Seer of Sevenwaters (50 page)

I lie awake long, under the moonlight. At some point, as the night wears on, I look across to where Sibeal has been lying not far from me, and I see that she is no longer there. Since I know I will not sleep, I rise and go to look for her. I do not know if this is the time to speak of what comes next. For some while I have closed my mind to that, thinking only of the mission. But soon we will be back on Inis Eala. We cannot part with so much unsaid between us. I do not know what Sibeal thinks about this; I do not know how she feels, only that she is unhappy. To me our parting is the hewing asunder of a lovely growing thing; the smashing of an instrument whose music holds the power to change the world; the sundering of a single self. It is wrong. Even in the light of her vocation, her remarkable druidic skills, her dedication to the gods, it is wrong. In the great pattern of flower and tree, bird and beast, stone and star, what is between Sibeal and me fits perfectly. How can it not be right? Surely even the labyrinthine mind of a druid such as this Ciarán of hers must know it is right.

I find her not so far away, at the other end of the strip of pebbly shore. She is seated on the rocks, so still she might herself be a stone, formed by the forces of nature into the semblance of a delicate young woman. And Cathal is here, down on the strand near the water. The moonlight throws his long shadow behind him on the shore.

He is surrounded by seals. I walk up to Sibeal; she puts a finger to her lips, and I sit down beside her without a word. Her hand creeps into mine.

I look again. They are not seals, but small beings in hooded cloaks of gray. Or perhaps those are their pelts. Within the darkness of each hood the moonlight finds a pair of bright eyes that belong to a creature surely not listed even in the most comprehensive of bestiaries. Whatever they are, they are Other. If I did not trust the evidence of my eyes, I would know this in my bones.

They are conducting a conversation with Cathal. I cannot be sure if they speak in Irish or in some Otherworld tongue that, by its very nature, can be understood by folk such as Sibeal and me. I had thought the day could hold no more wonders, but I was wrong. The strangeness of this stops my breath.

“He is close,” one of the beings says, and its voice is like the stone of the island, hard and strong and forbidding. “Only
she
keeps him out; her power is great. While she was gone, we fought a hard battle to hold our isle against him. She came home just in time.”

“You say my father is close.” Cathal is exerting hard-won control over his voice. “Then why could I not feel his presence on the voyage here? I thought he would challenge me. He has waited four years for me to leave Inis Eala and come back within his reach. Why did he not confront me as soon as I came out from my safe place?”

Another being speaks; the sound reminds me of a gurgling stream. “She is home. Mac Dara will not come here while her protection lies over the island. No sorcerer has the power to challenge her. No mage may pass within her boundaries, save when she chooses to allow it. As with you, Mac Dara’s son.”

“And beyond the isle, on the journey?”

A third being speaks. I hear in its voice the shrill crying of gulls and the endless song of the ocean. “You are of the Sea People,” it says. “You are kin. On the way to this place, you bore our Queen on your ship. Her protection lay over you and the two who walk with you.” The hooded head swivels; the pinpricks of light that form its eyes are on Sibeal and me. “Druid and bard; teller of tales and singer of songs.” After a moment, the being adds, “Lamp of hope and questing spirit.”

“Left hand and right,” puts in another of the small creatures.

“Moon and sun.”

“Shadow and light.” They are all joining in now, as if it were some kind of game.

“Still pool and waterfall.”

“Conscience and courage.”

A silence after this, as all of them turn their eyes on the one who has just spoken, as if its contribution was somehow inappropriate. For myself, I like greatly what was said, for it recognizes the depth of the bond between Sibeal and me.

“My father troubled you, then, before we brought your Queen home,” says Cathal. “How?”

“Storms.”

“Great waves.”

“Days of darkness.”

“Cloud. Tempest. Icy chill.”

“Monsters from the deep. A plague that killed the fish and left us hungry.”

“Sea-Father fought for us,” a creature said. “He was weakened by that, and by the loss of her whom he loved. If she had not come home when she did we might have lost him, and our isle with him. Mac Dara is strong.”

Cathal stares out across the water. “I cannot fight him,” he says in a low voice. “My craft is gone. There is not a shred of magic in me. I could not so much as raise a spark to make light when it was needed. Even before, I struggled to match my father’s power. Now, he would simply laugh at me. I cannot wage war against a prince of the Otherworld. I cannot even defend my family.”

