Chapter Two
The sand crunched under his boots as Arran MacLeod walked along the beach. It was a fine day, with the sun high in a cloudless blue sky and a gentle breeze coming in off the sea, sending his blond hair waving out behind him like the tendrils of the kelp beds that dotted the coastline.
Aye, it was a fine day, a rare thing for this early in the season on the Isle of Skye, but Arran barely noticed. His mood did not match the weather. It was as dark and threatening as the winter storms that rolled in from the Atlantic and battered the island with rain and fury.
His entourage had waited at the head of the beach, letting their laird come out here alone, which was a wise decision on their part. He was in no mood for company, and the gaggle of guards and advisors that had insisted on accompanying him would only have made his anger worse.
He stopped and stared out at the bay. It was even worse than he’d imagined, even worse than his breathless scouts had reported at first light this morning.
The twelve fishing boats lay in remnants along the shore, some half out of the water, others listing in the waves.
All destroyed. All soon to become wrecks on the seabed.
But worse than this was the sight of the things that bobbed in the water beside the ruined hulks.
Bodies.
Bloated and already attracting the attention of gulls and other scavengers, the remains of the fishermen floated like bits of discarded wreckage, some drowned when they tried to flee their boats, others hacked to pieces when they’d tried to defend them.
Arran’s hands curled into fists. He ached to hit something. Anything. He needed to vent the fury that bubbled inside him like molten metal. Yet there was nothing on which to vent his rage. The raiders were long gone, back to whatever infernal hell they’d come from.
It was only April, early in the raiding season, and Arran’s stomach tightened with dread at the thought of what the summer—and calmer waters—would bring.
How would they hold off the raiders when they came in force?
If he couldn’t even defend this bay, how could he defend the rest of Skye? How could he keep his people safe?
Something caught his eye on the beach, and he knelt to pick it up. It was a wooden disc, no bigger than a coin, carved on one side with angular runes, on the other with a trident. Arran recognized it immediately. He’d seen many such tokens before.
So. These raiders were Norse, and this was a token one of them had dropped into the sea to beg the favor of their gods. Seems it had worked.
He straightened, gazing out at the softly sighing waves stretching to the horizon, hand tightening around the Norse token.
He was laird of the Clan MacLeod of Skye.
It was his duty to keep his people from harm, but he’d failed them.
The weight of guilt settled around his shoulders, heavier than any mantle.
He was descended from a long line of proud MacLeod chieftains who had given their sweat and tears—their very lives—to protect Skye.
But he was so much less than his ancestors had been.
He was chieftain of a failing people whose courage and resilience were gradually being eroded by the endless waves of attackers who showed not the slightest pity or mercy.
It should not have been this way. He should have found a way to stop Skye’s ancient magic from failing. But he hadn’t. For years, the protective barrier that guarded the island, keeping Norse, Irish, and English raiders from their shores had been weakening, and he’d been powerless to stop it.
Now, it had failed completely, and the attacks had doubled, then trebled, turning the spring and summer months into one long hellish battle, with his warriors riding from one part of the island to another responding to every raid, but never quite getting to any of them in time.
He sank to his knees, staring out at the waves. All looked calm. And yet, he could well imagine the chaos, the terror and the carnage that had been visited on this tranquil bay only a few hours ago.
After all, he’d seen it often enough.
He’d been little more than a boy when his father had died and he’d been made chieftain.
Just seventeen years old, he should have been looking forward to finding a wife and raising children before the trials of the lairdship were thrust upon him.
But raiders had taken his father and elder brother long before their time, and so the burden had fallen on his young shoulders.
He’d done his best to bear it, giving everything he had to his duty, giving up thoughts of a wife, a family, in his determination to serve his clan. But it hadn’t been enough.
What would his legacy be? he thought bitterly. He had no children to follow him, and it was perhaps just as well. What would they inherit? A barren, half-dead island where a handful of desperate people clung on to their meager existence?
He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer to the gods of the sea who had once protected this place.
