Sarah Gabriel (27 page)

Eilidh,
the man said, and then she knew.

“Niall,” she said, her heart pounding, and she was glad to know she was still flesh and blood. “Niall. Father—”

“My daughter,” he said, reaching out to her. His hand was warm. He was flesh and blood, too, after all, though he lived with the Fey now. “This is your mother, Riona.”

The dark-haired, delicate fairy woman stretched out her hands, and her crystalline eyes filled with tears, and Elspeth was enfolded in her embrace.

Curiously, she felt little more than wonder, and a strange sense of relief and ease. She stood back, looking at them, and felt herself trembling all over. “Mother,” she said, trying out the word she had never used in her life for anyone. “Mother. And…Father.”

They smiled, the one handsome, still a young man, for he had scarcely aged; the other inexpressibly beautiful, like a jewel come to life. “And this is our queen,” her father said. “She rules over all the fairies of this region—there are many such queens and kings, and she holds this part of the land in her thrall. We are hers.”

“Eilidh,” the queen said, and held out her hand, beringed, long-fingered, milky. Her hair was long, like spun gold, and woven with diamond-scattered ribbons, and her gown, cream and white and embedded with crystal, seemed to glow.

Elspeth stared at her, entranced by such beauty and dazzle, for she seemed to sparkle, every part of her, as if she held a luminosity that never abated. Then she remembered meeting the king of England months before, and dropped in a low curtsy. And straightened.

“Am I…have you taken me away?” she asked them.

“We lured you here, and we have taken you this far, yes,” Niall answered.

“I cannot go with you,” Elspeth said, and took a step backward. “I cannot.”

Her fairy mother lifted her hands expressively. “Stay with us.”

“I will not,” she said, walking backward again. “I want to be with James. I have married him,” she said. “Our souls are joined. I love him, and I will not go with you.” The words sounded odd—her voice, her being, all seemed strange, as if she were here, as if she were not. She took a risk, she knew, in countering what the Fey wanted.

“Eilidh,” her father said, and reached for her again.

Elspeth!

She turned.

James circled the little chamber, and the outer chamber again, even looking outside to see if she had started down the mountainside. “Elspeth! Where are you!”

He dropped to his knees and peered into the pocket mine, but it was completely dark, black inside, and he heard nothing. Afraid she had fallen in there, perhaps gone to fetch another crystal to bring with her, though he had taken a few for both of them, he eased head and shoulders into the crevice. “Elspeth!”

And he thought he heard, in the dark, her voice.
James.
“Where are you?” he called.
Here.
She sounded far away, even strangely ethereal.

Walking down the little ramp, he groped in the darkness, feeling the walls, sharp with crystal points, rough with the granite and basalt that supported them. “Elspeth, where are you?” He wondered if there was some other pocket they had not found, for he heard her voice, somewhere. Hands roaming over the walls, he called again.

And suddenly behind him, a light flared from nowhere, and he whirled.

She was there, standing with others—three people with her, strangely clothed like out of some medieval play. They shared great eyes, all of them—pale and large in their narrow faces, glittering eyes colored like jewels. Elspeth’s eyes, too, had that silvery sheen he sometimes saw in them.

“My God,” he said, striding toward her—what happened to the ceiling, he wondered vaguely; earlier he had not been able to stand to his full height in here. He circled his arms around Elspeth, and she tucked into his embrace. James looked at the others, who stood still and silent, regarding him calmly. “Who—”

Elspeth’s fingers came to his lips to dispel the oath. “This is the queen, and this is my own mother. And this is Niall MacArthur. My father.”

He nodded to the females, and reached out to grasp
Niall’s hand, feeling a thousand times the fool, wondering if he had fallen somewhere and hit his head. Surely that. Then the dark-haired woman touched his hand, her fingers slim, cool. He was shaking hands with a fairy.

A fairy.

“Elspeth—” he said, drawing her backward with him. “We must go—we must leave here. The others will be looking for us. Donal will be looking for us,” he added, gazing at the man’s own missing son.

“Donal,” Niall said. “We will see him soon, when he visits next, for the seven years are nearly up again.”

“But the fairy spell is broken now,” Elspeth said. “Love…its magic is strong.” She glanced at James.

