Son of the Shadows (36 page)

"Fergus stopped by the lake and dismounted from his horse. He bent to cup his hands in the clear water and take a welcome drink. The water was good. It sharpened his mind and emboldened his heart.

"'What is it you want most in the world, Fergus?'

"Fergus whirled around in shock. There behind him stood a man and a woman, so close he could not understand how he had not seen them before. Both were very tall, taller far than mortal kind. The man had hair the color of flame that curled and flickered around his brow as if it were indeed living fire. The woman was very fair, with long dark tresses and deep blue eyes that matched her flowing cloak. Fergus

recognized that they must be folk of the Tuatha De Danann, and that he must answer the question.

Strange, though; his answer came out quite different from what it might have been a few days before.

"'I want to stay here and make my home,' he said. 'I want to be part of this place. I want my children to grow up under these trees and taste the fresh water of the lake. Then they will be clear-sighted and rich in spirit.' So short a time had it taken for this place to set its imprint on his soul.

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"'You know who we are?' asked the lady.

"'I—I've an idea, yes,' said Fergus, suddenly abashed, for he had never encountered fairy folk before. 'I

don't intend to be presumptuous, my lady. I expect this is your land. I can hardly claim it as my own. But you did ask.'

"The flame-haired man laughed. 'It's yours, son. That's why you were brought here.'

"'Mine?' Fergus's jaw dropped in shock. 'The forest, the lake—mine?' It was a dream, surely.

"'Yours to keep as guardian, if you fancy the job. As custodian. Make your home here by the lake of

Sevenwaters. The forest is old. It is one of the last safe dwelling places for our people and for—the others. The forest will guard you and yours, and you will enjoy great power and prosperity if you remain true. But you must play your part as well. The old ways dwindle, and the secret places are safe no more;

they are laid open, despoiled. You and your heirs will be the people of Sevenwaters, and your influence in the mortal world must be used to keep the forest and its dwellers safe—all of its dwellers. There are few such places of refuge left in the land of Erin, and they grow fewer with each turn of the wheel. It is not our way to seek help from your kind, but the world changes, and we need you and yours, Fergus.

Will you be this guardian? Have you the strength for it?'

"What could he answer but yes? So Fergus built his keep of strong stone, and in time he gathered around him some of his old friends from the wild fianna, and some of the farm folk from these parts, and he cleared a few trees, just enough to make room for his grazing land and his small settlements. And he took a wife. Not the daughter of a farmer nor the sister of one of his friends, as you might expect. No, his wife was of another land entirely. He found her one day when he was out scouting on the hills above the lake, seeking a good place for a watchtower. He came up a rise between rowans, and there she was, sitting high on the rocks in a ragged dress the color of willow leaves, combing her dark hair and gazing out over the trees toward the lake; and he took one look into her strange, clear eyes and was lost. She never said where she came from, or what she was. She was a wee, small thing, a slip of a girl; she was never one of the Tuatha De.

Fergus remembered, sometimes, how the mysterious lady had spoken of the others

, but he never asked.

"Her name was Eithne, and she was a good wife to him, and bore him three bold sons and three brave daughters. His first son he taught the arts of war, and the second the arts of good husbandry, so that together they might preserve the forest and lake of Sevenwaters and keep it safe. The third son was claimed, on his seventh birthday, by a very old man with braids in his hair who came limping out of the forest, leaning on a staff of oak. This son became a druid, and that was how the old ways were rekindled among the people of Sevenwaters."

"What about the daughters?" I could not resist interrupting, although it was not good manners to stop the flow of a druid's tale.

"Ah, the daughters," said Conor, smiling. "All three had their mother's small stature, and her dark hair and her strange eyes, and many a suitor was there for them when they became women.

Fergus was a good strategist. The first he wed to the holder of the tuath to the west of the forest.

The second he wed to the son of another neighbor, who dwelt in the heart of the marshlands bordering the pass to the north. The

third daughter stayed home and became skilled in herb lore and healing, and folk called her the heart of

Sevenwaters."

