He was still very young that night, Alun ab Owyn. The thought that actually came to him as he recognized who was climbing—and was gazing past him at the faerie—was that nothing would ever surprise him again.
Brynn ap Hywll crested the ridge and crouched, grunting with the effort, beside Alun on the grass. The big man plucked some blades of grass, keeping silent, looking at the shimmering figure by the tree not far away.
“How do you see her?” Alun asked, softly.
Brynn rubbed the grass between his huge palms. “I was in that pool, most of a lifetime ago, lad. A night when a girl refused me and I went walking my sorrow into the wood. Did an unwise thing. Girls can make you do that, actually.”
“How did you know I …?”
“One of the men Siawn sent to report. Said you killed two Erlings, and were mazed in the pond till Ceinion took you out.”
“Does he … did Siawn …?”
“No. My man just told me that much. Didn’t understand any of it.”
“But you did?”
“I did.”
“You’ve … seen them all these years?”
“I’ve been able to. Hasn’t happened often. They avoid us. This one … is different, is often here. I think it’s the same one. I see her up here sometimes, when we’re at Brynnfell.”
“Never came up?”
Brynn looked over at him for the first time. “Afraid to,” he said, simply.
“I don’t think she’ll hurt us.”
The faerie was silent, still by the slender tree, still poised between lingering and flight, listening to them.
“She can hurt you by drawing you here,” Brynn said. “It gets hard to come back. You know the tales as well as I do. I had … tasks in the world, lad. So do you, now.”
Ceinion, down below, before: You do not have leave to go from us.
Alun looked at the other man in the darkness, thought about the burden in those words. A lifetime’s worth. “You dropped your sword, to climb up here.”
He saw Brynn smile then. A little ruefully, the big man said, “How could I let you be braver than me, lad?” He grunted again, and rose. “I’m too old and fat to crouch all night in the dark.” He stood there, bulky against the sky.
The shimmering figure by the tree moved back, another half a dozen paces.
“Iron,” she said, softly. “Still. It is … pain.”
Brynn was motionless. He’d never have heard her, Alun realized. Not ever have known the music of this voice, through all the years. Most of a lifetime ago. He wondered at someone with the will to know of this, and not speak of it, and stay away.
“But I left my …” Brynn stopped. Swore, though quietly. Reached down into his boot and pulled free the knife that was hidden there. “My sorrow,” he said. “It was not intended, spirit.” He turned away, and stepping forward strongly, hurled the blade, arcing it through the night air, all the way down the hill and over the fence into the empty yard.
A very long throw. I couldn’t have done that, Alun thought. He stared at the figure beside him: the man who’d killed the Volgan long ago, in the days when the Erlings were here every spring or summer, year after year. A harder, darker time, before Alun had been born, or Dai. But if you were slain in a small, failed raid today, you were just as dead as if it had been back then at the hands of the Volgan’s own host, weren’t you? And your soul …?
Brynn turned to him. “We should go,” he said. “We must go.”
Alun didn’t move from where he knelt on the cool grass. And your soul?
He said, “She isn’t supposed to exist, is she?”
“What man would say that?” Brynn said. “Were they fools, our ancestors who told of the faerie host? The glory and peril of them? Her kind have been here longer than we have. What the holy men teach is that they endanger our hope of Light.”
“Is that what they teach?” Alun said.
Heard his own bitterness. Dark here, in the starry night, except for the light where she was.
He turned his head again, almost against his will, looked at her, still backed away from the tree. Her hair was pale again. Since the knife had gone, he thought. She hadn’t come nearer, however. He thought of her fingers, touching him, the scent of flowers. He swallowed. He wanted to ask her again about Dai, but he did not. Kept silent.
“You know it is true, what they teach us,” said Brynn ap Hywll. He was looking at Alun, not over at the figure that stood beyond the tree, shimmering, her hair the colour now of the eastern sky before the morning sun. “You can feel it, can you not? Even here? Come down, lad. We’ll pray together. For your brother and my men, and for ourselves.”
“You can … just walk away from this?” Alun said. He was looking at the faerie, who was looking back at him, not moving, not saying a word now.
“I have to,” said the other man. “I have been doing it all my life. You will begin doing it now, for your soul’s sake, and all the things to be done.”
Alun heard something in the voice. Turned his head, looked up again. Brynn gazed back at him, steadily, a looming figure in the dark of the night. Thirty years with a sword, fighting. The things to be done. Had either of the moons been shining tonight—if the old tales told true— none of this would have happened.
Dai would still be dead, though. Among all the other dead. Brynn’s daughter had challenged him with that, driven him out of doors because there was … no answer for her, and no release from this hollowness within.
Alun turned back to the faerie. Her wide-set eyes held his. Maybe, he thought, there was a release. He drew a slow breath and let it out. He stood up.
“Watch over him,” he said. Not more than that. She would know.
She came forward a few steps, to the tree again. One hand on it, as if embracing, merging into it. Brynn turned his back and started resolutely down and Alun followed him, not looking back, knowing she was there, was watching him from the slope, from the other world.
When he reached the farmyard, Brynn had already reclaimed their swords. He handed Alun his, and his belt.
“I’ll get my knife in the morning,” ap Hywll said.
Alun shook his head. “I saw where it fell, I think.” He walked across the yard. The lanterns inside did not cast their glow this far, only lit the windows, showing where people were, the presence of life among the dying and the dead. He found the knife almost immediately, though. Carried it back to Brynn, who stood for a moment, holding it, looking at Alun.
“Your brother was our guest,” he said at length. “My sorrow is great, and for your mother and father.”
Alun nodded his head. “My father is a … hard man. I believe you know it. Our mother …”
Their mother.
Let the light of the god be yours, my child, Let it guide you through the world and home to me …
“My mother will want to die,” he said.
“We live in a hard world,” Brynn said after a moment, reaching for words. “They will surely find comfort in having a strong son yet, to take up the burdens that will fall to you now.”
Alun looked up at him in the darkness. The bulky presence. “Sometimes people … don’t take up their burdens, you know.”