"Padrec ... do not." A feeble shaking of her head.

She wanted to retreat. "Do not."

"Dorelei, you taught me so much. I don't know if I love you more as God's joke of a priest or just a man, but the love is there. I will stop being a child afraid to name it even as you must call this Blackbar by its true name."

Dorelei searched his eyes for truth, found it there.

"Could be my life, Padrec."

"Trust me."

Dorelei held up her marked arm. "Thee doubts a could kill?"

"Thee doubts my magic be as strong? Then my life with yours, Gern-y-fhain."

That much was foregone, whether he knew it or not.

"Have said. Guenloie! Call thy husbands, tell them to drive the flocks home to byre. Cruaddan, bring Artcois and Bredei from the hunt. Gern-y-fhain will make magic."

The sky was even darker. Dorelei glanced up at the clouds. Lugh sent his own angry warning for trying to change his way of things. But his clouds shadowed Taixali as well. So be it. Darken, then. Did not Mabh dare thee? So must 1. Cursed ur killed, I will be gern. I will not be shamed again.

They gathered by the brook that edged the foot of their hill, wrapped in their warmest against the rising wind- Cru's great cloak was shared between Guenloie and Neniane. trailing behind them on the ground. They stood in little clumps, Neniane's husbands to one side, Guenloie's to the other, Cru alone as if on guard over Padrec waiting at the water's edge. Ali waited for Dorelei to descend from the ring of stones where she prayed before the awesome thing she would do.

Rof loped nervously back and forth along the stream, sniffing the change in the air.

"Will be snow," Artcois guessed.

His brother sniffed like Rof at the charged air. "Nae, rain."

"One or other. Could nae guess," Malgon confessed.

"Strange sky."

Very strange. They didn't want to think on it too

144 much. frightened at what Dorelei would do. Not the strong- est gerns, not Bruidda, not even Mabh ever prevailed against Blackbar. In their young lives, they'd seen the marks it leh by its mere touch, and a wound from its edge.

like Drust's, took twice as long to heal. Blackbar would not break like bronze and stayed sharper through the spell Lugh wove in its creation. An alien thing with so much power must not be mentioned or viewed directly, never brought into fhain. No one ever did until now. The mark on Dorelei's arm was a defeat any gem would answer, but there were limits to what she might dare. Dorelei went beyond courage to recklessness.

Cru's eyes bored into Padrec. Dorelei's husband alone knew recklessness was no part of her decision. Whatever magic the priest might call up, his wife's desperation needed no name. They were both much older for this hard year.

He'd seen the girl-fun dim in Dorelei, flashing only now and then under the cloak of her responsibility. She would not make a foolhardy show of power or risk their well- being. She was terrified when she went to prepare and pray to Mother, trying to hide it even from him.

As the rain began, thin and sleety, Cru saw Dorelei walking her pony down the slope. She paced it slowly over the heath and halted a little way from fhain.

"Padrec! Tell thy god that Gern-y-fhain comes!"

Dorelei dismounted and leE the pony's reins dangle, her shoulders straight as she moved to Cru. She spoke in a low murmur. "If this magic turns on me, thee was the finest man a woman could find."

"Nae, stay." Cru caught her in urgent arms, feeling her determination in the resistance- She would not be stayed. "Must do this?"

"To be free of Blackbar. Be worth the hazard." Her expression altered subtly. "In this magic, Padrec puts a's life beside mine." Her glance slid to the pnesl. "See a keeps that promise."

"If thee dies, think a will live? A will be harrowed at thy feet. Thee was mine when did first follow Gawse's ponies. Dorelei, will thee for once bow to husband? Be time to stop this."

"Time to do't."

"Be mad, wife. Cannae fight Blackbar."

145.

"Cru . . . stop- Oh, why not Neniane born first? Fhain thinks me to have all answers when would give anything just to bear wealth with thee." Dorelei stroked the loved plane of his cheek. "Did run all our lives from this, Cru.

Be time to stop. If Mother takes me, Neniane will be gern with thy wisdom to help." Dorelei drew his mouth to hers in a lingering kiss. "Padrec waits. And dost rain on us."

Still Cru held her. "Do trust Padrec that much?"

"Nae so much as do trust Cru to do my bidding. Let me go, husband."

Reluctantly Cru freed Dorelei to do what she must.

She walked away to face her people, standing between them and Padrec. Deliberately she removed the tore, un- did her cloak, and laid them on the ground. She held out her bare arm. "Salmon fhain, Blackbar marked your gern.

Now see how thy gern answers it. Nae wasting spell upon Naiton, nae gort a bhaile to a's fields or flocks, but battle with Blackbar itself." Dorelei whipped her bronze knife from its sheath and held it out to Lugh Sun hidden be- hind clouds and pelting her with needles of freezing rain out of spite.

"Do draw this knife in battle as Mabh did. Padrec, tell Blackbar thai Gern-y-fhain comes against him."

To her confusion, Padrec only shook his head. com- ing to her with the iron arrow on its broken shaft. When he was at her side he hurled it to the ground.

"/n nomine Patn et Fih et Spintw Sanctm. I bless this water and this holy circle." Padree swept his arm in a wide loop over the arrowhead. "I abjure and cast out any spirit sent by Taixali or by Satan in aid. Be gone. Come, lei fhain aid in this. Do not fear, this ground is blessed. Cru, Drust, all of you. Make a circle, help thy gern."

With rising fear, they did as Padrec bade them. The freezing rain pelted them harder now, driven by a wind sprung up from nowhere.

"Look," Guenloie shivered as she and Neniane emerged from the folds of the cloak. "Mark how trees do bend to it."

"The circle is blessed, Guenloie," Padrec said again.

"Wherever we gather in Jesu's name, there He is also. We begin the magic by giving the evil its rightful name. Call it up, Salmon fhain! Lei it hide no more in the shadows of

146 your own fear. InJesu's name. Iron! Let Gern-y-fhain say it."

Dorelei swallowed hard and framed her lips to the fearful sound. "Ir-on."

"Let all have the courage of thy gern. Call the iron!"

"Ir-on . .. iron! IRON!"

About to speak again, Padrec saw the wide-eved hor- ror in Neniane, head turned to her sister and transfixed.

Dorelei was rigid, staring into the distance, the wind whip- ping her hair in wet, black ropes from her shoulders.

"Dorelei?"

No, Padrec does not hear them, he can never hear them.

They come. I feel their footsteps failing hke those of giants over the heath. The ram all but shows them to me, rolling from their crooked backs. Iron spirit, Tawah evil, all together. I have woken them like hornets to sting me. la! Mother! Help me. . . .

The heavy footsteps thudded closer, their vibration shaking Dorelei to her soul. The very trees bent and brushed aside under the fury of their approach. Her fhain shifted nervously. Guenloie trembled. In a moment.

one, then another would run away. She must hold them.

"Be no( afraid, my people," she said, wanting to run herself. "Padrec's magic enfolds us."