Faery Moon Read online

  It might have been a boy outright terrified, this old and evil thing that clutched Caith’s arm, that went with him miming terror and staring round-eyed as they passed the guard and his naked blade.

  But the pooka’s fingers numbed Caith’s hand, reminding him as they went,Ye cannae shake me, ne’er be rid of me. The touch felt like ice, as if something had set its talons into his heart as well as into the flesh of his arm, a cold, clear presence, so that Caith recovered his good sense, remembering that he was going deeper into this mesh of his own will, and that he still understood less of it than he needed to know

  Doors closed somewhere below, echoing in the depths under the stair There were a man’s shouts from that direction, sharp and short.

  “What’s that?” Caith asked, delaying at the door of the corridor above, and looking back down the stairs.

  It was not his business to know, only the anxiousness of a man entering where there was no retreat, hearing things amiss behind him. The faces of the guards below stared up at him— distant kin of his, perhaps— or Sliabhin’s hirelings. They were nothing he wanted for family: wolf-sharp, both of them, cruel as weasels.

  “Ne’er you mind,” one of them called up, and that one was uglier than all the rest. “There’s those will care for that. Keep going.”

  “Lord,” Dubhain said, a shiver in his voice, “lord—”

  ”Be still,” Caith said. There was humor in it all, a fine Sidhe joke in this frightened pooka by his side, grand comedy. Caith played it too, with his life, with the pooka’s grip numbing him, owning him and making mock of all Dun Mhor. Caith turned toward the door as they wished him to and came into the hall where they wished him to go, into warmth and firelight and a gathering of men the likeness of the rest, as likely a den of bandits as he had seen anywhere along the road he had traveled to come here.

  And one sat among them, on a carven chair over by the fire; the light was on his face, and it was a face without the roughness of the others, a mouth much like Caith’s own, if bitter years had touched it. And this man’s hair and beard were his own pale red, faded with years; and the tartan he wore was Dun Mhor.

  This man looked at him, thinking, measuring, so that Caith felt himself stripped naked. The resemblance— in this hall— would surely not elude Sliabhin mac Brian.

  Or riders from Dun na nGall might have outpaced him down the coast, on a longer road but a swifter. Quite likely his murder was in preparation even now; and his only chance was to move before the man believed he would. But he had got inside. He still had his sword. This much of his plan he had worked, feigning simplicity within deviousness: this was all his plan, to stand this close to the man.

  Sliabhin will kill you, he suddenly heard the Sidhe promise him. But never that he might kill Sliabhin. Sliabhin will kill you. It will take seven days for you to die.

  “King Sliabhin?” Caith asked, all still and quiet. He weighed all his life in this moment, reckoning how long he had to ask his questions, whether the nearest man would draw and cut at him with steel or simply fall on him barehanded to overpower him. Worse for him, if they got him alive. Before that happened he must spring and kill Sliabhin at once, face the others down with their king dead and give these bandits time to think how things had changed. There was Dubhain to reckon with, at his back— and if they turned swords on him—

  If I come alone— That was how he had made his question to the Sidhe. If I come alone to Dun Mhor. It was as if his hearing and his memory had been dulled in that hour, as his eyes had been glamored and spellbound. He was not alone. He had brought Dubhain. The question was altered. At least one thing in his futures would have changed.

  But this man, this man who looked at him with a kinsman’s face, in this bandit hall—

  “Who are you?” Sliabhin asked.

  “Hagan sends,” Caith said. “He wants the other boy. I’m to bring him to Dun na nGal.”

  Sliabhin got to his feet and stared at him. Caith’s heart was pounding in his chest, the cloak about him weighing like a great burden, covering the red tartan that would kill him and the sword that would kill Sliabhin, both beneath its grey roughness. There was no way out. Not from the moment he had passed the door. He felt the pooka’s presence against his arm, biding like a curse.

  Dubhain. Darkness.

  He is one of the Fair Folk. I am the other kind.

  “So,” said Sliabhin, and walked aside, a half step out of reach. He looked back at Caith.

  My father, Caith thought, seeing that resemblance to himself at every angle; and his throat felt tighter, the sweat gathering on his palms. This is what I am heir to, this bandit den, these companions.

