The Witches of Eileanan (54 page)

Sometime during the next day, she tended her hand with some herbs she found in the forest, and ate some berries off a tree. Her hand throbbed with an eager pulse that made her sick to her stomach, but she kept on following the burn, barely conscious of her surroundings.

The water will lead me true,
she kept telling herself.
Soon I will be at Tulachna Celeste. Soon I will be safe.

Isabeau was too deep in fever to recognize the signs that would have told her she was no longer following the Rhyllster. Where the river ran through a wide, gradually falling valley in long, sinuous loops, with the Tuathan Loch filling most of the center, Isabeau was following a fast-moving burn that ran through thick trees. Where the Rhyllster ran almost due south, she had the sun on her face in the morning and at her back in the evening. Isabeau's woodcraft and general knowledge of geography should have alerted her.

Each hour that passed, however, made Isabeau less and less coherent. Soon she was walking with no clear thought other than that her muscles must keep working. She lost the burn and wandered through thick woods with nothing on her mind but the beat, beat, beat of her blood, the beat, beat, beat of her boots. Night came again, and then it was day, and Isabeau lay where she had fallen many hours earlier, with the talisman burning no hotter than her forehead. In the throng of nightmares that beat around her, she thought she saw Lasair, dreamed they galloped like the wind, dreamed they were together again. In rushes of sound like storm trees strode over her, sky broke, darkness was filled with whispering faces, she was as small as a pea, she was large as a world, shapes flinched, sounds roared, colors blurred and rolled, nightmares chased her.

She woke with a start, and was conscious at once of coolness. She was lying on her back in a dark room, and someone was wiping her face with a blessedly damp cloth. She tried to speak but was so parched her tongue felt like a lizard in her mouth. The person tending her held a cup of water to her lips and she gulped greedily, trying to follow the cup when he moved it away. Her body felt as frail and light as a dandelion seed, so that the effort of raising her head exhausted her and she let it fall back onto rough pillows.

"Obh, obh!" he said in a gruff, reproving tone. "Sick you'll be if ye swallow too much o' the water."

She became aware of the pain in her hand, which throbbed with an urgent pulse. Through blood-stained bandages she could see her fingers, grossly swollen and blackened, and her heart sank with fear. The streaks of infection were already racing up her wrist, and she could feel her whole arm aching. He followed her gaze. "Paw hurt bad," he said.

At his words, she peered more closely at him. Her vision gradually steadied, and she realized with a shock that this was no human tending her. Although she had never seen one, she made a guess at a cluricaun. He was about three feet high, sturdy, with a triangular face that had a slightly guilty expression on it, like a cat caught with its paw in a jar of cream. He was dressed in rough clothes like a farmer's boy, and she could see they had been clumsily altered to fit. Round his neck hung a jangle of different objects— keys, flashy rings, buttons, the top of an inkwell, and a christening spoon. They all sparkled and flashed, although it was dim in the room, and she saw they had been carefully polished. As he turned his head she saw his ears; large and covered with soft, brown hair, they swiveled from side to side like an elven cat's. If not for the ears, he would have looked rather like a very short, very hirsute man.

As he moved away from her, she saw a long, slender tail sneaking out of his clothes, waving about as he moved around the room. She lay back, cradling her hand against her, and let her gaze rove around. Behind her was a high wall, made of ancient blocks of stones that were now much broken and discolored. She could dimly see the shape of a narrow doorway, with leaves clustering close outside. She wondered vaguely where she was, and felt her eyes begin to close, sleep swooping in.

Suddenly Isabeau remembered the talisman, and tried to sit up with a jerk. Pain flashed through her and her vision swam, so that she sank back with a groan. Whether it was the expression on her face or whether the cluricaun could read her mind she did not know, but immediately he fished out the black pouch from his pocket and sheepishly handed it over. "It be marvelous bonny," he said wistfully. "I do be wanting to wear it on my chain, but as soon as I take it out it shrieks so loud I am afraid, and put it back."

