The Caller (13 page)

There was not much point in trying to talk; the voice of the storm drowned anything below a shout. We sat listening as the time passed, trapped in our small space with a weight of uncertainty. My mind wrestled with one problem after another: Ean; the White Lady; the ritual; the need for me to prove myself before I could move on. Had I been too quick to dismiss the challenge the Lady had set me? Perhaps, if I did not attempt it, I would fail at midsummer.

As the storm raged on outside, I fought a war within myself. If I called one of the Good Folk it might die as it tried to reach me. If I did not call, I risked losing the final battle because I had not practised this particular skill. I had come here to complete my training. This was a vital part of that training. On the other hand, the Lady had said something about making my own test.

I lay down on the pallet and closed my eyes. If I was quiet, if I prepared myself, perhaps the answer would come to me. Let Ean and Silva think I was asleep, so there would be no interruptions. I went through the patterns of breathing, as if readying myself for a call, and I opened my mind to the many moods of air. I reached out through the storm, thinking of wind and rain and hail, of cold and terror, of wings scarcely able to beat for the tempest that tore at them. I imagined air at its most powerful, and how easily a small being could be destroyed by what also helped keep it alive.

The White Lady had taught me to single out one sound among many; to be aware of the smallest rustling in a field of wind-tossed grasses, the tiniest footstep of a beetle among the stones. I woud not call. For now, I would simply listen.

The shutters creaked. The wind howled around the outhouse. Beyond the door, objects crashed about, thrown hither and thither. Ean said something to Silva, perhaps that he would make a brew.

For some time I lay there, until, unmistakably, I heard a voice amid the tumult. Not words; not anything that would reach the ears of Ean or Silva. A high, high voice, a thin, faint screaming. Oh gods! The tiny folk from the Beehives! One of them was out there in that chaos of wind and rain and lightning. They were as fragile as the long-legged spiders that danced across the surface of ponds in springtime.

My heart galloped; I wanted to leap up and rush out into the storm to find the little one and bring it to shelter. But the long training overcame that impulse, and I stayed immobile, eyes closed, holding on to the sound, holding on to the awareness. I hardly thought of tests and skills. Only that I must help this lost one find its way home.

Carefully, then; with such a frail being I could afford no errors. It was close by, as close as those trees that grew between the farm and the Beehives. But in the dark confusion of the storm, it was too frightened to tell up from down.

I made a picture of the cairns in my mind. The guardian trees; the domed shapes like a circle of wise old crones; the beehive hut that was the wee folk’s haven. I thought of the White Lady’s wry voice, her chuckle of amusement. I called, and in my call was the image of a tiny bright being winging its way out from its place of hiding, down the hill to the cairns and in through the low doorway to the circular chamber. Air holding it up, helping it fly. Draughts in the stone-lined space, setting the little lights of its fellow creatures a-flicker. Silva drawing breath and lifting her voice in the ritual prayers, on another, calmer day.

The piercing scream ceased.
Home
, I willed the being, with my thoughts on shelter, rightness, peace.
See, it is not far off.
Fly home.
And I sensed that the little one had heeded the call; for a moment I felt the beat of its fragile wings.

Sudden exhaustion came over me, as it so often did after I called. I would not know if the being had reached safety until the weather was calm and I could visit the cairns again. I lay quiet, realising that I had used the same skill for this call as I would have employed to bring a messenger to me through the storm.

I drifted into an anxious half-sleep in which images of Flint came to trouble me: Flint grim-faced in a moonlit forest, Flint carrying something wrapped in a blanket, Flint arguing with a little woman of the Good Folk, not Sage but someone I had never seen before. Waking, I knew in my heart that his burden had been a body; that something dark and terrible had happened. I lay there unmoving, waiting for my heart to slow.

While I’d slept, it seemed the worst of the storm had passed. The wind still moaned, the rain still fell, but beyond the shutters the day was brightening and I no longer feared that the roof thatch would be ripped away, leaving us exposed to the elements. Silva was on the floor beside Snow, stroking the goat’s head and murmuring to her. Ean was on the bench, feet apart, elbows on knees, head down, apparently lost in thought.

‘We might be able to go outside soon,’ I said, realising I could actually hear myself now. ‘See what’s left of the garden and check on the ducks.’ I got up and walked over to the window, thinking to risk opening the shutters just a little. As I reached out, lightning flashed anew, its white brilliance visible through every crack and chink. And almost straight away there was a deafening boom of thunder, and a distant, rending crash.

