The Light-Bearer's Daughter (29 page)

“Taimse a foghlaim gaeilge,
if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I’m hoping to learn more Irish while I’m here. I’m Canadian. Of Irish descent. I’m over for the year to collect tunes and work with local musicians. I’m a composer.”

“Gabha an cheoil
.” She clapped her hands. “Yes, I heard this in your art. You fashion pure sound into music
. Ceol n’éan agus ceol an tsrutháin.
The music of the bird and the music of the stream.”

“A smith of music?” He repeated in English the title she had given him. “What a great thing to call me.” Her words fascinated him, for they brought the joining of his thoughts with the sympathy of his heart. “And you’re so right about what moves me! I practice in the forest to wake the sleeping muse. I never dreamed you would actually show up in person!”

“An leannán sí faoi shuan?
You call me this? The sleeping muse?”

Charmed, she threw back her head and laughed merrily
.

The sound of her laughter shot through him like quicksilver, scalding his soul. He wanted to hear that laugh again, though he knew if he did he would be lost forever
.

His fingertips brushed the white blossoms in her hair
.

“Isn’t it bad luck to pick hawthorn in May?” he said. “I’m told it’s the flower of the Faerie Queen and she punishes anyone who touches it.”

That laugh again
.

They sat down together on a fallen tree trunk. He played her some of his compositions. She sang along with them. He changed his melodies to suit her rhythms so that new tunes were forged, tunes that were both human and fairy. Tunes that were woven with the thread of new love
.

Phóg mé ar ais is phóg mé arís tú

Gheill mo chroí don leannán síofrúil
,

Is thug mé cúl do gach aon dílseacht

Nuair a phóg mé do bhéal
.

I kissed and kissed again

Yielded to the fairy spell

Left behind all love till then

When I kissed your mouth
.

He recognized the ineffable truth that rose in his heart. “Come with me,” he said. “Be my love.”

She was already losing her way; yet some part of her remembered as she made her last protest
.

“The life of your kind is but a fleeting moment, a raft upon the sea that leaves no wake, the journey of a single day through a sleepy country, a mist dispersing, a petal falling …”

But her words drifted away as he kissed her mouth. And she yielded to the spell
.

She walked out of the Glen of the Downs that day, hand in hand with her mortal lover
.

He did not return to his homeland
.

She did not return to hers
.

s the last strain of the harp resounded through the hall, the King finished with a plaintive coda
.

What is love?

It is a test beyond bounds,

A leap over death,

A thing everlasting.

It is drowning without water,

Grief in the hearty,

A blade in the back.

It is the four ends of the earth,

A battle with a specter,

Heroic deeds in defeat.

It is the wooing of an echo,

The wooing of an echo, Throughout eternity.

Thus is my love and my passion,

My devotion to she who is my life,

My wife.

Dana struggled to return the King’s gaze. She had expected a tragic tale about a queen stolen by a demon. Not this. Like an icy wave it had struck her: the realization of who the young musician was. And with great love and great pain, she had listened to the story of her parents’ meeting
.

And it was with great love and great pain that the Mountain King regarded her now. Great love, because she was the daughter of his beloved Queen and reflected some of her features. Great pain, because it was Dana’s birth that sealed the doom of his loss
.

“Thus you have heard,” he told her, “the tale that will henceforth be known in Faerie as
The Wooing of Edane Lasair by Her Mortal Lover.”

Dana shivered to hear her mother’s name said with such significance and sorrow
.

Lugh’s eyes darkened. The sorrow echoed in his voice. “I searched the heavens for my Queen and through the worlds, thinking she may have lost her way. Yet in my heart I knew some terrible thing had happened. The death of winter was in the air. And though I sought her far and wide, she was not to be found. What dark king had taken her? What demon kept her in his lair?

“I did not think to look for her in the mortal realm, as she had shown no interest in humankind. They were too close to matter, too far beyond the lightness of her being. Then one day a yellow butterfly came to me and, even as his brief life faded, told of last seeing my Queen in the Glen of the Downs. I hastened there to seek some clue of her fate. To my joy and then my anguish, I found her at last; my anguish, because she wore human guise and, forgetting her true nature, had wedded a mortal man
.

“Incredulous and wrathful, I confronted them. I would strike down this man, take back my wife. But though I stood before her as her rightful husband, she did not know me. It was then I drew from their minds the tale of their union, and I saw both had fallen under a spell of love. What is more— and this, I knew, was the seal of my doom—they were awaiting a child
.

