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Authors: Melanie Jackson
Tags: Fiction
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true, for those of MacLeod blood were taken away to live with the faeries.
Are ye coming, lass? the low-pitched voice in her head asked.
Was she coming?
“Yes,” she answered for a third time, and with a last breath, she stepped inside the chamber.
Around her was immeasurable space, but space unlike that to be found in any ordinary cave or room. It was without direction. No east. No west. No north or south. No up. No down. The smoky lantern was her only guidepost, but it showed her nothing but more vast, dizzying emptiness. It was a place so blank it had not even human time within it, but all the eons flowing together in a giant, disorienting sea.
There was a slight wind at first, eddying about her feet, but it quickly gathered strength, pushing her into the void—into the black—into the past.
It was time streaming around her. Two-and-one-half centuries were fleeting by, pulling the pins from her hair, flapping her skirts about her legs like the snapping of an ocean vessel’s sails.
Though she was not asleep, another image of Malcolm came to her mind. This time he was as clear as if lit by the sun at high noon on a summer’s day.
Malcolm stood in the tiny ramparts, guards at his sides, watching the white sails fill the horizon.
The Campbells had been lulled by his lack of weapons, thinking he was harmless because he carried no iron. It had amused them—them and that black-hearted bitch!—to keep the MacIntyre’s piper as a plaything, a jester to entertain them. On his promise that he would not try to escape the keep, he had been given the run of the castle, and there he had bided his time, waiting for Colkitto’s return.
Now his foes muttered the MacColla’s name like an invocation, for it seemed their curses had conjured the very devil to their door. The usually canny Irishman had returned! But he came at the castle boldly, unaware of the danger, his ship’s sails plain against the blue sky.
Malcolm had borne no love for the MacColla when first they met, but he knew now why the man fought the Campbells so assiduously—and in that Malcolm would gladly give him aid. Malcolm was a dead man already, as he had known since before this assault. The faeries had marked him for it, and if the choice be his in the manner of his end, he had one last task to perform as the clan piper.
Colkitto was not meant to die this day. It was Malcolm’s duty to see that he got away.
Colkitto’s ship drew closer.
He raised his pipes: the chanter to his lips, the lyart reed in place. He had his piece selected. It was the one he had played on the night he and Colkitto met. Both men knew it well, and like all great pipe music, its cadence was a rigid set of counts of eight. It would be easy enough to drop two counts every third line in the urlar and crun luath —was a trick that had been used before to save MacColla’s father from a trap at Dunyvaig. The MacDonnell would ken his warning in the mutilation of the song while these lowlanders scratched their heads, wondering that their quarry was escaping their trap.
He played, and in the strains his message was clear.
MacColla, fliest thou from the castle. Go with the wind and make for open sea. We have been seized, we have been seized.
The wind was abruptly gone, and another door was waiting before her. The script carved upon it meant nothing to Taffy’s eye, but her heart knew where the passage led. This time, she did not hesitate to pass through the portal. Malcolm felt very near.
The day on the other side was pleasant and normal, though slightly cooler than the one she had left. The westing sun afforded her an adequate, but filtered light. She was in a thick copsewoodof mountain ash, she realized with a thrill that fluttered in her slightly upset stomach. If this afternoon’s dream was correct—as it had been so far—to reach the castle wall, she needed only to follow the stream heard bubbling in the distance. If that failed, there was the alarming music floating
Are ye coming, lass? the low-pitched voice in her head asked.
Was she coming?
“Yes,” she answered for a third time, and with a last breath, she stepped inside the chamber.
Around her was immeasurable space, but space unlike that to be found in any ordinary cave or room. It was without direction. No east. No west. No north or south. No up. No down. The smoky lantern was her only guidepost, but it showed her nothing but more vast, dizzying emptiness. It was a place so blank it had not even human time within it, but all the eons flowing together in a giant, disorienting sea.
There was a slight wind at first, eddying about her feet, but it quickly gathered strength, pushing her into the void—into the black—into the past.
It was time streaming around her. Two-and-one-half centuries were fleeting by, pulling the pins from her hair, flapping her skirts about her legs like the snapping of an ocean vessel’s sails.
Though she was not asleep, another image of Malcolm came to her mind. This time he was as clear as if lit by the sun at high noon on a summer’s day.
Malcolm stood in the tiny ramparts, guards at his sides, watching the white sails fill the horizon.
The Campbells had been lulled by his lack of weapons, thinking he was harmless because he carried no iron. It had amused them—them and that black-hearted bitch!—to keep the MacIntyre’s piper as a plaything, a jester to entertain them. On his promise that he would not try to escape the keep, he had been given the run of the castle, and there he had bided his time, waiting for Colkitto’s return.
Now his foes muttered the MacColla’s name like an invocation, for it seemed their curses had conjured the very devil to their door. The usually canny Irishman had returned! But he came at the castle boldly, unaware of the danger, his ship’s sails plain against the blue sky.
Malcolm had borne no love for the MacColla when first they met, but he knew now why the man fought the Campbells so assiduously—and in that Malcolm would gladly give him aid. Malcolm was a dead man already, as he had known since before this assault. The faeries had marked him for it, and if the choice be his in the manner of his end, he had one last task to perform as the clan piper.
Colkitto was not meant to die this day. It was Malcolm’s duty to see that he got away.
Colkitto’s ship drew closer.
He raised his pipes: the chanter to his lips, the lyart reed in place. He had his piece selected. It was the one he had played on the night he and Colkitto met. Both men knew it well, and like all great pipe music, its cadence was a rigid set of counts of eight. It would be easy enough to drop two counts every third line in the urlar and crun luath —was a trick that had been used before to save MacColla’s father from a trap at Dunyvaig. The MacDonnell would ken his warning in the mutilation of the song while these lowlanders scratched their heads, wondering that their quarry was escaping their trap.
He played, and in the strains his message was clear.
MacColla, fliest thou from the castle. Go with the wind and make for open sea. We have been seized, we have been seized.
The wind was abruptly gone, and another door was waiting before her. The script carved upon it meant nothing to Taffy’s eye, but her heart knew where the passage led. This time, she did not hesitate to pass through the portal. Malcolm felt very near.
The day on the other side was pleasant and normal, though slightly cooler than the one she had left. The westing sun afforded her an adequate, but filtered light. She was in a thick copsewoodof mountain ash, she realized with a thrill that fluttered in her slightly upset stomach. If this afternoon’s dream was correct—as it had been so far—to reach the castle wall, she needed only to follow the stream heard bubbling in the distance. If that failed, there was the alarming music floating
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