“Be still, Muirne! Hold your tongue!”
She obeyed; Anluan had always been able to command her on the Tor, and his control still held, though her eyes were desperate.
“Don’t be scared,” Anluan said to the little girl. “Just whisper it to me, yes or no.Will you help us? Would you like to stay?”
The child nodded, her solemn gaze locked on his pale face. She whispered something, but it was only for Anluan’s ears.
“Very well,” he said, rising to his feet. “You must go over there, to the middle of the big star, and stand very still until I say you can move. Can you do that?”
Aislinn’s lips were moving, though she made no sound. I imagined her words:
The child stood in the center, feet together, bundle tight against her chest. The moonlight shone on her gossamer hair. Olcan had swept the sand back into place, then retreated to the brazier; the pattern was remade. Anluan came back up the steps, turned, raised his arms. The host stood ready once more.
A shifting, a swirling all around the circle.The chill was as deep as the harshest frost of winter. Time seemed to falter in its tracks; sudden cloud extinguished the moon. The child gave a wail of terror and dropped the embroidered kerchief. An eldritch gust caught the little bundle, skidding it across the flagstones to an inner corner of the pentagram, close to the spot where the two warriors held Aislinn captive. Quick as a heartbeat,Aislinn’s foot came over the line to kick the bundle beyond the child’s reach.
“My baby!” shrieked the little girl. “I need my baby!”
“Come and get her, then,” taunted Aislinn, her voice reedy and ragged, as if it cost her dearly to disobey Anluan’s command. “Come on, you’re supposed to be brave, aren’t you, little spy? Just run over and grab your precious baby. Didn’t look after her very well, did you? She’s only a bundle of rags now.”
The little girl stood shaking, trembling, full of the urge to rush across and snatch back her darling, but holding still because she had promised. Beside me, Anluan drew an uneven breath. All hung in the balance. One word wrong, one gesture out of place and we would fail again. We could not ask the child to do this a second time; there had been a note of utter terror in her voice.
Gearróg muttered something and let go of Aislinn. Cathaír held firm. Gearróg stooped to retrieve the bundle, then moved into the center of the pentagram, kneeling to put the kerchief in the child’s hands. She was sobbing with fright. He picked her up; settled her on his hip. “It’s all right, little one,” he said.“We’ll do this together, you and me. A game of pretend. We’re pretending to be brave dogs on guard, like Fianchu.” He gazed over at Anluan and nodded as if to say,
No going back. No thinking beyond this moment.
From one breath to the next, the host was gone. Between the points of the ritual star the spaces were empty. In the center, a stalwart figure stood with feet planted and head held high, and in his arms was a smaller person, whose hair was no longer gossamer-white but dark as fine oak wood.
“Magnus,” said Anluan in a voice unlike his own, “light the torch again.”
“Gearróg?” I stepped down, not quite sure what I was seeing there, but knowing I had just witnessed an act of such selfless courage that it took my breath away.
Light flared as Magnus touched the torch to the brazier and lifted it high.
“By all the saints,” he said in tones of awe.
Gearróg set the child down and she ran to me. Her hair shone glossy brown in the torchlight; her face was rosy.When I lifted her, she felt warm and real. Gearróg was examining his hands, moving his feet, touching his face as if hardly able to believe he was still here.
“I’m . . .” he said, disbelieving. “I can . . .”
