The Dreamstone

“No,” said Arafel. “Strike no blow at those.”

Death drew away, parted from them in the course, and Ciaran looked back—saw Scaga and the other riders in that same slow movement of Men, cutting their way behind them. Cloaks and hair flew in frozen swirlings, with lightning flashes. Arafel called to him and the elven horses lengthened stride, began to move forward as well as swifter. Men passed by them, faster and faster, shadows through which they could move. Iron shivered past them with pain and poison, and the horses shied farther into otherwhere, flickered out again enough to see their way.

We are phantoms on the earth, Ciaran thought, and knew not which heritage wemeant—for between those flickerings of otherwhere, like lightning-strokes, there was no army, only murky day, a strange placid landscape void of farms and wars and Men.

Yet not deserted. A horn sounded, braying, and came small folk scurrying from the hooves of the elven steeds—some fair and some foul, some direly misshapen. A weapon glanced from Ciaran’s mail, and there was no fleeing. The thunder cracked and the horses leaped forward. Ciaran struck with the sword while it profited, saw Arafel herself beset by a tide of shadows which poured out of the thickening air. She vanished and he thought her slain, but the shadows poured after her into that nothingness.

“Go,” he cried at Aodhan, and the horse leaped, following Arafel into mortal daylight. The shadows had not come through, or they hid, or transformed themselves. Arafel slew Men, a dire dream in which Ciaran’s heart was chilled . . . I am of them, his heart cried; but another mind rose up in him, flowing into his limbs and his hands.

Give over, give over, the stone sang in his heart, showing him his helplessness to wield these weapons.

He fought that voice, that one who strove to live, to come back. Aodhan ceased to obey him, raced wildly, while the wind grew and grew, while nightmares passed on either side. An anger rose in him at these ill-shapen things, these shadows that twisted into vision, the prickling of old hostility.

“Liosliath!” he heard them shout in rage; and the anger grew in him, lifted his arm, swelled in his heart. He shouted—he knew not what he cried. Aodhan leapt under him willingly, bore him along while his hands strung the elvish bow and he gathered up an arrow. The air swirled with storm: the arrow flew, ice-tipped, feathered with light A horror shrieked and fled, and others coursed the winds. There was a light by him, which became Fio

Suddenly they were alone, in a place gone gray and full of mists—They are fled, fled, the dream sang to him; and elsewhere, wherever he looked, was an iron-poisoned hush.

“Come,” said Arafel, and shadow-shifted to a bloody and littered field. Rain came down and failed to reach them, pocked bloody puddles in the mire instead, drenched the broken human bodies and the shattered spears. They were in the midst of the field, with both sides drawn back for breath. Ciaran turned Aodhan and beheld Caer Wiell, with its men ranged before it afoot, the dozen riders still remaining to them standing huddled to the fore.

It was pause, not victory. It was regrouping, while the sky poured out its tears.

Another rider came treading above the mire of the center of the battlefield. He was a shape like a fragment of night, with his robes blowing in a wind counter of the wind which blew in the mortal realm. Lord Death stopped before them, leaned seemingly on the withers of the shadow-horse, and Ciaran shuddered, for in that shadow steed’s head there was a pale hint of naked bone when the lightnings flashed.

“You are mad,” said Death. “Go back. Cease this.”

“I am bound,” said Arafel. “They have invoked my aid.”

Death straightened, and lifted a black sleeve toward the distant lines of the enemy. “ Theyare there, come from under the hills to aid them. Do you not know? There are powers which have come to align with them.”

“They would do so. But we are bound.”

“There are my brother gods,” said Death. “I bear you word from them; Withdraw, before worse is loosed.”

“Let them stay away,” said Arafel. “Enough is amiss here.”

“Go back,” Death whispered. “If the Daoine Sidhe had all left this land, these fell things would never have come again.”

“Because I have never gone away, dear youth—they have stayed to their hidings.” She laughed and the shadow horse trembled. “Do you know nowwhat watch I stand in Eald?”

Death and his horse stood still, bereft of answers. Ciaran gazed at the blackness, and Aodhan shifted and stamped, for things moved underfoot, and forces gathered.

“I do not bid you,” Ciaran said to Arafel, although it was effort. “I know what has to be. I bound you to this. I release you. Give us over to Death, us and them, only so this ends.”

Arafel gazed at him, and his skin prickled, for the lightnings stirred. “It is Men who lend them power,” she said. “And your sight is truer than it was.—We are held to battle here on this field until the army yonder bids their own allies go back.”

“And they who are wi

“That is so. When your mortal enemy has won, then their new allies will only be the stronger. They will go on, those powers; they will gather forces; they will sweep over all the world. Do you comprehend now, Man my cousin?”

“Forgive me,” Ciaran whispered.

“It is heartsease you ask. I give you that. And I confess I had hope of more strength than we have in Caer Wiell. If we might rob the enemy of lives and human hands . . . but we have not strength enough.”

“You have power unused,” said Death. “Use it! Will you let them all break forth?”

“The cost of that too you know.”

“Our need is now.”

“That sacrifice will not kill them, only drive them for now. And what then, Lord Death? What in a hundred lifetimes of Men—when they go unwatched? Yon have no power over them, no more than over me. There no hope that way. No, I will tell you what you must do: stay your hand from Caer Wiell. Our forces are too diminished as it is.”

“I ca

“My King,” said Ciaran, “will come here, if only we can hold.”

“Your King delays overlong,” Arafel said quietly. “Wiser had you bound me to his aid, not to doomed Caer Wiell’s. As it is, we are bound to serve and fall. And the cost of that fall you do not guess even yet.”

“There was a battle,” said Death, “a day ago. Trust me, that I know. There are still skirmishes; and that force is well-occupied in the hills, Man. Have no hope of them. This enemy has engaged them too, at the pass of Caerdale; and all your King’s strength ca

Ciaran listened. There seemed a gleam within that dark hood. There began a beating that was his heart, or Arafel’s, or both. He laid a hand upon the stone at his throat, heard a whisper from it, felt an elvish presence that found courage to laugh at the thought that came into his mind; and Aodhan shifted to move at once.

“No,” Arafel forbade him, but a light was in her eyes. “Wise you are, but that is no road for you, o Man. Yours to hold here. Where it serves Caer Wiell, Iam free to ride.”

“His human allies will all fall and the enemy will take him,” Death said. His darkness became a nimbus about him. “I shall depart this field with all my forces. That much I can do.”

“Go,” said Arafel.

Death faded. There was only the rain, and then that stopped.

Arafel spoke to Fio