"What about the Islands?" Sean asked, eager for the tale to unfold further.

"Ah, yes." Conor grew solemn. "The Islands. That is the next part of this tale. But maybe my
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audience grows weary. It is a long story, perhaps best told over two nights." He glanced around him, brows raised in question.

"Tell the rest, Conor," my mother said softly.

"As I said, Fergus never asked his wife, Eithne, what she was or where she came from. He never knew if she was an ordinary mortal or something else. She grew older just as a mortal does. But they do say that if one of the Otherworld folk makes the choice to wed one of our kind, she loses her immortality. If this is true, Eithne must have loved her man deeply indeed, and that perhaps is the root of the way the folk of

Sevenwaters love to this day. Eithne gave her husband good cause to believe that she might indeed be one of the Old Ones. They say the Fomhoire are folk of the sea, that it was from the depths of the ocean that they emerged, long ago, to dwell in the land of Erin. Eithne's secret was a sea secret. She told Fergus of three islands, three rocks in the great water that separates our land from Alba and Britain. Secret islands they were, very small, very hard to find, save by those who knew. Knew what? asked Fergus.

Knew how to find them, said Eithne. The Islands were the heart. The heart of everything, the center of the wheel. Fergus must go there, and then he would understand. When all else failed, when all was lost, the Islands would be the Last Place. Even more than the lake, even more than the forest, the Islands must be kept safe.

"What Eithne said turned Fergus cold, and he did not ask her to explain.

But he had his men build a sturdy boat, a big curragh with a bit of a sail, and he followed the map Eithne had shown him how to make, and set out from the eastern shore toward the Isle of Man. That was before the worst of the raids; still, it was not the safest stretch of water for a boat manned by a bunch of woodsmen and farmers. Eithne did not come with her husband. She was carrying a child and besides, she said, sea travel made her sick. So Fergus and his men traveled east and a little south, and as they neared the coast of Man a mist came down, so thick you couldn't see your finger in front of you. They took down the sail and stilled the oars, but the boat moved on, pulled by an invisible current, while the crew sat shivering in fright, their minds full of long-toothed sea monsters and knife-edged rocks. And after a long time, the keel of the boat scraped onto a shelly beach, and the mist lifted as suddenly as it had come down. They were on the shore of a small, rocky island, not more than a speck in the sea, a desolate place surely inhabited only by seals and wild birds. The men were dismayed. Fergus reassured them, although truth to tell he himself was less than happy with their situation. There was a strange hush about the place, a feeling that something large was watching their every move. He bade the men haul up the curragh and make camp under the shelter of overhanging rocks, while he climbed higher to see how the land lay.

"Scrambling up the rocks, he observed with surprise that a remarkable variety of life existed in this forlorn place: low, creeping plants, wind-bent bushes, crabs and shellfish and little scuttling things. And many, many birds passing and wheeling overhead. Fergus stood at the topmost point of the small island and looked north. There was the Isle of Man in the distance, but still too close for comfort. To the east, much nearer, lay another rocky island, larger than the one where they had landed, an island with bays and level ground covered with rough grass rising to cliffs in the south, a place where some sort of presence might be established if there were fresh water to be found. And to the west—there was the third island. Fergus knew instantly that this was the island Eithne had meant. It stood in the sea like a great stone pillar, steep, sheer, its base a mass of sharp, tumbled rocks over which the sea boiled and seethed. Incredibly, a set of rough steps had been hewn into the rock all the way to the top. There was a sort of ledge there and trees. Trees! Fergus could scarce believe it, but a grove of what seemed to be rowans crowned this stark pinnacle, and above them birds circled.

