Silence filled the room. Crann gazed fixedly at the small spinel figurine in his hand, then looked up at Collun. "But I did not come to speak of this alone. Collun, the time has come to tell you all."
"Do you wish us to leave?" asked Brie, half rising.
"That is up to Collun," replied the wizard.
"Stay," Collun said. "Is it because Emer is dead that you can now speak?"
The wizard nodded. "I am released from the oath I gave to her." He paused. "Give me your dagger," Crann said abruptly.
With a bewildered expression Collun reached for the dagger at his waist and passed it to Crann. The wizard laid it on the table amidst the spinel figures and the dice. The stone in the handle glowed faintly, as it had the last time Crann held it.
"As I told you in the Forest of Eld, I believe this stone to be one of the three shards of the Cailceadon Lir. The fact that it killed Moccus's sow and injured the creature Nemian confirms my belief." Crann paused. "As I also said, it is my guess that this is the shard that Amergin lost on one of his sea voyages. Collun, did your mother ever tell you where she got the lucky stone?"
Collun shook his head. "I have been trying to puzzle it out. What happened to the shard after Amergin lost it? To a woman, you said?"
"Yes. And she, in turn, sold it to an adventurer and explorer who called himself Lleann. Like Lir before him, Lleann recognized this stone would bring luck to him and to his family. So he, too, began a tradition of passing it on to his firstborn child, and each succeeding generation did the same."
"Then Emer is a descendant of Lleann?" Collun asked.
The wizard shook his head, and Collun saw a look pass between him and Brie.
"Then Goban...?" Collun asked in confusion.
"Collun," Crann interrupted. "What do you know of the hero Cuillean?"
Puzzled, Collun answered slowly. "Only what I have learned from Talisen's songs. And then I heard more in Temair. Why?"
"Tell me what you do know."
"Let's see ... That as a youth he showed great courage and prowess. That he was a hero in the Eamh War..." Collun trailed off.
"That he loved a lady and lost her shortly after they were wed," spoke up Talisen. "Remember the song 'Lady of the Silver Fir,' Collun? It has always been one of my favorites."
"Yes, I remember. He mourned her death for many years. And then, most recently, it is said that he disappeared, a year ago or so, and may be dead."
"That is all?"
Collun nodded slowly. "My mother did not like songs of the Eamh War or of Cuillean. She lost a brother in the fighting, and the pain ran deep."
"Once," agreed Talisen, "Emer heard me singing a song of the war and of one of Cuillean's most spectacular battles, and she bade me never to sing it or any others like it on the farmhold Aonarach."
The old wizard was quiet for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. "Before he went off to fight for Eirren in the Eamh War, Cuillean did indeed love a maiden. He pledged himself to this maiden, and she to him, and when he returned from battle, they were to be wed. In the songs about them she is called Eilm, or the Lady of the Silver Fir. But her true name was Emer."
Collun felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He stared at the wizard's moon white beard.
"Emer was the daughter of a powerful lord, Fogal. She had two brothers, one older and one younger. The younger, Neill, was his father's favorite, the apple of his eye. Neill worshiped his sister's betrothed, the hero Cuillean. He wished to be exactly like his idol. Though he was young—barely older than yourself, Collun—he ran off to join the army in its northward march to fight Medb. Neill was brave, but he was also impulsive and unschooled in the ways of war. Despite Cuillean's efforts to watch over the stripling—indeed, putting his own life in danger more than once—Neill was one of the first to die in the Eamh War.
"When his father received word of Neill's death, he went half mad with grief, and in his madness Fogal blamed Cuillean. He withdrew his blessing from the proposed marriage between Emer and Cuillean and forbade her to see him. When Cuillean returned from the war and found himself barred from the maiden he loved, he acted in haste and anger and, with a handful of men, assailed the dun of Emer's father. Under the cover of darkness he stole Emer away, killing several of Fogal's men. Cuillean took Emer off with him to his dun by Siar Muir, the Western Sea. There they were wed.
"Fogal was now left completely alone, his own wife long dead, both sons dead in the Eamh War—the elder killed in the waning months of the fighting—and Emer taken from him by Cuillean, whom he now saw as his most bitter enemy. He gathered an army and waged battle with Cuillean. Fogal was ultimately killed in the fight, and it was Cuillean himself who killed him.
"Emer stayed with Cuillean for a year after that, but the pain of seeing her father killed by the man she loved, on top of the deaths of both her brothers, proved to be more than she could bear. Finally she left Cuillean, taking with her their newborn son." Crann paused.
"You are that son, Collun."
Collun's breath stopped for a moment. He felt as if he must be in a dream. Numbly he watched the wizard's lips move. Collun did not speak, and the wizard continued his tale, his eyes carefully watching the boy.
"Emer hid her true identity and found peace in Inkberrow, a small town some distance from Temair and Cuillean, and from the life she had known. She met the local blacksmith, and he became her friend. When she told him her story, he offered to live with her as husband and be a father to her son. They never were wed, as Emer was already wife to Cuillean, but they let the people of Inkberrow believe they were married. Emer found she was expecting another child, and though Goban knew the baby was also Cuillean's, he felt a special attachment to the girl-child he himself helped into the world.
"At first the union between Emer and Goban was a healing one. The blacksmith helped Emer to forget. But somewhere inside she still loved Cuillean, though she could not admit it even to herself. Goban sensed it, and it ate away at him. It turned his feelings against Cuillean's son.
"Before leaving Temair, Emer went to her only living relative, her elder brother's widow, Fial, and told her what she intended to do. By threatening to kill herself rather than remain with Cuillean, she forced Fial to tell everyone at court that Emer had been found dead—that she and the baby had both been drowned trying to cross the River Haw. A few bedraggled remains of Emer's belongings were produced as evidence, and the story was believed. Cuillean was heart-stricken and hid in his dun, refusing to see anyone for months.
"There were only two people besides Emer and Goban who knew the truth: Fial and myself. I had been a friend to both Fogal and Cuillean. At first I, too, believed Emer was dead. It was only by accident that I discovered otherwise. It has long been a practice with me to disguise myself as a kesil. One day my travels took me through the town of Inkberrow. Passing your lonely farmhold Aonarach, I caught a glimpse of a woman's face that was familiar to me. Her hair had turned gray, and she looked careworn. I almost did not recognize her. But when our eyes met, I saw the Lady of the Silver Fir. Emer recognized me as well, despite my own appearance. She was terrified I would give away her secret.
"I told her of Cuillean's grief and tried to convince her to return to him, but she would not. She had made an oath to the goddess Eira, she said, and would not break it. She begged me to tell no one that I had seen her, and finally I agreed. And I pledged to say nothing of her children's true parentage, to them or to anyone. Only if she was to die, and I deemed it important to their safety, was I to be released from the oath. Fial had been made to swear a similar pledge."
"Why? Why didn't she tell us?" asked Collun, his voice barely audible.
"It is difficult to explain. The pain of losing her brothers and then seeing her father killed by the man she loved altered Emer. She came to despise violence and war, and she sought to protect her children from this world—a world that, in her eyes, was embodied by Cuillean, the man she had once loved above all.