“The girl is right,” the queen said. “We will call Donal back to us again, and hope that he will choose to stay with us.”

“He has the right now to make his own choice,” Elspeth said.

“That is true.” Her father had a dignity and beauty that showed regal, even the slight incline of his head. And she saw Donal there, in that pride. “Eilidh,” he said. “We owe you a great deal, both of you. The treasure is found. Once again we can enter the place where so long ago the Fey mined the riches and magic and beauty of the earth. You found what the Fey could no longer see, after the treachery of the thief who did this. Thank you both.”

“You are welcome,” James said, feeling distinctly odd. This could not be happening—and yet it seemed as real as anything he had ever experienced. He reached out, touched Niall MacArthur with a finger, pushed against his shoulder, felt the solid muscle there.

Niall smiled. “I am real. I am human. It is magic that maintains me.”

“What is going on here?” James asked.

Niall shook his head gently and gathered his wife under his arm, in much the same way that James held Elspeth, safe and close. “Once you learn to believe in what seems impossible—to believe, and trust—then all things, even magic, are possible.”

James let out a breath, and the exhalation echoed around the chamber. It seemed genuine, all of it. Elspeth set her arms around his waist, hugged close.

“James MacCarran,” the queen said. “Do you have fairy blood?”

He looked at her, a shining creature of a woman, lithe and gorgeous, ageless and elegant. “So it is said in my family,” he answered.

“Good. Then you may come with us as well. Hold my hand.” She reached out. “Do not be afraid.”

Well, he was not going to show any fear, for certain. He took her cool fingers in his own, and held Elspeth with one arm, protecting her, for he had no idea what might happen next. She wrapped her arm around his waist.

Come,
the queen said, and all seemed to go to mist and light. James moved forward, touching her hand, and Elspeth took her mother’s hand, and Niall turned with them. And they all stepped through the wall.

Corridors of granite and limestone arched overhead, deserted, and James walked beside Elspeth. He heard the muted echo of their footsteps, of voices, but saw little beyond the wonder of the subterranean passages, tunnels into the heart of the earth. He felt awestruck, astonished, looking around.

Elspeth walked with him, holding his hand, and they followed Niall and his fairy wife, for the queen had left them. They moved down the corridor’s sloping floor toward a blaze of light. James went cautiously, curiously. He heard a carillon of laughter, the strumming of harps, a steady drumbeat, and voices raised in song. Farther along, he heard the skirl of pipes, and his heart swelled at the sound.

Niall turned. “Do not go anywhere, but only follow us. Do not eat or drink anything that you see, do not speak to anyone but one of us.” He turned back.

There were rooms along the corridors, and James peered inside as they passed. The rooms glittered with light and crystal, with gorgeous fabrics and finely crafted furnishings, though they were empty of people. Small tables in the hallway held dishes filled with fruits, sweets, breads, and cheeses. Wine trickled from golden fountains into crystal goblets. James felt intensely thirsty, suddenly, and wanted to drink. He was hungry, wanted to pluck an apple from an arrangement, but remembered Niall’s admonishment, and moved on.

The tunnel they were in split into three pathways, two narrow and one broad, all channeled through the heart of the stone, which glittered with crystalline detail. One way, James saw, led to a spacious room, partially visible along the curving corridor. Light, music, and laughter came from there. The left corridor was brightly lit as well, and he heard the sounds of hammer and metal, as if from a forge. The center pathway was dim, and they followed its course.

The walls of the tunnels glittered with flash-fire colors that traced through the rock: ruby and gold, emerald and silver, sapphire and bronze. He touched a
hand to the cool wall as they passed, and his fingertips came away with sparkling dust.

“Do not,” Niall reminded him. They walked on.

Then he realized that the floor of the corridor was sloping upward, leading upward, and they climbed. And then it occurred to him that his left leg, which, after the climb up Ben Venue to the Goblin’s Cave, had ached with the effort, did not hurt at all. In fact, he was not limping—not the least.

He reached for Elspeth’s hand, pulled it upward to kiss it, smiling. She tucked her shoulder under his, her arm about his waist, and they walked upward, to where the light was now shining, and he could see, finally, a doorway, with trees and blue sky beyond.