“I cannot describe the ravages of despair, the rages of jealousy, and the utter powerlessness I suffered. That she had gone to another pierced my heart like a sword. My grief and desolation were beyond containment. I was broken.”

It was such a sad story that Dana wept with the King whose wife had been stolen by her father. She could see how all parties were innocent and how all had suffered
.

At the same time, she couldn’t help the glad feelings that mingled with her sorrow. With a thrill beyond measuring she began to comprehend that her mother was a fairy Queen and she a fairy princess! But her first and overriding emotion was one of relief. At last she knew for certain that it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her birth or some flaw of her character or some terrible thing she had done that drove her mother away and broke her father’s heart
.

“She must’ve remembered,” Dana said softly. “That’s why she left. She must’ve remembered.”

As the truth dawned on the fairy Queen’s daughter, the question arose
.

Where was she?

That night, Dana lay in her bedchamber in the palace on Lugnaquillia. It was a lady’s bower draped with fine tapestries of unicorns in gardens and winged horses in the clouds. The high bed was frothed with white lace embroidered with pearls. A fire burned in the grate beneath a marble mantel. Ensconsed in the bed, Dana gazed up at the glass ceiling that looked out on the night. A star fell out of the sky! And then another! She could hardly contain the huge truth that overflowed her being. Her mother came from those stars and so did she! She was half fairy!

She raised her hand, pale in the dimness. Concentrating, she tried to work some magic. A simple thing: a cup of cocoa
.

Nothing happened
.

“It is buried deep within you,” Lugh had told her, “like a hidden treasure. You must seek it out.”

They had spoken of many things as they strolled through his gardens at twilight. The flowerbeds glowed in the dusk, emitting a sweet scent. The fountains splashed merrily
.

“I assumed you knew what you were,” he said, “as you ate our food without qualm. Because of the silver blood in your veins, it holds little power over you.”

Dana’s grin was sheepish. “I ate ’cause I was hungry. And it all looked so good. I was always going to worry about it later.”

That made him laugh
.

The biggest revelation concerned her mission
.

“Do you not know yet? The message belongs as much to you as to me, for it asks about your mother.”

Where is the light to bridge the darkness?

That was when Dana’s heart began to beat so rapidly that she almost fainted. The interconnectedness of things stunned her. That her mission, her message, and her wish to find her mother were all one and the same!

“Do you know where she is?” she whispered
.

The King’s eyes dimmed
.

“I have striven all day to clear the webs from my mind. Too much was shrouded by the spell. There were times when I lay dreaming that I shared my Beloved’s torment; yet each effort I made to wake, so that I might help her, only caused the bonds to tighten. From what I recall, I believe she is a prisoner in
Dún Scáith,
the Fort of the Shades. How this came about I do not know, for it can only have happened when I lay bound in sleep.”

“The demon!” Dana said suddenly. “Saint Kevin told me it’s been here before. Doing things as part of a bigger plan!”

Lugh’s face twisted with anguish. “Her light is a great weapon against the shadow. Yet it must have taken her.”

The same pain struck Dana. “We’ve got to save her!”

Lugh laid a restraining hand on Dana’s shoulder
.

“I must kill the demon first. That is my duty. He has been found, lurking in human shape at the Glen of the Downs. It was already my intention to go this night to rid the Kingdom of him. Now I do it also for my Queen. Then I shall free her.”

“You go for the demon,” Dana said fiercely. “I’ll go for my mother! Tell me how to find
Dún Scáith!”

She could see that Lugh agreed with her, though other emotions warred in his features
.

“Perhaps this is right,” he said reluctantly. “The mission was always yours.” He continued to struggle until he made up his mind. “So be it. But you must not set out until the demon has been vanquished. I would not have you harmed and nor would she, for you are the child of her heart. Rest tonight. I will send you a message when all is well. Tomorrow you will embark on the last stage of your quest.”

Dana was prepared to obey him. For now. She had come to like and trust the King, despite the conflict of loyalties and the final twist in the tale. There would be no reunion of her parents, no return to the family of her hopes and dreams. Her mother was not human but a fairy Queen, whose true husband was the King of the Mountain. With the innate sense of justice typical of the young, Dana accepted that it had to be this way, though she couldn’t help but be sad for herself and her father
.

He regarded her warmly
.

“You might have been my child, Dana. I shall always think of you as my stepdaughter in the mortal realm. Will you accept me as your fairy godfather?”

That made her laugh
.

Now Dana turned in the bed and closed her eyes. A final thought wound through her mind before she dropped into sleep
.

No matter what happens, tomorrow I’m going to find her.