Sleep deeply. Sleep, said the River.
From the shadows of the trees, a fine, narrow face watched with solemn dark eyes. The shape was that of a hound with a coat of white-gold luster. But the eyes shone with an angelic light, or a light of a higher order still. Unhurried, he approached the girl and looked down upon her sorry state. He saw the Path she had walked and would later walk again. He saw how the twisting and winding of this Path would baffle her.
The shining one bent his head and placed a kiss upon the girl’s forehead. Then he turned and loped into the forest, vanishing as though he had never been. The girl slept where she had fallen, her thirst unsatisfied.
Eanrin sat on the banks of Gorm-Uisce Lake, which lay at the base of Rudiobus Mountain and reflected both the mountain and the stars above. On such a night, with all the Merry Folk dancing in the Hall of Red and Green, the lake was a lonely spot. The voice of Fionnghuala Lynn, the waterfall gate into Rudiobus, was distant enough to be no more than a murmur. The only living soul within calling distance was the guardian of Fionnghuala, who would recognize a poet’s need for solitude and leave him in peace.
Eanrin stared across the still waters to the far shore, where a dark forest stood. “Woe is me, for I am undone,” he whispered. He quite liked the phrase and thought he’d round it out with a lyric stanza or two. “Woe is me, for I am undone . . .”
Unfortunately, he had no more. What rhymed with undone? Homespun. No. Bludgeon?
“Poetry be dashed!” he snarled and clenched his hands into fists. “What in the name of Lumé, Hymlumé, and the entire starry host is wrong with Lady Gleamdren?”
Neither the lake nor the stars seemed inclined to answer.
Eanrin frowned. Obviously, the first fault lay with Gleamdren’s womanhood, he decided. Had he not already written a score of popular verses on the fickleness of women, on their temperamental, unpredictable natures? That much, at least, was no surprise. But he knew without a doubt that Gleamdren wanted him. She must! They were so alike, she and he. She, with her beauty and her pretty ways, bidding every lad to join her entourage even as she simultaneously repulsed romantic advances. If hers was not a heart akin to that of a true poet—desperate for notice, still more desperate for solitude—than whose could be?
“Why then does she resist me?”
Eanrin sighed, casting his gaze to the heavens, which offered no sympathy. So he took a comb from his pocket and leaned out over the lake. It was quiet enough beneath him to make a fine mirror, and he began smoothing his hair. With his mind so unsettled, a good grooming was the only recourse. He slicked his golden locks into place and slicked them again, the rhythmic motions soothing until he found himself better able to think.
“Patience, Eanrin,” he told himself, tilting his face above the lake to get a better perspective on his features. “Patience is all you need. A turn or two about the dance floor should be enough to settle this business. Once Glomar has shown the lady his paces, she will be sick to death of him and longing for my return.”
The poet’s smile broadened at this thought. By pure comparison, how could he fail to shine the brighter in his lady’s esteem? And he had time. His merry life had extended more centuries than he could remember and would continue, so far as he could imagine, for many centuries still. He need not hurry.
“Though I wait a thousand years and more,” he whispered to the stars, “I will yet win the hand of Lady Gleamdrené Gormlaith. This I vow upon the crown of the moon, upon the scepter of the—”
A chilling howl trembled on the edge of the night.
Eanrin startled and fumbled to catch his comb before it was lost forever beneath Gorm-Uisce’s glassy surface. He stood and backed away from the lake, his eyes fixed upon the dark line of forest across the water. The sound must have drifted from the worlds beyond, from the Wood Between or even the Near World of mortals. Such a cry, so lost and so horrible, had never been uttered in Rudiobus.
The guardian of Fionnghuala emerged from behind the waterfall and trotted along the lake’s edge to stand beside Eanrin. She was a golden mare with a scarlet tail, a beautiful and solemn animal. Her name was órfhlaith, and she spoke to Eanrin in the language of horses.
“Did you hear that?”
Eanrin nodded. “The Black Dogs,” he said, and trembled. “I know them when I hear them. That was the cry of the Black Dogs. Are they come to Rudiobus?”
“Not they. Their prey.” Her nostrils flaring, the mare tossed her head to indicate the far shore of the lake. The white light of Hymlumé above, which had been bright only minutes before, had vanished behind a cloud, and the poet could discern nothing on the far shore. “Some poor soul they pursue has fallen on the edge of Rudiobus.”