Hero's Song Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Crann's Map

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Fire Arrow

  ONE

  Copyright © 1991 by Edith Pattou

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and

  retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work

  should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed

  to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,

  6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

  www.HarcourtBooks.com

  Chapter One from Fire Arrow copyright © 1998 by Edith Pattou

  First Magic Carpet Books edition 1998

  First Published 1991

  Magic Carpet Books is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc.,

  registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition as follows:

  Pattou, Edith.

  Hero's song: the first song of Eirren/by Edith Pattou.

  p. cm.—(The songs of Eirren)

  "Magic Carpet Books."

  Summary: On a quest to rescue his kidnapped sister, Collun discovers

  that he is a key figure in the struggle to save the kingdom of Eirren

  from conquest by Medb, the Queen of Ghosts.

  [1. Fantasy.] I. Title. II. Series: Pattou, Edith. Songs of Eirren.

  PZ7.P278325Hg 1998

  [Fic]—dc21 97-30181

  ISBN: 978-0-15-205542-4

  Text set in Granjon

  Designed by Kaelin Chappell

  Map by Barry Age

  E G H F D

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my grandmother, Hollis,

  who planted the garden,

  and for Charles

  I am a salmon in wisdom's fountain

  —from The Song of Amergin

  Irish poet, ca. 1270 B.C.

  (translation by A. P. Graves)

  ONE

  The Kesil

  Collun was on his knees, working in the flower beds, when he spotted the kesil coming up the road. He leaned back on his heels, watching the tall figure approach. Pinching off the dead head of a cornflower, he wondered why the ragged forest man was back so soon.

  Ordinarily the kesil only came through Inkberrow twice a year, begging for food and muttering strange words under his breath. He had visited their farmhold, Aonarach, just a month ago. Collun's mother had given him food as she always did.

  But here he was back again, and, even more odd, instead of heading around to the back door to beg for scraps, he walked right up to Collun.

  "Good evening," Collun said, his voice uneasy.

  The kesil mumbled words that Collun could not understand. He kept running his hands up and down his knotted gray beard.

  "Are you hungry? May I bring you bread? Or a drink from our well?"

  The wild man shook his head.

  "It won't be long before the first frost," Collun said awkwardly, to fill the silence. The kesil's hands continued moving on his beard, and Collun turned back to his work. He concentrated on uprooting a weed with his trine. A feeling of dread made his hands shake and he cut the weed off short, its jagged edge white against the soil. Collun stared at it. Why did the kesil not go away?

  Abruptly the old man reached out his dirt-encrusted hand and firmly grasped Collun's arm. Almost against his will, Collun looked up into his face. The kesil's eyes were focused and alert, not wandering and dull as they had always been before. The last rays of the sun caught them. They were an incandescent shade of silver-blue. Collun slowly rose to his feet, his breath coming fast.

  The kesil spoke. "You know what you must do. Delay no longer." The words were spoken softly, yet each one was clear and direct.

  "Do not travel on the high road. It is not safe." He loosed his grip from Collun's arm but held the boy's gaze a moment longer, his eyes glittering. Then abruptly the kesil turned away. He shuffled to the gate, opened it, and slowly moved down the road.

  Collun watched the kesil go. His heart thudded unevenly. Was this man perhaps not a kesil? For a moment his eyes had been so clear, hardly those of a madman.

  Did the kesil know about Nessa? And of the fear that wrapped around Collun like a dank smell? Collun shook his head in confusion and returned to his work, bent on thrusting away all reminders of his cowardice. There was much to be done in the garden.

  And yet the moon rose, dinnertime came and went, and still Collun sat crouched in his garden. The trine had long since been laid aside, along with the watering can and the spade. All he had been trying to forget came flooding back.

  Collun's lips moved silently as he counted the days since the news had first arrived.

  A week and a day.

  A week and a day since the messenger from Temair had come up the dusty road to Aonarach. A week and a day since Collun had learned that his sister, Nessa, had disappeared.

  Collun leaned over one of the neatly planted beds of flowers and broke off a spray of alyssum. He held it up and in the moonlight could see a fire ant climbing the purple-black stem. He spun the alyssum between his thumb and forefinger, but the fire ant climbed on, making its way steadily through the honey-sweet blossoms.

  Collun wished that he could trade places with the fire ant. The insect's path was clear. There was food to collect, shelter to build, danger to avoid. Collun's hand trembled. The ant paused a moment, then resumed its climb. When it came to a fork in the alyssum stem, the ant did not hesitate. It knew which way to go.

  Collun did not.

  Since that day when the messenger came to Aonarach, Collun had gone about his daily routine on the farm and at his father's smithy, but his body felt slack, his muscles weary. He watched his hands pound nails into hooves and stake drooping tomato vines, but he was unable to find sense in what he did.

