did you see in it, Dougie?’ Marnmara said.
‘A strange-looking fellow standing between two apple trees. You might have warned me that the thing could work tricks like that.’
‘I didn’t know it could.’ Marnmara smiled briefly, then spoke to Tirn in their language. He looked utterly surprised and spoke a few words in reply. ‘He says he told you not to look into it.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Dougie said. ‘My apologies.’
Dougie decided that he didn’t like the way everyone was staring at him. He stood up and held out his hand to Berwynna.
‘I’ll be needing to go home soon.’
Together they walked down to the pier. Although he’d never seen the boatmen leave the great hall, there they were, manning the oars, ready to take him back across. Dougie shook his head hard. He felt drunk, but he’d only had half a tankard of Diarmud’s watered ale, and then another half of Angmar’s decent brew – hardly any drink at all.
‘Are you well?’ Berwynna said. ‘You’ve gone pale.’
‘I saw the strangest damned thing in that stone of Tirn’s. It was like a dream, some fellow pointing to the ground over and over. He seemed to think it was important, that bit of earth.’
‘Do you think it was a spirit?’ Berwynna turned thoughtful. ‘They say that spirits know where treasures are buried.’
‘Well, so they do – in old wives’ tales and suchlike. I wouldn’t set your heart on me finding a bucketful of gold.’
She laughed, then raised herself up on tip-toe and kissed him farewell.
The kiss kept Dougie warm during his long walk home, but the memory of his peculiar experience kept the kiss company. After he’d brooded on what he’d seen for a mile or two, the look of the fellow in the vision jogged his memory. He knew something about that fellow, he realized, but he’d forgotten the details.
Domnal Breich’s steading lay in a narrow valley twixt wooded hills. Over the years he’d built his family a rambling stone house and barn, surrounded by kitchen gardens and set off from the fields by a stone wall. The two apple trees of Dougie’s vision stood by the gate, at least twice as high as they’d appeared in the black gem. When he let himself in, he paused for a moment to look at the ground between them – ordinary enough dirt, as far as he could tell, soft from the recent rain and dusted with spring grass.
Domnal himself came out of the barn and hailed him. Although he still walked with a swagger, and his broad work-worn hands were as strong as ever, his dark brown hair sported grey streaks, and his moustache had gone grey as well.
‘Been at the island?’ Domnal said.
‘I have,’ Dougie said. ‘Here, Da, a thing I want to ask you. Do you remember a tale you told me – it was on my saint’s day, a fair many years ago now, and we went riding up to Haen Marn’s loch?’
‘The tale about Evandar, you mean, and how he saved my life?’
‘That’s the one! It was a snowy night, you said, and you were lost.’
‘Lost and doomed, I thought, truly. But he was a man of the Seelie Host. The cold meant naught to him. He took me to Haen Marn, where they kept me safe for the night.’
‘What did he look like? I can’t remember.’
‘He was tall and thin with bright yellow hair and eyes of the strangest blue, more like the sky just at twilight than an ordinary colour. A well-favoured fellow, but there was somewhat odd about his ears. They were long and curled like the bud of a lily. Ye gods! It’s been seventeen years now, but I can still see him as clear as clear in my memory.’
‘No doubt, since he saved your life.’
‘He did that, indeed, by getting me to Haen Marn and its hearth.’ Domnal paused to chew his moustache in thought. ‘You know, there’s somewhat that I still don’t understand. That night, I could have sworn that the island and its loch lay south of Ness. But the next time I saw it – in the spring, it was – it lay to the north, where it is now.’
‘If it could fly here from Cymru, why couldn’t it move itself again? Maybe it didn’t like its first nest.’
Domnal shrugged. ‘Mayhap so,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t explain it any other way.’
‘No doubt. My thanks, Da,’ Dougie said. ‘I was just wondering.’
That’s who I saw, Dougie thought, Evandar! He was frightened enough by the magical gem to consider avoiding Haen Marn from that day on, but he knew that he never could. For one thing, there was Mic and the profitable trips down to Din Edin. And of course, for another, there was Berwynna.
That night, when the family lay asleep, Dougie still waked, thinking over the vision in the gem. His curiosity had been well and truly roused. Through the narrow slit of window he could see the moon, full and bright in a clear sky, its light a further temptation. He wondered, in fact, if somehow Evandar had meant him to look into the gem at the full moon. The wondering prodded him to action. Although he shared a bed with his two younger brothers, Dougie as the eldest had the privilege of the spot on the edge. He slid out of bed without waking them, put his plaid on over his nightshirt, then climbed quietly down the ladder of their loft.
The dogs, asleep at the kitchen hearth, roused enough to sniff the air and recognize him. With a wag of tails they settled themselves again and went back to sleep. Dougie crept through the dark kitchen, barked his shins on a bench, stopped himself from swearing, and very carefully unbarred the door. It creaked, but no one called out at the sound. He slipped out into the moonlit farmyard, then took his boots from the doorstep and put them on.
A shovel stood leaning against the hen house. Dougie fetched it, then strode over to the apple trees. In the shadows cast by their branches, he found it hard to see, but he dug as carefully as he could to avoid damaging the tree roots. He’d not gone more than a foot down when the shovel clanked on metal. Dougie laid it aside, then dropped to his knees and felt around with one hand in the damp chilly dirt. His fingers touched something cold, hard, and dirt-encrusted. By feeling around he found its edges, then dug with both hands. Finally he managed to pull free a casket, about three feet long and two wide.
Behind him lantern light bloomed. Dougie twisted around to see Domnal, dressed only in his long nightshirt, walking over, a candle lantern held high.
‘What damned stupid thing are you –’ Domnal said, then stopped, staring. ‘God’s wounds! What’s that?’
‘I don’t know, Da.’ Dougie scrambled up, carrying the casket. ‘I had a dream, you see, about Evandar. He was telling me to dig here between the trees. I tried to ignore it, but it kept gnawing at me, like.’
‘Oh.’ Domnal lowered the lantern. ‘Well, let’s take it into the barn. I don’t want to wake your mother.’
His father’s sudden meekness troubled Dougie’s heart. He’d just lied to his Da, he realized, but somehow he hadn’t wanted to tell him about Tirn’s strange gem on Haen Marn – he just hadn’t, though he couldn’t say why.
In the barn Domnal hung the lantern on a nail above a little
