A Dance with Fate by Juliet Marillier

Author:Juliet Marillier [Marillier, Juliet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

24

BROCC

We come to a halt, gazing in wonder. This is a place of true magic. The cliff stands strong and proud, the ferns and creepers drape a soft green garment over the weathered bones of the ancient rock. And the waterfall! I could write such a song about the music of its tumbling veil, its cloud of fine droplets, the glint of sunlight on the moving water, the calm pool below. This place is a haven of rest. The pool’s surface shows me patches of blue, a scudding cloudlet, a soaring lark. Its beauty robs me of breath.

True lets out a great sigh. “Old ones are here,” he says. “My eyes do not see them but my heart feels their presence.”

When I can speak, I murmur to Conmael, “What should we do? Are we to summon them?” This is not like the portal to Eirne’s realm, where a bard’s quick wit and tuneful voice provided the key. This is a place altogether older and more solemn, and I do not belong here.

“True,” says Conmael, “do as your heart bids you.”

After a long silence, True steps forward. He lumbers down to the place where the water is not dashing and splashing but lies tranquil and still. At the edge of the pool he stops. “Brocc,” he says quietly. “Will you sing?”

I go to stand beside him, following my own heart. An image of Liobhan and me as children comes to my mind, a brother and sister without a drop of blood in common, yet as tightly bonded as twins. True is my friend, my comrade. Here in the Otherworld, he and Rowan are my brothers. I draw in a breath, open my mouth, and sing for him. There are no words in it; to couch such a deeply solemn request in the rhyming verse I so often use would be an insult to the invisible elders. But as I sing my wordless melody, I think of True, so staunch, so patient, so strong, and I think of ancient times and how a people formed like stone might live so long they would watch kings and queens rise and fall, and see the land beaten by storm, starved by famine, and drowned by flood. They would witness the dwindling of magic in the age of humankind. I try to convey that True has been wounded while performing an act of kindness; how his sickness cannot be cured in the human world, or in Eirne’s realm, but only here.

I realize I am no longer singing alone. True has added his deep voice, chanting on a single note in a tongue unknown to me. His tiny passengers add a high descant, faint as the distant chirping of baby birds in a nest. Only Conmael is silent as our music rings out over the pool and across the open space, echoing back from the high walls of stone. I do not know who will answer or how. I do not know what will happen. But

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