The Firehills (10 page)

Her mother would go crazy. She felt sick when she thought
of how mad her mother would be. But then she thought of Amergin and Sam and of
how she had encouraged Sam to set off on his rescue mission. Her mind was made
up. She jumped off the bed and ran over to the window. The sun was setting off
along the coast, its light glinting on the sea far below. Charly threw open the
window and breathed in the salt tang of the air. Closing her eyes, she
concentrated on a shape. It was becoming easier with every attempt. Moments
later, a seagull flicked its white wings and headed into the east.

The sixty-five ships of the Milesians rode the swell off
the coast of the new land, their tattered sails furled now. Amergin stood in
the prow of the leading ship, one foot braced against the gunwale, and looked
out over the expanse of green. As his eyes took in the rolling hills where the
cloud shadows raced, his heart felt as though it would burst with joy. A song
came to him—

Amergin. I know you can hear me.

An insistent pressure pushed against the edges of his
mind.
Go away,
he thought,
this land is ours.
Amergin. Stop it,
now. You’re wasting your time.
Again, the pressure, making colored
lights dance behind his eyes. And then a searing pain that brought him gasping
into consciousness.

That’s better,
said the
Lady Una.
You can’t hide in your
memories forever.

“My lady,” croaked the wizard. He had neither eaten
nor drunk for many hours now, perhaps days. It was impossible to tell in the
darkness of the cavern. He peered down at the ghostly oval of Una’s face,
floating in the gloom below him. He was suspended in midair, far above the
floor of the chamber, by a webwork of pale blue energy that
crawled and writhed over his skin. His arms and legs were flung wide, and the
pain in his joints was becoming unbearable. He was kept aloft by the will of a
circle of faeries, crouched around the perimeter of the cave. They worked in
shifts. Whenever one of the circle grew tired of their mental efforts, that one
would be replaced.

“Amergin, my dear,” said the Lady Una, using
conventional speech rather than her mind, “your defenses are weakening; I can
feel it. But you could end the pain now, so very easily. Simply tell us what we
want to know.” She sat on the ground beneath him, knees tucked up beneath her
chin, and smiled sweetly. “What—or who—is this force that opposes us? And
how can we overcome it, to claim the power of the Malifex?”

But Amergin had gone. In his mind, he was splashing
through the surf, side by side with Eremon and Emer Donn, up onto the shores of
Ireland.

With the setting sun at her back, Charly left the
buildings of Hastings behind her and headed out over wilder country. Wheeling
over a crumpled landscape of woods and valleys she searched, straining to find
a familiar landmark. Normally, she would have been lost, but in this body, she
could draw upon senses that would bring a bird safely from Africa to its
particular nest site each year, across a thousand miles of sea. Skimming low
over the cliffs, something came to her—a particular combination of smell,
sight, senses she couldn’t even name. Together, they cried out to her:
Here!

Here was the place she was seeking, Mrs. P.’s special
place, the Firehills, where her initiation had taken place. Tumbling from the
sky, she landed in the long shadows of the gorse bushes and resumed her human
shape. She walked farther down the hillside, toward the sound of the waves. Her
heart was thumping in her chest, but she was torn between fear and excitement.
She felt as if she was on the brink of something, something wonderful but
scary, like a roller-coaster ride. All she had to do was take the next step,
and she would be whisked away into the night, soaring and plummeting.

In an open glade of grass among the dark mounds of gorse,
she stopped. The moon had risen now, close to full, and its light cast a track
of pale gold across the sea. Charly took a deep breath.
Right,
she thought,
let’s see
what I can
really
do.
What she was about to
attempt was not strictly forbidden—Wicca had few rules beyond its Rede:
An it harm
none, do what thou wilt.
However, there were traditions, ways of doing things. And this was not
one of them. Charly had decided to carry out a ceremony called Drawing Down the
Moon. In this ceremony, the high priestess of the coven receives the spirit of
the Goddess, in effect,
becomes
the Goddess, for
the duration of the rite. Since Charly was neither a high priestess nor
currently part of a coven, this was unusual to say the least and not without
risks. But to rescue Sam she needed power, and this was the fastest way she
could think of to obtain it. The ritual was clear in Charly’s mind. She had
memorized it long ago, dreaming in her bedroom of the day when she would be a
high priestess, wise and graceful, leading her coven in the ways of the Craft. However, since
the ritual generally involved several people, she had to frantically edit the
words in her head.

