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<title>Spellbinder - Chapter 8</title>
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<h1>8</h1><p>On the very edge of a sheer cliff pounded by heavy seas, Wolfen Castle stands alone, a grey pile of stone with turrets and battlements on the landward side; no need for them on the seaward because the rock drops straight down five hundred feet and more to jagged rocks frothing the surf.</p>
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<p>Wolfen Castle, the westernmost stronghold in CorNamara has a huge drawbridge that bridges a crevasse in the bare rock, eaten in on either side by the ocean's hunger so that even from the landward side, it is all but impregnable. It has not been breached in a thousand years.</p>
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<p>On this morning, dank cloud scraped around the turrets and wind whipped the pennants that bore Dermott's wolfs-head sign. A lone horn wavered from the wood-covered crags a mile away. High in the castle a bell clanged and the drawbridge slowly began to lower across the crevasse.</p>
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<p>Some time later, a close-ridden band of horsemen came at a gallop on the hard-stone road, shod hooves sending up sparks as they clattered on the cobbles. They reached the drawbridge just as its edge thudded home into the stone socket and without pause the horsemen, led by an immense man in black furs crossed the timbers with a sound of thunder.</p>
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<p>Dermott the Wolf was back.</p>
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<p>He reined the dark stallion by the stone steps and leapt from the saddle while servants unhitched the livery and tended to the panting steed. Dermott swaggered down the steps, chest out, chin high, a big man in all ways. Thick, black, shaggy beard; wide bull shoulders; arms knotted with muscle; fists like mallets.</p>
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<p>He wore a broadsword in a shoulder-scabbard so that its hilt stuck up behind him, ready for a fast and deadly draw, should the need arise. He wore a dagger on each hip, and a studded mace in a loop on his belt. In one hand he carried a thick braided leather whip.</p>
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<p>The shaggy tunic he wore belted at the waist was spattered with red. When he drew the sword, it was streaked crimson. He handed it to a boy who stood within arm's reach, shrugged himself out of the tunic and let it fall to the ground.</p>
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<p>"Both clean by supper," he said. "And strop the edge. I might have blunted it."</p>
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<p>The rest of the men had dismounted now, hard looking men with scarred faces and calloused knuckles, fighting men with steely-grey eyes of the westerners, braided beards, all of them in tanned leather.</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>Fainn the warlock was deep in the bowels of Wolfen Castle.</p>
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<p>He had not heard the horns, or the thundering hooves, or even the thud of the lowered drawbridge, but he knew the Lord Dermott had arrived. He always knew.</p>
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<p>The room had a high arched ceiling supported by stone pillars. The walls were festooned with jars and bottles and all manner of strange things whose importance would only be relevant to a sorcerer. Fainn knew. He had been steeped in such black arts since before anyone living could recall.</p>
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<p>He stood silently, Fainn the Hood, they called him. Sometimes Black Fainn. Sometimes Fainn the Pict. None of that mattered to him.</p>
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<p>He was tall, as tall as Dermott himself, but slender, almost gaunt. His hooded cloak at first seemed ragged and torn, but on closer inspection – and few took the chance to get so close to Fainn – it could be seen that it was fashioned from bats wings; black bat wings all sewn together with such craft that no seam was apparent. It fluttered when he moved.</p>
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<p>On his head he wore a leather cap that moulded to his skull like a second skin, and no-one knew what kind of hide it might be, though a few guessed and guessed correctly, and shuddered at the thought.</p>
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<p>His skin was pallid, almost ghostly, the skin of one who shuns the sun and clean air, and on it, standing stark against the pale, designs were imprinted in a blue so deep it was the colour of night sky. His nose was thin as a blade.</p>
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<p>Fainn pushed the wings of his cloak back to reveal long, thin arms, almost skeletal, but which strangely looked as strong as live oak. The tattoos continued down both, crowding each other for space, as stark as the designs on his cheeks and chin and forehead.</p>
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<p>A black snake tattoo coiled around a wrist. Weasels chased each other towards his elbows. Spiders hunched in the centre of webs. Bats fluttered with every flex of knotty muscles. Flies crawled on his knuckles between tufts of black hair.</p>
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<p>Barely an inch of his skin was unadorned by some creature, some of them living, some never seen by man, and none of them a thing of beauty. Night creatures, savage creatures. Things of the shadows. They were all there, so artfully created that they looked as if they could crawl off his skin and slink into the dark corners to hunt.</p>
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<p>Fainn lowered himself to the chair beside the vast table that was like none other in the whole of Eirinn, for it virtually encapsulated the whole of Middle Eirinn where men dwelt.</p>
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<p>It was carved from a single great tree, dark with age, burnished to a rich glow, and across its surface, in strong relief, was carved the face of Middle Eirinn, the hills, the rivers, the moors and boglands; east to west, north to south, sea to sea. The nine kingdoms of Eirinn dwelt in miniature across this spread.</p>
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<p>Close to the Eirinn Table, a fire glowed deep red, every now and again flaring hotter as if it slowly breathed in and out. It was set not in the wall, but in a circular pit on the stone floor that had been cut from the bedrock on which Wolfen Castle stood.</p>