The silence draws out. The little gray ones start to fade away, merging into rocks and sand and water as if they were the stuff of dream.

Sibeal rises to her feet. “Wait!” she calls softly.

Eyes turn in her direction.

“Cathal is no coward,” she says. “What he needs is an explanation. Do not judge him before he has heard it.”

They seem to be waiting for more.

“Is it not true,” Sibeal says, “that within the margins of this isle your Queen holds total sway? If her power is sufficient to keep Mac Dara at bay, might it not block the spells and charms of any mage who entered her domain?”

The faces of these beings are obscured by the shadow of their hoods; the bright eyes give little away. But I sense a warming, a softening. “It is true, wise one,” one of them says. “Mac Dara’s son will leave the confines of the isle without the Golden Queen. Beyond the barrier of our cliffs, he will be free of the restraints her presence has placed on him.”

“But—” Cathal says, and his voice is less guarded now, “Sibeal used a druid charm to make light, in the underground passage. Why was
her
magic not blocked?”

“Aaah.” They make the sound as one. It is a sigh, and a song, and a deep and fervent prayer of thanks. “She is the goddess-friend. She is the one who sees true. They are blessed, the wise woman and the one who walks beside her. But for them, Mac Dara’s son, you would not be here. You would not be here to receive our gift.”

“A gift.” Cathal sounds as if, even for him, this is all too much to take in. “What gift is that?”

The small beings move, breaking the circle around him, and converge in a huddle. They resemble a collection of weed-covered rocks. In this place of stone and water, they blend seamlessly. At length one of them glides forward, stopping before Cathal. It stretches out what might be a hand. I cannot see what it offers.

“Take this.” It is the one with the sharp, emphatic voice. “Guard it well. Use it well. The time is coming when Mac Dara must be challenged. He must not continue to stir the seas with his capricious hand, or spoil a realm that once was peaceful and just. No, don’t speak”—when Cathal was ready to argue—“only listen, and take heed. You are too ready to say this is not your task, you cannot do it, you will not do it. One way or another, it must be done. Without you, it cannot be done. But a quandary vexes you; we understand that. This talisman is our Queen’s token. It will protect what you hold most dear until your task is complete. Wear it around your neck on the voyage home, and the Sea People will guard your vessel from the storm.”

Cathal has taken the tiny item in his long-fingered hand, and is examining it in the moonlight. “Thank you,” he says. Nothing more.

“Come forward, Bright Heart,” says the being.

I look at Sibeal; they must mean her.

She shakes her head. “It’s you they want, Felix. Go on.” She releases my hand.

I walk down the pebbly shore, the crunch of my footsteps an intrusion in the quiet of the night. Now I am beside them, and scarce able to breathe for the strangeness of it. The being stretches out its hand again. The hand has three fingers, and is as soft and gray as the creature’s cloak. On its palm lies something that might be a shell, or a stone, or an artifact. Such is its gleam, I think the moon has lent it some of her light.

“For you,” the being says, and, inverting its hand, drops the talisman on my palm. “Not for yourself. Not for the wise one, for she has no need of it. She carries her protection within her. This is for your daughter. Use it wisely. Guard her well.”

I am unable to ask the question that fills my heart. I cannot speak a word. I close my fingers around the talisman. I bow to each of them in turn. A silent prayer fills me, a prayer made up of hope and fear and hard choices.

By the time I am sitting beside Sibeal once more, the beings are gone. They have not vanished in a puff of smoke, simply faded back into their surroundings. Cathal has taken his talisman and gone to the other end of the shore, where he sits alone on the rocks with his hands around his knees. We will not disturb him; not tonight.

“Felix?” Sibeal asks in a low voice.

“Mm?”

She does not answer. I think perhaps she is crying. “I didn’t tell you, but I saw her. Our daughter. I saw her in visions, twice. That was the cruelest thing.” The tears flow in earnest. My wise druid is, at this moment, adrift and helpless.

My throat is tight; my eyes brim. I open my hand to examine what lies there.

The talisman is like a little moon. Pearlescent, glimmering, radiant with light, it is wafer thin and hard as shell. There is a tiny hole close to the rim. A vision. Our daughter. I would thread this on a silk ribbon for her to wear around her neck. For a moment I allow myself to imagine it, as I lift her dark curls out of the way and tie the bow, and she says,
Thank you, Papa.

