Uncertain Magic (29 page)

"Hobbies," Faelan called them, but Roddy would have given the surefooted local ponies a prouder, sweeter name to match their setting. The road that skirted the wild peninsula of Iveragh between the mountains and the sea was new, but Faelan had chosen older ways, overgrown paths that wound in and out of valleys and clung to the sides of cliffs where the waves rolling in from the Atlantic echoed an eternity below. They traveled in a blowing mist, she and Faelan and one extra pack pony, a fog that made the rocks to their left no more than a mass of slightly darker gray and the pitch to their right a single step into nothing. But the ponies never faltered; they placed one hoof in front of the other, heading home, passing wild grass and furze dripping with gleaming mist in the hopes of the oats they were sure would be waiting.

It seemed to Roddy that the fog thickened with each mile, as if they were heading into the far unknown reaches of the earth, leaving life and land and frail humanity behind. She found herself oddly pleased with the notion. Somehow this atmosphere was magic, a shining cloud out of which the most fantastic of dreams might coalesce. There, if she looked hard enough, she might see the golden towers of a castle in the distance, or feel the mysterious flutter of an angel's wings. She felt, if she would only listen, that someone sang to her through the shifting prisms of sunbeams in the vapor.

Fog had only been fog in Yorkshire. It had never felt like this.

She had caught Faelan's fever, it seemed. She loved Iveragh already. Ever since they had left Dublin, this place had pulled at her, an eagerness that was physical, that had made her as impatient as her husband with the gliding trip down the Grand Canal from Dublin. The new inns along the water had been lovely and well kept, and the green and gold countryside moved past in stately beauty beneath the late-autumn sun, but it was all a transitory picture.

Something stronger called them, even though the weather, the quality of the inns, and their mode of transportation had worsened with each change. In Tullamore the canal ended, and the hired chaise could hot seem to go fast enough on the smooth, uncrowded roads. Through Roscrea, to Limerick and Castleisland, where they had abandoned Martha and chaise and baggage and mounted good Thoroughbred hunters. Even those were temporary, though, for when they had arrived at the little town of Glenbeigh in a dismal rain, Faelan had traded one hunter for three hobbies, and sold the other horse on the spot. After one night in a tiny inn where the bed smelled of mice and the chimney smoked too badly for a fire, Roddy had been happy to set out on the road to Iveragh.

She shifted in her stiff sidesaddle, careful not to throw the balance of the shaggy pony beneath her. Ahead, the mists around Faelan's dark figure were glowing red-gold with the lancing fingers of sunset. They began a rapid, sudden descent, and Roddy swayed with the sliding steps of her pony. She began to smell the sea, very close. A dog took up deep-throated singing somewhere a long way ahead.

The sunset had faded to murky evening by the time Roddy could make out the string of whitewashed houses with slate roofs through the gloom. More dogs joined the first, and the ponies broke from their wild path onto the lonely main road to a sonorous bugling that bounced off the cottages and the invisible hills.

Faelan halted before the second house. No one came out to greet them. The stone cottage was empty, its windows gaping curtainless and the roof sagging, but Roddy was aware of people all around in the others, of mild suspicion and greater curiosity. Through her gift she could interpret emotion and image clearly, but the native language added a confusing element, as if she were holding a conversation in which she could understand only every second or third word. She let the ribbons of thought roll past her without concentrating, too stiff and weary to deal with her talent, or even wonder very hard what Faelan planned to do next.

Something strange, she was certain. It was November Eve. Tonight, if he kept his word, Geoffrey's guns would somehow elude the Irish militia.

So far, she had not even seen the Irish militia. She'd seen nothing but mist and Faelan's back all day, except when they had stopped to eat and rest. He hadn't said much then, but his face and eyes had told her volumes.

Tension was there, anticipation and intensity. She closed her eyes, remembering how he'd taken her the night before, in the squalid room in Glenbeigh: fiercely and silently, deeper in himself and farther away than he had ever been, and yet demanding as if he could not taste her or feel her or pull her close enough.

