The Crow of Connemara (38 page)

He looked up at her, then, blinking. “That's stupid, I guess . . .”

“'Tis fine,” she told him. “It tells me yeh know what's important and what's nah. Yeh might as well put it around yer neck now; there's no need to hide it any longer.” She smiled at him, and watched his face relax. “I'm glad t'have yeh back, love.”
Yeh and the cloch both . . .

“This wasn't exactly the way I expected to return,” Colin told her. He put the chain of the pendant over his head and let the stone fall on his chest.

“'Twas the
only
way, I'm afraid,” she told him. “Feeling better now?”

“A bit. When I hit the water, it was so cold that I could hardly take a breath. Fionnbharr . . .”

“Aye, Fionnbharr,” she interrupted gently, her voice suddenly harsh. She could feel anger rising up inside her.
The fool could have ruined everything, just for the sake of what he probably thought of as a fine little jest.
“I believe we need to have words with the Lord of the Mound.”

“I thought all of you were on the same side,” Colin said.

Niall, standing with an arm draped on the shelf above the hearth, sniffed. “We have a common problem. It do'nah mean we're on the same side, nor that we all want the same thing. Not that you'd understand. Yer just a
leamh
, no matter what Maeve thinks.”

“Niall, not now,” Maeve said warningly. “
Especially
not now.”

She stood, drawing herself up. In the firelit dimness of the room, clad in her red cloak, she saw her shadow against the far wall, and it seemed almost spectral. Colin stared at her, then at the cloch in his hand. She smiled at him, reassuringly.
Yeh will need to tell him all soon. There's nah time to waste. Not now.

“Maeve, it's time,” Niall said, as if he'd read her thoughts. “We have to do what we need to do, and we need to do it quickly.” Maeve heard mutterings of agreement from the others in the room.

“Yeh don't tell me what I do or I don't do,” Maeve answered. “Not any of yeh. I am the Morrígan. If yeh want me to open the path, then let me do it. If not . . .” Maeve shrugged. “Then go tell Keara to stop her chant, and let the
leamh
come here. Yeh can fight them, or yeh can just surrender to them. Either way, yeh will die. Which way do yeh want it?”

Niall hadn't moved; he glared at Maeve. “Yer not me mum, Maeve, so treat us like adults, not fecking children yeh can scold.”

“Feckin' act like an adult, and I might,” Maeve spat back. “Everything is delicate right now, and it all has to be done carefully. We can't rush this or it
will
all fail, and as far as I know, I'm the only one who can open the path—except maybe Fionnbharr, and only the Ancient Ones know what he intends or who he would help. Am I wrong?” She flung an arm wide to encompass all those in the room. “Anyone here with the power, the knowledge, the skill, or the energy to create the gateway? Anyone want to take this task from me? I'll be happy to step aside if one of yeh can.”

Most of them stared at the floor, as if the worn planks there were somehow fascinating. Niall was shaking his head, but he wouldn't make eye contact with her.

“That's what I thought,” Maeve finished. “Now—I need to talk to Colin, and I need privacy for that. Niall, go see Aiden and tell him that we have Colin and the cloch, and that Keara only has to hold on for a bit more. Liam, go down to the harbor and get your people ready. Dolan, I want you to go to the mound and tell Fionnbharr that I'll be coming out to talk to him, and that I'm not pleased with his little joke. The rest of yeh, there's work to be done; yeh know what 'tis, so go do it. Get yerselves ready to leave. G'wan now—the time's nearly on us.”

Niall pushed away from the hearth with cheeks ruddy with blood, looking as if he wanted to say more but pressing his mouth tightly shut. Slowly, with nods and murmured apologies, the others followed him from the house. When the last one had shut the door, Maeve give a sigh that even to her sounded more like a sob. Her shoulders drooped; she covered her face with her hands. “Maeve?” she heard Colin say. She felt his hand on her shoulder. She took a long breath, then let her hands drop. When she looked at him, there was a wavering, uncertain smile on his face.

“I've missed yeh the last few days, Colin. More than I thought possible.” His smile morphed into a grin. “And part of me wishes desperately that yeh'd stayed away.” As she watched, the grin slowly faded.

“Because of what might happen here?”

