Shapeshifter (21 page)
He sobbed into his hands as though he were still six years old, and Sive opened her arms and pulled him against her breast, just as she had when he was little. And then she was weeping too.
It was a very damp day they had, with first one and then the other tearing up at the least thing. They sat together a long time without talking at all, but at last Sive straightened up and took a proper look at her son.
“Look at you, then,” she marveled, and was promptly crying again because they were the first words she had spoken in so many long years, and because her joy at seeing how handsome and strong he had become was tempered with the loss of having missed his growing up. And Oisin looked fully at his mother, too, and was shocked at her appearance, for she looked as she had before her last change, half-starved and roughly dressed. She caught him looking with horror at the burn mark on her forearm, and covered it from his sight, saying only, “That’s nothing. It was a long time ago.” She would not speak, not now, of her time with the Dark Man.
When the sun was high, Oisin rummaged in his pack and brought out food. He broke his round of bread in two and passed one to Sive, who held it, smelled it, and had to dash the tears from her eyes once more. She offered Oisin a shaky, apologetic smile. “You can’t imagine how it feels to hold food in my hand.”
Eating seemed to give his mother courage.
“Tell me how you fared,” she said. “Did…? ” The name was like a hurdle in her path. She swallowed, took a run at it and cleared it. “Did the Dark Man send you to your father?”
Oisin nodded. “In a way. We found each other anyway.”
Sive released a sigh of relief. “And he raised you well?”
An easy question to answer. “Aye, Mother. He was a good father, and he saw well to my training. I am a champion of the Fianna now, and also their poet and bard.” Was. Was a champion of the Fianna, he corrected himself. Did every new gift come with a corresponding loss? Well, there would be time to tell that part later.
“And your father—Finn—he is well?” The question was carefully neutral, but there were deep waters to cross here.
“Yes, he is well.” Oisin paused, feeling his way. “Ma, he tried to follow you. He tried and tried, in every way he could think of.” The old childhood name came easily and without thought, so intent he was on making her understand this one thing.
“I know. His way was barred.” The flat hardness with which she said this made it clear who had done the barring.
It was well into the afternoon before she was ready to ask the question that burdened her the most.
“The Dark Man. Is he…?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t look at Oisin for fear of the answer.
But he turned to her and very gently tipped up her chin so she could see his head shaking and the truth in his eyes.
“He is dead and gone. Manannan and the others took care of him. He will never be a danger to you, or to anyone else, ever again.”
There was more weeping then, and no attempt to stay it, for the dread of Far Doirche had been a weight Sive had carried for more than Oisin’s lifetime.
“ IT’S NOT LONG ’TIL DARK.” The pool, dancing with sun-diamonds at noon, was now murky and opaque from the trees’ long shadows. “Will I bring you home now?”
Sive looked at him in alarm, and though her hazel eyes were almond-shaped and filled with her own intelligence, Oisin thought that for a fleeting moment it was a deer’s eyes that stared back at him. Then she gave herself a little shake and straightened her back.
“Ah, son. It’s a long way back for me still.” She nodded resolutely. “Of course we must go home. Only”—and now the eyes were pleading—“they’ll be sitting down to evening meal, and…”
“And that’s a bit too much to face?” Oisin suggested gently. She nodded gratefully. He could well believe it, imagining Grian’s dramatic welcome. He himself was tired to the bone, exhausted as if from a hard day’s fighting. He would never have thought talk and tears to be such taxing work.
“Supposing we sneak in the back way, through the cookhouse?” he suggested. “I’ll find a servant to run a bath and bring you some dinner—”
“And some decent clothes,” Sive interrupted.
“And some decent clothes,” Oisin agreed with a smile. It was a good sign, surely, that she was thinking of her appearance.
TWENTY-SEVEN
D
espite a generous bribe from Oisin, the serving girl who helped Sive with her bath and dinner did not keep quiet—at least not to the other servants—and so Oran knew of Sive’s return before her parents did.
He stayed in the background, though, and not only because it was for Derg and Grian to welcome her first. He was still not quite used to the way people
saw
him now, after all those years of invisibility. It made him uncomfortable to push himself forward, the more so that he was a servant and Sive a lady of the house.
It was Derg who thought to bring them together privately the next morning, the way she would not bump into him in the hallway or serving at table.
