The Tree of Swords and Jewels

THREE Arafel

She came—not without hesitation, for it was a harder journey than once. The mists had grown thicker between her Eald-that-was and the world of Men. She had delayed at the last, beneath the pale silvery trees, among the elvish treasures which glistened with soft brilliance under the wan, strange sun of her day; she had chosen certain things to take with her, and put on light elvish garments which she had worn for festival—oh, very long ago, when there were songs among the elves. She went tonight in trust, as she would not have gone for any Man but one, and so she came weaponless except for the lightest of daggers; and uncloaked, which was mere thought lessness: for they were friends.

So she arrived in the upper hall of Caer Wiell—was there upon the instant, striding out of the mists into a place she knew; and blinked at the glare and half-faded away again in alarm.

There were fires before her like a row of perilous flowers. Metal glinted. Her every instinct cried away. But there was Ciaran holding out his hand to her: there was Branwyn, less her friend, but not treacherous, who stared at her with wide and anxious eyes. And the fires were candle flames and torches; the metal was the glitter of silver plates and cups and the finery of her hosts. The place smelled of closeness and Men and fire and food and dying flowers and cut boughs. She stayed, dismayed as she was by the flames.

For it was honor they wished to do her, she saw that now. She was caught between horror and weariness and a great sorrow for them in their best that they put forward to welcome her. She had on the garments of peace for respect of an invitation: and as Men did things, they had turned this grim gray hall into a dripping of fat of slain animals, and burning fire, and slain trees, and dying branches—but silver plates, no iron which would harm her, and a blaze of light and warmth and all the best they had.

"Please," Ciaran said, and offered her first place at the table that was set "Be welcome."

She stepped all the way within the room, a guest in Caer Wiell, in this small closed hall. She looked about her and at the place that was offered. "You have surprised me," she said truthfully, and looked toward the closed doors of the place. Torches burned all along the wall, candles lit the table, and fire blazed in the hearth. The dying boughs on the table sent up a great fragrance like silent anguish.

"We will serve," said Ciaran softly. "Or I have men I trust as close as brothers and they would do that service. They know about you. They're ready to do as much if I should call, no, more than willing. Anxious. But I wasn't sure you would bear with that."

"I have never guested with Men," Arafel said doubtfully, looking at him and at Branwyn; and then with her love of this Man, a strange mood fell on her, between despair and a remembrance of what had been, of the groves alight, of harping and of dancing.

"Might there be music?" she asked in diffidence; and, wistfully, from her heart's desire: "Might I see the children here too? And then we will talk. There is afterward for talking."

Branwyn's hand crept anxiously to Ciaran's, but Ciaran's eyes shone with pride. "Call them," he said to Branwyn. "Call them down." And himself hastening to the door: "Beorc," he called out. "Come ahead—and call Leannan upstairs, and Ruadhan, and Siodhachan too."

"Muirne," Branwyn called by the other stairs, "Muirne, bring Ceallach and Meadhbh and come down!"

Arafel stood still, feeling a certain dread at this multiplication of names. Once before she had faced the prospect of this hall and so many Men. But now was now, and if the place was strange and crude with glare and death, she schooled herself to trust, stood where they wished her to be and waited, to be amazed by them as they were amazed by her.

The stairs erupted with the patter of feet: Muirne, then, that was the name, a thin, pinched woman of no definite colors; and like sunrise and sunset the boy and girl beside her—who stopped at the bottom step and stared with open mouths—for Arafel had not come as she had appeared to them before, in gray and patchwork, but in silver and elvish jewels.

Then the Men came, and foremost in honor the harper, who came with his harp in his arms and kneeled before her: Leannan was his name—and she recalled another harper of Caer Wiell in looking into his weathered face. So he would have aged. The thought appalled her and filled her with sorrow.

"I have seen you once," the harper said, "lady, when you saved Caer Wiell. I remember. I was there. I only wish I could get it clear. I tried to make a song of it. ... but it was never what I wanted."

His voice faded. He only stared, bewildering her, until gently Ciaran took his arm and moved him aside. She looked for those faces she knew. Meredydd and Evald were gone—no part of this gather ing. Gone, she realized suddenly, of course gone, as Men went: Lord Death culled more than trees, and gently—she had never felt their passing. The faces about her were all different from what she had expected. On most of them she saw the marks of age.

"Beorc," Ciaran named a tall, red-haired Man, himself graying. "Scaga's son. And Domhnull his cousin. My right hand and my left, and I value them as much. Rhys ap Dryw. Ruadhan. Siodhachan." This last was an old, old Man, the oldest of them all.

