TWENTY
It was a glorious early summer afternoon. Far didn’t usually pay much heed to the weather, but it was hard to ignore a day matched so perfectly to his mood. The warmth that quickened the blood, the rain-washed luster of the leaves, the heady smell of growth. It was a day full of the promise of a new year. His year.
For he stood at the very brink of his dream. All the study, the craft, the long seasons of patience and scheming had borne fruit at last. Not that he would lose patience now. No, stealth and care were in his nature. No fear that he would throw away the prize in a rash grab for power. Bit by bit at first, nibbling away quietly at the lesser chieftains and remote sidhes, until there was a secret army, his for the summoning.
And then quickly, before there was time to organize resistance, the big festivals. Sive would sing, and they would all fall—all but the few great ones who were too strong for such tricks. Those, he would make peace with…for now.
The father must not hear of her. In fact, Far would be wise to dispose of the father as soon as possible.
But first he would play with his new toy one more time. His target was perfect—a proper sidhe this time, not some little hole like Donal’s, but so swallowed up by dreary bogland that few outsiders could be persuaded to visit. Funny how even Manannan’s enchantment had done little to beautify the bog, Far mulled. He chuckled to himself. Doubtless it would seem lovelier when it was his.
He kicked his horse to a trot, anxious to get home and get on with his plans. It was a bone-jarring, unpleasant gait, but nothing could mar his good spirits today.
THE DAY WAS OLD when Far returned, though with the Solstice so close the sky was still bright and blue.
“Oran!” he yelled as he banged open the door and strode in.
Far swatted at his leggings, raising dust and the smell of horse and travel sweat. Sive’s nostrils flared at the acrid scent.
“Oran, a bath! And a decent dinner!”
The back door creaked, and Oran scurried up, panting.
“Just in time, Oran,” Far said smoothly. “I almost had to punish your inattentiveness.”
“I’m sorry, master.” Oran kept his eyes on the floor, waiting to be released to his duties.
“A nice haunch of something tonight, yes? And a very deep, very hot…” Far stopped. He took a long, silent look at Oran. Oran did not move, but Sive could smell the fear rising from him. The tension in the room grew dense as fog.
“OR-an?”
“Master?” The boy risked a single, nervous glance.
“What have you been up to?”
Oran swallowed. “I’ve been doing the chores you left, master.” A truthful answer, but not the one Far sought.
“Look at me, Oran.”
And she was discovered. Just before Oran’s reluctant eyes met Far’s, they darted, helplessly, to the dark corner where Sive huddled under the eaves. Fleeting as thought, but Far caught it.
He whirled on his heel and stared at the monstrous thing that was Sive, and it seemed to her that his eyes blazed into green flame when he saw what she had done.
THE DARK MAN’S rage was like molten fire, burning everything in its path. He screamed at Sive like a warrior taken by the battle rage. She was terrified he would kill Oran. He swung his fist into the side of Oran’s head and dropped him like a stone. Then he set in to kicking him: stomach, back, face, anywhere. Sive closed her eyes against the anguish of it. How could she stand by while her friend suffered? She was so close to giving in, so close. But then the Dark Man stopped and turned from Oran as though he didn’t even exist and narrowed his eyes at the fantastic creature before him. He was calm again, summoning his power.
“Change back to your woman’s head,” he commanded.
But he could not command her head. He could not hold her deer eyes with his own green ones. Sive was already receding from his grasp. She had been a deer for so many years that, once changed, it did not take her long to distance herself from her own mind. She retreated into deerness, further and further away from the place where he could touch her.
“We’ll see,” he said then. “We’ll see how long you will defy me.” And he put a rope around her neck and dragged her out into a drafty shed and shut her up.
For days she was alone in the dark, starving, thirsting. She didn’t care. She was ready to die. And with each day her woman’s mind grew weaker, and the deer’s stronger, until by the time he dragged open the slatted door and let the sunlight flood over her, she hardly understood his words.
On that day he bludgeoned Sive for long hours, with his magic, with his whip, and at the last with a branding iron. And when at last he understood that he could succeed only at making her bawl and writhe with pain, he snatched up his hot iron again and hurled it into the trees. And then he turned to Sive, very slowly, and she trembled for she was sure her death was at hand.
But he would not let her die. He extended his one finger toward her. Drew up one leg like a stork and closed one eye. The position of the curse-hurler.
“You wish to remain a deer,” he said. “I grant your wish. Become a deer, and remain a deer, and live as a brute beast to the end of your days. I wish both men and wolves joy of the hunt.”
Sive Remembers
So many feelings I have had about being a deer, since the day I first mastered the shapeshifter’s skill.
At first I was in love with it, as delighted and glowing as though it were my first man. I loved the rush of triumph as my form streamed into another’s, the wonder of a world discovered through scent and sound and obscure, unnamed instincts. The sheer pleasure in my own speed and power.
And then it became a prison. In the first years of my exile, I longed to escape, trapped in a life driven by hunger and fear and without the smallest comfort. I came to hate my rough pelt, my bony legs, the long outthrust snout that blocked all song or speech in my throat. There was nothing I wanted but to return to myself and to the light and warmth of my own kind.
No more. He thinks he has punished me? He has given me refuge. I allowed Sive to sink beneath these layers of hair and sinew and muscle and vanish into their depths. I buried my sorrows and regrets and strangled hopes. I set my only aim to be survival, my only desire a full stomach. I forgot my own name.