Haunting Warrior (43 page)

The horse balked at the tunnel entrance, but she talked in a low, soothing voice, telling it about the grassy clearing and the cool, fresh water that waited on the other side. Whether it was her steady hand as she pulled its bridle or the words she spoke, she’d never know, but somehow she convinced the horse to follow.

She worked quickly once they were through, guiding the horse to a soft place and settling Ruairi on the ground in the sheltered cove. She stripped his bloody clothes, hesitating for just a moment before plunging her hands in the cool water and rinsing the bloodied garments so she could use them for bandages. He’d been impaled through the ribs and with each breath he took, bubbles formed in the ragged wound. His shoulder had opened again and bled in a slow but steady flow. There was a knot the size of a stone on his head, and abrasions covered his face and hands. His gold-flecked lashes lay against dark circles in a grayed pallor.

There was only one bag tied to the horse’s saddle by leather straps and Saraid quickly opened it, knowing it would be empty—they’d stripped the horses when they’d set out on foot—but hoping all the same. She had nothing but the clothes they wore and the knife in Ruairi’s leather scabbard.

“I don’t know what to do, Ruairi,” she whispered, hanging her head in despair.

He was bleeding inside. She didn’t have to be a healer to know that. And the bubbling wound told her his lung had been punctured. Even Michael would not be able to mend that. What hope had she to save this man now that she’d found shelter?

None
, a voice whispered inside her.

But she refused to hear it. Refused to believe that she’d come so far only to watch him die in this way. If this was an ancient and holy place, then perhaps there was some of the olden spirit left. Perhaps.

Squaring her shoulders, she moved to the pool and stared into the smooth surface, remembering how Bain had taken her down, down, through to the other side. She was shaking as she cupped her hands, sending ripples across the water as she drank from them. The coolness slid down her throat and soothed. Still trembling despite her determination not to let her fear get the best of her, she splashed her face and neck.

A shadow fell over her and with a startled gasp, she spun. Ruairi stood behind her. Only it wasn’t Ruairi, she realized as her shock blossomed into terror. It was not the flesh-and-blood man. It was his spirit. It was his death.

“No,” she said to him. “Y’ will not die. I will not let y’ die, Ruairi. I need y’. Do y’ hear me? I love y’.”

The words stunned her, but as they settled into the serene quiet, she felt their truth. It had come like a falling star—fast and spectacular, blinding and so sudden she hadn’t even understood what it was. But from the moment she’d looked into those blue eyes and seen a man as lost and unsure as herself, a man at odds with everything he was, she’d seen the first glimmer of what was to come.

She looked away from Ruairi’s spirit, refusing to see him, and stared back into the water. A fragmented reflection of herself floated on the surface before the waters began to shift from some invisible force and become choppy and uneven. Now there were a hundred fractured images, eyes and mouths, noses and ears all disjointed and in disarray. As she stared mesmerized by the pieces of herself suspended in the depths, another face appeared in the splintered surface. A woman stood just over her shoulder. Slowly, cautiously, Saraid faced her.

For a moment it felt like an illusion, like she was still staring at her reflection. But the woman was more than that and less than that, for she wasn’t—couldn’t be real. Her hair was black, darker than Saraid’s, more blue than red, more midnight than dawn. It fell like a curtain past her bare shoulders to her waist. Her eyes were large and deep, wells of unknown framed by a thick fringe of lash and a bold line of kohl. Her cheeks were high boned, her nose a little long, but balanced over the soft curve of lip. Around her throat she wore a golden torque, like the one Ruairi had worn during the handfasting. Both of her arms were bare but adorned with thick gold bracelets that snaked around her arms all the way up to the shoulder where a gown of shiny gold fabric fastened at one side, leaving her other shoulder bare. From head to toe, she glittered and gleamed in the setting sun.

“I see you recognize me but cannot believe what you see.”

Saraid did not know how to answer and so she said nothing.

“I am Oma. I am your mother.”