  Beside him stood the pooka. There would be no gleam in Dubhain’s eyes at this moment, nothing to betray what he was.

  Sliabhin moved farther to his side. Caith turned to keep him in view as he stood before the door, and an object came into his sight, nailed there above the doorway, dried sprigs of herb; an elfshot on a thong; a horseshoe, all three wards against the Sidhe.

  To make them powerless.

  “Hagan wants the boy sent?” Sliabhin said, and Caith set his gaze on Sliabhin and tried to gather his wits back. “I find that passing strange.”

  “Will ye hear the rest,” Caith asked, with a motion of his eyes about the room, toward the guards, “— here?”

  “Speak on.”

  “’T is the elder son, lord. Caith. So Hagan said to me. Caith mac Gaelan hae heard rumors—” He let his voice trail off in intimidated silence, playing the messenger of ill news. “Lord— they’ve had to lock ‘im away for fear he’ll break for the south, or do himself some harm. He mourns his brother. He’s set some strange idea into his head that he maun see the boy or die. Yet mac Gaelan is Hagan’s right hand, and Hagan will humor him. I’m to bring the lad, by your leave, lord, to bring his brother out of his fey mood and set reason in him.”

  A long time Sliabhin stood staring at him, this elder image of himself, gazing at the truth.

  He knows me, he knows me, he knows me. Now what will he do? Can he kill his own son?

  And if he will not— have I all the truth I think I have?

  There was a silence in the room so great the crash of a log in the fireplace was like the crumbling of some wall. Sparks showered and snapped. Caith stood still.

  “How does he fare?” Sliabhin asked, in a tone Caith had not expected could come from a mouth so hard and bitter. A soft question. Tender. As if it mattered, Sliabhin asked. And it became like some evil dream— this man, this his true father asking the question he had wanted for all his days to hear a father ask.

  “Who?” Caith returned, “Hagan?”— missing the point deliberately.

  “Caith.”

  “Sorrowin’. Angry.” There was a knot in Caith’s throat; he fought it. He went on in this oblique argument. “If Caith could see the lad, lord, that he’s well, in spite of rumors— Hagan thinks ’t would mend much. It might bring him around to a better way of thinking and get Hagan back his man.”

  “Would it?” Sliabhin walked a pace or so away from him. Caith watched him go, his wits sorting this way and that, between hope and grief. Then he felt the pooka’s hand clench on his arm through the cloak, reminding him of oaths, and he was blinder than he had been when the Sidhe-light had dazed him.

  This place, this hall, this villainous crew— Was I lied to? Was Gaelan the villain from the beginning, and this my father— is he innocent?

  Confession hovered on his lips. He was half minded not to strike, to betray the Sidhe beside him for very spite and then see what Dubhain would do. But his father—

  “’T is a long journey,” said Sliabhin, “and dangerous, to send a young lad scarce fourteen off in the dark with a man I know not at all. Ye’ll pardon me—” Sliabhin walked farther still, safe again among his men. “Tell me, — messenger. What color, Hagan’s beard?”

  “Bright red, lord. A scar greys it.”

  Sliabhin nodded slowly. “And how fare
s my neighbor?”

  “Lord?”

  “Cinnfhail.” Sliabhin’s brow darkened. His voice roughened. “Ye’ll have passed through Gleann Gleatharan. How fares Cinnfhail?”

  “Well, enough, lord.”

  Sliabhin snapped his fingers. “Fetch the other,” Sliabhin said.

  Men left, but not all. Other, other— Caith’s mind raced on that word. The meshes drew about him and he saw the cords moving, but did not know the truth yet, not the most basic truth of himself, and until he knew, his hand would not move to his sword.

  There was noise of the guards going down the steps outside. Shouting echoed up from the depths; and then the noise began come louder and nearer. Someone cursed from the echoing lower rooms, kept cursing as that someone was brought with loud resistance upstairs.

  Caith slid his eyes to a point between Sliabhin and that door, most attentive to Sliabhin and the men that stood with him. All confessions were stopped upon his lips, his heart beating hard. Dubhain was at his back, laughing inwardly, he thought, at mortal men; at father and son so snared in must and would not.

  Resistance carried into the room, a fair-haired man in a tartan green and blue, a red-blond youth who flung back his head and stared madly at Sliabhin, all bloody as he was.

