'I'm still going, even if I have to go alone.'
'You will not go alone,' Cat said heavily, and she frowned out into the forest.
'So be it,' Mirkady said, and he spat into the fire.
There was a hiss out of proportion to his spittle, and the fire cracked sharply. Michael spun round.
'What are you doing?'
'Keeping both your skins whole for as long as I can. Wyr-fire, Michael Fay. I am granting you a boon.'
The fire rose higher, waist height, shoulder height, and then it was above Michael's head, a thin spiral of flame that was rapidly deepening in colour. It darkened to blue, then green, and their faces were suddenly bathed in a flickering, undersea light. It was the same hue as the flames which had consumed the goblins.
'Wyr-fire,' Mirkady said. 'A gift of the forest to the Wyrim. The sap of the earth refined in light.'
He leant forward so that the very flames were caressing his wedge-shaped face, running up through the thatch of hair and licking at his eyes. Their emerald light was almost identical to the firelight. For a few seconds it looked as though the flames were pouring in and out of his eyes like twisting tears. Then Mirkady breathed in. sharply, his birdlike chest expanding enormously, and the green flicker of the fire was sucked in through his open mouth, running down his throat like water. The yellow of ordinary firelight returned, but Mirkady was standing there swollen to bursting. He stepped over to Cat first, and abruptly placed his black, leathery lips against hers, making Michael start. Then he seemed to blow. Cat jerked away, but the little creature's fingers fastened on her shoulders and held her close. A huger, heavier hand on Michael's nape prevented him from getting up, and behind him Dwarmo's rumble said: 'You have nothing to fear. It is a privilege Mirkady is according you, a boon indeed. Be still.'
Mirkady released Cat and she tumbled backwards with the whites of her eyes flickering under the lids. Michael jerked convulsively, but Dwarmo's massive strength held him.
Mirkady's lips were leaf-dry and light on his own. He felt as though a gale had somehow been funnelled into his mouth; a hot wind that raced down his throat and warmed his gullet like wine. It wheeled through every nerve and vein within him and he thought he might be becoming lit up and luminous, a neon decoration, a Christmas tree overhung with lights. It exploded in his brain and fireworked through every passageway, every neurone, every cell—and the wood was in the light, in his mind. He raced from hot darkness through rock and clay and sediment, strata clicking past madly, through the slow reach and tangle of root systems, up the trunks of trees, the seasons mere blurs to be felt like a quiver of wind through the thick bark. And then out to the whirling leaves, feeling the sun warm and stir him, the air move in his veins like blood. And he was cast loose, floating down, back to the soil and the clay and the deep gut rock again, to begin from another beginning.
And the firelight was warm and yellow on his face and the weight on his shoulder was Dwarmo's hand stopping him from falling. He glanced round, dazed, saw Mirkady reclined by the fire, smirking and serious at the same time. Cat looking as bemused as he felt, shaking her head as though a fly buzzed at it.
'What did you do?' he asked Mirkady, and staggered as Dwarmo's grip finally released him.
'I gave you a gift that the forest things will smell for miles around. Wyr-fire. You can call it up yourself now, you and Catherine—but once only between you. The wood creatures will think of you as Wyrim until, or if, you finally let slip the fire. When it leaves you, you will both be human again, mere cattle in this part of the world. Remember that.'
'How do we release it?'
'You will know how, Farsider, when the necessity is great enough. But remember it can be used once only.'
Dwarmo spoke, a deep bass from the edge of the firelight.
'It is... an honour you are being done. It is not a thing given lightly by our people.'
'Why?' Michael asked Mirkady.
'Because I love your lady.' He and Cat stared at each other whilst Michael looked on, baffled.
'And because I think you are doing something important. Something that is meant to happen. I do not think it is mere whim that has brought you here; nor do I think that you yourself truly know the reason. There is more to it than that.'
The Wyr-fire was a distant singing in Michael's bones, a tingling.
'Do you know the way to the Horseman's castle?'
Mirkady nodded. We all do. And so does Cat. It is like a shadow at the edge of sight, always in the comer there.'
Michael looked at her. 'You know then? You know it exists, that it is real?'
She said nothing. Her mouth was a tight, angry line.
'How far?' Michael asked Mirkady.
'A bad dream away. Distances are deceptive in this land, and straight lines are fatuous things. You will walk until you find it—and all who come here find it sooner or later, if the Horseman wants them to. It could be a league away, or ten thousand. You will find it when he wishes you to. When he deems you ready.'