Young and beautiful, how she must have been when Bain fell in love and married her. Before the babies, before her mind had gone. Before she’d called the Book of Fennore and used it to save her children.

“And I would do it again,” she told Saraid, reading her thoughts with ease. “For look at the beauty I brought into this world.”

She would do it again? Was this her message then? Did she know how to bring the Book here, to this cove, where Saraid could use it to save Ruairi’s life?

“No,” Oma said sharply. “Do not even think it. Never,
ever
think it. What it will take from you, is gone forever. You do not need the Book.
I
did not need the Book. I had the power within me, as you do child. If only I had known . . .”

“What are y’ saying?” Saraid breathed, speaking at last to this Otherworld being who was and was not her mother.

“If I had the power to do what had never been done and call the Book of Fennore from across the sea of time, then I had the power to save you myself.”

It could be truth, and the very idea of it shimmered in the air between them for a tantalizing moment. It could be truth and yet it could just as easily be wishful thinking. One thing
was
certain, though.

“I have no power,” Saraid said.

“No?” Oma gave her a sad smile and shook her head. “Did you not bring this man to you? Did he not follow you to a time that is not his own?”

Saraid felt the blood drain from her face in a rush that left her dizzy. Slowly she looked back at Ruairi, sprawled in the soft, waving grasses. Had she brought him? He’d said it was true. And yet, it could have been his other self, the Bloodletter, who’d beckoned him back. The Book had been there in those moments when Ruairi had solidified and the Bloodletter had faded. How could she even think it was she, Saraid, who’d brought him when—

“Stop,” Oma said. “Doubt has no place in what you must do.”

Saraid stared at the breathtaking vision of her mother, seeing the beauty that had bewitched her father and compelled him to take her from slavery and make her his wife. She stepped forward, seeming to glide over the ground, and reached out with an elegant hand to cup Saraid’s cheek. Colleen of the Ballagh had done the same thing, but then Saraid had felt nothing but a wished-for comfort. When Oma touched her, she felt the smooth skin of her fingers, felt the warmth of her palm and the pressure, turning her face so that she had to look into the startling darkness of her mother’s eyes.

“Did you think your only gift was to see the dead?”

“My curse,” Saraid said.

“A gift that I was not here to show you how to use.”

Saraid’s eyes began to sting and her vision was clouded by tears. This was too much, too much now in these moments when Ruairi’s life was waning. “Can y’ help him?” she asked. “Will y’ help him?”

“No, daughter. I cannot. But you can.”

Before Saraid could ask how, Oma stepped closer, using both hands to hold Saraid’s face, holding her still. “Look into my eyes and feel what is inside you.”

Saraid did as she was told, though fear and confusion cluttered her mind. She stared deeply into her mother’s eyes, feeling herself pulled into the inky darkness, down and under until there was nothing of light left to see. And then she heard a voice that seemed to come from inside her and yet not from her at all, but from the trees, the grass, the graven stones, and the restless water. It spoke not a language but a song as familiar and unknown as the sky and earth around her.

Yes
, Oma said, using not words but thought.
Reach for it. Hear its melody. It is your song. It is your power, waiting to be tapped.

Saraid slowed her breathing, trying to do as her mother instructed. She reached with her mind, her heart, but the song only faded, trailing notes that became disjoined and jarring. She tried again, stretching, aching to hear the haunting melody. Once more, it slipped away. Frantic now, she strained, tuning every sense out, seeking the song, begging for help from the gods, the powers unseen, her mother . . . but it was no use. The harder she tried, the more elusive it became until the last pale notes faded beyond even memory.

Her mother did not answer. Instead all Saraid heard was the harsh rasp of Ruairi’s breathing. Irregular, tortured. When she opened her eyes, her mother was gone, leaving Saraid helpless and alone. Still, Saraid refused to give up. She kept at it, fighting the binding quiet but nothing she did summoned the melody or the surging power back.

Numb she moved to Ruairi’s side and fell to her knees, overwhelmed by the immensity of her failure.