"I rode," the aged Man said, his lips trembling with the effort of speech, "after my lord Ciaran on the field that day. When you came —" His voice wobbled away to silence and tears, something very like elvish warmth, so that she was touched in spite of herself. "Yes," she said full gently, not knowing this Man and wondering what face he had once worn. She grew desperate in these changes, among these Men. She looked toward the children who stood both in Branwyn's embrace, read there other change happening with fatal swiftness.

"Will you sit?" Ciaran asked of her, reminding her, and she sank carefully into the chair that was prepared for her, before silver plates, before the perilous fires.

"May we sit at table?" Ceallach asked anxiously, and receiving his father's nod, his face lighted and he hugged his sister and his mother, while there was some stir about, of benches brought, and extra plates, and places made, all with a clatter and a rising relief.

A few tentative harp notes sounded, sweet and pure, bringing si lence and a settling quickly into places, silence even from the chil dren. So the harper played, and played well for her, light songs and merry. And then was the meal. Muirne took the serving mostly on herself, being most careful of their guest, brought Arafel wine and pressed honeyed cakes and fruits on her when she refused other food.

Arafel was doubtful, but if there was something of Men about the offering, still it was sweet in her mouth, and the wine was good if smoky and strange to her tongue. Everyone ate, in a silence so deep the noise of a cup seemed loud, and Muirne's mouselike steps seemed like echoing footfalls. Even the children were grave and very silent, but their eyes drank in everything.

"We are not wont to be so quiet," Ciaran said desperately.

"May we talk then?" Ceallach cried in his high clear voice, which caught Arafel most by surprise. She laughed, which laughter found its echo first in Meadhbh and then in Domhnull.

"Yes," Ciaran said, "we may talk."

"Perhaps," said Arafel, "the harper will give us songs to make us light."

This pleased the harper, who took up his harp again, and soon had the children clapping their hands and all but bouncing in their seats; at last even the grimmest of them laughed, red-haired Beorc. The song minded old Siodhachan of a tale, which he told well and deftly, and there was more wine, at which Arafel, feeling strange diffidence among such brevity, told a small elvish tale, dismayed when it gained only silent stares. Then: "Oh!" breathed Muirne, and everyone breathed, and she saw that they were pleased and more than pleased, their eyes shining, the harper wiping tears.

"Tell another," said Meadhbh.

It had been a moment of peace, a precious time. The young voice tempted. But, "No," Arafel said softly, for she suddenly felt the hours, saw the candles low in their sconces, heard the fall of a log in the fireplace, saw one of the torches out, its flame-bearing head hav ing showered its last cinders to the stones a while ago like stars. "No, now we must to your own affairs. Perhaps you will tell me—" She addressed herself to Ciaran "—how you have fared since last I came."

"Oh, well," said Ciaran. "The land never fails us. And my horses —my horses are surpassing fine."

"And peace. Have you that?"

There was a shifting among the Men. "The King has ordered peace," said Ciaran. "And I keep it as I can."

"Ah," she said.

"Perhaps," said Ciaran, "the children should be abed."

"No," said Arafel; and Meadhbh and Ceallach, whose faces had fallen at once, bounced in their seats and their faces glowed. "Bear with me," said Arafel to Branwyn, and wandered in her gaze to aged Siodhachan, to Muirne who had stopped in her serving. Wisps of hair had fallen about Muirne's thin face and her cheeks were flushed from her many trips this way and that with plates and servings. She had never gotten to eat. Now she had a pitcher of wine in hand and quite forgot it, heavy as it was. And Ruadhan, who was supposed to watch the door, but whom Arafel had called to table too, a Man who smiled much and forgot to smile now; and Domhnull, a handsome fair-eyed Man less than the others' years; and dark Rhys, of wise glances and quiet; and Beorc Scaga's-son, a Man much like his fa ther. "Siodhachan's years are longest backward," Arafel said, "and have their honor; and the years of Meadhbh and Ceallach are longest forward, and extend this company into times and places no one but I may see. So I speak to them as well as to the rest. So counsel taken should be in their hearing, because I cannot say when I will come back again."

Faces grew anxious all about the table, Ciaran's most of all except ing the children's, but no one spoke.

