Godwin, Parke.

Firelord.

The Last Rainbow.

I.

Dorelei

Earth Mother and her hus- band Lugh Sun got along very well but areued now

very well but argued now

Sand then as men and women will because they are differ- [ent. Once when they were very angry, Lugh Sun deserted ^Mother to show her how helpless she was without him.

;But Mother was stubborn. Even covered with ice she re- fused to surrender.

. "See here," she demanded, fixing Lugh with her moon- ieye, "many of my animals have died tor lack of your ^warmth. My first children, my Prydn, shiver in caves. Stop fthis foolishness and come back where you belong."

"When you admit I am the master," said Lugh. "What are you without me? Dark and cold."

"What are you without me?" Mother asked. "Nothing to shine on. No children to love you."

So they were both right and for once both had the sense to keep quiet about it and Lugh shone on the earth once more. The ice melted and Mother's children, the Prydn, followed the herds north as they grazed the new grass, until they came to a place so fair Mother drove her seas across the lowlands to make it an island for Prydn.

Other men came later and gave the island queer names like Albion or Britannia, but the Prydn with their long memories knew it was theirs and would always be.

From time to time Mother and Lugh still bickered and each said things harsh as they were true.

"You are careTess," Mother accused. "At least once a year you wander off just like a man and leave us cold, and we have to beg you to come back."

"That shows how much you know about it," Lugh answered. "There are places where I shine al! the time, where it's never cold and always green."

"Then where is such a place?" the Prydn demanded, growing restless as children will when they have to wait for anything. "What is it like? We have never seen it."

"Can you see the mole on your own back?" Lugh replied. "Earth is larger than you know. It is there."

The children always remembered that. The place their father made for them must be wider than they knew, with a secret place for Prydn atone to find when they needed it.

They called it Tir-Nan-Og, the land of the young, because no one grew old there and the grass was always green. A part of earth to be sure, but beyond what they knew.

This they remembered from the first days, from the time of the ice. This was told by Mabh herself, the greatest queen the Prydn ever knew. Tallfolk feared all Prydn, but they went in awe of Gern-y-fhain Mabh and still used her name to frighten bad boys.

So it must be true.

The moor was silvered with Mother's eye-moon tight as Owl glided low over the stone circle on Cnoch-nan- ainneal and down the hillside beyond. Her hunting eye caught the mound of sheepskins-saw it move, saw the small dark-haired creature rise and gaze up at the moon.

Too large for food. More curious than hungry. Owl flew closer.

The girl was very small as Owl knew humans, not much larger than a child, and yet full grown. She con- fused Owl with her disproportion, yet there she was, na- ked, glossy hair tumbling over her shoulders and back, staring up at moon-eye.

Owl was not the brightest of Mother's children; what served as her memory was concerned with food and her young. Dimly she remembered that there were once many more like the small girl, as many as the bigger ones in the lowland villages where food was easier found. But now they were few, always moving along the hilltops with their flocks from which Owl might snatch a new-dropped iamb 5.

^to feast on, if she were very lucky and very fast. These Hwere the small folk of the hills, moving from one earth Lhouse to another, setting their rath poles over the crannog tops and covering the skins with turf so that they looked like part of the hill itself. And dangerous: their small bronze arrows flew faster and truer than others.

t Owl veered close, saw the girl's dark head lift to I' follow her gliding path, then flew on, thinking of field l^mice to eat. These small humans were not as skillful at H getting as the bigger ones; little wonder there were so few of them now. Look at her there, staring up at Mother in the open where any food she hunted could see her first.

[ "Fool!" jeered Owl as the girt looked up and their ^eyes met for an instant. "Foo-foo-fooool . . ."

"Faerie."

Dorelei tasted the sound, the tallfolk word for herself and Cru. Hard to say, hard to understand, like everything i about tatlfolk.

"Faerie. Feh-uh-ree."

Cruaddan snuggled closer under the sheepskin robe.

-What?"

Dorelei ran her tongue over Cru's moist lips, teasing him. It delighted her when they'd just loved each other to .taste and smell herself on him. "Be us. Tallfolk word for us."

".. . um." Being a man, love tired Cru more quickly.

He was already floating down the soft darkness toward sleep.

Well, not all tallfolk, Dorelei corrected herself. The Atecotti of the northern pastures never used such a word, but they were almost as old in the land as Prydn. No, it was a southern word, a Briton-word, first heard this spring when they came south near the Wall, the long rampart that divided Briton-men from Venicone Picts. Dorelei didn't divide them; they were all lallfolk.

