Jack of Ravens

17

‘They don’t make these like they used to.’ Church tossed the shattered sword out through the open doorway.

Tannis clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You do not know your own strength, Giantkiller. That was one of the strongest blades ever forged by my people.’

‘I need a new sword. A good one.’ Church eased out the tension in his shoulders that came from too long on horseback riding across the grasslands of southern Britain. ‘I wish I’d never agreed to give up the god-sword.’

Owein thrust a goblet of alcoholic brew into Church’s hand. ‘For now, rest, drink, make merry. There has been little of those things in recent days.’

‘We are champions,’ Branwen chimed in. ‘There must be some reward for our great deeds. The people are not grateful enough.’ She stretched out on a reed bed, nursing a sprained arm from the most recent battle, then reached out lazily and picked one of the first apples of the season from a wooden bowl beside her.

Church disagreed. They were treated with deference wherever they passed; and while hospitality to strangers was a cornerstone of Celtic society, the finest food and drink were presented to them, along with gifts of gold and jewels. By any standard, they could be fabulously wealthy.

But there was another aspect that disturbed him. Outside the door, Carn Euny was bathed in sun as it had been for most of the summer. When he had first arrived, the village had welcomed him warmly, the children calling his name and running around his feet, while the adults had invited him into their houses. But now they looked at him oddly, respectful of his position and abilities, but also treating him with faint unease. He was no longer like them. He was an outsider; an alien breed; a hero.

The others felt it, too, but it troubled Etain the most. Church had discovered her crying quietly one day. She briefly spoke of her loneliness, but then refused to talk any more because she couldn’t accept their isolation from the community.

‘Where is Etain?’ He realised he had not seen her for the last two hours.

‘Gone to recount our latest exploits to the filid,’ Owein said with a hint of drunkenness. ‘Soon there will be new songs to sing about the wonders of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’

Church slipped out to find her, enjoying the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts. Despite the sun, the air was sharp with the first chill of the approaching winter. Across the Cornish countryside the leaves were turning golden and orange, and the storms that regularly swept in off the Atlantic were growing wilder.

He met Etain walking back along the main street. Her face at rest looked unaccountably sad, but she smiled warmly when she saw him. ‘The filid has crafted the best song yet,’ she said. ‘Everyone will be in fine voice tonight.’

‘I was thinking we should spend some more time looking for that spider-thing that set the Redcaps on us.’ It wasn’t what he had meant to say, but since her expression of affection he occasionally found himself awkward around her.

Etain made a face. ‘We have found nothing since that night. I thought it was decided that another search would be pointless?’

‘Sooner or later he’s going to come looking for us again-’

‘I will talk to the others.’ Etain began walking towards the roundhouse, then paused, troubled. I feel something bad is coming.’

‘Anything more?’ In recent weeks, Etain had experienced instinctive flashes that bordered on the psychic, as if some dormant ability was slowly surfacing.

Scanning the green landscape with its gnarled, twisted trees rearing away from the wind, she hugged her arms around her. ‘Perhaps it is just the winter closing in.’ She flashed him a smile and hurried to the comfort of the hearth.

Mulling over her words, Church wandered to the edge of the village and beyond. Once the houses had disappeared behind the trees and gorse, a song drifted to him on the wind, desperately beautiful and instilling in him an unbearable yearning. He had no choice but to follow it across the rolling grasslands for almost half a mile. Finally he came to the honey-skinned woman with the incongruous pack of cards who he had met on the hilltop earlier in the summer. She stood beneath an old hawthorn, her beauty as radiant as the sun. When she saw him, her singing was replaced by an enigmatic smile.

‘You came,’ she said with faint humour.

‘Where are you from?’ Church recalled she had said her name was Niamh. ‘It’s a long walk to the next village.’

‘I have come from a place further away than you could imagine yet only a heartbeat from here.’ She surveyed Church with familiar haughtiness, then motioned to a bundle of cloth on the ground. ‘Sit. Join with me in food and drink for a while.’

Church was both irritated by her arrogance and entranced by her beauty. He sat next to her as she unwrapped the cloth to reveal a crystal decanter of water that sparkled in the autumn sun, two crystal goblets and some bread. The water was unlike any he had tasted in his life, filled with subtle, complex favours that invigorated him. The bread, too, was especially nourishing.

‘I saw you with that girl,’ Niamh said when Church had eaten and drunk his fill. ‘Are you in love?’

Church didn’t like her smile, which had an odd triumphant tinge. ‘Are you spying on me?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, unabashed. ‘I have watched you since our first encounter. You intrigue me. The Blue Fire burns strongly inside you.’

‘Maybe I should be honoured by your interest, but I’m not. You’ve obviously got a lot of time on your hands.’

‘Time is all I have. It means nothing and everything to one of the Tuatha De Danann.’

Church tried to work out if this was some game. ‘You’re saying you’re a god?’

‘We call ourselves the Golden Ones. It is the people of the tribes who named us Tuatha De Danann. We are travellers, lost in the Far Lands, unable to find our way back to our homeland. That fills us with a great sadness that we can never escape.’

Church glimpsed the briefest hint of that sadness in her face. ‘The people here think you were all driven back to T’ir n’a n’Og after you defeated the Fomorii at the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh-’

‘Driven?’ she said contemptuously. ‘Nothing could make the Golden Ones do what they did not wish. We chose to go as part of the pact. It was decided we would leave these Fixed Lands to your people, for a time at least. But many of my kind like this world and its bountiful riches, and we shall choose to visit from time to time, if it pleases us.’

‘Good to hear it. Thank you for the bread and water. Now I have to be getting back.’

‘I desire that you should return to T’ir n’a n’Og with me. See the wonders of the Far Lands. Experience sensations beyond your dreams.’

‘It’s tempting, but I think I’ll decline.’ Church’s attention was caught by what appeared to be a flash of black lightning in the vicinity of Carn Euny. It reminded him of what he had seen on the night of the storm more than three months ago, and filled him with a deep dread. ‘I have to go.’ He could smell something bitter and unpleasant on the wind.

‘You are worried about the girl?’ Niamh said. ‘And about those Fragile Creatures who took you in like a stray animal?’

Church strode down the slope. Niamh called after him, ‘Did you enjoy my food and drink, Brother of Dragons? It was not given freely. It was not given without obligation.’

Suddenly Church could not move his arms or legs. An abiding fear sprang up in him at what he had done.