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<p>Fainn stretched a thin hand in which a small jar had appeared as if by magic, and he sprinkled some of its fine-ground contents across the pit. Small sparks of orange and green flared briefly and sent up clouds of dense smoke that joined the thick pall hovering over the Eirinn Table, roiling slowly in the hot updraughts, but never clearing to allow sight of the ceiling.</p>
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<p>The shadow pall over the carved Eirinn had been there for a long time. Fainn made sure it remained there. It was part of the plan.</p>
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<p>He spoke to himself, in a low, rasping voice.</p>
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<p>Fainn the Spellbinder was at work.</p>
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<p>Muttering constantly, in rhythm and rhyme, he set out the tools of his dark trade, eyes moving constantly over the fine map of this land. From his cloak he drew out a small pouch made from the same leather as his skull-cap, and from it produced what at first appeared to be a crystal ball.</p>
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<p>From inside the clear crystal, an eye, a human eye stared out blinklessly, its pupil contracted to a tiny dot even in this dim light after so long in the dark. Other things came out of the pouch. One was made of bone, another looked like a shrivelled piece of leather. Fainn set them all in a circle, and waited.</p>
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<p>Footsteps approached, heavy and echoing on the stone stairway; confident steps of a man not used to delay.</p>
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<p>Fainn kept his eyes closed, knowing the exact moment when Dermott would turn the handle and push the door wide.</p>
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<p>It slammed back against the wall, sending a draught of air through the long room to stir the flames yet again and roil the smoke that hung in a pall at the ceiling, but never managed to clear it away.</p>
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<p>"Good hunting, my Lord?" Fainn had not turned. Dermott was used to that. Fainn could see without looking.</p>
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<p>"Could have been better," Dermott boomed, standing in the doorway, shoulders wide enough to block out the torchlight beyond. "Kellen of Dennegoll needs taught a lesson. I killed his son anyway. He'll see sense soon enough."</p>
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<p>Kellen of Dennegoll lorded the lands north of CorNamara, on the very borders of Middle Eirinn beyond which the mountains grew high enough to form a barrier from the wild lands beyond. So far, despite the fact that in Dennegoll, spring and summer had not arrived for so long that the people were close to starving, Kellen had refused to cede power to Dermott.</p>
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<p>"They will all see sense," Fainn agreed. Compared to Dermott his voice was thin and ragged, but there was power in every word he spoke.</p>
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<p>"Kellen thinks that with his longliners, he can feed his people with fish and live out a long winter. Stubborn as stone, so he is."</p>
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<p>"Stone wears. Stone cracks."</p>
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<p>"Let's crack him, say I." Dermott strode across to the Eirinn Table and bent over it, pointing a calloused finger in the direction of Dennegoll, where the long fjords gave protection to Kellen's fleet.</p>
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<p>"Give him a chill. Make him shiver. Lock the stubborn fool in."</p>
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<p>"As you wish, my Lord," Fainn said. "I'll turn his autumn to winter, shall I?"</p>
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<p>Fainn stretched over the table, thin hands curled into fists. Dermott's hands were hooked on his sword-belt, black fur on his shoulders bristling in hackles.</p>
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<p>Fain opened his fingers, muttering secret words in a low voice, and a fine dust shimmered down, slow as feathers, sparkling as it descended on to the carven surface where Dennegoll's harbours huddled on the very edge of Eirinn.</p>
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<p>The dust fell and blanketed the whole little kingdom and as they watched it settled, solidified, became as clear as ice. Instantly, the sudden cold could be felt from where Dermott stood.</p>
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<p>"That should cool a hot head," he rumbled. "A few weeks of that and he'll give me everything he has."</p>
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<p>Fainn's eyes glittered. He loved his work.</p>
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<p>"Now," Dermott said. "I got the message on the return ride. What did you want to show me?"</p>
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<p>"Tell you, my lord, not show you," Fainn said. "Though I would if I could see for myself."</p>
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<p>"You and riddles," Dermott said. "Never get your sword-arm straight, do you?"</p>
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<p>Fainn allowed a small cold smile. Dermott was a man of action. But action needed vision, and as a Seer, a Spellbinder, none had better than Fainn.</p>
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<p>"Something has …something has transpired."</p>
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<p>"Transpired? What do you mean?"</p>
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<p>"I sense a change. Something new."</p>
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<p>"So what is it, Warlock? Something to concern me?"</p>
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<p>"That I cannot see. Though I am prepared to look. All is ready."</p>
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<p>"Is it to do with this damned woman? The one who's supposed to be coming to kill me?"</p>
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<p>Fainn shook his head. "The runes cannot lie, my Lord. Nor can I change what they say. I have cast them many times and they tell the same doom. A fighting woman with fire-hair will be your bane."</p>
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<p>"Unless we find her first. I have hunters scouring every kingdom. When we find her, she'll raise no army against me, that I can promise."</p>