  Less than a year apart in age, Collun and Nessa had always been close. When Nessa had left the farmhold for Temair, Collun felt as if everything had dimmed—the colors of the flowers, the light of the sun. If something had happened to her ... He could not bear even the thought of it.

  Collun remembered how his younger sister had looked the day she departed for Temair. Her plentiful dark hair had been tied up in a dozen trailing ribbons. Too many, their mother, Emer, had said, removing a yellow, a blue, and a pink one.

  Nessa had been up at dawn that morning, unable to sit still long enough to eat breakfast. Their father, Goban, had grumbled at her fidgeting, but Nessa kept running to the door every few moments to see if Aunt Fial's curricle was coming down the road. She fretted each time she came back to the table. What if they had the day wrong? Or worse, what if Aunt Fial had changed her mind?

  But Aunt Fial's curr
icle had arrived on schedule, driven by a small, wiry man named Quince with heavy brows and a sword buckled at his hip. Nessa's eyes had widened at the sight of the sword. Quince explained that the road between Inkberrow and Temair had its dangers, especially of late. He had had no trouble coming and expected none on the way back, but it was well to be prepared.

  Quince had placed Nessa's single case in the back of the curricle while she said her good-byes. Nessa hugged her mother and father, but when she came to Collun, tears blurred her dark eyes.

  "I wish you were coming with me," she had said, a catch in her voice.

  "I shall miss you, Nessa."

  "I made this for you," she whispered, pressing a small square object into his hand. A book.

  Nessa gave Collun a last fierce hug and then jumped up next to Quince on the driver's seat. As he cracked the whip, Nessa raised her hand in farewell, tears still wet on her cheeks.

  They stood and watched the curricle bump along the dusty road. Then Collun's father turned away, growling, "The day's half gone. There's work to do."

  "I hope Fial will take good care of her," Emer said softly.

  "Aye," replied Goban, but his tone held doubt.

  Emer looked worried. "Have we done wrong, letting her go to Temair?"

  "Right or wrong, it's too late now," Goban grunted. "Leastways 'twas nothing else to be done, once Nessa set her mind on it."

  And Goban spoke the truth, Collun thought. There was no one as stubborn as Nessa.

  Emer twisted her hands in her apron. "I hope Fial watches out for her," she said again.

  Goban did not respond. Collun knew his father had little use for the widow of Emer's elder brother; he thought her vain and foolish. Fial, for her part, was ill at ease with the remote blacksmith and always seemed relieved to end her visits and return to Temair.

  Fial was all that remained of Emer's family, though she was not blood kin. Emer's father, mother, and two brothers were all dead. She never spoke of them, nor did she visit Fial in Temair. Their interaction was limited to short visits by Fial to Inkberrow once every five years.

  During her most recent visit, Aunt Fial had been delighted with Nessa, who had blossomed since she had last seen her. But none of them had been prepared for the long letter that arrived on Nessa's birthday, inviting her to come live in Temair for a year. Temair was the seat of the king and queen and as such was a powerful stronghold and the largest city in Eirren. Fial offered to present Nessa at court and give her all the advantages of life in the royal dun. For her part, Nessa would provide welcome companionship to a lonely widow.

  Emer had been distressed by Fial's offer and at first had refused to even consider it. But Nessa had been so determined to go that at last she wore Emer down.

  Emer wrote and told Fial of their decision. Arrangements were made for the curricle to come for Nessa in a fortnight.

  The time had gone quickly. And as Collun watched the dust on the road settle, the curricle lost to sight, he felt numb. Goban had returned to his forge, Emer to her kitchen. Slowly Collun made his way to his favorite shade tree, a white willow at the edge of the east meadow. He settled himself under it and opened the book Nessa had given him. At once he saw she had made it herself.

  Nessa had loved books for as long as Collun could remember. They had but few at the farmhold Aonarach, and of late Nessa had been experimenting with making her own.

  It had taken her a long time to master the art of crafting paper thin enough to bind between two covers. Collun smiled, remembering the smelly messes she had created in the process. Most recently she had been trying her hand at dyes, and her fingers were often stained by the different berries and barks she used.

  The cover of the book was leather, and a simple design had been etched into it. What followed was a short tale about a seabird. Every other page was decorated with a picture of the varied places the seabird flew.

  Collun drew in his breath. He had not known his sister had such a delicate and true hand at drawing. He came to the end of the book reluctantly. Then he stood, carefully stowing the book in an inside pocket of his jersey.

  He kept it there in the weeks that followed, and when he found himself missing her the most, he would take it out and read it through again.

  ***

  They had received a short message from Aunt Fial not long after Nessa left, saying she had arrived safely and was settling comfortably into her new life. That was all, until the middle of a hot day two months later when the messenger from Temair had arrived.

  Collun had been in his garden spreading mulch. The messenger's raiment was travel-stained, his horse flecked with foam. He was a young man, barely out of his teens, and he looked hot and ill-tempered. He seemed particularly cross about a black bird he claimed to have spotted several times since leaving Temair.