“Aye. And other things as well. That stone yeh hold; how did yeh feel when yeh saw me holding it?” He seemed to be surprised at the harsh tone in her voice. His eyes widened at the sound.

“I felt . . .” Colin shook his head. “I wanted it back. It was like part of me went missing all of a sudden.”

“Now yeh have some understanding of how hard it was for me, when yer granddad took it away from me, and now yeh know why I didn't take it from yeh when I showed yeh that glimpse of Talamh an Ghlas. I've
known
that pain yeh felt for a moment; I've borne it for a long time, since Rory took it from me.” She saw Colin clamp his mouth shut against what she was saying. His look hardened as he lifted his gaze from the cloch to her eyes. “Aye. Rory . . .” She breathed the name. She looked at his face, knowing the time for lies and half-truths was gone. She could not stop the smile that touched her lips. “So now yeh know. You reminded me so much of him when I first met you. I was Máire then, as I'm Maeve now, and I knew Rory. I knew him as I know yeh.”

His mouth dropped open, as if he'd expected her to lie or evade. “Jesus, Maeve. Do you know how freaking
weird
this is? I mean, you and my goddamn
grandfather
 . . .” He released an exasperated huff.

“I know it's strange to yeh,” Maeve told him. “But out there in your world . . .” She gestured eastward, toward Ceomhar Head and the mainland. “I've known many people's grandparents and great-grandparents, or as many ‘greats' as yeh wish to add. I've been a lover to some, a friend to others, enemy to as many others. I've been around a long, long time, Colin, and so have some of the others here. Aye, I knew yer grandfather and I loved Rory, I did—but to me, that's not strange; 'tis just the way things be, and it doesn't change a whit the way I feel about yeh. When I told yeh I loved yeh, I spoke no lie. I did and still do, and that's nah weird or strange either; it just is—for this moment and for this time.”

“For this moment and time,” Colin repeated. “And maybe you'll be around for one of my grandsons, too.”

She shook her head. “Nah. If we succeed here, I won't. And if we don't, then it's also nah, I'm thinking. I will'nah survive long enough for that.” She reached out to stroke his cheek again; he started to draw his head back, then relented. He trapped her hand between his head and shoulder.

“Damn it, Maeve,” he said. She saw him start to reach for the cloch again, then slowly pull his hand back.

She leaned in to kiss him. “I know,” she answered. “Yeh are yerself only, my love, and that's what makes yeh precious to me. Yer not Rory, and yeh've made a choice that he wasn't willing to make. Yeh wouldn't have fled from me as he did, and when yeh had to leave, yeh came back.”

He lifted his head, releasing her hand. She smoothed his damp hair back, but there was still pain in his eyes.

“Yeh read his diary, so yeh know. And now yeh know how much his leaving with the cloch hurt me, because I saw the same pain in yer eyes, only a few minutes ago, and yeh had lost the cloch only for a minute. Yeh still don't know all the power it holds or why the cloch allowed itself to be found. Neither did Rory. Neither did I, really.” She allowed herself a bitter laugh. “Possessing the cloch, holding it, is an addiction that becomes part of yeh. Even for the few days I had it meself, I knew that. When I held it t'other day to show you Talamh an Ghlas, when I took it from your pocket just now, I could feel the pull of it again, and when I put it back in yer hand, I thought I might scream with the loss of it again as I had back then. But the cloch's not
for
me. Yer the one it wants, as it wanted Rory, as it made him take it from me all those decades ago.”

“The stone
made
him take it? You make it sound like it's alive.”

She laughed again. “I think 'tis. Do'nah yeh find yerself wanting to touch it and hold it? Don't yeh find it comforting?” She could see the answer in his face. “Aye. Yeh know. But what yeh do'nah know is what the cloch is meant to do, what it
will
do, along with the power of that voice of yers.”

As she watched, he clutched the jewel on its chain. He stroked the emerald facets of the stone. “A few minutes ago,” he said, “you said you wish I'd stayed away. Why?”

She turned her head, watching the flames lick away at the underside of the turves in the hearth. “Fionnbharr once told me that yeh were the one meant to open the gateway, not yer grandfather,” she said, not looking back to him but at the fire. “Well, I believe he was right. Yer grandfather wasn't the bard yeh are. The cloch knew it as well, and made Rory leave so that it could be given to yeh years and years later. Yeh and the cloch together are the key we need to open the door, along with the spell I'll cast at the same time. I showed yeh the place before: Talamh an Ghlas, the Green Land. That's where those of my kind will'nah die, but can thrive instead.”

