The Seven Songs (24 page)

I leaned forward, stretching myself prone on the carpet of wind. Soaring headlong over the lands below, I felt for a moment as if I had become a fish again, gliding through an ocean of air rather than water. Buoyed by invisible currents, sailing weightlessly, I flew through the very substance of my breathing.

To the north, I followed the contorted coastline of a dark peninsula, until it melted into mist. Twisting rivers sparkled below, as hills started swelling beneath us. Dimly, beyond the hills, I glimpsed the grim profile of the Lake of the Face. An icy finger ran down my spine as I recalled the image I had seen in those dark waters, the image of Balor’s deadly eye.

Then, above the whooshing wind, I heard a faint rumbling. It came from somewhere in the snowy mountains ahead, whose crested summits gleamed in the late afternoon light. The rumbling grew louder and louder, rolling like avalanches down the slopes. It seemed that thunder itself must be part of this land.

And indeed it was. For we had arrived in the land of the giants. The rumbling swelled as Aylah set us down on a knoll bristling with short, stubby grass. Rising out of a steeply sloping, rocky ridge, the knoll was one of the few patches of green around. The ground beneath us, like the cliffs on all sides, shook from the noise. Or from whatever caused the noise.

As soon as Bumbelwy’s feet touched down, he tottered unsteadily over to an enormous pile of leaves, branches, and ferns that had been left on the knoll for some reason. It covered nearly half of the knoll, rising like a miniature mountain of brush. He fell into the pile, crawled higher, then sprawled on his back. Above the rumbling, he called, “If I’m going to die in an earthquake, I might at least be somewhere soft!”

He smoothed some broken branches beneath his head. “Besides, I have some difficult digesting to do. Not to mention recovering from that ride.” He closed his eyes, wriggling deeper into the ferns. “Imagine! Almost killed twice in the same day.” He yawned, shaking his bells. “If I weren’t such an optimist, I’d say something even worse will happen to me before the day is over.”

Seconds later, he was snoring.

“I wish you well, Emrys Merlin.” Louder than usual because of the rumbling, the voice spoke in my ear. “I wish I could stay with you longer, but I must fly.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“I know, Emrys Merlin, I know.” Aylah’s warm breath caressed my cheek. “Perhaps, on another day, we will meet again.”

“And fly again?” Rhia lifted her arms as if they were wings, “Like the wind?”

“Perhaps, Rhiannon. Perhaps.”

With a sudden swirl of air, the wind sister departed.

26:
L
EAPING

A great thud sounded, from somewhere in the steep-walled valley below the knoll. The ground shook again, knocking both Rhia and me over backward. A plump thrush, its purple wings dotted with white, shrieked and flew away from its perch in the bristly grass. Sitting up, I looked over at Bumbelwy, still snoring peacefully in the pile of leaves and brush. What it might take to awaken him, I could not imagine.

Crawling on hands and knees, Rhia and I crept slowly to the edge of the knoll. Peering over, we gazed into the valley below. At that instant, an entire section of cliff above the valley cracked open, dangled precariously, then tumbled down in a cloud of rubble and dust. Another rumble filled the air, and the ground beneath us shook violently again.

Then, as the dust cleared, I recognized the figures laboring below. Even from this distance, the giants looked enormous. And frighteningly powerful. While some of them split boulders apart with hammers the size of pine trees, others hauled the chunks of rock to the center of the valley. Lifting even one such stone would have required fifty men and women, yet the giants moved them around like bales of summer hay.

Not far away, more giants worked, cutting and shaping the gray and white stones. Still others fit them carefully into the towers and bridges of a growing city. So this was Varigal! Destroyed by Stangmar’s army of warrior goblins, Fincayra’s most ancient city was being completely rebuilt, rock by rock. Already its rough-hewn walls and spires mirrored the cliff walls and snowy spires that surrounded the valley.

As they labored, the giants chanted in low, rumbling tones. Their words echoed from cliff to cliff, pounding and cracking like stones themselves.

Hy gododin catann hue
Hud a lledrith mal wyddan
Gaunce ae bellawn wen cabri
Varigal don Fincayra
Dravia, dravia Fincayra.

Hud ya vardann tendal fe
Roe samenya, llaren kai
Hosh waundi na mal storro
Varigal don Fincayra
Dravia, dravia Fincayra.