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<p>Fainn gave a small bow. "And good hunting in that endeavour. However, what I sense is different. A <em>difference.</em> A change in the way of things."</p>
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<p>"Change is good. Haven't we changed most of Eirinn? Bent it to our way?"</p>
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<p>"This change I cannot yet perceive. But I will try again."</p>
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<p>"Do that," Dermott commanded. "Do it now."</p>
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<p>He pulled a chair and sat heavily. Fainn sank slowly onto the chair at the end of the long map-table. All of his accoutrements were arrayed in their circle. He gathered them in his hands, placing the bare eye in the crystal against his forehead, from where it stared unclosing. He began to speak in a hissing whisper.</p>
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<p>Blind man's eye from socket torn</p>
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<p>Cry of boy-child never born</p>
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<p>Lip of maiden, kiss of mother</p>
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<p>Skin of sister, heart of brother</p>
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<p>Blood and bone, tooth and nail</p>
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<p>Sense and search where living fail.</p>
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<p>Fainn moaned. A shiver ran through him, making the bat-wings flutter. Dermott watched as the eye in the crystal swivelled in those long fingers, strangely alive, somehow <em>scanning</em> across the long table carvings. He saw the other things writhe in Fainn's hands, like living creatures trying to escape. Above the table the smoke rolled thick and greasy against the ceiling, while the air across the wood surface, stirred by the updraught of the fire, shimmered as if seen on a hot road. As the eye swung, left and right, the air stilled and small segments of the carved map stood out clearly. Then it moved on, taking its focus somewhere else until finally it stopped, glared steadily.</p>
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<p>Dermott saw the wide forest, skilfully etched, near the far end of the table, beyond Lennister, far from CorNamara, close to the north border where man's knowledge ended.</p>
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<p>Yet, even as he looked, his eyes could not quite focus on that section of the Eirinn Map. It seemed to waver and blur. He knuckled his eyes and looked again, but still the wide forest eluded his eyes. As if it refused him admission.</p>
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<p>Fainn muttered and mumbled, those dark-versed curses that marked him for warlock. </p>
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<p>Of a sudden, the eye glazed over. It had no way of closing, encased in the rock-crystal ball. But Dermott sensed that its sight had failed. The dried and leathery things in Fainn's hands stopped wriggling and squirming.</p>
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<p>Finally the spellbinder raised his head.</p>
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<p>"Well?"</p>
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<p>"Something new," Fainn said. His face was gaunt with the strain of searching all across Eirinn. "Something I cannot see, or touch or hear. Not with any of the shade-senses. Not yet."</p>
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<p>He gathered his materials and secured them in the skin pouch.</p>
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<p>"But there has been a <em>change</em> in the world."</p>
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<p>"It's the woman, am I right? The red haired warrior?"</p>
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<p>Fainn shook his head.</p>
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<p>"I think not. I would know. But something else. I sense <em>threat</em>."</p>
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<p>"Who can threaten me? I control the seasons. I possess the Dagda Harp."</p>
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<p>"Indeed you do, my Lord. And with the seasons in your grasp, so will all Eirinn. But I would fail my oath if I sought to ignore what my art tells me."</p>
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<p>Dermott breathed out, drummed his fingers on the table.</p>
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<p>"You're right. And you haven't been wrong yet, though I wish you'd been mistaken with those damned runes. Fighting woman indeed. I'll roast her hams and pickle her hide."</p>
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<p>He looked up. "So what now? Should I send a column? An army?"</p>
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<p>Fainn shrugged. "Not until I see what there is to see. There might be another way."</p>
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<p>He rose silently, like the shadow he so much resembled, stalked to the far side of the table and leant over the surface. He drew his sleeve back from a thin arm and like a conjurer produced a knife, its blade so sharp it whispered as it parted the air. Fainn stretched his arm out and pared the blade down his forearm. Wiry black hairs shaved off the skin to show a coiled black snake coiled in intricate loops. The hairs drifted down to the carving. Without a pause, Fainn turned the knife and dug the tip into his flesh, right in the centre of the snake's flat head. A drop of blood, dark and thick as liquor, dropped to the surface. Immediately the wiry hairs coiled and curled and then wriggled out of sight into the clefts of the etching. Where the blood had dripped, Dermott though he heard a thin sizzle as it seeped into the wood and was gone.</p>
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<p>Fainn pulled his sleeve back down and raised upright.</p>
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<p>"Now we shall see what hides in the trees," he said.</p>
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<p>"Aye," Dermott boomed, not doubting the Spellbinder's power for a moment. "And I'll send hunters to bring it to me, whatever it is. Then we'll have some sport, eh?"</p>
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<p>"Indeed, my Lord," Fainn scraped. "Indeed we shall."</p>
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<p> </p>
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