He dismounted now, and walked back to where she sat, damp and tired, with her hood pulled up against the fog. From her perch on the pony, her eyes were just on a level with his. She could see the dew that clung to his heavy lashes, while his eyes seemed to take on the color of the coming night.

"Wait here," he said. He looked at her a moment, and then suddenly reached out and slid his hand roughly behind her neck, drawing her against him for a long and heady kiss. He stood back, and a hint of the wolf-grin touched his lips. "That should give them something to talk about." He caressed her cheek lightly. "Keep your face down, little girl, and don't pull back your hood."

So she sat, while he disappeared into the house. A moment later he was back and they started off again, this time with a little more force applied to the round, patient ponies, who thought it was high time to put an end to the day.

It was full dark, but the mist was already luminous with the promise of a harvest moon. The ponies plodded on down the road between the wet gleam of slate shoulders, until Roddy felt the sudden, agitated touch of a human mind. A few moments later she sensed horses, at the same time the ponies pricked their ears. Her mount raised its head with a little huffing whinny.

The answer was shrill and far away. The distance surprised her. After London and Dublin and populous places, in this deserted land her talent seemed far more sensitive than she recalled.

The ponies went along a little faster then. Faelan turned off the road at some landmark Roddy could not fathom, and led the way down a steep gully where the moonglow did not follow. She clung to her saddle as the pony stumbled and felt its way by sound and smell, nose to tail behind the others.

The man they approached was nervous. His unease had increased since he'd heard them coming, which made the horses he tended restless. Vague pictures, ghoulish and creeping, insinuated his braver thoughts. He kept repeating an Irish word to himself, and Roddy finally matched it with an image of a half crown—the tie that kept him to his post in spite of growing panic.

Faelan said something, very soft, and suddenly her pony ran into the one ahead and stumbled to a halt. Roddy waited, puzzled, sure that the man and his horses must be very near now. It seemed that she could hear the muffled beat of agitated hooves ahead.

They stood there for a full minute in utter silence. And then a howl rent the night—a sudden, inhuman peel of sound that made the ponies shy and Roddy gasp and clutch the saddle and the reins and anything else she could reach as her heart leaped into her throat and stuck there in pounding terror. The sound had come from just in front of them; it couldn't have been a foot from Faelan, she was sure. But just as she was opening her mouth to call out to him and hauling her pony around to flee, he hissed a sharp order that halted her, more from its tone than from the unintelligible words.

The truth struck her at the same moment that she realized the man ahead had lost his battle with his wits and fled.
Faelan
had made that sound, Faelan himself, and now he was on the ground and striding toward her, half dragging her off her mount. "Help me," he ordered near her ear. "Calm the horses—can you?"

He was already stripping the pack pony; he took her wrist and pulled her past the frightened native animals toward the sound of thumping hooves. Silver-white shapes swam into view: the other horses, locked in the traces of a bulky carriage and threatening to kick free in their panic.

Without having to think, Roddy began to sing. It was as if the music came to her from the misty air, a strange sensation she had no time to contemplate as she eased up to the frantic beasts. Their ears pricked toward her; the one in the lead which had been trying to rear settled down with a suddenness that was eerie. Roddy moved toward it, took its shining white head between her hands, and felt the soft muzzle against her cheek. The song drained out of her, and a moment later she could not even remember what she had sung.

Faelan's laugh behind her made her turn. "You're home now, little
sidhe
," he said. There was exultation in his voice. She heard him come up to her shoulder and felt something soft pressed into her hands. "Put that on, and get inside. Hurry, or we shan't be in time for our ball."

The thing in her hands seemed to have a luminosity of its own; she held it closer to her eyes and saw that it was made of silver thread that caught the moonlight and held it as the mist did. A veil. It draped open into a full-length mantle, a clinging sheen of light.

She heard the creak as Faelan mounted into the driver's box and hurriedly yanked off her cloak and hood. Beneath it, the white gown that Faelan had insisted she wear that morning took on a new significance. With the silver mantle over her shoulders and her hair freed from the hood, she felt like a sliver of moonlight herself.

She thought suddenly—giddily—that she would like to dance, but the horses were backing and reversing under her husband's hands. With a small cry, she ran for the door of the carriage and scrambled inside.