There was only one tree I knew of whose destruction would make such a sound. My eyes met Silva’s.

‘The cairns,’ she whispered, and I nodded understanding. Nothing we could do. Only wait until the storm was truly over. Outside the rain was falling again, a great roaring voice. Snow was quivering, her little eyes wild with fear. The chickens had balled themselves into one tight mass of feathers. Whisper had not moved; he looked half-asleep, but I knew better.

It was late in the day before the storm finally died down. The rain had diminished to a series of short, sharp showers; it would be just possible to keep one’s feet against the wind. The lowering clouds made it hard to guess how long we had until full dark.

I took my cloak from the peg where it was hanging, wondering how I could explain to Ean that we must go down to the cairns, even if it meant wading through a flood. He came up beside me, reaching to take his own cloak, and I saw something sewn or pinned to the woollen folds, on the inside. The dried-up head of a small thistle. My heart skipped a beat. He was one of us. What else could this mean? I folded back my own cloak, uncovering the embroidered thistle that Eva had sewn on for me before I left Shadowfell. This season, we were all wearing the emblem of rebellion; we would fight and die by it.

‘You wear the thistle,’ I said, staring Ean in the eye.

‘As do you.’

‘Why is that?’

‘I might ask you the same.’

‘Give me a name,’ I said, ‘and if it’s the right one, I’ll tell you.’

I saw him take a deep breath. I realised he was feeling exactly the same doubt as I was. One of us would have to take the first step.

‘Shadowfell,’ he said.

‘All right.’ It was hard to be open with him, thistle or no. There had been so many betrayals. ‘The place you mention . . . It’s where I’ve travelled from. I’m not one of Silva’s wise women. I arrived here the day the community was attacked. I stayed partly so Silva wouldn’t be alone, but mostly for my own purposes. Whisper is my guard and companion on the road.’

Ean paled as Whisper flew down from his perch, no longer an ordinary owl but part bird, part young man, part something entirely Other.

‘Greetings, laddie,’ Whisper said, fixing his startling eyes on Ean. ‘You’re a man o’ the thistle, then. Tell us where you came frae, and why, and dinna hold back. Neryn needs tae know everything.’

Ean turned to look at me. When he spoke, his voice was shaking. ‘Does this mean –’

‘Tell your tale,’ said Whisper, ‘and be quick about it. There’s nae time tae spare.’

‘Ean,’ I said, ‘Silva has a job to do here, something that’s so important to her that she isn’t prepared to leave this place even when her life is at risk. And I have work to do here as well. You don’t need all the details, only that I’ve been developing my abilities in preparation for . . . the future.’

‘For midsummer, you mean.’ Ean gathered himself visibly, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders.

‘You know about that. How?’

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Looked over his shoulder, then toward the door. I knew exactly how he felt.

‘Why are you here, Ean? Tell me the truth, or as much of it as you think safe.’

‘I didn’t know we had a . . . someone like you. Someone who could talk to the Good Folk. That could make all the difference.’

‘It’s not something our leaders want widely known. That information, in the wrong hands, could spell disaster.’

He nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘You haven’t heard it from anyone else? What I am, and that I’m in these parts?’

‘No, Neryn. I didn’t come looking for you. We didn’t know you existed.’

‘We?’

‘The group at Callan Stanes. Part of Shadowfell. Part of the uprising.’ At the look on my face, he added hastily, ‘I’m a man of the thistle, Neryn. I know the code of secrecy; I wouldn’t speak of this in other company.’

‘You didn’t answer the question. Why did you come here?’

‘I was looking for Silva. We . . . we went our separate ways, two years ago. With this change coming, what’s planned for midsummer, I mean, I needed to make sure she was safe.’

‘Neryn.’ Silva’s tone was urgent. ‘We should go.’ As the rest of us talked she had lit two lanterns from the brazier, and had put on her cloak and boots.

‘Callan Stanes,’ mused Whisper. ‘Would that be on Glenfalloch territory?’

‘A few miles from Gormal’s stronghold,’ Ean said. ‘And you know, I suppose, that Gormal is . . . not unfriendly to our cause. The Stanes – it’s an old place, and folk stay away now that the king’s forbidden the rites. There’s a farm close by, with room for all of us.’