"It shrieks?" Isabeau was surprised, having never heard the talisman emit a sound before. She clutched the black pouch to her and felt, with waves of relief, the familiar triangular shape through the silky material.

"Indeed, and though we do be far from anyone here, a witch-sniffer could hear it if they be close enough. So I did no' keep it." The cluricaun sounded regretful.

"What about my rings?"

A sly expression crossed the cluricaun's face. "Do no' be trying to sit up now, or it's your head that be whirling off, and then where will ye be?"

Isabeau covered her eyes with her hand, exhausted by even such a slight effort. "I have to get going," she murmured. But she was asleep again before she even finished the words.

When she woke it was daylight and she could see her surroundings more clearly. She was lying on wide flagstones, with broken walls on either side. The room must once have belonged to a great building, for she saw faces and patterns carved here and there into the walls, and part of a great arch, now filled with rubble. The cluricaun had turned the corner of the long room into a snug little home, with a real bed, lanterns hanging on the wall, and a small fire built in a fireplace big enough to roast an oxen. Smoke puffed out, filling the room with a fragrant blueness that stung Isabeau's eyes. A barrel of water was set near the pointed doorway, and herbs, onions and a cured ham hung from the walls on hooks. Although her eyes had been open only a few seconds, the cluricaun bounded to his feet, which she saw were bare and rather hairy, and brought her some hot broth, which she ate greedily, steadying the bowl against her throbbing arm.

"How long have I been here?"

"The moons have swelled and shrunk again and are almost ready to swell again. Long time ye tossing and turning on my floor—too long ye are by far for my bed, and too heavy for me to lift ye."

"A month! I've been here a whole month! No, I canna have! It's impossible!" Isabeau tried to sit up, but her weakness overcame her and she sunk back, plucking at her blankets in distress, the broth forgotten.

"Eating, eating," the cluricaun reproved, and tried to force the spoon into her mouth. "No eat, no go anywhere."

Feeling tears stinging her eyelids, Isabeau tried to obey, but panic was setting in. She had already taken far longer than she should have to make the journey out of the Sithiche Mountains, and she hardly dared hope that Meghan's friend would have waited for her. With as much patience she could muster, she swallowed the broth the cluricaun forced between her teeth, trying to ignore the spoonfuls which splashed over her. A savage bout of coughing shook her, and she lay back afterward, feeling weak.

The cluricaun waved a rag around, trying to disperse the smoke, chanting, "House full, room full, canna catch a spoonful!" He gazed at her anxiously as if wanting her to respond in some way. Not having any idea what he was talking about, Isabeau was silent, while he chanted again, mournfully, "House full, room full, canna catch a spoonful!"

"I must go," Isabeau said when she was finished. "I am so horribly late."

"Where is it ye are trying to be?" asked the cluricaun cheekily.

"Tulachna Celeste."

His slanted eyes widened. "Well, ye are several weeks ride from there," he said. "If no' more."

"But how? I was only a day's journey away from it afore."

"Tulachna Celeste is in Rionnagan."

"Where am I?" Anxiety made Isabeau feel sick to her stomach.

"Aslinn, o' course."

"Aslinn! How can I be in Aslinn!"

"That's where ye be. The bonny forests o' Aslinn. The wild and bonny forests, where dreamers wander. I will show ye if ye do no' believe me."

Isabeau could not walk, though; her legs were too shaky. The cluricaun gave her water, and chuckled. "I think ye will no' be traveling anywhere just now."

During the next three days the pain in Isabeau's hand increased steadily and, despite attempts to clean and dress the injuries, the sickly smell of infection hung around her, turning her stomach. The cluricaun, whose name was Bran, brought her herbs and once she tried to lance the infection with his blunt little knife, to ruinous affect. Isabeau's anxiety and impatience increased with her pain, but her body was so weakened with the fever, she had trouble crawling from her bed to the little bucket Brun had set aside for her lavatory. There was no hope of setting out to Tulachna Celeste until she regained her strength, no matter how she fretted.

