"Nuallan," Caith said hoarsely, desperately, "the boy. Dubhain promised." Light burst. The Sidhe was not where or what he had been; Nuallan was beside him like a glare of light while men flinched and shielded their eyes. There came a boy's faint sob. "I have him," Nuallan said. "I leave you—to solve it all—mac Sliabhin."

Then was darkness, or the parting of the light, as if light had gone out in his soul as well and left him only the horror, the men, his father closing on him, having one hate now and one focus of their malice.

Caith seized the brazier one-handed, overturned it across their path, hurling red coals and irons across the planks. He kicked a bubbling oilpot and its tripod after it and fled, up the stairs.

"Dubhain!" Caith cried, desperate, half-prayer, half-curse. Steps rang close behind him—he whirled, spitted the man that came at him in the torchlight, and gazed on Sliabhin's dying face.

"Patricide," said Sliabhin, holding to Caith, clutching at his clothes, at the tartan of Dun Mhor, " patricide, twice as damned as I."

Caith freed himself, hearing the shrieks of burning men below, seeing the whole stairwell flared up from beneath, aleap with flame and horror. A burning man raced up toward him, mad with pain: that man he killed over Sliabhin's corpse, and turned, gasping for breath, to race stumbling up the stairs, sword in hand.

Other guards were coming down. Caith met them in the hellish light, hewed past them, one and the other, while they were still amazed at what came at them, dark amid the glare of fire. He trod on their bodies and ran, up into the hall, toward the door, where two more guards made their rush at him.

One he killed, and rushed past the other out into the drizzle and the glare of shielded torches. All about him the alarm dinned— help, fire, assault!

"Kill him," someone shouted. "Watch the gate!" another. Caith ran; that was all he knew to do. He ran splashing through the rain-soaked yard with his side aching and blood binding his hand to the hilt of his sword. Before him he saw the gates were sealed; and in front of those gates a shining rider sat a horse whose mane itself was light. The boy Brian was a shadow in that rider's arms.

"Nuallan!" Caith cried.

He did not expect help. He stumbled forward and caught himself as the horse leapt into motion away from him and passed through the sealed gates as if they had been no more than air.

"Brian! Brother!" It was all his hope fleeing him, in Sidhe hands—in their hands, who could bargain a man's soul out of his body. The Sidhe had no pity in them.

"There he is!" someone shouted behind him. Caith gave only half a look and ran along the wall, trapped, whirling to kill a man as he went, still dealing murder with the tears mingling with the rain on his face and blinding him. He loathed all that he had done, loathed all that he was, all his bargains with fate and the Sidhe; and still he went on killing those who wished to end him. He ran, and they hunted him along the wall by the stables.

"Alive!" someone screamed, full of hate. "Take him alive!" That put a last burst of speed into him, rawest desperation to evade the corner they drove him for.

The beat of hooves sounded at his right as if it were coming from somewhere far, and a cold wind blew on him, and a black horse crossed his path, moving slowly like a dream, its eyes gleaming red within the darkness. It offered him its back; it wanted him. That was the bargain, then. It was better than Dun Mhor offered, the phooka-ride, that should end in numbing cold water, some lightless riverbottom, to drift among the reeds. Caith clenched the black thick mane in his fists and flung himself astride the phooka, felt it stretch itself to run in earnest and saw the wall coming up before them—but it was only mist about them when they met it.

They were away then, with the wind rushing past them. He heard the phooka hoofbeats like the beating of his heart, felt the spatter of the mist like ice against his face and his neck and his arms. On and on they ran, and the cold went to his bones. When he looked over his shoulder he saw an orange glow, a jagged ruin, that was Dun Mhor, which was all his hope and his hate and every reason that had ever driven him. It sank in ashes now.

He laid his head against the phooka's neck, buried his face in the darkness of Dubhain's mane and let the black Sidhe bear him where he would, having had enough of blood, of fire, and of life. The rain washed him, soaked him through till he was numb; leaves and branches began at last to sweep over him, passing like the touch of hands and the memory of rain as wet leaves brushed his hands and head.

Abruptly he was falling, falling; but as before it was not a stream that met him, but solid ground, an impact that drove the wind from him.

Caith sprawled, dazed, and it was a moment before he could get his arms beneath him and lever himself to his knees, expecting phooka-laughter and phooka-humor and all the wickedness they could do.

Sidhe-light broke about him, a pale glow. Sidhe stood all about him, bright and terrible Fair Folk. One was Nuallan; and there were a score of others. Their horses waited beyond the circle, themselves an unbearable light in the darkness.

A small boy lay among them, sprawled unconscious on the grass at their feet and, seeing that, Caith found his strength again and tried to get up and go to Brian; but he could not. Nuallan moved between and a chill came on Caith's limbs that took the strength from his legs. He got to the Sidhe all the same, and grasped at his shining cloak: but it passed through his fingers and he fell to his knees.

"I'd not do that," Dubhain said, squatting nearby, his eyes aglow and wicked.

"Let him go," Caith shouted at the chill and mocking faces above, about him. "Let my brother go. I never rescued him to give him to you."

"But you didn't save him," Nuallan said. "Safe and sound, you said. Was that not the bargain, mac Sliabhin? Would you ask more now?"

Dubhain drew back his lips in a half-grin, half-grimace. "Listen," the phooka said, "don't be reckless. You have the curse on you. It's all yours now. Didn't we help you? We've more than kept our bargain. What else have you to give up, beyond your scruples? Think, man." Caith managed a laugh, despairing as it was; then the laugh died in his throat, for the Sidhe glow brightened, showing him where he was, in a small clearing at a ford, where a sleeping company sat sleeping horses, heads bowed, bodies slumped, and the rain on them like jewels, as if time had stopped here and all the world were wrapped in nightmares.

"They should not have come here," said one of the Sidhe.

"No man should," said another.

"Now, mac Sliabhan, what will you pay," asked Nuallan, "to free the boy from us?" Caith turned a bleak look on him, blinking in the rain. "Why, whatever I have, curse you. Take me. Let the rest go. All of them. I'm worth it. Isn't that what you've most wanted—to have one of Sliabhin's blood in your reach? And I'm far more guilty than the boy."

"You've not asked what the curse is," said Nuallan.

"You'll tell me when it suits you."

"Torment," said Nuallan, "to suffer torment all your days, mac Sliabhin—the boy, oh, aye, he's free. We accept your offering; he's no matter to us. The curse is yours alone."

"Then let him go!"

"I shall do more than that," Nuallan said; and bent, the tallest and fairest of all his fellows, and gathered the boy into his arms ever so gently, as if he had been no weight at all. He bore him to the sleeping riders; and the light about him fell on their faces. It was Raghallach foremost among them; and Cinnfhail's shieldman; and others of Gleatharan. And Nuallan set Brian in Raghallach's arms on the saddlebow, sleeping child in the keeping of the sleeping rider, whose face was bruised and battered with wounds from Dun Mhor's cellars.