“You told me once that you couldn't leave Ireland. You said that wasn't possible.”

“'Tis not, but Talamh an Ghlas
is
Ireland—or what this land could be, somewhere else in another time. Colin . . .” She closed her eyes against the sudden burn of salt, her breath shallow. When she opened her eyes again, she turned to him. “We—those like me—are part of this land. What's always kept us alive is that the leamh, the mortal people, maintained their belief in us. We're the shadows of yer myths. We're what yeh made to explain how things came to be. We're what yeh believe in, deep in the core of yeh. We're the memory of ancient days, captured in the soil and stones, yes, but also in the mortals who live here. The pull of this land kept us alive, stone and bone. But that belief has faded over time, more and more in the last few centuries, and it's killed some of us and put others into a sleep that might as well be death.” She lifted her hands and let them fall again. “Even those of us who aren't sleeping have been changed, slowly, over the centuries. I am the Morrígan, yes, but I'm not the same as I once was.”

Nah. That Morrígan wouldn't be talking to Colin at all. That Morrígan would never have let him leave when Dunn came. That Morrígan would have already done what needs to be done, without all this yammering and hesitation. That Morrígan had no room in her for affection and love, nor for doubt.

“Yeh wouldn't have liked me then,” she told Colin. “The land changes and therefore the people who live here change, and we will continue to change and dwindle and become less until no one any longer believes in us and we fade entirely. But in Talamh an Ghlas . . . those beliefs never died for the mortals there. There, we will live again as we once did.”

“How do you know that?”

She smiled. She put her hand over his on top of the pendant. “I felt it in the cloch. A cloch na thintri; a stone of lightning, 'tis called. I
still
feel it, even with yeh holding it,” she told him. “In Talamh an Ghlas, our kind are normal and yer kind”—she saw him wince at the implication—“are no better or numerous than any other. There, what yeh consider myths and folk tales are real. They live.
We
can live.”

“So
you
can live,” Colin said. “But I'm not one of you. What about me? You'll live forever. I'll die.”

“Yeh will. All mortals do,” she agreed, softly. She lifted her hand, looking at the cloch through his possessive fingers, watching how his eyes seemed to want to devour it. “But we can die the real death as well. The magic we have to do to open the doorway is very difficult; the power that it requires is daunting. Some of my kind have tried it before and have lost their very existence in the attempt. This is blood magic. To be successful, the spell requires a sacrifice.” She saw the question in his face though he said nothing. “Aye,” she told him, wishing he'd understood, but he hadn't. Not quite.

He blinked as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Blood magic? What do you . . .” he started to say. Then, almost a breath: “Oh.”

“That's why I said I wished yeh'd stayed away, because now that yer here, they all expect me to start the preparations and for us to cast the spell: if we still have time, if the others can hold off the Naval Services and the NPWS long enough.” She gave a disgusted grunt.
“Feck!”

He'd let the blanket fall from his shoulders. “So none of this was real: you coming to Regan's to hear me play, talking to me, bringing me out here, our making love . . .”

Yeh are a demigod, Morrígan. Yer above mortal things. He's just a leamh; he doesn't deserve the truth yer giving him, and yeh can't let him make the decision. Lie to him. Lie to him until it's too late for him to stop yeh.
She could hear the clamoring inside her, the war-crow's voice, the voices of the sisters she'd subsumed and who were part of her, the voices of the women whose mortal bodies she'd taken as her own, the voices of those who had possessed the cloch before and were now trapped inside, the voices of legend and half-lost history and almost-forgotten memories.

“No, it wasn't real at first,” she told him, the words slow and careful. “Yeh were . . .” She stopped, began again. “The spell needs a particular type of person. There aren't many leamh who fit. Yer grandfather was one, the first I'd met in a long time; yeh are, too. Yeh want to believe in the Old Ways and the ancient people; yeh were actively trying to understand us, through yer music. And yeh were marked from birth with the caul, as was Rory. But the spell also requires that the person has to be willing, even if what he believes is a lie.”