Once she had found a formula that would work, she paused,
breathing deeply, centering herself. And then, with her arms thrown wide to the
moon, she cried out:

I invoke thee and call upon thee,

She stopped, heart pounding, eyes closed. The feeling of
standing upon a precipice grew stronger, making her head spin. Taking a deep
breath, she continued:

Hail Aradia!

From the Amalthean
horn

Pour forth thy store of love;

I lowly
bend
Before thee, I adore thee to the end,

With loving sacrifice thy shrine
adore. Um.

She stumbled. The rite called for incense, and she had none.
She would have to skip a bit.

Tum-ti-tum, spend thine ancient love,

O Mighty One, descend

To aid me, who without thee am
forlorn.

Her head was pounding in time with her heartbeat, and she
felt the sweat cool on her skin in the night breeze. She seemed to feel
everything more intensely—the movements of the tiny hairs on her upraised
arms, small scurryings in the grass, the sharp smell from the sea far below
her. She shook her head, trying to find a still point of concentration from
which to continue. One last verse, to seal the ritual, to give it its power.
Ignoring the waves of sensation sweeping over her, she made the shape of a
pentagram in the air above her and called out:

Of the
Mother darksome and divine

Mine the scourge, and mine the kiss;

The five-point star of love and
bliss

Here I charge you with this sign.

Nothing. And then a silent explosion, a detonation without
sound or force, felt only in her mind. Charly staggered and turned around. The
hillside behind her was a blaze of golden light. A flame had sprung from every
flower of the gorse, a million tiny candles burning clear and bright in the
darkness. The sweet smell of coconut was overpowering. She gasped, her face
bathed in the yellow radiance as the Firehills poured their tribute into the
night sky. Moving her head to take in the spectacle, Charly found that her
vision was blurred. No, not blurred—doubled—as if everything she saw bore
an overlay, another layer of meaning drawn across the everyday world like a
veil. Nothing was clear or familiar anymore. Turning back, it seemed as if the
sea had retreated, for she was now some distance from the shore. A tumbled expanse of rough grass
and blazing gorse ran down to a cliff edge, beyond which she could hear the
relentless boom and hiss of the waves. Sensing some presence, she spun around.
Behind her was a steep slope. The blazing flowers of the gorse were still
there, but another landscape lay over them, older, darker. High up on the
skyline, a fire was burning, a plume of sparks streaming away on the steady
wind from the sea.
A beacon,
she thought,
the Firehills!

Charly could hear music, rhythmic drums and the chanting
of human voices. The sense of doubled vision made it hard to focus, but she
seemed to see a figure moving toward her, picking its way between the dark
backs of the gorse bushes.

Charly closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to
clear her head. When she opened them again, the figure was much closer—a
young woman, tall and darkhaired. She was dressed in the clothes of a woodsman
or hunter, linen and leather, earth colors, and the light of the moon seemed to
cling to her as she walked.

The sensation Charly had before, of heightened senses, was
overwhelming now. She heard, felt, saw everything so clearly. A smell of wood
smoke from the beacon on the hill, though the wind was blowing away from her.
Again, she felt the tiny stirrings of the fine hairs on her arms. She felt the
pounding of the distant drums through her feet as much as she heard them.

“Daughter,” said a voice.

“Now then, young Sam,” said Wayland, “finish up yer
snap and let’s set to.” The huge smith was bustling around his workshop,
gathering together various items. Sam stuffed the last of the bread and cheese
in his mouth and stood up, dusting the flour from his hands and clothes.

“I’d make ’ee a sword,” continued Wayland, “but
it’d be awkerd for ’ee ter swing about, bein’ a little ’un. Besides, ’tis the virtue of the iron’s the thing, not the size
o’ the blade. Can’t stand any touch o’ the stuff, the Faery Folk. No,
we’ll make ’ee somethin’ more suited to yer size.”

