Twixt Firelight and Water by Juliet Marillier

 
     
    CONRI
     
A fair maid in the wildwood lies
A raven pecks her sightless eyes
Then wings into the heavens again
To shriek his song of death and pain.
     
    I have a tale to tell. I would recite its verses while playing the harp, had not a sorceress long ago robbed me of my capacity to share my story. That may be just as well, for my tale would only make you sad. I was a bard then. I brought tears to the eyes of my listeners, made them hold their breath in anticipation, gasp in wonderment, cheer as the hero won his battle, cry as the fair lady lost her true love. In those days, I contrived happy endings. Folk like to see lovers reunited, challenges met and overcome, good triumphant over evil.
     
    If ever my voice is returned to me, I will sing only sad songs.
     
    * * * *
     
    I listen as my companion instructs a clutch of green novices.
     
    ‘In the land of Erin dwell three races,’ he tells them. ‘First are the Tuatha De Danann, commonly known as the Fair Folk, proud and strong, noble and wise.’ With a few notable exceptions, I add in my mind. ‘They dwell in hollow hills and in deep forests,’ the druid continues, ‘though such sanctuaries are shrinking with the coming of the new faith. Second are the Old Ones, the Fomhoire, whom I should perhaps have placed at the start, since they have prior claim. Their shapes are many, their attitudes inscrutable. Long time and endless patience provide their solutions. They blend; they wait; they observe. The Old Ones are survivors. Last, human folk, late come to this land, short-lived, unsubtle, as moody and changeable as a Connemara shore in autumn.’
     
    Up speaks a bright young fellow, all bony wrists and eager eyes. ‘Master Ciarán? There are surely more than three races here. What of leprechauns? Clurichauns? What of the bean sidhe?’
     
    ‘What about the Sea People?’ another novice chimes in.
     
    ‘And there’s those wee things that drink the milk straight from the cow,’ pipes up a red-cheeked lad who, from the looks of him, has but recently replaced his hayfork with a druid’s staff.
     
    ‘True,’ says my companion, unruffled as always. ‘There exists a fourth race, a fifth, a sixth; perhaps more than we will ever know. Set them aside for now and consider another variant. Ask yourself what may ensue when the pure blood of the three races is mixed and blended, creating something new. Imagine a being with human passions and frailties combined with Fomhoire endurance, say, or human stubbornness alongside the pride and craft of the Tuatha De. Imagine an individual with the Old Ones’ long memory and the Fair Folk’s facility in magic; picture a warrior of superb skill and courage, who possesses the ability to become rock, water, earth, tree in a heartbeat.
     
    ‘Such blends are not common. The three races of Erin seldom have congress with one another, and such alliances rarely produce children. When there is a slipping across boundaries, a union between old enemies, and an infant is born of that coupling, chances are the child will be something exceptional. The bravest heroes and the darkest villains are oft products of such unsanctioned pairings.’
     
    The tutor pauses, his mulberry eyes seeing something beyond this grove, beyond this forest, beyond this summer day. I, too, contemplate. Hero or villain? If I still had my human tongue, I could answer for him. My companion walks the path of light. Here in the nemetons, his vocation is to teach, to guide, to set the feet of the young on right ways. His choice brought him some peace of mind. Some. He has suffered losses as painful as my own. The shadow of death lingers in those dark eyes even as he leads the young brethren in a prayer.
     
    Hero or villain? It depends. I was once hero of my own tale, loved by a girl with star-bright eyes and hair like a soft shadow. I had youth, talent, a path before me. And then ... and then ... Had I a human voice, I would turn the fresh faces of these young