“Sibeal.”

She says nothing.

“Sibeal, I must tell you how I feel. I have held back; I have tried to match your self-restraint, but I cannot do that any longer. It is time to tell the truth, to speak out. Sibeal, I love you.” She bows her head as if these words set an intolerable burden on her slender shoulders, but I have begun now and I must go on. “I respect your vocation; I honor your link with the gods, your druidic wisdom. But I love you as a woman; I love you as the one woman I want to spend my life with. I love you as a tree loves rain; I love you as a flower loves the sun. Sibeal, I know your feet walk a path toward the nemetons and a celibate life.”

Gods, my heart is going like a drum; my skin is all cold sweat. Still she sits there, eyes down, hands in her lap. “I know you are convinced this is the one future the gods have determined for you. But . . . ” I draw a shaky breath. “I cannot believe there is no alternative, no way by which we could be together, you and I. I would honor, love and cherish you all my life, Sibeal. I would protect you. I would walk with you step for step, wherever you chose to go. I know in my inner heart that the two of us are meant to be together. I believe that if your gods rule otherwise, they deny an essential truth.” I pause; Sibeal lifts her head and looks at me. She is deathly pale. The moonlight shows me her bright eyes, full of tears.

“There, I have said it. I have told the truth. I want you to do the same, Sibeal, even if it breaks my heart. It hurts me to see you there, closed up within yourself, holding your feelings tight lest they disturb that druidic calm. If you think me presumptuous, if you think me misguided, tell me so. If you find my words offensive, shout at me, rail at me, strike me if you will. And if you can for a moment entertain that your future might follow a different path, one on which I might walk beside you, speak of that now. I challenge you, Sibeal. Or would you spend your whole life shut in and locked away, like the kernel of a nut that never ripens? You give much of yourself; you are full of compassion and wisdom. But if you never let that other self flourish, the one who weeps and rages and doubts, the one who once melted into my arms as if seared by the same flame as I, then you will not lead a full life, not even if you are the wisest and most devout druid in all of Erin. That is the opinion of this poet, scholar and fool who never learned how to keep his mouth shut. Please, Sibeal. Please let me hear what is in your heart.”

She gives a great, choking sob and folds her arms around me, and I gather her close.

“I’m sorry,” she says with her face against my breast. “Felix, I’m so sorry. I don’t see any way it can be. You speak as if this were easy for me, and it’s not. When I thought you were drowned, I . . . it was . . . I’ve never considered abandoning my vocation before. At that moment I was only a breath away from it.”

My heart is leaden. I hear in these words that she will not be diverted from her path. Yet her body tells me what her mind will not allow her to say, that mind so trained to control. I feel in her embrace that she wants me as I want her; that we are a perfect complement, two halves of one whole. Oh, Sibeal, let go. Let go for just a moment.

“The gods still need me,” she says. “There was Svala and the skin . . . I could not have spoken to her as I did without the gift the gods have granted me. How can I set their will aside for my own selfish ends?”

Selfish. It does not feel selfish to me, but absolutely right. Sibeal lifts her face to mine and I kiss her. Our first kiss, and likely our last. I taste salt tears and the aching delight of what might have been. And still, even now, I cannot keep silent. “Ask yourself this,” I say. “When your every breath is taken in reverence, why do your gods choose to punish you so?”

We are two nights on the serpent isle.
Liadan
is scoured clean; clothing and supplies are brought ashore and laid out to dry in the sun. Water casks are replenished from the spring. Stocks of hard bread and dried meat are checked for the voyage home. A new sea anchor is fashioned from rocks and cunningly knotted rope.

Gull tends to the three survivors. He makes me drink a potion brewed with seaweed and a brown powder that he carries in his healer’s bag. I do as I’m told. Since this vile mixture can stave off the illness that nearly killed me before, or so Gull tells me, I drink it as readily as I might the finest mead. I was given a second chance at life when Sibeal found me half drowned on Inis Eala. I fought a fight then, for Paul, for the men abandoned here. Now the mission is fulfilled, and it seems a new challenge lies before me. Perhaps I must summon the courage to live my life without her, and to live it well. But I will not accept that, not yet. Bright Heart, they called me. I am still fighting.