Edith Pattou - Hero's Song

Collun's eyes widened. "You mean...?"

"Yes. I have learned how to make songs, and without going to any stuffy school with a name that sounds like a sneeze."

Collun was filled with pride for his friend. "I am pleased for you, Talisen."

"And well you should be." Talisen laughed. And he was the old Talisen again, full of impossible boasts and carefree laughter.

The evening Crann had promised to come, Silien appeared instead. He said the wizard had been delayed and would be there the next morning.

"I came to say good-bye," said the Ellyl. "Much has happened in the past few days. I am bound for Temair, where, on behalf of my father, I will propose a comhairle, a council, with King Gwynn and Queen Aine."

Talisen let out a sound of wonderment. "This is indeed an historic event."

Silien nodded. "I must leave now. Time is precious. But I wish you well on your quest," Silien said, gazing at Collun. Collun thought he read sympathy in the silver eyes.

"I hope to meet you again." The Ellyl shook each of their hands gravely. Then with his familiar half-smile, he turned and left the room.

That night Collun had trouble getting to sleep, and when he did, he dreamed of the pile of bones in the labyrinth. He woke up, shivering uncontrollably.

SIXTEEN

Hero's Son

The next morning after breakfast, Collun began to pace the stone floor. "Where is Crann? What can be keeping him?" he said. To distract him, Brie said she would teach him an Ellyl game called ficheall that Ebba had taught her. It was played with a board, dice, and small figures carved of black spinel. Collun reluctantly sat, and they began to play. Talisen watched, harp in hand, and he made them laugh with a song he improvised about Farmer Whicklow and his enormous appetite for partridge pie.

The door abruptly swung open and Crann entered. Wearily he lowered himself into a chair that was too small for his long body. He took up one of the small figures from the game board and began absently to roll it between his fingers.

"You look terrible," said Talisen.

"Thank you," replied Crann dryly.

"Have you and the king not paused for rest at all?"

"Midir is proud and strong-willed, and my tongue is not so graceful with words as once it was. Still, he finally sees the darkness that threatens and the need for an alliance with Eirren," said Crann.

"Surely that is good news," remarked Talisen.

"Yes," replied Crann. "But there has been news that is not good, I'm afraid. An Ellyl who lives underneath a lake in upper Scath arrived a day ago to seek counsel from his king." Crann paused. "It is the Firewurme. The Ellyl spotted it off the shores of the Northern Sea. It is worse even than I had feared. Medb has called up the Wurme—or Naid, as the Ellylon call it."

Collun felt a chill. Silien had spoken of a Firewurme when he was telling them about the wizard Cruachan, and Collun remembered stories told to him as a child about a monstrous white Wurme that had laid waste to Eirren in the days of Amergin.

"The Firewurme," Crann continued, "was Cruachan's most powerful, most deadly creation. It destroyed countless Eirrenians and Ellylon alike. It was the Wurme that ultimately turned on Cruachan and killed him when he could no longer control it.

"I had hoped Medb would not dare awaken the Firewurme, but she has grown more reckless and arrogant than I had believed possible. If she chooses to let the Firewurme loose, then there is little hope any of us will survive its coming.

"As Silien no doubt told you, Midir has agreed to a comhairle with the king and queen of Eirren. I doubt not the Eirrenians will be eager for such an alliance."

Silence filled the room. Crann gazed fixedly at the small spinel figurine in his hand, then looked up at Collun. "But I did not come to speak of this alone. Collun, the time has come to tell you all."

"Do you wish us to leave?" asked Brie, half rising.

"That is up to Collun," replied the wizard.

"Stay," Collun said. "Is it because Emer is dead that you can now speak?"

The wizard nodded. "I am released from the oath I gave to her." He paused. "Give me your dagger," Crann said abruptly.

With a bewildered expression Collun reached for the dagger at his waist and passed it to Crann. The wizard laid it on the table amidst the spinel figures and the dice. The stone in the handle glowed faintly, as it had the last time Crann held it.

"As I told you in the Forest of Eld, I believe this stone to be one of the three shards of the Cailceadon Lir. The fact that it killed Moccus's sow and injured the creature Nemian confirms my belief." Crann paused. "As I also said, it is my guess that this is the shard that Amergin lost on one of his sea voyages. Collun, did your mother ever tell you where she got the lucky stone?"

Collun shook his head. "I have been trying to puzzle it out. What happened to the shard after Amergin lost it? To a woman, you said?"

"Yes. And she, in turn, sold it to an adventurer and explorer who called himself Lleann. Like Lir before him, Lleann recognized this stone would bring luck to him and to his family. So he, too, began a tradition of passing it on to his firstborn child, and each succeeding generation did the same."

"Then Emer is a descendant of Lleann?" Collun asked.

The wizard shook his head, and Collun saw a look pass between him and Brie.

"Then Goban...?" Collun asked in confusion.

"Collun," Crann interrupted. "What do you know of the hero Cuillean?"

Puzzled, Collun answered slowly. "Only what I have learned from Talisen's songs. And then I heard more in Temair. Why?"

"Tell me what you do know."

"Let's see ... That as a youth he showed great courage and prowess. That he was a hero in the Eamh War..." Collun trailed off.

"That he loved a lady and lost her shortly after they were wed," spoke up Talisen. "Remember the song 'Lady of the Silver Fir,' Collun? It has always been one of my favorites."

"Yes, I remember. He mourned her death for many years. And then, most recently, it is said that he disappeared, a year ago or so, and may be dead."

"That is all?"

Collun nodded slowly. "My mother did not like songs of the Eamh War or of Cuillean. She lost a brother in the fighting, and the pain ran deep."

"Once," agreed Talisen, "Emer heard me singing a song of the war and of one of Cuillean's most spectacular battles, and she bade me never to sing it or any others like it on the farmhold Aonarach."

The old wizard was quiet for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. "Before he went off to fight for Eirren in the Eamh War, Cuillean did indeed love a maiden. He pledged himself to this maiden, and she to him, and when he returned from battle, they were to be wed. In the songs about them she is called Eilm, or the Lady of the Silver Fir. But her true name was Emer."

Collun felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He stared at the wizard's moon white beard.

"Emer was the daughter of a powerful lord, Fogal. She had two brothers, one older and one younger. The younger, Neill, was his father's favorite, the apple of his eye. Neill worshiped his sister's betrothed, the hero Cuillean. He wished to be exactly like his idol. Though he was young—barely older than yourself, Collun—he ran off to join the army in its northward march to fight Medb. Neill was brave, but he was also impulsive and unschooled in the ways of war. Despite Cuillean's efforts to watch over the stripling—indeed, putting his own life in danger more than once—Neill was one of the first to die in the Eamh War.

"When his father received word of Neill's death, he went half mad with grief, and in his madness Fogal blamed Cuillean. He withdrew his blessing from the proposed marriage between Emer and Cuillean and forbade her to see him. When Cuillean returned from the war and found himself barred from the maiden he loved, he acted in haste and anger and, with a handful of men, assailed the dun of Emer's father. Under the cover of darkness he stole Emer away, killing several of Fogal's men. Cuillean took Emer off with him to his dun by Siar Muir, the Western Sea. There they were wed.