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Authors: Robert Adams
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form. "When once you have proven yourself of true worth, have met with the Dagda and are come fully into your own once more—you and she who will be yours and the Keepers—then will you know and understand everything."
"What land of an answer is that, Puss?" he demanded in clear exasperation. "Who or what is this Dagda, anyway? Danna says that in the old Irish folk
tales he was supposed to be the king of the fairies. Are you trying to tell me that Danna and I are fairies, too?"
The big grey cat's tail which had been curled and twitching slightly began to swish from side to side with a degree of force, lashing against the sleeping bag and his legs within it. "You are trying my patience, old friend. All right, let me essay to put it in terms that anyone could comprehend:
"A lump of dirty quartz may easily contain as much gold as a shiny coin, but it will not be either beautiful or at all valuable to a human until the raw ore in the quartz has been leached out and refined. Lack of refinement does not lessen the feet that gold is contained in that rock; but only a human with the requisite training or at least experience would know that rock to be different from any other common lump.
"Now, before you first set foot to those stone stairs on the day you went about digging a grave for the husk my spirit had but so lately quitted, before you first entered this land called Tiro-na-N'Og, you were akin to that chunk of dirty rock, seemingly no different from countless other mere humans. But now, after having been within this blessed land for even as cumulatively short a time as you have, you are beginning to become refined metal; you are acquiring powers—re-acquiring them, rather—no human of the common breed could acquire such powers no matter how long he or she dwelt herein. And it is as I have told you in times before this: the longer you stay in, live in and on the water and foods of this land, the
greater and more diverse will be the powers you reacquire. In the end, when the Dagda has invested you in the fullest as he alone can, you will be as the bit of pure, refined gold. You will be Sheedey, like the Dagda."
"Sheedey?" thought Fitz, blankly. "Animal, vegetable or mineral, Puss?"
The tail lashed again. "You are human, as the Dagda and the other Sheedey, but you are all more than simply human. You Sheedey are descended of the happy breeding between a very early stock of true humans with a few of the last living Elder Race, the beings who preceded you."
"Look, Puss, I realize this questioning is angering you, but if I don't ask, how can I be expected to understand any of it?" said Fitz. "Now this Elder Race, they mustve been human too, in order to interbreed with humans, right?"
"Yes . . . after a fashion," was the panthers reply. "They owned the ability—which ability is one of the powers owned by the Sheedey when in possession of their birthright—to shift their shapes at will, even to utilize natural materials with which to fashion new or different husks to inhabit for however long a time they wished. The Elder Ones who bred with humans had human shapes . . . mostly. But so well made and accurate to the tiniest of detail were the husks they had fashioned for themselves, to hold their spirits, that the issues of these matings were so human-appearing as to defy human scrutiny. Only the spirits and brains differed from those of the true, pure humans. Among humans alone, without one to waken
in them their powers, they might all have lived and died as the pure humans they seemed. But for them the Elder Ones were at hand to show and teach, to instill necessary self-discipline, to begin to channel the abilities of their few offspring and their many half-offspring, as well."
"If they could breed among themselves," queried Fitz, "then why breed with human beings at all?"
"The Elder Race," was the reply, "had exceedingly long spans of existence, old friend—thousands upon thousands of Earth-years did they naturally
"What land of an answer is that, Puss?" he demanded in clear exasperation. "Who or what is this Dagda, anyway? Danna says that in the old Irish folk
tales he was supposed to be the king of the fairies. Are you trying to tell me that Danna and I are fairies, too?"
The big grey cat's tail which had been curled and twitching slightly began to swish from side to side with a degree of force, lashing against the sleeping bag and his legs within it. "You are trying my patience, old friend. All right, let me essay to put it in terms that anyone could comprehend:
"A lump of dirty quartz may easily contain as much gold as a shiny coin, but it will not be either beautiful or at all valuable to a human until the raw ore in the quartz has been leached out and refined. Lack of refinement does not lessen the feet that gold is contained in that rock; but only a human with the requisite training or at least experience would know that rock to be different from any other common lump.
"Now, before you first set foot to those stone stairs on the day you went about digging a grave for the husk my spirit had but so lately quitted, before you first entered this land called Tiro-na-N'Og, you were akin to that chunk of dirty rock, seemingly no different from countless other mere humans. But now, after having been within this blessed land for even as cumulatively short a time as you have, you are beginning to become refined metal; you are acquiring powers—re-acquiring them, rather—no human of the common breed could acquire such powers no matter how long he or she dwelt herein. And it is as I have told you in times before this: the longer you stay in, live in and on the water and foods of this land, the
greater and more diverse will be the powers you reacquire. In the end, when the Dagda has invested you in the fullest as he alone can, you will be as the bit of pure, refined gold. You will be Sheedey, like the Dagda."
"Sheedey?" thought Fitz, blankly. "Animal, vegetable or mineral, Puss?"
The tail lashed again. "You are human, as the Dagda and the other Sheedey, but you are all more than simply human. You Sheedey are descended of the happy breeding between a very early stock of true humans with a few of the last living Elder Race, the beings who preceded you."
"Look, Puss, I realize this questioning is angering you, but if I don't ask, how can I be expected to understand any of it?" said Fitz. "Now this Elder Race, they mustve been human too, in order to interbreed with humans, right?"
"Yes . . . after a fashion," was the panthers reply. "They owned the ability—which ability is one of the powers owned by the Sheedey when in possession of their birthright—to shift their shapes at will, even to utilize natural materials with which to fashion new or different husks to inhabit for however long a time they wished. The Elder Ones who bred with humans had human shapes . . . mostly. But so well made and accurate to the tiniest of detail were the husks they had fashioned for themselves, to hold their spirits, that the issues of these matings were so human-appearing as to defy human scrutiny. Only the spirits and brains differed from those of the true, pure humans. Among humans alone, without one to waken
in them their powers, they might all have lived and died as the pure humans they seemed. But for them the Elder Ones were at hand to show and teach, to instill necessary self-discipline, to begin to channel the abilities of their few offspring and their many half-offspring, as well."
"If they could breed among themselves," queried Fitz, "then why breed with human beings at all?"
"The Elder Race," was the reply, "had exceedingly long spans of existence, old friend—thousands upon thousands of Earth-years did they naturally
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