  It was Raghallach in their hands.

  If,” said Sliabhin, “ye had denied being with Cinnfhail, I would have taken it ill. Ye know this boy— do you not?”

  “Aye,” said Caith. The warmth had left his hands and the blood had surely left his face. Raghallach strove to look his way and twisted helplessly in the grip of two well-grown and armored men. “Cinnfhail’s son. I guested there last night. They wanted naught t’ do wi’ me, sent me on my way in the rain, but they gave me provisions and a horse. He broke his leg in the forest. Lord, let this man go. They did at least treat me fair.”

  “He rode right up to our doors, messenger. He tells a pretty tale— d’ ye’ not, boy?”

  They had hurt Raghallach already. They hurt him more, the wrench of a wounded arm. Raghallach fought, such as he could, and cried out, half-fainting then, for the sweat broke out and runneled down his waxen face. Caith thrust himself half a pace forward, Dubhain catching at his arm. “No, lord,” Dubhain said under his breath, “no, be not rash.”

  “How you guested there with Cinnfhail, how you were received, and what tale you told,” said Sliabhin, “all of this he’s sung for us.”

  Raghallach lifted his head. His weeping eyes spoke worlds, denying what Sliabhin said with a desperate move. No. Only that. No.

  “There was nothing to tell,” said Caith, “but I see that I was followed from that hall. Lord, this man—”

  ”— offends me. What d’ ye say to that?”

  The air seemed close. He felt pinned between will and dare not. Sliabhin was out of reach behind a hedge of swords. He needed caution, wit, something of answers in this place, and the Sidhe was still holding his arm. Be not rash, be not rash, he heard Dubhain’s wicked voice in his mind. And Raghallach bleeding and tortured before him— He will die, Cinnfhail had prophesied of his son. So the Sidhe had said also, that Raghallach would die if he came with him to Dun Mhor. Raghallach— who spoke for me to Cinnfhail—

  “Why did you come?” Caith asked in a thin, hoarse voice. “Why did you follow me, Raghallach?”

  “Revenge on you,” said Raghallach, and gave another heave in the hands of those that held him. Tears ran down his face and mingled with the sweat and the streaks of blood and dirt. “For my sister, man!”

  Caith’s heart turned over in him. Well played, O gods, man— brave and well played.

  Caith turned his shoulder as a man accused of villainy might do, walked a space frowning, as the pooka let him go. He looked back at wider vantage, with Dubhain in the tail of his eye as he glared at Raghallach mac Cinnfhail.

  “He’s mad.”

  “He calls you thief as well,” Sliabhin said. “He says you stole a horse.”

  “So, well.” Caith turned away, disdaining all accusation.

  “Caith is the name he calls ye!”

  Caith drew his sword, flinging back his cloak; and all about him men moved— but Sliabhin stopped everything with a move of his hand.

  “You never learned that from him,” Caith said. “Ye’ve known me from the moment I walked in here.”

  “I’ve waited for ye.” Sliabhin’s voice was soft. “I was sure ye would come someday, somehow.”

  “I came to kill ye— for Gaelan’s sake. But I heard another tale, there in Dun Gorm. And which tale is true, — father? Who sent me to foster with that whoreson Hagan? Was it Gaelan saving my life— or yourself?”

  “Who is your companion?” Sliabhin asked, turning his shoulder from the menace of Caith’s sword. There were guards; they never moved. “Some other one of Gleatharan’s fine young lads?”

  “Oh, that.” Caith kept the blade point between them at their distance, but he took a lighter tone, an easier stance. “Dubhain is his name. One of Hagan’s whores’ sons. I’ve gotten used to such comrades. I get on well with them, father. Any sort of cutthroat. That’sa skill they taught me well— your cousin Hagan and his crew. Why not? We breed such merry sorts, — father.” He gained a step on Sliabhin, but sideways, as a man moved to block him: it all stopped again. “Pirates. Brigands. Are these my brothers? How many did ye beget— and on what, when ye tired of my mother?”

