"Riddles," said their mother. She was not wont to raise her voice. It trembled now, so that Meadhbh clenched her hands and stared at this Beorc at whose table they were guests.
"My mother deserves more than that, sir," Ceallach said, who was never wont to say anything at all. He stood up from the table beside Meadhbh, tall as he could. "If you do know—"
"Young lord," said Domhnull.
"I am not any lord," Ceallach returned. "My father is."
"You are King," said Beorc quite gravely, and Meadhbh's heart turned in her, for there was a great silence down the table, among the steaders and those of Caer Wiell who had found seats. Others moved about the yard, children shouted, horses called to each other down at stable, being in a strange place; Beorc's own folk went to and fro with baskets and baskets of bread and plates of cheese for their guests and they had breached a cider-keg on the porch of the ram bling house where folk gathered, finding heart to laugh. But at the table no one stirred.
"Ceallach," their mother said, "sit down, please." And Ceallach did that, quietly, but he was not quiet, not inside: Meadhbh knew. The elf-gift burned, and the master of the steading gazed at them in a way that made it worse. He is Sidhe himself, Meadhbh thought, or something very like; but there is iron in this place, if not in getting to it. We would not be safe if this man were angry.
But he was not angry. He gazed at them quietly, holding his secrets, his beard and hair stirring in the wind which came on them then. His wife beside him, Aelfraeda, he called her, who was crowned with gold braids that shone in the torchlight—she sat still and wise-looking—Like some king, Meadhbh thought, and queen. One wants to call them lord and lady. And our father would like them —he always talked with our farmers, of horses and weather and grain — She found herself remembering all in one tumbling moment, and gathering up the pieces of everything that had shattered; but sadness came with it too, a different kind of sadness than she had ever felt, a sureness of loss, of change imminent that could not be called back.
He was looking straight at her, in that way the Sidhe had done, and that gaze passed on to all of them.
"Here is shelter," he said, "young King, lady of Caer Wiell, and all who come with you—but outside, all about us, there is evil gath ered. This is truly what it is, not as Men measure it, wanting this and that and naming their enemies evil, who also have desires. This wants nothing. It is. What it does it does because of itself." He rose from his place, towering above them. "Once upon a time, my friends —is that not a fair beginning?—the Sidhe came into the world; they came, and loved it, and would not see it change.
"They had wars. They were not without ambition. There were older things in the world. With most of them they warred—but not the dragons. The dragons seemed fair and wise; they shone beneath the sun like gold and brass together. Their wings—ah, their wings, like sun through ice, their wings.
"But they hated change themselves, and the Sidhe to them were change. The oldest of them was fairest, but no Sidhe could master him—he was too great, he said. But he would give advice to any who would seek him out.
"After all, he said—the world might change again, and who knew what way his folk would go? Even then a folk arose who shifted from day to day, who brought iron and mortality. Perhaps the dragons would go and serve humankind instead.
"There was nothing fairer than Nathair Sgiathach, prince of drag ons.
"There was a prince of the Daoine Sidhe; Duilliath was his name, and of all Sidhe his was the proudest, quickest temper.
" 'Come,' said the winged Worm. 'I shall bear you on my back and show you what Men and Death are.'"
The way grew darker, the chaos roiled, and still they cried his name. Aodhan flew, spurning Aescbourne's flood, striding long past mortal steeds. But those came that were not mortal, that were night mares and worse.
"Brother," he heard. "Ciaran, my brother—" shouted across the tumult.
Then he looked. He must. A Man rode toward him; and he knew this Man, through all the toll of years and other changes too. "Donnchadh," he said. He faced this rider, weaponless.
A darkness passed between, a sheet of darkness, a torrent of horned things and hounds, a rider on a horse that gleamed with bone.
"Lord Ciaran!" someone cried. "Run!"
It was Ruadhan, from the border; it was Madawc and Owein the southrons, and others come besides, a rush of shadowed riders. There were border archers—a black sleet of arrows fell into the press; they were figures that moved like dream, arrows that fell with deceptive swiftness.
"Lord!" cried other voices: it was Beorc and Rhys, not dead— arrived on lathered horses, with haggard faces, and their weapons solid iron. A troop of riders was with them, coming from darkened air. "Lord, wait for us!"
Aodhan turned beneath him, leapt forward, bearing him away. Tears were on his face, blinding him; there was pain again, of loss and grief. But: "Go!" he shouted, consenting, and now the elf horse flew, faster, faster, faster, till all the world blurred about them to a dim gray light, till the air smelled of sea and they found the sun.
Water scattered from Aodhan's hooves, splashing droplets that seemed to fall and fall.
The pain stopped then. "Liosliath!" he cried, flinging out his hands. "Liosliath! Liosliath! I have come as far as I can! Come to me now—the rest is yours!"
He ceased. That was all.
The elf horse threw its head, it danced and turned; its rider straightened and lifted his face again toward the shadowed east where riders clashed and died.
He had brought little with him; he touched the stone about his neck and shut his eyes and came more fully into this world. He had neither weapon nor armor; he had not even fully his own shape: but one thing he drew with him by the power in the stone—a silver horn. Daybreak was its name: Camhanach. He had no strength as yet to sound it; he was still mazed in the change, mazed as battle swept the plain.
"—Duilliath," he said. And louder: "Duilliath!"
He rode forward, as far as Aescbourne's banks. Men were being pressed back and back toward him, behind their shield of ghosts; drow came at them, fuaths, every sort of ill amid the darkness. He felt the world different than he had known and dimmer; but from the stone a thousand memories came flooding, a Man's memories, his love, his life, his understanding of the world. He knew all of these Men, the allies of Lord Death. Love welled up in him, and pride, from somewhere in the stone. Hard-pressed, mortal men and ghosts made a wall about him, taking him for their lord: with iron and lives the living defended him; with courage, the human dead.
He lifted the horn and sounded it.
The earth quaked. The drow shrieked one awful cry. "No," one shouted, who lifted a venomed sword. "Fall back—O cousin, you do not defeat us! You only draw new battlelines. And she is there, our cousin, when you release the Worm—A world divided, Liosliath! That is what you win—but Aoibheil is ours!"
They retreated; the lesser evils flowed after them, less swift, leav ing mortal allies in confusion and panic on Aescbourne's wooded shores.
"Lord!" Beorc cried. "O gods, my lord—"
A second time he set the horn to his lips and pealed out a note wilder and louder than the first.
The meal was done, the tale ended. Beorc turned down his cup and looked at them all. There was a scurrying beside him. The Gruagach scrambled up on the bench.