“Here,” Niall said, and stopped, “we will leave you. Go on, the two of you, back to your world. We have no hold over you any longer. We are only in your debt.”

“Father,” Elspeth said. “Oh, Father—” and James stood back as she went into Niall’s embrace, their heads tucked together for a moment. Then she turned to her mother as well, their shining dark hair and delicate faces so very much alike. Finally Elspeth stepped back, tears streaming down her face. She took James’s hand.

“Go on,” Niall said. He clasped James’s hand, let go. “Take care of her. She is precious, not only for who she is, but for what she can bring to your family. Great joy and enrichment will come to all of you through the fairy ilk. Eilidh was born to be with you, not with us. My wife and I knew that from the first. We knew she had a destiny of love and a responsibility to the family that you and she will create. We did what we could to make sure that you found each other.”

James nodded, listening. “My grandmother,” he said. “You knew her.”

“I did,” Niall said. “We were friends. We met before I went over to the Fey—and afterward, we met in the hills, and I taught her much of what she knew about the fairy legends. We spoke of you—of my daughter, of her grandson—and we planned this, Lady Struan and I. She would be pleased to know that it has all turned out so well.”

“Planned it?” Elspeth asked. “What do you mean?”

Niall glanced at Riona, then at his daughter. “Lady Struan did not know what to offer her eldest grandson when she was deciding on her final wishes. She knew he was unhappy, that he had a darkness in his heart. And she wanted to renew the fairy blood of the MacCarrans through him, and each of her grandchildren.” He paused, laughed a little. “They will each have their adventures, the others. Lady Struan and I wanted the greatest happiness for all of you, though such happiness must be earned.”

“Did you make plans for my brothers and sister as well?” James asked.

“Not I,” Niall said. “But the lady made certain that each of her grandchildren have their chance. Though there is no guarantee. There is never a guarantee, where fairy magic and human will come together. Sometimes there is clash, and sometimes there is…bliss.”

“Father,” Elspeth said. “You knew all along that I should be with James?”

“We felt it was so, and hoped. But it was up to you,” he said. “I am only human.”

“And the treasure?” she asked.

“It had to be found,” he said. “There was no barter
ing where that was concerned. Without that discovery, you would have had to return to us forever.”

“Dearest one, you must go,” Riona said, her voice gentle, sad. “You cannot stay here longer, or the fairy thrall will take you, despite all our wishes for you. Go.”

Elspeth nodded and reached out to embrace them, but they stepped back quickly, and she gave a little cry as they vanished. James took her hand then, firm and reassuring and in silence, aware that she felt hurt and joy all at once.

He walked with her up the remaining slope, and stepped out into the sunshine.

And he recognized that he stood at the top of his own garden, overlooking the back of Struan House. He and Elspeth had emerged from the grotto that his grandparents had built, and where Donal MacArthur had once found a portal to another realm. Turning, James saw the rock wall behind him was solid, as if it had never been open.

“We met, for the second time, here in this garden,” Elspeth said. “Just there, I fell and landed at your feet, in that drenching rain.”

He hugged her close. “And a better day than that,” he said, “there never was. Come ahead, love.” He led her down the slope toward the house.

Hearing dogs bark, then hearing shouts, he saw the back door of the house open, and his brother and sister rushed out and onto the lawn. James grinned and waved, keeping his arm snug about Elspeth’s shoulders.

“Where the devil have you been?” Patrick asked, clapping him on the shoulder. “By God, we were worried!” He leaned to kiss Elspeth, while Fiona embraced James, then Elspeth as well.

“We have all been so terribly worried, James,” Fiona said. “I dreamed that you were lost in the caverns under the earth, wandering. Where have you been?”

“Dreams?” James said. “Did you nap while waiting for us to get back?”

“Nap?” Fiona blinked and looked at Patrick, who frowned. “Not at all. I’ve hardly slept at all, with you gone so long!”

“It was a few hours only,” Elspeth said. “And then we found our way back.”

“A few hours!” Patrick shook his head. “You have been gone for three days.”

“Three days,” James repeated, and Elspeth gasped softly.