Cobwebs engulfed her hair, and she almost jumped back out again. She lost her chance when the carriage moved forward into jolting motion, and she fell against the seat, coughing on the sudden cloud of mildew and dust that rose up around her.

She clawed at the sticky web in her hair, bringing curls all down in a tumble around her face. The night wind blew in the open windows, tangling the golden mass further, but at least it carried the cobwebs away and cleared the mildew from the air. A strange excitement filled her; she grasped the windowsill and put her face to the rough breeze, watching the dark shapes of trees race by. The coach came up out of the gully and topped a rise. The trees disappeared, and the fog began to break, so that the carriage seemed to fly above a landscape made of light and shadow.

Far too soon for Roddy, the vehicle began to slow. Outside, the mist had gone to moving clouds. She could see the mountains now, huge and black, with the rolling bogs spread out at their feet. A deep night scent rose from the low places, and in the darker crevices, pale blue light hung like wispy lanterns of imagination.

Beyond the bogs an incandescent sheet of silver lay, and more mountains beyond that: the sea, and distant, mysterious lands, islands and brooding hills where clouds ran like fleeting, silent stags.

The carriage rattled to a stop. Roddy peered out. A stranger stood on the road, an old man in an ancient footman's uniform, looking up at Faelan with a toothless grin.

"Senach." Faelan's voice blew to her on the breeze, soft, half laughing and affectionate. "God's blessing on you. Will you drive Finvarra and his lady?"

In the moment before the old man spoke, Roddy realized that her talent had deserted her. She frowned, focused, and found the old man as mysterious to her as her husband. But Senach's obscurity was not like Faelan's; not a blank wall, but a well of nothing that seemed to drag her in. Even the minds of the skittish horses had disappeared into that infinite depth. The more she tried to concentrate her talent, the more she felt the pull. Her fingers clutched at the window frame, her thumbs digging into the moldering upholstery that hung in fat tatters from the door.

"I'll be greetin' Finvarra's lady first," Senach said, in the melodic English of the countryside.

He turned his eyes toward the carriage door. Roddy had no idea who Finvarra was, but she had a strong impression that she was the lady in question. She took a nervous breath, remembering Faelan's gentle greeting, and tried to convince herself there was nothing to fear in this strange old man who wore servant's clothes and held himself like a royal prince. She fumbled for the door handle, and let herself slowly down.

She stood just outside the carriage, with the wind lifting her hair and the mantle into a shimmering fall of light. The horses were still; not the stamp of a foot, or the jingle of harness. Only the wind, faint and playful, that blew their white tails as it blew through her hair.

She found herself moving, a few steps that took her near the old man.

Senach touched her face with his fingertips, lightly, so lightly that the touch, too, might have been the wind. His eyes were pale, like Faelan's, but emptier. Sightless. She stared into them, and it was like looking into the depths of a bottomless lake. There was fear for a moment, the dizzy sensation of falling, and then he smiled, with a smile that took her up like a dreaming mother's arms; like a lullaby, soft and safe.

"Lassar," he said, and turned her toward the carriage with his spidery touch. "God bless. I'll carry ye safe home."

Faelan came down from the box, leaving the horses as if they were stone statues. He opened the door for her, and climbed in after. As Roddy settled gingerly back in the musty seat, he drew the silver veil through his fingers. "Lassar he's named you." Faelan's touch was warmer, firmer than the old man's. "
Flame
. I like that."

"He's blind," Roddy said.

In the dark, Faelan's lips in her hair felt like swallow's wings. "Do you think so?" he asked complacently. "I've never been certain."

The carriage moved into a smooth, forward rock. Roddy clutched at Faelan's hand. "But he's driving!"

"He knows the way."

"Faelan!"

His arms came around her, restraining her plunge for the door. "Ho there, little
sidhe—
we're safe enough with Senach. Haven't you recognized a kindred spirit?"

She stiffened in his embrace. Her voice came out a little shrilly. "I don't know what you could possibly mean. I've never tried to drive a coach-and-four blindfolded, I'll tell you!"