The Light-Bearer's Daughter (38 page)

“Ah, you would know this, being once mortal yourself.”

Honor sighed. “Puberty. I’m beginning to forget things, but I do remember
that
. What a nightmare.”

“She is happy when she is here,” Edane pointed out.

A slight frown crossed Honor’s face. “That’s what we need to talk about, dear heart. I fear Dana is using Faerie to escape reality.”

“And what better place to do it!” Edane agreed. “How fortunate she is that she may claim her inheritance.”

Honor hesitated. She would have to tread carefully. She knew that what she had to say went against the grain, the fairy perspective.

“I’m worried, Edane, that coming here so often is not good for Dana. It makes it hard for her to live in the world where she was born.”

“She is of my blood and my world too,” the other responded. “She is doubly in exile now that she lives
i n-ailithre
. She longs to return home. Both to Ireland and Faerie.”

“Life is a journey through a foreign land,” Honor said softly. Like a shining mantle, the wisdom that came with her sovereignty settled over her. “All are exiled from their true Home and ever travel towards it.”

In the sky, the fairy constellations had begun their evening dance, pirouetting across the heavens in a grand ballet.

The High Queen linked arms with Edane as they crossed a wide sea, treading the path of moonlight that bridged the water.

Honor’s voice was low and musical. “Because you are
spéirbhean
, full silver-blooded, you cannot know how these visits weaken your daughter. The High King and I are very concerned. She comes here to avoid her troubles. She is running away. And even as each act of bravery builds our store of courage, so too does each act of cowardice diminish us. It is important that Dana be strong in both worlds.”

Edane was trying to listen, but the sky distracted her. A spiral galaxy had wheeled into view, trailing lines of stars behind it. Holding onto the stars, as if onto reins, were two of her sisters. Sky-women also, they rode the lunar wind across the dark sward of night.

As soon as they spied Edane, the sisters waved wildly.

Honor could see that she had lost her companion’s attention. A frustrating part of dealing with the Fey Folk! Notoriously flighty, they couldn’t hold the moment, especially if it were a serious one. Only the High King could maintain any gravity for long. Edane was worse than most as she was not of the earth but a Light-Bearer, who fell from the sky. Totally airy-fairy.

Yet Honor had to get her message through. Someone had to influence Dana, to make her see sense. Honor herself had once been a good friend to the girl, but Dana avoided her now. The one time the High Queen had approached her directly, Dana turned sullen, as only a teenager can. She was obviously angry about something. The trials of growing up? The move to Canada which Honor had endorsed? Somehow, somewhere, Dana had taken a wrong turn, gone down the wrong road, and it was not good, not good at all. Her time was coming and she wasn’t ready.

“All the portents are strong,” Honor said to Edane, her voice more insistent now. “Soon a great blow will be struck against Faerie. Worse than any in the past. We are unable to see how or from where it will come, but we do know this: Dana is the key to our salvation. Her destiny calls.”

Honor was wasting her time.

Steering their starry chariot downward, the sky-women reached out for their sister with elegant arms.

“I must away!” cried Edane.

Corybantic laughter filled the air. The sky-women reached out for Honor, too, but she shook her head. However tempting, she didn’t need a mad dash through the cosmos right now. Ruefully she watched as Edane disappeared into the folds of night, along with any hope of convincing her to guide Dana. The High Queen was running out of options.

Stepping off the moonlit path, Honor headed west across the waters of the fairy sea. She walked through the night and the next day and the next, toward the land where the sun never set. It was an arduous journey because of the doubt that weighed upon her. A threat shadowed the Realm, nameless and terrible. She had to do something. A course of action had suggested itself to her, but was it the right one? How could she know?

As the light grew brighter, the sea grew warmer. Soft winds breathed the sweet scent of lotus. On the edge of the horizon hung the great golden orb of Faerie’s sun. Honor could see the fiery plains where drakes and salamanders basked like red jewels. Golden peaks spilled hot lava. Solar winds ruffled her hair. She did not have to journey to that burning country, but the place she sought was near.

