Icefall (47 page)

‘He
was
my father. He
was
your lover. Finn, he is
gone
.'

‘He is waiting, Rory, and I want to see him. It's the last thing I'll ask of you.'

‘And if I can't close it?'

‘You'll close it, Rory. You want to know if you can.' She stroked his face gently. I think it was meant to be encouraging. It was something else entirely. ‘Now you'll find out. Remember when we heard the horses? We shouldn't have heard them, should we? But the Dark Veil's yours. It speaks to you, it answers you, it
obeys
you.

‘The
Sgath Dubh
obeys nobody.'

She twisted her lips thoughtfully. ‘It calls out to you, then. That's why we heard the horses.'

‘Are you sure it's me that it calls?'

Finn laughed. ‘Oh,
Rory.
In the whole of history, since the foremothers, no-one has had the power over the
Sgath Dubh
that you have. And it's getting easier, isn't it? That's why you're so frightening.' She dipped her lashes, letting the flattery sink in. ‘That's why you scare me.'

‘Look who's talking.'

She smiled again, but there was madness in her face. ‘You know you want to open it again. You have a connection, you have the power. You know you
can
.'

Rory hesitated, just half a second too long.

That's when I knew he'd do it.

 

Bloodstone
&
Icefall

It was one of their favourite places, he knew that. Rory shivered, eyeing the stones. The ring was so ancient its perfect symmetry had been distorted by weather and time, but the gist of it was there in the stones that were left. Some stood tall, others slumped drunkenly or had fallen flat, half overgrown with grass like forgotten tombstones. Some bore the ghosts of carvings; others were pitted only by rain and storm and wind. It was the stillest place he knew, and the eeriest. Only Finn and Seth had ever felt entirely at peace and happy here. They'd liked the loneliness: if anyone asked why, they called it privacy, and laughed. Most people feared the ghosts. Rory did.

He rubbed his arms in the cold lateness of the day. Finn just stood there, unmoving.

‘Finn?'

‘What?' She didn't turn.

‘Finn? Please don't do this. Please don't ask.'

She ignored him, tilting her head and frowning slightly as if he was disturbing her.

‘Finn, I've been thinking about this. He drowned. In the sea.'

‘I'm aware of that. And?'

Rory swallowed. ‘Remember Conal? How he looked?'

She shrugged. ‘Did that bother you?'

‘No, but I—Finn,
please
think about it. Who knows what the Selkyr do?'

‘You know he's there.' Her voice was eerily, hideously calm as she turned and came closer to him. ‘You know as well as I do.'

He raked both hands through his hair. ‘I'll do it, Finn, if you want me to. But
please
don't ask me.'

‘I'm sorry, Rory.' She stroked his cheek.

He shut his eyes. Bitterly he said, ‘Show me, then. Show me where.'

He sat down on the grass on the edge of the circle. As the sun slid down the white sky, the stone shadows grew longer. Finn didn't speak. She stayed motionless.

A heavy chill travelled down his vertebrae. Something touched him, something feather-gentle on his cheekbone. Rory stood up. Shuddered. He walked to her side.

He said, ‘He's here.'

Finn said nothing.

Something in the air trembled. It was growing visible, reflecting twilight. Pressure crushed against his eardrums, sang against the membranes.

There you are. Sgath Dubh. We know one another. You'll open for me. You'll close for me.

Dread washed through his body, and so did a violent need. He wanted this. He didn't want it. He'd made a promise, and Finn was raising her hand, placing her palm against something he couldn't see.

He stretched out his own fingers, gripped an unseen thing that coiled round his fist, loving him as much as he loved it. Like silk, like smoke, like mist, like nothing. His muscles tensed and flexed.

My father. One sight. All she wants. Dance to my song, Sgath Dubh.

Finn sighed out a breath.

Clenching his fist, hesitating, Rory turned his head sharply. He no longer couldn't see the thing she touched. There was something. Against her hand, the imprint of another. She was still, absolutely still. She didn't seem to be breathing.

‘Finn,' he said, and his voice sounded like a feeble alien thing against the native weight of the Veil. ‘Finn?'

