The Sacrifice

Chapter 2-2

It was hard to tell the passage of time without the sun’s light. The stars did seem to turn in the sky above Bel’s home, but Oisin didn’t know them well enough to judge the time by their motion. They were different from the stars he’d always known. Still, he was fairly certain he’d spent several hours reading the spell book before he finally set it down. It was hard to read, but truly he mostly had to read the titles for now, since he only had to decide what spell to begin with.

There were a lot of them, though, and it was difficult to choose.

His mind kept wandering as well, running over recent events time and time again. Bel’s hand stopping the knife. The feel of his arms as he carried Oisin away. Rhianna’s dangerous smile. Bel’s small, rare smiles.

His world had changed very swiftly, and he felt that the changes weren’t over yet.

Setting the book aside for now, Oisin looked around the seemingly empty room where he’d spent the night, which was now apparently his. Bel had said that if he needed anything he need only say it aloud and the house sprites would hear. Hesitantly he lifted his head, looking around the room, and said, “Excuse me? I would like to go outside for a little bit, please, but I don’t know the way.”

That faint giggle sounded again, and he felt a tug on his hand. He rose from the chair and let it tug him out of the room. Wind seemed to whirl around him, pulling him along the corridor, and the tug on his hand came at every junction, making it clear which way he should go. Soon he found himself stepping out through an arched doorway into the clear night air.

He’d come not out the front of the palace with its flowering garden—and how did that grow and bloom without sunlight, anyway?—but out the back, onto a grassy slope that fell away to a forest below. The door shut itself behind him and he jumped at the sound. He felt as if he were alone again, the strange sense of presence from what Bel called the house sprites was gone. The night sky above was peaceful and pleasant, and Oisin stood on the grass and looked up at the strange stars, a cool, gentle breeze ruffling his hair.

Suddenly feeling curious about this strange, nighttime world, Oisin started down the hill towards the forest. There was still no moon, but the starlight was so bright that he could see his way, at least in the open. He paused, though, at the edge of the forest, peering into the shadows beneath the trees. A breeze whipped around him, and there was a sense of presence, like that of the house sprites. The breeze tugged him towards the trees. He hesitated, but eventually took a step into the shadows beneath them.

Laughter suddenly surrounded him, like and yet unlike the giggles from the house sprites. There was a mocking note to this laughter. The house sprites had thought him funny, but it had seemed a friendly thing. This…He wasn’t sure. Something about the night felt dangerous, suddenly, and he almost turned back.

Yet there was something alluring to the tug of the breeze, and he saw lights flickering ahead of him, little floating wisps of green or blue that bobbed amid the trees. They seemed to call to him, as if by name. He reached out to them and stumbled forward, through the pitch-dark wood.

The sound of laughter was joined by a faint music; pipes and drums and other instruments less easily named. Branches tore at Oisin and brush tripped him, but he kept moving forward, drawn by the distant lights, the sweet, ever-retreating sounds.

He came out into a clearing and halted. The starlight here in the open was just enough to make the scene visible. Faint lights, here one moment and gone the next, flitted about before a sheer rock wall that rose on the opposite side of the clearing. It wasn’t another hill so much as simply a towering pile of stone, crowned with half a dozen trees whose roots burrowed amid the rocks, hugging them in a verdant embrace.

At the base a black mouth gaped, the entrance to a cave, visible only because it was even darker than the dark night around him. The lights floated towards it, phantom glows suddenly swarming thickly, the music growing louder, clearer, and Oisin saw a rainbow sheen flicker across the cave mouth. He shook his head and halted, trying to make sense of what was going on. Something was wrong. Why was he out here?

A ghostly light floated in front of his face, bobbing up and down, then drifting towards the cave, beckoning. He took a step forward, then stopped again. The rainbow shimmer meant something. He tried to think. He shouldn’t…Shouldn’t…

Suddenly he was grabbed from behind and scooped into the air. He heard Bel’s deep voice say, “Cease this nonsense!” and it was as if it were a wind that blew the fog from his mind. The lights all halted their dance and the distant music fell silent. “Oisin is mine. You touch him at your peril.” The god sounded angry, his usual calm considerably ruffled.

There was a chorus of laughter, and something just on the edge of hearing, a voice in another room, a chiming of distant bells, followed it. Bel stood still, waiting as the almost-sound finished, then said, “I care not. He is mine. I will raze your world to the foundations if you bring him harm.”

There was a chorus of bell-sounds and rustling whispers that reminded Oisin of the shocked whispers of the villagers when Bel had first appeared. Then suddenly the lights all winked out, and the shimmer across the cave mouth vanished.

Oisin felt as much as heard when Bel let out a long sigh. “Tell me if you see them again,” he said, still holding Oisin as he turned away from the cave.

“What were they?”

“Will o’ the wisps. Wild sprites that lure humans to their doom. They are not powerful, but they can be very dangerous.”

“Oh.”

“I will not forbid you from exploring here, but there are many dangers. Be wary as you go.”

“I’m sorry.” Oisin wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for, but he felt like he’d done something wrong.

“No, you have nothing to be sorry for. You did very well to resist them as much as you did once they’d snared your mind. You have a strong will.”

Oisin didn’t know how to respond to that. He was not used to being told he’d done well and was strong. He was far more used to being always inadequate, always too young, too slow, too stupid. Bel’s praise felt uncomfortable. Yet it also felt good, like a warm glow in his core. Finally Oisin simply rested his head against the god’s chest as Bel carried him through the forest and up the grassy slope to his home.