C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

Of the others, Aerin had no compunctions against doing exactly that. She caught herself on a bench that looked grown, not carved, for all that parts of it appeared to be marble. There were others like it scattered along green pathways and under the twisting trees, some few of them backing up against latticework fences riddled with ivy. Water burbled over a short wall, though once it must have been as tall as the stonework surrounding it: its edges were worn down and smoothed by centuries, perhaps aeons, of water drifting over it. The little waterfall’s music was soothing, as was the breeze that drifted through the gardens, carrying a sweet scent too subtle to be cloying. The entire space had the aura of holy ground, unspoiled by divisiveness or conflict.

Dafydd crouched by Aerin, brushing a thumb over her temple as she coiled on the bench. “Rest awhile,” he whispered. “You’ve done more than your part. The gardens will revitalize you.”

“Wake me when you leave. I would see this through.”

Dafydd nodded, but Aerin came awake enough to give him a sharp look, and Lara a sharper one. Bemused, Lara promised, “We will,” and only then did Aerin settle again, trusting the truthseeker’s word. She was asleep within a breath or two, and even in that little time looked healthier, as though the garden had revitalized her already.

“It would have been better to refuse her,” Dafydd said quietly as he came back to Lara and Ioan. “She’s exhausted and probably needs the rest more than we need her blade. Metaphorically,” he added, glancing at his own weaponless hands.

“Probably, but she’d never forgive you.”

Dafydd quirked a smile. “I seem to recall someone saying forever is a very long time, to immortals.”

“And it appears we can hold a grudge that long,” Ioan said drily. “Truthseeker, can you find a way?”

Lara nodded, glad she hadn’t sat for fear she would never have gotten back up. Even so, her eyes fluttered shut in the garden’s quiet. The music in her mind was soft, unhurried, as if the garden itself affected it, and Lara shook off its effects with an effort. “Do Seelie ever just give up on living and come here to fade away?”

A startled silence met her and she blinked her eyes open again to find Dafydd examining her with consternation. “Occasionally. How did you know?”

“It’s just that peaceful here. A little like a hospice, as much as holy ground. It seems like the kind of place people might come to die.” Unexpected truth sang through the last words, finally wakening her thoroughly. “Where would they go?” she asked, but not of the men.

Of the music, which flared in trumpets, then lay down a path through the garden, zipping forward. Suddenly reinvigorated, she ran after it, chasing it through doorways and down paths that extended through a far greater area than she’d imagined possible. Ioan and Dafydd came after her, catching up as her bright truthseeking path plunged into the earth and Lara stopped, frowning at it.

“No one said we’d need a shovel. The remembrance gardens in the Drowned Lands had a door, not a …”

“Barrow,” Dafydd said softly.

Lara covered her mouth with one hand, cool shock splashing over her. It stood to reason, and yet she hadn’t expected it. “Is digging the only way into a barrow?”

“There are often cairns atop them, which might be moved to reveal a door, but here …” Ioan trailed off, shaking his head, and Lara turned in a full circle, examining the garden segment for anything that might be a door.

“Truth will find the hardest path. Well, going through the dirt is hardest, all right. I should have been looking for … the key?” Warbling music played, the concept neither wrong nor right. Lara kept it in mind, sour notes dancing as she studied the garden a second time. “There must be something.”

“Must there be?” Dafydd sounded interested and amused. “Why?”

“Because I have a hard time imagining any Seelie digging up six feet of dirt to get into a stasis chamber, and if you were hiding people there, you wouldn’t want to call in servants to do the job. Secrets only stay secret if you keep them.”

An amused voice said, “A truth very few people ever fully appreciate,” as an old man tottered into the garden, a wry smile on his aged features.

“Oisín!” Lara ran to hug him, unsurprised that he caught her confidently for all that his eyes were filmed over, signal to the world that he couldn’t see. She had never made friends quickly or easily, but the ancient poet had found a place in her heart the first and only time they’d met. “You’re still here!”

“I’m too old and fragile to run, even from a war that comes within the citadel walls. The lands have watched over me,” he said genially.

Lara released him and stepped back, smiling. “Emyr said the Barrow-lands liked you.”

“Only he sounded it a curse when he said it,” Oisín guessed. “My long years here have never enamored him of me.”

“Unlikely,” Dafydd murmured, “when my mother was so fond of you. I’m glad to see you’re well, Oisín. Do you remember my brother Ioan?”

“Better than he remembers me, I dare say.” Oisín turned an unerring blind gaze on Ioan. “Changed in body but not in heart, I think. Welcome home, Ioan ap Caerwyn.”

“Ap Annwn,” Ioan murmured. “My dreams are for this land as a whole, not the white citadel alone.”

“As you will.” Oisín looked back at Lara, putting a hand out for her to take. “And you have grown greatly in power since we first spoke. Have you met another prophet?”

Lara breathed a laugh. “A human one. It started out the same way, ‘truth will seek the hardest path, measures that must mend the past,’ but then she said ‘breaker who restores the land, keeps the world gates well in hand.’ I don’t know what it means. I don’t like prophecies, Oisín.”

“Nor fairy tales,” he agreed, and Lara ducked her head to mutter the already-familiar refrain: “And yet here I am, in one.” More clearly, she said, “This was always going to happen, wasn’t it? You sent Dafydd to Earth looking for a truthseeker who would break the world. If he found me, or any truthseeker, I was always going to be a catalyst for change here. Oisín, my power is strengthening, but I just don’t know if it’s going to mature fast enough for me to do what’s necessary.”

Oisín, serenely confident, said, “It will. Begin by locating the key for the door, Wayfinder. I’m far too old to be digging in the dirt, and these two, as you surmised, are far too elfin.”

Vague insult crossed Dafydd’s face, though not Ioan’s. Lara laughed as she closed her eyes again, this time trusting her power over the garden’s lullaby. “Truthseeker, wayfinder, worldbreaker. I don’t think I like titles very much either, but since I don’t even know if we can get in there without the right key, I think this is the only way. Maybe it just takes a little more delicacy than laying down a true path.”

A memory of the lights she’d followed in the Drowned Lands came back to her, fireflies rather than beacons. They were more inquisitive than the truthseeking paths, which bolted hither and yon with great integrity but no subtlety. In some cases that was perfect, but in the green-growing gardens, more gentle means seem called for. Dozens of tiny bells rang with delighted tones as firefly lights scattered behind her eyelids, flitting from one spot to another around the gardens.

More than once, urgency came into their chimes, then faded, as if they found things of interest but not exactly what they sought. The garden seemed littered with those things, and Lara’s heart hopped with interest, wondering what treasures might lie forgotten in a place so old as this one. If all went well, she would have time to discover them later.