"No light at all, not even stars until a little while ago," Padrec mused. "Such dark is beyond the world, not of it."

"Bring my wealth to me," Dorelei commanded. She saw Neniane rise and lead the smaller shape to her in the gloom. Dorelei picked up her son, the small face close to hers. "Do have such gifts for thee, Crulegh. Be blessed; thy fhain marks will be cut in a new world."

Holding the child, Dorelei spoke to her people. "Do face the east for the last time. East to west, as the wind blew through the spirit-hole, as a carried me, my hand in Mabh's, Salmon will go. Thy gern has seen Tir-Nan-

Qg"

"Ai!"

Fhain listened in respect. No one broke the flow of it even to question the unimaginable.

"Be nae beyond world's-edge," she told them in a new, strong voice, "but in a place one can rade to. World sea be not forever. Dost end."

And yet, she tried to explain, the largeness was like Tir-Nan-Og itself, a reaching of mind as well as distance, a clearer sight of that truth known to them from birth. Salmon went where it must. If it spawned in familiar brooks, it knew world sea as well. Fhain would not be in a place so strange or far it could not speak in a tongue they knew.

"See thy gern: an I be despised, was nae Jesu? An

Mabh spoke to me, did nae the bush speak as well to Mo-ses? Hebrew-fhain raded forty years to find the place a were promised. An I angered our Parents, did nae great Mabh as well? Will take the great curraghs that rade on world sea, snare the wind in a's sail, and go west/'

Malgon could keep silent no longer; the thing was too big. "Off world's-edge."

4 'Be nae edge, man. None. World . . . goes on. Will see Tir-Nan-Og long before. Oh, be braw, Malgon. Could drop Pictland and Britain into such a place and lose't whole. What says Padrec Raven?"

The audacity of the plan was staggering. Padrec could barely get his imagination round it, but of love he was sure. "Among Prydn, Salmon be the teacher of new ways and courage. Where Dorelei leads, Raven will follow."

"See!" Guenloie pointed suddenly, the relief bright in her voice. "Lugh rides."

"East to west as we must go," Dorelei said.

A thin line of gray broadening, lightening in the east. Whatever magic this night wrought, it was over. The dawn breeze had died down, and the air about them had a different smell. Malgon gazed about to see if the truant horses were anywhere in sight. Strange night, he thought with more than a little fear. They'd walked into Mabh's barrow and far beyond any time or reality he knew. But ponies and horses thought of sensible things like water and graze. They'd wander toward the brook, and wasn't his good bow and quiver still tied to his saddle?

Neniane and Guenloie had felt the magic that touched their gern, but with the growing light there came back to them the realities of motherhood. All three children were exhausted from fitful, chilly sleep while they shivered outside the barrow and waited for Dorelei, wondering if they'd ever see her again or even a morning. They were all strained and hungry. They would follow Dorelei as they did in triumph and exile, do the impossible at her bidding—but first, the wealth. Breakfast to prepare, the flocks to be pastured. They were even glad

for these homely truths in a torrent of magic.

Malgon cocked his ear, sifting sounds on the wind, and looked unsatisfied. With a word to Dorelei, he trotted away to hunt the strayed mounts.

The morning light spread over the east.

They decided to walk westward toward the rath, Malgon catching up with the ponies. They were barely started when he churned over a rise at a dead run toward them, jerking to a halt in front of Dorelei, one arm milling out behind him. Pointing.

"Reindeer."

Padrec's stomach sank. Perfect. If Bruidda loved us before, she y ll deify us now. He loosened the sword in its scabbard as the first ponies crested the low rise from which Malgon had come, saw Salmon, and halted in a line of purpose all the colder for its silence. Dorelei, Padrec, the women—all of them realized Tir-Nan-Og could be much sooner than planned. The two groups faced each other in the gray morning light.

Bruidda and her shrunken fhain. Twelve in all, and three of those yearling children like their own, six women, three men too old for the holy war. Bruidda's eyes were fixed on Dorelei. The others barely existed for her.

That moment of preparate stillness, then the ponies began to file to the right and left, some of the riders leading a second mount behind them. Salmon recognized their own animals. They could do nothing. One sword and four knives against bows nocked and ready to bend at the word. The ponies stepped forward with delicate grace until Salmon fhain was framed in a deadly semicircle.

4 'Dorelei!"

"Need nae shout, Bruidda. Lugh's morning be still and dost favor Salmon yet."

Bruidda sat her pony, coiled like a snake already decided to strike, only pondering where. "Dorelei who dared to take the name of Mabh."

"And more."

