Faery Moon Read online

  Faery Moon

  by

  C. J. Cherryh

  * * *

  * * *

  Closed Circle Publications

  Box 18656

  Spokane WA, 99228

  Copyright

  Faery Moon

  copyright © 2009 by C.J. Cherryh

  Based on:

  The Brothers © 1986 by C.J. Cherryh

  Faery in Shadow © 1993 by C.J. Cherryh

  * * *

  Article: Quicksilver and Dynamite © 2009 by Jane Fancher

  Illustration: Dubhain’s Wild Flight © 1986 by David A. Cherry

  Cover art: Leaf in the Current © 2009 by Jane Fancher

  Illustration: Dubhain © 2009 by C. J. Cherryh

  This e-book edition is published by:

  Closed Circle Publications

  Box 18656

  Spokane WA, 99228

  http://www.closed-circle.net

  All proceeds from a Closed Circle book go directly to the author(s).

  This work is authentic, hand-edited and prepared as an e-book by the author and artist, through Closed Circle Publications. If you find yourself somehow in possession of an unauthorized file of this or any other of the author’s works, the author will thank you if you drop by http://www.closed-circle.net and make a contribution to the author’s and artists’ livelihood.

  For books and art, visit our catalog page at http://www.closed-circle.net

  Signature Page

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Part One: The Brothers

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Part Two: Faery Moon

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Afterword

  The Making of

  FAQ

  Faery Lexicon

  Part One: The Brothers

  One

  The wind came from the west out of the rocky throat of the Sianail, even while the morning sun was shining in the glen, and there was something singing on it. Perhaps unGifted men could not hear it yet, that faint, far wail, but it echoed clearly off the mountain walls of Gleann Gleatharan, down to Dun Gorm, and it gave the king no peace. There was storm in that wind as it came, scouring hills the stones of which were old and dread, hills which remembered darker things than storms and hid things at their hearts— the bones of warriors and kings, and even, men said, spirits older than the gods. He had hanging about his neck, did this grey traveler, a flat stone that a stream had worn through in its center. If a man looked through this opening, then he would see things as they truly were and glamours had no power on him. But the traveler had limited faith in this magic, putting more trust in the iron of his plain sword, which he had gotten on Skean Eirran off a dead man, on that narrow spit of sand, when they raided up by Skye. This he carried and no other weapon but a dagger for his meat; and no armor but his grey oiled-wool cloak to keep the cold mist from his skin.

  His own name he did not have. He had not been using that since he passed into the southland; and perhaps they were hunting him by now. Perhaps the north had sent men south ahead of him so there would be an ambush to meet him when he came.

  When he looked over his shoulder, he saw nothing but bare old stones and lawless gorse besides the mist-damp green, but now and again from hillsides he heard dogs baying that might be shepherds’ dogs disturbed by his passage, or might not. They might be pursuit from his enemies— or they might not, in this fey, foul day that wrapped itself in storm.

  Then with the passing of a hill this traveler found all of a broad glen dropping away at his feet, himself in storm-shadow and the most of the glen still in sunlight, rays that speared down through grey-bottomed cloud and turned the dark green to dazzling emerald. It was a valley of neat hedgerows and careful fields and pasturages well cared-for. The very hills surrounding this valley had a tamer look, as if here kinder powers blessed the hedges and fenced out the hazards of the wild hills.

  Amid it all, surely the reason and center of this tranquillity— a dun sat on a hill above a pleasant stream, in the face of low hills where its cottages clung as faint dots against the green.

  He knew where he had come. It was no great dun. It was built of the wreckage time had made of its hill, so that one melded with the other. Dun Gorm it was, the Blue Keep, and it took its name from those stones as well, that deep grey stone that mimicked the sky and turned strange colors, being one thing in storm and another when the sun was shining. It shone now in spears across the glen, between the clouds, while the mist on the hills sent freshets down.

  It held peace, and luck, this land where he had come. He had known neither in his life, and seeing this before him, he went to it.

  * * *

  There was a window of Dun Gorm that looked out above the stableyard fences, up toward the hills, and dread brought the king to it constantly this day. Cinnfhail was this king’s name; and he was feyer than all his line, all of whom had been on speaking terms with the Sidhe, the Fair Folk who had known and held this valley before Men came.

  There had been a time that Men and Fair Folk had lived closer than they did now. The Sidhe, the dwellers under bough and the dwellers under stone, had lived close beside the hewers of both, at peace. From most places in the world nowadays the Sidhe had indeed gone, leaving the hills and the glens to Men. But in Gleann Gleatharan the Sidhe still pursued their own furtive business in the hills and woods, while Men built of stone and wood in the valley.

  And so long as a man took his wood and stone from the lonely heights of Gleann Gleatharan northward and far from the forest at the south of the valley, he got on with the Sidhe well enough— if he were born to Dun Gorm, whose first king had been their friend.

  Sometimes even in these days, Cinnfhail had heard their singing, oftenest in the evenings, fair as dream and haunting his mind for days. Or sometimes in his riding he had heard a whisper which gave him good advice, and he came back from his riding wiser than he had gone out to it. Cinnfhail King had always cherished such encounters and longed for more meetings than he had had in his long life.