Her mouth had gone slack with surprise at the sight of him, and then, laughing and crying, she had rushed across the room and more or less thrown herself into his arms. Oran, beet red and not knowing what to do with his hands, looked at Derg helplessly. Sive’s father was smiling broadly.
“She’s a wee bit over-emotional right now, lad. Best just to let her be.”
“Oran, you’re so big!” Sive was feeling his arms and shoulders, completely unembarrassed. Oran blushed an even deeper red.
“You should have seen him eat when he got here,” said Derg. “At least, once I persuaded him he was allowed to.”
“I was so afraid he had killed you,” Sive confessed and burst once more into tears. “I couldn’t bring myself to ask, didn’t think I could bear to know.”
Oran again shot a pleading look to Derg, who made a patting motion with his hand and nodded encouragingly. Gingerly, Oran patted Sive’s shoulder.
“Aye, well, he made a good try at it,” growled Derg. Manannan’s healers had, indeed, brought Oran back from the very brink of death. They hadn’t been able to do much about the mangled leg though. That was an older injury, badly healed, that left him with a twisted ankle and a pronounced limp.
“Yet you have him working!” Sive rounded on her father. “After all he did for me, you make him a servant!”
“Sive.” Finally finding his voice, Oran interrupted. “I asked him to give me a position. He asked me how he could repay me, and this is what I wanted.”
Sive stared at him. “But why? Surely there’s no need…”
“There is for me.” Oran searched for the words that would help her, a highborn lady, understand. “I wouldn’t know how to live like you do. And I don’t want to be a burden on Derg, who had no need to take me in at all.” He held up a hand, most un-servantlike, to forestall her protests.
“Sive, imagine my life up to now. I have never had a choice. Never earned a wage of my own. Never had companions to work with or friends to pass my leisure with.” He gave a short, breathy laugh. “Never had any leisure to pass, for that matter.” He spread his hands wide. “This is so much better than anything I’ve ever known. Perhaps some day I’ll want more. But right now, this is what I need
.
”
“You need to learn to be in the world again,” Sive said softly. “Just as I do. I should have realized.”
Oran nodded. He had had his own exile to endure, even longer than Sive’s. He couldn’t remember his home before the Dark Man took him.
But he had a home now. He and Sive, they had both been marked by the Dark Man. Yet among his victims, they were the lucky ones. They had come home.
Sive Remembers
I went back to the pool a few days after Oisin brought me home.
I needed to look with my true eyes on the place where my life as a deer had begun, and ended. Oisin was a bit alarmed when I told him what I meant to do; I could tell he half-feared I would change again and run off. But I assured him I just needed a little time alone, and he seemed to understand.
The water was dark and still, the woods hushed, and it was easy to imagine it as it had been that first morning, the light just breaking and I a young girl on the verge of her first change. It had been a different doe then, and a tiny fawn, and myself. And who could have foreseen how this one event would color my life?
Shapeshifting had been a gift and a curse to me, as my voice had been both gift and curse. Yet it had protected me from the Dark Man’s evil, if not from his wrath. A gift then, but one that came at a high price.
A blackbird’s cheery burble broke the silence. I took a final, lingering look around the pool. To see green again! Even in the shadows, the world was rich with color. Never again, I thought, would I trade the colors and faces of my world for the brown and yellow vision of a deer.
Or perhaps, after all, I would. Perhaps a far-off day would come when the memory of my years in exile would be as weightless and untroubling as a wisp of cloud in a blue summer sky, and I could once again play at being a deer. It was possible. After all, in the Land of the Ever-Young, never is a very long time.
A pronunciation guide to the
major characters and places in
SHAPESHIFTER
Some names have an extra “half-syllable” tucked into them: a slight
uh
sound, for example, DER-uh-g instead of DERG. I’ve indicated this with a • symbol.
Kh
is pronounced as a soft
k
in the back of the throat.