"Did see thy light from rath. Did hear tale-speaking that thee were gone in shame from Pictland."

Dorelei handed her son to Padrec and advanced toward Bruidda a few steps to stand apart from her people. "We go now."

The aging gern slumped a little, a furtive note of sadness in her hard voice. "Gawse kept the ways of Mother. A's daughter breaks every law that did make Prydn a chosen folk. A begged more favor of Mother than a had to give. See, Reindeer! In one season, with her Raven, did a nae send all the young men to death?"

Yah... truly. The mutter spread among Reindeer. One of the young mothers looked beyond Salmon toward the barrow. She spoke something to Bruidda and pointed. At a word from the gern, she trotted her pony wide around Dorelei toward the barrow. Padrec's stomach dropped even lower.

"They find the digging, that's our lot, Mai."

Malgon said nothing, eyes narrowed on the ready bowman. Would be a keening this day in Salmon if any of them saw the end of it.

Padrec turned his head slightly to follow the curious woman who'd seen the bare earth and sod at first. She was at the barrow entrance now, scanning the faint but readable signs on the lintel stone. A moment to wonder, another to grasp the enormous blasphemy. Then the small figure vaulted her pony and lashed it back toward them.

Padrec thought on the act of contrition in its briefer forms. He and Malgon had been closer than this to death. He wondered if he would look as surprised as Gallius did. Probably.

The crime was quickly told. Bruidda covered her face, her voice rising to a dolorous wail.

"Ai! Reindeer! The outcast Salmon did break a barrow of our fhain. There! Be still open to the wind that cries a's wrong through the spirit-hole."

The sound that rose from Reindeer fhain reminded Padrec of wolves hunting on a winter night: not

stretched out, rising once and falling to silence again, as if there were more important things at hand.

"Did nae know this barrow of my blood," Bruidda said. "Should nae know't. Dorelei, have rightfully taken the rath from thee and hurled thy iron pots from the hill. In justice have stripped thee of ponies, horses, and sheep. Salmon be without presence. Thee dared take Mabh's name when Mabh would turn from thee— M

"Bruidda!" When Dorelei spoke, it stunned her own fhain. The voice that came out of their gern was even more powerful than Gawse's, born in a deep place. "Do He, old woman."

The force of it as much as the insult stopped Bruidda dead in her vehemence. The voice was a curse itself, scathing, contemptuous, spoken to a child from the height of an adult.

"Fool, Bruidda. Some grow larger, some but old. Nae, thee prate of what Mabh would know and nae know. Thee would nae know Mabh did a sit to eat with thee. Mabh could change, thee cannot. Mabh did speak to me. An a thing be ended, Reindeer has ended. Because a runs back into the dark, not west with the light. I have seen Tir-Nan-Og and know the way."

Dorelei paused to let that work on them. The scorn died in her voice, leaving the sadness of waste and folly. "Thee's been an honored gern, Bruidda, a braw queen. Thee never feared to die, only to live. Take the rath, then, and the flocks, but leave our ponies. We rade to Tir-Nan-Og."

Bruidda's hand moved in a subtle sign, but even as the bows raised in answer, Dorelei's left arm shot out in a warding gesture. "Stay!"

She took a step toward the older gern, seeming the older now, patient wisdom reasoning with a stubborn child, almost pleading. "Hast nae been enough of dying and tears? Will Prydn tear at each other like Vaco's dogs? Hear the wonders of this barrow. Will leave thee most of them, but let it end here. Let us go."

Bruidda shook her head, implacable. "Salmon be poison on Mother's breast. Kill them."

Dorelei's right hand hooked back in a blur of speed and brandished the iron knife high. She hurled one word at Bruidda, more guttural sound than speech. Padrec had heard it once before. The bows hesitated; bowstrings in the motion of bending eased down again. Bruidda straightened as her folk looked to her, then leaped from the pony and hurled the same harsh sound back at Do-relei, as Bredei voiced it at Churnet Head before their lunatic charge.

"Gerns will answer for a's fhains," Malgon said. "Alone."

Not until Dorelei and Bruidda stripped off their upper garments and stood bare to the waist did Padrec believe it. "Be such things allowed?"

Malgon schooled him in few words. They were allowed but avoided. The thing had never happened in his sight or knowledge during his lifetime. Rare for men to fight, rarer still for gerns, and only in a matter grave as this. "Tens of seasons past," he remembered, "when Gawse's mother was Salmon gern, a woman of Marten fhain tried to draw a's first husband away. Not often, but so." Malgon nodded at the men of Reindeer. "A stay aside, so must we. Must nae touch thy sword."