"In all the years of Caer Wiell," she said further, "the guesting has been of Men in Eald and not the Sidhe among Men. But you wake old memories tonight. You remind me of times I had almost forgot ten. The blessing of the Sidhe is on you: your step will lie light upon the leaves, your way will not easily wander in the wood, your eyes will see truth when others fail, and this for all your days. Eald will not fade for you. What you see you will see truly. This gift I give. And one more I give to Meadhbh and Ceallach—Come," she said when the children hesitated to leave their places, and they excused themselves and came to her seat at the head of the table, staring at her with eyes as wide as fawns'.

"So," she said, and opened her hand, laying what might have been a mote of light upon the table, but the light faded and there were two leaves more silver than green. "For memory," she said, "for memory that Eald is true. They come of the youngest of my trees. Keep them near you and they will never fade. You have never seen the trees as they are: I cannot bring you there. I wish I might. But they are for hope when there is no hope, and vision when there is no seeing. I have set a virtue on them of finding. And for children lately lost, this seems a right gift."

They were confused and their eyes were wider still as they took each a leaf.

"Mother," said Meadhbh, showing hers. And, "Lady," Ceallach said in a hushed voice, and looked down at his, and took it to his father to show.

"I have seen such trees," said Ciaran softly. Ceallach sat at his father's side and Ciaran put an arm about him, holding this dearest treasure time had given him very close as Branwyn held Meadhbh. Their friends and trusted folk were about them in this room, like a bulwark against the night, against shadows, against all the ills of the world. But knowledge sat in Ciaran's eyes, as if they saw the shad ows beyond the walls. "You speak of going," he said. "And you have been about some business. Is it—something I might ask?"

"Do not." She passed her finger down the side of the cup before her, and looked up as Muirne, sensing want, moved to fill it. The gesture touched her strangely, the earnestness of brown human eyes which saw only need and offered what there was, if only wine. She bent a thought on Muirne, shed a grace which had not been there as the pitcher brushed the cup she held in her hand, and thought no more of it than the flowering of some blighted tree under her hand . . . indeed her thoughts traveled on and circled and came back again to the children—to Beorc, whose eyes met hers squarely as few Men's would. He was afraid: this she saw. And loyal and terrible in a way that stretched into a dark future. A shiver came over her, and she was not accustomed to such weaknesses. She looked past him to Domhnull, whose heart was clearest; and Rhys, who had a darkness in him, but so, indeed, had elves; last to Ciaran, finding strange still the sight of this bearded, older man with a son against his side.

"I will be direct," she said. "There is trouble near you. I cannot say the nature of it: plainly, I do not know. I warned you once of balances, and things are out of balance. Meadhbh and Ceallach have chanced against the merest straying visitor to your lands; do it no harm. It does not deserve it. And there are things truly baneful. This is not your affair. But a corner of Eald has gone into shadow, and Eald is both wider and darker than it was. There are things awake that slept. I have a watch to keep and I have kept it—aye, do you understand now, Lord-of-Men? So I have watched and will watch. You are my weakness and my strength, you, Caer Wiell, this little circle of firelight in the dusk. And that dusk is gathering. The night will come. Grant there may be a dawn."

A log crashed in the fireplace. The children flinched, and Branwyn cried out. The fire leapt up and shadows danced and died. The com pany shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

"War?" asked Beorc in a hoarse, harsh voice. "Is it war you mean? Is it An Beag?"

"War." She laid a hand on the stone at her heart and for a moment it was hard to remain where she was. The place seemed insubstantial, a web of gray against the truth. And then it took shape again. "I have asked you once. Do you have peace?"

"With An Beag and Caer Damn?" Ciaran replied. "An uneasy peace, but the King rules."

She stretched out her hand toward the west, a vague reaching. "There is no brightness there."

"The King rules," Ciaran said. "He is lord in Dun na h-Eoin."

"And Caer Donn?"

"Is free."

"There is no brightness, I say, toward the west. Look to your borders."

"In Caer Donn my brother rules."

"I say what I have said. War is too simple a word."

"The King," said Branwyn suddenly, "ignores Caer Wiell. We are not favored. We are true to him, and few are, even of those who fought for him at our walls. And as for Caer Donn—"

"He is my brother," said Ciaran.

For a moment the shadow intruded, and Arafel shivered, blinking in the firelight. Again she touched the stone, and waked a harping these halls had known years ago. There was vengeance in it even yet. The Harp was broken, but the song went on. She stood up, and the company rose in confusion as Ciaran stood—as he held out a hand to her, wishing her to stay. She fought the drawing, the feeling of cold. There was a darker and darker melancholy on her and she fought it as she fought all the weapons of the shadow.