More serious, the grass here was no better than at Skirsa, as they'd hoped. Sheep could manage anywhere, but their few cattle had to be butchered or traded- There was always better graze in the valleys, but Venicones kept . them out. It was always so. The scrubby hilltops belonged

6'to her people. The lush valleys were taken by the users of Blackbar-iron.

She was gern of a new fhain and the first daughter of a gern. Her people were few but they looked to her to lead as her mother, Gawse, had. That frightened Dorelei sometimes, although she knew it shouldn't. She was six- teen, long past time to be grown up with child-wealth of her own. But Gawse's fhain was already too large for the sparse living north at Skirsa, so before this last Bel-tein, Dorelei was summoned to her mother.

"Take Neniane second daughter and Guenloie and thy husbands and so much of our flock and herd. Do thee graze south."

From the sacred treasures of the fhain, Gawse took a heavy gold tore set with ruby and emerald. She placed it about her daughter's neck. "First daughter be now Gern-y-fhain."

Dorelei's heart came up into her mouth; done quick as that. On a day when she expected no more than her usual tasks and loving Cru-a gern, queen of her own people. The tore lay heavy on her breastbone.

Fhain should be four generations in one rath. Hers was only two and the second barely in the world. Second daughter Neniane's sickly child might not last the sum- mer, surely not the winter, did she not take more strength from her food. Nine in all, counting the bairn. Well, they were young and healthy, and new mains must start some- where. But il was frightening. Dorelei felt the fear in the cold weight of the tore. She was Gern-y-fhain: all descent would now be traced through her, all disputes settled, all decisions concerning their welfare would come from her.

It was as if the tore held a growing-magic, pulling her too swiftly toward maturity, making her see in a new light the boys and girls she'd played with only a season ago. Seven separate minds she must know as her own hand Tor weak- ness and strength, and none of them was that strong.

Her sister Neniane was changed even since last year's Bel-tein fire. Once a playmate, she worried all the time now about the sick child who was not even named yet, so sure they were it would die. Her husbands, Artcois and Bredei, were still new in their own manhood, delighted with the child and not terribly concerned who fathered it, 7.

.which was only proper. One couldn't make them worry H' for long about anything, stil! careless children themselves.

H Dorelei never noticed until now, but it was stone truth:

none of them were very grown up and wouldn't last unless I they were. Gawse couldn't take them back. It would be the deepest shame a first daughter could bring on herself to run back home after receiving the tore.

Then there was Guenloie, fourteen, cousin to herself and Neniane, and a coil beyond understanding. Her fa- ther was pure Prydn, her mother a changeling girl of the Taixali tallfolk, cradle-taken in a year when there was no child-wealth in the crannog. The child grew taller and much lighter-hued than Prydn, with hair so red they feared Lugh Sun might be jealous. She became all fhain in her , heart and took a good husband. Guenloie was the only '- child of five to live beyond her first year. She was fairer than Dorelei and betrayed her mixed blood in the reddish- brown tresses that fell down her back in waves rather than . straight. Outside blood could strengthen fhain, but Guenloie l^ was drawn to outside ways as welfand sometimes acted as if her Taixali ancestors made her better than the rest.

f That could be dangerous. Tallfolk feelings toward Prydn 6' were always a two-edged blade. You never knew when they would turn and drive you out. They feared Prydn magic and yet sought its aid. Relations between them were always wary. Wise Gawse said it was natural.

"A's taken from us the best grass and water. How should a feel when we look down from the hill on their thievery?"

Thief: that was another Briton-word. Fhain never stole from each other and nothing taken from tallfolk could be called stealing, so there was no need in Prydn for such a word. But talYfoik were best kept at a distance, especially the young men, who might take the wrong mean- ing from Guenloie's too-eager friendliness and her scant clothing. Dorelei never had to think on that until this summer. Prydn women wore short kilts or fringed skirts that left their legs bare, and usually the open sheepskin vest that allowed them to nurse children as they rode.

Dorelei thought nothing of it until they started trading with the Venicones and saw how the young men looked at Guenloie's pretty bare breasts bursting through the loose

8vest. Dorelei sensed the disapproval in the Veniconc women and, without knowing why except that she was gern and must think of such things, became queerly conscious of her own body and a shapeless danger. She fastened her vest with its seldom-used gold brooch and told Guenloie to do the same.

"Why?" Guenloie wondered. "Be not cold."