PEOPLE
Bodb Dearg
( BOVE Der•g) One of the ancients of the Sidhe; Grian’s first husband and Daireann’s father
Caoilte
(KWEEL-tyah) One of the Fianna, and Finn’s close companion
Cormac
(COR-mac) The High King of Eire (Ireland)
Daireann
(DAIR-en) Sive’s half-sister
Derg Dianscothach
(DER•G Dee-an-SCUH-hakh) Derg of the Quick Speech, Grian’s husband and Sive’s father
Elatha
(EL-a-tha) Sive’s first love
Far Doirche
(Far DUR•kha) The Dark Druid or Dark Man; evil sorcerer of the Sidhe who pursues Sive. (The more common spelling is
Fear
.)
Fianna
(Fee-AH-nah) Elite troop of warriors serving the High King of Ireland
Finn mac Cumhail
(FINN moc COO-ul) Leader of the Fianna who protects Sive
Grian
(GREE-an) Sive’s mother, daughter of the great Manannan
Lugh
(LOO) Lugh of the Long Hand; one of the ancients of the Sidhe, related to Finn
Maine and Sarai
(MAH-nyah, SAH-rye) Sive’s first hosts in Eire
Manannan
(MAN-an-awn) One of the ancients of the Sidhe; his realm is the ocean
Murigen
(MUR-ee-gan) Woman of the Sidhe associated with lakes; sometimes called a “goddess of lakes”
Niamh
(NEE•V) Grian’s sister through Manannan; loves Oisin
Oisin
(ush-EEN) Finn and Sive’s son; his name means “little deer”
Oran
(OR-an) Far’s servant
Sceolan
(Scyo-LAWN) Sceolan and Bram were born to Finn’s aunt when she was under a spell that changed her into a hound; they had human wits and were Finn’s favorite hounds
Sive
(SIVE) Pronounced with a long
I
. I have taken pity on my readers and used the anglicized spelling; the older version is Sadbh!
Tanai
(TAH-nee) Bard who teaches Oisin
Tuatha de Danaan
(TOO-a-ha day DON-an) Children of Danu; humans call them the “People of the Sidhe.”
Sidhe
can refer to either the people or their settlements.
PLACES
Baile’s
(BOLL-ya’s)
Strand
—Beach near present-day Dundalk
Ben Bulben
(BEN BUL-ben) Mountain near Sligo
Cruachan
(CROO•khan) Royal seat of the king of Connaught, in the modern County Roscommon
Eire
(AIR•) Ireland. Used in this book to signify the Ireland of the Celts
Glendalough
(GLEN-da-lokh) A valley in the Wicklow Mountains, with two interconnected lakes
Hill of Almhuin
(ALL-vin) Finn’s fort and headquarters, now known as the Hill of Allen near Kildare Town
Loch Lein
(LOKH LEEN) Lake near Killarney
Mound of Hostages
—One of the most ancient monuments on the hill of Tara, the Mound of Hostages is said to be a passageway between mortal Earth and the Otherworld.
Mourne
(MORN)
Mountains
—Mountain range on the northeast coast of Ireland
Sidhe Ochta Cleitigh
(SHEE OKH-ta CLET-ee) Sive’s home sidhe
Tara
(TA-ra) The Hill of Tara was the political and spiritual centre of ancient Ireland. The monuments on the site are pre-Celtic and are said in legend to have been left by the Tuatha de Danaan.
Tir na nOg
(TEER na nog) The land of the Tuatha de Danann, also known as the Sidhe, which exists as a (normally) invisible parallel land to Ireland. (Actually it’s more complicated than that, with several seemingly different “countries” within the Otherworld, but I chose to keep it simple.) Also referred to as the Land of Youth, the Undying Lands and the Land of the Ever-Young.
Underwave
—Used in this book to refer to Manannan’s kingdom. Manannan is often called the Celtic god of the sea.
Ventry
—Now a village on the Dingle peninsula, on the southwest coast of Ireland.
T
his story was inspired by an episode in the ancient Irish legends of Finn mac Cumhail, famous leader of the Fianna. The original story, or one version of it, goes like this:
Finn was hunting one day, and he and his men were chasing a strange white fawn. The fawn was surprisingly fast, and gradually the men and dogs began falling back, until only Finn and his two wolfhounds, Bran and Sceolan, remained. The dogs finally overran the deer, but to Finn’s surprise, when he caught up he found the white fawn resting on the grass, with the dogs gamboling and playing joyfully about her. Finn realized this was no ordinary deer and spoke gently to her. The fawn followed him home, and he commanded she was not to be harmed.