"Walk with me," she said to Ciaran, "as far as the hall outside."

He offered her his hand—confused, perhaps, for places were noth ing to her, and had never been. But the shadow-ways were dangerous and she took the human way, passed the wooden door in Ciaran's company, alone.

"Close the door," she said when they had come into the hall be fore the stairs. "What I say now is only for you to hear. But what you say to them after, that is your choosing."

He did so, the lord of Caer Wiell, and faced her again. A solitary and dying torch burned and cast shadows everywhere about, made the lines of his face deeper than they were. He looked old and worn, so fearfully worn.

"What will you?" he asked.

"You have understood more than they. You know what is loosed. And I tell you that there is shadow on Airgiod's lower reaches; and over all the hills. Trees have come back out of it, but strange and dim and not comfortable. Not comfortable. Speak truth with me: speak your heart with me—have you felt no hint of trouble? Can you come and go in this land at your ease?"

"You know that I cannot."

"I know little enough of Men. Tell me truth—why can you not?"

"They remember me. They remember what I am. If I have luck they say it is faery-gift; if I have none they call it curse. Mostly they suspect—"

"—What?"

"Ambition. That, I think. Or power." He shivered and turned half away, and looked back again with the firelight moving on his bearded face. "How can they forget? How can the King sit at board with me and forget? And my brother—"

"Fears his neighbor?"

"Fears his own heritage. We pass no messages. There is only si lence. Fear—aye. And distrust. I have had too great good fortune in Caer Wiell." He drew a breath and composed his face, shook his head, but the gnawing dread remained. "No, he would never do us harm. Donnchadh is a good man."

"But not wise."

"Is that so ill?"

"For one who sits at Caer Donn? Whose hold is named in Eald? Yes, it is ill, it is very ill. And a great many ills are abroad. I watch; I do not say I shall be enough. So I have come here. To ask your help."

"No." He shook his head. "Now I know what you mean to ask, and no."

"Keep it for me. Only keep it. And should the worst happen, should you know that there is no more defense—then you will judge what you should do. You are the only brightness, do you understand —the only. The small trouble in the Caerbourne—that is nothing, nothing against the other. Take it. I do not ask that you use it. Only that you have the choice. For your defense, for the defense of this place."

He said nothing for a moment, and she drew it from its keeping-place against her heart, the stone he had borne before, like that stone she still wore about her neck. It shone with a strange pallor beneath the torches, casting no shadows with its brightness, reflecting noth ing of the fire. It rested so in her hand and at last he put out his and took it, clenched his fist about it, and the hall seemed dark after.

"Do not walk in Eald," she said. "You must not come there. Call me if you have need, but never command; as you value your peace, do not command. Be wise, be wary."

"Arafel!— Shall I see you again—in my life—shall I see you?"

She had started to fade, to drift back to Eald. She stayed, and touched his broad scarred hand. "I have no surety," she said, but it was in her heart that this was indeed the last time. "There are hazards. Who can say? Fare well, cousin, half-elf, friend. In all things—"

The touch faded. Eald closed about her. For a moment she strove with it, reached out over all the hold, so that she seemed to embrace it, so that the strength that greened the trees was shed wide.

Scrub that had struggled in the cracks of the walls burst into sudden flower under a clouding sky.

A sickly child mended and sighed into restful sleep, smiling as she did.

The drowsing sentry clutched his spear, confused in a premature and fading dawn, or the belief that he had seen one.

Folk waked, and some wept, convinced of some wonderful dream they could not remember, or of some luck which had come on them, or simply that they were glad, and some sank deeper in sleep, feeling the world at ease.

One twisted thing resisted, and hid on the stairs where he had crept to listen; and the name of this one was Coille.

I must warn him, she thought, but fate was on her, and the thought with the power faded, like the moment's dawn at Caer Wiell. Eald took her back, a mesh woven of branch and limb, of the dark before the dawn in which even stars had less power. A tear had fallen on her cheek, and traced there a thin cold line.

"You take risks," a shadow whispered.

She turned her head in startled anger, dashed the tear from her cheek and stood straight, facing the darkness in the mist. "Godling, you have no leave to be here. Keep from them. I have warned you."

"You take risks, I say." The shadow became utterly black, a hole in the mist. A horse stamped in the fog. "I have fared along the edges. You have set something stirring. You set me to hunt the marches—but you will summon me here: no! name me no threats. I know them all. You have raised them all. But threats will not send them back. And it grows."

She shrugged and turned away. "You tell me nothing new. Try again."