In the interim, she lay on her bundle of furs on the floor, staring at the cluricaun's home, and wondering at the beauty of the architecture. He had taken over one corner of a great room with a vaulted ceiling so high Isabeau could barely see its rafters. Skins and furs scattered the stone floor and provided partitions that made the corner around the huge fireplace quite cozy, despite the drafts that whistled through the broken walls. At the other end of the room, the ceiling had fallen and only blackened rafters remained, showing a cloud-streaked sky. Odd faces grinned at her from the stonework, while over the massive fireplace was a complicated stone shield, surrounded by stars and with faint traces of words emblazoned underneath.

The little cluricaun stayed close to her during that time, anticipating her every need. If she felt a pang of thirst, he was there with a beaker of water before she had even acknowledged her need. If she was cold, he would stoke up the fire, and when the pain in her hand grew so fierce that she wept, he brought her pain-numbing herbs. A strange, merry creature, prone to capering around the flagstones and laughing at his own jokes, he sidled up to her one day, his hands behind her back. "Guess what I have found for ye, Is'beau."

"What?" Isabeau sighed.

"It has marble walls as white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk, within a fountain crystal clear, a golden apple does appear."

Isabeau shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "I do no' ken, Brun. What?"

"Walls as white as milk," he prompted. "A golden apple within."

"Havers, Brun, I do no' ken. A pebble?"

"Nay, Is'beau." A ludicrous expression of disappointment crossed his hairy face. "I found ye an egg. A beautiful white egg, full o' goodness, to make ye better."

He showed her the gleaming white egg, cradled in his palm. "See, walls as white as milk."

"That's lovely, thank ye, Brun." Isabeau said, and rested her head on the pillow again.

A crestfallen expression crossed Brun's triangular face, and his tail twisted anxiously behind him, but Isabeau was too weak and nervy to make the effort to soothe him.

Once Isabeau was strong enough to walk a few steps, Brun helped her through the pointed doorway and across the ruined garden, all broken stones and overgrown berry bushes. With several stops to regain her strength, Isabeau was finally able to sink down to the ground, wrapped in rough-woven blankets, in the warm, sheltered spot Brun had chosen for her, with stone at her back and feet, and a clear view into the valley. Then she saw clearly enough that she was in Aslinn, for as far as the eye could see the massive boles of mountain ashes rose, towering hundreds of feet above her. The ruined castle where Brun had made his home was built on a high, green hill and from her vantage point, Isabeau looked down over a small burn shining between tree trunks. To the north she could see the distant blue peaks of the Sithiche Mountains, and to the west the high cliffs of the Great Divide, streaked with ribbons of waterfalls. Isabeau could not believe it. Somehow she had traveled far to the east, leaving the open hills of Rionnagan behind her.

"I must have been wandering in fever for days," she murmured aloud.

Just then there was a shrill neigh and, to her joy and amazement, she saw Lasair galloping through the trees toward her, his mane and tail blazing in the sunlight. He cantered up the slope of the hill, and danced to a halt before her, neighing and shaking his bright mane and butting against her breast with his nose. "How .. . ? Where . .. ? What . . . ?" she stammered, and the cluricaun looked at her in astonishment.

"When first I see ye, ye had two heads, six feet, one each side and four beneath, and one tail blazing."

"But... I left Lasair in Caeryla . . ."

"So ye did come from Caeryla? Well, when I saw ye, ye were galloping like the wind, and ye were clinging to his mane, and he came to drink at the burn and ye fell from his back and lay on the grass as if ye were dead. I did come to ye, and found ye burning with fever and bleeding from your head and hand, and so at last I did take ye back to my home and tend ye there. Your horse has been fretting and fuming ever since, running back and forth in front o' the Tower and wailing like a banshee."

"I remember dreaming o' Lasair ..."