"By my magic from Mother. By Padrec Raven. Dost think do take Mabh's name in vain?"

Great or not, blessed or not, the girl was young enough to be arrogant. Bruidda saw that as weakness. She was more concerned than other gerns in this matter. The stags rutted early the past autumn, and the fawns were born before Lugh returned to warm the spring. Many of them died on the summer trail north; many did not live that long. That in itself was a breach in the way of things, as if Reindeer had forgotten everything Mother taught. Among the weak and crippled, Bruidda had found a fawn whose fine hair was not dappled but black all over, so black that it was surely sent by Lugh as Raven in another form, since no fawn was ever dropped with such coloring. The little thing was born with its forelegs only, the others mere stumps. Clearly it was a sign to Reindeer fhain. Since it was dying, Bruidda gave it quick mercy, cut into the sack of entrails, and read the portent. She did not speak in her own fhain of this but only among her wise sister gerns when

she met them traveling. Eventually they agreed on the meaning.

That there were forelegs only pointed to a future cut off from the past. There would be born to Reindeer fhain a gern of Mabh's blood, and to her a husband, both from fhain sisters, as was proper. Though the signs did not point to happiness, they would both be great in the midst of sadness. But this girl was Salmon and her Raven of the tallfolk. The signs hinted of the sea in the great one's name: "bright one from the sea," or Morgana, and her husband somehow of the Bear. Bruidda had heard of false gods and false leaders before this, and she was not used to familiarity from girls less than half her age, no matter their sudden and wondrous fame.

"Lugh sent sign of a great gern to come. Do see thee a child who speaks like one, thy belly not yet marked with bearing of live wealth. Does Raven teach you boasting as well? Speak, girl. How was a done?"

Was it Cru or the cold comfort of Wolf that made her do it? Dorelei whipped the iron knife from its sheath and held it up, pointing at Bruidda. "Do nae call me girl."

She saw the averted gaze, felt the flinching in Bruidda under the blunt insult. She felt it in those waiting in darkness and knew she was master here. Dorelei stroked the iron blade across her forearm. "Will try thy magic against mine, sister?"

Bruidda was older and wise enough not to make such attempt where failure was certain. "Dorelei Mabh," she said in a different tone, "do not shame me before Mother and fhain."

Dorelei rose. "Now thee may sit while Mabh stands. Let Reindeer come close. Hear the speaking of Padrec Raven. Only by Jesu shall thee be delivered. Only by Dorelei Mabh shall thee win over iron. My arm will stretch out like the rod of Moses. Iron will go down before Prydn, will kiss thy foot and cook thy food as a does mine. Such gifts will Mabh share."

Cold exultation, kindled from the ashes of fury; Do-

relei felt herself growing taller. The night could not chill nor the world frighten her any more than it did Moses, who confronted Egypt-fhain even as she faced Naiton.

"Hear! Will Reindeer tame this iron or run from it? M

As Meganius knew Patricius, Bruidda had some sense of Dorelei—the youth and arrogance and the thrust of ambition. For a long moment she gazed in understanding and a pity quite lost on the younger woman. All was not clear. If this was not Morgana, then perhaps the child in her belly . . .

Bruidda rose, came round the fire. As she put her hands to Dorelei's stomach in respect, her people slipped forward into the light—suspicious, tentative, but coming with hands outstretched to touch the quickened belly of Dorelei Mabh.

Whether Wolf was Satan or speaking bush, Dorelei had already viewed one of the offered kingdoms, and it was that which tempted Padrec.

Other fhains followed Bruidda. Around the summer rath of Salmon, more tents sprang up until the green hill bristled with them. Not entire fhains, who had their own flocks to tend, but if honored Bruidda could travel to see this wonder, other germs could not hang back. They mulled the portent of the black fawn; whether or not this young gern was the bright one from the sea, if she conquered what Mabh herself could not, then even great ones would come to see.

Other voices talked that summer, watching the ponies move across the high ridges, and wondering. ' There is that Faerie queen who is called Dorelei Mabh, and the iron has no power over her. And she gathers others to her. This is not good."

There were those who hated Faerie without thinking on it, because their fathers had. Everyone knew they were evil spirits, that was a fact of life. Such men and women wagged their knowing heads and rolled their eyes and declared that Faerie and iron together were against the natural order of things. And when the doom-

sayers had made their dark predictions, the cooler heads made theirs, the canny men who looked to profit in any situation and were willing to wait for it. This Mabh and her Raven were young, one heard. Young leaders make young mistakes, overstep themselves. One had only to wait. The time would come.