Steps trod beside her in the grayness, a soft and bodiless pacing. "There is a place called Caer Donn. You would know it."

She turned again, disturbed and caring not that he saw it, her Huntsman, her Warden of the marches. "What of Caer Donn?"

"That its lord is close to the King. I have heard their counsels at Dun na h-Eoin. You should regard me. I come and go with kings. And beware Caer Donn, I say. Its history blinds you. You delude yourself. You take risks, I say, risks in which your allies have no profit and no patience."

"My allies." She drew herself up and set her hand on the small hilt at her belt. "You and your brothers have no interest in my defeat, that is the only sure thing. Let us say the truth. What have you heard at Dun na h-Eoin?"

"The counsels of kings. I have seen the lords of An Beag and Caer Damh sit with the King; I have seen Caer Donn and Caer Luel in the same company . . . and the veriest center of it is Caer Donn. Did you not know?"

"Perhaps I knew."

For a moment the shadow was silent. Something dark and hound-like crept to his side and merged with him. "You are cruel."

"So they say of the Sidhe."

"This Man, this Ciaran mac Ciaran—this brother of Donnchadh of Donn—"

"—is my affair."

"You have tangled me in bargains. Your Man has loosed this on the world. It was his doing, from the beginning, and always you have protected him. Take Donnchadh to your heart: he is no less peril ous."

"Donnchadh is beyond my reach."

"Yes. Beyond your reach. But not beyond the reach of other things. You are a fool, my lady of the trees. You are everlastingly a fool, and not alone, no longer alone. You have your enemies. And those seduced by them."

"Leave me."

"Oh my lady fool—were your own kind immune to jealousy? To ambition?"

She strode away. He followed, a flutter of darkness slipping through the mist.

"The King is weak and weakening; they poison him now with more than words. But I delay to take him. There will come the day I must. And what then—who then, but Donnchadh? Slay him, my lady: one thrust of an elvish sword—and the world is saved."

"No. Not saved. Leave me. I am weary of you."

"Of me, your messenger. Of the upstart you send to watch your borders—Oh lady fool, well if you had listened long before this. What a merry visitor has come to the Caerbourne! And I can name you others lurking here and there. Stop and listen! This Man of yours —let me have him. You cannot take Donnchadh; your reach is too short. But I could remedy matters. For fear of this Ciaran the King has taken evil counsel—For fear of what he saw on that field that day, of help you gave this Man of yours. Do you not know? There is no one in all the kingdom the King fears so much as Ciaran of Caer Wiell—no, certainly not those he ought to fear instead."

Lord Death had pricked her interest, however painfully. Again she stayed, and stopped in mortal Eald. "You know something you have to tell: you choke on it— Say it and be done!"

"I know this, while you have been interested in other things: that the King distrusted the old lord of Caer Wiell because of this Man, and others stepped in to widen the gap until there is no closing it. And worse with Donnchadh of Donn—ah, much worse. He has stirred up something. I know not what. You say you cannot touch him. But something of Eald has risen up there. It hovers about Caer Donn, skulking and vanishing and I can put no hand on it. Would that I could."

For a long moment she was silent, and the stone burned cold at her heart. "Would you had told me this at the beginning. This is no glad news."

"Come there. If Eald is there, there you can set foot. Deal with it. Let me have this troublesome lord of Caer Wiell. We may yet turn all this aside."

cheek and stood straight, facing the darkness in the mist "Godling, you have no leave to be here. Keep from them. I have warned you."

"You take risks, I say." The shadow became utterly black, a hole in the mist. A horse stamped in the fog. "I have fared along the edges. You have set something stirring. You set me to hunt the marches—but you will summon me here: no! name me no threats. I know them all. You have raised them all. But threats will not send them back. And it grows."

She shrugged and turned away. "You tell me nothing new. Try again."

Steps trod beside her in the grayness, a soft and bodiless pacing. "There is a place called Caer Donn. You would know it."

She turned again, disturbed and caring not that he saw it, her Huntsman, her Warden of the marches. "What of Caer Donn?"

"That its lord is close to the King. I have heard their counsels at Dun na h-Eoin. You should regard me. I come and go with kings. And beware Caer Donn, I say. Its history blinds you. You delude yourself. You take risks, I say, risks in which your allies have no profit and no patience."

"My allies." She drew herself up and set her hand on the small hilt at her belt. "You and your brothers have no interest in my defeat, that is the only sure thing. Let us say the truth. What have you heard at Dun na h-Eoin?"