  But today— today he heard a song he did not wish to hear. It was the bain Sidhe wailing, not the singing of the Daoine Sidhe, the fair glas Sidhe. It was the White Singer, the harbinger of death. She sang first along the heights thus far, that sawtoothed, gorse-grown ridge that walled them from the world; but now her wails came from down the glen, where the brook vanished into the woods that the Sidhe-folk still owned.

  Stay away, he wished her. Come no nearer to my land.

  Her singing kept on, rising and falling on the wind. And only the fey could hear it.

  “’T will come a storm tonight,” his wife said, queen Samhadh, finding king Cinnfhail watching there alone. He held her close a while and murmured agreement, glad that Samhadh was deaf to any worse things.

  All the day, coming and going from that window, Cinnfhail could not help thinking on dangers to those he loved. He considered his son Raghallach, a youth handsome enough to break the heart of any maid in Eirran, him the bravest and fairest of all the youth of Gleann Gleatharan. The love Cinnfhail had for his fair-haired son, the pride he took in Raghallach, was such that he could never tell it, especially to Raghallach—
but he went to Raghallach and tried to say it this day. That attempt set a glow in Raghallach’s eyes, and afterward, set a wondering in Raghallach’s heart, just what strange mood had come on his father.

  In the same way Cinnfhail King looked on Deirdre his daughter, who was not yet fourteen: so small, so high-hearted, the very image of what his Samhadh had been in the glory of her youth, as if time turned back again and laughed through the halls in Deirdre’s steps.

  He had so much of good in his family, and in all this land. He had a beloved wife and children and faithful friends, and he thought the Sidhe might be jealous of such luck as he had. There were Sidhe reputed for such spite.

  So while he listened to that singing on the wind, he contrived excuses that would keep all he loved indoors.

  “Lord,” said Conn his shieldman, coming on him at this window-vigil, together with Tuathal his harper, “is some worry on you today?”

  “It is nothing,” Cinnhfail King said to Conn, and searched Conn’s eyes too for any signs of ill-luck and death, this man so long his friend— his shieldman, who had stood with him in his youth and drunk with him at his board. There were no more wars for them. They had settled Gleann Gleatharan at peace, and now they grew old together, breeding fine horses and red cattle and laughing over their children’s antics. His shieldman was clad farmer-wise, like any crofter that held the heights. Of treasures Cinnhfail held dear, this man was one of the chiefest, in his loyalty and courage. And hardly less was Tuathal the harper, the teacher of his children in riddlery and wit. “’t is nothing,” Cinnfhail said. “A little melancholy. Perhaps I am growing old.”

  “Never, lord,” Connsaid with a laugh.

  “Not by my will, at least. But an old wound aches today, ’t is all.”

  “Cursed weather,” Conn said. “Cursed wind.”

  One should never curse the Sidhe. The impiety chilled the king. But Conn was deaf to what he cursed. The singing had not come to him.

  “Go,” Cinnfhail said, “have cook put on something to warm the bones. There’ll be cold men coming from the fields early today. Have the fire lit in the hall; and have the lads give the horses extra and set one of them to sleep in the stable tonight. Athas will be kickin’ the stall down again.”

  “Aye, lord,” said Conn, and went.

  “Lord,” said the harper Tuathal, then, lingering after Conn had gone, “there’s somethingin this wind.”

  Of course his harper heard it. A harper would, and Tuathal was a good one, whose songs sometimes echoed Sidhe dreams that Cinnfhail King had had. Tuathal had indeed heard. There was worry in the harper’s grey eyes.

  “It comes no nearer,” said Cinnfhail. “Perhaps it will pass us by.” He was suddenly wishing the bain Sidhe to go along the ridge, among his people, to any other house in the glen, and he felt a stinging guilt for this moment’s selfishness.

  So he was not altogether virtuous as a king, not selfless. He knew this in himself. It was his weakness, that he desired a little peace in his fading years; and time, time, the one thing his life had less and less of.

  Is’t myself it sings for? he wondered. O gods.

  Two

  Cinnfhail was by by the window again as the clouds came down, as the last few rays of westering sun walked the green of his valley within its mountain walls. The sun touched a moment on the heights and for a while the song seemed fainter, overwhelmed by this last green brilliance.

  In the fields nearby the horses raced, tails lifting, as horses will, who play tag with ghosts before such storms. The boys had the pasture gate open and the horses knew where they should go, but horses and young folk both loving to make chaos of any scheme, it was all being done with as much disorder as either side could muster. Sheep were tending home on their own like small rainclouds across the earth. Their fleeces would be wet and scattering the mist in waterdrops as they jogged. The old ewe was wise as a sheep was ever likely to be, selfishly thinking of her own comfort, and she brought the others by example, her bell ringing across the meadows.

  From their own pastures came the red cattle, not hurrying unseemly, but not lingering either, home for byre and straw, needing no herdboy to tell them. This was the way of the beasts in Gleann Gleatharan, that they would not stray (excepting the horses, and them not far.) It was the nature of the crops that few weeds would grow in them and of the folk themselves that they grew up straight and tall and laughing much.

