He broke through, the horse thrashing into open space, saw water, a pool in the wood, the other rider going around it to the south. Alun roared wordlessly; galloped the Erling horse into the shallow water, splashing through at an angle to shorten the way, cut off the other man.
He was almost thrown over the animal’s head as it halted, stiff-legged.
It reared straight back up, neighing, clawing at the air in terror, and then it came down and did not move at all, as if anchored so firmly it might never stir again.
The entirely unexpected will elicit very different responses in people, and the sudden intrusion of the numinous—the vision utterly outside one’s range of experience—will exaggerate this, of course. One person will be terrified into denial, another will shiver in delight at a making manifest of dreams held close for a lifetime. A third might assume himself intoxicated or bewitched. Those who ground their lives in a firm set of beliefs about the nature of the world are particularly vulnerable to such moments, though not without exception.
Someone who—like Owyn’s younger son that night— had already had his life broken into shards, who was exposed and raw as a wound, might be said to have been ready for confirmation that he’d never properly understood the world. We are not constant, in our lives, or our responses to our lives. There are moments when this becomes clear.
Alun’s foot came out of one stirrup when the horse reared. He clutched at the animal’s neck, fought to stay in the saddle, barely did so as the hooves splashed down hard. His sword fell into the shallow water. He swore again, tried to make the horse move, could not. He heard music. Turned his head.
Saw a growing, inexplicable presence of light, pale as moonrise, but there were no moons tonight. Then, as the music grew louder, approaching, Alun ab Owyn saw what was passing by him, walking and riding on the surface of that water, in bright procession, the light a shimmering, around them and in them. And everything about the night and the world changed then, was silvered, because they were faeries and he could see them.
He closed his eyes, opened them again. They were still there. His heart was pounding, as if trying to break free of his breast. He was trammelled, entangled as in nets, between the desperate need to flee from the unholy Jad-cursed demons these must be—by all the teachings of his faith—and the impulse to dismount and kneel in the water of this starlit pool before the very tall, slender figure he saw on an open litter, borne in the midst of the dancing of them all, with her pale garments and nearly white skin and her hair that kept changing its colour in the silvered light that grew brighter as they passed, the music louder now, wild as his heart’s beating. There was a constriction in his chest, he had to remind himself to breathe.
If these were evil spirits, iron would keep them at bay, so the old tales promised. He’d dropped his sword in the water. It occurred to him that he ought to make the sign of the sun disk, and with that thought he realized that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t move. His hands on the horse’s reins, the horse rooted in the shallows of the pool, the two of them breathing statues watching what was passing by. And in that growing, spirit-shaped brightness in the depths of a moonless wood at night, Alun saw— for the first time— that the saddle cloth of the Erling horse he rode bore the pagan hammer symbol of Ingavin.
And then, looking at that queen again—for who else could this possibly be, borne across still waters, shining, beautiful as hope or memory?—Alun saw someone next to her, riding a small, high-stepping mare with bells and bright ribbons in its mane, and there came a harder pounding, like a killing hammer against his wounded heart.
He opened his mouth—he could do that—and he began to shout against the music, struggling more and more wildly to move arms or legs, to dismount, to go there. He was unable to do anything at all, couldn’t stir from where he and the horse were rooted, as his brother rode past him, changed utterly and not changed at all, dead in the farmyard below them, and riding across night waters here, not seeing Alun, or hearing him, one hand extended, and claimed, laced in the long white fingers of the faerie queen.
SIAWN AND HIS MEN knew exactly where they were going, heading up the slope. They also had torches. Ceinion, though he preferred to walk, had been riding all his life. They came to the place where the trail from the ridge met the path, stopped there, the horses stamping. The cleric, though much the oldest, was the first to hear sounds. Pointed into the woods. Siawn led them there, cutting a little north of where Alun had tried to force his way through. There were nine of them. The other young Cadyri, Gryffeth ap Ludh, had joined them, fighting sorrow. They found the two dead Erlings and a dying one almost immediately.
Siawn leaned over in his saddle and killed the wounded man with his sword. He’d needed to do that, Ceinion thought: Brynn’s captain had come into the yard too late, after the fighting was done. The cleric said nothing. There were teachings against this, but this wood tonight was not the place for them.
By the light of their smoking torches they saw signs of passage through the far side of that small glade. They went straight through and out the other side, and so came to the wider clearing, the pool of water under stars. Stopped then, all of them, without words. It became very quiet, even the horses.
The man next to Ceinion made the sign of the sun disk. The cleric, a little belatedly, did the same. Pools in the wood, wells, oak groves, mounds … the half-world. The pagan places that had once been holy before the Cyngael had come to Jad, or the god had come to them in their valleys and hills.
These forest pools were his enemies, and Ceinion knew it. The first clerics, arriving from Batiara and Ferrieres, had chanted stern invocations, reading from the liturgy beside such waters as this, casting out all presence of false spirits and old magics. Or trying to. People might kneel today in stone chapels of the god and go straight from them to seek their future from a wise woman using mouse bones, or drop an offering in a well. Or into a pool by moonlight, or under stars.
“Let’s go,” Ceinion said. “This is just water, just a wood.”
“No it isn’t, my lord,” said the man beside him, respectfully but firmly. The one who had made the sign. “He’s here. Look.” And only then did Ceinion see the boy on his horse, motionless in the water, and understand.
“Dear Jad!” said one of the others. “He went into the pool.”
“No moons,” said another. “A moonless night—look at him.”
“Do you hear music?” said Siawn abruptly. “Listen!”
“We do not,” said Ceinion of Llywerth, fiercely, his heart beating fast now.
“Look at him,” Siawn repeated. “He’s trapped. Can’t even move!” The horses were restive now, agitated by their riders, or by something else, tossing their heads.
“Of course he can move,” said the cleric, and swung down from his mount and went forward, striding hard, a man used to woods and nights and swift, decisive movement.
“No!” cried a voice from behind him. “My lord, do not—”
That he ignored. There were souls here, to save and defend. His entrusted task for so long. He heard an owl cry, hunting. A normal sound, proper in a night wood. Part of the order of things. Men feared the unknown, and so the dark. Jad was Light in his being, an answer to demons and spirits, shelter for his children.
He spoke a swift prayer and went straight into the pool, splashing through the shallows, calling the young prince’s name. The boy didn’t even turn his head. Ceinion came up beside him, and in the darkness he saw that Alun ab Owyn’s mouth was wide open, as though he was trying to speak—or shout. He caught his breath.