare a man of wealth or influence as a husband, whether or not the truth was told about my parentage. Either I was the bastard child of a forbidden coupling, or, possibly worse, I was uncharted waters, a girl whose paternity was unknown. Maybe the story was put about that I was a druid's daughter, but who could be sure? I might have been fathered by a leper, or a petty thief, or some Otherworld creature, a clurichaun maybe. What chieftain with an eye on his bloodline would so much as look at me?