The Stone of Farewell (45 page)

Concerned with her safety, Eolair also asked her where she went, suggesting that she should not go wandering in the depths again without him or some other companions. Maegwin, unmoved, would only speak mysteriously of “help from the gods,” and the “tunnels that led back into the days of the Peaceful Ones”—as much as saying that small-minded idiots like the Count of Nad Mullach should not concern themselves with things they could not understand.

Eolair thought she was going mad. He was frightened for Maegwin and her people—and also for himself. The count had watched her long slide. Lluth's mortal injury and the treacherous slaying of her brother Gwythinn had wounded something inside her, but the wound was in a place Eolair could not reach and all his best efforts seemed only to make things worse. He did not know why his attempts to help her in her sorrow should distress her so, but he understood that the king's daughter feared being pitied more than she feared death.

Unable to ease her pain, or his own hurt at the sight of her suffering, he could at least help keep her alive. But how could he do even that when the king's daughter did not want to be saved?

Today had been the worst yet. Maegwin had risen before the first gleam of dawn bled through the chink in the cavern roof, then had taken torches and ropes and a collection of other ominous things before vanishing into the tunnels. She had not returned by the end of the afternoon. After supper, Eolair—tired himself from a day's patrolling through the Circoille Woods—had set out after her. If he did not find her soon, he would return and raise a search party.

For the better part of an hour he followed the meandering tunnels downward, marking his progress on the walls, watching his torch dwindle. He had gone beyond the point where he could pretend to himself he would be able to walk all the way back in light. He was unwilling to give up, but if he waited much longer there would be two lost in the catacombs, and what benefit was that to anybody?

He stopped at last in a place where the way opened out into a rough-hewn chamber, with black tunnel mouths leading away in three more directions. He swore, realizing that the time had come to stop fooling himself. Maegwin could be anywhere; he might even have passed her. He would return to the jibes of the others, the princess back safely an hour before. Eolair smiled grimly and bound up his horsetail of black hair, which had come unbraided as he walked. Jokes would not be so bad. Better to suffer a little humiliation than ...

A thin voice whispered into the rock chamber, a trace of melody faint as an old memory.

Eolair's heart sped. He walked into the chamber's center and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Maegwin!” he cried. “Where are you, Lady? Maegwin!”

The walls boomed with echoes. When they had died he listened carefully, but there was no answering cry.

“Maegwin, it is Eolair!” he called. Again he waited for the chorus of shouting voices to quiet. This time the stillness was broken by another tenuous strand of song.

He moved his head from side to side, determining at last that the singing seemed loudest from the left-hand opening. He ducked his head through and shouted in surprise as he almost tumbled into blackness. He pushed outward at the craggy walls to steady himself, then bent to pick up the torch he had dropped, but even as he reached down, the flame sizzled and vanished. His hand felt water by the torch's haft and empty space beyond. Dancing before his blinded eyes was the last thing he had seen before the light went out, a crude but discernible image painted on black nothing. He was standing at the top of a rough stone staircase that fell away down the steep tunnel, a parade of steps that seemed to lead to the center of the world.

Blackness. Trapped in absolute darkness. Eolair felt a spasm of fear beginning and choked it off. It had been Maegwin's voice he had heard, he was nearly certain. Of course it had been! Who else would be singing old Hernystiri songs in the deeps of creation!

A quiet, childish fear of something that might hide in the dark and summon its prey with familiar voices struggled inside him. Bagba's Herd, what kind of man was he?

He touched the walls on either side. They were damp. The step below him, when he kneeled to inspect it with his fingers, was sunken in the middle; water had pooled there. At a reasonable distance below it lay another step. His probing foot found another lying a similar length below the second.

“Maegwin?” he called again, but no one was singing.

Stepping down cautiously, keeping his hands above his shoulders so he could grab at the walls, Eolair began to make his way down the coarse-hewn stairway. The last flash of light and the picture it had painted had vanished from his eyes. He strained, but could see only darkness. The noise of dripping water, running steadily from the walls on all sides, was the only sound beside his own scuffling feet.

After many cautiously negotiated steps and a drift of time that could have been hours, the stairway ended. As far as he inched his foot ahead, the ground stayed level. Eolair took a few cautious steps forward, cursing himself once more for not bringing his flints. Who would ever have guessed that this short search for a wandering princess would have turned into a struggle for life? And where was the one who had sung, whether Maegwin or some less friendly cavern-dweller?

The tunnel seemed level. He pushed on slowly, following the pathway's twists with one hand dragging on the wall and the other held before him, probing in blackness. After he had gone a few hundred paces the tunnel turned once more. To his immense relief, he found that here he could actually see something: a faint glow outlined the tunnel's interior, brighter at its turning a dozen ells ahead.

As he came around the corner, he was splashed with a strong light welling up from an opening in the tunnel wall. The stone corridor itself continued on until it bent to the right and he could see no farther, but the hole in the wall now drew all his attention. Apprehension speeding his heart more than a little, Eolair got down on his knees and stared through, starting up again with such surprise that he grazed his head on the stone. A moment later he had dangled his legs through the opening, letting himself slide off the floor of the tunnel down into the hole. He landed, bending his knees to keep from falling over, then slowly stood upright.