She gave a gasp, stepped back, lowered her hand, squeezing it into a fist so tight her nails drew blood. The other hand's imprint was gone. A cold salt breeze shivered through the stones, and the thing that had glimmered in the late light grew still.

‘
Finn!'

‘Rory?' She snapped her head to face him. Her eyes were silver and red. ‘No. Rory, don't.
Don't
.'

‘But…'

‘I've changed my mind. Don't open it. Please. I've changed my mind.'

‘Finn, what do you—'

‘
Don't do it
.'

The pressure was gone. His ears popped. He gasped and reeled slightly, and he heard the birds begin to sing again, somewhere on the moor. He hadn't realised they'd ever stopped.

‘Finn?
Finn
.'

She sat down on the cropped turf, right in the heart of the circle, hands over her face. Rory wondered for a hopeful moment if she was laughing, till he saw the tears squeezing out between her fingers, unstoppable. He watched her for an age, but the tears didn't stop coming and she kept her hands over her inhuman eyes.

He left her to the twilight and the darkening sky, and set off for the dun at a fast walk, with an awful tearing fear in his heart. He hadn't gone ten paces before he broke into a run.

*   *   *

He returned with the dawn, nodding to the guard he'd sent up to keep an eye on her. Maybe there had been no need for that, but he didn't think he'd ever shake his nervous constant state of alert, peace or no peace.

Finn was safe here. After what he'd seen her do to the Wolf, he reckoned she'd be safe anywhere, but still …

‘She's not moved,' remarked the guard, as he set off back to the dun with a palpable air of relief. ‘She's never spoken.'

Rory nodded. Walking towards her, he saw quickly that she'd stopped crying, and her hands were no longer over her face. Her eyes were blue and altogether normal. She blinked as he sat at her side, licked her lips. Gently he let his mind touch hers.

‘You're like your father,' she murmured into space. ‘That felt like your father.'

He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

‘It doesn't upset me,' she said. ‘I don't mean it like that. Don't ever feel you can't do it. Please.'

‘No,' he said. ‘I know.'

They sat in silence as a hazy sun rose behind them and gilded the sea.

‘I've done something evil, Rory.'

He glanced at her sideways. He wasn't entirely confident, but he said, ‘I don't believe that.'

‘Then let's be kind, and say I almost did. You'd have torn the Black Veil for me, wouldn't you? Because I asked you. Because I loved your father. Because you did too.'

Rory tasted blood, and realised his own teeth had drawn it. ‘Yes.'

‘And you'd never have closed it again. Would you?'

He wanted to say
I'd have done my best.
But even as the words formed, he knew it wasn't true. His best was always beyond him, beyond everyone, and his almost-best wouldn't have done it.

‘The Darkfall played Kate like a puppet, and it nearly played me too. All it's ever wanted is the destruction of its own Veil.' She rested her chin on her arms, melancholy, but for the first time it looked like a sadness that wasn't insanity.

‘The
Sgath Dubh
?'

‘The
first
Veil. It holds the Darkfall in place. Has done forever. Should do, forever. And all the Darkfall has ever wanted, for the whole of space and time since the Universe exploded, is
out.
'

A coldness beyond the physical flooded his bloodstream.

‘Kate failed it, and it had offered her a godhead. All it had to offer me was my lover back.'

‘Finn.' He cleared his throat, still nervous of the subject in her company. ‘You'll have him back. One day. You know that better than anybody.'

‘Yet still I'd have done it. To have him
now
.'

He wanted to say more, but he couldn't think what.

‘Don't go talking to the Darkfall, Rory.' She leaned her cheek on her arms and managed to smile at him sideways. ‘And don't go talking to the dead.'

He returned her smile. ‘No.'

‘Oh, and don't go thinking there's anything you can do about the Darkfall.
There are things you can't kill and you mustn't try.
' She made a face. ‘So there.'

He laughed. ‘Had a go at you, did he?'

‘Gods, yes. He knew what I was up to. He warned me. So many times. I think he must have heard it call him, too. But he was too canny to answer.'