  "Bad omen," he muttered. "Like as not it means I'm about to be sent up north to the border country where all the trouble is," he said sourly, giving Collun a dark look as though it were his fault.

  Collun quickly called his parents, and the messenger handed over the letter with Fial's seal on it.

  Goban wordlessly passed the letter to Emer while he went to tend to the messenger's overheated horse.

  Emer entered the house, and Collun followed. He peered over her shoulder at the ink-filled pages as she read them. But Emer moved away so he could not see the letter.

  When she had finished, Emer looked up at her son and made a small gesture, like a bird with a broken wing.

  "Nessa's gone," she said, her voice dim.

  "What?" Collun felt a chill spread through him. He instinctively reached for Fial's letter, but Emer held it from him.

  "What do you mean, 'gone'?" Collun demanded, his tone harsher than he intended.

  "Disappeared. During the feast to celebrate her coming-of-age ceremony. Fial says an important nobleman named Bricriu hosted the feast, and the court had gathered at his dun, a half day's journey from Temair..." Emer trailed off.

  "Yes?"

  "Halfway through Bricriu's feast Nessa disappeared, leaving not a trace behind." Emer paused, taking in a deep breath. "A search party was organized, even the king's three sons took part, but..."

  "How could this happen?" Collun said, his body rigid, hands clamped onto the top rung of a wooden chair.

  "Fial wants to know if we have heard from Nessa, if she might have been homesick and come back to Inkberrow."

  "Was she unhappy in Temair?"

  Emer shook her head. "According to Fial, Nessa loved her life in Temair. The queen herself had taken a liking to her."

  Emer's voice died out. Her face was still and white as milkstone. Slowly she turned and glided out of the room. Collun's hands tightened on the chair. Nessa gone. He felt numb, unbelieving. He released the chair rung and went to find Emer. She was lying on her bed, her face turned to the wall. The letter was still clutched in her hands.

  Dinner that night was eaten in silence. Emer had not moved from the bed. Collun had prepared the meal, and father and son ate quickly.

  ***

  Collun knew it was his duty as the only son to go in search of his sister. But the thought of leaving Aonarach, of leaving his garden and fields, made his breath come thin and fast in his chest. His muscles shook with fear. He cursed himself for a coward and went sleepless as each night went by.

  He felt his father watching him as the days passed. They had never been close. Goban's life centered around the smithy. He had a reputation for sound, careful work. Collun had disappointed Goban early on by showing no skill at the forge. He was clumsy and slow, and he hated the stink of the burning keratin in the horses' hooves, and the black metal dust that stung the inside of his nose, and the ear-numbing sound of the pounding of iron. He had tried, over and over, but his heart was not in it, and the misshapen lumps he pulled from the water-filled trough after tempering were greeted with silence from Goban.

  Collun's talent lay in giving life to green growing things, in bringing vegetables to
the table, grain to the oven, and flowers to the windowsill. He seemed to have been born with an innate knowledge of seeds, soil, and weather. At an early age, he had miraculously brought life to a field that had lain desolate for years. When the corn Collun planted that first year grew to the height of Goban's shoulders and the squash came up in great, ungainly shapes, the blacksmith's only response had been a nod of grudging respect.

  Collun was never as happy as when he was kneeling in a patch of rich, dark earth, his trine in hand, winnowing the weeds from the plants, with the sun on his back or rain in his hair.

  Because of Collun's skill, the few acres around the smithy that had previously been used for nothing but grazing were now flourishing with crops of fat vegetables. There was always more than enough for both eating and selling at the market in Inkberrow. The garden by the house was usually ablaze with one type of flower or another, depending on the season. There were herbs, too, for cooking and healing, and Collun had developed a small reputation for herb craft. He had begun carrying the most useful of his herbs in a leather wallet he wore slung across his chest. When he went into town he was called on to minister to minor injuries and sicknesses. A few villagers had even begun to make their way out to the lonely farmhold to seek his advice.

  At home, Nessa had been the only one who could ease the strain between father and son. Emer would try to bring them together, but her careful efforts always seemed to make things worse. But then Nessa would come along with her latest attempt at bookmaking and soon even Goban's face would crease into a smile. Nessa brought warmth and light into the house. When she left for Temair, Aonarach seemed to go dark.

  Collun knew his father would have gone in search of Nessa himself, but his left leg had been lamed in an accident at the forge some years back, and he walked with a limp. If he was on his feet for too long, his mouth went white at the corners with pain. There was also the smithy to run, and Collun did not have the ability to stand in for his father.

  But still Collun put off leaving. He kept hoping another messenger from Temair would come up the dusty road with a letter explaining that it had all been a great mistake, that Nessa had been found in some overlooked corner, lost in a book. But no messenger came. The silence between father and son deepened. Mealtimes grew unbearable for Collun, and he began to avoid them, taking food with him out to the fields. Before leaving in the morning, though, he would go to his mother's room.