I remembered, ages ago it seemed, hearing those same voices chanting the Lledra during the Dance of the Giants that had finally brought the Shrouded Castle crashing down. And I remembered hearing Elen sing that same chant to me when I was barely more than a babe in her arms.

Talking trees and walking stones,
Giants are the island’s bones.
While this land our dance still knows,
Varigal crowns Fincayra.
Live long, live long Fincayra.

Giants breathe and tempests blow,
Touch the waves and rivers slow.
In the island’s realm of snow,
Varigal crowns Fincayra.
Live long, live long Fincayra.

Bumbelwy snorted, rolling over on his bed of branches. A sprig of fern had caught in his hair and seemed to be growing straight out of his ear. With every breath, his bells rattled like a potful of pebbles. Yet the jester slept on, undisturbed.

I turned back to watch a wild-haired female giant, at the near end of the valley, push the base of a stone tower into place with her bare shoulder. From this distance, she looked much like the giant on whose immense frame the eagle had landed at the start of the Great Council. I suspected that, somewhere down there, my old friend Shim was also working. Or, more likely, doing his best to avoid working. Yet as much as I wanted to see him again, there would be no time to try to find him.

“So,” spoke a melodic voice behind us, “why do you come to the land of the giants?”

Rhia and I spun around. Seated on a rounded, mossy rock—a rock that had been empty only seconds before—was a tall, pale woman. Her golden hair, stretching almost to her knees, fell about her like rays of light. She wore a simple, light blue robe, yet her very posture made it seem like an elegant dress. Her eyes shone unusually bright, as if intense flames burned inside her.

Winsome though she was, I steeled myself.
I may not have Rhia’s instincts, but I won’t let what happened with
Nimue happen again.
Reaching for my staff in the grass, I pulled it closer to my side.

The bright-eyed woman laughed gently. “I see you don’t trust me.”

Rhia, while still sitting on the grass, straightened her back and seemed for a moment to study the woman’s face. Then she drew in her breath. “I trust you. We came here to learn about Leaping.”

I nearly jumped out of my boots. “Rhia! You don’t know her!”

“I know I don’t. And yet . . . I do. She makes me want to—well, trust in the berries. There’s something about her that, I don’t know . . . that reminds me of the stars shining at the darkest time of night.”

The woman rose slowly, her hair swirling about her waist. “That is because, dear girl, I am the spirit of a star. You know me, in fact, as one of your constellations.”

Despite the quaking ground, Rhia rose to her feet. “Gwri,” she said softly, so softly that I could barely hear her above the continuing rumble. “You are Gwri of the Golden Hair.”

“Yes. I live in your westernmost sky. And I have watched you, Rhia, as well as you, Merlin, even as you have watched me.”

Dumbfounded, I too clambered to my feet. It seemed so long ago, that night under the shomorra tree, when Rhia had first shown me Gwri of the Golden Hair. And how to see constellations in a completely new way. To find their shapes not just in the stars themselves, but in the spaces
between
the stars.

Rhia took a small step closer on the grassy knoll. “Why did you come all the way here?”

Gwri laughed again, more heartily than before. This time a circle of golden light glowed in the air around her. “I came here to help the giants of your land rebuild their ancient capital. For, you see, I also came here ages ago when Varigal was first built. I stood by Dagda’s side, providing the light he needed to work through the night when he carved the very first giant from the stony side of a mountain.”

“You came such a long way.”

“Yes, Merlin. I came here by Leaping.”

My legs nearly buckled beneath me, though not because of the quaking ground. “Leaping? Will you—can you tell me what I need to know?”

“You already know the soul of this Song,” the star declared. “You only need to find it within yourself.”

“We have so little time! The moon is barely a quarter full. And my mother . . . “ My throat tightened, reducing my voice to a whisper. “She’s going to die. All because of me.”

Gwri studied me intently. She seemed to be listening to my innermost thoughts, oblivious to the continuing rumble from the valley below. “Just what did you do?”

“I found the speaking shell, whose power brought her here.”

Gwri tilted her head, sending a cascade of hair tumbling over her arm. “No, Merlin. Think again.”

Puzzled, I rubbed my chin. “But the shell—”

“Think again.”

I caught Rhia’s eye. “You mean . . . it was me. Not the shell.”