“I’m sorry, Ruairi,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to fix y’.” She threw back her head and cried out with rage and pain. “Tell me what to do.”

It wasn’t her mother speaking this time. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Male and unfamiliar, it riffled the still night. Saraid looked, searched for whoever had spoken, afraid of who her next visitor might be. In the sudden sinking silence, nothing moved. No one appeared. She turned and looked in every direction, but there was only Saraid, Ruairi, and the black horse in the cove.

What would you give
? the voice asked again, and suddenly she knew.

She felt it in her bones, in the horror that clenched her gut as hope gripped her heart. It was the Book of Fennore, the entity within. There
was
a reason why she’d come to this cove.

Saraid breathed in the question, feeling it resonate in every part of her body.

“Anything,” she answered
.

The word seemed to echo, loud and strong, though she’d spoken softly. Then its answer came, reverberating from the sheer rock wall, the massive boughs of the swaying trees, the tiny scurrying of beetles and spiders.

Saraid bolted to her feet, scanning the ancient walls, primordial trees, mystical pond. Where would it be? Hidden, certainly. By her mother? Was this where she’d brought it after she’d used it for her children? Was that why her father had brought Saraid here to show her the night she was born?

She began to circle, skirting the black pool, looking for anything that might tell her where the Book could be. She didn’t know what she expected. A monument perhaps, a shrine built to house the archaic entity. There was nothing like that, though. Only dark shadows and darker stones huddled inconspicuously at every point.

Where?
Where was it?

She hesitated, trying to calm her pounding heart, trying to quiet her frantic mind. She forced herself to breathe deeply, softly, silently.

It seemed she waited forever, but only a few seconds passed and then . . . she sensed it.

Her gaze moved unerringly to a place against the sheer, spiraled wall, and she knew. It was there, beneath a pile of rock that looked exactly like every other.

Certain, she bent to the mound of stones, lifting and tossing with urgency now. Each one she hurled away brought her closer. Now she could feel the low vibration thrumming through her.

Her hands were raw and bleeding by the time she’d moved the mound and found the deep hole beneath. She stared into it, seeing her face reflected once more, now on the oily black surface of the reservoir within. She glanced over her shoulder at Ruairi. He’d grown silent, and his chest barely moved at all now. He didn’t have much time. Without looking away from him, from her purpose, without letting herself think about what she did, Saraid plunged her arm into the icy wet, feeling the cold in her veins, pumping with her heart as it circulated through her entire body. Her reaching fingers seemed to slide forever through the frigid world, touching nothing, sinking down, down until the frozen waters chewed at her fingertips and gnawed at her arm. And then at last she felt it. A piece of canvas. She gripped it and tugged.

The canvas held something heavy, and the silt at the bottom sucked at it as she pulled, fighting to bring it up. It seemed she hauled it from a greater depth than just the few feet of her arm’s length, but at last she heaved it onto the rocky surface beside her.

The canvas wrapped around the bulky object was thick and blackened by oils and dirt and age. Deep creases marred the surface, en-grained with grime. A coarse rope bound it on four sides, knotted in the middle. It was square, but not perfectly angled at the corners. Rather the edges seemed skewed and awkward, misshapen and deformed. The bundle hummed and moaned in a seesawing rhythm that jittered through her blood and fluttered in her ears. Sickened, she carried it the short distance to where Ruairi lay unconscious.

On her knees beside him, she forced herself to untie the cord and spread the canvas wide. The Book inside looked exactly as it had in those moments before the Bloodletter had become a boy and disappeared. The black leather cover gleamed with age. It was beveled with spirals, jewel-crusted, and lined with gold and silver. As old as the earth and sky, it had emerged from the water dry and undamaged. As impossible as its very existence.

The air swirled around her, a breath that came from without and shuddered through the trees, dark and insidious, scented and mysterious. Filled with that eerie vibrating hum, it rubbed against her, as sexual as it was invasive. It trilled over her skin.

What do you ask for
? it questioned
.