He was in a wide cavern whose fluted ceilings, ornate with hanging spikes of stone, seemed to waver in the light from a pair of flickering oil lamps. At the far end of the cavern stood a great door, twice as tall as a man, flush with the very face of the rock. The door joined the stone lintel as closely as if it had grown there, its mighty hinges bolted directly to the wall of the cavern. Sitting against the door in a clutter of ropes and tools was ...

“Maegwin!”
he cried, running forward, tripping on the uneven ground. The princess' head rested upon on her knees, unmoving. “Maegwin, are you...
^?
”

She raised her head as he approached. Something in her eyes caught him up short. “Princess... ?”

“I was sleeping.” She shook her head slowly and ran her hands through her sorrel hair. “Sleeping, and dreaming ...” Maegwin paused and stared at him. Her face was almost black with dirt; her eyes gleamed eerily. “Who... ?” she began, then shook her head again. “Eolair! I was having the oddest dream ... you were calling me ...”

He sprang forward, squatting at her side. She seemed to have suffered no injury. He quickly ran his hands through her hair, feeling her head for the mark of a fall.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but did not seem overly concerned. “And what are you doing
here?”

He leaned away so he could look at her face. “I must ask
you
that question, Lady. What are you doing here? Your people are sick with worry. ”

She smiled lazily. “I knew I would find it,” she said. “I knew it.”

“What are you talking about?” Eolair said angrily. “Come, we must go back. Thanks to the gods that you have lamps, otherwise we would be trapped here forever!”

“Do you mean you didn't bring a torch? Foolish Eolair! I have brought many things with me, since it is such a long way back to the upper caverns.” She gestured at her scattered tools. “I have some bread, I think. Are you hungry?”

Eolair sat back on his heels, baffled. Was this what happened when someone went irretrievably mad? The princess seemed quite happy, here in a hole far beneath the earth. What had happened to her?

“I ask you again,” he said as calmly as he could. “What are you doing here?”

Maegwin laughed. “Exploring. At least at first. It is our only hope, you know. To go deeper, that is. We must always keep going deeper, or our enemies will find us.”

Eolair let out a hiss of exasperation. “We have done as you wish already, Princess. The people have taken to the caves, as you directed. Now they wonder where the king's daughter has gone.”

“But I also knew I would find this,” she said, continuing as if Eolair had not spoken. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “The gods have not deserted us,” she said, looking around as though she feared eavesdroppers, “—for they have spoken to me in dreams. They have not deserted us.” She pointed at the great door behind them. “And neither have our old allies the Sithi—for that is what we need, do we not, Eolair? Allies?” Her eyes were fearfully bright. “I have thought about this until my head is splitting and I know I am right! Hernystir needs help in this terrible hour—and what better allies than the Sithi, who stood with us once before?! Everyone thinks the Peaceful Ones have disappeared from the earth. But they haven't! I am sure they have only
gone deeper.”

“This is more than I can stand,” Eolair said, taking her arm. “This is madness, Lady, and it tears my heart in my chest to see you so. Come. Let us go back.”

Maegwin pulled away, eyes bright with anger. “You are the one who speaks madness, Count! Go back?! I have spent more hours than I can count cutting the bolt. I had to sleep for a little when I had finished, but I have done it! It is done, and I am going to go through the door! Do not speak to me of going back!”

Eolair looked up to see that the princess spoke truthfully. The bolt, big as a man's wrist, had been chipped through. A hammer and dented chisel lay nearby.

“What is this door?” he asked suspiciously. “It is part of the old mines, surely. ”

“I told you,” she responded coldly. “It is the door to the past—the door that leads to the Peaceful Ones. To the Sithi.” As she faced him, her iron gaze seemed to soften and melt. Another emotion pushed its way to the surface, bringing confusion and longing to Maegwin's face; the Count of Nad Mullach felt a deep, helpless pang of sorrow. “Oh, Eolair,” she said, pleading now, “don't you see? We can be safe! Come, help me! Please, Eolair, I know you think I am a fool, a plainfaced horse of a woman, but you loved my father! Please, help me open the door!”

Eolair could not meet her gaze. He turned away to stare up at the great door, tears welling in his eyes. Wretched girl! What could have tormented her so? The death of a father and brother? The loss of a kingdom? Tragedies, all—but others who had suffered the same did not fall into such pitiable notions. The Sithi had been real once, certainly—real as rain and stone. But five long centuries had passed since even a rumor of the Fair Folk had made its way to Hernystir. And the idea that the gods were leading Maegwin to these long-vanished Sithi ... even Eolair, with his respect for the unknown, could still see that this was clearly the madness of her loss speaking.

He wiped his face with his sleeve. The stone facing around the door was covered with strange, intricate symbols and minutely detailed carvings of faces and figures, mostly worn down by dripping water. It was true that they were constructions of exquisite subtlety, seemingly far above even the most ambitious work of Hernystiri miners. What could this place have been? Some ancient temple, from the earliest days? Had strange rituals been performed here for Black Cuamh, away from the simple shrines of other gods that dotted the face of the land above?

Eolair took a breath and wondered if he was making a foolish decision. “I do not wish to hear you malign yourself untruthfully any longer, Princess, and I do not want to carry you back by force. If I help you open the door,” he said slowly, not daring to see the painful look of hope on her face, “will you return with me afterward?”

“Oh, yes, whatever you want!” She was childlike in her eagerness. “I will let you decide, because I know when you see the land where the Sithi still live, you will not want to hurry back to any sooty cavern. Yes!”