‘He always was a bossy arse,' said Rory. ‘And obviously still is.'

She gave a genuine hoot of laughter. ‘And just as well.'

The sea was lightening fast, shimmering with flints of light. It was going to be a beautiful day, he thought. High summer. He could take the twins to the beach.

She said, ‘How long has it got, Rory?'

He wanted to say
I don't know what you're talking about.
He wanted to say
How long has what got?

Instead he said, ‘Two or three years, I think. Not much more. Maybe four.'

‘Yes.' She sighed.

‘How did you know?'

‘I realised, that's all. I realised when he touched me. When I felt the other side. The difference in the Veils. What it must have been like, once. What it's like now. I realised then. But I think—you know—I think I've known for a while.'

‘Yes,' said Rory. ‘Me too.'

*   *   *

‘Your father once told Jed there was more to this than Kate's personality.' Finn skimmed a pebble out into the waves as they walked together along the water's edge. ‘He was wrong. That's all there's ever been to it.'

‘So Uncle Conal was wrong too?'

‘Yes. Conal was wrong and Kate was right, but only about the least important thing. And the least important thing was the Veil.'

Hands in his pockets, Rory watched the horizon. The day's promise had darkened in the last hour. The line between sea and sky was obscured by mist, the cloud cover overhead leaked stray droplets of rain, and the wind had an edge of chill. Not a perfect Sithe day after all, and that was just as well. It would have hurt too much, sun and an endless sky and light glittering off blue water, and the sun-burnt scent of whin, and the buck-and-toss of half-wild horses racing the late summer breeze for the pure fun of it.

‘Our Veil was doomed from the start, Rory, just like the rest of us. You know better than anyone it was a living thing. All living things die.'

‘Especially when you stick a blade in their heart.'

‘Ah, Rory. You used our own Veil to close the Black Veil, didn't you? You took all the strength it had left. But Rory, it was dying anyway. This was the last thing it could give us. You had no choice but to take it.'

‘Maybe not. But gods, we wasted everything in this war. So many lives, so much time.'

‘No. You know what the prophet said? Nothing about you saving the Veil. You'd determine its fate, that's all. Do you know what she told Kate?' Finn halted, staring at the sea. ‘
Destroy the Veil, and the NicNiven will have all she desires; let it die or survive, and nothing will be hers.
Know why?'

‘No, but you're going to tell me.'

‘Yes, Captain.' She gave him a rueful smile and a mocking salute. ‘Kate couldn't be allowed to wait for the Veil to die, because the Darkfall couldn't wait. The death of our Veil wouldn't affect the death of the
Sgath Dubh.
That's the one it needed you to tear to ribbons. That's why Kate's godhead depended on you, and on you tearing down the Veil. The Darkfall wanted the
Sgath Dubh
destroyed. It needed you for that. It needed you to hone your skills on our poor dying Veil, and then turn your attention to the real one. And so we got a prophecy and a promise of salvation.'

‘Prophet! Hah! They should have drowned the old bitch at birth.' Rory managed a dry laugh as he passed a handful of flat pebbles to Finn. ‘The trouble she caused.'

Finn couldn't speak. Incapable of looking at him—the opinionated cynicism was right, the face and the voice weren't—she concentrated on her skimming technique for maybe a minute. When the last stone had bounced off a wave, she sighed and wrapped her arms round her thin body.

‘The Veil the foremothers made was a pale imitation of the
Sgath Dubh
. The one that was there already, always had been, because it lies between life and death and there'll always be those. How could they make a Veil as strong as that? Gods help us if they could. They cobbled together a shadow of it. They never expected it to survive forever. It's the
Sgath Dubh
that matters. That's the one that survives, the one that'll always be there, if some idiot witch doesn't turn to the Darkfall. That's the Veil we mess with at our peril.'

Rory blew a lock of hair out of his eyes. Finn almost flinched at the mannerism.

‘That's why Conal told Dad not to be scared, isn't it? Because he knew what he didn't know before. There was nothing to be frightened
of
.' Rory grinned. ‘Well. At least, nothing there's any point being frightened of.'