The woman nodded. “The shell needed your power to do it. Your power of Leaping, unformed as it is. One day, perhaps, you may master that power. Then you may send people, or things, or dreams. You could travel through the worlds, or even through time, as you choose.”

“Time?” A vague memory stirred within me. “When I was very young, I used to dream about living backward in time. Honestly! Just so I could relive my favorite moments over and over again.”

A spare smile touched her face. “Perhaps you will come to master that, as well. Then you could grow younger every day, while everyone around you grows older.”

As much as the idea intrigued me, I shook my head. “That’s only a dream. I’m afraid I’ll never master anything. Look what disaster I caused when I brought my mother to Fincayra.”

“Tell me,” said Gwri, “what have you learned from that?”

Another quake shook the ground. Rocks from the cliff nearest us broke loose, sending up a cloud of dust as they clattered down to the valley below. I grasped my staff for better balance. “Well, I’ve learned that Leaping, like all magic I suppose, has limits.”

“True. Even the great spirit Dagda has limits! For all he knows about the powers of the universe, he cannot bring someone back to life who has died.” Gwri looked suddenly pained, as if she were recalling something that had happened long ago. After a long pause, she spoke again. “Have you learned anything else?”

I hesitated, shifting my weight on the grass. “Well . . . that you must think carefully before bringing someone or something to a new place, since what you do could have unintended consequences. Serious ones.”

“And why do you suppose that is so?”

Squeezing the knotted top of my staff, I thought hard. The wind whistled across the ridge, chafing my face. “Because, you see, one action is connected to another. Throwing a single pebble in the wrong place could start a rockslide. The truth is,
everything is connected to everything else.”

Gwri burst into laughter just as my staff erupted in blue flames. A golden circle of light glowed in the air around her, even as the image of a star inside a circle appeared on the shaft. I let my fingers stroke it.

“You have learned well. Merlin. Everything plays a part in the great and glorious song of the stars.”

Remembering the phrase from the walls of Arbassa, I nodded. “I only wish I knew enough to use the power of Leaping right now. For I must find my way, and quickly, to a dragon’s lair, though I don’t have any idea where to look.”

Gwri turned to the east, her long hair shimmering. “The dragon you seek is the same one who was lulled into enchanted sleep ages ago by your grandfather, Tuatha. And yet even your grandfather’s powers were not great enough to resist Balor, the guardian of the Otherworld Well. If you should survive the dragon and make your way there, do you really expect to fare any better?”

“No. I only hope to try.”

For a long moment, she studied me. “The sleeping dragon’s lair lies in the Lost Lands, just across the water from here. As it happens, it also lies not very far from the Otherworld Well—though that matters little to you, since you must still voyage all the way to the Forgotten Island before you go there.”

With my finger, I traced the new marking on my staff. “Could you, perhaps, send us to the dragon’s lair?”

Gwri’s eyes shone a bit brighter. “I could, yes. But I prefer to let someone else do it. Someone you know, who can get you there almost as fast as I can.”

Rhia and I traded perplexed glances.

The star motioned toward the dour jester, sprawled on the enormous brush pile. “Your sleeping friend over there.”

“Bumbelwy? You can’t be serious!”

Gwri’s laughter rang out. “Not him, though I daresay he may yet show himself capable of some surprising leaps.” Again she pointed. “I mean the sleeping friend beneath him.”

Before I could ask what she meant, Gwri grew brighter and brighter, until she glowed so intensely that even my second sight could not bear to watch. Like Rhia, I turned away. A few seconds later, the light suddenly diminished. We turned back, only to find that Gwri of the Golden Hair had vanished.

At that instant, the brush pile itself stirred.

27:
A
NOTHER
C
ROSSING

The pile of brush lurched suddenly to the side, hurling the sleeping Bumbelwy into the air. His bells clanged like a blacksmith. And his shriek, easily heard above the rumbling from the valley below, joined with the surprised shouts of Rhia and me.

Spraying branches, leaves, and fern fronds across the grassy notch, the pile of leaves bent, twisted—and sat up. Two enormous arms stretched to either side, while a pair of hairy feet kicked free from the debris. A head lifted, showing wide pink eyes and a cavernous mouth that opened in a yawn. Just below the eyes, a gargantuan nose bulged like a swollen potato.