‘How many?’ I asked.

‘Twenty-three at last count.’ There was such pride in his tone that I swallowed my disappointment that there were not more of them.

‘Neryn!’ Silva was waiting by the door. ‘We have to go
now
.’

‘Aye, the lassie speaks true.’ Whisper gave Ean an assessing look. ‘Best you dinna come wi’ us, laddie. The Beehives, they’re a women’s place.’

‘What about you?’ Ean challenged.

‘Oh, stop it!’ Silva opened the door, admitting a blast of cold air. ‘Bring the other lantern. When we get there, you wait with Whisper while Neryn and I go down to the cairns. And don’t waste time arguing.’

Outside our place of shelter, debris was strewn everywhere. Trees lay prone, roots torn from the soil; the garden was ruined. The stream had flooded. Water was lapping the burial mound and pools filled every pocket of the land. My boots soon wore a heavy coating of clinging mud; my cloak failed to keep out the chill. The world was in eerie half-darkness; in the distance, flashes of lightning could still be seen as the storm moved on.

The track to the Beehives was blocked by fallen trees; we climbed over the smaller ones and found a way around the others. Where a tiny streamlet had once trickled across the path, now a wide lake lay before us, and we had to scramble a long way upstream before we found a place narrow enough to get over. The corpses of birds lay where the wind had tossed them, broken by that last wild flight.

Before we reached the top of the rise, we saw that the great oak was gone. Silva and I had known it when we heard the sound. But knowing was not the same as seeing the giant uprooted, split to its heart by a lightning bolt there was no withstanding, not even for such an ancient and venerable guardian. Dead. Fallen. And . . .

Silva sucked in her breath. I felt my heart clench into a tight ball. Something else had changed here. I could feel no trace of magic, no tingling sensation across my skin, no sense of wonder. Gone. All gone.

‘Laddie,’ Whisper murmured, ‘this is where you and I wait. Dinna be lang, Neryn; the walk hame willna be easy in darkness.’

I looked at Silva; she looked back at me, white as a ghost. Then, as one, we headed down the hill. The beehive hut had been right in the path of the massive toppling oak. Against such a mighty blow, even the most carefully laid stones could not stand. I had seen at first glance that the hut was ruined; I found myself hoping, nonetheless, that somehow I was wrong. The White Lady was a Guardian. She was like a goddess. How could she . . . ? But the Beehives felt as empty as a tomb. I had called that little one to its death.

Silva was murmuring a prayer: ‘
Lady guard and shield us, Lady shine your light on us, Lady sing of hope .
. .’

We stood by the place where there had been an entry; where Silva had placed her ritual offerings and I had crawled in each day to hear the White Lady’s voice and receive her wisdom. A jumbled pile of stones lay before us. There was no way in. Silva’s song became a sob; she set down the lantern and put her hands over her face.

Be strong, Neryn.
I made myself walk around the broken hut. Here and there, sections of the dry-stone walls stood almost intact. Between those remnants the walls had caved in, leaving the inside exposed. There was no sign of life.

‘She’s gone,’ Silva whispered. ‘I can’t feel her at all. It’s finished. It’s over.’

‘Don’t say that.’ I reached under my cloak and brought out the drum. ‘Hold the lantern high, Silva. Yes, that’s it – over toward that gap in the stones.’

‘But –’

‘Shh.’

I was well practised in listening now. If there was anything of the Lady left, I would surely hear it. Even with the wind still stirring the grasses; even with Silva so close; even with the broken remnant of the sacred place right before me, making a mockery of my hope.

Silva had never seen me working at the Beehives; she had never come inside the hut with me or heard me speaking to the Lady. But she was a wise woman, or soon would be, and she stood still and quiet as I listened. The dusk faded to night. The lantern made a glowing circle around the two of us. Up on the rise, Whisper and Ean waited in silence.

Nothing. Not the least stirring of the drum skin, not the slightest sign of movement among the ruins. I might stand here all night in the cold, keeping my companions from their rest, and all because I could not bear to accept the truth. The truth . . . the Song of Truth . . . I had thought I would never call a Guardian, save at the last extreme. But this would not be calling the Lady, not exactly; I would reach out to any of those tiny beings that might have survived the storm. Besides, if the death of a Guardian was not the last extreme, I did not know what was.