Please help my people. Please send me a way to keep them safe.
He didn’t expect an answer. After all, every other prayer he’d uttered had gone unanswered, and the plight of his people had only gotten steadily worse.
So his eyes flew wide in shock when a sudden wind sprang up, howling down the beach in a maelstrom, whipping sand into his eyes and turning the waves into a thrashing white froth.
He climbed to his feet and staggered back a few paces, flinging his arm up to protect his eyes against the stinging sand.
The waves grew fiercer, crashing against the shore and battering what remained of his fishing fleet.
Then a huge wave reared up, taller than the rest, taller than Arran, frothing and seething like a living thing.
Arran squinted into its green depths and felt his stomach tighten in fear. There was something inside it. A figure stood in the middle of that wave, a silhouette against the green water.
The wave toppled over, crashing onto the shore with a roar and drenching Arran with freezing spray. When the water receded, it left the figure behind.
It was a woman. She stood at the water’s edge, young and shapely, with a flowing pearlescent dress covering her feminine curves.
Hair the color of ripe corn fell to her waist and seemed to wave and move of its own accord, like sea grass.
But it was her eyes that drew him the most. They were large and oval-shaped—and entirely silver.
Ice slid down Arran’s spine. He reached over his shoulder and drew his claymore in a rasp of steel. Clutching it before him with both hands, he faced the stranger.
“Who are ye?” he demanded. “What do ye want?”
The woman did not reply. She stared at him with her silver eyes until, finally, she nodded as though satisfied. “There is no need for that,” she said, gesturing at the sword. Her voice had a strange musical note to it and reminded Arran of nothing so much as water bubbling over rocks.
He did not lower his sword. “I think I’ll keep hold of it all the same if ye dinna mind.”
“Ye dinna need to fear me, Arran MacLeod.”
“How do ye know my name?”
She laughed, a bright sound like rain tinkling on the ocean. “It wouldnae be much good coming to speak to ye if I didnae know who ye are, would it? I heard yer prayer, lad.”
Lad? She looked younger than him. And what did she mean by that last statement?
“Ye… ye heard my prayer?”
She took a step forward, and Arran noticed that her feet left no impression on the sand. “I did. It was heartfelt and carried with it some of the power of the old ways. It’s a long time since I felt such conviction. And so I came.”
“Who are ye?”
“Dinna ye know me? My name is Lir.”
Arran’s heart skipped a beat. Oh, yes, he knew her.
His childhood had been filled with tales of Lir and others like her.
She was the Guardian of the Isles, so the tales went, and in times past, rituals and ceremonies had been held in her honor at the summer and winter solstices.
Mariners still prayed to her, hoping to win her protection whenever they embarked on a voyage.
She was a goddess of the sea, as beautiful and capricious as the ocean.
So the tales said. But they were only tales, weren’t they?
“That’s… that’s… not possible.”
“Isnae it? If ye didnae believe, then why did ye pray?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Still holding his claymore protectively in front of him, he said, “What do ye want?”
Something like irritation flashed in those silver eyes. “The first thing I want is for ye to stop waving that bit of iron at me. Put it down, Laird MacLeod. I willnae speak to ye while ye hold it.”
He suddenly got the impression that although she might look younger than him, she was, in fact, very, very old.
He felt like a boy being scolded by his tutor.
Reluctantly, he sheathed his claymore in the scabbard across his back.
He felt vulnerable without its reassuring weight in his hands, but what could a sword do against a goddess anyway?
“That’s better,” Lir said, giving him a beaming smile. Her hair floated and swayed as she walked towards him, and it took all his courage not to back away.
She halted an arm’s length away and looked up at him. She was not as tall as he was—not many people were—and so she had to crane her neck, but even so he suddenly felt that he was the smaller of the two, a child facing a giant.
“Aye,” she said softly. “I see it in ye. Ye have the courage to do what is necessary to save yer people.”
“I’ll do whatever ye ask of me,” Arran blurted. “If it sees my people and my island safe.”