"The counsels of kings. I have seen the lords of An Beag and Caer Damn sit with the King; I have seen Caer Donn and Caer Luel in the same company . . . and the veriest center of it is Caer Donn. Did you not know?"

"Perhaps I knew."

For a moment the shadow was silent. Something dark and hound-like crept to his side and merged with him. "You are cruel."

"So they say of the Sidhe."

"This Man, this Ciaran mac Ciaran—this brother of Donnchadh of Donn—"

"—is my affair."

"You have tangled me in bargains. Your Man has loosed this on the world. It was his doing, from the beginning, and always you have protected him. Take Donnchadh to your heart: he is no less peril ous."

"Donnchadh is beyond my reach."

"Yes. Beyond your reach. But not beyond the reach of other things. You are a fool, my lady of the trees. You are everlastingly a fool, and not alone, no longer alone. You have your enemies. And those seduced by them."

"Leave me."

"Oh my lady fool—were your own kind immune to jealousy? To ambition?"

She strode away. He followed, a flutter of darkness slipping through the mist.

"The King is weak and weakening; they poison him now with more than words. But I delay to take him. There will come the day I must. And what then—who then, but Donnchadh? Slay him, my lady: one thrust of an elvish sword—and the world is saved."

"No. Not saved. Leave me. I am weary of you."

"Of me, your messenger. Of the upstart you send to watch your borders—Oh lady fool, well if you had listened long before this. What a merry visitor has come to the Caerbourne! And I can name you others lurking here and there. Stop and listen! This Man of yours —let me have him. You cannot take Donnchadh; your reach is too short. But I could remedy matters. For fear of this Ciaran the King has taken evil counsel—For fear of what he saw on that field that day, of help you gave this Man of yours. Do you not know? There is no one in all the kingdom the King fears so much as Ciaran of Caer Wiell—no, certainly not those he ought to fear instead."

Lord Death had pricked her interest, however painfully. Again she stayed, and stopped in mortal Eald. "You know something you have to tell: you choke on it— Say it and be done!"

"I know this, while you have been interested in other things: that the King distrusted the old lord of Caer Wiell because of this Man, and others stepped in to widen the gap until there is no closing it. And worse with Donnchadh of Donn—ah, much worse. He has stirred up something. I know not what. You say you cannot touch him. But something of Eald has risen up there. It hovers about Caer Donn, skulking and vanishing and I can put no hand on it. Would that I could."

For a long moment she was silent, and the stone burned cold at her heart. "Would you had told me this at the beginning. This is no glad news."

"Come there. If Eald is there, there you can set foot. Deal with it. Let me have this troublesome lord of Caer Wiell. We may yet turn all this aside."

"No," she said, holding the stone within her hand. "No. I've no doubt your brothers urged it. But I take no counsel from you, Hunts man. None."

"Is it fear, then?" Death whispered. "Oh, you pretend to be wise— you pretend secrets. But say it: you are afraid—and you keep your life unchanged. For what? For what do you live? To watch, you said, to prevent what you yourself caused, and now you retreat and save yourself and your trees and this one favored Man—for how long, and to whose benefit but your own?"

"Spare me your venom. Tell your brothers this: that they will have felt a change in Eald and now you have told me why. Find me its name, Huntsman; find me its nature and its shape. And believe this —that my woods are wider than they were, in every direction, and I have not spent this time dreaming, no. Would that I had. Would that there were rest for me, or that I could find this thing. And keep your hand from Caer Wiell!"

"Elvish treachery!" Lord Death wailed, and caught at her sleeve, but she was gone, faded into otherwhere. "Hear me!" he called. "Arafel!"

But he had no power to use that name. He had no power over anything of the Sidhe, and in his anger he winded his horn and gathered the Hunt.

Wolves were prowling the hills again, they said in Caer Wiell; and a storm was moving in over the forest heights, sweeping in an un common direction for storms, toward the east.

But some in Caer Wiell guessed.

Arafel clasped her stone in both her hands and shut her eyes and drew on herself to find the way. It had grown that hard. When she came to the grove of silver trees, she drew an easier breath—but there were clouds across the elvish sun, and she fought them back again, until they stood over the farthest reaches of Airgiod, in shadow which constantly changed and shifted.

"Fionnghuala!" She clapped her hands, and the horse came, shak ing lightning from its mane. Arafel swung up and told it where she would go—and Fionnghuala shivered.

But the elf horse moved, if slowly. Aodhan was left behind, and whinnied after them, a forlorn sound and lonely in the shadow that began to be.