The Raging Fires Read Free Page B

It was the first place I had wandered after washing ashore on the island—and the first place I had ever felt my own roots sinking deeply.
    I smiled, seeing my staff leaning against the rowan’s trunk. That, too, had been a gift of this forest, as its spicy scent of hemlock reminded me constantly. Whatever elements of real magic that I possessed—outside of a few simple skills such as my second sight, which had come to me after I lost the use of my eyes, and my sword with some magic of its own—resided within the gnarled wood of that staff.
    As did so much more. For my staff had, somehow, been touched by the power of Tuatha himself. He had reached out of the ages, out of the grave, to place his own magic within its shaft. Even with the blurred edges of my vision, I could make out the symbols carved upon it, symbols of the powers that I yearned to master fully: Leaping, between places and possibly even times; Changing, from one form into another; Binding, not just a broken bone but a broken spirit as well; and all the rest.
    Perhaps, just perhaps . . . the psaltery would take on similar powers. Was it possible? Powers that I could wield on behalf of all Fincayra’s peoples, with wisdom and grace not seen since the days of my grandfather.
    I took a deep breath. Carefully, I lifted the little instrument in my hands, then slid the oaken bridge under the strings. A snap of my wrist—and it stood in place. I exhaled, knowing that the moment, my moment, was very near.

2: T HE R OOT C HORD
    Done,” I announced. “It’s ready to play.”
    “Done, you say?” Cairpré’s shaggy gray head poked around from behind the trunk of the great rowan. He looked frustrated, as if he couldn’t find the one remaining word he needed to complete an epic poem about tree roots. As his dark eyes focused on my little instrument, his expression clouded still more. “Hmmm. A fair piece of work, Merlin.”
    His tangled eyebrows drew together. “But it’s not done until it’s played. As I’ve said someplace or other, For the truth shall be found, Not in sight but in sound.”
    From behind him, on the brow of the knoll, came a hearty laugh. “Never mind that your poem referred to a meadowlark instead of a harp.”
    Cairpré and I swung our heads toward my mother as she stepped lightly over the grass. Her dark blue robe fluttered in the breeze that smelled so strongly of autumn, while her hair draped her shoulders like a mantle of sunlight. It was her eyes, though, that drew my attention. Eyes more blue than sapphires.
    Watching her approach, the poet straightened his smudged white tunic. “Elen,” he grumbled. “I should have guessed you’d return just in time to correct me.”
    Her eyes seemed to smile. “Somebody has to now and then.”
    “Impossible.” Cairpré did his best to look gruff, but could not hide his own fleeting smile. “Besides, it’s not a harp the boy has made. It’s a psaltery, though a small one, after the Greek psalterion. Did no one ever teach you about the Greeks, young lady?”
    “Yes.” My mother stifled another laugh. “You did.”
    “Then you have no excuse whatsoever.”
    “Here,” she said to me, pouring some plump, purple berries into the hollow in the root holding my tools. “Rivertang berries, from the rill across the way. I brought a handful for you.” With a sidelong glance at Cairpré, she flicked a single berry at him. “And one for you, for agreeing to give me a tutorial on Grecian music.”
    The poet grunted. “If I have time.”
    I listened, curious, to their bantering. Whatever the reason, their conversations often took such turns lately. And this puzzled me, since their words themselves didn’t seem to be what mattered. No, their bantering was really about something else, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
    Watching them, I popped a few berries into my mouth, tasting the zesty flavor. Here they were, talking as if Cairpré thought he knew everything, more perhaps than