  And Cinnfhail King had a moment’s ease thinking on his luck. But the clouds took back the sky then, and the mist came down.

  The hills were everywhere laced with skeins of sky-white streams that only existed when the mist and the rain were on the mountaintops. They joined in waterfalls that merged with the tumbling Gley and ran right beneath the dun walls, in their green pastures.

  Then down beside the Gley-brook, in Cinnfhail’s sight, a red-haired man came walking.

  He might have been one of Glen Gleatheran’s own, wrapped in an oiled-wool mantle, in dull brown clothes else, his head bowed against the wind.

  But the singing was louder, filling the very air. And this man walked like none of theirs returning, but with the weight of miles on him and a shadow of ill about him that the king’s Sight knew. Knowledge closed like ice about Cinnfhail’s heart.

  This is what I have feared all day, Cinnfhail thought. It is in this man.

  * * *

  “Lord,” said Conn, meeting Cinnfhail soon after on the stairs, “there’s a traveler at the gate.”

  A mean thought touched Cinnfhail in that. moment , that he should simply order this traveler away. But fate could not be turned. And never had any traveler been turned from Dun Gorm’s gate, not in Cinnfhail’s reign, and not in all the reigns of the Sidhe-blessed kings before him. It was part of the luck of the place and he dared not break it.

  “Bid him to table,” said Cinnfhail

  “Lord,” said Conn doubtfully, “I do not like the look of him.”

  “Bid him,” said Cinnfhail.

  * * *

  Why? he should have asked Conn, why do you not like his look? Conn was a wise judge of men.

  But it seemed pointless, something there was no helping, as if this man had to be here tonight and they had to let him in. Cinnfhail had felt it all the day.

  The singer had fallen silent now. She was content, perhaps. The wind brought them only rain, and this stranger at their door, toward suppertime, as the sun went down in murk.

  Cinnfhail’s wife Samhadh came and kissed him as he went down to the hall. Deirdre came, with her hair dewed with mist as she had crossed the yard, her green and blue Gleann Gleatharan plaid wrapped about her, all dewed on its fibers in the lamplight. Raghallach came in laughing, wet-haired and ruddy-cheeked from putting the horses to stable, and Conn came and Tuathal joined them, with others of the hold. The common-hall echoed with steps on stone and wood, with the busy scrape of benches, the rattle of plates. There was the smell of mutton stew in the pot, of hot bread, of good ale queen Samhadh brewed herself, none better in the land.

  Cinnfhail saw the stranger then, who had come into the warm hall still muffled with his oiled-wool cloak. A page tried to take it, but the man refused and sat down at the end of the table in the place of least honor.

  “My lord,” said Samhadh, slipping her arm within Cinnfhail’s, “is something still amiss?”

  He saw blood within his vision, a bright sword. The dark Sight passed with a shiver. He thought of bundling his family elsewhere, of contriving some excuse to take them upstairs and out of the hall tonight, but it all seemed futile. He did not sense danger to them. It was something far more vague .

  So he sat down with his family about him. The harper Tuathal leaned near Conn the shieldman and whispered something. Conn looked sharp and frowning down the table, toward their guest, then got up and went here and there to men about the hall and to some of the women. Cinnfhail did not miss this, and caught the harper’s fey, Sighted eye as the servants poured the ale.

  So
Tuathal had also Seen, and Conn had seen, after his own fashion, as he judged men. And quietly these two faithful men took their own precautions.

  “Look to it,” said Cinnfhail to the servant nearest, “that the visitor’s cup is never dry a moment,” — for it seemed prudent to ply this visitor with strong ale, to muddle him, to keep him well-pleased, a propitiation, perhaps, were he one of the Sidhe in disguise— or at very least, should swords be drawn— to make him drunk.

  Cinnfhail’s own men would not be. Conn had surely seen to that. Cinnfhail’s own shield was on the wall, his sword hung beside it, years unused. A door was nearby. All these things were not by chance, in the years he and his fathers before him had ruled in Dun Gorm, in years when other folk had coveted this fair green land. The danger seemed quiet for the moment, biding. He determined he would be wary with this guest about what he said, and that he would send his family as early as possible from the hall.

  The thunder broke above the hold, and rain pattered on the straw above, but the thatch was tight and snug; and below was warmth and good food and plenty of it. It was a rowdy hall; it had always been, with hounds that came and went and children who ate at the hearthside or filled and carried their bowls to some favored corner to laugh and giggle together; and a few youngsters old enough to take their places at the long table with men and women were not all sober sense.

  About them all were the implements not of war at all, but of their crafts— old plowshares, a horseshoe or two, a great deal of rope and bits of harness and poles and such. It might have been any farmer’s cottage, Dun Gorm, but for its sprawling size. It smelled of peace and plenty and the earth beneath its floors.

  When bellies were full, Tuathal the harper took up his harp and sang the sort of song that set the children clapping. And then he sang a quiet song, after which the young ones must to bed in their lofts and nooks and some few must take them.