  “Enough!” Sliabhin’s face congested. He lifted a shaking hand, empty. “It was Gaelan— Gaelan tormented her. She and I loved, boy— loved— ye’d not know that. Oh, yes, whelp, I saved your life. I rode— myself— and bestowed you where I could, or Gaelan would hae given ye up for wolfbait the night ye were born. He gave out you were stillborn. He beat her, an’ her lying in childbed! D’ ye hear me?”

  Caith faltered. More of truths and half-truths shuttled back and forth in this tapestry of lies. His mind chased after them, sorting one and the other, and he darted a glance from Sliabhin to Raghallach, to Sliabhin again. Raghallach lied for him, risked his own sister’s name in his defense and tried nothing for himself.

  But Sliabhin’s voice had the ring of true outrage.

  And the Sidhe was there beside him, doubtless laughing at his plight.

  The sword sank in Caith’s hand, extended again to point at Raghallach.

  “What of him?”

  “What of him?”

  “Someone’s lied. I don’t know who. Where’s Brian? Where’s my brother?”

  “You’ll not be taking your brother anywhere tonight, my lad,” Sliabhin said.

  “I want to see him.”

  “What’s he to you?”

  “A whim, father. Like you.”

  “Put up the sword. Put it up.”

  Caith laughed, a faint, strained laugh, and his own fey mind surprised him. The look in Sliabhin’s eyes surprised him, that they were lost together in this sea and clinging desperately one to the other still unmurdered.

  “Put it up, I say. If ye’re my son, obey me!”

  Caith thought on it a long moment, with another look at Raghallach, at Dubhain. Then there were only Sliabhin’s pale eyes, bewitching as the Sidhe’s, to cast a glamour on things. There was Sliabhin’s voice, promising nothing at all. There was death here; the room was full of it.

  I am the curse, Caith thought. The Sidhe send their curse back to Dun Mhor — in me. And I cannot be rid of it. He slid the sword back into its sheath, a neat quick move, never quite taking his eyes from the guards, who kept their swords drawn. But if the curse is in me, I can delay it, I can take it away again— if I will. If Sliabhin wills it, and lets me leave.

  And what if I am wrong?

  “Ye’ll rest here,” said Sliabhin, “as my guest.”

  “And this one?” He meant Raghallach. He gestured that way, where Raghallach hung in the guard’s cruel grip. O gods, he accused me— how can I defend him, how save him,what can I do to save his life, but win my father and turn his mind from killing him�
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  “He’ll tell us tales. By morning— he’ll have a many of them. Ye’ll hear them all.”

  “My brother— where is he?”

  “Oh, the boy’s well. Quite well enough. Go. They’ll take you to chambers, these men of mine. Leave this other to me.”

  Shame burned Caith’s face, betraying shame; he looked at Raghallach, and for a moment then his heart stopped, for Raghallach smiled unexpectedly in a way only he could see, a cat’s smile, that chilled him through.

  Dubhain tugged at him. “Come, lord, come— do what he says.” Caith cast a wild glance at Dubhain and covered it. The pooka took his arm in a grip fit to break it as Sliabhin’s men closed in about them.

  “Trust me,” said Sliabhin, “or have no safety here.”

  Caith looked back at him. Not yet had Sliabhin’s men tried to disarm him— and this omission and their likeness, their crying likeness to each other, together with that which hung in the hands of the guards— robbed him of volition, of any last hope of understanding what happened around him.

  It was not Raghallach they had taken, but the Sidhe Nuallan. It was Nuallan they dragged struggling away in the other direction, past the door with its wards, its diminishments of Sidhe power.

  They passed the door with Nuallan-Raghallach. Directly a shout rang out, a blow, a cry of pain that jarred his nerves as it echoed in the hall.

  Then one man took Caith by the arm and drew him aside to another door. A guard opened it on more stairs, a dark and musty ascent higher into the hold.

  “Sliabhin!” Caith jerked about to turn back again, halfway, but no one was prepared to listen. Dubhain came perforce, at sword-point.

  Caith tried to break from them; and there in the doorway they held a sword to his throat and disarmed him of sword and dagger both. “Sliabhin! Damn you!” He fought once they took the sword away from his throat, and he hoped for the pooka’s help, but three men got Caith’s arms behind him and began to force him up the stairs. He braced his feet against the steps and struggled. “Sliabhin!” His voice echoed in halls, in the heights and depths of the place. Sliabhin!”