He brought forth from the recesses of the room a dull,
grayish bar of metal, a little shorter than Sam’s forearm.

“Aye, this’ll do,” he said, eyeing the metal
thoughtfully. “I ’ad a mind ter make summat special wi’ this. A day and
a night I worked on this”—he waved the bar at Sam—“’eatin’ it over charcoal, drawin’ it out,
foldin’ it, ’eatin’ again. Takes up some o’ the goodness o’ the coal, see? Stops it bein’ brittle. Aye, this’ll do just right.”

He took the length of metal over to the great open hearth,
where charcoal was glowing gently in the gloom.

“Your job, lad,” said Wayland, “is ter tackle to
with the bellows.” He gestured toward a contraption of wood and leather
beside the hearth.

Sam made his way over to where the smith indicated and was
hit by a wave of intense heat. Squatting down, he grasped a sweat-polished
wooden handle and gave it an experimental tug. As it moved downward, there was
a deep
whoosh,
and the charcoal in the hearth
glowed yellow. Sparks rushed upward, and the heat almost knocked him over
backward.

“Right, lad,” said Wayland, “just keep it up.”

Sam raised the handle and brought it down once more and
again. The charcoal flared, the air shimmered, and Sam settled into the rhythm.

Using a pair of tongs, Wayland placed the length of iron
in the fire, at its very heart where the coals glowed almost white. He turned
it from time to time, studying it closely, until it too began to glow. When he
was satisfied with its color, he took it over to a great anvil mounted on a
block of wood and began to hammer. Working along the edges, always in the same
direction, Wayland began to draw the blade out, creating a taper from hilt to
tip. From time to time, he returned the metal to the fire and waited until the
cherry glow returned.

The sweat began to drip from Sam, running down his nose,
and he was grateful when Wayland returned the blade to the anvil, so that he
could rest his aching arms. The heat and the clangor of the smith’s hammer
made the air pulsate. And so the hours passed: Wayland intent on his work, his
face screwed up in concentration in the ruddy glow of the coals, while Sam
alternated between intense activity and periods of boredom. He crouched in the
half-light, his hair plastered to his head with sweat as the smith performed
his craft.

Occasionally, Wayland would heat the steel to a fierce
glow, urging Sam to greater efforts, and then leave it to cool.

“Let it rest awhile, lad. And us, too. Reckon we’ve
earned it.”

As they rested, Wayland explained to Sam the magic of the
bladesmith’s trade, how the properties of iron varied according to its
composition and the way it was heated, and how the rate at which the iron cooled also affected
its quality. An ideal blade, he explained, should be hard enough to keep a
sharp edge and yet not so hard that it became brittle and shattered. But it
also should be flexible, but not too flexible or it would buckle or lose its
edge. And the only way to judge was by experience—by the feel and look of the
metal as it heated and cooled, by the way it responded to the hammer.

Then they returned to their labors. Sam toiled away at the
bellows handle as Wayland reheated the blade and took it back to the anvil, the
sparks leaping as he smote it with his hammer. In the long, hot darkness, the
blade took shape—its final outline slender and smoothly tapered, with a metal
rod at one end to take the hilt and pommel.

“Time to anneal it,” said the smith and placed the
metal back in the flames. When it was glowing from end to end, he removed it,
wrapped it in pieces of sacking smeared with wet clay, and laid in the embers
of the fire.

“We’ll leave ’un there. Come back in the
mornin’.”

Charly looked up. “Who are you?” she asked. In the
years that followed, she rarely spoke of this night, and it was largely because
she could never find the words to describe the young woman who stood before
her. She was beautiful, more beautiful than anyone Charly had ever seen or
heard of. Her skin seemed to glow as if lit from within. Her hair was dark
brown and worn in braids, pulled back and gathered behind her head by a bronze
pin. She bore a raven on her shoulder. It gazed at Charly along its bristly beak, head on one side, and uttered a low
croak. But it was the woman’s eyes . . . Charly could never find the words to
describe her eyes. They drew her in, the irises of green and hazel spiraling
inward to pupils of blackest night. And there, in that darkness, the stars.