She raised an amused eyebrow. “Dinna be so quick to agree, my laird. Ye may live to regret it.”
“I dinna care. I vowed to keep my people safe. Just tell me what I must do.”
“There is only one way. Ye must restore the magic that once protected Skye.”
Arran sagged, hope leaking out of him like a burst waterskin. “That’s impossible. Skye’s magic was woven by a MacFinnan spellweaver, and that line died out long ago.”
“Did it?” Lir asked. “Are ye so sure, my laird?”
“I’m sure.” After all, he’d scoured not only Skye, but Barra and Islay and even the mainland, searching for any trace of a MacFinnan spellweaver. He’d found none, and as the last of his scouts had returned empty-handed, the last of his hope had died.
“They’re gone,” he growled, anger in his voice now. “They’ve been gone for over a century, so dinna waste my time.”
“So impatient, my laird,” Lir said with a faint, mocking smile. “So sure, and yet so blind.”
“What do ye mean by that?”
“I mean that things are not always what they seem. Ye, of all people, heir to an ancient magic and guardian of many secrets, should know that. Ye didnae find any MacFinnan spellweavers in this time. But that doesnae mean that they are gone entirely.”
She gestured behind Arran, and he turned to see an almost perfectly circular pool in the rocks behind him.
He was certain that rock pool had not been there a moment ago.
Lir stepped up to the pool and stared into its depths.
Hesitantly, Arran joined her. It was deep, far deeper than any rock pool had a right to be, so deep he couldn’t see its bottom.
There was none of the seaweed, small crabs, and other things he might expect to see.
Instead, it looked like a clear, bottomless blue hole that led to… what?
“The MacFinnan line didnae die out,” Lir said. “The power of the spellweavers resurfaced again, but far into the future. If ye wish to save yer people, ye must travel to the future, find a MacFinnan spellweaver, and convince her to travel back here with ye to restore the magic.”
“Travel to the future? That’s impossible.”
“Ye are good at saying that,” Lir replied, making a tutting sound. “Look closer, my laird.”
Arran found himself leaning forward, staring into the blue depths of the pool.
As he did so, it began to change. Images appeared deep below the surface, strange, alien images that made no sense.
He saw tall buildings, far taller than any of the castles or spires of Alba.
He saw strange metal boxes on wheels moving at incredible speeds.
He saw more people than he’d ever seen in one place before, bustling along smooth streets lined with glass-fronted buildings and many-colored lights.
“What is that place?” he breathed, looking at Lir with awe.
“That is the future. The place to which ye must go if ye wish to save Skye.”
The image in the pool began to change, and this time he saw a woman. Close to his own age, she had long hair the color of midnight. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but she was sitting on the porch of a building with her knees drawn up to her chest.
“Is that her?” Arran asked eagerly. “Is that the woman I need to find?”
“Aye,” Lir replied. “What is yer choice, my laird? Will ye accept this task?”
“Gladly,” Arran said with a nod. He didn’t even have to think about it. He would take any chance, no matter how small, no matter how insane, if it gave him even a tiny hope of protecting his people.
Lir cocked her head and regarded him with her strange eyes. “Aye. I chose well in ye, Arran MacLeod. But know this. This will be different to any battle ye have yet faced. It will be harder. Darker. Are ye ready for that?”
No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t ready for any of this. But he met Lir’s stare head on.
“I’m ready.”
“Then jump into the pool. Remember, ye canna force her to come back with ye. That must be her choice. Ye must find a way to convince her, my laird.”
“I’ll find a way,” he said more confidently than he felt. How would he convince a woman to travel through time just to help him?
He stepped up to the edge of the pool, his boots scraping on the rock. Lifting his gaze, he looked out over the bay one final time, taking in the remains of the fishing boats bobbing in the swell and the horrific sight of the bodies floating next to them. He’d find a way. He had to.
Pulling in a deep breath, Arran MacLeod jumped into the pool.