The small island floated on the waves, no more than a grassy hillock with a single tall tree. The tree appeared to be in blossom, with a profusion of white flowers, but as Honor drew near she saw the truth. The branches bore neither fruit nor flower, but a great flock of birds. Heads tucked under their wings, fast asleep, they were hushed and pure white like a fall of new snow.

The soul-birds of Faerie
.

Honor knew that what she was contemplating was an unimaginable risk. To waken the soul-birds was to waken Old Magic, an ancient and mysterious force that existed before the worlds came into being, before the great divide of good and evil. There was no telling what might happen if she woke that power. It was unpredictable. It could not be controlled. The only thing she knew for certain was that it guaranteed change.

And things
had
to change. So much was wrong and bound to get worse. All the prophecies and predictions were clear: Faerie’s doom was upon them. It was Dana’s destiny to counter this doom, but she was too weak for the mission. Honor could see that even if her beloved husband, the High King, could not.

“The rescue of Fairyland is a mortal task,” he kept assuring his wife. “Since the two worlds met, it has always been this way. It is humanity’s charge to fight our battles. They have never let us down.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” she had argued.

And that was another exasperating thing about the fairies. Their absolute faith in tradition. No one even considered the possibility that humans could fail and the unthinkable could happen: that the Earthworld could lose its hopes and dreams and Faerie, its very existence.

Compounding Honor’s doubts and fears was the fact that her own twin sister had refused to help. Laurel’s rejection of Faerie was a wound that cut deep, further convincing Honor that the tide was against them.

The High Queen of Faerie stood at the foot of the tree and gazed at the white birds above her. Having failed to sway Laurel or Dana or even her husband, she was compelled to act alone. A rustling in the branches overhead told her that the birds sensed her presence; but though the feathery bodies quivered, they remained asleep.

Despite her determination, Honor felt the tremor in her soul. Did she dare such a thing? To tamper with Old Magic?

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she muttered to herself.

Before she could change her mind, she raised her arms and cried out in full voice.

“Sleepers awake!”

Her cry had the same effect as the report of a shotgun. With an explosion of sound, the birds rose in a frenzy. The sky throbbed with the white swell that banked above her. An arabesque of sibilant flight. For one pure second of eternity, the birds hovered in the air, brooding over her with
ah! bright wings
. Then, in a whirr of wings and wind, they were gone.

Honor stared at the empty tree, the barren branches, the sky without birds. The deed was done. Only time would tell if it had helped or harmed.

¹
Note: this is Old Irish, older than Latin is to modern Italian. As the language has changed and developed over thousands of years, no one knows for certain how it was pronounced!

²
Verse from “An Phóg” (“The Kiss”), Irish and English by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, from her CD
Ailleacht
(Beauty), Gael Linn CEFCD 187, used with the kind permission of the singer/songwriter.

³
From “Suantraí dá Mhac Tarbhartha,” by Eoghan Rua Ó Suileabháin, c. 1748—1784,
An Leabhair Mór
, (
The Great Book of Gaelic
) (Canongate Books, 2002). Translation by O.R. Melling.

⁴
Verses from “Cara Caoin” (“Beloved Friend”), Irish and English by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, from her CD
Ailleacht
(
Beauty
), Gael Linn CEFCD 187, used with the kind permission of the singer/songwriter.

⁵
Verse from “Gleann na nDeor,” (“Valley of Tears”), Irish and English by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, from her CD
Ailleacht
(
Beauty
), Gael Linn CEFCD 187, used with the kind permission of the singer/songwriter.

⁶
Verse from
“
An Leannán” (“The Beloved”), Irish and English by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, from her CD
Ailleacht
(
Beauty
), Gael Linn CEFCD 187, used with the kind permission of the singer/songwriter.

⁷
Frank McDonald and James Nix,
Chaos at the Crossroads
, Gandon Press.

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