"Fergus thought for a while, and then he went back down to the men, and helped them to make
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a fire, and promised them they'd be going home in the morning. The men were relieved. This trip had been altogether too strange. Then Fergus said, but first I want you to take me over there. Where? asked his men. There, said Fergus, pointing. You could see no more than the top of the third island from where they stood on the shore, and so the men agreed. It was the next morning, when they were in the boat and rowing across, that they caught sight of the rocks and the frothing surf around them, and felt cold terror grip their vitals. Row on, said Fergus grimly, and they did, despite themselves. Then the current took them, and they shipped their oars, and the boat was sucked forward, closer and closer to the rocks, until the men began to scream and call on Manannan mac Lir to save them. And at the instant when they were about to be dashed to pieces, the boat was all of a sudden drawn between the rocks and into a sort of cavern where the water swirled, and at the side of the cavern was a shelf, and an opening, and steps cut in the rock, going up.

"Before anyone could speak, Fergus was out of the boat and onto the shelf, and he was tying up the craft to an iron spike driven into a crack between the wet rocks. I won't be long, he said, as he set off up the steps. The men sat in the boat, very quiet indeed. It was dark in the cave, and the water moved strangely against the keel, as if there were creatures there just below the surface.

The sea rushed in one opening and out another, where there was barely enough clearance even with the mast down. They tried not to think about tides. Nobody asked who would take charge if Fergus never came back.

"They waited a long time—at least, it seemed long, what with the churning waters and the shifting shadows and their imaginations playing nasty tricks. Eventually Fergus returned with a strange look on his face, as if what he had seen was beyond his wildest dreams, something that could never be put into words. He stepped into the curragh and untied the rope, and the men ducked as the current swept them out through the low opening and shot them forward, clear of the white water and the rocks, spewing their craft out into the open sea. Then they put up mast and sail, and took up the oars as well, and made haste homeward. And never a thing did they ask Fergus until they made safe landfall on the shores of Erin once more.

"He didn't tell what he'd seen. Maybe to Eithne, but not to the rest of his household. It was secret, he told them. But what Eithne had told him was true: the Islands were the Last Place, and the tallest one, which he named the Needle, was most precious of all. Here were the caves of truth, guarded by sacred rowan trees that grew where no ordinary tree could sur vive. The Islands must be protected from the outside world. If they were disturbed, if they were taken, the balance would shift; and then, however careful the husbandry of the forest, however secure the lands of Sevenwaters, things would begin to go wrong.

When Fergus told people this, they believed him, for there was a light in his eyes, an awe in his expression that told them he had indeed seen something wondrous beyond telling.

"From that time on, a guard was put on the Islands, a camp established on Greater Island, a watch set on the seas south of Man, so neither Norseman nor Briton nor curious fisherman would dare come close.

Fergus had to learn fast. The folk of Sevenwaters were not a seafaring breed, and they lost more than a few good men over the years, for the Islands are far out to sea, as near the coast of Britain as they are to

Erin. But the will was strong. There came a time when the druids of the forest ventured across the sea to the Needle and performed the ritual of Samhain on the pinnacle beneath the sacred rowans. Ah yes,"

breathed Conor, his eyes seeing it, his expression full of wonder.

"For generations the family at Sevenwaters kept their promise and looked after the forest and its folk,

and watched over the Islands, and the forest in turn gave them its bounty and ensured their
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enemies stayed away. In each generation there would be a druid, and there would be one or two who led the household and kept folk fed and stock healthy and ensured the people could defend themselves. In each generation there would be a healer. Outside the forest, the Christian faith spread across the land, sometimes enforced with violence, but more often subtly and quietly.

Outside the forest, the Norsemen came and other raiders, and nothing was safe, not tranquil village nor king's fortress nor cloistered house of prayer. People no longer believed in the Tuatha De nor in the manifestations of the Other-world, for in their fear folk saw only the barbarian with his axe dripping the blood of their dear ones. But Sevenwaters was safe, and so were the lands that bordered it, allies by marriage and long association, united against every foe.

Inevitably there came a time when the family grew complacent. There was a generation that gave no child to the wise ones. Daughters wed farther away and died early. A leader was distracted, and his farmers fell into bad habits. Once things started to slide, they got rapidly worse.