For the rest who feared more than they thought—that is to say, most of them—the increasing number of Faerie rades along the hilltops was ominous. It was unnatural for so many of them to come together and boded no good at all...

No, he was not humble for all his prayers, far from it. Padrec watched them come, saw the deference to Do-relei, and received it himself. None considered him tall-folk now with the marks on him. There were changelings like himself among the fhains on the hill. Not the size but the heart made them Prydn.

The hill was bright with Lugh's sun, the raths throwing sharp shadows against it. He had preached to them and now they all shared a meal of tea, fish, and a variety of wildfowl and vegetables even simmered in iron pots over Malgon's forge fire. The day of the loaves and fishes must have been something like this, Padrec thought. New people were arriving all the time, paying their respects to Dorelei before accepting food. One of them was a young man with Salmon markings. He put his palms to Dorelei's belly and waited for her to sit before he spoke.

Padrec asked of Malgon: "Would be from Gawse, then?"

"Aye." Malgon noted the ritual movement of the man's hands—stretched out to earth and raised to sky, then down to cover his face. "Has been death in Salmon fhain."

Dear God, not Cm. Padrec and Malgon edged closet to hear.

"Gern-y-fhain," the young man told her, "thy mother be dead."

Padrec would have gone instantly to Dorelei, but Mal-gon checked him. "Nae. Wait."

Dorelei accepted the news in formal composure, covering her face with the same gesture before speaking. "Say how thy gern did die."

"By tallfolk hand. Venicone."

Gawse's fhain was occupying the hill near the ring of stones where Dorelei first found Padrec. On a false charge of thievery, Gawse and her people were pelted out of the same village where his own legs were broken. One stone too heavy and sharp hit Gawse in the head. She fell and never woke.

Dorelei's face was a mask. "And a was barrowed?"

"Barrowed and wrapped in Rainbow gift, Gern-y-fhain."

Dorelei said no more. The silence stretched out until Padrec felt uncomfortable. This was his first experience with their death customs, but by every Roman and manly instinct, his arm should be about his wife for comfort and Gawse's grave known to them so they could mark and reverence it; if not a requiem, at least prayers to St. Brigid for the honorable mother of a convert. But Mal-gon schooled him in a few words.

*'Barrow be never known, Padrec, never marked. Never asked."

Only that a small opening be left for Gawse's spirit to rise from the cairn. In tens of seasons, even Salmon would forget the place and tallfolk never know, else they'd desecrate the tomb for Gawse's treasure.

And so they disappear into Faerie-land. Drab to find reality behind the rainbow. It leached some of the color from the world. As Padrec looked to his wife, the melody of a childhood rhyme came back with a memory of his slave nurse, and herself singing him to sleep.

Be not where but only when . . .

He couldn't remember more than that. Then the sound sliced across his musing, chilling him in the midday sunlight. He'd heard it some nights in Ireland; at such times his master would not send even a slave to the hills.

"Tonight it is that you will byre the flock and stay at home. The banshee cries in the hills."

The sound, the cry rose from Dorelei, head flung back like Wolf, then from Neniane and Guenloie. Higher and higher through the scale it rose, to dip and rise again in a weird dissonance from all the women on the hill, until the unearthly sound set Padrec's teeth on edge. It licked about the edges of reason and all that was warm and safe, like wind tearing at a thatched roof. You are foolish, that voice whispered to Padrec's civilization. / am the center and you the outsider. Not evil, never evil, but the sound of mourning women. Is sorrow not real? If eternity is beyond understanding, how shall men under-stand this? You may promise them reunion, but first this loss and the keening of women.

Banshee . . . he'd said the word so often, heard the meaning blurred by the fearful Irish, who mouthed it without note to its original meaning. Bean sidhe. Faerie wife. Small wonder the fear. The keening plucked at the mind with talons of sound, disordered, tore it asunder. Stop, I beg you. . . .

They did cease in their own time, fading away to silence like a hole in sound itself. Only the wind whined, the lush grass stirred. The dozens squatting there might have been carved by Malgon. Padrec tried not to notice passing time, but his Roman sense of it would not stand down. The shadows had slid eastward by perhaps an hour's measure when Dorelei rose and beckoned to him.